To always remain happy is the highest form of devotion

The Self realized saint from India, Bapu Asaramji, quotes that, “To always remain cheerful and happy is the highest form of devotion to God.” The true God resides in our heart. When you are worried or distress, you remain ignorant about the divine presence in your heart. When you seek true wisdom of the Self, give importance to spiritual quest and begin to remain happy at all the times, it becomes the highest form of offering to the inner God.

When you give gift to your loved ones, you are delighted when they become happy, show their gratitude or make proper use of your gift. Similarly, life is a precious gift of God. God is also delighted when you show your gratitude, treat your life as a precious gift, consider it as a celebration, remain cheerful and make others cheerful.

If God created the world, then who created God?

This question has equally baffled the young and the old; the wise and not so wise; the scientists and the spiritual beings, and even some of my friends. If you are also curious to take a deep dive for exploring the answer, then we have to analyze the question itself.

The word "God" is perhaps the most widely perceived word in the language. It has varied meaning depending on the the upbringing, religion, culture and the mindset of the person, who is asking the question. Most of the religious people or I would say the beginners believe in a God with some form of personality (Vishnu, Shiva, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Guru Nanak or others of that kind). For such believers, the question makes some sense - “If God created everything, then who created God?”

A true seeker tries to look for the best in others

There is nothing good or bad in the world; only your thinking, your mindset and your outlook makes it so. With an understanding of this universal law, a true seeker always try to look at the virtues of others and shortcomings in himself. While counting the merits in others, his own life begin to fill with merits. While noticing the pleasing behavior of others, his own behavior becomes pleasing. In the beginning if its difficult for you to find virtues in others, then sing, hear, read or remember the virtues of God in the company of devotees. The devotees sing praises of God, contemplate at the divine virtues of God and eventually those divine virtues make home in their own heart.

The Vedantic Saints believe and come to realize the philosophy of “Vasudeva sarvam iti” meaning “God (the Supreme Consciousness) is present everywhere and in every being”. They always look at the divine virtues in every being. Their sight is fixed on the inherent divinity in every being. Just like sun don't differentiate between a meat-eater lion and a bovine goat; the sun provides same sunshine to all; the river provides same water to everyone irrespective of their nature; similarly, the saint gives same love to everyone. The true seeker who come in contact of such Saints also attempt to practice the same. In this manner the divine qualities of peace, equanimity and blissfulness begins to evolve in his own heart.

Relation between Soul and the God

A disciple asked the Self realized master, “Dear Sir, what is the relation between Soul and God?”

The master closed his eyes for a moment and then said in his deep and calm voice, “Son, the relation between soul and the Supreme Soul, the God, is similar to the relation between the water drop and ocean; relation between the gold ornaments and gold; relation between the body and the nature.”

“Respected master, can you please explain it in a little more detail.”

“The gold ornaments exists in a variety of shape and form; but these ornaments originates from gold and then finally, after years of use, leave their form to become one with gold again. During this whole time, in all the forms, the true nature remains that of gold only. Similarly, the water drops take different forms of bubbles and huge waves in the ocean, but remain part of the ocean. Water drops even leave the ocean to take form of vapors, become cloud, snow, rain, river water and then finally become one with the ocean again. During this whole time, in all the forms, the true nature of all the forms remains that of water only.”

Being IN-dependent for true inner happiness

From dawn till dusk, from childhood till death, all the living beings strive for happiness, true long lasting peaceful happiness, but remain unfulfilled. During childhood, the child thinks that he will be happy when he grows up; during school days, the student thinks that he will be happy when he goes to college; During college, the student thinks that he will be happy after getting job; After getting job the young man or woman thinks that he or she will be happy after getting a companion; After getting companion, the couple thinks that they will be happy after building the family and settling down with a lot of wealth.

And then the mid-life crisis begins, when the same being begins to look at the past and thinks that they were happier during the childhood or youth. Now, the fear of mediocre, mundane life and old age grips the mid aged being. Slowly the senility begins to show the signs. And then one day, the poor being end up in unfulfilled state of mind.

Recognize your own true Self

Your true nature is Sat-Chit-Ananda (eternal-conscious-blissful). You are pure consciousness, part and parcel of the Supreme Consciousness, the God. You are pure, peaceful, complete Soul, part and parcel of the Supreme Soul, the Paramatma. You are the King of Kings, you are the supreme power. To realize this Truth is the highest goal of human life. Even after taking human birth, if one remains perturbed, confused and unfulfilled, then human birth is a waste. Unless and until the true seeker realizes his own True nature, he won't be able to get rid of all forms of miseries, he won't be able to gain the supreme peace or the highest form of inner happiness. How difficult is it to realize one own's Self?

Let me tell you a short story in this regard. Once upon a time, there was a King named Hari Singh in the western part of India. On one of the Holi festival, he went out of his palace in common attire to enjoy the festivities with the masses. He saw a group of people were consuming an intoxicating beverage called bhang in the corner of a street. He also joined them and started drinking bhang.

Three ways of God realization

To realize the Supreme Truth, the Supreme Consciousness or the God is the highest goal of human life. Those, who yearn for such a blissful realization are the true seekers (irrespective of their religion or background). Such pure hearted beings pursue their seeking in many different ways based on their personality, their experiences, the conditioning of their mind and based on the path followed by their ideals or masters. Broadly, all the different ways of such divine pursuit falls into three different categories.

The first type of seekers give more emphasis to this world and their bodies. Their pursuit consists of performing religious rituals, visiting holy places (chaar dham or Mecca or Jerusalem), taking dip in holy rivers, performing charities or performing other forms of austerities and penances. Many Yogis who emphasis only on the Yogic exercises or Pranayaam ( breathing exercises) for realization of divine inner Truth also falls into this category. Such pious seekers are kind at heart, always willing to help others and seek happiness in happiness of others. This path is also called as Karma-yoga.

Excerpts from Shri Uddhava Gita

Like the bee gathering honey

From many blossoms,

Those who aspire to be sages

Must take something of wisdom

From all the scriptures -

Both the great and the small. ||Shri Uddhava Gita- 5:10||

It is vital for the true seeker to keep the company of holy men, be it in the form of direct association, listening to their recorded talks or reading the holy scriptures written by the Sages. It is the beauty of Upanisads that most of them were written in the form of logical question answer discourse. The most famous of the Upanisads is Shrimad BhagwatGita, which is the dialogue between Shri Krishna and his companion, a young warrior Arjuna. Another important text, which comes from a much larger text called the Bhagavatha Purana, is Uddava Gita. In the Uddhava Gita, it is an old friend and humble counselor of Shri Krishna who asks spiritual advice on the eves of Shri Krishna's departure from earth. To fully understand the message of Shri Krishna, we need both the urgent questioning of Arjuna, the young warrior faced with overwhelming odds, and the gentle probing of the wise, older man, Uddava.

Glimpse of God

A young seeker used to to go temple religiously. One day he gathered courage and asked the priest, “Sir, please tell me the truth. Have you ever had the glimpse of God?”

The old priest kept silence for a while and then with the tears in his eyes, he said, “Son, I am close to eighty years old and have been performing these rituals in the temple for more than sixty years. But it seems I am not fortunate enough to get the glimpse of God.”

Astonishingly the young seeker asked, “But Sir, you have been giving bhog (offerings) to the God before every meal throughout your life. Still you think that God is not real to whom you give offerings and to whom you perform prayers day and night.”

The old priest couldn't say a word. But the young seeker couldn't rest peacefully. He went to the saint who used to live in the adjacent town and asked him about his doubt the very next morning.

Search only where it is lost

Saints have an unusual way of putting across their message. They don't want to prove you wrong or hurt your ego and at the same time they don't want you to remain ignorant. This is a short story about a Sufi saint named Rabia.

Rabia and Hasan used to exchange their spiritual thoughts after dinner. Rabia, the Sufi saint, was in the state of deep love with the Supreme whereas Hasan was still a religious follower. Hasan used to convey to Rabia about his deep desire to go for Hajj to Mecca.

One evening when Hasan went to meet Rabia after dark, he was a little surprise to see Rabia who was searching for something on the street under the street light (coming from flame in the olden days). Curiously, he asked, “Rabia, what are you looking for here?”

Establish yourself in your original blissful nature

In continuation of our discussion about the mental tendencies or sanskaars in the previous blog, lets discuss how can you utilize this wisdom to step over the impact of all previous sanskaars and establish yourself in your original blissful nature. Water falls downward on its own (because of gravity, a natural phenomenon), but you have to put in efforts to uplift the water. Similarly, it is natural for human mind to be impacted by the first four kinds of sanskaars (Sanskaars associated with previous birth or genetic inheritance , the parents and family , the environment and with your present life decisions ). However, you have to put in extra effort, you have to work consciously to regain the original sanskaars of your pure consciousness. It won't happen on its own.

The natural tendency of the mind is to pull you towards the outer world. The first four kind of sanskaars pulls you towards the outer world, while the sanskaars associated with your true nature helps you to establish in the inner peace and inner happiness.

Sanskaars and its kinds

You might have seen that siblings raised in the same family behave differently. Even twins don't have similar disposition. Different people have different temperament and different way of thinking from the childhood. Some are emotional, while others are sort of impassive; some are of serious kind while others are 'take it easy' attitude; some are radical while others are gullible; some are hard worker while others are lazy. This is because of their sanskaars, their way of thinking or mental tendencies. The sages of the east did analysis on the nature of these mental tendencies and broadly classified them into five kinds:

1. Sanskaars associated with previous birth or genetic inheritance: Spiritual people may assume it to be the impact of previous births and the radical class of people may assume it to be the genetic inheritance, but most of the people believe that a new born baby brings with him, his own temperament, his own nature. The impact on the thought process associated with the past lives falls into this category of sanskaars.

Shatter the wall of beliefs around you

Those who believe others easily or hold firm beliefs have difficult times not only in the outer world, but also in the spiritual world. Others take undue advantage of such sweet people, who easily trust others – be it financially, socially or otherwise. Even in the world of spirituality, many religions have survived and flourished only because of the millions of kind hearted followers who are agreeable in nature and believe easily. Those are rare who dare to question or inquire when it comes to faith and belief.

Beliefs and faith is good to have, but at the same time one should not form a concrete wall of beliefs in such a manner that nothing else can penetrate. Beliefs and faith suppresses curiosity and thereby hinders progress. Think about it. For thousands of years people believed that earth is flat until the time when curious minded Philosopher Pythagoras and Aristotle came up with the theory about earth being spherical. There are a lot many such instances. Only those curious inquisitive minds achieve success in the field of Science and Technology who think beyond their beliefs. Newton, Einstein, Darwin and all others challenged the belief system and changed the whole paradigm.

What a paradox!

It is ironical that people spend most of the life in dealing with the illusionary creations of mind. Most of our attention is drawn by things that doesn’t exist in reality and are mere creations of human mind. For example, country, cast, religion, status and all other forms of divisions are just the creation of human mind. People read stories, watch television, watch movies and eventually, entertain so many useless thoughts. Human mind worries about the future problems that never occur. While entertaining the useless thoughts of this illusionary world, the mind becomes so busy that it never gets a chance to delve into the inner world and explore the Truth – Truth about the Self, about this world and about the Supreme consciousness (Paramatma).

Who is the most powerful one?

A disciple and a master were going on a pilgrimage in northern India. Tired, they sat on a big rock under a tree. After a while disciple asked the master, “Dear Sir, this rock is so hard and strong. What could be stronger than this rock?”

“Iron, my son. Iron can cut the rocks and hence is stronger than the rock.”

“Hmm.... what could be stronger than iron, Sir?”

“Well, fire can melt the iron. So, you can consider fire to be more potent than the iron.”

“You are right. Is there anything more potent than the fire.”

“You can say that water can pacify the fire, so water can be considered as more powerful than the fire.”

The disciple thought for a moment and then said, “In that case, wind can even lift the water to the clouds. So air should be considered as more powerful than the water.”

God is much more than a concept

All the religions of the world contributed    a lot to the social, spiritual and wholesome upliftment of humankind. Religions taught us the importance of leading a pious life. Religions taught us the importance of speaking the truth, being honest, being kind, being helpful, respecting each other and many other such virtues. Religions taught us to believe in a power much higher than us, the God. Religions gave a platform to the human race to come together in remembrance of God, pray and express our gratitude to the Supreme Being. Religions brought the people of same faith together.

Five flavors of happiness

We all experience the happy moments and the sad moments in life. And we continually strive for happiness - ever lasting happiness because that is the true nature of our consciousness – Sat-Chit-Anand (Eternal-Conscious-Blissfull). The sages of the east did a lot of self analysis and broadly categorized five flavors of happiness.

Every living being live, enjoys and chase the happiness associated with sensual pleasures. The wise men also called such happiness as the “Vishay-Sukh” or the material happiness. Such happiness is related with the five senses and their associated subjects: tongue experiences the delicious taste; eyes observe the beauty; ears hear the melodious sound; nose smells the fragrance; and the sensual pleasures of the touch of body with the opposite sex. I don't have to describe these pleasures in detail. Even animals experience such kind of natural happiness. We all experiences these pleasure in daily life and crave for these pleasures throughout our lives. But at the same time, we never get satisfied with it.

Make a daily appointment with inner peace

Just like when you enter into a library, the captivating silence in the library helps you to focus and assimilate worldly wisdom. Similarly, there is a treasure of immense peace, wisdom and happiness within you. All you need is to take out time to quieten your mind and explore within. You can call such an appointment with your inner silence as meditation.

Meditation is taking time out for your true Self; mediation is the time you spend in exploring inner world and managing it; mediation is the time when you attempt to master your mind instead of conducting in the external world as its slave; mediation is the time that you spend in knowing the Truth, instead of being lost in this illusionary external world; mediation is the time when you explore peace and happiness within.  

Treat this world as nothing more than a long dream

A devout once went to meet a saint and started complaining, “Dear Sir, this world is very cruel. Even though I have done so many goods to others in my life and I always try to help others, but in return, people have always taken my advantage. My one time friends turned into enemies and even my own relatives tried to hurt me. I have incurred many losses due to my own people. How can one remain happy while living in such a selfish and evil world.”

The saint listened quietly for a while and then replied in his deep voice, “Son, let me tell you a secret of being happy even while conducting in the outer world.” After a brief pause, the saint continued, “Son, just try to forget all the good that you did to others and also, all the sufferings that you think have been caused by others. Don't expect anything in return of your good deeds. Neki kar dariya mai daal. (Translation: Do good to others and throw it into the ocean) And also, save yourself, but don't try to give anything in return when others try to harm you, not even curse. At all cost, try to keep you inner peace in such a manner that outer happenings of the world can't touch you from inside.”

Quest of inner happiness is all about changing your thought process

The inner state of a being is the end result of the thought process. As are your thoughts, so are your actions; as are your actions, so are your habits; and as are your habits, so is your behavior. In other words, your thought process constitutes your behavior and your personality. The seeking of inner happiness is not about changing the world around yourself. In fact, it's all about changing your thought process and eventually, your own behavior.

It is not that there is a scarcity of religious and pious people in this world. But, most of them are not willing to change their own thought process, their own behavior.

God is love

Love is the inherent nature of a being. Not only human beings, but even animals and birds cannot live without loving. Love is the essential nature of the spirit or the soul or the consciousness. Hate or abhorrence is the temporary creation of mind whereas love is ever present. Saints of the world describe God as love. But what form of love are they referring to? They are talking about the pure love- the true love for your own true Self; the divine love of God; the genuine love for the Supreme Consciousness; the divine feeling of affection towards every living being; the unconditional love; the innocent love of a child towards everyone around him.

Japan, one of the inspirations to the world

A massive earthquake, followed by T-sunami hit Japan on March 11th- a natural calamity, which is beyond human control. But, what is in human control is -how to react to such a difficult time. The Japanese society, as a whole, has set an inspirational example for whole of the world. Otherwise also, Japanese are well prepared to deal with natural disaster mostly as a result of frequently experiencing them. One of my friends noted a few points that can be inspirational for the rest of the world.

What do I gain by chanting?

A  devotee once asked Sri Udiya Baba, “Dear Sir, you keep on insisting that we should chant God’s name. What do I gain by chanting?”

“You must be a businessman”, replied Baba smilingly. 

“Yes dear master, you know it all”, replied the devotee. 

The saint continued in his deep voice. “You are so much used to thinking in terms of material gain, that you weigh everything in terms of material gain. My dear son, what you gain by chanting God’s name is so precious that you won’t be able to buy it with money or snatch it by using your power. You would gain balance of spiritual energies, inner peace, contentment and long lasting happiness.”

Keep your mind and inner senses pristine

It is ironical that we spend a lot of time and effort to keep our surroundings clean, our kitchen clean, even our bathroom clean; however, we give no importance to keep our mind and inner senses pristine. We don’t spend any time or effort to save our mind from getting tarnished by the feelings of jealousy, hate, fear, animosity, worries or burning desires of material possessions. For the sake of material gain and enjoying sensual pleasures, we go up to any extent. We continue to participate in the rat race without realizing that life is not only meant to be a race.

Appreciation of every aspect of life brings you true happiness

God, the creator of this world, is a great divine artist. He has used his favorite colors and contrasts while creating and maintaining this magnificent masterpiece – the universe. We just need the proper understanding, wisdom and modesty to appreciate the beauty in every aspect of life.

Look all around yourself and appreciate the contrasts in every aspect of life. God created day, as well as the night; summer as well as the winter; spring as well as the fall; roses as well as the thorns; birth as well as the death; Each one of such contrasting aspects have beauty of its own. However, if you get attached to a particular aspect or if you bring your ‘likes and dislikes’ into picture, then you are bound to suffer. If you begin to like summer, then you won’t be able to appreciate the beauty associated with winter.

The one who has performed all his duties

This is the story of those days when Kings used to rule small kingdoms in India. In those days, Kings also used to resolve the disputes and ensure justice to all. While resolving one of such dispute, the culprit said to King Jaswant Singh, “Sir, it is true that I am not able to perform all my duties. However, can you please show me anyone in this world who has performed all of his duties?” The King ignored his arguments and gave his final judgment.

That night those words echoed in his ears, “Can you please show me anyone in this world who has performed all of his duties”. He thought that it is true that no one in this world is able to perform all his duties. All of us try to perform our duties towards our parents, our children, our family, our society, our country and towards God. And then finally one day, we leave the world in the unfulfilled state of being. Is this life only meant for stressing out ourselves throughout the life in this manner? Can there be any one who is done with performing all of his duties?

Never hurt anyone, even in your dreams

A mystic sang in hindi:“Darte raho yeh jindagi bekaar na ho jai; Swapn mai bhi kisi jiv ka apkaar na ho jai”. Translation: “Be fearful that this life is not wasted, even in the dreams someone is not hurt.”

There are two aspects of serving others: one is to avoid hurting others by means of words, actions or thoughts; and other is to do good to others by all means. If you try to stay away from hurting anyone, the other part of ‘doing good to others’ happens on its own because that is your true nature. Try to refrain from negative thoughts even against your enemies.   In Shiva Purana, Lord Shiva told his wife: “Uma sant ki yahi badaii , mand kare so kare bhalayi”

Translation: “Uma, the only praise of a Saint is that would do good even if someone tried to hurt him.”