We have been asked since we were kids – “Who do you want to become when you grow up?” This is the start of the rat race and we chase the false notion that we have to become “somebody” in order to survive in society. Since the entire society carries the same notion, you feel that you are doing the right thing by continuing wanting to become something…In doing so you don’t even know what it is to live free…

Freedom and bondage though imposed by society are self perpetuated and you can liberate yourself from it – 

if you are not clutching on to anything, you are free,

if you are living without any pre-conditions, you are free,

if you are living joyfully in the moment, you are free, 

…

It is your own desires & illusions that bind you, it’s up to you to let go.

Live free  

Humility, discipline and unconditional service through volunteering experienced at Gajanan Maharaj Prtishthan Shegaon that i just returned from. 

Unlike most temples wherein you will get irritatingly accosted by Panda’s/Pandit’s for engaging their services for fees, at Shegaon you are left alone to approach the Saint & Deity in the temple at your own terms. Another place i got a similar experience was at the Golden Temple.

Both places have hundreds of volunteers working untiringly daily to just ensure that people coming to visit & seek blessings get a good experience. Truly excellent organisation and arrangements for stay at Bhakti Nivas and at the temple. Was impressed with the attention to detail, the cleanliness of the place, the discipline & humility of the volunteers smiling to ask “What can I do for you Mauli?”

To note that this naked saint still inspires people to try to bring out their better self is heartening and inspirational, in that all is not lost, humanity still has hope… ❤️

Gana gana ganat bote!

Jai Gajanan 🙏

The constant, habitual chase of name(Fame), power, wealth makes you lose sight of the fact that quality of life is not dependent on your achievements, possessions, or titles. In fact the chase/craving for control leaves you more anxious by the day. You start thinking how to protect what you have and make it better and introduce anxiety in your mind that establishes itself over time. Such an anxious mind craves peace but doesn’t know that it is itself the cause of the anxiety.

The trick is to surrender control which is what you do in meditation wherein you establish yourself as a witness of all that comes to the mind and in doing so the mind settles over a period of time providing a modicum of peace which when practiced consistently changes the mindset to a relaxed, joyful and focussed mindset which is the “heaven” that never left you and yet you were looking all over the world for it…

Drifting in the wind,
Like a feather with no will,
Where will the wind carry me?
Does the wind know?
Who knows?
How does it matter?
Who is “me”?
Where do we come from, where do we go?
Do we have the tools to explore these questions?
Oneness, Grace are but words, the meaning of which can only be directly experienced in Silence which demands unconditional surrender of whatever you think ‘I’ is…
What remains after this unconditional surrender is Shi-va (No-thing)
Tat tvam asi – you are that
Happy Mahashivratri 🌻

The ‘why’/ ‘purpose’ of life is understood differently by different people or same people at various stages of maturity and situations… That is the beauty of creativity offered to the human form as compared with any other sentient being, that we are able to carve out a different destiny as per our choice…

Regardless of what you think life is, you have the choice to be kind, loving, caring to all sentient beings around. This is a common capacity afforded to all humans but unfortunately used only by a few. Choose kindness, it’s always possible…

Human endeavors can be best described within the framework of Purushartha(Raison d’etre – Reason for existence) wherein Moksha(Spiritual liberation) is Paramdharma(Prime Duty), Dharma (Duties towards self, family, society, environment), Artha(Roles that get you social recognition and financial wherewithal to complete your duties and desires) and finally Kama(Desires/attachments). All four co-exist for all humans and depend on what you give priority to, which in turn depends on your level of maturity(learning from wisdom gathered by self or others and making course corrections to life). 

You have examples like Sant Dyaneshwar who attained moksha at a very young age and you have people getting married at 92 years unable to let go of Kama, so age has nothing to do with it. Nothing is right or wrong in this world, it is just a matter of realizing what life is all about in an uncertain time period. You cannot choose beyond your maturity. You will attract to yourself only that which your personality emits – it is like a magnet. So examine the content of your life to get a perspective of your life and in doing so you may change the context of your life realising that everything is temporary and to cling on to anything is folly… 

Being in love is finding the core of pure love within, others have nothing to do with it. It is unconditional.

Love is experienced in Oneness wherein there is no distinction between others and you. 

This love never left you but is covered with layers of ego that depends on likes/dislikes, pleasure/pain, I/Me/Mine and above all an inherent illusion of being separate from everyone/everything else. So to experience true love, you have to transcend your ego which is what spirituality is all about.

As we usher in another Republic Day let us take a moment to realise what it is that we are celebrating. We are touted to be the world’s largest democracy that achieved freedom from external oppressors and decided to form one nation of many states that abides by a common constitution​.​​  

Exit of external oppressors doesn’t mean that everything is fine, the responsibility of running a nation of diverse cultures, ethnicities, religions, etc has been taken up by the people, for the people, of the people. Are we succeeding in that? The state of the nation is a reflection upon its people and their maturity, a large number of whom are still struggling with survival issues and live below the poverty line. Ironically we also have the world’s 3rd richest man who just slipped to the number 4 position. How do you bridge these paradoxes? What do we look to as a parameter of success? 

We will be a good people and consequently create a good nation if all of us make it a personal constitution to overcome Kama(desire), Krodha(Anger), Lobha(greed), Mada(Sense of I), Moha(Attachment) and Matsarya(Partiality). A nation is not just demarcating boundaries and administering it, it is the people in it that make a nation and if each one of us abides by this personal constitution, we will be leaving a worthwhile legacy for the generations to come.

Happy Republic Day

​

War always creates strife but we just don’t seem to learn from history. There are many countries in the world wherein wars are still ongoing as of today. In others just absence of war doesn’t mean presence of peace, since they are ruled by ambitious power hungry politicians/dictators/army chiefs/political parties who are furthering their own nefarious agenda. Notwithstanding all this every country seems to have its own internal wars due to distinctions of caste, creed, color, religion, political alignment, etc. The world seems to be in a constant state of war and strife all the time. 

How did we land ourselves in this mess and how do we emerge from it? Unfortunately this has no answer since the will to seek peace is just an illusion, the fact is that there are industries, armies built around defence/war and quite a few nations need war to continue to meet the political and financial aims of those in power…

So how do you cope with such  madness??? 

It is by knowing that your peace is not dependent on the state of the world, it is dependent on your own state of mind. If you are able to train yourself to have a peaceful state of mind regardless of the external situation, you would not only be at peace with yourself but also may share a modicum of it with others around. 

How to have a peaceful state of mind? By letting go of most things and by ignoring the rest and focussing on & lovingly doing what you need to do regardless of the situation around you….Such people are called “sthitaprajna” – wo/man of steady wisdom.

We live in a world of a paradoxical mindset  wherein nobody wants to stay together and yet no one wants to die alone; it is a world of nuclear living with strained relationships at a spouse, family, society, nation level, since no one wants to compromise….

Compromise requires maturity/wisdom, the ability to let go, the patience to allow the other to mature. Maturity/Wisdom has nothing to do with age, it has everything to do with the attitude you adopt towards life, which is dependent on what you feel life is all about. The ones chasing Power, Wealth, Fame as the main aims of life miss the point completely, that these are but incidental to the process of life, not primary…

Unfortunately wisdom cannot be taught, it comes only with the attitude of acceptance of Oneness of everything and living as such. Just reading about it may not help, you have to live it. Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.