For a healthy mind & body

According to ayurveda and yoga, both mind and the body are made up of five elements, the Panchabhutas of earth (prithvi), water (jal), fire (agni or tej), air (vayu) and ether or space (akash). While the body is made up of the heavier elements of earth and water (the kapha type), it functions through the lighter elements of fire (pitta or fire type) and air (vata or vital energy type). The pitta, fire or heat of the body controls all digestive processes and the vata, air or vital energy lends its spark to the nervous system. The mind, one of subtlest parts of our being is composed of air and ether, the lightest elements. In substance our minds resemble ether formless and all pervading and in motion, it resembles air-penetrating, constantly in flux. Just as the right type of food and right amount of food is necessary for a healthy digestive system, the right type of thoughts and the right amount of thoughts are essential for a healthy mind. Therefore, the simple formula for a healthy mind is allowing only positive thoughts to come, having just enough thoughts in the mind, and finally, being without any thoughts for at least some time, that is, meditating. Meditation is not only extremely conducive to mental well being and peace; it is also the first step towards self transformation and spirituality. Posture: Sit erect in a comfortable position preferably on the floor. The important factor is keeping the spine absolutely straight. Environment: Sit in a well ventilated place that is quiet and receives natural light. Set up a meditating room with soothing music and aroma in order to infuse the atmosphere with spiritual energy. Time: Meditate at the same time daily, twice a day for best results. Beginners are recommended to meditate for about half an hour daily. Attitude & Technique: Be a receptive observer while meditating. Try to observe the mind, the breath or the immediate physical environment without thinking anything in particular, watching the mind slowly empty itself out.

Mercy, forgiveness, freedom from fire

Ramadan is a month whose beginning is Mercy, whose middle is Forgiveness and whose end is freedom from fire, according to Hadith of the Prophet. Ponder on the inherent logical sequence... We cannot be exempt from fire without first being forgiven. And to be forgiven, we must be graced by Allah's mercy. The theme of the first 10 days is mercy of Allah. Can we expect to receive mercy if we only deprive our bodies of food and drink? Of course not. Because Ramadan is meant for spiritual development through fasting. Physiologically, by fasting, the body eliminates toxins efficiently and the mind becomes clear for "power thinking" so that one may ponder on the meaning of the Qur'an, Hadith and the necessity of Zhikr. One must also do some selfanalysis to monitor and correct one's behaviour if necessary. With meditation the mind becomes quiet and so should our tongues. Allah is looking for a sincere commitment from us... Ramadan does not end at every iftar. It ends only on sighting the hilal of Shawwal. So hard spiritual work must carry on for the whole of the month. One must plead for mercy and sincerely try to receive it because without it, we are stuck at stage one and our prospects of "freedom from fire" will be bleak. Therefore, stage one is for sincere confession to Allah that we are weak and sinful and that we desperately need His mercy. We have only about 10 days to qualify to stage two. The next 10 days of Ramadan are about forgiveness. We must now beg for Allah's forgiveness because we have broken so many of His rules and covenants and disobeyed His commands during the year, knowingly and unknowingly. We must say istighfaar day and night and ask in every sajda for forgiveness. We must be afraid that if Allah does not forgive, we will surely be losers. Here again, Allah will be assessing the degree of sincerity in our repentance. He looks not for lip service but for soul service. We must also be forgiving to other people's mistakes and tempers. The last 10 days of Ramadan are about freedom from fire. Instead of just focusing on Laylat Al-Qadar - the night of power - one should intensify supplications for the remaining period of Ramadan. If possible and affordable then do go for Umrah... it will be probably the most spiritually fulfilling experience you will have, aside from Hajj. And Umrah in Ramadan is equivalent to having done a Hajj with our Rasool. At the completion of the last fast, be optimistically hopeful that you will be alive to give similar pious worship during the forthcoming Ramadans. And if you remain guided in your life then you'll be admitted to Paradise, insha'Allah, by the Ryan gate of Paradise! The month after Ramadan is Shawwal. Those who fast just six days of this month get the reward of fasting the whole year. So if one has missed fasting for 12 years of his life, just six days of Shawwal fasting gives one an opportunity to make up for our past deficiency of fasting days. "Your good deeds are accepted during Ramadan. So are your invocations. You must invoke your Lord in right earnest with hearts that are free from sin and evil. That Allah may bless you, observe fast and recite the Holy Qur'an". "Anyone who may cultivate good manners in this month will walk over the bridge in qiyamat though his feet may be shaking".

Krishna: Expert dancer, uninhibited lover

"I would believe in a God who could dance", said German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche। During his time, God was generally portrayed as a frozen perfection, remote, static, and wholly unsociable। No wonder he was disillusioned by this stereotypical idea of God। Nietzsche would have been pleasantly surprised had he heard of Krishna, who danced expertly on the hood of the venomous serpent Kaliya. He also danced to the tune of his mother just to get butter, and he danced with gopis in celebration of divine love, in rasalila. He is Vrindavananatabara, dancer par excellence in the pastoral paradise of Vrindavana. All theistic traditions assert that God is great. In Krishna, that greatness is graphically demonstrated. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna gives a glimpse of his awe-inspiring greatness through his vishva-rupa darshana, which is one of the greatest mystical visions in world literature. Arjuna saw within the Universal Form - within Krishna - everything and everyone in existence. He saw all the planets, stars and universes as well as all living beings: celestial, terrestrial and subterranean. Krishna also exhibited his omnipotence by effortlessly overpowering numerous demons, who were the scourges of the universe. Most endearingly, Krishna delights, not in the magnificence of godhood, but in the sweetness of uninhibited love. Krishna expresses his sweetness in His lila as a prankster who steals butter from the homes of elderly gopis. Krishna as God is self-satisfied and doesn't need anything for his enjoyment. Moreover, when everything belongs to him, where is the question of his stealing anything? Yet just to reciprocate love with those devotees who love Him in a parental mood (vatsalya-bhava ), Krishna plays the role of their darling child and speaks and behaves mischievously. The disarming hospitality that Krishna extended to Sudama and the subsequent generous benedictions that he bestowed upon his poor gurukula-friend are also eloquent testimony to Krishna's personal warmth and sweetness. For the demoniac, Krishna's sweetness gives way to his greatness. Krishna went as a shantiduta (peace messenger) to dissuade Duryodhana from war with sweet words. But when the arrogant prince tried to arrest him instead, Krishna foiled the attempt by manifesting the gigantic universal form. But for devotees, Krishna is sweetness. During the rasa-lila, Krishna disappeared and reappeared as the majestic four-armed Vishnu. When his most beloved consort Radha offered him obeisance and asked him where Krishna had gone, He tried to point in a false direction. But seeing her selfless love and her intense anxiety caused by separation, Krishna could no longer maintain his guise. His two extra hands disappeared and Radha beheld before her the sweet Lord of her heart. The laws of karma impartially and unerringly deliver everyone of their karmic dues sooner or later. But if we turn to Krishna with devotional love, He manifests his sweetness as a forgiving father: "Abandon all varieties of religion and surrender unto me. I will free you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear". We can easily surrender to Krishna by chanting his holy names, which manifest both his greatness and sweetness. The holy name has the great power that even nuclear weapons don't have: the power to destroy all our negative habits and tendencies. Janmashtami is a reminder that our right to enjoy divine sweetness is beckoning us. Krishna is ready for us. Are we ready for him?

The writer is a spiritual mentor at ISKCON, Pune.

CHAITANYA CHARAN DAS

A Guru to provide safe harbour

Prince or commoner, rich or poor, every individual who wishes to get empowered and enlightened benefits greatly from the guidance of an able guru। Even the gods sought out gurus for themselves. Lord Krishna's guru was Sandipanirishi. Rama and Laxmana along with many other princes learnt all skills from their spiritual master, Guru Vasishtha. When Swami Vivekananda first visited Ramakrishna Paramahansa he asked: "I have read the Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures several times, i lecture and give discourses on the Gita and Ramayana. Do i still need harbour of a saint; do i still need a guru?" Ramakrishna didn't reply to Vivekananda's question. After a few days Ramakrishna called upon Vivekananda and handed him a parcel to be delivered at a nearby village a few hours away by the sea route. Early morning the boat and sailor would be ready and all he needed to do was to go to the village and deliver the parcel to the designated person. Vivekananda agreed and decided to start early. He found the boat and the sailor ready to put out to sea. Suddenly, upon sitting in the boat, Vivekananda realised that he didn't know the road to the village. He inquired of the sailor who had no clue, either. Vivekananda decided to go back to his guru to ask him the shortest way to the village. Upon this Ramakrishna said, "Narendra, this is my reply to the question you asked me when we met the first time: Today, you have the medium (the boat), you have the resource (the sailor), you have the road (the sea), you know what to do (deliver the parcel) and you also know where to go but you don't know the way. Likewise you have read all the scriptures, and you can conduct wonderful discourses on them. However, to realise the wisdom of scriptures one needs a guru, someone who has already traversed that path so that he can guide you through the journey and encourage you to not give up." In Sanskrit, 'gu' is one who dispels and 'ru' means darkness. Every individual who wishes to rise above his existing levels needs a lighthouse, a guiding star to guide him on the journey of life, who can help by dispelling darkness at every step. Lord Swaminarayan ordained Sikshapatri, containing 212 conventions of code of conduct for every human being. One of the points reads: "Even the most learned of men will become morally declined if he is not involved in devotion to God and in good acquaintance." Many seers have made various suggestions on how to embark on the spiritual path according to their perceived wisdom. Is there a universally accepted spiritual definition? How should one lead one's life which balances both the spiritual and the material? To understand all this and choose the right path for a balanced life of duty, responsibility, love, detachment and striving for higher consciousness, you need the grace and guidance of a spiritual master. As the saying goes "When the disciple is ready the Master arrives." Like a lone ship sailing in turbulent waters hunts for a safe harbour to anchorage, similarly one needs to constantly endeavour in the journey of life for a true guru, a harbour against all storms.

KAMLESH DIXIT

Lord Ganesha

Universal appeal of the legend of Ram

Hey Ram! With these last words, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi breathed his last। What would he have thought of the current controversy over the historicity or otherwise of Ram, the epic hero? It would be interesting to ask: What is the historicity of the wind or cosmos? Behind visual reality, there exists something one can call supernature. Beyond history, there is the realm of metahistory. How can man with his arrested sensibility, give expression to eternal life or eternity, in a language which is itself man-made? When we do not have a recorded or authentic history of language how shall we be able to understand the word 'history' used in language? The word Ram means causing rest, charming, loving and delightful. Gandhi knew from the core of his heart that Ram is the hidden centre of all apparent reality. It is the unchanging reality, underlying a shifting reality. Ram is part of metahistory. Ram possesses highest power but never reveals himself as a possessor of power. People with inferior power exhibit their power in mindless activity and vanish like a bubble. Much of Bapu's philosophy was based on the substance of Indian thought. He did tend to believe in avatars or incarnations and believed in the saving power of the name 'Ram' in salvation through Lord Krishna. For Gandhi, the legend of Ram is so deeply embedded in the Indian way of life that it is difficult to think of India and Indian culture without any mention of his name. The metahistory of Ram has inspired many poets and artists to depict his character with all its glory and transcendental splendour. After having understood the superficiality of so-called history Oswald Spengler had said in his book, The Decline of the West, that history should be the business of a poet. The first such epic is the Ramayana, composed by Sanskrit poet Valmiki who is believed to be a contemporary of Ram. The whole of the Ramayana consists of 24,000 stanzas or 96,000 lines. It is a great work of art with many dramatic passages. Apart from the Ramayana other important epics of Sanskrit literature which characterise the life of Ram are Raghvansh by Kalidas and Uttar Ramcharit by Bhavbhuti. Ram gained immense popularity through the writings of Tulsidas, too, who depicted Ram's character with such devotion and sincerity that Ram became the inseparable part of the collective unconscious of the people. Abhinand, Kshemendra Jaidev, Pravassen, Kritivas Kambhan and at least 40 other poets have eulogised the greatness of the legendary Ram through their writings. So it is not difficult for any one of us to utter the name of Ram consciously or unconsciously as Gandhi did. Although Gandhi was acquainted with the basic tenets of all religions, he was deeply moved by Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Gandhi's passion for sustainable living and development was inspired by eternal and universal principles of faith in the oneness of religion and humanity. Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence, truth and simple living was derived from a belief in the power of the very same principles epitomised by Maryada Purushottam Ram - the ideal personality - immortalised in the legend's story, the Ramayana, narrated in as many languages, forms and cultures as its plural versions.

Kailash Vajpeyi

Not your true self

If all is God, why is there imperfection in the world? Negative emotions like lust, pride, attachment, anger, ego, greed and jealousy are distortions of love। These distortions manifest in animals also, but they have no way to go beyond them as they are bound by Nature. Endowed with the power of discrimination, human beings can move from these distortions to a state of pure love. Every sincere seeker wants to get rid of anger and reach a state of perfection. What can you do when anger rises in you? You may remind yourself a hundred times that you shouldn't get angry, but when you feel the anger, you are unable to control it. It comes like a thunderstorm. Emotions are much more powerful than your thoughts and the promises you make. Anger is a distortion of our true nature. It is part of this creation, but we still call it a distortion because it doesn't allow the Self to shine forth fully. And this is what sin is. Anger is a sin because when you are angry, you lose your centredness; you lose sight of the Self. Anger is a sign of weakness. A strong man doesn't get angry easily. When you focus on other's mistakes, you are bound to get angry. The cause of anger is the lack of total knowledge of what is happening inside that person. Showing anger itself is not wrong, but being unaware of your anger only hurts you. There is a place for showing anger, but when you get angry yourself, you are shaken completely. Are you ever happy with the decisions you have made or the words you have spoken when you are angry? No, because you lose your total awareness. If you are completely aware and you are acting angry, that is fine. In fact, anger is an instrument. It is useful when you are able to control it. It can work wonders when you know how to use it and where to use it. Spiritual practices help you maintain your centredness. This is where a little knowledge about ourselves, about our mind, our consciousness, and the root of distortion in our nature will help. It is when you are exhausted and stressed that you lose your nature and get angry. Breathing techniques and meditation are effective in calming the mind. Meditation is letting go of anger from the past and the events of the past. It's accepting this moment and living every moment totally with depth. Often anger comes because you don't accept the present moment. You look for perfection; that is why you are angry at imperfections. Even when someone commits a mistake, know that she is not the culprit; the stress inside is causing her to make that mistake. Just this understanding and a few days of continuous practice of meditation can change the quality of our life. Usually, you give your anger freely and your smile rarely as though a smile is expensive. To the ignorant, anger is cheap and a smile is costly. To those of knowledge, a smile is free - like sunshine, air and water - and anger is expensive. Make your smile cheaper and anger expensive.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Recreating ourselves

To create is to bring into being or existence। And to create something new, we have to die to what is. Something has to die for something new to emerge, and our soul is constantly taking quantum leaps of creativity. What is a quantum leap? It's when a subatomic particle moves from here to there without going through the space in-between. So it's here, then it's there. In between where was it? Nowhere. How did it get from here to there? Don't know. And it got from here to there instantly. There was not time for it to get from here to there. That's a quantum leap. Every death is an opportunity for a quantum leap of creativity. Through death, we recreate ourselves at every level: the material level of the body-mind, the intellect, the personality. All of these have to die in order to recreate ourselves. With every death we store the wisdom of our experiences since the beginning of time and take quantum leaps of creativity so that we can look at ourselves again as if for the first time. Cycles of birth, transformation and death keep us ever fresh so that we can imagine new realms for our existence. In biology there's a term called apoptosis, which means programmed cellular death. In the absence of apoptosis, cells forget to die and this condition is called cancer. Cancer cells don't know how to die and in their quest for immortality, they kill the host body upon which they are dependent for their life. Death, therefore, is the ticket to life and it is happening right now in our body-mind. Where is our two year-old body? It's dead. The body, thoughts, emotions and the personality of the two-year-old are dead. We traded all these in for the three-year-old by dying to the two-year-old. Birth and death are happening all the time at all these levels.

Deepak Chopra

Surrender to God

Total surrender to the Almighty is the highest form of bhakti। It stands for accepting every situation as a gift or prasad from God. It means living every moment to perfection by using all your mental, physical and spiritual potential to the maximum. Spirituality means doing things in the right spirit and with complete faith. No situation is frivolous or insignificant because it always contains a hidden message. There are no flaws in the Divine's design, this is what we all must be aware of just like one dev-doot, or angel, did when he was banished from the heaven to lead a life as a cobbler to make him realize the consequence of questioning the wisdom of the Almighty. This angel had become so evolved spiritually that he was just one step away from becoming one with the Supreme. Pointing to a young woman on Earth, God asked him to take away her soul as it was time for her to die. When the angel reached the woman's house, he witnessed a heart-rending scene. Dressed in rags, the woman was cradling a three-month-old baby in her arms and was trying to pacify her two other children, aged two and four, who were crying with hunger. All looked malnourished and pale. There was not a morsel in the house. The woman had lost her husband, their sole breadwinner, a few months ago. With three little children to take care, she was unable to make ends meet. Now she was running high fever and was wondering what was to become of her and her children. The sight of the poor family living in such trying circumstances brought tears to the angel's eyes. He could not be so unkind and deprive the helpless kids of their only living parent! His compassion and benevolence got the better of him so he decided to return to the Heaven empty handed. His disobedience earned him the Almighty's displeasure. Since every act of the divine is guided by divine love and benevolence, God decided to make him realize his folly of interfering with the Supreme Law or design by banishing him to Earth for a lifetime as a cobbler. The only way he could return and be with the Almighty once again was by laughing at his plight three times. Thus the angel was born on Earth into a family of cobblers. He grew up beating smelly hides into smooth leather to make footwear. One day as he sat making footwear, the irony of it all dawned on him and he laughed at his situation -- once a Dev-dhoot, God's chosen one, was now on Earth working with animal skins, making footwear for mortals. Any way, instead of whining, the Dev-dhoot accepted his situation and continued leading his life in total surrender to the Almighty, giving his whole being to what ever work that came in front of him, whether it was beating leather into shape or making footwear. Soon he became so good at his work that his masters and customers started praising his work. And one day he was asked to make shoes for none other than the king himself! The angel put his mind, heart and soul into his work and before he could realize, he had created the most beautiful pair of chappals ever. But his masters were livid with him for being so careless, wasting raw material and time on a pair of chappals instead of the shoes that the king's men had ordered. Soon they arrived but much to everybody's surprise, the king's men asked for a pair of chappals instead of shoes. The king had just died and they wanted chappals to the fit the corpse before it could be cremated. It was a ritual in those days that the body of the king was adorned with chappals rather than shoes on his final journey. The dev-doot was speechless. Nothing seemed frivolous or meaningless in the Almighty's scheme of things, he thought and laughed to himself the second time. As days passed by, the angel became increasingly well known for his fabulous footwear. One day, a rich elderly lady escorting three pretty girls came to his shop to place a huge order for fancy footwear for the girls as they were all of marriageable age. When the angel asked her whether the girls were her daughters, the lady shook her head and replied that she was a rich businessman's wife but could never have any children. But one day her neighbours told her about three helpless orphans who had lost their parents. She felt the Almighty had answered her prayers and she adopted the three kids. The lady was in fact talking about the same children whose mother the Almighty had once ordered him to take away! Marveling at the Divine's design, the angel laughed to himself the third time. It was all about surrender and accepting every situation as a gift from God, to be lived through with all our potential. He had been banished to Earth in the first place because he had failed to do so, but later he got the opportunities to laugh his way out of this human life because of his surrender. His life's mission was now complete. He was ready to leave for his heavenly abode where the Almighty was waiting for him with open arms. He knew it well that now he would be with the Supreme forever. He had learnt the ultimate message meant for all humans on Earth that the only way to cut our Karma Cycle, the cause of birth and death, for total liberation and merging with the Supreme is to perform every given act, whether in thought, word or deed, as an offering to the Lord in total surrender, without doubting or questioning the purpose behind it. This is true realisation. This is the essence of life.

Meena Om

How to find inner solace

We are all pilgrims in this world. A pilgrim comes alone, treads his chosen path for some time and then leaves, once more solitarily. His is a sacred destination, always dimly suspected, but usually not consciously illuminated. Whether consciously or by blind instinct, directly or indirectly, all of us ultimately seek joy - infinite, eternal and divine. Most of us though, wander about this world like pilgrims without a map. We equate joy with money, power, fame or good times. It is only after ceaseless roving, after being disappointed with the futility of our search that we stand in silent self appraisal. And it is then that we discover, that our goal was never distant from us at all - indeed, never any further away than our own selves. The path we tread has no fixed dimensions; it could be long or short, depending on the purity of our intentions. Ultimately, it leads inward and the goal is ours already. We have only to claim it as our own. If you walk the path towards joy then it's important to expand your awareness to embrace ever widening realities. There are a few universal principles which will help you in your search: Love all, for it is only by loving that we live in joy. By hating or resenting others we experience only deep inner restlessness and pain Understand that true satisfaction is not found in endless variety but in inner stillness Show mercy, especially when you have a chance to retribute a wrong that was done to you. Revenge merely increases the sense of injury. By banishing from the consciousness the very thought that you were wronged brings a lasting peace. By offering solace and comfort to others we find comfort within ourselves. Greet every trial with a smile and remain undaunted. Trials are not the misfortunes which they seem when we are in them. They are opportunities! Comfort comes only after challenges have been met head on and overcome. It never comes to those who seek to avoid or evade them.

Lord Ganesha

Seven candles of unity to spread eternal light

All prophets were sent down to earth for a single purpose। They were made manifest so that the world of man could become the world of God... so that the nether realm becomes the Kingdom, darkness becomes light, satanic wickedness becomes all the virtues of heaven, and unity, fellowship and love be won for the entire human race. Prophets were sent so that organic unity reappears and the bases of discord be destroyed and life everlasting and grace everlasting become the humanity's harvest. Look around you. You will find that unity, mutual attraction, and gathering together engender life. But disunity and disharmony spell death. When you observe and consider all phenomena, you will see that every created thing has come into being through the mingling of many elements. Once this collectivity of elements is dissolved, and harmony of components is disturbed, life is wiped out. In cycles gone by, though harmony was established, owing to the absence of means, the unity of all mankind could not have been achieved. Continents remained widely divided. Even among the peoples of one continent association and interchange of thought were not possible. Since then means of communication have multiplied. We can travel to any land, associate and exchange views with its peoples, and become familiar, through publications, with the conditions, religious beliefs and thoughts of all men. Similarly, all members of the human family, whether peoples or governments, cities or villages, have become increasingly interdependent. Self-sufficiency is no longer possible or even expected, as political, commercial and industrial ties unite all peoples and nations. The bonds of trade and industry, of agriculture and education, are being strengthened every day. Hence the unity of all mankind can be achieved. Verily this is one of the wonders of this wondrous age. The age of discovery and light unfolds a fresh marvel every day. Eventually it will be seen how bright its candles will burn, spreading light everywhere, dispelling darkness and ignorance. Behold how its light is now dawning upon the world's darkened horizon. The first candle is unity in the political realm, the early glimmerings of which can now be discerned. The second candle is unity of thought in world undertakings, the consummation of which will ere long be witnessed. The third candle is unity in freedom which will surely come to pass. The fourth candle is unity in religion which is the cornerstone of the foundation itself, and which, by the power of God, will be revealed in all its splendour. The fifth candle is the unity of the nations — a unity which in this century will be securely established, causing all the peoples of the world to regard themselves as citizens of one common fatherland. The sixth candle is unity of races, making of all that dwell on earth peoples and kindreds of one race. The seventh candle is the unity of language, the choice of a universal tongue in which all peoples will be instructed and converse. Each and every one of these will inevitably come to pass, inasmuch as the power of the Kingdom of God will aid and assist in their realisation. Courtesy: Office of Public Information, National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of India.

Abdu'l-Baha

Tackling the enemy within

Osho narrates a Sufi parable: A man was very worried because every night someone would enter his garden and destroy all the plants। He did everything that could be done to protect it। He posted guards all along the boundary, but never was anybody seen entering the garden at night. Yet, every morning, the garden would be trashed. The man did everything he could but nothing helped. He then went to a Sufi master, in the hope that the master would be able to see things he and the guards could not. The master closed his eyes and said, "Do one thing. Fix the alarm on your clock for two o'clock in the night." The man said, "How is this going to help? My guards are continuously watching and patrolling around the house." The master said, "There is no need to argue. Just do what I say. Fix the alarm for two o'clock. Then come the next day and tell me what happened." The man was unconvinced but he tried it. Two o'clock, when the alarm went off, he was awake. He was standing in his own garden, wreaking havoc on his plants. He was a somnambulist—a sleepwalker! In some way or the other, we all are somnambulists. We sow our seeds of misdeeds in the deep night of unconsciousness, and then we wonder why our lives are so miserable. We love others and soon we see that we are doing something else in the name of love. It isn't difficult to see if we use a little intelligence and a little awareness. Osho says: You love somebody, and then you start possessing him. Tares are entering your relationship. You love, and then you become jealous. Now weeds are growing. You love, and for trivial things you get angry. You love meaningless, petty things. Thus hate arises. Now the wheat is getting mixed with tares. When you love you feel happy. Every love starts with deep happiness, a celebration, and every love ends in deep sadness. The other day I was reading The Hollow Men, a poem by T S Eliot. The poem ends with these lines: "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper." Well, this is how everything ends. Your love, your meditation, your virtue. Not with a bang, but a whimper. But it need not be this way. If we wake up, we become alert. We need to shake ourselves up. Osho gives us a method of mindfulness: Remain a watcher, remain a witness. Remember that. Remind yourself continuously. Sadness has come. It has happened to you; it is not you. The moment you remember this, suddenly you will see a distance arising between you and the sadness. It does not affect you any longer. When you lose awareness, it affects you; when you gain awareness, there is a distance. The more your awareness rises, the more the distance increases. A moment comes when you are so far away from your sadness that it is as if it's not there at all. The same has to be done with happiness also. It will be difficult, because one wants to cling to happiness. But if you want to cling to happiness, you are sowing the seeds of unhappiness. That's how this parable is of tremendous significance. The master himself-in his sleep, in his unawareness-came to the field, the wheat field and sowed the seeds of weeds. In deep sleep! He was a somnambulist. In the morning he started asking, "Who has done this?" You have been doing things to yourself. In the morning, when you wake up, you ask, "Who has done this?" And you start searching for the enemy. The enemy is within, the enemy is just your unconsciousness.

SWAMI CHAITANYA KEERTI

Inclusive nature of Buddhist philosophy

When you understand the spirit of Buddhism correctly, you can follow and practise it while living in this workaday world। In Buddhism, true renunciation doesn’t mean running away from worldly affairs, leaving your family or taking to ochre clothes. The chief disciple of Buddha, Sariputa, said that you might live in a forest fully devoted to ascetic practices but if your mind is full of impure thoughts and defilements, then you are not practising Buddhism. On the other hand, an ordinary person who is not observing ascetic disciplines but has his mind pure, is practising Buddhism in its true spirit. A few people may like to lead a lonely life in a quiet place to practise Buddhism, for their own reasons. But it is certainly more praiseworthy and courageous to practise Buddhism living amongst your own people, helping them and to have empathy, mutual love and concern for all. There is nothing wrong if a man spends some time away from the hurly and burly of life as a part of spiritual and intellectual training to come out stronger; such a person would be of greater help to fellow human beings. But if a man lives all his life in solitude without caring for family and community this is not in keeping with Buddha’s teaching which is based on compassion and service. What then was the objective of Buddha establishing Sangha and monasteries for monks? This was done for those who were willing to devote their entire lives not for their own spiritual and intellectual development but also to serve others. In the course of time, Buddhist monasteries became not only spiritual centres but also centres of learning and service. An incident in Buddha’s life shows how much importance he gave to family life. A young man, Sigala, used to worship six cardinal points of heaven: east, west, north, south, nadir and zenith — as instructed by his religious head. When he met the Buddha to embrace his religious doctrine, Buddha told the young man that in his religious discipline the six directions were: east — parents, west — wife and children, south — teachers, north — friends, relatives and neighbours. At the bottom were others and at the top, seers. These six family and social groups are treated as sacred in Buddhism and one could worship them only by performing one’s duties towards them. Buddhism accords highest place to parents, like other religions. In Hinduism, parents are referred to as Brahma. Second in the order comes Guru, or teacher. Every pupil is expected to respect and obey his teacher. Third is the sacred relationship between wife and husband. Both husband and wife need to respect each other and express their love and regard by caring and sharing. The Buddha didn’t forget to mention that a husband could gift clothes and jewellery to his wife — as a way of demonstrating the fact that he cared for her physical well-being, too. It is clear that in order to practise Buddhism you are not expected to become a monk or retire to a forest or cave. You can practise it even while living with and caring for family and discharging your duties towards family members. Similarly, the caring and sharing is extended to entire society in which you live. It is through compassion that you evolve, and thereby raise your consciousness.

Bhartendu Sood