A blog that provides information on Shirdi Saibaba philosophy, Hinduism Vedantic Philosophy, Angelic help, Concept of God, Law of Karma, Journey of Soul, lessons learnt during Covid19 lockdown, provides spiritual tools to come out of suffering due to painful emotional issues especially loss of a family member.
Today's date is 10-10-10 which comes only once in every 1000 years. 10 is number of completion and coincidentally today is my last day of my active service in BSNL.
I had joined Department of Telecommunications under Ministry of Communications, Government of India on 23-1-1987. I still had 15 more years of my secure, permanent government service left but on an instinct I had applied for VRS on 13th July, 2010 giving notice of required 90 days. Later as I counted 90 days, the 90th day fell on 10-10-10. Is this a miracle!!!!!!
Almost 24 years of active service which I loved to do. Gave my best to my job and never wanted to quit it. But my 13 year old son needed me at home. My ageing parents needed rest. I wanted to do what I always wanted to do but could not due to my busy schedule.
When I was walking out of my office on Janpath the last time on 8th Oct (being friday, weekend), I wanted to break down and cry my heart out. My job had given me so much. I loved it as long as it lasted and God has made arrangement so that I continue to get pension out of this job for my rest of life.
I was crying because I was scared but when I look through eyes of spiritual knowledge, I realise that it is not me who has quit. I am not the DOER. Nature arranges circumstances in such a way that a person is inspired to act accordingly. When a person takes credit/discredit of such an act, it creates karma.
I have acted as per divine guidance understood my me. I surrender to God and give HIM all the credit for this action. As The Bhagvad Gita says 'Whatever happened is good, whatever happening is good and whatever will happen will also be good'. So I do not worry. Dada Bhagwan has said that Worry is the highest form of EGO...... to think that only I can solve my problem.
So now as the special number 10-10-10 indicates - one door has closed. I am sure Angels will guide me let me open and enter a new door to a better future. May I be able to help others and be of service to Lord and am able to understand His guidance and follow His instructions to the hilt. God is my Saviour. He is Me and I am HIM. I AM THAT.
God created Man in his own image. If we take Man and God separately it would mean denying oneness of the universe. Ik Onkar, Sabka Malik Ek, All is One, God, Father & Son are one would lose its meaning. There is no separation or boundary between a Man and God. In our ignorance, we feel we are separate and God is sitting somewhere far away beyond the clouds and sky, somewhere deep in Universe which is not true.
Ancient Hindu scriptures have been telling us that the only way to reach God is by going inwards. God cannot be found outside. It can be felt inside us. This is the reason why human birth is considered so sacred. Because it is Man who can actually learn, feel and ultimately experience God – nowhere outside but inside his body temple – in the state of complete thoughtlessness.
Scientists have proved that the tiniest part of this creation is 'vibration' which they have not been able to break down further. This vibration forms electron, proton and neutron, which in turn form atom, which form molecules… and so on. This vibration is nothing but energy - an intelligent form of energy, which has a life and existence of its own. We call it as pure consciousness because it is not visible but this ‘space’ is there which is always vibrating at a very high speed and produces celestial sound. When this consciousness condenses it becomes matter and thus become visible. Denser the condensation, solid is the matter. Man is one such visible form of matter, who has got five senses to see, smell, taste, touch and hears everything related to matter around him. He forgets to go inwards where God would be revealed to him. God /Universe/ Brahman is that pure consciousness which cannot be seen but has to be felt and experienced. It is that Divine Universal Life Force Energy which runs the show of the world. It is like that tiny dry seed which contains a huge big tree hidden in it. The seed turns into tree only when certain conditions are satisfied – it gets support of five elements – water, air, earth, ether and fire(sun). We cannot say that tree is separate from the seed. They are one and the same.
Behind every act, there is an intention. When we worship we have to be sure why we are worshipping. Is it mere ritual that we are doing? Is it being done with the desire to please and get some reward in return? Highest form of worship is that which is done to find answer to our own identity? Who am I? When a man starts questioning himself about his own origin, God starts to reveal himself to man. God symbolizes knowledge. When a man gets into self inquiry mode, he first understands that he is not body but soul.
Soul is nothing but energy (the pure consciousness / feeling of being alive) which runs this human body, which makes this body think, analyse, act and thus leave deep impressions in his astral Body for further action. When a soul leaves body, the physical body becomes useless and is therefore discarded even by the relatives of that man concerned. The impressions that human accumulated in the lifetime get carried forward to next lifetime to learn new lessons. Lessons once learnt need not be learnt again.
We should worship God to know HIM - to know our own origin. To know him means to remove layers of ignorance of our intellect. As layers are removed, knowledge shines bright, God starts becoming visible, the mysteries are solved. Suddenly everything becomes crystal clear that there is no difference between Man and God. At the deepest level all is vibration. Hinduism philosophy is all about experiencing this ultimate truth. An ordinary human knows all this in theory. We are supposed to think about it, meditate, contemplate, and assimilate upon this theory continuously
When there is duality because of ignorance, one sees all things as distinct from the Self. Sankara the great monist has written that when everything is known as the Self not even an atom is seen as other than the Self. As soon as knowledge of the Reality has sprung up, there can be no fruits of past actions to be experienced, owning to the unreality of the body, just as there can be no dream after waking i.e, Ekam Sat (only one exists). Maya is nothing but dualistic cosmic delusion, which makes us think that Man is separate and God is separate.
Sadguru(the Ascendant/Perfect Master) guides us gently, uplifts us internally, removes the layers of Maya from our vision and brings us face to face with both – form and formless - aspect of God. Each soul has to experience this truth and realize God in Self. So either way we go, whomsoever we worship first – God or Man, if our intentions are to satisfy the thirst of our soul to know its actual source, we will reach the same destination. Man is creation of God. When we worship man, we worship God because in this way we are acknowledging our love and respect for the creator with an attitude of gratitude.
SaiBaba is one such Sadguru for Hindus (like Lord Jesus) who took human birth to reveal these mysteries of Universe/ Brahman/ God to those earnest devotees who really wanted to know thy Self. The man is visible aspect of God, who is invisible to human eye. SaiBaba has advised us to try both the ways (worship of Form or Formless) whichever is suitable to us as under:
"To get the knowledge(realization) of the self, dhyan(meditation) is necessary. If you practice it continuously, the vrittis(subtle thoughts) will be pacified. Being quite desireless, you should meditate on God, who is in all the creatures and when the mind is concentrated, the goal will be achieved. Meditate always on My formless Nature, which is knowledge incarnate, consciousness and bliss. If you cannot do this, meditate on My Form from top to toe, as you see there night and day. As you go on doing this, your vrittis will be single pointed, and the distinction between the Dhyata(meditator), Dhyana(act of meditation), Dhyeya(thing meditated upon) will be lost, and the meditator will be one with the consciousness and be merged in the Brahma(Universe/God)…..This way always remember and meditate on the Lord, Who will manifest Himself to you”. Saibaba has also told his devotees to “Demolish the wall of difference that separate you from Me, and then the road for our meeting will be clear and open. The sense of differentiation as I and thou, is the barrier that keeps away the disciple from his Master and unless that is destroyed the state of union or atonement is not possible i.e, God is the sole Proprietor”. Here ‘Me’ doesnot mean physical body of Saibaba but the pure consciousness –the formless Self in the body that Saibaba is advising devotees to meditate(think) upon.
Thus, disregard of His creation would be disregard of God. Therefore, when all is One, we can start our worship from any direction, either Man(form) or God(formless), we will ultimately reach the same destination of Self realization, that is, – Sabka Malik Ek - All is One – the state where a Man sees all beings in the Self and sees the self as existing in all being, for whom all beings and everything that exists have become the Self.
All through my growing years I often heard this advice from important people in my life that we must always maintain a balance in life. I often read about this in religious scriptures, like, Lord Buddha advocated following middle path and to avoid living in extremes. What does all that mean? I was not clear in my mind even though I had myself started advising my kids also that they should learn to maintain harmony and balance in life to be successful.
Funniest part is I didn’t understand this ‘balancing’ thing. I was blindly doing what others were doing. I was mostly acting randomly and deciding what constitutes perfect balance in my life as a daughter, wife, mother, student, employee etc so many roles I am playing all at the same time. I was doing what I ‘felt’ was right thing to do at that point of time. Yet so many times I was not happy and feeling out of balance.
What constitutes the right balance is difficult to define. What is that middle path. Hindu scriptures talk of half male and half female aspect of God in order to define what is balance. Chinese talk of yin(receptive female element of intuitive mind) and yang(strong male creative power) balance. Whenever we come across something at extreme level we can easily identify and know that it is out of balance.
In our day to day life to indicate this imbalance we often use the word ‘too’ - something or someone is too sweet, too rude, too thin, too fat, too studious, too lazy, too talkative, too quiet etc. Here ‘too’ indicates that the quality we are talking about is out of balance. We even have adjectives to label certain aspects of our personality e.g. extrovert, introvert, shy, aggressive, bold, timid, fearful, daring, brave, timid, workaholic, work-shirker etc. We know we are talking about out of balance personality here – some aspect in personality which is either over or below normal level. However, how do we know that we are in balance in any given situation?
I got an answer in Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda teachings who has stated that each human being has inbuilt masculine and feminine aspect in its personality which has to be in perfect balance for healthy body, mind and soul. Masculine or positive aspect reveals itself as power to judge, discriminate, reason etc while feminine or negative aspect reveals itself through feeling of love, compassion, joy, and emotion. If 'reason' lacks 'feeling' it becomes calculating and harsh and if 'feeling' lacks 'reason' it becomes blind emotion. We go out of balance and thus unhappy.
This philosophy made perfect sense to me and I could understand it clearly. A perfect balance of these two aspects (reason & feeling) results in right action. Have you noticed that sometimes we don’t do right thing just because we are not feeling good about doing it. We get deceived by our ‘feelings’ and want to give ‘rest’ to our body.
If I am reasoning too much and overlooking the emotional aspect of a given situation, I am going out of balance. I have to judge my friend, family or even enemy through intelligence and reasoning and not by emotional blindness. From where does this intelligence comes from? It is inherent part of our soul. We call it as voice of conscience – which may differ from person to person. What may be right to me could be 'not so right' to the other person.
I should have faith in my own inner intelligence and reasoning for my own growth. I may take advice from learned people, teachers etc but ultimately my decision should be based on my own inner understanding of the situation if I want to grow. I have to understand that I am responsible for my life and its result.
If you know through your intelligence and reasoning that you have not wronged a person and the other person (even the world) insists that you are wrong, then you are not wrong. Swami Vivekananda has insisted that a human being has to learn to ‘have faith in self’ to be successful in life. To be able to say ‘I have a clear conscience’ is the most happiest state for any human being. This is the perfect state of balance.
The pre-requisite here is taking responsibility of each and every happening in my life. I get what I attract. I am responsible for my failure and success. We are mostly shrugging off our responsibility by blaming others for things going wrong in our life. I have to do my part of karma in the most diligent manner as per guidance of my inner consciousness. Nobody else is responsible for anything going wrong in my life. The universe is working in divine perfect order. Everything happens the way it should.
In this workplace called earth, I am the warrior (Arjuna) and God (Krishna) is nothing but my own inner voice of conscience-ness. So many times we know what is right but still we don’t do it because we do not ‘feel’ like doing it. We get deceived by our strong feelings and emotions and end up making wrong choices just to feel good. We have to discipline ourselves if we want to live in balance.Make it a habit to do right thing even when we don’t feel like doing it. We have to discard those reasons which are making us emotionally and mentally blind (Dhritrashtra).
As a human, we are energy beings, made up of pure consciousness. When we look at others too as pure consciousness, we act right and maintain balance. When we personalize, we make wrong choices. Right approach to maintain balance would be to look at the situation /person from non-personal level, try to feel what other person is going through, discriminate intelligently, listen to your own inner voice of conscience, reason out, take a decision, act and standby it. Now don’t let judgments of others bother you. You have done your best if you 'know' it in your heart. This is sufficient.
Expectations have a very important role to play in the life of every human being. To a certain extent they determine the very nature of an individual.
A person having very high expectations has a frustrating disposition. He is often found to be too critical and mean in nature – always finding faults with others. Such persons are very ambitious but tend to make faulty decisions as they are always in a haste and also because expectations which they have from all others viz., colleagues, friends, family, boss are not always met with. These type of people are always found blaming other people for various calamities in their life and career. Thus they have a tendency to overlook their own mistakes. These are very sensitive persons. If they are successful on their professional fronts, their personal life is not much to boast of, for they are not a pleasing company to their near and dear ones. Otherwise these people are not successful in their careers as they are never satisfied in the atmosphere they are working in. Hence they quit one job after another in the pursuit of fulfilling their expectations and failing every time, thereby increasing their frustrations. Only solution for such persons is to bring their expectations on a little lower level, i.e., somewhat achievable level.
On the other hand an individual with no expectation is always at peace. He is more or less like a peaceful ‘pigeon’ – always happy with everyone, with no complaints whatsoever, with life. People of this category are very few and difficult to find in today’s world full of hypocrites. When we come across such people we find them out of this world. They act like anchors in the times of trouble for the whole humanity. They believe in giving peaceful advice, share woes of all those who get in touch with them. They give a new direction to the ones who have no hope with the life. They are sometimes known as ‘saints’. They help mankind with no expectation of return either in cash or kind. It is due to these people we get the meaning of words like, honesty, dedication, social service, philanthropy. These are the people who reinstate our faith in humanity. They are living Angels on earth - Helping others even when they themselves are going through pain in life.
Then, there is another category of people which falls somewhere in between the above mentioned two categories. These type of people have neither too high nor too low level of expectations from life as well as people around them. They are able to strike a balance and find peace and tranquility in their lives. They try to accommodate interests of others ad also make endeavors to analyze as to why their expectations were not met with. This way they understand problems of others as well as correct their own mistake and errors. They have a balanced disposition and they are also down to earth human beings with regard to their attitude towards life and people in general. They maintain stability in all types of ‘seasons’. They have the ability to turn towards the direction of ‘tide’. They are adjustable in all circumstances though after initial hesitation sometimes. Thus with this ability to face all problems in life they survive magnificently for they believe in fate and hence are able to face turbulent winds in their lives like giant trees. For them, problems are part of life and one has to learn to live with them and face them head on. They have good balance of mind. At the time when they have either failed miserably or achieved tremendous success, they label it as ‘luck’. These people have a great intuitive sense and better understanding of emotions of people. Therefore, they adjust themselves according to the situation and change according to demand of the situation. These kind of personalities are liked by all.
So you see how expectation level of a person is also yardstick to judge human nature. Now it is upto you to decide to which category you would like to belong. OK! Start Thinking…
Outer life is all about materialism – body, family, friends, country, studies, job, eating, playing, resting, entertainment etc. –this whole universe which we can see or perceive with our five senses of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. Outer life is all about my body in relation to other bodies outside and around me.
On the other hand, Inner life is all about spiritualism – self inquiry, who am I, why have I come here, who is God, where is God, why do I feel in a particular manner about one person and differently for another. Inner life is all about inner conversation with self, my inner connection with God and Universe. It is beyond the perception of our five senses, unseen and based purely on intuition.
Outer life is how world looks at me while Inner life is how I look at myself. Outer life is visible while inner life is invisible and strictly private and closed. Inner life is very sacred and needs to be taken very special care of. Improvement of inner life depends on sole individual effort. No luck, opportunity or worldly 'influence' works here. Only God's grace can speed up our inner awareness. Outer life is concerned with 'What' I am doing while Inner life is concerned with 'Why' I am doing - my true intentions for undertaking any activity.
As a human being we are show offs. We are mostly concerned about learning about ways and means to improve our outer life – studies, degrees, position in society, promotion at job, fame, money. All the time we are learning how to be successful in our outer life and if we are successful than we do not want anything more. We are full of pride and say ‘I am happy and content, I have everything I wanted’. Is this true???? Is this all we want?????
We do not want to learn about ways and means to improve our inner life. We wait to get old for ‘such a waste of time’. But by that time it is late because now we are not left with sufficient energy to explore and know thyself.
We should invest our time in self inquiry often. If we spend time with ourselves for some time of the day, it will not only refresh us but make us more stable and in control. If we are aware of how our inner self works, we can improve its working. Thus we will be more wise and be able to take right decisions. We will be more in control of ourselves and it would be difficult for others to manipulate us in a wrong way. And these virtues are more required when we are young, stepping out in the big world and not when we are old and left with very few people to deal with. Needless to add that healthy inner life reflects a healthy outer body.
The famous American Psychiatrist Brian Weiss has observed that we are spiritual being having a human experience. Thus, how can we ignore our inner life. Ignoring it would mean disconnecting with our core source and thus losing our peace of mind and inviting stress even over simple things.
Therefore, apart from imparting academic knowledge to handle outer life, if we teach our children how to be in touch with their inner self, they would not only turn out to be very successful in life but also will be able to handle any situation and adversity in life. They will become pillars of strength because good inner life breeds a highly successful outer life.
With liberalization and development India saw growth in number of professionals, coming of multinationals and lucrative jobs offering good pay scales resulting in increase in cost of living.
This is the changing scene in the middle class families of today’s India. Archana is the only child of her parents. She is worried who will take care of them when she grows up and gets married and moves over to her husband’s home. When she gets married she finds her husband also is the only child of his parents. She and her husband decide that they will manage not only their jobs, children but also look after their parents.
Parents have grown up in times when they saw parents spending all their income and savings on their children and left with nothing to take care of their needs in old age. They are depending on their grown up children to earn and take care of the entire household and old parents as well. But children neglected their parents and in most cases did not take care of their health forget about giving them money which they themselves got from their parents when they were young. They want their parents to do household work, take care of their children and not ask for anything.
With this learning behind them, the present age grandparents have become smart. They saved money, invested it wisely so that they get returns when they turn old in form of pension, did not Will away their property and learnt to live the life in a way they wanted because with their savings they are now self dependent. They do not have to ask for any money from their children and they like their financial independence. These senior citizens can now afford keeping household helpers like cooks, drivers etc. They are not depending on their sons or daughter in laws for their food, medical bills, grocery bills, restaurant bills, travel bills etc.
Archana got married into such financially independent family. Everyone had money. She herself and her husband were having good jobs and her in-laws had all sorts of savings for their old age. Every thing looked fine till a child was born in the family. Archana needed help from her in-laws because they had lot of free time with them and there were servants in home for other household work. Her In-laws were more or less free during day. Archana assumed that if she kept a maid for her child during her absence, her in-laws could act as a supervisor and also play with the grandchild who would always be so happy to be with his grandparents. But Archana did not realize that this is where the scene had changed in the Society. Her in-laws did not want to take any responsibility of their grand child. Why should they? They did not need any money from her or their son. They wanted to enjoy their old age with their own age group.
In all this new age financial independent environment so many things had gone missing – emotional dependence, family support and above all Love. Yes Love is there. But love is without any attachment or any kind of responsibility. We hear about senior citizens being troubled by their children in those places where they are penniless, where children have money. But in Metros and big places where senior citizens have learnt their lesson and have learnt to take care of themselves, they have stopped taking care of their own children, grandchildren.
Archana did everything she was expected to do as a good daughter in law, She cooked, cleaned, looked after her in-laws, husband and her child besides doing her job. But everytime her maid took leave, her in-laws refused to look after her son. Archana would wonder sometimes if the child was her responsibility only. When her in-laws were quite healthy and active why could they not help her sometimes. And whenever she offered any help to them they would refuse and could take help from servants etc on payment basis. Archana felt as if her in-laws had hired a 24 hour servant just to spite her that ‘look we are not depending on you, we have our servant, we don't need your help.’ This way they feel no obligation at all. Whereas when she does anything for them, it is free of cost and out of love, respect and duty.
May be in-laws take it as an obligation because they are not doing anything for her. However, it is easy when servant does anything because he works for money, he is paid and therefore there is no obligation at all. Archana feels totally misunderstood. First she is not allowed to do anything for her rich in-laws on her own and then she is accused that she does nothing for them. She cannot believe that sometimes these old people can really be so mean if they do not get things there way. Then why blame the young generation. They got this learning from their elder only. The great war of Mahabharata (The Bhagvad Gita) would not have taken place if elders in the family had acted wisely.
So in this story, Archana’s in laws take care of themselves only while she and her husband are expected to take care of everyone. Years passed on and all in the family realized that though they lived together they were not doing anything of each other. They lived in a loveless house and not home. How can family bonds develop if we do not learn to take care of each other, share with each other and help each other. We may be rich, have all the materialistic comfort but the most important thing is missing – Pure Unconditional Love i.e, service for each other without expectation of any returns.
Everyday in our day to day life we come across different kinds of people, events and situations. It is upto us to whether we are going to let these people, events and situations bother us, disturb us, shake up our peace of mind.
When disturbed we often exclaim, Oh! Where is God? Well I have realized God has got nothing to do with these things troubling us. It is our monkey mind which analysis everything and enjoys or gets disturbed. We get pain and pleasure when we associate ourselves personally with these people, events and situations. If someone says something nice about me I am happy, if its rude comment, I feel bad and get mad at that person. Actually it is my mind which is prompting me to like or dislike anything. If I become aware of working of mind and how it affects my emotions and feelings, it will be very easy to handle any volatile situation. We just cannot let our feelings go helter and skelter. If we do that, we will get stress and restless. If this adds on day by day since life is ever flowing, it affects my blood pressure, my body, my sleep.
I have to understand that I cannot control majority of people, events or situations around me. I just cannot let these steal my peace of mind. How?
I have to learn to believe in God i.e., all around me, the universal laws which are impartial and flawless. I have to learn to accept everything around me as PERFECT. Whether it is to my liking or not is irrelevant. God has made everything Perfect. His creation is in a perfect matrix where each and everyone is linked to each other in perfect balance. Whosoever is in my life, has connected to me with some universal purpose. Nothing is happening here by chance. There is a reason. We are all trying to balance our energies by helping each other either through relations, friendship, job circle, society, nation etc. etc.
When I 'see' some imperfection in someone, this is just an illusion. Why? Because what I am perceiving as wrong is not imperfection for the person concerned. For example, if my boss is not happy with my work he thinks he is right while I think that he is wrong because he is not seeing my side of the story. Well none is wrong. The boss and me, both are perfect in our own way. We are merely perceiving each other through colored glasses and looking at the situation just the way we want to. And the way we look at it affects us because we attach emotions to everything. It is our ego, which gets hurts. Who has seen this ego? None. So basically it is illusion.
When I trust God it implies I trust and accept all the happenings in my life – to my liking or not – as gift from God. For what we get is what we give out. If not from the same person but may be from someone else. e.g. I buy you a cup of coffee today, you may buy it for another and that person buys it for someone else. A time will come when someone will buy me a cup of coffee – could be you or someone else. But I will get back what I gave away. Similar thing happens when you give love to someone or reverse it. When you give hate to someone. You get it back not necessarily from the same source but it will come back to you with double impact. That is why we say we create our own reality. We make our destiny. God is our witness. God is impartial. God is bothered more about our 'intentions' than our 'deeds'. 'Intentions' are subtle and cannot be seen while 'deeds are visible to everyone. Therefore understanding and keeping awareness of 'inner working' is essantial for each human being. But most of us are majorly concerned and worried about world projected outside us. No wonder real happiness eludes us.
Awareness of the Principles on which universe operates is very necessary of our spiritual and mental growth. However, our schools do not teach this kind of stuff. Some schools do have moral education but only as one of their side subjects. Our moral values make us what we are and enable us to cope with trials of life. Whatever we do, our 'intentions' should be right and honorable for Universe is keeping a record of all our invisible intentions and also speech and actions.
When I believe in unseen, the God, I accept that there is a higher authority over and above which is beyond my comprehension. On earth we have two kinds of people – believers in God and non believers in God. We may call God by different names but basic funda is we either believe in unseen power or we do not. Believers are supposed to believe in unseen and its power which gives them peace. While non believers believe in their actions and only in the seen phenomenon thus they lose their peace of mind in no time. Which category do you belong to – Believer or Non Believer?????
Having suffered physical loss of my elder son, Ritik (Honey) at a tender age of 18 years, my whole life went topsy turvy. I turned to spirituality with the help of some friends I made over Internet.
I am especially thankful to Christine Marie Duminiak, Certified Grief Recovery® Specialist, Spiritual Bereavement Recovery Facilitator & Founder of Prayer Wave and Endre Balogh, Fine Art Photographer, Graphic Designer and Concert Violinist who have helped me tremendously in coming to terms with my devastating loss and restoring my faith in God and the Universe.
I have read and am still reading all the books available on the subject. I realise that my Angelic son left for heavenly abode in this manner so as to awaken his parents internally and make them remember and realise the true purpose of life.
Along with my lifeline - my younger loving son Abhay and Dearest husband Subir - I pray to God to give peace, strength and joy to all the souls on Mother Earth.
