jabdakhata

How do we develop dispassion? One way is to consider this world as a hell, with all its sufferings and miseries and thereby long for a reprieve, a kind of escape from the mundane and gross reality. However, that is pessimistic approach. A far better way is to cultivate love, love for a better life, love for peace, love for the divinity inside and a strong belief that the divinity can be realized. Everybody in this world strives for a better life, for improvement in the living conditions. The purpose of natural evolution is improvement in living conditions, progressing from a lower to a higher and better form of life, from amoeba to human being with consciousness, from man to divinity, the seat of consciousness. The evolution happens over physical, mental and spiritual plain, when we change forms, when we mature and when we grow inwards. Meditation is a way of connecting to the divinity, of achieving this higher state, of being and becoming divine. Love is one of the ways of manifestin...

Swami Vivekananda had prescribed several steps towards a good meditation – 1st step is to assume a posture and pray that the posture can be retained till the end. 2nd step is to pray for the well being of all, eliminate all selfish thoughts 3rd step is to do a few pranayams or breath control exercises (a maximum of three, because pranayams, although it is said that they can help in controlling the mind better by controlling the vital forces in the body, can be dangerous if not performed under the supervision of a qualified person) 4th step is to go for the actual meditation, for atleast half an hour. Swami Vivekananda also advocated letting the mind run around for sometime before even trying to focus it. The mind like an errant child, after playing for sometime will get tired and come back to its resting place, just as a child goes back to its mother after being tired with a day’s play. Another way which is advocated by spiritual seekers is to let the mind work its way ins...

Only a yogi is able to completely control the mind; however for ordinary folks even attempt to do so has lot of benefits. Purification of mind increases the divine or superior nature or Sattvic bhava and eliminates the baser nature or the crude Rajasic and Tamasic bhavas or the demonic characters. That means one has lesser anger, material cravings and desires, impulsiveness, excitement, stress, depression. One experiences more joy with life, gets a real purpose of life, becomes more compassionate, understanding, and develops empathy and fellow feeling which helps in personal and professional lives. One is able to contend with the internal enemies like lust, anger, greed, pride and ego, delusion and envy better as one becomes aware of their presence. Awareness is the first step towards fighting the menace. Once somebody is aware of his or her weaknesses, he or she is able to fight it out. Connecting to the inner world is necessary to know one self completely, which is often hidden am...

So all these practices are intrinsically linked to each other and can form a comprehensive or holistic way of having superiority over the vagaries of mind. It is very easy to train and control a pure mind, just as it is easy to control a docile and good natured horse. However it requires a lot of patience and determination. Mind is a very powerful enemy, unless one has formidable strength of will, battling with mind is not easy. A lot of patience is needed because focusing or concentration does not happen easily; it needs a lot of time before one can even concentrate for a few minutes, unless one starts at a very early age. One has to get rid of desires arising and anxieties looming large and all other kinds of thoughts which tend to surface up just as one starts looking inwards. Sri Ramakrishna narrated a small parable on determination about a young boy who, in order to get water, began digging in a place, but getting disheartened with only rocks and sand and no water, he left it a...

What happens when one begins to meditate? Anybody who has tried meditation will agree with Arjuna that it is very difficult to control the mind because it always tends to run away in different directions, it scatters, it runs after sense objects, all the problems and thoughts which have been lying hitherto hidden, surfaces up and gives much pain. It is impossible to attain a complete focus on a subject even it is only for a few minutes. So what is the way out? The key lies in practice, sadhana. The first thing which is necessary to focus the mind is to think of a form, may be of God, or that of any thing very dear to anybody. Sri Ramakrishna had prescribed to a devotee that she could meditate on the form of her nephew whom she loved very much. Such affection helps in restraining the mind. A form is very essential contrary to the popular belief that “meditation is freeing the mind from all thoughts and making it blank”, because we need something to focus upon, so one single, determin...

Therefore first step in good meditation is to control the senses. That’s what the Lord prescribes in 3rd Chapter of Gita when he says – Tasmad indriyani adyaou niyamya bhatarsabha Papmanam prajahi hi enam gyanavigyananashanam -First control your senses and try overcoming these sinful impulses (lust, anger) which destroys the knowledge (of the Self). Continence is the key in restraining lust, a key enemy against leading a pure life. Continence helps in controlling senses by taking away senses from their resp. objects, the source of distractions and deprives the mind much of its power to scatter in different directions. The other step is restraining desires. Desires will invariably drive mind and senses in different directions. Restraining desires also restrains anger as the two are intrinsically related (anger stems from desire – Gita Chapter 2, verse 62, 63) The second step is getting rid of the dirt and grimes which have accumulated in the mind over a long period of time, in...

Attachment to sensual things means that mind gets a powerful source of distraction. If you are too concerned about money, name, fame, innumerable desires, power, lust, greed, anger, passion, jealousy, hatred, sorrow, or for that matter worldly joy and happiness, cravings and sensory pleasures, you are nowhere near to controlling the mind, instead it will control you. In Bhagvat Gita 3rd chapter the lord asks Arjuna to first control the senses (five sensory organs or eyes, ears, nose, skin and tongue and the five work organs of legs, arms, mouth, anus and reproductive organs), because the source of all troubles in the world – Kama and Krodha, or Desire and Anger, reside in the senses, in the mind and in the intelligence. These overshadow the Self, who is shining bright, just as smoke covers the fire, and dust covers a mirror, and the womb covers or encapsulates the fetus. He also goes on saying that senses are greater than the body, because they control all bodily functions, mind is ...

The basic purposes of meditation are contemplation, connecting with the inner world and diminishing the influence of the noises and disturbances of the outside world. However more often than not it is considered as a fad, a new trend for “spirituality seekers” whatever that may be. Nevertheless, getting addicted to meditation is certainly better than getting addicted to drugs, nicotine or alcohol and if a generation spends some time and money in search of that elusive peace, what is the harm? Peace is a fundamental need for every living being on this earth and there are very few who would not opt for this at any cost. Most of the fellows who are addicted to hemp or cocaine or alcohol do so because they can blissfully forget the “existence” which is so full of problems and miseries. However the effect of such recourse is very temporary and the impact is most damaging. Meditation, on the other hand can bring you closer to the ineffable bliss of the divine reality, at best, called Sat Ch...

There was a piece of news that Supreme court has reduced the compensation to be paid to the victims of Uphaar cinema hall tragedy in which several people were burnt alive in 1997, from Rs 15 lakhs to Rs 7 lakhs. While the Supreme Court is the highest authority and any attempt to write against it would be treated as “contempt of the court”, I humbly ask one question to the honorable judges – what is the value of life? How can one even compute the value of a life lost, the cost of pains and sufferings and miseries for over fourteen years for the family members who are fighting for justice? In any civilized country the court would have asked for maximum punitive damages from the guilty party, in this case the builders, the MCD, the police etc. who gave the necessary safety clearances (a clear case of corruption). Sadly in India human life is treated with utmost contempt and often vested interests and other considerations hold greater sway. The builder (Ansals) however will appeal even th...

When we proclaim that we are going to usher in changes, clear the mess and do whatever its possible to bring improvements in the lives of the people, we probably hid within ourselves a smug and self congratulatory tone, that we are the real “doers”, that we have the ability to change lives, to positively (or negatively) influence society, community and the nation. But hold on! Who or what are you? Whether you are a theist or an atheist does not matter. Whether you truly believe in God or whether you are a believer in destiny, karma or whatever, it does not matter in the least. Do you really think you are the doer? Do you really think you create and shape your own circumstances and also that of others who are waiting to be helped by you, your visions, your dreams and your works? Think of at least one event in your life that has been solely and purely influenced by you, think of anything that “you” have changed. Isn’t there interplay of too many factors and actors in all those events ...

When sometimes we undertake a journey have we ever realized how similar it is to the life’s journey that we are making day in and day out since our birth? Imagine that you need to go and visit some place with many interesting things to see, having many accessible and inaccessible nooks and corners, each one of which is worth visiting. Himalayas for instance offer one such interesting destination. There are so many things to see but you end up seeing something and missing others. When you start the journey you are full of enthusiasm, just like when you are a child beginning on the life’s journey, eager to learn, full of optimism. But as you progress in your journey, you see many interesting things, some of the sites fascinate you, some do not, you are able to visit some interesting places and miss out on some others. In real life, you have so many experiences, some of them interesting while some are painful, others are just boring. You have so many desires; some of them get fulfilled, ...

When Swami Vivekananda was wandering as a mendicant in Varanasi, he was once troubled by a group of monkeys. He started running out of fear but the monkeys chased him. Seeing this, another ascetic shouted at him, ‘Swami, turn around, face the brutes!’ Swamiji did just that and the monkeys vanished. Later, while recalling this experience Swamiji said that problems in our life are like that of these monkeys. If we run away from the problems, they will chase us and hunt us down, but if we face them bravely, we may be able to beat all odds and emerge unscathed. It is a vital lesson of life that unless we stand up and face the challenges, the challenges will multiply and will eventually destroy us. What is a vital lesson for an individual is also a lesson for a nation and for the entire world. India has repeatedly been attacked but it has not faced the brutes. Time and again for the past 60 years or so it has proved that it is a nation of cowards, non violence and tolerance are just i...

Another terror attacks strikes Mumbai. The pattern is now oft repeated – bold headlines, TV channels running for TRP and excitement, innocents losing lives, families getting shattered, politicians including the heads of the state “condemn” and request people to maintain “calm” (why don’t they just hand over a previously recorded version instead of repeating the same glib statements is something beyond my limited wisdom, and why do media attach so much importance to their repetition is also strange). Another thing that comes up repeatedly, esp. in the media is the “resilience of Mumbaikars”. Now that leads me to wonder, what is meant by resilience? Is it to suffer attacks time and again and do nothing, just go back to old business, forgetting everything – is that what is resilience? Silently suffering all corruption, bad civic infrastructure, monsoon flood – are these all part of the same resilience? To my mind, this is not resilience but far from it, it is cowardice. It is the tendenc...

Ramakrishna was born in a poor Brahmin family, he was devoid of formal knowledge and education but he was not "illeterate" as some of the contemporary studies would like to believe. He got to know of scriptures from various sources like enlightened discussions, but what would be the need of a formal education for a person who is born illuminated. Just as it says in Gita that for a "Brahmavid or the knower of the Brahman, the knowledge of the vedas is as limited as compared to a small water tank in an area which is flooded with water". He did not need to know the scriptures, he was born to teach them from his own direct experience, of arriving at the same truth by following various disparate paths. He was a personification of the Upanishad's profound statement - "There is but one truth, the wise call it by various names". He, using simple colloquial Bengali language, similies and metaphores, clarified effortlessly the most profound and most difficul...

Before getting back to the discussion on Sri Krishna, lets talk about another person who figures very prominently on the divine appearance list. The difference between the rest and him is that 1) He is the most recent 2) His leela or divine play has been well documented and corroborated by various sources. Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa has been varioulsy refered as "Avatar", "Yugavatar", "great saint", "mystic", "sage" and "phenomenon" (the last one by Christopher Isherwood). However, my belief is that nobody, except for a very select few, knew who he truly was, he revealed himself only to his nearest and dearest whom he called as 'Antaranga' or the innermost circle. In his own language, he was "achin gachh" or that unknown plant, ever mysterious and beyond comprehension of ordinary mortal. Vivekananda certainly knew who he was, being his foremost disciple. The very depth of his feeling about Ramakrishna c...

Elsewhere when we look around the world we find similar parallels. Every 500 or 600 years, when a part of the world is submerged under great darkness, there came great men with message of deliverance. In the West when the Roman civilization was at its nadir, when barbarsim, beastliness and debauchery reigned supreme, when ritualism and oppression haunted the Western faiths, both Jewsih and pagan, there appeared a great man with the message of selfless love, compassion who laid the foundation of future European civilization based on what later came to be known as Christian principles. Similarly about 600 years later there appeared another great man who was a karmayogin, who united much of the barabaric cruel and viscious Arabic tribes into a cohesive force on the principles of universal bortherhood and replaced the terrible prevailing practices of the different tribes with a comprehensive rule of law, of worshipping one true god in place of stones and woods so that they could be...

During the 6th century BC whole of India was immersed in a worst form of ritualism. Cast system reached its most loathsome form when the priestly class dominated and the wisdom of the brahmins degenerated into obnoxious practices through misinterpretation of the Vedas. Brahmins used their dominant position in the society to establish their sway and power over everybody, including the kings. The so called inferrior castes and common men were debarred from parctising religion as per Vedas and most of the great truths were anyway outside the reach of common men as there were no documents, every teaching was based on Sruti. In this despondent situation there appeared a prince who had renounced his kingdom and his married life in search of Truth. He was lord Buddha, the enlightened one. He openly embraced everybody and debarred none. People flocked to him, for getting the taste of the eternal peace. And in the next three of four centuries, many great kings, most prominent being Ashoka...

After studying German grammer and while studying Sanskrit grammer, I came across some very interesting similarities between the two. Perhaps this is one of the reason why the "Aryan" theory came into existence after Europeans discovered the linguistic similarities of the ancient Indians with Europeans. The similarity is the underlying base for the Indo-Germanic languages. However to my mind the root cause of this similarity is not because European sprache spread across the globe towards the East along with Aryans (the theory has now been established as a bunkum except being tenaciously held by some racists and Marxists), but rather Sanskrit spread towards Europe which was at that point of time a mainly barabarian regime devoid of any capability of constructing a civilized form of language. Sanskrit was probably then as popular as English is today and thus early Europeans eagerly and zealously adopted the syntax as their base. Coming to the similarities that I observed - ...

Rabindranath Thakur (Tagore in English) was a person whom very few can comprehend and even less can speak about. However there are many so called "experts" on him. I do not profess to be one and I am simply delighted to read him and interprete him in my own way. Here is a piece which I got on his viewpoints on religion. Towards the fag end of his life in 1937 he was delivering a lecture in the parliament of religions organized by Ramakrishna Mission. Religions at their most profound level, he indicated, help to reveal a spirit of harmony that bridges the dark abysms of time and space…that reconciles contradictions…and imparts perfect balance to the unstable. Yet, “ when these same religions travel far from their sacred sources ,” he noted, “ they lose their original dynamic vigour, and degenerate into the arrogance of piety, into an utter emptiness crammed with irrational habits and mechanical practices, then is their spiritual inspiration befogged in the turbidity of...

What is the definition of "Ego"? Anything to deal with "me" and "myself"? What is egoism and what is egotism? Are they good or bad? "I am a great leader, I am highly placed, I have influences, I have money, muscle power, I have education, I have a good job, I earn a lot, I can teach you a lesson, how dare you crossed my path!" - these are all statements of egoism, which Sri Ramakrishna used to call "bajjat Ami", meaning the "Evil Self", or "Kancha Ami" meaning "the unripe self". On the other hand he classified "Bhakta Ami", 'Das Ami" (Devotee Me, Servant (of lord) me) etc. as the "Paka Ami" or the 'Ripe Self'. He gave an example of 'Evil Self' (vide Gospels of Sri Ramakrishna or the Ramakrishna Kathamrita) - suppose someone had stolen 10 bucks from you, you thought how dare he steals from "Me", and getting hold of that guy, gave him a good thrashing, to...