Meditations on Transcendence

Travel to Finland was cold. It was via Dubai to Helsinki. Business travel and all that stuff but anyway everything is a learning opportunity. Every moment in this world affords a inner growth opportunity. All is anyway a covering over brahman. Travel over flights are also deep meditation opportunities. Just close eyes chant mantras and meditate. Meditation at one level is just to close eyes and observe what thought patterns arise in mind. As you observe they stop and a ray of light from soul can touch if fortunate. So anyway it's good to not look into inflight entertainment but get entertained by observing one's own thoughts. It's therapeutic, believe me. Isn't a great time to introspect, self reflect? The flight connections, long wait sometime, poorly managed low quality flights all are part of the game. The in-flight announcement, the turbulence, the cramped cattle class experience. Anyway traverse the contours of your inner being folks. Kirtan is an amazing techniqu...

Travel to Finland was cold. It was via Dubai to Helsinki. Business travel and all that stuff but anyway everything is a learning opportunity. Every moment in this world affords a inner growth opportunity. All is anyway a covering over brahman. Travel over flights are also deep meditation opportunities. Just close eyes chant mantras and meditate. Meditation at one level is just to close eyes and observe what thought patterns arise in mind. As you observe they stop and a ray of light from soul can touch if fortunate. So anyway it's good to not look into inflight entertainment but get entertained by observing one's own thoughts. It's therapeutic, believe me. Isntit a great time to introspect, selfreflect? The flight connections, long wait sometime, poorly managed low quality flights all are part of the game. The inflight announcement, the turbulence, the cramped cattle class experience. 

Back from Vrindavan trip.....a trip to the spiritual capital of the universe. The concentration of spirituality is not uniformly spread over matter universe, but it is topsy turvy curve. Certain places on earth you can recharge your spiritual battery more because of intensification. India assumes importance on this earth for it is home to places of intense spiritual energy. South india has its share from Tirupati, Udupi, Srirangam, rameswaram to name some of the major ones. Bu there are innumerable of you start to really count. The SriVaisnava sampradaya calls it as Divya desams or spiritual abodes. It is the target of every follower of Sri Ramanuja to cover all of the Divya Desams atleast once in a life time. There are innumerable places in North India starting with the Char Dham, Mathura, Vrindavan , Kurukshetra, Ayodhya to name some of the prominent ones. West and East inida have their own share. Infact if you do a relative comparison every inch of india has higher spiritual energy...

Disappointment all around……sometimes life is like that. The events surrounding us send us into a topsy turvy ride of alternating happiness and distress. Bhagavan Sri Krishna says in Gita ‘Matra sparsas tu Kaunteya…Sukha Dukha sitosna daha, aagamapayino anityah, tams titikshasva bharatha’…….Lord compares this topsy turvy ride into the scheduled change of seasons. There is lot of difference between the regular change of seasons and the topsy turvy ride. One is random but the appearance and disappearance of seasons in predictable, follows a fixed pattern. By giving more credence to the statement of the Lord, we need to delve deeply whether ‘Sukha’ ‘Dukha’ follows a regular pattern and not random as understood generally. The seasons has to be tolerated. Right now it is very Cold in North India and we use various protective blankets against the cold. Most take resort to heating their houses using ACs but that comes with its own baggage of side effects. Brittle hair, dry skin are some of...

Sourcing happiness…..The nature of human beings is to source happiness from many source points. Some have a diversified portfolio of sourcing happiness, some have a narrow portfolio. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu in his sikshashtaka classifies 4 prominent sources of happiness common to most people in this world – Dhanam ‘wealth’ Janam ‘popularity, fame, following’ Sundarim ‘beautiful women/Handsome wealthy men’ Kavitam ‘Fame as scholar’. Some acaryas summarise as Wine, Woman and Wealth as the most common source points of happiness. But the Vedas give a clue about another inexhaustible source of pure sweet happiness and they recommend all living beings to strive for contact with this inexhaustible source of infinite happiness. This is the ‘real Self’ or ‘Soul’ which is repository of Pure existence (Sat), Accurate knowledge(Cit) and unbridled ecstacy (Ananda). Spending time on fallible sources of happiness leaves us with no time and energy to access the inexhaustible source ‘The Soul’. Sri P...

The aatma ‘real self’ is blocked from experiencing itself. The material energy ‘maya’ has two functions – one is called aavaranatmika sakti and the other is called ‘Praksepatmika’ sakti. The aavarantmika sakti covers the real self, its pure identity and also its nature of anandamaya. Intoxication is a result of covering of the always ever blissful self. Our true nature is to taste bliss every moment ‘Prati Padam Purnamrta svadanam’. When this nature is covered by ‘avaranatmika’ sakti, we start hankering because the experience of anandam is stopped. And then due to ignorance without clue to what is happening, the self covered by the apparent self tries to achieve constant bliss thru material means which leads to various forms……..intoxication of various types is the result – paan, Jarda, smoke, alcohol etc…..Some people gratify the subtle body to sustain constant bliss….but this becomes very strenuous and also causes pain in the long run, health issues etc….You see animals like cow alw...

Origins……..means seeking out the roots. It can be the family roots………sometimes Indian expatriates come out in search of their roots….ancestral lineage, native place where the family tree all started. This inquisitiveness to search out our roots is inborn in every human being. This is part of the DNA psyche. Nothing exists without a reason. Similarly this nature of every life to seek out its origin is a very important trait to attain salvation. At a macro level, humanity led its search which has led to many unconvincing theories ….one of them being the Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ essay. Having knowledge about the origin makes us feel secure and grounded……..without the clarity one feels incomplete. All of our actions are motivated by this incompleteness……to fill the void, to feel complete …..’om purnam idam’ claims the Upanishad. ‘Purnasya Purnam aadaya, Purnam evavasisyate’………that the absolute is Poorna who feels always complete and is not motivated to act out of solving incomplete...