Spiritualizing everyday Life

 

Quote from true charm and Power of Vedanta

 

Spiritualizing everyday Life

 

So, the detachment comes. Detachment means you are not particularly attached to someone and not attached to others. All begin to have another meaning for you. In the beginning of course, you will not be much fun, but later you become great fun. What happens? Another quality becomes revealed through you, another quality of being; it is a strange religious phenomenon. At first all your friends and relatives oppose you and try to dissuade you, they even hate you actually hate you with grate anger in their heart. Next, they become indifferent; they have given up hope for you. Finally, they begin to be drawn towards you and to be very proud of you, talking about you and saying. ‘You know. I knew him when. “Very proud of you they become, with sincere pride. If you should then give up spiritual life, they would become your bitterest critics. I used to puzzle over this until I found the answer: many things we do not possess but enjoy though others. I may to be able to sing, but if you can sing and I can hear you sing. I enjoy music thereby. So I may not have spirituality, but if you have become spiritual, I enjoy spirituality though you; and if you fail, you deprive me of something most precious, and in my disappointment I become critical of you.

 

A time comes after the period of struggle is over, when a new quality reveals itself in the smile of the mother, and the children dote on her. She talks to them in a new way and there is something in it that goes deep into their hearts. The husband feels it, too. And so do the relatives and friends. True, it is not fun in the old way, but to all it is a source of attraction, and all-find it good to be with her. You might say it is too good to be true. Well, I don’t think it is too good to be true. I think it is good and equally true. You just have to practice this and you will find that people who have a little worth in them will come like bees to a full-blown flower to sip the honey. Afterwards, in fact, this attraction becomes an obstruction for the spiritual man. A wonderful beauty of appearance and of character comes, and it is a source of such tremendous attraction that all kinds of people are drawn to him. Of course, those who are attracted are benefited; but the spiritual person himself cannot find the peace and quiet and solitude necessary for spiritual practice. So for a period he has to run away and live by himself.

 

 

Save the world from war, spread meditativeness

By Osho

 

Only one thing can save the world from the coming war – which will be a total war – this is going to destroy the whole of life on the earth. Trees, birds, animals, man – anything living will simply be gone.

 

There is one way only, and that is to spread to people more meditativeness, more love, more friendliness, and more rejoicing. If we can make the earth sing songs and dance in joy, in gratitude because existence has given so much – otherwise, it would have been impossible even to purchase one sunrise.

 

And a sunrise is a big thing – the whole wealth of the earth would not be able to produce a single rose. And all this is given to man without his asking. You don’t deserve it, you are not worthy of it. It is out of the compassion of existence, the overflowing joy of existence, the continuous creativity of existence that you are so rich. Millions of stars in the night.

 

 

Make people aware of their gratitude towards life, and make people love, sing, dance. If we can spread this at-ease around the world, the third world war will be prevented. We need not bother about it. Joyous people don’t want war; it is only those who are already dead who would like everybody else to be dead.

 

They are really suffering because they are dead. They cannot laugh, they cannot enjoy, they cannot love, they cannot feel. They don’t have any heart, and others have. It is making them so jealous! It will be far better that everything is finished. At least there will be no grounds for their jealousy – they will also be finished in it.

 

So I don’t say that there is any direct way to prevent the third world war. That is what the pacifists of the world say: “Protest. Have protest marches to Washington, to Moscow” – but nobody listens to those protest marches. And I have seen those pacifists shouting and screaming against the war – I could not see any difference between them and the people who are getting ready to fight.

 

The weak, the powerless, scream. The powerful takes his gun, puts his army on alert. The pacifists continually go on protesting. This helps nobody.

 

I am not a pacifist, and I don’t want my people to be pacifists. That is fighting with those who are preparing for war – but you are doing the same on a small scale. No, that won’t help. We want to create our own movement which has nothing to do with the third world war.

 

Do you see my point? If we can make humanity happier, more loving, more silent, more peaceful, we will create a real barrier against the third world war. The leaders cannot go without their people. If the people refuse, the armies refuse, if everybody refuses and says, “I am so happy, I don’t want to die. And I love humanity, so I don’t want to kill. If you can manage on your own, you do it.” A peaceful and happy man does not want to die and does not want to kill. (Abridged from ‘From Bondage to Freedom’, courtesy: Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com)

 

IF HE EXIST

 I drive joy there was a doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued that he was wasting 7 precious minutes on something, which he had been misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that I am wasting 7 minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste 7 minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 7minutes joy that I derive 4m.-

 

ILLUSTRATED REVIEW : 7th heaven moment India won second t20 by 7 wk, sl no 7 got mvp on third match, in epl tot son no 7 scored a goal,      

Spiritual Healing

 

Quote from true charm and Power of Vedanta

 

Spiritual Healing

 

Whenever we are tried or disturbed, instead of allowing our mind to be full of agitation, if we withdraw it entirely from the source of disturbance, we shall not only have a sense of refreshment, but by disconnecting ourselves in this way from our trouble we shall giant a more correct view of it and be able to find the remedy for it. This is a general principle and not merely to be applied to physical ailments. These ailments are after all not as important as we think. Let us take this question up very frankly. Here in the Occident, especially since the rise of certain modern movements. Healing has played tremendous part. There are some people who hold that unless a person has good health he does not amount to anything; that illness is great curse. In India there is quite another attitude. Thee, when a person has a little fever or headache or some other physical ailment, it is not held that he has fallen from grace or that a curse has fallen upon him. On the contrary, it is felt that to be able to meet these conditions with absolute equilibrium, without being afflicted, is a great achievement. If we are able to keep our balance in all circumstances, no matter what comes, affliction will not appear to be affliction, because we shall have a consciousness and a power by which we can cope with everything. Is not that much better than merely trying to follow the path of affirmation? To deny pain when you feel it is a very good practice; but to keep on denying it, if it continues, is to be slightly lacking in a sense of true value.

 

What you’re longing for is also longing for you

 

By Sumit Paul

 

While reading Persian mystic Jalaluddin Rumi, I stumbled upon a soul-gladdening thought that made me pause and go into a state of trance: ‘Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’ve been with each other all along.’ What a heart-warming thought. Reading these lines brought to mind Hafiz Shirazi’s immortal verse: ‘Love is perennial. It chooses the lovers, not the other way round.’

 

True love is divine in nature – Ishq-e-Haqeeqi. Walt Whitman wrote in the first edition of Leaves of Grass, “We existed forever for each other/ Waiting for that moment to be divinely aware.” This is the turning point in love: To be aware of that precise moment when both understand that they have loved each other through ages and births, as a young Muhammad Iqbal put it: ‘Dil dhadakta tab bhi tha/ Par aaj ye ayaan hua/ Hum mein hain aap/ Aur aap mein hum/ Iss baat ka irfaan hua’ – Heart throbbed then as well/ But today I’ve realised that you’re in me and I’m in you/ This is the greatest realisation.

 

‘Tishnagi gar aab zoyad az jahaan/ Ab hum zoyad ba-aalam tishnagaan’ – It’s not only the thirst that longs for water/ Water also craves the thirsty man. This Persian couplet by Rumi resonates with all of us. We all search for the ultimate with a blinkered vision, not knowing that what we have been looking for is not separate from us. Our search for truth begins and ends at our very doorstep.

 Remember, what you’re longing for is also longing for you. To quote Asadullah Khan Ghalib, ‘Hum hain mushtaaq aur woh bezaar/ Ilahi ye maajra kya hai?’ – I’m agog, and my beloved is also restless/ God, what’s going on?

 

Metaphysically, all things come out of our inner self, the recesses of the soul. We remain unaware of it and try to find that in the clamour and clutter of the outer world. We’re just like the musk-deer that keeps running after musk, which it contains in its navel. As Krishnabihari ‘Noor’ put it: ‘Main daudta phira jiski khatir/ Woh toh pahle se tha dil mein haazir’ – What I hankered after/ That existed already in my heart.

 

Adi Shankara’s mystic interpretation of Advait or non-dualism deserves a mention here: That all are essentially divine. Divinity resides in all of us as an inalienable entity. God, or whatever you may call it, is not separate from the jiva. Further explanation leads to the Upanishads’ lofty proclamation, Aham Brahmasami – I’m Brahmn; and Tat tvam asi – Thou art That. Islamic tasawwuf, spirituality, also proclaims the same thing: An-Al-Haq, You’re the Supreme, the ultimate Truth.

 

Human beings are unrealised souls. They’re like fallen angels, as Iqbal put it: ‘Raah bhatka farishta hoon main/ Jannat hai mera ashiyaana’ – I’m an angel who has lost his way/ Otherwise, paradise is my abode. We’re unaware of our own divinity and the innate potential. That we carry an ocean of possibilities and a plethora of opportunities is still elusive to us. Kabir rightly said, ‘Tu moko dhoondhe kidhar/ Main toh hoon tere andar’ – Where do you look for me?/ I’m forever within you. If only we understood this simple key to a blissful life!

 

IF HE EXIST

 I drive joy there was a doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued that he was wasting 7 precious minutes on something, which he had been misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that I am wasting 7 minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste 7 minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 7minutes joy that I derive 4m.-

 

ILLUSTRATED REVIEW : 7th heaven moment in isl Mohanbagan no 7 scored a goal, Arsenal no 7 scored a goal   

Peace and Blessedness. The Path to the Spirit

 

Quote from true charm and Power of Vedanta

 

Peace and Blessedness. The Path to the Spirit

 

The Bhagavad-Gita says; “The well-resolved mind is single and one pointed”, So it is with a seeker of Truth. He thinks of nothing else. He moves in that, he lives to that, his whole being is based on that, and he becomes that. You may ask; what happens to his ordinary life? Does a wise man eat, sleep work? Yes; he eats, sleeps and performs all his functions but he knows that his soul is immortal and he lives with that consciousness. An ordinary mortal recognizes diseases, bondage, suffering; but one who has soul-consciousness, he does not recognize these; he recognizes God. He lives like other man; but he is free, while the other is bound. You may put him in a dark dungeon; there he finds an effulgent light within himself. You cannot rob him of his light. You do not need to help him; he finds all his help in the Supreme. You say the most condemning tings; they do not touch him,

Who is the stronger? The one who is not touched. He lives in an atmosphere which no one can break through. He lives on an island so isolated, no one can reach him. He dwells in a state which can never be disturbed. His inner consciousness is peace and that inner bliss he possesses is his own. You may have a beautiful room, decorate it with flowers and do everything to have space there; but it is not so safe as when you have peace and bliss within yourself. You may have to leave that special place; but the inner shrine you can carry with you wherever you go. That sanctuary which you create within yourself by your thoughts, words and actions, nothing can take away.

 

Pure love is emptying the mind of all fear

 

By Anup Taneja

 

Over the last two years, the world has been passing through a critical phase owing to the Covid-19 pandemic that has not spared even the most affluent nations. The main reason for the untold misery being inflicted on the inhabitants of earth, according to Albert Einstein, is the failure of humanity to use and harness the various forces of the universe in the right direction.

 

It was through a flash of intuition that Einstein realised that there was an extremely powerful force that governed every phenomenon operating in the universe about which science could not find any formal explanation. This universal force, he said, is love. The positive energy of love, he believed, is so very powerful that it has the capacity to heal the entire world.

 

While making efforts to develop a unified theory of the universe, explains Einstein, scientists completely overlooked the presence of this positive energy. Love is light that enlightens those who give and receive it; love is gravity because it works like a magnet, attracting people towards one another; love is power, because it extinguishes blind selfishness and ensures that humanity is not governed by a parochial attitude.  Indeed, it is for love we live and for love we die – love is God and God is love.

 

 

Paramhansa Yogananda, an ardent votary of the lofty ideal of Divine Love, writes   that love is the divine power of attraction in creation that harmonises, unites and binds together. It is opposed by the force of repulsion, which is the outgoing cosmic energy that materialises creation from the cosmic consciousness of God. Repulsion keeps all forms in the manifested state through ‘maya’, the power of delusion that divides, differentiates and disharmonises. The attractive force of love counteracts cosmic repulsion to harmonise all creation and ultimately draw it back to God. Those who live in tune with the attractive force of love, achieve harmony with nature and their fellow beings, and are attracted to blissful reunion with God.

 

Mata Amritanandmayi, the very embodiment of love and compassion, says that the root cause of all problems, from personal to global, is the absence of love in the hearts of people. Love is the binding factor, the unifying factor that creates the feeling of oneness among people. Pure love is nothing but the emptying of the mind of all its fears and the tearing off of masks of all.

 

In present times where nations are spending millions of dollars in accumulating weapons and bombs of mass destruction, it is all the more important that mankind creates another type of bomb, a love-bomb, which is powerful enough to annihilate hatred, selfishness and greed that have devastated our planet. Suffering has made us realise that the transitory life on earth is too precious to be frittered away in nurturing thoughts of hatred and ill-will towards fellow humans. Einstein rightly said: “If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.”

 

IF HE EXIST

 I drive joy there was a doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued that he was wasting 7 precious minutes on something, which he had been misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that I am wasting 7 minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste 7 minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 7minutes joy that I derive 4m.-

 

ILLUSTRATED REVIEW : 7th heaven moment in isl Mohanbagan no 7 scored a goal,    

Secret of right activity

 

Quote from true charm and Power of Vedanta

 

Secret of right activity

The religious life dose not meant devoting certain hours to the study of the Bible or some other sacred Scripture; it means continuous life in accordance with the higher law. And nowhere do we find this more strikingly illustrated than in the Hindu life. It is said that the Hindus eat religion, drink religion, and sleep religion. What is the significance of this? That they do not wish to live without God; that they do not want to be separated for one moment from that supreme consciousness. They believe that all their actions, from the least important to the loftiest must start from that one central consciousness. This is what we need to learn-those at all times we must lead exalted lives that every act must be in harmony with our higher nature, that we must serve our ideal even at the cost of our life. Such characters are need, and we can build them only by right thinking,

 

We must not shut ourselves up in one set of doctrines and dogmas and believe tht the whole spiritual Truth is confined in them According to Vedanta , Truth is the common property of the whole human race; and whoever is wakeful, whoever apples the Truth , whoever lives the life , he is a follower of the Truth, whether he comes from East or West . A flower wherever it grows and it gives the same fragrance to the one who tramples on it as to the one who cherishes it. That is the nature we should develop. We must not say; this person does not appeal to me; I cannot love or serve him. The ordinary man does that. The flower does not refuse its fragrance to anyone. It gives what it has to give. Similarly our higher nature should be so unfolded that we can feel for all and give without asking anything.

 

Moving towards a state of permanent Basant

By Anandmurti Gurumaa

 

From autumn through harsh winter, the land goes barren, leaves fall and the grass goes lifeless. Wearing the veil of darkness, everything plunges into a deep slumber. Such is the view outside, but what about the ominous gloom that dwells within us?

 

Sant Kabir says, ‘Asleep in the temple of this body, I have been awakened hearing the Master’s eternal words.’ Sleep symbolises ignorance, darkness, inertia and unconsciousness. And this very sleep is the inner autumn – the autumn of the mind. If someone is asleep, we call him out, ‘Wake up, the dawn has broken.’ So, the person gets up hearing that voice. But a person in the slumber of ignorance can only be awakened by the words of an evolved master.

 

Body as temple

 

Kabir is referring to the body as a temple, which symbolises purity. It epitomises sacredness, something that is beautiful to look at. The saint says, ‘I am sleeping in this body that is akin to a temple. Temple is where the Lord dwells. If I am asleep in the temple, how would I know who resides within me? I wake up hearing the eternal word of the Master, thus the sleep of ignorance that was going on for aeons is over.’

 Ignorance is the breeding ground for all types of fears and insecurities. What will we do without money, relatives and kids? What if I die? These fears are perpetually there, but for the one who has woken up, all these anxieties dissolve away once and for all. The one who knows that the entire creation is an illusion along with this body, what’s there to fear?

 

Why worry?

 If you are sleeping, you are in bondage. When you are awake, you are free. Sleeping akin to ignorance is pain. Wakefulness is eternal bliss. While sleeping, you are in darkness. When you wake up, you are established in the Eternal Truth. Knowing oneself as an eternally pure Self, an embodiment of bliss, where is the space left for worries and insecurities?

 

When this flower of Ananda, the eternal bliss, blooms inside, we can say that the Basant has come! Basant means blooming. The autumn of ignorance is over. Basant implies that the flowers have blossomed. The gloom of ignorance that enveloped us has left and has been taken over by the illuminance of supreme wisdom.

 

With the coming of spring, small saplings begin to make headway on the ground shrunk by the winter; the stem grows, buds come, and within weeks flowers bloom. Once the harsh winter is over, colours begin to spread all around. These are the colours of Basant, spring.

 

When the love for the Lord dawns, or the love for the Master culminates, we experience a permanent Basant! Outside, flowers will wither away with time. However, the flower of divine love that once blooms within never dies; for such a person, Basant is never over.

 

 Today is Basant Panchami

 

IF HE EXIST

 I drive joy there was a doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued that he was wasting 7 precious minutes on something, which he had been misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that I am wasting 7 minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste 7 minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 7minutes joy that I derive 4m.-

 

ILLUSTRATED REVIEW : 7th heaven moment in hockey India beat china by 7 goals