The Known & the Unknown

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda said:

We exhaust the known by knowledge and enjoyment of it, and then we turn to the exploration of the unknown because the known does not satisfy us permanently. If it did we would not have survived so long on this planet. Permanent satisfaction with the known, with no vision of the future, no effort to improve, no initiative to explore, no impulse to interpret would have meant stagnation of the human race and hence annihilation.

Talent is unknown quantity of personality born with the person. Training brings our talent that is already within. It cannot bring forth sprouts if seeds are not already there. Talent has various stages of expression, which can be observed in the development of personality to its consummate expression in that human being.

Every person who comes in the world carries within a general chart of his life, the details of which he fills in through out his lifetime. The highways and some byways are already in the chart when the person is born. These are the traits he brings with him from previous incarnations. He accepts them as his basic nature, and then connects them with alleys, and makes some additional byways. Sometimes he also extends the highways far beyond their original limits if he has real dynamic driving power. If he lacks this dynamism, he moves for the most part along with the limited maze of paths he had in his chart at birth and in the few pathways he has drawn in his present daily life. He does not push himself further. He is a common man.


But man cannot always remain uncommon. He will have to expand and move towards new vistas. The cosmic law of evolution will not let him rest. He may be idle for a while but the law of soul – progress is eternally active. God is always on the job. HE will through material working of his law, arrange circumstances that will at first coax the apathetic individual to turn in the right direction and move forward with positive action. If he does not heed, God will have to let him wander through the stinking open graveyard of his own follies until he wages his very life to get out of his abysmal condition and resolutely follows the proper road to progress and true happiness. Therefore, you have to recognize the tendencies that make you unique.

Be honest with yourself; do not do a thing that you inwardly feel to be wrong. Truly, to have a clean conscience, even if the whole world doubts you, is a joy and strength worth all the treasures of the universe.

Conscience is not the only companion of ourselves that we have to take care for. There are others too. A party of peeping desires, a group of half sleeping tendencies, a company of live-wire wishes, compose the crowd. In order to be true to ourselves, we cannot push aside these traveling companions with whom we started life. We have to be atleast attentive to them too, if we do not want to lose in life’s game. There may be some in the crowd that need shacking – the appetites, jealousies and others that are apt to choke our growth or hurt others. Some such as selfish desires, may need strong doses of advice and treatment. There are other that are safe enough to be relied on, or atleast tolerated such as the self preserving and social instincts. A special few need to be deliberately spurred on – sympathetic tendencies, spirit of reverence, service, love of truth. We have to attend to each propensity in a way that is most suitable. That is the proper education of the inner being. Every individual is a species unto himself.

There is no stereotyped way of promoting spiritual growth. Everyone has to work out his own salvation according to hints from his inner self after he has been started on the right road by stereotyped suggestions, standardized spiritual advice, be reverential, be patient , be contented, be self controlled, be meditative and so forth. The crowd of tendencies that one is born with, needs slightly different handling in different people. Some of the inclinations are to be curbed. Some tolerated, some developed, some sparingly fed, and some starved out. The tactics applied in the case of each individual will therefore necessarily vary according to the set of traits he possesses.

What is the origin of a tendency in a man? A conscious desire that he entertained in this life or a previous incarnation. A man with diplomatic ability ingrained in his nature will be a diplomat, no matter whether he is an ordinary laborer dealing with fellow workers or members of his family, or whether he is one of a board of a select men – a member of a legislature or a plenipotentiary in an international peace parley. Education or political training and opportunity will only sharpen his inborn diplomatic tool, and extend the scope of its use. The different in the capacity of talent in different people, even when increased by training is therefore due not only to the scope of the training but also to the inborn possession of that ability and its prior degree of development. Early training has much to do with stimulating or paralyzing the growth of this unknown part of our self. Our tendencies attract our companions and environments for the most part. The law of affinity is a matter of correspondence between what we are potentially and actually, on the one hand and the broad world on the other. The cue to our conduct is always supplied from the known and unknown with. What we are going to be is about seventy five percent foreordained by ourselves. That ‘horoscope’ of our tendencies from past incarnations attracts our present hereditary condition as well as the other circumstances we will draw to ourselves. The individual has free choice to change himself this way or that, free choice to decide between two courses of action. In most case, though the free will of man is nothing more than a slave – in the guise of freedom, but fettered to past tendencies.

Yet everyone knows there is such a thing as an unconditional decision that we make after rationally balancing the pros and cons of a certain matter. Having made such a decision, if we exercise our will, we can change many things in our lives that appeared unchangeable, or that may have been predicted to be inconvertible. This willing is freedom of will. Free will does exist. If it were not so, none could escape the vicious circle of his face once he was drawn to it. Growth would be circumscribed. Newer channels of activities would have little scope. The evolution of human beings would hardly emerge from the level of savagery. The conceptions of new social orders, progressive ideas in political government, advance methods of scientific explorations, new departments of research, literary activity – all prove the ability of man to exercise free choice in every line by the power of will.

You are born with about seventy-five percent of your life predetermined by your past. You will make up the remaining twenty-five percent. If you yourself, through your own free choice and effort of will, do not determine what that twenty-five percent will be, the seventy five percent will make the twenty five percent for you and you will become a puppet. That is, you will be ruled absolutely by your past tendencies. That is why spiritual training is vital. It takes into consideration not only the seventy five percent of our lives at we already are, but also designates the methods to mold the brand new twenty five percent that we ourselves are going to create by the exercise of our freedom.

All our impulsive and habitual acts, and motive-caused acts are the chariots that carry the will of the Lord, the Cosmic law, the Divine Final Cause, in other words, everything happens according to the will of God as expressed in his Cosmic Law. The first step towards understanding is to use your will to make those choice that are in harmony with the Eternal Good within the Cosmic law.

When you love life, not for God but for itself, every moment of it is incurring a debt to Him. Those debts pile up, day after day. Borrow from the commonly unknown bank of God, the Universal spirit and clear your debt to Him. You can get the loan only for the asking and you will not be hounded for payment of interest either. This is the only bank that makes loans and does not worry the recipients with the demand of interest because the Universal bank is always ready to invest in the betterment of its property, the world, and to look after the interest of its tenants. This is a form of banking that none but God allows. If you do not pay off the debts you have contracted by your life in matter, isolated from God, suffering will be your jail sentence.

What is the loan you should ask? the loan of spiritual wisdom, the eye to see every event of life as God sees it, to feel every details of life as He feels it, to live every moment of life as He lives it. When you ask God for his wisdom, the loan comes to you written off as gift.

Every event, fact, action or thought of a God-man such as Jesus or Krishna is the meeting point of the same wisdom coming from two sides – from God and from the God-man living in God. It is like a dot on the circle that you can approach from either side God fulfils His aim through the God-man and the God-man knowingly acts to fulfill God’s Will.

We do not know that He does the same thing through us, so we suffer and lament the bankruptcy of our so called freedom. This is not narrow determination. It is true idealism. We are absolutely free when we reach the Absolute. Until then we are relatively free, and it is a sin and source of suffering not to use wisely our relative free will. Working out way through relative freedom, we come to the Absolute freedom. Then the whole of the Unknown becomes Known, there is nothing more to know and knowing is all satisfying and ever-new.

Courtsey - 'The Divine Romance'

Why do we blame others?????

"I got up late this morning as my alarm did not go off on time and now I am destined to be delayed in everything for the whole day. Damn the clock!!! "

This is one type of excuse where we end up blaming even an inanimate object just to avoid taking responsibility of getting late on ourselves. Most of the time, we blame animate objects just to shrug off our responsibility. In our everyday life, whole time we keep finding faults with others. If so and so had not done this, I would not have done that. This is a very common phenomenon. But it is a fact, every time something goes wrong with us, we are always prepared to pass on the blame instantly.

This is the normal working pattern of human mind - trying to take credit for things going right and passing on the buck when results are totally unacceptable to us. Finding faults with other doesnot make us blemish free. We always find faults in others to hide our own deficiencies.

It gives us peace to know that we are pure, blameless and beyond error. Sometimes when we do take responsibility on ourselves for our wrong actions we don’t forget to feel elated and pat ourselves for this great deed of ours.

All above is nothing but our attachment to the result. In Bhagvad Gita Lord Krishna has clearly explained to perform all our major/ minor actions as an offering to the Supreme and leave the results in his hands with utmost faith that THY WILL will BE DONE. Lord Krishna means that we should not be attached with the outcome of our action. In simple terms, we should not be ecstatic when we gain something and similarly we should not be dejected if we lose something. Loss and gain should not affect our day to day life, our emotions and thus our body and soul.

Lot of people feel that if do not perform any ‘action’ we will be free from creation of any karma. This is totally wrong. Not doing something also means we have voluntarily stopped our persona to act. This act of volunteering in itself is karma and the person concerned is accountable for it. Thus no human can ever remain action less. If we do not act, when we are required to act, it forms a bigger karma. Therefore non-action is no solution.

A human being is accountable for all his/ her physical as well as mental actions and inactions. The flawless working of this Universe is automatically taking note of every thought, every emotion, every action of human mind, body and soul. That’s why God says that I do not need your eight – fold bhakti accompanied by rituals and paraphernalia. Even if a human offers a simple flower or leaf with true felt love, God accepts the same with love. The major governing force behind this is intention of the person and above all his heart felt LOVE

Now that we know that universal law is impartial and fixes responsibility on merits and every soul has to under HIS ‘watch’, why can’t we take responsibility of all our actions – irrespective of its outcome being in our favour or against. Each individual is responsible for his/ her actions as well its outcome. Whether that result is good or bad it should not matter to us if we make a practice to offer all our daily tiny to major karma to the Divine with the firm faith that HE knows what is suitable for us. He is our Judge. He is the DOER.

If we forgo this tendency of ‘I am doing this’ ‘I did this’ or ‘I did not do that’, we will be able to keep our EGO in check. If whatever is happening in our life is WILL of God, this implies whatever is happening around us is also WILL of God. If that be so, lets stop this blame game. Do not blame others and do not take blame on yourself. We all are kids of God. Lets Forgive others and above all let us Forgive ourselves too.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

Life is not about being educated!!!!
Life is Education in Itself.

It is nice to be important!!!!!
But it is more Important to be Nice.

Are you feeling struck up?????

Sometimes we feel struck up. Nothing seems to be moving. We feel let down on all fronts of our life. We start to wonder what is happening to us and Why? We feel as if our progress has been blocked for some unseen and unknown reasons. We start imagining the worst without any faith in the Universe and our patience shakes uncontrollably. We feel like ‘victim’ of circumstances. We want someone external to us to come forward and help us out of our rut. We start to doubt if there is any God at all. And it is a known fact that when ‘mind’ is in doubt, absorption of ‘knowledge’ becomes difficult. Here I am talking about the knowledge of the Divine which is not taught in modern schools and colleges.

As per sacred Hindu text, The Bhagvad Gita, our lives have been perfectly planned by the God/ Universe. Everything happens as per the Will of the Divine. Our lives would be chaotic if things were to happen in bits and pieces. Everything, every incident in our life is preordained. There are no accidents or coincidences. We are nothing but instruments in the hands of God. We have been created in the image of God. God is enjoying his creation through us. The unfolding of our lives’ drama is what we term as ‘Destiny’. Things would become easy to be explained and understood sensibly if we were to FEEL LIKE GOD to understand why things are happening the way they are happening in our lives.

Though we think that we are doing our actions consciously, it is not so. Bhagvad Gita describes two aspects of individual personality – ‘Purusha’ and ‘Prakriti’ i.e., Immutable Self (the soul) and Mutable Self (blind energy movement). The immutable self is pure bliss, existence and consciousness which is always in state of happiness, peace and joy and indestructible. The mutable self or Prakriti comprises of several elements ( > 20 ). The major being Manas – the physical mind, Buddhi (Intellect)– capacity for reasoning & logic and Ahankar (Ego). Our Ego is central axis around which rest of mutable elements of Prakriti revolve.

In Mahabharata epic, King Dhritrashtra can be compared to ‘Manas’ which was blind and its aim was to satisfy its ego (seeing his own unworthy and immoral son as King). He was duly supported by his wife Gandhari, who had deliberately closed her eyes to look at the reality of situation objectively and sensibly. This led to a major war preordained by the Divine to establish righteousness and morality in the society. Before the beginning of the war, Lord Krishna comforts and consoles Arjuna by explaining that these events have already been planned by the Universe and imminent end of the life of his enemies is as per divine plan. Therefore, Arjuna should stop feeling like a ‘Doer’ of action. Lord is using him as his instrument to carry out HIS Will.

We being instruments in the hands of God can easily be understood if we understand the role of Gunas in our day to day existence. At any given time, the individual’s Prakriti functions by using three modes of operation/principles. These Principles or ‘Gunas’ are called Tamo Guna (promotes physical inactivity, lethargy etc), Rajo Guna (promotes action, physical movement etc) and Sattva Guna (promotes peace, balance and harmony). These three modes of nature are constantly in a state of imbalance in any individual. At any given time, atleast One Mode is predominantly operational. This churning of modes determines the behaviour pattern of the individual at any particular time. Our actions are outcome of play of Gunas. For example, if someone misbehaves and we do not react it doesnot mean that we did no action. We did act. It was our Sattva Guna which was predominant at that time.

Thus, Gita establishes that an individual is always in a state of Action. There is ‘Inaction’ in ‘Action’ and ‘Action’ in ‘Inaction’. Therefore, as human beings we cannot remain inactive. We cannot achieve inactivity by not doing any activity (refraining/absent etc). Even for a moment we cannot be free from action. Inactivity is impossible as long as we are in the grip of Prakriti. Inactivity is an illusion. Everyone is being made to act under the influence of Gunas of Prakriti. Prakriti has made us forget our other aspect - the Purusha (soul).

Having understood the role of Prakriti’s principles of Gunas, we have to find a way to rise above the play of these 3 Gunas. This is the time to introspect. If we watch our behaviour carefully we will be able to understand which Guna is in operation at that given time. This is the first step. Prakriti always needs sanction of Purusha (our immutable self) for its activity. In our ignorance, Purusha automatically gives sanction to Prakriti to control all our activities and movement. Once we become an observer, we realize that it is our Manas (Mind) that stops Purusha to acquire control over Prakriti. All the elements of Prakriti have tendency to bog down unto Prakriti but it is our buddhi (intellect) which can help us out of clutches of Prakriti despite being its part. Buddhi is the way and mean to control movement of Prakriti. Under the help and direction of our Intellect, mind comes into control. Now Purusha doesnot give sanctions to Prakriti automatically. It uses its control. It uses Intellect to distinguish between Action, Inaction and Wrong Action. So even if our senses and gunas are working constantly, we can change direction of our mind in a positive direction which can be used for the maximum benefit of all around us.

Bhagvad Gita doesnot preaches desirelessness. It guides us to be aware of our desires and have enough control over our mind so that the unwanted and unhealthy desires can be checked. Our mutable self should be functioning under the control and check of our Immutable self. Our Immutable self will never let us down because it is the Divine. It will never let us feel struck and helpless. We will be in a better position to absorb the ups and downs of our lives without blaming any one. If we feel struck up, we have to accept that as the Will of God with firm faith and patience and let it pass on its own. External interference can take us out of our stagnation but this too shall happen only when the God so wills it. God wants us to overcome our deficiencies differently and without anyone’s help so that we emerge stronger. Sometimes such a situation is necessary for our own individual growth and improvement.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

Thoughts can create disease

Studies conducted by various Metaphysicians in the last century have revealed so many aspects and hidden secrets of human life and afterlife. One thing that never crossed modern science dependent society is the contribution of every ‘thought’ that a human being generates. Our every minor or major thought is heard, noted and registered in the Universe.

Normally, we all think that our action and speech is all that we contribute to the society. What we think in our mind is just a mere thought and if we have not acted as per that thought we have not done anything wrong. Metaphysics has revealed that this is absolutely wrong notion.


The human physical mind cannot remain quiet and inactive. Every minute hundreds of thoughts crowd our mind. Thoughts keep coming and going but some thoughts persist. These persisting thoughts create emotions and feelings in us. When these generated emotions become intense, its effect can be felt in our body in some form of local dis + ease i.e, not feeling at ease.

If we do not understand the emotional reason and cannot pin point that particular thought resulting in not feeling at ease, it becomes more chronic and body starts manifesting it in a stronger way causing chronic diseases like diabetes, heart ailments, asthma, cancer, TB etc. We rush to doctor and with help of medicines / surgery the disease is controlled. However, if even now we do not try to work on removing that wrong thought out of our system, the ailments persists or keeps coming back after relapsing. For complete removal of dis+ease from out of system, the very thought causing the disease has to be worked upon and flushed out of our emotional system.

Louise Hay suffered from terminal cancer and was required to undergo immediate surgery. But she took six months from doctor to try other means. She searched and found emotional reasons causing her ailment. She was holding a ‘deep resentment against one of her relatives for a very long time’ which had manifested into cancer. She worked on freeing her body from such toxic emotional thoughts and six months later she did not require any surgery and was ultimately free from cancer permanently. She went on to share her experience and came out with her best seller book ‘You Can Heal Your Life’. The book has changed lives of many worldwide.

Her advise to all is that one should manage one’s thoughts in such a way that it does not require doctor’s intervention apart from causing pain and discomfort to body. As soon as body feels uncomfortable, know that some ‘thought’ has generated unwanted emotions and chemicals which have started to manifest in body making one ill at ease i.e, dis+ ease. Change the thought fast and throw it out of your system quickly and recover immediately before the disease becomes chronic. E.g. if you have developed fever know that you have been suppressing anger towards something. Work internally, change the ‘thought causing anger’ suitably and get rid of fever. Similarly, feeling of guilt produces pain in body. Medicines work on physical aspects and not emotional aspect of any problem.

Normally thoughts can be divided into three categories. First kind of thoughts are those thoughts which are required for managing day to day affairs e.g., getting ready in morning, going to job, payment of bills etc. These thoughts are essential and hence cannot be avoided. Managing our daily activities in a disciplined manner will enable us to function on day to day basis in a smooth manner. Thus such thoughts will not generally affect our emotional system unless and until we are totally undisciplined all the time.

Next thoughts are those which come into our mind with respect to our SELF i.e, our origin, God, Soul, spiritualism, universe etc. These are good thoughts and do not cause any harm to body because these thoughts are being caused by the Supreme himself and through these thoughts the Supreme is trying to clarify itself and make us understand the universal principle of ONENESS.

Balance major thoughts are generated from our EGO. Thinking that we are separate, we think of ourselves only personally as separate individual and rest as different from us. These thoughts generate undesirable emotions like fear (false evidence appearing real), anger, doubts, insecurity, hatred, jealousy, insult, grief etc. If these thoughts and their resultant emotions persist for long, they manifest themselves in body as a form disease. Thus these thoughts should be avoided. Easiest way of removing them is to become observant. An undesirable emotion will generate feeling of uneasiness in body making you all uncomfortable. As soon as you start feeling uneasy in body, notice your emotion or feeling. Try to figure out which happening/ thought has made you feel uneasy. This one step in itself is so very effective in your healing. Once the root thought has been recognized, take necessary steps to drop it immediately. Thought is nothing but your perspective, way of looking at something. If you change your perspective in some other direction, the result will be different. We have to ultimately reach that perspective that will be desirable for our own system and will not bring us to the point of dis+ease.

Even day dreaming is considered as an harmless but undesirable thought even though our personal ego is at rest at that time. Negative day dreaming could take our thoughts in undesirable direction and create havoc in our emotional makeup. The third kinds of thoughts, explained above, come in the way of our spiritual progress and are obstacles in the path to self realization. These thoughts do not let us lead our life in peace and hence should be avoided as soon as the resultant undesirable emotions are noticed.

The above findings have already been available in India for ages. Our ancient saints have maintained good health and long life. The secret for this is available in their preaching where they have advised human beings to maintain inner peace & calm and curb desires & negative tendencies. The deeper aspect of this habit is that it helps not only in this birth but life after life.

Your thoughts are more important than your actions because behind every action a seed of thought has been sown. Hence Thought Management is a very important tool in managing our day to day life and making it happy, healthy and disease free.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

The Plus Points of Human Birth

The Supreme God Almighty – the holy divine spirit - has endowed every human being with HIS complete divine power and knowledge - all Plus points. However, forgetting our divine origin, inherent Power, Knowledge and Reality, we convert our Plus points into Minus points by considering each other separate from us.

We think that we are an individual human being, with separate body, soul, and the God, the World is separate from us. We feel that we have taken birth on the earth to learn our individual lessons and to live happily. Whatever is agreeable to us and makes us happy is perceived as Right, rest is all Wrong.

Have you ever noticed that when we do not agree with someone, we are actually looking at their minus points and ourselves with plus points. We feel we are more knowledgeable and correct while the other person is ignorant. Similarly, when we interact with people who make us happy and comfortable, we are looking at their Plus while their minus are completely overlooked.

The fact is that there is no Minus. Only the Plus. Within You, Me and Each and every thing around us that we Sense ( including that which we cannot Sense ) is filled with divine knowledge, existence and bliss. The entire creation of God is Pure and Perfect.

Look at the nature. Tree, rivers, oceans, sun, moon, stars etc all are Perfect. A seed may be dry but God has hidden a life inside it. When we soak it overnight, we start seeing birth of a new plant from that very dry seed. Isn’t that a miracle of God. In our day to day life we overlook so many other miracles taking place around us. We ourselves are a perfect miracle of God. However, in our ignorance we develop a feeling of duality (separated-ness) in us. This starts when we are a baby. As we grow, we start calling selected couple as ‘my’ parents. Then I have ‘my’ siblings. Then something belongs to ‘me’ and something else belongs to ‘others’. As we grow our mind gets conditioned between ‘me, mine’ and ‘their, others’. I start thinking of myself as a separate entity.

As time passes, knowingly or unknowingly, some of us want to save that God given Plus only for us. We do not want to share it simply because we have conditioned our physical mind (call it Ego) to believe that we are lacking in our Plus so we need to hoard it for ourselves and for people whom we believe to be our loved ones. We unintentionally cover our divine bright spark with darkness of ignorance. This happens because we start judging everyone around us and then decide whether to let that divine love flow through us to the other person (depending on our judgment)? Whereas this divine love is meant to flow and pass through each and everyone of us but we arrest & lock it within ourselves because of our feeling of lack ness. We forget we are perfect, complete and full of divine love. We wrongly categorize people as – relatives, loved ones, friends, acquaintances, unknown, enemies, neutral etc.

As per sacred Hindu Scripture, The Bhagvad Gita, the Supreme Purushottam (the God) created Prakriti (i.e, us, his creation) from himself. In other words, the Supreme Divine Power fractured itself to generate a creation which was perfect just like the creator and had all the inherent power of its creator. At the same time, the Creator retained its own original form. This is just like an actor who enacts different roles, dresses up like different characters, behaves differently but does not lose his own originality. Though roles, the get up, the surroundings etc are different each time but the original actor is one i.e, Plurality in Singularity.

However, despite knowing this truth since centuries, we have forgotten our origin. In fact, we just cannot believe that something like this is possible. How can we be God? We are poor, meek and suffering creatures in human garb! We are convinced that God is sitting somewhere else, up above, and is sitting their in judgment over us. We need proof of all that has been said by Sages, Holy Messengers & scriptures related to God about our origin, our aim of life. What cannot be proved analytically and logically has to be wrong. But we forget one thing. It is a fact that just because something cannot be seen or proved, it does not mean that it does not exists or its untrue. This is creation of God and everything has definite logic behind it which we cannot perceive with our limited mental faculties. Our earthly acquired intelligence and reasoning skills have prompted us to ingrain this sense of duality in our mental makeup, thereby completely smothering our spiritual understanding. This has created chaos in the society.

Think about this. Normally, it is very difficult to perceive and believe that ALL IS ONE. Even when I write this, I know it is very difficult to imbibe the crux of this TRUTH. This is something which seems to make sense only in theory and just cannot be put into practice. The question is, if we know that WE ARE ONE and I AM THAT, how can we get rid of this sense of duality completely?

Firstly, we have to start believing that ALL IS ONE. This setting of Intention is very important. Secondly, we have to think consciously and continuously on these lines. Thirdly, we have to contemplate on its hidden meaning. Finally, we have to be prepared to sense, feel and experience that ALL IS ONE. I have firm belief that once we are able to experience it, we will be one with the Supreme Power and will be able to create our own realities which resonate completely with the Universal Divine Power.

All we have to do is to take an initiative to alter our thought pattern and work towards our inner and spiritual growth in firm belief with loads of patience. This does not mean that we will have to stop doing our day to day duties and living and enjoying our life. We do not have to go and sit atop a mountain, in a cave or in a jungle or a beach. While carrying on with our worldly life, we have to meditate for few minutes on regularly and reap the benefits..

It is said that one feels all united and one with the creation and the creator when one is all alone. It does not mean being lonely. It means being in solitude and peace, time when the mind is not occupied with day to day worldly and family work. As our first step is to start believing in non-duality, we have to focus our thoughts on our own inner being and ignite that spark which has been lying all extinct & hidden in our core/self. We have to be just with ourselves and our thoughts and nothing else. In still silence, our inner voice, which we do not hear otherwise, speaks with us. It gives us creative and positive ideas. It gently guides us on the lines of divine principles without harming anyone around. Truth is all inside us. We just have to tap it. Silence brings clarity in our thoughts and solves so many unseen mysteries around us. It is so very amazing. Just few weeks of sitting in silence, for few minutes regularly (at any time) without thinking anything and doing nothing, gives so much nourishment to our hungry soul and produces such outstanding results in our persona. But still we do not want to do it. Why?

It sounds very easy but is the most difficult thing to do. People are scared to be left alone. We are so very attached to this world around us. When we are alone we feel useless and cut off from the world. Our inner doubt prompts our ego ( mental logical mind ) to convince us that sitting idle is madness, laziness, selfishness etc. Lot of overly worked and socially active people call this as wastage of precious time. I call it proper usage of our spare time, a time when we are working just for ourselves and for our own betterment and growth. What’s wrong with that?. Have we taken birth to add to the worldly chaos or to discover our true self?

When we are discovering ourselves we are discovering society also and thereby making such an enormous contribution to our immediate world. A person who meditates is always enveloped with a magical, peaceful and divine aura. Have you noticed, last time you had a meeting with such a person and felt so very peaceful without him or you ever speaking a word. I use word ‘feel’ because ALL IS ONE is something that has to be felt and sensed, it cannot be seen with our physical eyes. We need that divine vision and for that we need grace and this grace will not come from outside.

This grace is all inside you. When we are working towards realizing our true potential we are not wasting our time. We are contributing to this universe through our positive thoughts, emotions, aura and by becoming a perfect creation once again. Just imagine the impact it will have on our actions henceforth. To escape from our own ego, we have to seek help of the universal power by admitting that our ego is coming in way. The universe will immediately respond and try to increase our focus because we are doing something which we should have done long time ago and it is the correct path and the reason for taking human birth.

When universal love surrounds, protects and helps us in our Self Discovery, I am sure that with enough faith and patience, a new layer of knowledge will sprout up within ourselves (just as it is hidden in dry seed) and make us realize the ultimate truth of ALL IS ONE which will bring to us what is known as sheer BLISS because in that state we will realize the ultimate knowledge that WE ARE GOD and ALL IS GOD.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

Love All Love God

When we say that we love God, it automatically follows that our love now extends to entire humanity. Humanity is creation of THAT creator. Not loving HIS creation would mean disregarding and disrespecting HIS existence thereby implying that our love for HIM is superficial.

Often we hear learned people saying that they love God and love everyone. However, it is easier said than done. The very same people will be seen judging others, telling others what is wrong in their behavior and how to behave rightly etc without realizing that each and everyone behaves in a particular manner due to various reasons (karmic, Prarabdh etc) which one cannot comprehend with his limited knowledge. We do not know why a person behaves in a particular manner because we know only about his present lifetime and not his past births.

Loving God means accepting each and everyone just the way they are and not passing any judgments. Everything that God has created is in perfection. All that we see around us and also what we cannot see or feel through our five senses is result of that Divine Will. Therefore, it has to be PERFECT. What is perfect need not be judged.

Our Shastras are full of stories where one person’s bad behaviour (like Kekayi in Ramayana) has resulted in destruction of demons. With our limited capabilities we cannot judge what the cause of someone’s action is and what will be the ultimate result of that action. Keeping this in mind, if we stop judging others, and love everyone equally we will be reflecting back what we have got - God’s Love back to HIS creation.

True divine love is impartial. It knows no difference. The Sun, the Moon, the Trees - The Nature offers its love, services, comfort & grace to all equally without any discrimination. We are also part of this creation and most intelligent of all then why do we distinguish when it comes to giving out love. It could be because we consider ourselves and others separate from each other. This is mine, that is theirs etc.

While interpreting a verse of The Bhagvad Gita, Shirdi SaiBaba has very kindly explained that “the disciple also is in fact of the same swarupa(form). But, it is overlaid by the effect of the samaskaras(impressions) of innumerable births in the shape of ignorance, which hides from his view that he is Shuddha Chaitanya (pure divinity)(see B.G. Ch. V-15). As stated therein, he gets the impressions - "I am Jiva(a creature) humble and poor." The Guru(spiritual guide) has to root out these offshoots of ignorance and has to give upadesh or instruction. To the disciple, held spell-bound for endless generations by the ideas of his being a creature, humble and poor, the Guru imparts in hundreds of births the teaching - "You are God, you are mighty and opulent." Then, he realizes a bit that he is God really”. In a state of ignorance, the human believes that I am a Jiva (creature), Body is the soul (I am the body), God, world and Jiva are different, I am not God, Not knowing that body is not the soul and Not knowing that God/ world /Jiva are one. Unless these errors are exposed to his view, the disciple cannot learn what is God, jiva, world, body; how they are inter-related and whether they are different from each other, or are one and the same.

Our body is vehicle of our soul and our soul is part of Divine Spirit. We have what God has but in our ignorance we fail to understand this and feel that we are different, separate and better than others. When in ignorance we compare ourselves with others we are admitting that we are separate from each other which is not true.

Now that we realize we are God really, it means the whole humanity is God indeed. If that be so we are all One with the creation and creator. If there is no separation, there can be no comparison and difference. All deserve love without any discrimination.

It is a fact that divinity is embedded in our inner being (we being his creation). Thus, we have vast ocean of divine love flowing gently within us. We all are full of Love and we are not even aware of this. All we have to do is to accept this fact, realize it, tap it and shower our inner divine Love outwards - towards whole humanity. What we give out we get back. Therefore, this greatest gift of God that we have- LOVE, is meant to be shared impartially with everyone so that it easily comes back to us too. SOW love REAP love.

Vandana Ritik

Heritage of Shirdi Sai
New Delhi