Imprints of Hindu
Philosophy
Philosophyby
Bhupendra Kumar DaveLead us from the unreal to the real.
Lead us from darkness to light.
Lead us from death to immortality.
(Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28)
The human mind, like the body, is equipped with weapons to heal its own ills. The mind tries to restore emotional balance when it is upset. The emotional imbalance causes people to be plagued by feelings of unworthiness, guilt or inadequacy and under this stress and depression people become strange and alien to themselves. The life becomes dull and drab and almost on the verge of breakdown. This blocking of emotional arteries leads to the total failure of conscience.
The psychiatrials think that there is no way to restore normalcy of mind-function once the stage of breakdown is reached. Yet Fraud said that each love we experience, whether from parent, beloved or friend, leaves a deposit in the self, enlarging and maturing it. When we fall in love, we gain a sudden new perspective on ourselves. We know how we want the loved one to see us and we try to transform ourselves to match that image. Vitro Hugo says,” What a grand thing to be loved! What a grander still, to love.” The sages also came up with the concept of God and they created His image where love can be depicted. They have also defined His godliness so that man could try to match that image.
Love means knowing, caring for, responding, affirming, enjoying and adding more aliveness to life. Love lasts, which is comfortable, and love that lasts long becomes more comfortable. The scientific studies reveal that love has the power to heal, to renew, to rejuvenate and add to longevity by retarding the biological ageing. Love makes us feel safe. It inspires us. It brings us closer to God.
In this context we have the following lines from Atherva Veda
Love is the firstborn,
loftier than the Gods,
the Fathers and men.
You, O Love, are
the eldest of all,
altogether mighty.
To you we pay homage!
Greater than the earth
and heaven, or of
waters and fire.
You, O Love, are
the eldest of all,
altogether mighty.
To you we pay homage!
In the many forms of
goodness, O Love,
you show your face.
Grant that these
forms may penetrate
within our hearts.
Send elsewhere
all malice!
The ancient sages tell us that friendliness is the garden of love. As we add more plants, we get more variety of flowers, which not only make the garden more colourful and beautiful but also impart new fragrances to it. Since the flowering time of each plant is different, the garden retains its glory round the year irrespective of the seasons. The widening of friendly circle also works the same way.
Friendliness brings happiness. Psychologists say that the cause of most ailments is mostly mental disturbances, distortions and lack of morale. People who have not developed friendliness have an under-developed morale. “Enmity’ they say is so poisonous that it keeps morale too low __ low enough to cause hatred, frustration, depression, weakness, jealousy and dejection. All these poisonous germs are too ferocious and erode one’s health and make him sick. Friendliness brings compassionate feelings. Friendliness also widens the field of activity by having closer relationship with more people. We add more souls with our soul __ there are more souls to love and trust and thus the concentration of the supreme ‘consciousness’ increase in our heart.
Friendliness provides an excellent platform for exchange of ideas and for broadening the field of knowledge. It also provides a soothing ground when sufferings and depression arising thereof puts ones mind in low ebb. It is, however, noticed that frankness tending towards exhibition of lack of etiquettes more often comes in way of friendship. Friendliness has also to face hatred, envy, jealousy and even wrath particularly when a third party gets annoyed because of even no valid reason. It is generally assumed by the third party that this growth and strength of friendship is likely to interfere with its life purposes. Apart from this, the friendship, which is in general delicately poised on the pivot of mental attributes, often faces conflicts of thoughts.
Common conflicts of thoughts occur more frequently and on variety of unconcerned topics, in which the most common is politics. The tendency of hero-worshiping lead to more heated discussions and debates. The conflicts on matters of faith, beliefs and principles of life do not remain a common question of likes and dislikes, but tend to create fissures in friendship itself. Most of such conflicts often fade away and get buried in time. The conflicts of thoughts that tend to interfere with the emotions by hurting others feeling, soon get coated with hatred and are not easily forgotten. They raise their deadly hood at every opportune time with greater vengeance. We can say that even a small whisper is enough to ignite a flame. Conflicts thus enter the battlefield of egos. Personal attacks, instead of remaining verbal, invite malice to perform its naked dance. Friendship turns into enmity. Enmity hidden under the robe of friendship or emerging after discarding this robe is more dangerous than the enmity appearing in its first encounter with us. History is the record of such conflicts.
Confrontations and conflicts are part of everyday life and everyone feels cornered physically or psychologically. We too have the egoistic impulse to corner and trap others to make him a fool of himself. We forget that every human being is an ego-defending creature and he is conscious that the ego is put to threat whenever he commits mistake and is likely to face punishment, ridicule and taunts. When ego is so hurt, it does not allow the person to learn from his mistakes. Man by nature aspires for self-respect and self-confidence. Whenever these aspirations fail he develops tactics for self-deception and self-distortions. The spaciousness of life ends for both the trappers and the trapped.
The sages also established that the ‘Atma’ is the manifestation of the supreme God created through the combination of mind and the primal energy (pran). This has helped the man to value his life and endeavour to make it purposeful. They considered life as a gift of God. This gift has the mysterious power of offering series of gifts. In fact, that who love and respect their life, their life becomes the perennial source of gifts and each gift proves better than the previous one. ‘Loving the God’ is the first step and ‘love thyself’ is the next before we go into the wider concept of ‘वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम’ and love all the living beings. Love is the nectar of life. In childhood we get love and affection from all and almost in abundance. An adult gets love for love. He has to give love in order to get response of love. In old age man has the immense stock of love. He has only to shower love on others and remain contented with this only. In relationship based on love, we engage ourselves in an exchange of emotions, feelings and actions. We learn as we love and it is love that gives meaning to all our experiences. This is how the soul that is in love with the supreme gets the fragrance of love from all direction.
According to the sages the life is for living in a universally accepted concept. They therefore evolved and developed this concept, which they termed as religion. Religion in its totality symbolizes the continuity of fair life despite adversity- despite the compromising attitude of life towards ugliness within the heart and soul of the human beings. Religion is neither a performer nor a dictator in Hindu philosophy. It is also not an actor or prompter. It is only a lamp that lights up the stage so that we can see the performance of every actor including ourselves and judge ourselves as to how we act our part on our own directions.
Yet it was noticed by the Hindu sages that after entering the religious life we do not cease from committing sins, we do not cease to cause others to commit sins, we do not cease to give assent to another’s committed sins. In fact we have not to enter into religious life, but we have to see that religion enters our life. We have not to wander in search of God, but we have to enshrine His image in our own atman. For achieving this we have the art of meditation more suited for the intellectuals and rituals for the common people. The festivals and the mass worshipping provide a common platform for all to enjoy the life.
The enjoyment is not limited to achievement of happiness gained from the accumulation of wealth and grapping of power. Such happiness is transitory and fleeting. It is productive eventually of pains and sufferings. Pleasure and happiness are only concealed pains. Happiness crowned with ego soon loses its charm and therefore inspires greed, lust and blind pursuit for more joy and pleasure. Joy and pleasure cannot ooze from anything that adds to the ego. The sight of blood makes a murderer happy. Violence and fury adds to the happiness of a tyrant. Pomp of power brings honour and pleasure. All this brings ego into action and drifts us away from righteousness. Under the influence of ego, we learn to dictate others and cause them injury insults and injustice. We thus allow the happiness to dominate our inner values and this results in creating a jungle of hatred and revenge around us turning our happiness into chaos.
Unfortunately everyone in this world, in all his pursuits is trying to seek nothing but happiness. But no one is clear about what the happiness means, where to seek it and how to achieve it. This ignorance leads to indiscriminate pursuits of pleasurable objects and within the man flows stream of desires filled with all dirt of thoughts and filth of actions. The desire that gets fulfilled gives a momentary satisfaction but is always followed by the next wave of desire. This way we go on encountering waves of desire till some unfulfilled desire causes us the mental agony and every thing gets lost. The entire edifice of contentment crumbles. We are to late in realizing that the true contentment lies in appreciating whatever we have.
But it does not mean that joy and pleasure are to be shunned. Hindus do speak of detachment, renunciation, denial, self-control and abstinence, but that is for those who are incorrigible. ‘Sannayasa’ is not renunciation of the world and its joy. It is neither denial nor abstinence. ‘Sam’ means holding together and ‘Nayasa’ means to plan. ‘Sannayasa’ therefore means holding the truth and plan to stick to it. We too hold together all that we love. The emotions of holding and possessing are the natural part of love. The possessiveness of the truth is therefore love of truth. ‘Sannayasa’ means knowing the truth and loving and sticking to it and holding together the soul with the supreme.
Man suffers because he is responsible for what happens to him. He decides his own destiny through the choices he makes in life. Most of his choices are centered on all that which gives him the most happiness. One form of happiness is the one that leads to awareness, surmounting all his desires and sufferings. The other form of happiness is caused by contact of senses with material objects. Such happiness obviously gives delight in the beginning, but soon it withdraws its fangs after implanting the poison. The first form of happiness has a vision---a vision that enables the man to see the ultimate that lies beyond the immediate--- the permanent that lies beyond the transient.
Man has the power to know the right, but unfortunately he chooses to do the wrong for pleasure. Pleasure is momentary happiness and for snatching these few moments of pleasure man does not consider it necessary to listen to and be guided by the sane whispering of his own awareness.
Awareness has instinctive urge as well as transcendental potential. Man gets fascinated by immediate pleasure and befriends the instinctive urge, keeping aside the transcendental potential. The instinctive urge may not be good or evil, but it does make man restless. The total negation of transcendental potential makes him incomplete and the total negation of instinctive urge leaves him dull and rootless. For dynamic living a balance is required between these two. Total bliss (पूर्णानंद) is the nectar of dynamic living.
Bliss (Anand) is often mistaken with happiness. Bliss is a plant with root in the heart. It has branches laden with moments of happiness and has flowers having the fragrance of joy and pollen of ecstasy. The fruits of bliss are even sweeter than honey, for here the nectar of thoughts from al the holy scripts and thinking minds are collected by our senses, our deeds, our experiences, our thoughts, our faith and our beliefs .Our ancient sages have tried to fill the juice of these fruits in the vases of religion. Religion has therefore become the main source of bliss for us.
It was ‘soma’ the elixir for the human mind, which was distilled by the Rishies by way of discussions when they assembled for performing ‘yagna’. Rigveda says: -
“Great streams of divine words flow out from the minds of sages with the speed of gale, like rapids rushing down a slope surging with the high waves of wisdom. They beat through all obstacles as does a courageous war-horse”.
(Rigveda 4-58-7)
Even today we have this ‘soma’ __ the elixir for the human mind available in the holy scripts. We can even now assemble and allow our thoughts to gather the raindrops collected from the moist rising from the sea of ancient philosophy and in the mist of thunders of discussions attain the peace of mind for the welfare of our soul, our society and for the humanity as a whole.
True happiness teaches us how to rid ourselves of the negative thoughts from which unhappiness springs. Unhappiness not only springs from the negative thoughts but also adds to the negative thoughts. Negative thoughts could be evil thoughts as well and may lead to evil actions. Evil actions cause sufferings to others and these could be as disastrous as any natural calamity. Evildoers too suffer. Their sufferings are reflected in repentance, which again is the state of unhappiness, but with a difference because here negative thoughts try to correct themselves through confessions. Confessions do curb the sufferings of the evildoers but they do not and cannot nullify the sufferings already inflicted on others. Hindu philosophers therefore stressed on never allowing the thoughts and actions to go negative and plunge the soul in the burning bowl of repentance and suffer there till confession cools it down.
The one who confesses is in fact trying to end his own inner sufferings __ the suffocation caused by visualizing the evil effects of his evil doings, since behind every evil action there is some evil thought that makes man insane. Hindu philosophers therefore not only classified the actions as iki and iq.; , but also put the thoughts under the same categories.
In order to distinguish between true and illusionary happiness, it must be remembered that true happiness inspires creativity. As far as creativity is concerned, we note that man is most reflective of the purpose, for which God creates him particularly in the two spheres of life __in work and love. But as we see today, man has made himself alienated from the will of God himself, his responsibility to perform work and the human nature to propagate love.
Work makes man aware of his true creative nature. Even the creative principles of the Creator manifest itself in man only in and through work. Work therefore becomes most self-fulfilling and self-transforming. Work has to be a ‘free activity’ that is an end in itself__ work performed without an eye on results. The philosophy of ‘Karma yoga’ is enshrined in Gita with all its glory, where it is said: -
कर्मनयेवोदिकरास्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन
(Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28)
The human mind, like the body, is equipped with weapons to heal its own ills. The mind tries to restore emotional balance when it is upset. The emotional imbalance causes people to be plagued by feelings of unworthiness, guilt or inadequacy and under this stress and depression people become strange and alien to themselves. The life becomes dull and drab and almost on the verge of breakdown. This blocking of emotional arteries leads to the total failure of conscience.
The psychiatrials think that there is no way to restore normalcy of mind-function once the stage of breakdown is reached. Yet Fraud said that each love we experience, whether from parent, beloved or friend, leaves a deposit in the self, enlarging and maturing it. When we fall in love, we gain a sudden new perspective on ourselves. We know how we want the loved one to see us and we try to transform ourselves to match that image. Vitro Hugo says,” What a grand thing to be loved! What a grander still, to love.” The sages also came up with the concept of God and they created His image where love can be depicted. They have also defined His godliness so that man could try to match that image.
Love means knowing, caring for, responding, affirming, enjoying and adding more aliveness to life. Love lasts, which is comfortable, and love that lasts long becomes more comfortable. The scientific studies reveal that love has the power to heal, to renew, to rejuvenate and add to longevity by retarding the biological ageing. Love makes us feel safe. It inspires us. It brings us closer to God.
In this context we have the following lines from Atherva Veda
Love is the firstborn,
loftier than the Gods,
the Fathers and men.
You, O Love, are
the eldest of all,
altogether mighty.
To you we pay homage!
Greater than the earth
and heaven, or of
waters and fire.
You, O Love, are
the eldest of all,
altogether mighty.
To you we pay homage!
In the many forms of
goodness, O Love,
you show your face.
Grant that these
forms may penetrate
within our hearts.
Send elsewhere
all malice!
The ancient sages tell us that friendliness is the garden of love. As we add more plants, we get more variety of flowers, which not only make the garden more colourful and beautiful but also impart new fragrances to it. Since the flowering time of each plant is different, the garden retains its glory round the year irrespective of the seasons. The widening of friendly circle also works the same way.
Friendliness brings happiness. Psychologists say that the cause of most ailments is mostly mental disturbances, distortions and lack of morale. People who have not developed friendliness have an under-developed morale. “Enmity’ they say is so poisonous that it keeps morale too low __ low enough to cause hatred, frustration, depression, weakness, jealousy and dejection. All these poisonous germs are too ferocious and erode one’s health and make him sick. Friendliness brings compassionate feelings. Friendliness also widens the field of activity by having closer relationship with more people. We add more souls with our soul __ there are more souls to love and trust and thus the concentration of the supreme ‘consciousness’ increase in our heart.
Friendliness provides an excellent platform for exchange of ideas and for broadening the field of knowledge. It also provides a soothing ground when sufferings and depression arising thereof puts ones mind in low ebb. It is, however, noticed that frankness tending towards exhibition of lack of etiquettes more often comes in way of friendship. Friendliness has also to face hatred, envy, jealousy and even wrath particularly when a third party gets annoyed because of even no valid reason. It is generally assumed by the third party that this growth and strength of friendship is likely to interfere with its life purposes. Apart from this, the friendship, which is in general delicately poised on the pivot of mental attributes, often faces conflicts of thoughts.
Common conflicts of thoughts occur more frequently and on variety of unconcerned topics, in which the most common is politics. The tendency of hero-worshiping lead to more heated discussions and debates. The conflicts on matters of faith, beliefs and principles of life do not remain a common question of likes and dislikes, but tend to create fissures in friendship itself. Most of such conflicts often fade away and get buried in time. The conflicts of thoughts that tend to interfere with the emotions by hurting others feeling, soon get coated with hatred and are not easily forgotten. They raise their deadly hood at every opportune time with greater vengeance. We can say that even a small whisper is enough to ignite a flame. Conflicts thus enter the battlefield of egos. Personal attacks, instead of remaining verbal, invite malice to perform its naked dance. Friendship turns into enmity. Enmity hidden under the robe of friendship or emerging after discarding this robe is more dangerous than the enmity appearing in its first encounter with us. History is the record of such conflicts.
Confrontations and conflicts are part of everyday life and everyone feels cornered physically or psychologically. We too have the egoistic impulse to corner and trap others to make him a fool of himself. We forget that every human being is an ego-defending creature and he is conscious that the ego is put to threat whenever he commits mistake and is likely to face punishment, ridicule and taunts. When ego is so hurt, it does not allow the person to learn from his mistakes. Man by nature aspires for self-respect and self-confidence. Whenever these aspirations fail he develops tactics for self-deception and self-distortions. The spaciousness of life ends for both the trappers and the trapped.
The sages also established that the ‘Atma’ is the manifestation of the supreme God created through the combination of mind and the primal energy (pran). This has helped the man to value his life and endeavour to make it purposeful. They considered life as a gift of God. This gift has the mysterious power of offering series of gifts. In fact, that who love and respect their life, their life becomes the perennial source of gifts and each gift proves better than the previous one. ‘Loving the God’ is the first step and ‘love thyself’ is the next before we go into the wider concept of ‘वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम’ and love all the living beings. Love is the nectar of life. In childhood we get love and affection from all and almost in abundance. An adult gets love for love. He has to give love in order to get response of love. In old age man has the immense stock of love. He has only to shower love on others and remain contented with this only. In relationship based on love, we engage ourselves in an exchange of emotions, feelings and actions. We learn as we love and it is love that gives meaning to all our experiences. This is how the soul that is in love with the supreme gets the fragrance of love from all direction.
According to the sages the life is for living in a universally accepted concept. They therefore evolved and developed this concept, which they termed as religion. Religion in its totality symbolizes the continuity of fair life despite adversity- despite the compromising attitude of life towards ugliness within the heart and soul of the human beings. Religion is neither a performer nor a dictator in Hindu philosophy. It is also not an actor or prompter. It is only a lamp that lights up the stage so that we can see the performance of every actor including ourselves and judge ourselves as to how we act our part on our own directions.
Yet it was noticed by the Hindu sages that after entering the religious life we do not cease from committing sins, we do not cease to cause others to commit sins, we do not cease to give assent to another’s committed sins. In fact we have not to enter into religious life, but we have to see that religion enters our life. We have not to wander in search of God, but we have to enshrine His image in our own atman. For achieving this we have the art of meditation more suited for the intellectuals and rituals for the common people. The festivals and the mass worshipping provide a common platform for all to enjoy the life.
The enjoyment is not limited to achievement of happiness gained from the accumulation of wealth and grapping of power. Such happiness is transitory and fleeting. It is productive eventually of pains and sufferings. Pleasure and happiness are only concealed pains. Happiness crowned with ego soon loses its charm and therefore inspires greed, lust and blind pursuit for more joy and pleasure. Joy and pleasure cannot ooze from anything that adds to the ego. The sight of blood makes a murderer happy. Violence and fury adds to the happiness of a tyrant. Pomp of power brings honour and pleasure. All this brings ego into action and drifts us away from righteousness. Under the influence of ego, we learn to dictate others and cause them injury insults and injustice. We thus allow the happiness to dominate our inner values and this results in creating a jungle of hatred and revenge around us turning our happiness into chaos.
Unfortunately everyone in this world, in all his pursuits is trying to seek nothing but happiness. But no one is clear about what the happiness means, where to seek it and how to achieve it. This ignorance leads to indiscriminate pursuits of pleasurable objects and within the man flows stream of desires filled with all dirt of thoughts and filth of actions. The desire that gets fulfilled gives a momentary satisfaction but is always followed by the next wave of desire. This way we go on encountering waves of desire till some unfulfilled desire causes us the mental agony and every thing gets lost. The entire edifice of contentment crumbles. We are to late in realizing that the true contentment lies in appreciating whatever we have.
But it does not mean that joy and pleasure are to be shunned. Hindus do speak of detachment, renunciation, denial, self-control and abstinence, but that is for those who are incorrigible. ‘Sannayasa’ is not renunciation of the world and its joy. It is neither denial nor abstinence. ‘Sam’ means holding together and ‘Nayasa’ means to plan. ‘Sannayasa’ therefore means holding the truth and plan to stick to it. We too hold together all that we love. The emotions of holding and possessing are the natural part of love. The possessiveness of the truth is therefore love of truth. ‘Sannayasa’ means knowing the truth and loving and sticking to it and holding together the soul with the supreme.
Man suffers because he is responsible for what happens to him. He decides his own destiny through the choices he makes in life. Most of his choices are centered on all that which gives him the most happiness. One form of happiness is the one that leads to awareness, surmounting all his desires and sufferings. The other form of happiness is caused by contact of senses with material objects. Such happiness obviously gives delight in the beginning, but soon it withdraws its fangs after implanting the poison. The first form of happiness has a vision---a vision that enables the man to see the ultimate that lies beyond the immediate--- the permanent that lies beyond the transient.
Man has the power to know the right, but unfortunately he chooses to do the wrong for pleasure. Pleasure is momentary happiness and for snatching these few moments of pleasure man does not consider it necessary to listen to and be guided by the sane whispering of his own awareness.
Awareness has instinctive urge as well as transcendental potential. Man gets fascinated by immediate pleasure and befriends the instinctive urge, keeping aside the transcendental potential. The instinctive urge may not be good or evil, but it does make man restless. The total negation of transcendental potential makes him incomplete and the total negation of instinctive urge leaves him dull and rootless. For dynamic living a balance is required between these two. Total bliss (पूर्णानंद) is the nectar of dynamic living.
Bliss (Anand) is often mistaken with happiness. Bliss is a plant with root in the heart. It has branches laden with moments of happiness and has flowers having the fragrance of joy and pollen of ecstasy. The fruits of bliss are even sweeter than honey, for here the nectar of thoughts from al the holy scripts and thinking minds are collected by our senses, our deeds, our experiences, our thoughts, our faith and our beliefs .Our ancient sages have tried to fill the juice of these fruits in the vases of religion. Religion has therefore become the main source of bliss for us.
It was ‘soma’ the elixir for the human mind, which was distilled by the Rishies by way of discussions when they assembled for performing ‘yagna’. Rigveda says: -
“Great streams of divine words flow out from the minds of sages with the speed of gale, like rapids rushing down a slope surging with the high waves of wisdom. They beat through all obstacles as does a courageous war-horse”.
(Rigveda 4-58-7)
Even today we have this ‘soma’ __ the elixir for the human mind available in the holy scripts. We can even now assemble and allow our thoughts to gather the raindrops collected from the moist rising from the sea of ancient philosophy and in the mist of thunders of discussions attain the peace of mind for the welfare of our soul, our society and for the humanity as a whole.
True happiness teaches us how to rid ourselves of the negative thoughts from which unhappiness springs. Unhappiness not only springs from the negative thoughts but also adds to the negative thoughts. Negative thoughts could be evil thoughts as well and may lead to evil actions. Evil actions cause sufferings to others and these could be as disastrous as any natural calamity. Evildoers too suffer. Their sufferings are reflected in repentance, which again is the state of unhappiness, but with a difference because here negative thoughts try to correct themselves through confessions. Confessions do curb the sufferings of the evildoers but they do not and cannot nullify the sufferings already inflicted on others. Hindu philosophers therefore stressed on never allowing the thoughts and actions to go negative and plunge the soul in the burning bowl of repentance and suffer there till confession cools it down.
The one who confesses is in fact trying to end his own inner sufferings __ the suffocation caused by visualizing the evil effects of his evil doings, since behind every evil action there is some evil thought that makes man insane. Hindu philosophers therefore not only classified the actions as iki and iq.; , but also put the thoughts under the same categories.
In order to distinguish between true and illusionary happiness, it must be remembered that true happiness inspires creativity. As far as creativity is concerned, we note that man is most reflective of the purpose, for which God creates him particularly in the two spheres of life __in work and love. But as we see today, man has made himself alienated from the will of God himself, his responsibility to perform work and the human nature to propagate love.
Work makes man aware of his true creative nature. Even the creative principles of the Creator manifest itself in man only in and through work. Work therefore becomes most self-fulfilling and self-transforming. Work has to be a ‘free activity’ that is an end in itself__ work performed without an eye on results. The philosophy of ‘Karma yoga’ is enshrined in Gita with all its glory, where it is said: -
कर्मनयेवोदिकरास्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते संगो स्तवकर्मणि ।
(Gita II-47)
Your right is to work only, but never to the fruit thereof. Let not the fruit of action be your object, nor let your attachment be to inaction.
Mahatma Gandhi too saw the spiritual aspect of work and said that work should be performed as a prayer to God. More the man goes alienated from work, more he alienates himself from God and therefore more alienated from other human beings. The result as we see today is that man’s life-activities are only centered on self-interested motives. He thus misses the path of attaining bliss and gets caught in the cobweb of distress and frustration.
Under the influence of bliss the mind reverts to its pristine purity and the soul revives its ‘Sakti’. Man thus develops energy to cure himself from all vices and sins. This energy when awakened causes true healing from all frustrations and failures.
Its greatest source is love. The Hindu philosophers observed that it is love that keeps us alive, even after our passing away from the world. ‘Moksha’ they say is the state of life after death where the soul breaths in love.
Love is the exploration into the realm of consciousness. One has not to be God-fearing but God - loving. The concept of religion is totally based on love. It is because of religion, there is no fear of being alone, for God is with us all the time and at all the places, as the one constantly showering love on us. Then there is ‘Atman’ as the perfect replica of the God that keeps us conscious of the everlasting love.
The wisdom is that one must love oneself before he loves another or has some one to love him. The eagerness to develop relationship based on love exists because human beings want to prove to themselves that they are lovable. This anxiety leads to hurried action since it is based on low self-esteem and love finds itself on wrong pedestal.
Love however has the natural way of finding its own level. In real sense it requires no goading to spread its roots and struggle to keep itself alive. Love that requires outside pressure or persuasion for sprouting or for its growth and maintenance is not a healthy love and is, in fact, a masked trouble. True love needs no mending, no repairs. It is not subject to any tear and wear. In love one must feel that he/she is the gift of God to other.
Love is the most delicate of human feelings. Men say that women are emotional, yet men are actually just as emotional as women. Hence emotional hazards have equal effect on both and thoughtless reaction emerging due to their effects makes the situation spiraling out of control. Love under these circumstances tries to seek help from other stronger emotions like anger, hatred, avarice etc. and this proves a suicidal proposition.
Hatred is more lasting than love because it has revenge enshrined in it and the pleasure born out of revenge as the driving force. Hatred has even entered some religions and turned into Frankenstein, snot absence of love. When the feelings of love get hurt, the love-energy transforms itself into hatred hoping to revive itself with this support. But hatred like love is contagious and the love-energy of the other also changes itself into hatred. The revival thus becomes impossible.
The process of living is also the process of dying and thus death is inseparably linked with life. According to Vedas, death is the beginning of a new life and life is designed and structured by ‘karmas’. Death being the integral part of life moves hand in hand with it every moment and every day and night. One gets 24 hours to live as a bonus and his karmas decide if he deserves another 24 hours or not. At times an evildoer is given 24 hours with the hope that he would mend himself by his karmas. A good soul is never given 24 hours; it earns it by his karmas. Mahabharat says that we should first free ourselves of the fear of death or else it would become the fear of life as well. Today we notice that the fear of life has become more prominent and this has made monster out of man.
We await death with fear since on its arrival we go into total darkness. Death is the greatest fear. This fear often paralyses life. Most of the people succumb to death’s hiss. Hindu saints, in order to wipe out this fear made it clear that there is no darkness after death but there is a new morning __ a new life and man can go into the next birth without the caravan of sins following him provided he keeps the present life free from sins. If life in the present birth is sinless, the fear of death will not exist and man will be able to accept the inevitable death with dignity and calmness.
Yudhistra when asked to mention the most amazing thing in the world, he answered, “man sees people dying everyday, every moment, yet he thinks that he is not going to die.” If Yaksha had asked as to what is the greatest suspense, I think that Yudhistra would have answered, “man faces death when he least expects it.” Man’s intellect accepts that life is transient but his ego accepts it not. Ego removes the soul out of body and then proudly stands over the perishing body to proclaim, “see the body is still alive without soul and I am the new inhibitor of this body and am making it immortal.” Indeed it is very difficult to throw ego out once it enters the body. Man’s thoughts and actions go on inflating his ego and ego continues to upgrade his pride in his immortality by staying in a dead and petrifying body.
In his lifetime, every man is most likely to achieve something. It maybe money, honour, status, knowledge, art or any thing, which glorifies him, and with these achievements the contours of ego begin to assume some definite shape. The ego thus forms a formidable barrier to self-realization. Mahatma Gandhi’s ideal of ‘simple living and high thinking’ cannot be practiced in such a castle of ego. Even fancying ourselves as highly evolved puts us in the vicious grip of ego.
LokfHkeku is a dignified pride in oneself and is without the feeling of antagonism against others. vgadkj on the other hand is deeply negative form of syabhiman. It is an egotistical belief in one’s own supremacy and inferiority of others. Syabhiman therefore fosters a confident and constructive attitude, whereas ahankara fosters arrogance, hatred and aggressiveness. vgadkjh believes in making people fearful and timid. All tyrants, dictators and most of the senior officers in the present day fall in this category, because this attitude helps them to hide their own weaknesses and keep others at a distance so that they do not come to him to seek advice and directives, thereby put him in awkward position. vgadkjh is in fact a person with deep inferiority complex.
In my school days we had to recite the following prayer every day
I will speak the truth
And do the right
With trust in God
And fear of none.
The Hindu philosophers have even said that the more you fear, the more you are likely to let the fear bug get to you. Fear is the act of a weak mind, which is too much conscious of the care of the body. Fear, suspicion, frustration are all that keep the mind glued with the past. The negative feeling tells us that the past will repeat itself and harm us. We forget that every past experience has taught us something valuable and that teaching has made us more courageous. We must also remember that ‘love’ is something that simply keeps the terror away. ‘Love thyself ’ and ‘love not to hate others’. And if you believe that the God is on your side with all His love, then the fear thrust on you by the others will simply melt away. Even when someone you love has made a mistake, the best way is to remain loving and supportive. Love will then bury all the past and will keep you and the others as well free from fear, frustration, and anger. Every action has to be free from fear. According to the Hindu scriptures, do the things you fear and the fear shall die.
The Hindu philosophers declared that there is only Brahman and nothing else. The universe and the entire cosmos including this world, our soul, our body and our life are all Brahman and that everything should endeavour together to go back to Brahman by giving up the unreal and taking the real. The prime question is what purpose will it serve. We as the highest being in the creation have this wonderful world as our abode where nature has spread its abundant and pleasurable beauty and we ourselves have added enjoyable luxuries. Why should we ignore all this and strive which is not all this.
The answer I think is this:-If we stick to pleasure, the sorrows are sure to accompany it. Success is obviously to be followed by failures. Gains are mostly overshadowed by losses. The ego is subject to decay. Honour and pride stay only for a while. In this world of conflicts and confrontations, misery predominates. Frustration is venomous and drives man to negative thinking and negative attitude most of the time. Spirituality provides the most suitable remedy on such occasions. This occasional spirituality would have been enough, if repentance had no existence in life. But it is there. Repentance is even more torturous than misfortune. In fact the spirituality gives a sense of security. It keeps the hysterical repentance at a distance. The awareness of God, Atman and religion makes one feel calm and reassured.
In our lifetime we come in touch with large number of people. Only a small number of them shower love and respect on us all the time. In fact we are good and the people we meet are matching with our goodness. The love and respect at the first sight lasts till the end. Then there are people who continue to dislike us from the very beginning to the end. The main cause is the selfish atmosphere of the present day world. We also encounter those who dislike us in the beginning, but start loving us at a later stage, This happens only when we are able to unfold our inner self more positively during our constant touch with them. Then there are also the instances where people who love us in the beginning, very quietly change their behaviour towards us. Here the clash of selfishness is the main cause.
We mourn the loss of those who had been loving us throughout and also those who had changed over to love and respect us in the end. In case of all others we may feel the loss and even complete the formalities of attending their funerals and convey our condolences. But ‘mourning the loss’, which is the expression of inner and deep felt agony remains missing. We feel their loss only because we were in the circle of their acquaintance and felt the impact of their company for some time and because they were not totally strangers to us like the millions of people whose passing away is conveyed to us by he news media.
If by chance we ever try to think about the reaction of the people on our death, we only remember those who are actually going to ‘mourn our loss’ and we all do wish this group to be as large as possible. Tragically, however, we rarely try in our lifetime to admit more people in such a group. /We remain very selective in showering our love and respect on others uniformly all the time. We are also very reluctant to develop liking for those, whom we had not liked in the beginning. Our ego, our selfish attitude and our reluctance for forgiveness imparts us an isolated personality and therefore by the time we approach our death, we shift a large number of our acquaintances into the group of strangers. Thus the long cherished desire to leave this world with dignity gets lost.
We do at times think of forgetting the differences and link ourselves with all others through love and mutual respect, but we often wait too long. A death paunch on us or on the persons with whom we wanted to reconcile and such death shuts the doors of opportunity forever. The remedy therefore lies only in adopting the attitude of love and respect with all our acquaintances right from the very beginning and maintaining it right unto the end and wherever there is need to reconcile, no time should be lost in overcoming our ego and ward off our selfishness. Forgive spontaneously and at the first opportunity. That is what the Hindus scriptures tell us. We have before us the image of Lord Shiva , the almighty God who is always very soft at His heart and is prompt in showering His blessings.
The Hindu religion says that conversation with the self is the first step to a positive state of mind Choose a behavior, which gives signals of comfort, eagerness and inner peace. Live for the fullness in every moment. Accept whatever comes to you totally and completely learn from it and then let it go. Recontact with your inner self and use your source of pure awareness. Relinquish your need for external approval. Discover infinite worth in yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks. Do not react with anger or opposition. If you do so you only struggle with yourself. Replace hatred by love. What you most hate is what you most deny in yourself. What you most love is what you most wish for in yourself. This self-knowledge will give you what you want and what you most dislike will disappear. Try to understand and forgive and be not a judge yourself. When you judge, you cut off understanding and shut down the process of learning to love. Remember that every person you forgive adds to your self-love. Every cell of the body is a point of awareness within the field of awareness that is in you. Every moment is the expression of awareness and thoughts and actions are the realization of awareness of awareness. Replace fear-motivated behaviour with love-motivated behaviour. Cultivate intelligence from whatever source or direction it comes from and let the wisdom guide your every step. Intelligence is the invisible organizer of all matter and energy and since a portion of this intelligence resides in you, you share in the organizing power of the cosmos. Since you are inseparably linked to everything in the universe, you cannot afford to live with a toxic and foul mind, because every thought makes an impression on the whole thing of intelligence and every act of yours has an impact on the creation of the universe. Remember that you are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true, so never give up and feel frustrated because of initial failure. Defeat or failure is nothing but an opportunity in disguise. You will succeed because you alone design your life through the power of your choice. Whatever steps you take, they are necessary to reach the place that you have chosen to go. You can even lift yourself out of ignorance. Try to overcome limitations, strive for perfection and eventually you will find it. The Hindu philosophers found that one of the worst things in a person’s life is the absence of spirituality __ it is the root cause of all failures and the birth place of all ills.
Life, they said, is a chance given to us to renew anything that we want and for that we are ever assisted by God. More help than what we know is with us. But unfortunately, we loose sight of our goal, we loose the grip on what we came to do here, because we get caught up in this world, which spins us and throws us away from the beauty of God’s truth. Life is sacred and therefore it has to be lived with purity, precision and passion. The truth is that all people are living and their living is confined to gratification of greed and desire. They thus get surrounded on all sides by the waters of craving and are more likely to be engulfed by its storming waves.
Our life remains clouded with delusions. We see things only the way we want to see them and not as they really are. Vedas tell us that more we slip from reality; the more we roll in misery. Everything is subject to change. Yet we fail to understand it. We want what we desire to stay with us forever and the unwanted to go away. When this does not happen we become an island of misery.
In the end I would like to mention that here so far standing on the shore of wisdom, I have seen the waves rising, advancing and rushing to touch my feet. I know that when I will no longer be present here, the waves will continue to rise and rush forward to kiss the grains of sand of the place where I am standing now and watching them. For these waves know that the setting sun to which I am saying good bye now has to be the rising sun for some one else in this world.
The dawn comes knocking at your door;
rise, awake, O divine men.
The glorious sun has risen.
The radiant glow is flowing from the east,
dispersing the darkness of the night.
The new bright rays bring in renewed hope.
The new day is ushered in,
full of zest and zeal
and life progresses on its path of glory. Each dawn brings a bright ray of hope and a happy day.
(Rig Veda 10.113.16)
(Gita II-47)
Your right is to work only, but never to the fruit thereof. Let not the fruit of action be your object, nor let your attachment be to inaction.
Mahatma Gandhi too saw the spiritual aspect of work and said that work should be performed as a prayer to God. More the man goes alienated from work, more he alienates himself from God and therefore more alienated from other human beings. The result as we see today is that man’s life-activities are only centered on self-interested motives. He thus misses the path of attaining bliss and gets caught in the cobweb of distress and frustration.
Under the influence of bliss the mind reverts to its pristine purity and the soul revives its ‘Sakti’. Man thus develops energy to cure himself from all vices and sins. This energy when awakened causes true healing from all frustrations and failures.
Its greatest source is love. The Hindu philosophers observed that it is love that keeps us alive, even after our passing away from the world. ‘Moksha’ they say is the state of life after death where the soul breaths in love.
Love is the exploration into the realm of consciousness. One has not to be God-fearing but God - loving. The concept of religion is totally based on love. It is because of religion, there is no fear of being alone, for God is with us all the time and at all the places, as the one constantly showering love on us. Then there is ‘Atman’ as the perfect replica of the God that keeps us conscious of the everlasting love.
The wisdom is that one must love oneself before he loves another or has some one to love him. The eagerness to develop relationship based on love exists because human beings want to prove to themselves that they are lovable. This anxiety leads to hurried action since it is based on low self-esteem and love finds itself on wrong pedestal.
Love however has the natural way of finding its own level. In real sense it requires no goading to spread its roots and struggle to keep itself alive. Love that requires outside pressure or persuasion for sprouting or for its growth and maintenance is not a healthy love and is, in fact, a masked trouble. True love needs no mending, no repairs. It is not subject to any tear and wear. In love one must feel that he/she is the gift of God to other.
Love is the most delicate of human feelings. Men say that women are emotional, yet men are actually just as emotional as women. Hence emotional hazards have equal effect on both and thoughtless reaction emerging due to their effects makes the situation spiraling out of control. Love under these circumstances tries to seek help from other stronger emotions like anger, hatred, avarice etc. and this proves a suicidal proposition.
Hatred is more lasting than love because it has revenge enshrined in it and the pleasure born out of revenge as the driving force. Hatred has even entered some religions and turned into Frankenstein, snot absence of love. When the feelings of love get hurt, the love-energy transforms itself into hatred hoping to revive itself with this support. But hatred like love is contagious and the love-energy of the other also changes itself into hatred. The revival thus becomes impossible.
The process of living is also the process of dying and thus death is inseparably linked with life. According to Vedas, death is the beginning of a new life and life is designed and structured by ‘karmas’. Death being the integral part of life moves hand in hand with it every moment and every day and night. One gets 24 hours to live as a bonus and his karmas decide if he deserves another 24 hours or not. At times an evildoer is given 24 hours with the hope that he would mend himself by his karmas. A good soul is never given 24 hours; it earns it by his karmas. Mahabharat says that we should first free ourselves of the fear of death or else it would become the fear of life as well. Today we notice that the fear of life has become more prominent and this has made monster out of man.
We await death with fear since on its arrival we go into total darkness. Death is the greatest fear. This fear often paralyses life. Most of the people succumb to death’s hiss. Hindu saints, in order to wipe out this fear made it clear that there is no darkness after death but there is a new morning __ a new life and man can go into the next birth without the caravan of sins following him provided he keeps the present life free from sins. If life in the present birth is sinless, the fear of death will not exist and man will be able to accept the inevitable death with dignity and calmness.
Yudhistra when asked to mention the most amazing thing in the world, he answered, “man sees people dying everyday, every moment, yet he thinks that he is not going to die.” If Yaksha had asked as to what is the greatest suspense, I think that Yudhistra would have answered, “man faces death when he least expects it.” Man’s intellect accepts that life is transient but his ego accepts it not. Ego removes the soul out of body and then proudly stands over the perishing body to proclaim, “see the body is still alive without soul and I am the new inhibitor of this body and am making it immortal.” Indeed it is very difficult to throw ego out once it enters the body. Man’s thoughts and actions go on inflating his ego and ego continues to upgrade his pride in his immortality by staying in a dead and petrifying body.
In his lifetime, every man is most likely to achieve something. It maybe money, honour, status, knowledge, art or any thing, which glorifies him, and with these achievements the contours of ego begin to assume some definite shape. The ego thus forms a formidable barrier to self-realization. Mahatma Gandhi’s ideal of ‘simple living and high thinking’ cannot be practiced in such a castle of ego. Even fancying ourselves as highly evolved puts us in the vicious grip of ego.
LokfHkeku is a dignified pride in oneself and is without the feeling of antagonism against others. vgadkj on the other hand is deeply negative form of syabhiman. It is an egotistical belief in one’s own supremacy and inferiority of others. Syabhiman therefore fosters a confident and constructive attitude, whereas ahankara fosters arrogance, hatred and aggressiveness. vgadkjh believes in making people fearful and timid. All tyrants, dictators and most of the senior officers in the present day fall in this category, because this attitude helps them to hide their own weaknesses and keep others at a distance so that they do not come to him to seek advice and directives, thereby put him in awkward position. vgadkjh is in fact a person with deep inferiority complex.
In my school days we had to recite the following prayer every day
I will speak the truth
And do the right
With trust in God
And fear of none.
The Hindu philosophers have even said that the more you fear, the more you are likely to let the fear bug get to you. Fear is the act of a weak mind, which is too much conscious of the care of the body. Fear, suspicion, frustration are all that keep the mind glued with the past. The negative feeling tells us that the past will repeat itself and harm us. We forget that every past experience has taught us something valuable and that teaching has made us more courageous. We must also remember that ‘love’ is something that simply keeps the terror away. ‘Love thyself ’ and ‘love not to hate others’. And if you believe that the God is on your side with all His love, then the fear thrust on you by the others will simply melt away. Even when someone you love has made a mistake, the best way is to remain loving and supportive. Love will then bury all the past and will keep you and the others as well free from fear, frustration, and anger. Every action has to be free from fear. According to the Hindu scriptures, do the things you fear and the fear shall die.
The Hindu philosophers declared that there is only Brahman and nothing else. The universe and the entire cosmos including this world, our soul, our body and our life are all Brahman and that everything should endeavour together to go back to Brahman by giving up the unreal and taking the real. The prime question is what purpose will it serve. We as the highest being in the creation have this wonderful world as our abode where nature has spread its abundant and pleasurable beauty and we ourselves have added enjoyable luxuries. Why should we ignore all this and strive which is not all this.
The answer I think is this:-If we stick to pleasure, the sorrows are sure to accompany it. Success is obviously to be followed by failures. Gains are mostly overshadowed by losses. The ego is subject to decay. Honour and pride stay only for a while. In this world of conflicts and confrontations, misery predominates. Frustration is venomous and drives man to negative thinking and negative attitude most of the time. Spirituality provides the most suitable remedy on such occasions. This occasional spirituality would have been enough, if repentance had no existence in life. But it is there. Repentance is even more torturous than misfortune. In fact the spirituality gives a sense of security. It keeps the hysterical repentance at a distance. The awareness of God, Atman and religion makes one feel calm and reassured.
In our lifetime we come in touch with large number of people. Only a small number of them shower love and respect on us all the time. In fact we are good and the people we meet are matching with our goodness. The love and respect at the first sight lasts till the end. Then there are people who continue to dislike us from the very beginning to the end. The main cause is the selfish atmosphere of the present day world. We also encounter those who dislike us in the beginning, but start loving us at a later stage, This happens only when we are able to unfold our inner self more positively during our constant touch with them. Then there are also the instances where people who love us in the beginning, very quietly change their behaviour towards us. Here the clash of selfishness is the main cause.
We mourn the loss of those who had been loving us throughout and also those who had changed over to love and respect us in the end. In case of all others we may feel the loss and even complete the formalities of attending their funerals and convey our condolences. But ‘mourning the loss’, which is the expression of inner and deep felt agony remains missing. We feel their loss only because we were in the circle of their acquaintance and felt the impact of their company for some time and because they were not totally strangers to us like the millions of people whose passing away is conveyed to us by he news media.
If by chance we ever try to think about the reaction of the people on our death, we only remember those who are actually going to ‘mourn our loss’ and we all do wish this group to be as large as possible. Tragically, however, we rarely try in our lifetime to admit more people in such a group. /We remain very selective in showering our love and respect on others uniformly all the time. We are also very reluctant to develop liking for those, whom we had not liked in the beginning. Our ego, our selfish attitude and our reluctance for forgiveness imparts us an isolated personality and therefore by the time we approach our death, we shift a large number of our acquaintances into the group of strangers. Thus the long cherished desire to leave this world with dignity gets lost.
We do at times think of forgetting the differences and link ourselves with all others through love and mutual respect, but we often wait too long. A death paunch on us or on the persons with whom we wanted to reconcile and such death shuts the doors of opportunity forever. The remedy therefore lies only in adopting the attitude of love and respect with all our acquaintances right from the very beginning and maintaining it right unto the end and wherever there is need to reconcile, no time should be lost in overcoming our ego and ward off our selfishness. Forgive spontaneously and at the first opportunity. That is what the Hindus scriptures tell us. We have before us the image of Lord Shiva , the almighty God who is always very soft at His heart and is prompt in showering His blessings.
The Hindu religion says that conversation with the self is the first step to a positive state of mind Choose a behavior, which gives signals of comfort, eagerness and inner peace. Live for the fullness in every moment. Accept whatever comes to you totally and completely learn from it and then let it go. Recontact with your inner self and use your source of pure awareness. Relinquish your need for external approval. Discover infinite worth in yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks. Do not react with anger or opposition. If you do so you only struggle with yourself. Replace hatred by love. What you most hate is what you most deny in yourself. What you most love is what you most wish for in yourself. This self-knowledge will give you what you want and what you most dislike will disappear. Try to understand and forgive and be not a judge yourself. When you judge, you cut off understanding and shut down the process of learning to love. Remember that every person you forgive adds to your self-love. Every cell of the body is a point of awareness within the field of awareness that is in you. Every moment is the expression of awareness and thoughts and actions are the realization of awareness of awareness. Replace fear-motivated behaviour with love-motivated behaviour. Cultivate intelligence from whatever source or direction it comes from and let the wisdom guide your every step. Intelligence is the invisible organizer of all matter and energy and since a portion of this intelligence resides in you, you share in the organizing power of the cosmos. Since you are inseparably linked to everything in the universe, you cannot afford to live with a toxic and foul mind, because every thought makes an impression on the whole thing of intelligence and every act of yours has an impact on the creation of the universe. Remember that you are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true, so never give up and feel frustrated because of initial failure. Defeat or failure is nothing but an opportunity in disguise. You will succeed because you alone design your life through the power of your choice. Whatever steps you take, they are necessary to reach the place that you have chosen to go. You can even lift yourself out of ignorance. Try to overcome limitations, strive for perfection and eventually you will find it. The Hindu philosophers found that one of the worst things in a person’s life is the absence of spirituality __ it is the root cause of all failures and the birth place of all ills.
Life, they said, is a chance given to us to renew anything that we want and for that we are ever assisted by God. More help than what we know is with us. But unfortunately, we loose sight of our goal, we loose the grip on what we came to do here, because we get caught up in this world, which spins us and throws us away from the beauty of God’s truth. Life is sacred and therefore it has to be lived with purity, precision and passion. The truth is that all people are living and their living is confined to gratification of greed and desire. They thus get surrounded on all sides by the waters of craving and are more likely to be engulfed by its storming waves.
Our life remains clouded with delusions. We see things only the way we want to see them and not as they really are. Vedas tell us that more we slip from reality; the more we roll in misery. Everything is subject to change. Yet we fail to understand it. We want what we desire to stay with us forever and the unwanted to go away. When this does not happen we become an island of misery.
In the end I would like to mention that here so far standing on the shore of wisdom, I have seen the waves rising, advancing and rushing to touch my feet. I know that when I will no longer be present here, the waves will continue to rise and rush forward to kiss the grains of sand of the place where I am standing now and watching them. For these waves know that the setting sun to which I am saying good bye now has to be the rising sun for some one else in this world.
The dawn comes knocking at your door;
rise, awake, O divine men.
The glorious sun has risen.
The radiant glow is flowing from the east,
dispersing the darkness of the night.
The new bright rays bring in renewed hope.
The new day is ushered in,
full of zest and zeal
and life progresses on its path of glory. Each dawn brings a bright ray of hope and a happy day.
(Rig Veda 10.113.16)
--- oOo ---
