A rational versus spiritual mind...

This post is inspired by a story I heard in one of the talks of my Guru Shri Mataji...

This story talks about how two different people who are both equally pious understand God....

Once upon a time there was a very pious man who set out to meet God.

On the way, he came across a man who was relaxing, doing nothing much and singing devotional songs of God. The man asked him to tell God that his food and other basic amenities were coming to and end and that they need to be refilled...

Then he came across another man who was engaged in doing all sorts of complex yogic postures and asanas. This person told him to ask God as to when he would appear before him and give him Darshan.

The first person walked away thinking about how contrasting the requests of both the men he met were. Once he reached the abode of God and had a Darshan of him to his heart's content he related the request of the two people he had met on his way. God was immediately concerned about the first person's request and said that he would make sure that he would get all the needful immediately. Also he said that the second man was still not ready to get his Darshan. This puzzled the man since by the looks of it both men seemed to be very pious and devoted to God. Hence he didn't understand the bias in God's reaction towards them. But he remained quiet and kept his doubts to himself.

But God being God, read his mind and asked him to relate a story when he meets the two gentlemen on his way back. The man agreed and listening to the story left the kingdom of God. One reaching the man performing Yogic poses he narrated the story which God had told him to which he cried in disbelief saying, 'You fool, how can it be ever be possible? It doesn't look like you met God at all, you are just cooking up a fancy story to befool me.'

Bewildered by his reaction to the story, the man moved on and when he came across the man singing bhajans he was a bit hesitant to narrate the story but still went ahead and did it. To this the man started singing the praise of God even louder and said aloud that only God can do this, only God can do this...!

This made the man understand the bias in God's reaction towards them. Before I forget to mention the story God had told him was 'I saw God make a camel walk through the eye of a small needle!'

Operation UnPlug - Two!

This post is second in the line of the 'Operation UnPlug' posts and is dedicated to MittiCool... :-) a innovative line of products by Mr Manshukbhai Prajapati of Wankaner (Gujarat state, India). I have already decided to order a few of the MittiCool's products...

This post deserves to be part of my 'Operation UnPlug' series of posts since it is about being eco-friendly and at the same time being natural...Mr. M Prajapati has had the forethought and vision to utilize clay which is one of the basic elements of nature and come up with such innovative products like Water filters, Non-stick tavas, Cookers and even...yes, you are reading right Refrigerators!!! When I first read about him in an article I really wished that I should have got these ideas too :-) but I think it is better that somebody has these ideas and is already implementing them.

If each of put our earnest efforts no matter how small they maybe in trying to leave less of our footprint on Mother Earth...then I think it will go a long way in helping to sustain all that we cherish as valuable...Amen!

A humble prayer to my Guru Shri Mataji...

The inspiration for this prayer occurred to me during my morning 4 am meditation last week...this prayer is a humble request to my Guru Shri Mataji to make our meditation process deeper and that much more spiritual...

Shri Mataji let us through this meditative process become one with you...let us not have any duality left...at the end of this session...I humbly request you to take away all the things which will prevent this from happening during this session...

Let me realize that you are my number one priority...that my number one problem is how to be connected with you everyday and every second of my life...that you are bigger than everything else in my life...help me ignore everything else and help me direct my complete attention on you as you are my number one priority...you are and should always remain number one on my list...

Please make me humble enough to realize that 'I' am nothing...everything in this world...even the tiniest of tiny blade of grass obeys your command...and that I have been designed to do just the same...help me become ready in all possible ways to understand this simple truth and be able to accept this fact whole and sole...help me thrash our ego and superego and keep it where is deserves to be, outside of me...let my brain be filled with just the humble recognition of the fact that you are our Mother and that this birth of ours has been most fortunate enough to realize this atleast to some extent...

Help me become like a small infant enjoying the bliss of complete security in her mother's lap...help me become like a small child playing and getting tangled in the folds of the Sari of her mother...let me play like that in the folds of your sari of beautiful vibrations...let me not have a care in this world...just like innocent children...and just like children let me have no doubt and no fear in the fact that all our needs, all our desires will be satisfied by you Mother...and that my first and foremost desire and immediate action should be to come completely under the shade of your security...

Make my brain smart enough to realize the divine flow of your love...let my brain realize that I am just like the sunflower and that my complete attention should be on my Sun that is Shri Mataji...my attention should just follow you and only you...nothing else matters...

My attention should be bathed in the light of the knowledge that Shri Mataji is the most important entity for me...my attention should be humbled by the knowledge of my Guru Shri Mataji...my brain should become intelligent enough to understand the complexity of this magnificent creation of my Mother which is just to display her love for us...let me enjoy each and every aspect of nature with this awareness in my mind...all my actions should be executed in a way that Shri Mataji would have executed it herself...so before my every action let me remember that she is my Mother and she does everything...so let me just allow her to do things in her own way...and let me just watch the sheer magic of her grand execution and be humbled by it...

Let me become like a hollow flute...to enable her to play the music of Divine love through us...Shri Mataji, I humbly request you that...let every chakra..not only every chakra, ever pore, every cell of my body say your name...let no physical, mental, emotional ailment prevent any cell of my body from putting its attention on your name...because your name is all-powerful...it is the most powerful mantra in the whole universe...let all the cells in my body just recite your Divine name, let each cell become drenched in the light of your attention...let me just become one with you...let there be no discord...no duality...no I or me...only you...only you...only you Shri Mataji!

Mattu Pongal - a first hand experience... :-)

I had often seen pictures of nicely decorated cows and bulls on TV or in print during Mattu Pongal. But this year I got to experience it first hand in my spouse's native village.

Enjoy the pics... :-)

The cows were given a nice bath early in the morning. But the actual Puja is performed only in the evening after the sun sets. The cows and bulls are ornately decorated with Mango leaves, Color papers, Sindoor and even balloons. This day is all about thanking the animal species for their help rendered to humans in helping them get a bountiful harvest...

A popular legend says that once Lord Shiva asked his bull Basava to go down to earth to convey an important message to the mortals; they should take an oil massage and bath daily and eat just once a month. Basava just probably misinterpreted or forgot exactly what was to be said; he announced to the mortals on earth that they should eat daily and have an oil bath once a month. We all know the wrath of Lord Shiva; he cursed his favorite bull and banished him to earth to live a life to plough the fields to produce food for all and draw heavy carts carrying this food for sale and consumption.

I personally feel that all of us should continue to perform the various festivals / rituals in order to preserve the essence of our culture and also to showcase it to our children. Also this day should be dedicated to all our animal friends and not just cattle as our planet is so beautiful due to the presence of all them. I think our tradition has a lot of small expressions of respect to nature and towards each other...all these will add to our values...okay I dont want to go in the preaching mode once more...hope all of you had a great Pongal :-)

Our children...

How we bring up our kids plays a major role in how we shape them as good and caring citizens of this world. I admit I am not the best parent in the world but I do hold some views especially after observing a lot of my friend's kids. There are many facets to bringing up a child, I agree...but I feel the first and foremost thing is that we have to teach them values, values like learning to care, learning to respect, learning to accept. I am not going to lecture about good parenting here but just want to throw light on a few aspects..

Nowadays kids are always in a hurry...hurry to be somewhere, hurry to do something, hurry to get up and get going. Kids today spend hours together on Facebook and other social networks but when it comes to serving a guest who comes home or speak two kind words to the granny who lives next door they are absolutely clueless. I had written a blog about how people behave in their online versus real lives earlier which is kinda related to this post...

Today parent's have no time for their kids - parent's may be fluent in two different languages but the only language they communicate with their kids is in English, parents think spending quality time is taking kids to the mall / theme parks, parents think their job is done if they send their kids to 'good' schools - they assume the schools will teach them all that they need to know about life!

Parents often forget how important their role is and that kids mirror them first and foremost (Yatha Raja - Thatha Praja), so how they behave with others, how they treat others matter the most. If all of the parent's interactions are happening online and if the parent's hardly have any visitor's home then it becomes very difficult for the child to pick up on important social skills.

Today's kids are pampered with all kinds of lavishness but nobody seems to be bothered to teach them about reality. The parents today are going about their jobs like a horse with its blinkers on and the same is happening with children. This kind of upbringing only leads to self-centeredness which is really really dangerous in today's society. Today's kids want to come up in life no matter what, they are hardly aware of the trials and tribulations their parents are facing and even if they are they don't care. They want to grow up faster in life losing touch with reality, losing touch with the people who brought them up and cared for them. They want to stand tall in society forgetting that it is not possible without being strongly rooted to their base. Today most of the problems faced by western society is due to the failure of the family system and that is where we Indians are in a better position but we need to work on this to get better and prevent our values from being eroded.

So I think it is high time that all of us pledge, pledge to do a better job in bringing up our kids, pledge to teach them to be sensitive to the pain and suffering of others (not in a sarcastic fashion), pledge to teach them about nature and her myriad beauties, pledge to teach them on how to interact with their relatives / neighbors (maybe learning a thing or two ourselves in the process), pledge to be kind even to strangers, pledge to teach them not to be superficial beings but grounded in reality, pledge to teach them to really adjust and live collectively with others, pledge to teach them to respect other beings human (especially women) or animal, pledge to make them sensitive enough to choose a profession which is a service to all of mankind and nature, pledge to teach them to learn responsibility early on by letting them have a pet / care for plants, pledge to teach them to share with others and be unselfish, pledge to teach them atleast one regional language that we are fluent in, pledge, pledge to teach more about our values and heritage, pledge to make them relish the taste of real Indian food and not let them become slaves of Pizza and Fries, pledge to teach them that competing and getting ahead of the pack is not everything in life, pledge to teach them that science and technology is not the be all and end all, pledge to really spend 'quality time' with them and not just push expensive toys up their throat, pledge to teach them to learn to help someone in need, pledge to teach them that having a big heart is more important than having a big bank account, pledge to make them interesting and not dry people, pledge to teach them that the journey is always more exciting than the destination, pledge to teach them to pause and smell the roses on the way!!! Hopefully the world tomorrow will be much better than today.... :-)