Meditations on Transcendence

Sound - its importance in spirituality

2011-12-13T14:17:00.000+05:30

Sound is one of the most important aspect of life. Imagine a world without sound. One cannot chit chat with friends, no melodious music, no great conversations. One would be bored to death without sound. It is such an integral part of life itself. According to vedic creation, sound is one of the fundamental element created along with taste, form, touch, and smell. We deal with varieties of sounds in our day-to-day life. They are vocal language sounds, instrumentals, singing of various genres etc. Sounds can generate emotions influencing our subtle conscious body. Music therapy is prevalent in many cultures of the world where diseases related to depression are cured using vocal and instrumental sound. Sounds from leaders like Martin Luther King, Hitler, Gandhi have triggered contrasting revolutions moving millions of hearts to action. Why do sounds from some people propel their followers to action and some do not? What is the extra flavor in the sounds emanated from these powerful personalities? Is there something beyond the sounds which impact the consciousness. The molecular vibration which is sound in its gross sense carry invisible layers of functionality which can impact the heart of the listener. Some of the layers which we can discern are an emotional layer, logical-intellectual layer, belief layer etc. Ofcourse the preliminary criteria is that access has to be given by the receiver of the sound to his inner regions. This access is provided when the listener has faith and trusts the person speaking as an authority. The bhagavad Gita describes 3 character attributes for the sound from a speaker to make an impact into the inner regions of consciousness of the listener. They are ‘Pranipatena’(enormous trust) ‘Pariprasnena’(humble enquiry) ‘sevaya’(service relationship).

For any change of action free will has to be influenced. The free will is dependent on belief system. Belief system creates values which determine what action a person approves and what are those he does not. What is belief system? Is it in the mind or the intellect? When belief system has programmed your subconscious, then your actions become involuntary. They will be naturally aligned with belief system. Repeated actions create subconscious programming. Hence all the spiritual traditions have the process of ‘repetition’ as a core spiritual practice. Thru constant repetition of sounds and physical actions related to spirit, spiritual traditions bring a transformation in the subconscious. Of the various repetitions in ancient spiritual traditions, sound repetition is very important for subconscious transformation. These are not ordinary sounds but spiritual sounds called mantras. There are sound vibrations in nature detected by our ancient sages which can liberate the mind of unwanted things. The Hare Krishna mantra can liberate the mind from selfish sense gratification oriented thoughts. Yoga means to connect with the supreme and this connection happens thru the medium of devotional service. Mantras kill individual aspirations, ambitions and focus the person entirely to embrace the supreme’s ambition, purpose. The individual starts to feel the connect with the universal will. When one drops self ambitions, plans, aspirations he moves to the brahma bhuta stage. The Brahma bhuta stage is existence in higher band of energy compared to the material band of energy which we usually dwell. A person who has dropped all selfishness and embraced satisfying the Lord as the only goal is promoted to the Brahma bhuta stage. The primary symptom of this stage is one does not anymore feel hankering for anything nor lament for anything of this world. The sound Krishna even though is composed of molecular vibration can act as a container for the supreme to manifest in the vibration based on the extent of service attitude of the chanter. It is just like the Diety though made up of material elements but is not matter after installation by a bonafide acarya. Similarly sound given to one also has to be installed, so we have to receive the sound from acarya. ‘Nama cintamaniyasya, caitanya rasas vigraha, Purna suddho, nitya mukto, abhinnatvam naama naamino’ Nama is living full of caitanya. Nama is conscious entity but based on the service spirit of the chanter. Nama being non different from the Lord is supremely pure ‘Purna Suddho’ and is never under the 3 modes of material nature ‘nitya mukto’. Naam is nirgun. The tattva or philosophical conception and the emotional state is very important for the Lord to manifest in Nama sound. The proper conception of sanatana dharma is important. Sanatana Dharma is the mood of servant and master that exists between the aatma and Paramatma. This attitude of pure servant desiring only the pleasure of the supreme master is the primary criteria for Naami to manifest in Naam. One more important word used by Rupa Goswami is being ‘aanukulyena’ which is becoming favorable for Krishna’s happiness, to stop being a competitor to Krishna as enjoyer. ‘Ekalai iswara Krishna, aar sab Bhrtya’ which means he is the only enjoyer, all others are servants meant to give pleasure to the Supreme. If there is sincerity in the seeker and he aspires to give up being an enjoyer, then Naami can manifest and accelerate the killing of purusha bhaava in the heart. The competition is in trying to increase the 4 things – Dhan(wealth), Jana(popularity, position, fame), sundarim(Association with women), Kavitam(to be known as greatly learned) – trying to grow in these 4 things means wanting to compete with Sri Krishna as enjoyer. Reducing the need for these and increasing the need for always being in divine service in the association of devotees is being anukool to his pleasure, honoring him as the only enjoyer.

What is the architecture of sound? According to physics, Sound is caused due to vibration of air molecules. The vibrating air molecules impact the ear drum and hence the experience of sound is created. The vibration travels thru the nervous system into the mind where the sound is converted to information and sense is made out if it. Based on the seriousness of the mind the information can lead to storage and retrieval in future. Beliefs and values are like ROM memory in the computer. Sound has the capability to change beliefs thru the process of surrender and repetition. How to decipher the power of sound? The power of sound depends on the depth of impact on the living being. According to Vedas human being is not just the physical body but made of layers of existence. The Physical layer is the outer most layer. Inside it is the Mind, Intelligence, Ego and then the original existence particle ‘The soul’. There are 4 bodies in a single being according to the Vedas. They are

- Spiritual transcendental soul body

- Paramatma

- Subtle body composed of Mind, intelligence and false ego

- Gross body

We do not have vision beyond the gross body. So the power of sound is decided on the depth of impact it can make. If a sound can reach the soul then it is the most powerful. The closest layer to the real self is the ‘citta’. The various thoughts in the mind have their source in the tendencies in the ‘citta’ or consciousness. Only mantras vibrated by pure devotees of Sri Krishna can impact the citta layer. The normal chant by conditioned soul of Hare Krishna mahamantra can impact only the gross layer or maximum upto the mental layer. But the mantra received from a pure devotee has the power to hit the citta. The vibration of the mahamantra kills the selfish tendencies and inspire the service tendency. The mantra is like a farmer and the field is the citta. The goal is to cultivate only the devotional creeper in the citta and uproot all unwanted weeds. The sadhana Bhakti process is nothing but ‘Citta vyavasaaya’ means farming or culturing of the consciousness. When the creeper of divine service has started to flower then it is the Bhava Bhakti stage and when there are fruits in the creeper it is the final Prema bhakti stage. Citta bala or ‘conscious strength’ is the resource which is the conscious energy embedded with iccha shakti or the power of desire. There is competition for citt bala among various tendencies in the citta. Redirecting the citta bala to the creeper of devotional service and cutting the supply to other unwanted tendencies is the work of iccha shakti which is strengthened by sadhu sanga. Bhagavan wants to taste the flower and fruit of the devotional creeper. It is our duty to cultivate and offer the flower and fruit to Bhagavan’s pleasure. For this we have to approach the spiritual master who will provide all infrastructure and personally enter our heart as a expert Gardener.

Japan Nuclear disaster, Anna Hazare, corrpution

2011-04-18T15:24:00.000+05:30

The nuclear disaster in Japan has reached to Chernobyl levels. It was so unanticipated. The earthquake followed by the tsunami and boom the reactor is damaged leading to uncontrolled radiation. ‘Padam padam etad vipadam’ – in this material world we court danger every moment. Danger means environment imposes things which tend to destroy our existence. The soul never gets destroyed but the conditioned soul is put into that virtual reality of being effaced. The unexpected events in nature which change the course of history are called the Black swan events. One can learn how properly to react to an unexpected event, one can never plan for it. Its like the surprise tests in IITs, one has to be on the go at all times. But why the world is designed for unexpected events? Of course the big bang guys who think the world was never designed but just happens will definitely not have an answer. The unexpected events are a sign that this place is not for permanent settlement, where death is staring at you every moment. Search for the eternal settlement, the abode of the Lord. Qualify to become a member of the eternal settlement. Past and future ceases toexist in the divine abode of the Lord – it is the reign of the blissful eternal present. The abode is full of the flow of lila – blissfull love pastimes of the supreme being. We are all in one system with the supreme being as the core. Every part of the system has to supply pleasure to the supreme core. We qualify for reflective happiness only, the happiness that reflects from the supreme. Aspiration for direct enjoyment will disqualify us from being integrated with the lila system. Independent life has to be given up. Me and my family, i have my job and i enjoy with my family – i don’t care about supreme etc..will not work. Death stares at disjoint things who are not integrated with pleasure of the supreme. Just being moral, a good law abiding citizen is not enough. One has to give up the independent separate enjoyment and integrate by giving happiness to Sri Krishna.

The Anna Hazare’s and the lokpal bill cannot solve the problem of tapa traya facing all of us. Annually parts of Australia and West coast of USA is faced with huge forest fires. They cannot be controlled by fire engines, spraying water etc. When the rain comes automatically the fire is extinguished. ‘Samsara dava nala lidha loka’ ;tranaya karunya ghanaghanatvam’ – The worldly problems is like forest fire. We need the mercy rain from above, from our sweet Lord to pacify the fire of samsara. The mercy rain is the Sri Guru whose form is made up of the Lord’s compassion. Just going near him will destroy our wrong tendencies of wanting to enjoy independent of the Lord. Sri Guru is the nodal point of that mercy and Harinama sankirtan is the outpouring of that mercy in the form of fountain. But there is lack of srddha in general populace on the mercy solutions. Lord caitanya’s movement is mass distribution of this mercy, to create srddha at a public level. The intrinsic core of Lord Caitanya’s movement is going on street sankirtan. The sound of the Hare Krishna mantra enters the ears even unwillingly and creates sukrti srddha in the hearing public. Street sankirtan is also breaking of the mercy dam by Nityananda Prabhu. The fallen, downtrodden, sinful everyone will be swept in this mercy tsunami of Lord Nityananda. The process of devotional service of Bhakti yoga is started by this hearing process. Accidentally a passerby on the street hears this harinama sankirtan his spirituallife has started and will save him from the highest danger of degrading into lower species in future. His faith in sadhu sanga will arise and eternal auspiciousness is invoked.

The basic principle behind nuclear power plant is the steam turbine. The nuclear energy is utilised to make steam and using the momentum of the turbine, electricity is generated. This is a very intrusive kind of energy production system. The inherent stability of matter is disturbed to release energy. This is called tampering material energy and she will react with venom. Srila Prabhupada says that we have to lead life in collaboration with material energy and not disturbing its stability. We get more and more entangled in material energy’s complexities and the result is extreme suffering as seen in Japan and Chernobyl before. Why do we need so much electricity? Due to addiction to artificial creature comforts. In Sanskrit this is called ‘anartha’ – unwanted things. In the name of technological advancement, we are piling up more and more creature comforts. The challenge is get back into simple living. This is not possible just by plain resolution but by following the principles of Bhakti yoga. It is said in the Bhagavatham

anarthopasamam saksad
bhakti-yogam adhoksaje
lokasyajanato vidvams
cakre satvata-samhitam

How to minimise creature comforts and maximise devotional service? Mahat kripa is needed to prevent us from falling into the pit of material comforts. ‘Guru kripa vina nahi koi sadhana bal’ The special mercy of Sri Guru is needed to obtain the strength to escape from the whirpool of anartha. The foundation of anartha is addiction. When we supply material objects to the bodily senses and sense of happiness is generated, the addiction begins. It is easy to uproot addiction in the beginning stages. In the later stages of addiction, there is no happiness derived but the body craves and cannot live without it. Anybody who was a past smoker or a coffee addict can understand what iam hinting at. Our soul needs only one thing in its pure state – pure devotional service to Sri Krishna. It is completely satisfied with service. But devoid of that, the soul begins on the quest to search for different variety of objects in material world which increasingly titillates the physical body. To extinguish this fire of addiction to anartha, one has to seek pure sadhu sanga and hear Hari katha in their company. Hearing Harikatha and Nama sankirtana will cleanse the heart and the internal bliss derived will help us in minimising the dependency on creature comforts.This will lead to decreased consumption of electricity and the need for nuclear power.

Transcendental coach

2011-02-18T15:11:00.000+05:30

Coaches, consultants and advisors form an integral part of the formula to achieve excellence in any field. Be it team games like soccer, cricket or hockey, or individual games like tennis, badminton, coaches play a very important part in deciding the fate of matches and winning glory for the team. In soccer, many times the coach is more vital than the players. In 2010 we all experienced the mega sporting event on earth – the Soccer World Cup in South Africa - which comes once every four years. Spain defeated the Netherlands to take home the trophy. We experienced the contrasting strategies of coaches from Spain, Germany and the Netherlands. Germany depended on swift counter attacks whereas Netherlands depended on playing rough. The style of Spain was having possession and waiting for the gaps.

The world of business is full of consultants and advisors. From the big three business improvement consultants like Mckinsey, BCG and Accenture to the self improvement and CEO coaches like Ramcharan, the late CK Prahlad and Stephen Covey , there are a wide array of excellence selling agents to chose from. Politics has it’s coaches as well, right from the time when Chanakya Pandit played the role of chief strategist to Chandragupta Maurya, to present today Mccain who played a pivotal role in George Jr Bush’s winning his second term.

Why are coaches needed? Why can’t an individual attain glory by himself? Why should one take inputs from an entity outside oneself? One reason is that coaches have specialised knowledge, which helps them to view things in a particular perspective which is very valuable to enhance performance. Each field has certain areas of importance where a coach or a strategist imparts perspective to deliver excellence and victory - In sports it is your right style or approach in response to your opponent’s – for example Spain’s possession football scored over the defensive Dutch. The ‘Seven habits for highly effective people’ has helped many individuals to balance personal productivity, relationships and work life, leading to a more meaningful life. The second reason is that self introspection is itself not enough for identifying the loop holes and gaps which are preventing us from excellence. A view outside of ourselves sees a totally new dimension of our strengths and weaknesses. As the world becomes more complex, coaches have become a fundamental necessity for succeed in any field.

What is success? A typical individual in any of the famous metro cities of the world would aspire for success in multi-dimensions. The commonly understood dimensions are physical, intellectual, emotional, relationships, social, financial, and last but not least, the spiritual. Many times the dimensions are inter-related. Having a firm grounding and growth in the spiritual dimension can ensure concomitant stability in all other dimensions. Because of his interest in succeeding in these multi-dimensions, an individual may have many coaches – a physical trainer and nutritionist at the gym, a self improvement and productivity coach, and a yoga and meditation guru to take care of the spiritual aspect. The spiritual dimension, hitherto largely ignored, has gained popularity in the last two decades. Hatha yoga and kirtan yoga have become quite popular in the west. (See kirtaniyas.com)

The multi-dimensions of success mentioned above have arisen primarily out of a bodily concept of life. The concept of happiness in the bodily concept is the titillation of senses. Titillation means the sense of pleasure generated due to the interaction between a sense object and a sense. For example, eating is a pleasure derived by the interaction between palatable food and the tongue. There are subtle senses and gross senses. Sound, form, touch, taste, smell - these five give pleasure to the gross senses. In any kind of happiness in this world, we try to maximise these five sense experiences. The subtle sense pleasures are name and fame - being a celebrity for example. This is an urge to become famous or to be appreciated by many. If one wants peace and happiness, he should minimise the demands of the gross and subtle senses. Maximising the gross sense experience means dependence on refined processed objects. The objects are available in a gross way from Mother Nature. The processing of available objects in nature takes resources and is a costly affair. A fine dining experience in an upscale restaurant is costly, and addiction to such fine dining sensual experiences creates anxiety. The person becomes dependent on money to sustain the experience. The tongue which once tasted such fine dining will protest to going back to tasting gross products available in nature. So a yogi is always careful not to enhance his sense experience thru fine objects. He tries to satisfy his needs by using whatever is readily provided by Mother Nature.

We lack the real transcendental coach. The coaches of the lower planes of existence like the physical trainer, intellectual coach, relationship mentor and so on cannot deliver lasting happiness. They help us only to taste transient happiness and finally put us into misery. For example, one can build a great body and become enamoured by his body. But with time it is going to decay and our bodily attachment will only increase our misery with the dawn of old age. When in search of true happiness, we come across a transcendental coach; he gives a new paradigm of happiness called ‘reflective happiness’. He says if you want to be successful and happy, forget trying for your success and happiness. Instead start endeavouring for the increased happiness of the Supreme Being Sri Krishna. Try to gratify the senses of Sri Krishna! The transcendental coach will teach us skills of devotional service – the art of giving happiness to the root of existence Sri Krishna. It is said in the Srimad Bhagavatam – 4.31.14 –

yathā taror mūla-niṣecanena

tṛpyanti tat-skandha-bhujopaśākhāḥ

prāṇopahārāc ca yathendriyāṇāḿ

tathaiva sarvārhaṇam acyutejyā

As pouring water on the root of a tree energizes the trunk, branches, twigs and everything else, and as supplying food to the stomach enlivens the senses and limbs of the body, simply worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead through devotional service automatically satisfies the demigods, who are parts of that Supreme Personality.

The above sloka teaches the essence of ‘reflective happiness’. Just like watering the root automatically provides happiness and nourishment to the leaves, branches and twigs, just like working to gratify the stomach in turn energises the body parts, so desiring and working for the happiness of Sri Krishna will make us really happy. Components of the tree should not work for their own independent happiness but learn to cooperate with the other components to enhance the pleasure of the central root of creation – Sri Krsna. The Transcendental coach – Sri Gurudeva - is the perfect component, who is an expert in providing happiness to Sri Krsna. He is an accomplished dear servant. He infuses us with the service spirit, destroying tendencies for independent happiness.

The transcendental coach is simultaneously the manifestation of the Supreme Being, and the dear most of the Supreme Being. So it behoves us to search for a transcendental coach and learn the art of self forgetfulness and divine service. ‘Die to live’ is the essence of this transcendental service act.

Such a great transcendental coach, Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Narayana Goswami Maharaja, was amongst us and left this world on Dec 29^th 2010. We celebrate his manifestation into this world on the 2^nd of February. Transcendental coaches, unlike material coaches, never stop inspiring. He in his unmanifest form is continuing to inspire us to attain higher levels of excellence in devotional service - to attain the stage of prema bhakti, the super-excellent devotional attitude. I humbly request all aspirants to take advantage and to join us in glorifying and remembering him on the 2^nd of February at our Kagaadaspura center. (See contact us for map)

Happy new year - How true to heart??

2011-01-03T16:05:00.000+05:30

Happy new year 2011. The greetings were all around in the air as i arrived for the first day in office for 2011. Innumerable handshakes, SMS, emails!!!

I joined in it part of group think, which makes one do a ritual just because everyone is doing. Inside me i was thinking ‘what is happy about arrival of a new year?’. I have wished for the past 30 years but nothing better has happened. Corruption levels have increased, crime rates are on rising trend in all major cities and around us. We are constantly at fear of an imminent terrorist attack. So why we are all part of this ritual of wishing when the First of January arrives every year? Have we become very mechanical in life? Have we stopped questioning the intent of anything due to the ever increasing busy life. By the time my first day in office had ended, i had got heavily cynical of these new year wishes. As i was overhearing numerous wishes over the phone across my cubicle i was feeling how empty these wishes are. How many times do we really wish the betterment of a peer and how many times our heart, thought and words are in synch with each other? In the mad race to acquire more money, fame assets every peer, neighbour, friend is perceived as a competitor.

Arrival of a new year is a relative concept in our minds. It is basically flow of ‘Time’. Time in a deep sense is change. Time does not allow anything o stay as it is. Time ensures that we don’t experience ‘present’. In the material world that we stay, every moment is becoming ‘past’ by the time we experience it. Past and future is what exists in the conditioned world. Time is that energy that is on a mission to increase disorder in the universe. Time applies on human beings to make them old. Old means proceeding towards disorder or merging into the fundamental elements. Creation, growth, byproducts and decay -> this is the life cycle of an object operated by time. Just like air, time is also all pervading. Nobody can hide from time. This is echoed in the Gita where Lord Krishna claims in the 11^th chapter – ‘The Blessed Lord said: Time I am, destroyer of the worlds, and I have come to engage all people. With the exception of you [the Pandavas], all the soldiers here on both sides will be slain.’ The hand of the Lord is there in time. But why does the Lord wants to destroy the world using the agency of time? According to the Vedas everything in the world around has to follow the life cycle stages of creation, growth, byproducts and decay. This is sort of a enforced law. Time is the agent which ensures that objects are going thru these stages – be it living or non living. The only difference being non-living things may not give rise to byproducts.

Time operates on us as long as we are engaged in an attitude of consumption towards the world. The world is meant for my enjoyment and the only goal of life is to enhance quality and quantity of enjoyment. As long as we wish ‘Happy new year’ with this consumption attitude in mind, it can never turn out to be auspicious. Time and the decaying effects of time harp on individuals with consumption attitude. To become free of time we have to develop an attitude opposite that of consumption, which is that of service. Service is the opposite of consumption. To serve and to enjoy are contrasting verbs. To enjoy means an inward flow from the environment to the individual whereas Service is going away from the individual towards an outside entity. The word duty or dharma is always associated with service. To serve parents, nation, is duty – we keep hearing the clarion calls frequently. All of the duties or dharmas is not sanatana dharma. There is only one kind of service which is called sanatana dharma. For understanding which service becomes sanatana dharma we have to delve into components of service. Service involves the ‘Servant’ , the ‘master or served object’ and the activity of service. When the servant is ‘anything living’ and the served is ‘the supreme being’ – the activity of service is called sanatana dharma. In other words service without trace of a self consumption expectation meant for satisfying the senses of the supreme being Sri Krishna is sanatana dharma. We become independent of ‘Time’ when we are engaged in sanatana dharma all the time like flowing of oil. Any consumption is ‘adharma’ and divine service for the pleasure of supeme being Sri Krishna is ‘Dharma’. The first ray of auspiciousness is the first time the desire to selflessly satisfy Sri Krishna arises in the heart. This desire is obtained by coming in contact with a rasika or lover of Sri Hari. When the desire is continuously nurtured by hearing and chanting about Sri Hari, it turns into prema or love of God. Lets strive to make this Happy new year ‘Happy’ in the true sense by somehow obtaining the attitude to serve Sri Krishna in the shelter of his devotees. Seek out pure devotees, participate in hari naam sankeertanam and make 2011 a beginning of a truly glorious chapter in your life.

Raja Vidya

2010-10-08T11:17:00.000+05:30

9^th chapter of Gita is called ‘the most confidential knowledge’ and it is also the king of all knowledge. What is the meaning of confidential? Suppose i talked to a friend and tell him this is very confidential – keep it to yourself. Confidential means some information is not for public consumption. The Sanskrit word used here is ‘Guhyam’ or secretive. Why do we like to share information with only certain set of people? Like government defence secrets are confidential because it can get into enemy hands and can cause problems to national security. Similarly in the corporate world there are design secrets, trade secrets which if made public can cause harm in harming shareholder interests. Competition, enemity these are some of the causes that we hold some information secret. But Sri Krishna is the Lord himself who does not have competition nor worthy enemies. He is ‘asmaurdha’ ‘ajita’ or unconquerable. Why is he classifying some information as confidential? Also whatever he has said is available for public consumption. So then what is confidential here? There is a contradiction and paradox here which we have to harmonise.

Millions of data packets are flowing thru the internet but the confidential data is encrypted. Only with a software key tha data can be interpreted. Similarly there is encryption in the messages of Gita. So what is the key to decrypt the confidential message hidden? The first key to decrypt is becoming ‘anasuyave’ or ‘non envious’. Arjuna being a close friend of Sri Krishna was non envious of Sri Krishna. Envy means feeling sad at the happiness of another. Feeling bitter at the success and enhanced happiness of the other. So the first key is desiring the happiness of Sri Krishna, accepting him as supreme enjoyer and the sole enjoyer in this cosmos. As long we want to compete with him an an enjoyer we cannot obtain access to the encrypted confidential knowledge he is describing. The second key is ‘Srddha’ or faith. The foundation of faith is trust. Just like we trust our mother, we have to place trust in the words of the Gita. To the degree we have trust the confidential message will be decrypted. On the contrary if someone thinks ‘Sri Krishna is just another ordinary human being and he is just boasting’ one can never enter into the essence of the confidential message. By the association of sadhus, one has to obtain this character of non-enviousness and complete faith. ‘adau Guruasraya’ first principle to understand Gita is to take shelter of a bonafide sadhu who is a pure lover of Sri Krishna like Arjuna. Its a life long sadhana to become totally non envious and faithful. This sadhana is technically of 2 steps ‘Bhajana kriya and anartha nivrrtti’. Bhakti yoga and enviousness cannot go together. If one is envious one cannot begin bhakti yoga. Bhakti begins by desiring the happiness of Sri Krishna and performing activities to provide happiness/pleasure to Sri Krishna. The perfection of Bhakti yoga is when the individual has given up his independence in total and all his 24 hours in a day he is acting for the pleasure of Sri Krishna desiring to enhance it in quality and quantity.

We have to delve into the question ‘Why the Lord has decrypted these messages?’. The lord is unconquerable and he does not have any competitor. The reason should be for the betterment of the people in general because all avataras happen for the betterment of human society.. Offenses are detrimental to spiritual life. Criticising sastras are very harmful to the critic which can bar him for interest in spirituality/Vedas for time immemorial. If the message is encrypted faithless people will generally avoid it thinking it as complex jugglery just like encrypted data is of no interest to the hacker. This will prevent them from unnecessary meddling into the meesages of Gita and increasing ones offensive attitude.

The other kind of people who cannot enter into these secrets are the ones who cannot understand anything other than sensual satisfaction as valuable in life. Sense enjoyment is everything and they can do anything to obtain this. They worship the Lord or the various demigods begging for nectarine sense enjoyment. People who are open minded who can understand the miseries of sensual engagement and can embrace a concept of happiness beyond the senses are the right candidates who can decrypt this confidential message.

Dharma and yoga in product development

2010-09-13T10:48:00.001+05:30

Every Hindu is aware of the word Dharma. People in India use it with different interpretations, in different context. The words 'Guru' and 'karma' have already gotten into the English dictionary being part of the vocabulary. It will not be much longer before the word 'Dharma' makes its way. What is the real meaning of the word Dharma? People usually associate with the english word 'duty'. Going deeper into sanskrit grammar, the word Dharma means 'spontaneous property of any object/entity'. Every object exhibits some natural property which cannot be disassociated from it. Like the property of sweetness is tightly coupled with entity sugar, flowing property is associated with water, heat with fire etc... one can go on. Dharma is an idea in people's mind on how a object generally behaves. Its a perception of reality unchangeable with time. Environmental influences can temporarily modify the property - like low temperature can modify the property of flowing of water by converting into ice.

Now lets see what is Quality Management before creating a solid connection between the two. Quality Management is the science of understanding customer perception about the expected behavior of a product and delivering it to the satisfaction/delight of the customer. As we saw earlier, Dharma is the expected natural behavior of any object. So we can conclude that understanding and delivering dharma is the science of quality management. The goal of organizations is to enable engineers to embed dharma into the products. Adharma is any deviation(Defects) wrt expected behaviour in the product. This can be due to misunderstanding dharma (customer's perspective of the natural spontaneous property of the product) or unable to instill dharma in the product. If we look into our sastras, Dharma is always demonstrated thru yoga. Different kinds of yoga practices enable us to enact the dharma of human being. Without yoga we start behaving like animals by degrading to adharma. Applying the same to production principles, if yoga is not there during the product building stage, there cannot be an output of Dharma. The product development life cycle needs karma yoga(Action), Jnana yoga(knowledge), Dhyana yoga(contemplation) and bhakti yoga(passion, love) to delight the customer. Lets delineate the importance of each of the yoga mechanisms in product development.
Karma Yoga: belief in Prescribed action. The prescribed action is derived from industry established best practices. If members of project team align to karma yoga or prescribed action, success is guaranteed in terms of embedding dharma into the product
Jnana Yoga: Belief in Knowledge. Project should demonstrate knowledge sharing mechanisms among the members before, during and after the execution. Knowledge of Customers and their perception of dharma (voice of the customer) is very important
Dhyana Yoga(Yoga of contemplation) Individual, team introspections should be encouraged and formal channels has to be provided to encourage introspection. Each person should think whether he is line to fulfill dharma or is there adharma creeping in. What engineering yoga practices can be included/excluded? MSA is an example of Dhyana yoga at the organization level and Lessons learned is an example at the team level. What we lack is employee level contemplation which should in reality feed the other two
Bhakti yoga:Passion, love motivation must exist towards satisfying customer's need. Its the project manager's duty to instil bhakti in team members.
Vishwa rupa darsana yoga: Zoom out perspective on markets, competition, ecosystem of the customer has to be provided which can cause Bhakti(passion) to arise in team members. Manytimes demotivation is a result of not knowing the value transaction in the big picture, what difference to the world are we making.

A good model can be created by going deep into each of the Yoga described in the Gita. At present we have the above outline. By the practice of the above kinds of yoga in teams, we can reduce adharma(defects) to a large extent and ensure our customers and we can experience swarga after every project release.

Maniratnam, Raavanan and Ramayana

2010-06-23T11:52:00.001+05:30

Last week the movie Ravanan got released in multiple languages – Hindi, tamil, telugu. Its a ManiRatnam magnum opus scripted around the character of Ravana – the ten headed villain in Hindu epic Ramayana. Its about exploring the ten different characters in the same person and how they interact, conflict each other. Is it like a multiple personality disorder? I don’t know – haven’t seen the movie. There is a recent spate of movies based on our holy epics. If Rajneeti by Prakash Jha was a take on Mahabharatha, Mani’s version is inspired by Ramayana. In fact this is a first take on Ramayan being used as base for modern day story telling. Mani has to be credited for his creativity and for going in the direction of unexplored waters. What are these epics? Are they just stories, fables or reality? What makes them holy?

Is it ok to transform the theme to a modern day setting? This article is to explore these questions from a spiritual standpoint

There are many people who relish enhanced bliss everytime they go thru the Ramayan. Infact each incident reheard and retold put the devotees of Lord Rama into pools of ecstasy. How come this literature violates the law of marginal utility? In contrast 3 idiots can be seen and relished may be 3 0r 4 or 5 times but later one will be stressed out and go mad. Or take the Chetan Bhagat novel ‘5 point something’. How many times can one profess to relish rereading it? But i know of dedicated spiritualists who can get consumed in Krishna caritra or Ramayana for days together forgetting the basic necessities of the body. We need to explore the differences between these holy epics and the worldly mundane literatures. Holy epics are the recordings of the heroic activities of the Supreme being when he enters into creation every millennium. Why he comes and when he comes is described in detail in the Gita. His arrival and stay in this temporary world is for the welfare and benefit of all the living beings not only of the generation which lived during that time but also for the succeeding generations. Why is this? Because according to Srimad Bhagavatham, the foremost of the vedic literature – Hearing, remembering, reciting the glorious activities of the supreme being is very auspicious. It has the potency to elevate our consciousness from the mode of tamas to Sattva and beyond. Just by giving aural reception to the wonderful activities of the supreme being, we can elevate our consciousness. However there has to be faith on the part of the listener and the speaker should be of pure intention who recites out of love. As we progress to sattva, the differentiation between body the matter and spirit becomes very clear and one starts his journey towards eternity.

One can never tire speaking about the object of ones love. Just put your ear into a conversation between 2 mothers. It will all be about the glorification of trivial activities of their sons/daughters. Such is the nature of love. Love for the origin is a very rooted feeling. We all have gratitude for our parents which is very natural due to the fact that the bodies have come from them. The origin of the soul is the supreme being and hence our most primal bond is with him. This primal bond with our creator is forgotten and archived for time immemorial. Due to some fortune when we come across a lover of the supreme person (a yogi) and get faith in associating with him, this dormant love for our creator is retriggered. The narrations of the activities of the supreme being recorded in Ramayana, Mahabharatha, Srimad Bhagavatham, heard from the lotus mouth of the lovers of godhead changes the course of our lives and we start going to the stage of ‘never tiring’ to hear the messages of vasudeva. A taste for the narrations of the supreme being develops in us and that is the symptom of spiritual love.

The modern day film makers, story tellers unfortunately convert these immensely auspicious spiritual literatures into a mundane topic with relationship between man-woman being the central theme. As long we are absorbed in the relationship based on man-woman attraction and glorify it, our journey to eternity never commences. The central crux is the relationship between living being and supreme being. This is timeless reality whereas all other bodily relationship end with time and drag us towards lower modes. Ramayana explores the relationship between Rama-Sita, Rama-Hanuman, Rama-Sugriva, Rama-Bharatha and a faithful reader is able to taste this love while reading the narration. They revel in the heroic victory of Lord Rama over Ravana. Instead of casting these beautiful narrations into the modern setting, film makers should take shelter of the Guru parampara and make movies without diluting the original and glorify using modern technology. Then instead of dragging people into lower modes, they will be doing yeoman service to humanity by elevating the soul.

BP oil spill - spiritual lessons

2010-06-17T14:15:00.000+05:30

Recently 2 kinds of news are hogging the media space. The BP oil spill issue and the union carbide issue. Both have lot of things in common. BP oil spill is about the oil well deep inside the gulf of Mexico going berserk. The earth has oil inside it and we drill it for running automobiles and whole lot of things to enable mechanical motion. But this spill has caused irreparable damage to the environment. Whole ocean flora and fauna is dripped and bathed in viscous oil. Has led to irreversible damage to life. If we can empathize then one can understand the sad plight of life in the gulf of Mexico. The ripple effect on human civilisation will have a time lag but is sure to come. Whole world is a system with interdependent subsystems which need each other for survival and growth. So its only foolishness not to anticipate an impact in the near future. Marine specialists should extrapolate this event to possible child events that will be triggered in future. Why is humanity creating such a mess in the environment? Is it really needed to squeeze the environment for existence?
Humans dint want to just exist but want to pursue happiness and excitement. BP and union carbide are both ventures for profit – to accumulate more money using the environmental wealth. So much of oil drilling and burning it for useless movement can cause a disturbance in the stability of earth itself. This attitude of wanting to have more money is itself misplaced. As long as society glorifies and encourages such a attitude, we cannot have peace with environment. Of course we want more and more happiness, but when this is misplaced in external optimism wrt sensual cravings of wealth and followers it leads to disaster. The inner happiness can be aspired for more and more – no harm!!!. What is inner and outer happiness? What is the distinction? Outer happiness is about the senses. There are 2 kinds of senses – the gross senses and the subtle senses. The prominent gross senses are the tongue and the genital. Better, more variety food is the desire of the tongue. It is never satisfied and looks for more finer and more variety. Hence due to the greed of the unsatisfied tongue, many animals are killed and a huge slaughter industry is catering to this. Genitals want variety in sex – hence marriages are broken down in search of the elusive pleasure of sex. The tongue and genitals can never be satisfied and this leads to anger, envy and all the other negative emotions. The subtle senses are the sense of fame, greatness etc. The gross and the subtle senses put a living being in the pool of fear, anger, envy, grief, greed etc.

Alternate approach to life is regulating the external gross and subtle senses and developing a sense of inner happiness thru yoga. As we manipulate the external material nature, we get struck in her complexities which are insurmountable. Instead interact with environment for satisfying basic minimum needs of existence and aspire for growth and ambition in inner happiness. If we too much focus on environmental manipulation then we will not be able to control all the by-products. We don’t understand the complex system of earth and with imperfect knowledge playing with the interfaces leads to release of strange gases as in the union carbide and the BP spill. Both the macro and micro world are complex. As the instruments are getting finer and finer, insight into amazing complex working is coming out into the fore. Cell biology is so vast that 50 years before, this field did not exist due to lack of accurate microscopes. So at any point the knowledge we have about anything is imperfect because there will always be a next accurate instrument which will reveal further depth and interrelationships. Practising sense control and minimising our dependence on environment for pleasure is the need of the hour. By associating with yogis we should get a taste for the inner pleasure. This will make us move towards simple living and harmonious coexistence with nature. A true yogi does not revel in the aggrandizement of material products. He lives in the inner spirit and dances to the tune of the supreme spirit. With right aspiration we should find the company of true yogis. This insight into infinite complexity should lead to surrender to the designer of this universe. Surrender to the designer is the first step towards eternal auspiciousness. A true scientist should come to the point of surrender to the creator’s greatness. Then he can enter into inner life and find stability in simple living.

The real business is agriculture and cow protection based on surrender to the Supreme. All human needs can be satisfied by these two so that everyone can engage in spiritual upliftment. Do real yogis ignore the material advancement and products? No they follow the technique of yukta vairagya. Being in the world and using the popular lifestyle products, they make inroads to arouse the consciousness of mundane people. A yogi should have yoga or union in the heart. Then he can attract just by personal presence. But they don’t behave like avadhuta for preaching purposes. Unless one is advanced in yoga oneself, he will think an avadhoota is a mad man. Hence they come down to the platform of Madhyama adhikari to become accessible to the worldly people.

The real message is to stop over exploiting mother nature for creating and increasing the artificial necessities of life. Sales people are trying hard to increase the addiction to artificial necessities. The whole corporate structure is in the wrong direction. Capitalism is not good for our planet. But such a U-turn may be too revolutionary. We have to start somewhere and the clarion call is to begin yoga, reduce artificial necessities. Bhakti yoga is the simplest and involves chanting the holy names of God, performing call response congregational chanting, hearing to harikatha. By doing above under the guidance of pure yogi, one can experience the movement to simple life and high thinking.

Jadananda and cidananda

2010-03-08T13:43:00.001+05:30

Recently went on a spiritual vacation to Navadwip. Spiritual vacations are little austere to the material body. We adjust with simple accomodation and pilgrim food. This austerity helps us to be rich in cidananda or conscious pleasure. Can Jadananda and cidananda coexist? I think before going to this question we need to understand the significant difference between the two. Jadananda is the ordinary pleasures of this world. Jadananda is the feeling of happiness derived from the interaction or friction of sense objects with the senses. When there is friction between good food with the taste buds of the tongue, jadananda is generated. Similarly all material gross pleasures are born out of friction. Jadananda is of 2 types - the gross and the subtle. The subtle Jadananda is experienced when we deal emotionally by giving meaning to material identities. Ananda due to the interaction between father and daughter is one of the examples.
Father and daughter are abstractions created by the mind in a limited time space. Both dont exist after certain time and applying the principle of reincarnation, they will be born as totally different individuals with separate identities. Jadananda is bound by time and addiction to it causes immense suffering due to its transient nature. The network of samsara is weaved due to various addictions to types of Jadananda. Jadananda has certain properties. One is its transient nature as already discussed and the other is it adheres to the law of marginal utility. The pleasure derived from friction decreases every subsequent attempt towards the friction. The 5th rasogulla tastes less compared to the 1st rasogulla. So a person optimistic about Jadananda keeps jumping from one pleasure to another variety in order to overcome Law of marginal utility. This is a vain attempt affirms the Vedas. The vedas are a body of knowledge which deals with providing the ultimate benefit or uttama sreyas for all living beings. When we aim at Uttama sreyas we have to tolerate immediate pains which is technically called tapasya. Srimad Bhagavatham introduces the sanskrit word called 'Nishreyasaaya' - the ultimate well being possible in the cosmos. In Human life we should aim at Nishreyasaya - attaining which there is nothing more to attain. Animal life cannot go beyond Jadananda and they do not have the reasoning power to understand Jadananda and also to perform Tapasya. Animals stay in the moment without concern and plan for the future. Only Humans have developed cognizance of past and future. This cognizance is wasted in worries. The goal of providing past-future cognizance to humans is to enable them to achieve eternity or state of timeless existance - also called as eternal present. Thougths and action in the present affect the future state of existance. How to think and to act so that we attain the goal of Nishreyasaya? The positive band of the ananda scale is the cidananda or conscious pleasure. Cidananda is born out of sanatana dharma or the service relationship between 2 eternal entities - the aatma and the paramatma. One of the most important property of cidananda is that it is the inverse of the law of marginal utility. When we constantly think and act in service to the paratama, we will be propelled towards the goal of Nishreyasaya. If we impartially observe the nature of thoughts in our mind, it is towards procuring Jadananda or self pleasure. Jadananda is a result of selfishness due to the gratification of ones own senses. Another negative effect of Jadananda is that the material senses are never satiated and it demands more. Hence it leads to increases hankering, anger, greed, delusion. (More to continue)

3 idiots and the motivation for action

2010-01-11T16:45:00.006+05:30

Whole nation is going ga-ga over three idiots. The nation has woken up to the new year with the chants of 'All is well'. Hope with this combined aspiration, 2010 will be a great year minus the terrorism and natural calamities. A feel good movie with a message communicated via a laugh riot. This is typical of Raju Hirani - the previous time he made Gandhigiri relevant to the times, again with laugh riot as a vehicle. With 3 idiots, Raju is taking on the education system. The timing of the movie is accurate since India is awakening to the importance of innovation to drive the country's GDP. Education has to teach how to contemplate and solve problems using existing body of knowledge. Of these the skill of contemplation is superior. To contemplate is to think. The popular trend is accumulate information and perform repeated work to earn livelihood. In this way life passes on without challenging status quo. Problems can be solved using existing body of knowledge but What about preventing problems? That needs challenging the systems status quo, to modify going against all odds. How can lateral thinking be imbibed to find out of the box solutions? Optimism and an attitude to challenge the status quo are like an elixir for development.

The movie also addresses another important topic - 'what is the right motivation for action?'. The protagonist joins the imperial engineering college for obtaining knowledge and achieving excellence whereas there are others who have the motivation of marks and job as the objective of study. Success follows excellence is another mantra which 'Rancho' wields. Education system has to inbuilt the right motivation for action. Salaries and increase of luxury are pure selfish motivations inculcated in students which is leading to the problems of terrorism, global marming. Service, contribution to society at large these factors have to be inculcated as recipe for internal and external success. Success is seen in a very one dimensional way in society. Parents force upon paycheck, abroad travel opportunities as barometers of success. Fuller wholesome succes includes internal success. The internal success involves growth, development and social contribution - to solve a recurrent problem in society or to change the direction of society for the better. Getting little philosophical - can society be changed at all? Do you think Gandhi was a success? He got killed for attempting to bring simplicity in politics. Is it humanly possible to bring about change? According to Gita, the only time a revolution is needed is when adharma increases. The definition of adharma goes beyond general morality. Dharma is that which sustains and nourishes ones eternal self and existance. We generally care only for the nourishment of the apparent self which is the body and mind. But beyond this is the real spiritual self which is a component of the Divine. When processes for cultivation of real self is obstructed, the Lord of the Gita incarnates. Adharma is that which obstructs the growth of the real self at a mass level. Take the example of Hiranyakashipu. He practically stopped Visnu worship and ordered all brahmanas to perform Hiranyakashipu kirtan. Cow protection and fire sacrifices were banned. He foolishly thought that fire sacrifices feed energy to Visnu. By cutting fire sacrifices he wanted to make Vishnu powerless and hence avenge the death of his brother. A thought which went in vain after the birth of this son. So adharmic disturbances have to reach such alarming proportions for the Lord to descend.

Why God allows suffering in this world?

2010-01-08T11:58:00.001+05:30

Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is good, why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature is suffering and death. Recently i read about the above statement from an article on Newyork times about Panteism and the movie Avatar. The definition of God is that he is the root of all creation, the primal point from which everything emanates. Everything that be in the cosmos is a result of his multifarious energies. Life comes from life - so we as life have all emanated from the central super conscious life the supreme being called God. God also stand for Generator, operator and destroyer. Why is suffering created by God?
We chose suffering due to wanting an independent life from him. When we try to imitate God as an enjoyer we suffer. Constitutionally we are meant to provide pleasure to the supreme being. That is our innate nature. We were created to serve and not to enjoy. We are serving units of consciousness. Forgetting this constitutional nature, we try to create our own world with 'me' as the center. The Lord is the center of the cosmos and everything is meant for his satisfaction. When we are ready to serve the Supreme being and drop all plans for enjoyment, we are ready to start seeing things as they are. Otherswise our eyes are blidned due to enjoyment tendency and we suffer in illusion. When we are ready to serve, we become eligible to join his lila, the celebratory dance of the absolute. Having come from him, we have a strong affectionate link to him. That link is discovered by the practice of Bhakti yoga - the yoga which transforms our distorted nature of enoyer to that of service. Bhakti yoga reduces the consumption propensity and encourages dedicative nature. Who can challenge the free will of God. He is beyond ifs and buts and not bound by any principle other than love. He is a transcendental autocrat and dictator.

Avatar the movie and Bhagavad Gita

2010-01-03T11:30:00.002+05:30

Viewing James cameron's Avatar on 3D is an amazing experience. The fact of building an alter ego which is fit to live among the Navi community and being able to control that with the present human body is an amazing concept. It all started with the matrix series where you could enter the matrix using a similar setup. What is building an alter ego? Is it giving rise to another individual to satisfy unsatiated desires, which is possible in the alter ego. Websites like 'Secondlife.com' is a very poor version of the alterego
- a digital alter ego. But the concept in Avatar takes it to the next level, in the sense that there is a separate physical identity which is controlled by the nervous system of the existing human being.
The vedas have an amazing process for developing the alter ego. But in this case, after a certain growth and maturity the alter ego takes over and the existing ego is totally destroyed or diluted. This is a evolutionary process and the time depends on the commitment and intensity of spiritual practices by the practitioner. The alter ego is supposed to be fit to live in the spiritual atmosphere. Technically this process is called the 'Diksha' and 'Shiksha' process. The 'Diksha' process is like giving birth to the spiritual alter ego, the future real ego. Ofcouse we know that to give birth we always need a male and female interaction. In this case, the Guru becomes the father and Gayathri becomes the 'Veda maata'. They concieve the spiritual alter ego. The spiritual child is nourished by the process of Shiksha. Shiksha process primarily involves the chanting of various Gayathri and Hare Krishna mahamantras given by the Guru. The mantras provide nourishment to the spiritual child and gradually matures him into an adult. It is very similar to parenting process which nourishes the child and evolves him to youth and adulthood. Who is a Guru? Guru is the one who has a evolved spiritual alterego, so much so that he does not retain any trace of worldly ego. His spiritual alterego has become his real ego now. Only such a person can concieve the seed of spiritual ego in another person.
Similar to Pandora in the movie 'avatar', Sri Krishna talks of his spiritual abode in the Bhagavad Gita and also provides the process to become fit to enter his abode. The promise of perfect living(free from birth,death,oldage,disease,future-past paradigm) is described by Sri Krishna. The central concept is that the spiritual ego in contrary to the 'human ego' is always a service ego which does not know anything about consumption. Divine love towards the supreme being needs a perfect service ego and cultivation of a service oriented spiritual ego is of paramount necessity for humans inorder to find perfect peace and happiness.

James Cameron's Avatar

2009-12-17T14:49:00.001+05:30

Everywhere 'Avatar' buzz is doing the rounds. Nowadays you will not find a single primetime channel which does not have slot reserved for something about 'avatar'. According to initial reports, Avatar seems like a technological leap interms of cinema making and breathtaking experience. There seems also a hidden message in the movie related to global warming. The exploitative nature of human beings is brought out. The society of Navi depicted in Avatar seems like close to description of Vedic society. Living in harmony with nature, in close alignment and worship of their diety. In the movie, a human being is transplanted to the Navi community using DNA transformation. The human becomes like a Navi with 10ft in height and blue skinned(Sri Krishna's color???) physique. According to the movie, an avatar will mean entering a alien society adopting the foreign physical features. Lets explore what 'Avatar' means in the Vedic texts.

The word Avatar is frequently used in Vedic scriptures. Whole book Bhagavatham is about Avatars. One shoud be curious to know the real sanskrit meaning of the word Avatar and what does it mean in the context of our vedic culture. According to Sanskrit, Avatar means 'To Descend'. To descend means to come from a higher place to a lower place. Maynot be interms of height but interms of quality of life, culture etc... In the vedic scriptures, the worlds such as the one we live affected by Birth, death, oldage and disease are termed as lower worlds or material world. The worlds free from them governed by eternal life and everincreasing bliss are termed higher worlds - the spiritual world. When a person comes from the Spiritual world into the material world - this phenomenon is called Avatar. The purpose of Avatar is to transform people in the material world to become fit to gain entry and lead a life in the spiritual world. When the Supreme Being comes down and mixes with the Human society like Krishna and Rama, they are called Lila Avataras. When a ordinary resident of Spiritual world comes down empowered by the supreme being, he is termed as Saktyavesa avatars. There is always presence of Saktyavesa avatars in human society and they are always performing the service of transforming individuals to higher existance. They are also technically called as 'Acaryas' or 'Sadgurus'. The Lila avataras are not so frequent and they have certain timeline in which they appear. In the Gita the time line is defined as 'Yuge' 'Yuge'(once in a millenium). According to sastras, the humanlife is meant to endevour for this transformation to become fit to reside in spiritual world. Otherwise it is animal life. If we squander our life only for endevouring for higher and finer sensual pleasure it is animal life. Such a soul will be degraded to animal species and another entity is given chance in human body to attain this transformation. Remember folks, there are souls in waiting to obtain the human form. This is the essence of the principle of reincarnation.
By association with avataras especially the acaryas and sadguru, one should subject himself to the discipline of spiritual practices. Then we will start realising the freedom from the 3 modes of material nature. The acaryas teach how to meditate constantly on the lila avataras and develop the spontaneous inner attraction for the supreme being. How to become a lover of the supreme being?Our Human life can be made successful by becoming fit to enter the spiritual realm with the help of avataras as our teachers. If the film 'Avatar' inspires us to enquire about the real meaning of avatara for the perfection of human life, then it will be a great service to society. Otherwise it will just pass on as another hype lost to human memory after some months..........

Surrender, Serve and enter samadhi

2009-12-04T16:18:00.001+05:30

We integrate into another when we take up the cause of the other. This is called yoga which means union. When we shed all our independence and will and take up the pleasure of the supreme person as the only purpose of existance, then we unite into the supreme. We enter samadhi. The only way to enter the higher existance of the supreme person is by embracing his cause, his will, his desire as the purpose of life. How do I know what pleases him or what is his will, desire at every moment? The will is not like the dead person's will or power of attorney. It is a dynamic will which can change at every moment. So what is the medium thru which I can know the will of the supreme consciousness.
It is telecast thru another person who is in samadhi but has opened a interface into the material world - the Sri Guru. Total surrender to Sri Guru thinking him as non different from the supreme lord, will lead us to be invited into higher existance. In this dull dead world of matter one has to identify locations where the absolute is expressing its will. Based on the purity of our desire, paramatma will lead us to such a location.
How to empty of all desire, plans for the future? We have to fill our heart with the desires of Sri Guru and act putting all resources at the altar to satisfy that desire. Thru speaking the Gita, Sri Krishna emptied full of Arjuna's heart - the myriad of plans arjuna had all were reduced to ashes. We all have millions of plans for enjoyment - so called visions, mission of life. Sadhana yoga is the process of killing, nullifying these desires. At every moment I force my will into the universe and suffer. Instead of 'I' want, replace it with 'what is the Lord's desire?' for every moment. This is 'Kirtaniya sada harih'. Seeking and endevaouring to satisfy the Lord's senses - this is real bhakti yoga. The clue to entering higher nectarean life is the practice of this principle. Instead of forcing my will on the universe, I have to force the Lord's will on myself. Leaving behind all worries of protection and maintainance, giving up all sense of ownership, a vaisnava lives in the present and incessantly strives for the Lord's pleasure. He starts living in 'yoga maya' the moment he starts practising the intent of the sloka - 'anyabhilasita sunyam'. Yoga maya nurtures like a mother, developing his internal identity into adulthood.

Reverse Engineering of Love

2009-09-14T18:11:00.001+05:30

All of us have the experience of being in love. When in love, one wants to hear about our beloved(Sravanam), remember them(smaranam) or speak about beloved's qualities with our confidants(kirtanam). Almost everyday I come back from work, I ask my wife to narrate my daughter's activities for the day. Daughters are very dear to the Fathers and they take pleasure even in the trivia. In love, trivia brings in so much ananda. Even when I was in Munich on a business trip, I would get my daily dosage of my daughter's activities...........

Now take this concept of love to a higher level, the soul's love for Sri Krishna. He is the beloved for all souls and hence all his minute activities of his various excursions to this planet are documented in the texts like Bhagavatha. Now most souls of this world are wandering forgetting their beloved, heart of hearts - Sri Krishna. The process of Bhakti yoga recommends to hear, remember and chant the activities of Sri Krishna. These activities of sravana, smarana, kirtana even though performed without taste in the beginning, over time the soul's lost love is recovered and it starts floating in the divine love.

This is the Lord's central message in the Gita - chant, remember and hear about my glorious activities as a sadhana thru the process of reverse engineering of Love (Bhakti yoga), then gradually you will find me as your beloved....................then the treacherous life in this planet comes to a halt, we becoming a member of the land of love - Vrindavan

Why the word reverse engieering is used? If love leads to spontaneous hearing, chanting and remembering about our beloved, can the activities hearing, chanting and remembering lead to Love - this is Bhakti yoga!!!!

Multiple appearances of the supreme being

2009-09-14T17:33:00.000+05:30

The Lord appears in multiple forms - in all kinds of wordly elements. Worldly elements i mean - plants, animals, Human being, sound, water etc. Regarding plants, tulasi is the manifestation of divinity. By properly worshipping and caring of the Tulasi plant, one can get the desire for attaining Bhagavan and also increase the probability of meeting Sri Bhagavan's own men wandering in this planet in disguise. Cow is also an emblem of divinity. Go-seva is very prominent as a method for cleansing consciousness in Braj mandal (Mathura-Vrindavan). Be caring for the cow and showering affection, ones lost love for Sri Krishna can be awakened. The seven holy rivers of India have immense potential to cleanse our inner being and arouse the urge to get out of this miserable world. 'Gangeca, yamune caiva, Godavari Saraswati, narmade sindhu cauvery Jale smin sannidhim kuru' goes a famous sanskrit verse. By bathing in these holy rivers one can have immense benefit. It is better to plan ones vacation in proximity to these holy rivers. The Lord has appeared in the form of his sweet names in the sound form. The Hare Krishna mahamantra is the prominent sound manifestation of Adhoksaja - the universal consciousness.
But all of the above manifestations (Plant, animal, water, sound) are static, in the sense they are inactive. We cannot converse or talk to them. Hence the Lord Sri Krishna appears in the most powerful manifestation in the form of a human being as Sri Guru. Coming in contact with the static manifestations of Bhagavan, one accumulates sukrti which increase the probability of meeting the Human manifestation of the Lord - Sri Guru. Sri Guru mercifully gives the mantra and awakens our eternal identity thru the Diksha process. He also arranges for Sravanam and Kirtanam by manifesting sweet Harikatha, which waters the seed of the eternal identity. Lets all take advantage of all these wonderful manifestations of the Supreme being Sri Krishna and get ready to get out of this miserable place and become qualified to enter the Land of Love - Sri Vrindavan.

Liquor, intoxication and Bhakti yoga

2009-07-10T15:07:00.000+05:30

105 dead consuming spurious liquor in Ahmedabad. Liquor intoxicates us and makes us numb about the reality in the world. Why do humans prefer intoxicating beverages like tea, coffee, alcohol etc? Intoxication acts on the nervous system and releases certain chemicals in the brain which give a sense of euphoria. This helps us to tolerate the reality of hard labor in this world. Everyone is subjected to hard labor in one form or the other. To sustain this body one needs to serve by working hard. Most of us desire life full of fun frolic and we work hard to escape hardwork infuture. Many financial magazines have this article of how to makeup for a second income equivalent to your first income by intelligent investing. But hardly anyone is successful in evading hardwork, stress and tension to makeup for sustenence and maintenance. The universal law is - to sustain ones existance one cannot skip hard work. So intoxicants are a short cut patch solution to make our nerves numb to the impact of hard work. Yoga is a longterm permanent solution to attain the goal of fun and frolic without hardwork. Mandatory hardwork is usually in jails - extending this thought can we preclude that design of the universe is that of a jail. The universal energies continously supervise to ensure nobody escapes hard labor. If it’s a jail, then as residents we are all criminals. So what is the crime committed that we are in this terrible condition constrained by hard labor, fear, and death. Are we living in harmony with the nature around us? Misconception of self is the first crime committed. We all foolishly think that we are the body whereas in reality we are eternal spirit souls. The misconception is caused by forgetfullness of Sri Krishna and this is caused by seeking a life independent of the supreme being. So ther perfect blissful solution is to integrate our life in love with the supreme being - 'Krsnera samsara kori chaadi anacaar' says Narottam Das thakur - Perform all your worldly activities in relation to the Supreme being. The science of Bhakti yoga helps us in integrating in love with the supreme being and escape the jail of Mrtyu Samsaara.
Chant Hare Krishna and by happy!!!!

Capitalism and Poor monsoon

2009-07-09T16:10:00.001+05:30

Over the last month in all major newspapers and news channels we have been hearing of poor monsoons this year in India. The northwest India including the states of Punjab and Haryana are most affected by this. Are we in control of rains? Can we with all the pride in science control monsoons or are we still at nature's mercy? The latter is the unfortunate answer. The phenomenon of how rains are caused is understood but when special causes of variation disturb this cycle, Humanity is not able to fix them. Do we lack a wholistic understanding of the whole universe as a system of interconnected components and phenomenon? Science understanding of the universe and allopathy's understanding of human body is very similar. Allopathy is aplying havoc in the human body just like Industrial revolution has played havoc with natural systems in the universe. An example of allopathy's follies is that when one takes antibiotics for curing bacterial infection, it destoys the positive bacteria in the intestine needed for absorption of nutrients. Similarly paracetemol which is a fever reducer causes liver toxins and can even go the extent of damaging the liver. Excessive explotitation of natural resources has led to green house effect and global warming. Oil exploration, mining of iron ore and other minerals all for sustaining artficial stressful life in big cities. The cutting of wood to make paper, and house construction. Artificial urban life has led to increased need of refrigeration and trade of food beyond the local area. When food needs to transported and stored for days together, refrigeration is utmost necessity. Refrigeration release CFC and damages the ozone layer leading to global warming and acid rains. The design of the universe favors agrarian economy. The goal of the universe is to enable emancipation of the consciosuness from the cage of the body. This requires not to increase necessities of the body. The universe discourages artificial increase in bodily luxury. A minimalistic life style with engaging most time in spiritual pursuit of disentaglement of consciousness. The nature system is so designed to cater the basic necessities of water food shelter to all living beings. The capitalist mentality of increasing growth and maximising profits is leading to breakdown in nature systems. The root cause of all this is a total wrong understanding of what makes one happy? Happiness is in consciousness and not in supplying more refined objects to the senses. When the pivot becomes sensual happiness, industries are developed to cater to those needs. There will always be dynamic progress in human society. If the motivation for progress is not internally directed towards consciosuness and spiritual progress, we land up in similar to the present situation of environmental degradation. The entire intellectual energy focus is towards the external environment, to exploit more and more to better human life on the bodily plane!!!!!
Time to do a rethink and for humanity to focus on internal growth and tolerate external urges!!!!

China rioting and elevation of consciousness

2009-07-08T17:23:00.000+05:30

Riots in china - think the muslim insurgency is taking a strong hold in china also. Is the iron willed communistic rule shaken? The communist rule in contrast to democracy does not give much freedom for raising individual voice. Opinions in opposition to governmental stance will be dealt with force. It is a monololy of a single party - the communist party. The vices of kaliyuga is curtailed by democracy where single decision making and monopoly is discouraged. Satva guna is very rare in Kaliyuga. Under the influence of Rajas and Tamas, selfishness dominates every individual's mindset. People don’t find satisfaction in service but use positions of authority for self aggrandizement. Satisfaction of service is superior to satisfaction obtained by refined gratification of senses. Democracy is the best of the worst arrangement to counteract the effects of rajas and tamas. The hope is that collective decision making and management will keep in check the excessive aggrandizement of selfish interests. But scams which are a result of systemic failure are common in all democracies. Still anyday it is better than monarchy or communism.
The degradation in human virtue has happened due to 2 reasons - one the overall environment in kaliyuga is dominated by the lower modes and the second is that there is total absence of any training in schools or colleges to elevate young citizens and future leaders towards sattva guna. Certain practices elevate the consciosuness which make the person to relish service than gratification. Chanting mantras like the Hare Krishna mahamantra during brahma muhurtha has a profound effect in increasing the virtues in a person. The difference between a conditioned and liberated consciousness is exactly like the difference between the wet and dry coconut. In a wet coconut the external covering and the internal pulp are tightly integrated where as in a dry coconut they are distinct. One can detect this difference by hearing a sound on shaking the dry coconut. The human life affords us a chance to get trained to separate the consciosuness from matter. The preliminary goal of all yoga is to achieve this separation. Contentment is proportion to the degree of liberation. Pranyama helps to loosen the knot of consciousness to the body. But there is every risk that consciousness can be pulled back by the forces of matter. If the consciosuness is held by universal consciosuness by spiritual force called prem, then there is zero probability that it can be again trapped by material forces. Bhakti yoga enables the spiritual forces to bond the consciousness with the supreme being and ensures permanent liberation from dull matter.

The budget!!!!

2009-07-07T16:29:00.000+05:30

The newly appointed government in india declared the annual budget. Budget an exercise of resource allocation. Government has income and expenditure just like any functional organization. Major part of the income comes from the tax payer. How this income is allocated to different developmental projects. Most governmental development projects are not for profits. But the thing created by the project has to be maintained for its sustained use. A budget is also a planning exercise which needs lots of foresight. There are both allocation for yearly projects and continued input to long term projects. How does a governmental budget contrast a corporate budget? ROI for each budget allocation component is critical for corporate. There are various scenarios. New investments, continued investments, short term profits - corporates are measured by quarterly results - hence a balance between long term and short term allocations is very critical. The 3 major activities of a corporation are operating, investing and financing.
Does Gita and the vedas talk anything about Budget? Throughout our scriptures, how time is spent is given paramount importance. A yogi has to budget his time. The goal of the vedas is to assist an individual to attain a life state of eternal uninterrupted happiness not bothered by birth death oldage and disease. In our annual time budget, most of it is allocated for survival & security. With a flickering global economy any individual irrespective of his net worth can at times fall in the band of survival and security. For a person in the middle class, there is a constant background fear on survival and security. We budget for recreation in the forms of annual vacations etc. The vedas recommend to budget atleast 10% of our daily time to progress towards eternal life. What are the activities that can be done in the budgeted 10% time? One has to refer to Srimad Bhagavatham to understand this. There has to be a daily dosage of chanting Harinama, discussion on the activities of the supreme being Sri Krishna. The goal is to go to a state of Kirtaniya sada harih - constant glorification of the supreme being. There is a necessity of diversion of consciosuness from acting for maintainance of the body to emancipation of the soul. The body is an embarrasment for the soul. So its everyones duty to budget for emancipation - otherwise true happiness is not possible. Anyway the body is wearing out, what is the point is spending our entire time for the well being of the body knowing it will wither away after x years. Body should be maintained as far it doesnt trouble us in meditation on Sri Hari. As we progress in devotion, maintainance needs decreases. One can be happy in poverty provided one is rich in consciosuness. So budget your time to become rich in cosnciosuness.

Air france crash and one more now!!!!

2009-07-01T16:10:00.000+05:30

Just after a month Air france flight crashed into the ocean killing all 250 people, Yemen air craft crashes and 153 people killed. Marvels of modern technology the aircraft, is becoming susceptible to nature's fury. Nature is destroying the false pride of human technology. Many scientists almost live in a state of consciosuness which claims victory over nature. But new strains of virus are challenging medical science and new weather patterns are challenging the flight technology. The nature is like a software system. Exploitation of nature in remote corner of africa can cause weather pattern changes in America. This is global warming which is showing the interconnectedness of natural phenomena. Rains, weather patterns are all correlated across the globe. Its not enough just to gaurd national interests to protect the ecology. One has to wear a universal hat and become a universal citizen. Will there be a day where we may see coexistance of universal and national government. The UN getting more powers in controlling and regulating world future. Is there a invisible administration of natural forces? Just like dogs dont understand the dynamics of human forces, are we under control of superior forces not graspable by human consciousness? The vedas give knowledge of these superior forces controlled by superior personalities. But why cant we see them? Just like one cannot see the sun when it is covered by a cloud, our clouded vision cannot grasp these powerful personalities. But there is a solution. Our state is not as bad as that of the dogs. Humans can elevate their consciosuness to grasp and align with these superior forces. Bhakti yoga is the most powerful method described in vedic liternatures. Sri Krishna is taken as the primal force or the original personality. The all pervading consciousness has its roots in him. Everything is resting on him. He controls the force of all forces. Hence Worship of Sri Krishna is of parmaount importance to align and find peace against all forces. The worship of Sri Krishna is very simple and is performed by chanting of his holy names any place and time. When individual consciouness unlocks from matter and gets bonded to Krishna consciosuness thru prem - perfection is attained.

In flight reading

2009-06-30T16:44:00.000+05:30

After i switched companies, my new company asked me travel to Munich for 3 weeks. This was my second trip to Europe and the longest. The earlier trip was to Milano for 2 weeks. These trips happened at different times of my spiritual evolution. I was a rookie when i went to Milano having the childlike enthusiasm of a novice. How to maintain ones consciosuness inflight and during trips abroad is a challenge and one learns with multiple experiences. Food impacts consciosuness like nothing else. A spiritualist is always careful on what he eats, where and when. Once having tasted the high levels, a spiritual aspirant fears going down due to temptation of the tongue. I always ensure that i take an apartment so that iam not at the mercy of meat restaurants. One always finds good yogurt in western countries with flavored yogurt being an exception. Flavored yogurt has gelatin in it which can be an animal derivative. In contrast to US, europe is better that their ice creams and desserts dont have eggs.
The Sunday before my travel i was attending a sankirtan program in HSR layout Bangalore. iam very careful on what i read inflight, so i was on the lookout for some good reading material to consume my mind in the 15 hour 2 way flight + transit time. In the temple library i chanced upon 'Mahabharatha' by Kamala Subramaniam, a Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan publication. Being an ardent follower of Sri Krishna, i always had several questions about interaction between Pandavas ans Sri Krishna. What was the first time Sri Krishna met the pandavas? What and how were the loving dealings between them? What all are the different ocassion and events when Sri Krishna saved Pandavas from danger? I wanted to delve deeply into the role of Sri Krishna in each day of the Kurukshetra war. How Sri Krishna was the most dangerous non-playing captain till date the history has seen? With tears in my eyes i completed Mahabharatha till Draupadi swayamwara on my onward flight. The perfection is if you can emote while reading Ramayana, Mahabharatha or Sri Krishna lila. 'Sada kale kale pramatha pathina gita charito' - 'when will the day come when i will incessently discuss, remember Sri Krishna's glories and cry out of love for him' says a goal statement in Jagannath ashtaka. The development of loving relationship with the supreme being Sri Krishna is the goal of life according to vedas. Sri Krishna being the embodiment of Satchitananda, one can feel the arousal of consciousness while the mind gets absorbed in Mahabharatha. Katha yoga is an ancient yoga system - an important component of Bhakti yoga. One can feel more than the experience of Art of living's 'sudarshan kriya' just by absorbing ones mind in lila of Sri Hari like Ramayana and Mahabharatha. In the return flight i could relish Pandavas brief bliss after they get Khandavaprastha and with Sri Krishna's blessings turn it into Indraprastha. Yudhistira completes Rajasuya yajna and becomes the proclaimed emperor. The killing of Sisupala, the Pandavas banished to vanavaasa, Arjuna's adventure in heaven with this father Indra. Iam always intrigued at the character of Karna or Radheya. But one thing i can conclude is that he did not have the favor of Sri Krishna. As the sloka in Gita goes - victory is where Sri Krishna showers his favor - 'Wherever there is Krsna, the master of all mystics, and wherever there is Arjuna, the supreme archer, there will also certainly be opulence, victory, extraordinary power, and morality. That is my opinion(Sanjaya's opinion)'.
karna sided with Duryodhana and his downfall is a lesson to all of us to be discriminating in cultivating friendship. Cultivate 'satsanga' goes the vedic saying. Becoming friends with devotees of Sri Hari is important. Vidura is one example who always favored the sided the pandavas. This earned him the grace of Sri Krishna.

Gay rights in India

2009-06-30T09:10:00.001+05:30

After much clamour and controversy in US, the gay rights movement have made a beginning last week in Bangalore India. In US different states have contrasting legislations either banning gay marriages or honoring them and providing equal rights as traditional marriage. The basis is the emotional and physical bonding between two beings. Forces of attraction are prominent in the universe which bonds/attracts two or more entities. Why some forces of attraction be banished and some honored?Just because opposite sex attraction is more prevalent since time immemorial we honor it and the same sex attraction being a recent phenomenon we tend to antagonise it? If somebody gets divine attraction and quits society, becomes a sanyasi to pursue and nurture divine attraction, that is also condemned by society. Mass mentality opposes change of any kind. Change is progress and can lead humanity to higher levels of consciousness. When subjected to forces of attraction one obtains happiness or pleasure. Based on different levels of evolution of consciousness, the natural forces of attraction a person experiences varies. There is a spectrum of eating habits based on grades of consciousness. Higher level of consciosuness favors green vegetables, fruits and non spicy food. Delving into the science of Gita which classifies matter into 3 categories - Sattva, Rajas and Tamas.
Higher consciousness gets attracted to sattva matter. Conditioned consciousness needs the support of matter even though soul is a independent entity. The ascending of the Guna ladder takes place as one makes progress towards liberation from matter entaglement. Yoga is the technique to ascend and finally liberate oneself from clutches of matter. The soul and consciousness is bound to matter at the sense points in the body. Sense indulgence increases the bondage to matter. Regulation loosens the knot. The tongue, stomach and genitals are the location of the knots of bondage. To nurture divine attraction towards the supreme being, all forms of bodily attractive forces have to be regulated. There comes a threshold level of consciousness when forces belonging to 3 gunas dont have any influence. The consciousness has reached the Vasudeva or shuddha sattva platform.
So coming to Gay rights, this can be honored and allow the people to express naturally at the particular level of consciosuness. Its a welcome move by the government. But Government has to take up the propagation of the science of elevating consciousness - the science of Bhakti yoga for people to scale up and experience higher levels of divine ecstasy much superior to alcohol, sex, etc....

Sibal and education reforms

2009-06-29T17:08:00.000+05:30

For the past 3 days all major news channels have one or the other discussion on education reforms initiated by Kapil Sibal. To make india more competitive, to increase the number of doctorates, to reduce the burden of exams, to enhance learning are some of the lofty goals of this revolutionary initiative. What is learning? what to learn? these have to be understood by diving deep. The faculty of reasoning is what separates us from all other species on earth. Reasoning is the process of understanding the layers of causation of any observable phenomena. Understanding the levels of 'Why' for impactful occurences around us. Learning incorporates people phenomena, nature phenomena. Fields of biology, chemistry, physics try to understand phenomenon in nature. The fields of Anthropology, psychology, behavioral sciences belong to the category of people phenomena. Technology belongs to the domain of creating products and services for diverse sensual experiences of the future. The foundation of technology is in physics. That means all around we are sorrounded by systematic phenomenon and not random occurences. There would not be any branch of knowledge if there are only random occurences in the universe. Hence the question still remains - How can a random event like the bang bang create wonderful systematic phenomena? Darwinism and Big bang are the real enemies of true enlightening knowledge. Combinedly they act to prevent the embracing of the knowledge about the supreme being who is the 'nth' why of any causal chain of phenomenon.
True education has to talk of eternity and on techniques to solve the problems of life - Birth death oldage and disease. Why have i got a body which is prone to these phenomena? Who am i? What is the goal of life? The senses are decaying and dying with every passing day. Hence the pleasure is decreasing due to inefficient contact and gratification of senses. Is there a happiness beyond the type of happiness derived by gratification of sense by sense objects? This atindriya happiness is the target for human life. Eternal happiness, uninterrupted happines, pure knowledge - these are our lofty ideals every human should strive for. Education is also about imbibing worthy goals to strive for. Today most parents teach to have goals for finding a job to find shelter and food comfortably. Are we ambitious enough? Filling the belly and having a roof - will this satisfy human life???? We have to strive for higher spiritual happiness. Our quest cannot end in comfortable survival only!!!!
Blind leading the blind - thats what is happening. True education is the knowledge of the soul and its eternal function of service to the supreme being. Maya is playing the tandava nrtya. Everybody has lost sight of this important goal to recovering satchitananda state. We are just satisfied earning money to fill belly and have recreation. We have to aspire to get out of this jail - Have to target full freedom from the shackles of maya. Knowledge of the supreme being is liberating and hence true education. SO Mr.Kapil Sibal - please wake up - introduce Bhagavad Gita and knowledge of the soul in schools and colleges. You will be doing real service to humanity.

Passing of Michael Jackson

2009-06-26T14:04:00.000+05:30

Today morning as I browsed thru Google news - the untimely demise of the rock star Michael Jackson flashed across on major news sites. A singing sensation and a wholesome entertainer who had a massive world following cutting across national boudaries. It is said that early fame and money takes its own toll. Why did Jackson become reclusive in mid life? Why does fame, money corrupt individuals? This is very important to understand. Because majority of middle class is pursuing these ideals of fame and riches. The case of Jackson makes us sceptical - why does fame and money consume the owner? What happens when this goal is met more than expectation? Its important to delve on this from the perspective of the Gita.
Culture of a nation or society is known primarily by what the citizens value and crave for. In contrast to the capitalistic western culture, the vedic society valued attainment of spiritual status. A brahmana who valued and practiced simple living and high thinking was respected more than a wayward rich person. So in such a culture the rich also tried to be brahminical to obtain social status. They sponsored big temples and cultural centers propagating divine music, charity by distribution of sattvic food etc. A type of spiritual communism was achieved thru distribution of wealth. The poor were well fed and taken care of. When real Brahamans are there in a society, auspiciousness is guaranteed. The Brahmana at the helm as a advisor to the king ensures that the whole society is involved in Yajna or satisfaction of the senses of the Supreme being. Music dance cuisine are all done for the satisfaction of the diety manifestation of the supreme being. It is said that Lakshmi cannot be enjoyed by exploitation. Sri Lakshmi is meant for the satisfaction of Sriman Narayana. So money which is Lakshmi sakti when employed in building Visnu temples give bliss joy and prosperity. But when money is used excessively for ones own refined sense pleasure, it brings about the downfall. This is rakshasi pravrtti - the paradigm that iam the center of the universe and everything is meant for my own enjoyment. The daivi prakrti is of service nature. The feeling goes like this - 'Iam a component meant to serve the complete whole - the paramapurusa'. When leaders in a society are of daivi prakrti, dharma rules and overall auspiciousness is spread. Citizens experience contentment.
Nowadays contentment as a goal of life is out of fashion. For contentment one need not increase ones wealth or social prestige. It is the art of attaining internal peace with the status quo. The senses are trained to be satisfied with the present acquisition. How this is possible? The art of yoga tames the senses and senses become ambitious in internal attainment of spiritual ecstacy. When people hear about contentment they shrug it off thinking this is for a loser and not for ambitious folks. The essence of vedas is to place ambition in the right direction. Ambition for enhancing internal spiritual growth and contentment for the external senses.

Wait for next week - will continue .................

Racist attacks in Australia - spiritual solution

2009-06-02T01:52:00.000+05:30

The racist attacks is a result of bodily identification. This creates artificial boundaries and groups. Based on various criteria many groups are created with the foundation of artificial identities. The interests between groups clash for lack of a common interest. Fights violence is the result.
In the true yoga process as preached by SriKrishna in the Gita, one undergoes a deidentification phenomenon on a daily process. This process enables the cosmic identity as a component of the supreme person and all transitory identities are done away with. This is the first theoretical step to get free from the entanglement of the body. The following sloka of the Gita is very relevant to solve the racism problem.

Chapter 15. The Yoga of the Supreme Person
TEXT 7

mamaivamso jiva-loke
jiva-bhutah sanatanah
manah-sasthanindriyani
prakrti-sthani karsati

SYNONYMS

mama--My; eva--certainly; amsah--fragmental particles; jiva-loke--world of conditional life; jiva-bhutah--the conditioned living entity; sanatanah--eternal; manah--mind; sasthani--six; indriyani--senses; prakrti--material nature; sthani--situated; karsati--struggling hard.
TRANSLATION

The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal, fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.
PURPORT

In this verse the identity of the living being is clearly given. The living entity is the fragmental part and parcel of the Supreme Lord--eternally. It is not that he assumes individuality in his conditional life and in his liberated state becomes one with the Supreme Lord. He is eternally fragmented. It is clearly said, sanatanah. According to the Vedic version, the Supreme Lord manifests and expands Himself in innumerable expansions, of which the primary expansions are called visnu-tattva and the secondary expansions are called the living entities. In other words, the visnu-tattva is the personal expansion, and the living entities are separated expansions. By His personal expansion, He is manifested in various forms like Lord Rama, Nrsimhadeva, Visnumurti and all the predominating Deities in the Vaikuntha planets. The separated expansions, the living entities, are eternally servitors. The personal expansions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the individual identities of the Godhead, are always present. Similarly, the separated expansions of living entities have their identities. As fragmental parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, the living entities have also fragmental qualities, of which independence is one. Every living entity has an individual soul, his personal individuality and a minute form of independence. By misuse of that independence, one becomes a conditioned soul, and by proper use of independence he is always liberated. In either case, he is qualitatively eternal, as the Supreme Lord is. In his liberated state he is freed from this material condition, and he is under the engagement of transcendental service unto the Lord; in his conditional life he is dominated by the material modes of nature, and he forgets the transcendental loving service of the Lord. As a result, he has to struggle very hard to maintain his existence in the material world.

Whole world has to unite under the banner of divine love as preached by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Indians should realise that their contribution to this world is not to learn technology but the gita and preach all over the world. There is no need to leave ones country to study technology. Indian youth should study vedas with a scientific bent, make life perfect and help the whole world just like Bhaktivedanta Narayan Goswami Maharaja is doing..............

Ownership and Doer psychology

2009-02-25T14:59:00.000+05:30

Spiritual sadhana is opposing the material energy governed by Goddess Durga. Without access to Guru Shakti it is very difficult to oppose the degrading pull of material energy. One has to evolve to divinity and not degrade by the association of mode of passion and ignorance.
The effect of Guru SHakti is immense faith that the goal of satchitananda is attained thru complete surrender and service to Sri Krishna.
Giving up all sense of ownership because in reality nobody owns anything here - ownership mentality of mineness or mamatva buddhi is the root of all evils - Ownership and doer mentality - Sarva loka maheswaram - Lord Krishna owns everything!!!Kirtaniya sada harih - this is the only duty - dont worry for Protection, maintenance and plan for enjoyment

Guru Shakti

2009-02-24T11:37:00.000+05:30

The band of Guru Shakti operates in a discontinous way on earth to atract people to divinity. Thru Sri Guru, Sri Krishna reclaims fallen souls. Sri Guru is empowerment of Sri Krishna - without surrendering to this shakti it is not possible to get insight into the spiritual world - surrender to Guru shakti with completely giving up mamatva buddhi is the only means. Presenlty Guru Shakti is operating thru Srila Gurudeva - Bhaktivedanta Narayana Goswami Maharaja and request all souls on planet not to miss this powerful shakti emanated by Gurudeva. By coming under the shelter of this shakti, one can transform oneself into a pure lover of Sri Krishna in manjari bhava.

Guru SHakti enables one to attain Satchitananda existance
Thru the medium of service one can access the all transforming power of Guru Shakti
Guru Shakti also emanates love and affection

Dharma and eternity or amaratva

2009-02-12T14:47:00.000+05:30

Dharma is that which sustains ones existance - So according to Gaudiya Vaisnava school of thought Krishna prema is the dharma of every living being. Why do you think advanced devotees can sustain without food water etc? Becasue having achieved Krishna prema and saturated with it, Prem sustains them - Prem is the thing which really sustains us - others are artificial sustenence. During sadhaka stage it is important to nourish the body with food etc.....So our sadhana to attain prem maintains us
Death is absence of sustenence - an identity which is illusory and artificial has to die and decay - only the real identity will be sustained by the universe - One can sustain for eternity and become timless by achieving Krishna prema

dimensions of who am I?

2009-02-11T16:51:00.000+05:30

How to distinguish between illusion and reality?
What are the parameters for saying something is reality?
Happiness and ecstacy are parameters for reality - If a state of existance provides for uninterrupted happiness - can this be called reality?
What is Sri Krishna telling in Gita about illusion and reality? Illusion is generated by conception of what this world is about? A personal conception of this world - The conception of this world in the mind generates action - an illusory conception generates illusory actions - mamatva buddhi towards illusory things - Vraja conception is reality - Sri Krishna is urging to give illusory conceptions of this world and surrender to the Vraja conception of service to him - This will bring in all auspiciousness to the self.

The question who am i has multi dimensions - one is what is the substance iam really made of? The other dimension is 'what am i' in relation to the environment?
From a substance perspective, we are not made of the pancabhutas - but iam spiritual substance - eternally existing blissful principle - sat chit and ananda are my real attributes
In relation to environment - Iam a dasa of Vaasudeva Sri Krishna
What is my natural real activity - service to Sri Krishna is my natural activity

Proper goal

2009-02-10T14:27:00.000+05:30

Creator will have a way to communicate to us of his existance and what this cosmos is all about. What is real pleasure or happiness? He should communicate .......
He will and it is logical. What if big bang is a reality? It cannot be since intelligence is behind anything wonderful.
Plus pursuing the goal of satchitananda is very important - it is the highest all encompassing perfect goal possible for humanity. If in human life one does not pursue the goal of satchitananda, he is an animal.
When one pursues the pure goal of satchitananda, he cannot but come and knock on the door of GIa, Bhagavatham.
When we have our own cooked up concept of satchitananda, we tend to worship demigods for material profit.

Another world

2009-02-09T16:12:00.000+05:30

Existance of another world and we really belong there than here. The world of suffering, anxiety, unpredicatability. Is it just escapism and hallucination about a world of God where the supreme Hero Lord Sri Krishna rules? or is there such a reality? Whom to believe? Whom to trust?
Our ideal ambition should be to achieve Sat-Chit-ananda. The universal energy assists one in achieving whatever goal one has. So we will be treading the right path when we have to right goal. To decide the right goal - as expansive and as ideal as ever - which has all other goals as subsets. Can such a goal be possible? Yes - Sat-chit-ananda is such a goal. Dont have means as your goals - but the goal has to be a core need - a fundamental need thru which everything else will be satisified - attaining which there will be no more to attain - Friends - Sat-chit-ananda is such a goal.
We are in a hopeless situation - we dont know what we really need. Scriptures say that Krishna Bhakti is what we as a minute unit of consciouness reall need. One may argue - no!!! i need tasty food, great sex and i want to repeatedly enjoy them!!!!
How do we decipher what we really need which can completely satisfy the self?
Harikatha is what sustains and nourishes us - The relationship with Sri Hari is what we only need - all others are anarthas or external need!!!!!
The outer world where iam presently absorbed cannot and will never satisfy me - I have to go inside - to the land of the soul - to the land of the spirit - where spiritual love plays supreme!!!! - I have to end the sojourn in this outer world

Bombs, scares and religion

2008-07-30T17:24:00.000+05:30

Last week we saw lots of bombs and bomb scares across Indian cities. Enviousness or misplaced religious ideologies are the heart of such destructive actions.
Religious identity has lead to perpetration of violence. How do religion and spirituality differ? Are these the same things? Spirituality is the essence, the core and religion the vehicle. The inherent essence of spirituality is same across all religions - only the body, the vehicle carrying this essence varies. Its like using a Tata safari or Scorpio to come to office. The essence is traveling and one need not get fanatic about belonging to a safari or a Scorpio club. Today's civilization has totally forgotten the essence and carrying on a specific set of meaningless rituals, customs in the name of religion.
We all sometime or the other have taken pleasure in thinking ourselves superior to others. Religious identity is used as a tool to enjoy the kick of feeling superior to others. But spirituality teaches us to be humble, to consider oneself lower than the lowest and embrace the attitude of service. There is a superior joy in service than in enjoyment. 'Service spirit' and 'humility' are the backbone of Spirituality. Present day Hinduism is also losing relevance due to attachment to religious externals rather than spiritual essence of sanatana dharma. How do we refocus on spirituality inherent in Hinduism? Thru power of questions and reasoning one has to deliberate the scientific basis of various rituals and how it nurtures inner spirituality. Many times we ask the question 'Why' and not see answers to them. Our parental generation failed to explain the philosophical and logical framework of sanatana dharma - that does not mean it is a portfolio of blind beliefs. There is a wonderful world of sanatana dharma to be discovered and relished. Empowered with the power of reasoning, one has to seek answers till one gets a model framework which explains the rituals and the riddles leading to a valid goal.
Atahato Brahma Jijnaasa!!!!!

Nakshatra lokakke lagge haaki ...................

2008-07-21T20:41:00.000+05:30

Monsoon is out here in bangalore ...........I left early in the evening from office suspecting downpour. I usually have the option of taking either the old Madras-lifestyle-Ashoka pillar-4th block route or the inner ring road-Koramangala-Silkboard route to find every evening nirvana at home. I hugely rely on my intuition to make the decision at the breakaway point. Its this belief in the predictive capability of the subconsious faculty. Somewhere a hidden inner energy guides us, hints us about the right choices. As it is we have complex innumerable possibilities, with our finite resources has to be supplemented by tuning in to the inner voice - the voice of the infinite. Its simple when the mental faculty is in alignment with the inner voice. The test of faith comes when it is in crossroads with the innervoice. Everybody at some point in their life have to make this leap of faith in investing and acting on the innervoice. Faith and immense belief in the innervoice takes one to unknown possibilities in the inner journey, the satisfaction derived by reaching the inner self.
As i approached KH road rain intensified. With most 2 wheelers off road, i found the drive comfortable, with only the wiper sound in between me and my full enjoyment of FM music. 'Aakasha ishte yaakadiyooo?' Our Golden star was shouting in full throttle - all for wanting to become free like a kite. One has to defeat the law of marginal utility wrt film music by constant reinvention in frame of reference. After hitting saturation wrt original mood of the song, i apply the Bhagavad Gita frame of reference and reinforce some of my Lord's teachings. Well intentioned lyrics like that of TZP trigger the remembrance and unique insight into various slokas of the Gita. The juice is in the technique of correlation, which can enable one to extract Bhakti rasa from a song originally designed for Srngara rasa.
Management topics is the other frame of reference. 'Aakasha ishte yaakadiyooo?' - It is the qustioning attitude which is crucial to Innovation. (Why cant this be something more?something better?)Innovator has an attitude of questioning the status quo. He senses difficulty in things 'ee bhoomi kashta aagideyo'. An innovator always aims at the stars ('Nakshatra lokakke laggel haki haro naave Gaalipata')
A spiritualist is also like a Innovator. Only the difference is he questions things much more fundamental than a world class innovator. A spiritualist questions the basic riddles of Life like 'Death' 'Old age' etc. Why death? Why cant i be eternal? Why cant i be in ecstacy always? Why should i work? Why the struggle for existance? Such a spiritualist is guided by the inner voice to much more wonderful solutions in transcendence - he shreds of his attachment to matter and flies away in to the spiritual skies ...............................
Folks finally its all in what our Golden star sings 'Nannii na na naii' in the blockbuster Gaalipata .........

Prime time.........our epics

2008-07-13T13:05:00.000+05:30

The other day as i was wading thru the morning traffic, i couldnt help but notice the new big billboard on MG road opposite HSBC bank. The vibrant dashing colors attracted my attention. The bangalore metro in construction slows down the speed after one crosses the Raheja tower circle on MG road. This makes it easy for one to catch glimpse of huge billboards on both sides of the road. The billboard read -'Kahani Hamare Mahabharath ki' with a very attractive huge cutout of the Pandavas. A new serial during everyday prime time 9PM on 9X channel.
I became very excited due to my new found resurgent interest in knowing Mahabharatha in detail. My old college pal rekindled this interest in me after he showed a very authentic translation by Kisori Ganguli hosted for free on the internet. Also i became happy for my kids that they can sleep off the day by remembering the woderfully divine characters of Mahabharath rather than the Rajiv Sharmas of 'Minchu'. We wanted to come out of 'Minchu' addiction and what can be more better than replacing it with Mahabharartha. I called my other half and sought approval for this TV prime time proposition.
Last 2 weeks prime time in our house in spiritualised. 9X's Mahabharatha and NDTV Imagine Ramayana occupy the prime slot from 9-10PM. Rape, Kidnapping, Murder, cheating - prime time news headlines in any prominent news channel on any typical day is occupied by such things- but experiencing them through these epics becomes relaxing and soothes the soul. After the serial, my children ask lot of clarification questions on the episode. With this they sleep contemplating on these divine characters. At the present time following things occupy the news headlines on television. I have tried to present a equivalent correlation in Mahabharatha of the day to day incidents

Fight among Ambani Brothers - Fight between Pandavas and Kauravas
Rape in any metro - Draupadi's vastrapaharana
Politics - Political strategies of Sakuni
Iran war and attack - Krukshetra was which has so many strategies
Nuclear weapons - Brahmastra used by Aswathama
Child foeticide - Aswathama releasing the Brahmaseer weapon to kill King Parikshit in Uttara's womb

Day to day incidents can be used as a trigger to invoke and meditate on an equivalent incident in the Mahabharatha.

It is said in Gita that mind can be ones friend or foe depending on the degree of control. When we think of controlling any thing, we think of focussing, scoping. One has to constantly monitor the subject matter and quality of ones thoughts. Without yoga practice, our minds are occupied in thoughts related to gratifying the senses. The mind concieves of the pleasure involved if a sense object is procured and the intellect starts the planning process for the same. Sri Krishna advises to replace sense gratificatory thoughts with discussions on the holy epics like Mahabharatha and Ramayana which is nothing but the narration of the activities of the Supreme being. Through this mechanism, one can reach the pleasure of the soul and achieve perfection. Rediscovering our natural attraction for the Supreme being is the goal of Human life.
The essence is to continously have Sri Krishna related thoughts in the mind. For that one has to first know the various lilas in detail. Then one can recall and contemplate on the divine incidents. This will make our life successfull. Meditation is not on light and other bogus things, meditation means single mind focus on Sri Krishna related things.

Finding our roots

2008-07-01T17:57:00.001+05:30

We had not seen a movie for a long time. Its almost like an addiction - one starts getting the urge to see a story sitting still for 2-3 hours - and then the excitement of the post movie crtique discussion - We decided to catch up on the 'Namesake' by Mira Nair. This was a long pending movie on our list.

Namesake is about discovery of ones roots. In the globalised era, trends sweep the globe and many times the youth are caught in this wave of culture trends. These waves bring in the initial excitement of something new but over a period of time one goes so far way from his original cultural roots that one starts suffering from a identity crisis. This is the beginning when one starts feeling something amiss. The protagonist in 'Namesake' undergoes this cultural turmoil until he finds his roots and the freedom, joy that accompanies when one is in harmony with one's roots.

What is a root and why one finds comfort being there? Root is our inner persona - the natural self with its original tendencies. Sri Krishna calls this technically as 'Svadharma'. He opines that

sreyan sva-dharmo vigunah
para-dharmat svanusthitat
sva-dharme nidhanam sreyah
para-dharmo bhayavahah

It is far better to discharge one's prescribed duties, even though they may be faultily, than another's duties. Destruction in the course of performing one's own duty is better than engaging in another's duties, for to follow another's path is dangerous.

One has to get trained how to identify and relate to the world from the perspective of ones' roots - Our career and relationships will be more joyful when in alignment with our roots. This is especially true when finding a life partner. Internal vibrations of compatibility are more important than external attributes.

Whats the spiritual dimension to this? Yoga is discovering our real roots in relation to the soul and establishing relationship with divinity to live in eternity.

Where do i come from? Where do i go from here? - These questions bother us manytimes - The Vedanta Sutras like 'So Ham' - 'Iam that'; 'Aham brahmasmi' - 'My roots are in Brahman and i really belong there' guide us to find our roots in eternity. Our parents, forefathers may be the roots in relation to the body - but since body itself is transient phenomenon and a component of illusion - How much importance should be given to the bodily family tree? What does Sri Krishna tell us about the roots of the soul? - where does it really belong? Catch up with the following slokas

mamaivamso jiva-loke
jiva-bhutah sanatanah
manah-sasthanindriyani
prakrti-sthani karsati

The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal, fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind

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Love holds supreme

2007-09-08T09:29:00.000+05:30

Love is beyond everything - beyond just plain existance and knowledge - Infact knowledge is needed to pave way for true love - to understand pure love and obtain nature, attributes in relation to pure love, one has to go thru various experiences in this world with Sri Krishna as our guide, charioter - This is that Arjuna did - Escaping from the world is not advised but at the same it is foolishness to face with world without taking inspiration from the Gita - One has to be armed with the wisdom of the Gita and face life's various intriguing situations - Is our confusion greater than Arjuna's? - who was face to face to kill or get killed by his own Grandfather and cousins, nephwes? We have to encouter such innumerable confusions armed with Sri Krishna's divine wisdom and come out victorious like Pandavas. If one observes the progression in the Gita, the initial chapters stress on knowledge of the soul, its existance uninfluenced by time. Knowledge of the soul is the foundation for true love. 'Rasa lila' -> the most celebrated love dances is performed on the plane of soul, not on the body as understood and imitated by rascals and fools infected by false understanding of the Gita. Arjuna is motivated to fight and enter Vasudaiva Kutumbham and come out of illusory conceptions of family and affection based on body. Bodily affection will be killed and destroyed by nature to motivate the individual to go towards love on the soul plane. Infact bodily love is a fallacy in the guise of sensual lust. There is nothing called love with illusory conception of self. Its all sensual conception. Love is perfect selflessness and all about giving with zero expectation of getting. And the object of love should be Puranam - hence Sri Krishna is the only worthy object of love.

Spidey teaches Gita

2007-05-30T14:02:00.000+05:30

Want to understand Importance of keeping good company - go and see Spiderman 3 - Its Aunt May's affection, religiosity, his pure innocent love for MJ and his faith in divinity which makes Spidey get free from the Green thing.
Are we all overcome by the green thing similar to Spidey?

Yes says Sri Krishna in the Gita. The Green thing in our life is association with mode of passion (Rajo guna). We develop lust in contact with mode of passion and lust is the all devouring enemy in this world.
Chapter 3, Verse 36. Arjuna said: O descendant of Vrsni, by what is one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force?
Chapter 3, Verse 37. The Blessed Lord said: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material modes of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring, sinful enemy of this world.
Chapter 3, Verse 38. As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, similarly, the living entity is covered by different degrees of this lust.
Chapter 3, Verse 39. Thus, a man's pure consciousness is covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire.
Chapter 3, Verse 40. The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places of this lust, which veils the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him.
Chapter 3, Verse 41. Therefore, O Arjuna, best of the Bharatas, in the very beginning curb this great symbol of sin [lust] by regulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of knowledge and self-realization.
Chapter 3, Verse 42. The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence.
Chapter 3, Verse 43. Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to material senses, mind and intelligence, one should control the lower self by the higher self and thus--by spiritual strength--conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust.
How does Spidey overcome the Green thing? Are there parallels for us to overcome Rajo Guna? What are the techniques Sri Krishna taught Arjuna?To get the answer await the next issue of Inner Voice.
- INNER VOICE (inspired by the Grace of saints)

Systems thinking dispels illusion

2007-05-30T13:59:00.000+05:30

Arjuna was local and family conscious. Due to illusion his systems and cosmic thinking was covered.
Confusion is a result of lack of systems thinking. Sri Krishna thru his friendly discussion elevates Arjuna from a local thinking
to cosmic thinking which brings clarity to him on his purpose, duty seeing himself as a component in the cosmic setup.
Armed with Cosmic thinking, illusion shattered he gets energised to fight ....................

Quite often when we are confused and in a decision junction like Arjuna, systems/cosmic thinking can help us to choose the right path.
its true for individuals, relationships, corporations, business decisions etc........

Being Stitha Prajna is a result of training the mind to always live in Cosmic thinking and acting as a component contributing to the cosmic goal.

Following are some of the conversation snippets from The Gita:

2.17 -> Arjuna said Now I am confused about my duty and have lost all composure because of weakness. In this condition I am asking You to tell me clearly what is best for me. Now I am Your disciple, and a soul surrendered unto You. Please instruct me.

Chapter 7, Verse 19. After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare.

The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal, fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.

Chapter 15, Verse 19. Whoever knows Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without doubting, is to be understood as the knower of everything, and He therefore engages himself in full devotional service, O son of Bharata.

Chapter 11, Verse 32. The Blessed Lord said: Time I am, destroyer of the worlds, and I have come to engage all people. With the exception of you [the Pandavas], all the soldiers here on both sides will be slain.
Chapter 11, Verse 33. Therefore get up and prepare to fight. After conquering your enemies you will enjoy a flourishing kingdom. They are already put to death by My arrangement, and you, O Savyasaci, can be but an instrument in the fight.
- Inspired by the Grace of Saints

When existance becomes joy!!!

2007-05-30T13:58:00.000+05:30

Chintane Club members were on a fun cum philosophical trip to Kodachadri Hills.
"Folks, lets do something iam getting bored" Vidya got restless that evening in the resort.
Uddhav, Kesav got together with Vidya to plan out some games.

At the corner, outside one of the huts, Madhav was just absorbed in himself experiencing joy.
Syama inquisitve about Madhav's behaviour said "lets get Madhav also in the discussion"
"Hey Madhav, What are you upto, seems like for the moment you are cut off from the group"

Madhav replied "Team, Last week i attended a discourse on Gita, where there was an explanation on the theory behind "Is existance itself joy?"
There were detailed philosophical discussions about pursuing happiness as independent and intrinsic phenomenon. Mostly in this world we pursue happiness
by doing something -> what i mean to say is that happiness is the goal of some activity -> like acquiring wealth, or fame or some trendy elctronic gadgets or dating a beautiful woman etc
The challenge in the vedas is - "Happiness is intrinsic, Happiness is our fundamental right, Existance itself is happiness -> one need not do anything to be happy"
There is a platform of such existance on the spiritual platform - Yoga and meditation is the vehicle to reach the platform of existential happiness"
Iam trying in this wilderness to reach the plane of existential happiness"

Kesav with great excitement said "Is there any corroboration in the Gita about what you are explaining?"

Madhav with his calm demeanour replied " Ya, In the second chapter Arjuna asks Sri Krishna about the nature of a person established in Brahman to which the answers of Sri Krishna are very revealing about existential happiness" "The word aatmaraama(one who finds satisfaction in the self) is used in many places in Gita and Bhagavatha to describe existential happiness. Following are some of the conversation snippets from second chapter

Chapter 2, Verse 54. Arjuna said: What are the symptoms of one whose consciousness is thus merged in Transcendence? How does he speak, and what is his language? How does he sit, and how does he walk?
Chapter 2, Verse 55. The Blessed Lord said: O Partha, when a man gives up all varieties of sense desire which arise from mental concoction, and when his mind finds satisfaction in the self alone, then he is said to be in pure transcendental consciousness.
Chapter 2, Verse 56. One who is not disturbed in spite of the threefold miseries, who is not elated when there is happiness, and who is free from attachment, fear and anger, is called a sage of steady mind.
Chapter 2, Verse 57. He who is without attachment, who does not rejoice when he obtains good, nor lament when he obtains evil, is firmly fixed in perfect knowledge.
Vidya said in amazement " Folks this is really cool, I really want to explore this existential happiness and experience Brahma Sukha"
Madhav said "Folks tomorrow morning at Brahma Muhurtha we will be going to the top of Kodachadri ranges - seems Adi Sankara experienced boundless Brahma sukha on Kodachadri peaks. Lets get inspiratioin to progress towards existential happiness"
"Lets take rest early, I will wake you all up at 4AM, Bye Good night"
All friends went to sleep eagerly looking forward for the adventure and excitement of the next day

Inner Voice - Vedas, Gita and Pareto principle

2007-05-08T09:12:00.000+05:30

Uddhav was more serious in spiritual life compared to the other members in Chintane club. He had taken Guru asraya - shelter of a spiritual master to seriously advance in Spiritual techniques.
It was Monday and Uddhav had to attend Gita discourse that evening. During the afternoon training in his work place he got quite excited about learning the pareto princple. In everything he learnt that 20% of the things are more important than 80%. Quite often we get lost when there is a huge body of information but almost everytime in any subject if one struggles to get hold of the Pivotal 20% core of the subject matter, he becomes an expert in the field.
He extended the similar thought to spirituality, what is the pivotal 20% of the vedas knowing which one can know everything? In the evening, after the discourse he put the question to his Guru - " You said that vedas is very huge body of knowledge and one life is insufficient to know the entirety of the vedas, is there simplied way of knowing the vedas in entirety? I have heard of the Pareto principle where it says that pivotal 20% is to be known to master anything"
Guruji replied " You are right, Sri Krishna gives you the clue to unravel the mystery of the vedas in Gitopanishad, i quote the following slokas from Gita which are self explanatory for your question
Sri Krishna said to Arjuna
Chapter 7, Verse 2. I shall now declare unto you in full this knowledge both phenomenal and noumenal, by knowing which there shall remain nothing further to be known.
Chapter 7, Verse 3. Out of many thousands among men, one may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth.
Chapter 15, Verse 15. I am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas I am to be known; indeed I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.
Chapter 4, Verse 9. One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.
When the cause of all causes becomes known, then everything knowable becomes known, and nothing remains unknown. The Vedas say, "yasmin vijnate sarvam eva vijnatam bhavanti."
The following slokas are evidence enough of why Harikatha was very prominent even 30 years back in India. The secret is by knowing Supreme Lord Sri Krishna one can know everything that is knowable.

Friday Musings contd ............

2007-05-08T09:11:00.001+05:30

Outlook reminder flashed - "Chintane club chill out". Vidya hurried to finish her timesheet entryto head towards cafetaria. She was eagerly waiting whole week after getting a taste theprevious Friday. As she entered cafe, she felt comfortable seeing most of the chintane membersin the coffee queue.Uddhav said "folks i have exciting plan this weekend - iam on to explore a old Lord Kurma templeon the outskirts of Mysore, its really a much needed break i need from the hectic week i had"Madhav said " I would like to join too, have you done backgorund research of the diety and theshtala purana, I enjoy sight seeing backed up by prior research"Uddhav said " Ya man!, I will send across the blog site"

Vidya, being a new entrant to the club questioned "Team i have some fundadmental questions on this spiritual stuff and correlation to science etc""is being spiritual scientific, logical andsupported by reason?"Syama said "Vidya thanks for the question, This question leads us to continue where we stoppedlast week - Law of marginal utility and profile of the senses"Madhav said "Lets try to delve into what is fundamentally pleasure? what are the avenues thatwe seek pleasure?""Basically any kind of pleasure on the material plane is derived by the interaction of senseobject with the sense - for example the pleasure sensation of eating this samosa is basicallythe sensation generated by interaction with taste buds""Sensual pleasure has its foundation in itch caused by the friction between a sense objectand the sense" "Nature of itch is that the hankering increases with each additional itch - the hankeringfor the quantity of the sense object increases which is socially called Greed"Uddhav added "Hence in the Gurukula system, the primary training given was how to toleratethis itch. This itch also has a substantial influence on the mind"

Vidya asked "How are thoughts in the mind generated? many times even without trigger thereare streams of thoughts pass in and out of the mind as though from a external source?"Syama replied "We need to understand the science of matter - matter is a combination of 3dimensions technically called 'sattva' 'rajas' 'tamas'""Everything inluding thoughts can be classified into these 3 categories""These can be compared to 3 energy fields" "Thoughts are generated by the influence ofthese 3 energy fields on the mind" "Techniques to empower our self to proactively fill the mindwith thoughts belonging to the spiritual realm is called Yoga"

Madhav added "The necessity of spirituality comes from this nature of the senses. The bottom line is senses can never be fully satisfied, infact the hankering and greed increases leading to alltypes of negative feelings like jealousy, anger etc... Spirituality is search for happiness beyond the gratification of senses - it starts by sense regulation which gives the seeker feeling of peacewhich makes him pursue further towards happiness and ecstacy techniques"

Vidya "Thanks folks I think its time to leave for the weekend. I need to understand further ontechniques of thought control, what is spiritual happiness etc? I also want to understand time. Thanksteam see u next week"

Friday Musings

2007-05-08T09:09:00.000+05:30

[ Friday musings is a new venture as part of innervoice. Basically a fictional work involving 5 techies Uddhav, Madhav, Kesav, Syama, Vidya - These five are
passionate about Vedic culture, heritage and have formed club called 'Chintane'. They meet Friday evenings to share their insights and synergise in
Spiritual realisation. The innervoice series will capture the conversation snippets of the Chintane club's Friday musings]

Vidya exclaimed -"Whats so great about Mungaru male lyrics? Lots of indirect nature comparisons etc, I like this cool rap kind of music, keep
It simple is my mantra"
" I disagree here, one has to be living beyond gross to have these ehtereal music touch ones inner self" uttered the philosophical bespectacled Uddhav
It was Friday evening. FM Radio music was blaring in the background, The conversation was happening at the corner of the cafetaria in one of the top multinational IT
Companies. The group of 5 techies never missed to meet on Friday evening to exchange thoughts on fine music and culture. It was heartening to see these
scientific minds applying rational thought on everything traditional. Their passion - 'To make sense out of ancient India's tradition, spiritual culture and huge body of vedic literatures'. Almost all of them were practising spiritualists quite fixed in their inner journey towards infinite and eternity.
Vidya did not belong to the group - She was Uddhav's project mate and had come to just have some caffiene kick to sustain her upcoming long hours that weekend, unaware of the serious contemplation the group indulges every Friday evening. At times when she all by herself she used to get deep
enquiries about purpose of existance and wonder what this world is all about.
" To be human means to be aware of the three layers of existance - the gross bodily layer, the ethereal layer and the real spiritual self" quipped Kesav, practicing musician who strongly believed that classical music will take him beyond the realms of matter
Madhav who was till now silent jumped into the conversation - "Recently I read in the Gita where Sri Krishna speaks of this multilayered existance and the layers are
governed by the 3 modes of material nature. Does constant remembrance of Sri Krishna and his activities help one cross the modes?"
Madhav believed in the utility of vedic culture and wanted to unleash wide spread revolution in society based on vedic thought.
Syama the silent girl who believed in the combination of Bhakti and vedanta said "But Mungare male cannot reach the spiritual self, infact it causes a blocking at the
etheral layer, Only songs glorifying the activities and the love interaction with the Absolute truth can touch and nourish the spiritual self - You see those chanters
in pilgrimage places, they never get tired of repeating the same mantra vibration. Whereas Mungare male gets saturated and one cannot extract the same rasa
after 'n' number of hearings"
Vidya responded to Syama's argument - " Ya folks, I remember once of feeling increasing joy of hearing dasara padagalu, maybe spiritual songs are of that
character, one cannot have enough of it - "anandambudhi vardhanam" which is the opposite of marginal utility experience of material senses"
Uddhav said "I have heard about this Law of Marginal utility, I think we had a paper in Managerial economics in final year engineering. It was demonstrated using an example of a tea cup - that the taste utility of a tea cup goes on decreasing on repeated consumption - hence it has an impact on decreasing price - Sri Krishna is generalising this to all sensual experience and utility of a sense object in decreasing contribution towards giving pleasure"
Madhav reminded the group - "Its almost 6PM folks, lets hurry for the company shuttle - see all of you back next Friday for a much deeper discussion on
Profile of senses. What is addiction? Is there any correlation with the Marginal utility discussion we have been having? - Have great weekend buddies!"
Vidya felt a deep sense of attraction for the kind of conversation and made up her mind to join the Chintane club …………………………………...

Vivaaha and Transcendence

2007-03-12T15:09:00.000+05:30

The kalyana mandapa was overflowing with festive atmosphere. It was Muhurtha time, one half hour before noon. After participating in the 'kaashi Yatra' ceremony, I came back to take a seat to observe the further rituals of the wedding of one of my far cousins. I was surprised to see a bunch of Europeans next to my seat. They were observing the proceedings with wide open curious eyes. My cousin works in a European multinational and she had invited her Business partners. I exchanged introductions, talked little bit about the global IT business scenario. Once the fire sacrifice (homa) started, Svetlana who was more curious and vocal among the group eagerly questioned about the significance of all these rituals. Svetlana questioned me "Two people love each other madly and they have decided to go together in life, Why bring divinity and all these complex rituals.Its just pure attraction and why spend huge amounts of time on rituals.Cant you just party and celebrate this pure attraction?".
I was elated. Beautiful question at the right time since I was researching on the spiritual significance and meaning of various rituals used in ceremonies and festivals. I had some initial study and contemplation done on 'vivaha samskara' from the time I got invited to multiple marriages in my office. I asked Svetlana "Is it enough to come tegether just to satisfy physical cravings and emotional bonding?" "Its ok for basic sustenance and living - Wont life be more exciting when people in love partner together to commit to a journey to explore and discover the unknown infinite?"
Svetlana looked puzzled - "you believe in all this? Anyway I am getting curious, tell me more"

In the vedic culture of Sanatana Dharma, whole human life is dedicated for discovering the infinite(athato Brahma jijnaasa) and finally establishing oneself as a member of the infinite World. To streamline this transformation, society is divided into 4 varnas and asramas. Love between man and woman is invested to find everlasting eternal love in the infinite world. This investment is a process and hence the couple seek divine support and blessings for this journey.

It was Muhurtha time. All of us got up to bless the couple by showering rice grains. The process of Mangalasutra dharana started.
Svetlana's interest in topic got more deeper. She asked me "What are the various rituals in marriage? How do you seek divine support for this exciting journey towards the infinite?"

There are 5 to 6 critical steps in a marriage ceremony.
1) Naandi (Inviting the ancestors to seek their blessings)
2) Punyaah (Inviting the devataas expecially Varuna and Vaastu devata -> The water is used for mandapa and place purification)
3) Kanya Daana (The father gifts daughter to the Groom) (Being a feminist Svetlana raised her eyebrows hearing that a girl is gifted in marriage! I asked her to control her emotions for the time being)
4) Paani Grahana (The Groom accepts the hand of the bride) and Mangala Sutra dhaarana
5) Saptapadi combined with Laaja homa ( 7 steps of commitment and seeking divine support for the journey toward infinte)

The journey of purification towards eternity is undertaken in primarily 4 asramas - Brahmacari(Student phase), Grihastha(Householder), Vanaprastha, Sanyaasa. Asramas are institutions which assist spiritual cultivation. Lord Visnu and the devataas are the protectors of these institutions. These asramas also assist in gradual withdrawal from sensual indulgence and cultivation of inner life in transcendence.
The last 2 asramas of Vanaprastha and Sanyaasa have more proximity towards samadhi leading to a total withdrawal and disinterest in wordly affairs.

This is not deliberate but natural due to cultivation of higher taste in transcendence. The foundation of such a taste is put in the early two asramas of
Brahmacari and Grihastha which equips an individual towards total inner absorption by the time he reaches Vanaprastha. Just like any long and ardous journey needs a partner for support and motivation, our inner journey also needs a co-traveller. Identifying a soul mate as a co-traveller towards the infinite and entering into a commitment and bond for the combined inner journey by seeking the support of the Gods is technically called 'Vivaaha'.

Svetlana looking satisfied replied "Iam quite impressed with the sublime and ethereal objective of a vedic marriage. The real higher ideal of why
Soul mates come together to satisfy the integration with cosmic sporting of loving exchanges". The bride's side started inviting all of us for a sumptous lunch. After Lunch while I was about to leave, Svetlana and her friends thanked me for the wonderful insight into Hindu marriage. The thought of the universality of Vedic culture crossed my mind. I remembered the following sloka from the Gita where Sri Krishna spoke about organization of society into 4 varnas and asramas

Gita 4.13
catur-varnyam maya srstam guna-karma-vibhagasah tasya kartaram api mam viddhy akartaram avyayam
According to the three modes of material nature and the work ascribed to them, the four divisions of human society were created by Me. And, although I am the creator of this system, you should know that I am yet the non-doer, being unchangeable.