Sai Satcharitra on Duty towards family

In Sri Sai Satcharita many instances have been recorded where SaiBaba has advised how a householder – male as well as female should conduct himself or herself. A few of them are as under:

1. First give bread to the hungry and then eat yourself. Do not make the habit of eating alone. Share it with those around you. Always remember God every time you take food. Before the senses, mind and intellect enjoy their objects, first God should be remembered. He who feeds the hungry, be it human or animal or bird or plant, serves God. See God in all beings. SaiBaba disapproved of fasting and said that God cannot be found on an empty stomach. He advised moderate eating i.e, neither starving nor over-eating.

2. Unless there is some relationship or connection, nobody goes anywhere. If any men or creatures come to you, do not discourteously drive them away but receive them well, and treat them with due respect. Give water to the thirsty, bread to the hungry, clothes to the naked and your verandah to strangers for resting. If anybody wants any money from you and you are not inclined to give, do not give but do not bark at him like a dog. It is on account of Rinanubandh (former relationship) that we have come together, let us love and serve each other and be happy.

3. Duty of feeding sanyasi is of householders due to Panchasoona – five sins and their atonement. In order to prepare food stuffs and meals the householders have to go through five actions or processes viz pounding, grinding, washing pots, sweeping and cleaning and lighting hearths. These processes involve destruction of a lot of small insects and creatures and thus the households incur an amount of sin. To atone of this these shastras prescribe 6 offerings viz - Offerings to Brahman, study of the Vedas, offerings to ancestors, offerings to Gods, offerings to beings, offerings to men or uninvited guests. If these are duly performed it leads to purification of mind and helps them in getting knowledge and self realization. Baba in going from house to house reminded the householders of their sacred duty.

4. No body should take the labour of others in vain. The worker should be paid his dues promptly and liberally.

5. For spiritual progress of householders, Baba advised that God is One- Ram and Rahim are one and the same, why should their devotees fall out and quarrel among themselves. It is not good to dispute and argue. So don’t argue, don’t emulate others. Always consider your interest and welfare. The lord will protect you. If anyone does any evil unto you do not retaliate. If you can do anything do some good unto others.

6. To reach God, surrender of self to Sadguru is a must. This surrender has to be combined with two virtues of Faith and Patience. We should turn all our attention towards Him and avoid the company of atheists, irreligious and wicked people.

In short, a householder – male or female - should always engage in good actions, do duties of their respective stations in life and surrender themselves, heart and soul to Him. This is enough to achieve the aim of taking a human body.

Vandana Ritik,

Heritage of Shirdi Sai

New Delhi

I am Soul not body

All along I’ve been thinking that I am a body and my tiny little soul is hidden somewhere inside my brain. Then the other day, I heard a very beautiful and deeply meaningful Buddhist quote: I am not in the body, the body is in me. This made me think and grasp its meaning. I wanted to understand its meaning, how I can put this knowledge to practice and how it is going to help me? I recalled all the information I had gathered so far through the study of various spiritual scriptures on the subject and following is what I understood:-

Here ‘I’ is referred to the ‘Soul’ or still higher ‘Spirit’. Soul is supposed to be the part of the wider Spirit – in the ultimate – all is Spirit. Water in river merges into wider ocean, in the ultimate - all is Ocean- Water. Similarly, soul is micro while spirit is macro just like water in river is micro and in ocean is macro (from where water evaporates and comes back as rain to fill up the river and then ocean again). From this I understand that all micro is part of that big macro - ONE. We call it principle of ONENESS or UNIVERSALITY. Everything emerges from ONE and merges back into that same ONE.

Now If I try to understand the function at the lower level it will be easy. The Soul is tiny spark of THE SPIRIT. Soul is energy and energy can never be destroyed. In itself, the Soul is said to be originally in the state Existence-Knowledge-Bliss. To express and experience itself and its powers, the soul takes up a body where it uses its aspects of thinking, intellect and emotions. However, in the body, the soul forgets its own existence, and gets entangled in the cycle of birth and death. Thus Soul gets separated from its source – the SPIRIT forever. The soul is given chance in form of a human body to recall its origin and merge back with the Source and return back to its original state of bliss forever.

The Soul contains all the information of the SPIRIT i.e., entire universe and its operations. However, when soul takes on this ‘garment’ of human body, most of this information becomes imperceptible because the human body has been bestowed with five senses(see, hear, touch, smell and taste) sufficient enough to comprehend the life it has to lead while dwelling on earth plane. These senses have a very limited range i.e., only earth and its surroundings like planets, solar system, galaxies etc. Accordingly human knowledge gets limited within this range.

However, in the human body, the Mind /Intellect aspect of the soul can be used to access the rest of the vast universal information. Mind has capability to go anywhere it wants to go. Sitting in my office chair, I can take my mind to foreign locales using my power of thoughts. A soul is capable of using its intellect/mind function to connect with the Source through knowledge and also through power of imagination and thoughts. The tricky part - It is the mind faculty of soul which makes it think that it is body and it is mind only which is to be used to correct the error and understand that I am soul not body. We have to learn to use our mind to control our body desires and not the other way round

The problem with most of us is that our mind has made us very busy with our body and its requirements – be it nourishment, relationships, profession, academic knowledge, attending functions etc. We start to believe that our life is to fulfil these material needs of the body only. We hardly think of the soul- its spiritual needs. We say we will think of it in old age or when we are free. When we forget the reality that I am Soul not Body, the Body starts to rule and control the Soul. Nature wants it other way round. Our Body should listen and function as per directions of our true inner self – Soul. When the body/ materialistic needs take priority and spiritual needs are neglected, the result is that when finally the body is discarded, the soul goes back empty handed. Soul did not experience or learn anything in that lifetime. Why? Because we accepted ourselves as body, then lived and died thinking of us as body. Only the body was enjoying and in the process the soul suffered. Thus the human life is wasted.

This is the reason why great saints and mystics have given so much importance to human body. A human body has been given this special faculty called mind which is to be used to access the universal knowledge, we refer to as God. Ancient Hindu scriptures state that God discovers himself through Us. HE makes HIMSELF known to HIM whom HE chooses. I have to understand and believe with utmost faith that HE has chosen ME. A human being has to aspire to understand these mysteries and understand the working of the Brahman (the Universe /God). It is said that the best way to get this knowledge is constant questioning of the self – Who am I, Why did I take Birth? What should I do to know my Source? How am I linked with others? When we are open to receive answers to these queries, the mysteries start to reveal themselves to us on their own. Actually, it is just ‘uncovering’ the layers of that exhaustive knowledge which is already contained in the Soul. As we ‘know’, we ‘grow’. We came to earth for this growth.

Normally people have an objective to lead a happy family life – grow up, work, get married, have children, get them married, think of God in old age and so on. However, a time comes when a human starts to wonder if he was actually born to do all this. If this thought persists longer than the human being starts to search for spiritual knowledge. In some human beings this thirst for knowledge does not come at all in the entire lifetime. The inner self could not be explored to remove the layers of ignorance and revelation of the vast divine knowledge. The life remained unfulfilled. All along we do not understood that purpose of this birth is not fulfillment of material desires only. It is much more. The materialistic world is to learn the art of giving and taking, unconditional loving, enjoying this journey of self exploration. We get so entangled and absorbed here that we do not want to move ahead and grow spiritually which will make us joyous for eternity. What we should today, we postpone it to old age. Sometimes it is too late.

I think that in simple terms, the best utilization of this human body is that a human being should lead a normal conscientious life and at the same time the human being should remember and stay connected with his Source / Creator/ God / Spirit. For some part of the day, take time aside to stop thinking of the outside world and introspect on Self only – Who am I? Try to feel and experience his own Being, his existence. A Believer in God is supposed to believe and trust in the unseen power even if it sounds illogical to his analytical and logical mind. Human being should always remember and be constantly aware that I am not in the body, the body is in me.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

How to keep your Promise?

Have you given a promise to someone and are now unable to keep it? Is that making you guilty because you believe that when we give our word to do something, we should do it no matter what. That is why it is said that Silence is Golden. However, supposing you made a promise to someone many years ago and are finding it difficult to keep the same today, what would you do?

Well the Great Indian Epic Mahabharata

has a solution in this regard.

The Great Warrior Bhishma Pitamah had taken a vow that he would not claim the Kingdom of Hastinapur. To prevent any of his off spring from becoming King, he took a vow of celibacy. He also promised that he would be loyal to whosoever sits on the throne of Kingdom of Hastinapur. The vow was made when the times were good, the King was his own father and the whole environment was good.

However, two generations later, problem arose as now the Hastinapur was in the hands of an unworthy blind ruler Dhritrashtra, who wanted his selfish and ambitious son Duryodhana(Kaurava) to be the next King ignoring his royal cousin Yudhishtar(Pandava) who was the most fit person to be the King in those days and he also had the right to be the next King. Old Bhishma, who was still very strong and mighty warrior, knew these facts but due to his vow of loyality towards the ruler of Hastinapur he could not oppose the injustice, harrassment and foul tricks being played against the Pandavas family by the Duryodhana(Kauravas) and all the while blind king kept quiet and did not take any action to stop his son.

The big war of Mahabharata could have been avoided had wise Bhishma broken his vow in order to establish Dharma (righteousness) in the Kingdom. To keep his word, he fought and lost his life against Pandavas who had the support of God Lord Krishna himself. The wise Bhishma was struck up in the past. He was overlooking the new changes in the environment, the downfall in the values of the rulers of Hastinapur.

He was so powerful if only he had reconsidered his promise so many lives could have been saved.

In the same battle, Lord Krishna had also promised that though he would support the Pandavas but he would not wield any weapon against the Duryodhana’s army. He became Charioteer of Pandava Warrior Arjuna instead.

However, towards the end of the war, Lord Krishna did take up the weapon – the Sudarshana Chakra(the revolving disc of fire) to save life of Pandavas’ unborn progeny. Lord Krishna did not keep his word. He was looking at the situation from the present angle. The vow was made in the past. Now the circumstances had changed and if he had not stepped in the Pandavas' (who represented righteousness) future lineage would have stopped. Saving the future of humanity was more important to Lord Krishna than keeping his word of non-violence during the war.

Lord Krishna reconsidered his promise in the new set of circumstances to establish righteousness in the interest of all.

Resolve your inner conflict keeping the above points in mind. Lord Krishna is your own inner consciousness. It is always good to keep your word but if the situation demands, it is wise to break your promise when the circumstances have considerably changed and keeping your word is going to hurt interest of all.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

What is Detachment ?

When some person, thing or object of our desire stays in our mind even after it is not in front to us or has vanished away from our sight, it is called attachment. If we permit this desire to stay longer on our mental plain, it creates feeling of happiness, sadness, bitterness, envy, hatred, pride, greed etc which is attachment. We crave for taking revenge from our ‘enemies’. They are people whom we have labeled as our ill wishers in our thoughts because they are not meeting with the criteria of goodness we have stored in our psychic.

Lot of people talk of being detached or feeling detached. But what does it mean? Does it mean stopping interaction with our near and dear ones? Does it mean quarantining oneself from our loved ones? Does it mean avoiding celebrations or functions of the family? Does is mean stopping to enjoy life? Does it mean maintaining a physical and mental distance from the world to maintain a close relationship with God? Does it mean stop enjoying. NO. NO. NO. This is not detachment.

Ancient Holy Scriptures state that in the pursuit of God, if we neglect our worldly duties then God burns down our sins occurring due to this neglect and takes us in HIS fold thereby freeing us from the cycle of birth and death. Many of us do not understand the crux of this and start to give up worldly duties, still enjoying our luxuries etc and seek our freedom without following the other part of the teaching. We do not genuinely take up the search of God. This is not detachment.

When we have taken human body, we automatically have to perform many worldly duties depending upon our position in the family, society and the world. God does not want us to run away from them to find him. Shirking from family responsibilities, even if you are old and yet capable, is not detachment. Real detachment comes when we do all our duties but with the feeling that whatever would be the outcome – good or bad – we will remain calm and stable. We offer both – the credit as well as the fruit of performing our duty to the God. This way we get free from Karma bondage because now karma is God’s and not ours. When we act this way, automatically it so happens that our conscience does not permit us to do anything wrong or undesirable or harmful for the society.

Controlling faculties of mind and making choice is in our hand but the result is not. The outcome is our destiny. We get only if we deserve. There are so many factors which determine what we deserve - some of them we will not understand, only God can.

When we look at ourselves as DOER, take responsibility of our actions on self than we have to carry the burden of our own individual karma life after life and bear the good as well as bad outcomes of the same. Detachment is means to get rid of this excess baggage for it is wise to travel light coz the journey is long. We have to understand that nothing belongs to us.

If we go deeper, the society we live in carries the burden of its collective karma which it has to endure in next life time and so on. That is why wise men say that we should check our company. For company we keep affects our mental makeup and vice versa.

This world has been called the play of God’s Maya (illusion). What we see, hear, feel, smell or taste with our five senses is not all that this world is comprised of. Universe encircles many phenomenons which are beyond comprehension of our five senses. A spiritual person has to first learn to discriminate between real and unreal. Choosing to stay with the real and detaching oneself from unreal. Only God is real, rest is unreal. We do our karma and then wait for its result/ outcome/ affect. If it is not as per our expectations we start to find fault and get into blame game. This is not detachment.

I am not talking to you, keeping away from you and not meeting you. This does not mean I am detached from you. I would be detached from you, if you’re being out there in this world or anywhere does not affect me in any way. I should not have any kind of love or hate feelings for you. I should feel comfortable as well as neutral in your company. If your being in the same room as me invokes feeling of excitement or jealousy or ill will or hatred, it is attachment. We are attached when we feel like or dislike for some person, place, object or event.

We are supposed to do our karma as per dharma based on stations of duty of our life disinterestedly, just like a witness. The outcome of our karma should not bother us. Prescribed dharma is what we find in religious scriptures as well as in our own inner consciousness depending upon the level of development of our soul in this lifetime. If we act this way and offer what we did along with its outcome – whether to our liking or not – to God, we are said to be detached and free from any karma bondage. Our karma burden in lighter. This is said to be the first step.

In the next step, if we continuously stay detached from our karma and remain connected with the God/Universe, feeling calm and peaceful amidst ups and downs of our life, staying unruffled, we will be able to break through this unreal cycle of birth and death (where we stay entangled life after life) and find the real - attain Nirvana – will become masters of Self and need not be born again.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

How technology steals our peace?

If we are not careful enough to balance and scissor off the unwanted part of it, the information technology has the power to affect our lives and relationships very adversely. And when we lose our peace of mind we wonder what caused it because information technology today has almost become a part of us and most of the time we are not even aware of it.

Our thoughts are generated from the information we have stored in our brain since childhood. Based on some of these selected thoughts we take action in this journey of life. Thanks to latest technology it keeps adding up un-accountable pieces of information everyday via News media, internet, mobile phones, hoardings, advertisements and so on. Most of this information is not required for us to grow as a human being. Not even for our academic growth. Most of it is simply useless information which needs to be done away with immediately. Why stock and waste our brain ‘disk space’ with such information because it gets into the way of our proper logical thinking.

All these things are meant for our comfort and making our life easy and if we do not edit its unwanted part, it fills up our brain, mind and clutters us up. It is just like stuffing our refrigerator with those items which we are not going to eat anyway. Feeding ourselves with so much information will not let us think properly and ultimately our actions will be totally out of sync. So many times we open our mouth to say something and then suddenly cannot recall it. Why? Because we have gone out of focus.

Our forefathers were more focused than us. They did not have so much comfort and easy life style as we have today. Their minds were not filled up with loads of information that we get these days. There were no 24X7 multiple TV channels, mobile phones, laptops, emails, internet surfing, online shopping, advertisements, constant bombardment of negative news etc. They had enough time sit alone and to think logically and take right action. Today most of us have no time to sit with ourselves. We just cannot think of going off-contact with the outside world even for few minutes. If mobile doesnot work we panic – Oh someone must be trying to contact me – We consider ourselves so important and yet are scared to sit all alone and do some little introspection everyday.

We have become slave to these comforts. The mind has become slave of the body. Mind tries to do everything in the world to make body comfortable. And the worst part of it is that if we have money and we are not using it wisely than we have had it. We spend most of our time shopping for our comfort. Most of us would waste lot of our time scanning advertisements and information relating to sales, product features, shopping malls, internet surfing for such products. If only we could be smart enough to get done with it as quickly as possible. We first feed our mind with loads of information on a subject and then try to process out the best possible solution from this mess. Thus we waste lot of time and energy and exclaim ‘I had to work so hard to shop for this particular product’

Information Technology has made most of us lazy and the result is we do not have much to do and yet we are doing too much. How do we do that?

We start our day filling it up with the newspaper which contains news of what is going wrong and Where and How alongwith pictures. It affects our whole day and energy vibrations adversely if the news has been about some tragedy, accident, public strike, bankruptcy of MNCs and so on. We waste rest of the day discussing the news and giving and receiving comments on the same with our friends, office colleagues etc.

We sit in front of TV watching one programme after another or just switching channels because no programme is of our liking. Or we browse through Internet and don’t know what we are looking for after sometime we get lost in the cyber world. We buy things of comfort, employ servants to do work which we could do easily and still we are so very busy and then wonder what happened to our relations. We are not happy.

All these material items of luxury come along with certain features which they provide us with during their active working time. When we use these objects for some time we get distracted from our daily anxieties and we feel that we are feeling better. Actually these things do not contain any doze of happiness within them. The items are neutral and giving us what they have been designed to give. It is us – who are creating/generating through our mind - this feeling of relaxation or happiness with in us. As soon as these items are switched off we come face to face with reality once again and feel awful.

Why because all along we have overlooked our spiritual needs. We have to understand that we have to live in this material world and do our human activities and at the same time be aware of the other –unseen world. We have to maintain a balance between both – our material needs as well as spiritual needs because every time our balance tilts to one side the other side suffers and in turn we suffer.

So we better start our day with prayer to God and be selective about how much media coverage would be sufficient and needed for us. Invest saved time in doing something positive.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

How FAITH in God helps ?

Faith believes without seeing. Believing what your heart says even though your analytical mind does not agree with it. When we do not have faith, we have fear. Fear is absence of faith. Train your mind to have faith that God is walking with you hand in hand and solving your each minor to major issue of day to day life. In world we have two kinds of people. Believers - accepting presence of higher force in their life and Non Believers – not accepting presence of some higher force over and above them. Being a Believer heals and helps us face tough times with ease. Because whatever has to happen does happen. How we face it depends on our Attitude towards life and its continuity and how we relate to God/Universal forces.

Faith is our trust in God in every aspect and event of our life. We trust that God will solve all our problems including the tiniest of issues. Our faith should be complete. I cannot trust God to solve my bigger problems while I trust myself to handle rest of the issues and not ‘bother’ God. This is not complete Faith.

When we develop strong faith in God/ Universe and working of spiritual laws in our life we start to get positive. We cannot say we have faith in God and still we are feeling negative and distressed about some events and happenings in our life. This is not faith.

The moment something unexpected and hurtful happens in our life our faith shakes vigorously. We stop trusting God and start blaming HIM, OURSELVES or ANYBODY around us. Whenever faced with issue you find it difficult to make up and decide your mind, trust God and wait for his response which can come to you through your intuition, some suggestion from a friend/stranger, some write up that you accidentally come across, some TV discussion etc, God can respond to you in any manner. So till you find peace of mind, do not brood over the problem but distract your mind off it for some time. Talk to a friend about something other than this problem. You cannot hear voice of God in an agitated mind. Comfort yourself with same words of wisdom you have often used to comfort and console your friends in trouble.

Mostly faith tests our patience. Sometimes, trusting God means waiting patiently for things(universal forces) to fall into their right place before we are ‘prompted enough’ to take the next action. Some times, we may have to wait for hours, sometimes its months and sometimes it could be years. If you have not learnt to take one step how can you move to the next. People who are in hurry keep going round and round the same problem and wonder why same things are happening to them again and again. They simply do not trust God to help them learn their lesson, decide what is right way to proceed in the matter and move on towards a better change. We have to be wise enough to locate weak spots in our personality and let these not trigger our emotions and make us take fast, impatient and wrong action. We cannot depend on our emotions and feelings to direct us.

We are afraid to change because we do not trust that God will help us face all the challenges and trials of life. In other words, not trusting God means having no faith in Self. We do not believe that God works through us. That we are HIS instruments created for the betterment of the society. HE has made us to serve HIM, HIS people, HIS world.

Faith means taking responsibility of our life and believing that God is in control and whatever is happening in our life is happening for our own good. Feeling bad about any accident in life means for that moment we do not trust God. We do not believe there is some ‘good for us’ in it. This generates negativity and creates further problems in our life because we reap what we sow. If we sow negativity we reap negativity. Similarly if we sow belief in God in our mind and we reap its harvest in spirit and we reach and merge with God. We live with faith in God so we die with faith in God and we reach in faith to God. You are responsible for your own actions. You cannot be held responsible for action of someone else.

Believing in God means accepting and trusting fully that God/Universe/Brahman can overview our entire life – past / future lives including. Trusting that God has a unique life Plan for each one of us which we cannot see or understand presently due to our limited capability. But God is pervading everywhere so HE can see and do what is good for us in long run even though it is not making any sense to us right now.

If you look back at your life, so many things turned out perfectly fine for you when they did not happen the way you had wanted them to happen. You were mad at that time but now you can see the hidden blessing in it. That was God’s Grace. Why cannot we trust God with our present as well as future ?

God is nothing but your own inner consciousness which is part of that whole universal consciousness that stands for righteousness. Take time to listen to God through your own still tiny inner voice.

When in trouble, take whatever action you think is best in given circumstances after consulting your inner core self with the firm belief that this is the direction of God to you. If you are feeling peace with it, go ahead. If you feel or start to feel bothered and lose your peace of mind acting that way, stop, check and change the course of your action until you act in a way that gives you peace of mind.

As per The Bhagvad Gita, sometimes, not to do anything at all in the given situation is also one of the important solutions to the problem. Consider this option also. Because not taking action is also an action for it involves lot of patience, forbearance and courage. It also means we are trusting God and higher forces to intervene in our life at the appropriate time to inspire us through our intuition to take necessary action. For example, someone hits you and you decide to keep quiet. This does not mean you did not act. It means you decided not to hit back which is also an action in itself. Implementation of this decision required lot of self control.

We cannot have faith in parts. It cannot be that I am doing well today I have faith in God but tomorrow something happens and I develop doubt and stop trusting God then after some confusion things work out fine and I again started trusting God. This cannot be called walking in faith with God. Faith in higher power has to be a continuous life pattern with us irrespective of whether we are going up or going down. There has to be complete self surrender. We cannot have a backup plan for us in case God does not help us the way we want HIM to. We can be carefree and peaceful and take Rest and Shelter in God only when we let him solve our problem for us. We have to trust in HIS Power, Wisdom and Blessings.

If we always act like this, that is, living in human body in this materialistic world and still trusting higher forces of universe, we will rise higher spiritually in the power of Lord where there is complete REST from worldly chaos. Once we have been in the Rest of God, we will understand how immature we were when we thought that we could handle our life ourselves.

Complete self surrender means giving up of ego – I-ness- that I have done such and such thing. It is – God made me do it or correct it for my own good. I cannot give few problems of my life to God to solve and leave the ‘tiny’ problems for solving myself because I do not want to ‘bother’ the ‘busy’ God with trivial things. This is not Trusting God. This is partial faith in God or no faith at all in God, his mighty-ness, his power and his grace. Live your life for the cause of God. Live your life as a service to God. God gave you family, serve it. God gave people around you, treat them nicely. Everything around you is God given, be grateful to God. Feel, see and witness the miracle of God in your nearby Garden – how things are happening on their own. Trust God to make you grow, prune, trim, treat you in a manner which will bring out the best in you. Even though this may hurt you sometimes but trust in wisdom of God completely even when it is not making any sense to you.

Trust that you are unique child of God and that HE loves you and IS looking after you. You may lose track of HIM but HE will FIND you no matter wherever you are. Therefore, stop feeling low about yourself just because others have reached where you have not reached. Each of us is on different path and only God know through which way we will reach our destination.

Over the years, I have realized that no matter where I go, whomsoever I trust to do things for me, I cannot live without God. I know I am not capable enough to solve all my problems. I have to surrender to higher force. If I surrender to him for big things I better surrender to him even for smaller things. Completely Trust HIM. Universal forces are operating all around me in a perfect order even though I do not bother to stop, look and understand these all because I am busy within my own world. However, it is a fact that always there comes a critical time in life when we have no where to go but God. A time when we have to admit to ourselves that we are not in control, we are helpless before that Supreme Power. Why wait for such a time to let God enter your life. Why not now?

I encourage you to start walking in faith with the God (in any form that you believe in). No matter what your religion is, the universal law is same for all. God is ONE. We may be taking different paths but our destination is ONE – To feel happy and blissful forever, to be wise enough to solve all the mysteries of this world and beyond, to feel the eternal peace and joy. Walk with the God, you believe in, with single minded devotion.

How to walk with God - Read HIS (any personal God you believe in) written words, fill yourself with those words, think on them, contemplate on them. Whenever faced with trials in life you will find answers from HIS written words. If not, pray to him, trust your intuition to find answer to the issues with HIS divine help. Once you have found answers to the problem, compare that with the written word of God, tally it and start to make move in that direction with faith. If you seem to be losing peace of mind following that direction you might have mistaken your mind’s direction as God’s direction. So now again trust and pray to God to direct you.

If you are following God’s direction you will never lose your peace of mind – the path could be new and tough but God will always direct you to right path filling your mind with peace. When you trust God and act accordingly pursue his direction – step by step – even without bothering about final destination, HE will take you to great places.

As per Shirdi SaiBaba, Faith and Patience are two very powerful virtues of any wise human being and together they can take us safely across the misery of this world. Make God your Sole Refuge, Your Hermitage, Your Fortress, Your Resting Place with FAITH and then relax with PATIENCE to let all good things happen in your life at their right and appropriate time as per the Will of God. TRUST HIM EVEN WHEN NOTHING IS MAKING SENSE TO YOUR MIND. BELIEVE IN HIM THOUGH YOUR HEART AND FIND ETERNAL PEACE.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

How to shake off Suffering ?

Whenever something happens which is not as per our liking, it hurts us. Why? This happens because we feel out of control. As a human we always want to be in control and in-charge of our life. We want life to follow a certain pattern of our choice. We work out our day to day life accordingly. We like to work in a routine manner. And for sometime this works fine till one day……something unexpected happens all of a sudden. There is a change – a big change in our routine. It could be anything – being deceived by a trusted friend, robbery, dreaded disease, accident, loss of a loved one, loss of job, non promotion, false charges, scandal, arrest, rejection by parents etc.

First thing we do in such circumstances is to start reasoning it out – What, Why, When, Where, How? We somehow are convinced that some lack of action on our part has resulted in this situation and it could have been avoided had we been alert. Thus we lose our peace of mind because internally we hold ourselves responsible why because over the years we have been aware of operation of that spiritual law – As you Sow, So shall you Reap.

As long as it was happening as per our liking we were Ok with it. But it is not always as per our liking.New age thinking also agrees that We Create Our Own Reality i.e., whatever is happening in our life is result of our own thoughts, actions and words. To an extent it is true also because God has made human being intelligent enough to be able to discriminate black from white and then make right choice. But sometimes this carefully made ‘right choice’ back fires completely and leaves us in state of shock. It is at this point that we start to understand our own helplessness and ultimately understand the presence of a bigger divine force operating this entire Universe. Meaning of word ‘destiny’ now becomes clear. Certain parts of our life are preordained and do take place despite all our efforts to prevent it

As human being our understanding and intelligence is limited to knowledge of this world that we have learnt about in educational institutions from childhood. We know about subjects like geography, history, maths etc but we have no awareness of spiritual knowledge – the unseen world beyond earthly dimensions. This is where FAITH comes in. Faith means believing in the power of the unseen which is beyond logical perception of an ordinary human being. I believe what my heart says even though my logical mind doesnot agree with it.

We have to understand that there could be many reasons behind our suffering about which we have no clue. To get out of our suffering if there is a way out, we should work on it and try to sort out. However, if nothing is going to change the situation than we have two options (a) to remain in depression and negativity rest of the life (b) Use our intellect to choose and concentrate on the most positive fall out of the event and move on with life holding head high once again. Do not feel complexed just because others have not suffered they way you have. Face the situation as listed below:

1. Staying connected with God is most important. Do not make yourself miserable thinking that you are all alone in your suffering;

2. During time of pain and inner conflict, we can connect with God more easily. What human beings cannot explain, this connection with the Power will reveal to you on its own;

3. While carrying on with day to day life talk mentally to God often. Honestly confess to God exactly how you are feeling. Prayers can be mostly non-repetitive, different and unique each time. This is because our life is ever changing, never constant Don’t wait to enter sanctity of a worship place to say your prayers. Say it wherever you are with firm belief that God is with you always;

4. Do not burden yourself thinking you are bothering God a lot by calling HIM all the time. Find out what lesson we have learnt up from the event;

5. Try to go through the situation quietly without trying to gossip about it. Do not criticize and publicly scandalize about person(s) involved in the situation. Talk to that person alone;

6. This is the time to get to know and get connected with God. Prayer helps a lot in healing our physical and mental self;

7. Try to look at ‘have nots’ those who have suffered more than you. If you try to compare yourself with people doing well it will make you more miserable;

8. Sometimes some bad event cuts us off from ‘our’ world. Do not feel bad about it. God wants you to learn something on your own during this period;

9. Do not say you are feeling lonely, say that you are in solitude working on your inner self;

10. Utilise this free time to introspect, listen to inner self, doing something you have always wanted to do but could not do earlier due to your busy-ness in ‘your’ world. Take rest during this 'break' and try to relax and be with yourself for sometime;

11. During your tough time it is very easy to find who are your true and genuine friends and relatives;

12. What you do in your free time during trial times indicates what sort of character you have. Try to do something constructive and keep yourself busy – read, write down your feelings in a letter to God everyday, paint, meditate, pray, attend some short term course etc;

13. Stay in touch with only those positive people who understand you and encourage you. Keep away from people who simply want to know more details about your situation or those whose presence depresses you further;

14. Sometimes we are not supposed to face the situation boldly and take any severe action. There are times when we have to simply bear the situation and pass through it. This happens in those serious situations e.g. loss of loved one, suffering from terminal disease etc. Comfort yourself that by passing through it your karmic debts are being settled. Realise that Divine Supreme power is in control. Que Sera Sera;

15. Know and believe that not all suffering/ setback/ accidents/ sickness etc in your life is coming as a punishment to you. Stop questioning ‘Why me?’ Most of time you will not get answer to this question. So do not torture yourself. God doesnot want you to know it right now. So wait with hope. Sometimes, finding answers to such questions is the purpose of taking birth in this life time;

16. Do not judge yourself harshly. Understand that to err is human. We all make mistakes. So its OK if I make it or someone else makes it;

17. Do not forget that biggest test of human character and wisdom comes from how he faces difficult times. People develop lot of respect for people who have learnt to face the touch times of life with calm and ease. Such people can help transmute their pain by helping others in similar pain by counseling them;

18. Ancient scriptures have advised us to remain calm in both the situations –when we are at the peak or when we are at the rock bottom. Therefore, showoff during good times as well as bad times should be strictly avoided. Actually good or bad is all in our mind. God wants us to treat every event in our life in a normal manner. Do not get excited at success and do not get depressed during suffering. Embrace the pain for a while but do not hold on to it. Feel it, experience it and let it go;

19. Know that everything happens for learning, betterment and spiritual growth of our soul. It is time to understand that we are not body but soul - which is so pure, divine and eternal;

20. When you are totally clue less about your situation feed yourself with positive thoughts as inscribed in holy scriptures by great Saints - whatever is happening in your life is pre-ordained and for this reason it has to be for your own good which you cannot see right now;

21. Like academic examinations, Life also takes test(s) of our wisdom and inner spiritual growth. The results of these tests in our life are totally unpredictable and sometimes unknown to our limited human psychic;

22. Sometimes these learnings are actually God’s way of preparing us for doing bigger work for ourselves and ultimately HIM;

23. Life is a continuous process. This thought gives a heart in pain lot of comfort. From one life to another we carry alongwith us our respective karmic accounts with us which are checked in between two lives by the Divine. You may have missed some rewards you thought you deserved on earth but the Lord does not miss even the smallest act of kindness you ever thought or did on earth. Know that everything has been accounted for. You are precious child of God and you will be rewarded for your work done on earth in the heaven in a manner which you cannot even imagine;

24. Envision the solution to the problem, believe in it, see it, focus on it. Stop talking about the problem Talk to the problem itself. Sometimes, there are no solutions e.g. in case of death or terminal disease. We are simply supposed to walk through a problem and when we reach the end of it, we have learnt a lesson, grown spiritually, become stronger, more wiser;

25. It really helps if before start of daily routine, we spend some time all alone with ourselves in silence, feel the presence of God, read his word from some holy scripture etc. This way we are better prepared to face our day with least possible stress. Outside noise and activity creates lot of stress in us during the day;

26. Sometimes we find that as we pass through our suffering we are left all alone. Most of our so called relatives and friends have gone out of touch. Never mind you will learn the lesson of telling true from fake after this. You cannot blame them because they just cannot understand what you are going through and they do not know what to say to you. So forgive them;

27. During tough times, pray to God to help us, work out solution. But avoid discussing your problem in a negative manner. We often pray for solution and then go and talk out with our friends how bad the situation is and nothing is going to work out. Talk to ease your pain, for upliftment, for getting positive vibes but don’t gossip about your problem just for the sake of talking;

28. Sometimes while undergoing a trial time, we do not feel like smiling. Don't smile. But atleast stop yourself from presenting a sad, pathetic and suffering outlook. People do not want to interact with people who continue to stay in suffering and cling on to their pain. Fake a smile if you can. But do not brood for long because then not only your friends will avoid you but even your relatives also would like to keep away;

29. Try to be in company to those who are encouraging you to come out of your pain gently and intelligently. Some people use this time to drag you down the spiral and take you to the path of harmful addictions. Save yourself. This is time to be strong mentally, physically and emotionally. You have to put in extra effort and drag yourself out of your pain (with or without any help from others);

30. Do not look down upon yourself in any manner. Some people love to stay in guilt and make rest of their lives miserable. Be kind, gentle and loving to yourself. Have faith in yourself. Always remember that it is the EGO which loves to clings to pain. Ego loves to reconstruct that hurtful event or situation again and again in mind. Therefore, consciously, on purpose, try to shake off your pain. Think highly about yourself simply because people who have not suffered in life do not understand what you are going through. Have compassion for such people. Sooner or later, they will also have to understand what pain is all about. Forgive them and Forgive yourself.

To spend rest of our life we have better think of positive aspect of our problem with FAITH and then be PATIENT to let GOD step in and HELP. We do not know what karmic debts we cleared off by suffering this particular loss. We have to be thankful to our ‘enemies’ (be it event, people or circumstances) for making us stronger. We have to remember that this life is a journey towards eternity and we are supposed to enjoy the journey with all its plus and minus till we reach our destination - WHEN NOTHING MATTERS.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi