What is NIrvana

 

Quote from the True charm and power of Vedanta

 

What is NIrvana

`          
The individual life in this earth is like a ceaseless struggle for existence. From the minutes t animalcule up to the highest man wherever there si manifestation of life, is to be found this tremendous struggle for life, or the fight for existence ., in that constant battle of life thousands and thousands of living creatures are crushed out of existence, first to make room for the stronger and the stronger for the still stronger, and so on., the weak are born as it were to suffer or perish and to make room for the suffer or perish and to make room for the strong ., every moment there exists this strong fight or struggle for life . Each individual is threatened with defeat and destruction. We are pressed by some unknown power into this vast battle field of the world. We are first to fight against these obstacles, and then to continue that fight till the last breath leaves our bodies.

           
Such is the world in which we are living, but at the same time we expect to be happy by gaining a victory over the weaker ones. We expect that it will bring an end to that fight and bring peace to our souls, but in the next moment , when we encounter with new enemies stronger and better equipped our hearts tremble as they come from all side to attack, defy and destroy us. So, how can we expect to get rest under such conditions? Where is the hope of those who expect to gain peace and happiness amidst this struggle for existence along with its constant accompaniments of diseases and sufferings? These existed in the past, and will continue in the future. As far back as we can go by turning the pages of history in every page we read the accounts of the same fight, the same suffering the misery and the same disease and death.

 

Care for humans, god can protect himself

 

By Sumit Paul

 

“I had only a little time left and I didn’t want to waste it on god.” This famous quote of French existentialist Albert Camus assumes exponential significance in these turbulent times of relentless sparring over religion and god.

 

We seem to be wasting a lot of our time and energy on god and religion and killing each other. Christopher Hitchens was once asked by a leading American daily, whether he ever believed in miracles? The ever-witty Hitchens said that he fully believed in miracles because wasn’t it a huge miracle that humans had been killing their fellow humans and taking umbrage for a god they never saw and would never see?

 

That this is happening in the 21st century when the world is facing a legion of humongous issues like poverty, ecological imbalance, disparity, pandemic and global undernourishment is all the more strange.

 

 

It’s time for every individual to sit and mull over the uncertainties that abound our lives and find solutions to them, rather than take god and religion so damn seriously. The Buddha summed it up so nicely, “Care for the humans around. Your self-sufficient god will take care of himself.”

 

The second part of the Buddha’s quote is more fascinating: “Your self-sufficient god will take care of himself.” If the entire mankind understands the import of this statement that god can protect himself, all these differences and bloodshed will stop forthwith.

 

Once someone asked Jalaluddin Rumi, why didn’t he react or curse a Jew who constantly abused Allah? On the contrary, Rumi used to smile when that vindictive Jew abused the Almighty. Rumi again smiled and told that person that had he reacted, he would have provoked the Jew to abuse Allah with a greater degree of intensity and also given him the impression that his (Rumi’s) Allah was so helpless that he needed a mere mortal’s help and intervention to protect Him. That would have been ridiculous, nay juvenile. No reaction is the best action in the matters of faith and a sense of dignified silence is an ideal remedy in such volatile situations. This is what we call spiritual wisdom.

 

Now followers of all the man-made faiths have begun to react and react violently at that. Every follower seems to have become a self-styled custodian of his religion. What we all can do to avoid any kind of religious confrontations is follow Rumi’s recipe in toto: No reaction. The more we react, the more we flare up the situation.

 

We also need to have much more religious maturity. Aldous Huxley called humans, religious pygmies and spiritual dwarfs.

 

A spiritually enlightened individual is never impulsive. He’s, in the words of British Vedantic Christopher Isherwood, ‘an ocean of religio-spiritual placidity’.

 

Where’s that religio-spiritual placidity and calmness in today’s violent humans? It’s, therefore, time to introspect that religion is a private issue and every individual has a moral responsibility to follow his god and faith in a divinely dignified manner without resorting to hooliganism. To sum it up with an Urdu couplet of Raahil Shikarpuri, “Tanha chhod de Khuda ko, mazhab ko samajh/ Tashaddud ko aqeeda nahin kahte, mere dost” – Leave alone god, understand religion/ Don’t mistake violence for faith, my dear friend.

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  novak won his 7^th Wimbledon title