Quote from the True charm and power of Vedanta
Towards the Goal Supreme
Only he who has succeeded in merging his own will in the Will of God has a right to say, “I am of God has a right to say, “I am being irresistibly driven to do all this. I am the machinery and He is the Operator” That can be done only by a devotee of the highest type, who knows nothing else but God, he never takes a false step even unwittingly; no wicked deed can ever be done by him, his heart remains filled with irrepressible strength and inspiration and is never assailed by despair or depression; and he is moved neither by happiness nor misery . he always has the feeling of “Nor I, not I , but thou, but Thou ,my Lord” Gain and lose, victory and defeat, honour and dishonor, have all becomes the same to him,
When some work has to be done, you should be full of activity, setting yourself to it with all your heart and soul. Do not pay the slightest heed to obstacles and hindrances, if they turn up , however insuperably they may seem to be . You will then find that those very obstacles and hindrances will actually help you in some way or other,. Is it always possible to have a favorable atmosphere after one’s own heart? The person who thinks that he will devote himself to the worship of God with a carefree mind, after having completed all his duties and settled all his family affairs satisfactorily, fares like the fool who goes to bathe in the sea but frightened by its dreadful waves , thinks he will go into the water only after the waves have subsided a little and the sea become calm. That never comes about, even if he sits on the beach till the last day of his life. There will always be waves in the sea l. one should boldly jump into the sea, bathe fighting with the waves and get through with it. In the same way, in the sea of the world one must call on God, do spiritual practices and worship Him, fighting all along with the waves. But your hope of realization will never be fulfilled if you sit down hugging your knees in despair , and wait for the right moment and the opportune circumstances to turn up
Attaining life in all its fullness
By Valson Thampu
The goal of spirituality, said Jesus Christ, is to enable human beings to attain life in its fullness. This is the least understood, or most misunderstood, of Jesus’ teachings.
One such misunderstanding is that having life in its fullness means
becoming richer. This quantitative fallacy equates life with ‘having’ rather
than ‘being’. In this view, one’s life is godly depending on how much one
prospers. This strange notion drives the prosperity Gospel. It appeals to many
Christians, though Jesus himself ‘had nowhere to lay his head’.
The second misunderstanding is that it denotes a safe, secure life, free
from all suffering. This too is strange because Jesus is known, and revered,
for the unthinkable suffering he endured. Christians worship the Cross and pray
for total exemption from suffering, which is strange, to say the least. At any
rate, life without suffering caricatures life. It has never existed, nor will
it ever exist.
The more ‘spiritual’ among Christians assume that extraordinary spiritual
gifts and powers characterise life in its fullness. So, miracle-workers and the
high and mighty in the religious hierarchy are supposed to be ‘filled’ with
spiritual power and the extraordinary graces that go with it. But, on a closer
examination, many of them prove to be pretty ordinary; well short of the
spiritual benchmark of life.
What then does ‘life in its fullness’ mean?
Everything depends on how a person understands himself; for one has to
seek and attain this state for oneself. One can seek only as per one’s
understanding of oneself. The distorted understandings listed above arose
because of a misconception in this respect. We are conditioned to think of
ourselves as autonomous and self-contained individuals, sharply distinguished
from everything else.
According to Jesus, we are to attain ‘life’ in its fullness, not a life of
fullness. Seeking the fullness of ‘life’ is quite different from seeking the
fullness of one’s life. Life is a great deal more than each one of us, and all
of us taken together. The notion that we are discreet, autonomous, selves who
‘own’ their life – as in ‘my life’ – is a delusion. We are part of a seamless
web of life that extends to the cosmos. This is intuited in the astrological
assumption that the configuration of celestial bodies at the time of one’s
birth affects a person lifelong. Ideally, the whole of life should express
itself through each individual. One’s life should mirror life in its fullness.
Such ‘fullness’ embraces everything and everyone. It excludes none. That
is why to the spiritually enlightened, there are no strangers and enemies. The
Indic spiritual vision of tatvam asi, that thou art, adumbrates this mindset.
Certainly one of its meanings is that labels of otherness should be
inadmissible. The proof, therefore, that we are oriented to ‘life in its
fullness’ is that we feel at one with all human beings; indeed, with the whole
of creation. The entire world is my home.
Life can be had only in full, for it is dynamic. Just as we cannot breathe
in half – inhaling alone – so also, we cannot live life in part. Restlessness
lurks wherever what is meant to be whole is kept in part-ness. Like the two
halves of an apple sliced in the middle, it will be burdened with the pressures
of disequilibrium. Such a state contravenes the law of nature. Only human
beings entertain the delusion that they can live as isolated atoms; or that it
is an achievement to do so.
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 of
the week sl made 300/7
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