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

We have virtually no control over the external event, situations, behaviour of others or their deeds. No husband can control the wife, no mother can control the son or daughter beyond a certain age. ‘Can’ should be replaced here by the word ‘should.’ But when we refuse to appreciate that we should not try to own or control anyone, then nature in its infinite wisdom teaches us that we cannot even do that. But we feel hostile to the other’s refusal to be owned in the name of care or love. This hostility when expressed triggers the other’s obstinacy and promptly leads to being alienated. Now both feel that the other is responsible for this alienation due to errors of omission and commission. Nobody is willing to take responsibility for our inability to dissolve our initial hurt which was caused by our lack of understanding the laws of living and loving which made us want the other person to function as per our own desired mental pattern. This amounts to an immoral act of treating the othe...

A close friend asked me “Why do I suffer so much in the relationship when I just want to love him? Why there is so much anxiety, fear, anger, grief I go through in this?”  The truth is that in love, there is really no place for any of the above energy-sucking emotions. In most cases (exceptions few apart), when it is said, “I love you,” it normally means (consciously or otherwise), “I want to possess and enjoy your presence in my life.” It all starts with a thought, “She is mine alone to own/possess.” This thought is extremely intoxicating to start with and our untrained, unexamined mind is unable to see the veiled Satan in it. The Geeta rightly observes in a different context that what is nectar in the beginning is poison at the end and vice-versa. Instead of dismissing this first thought, we strengthen it while we get to know the other more, resulting in a strong attachment leading finally to a desire to ‘get’ her. The intoxication reaches its pleasurable peak. Of course, this do...

Last week I got a call from my dear friend. She was chosen to be among the many for a prestigious award in the corporate marketing world. There was just a problem she discussed about this that she had just quit her job and at present was not yet employed elsewhere. Her friends in the corporate sector advised her to maintain silence about this while she was to register herself giving all her details to the award committee, as they were of the opinion that this could jeopardise her receiving the award as she was technically unemployed. When she told these friends that she would be lying indirectly which she was not comfortable about, they pooh-pooh her honesty and told her to be worldly – wise instead. But she was not totally convinced and her intense spiritual quotient and sincerity pricked her conscience and her commitment to Truth, come what may. Her friends thought she was crazy to entertain these thoughts. One of them even went to the extent of telling her that whenever this ‘morali...

I had long back heard from Swami Tejomayananda that our life could be summarised in 3 words. The placement of these 3 words varied according to our age. As a child, we are naturally in the state of enquiry and wonder. We say often then, “Tell me, Why?” The child is always keen to know ‘why’ of everything he observes. This is the stage of innocence.  As the child grows into a teenager, he starts feeling that now he knows what life is about what he needs to do, to aspire, to get, to enjoy. This is fine, but along with this he also develops a sense of arrogance (exceptions apart) depending on many factors. He wants to be with his friends more than his parents/grandparents. He normally tends to disassociate himself from the happenings of the family in his family, and if his mother or relative tries to tell him (share) about what is happening in the family, neighbours, relatives, society, at times he ignores or says the 3 words within, “Why tell me” meaning why are you bothering me abou...

Please go through the link below: https://youtu.be/83sXAI27Suc It is my Guru, Haribhai Kothari’s video, whose anniversary was this week Jan 5. The talk is in Hindi.  I strongly recommend it as it resolves an oft-repeated query. Many more short extracts of His talks are available on YouTube. 

After reading the last Article on wearing masks (Pretentiousness), my friend Bhavita called to ask if I had seen the movie ‘Tamasha.’ I saw it and loved it. It showed the frustration of living a life divorced from our inherent nature (Swabhav). The hero (Ranbir) wears a mask of being a gentleman, living a mechanical life ordained by the father, worthy of being approved by the society (corporate job, good manners, ideal behaviour). He wakes up when the girl (Deepika) rejects him for not being his real self (mad, lover of nature, intensely romantic). He does not live a life of his dreams, since it does not have the approval of the worldly wise (who wore the mask long before COVID). Another friend asked if it is wrong to judge someone in a relationship. In our Vedanta class, it is often suggested that we need to assess, not judge others. Judging is deciding that the other is right, wrong, so stupid, so stingy, so this, so that. We put our self as a standard (ideal) for comparing, and anyb...

These are the days of wearing a mask. Sometimes it is a wonder why we fuss so much about wearing it when we have all been wearing this mask all through our life, except in childhood. As we grow up, the size and the number of our ‘mask’ increases. We need to observe in a day how many times we are pretentious. We say one thing, we feel something else within, and we do some third thing. When I did this observation on myself, I was shocked. We wear this mask in our personal life, professional life, and social interactions. Of course, we defend our self most of the time by using pretty names like etiquette, or a word used by us Gujaratis ‘vyavahar,’ social norm (of course created by us only). And then, we get disappointed when we see through the ‘mask’ of someone we loved or trusted, not realising that we too sail in the same boat. We go by ‘labels’ (parents, children, friends, in-laws, relatives, husband/wife) & expect the person to live up to their label, not realising that he/she wil...