Understanding Shirdi SaiBaba Philosophy on Faith (Shraddha) n Patience (Saburi)

Saibaba advised his devotees to have Shradha and Saburi always.

Sadguru Shirdi SaiBaba often said that ‘Shraddha’(Faith/Trust) and ‘Saburi’(Patience/ Endurance) are mines of virtues. If his devotees could develop these virtues in themselves, they will cross this ocean of worldly existence without the least trouble and easily.

We are devotees of Saibaba. Have we ever truly introspected to check whether we have been able to develop these twin virtues of ‘Faith’ and ‘Patience’ in us?

I often thought that I had Shraddha but I lack in Saburi because I have an impatient personality. But as I introspected, I realized, I did not have true faith either.

Thinking deeply I realized that these two mines of virtues are very deep and what they contain is beyond value. Faith and Patience together hide the formula for our Freedom. If we practice both, we will experience what we came to experience on earth, our aim of taking human birth – the ultimate Sat-Chit-Anand.

Getting intellectual meaning of these two words is easy. We all understand what these words mean. BUT DO WE REALLY PRACTICE? Do we trust SaiBaba like a child trusts his parents and relaxes completely?

If we trust SaiBaba, it means we believe that he will take care of all our problems and help us out of all our so called troubles. We should become completely stress free. Having placed our Faith in SaiBaba means, we are now free from worry, fear, guilt, anxiety, our as well as security of our family, social position etc. Why? Because we have faith in SaiBaba and he is taking care of us. However, we still worry, feel stress, get confused, feel inner conflict, feel out of control, get angry and annoyed.

If we REALLY have Faith in Saibaba than why do we behave like this? These problems should not be bothering us. Isn’t Saibaba taking care! Here is the Catch. Either we do not trust Saibaba or our faith in him is only namesake.

SaiBaba advised his devotees to do all the duties of the respective stations of their lives with honesty and not to bother about the results because these are in the hands of Almighty. Lord takes action impartially. He is kind and compassionate and takes care of all without any discrimination. Even when we feel abandoned, He is still there. If we cannot see or feel him, it is because we are focusing on what is going wrong and not what is going right. If only we could focus on what we still have rather than what we lost.

If there are some tough times, God must have given them to us to help us grow in strength and character. None likes to pass through tough times, faith shakes, we want to know, how Saibaba helped my friend in trouble but not me in the same situation. Only Saibaba knows the answer to this. If I believe in Him and Trust him fully, I should be confident that He will take care of me at the most appropriate time. Now when will this ‘appropriate time’ come, only HE knows. I don’t have to worry about it. I place my request before him and let him do what he wants to do. I don’t have to repeat my requests everyday to remind him. He hears me the first time itself. I have to practice Saburi here.

When there is a delay from his side, we want to find out the answer and get restless and miserable. We fret, we pray out of fear(which is just a formality), we consult astrologers to find out when and how our bad phase will end and why did this happen to me only. When SaiBaba is our helmsman than why are we worried and running here and there? Where is our Shraddha? Where is our Saburi?

Wise men say that sometimes it is better not to know than to know. Ignorance is Bliss. Why are we trying to find out the reasons if we have genuine ‘Shraddha’ in SaiBaba. We should feel gratitude that we are devotees of the One who knows All. Why not accept what he does with our lives with all peace and calm? Have we not placed our Faith in him. We should not love Saibaba only for what He can do/has done for us but we must love him for what He Is. Faith is always unconditional. Through our faith, God checks whether we trust HIM in our ‘not knowing’ reasons for all things going wrong in our life and our environment. If we knew answer to everything happening in our lives, we won’t need a Sadguru.

SaiBaba said ‘Cast your burden on to me and I will bear it’. If we have cast our burden on SaiBaba with faith, why are we feeling burdens in our daily lives. Why do we get stressed, depressed, tense, insecure and fearful everyday. Our diabetes, BP, heart problems, headaches, upset stomachs are results of stress we have kept in our lives and we are not even aware of it. SaiBaba told us to do our duties to the best of our abilities but he never told us to worry and fret.

Saibaba referred to ‘Saburi’, as sister of ‘Shraddha’ who go hand in hand. Why? By this He is trying to teach us that once we have placed our unshakable and firm faith in our Sadguru, we must be patient enough to wait for the results because some results may be to our liking and some may disturb us. Only God knows what is good for us. Did not Das Ganu get this lesson from maid in Kakasaheb’s house? Whatever happens in our life is ultimately for our own good. Therefore, we should be patient enough to accept it, endure it and overcome it without disturbing our peace of mind. Be happy no matter what the circumstance is because trust in God is answer to all the problems we have. Once I have placed my faith in God, I should stop asking reasons for things not happening as to my liking.

We are in a hurry to have things happen our way. But God has his own ways. He knows what is good for his devotees. He may not be telling us but we should have firm belief that he is taking care. World may go topsy turvy but my faith should not shake. If we did not get what we wanted than it was not meant for us. What is ours, comes to us. What is not ours, why bother at all. We are free to feel joy and peace in our lives despite problems once we have put our trust in God. Now we have to wait patiently for God to take appropriate action with belief that it will be for our benefit. We feel doubtful if we do not have answers to our problems. It is at this time the sincerity of our faith and patience are tested.

A true devotee who has Trust in Him will wait Patiently with the firm belief that He will take care when the time is right. We have to learn to do right things even when the results may turn out to be ‘wrong’. As they say “Do your Best. God will do the Rest”. Only He know why things are happening the way they are happening. Our job is to act wisely as per the voice of our conscience and then feel free because HE is in control. This is what ‘sarvasva sharanagati’ is all about.

A true devotee practicing faith and patience knows that Saibaba will always provide a way out of tough situations at the right time for only He knows what time is right for each and everyone. Some may get results fast, some may have to wait for years. We have to stop finding answers to problems that only God can answer.

Trust sets us free from everything – worry, past mistakes, addictions, bondage, what people think about me, promotion, money, security, fears, expectations, strained relationships, diseases, grief, pain, loss of a loved one etc. When we trust we are free from botheration of finding out why this is happening to me, my family or to the society. Patience gives wings to this freedom, adds joy to the peace, gives strength of character, and connects us to the ultimate source of power.

God loves us unconditionally, when we feel pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, mine and others, we create barriers between us and God. When we think we are separate from God and others, we suffer. Shraddha and Saburi are those virtues which will dissolve these barriers. When there will be no wall of separation, we will be able to feel presence of our Sadguru SaiBaba around us always, we will be able to see HIM face to face and understand how much He loves us.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

10-10-10 & my retirement.

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.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

Whom to worship - Man or God?

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.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

as published in Heritage of Shirdi Sai

Gurupurnima Issue 2010

How to maintain 'Balance'?

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.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

Check your expectation level

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…

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

Inner Life versus Outer Life

We all have two lives – outer and inner.

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.



Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

The other side of the Story

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.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

Learning to accept God in life.

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?????

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

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