Some Feelings..Some Words...From The Heart...

Total acceptance of what comes to us will grant us the much desired inner peace. This acceptance comes through complete surrender that it is just and for my ultimate good. The one who is on the path of karma surrenders to the Law of Karma (As one sows, so will he reap). The Bhakta accepts everything as the Will of His beloved Lord. The Gyani surrenders to the design of Life. Whatever be our path, unconditional surrender is must. Our conscious mind can never understand fully how the laws function and therefore resists and questions the rationality of what happens, especially when it happens to us or to our near and dear ones. Our conscious mind can barely see the present, and is totally oblivious of the past causes and the future ultimate good. But the truth is “Whatever happens is justice (with respect to the past) and for our ultimate good (growth) with respect to the future.” We ask “Why me” for the negative outcomes, never when we succeed or stand first in class. I invite you all to...

When Meerabai was pressurized by her family to fulfill the duties of a daughter-in-law and forego her spiritual pursuits, she was torn in between the two paths. Unable to decide, she wrote a letter to her contemporary Saint Tulsidasji for guidance. He replied that “Those who have no love for Ram and Seeta (Divinity in any form) are not your relatives anyways, and there need to be no hesitation in distancing yourself from anyone who obstructs your spiritual journey, and divine quest.” The spiritual growth C/F to the next Janmas, while our parents, spouse, children change in each birth. Thus, they are ‘relative’ (pun intended).  In this context, can any parent ever say or think that their son/daughter is ‘My child.’ Do they own the child (Maalik) or they are just caretakers (Maali)? Do they really have the jurisdiction to decide the destinies of their children against their children's wishes or nature (Swabhav)? Can they force the children to decide their careers or profession or mar...

In the game of cricket, there is this mystical 12th man who can replace an injured fielder, and otherwise he is the one who brings on the drinks and refreshments in the drinks interval. He is supposed to go through all the rigorous practice sessions and has to be as fit as the other 11 players. My Vedanta teacher gave a fabulous definition to this 12th man as “Always ready, seldom needed.” This is the foundation Sutra for any service we wish to render in our relationships or social causes or in any other endeavour where we want to just give whether it is our Time or our ears to somebody’s problems or our shoulder to cry on or if you allow me to say, our Heart too to someone we care for or love without any need for a return in any form, not even a thank you. We just have to be “always ready,” but realise deeply that we may be “seldom required.” Is there any scope for any anger or let down feelings or hurt then? In fact, most of times we are not really required when we are very ready to ...

I recently saw again one of the finest movies of my life – Amar Prem, starring Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore. It captures brilliantly something that is sorely lacking today – reasonless affection and purposeless love, care. In the movie, neither do they marry nor are they in a definable relationship, but their love and care for each other transcends worldly definitions. Rajesh Khanna is brilliant and speaks with his eyes through the movie. All the songs are classic, and the end is heart – rendering.  You may wonder why am I talking about this movie. Last week, a friend called to share his recent experience. I knew that he was spiritually inclined and wanted to spend his life in doing his Sadhana at a place he loved and visited often in The Himalayas. He narrated his experience. He had a close friend over many years, who loved an Ashram in that very town, and who often spoke to him about how she would love to settle there, offer her Sadhana and service full-on there, as she did ...

It’s May 1 st , most of you know that it’s the day of our family Annual Program in the memory of my mom who left us on this date several years back when I was in the last year of my college.   We have been holding this annual function since the last 20 years at Prempuri Ashram, Babulnath. We have to skip it or postpone it this year. In this journey, for the first 11 years, my Guru Haribhai Kothari gave his 1- hour discourse personally on varied topics. He left His body to reside in my heart thereafter. Since then, for the last 9 years we have Him speak to us through the large video screen – one of his huge collection of recorded talks/discourses of more than 55 years of His life. I have no hesitation in stating that I owe my very existence today to my Guru. Had Haribhai not been there, perhaps I wouldn’t have been there today writing this article. As with many folks, my personal life too had its own roller-coaster ride – many unrelenting emotional setbacks, shattered emotions,...

A close friend called me up and said "Why have you been silent about what is happening today? What is your 'God' doing to us and why?" She was obviously letting out her frustration about being homebound. I had a long chat with her about the lessons the virus has come to teach mankind who has refused to listen otherwise to all sane and saintly suggestions for course correction. May I share a few points of that call in brief.  1. It seems that the virus originated from a human who ate a bat. So lesson one was that we have wrongly interpreted that the entire life on the earth is just for our consumption and joy. We have abused the concept of co-existence and 'live and let live' to a point of fault.  2. Mankind (should we really use the word kind with a man) was under an illusion that it can conquer nature (Prakruti) and then abuse it for his own insatiable thirst for materialism in which there was a mad race in all fields of life and living. The virus made ...

Is this world of objects/beings a source of our happiness/sorrow? How can our intellect accept that there is no happiness or sorrow in the world, when we do experience them as it were. If any object itself contains happiness/sorrow, then everyone should get them from it. Also, that happiness should be permanent, and undiminishing and same to all. But is this so? I read an interesting philosophical example on this from a book by Jagatguru Krupalu Maharaj. A man suddenly died. On hearing this news, his wife fainted due to overpowering sorrow. His son cried bitterly. His friend shed a few tears. His servant did not cry, but was sad. His neighbour felt bad, but experienced neither sorrow nor shock. He continued doing his work. A dishonest debtor experienced a feeling of relief internally, some unshowable happiness. If this man was to come back to life, then all the above would experience the same degree of opposite feelings - sorrow, indifference, happiness. The varied degree of these fe...

A person left behind in his will 19 camels to be distributed among his 3 sons in the ratio 1/2, 1/4, 1/5. The executers of the will wondered how this can be done. This story is a famous folklore of ancient Rajasthan. A saint came along on his camel. He was told about the apparent problem of division. He spontaneously offered his own camel making their count 20. Now, one-half, i.e. 10 camels went to the 1st brother, and likewise the 2nd brother got 1/4, i.e. 5 camels, and the 3rd brother got 1/5, i.e. 4 camels. Thus, 19 camels were distributed among the brothers leaving one camel still. The saint mounted on it and left, as that was his own camel. He solved the problem effortlessly without getting involved personally. No problem remains a problem once we seek the help of a true saint. Besides, the story also subtly conveys that unless a person is willing to contribute his own resource (time, money, patience, compassion, objectivity) he cannot really help in solving or empathizing with ...

Only Osho could have expressed this above Truth so amazingly. He further explains that love creates fear since love is death. In the death we know of, only the body dies which is just like a dress. We drop the old body and acquire a new one. The form changes, yet the same mind/ego continue (an old wine in a new bottle). There is no real death. But love is real death since here the body does not die, but the mind/ego/our identity dies or dissolves. If you love, you cannot be the ego since the ego will not allow love. We have to choose between love and our ego. And so we are fearful in love since we have to drop ourselves now. Maybe, that is why true love (egoless) is vanishing from our pretentious world. What we call love today is just a false coin. The device is to live in a false love in which our ego continues to thrive. We have invented this false coin since without love life carries no meaning, no poetry, no dance within, no celebration, no gratitude, and above all no prayer. It...

I have known her now for more than 10 years. In my class, while she was pursuing B.Com, she was allergic to any philosophy I would talk about. She was mildmannered but believed that her happiness was in the world which she thought, then, needed to be pursued. She did that, and found the world (at its best) wanting. The world can make us happy no doubt, but cannot keep us happy. She decided to look elsewhere, and reluctantly attended some Vedanta Class with me, not knowing perhaps that the seed within her was just waiting for the right soil and environment. Her very good friend then introduced her to weekly classes on "Savitri" (written by Sri Arvind), and thereby brought her to the philosophy of Sri Arvind and the Mother. It was almost like a moth to a flame. She knew that this was where she belonged. She embraced it, and I saw her changing, growing, becoming more beautiful and evolving. Her inner beauty had enhanced her inherent pretty looks. She was not very comfortable ...