“Garv se kaho hum Hindu hai”, posters/stickers stuck(on cars/shops/homes) across a predominantly Hindu country… What are we trying to prove and to whom? Does a “Hindu” sticker on your car or a “Jai Shri Ram” flag and/or loud greeting to others make you a better Hindu or more Hindu than others? Does being a Hindu make you superior to others? No – you still are the same human being as the ones living in different parts of the world…

Paradoxically, the same people cry foul when some of them seek reservations in preference to their brethren and then want to remind them that all are born equal and must be given equal treatment – Uniform Civil Code….

Politicians will divide people as per their religion, community, caste, creed, gender, etc whatever suits their present agenda…but why are we the people so hell bent upon being “different” than others and taking pride over it? The last time that I checked, “Pride” was not supposed to be a virtue, instead just the opposite but we seem to be proud of cultivating pride and what are we “Proud” of exactly? Within 5 minutes of our birth our name, nationality, religion/caste/creed/ etc was decided and now we are expected to spend a lifetime defending something that we did not choose to start with…So, in the name of tradition, we are simply perpetuating the mistakes of the past without even attempting to rectify them… 

If we don’t awake and arise as humans dissolving all petty identifications then we have already lost the game(of life) even if we achieve external success in the material world…

If you look around, there is pollution everywhere – air, noise, water, food, roads, etc. Who is causing this pollution? We the People, Of the People, For the People. We have only ourselves to blame and take shelter of compromised levels of adherence instead of aspiring for the best world to live in…

People live their lives according to their habits, circumstances and civic sensibilities which cannot be taught other than by elders/schools/Government by walking the talk but how many elders/schools/Governments do so? Then again, most people in the “have – not” category are just fighting to survive so civic sensibilities to them may not be a priority, the sad part is that many people in the “have” category are also blatantly ignoring civil sensibilities. Even elected representatives are themselves causing noise pollution (processions), air pollution(Crackers), etc who reins them in? There is a more urgent need for a “uniform civic code” than a “uniform civil code”.

Then I realise that all this is just a manifestation of the pollution in our minds – the indifference, the arrogance, etc that is ultimately causing the pollution. “Saucha”(Cleanliness) is a Niyama(Observance) that one has to keep in the Eight Fold Path of Yoga and it starts with your own mind which is then reflected in cleanliness of your living habits, interactions with the external world. 

Swachh Bharat will start with Swachh Mann that has to be exemplified by the Elected Representatives(Tough task?)

As the proverb goes – “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. 

“Admi hi sabse khatarnak janwar hai(Man is the most dangerous animal)”said our guide during our Jungle Safari at Ranthambore. At least every other species kills only to survive, humans destroy anything & everything since they can’t control their greed…

Humans are gifted the unique ability to be compassionate, regardless of the situation but not the wisdom to exercise it, which dawn’s only with Self Realisation which is a journey and destination in itself.

As the Rajasthani greeting goes – Khamma Ghani (Kshama ( क्षमा )’, meaning ‘forgiveness’. ‘Ghani’ (घणी ), means ‘a lot of’). May we be able to live by compassion and experience the uniqueness of being human…

To seek certainty in an ever-changing uncertain world, is a seekers path. However, starting with certainty ends the journey before it begins and that’s what blind faith/fanaticism leads to.

Know thyself is the best religion, everything else is an attempt to forcefully implement a uniform civil code that most people don’t agree to and yet embrace it as their identity but interpret the code laid down as per their convenience and fight with others to say what they think, is right. And life goes on….🌻

It has been an old game of Colonists – to divide and rule. It took a handful of crafty colonists to create a rift between various people to serve their own ends. The colonists are no more but this game is sadly still being played. Labelling people under religion, caste, etc to gain political mileage is rampant, we don’t realise that we are creating disharmony for ourselves. A similar thing had happened in Germany, not so long ago and we all know what was the outcome. Do we learn from history or choose to ignore the inconvenient truths, is upto us.

To my mind, to achieve social harmony, the only lesson to learn from the entire collective history of mankind is to dissolve the narrow basis of identification on the basis of geography, religion, caste, etc and to acknowledge that all of us are humans first and last, and that we all eventually die. COVID in a sense was a great teacher & leveller that reminded us of this basic fact – immaterial of nationality, religion, caste, etc we are all humans first and last. We have (hopefully)managed to contain COVID but how do we contain the virus of this narrow identification/mind which is even deadlier than COVID?

You are not a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or a Buddhist,

You are not the status, titles, roles that you play,

You are not even your body/mind,

​It is this limited identification that is the source of all problems…

You are the boundless, eternal Source itself, 

You are born in a human form to love, care, share… 

Whatever/Whoever takes you away from thinking/doing this is leading you the wrong way….

​You have to let go of the shores of form, logic​, ego and ​turn inwards​ ​ to your heart (The anahata chakra​ – associated with unconditional love, compassion, and joy. It is the source of deep and profound truths​) it knows the way, trust it…

Kya pata hum mein kahani hai

Ya kahani mein hum?

Hum Samandar ka ek Katra hai

Ya Samandar hai hum?

As Ram Dass says “The Spiritual Journey is individual, it can’t be organised or regulated. It isnt true that everyone should follow the one path. Listen to your own truth….”

Finding “God” is a personal journey not a collective one since “God” is you, you are God. “God” as “form” is just a human creation for ideals to aspire to, the real God (“substance”) is the same Source that exists in all living beings.

The current hype surrounding the construction of a temple makes me wonder whether we have missed this point altogether. I wonder what would the Marayada Purushottam Lord Rama think about all that is being passed on in His name…

In my view, He would remind you that you don’t need temples to remind you that “God” is you, you simply need to live by the ideals that the “God” signifies. “Ideals” are passed down through mythology but are always to be imbibed personally. Sadly, the “walking the talk” is glossed over and the rituals are being perpetuated. 

Just because someone chants mantra’s to appease the God or builds temples or makes processions doesn’t change the fact that God is One but it is we who fall short in understanding/realising this and in this shortfall happens life. 

To the ones that are lost, “form” is relied upon instead of “substance”….

To the ones who realise the One, all such forms/hypes are meaningless since the substance/ideal is already achieved within…

Aspire to be the latter…

“Karma” is often (mis)understood in narrower terms as actions or habits or fate but actually is a much larger concept that includes everything from the external situation to internal motive/intent to actions that eventually lead to results… 

Karma is actually raison detre (our reason for existence). It happens due to “avidya” which is the belief that we are separate from everything around us which prompts us to engage in the action – result cycle which again builds up more karma to exhaust – its a vicious cycle. This circus goes on till you get a direct experience of Reality/Advaita which is “Vidya”.

“Vidya” is not in just reading scriptures nor going to temples nor in “doing” but in knowing/directly experience the Advaita nature of which you are an expression, it can only be experienced in Yoga which silences all the nonsense thats going on in your mind. 

“Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodha”

As we celebrated the New Year, I thought about the people in the Hospitals and their relatives, I thought about the daily wages workers who want to just sleep and get the day/year behind them but have nowhere to sleep. There are wars going on in some parts of the world/people dying of hunger/poverty and it doesn’t matter to them that it is the New Year, they are simply thankful to be alive…We all live in the same space and yet in such different worlds, how do you even begin to reconcile that? 

Then it dawns upon me that some questions were never meant to be answered, the world is just the way it is and you have to experience it through your own lens/perspective. 

Just walk gently, count your blessings, help those you can, pray for those you can’t and know that everything happens as a part of a Divine Plan which may not be known to you and even so, you may not be able to comprehend it with your limited human intellect, so just accept the moment for what it is and send out as much love as you can in it and just by doing so you would be making the world a better place to live in….