Tuesday 27 October 2015

Like & Dislike

On any issue or matter, what you may  “LIKE” may  be “DISLIKED” by another. And in the same way , what you may  “DISLIKE” , may be “LIKED” by another. This one of the life’s Paradoxes. It all depends of one’s perceptions, and conditioning of one’s mind and thinking, etc., Imagine for a minute, that everyone’s “LIKES” are same! Wouldn’t it  be damn “BORING” & “MONOTONOUS” !  Observe the ‘Nature’ around you. How varied and different in their natures. Each is different from on another , but still everything co-exist peacefully without any trouble. Its , we, “HUMANS” the so called “INTELLIGENT” species on this planet (esp. the present day generation) are not able to co-exist with the differences. The “INTOLERENCE” to other people’s opinions, etc., are on the rise. Is it something to do with the ‘lack of time’ with the ‘Modern man’ to be with ‘himself’ and ‘introspect’ about the ‘way of life’, he is living and heading? Or , maybe , one is not at peace with himself , and that reflects on what ‘he’ does ‘outside’.


The world around us, will be at PEACE, when each individual is at PEACE with himself . So, whenever a situation or something you encounter , that is not to your LIKING or DISLIKE , remember and remind yourself of our wonderful “NATURE’S” way of co-existing, SMILE & move on and live PEACEFULLY and Let others  live PEACEFULLY with all the DIFFERENCES. 

Wednesday 21 October 2015

Let us talk about Dharma - Not Religion

Let us talk about Dharma — not religion!

The question  does such thing as “Hinduism” exist? Since this is not a ‘belief’ or ‘ideas’ of a particular person or a group, ‘ism’ does not fit with it. This name was given by those who did not understand the system and in back of their mind they thought that theirs is the only truth and others are all ‘false belief’ or ’satanic path’!
Hinduism is more than a religion, more than the theological direction in which the west understands religion. It is an unbroken spiritual tradition that is founded on the principles of Dharma which is often called Sanatan Dharma.
The ideal function of dharma is to provide a sound, fundamental world-view which correctly orientates the individual to the cosmos and thus can serve as the basis for an intelligent guide to living.
The relation of Sanatana Dharma to the Hindu system is like science to technology. What does the word “Hindu” represents? According to the dictionary: ‘the inhabitants of India’ or ‘followers of Hinduism’ are Hindus. Simply, Hindu is name of a dharmic system and a culture. How about a “Hindu religion”? Does it exist? How many different “panths” and sects can be found which is based on Sanatana Dharma? And, are they like other religions of the world? Should we adhere to Hindu system as a belief-oriented system? Is it right to call it “Hindu faith”? The answer is simple: If such a belief is necessary for certain individuals it is OK. But a system cannot stand on belief or assumption. It must have a rock solid foundation of truth, facts and logic, and it must be able to accommodate the least evolved person as well as the most evolved one.
It differs from Western religion in certain key respects:
  • Its origin cannot be traced to a single person who received a divine revelation and became the founder of the faith.
  • It is not based upon a particular book.
  • It cannot be defined in terms of a dogma or a body of beliefs that distinguishes its followers from the rest of humanity.
  • It does not have an established institution with the power to induct or expel people from the faith.
  • A central institution or authority such as a church or an association does not control it.
  • It is not averse to examine and assimilate fundamentally diverse thoughts and beliefs into its system.
  • It has been evolving continuously, through internal reforms and as a reaction to threats and challenges.
  • Even though there is no central authority that enforces cohesion among its people and lays out plans for the future, its fundamental concepts and outlook have permeated all sections of the society.
What are the fundamental notions essential in Hindu Dharma?
  • Recognizes that the greater portion of human religious aspirations has always been unknown, undefined and outside of any institutionalized belief.
  • Allows absolute freedom to the rational mind of man. It never demands any undue restraint upon the freedom of human reason, the freedom of thought, feeling and will of man.
  • It is only a means to an end, and all dharmic means that ultimately lead to the final goal are approved of.
  • Does not force anybody to accept particular dogmas or forms of worship. It allows everybody to reflect, investigate, enquire and cogitate. Gives reverence to individual spiritual experience over any formal religious doctrine.
  • As there is no separation of humanity as believers and non-believers, the need or question of organized conversion do not arise. This attitude finds further expression in the fact that the dharmic traditions tend to be non-proselytizing even when they become missionary.

Let us talk about Dharma - not religion. Let us understand Dharma and find out our own Dharma. One may or may not be religious, may or may not believe in God, but can be Dharmic! If we understand this system as an approach to a universal tradition, which shows how truth and spirituality can be integrated into the whole of life, then it can be of great value for formulating a global dharmic culture today.

Religion and conflicts

Why do we, Humans,  fight against each other in the Name of  Religion?

Religion, in the accepted sense of that word, has now become a matter of propaganda, of vested interest, with much property, with a great hierarchical, bureaucratic system of `spirituality. Religion has become a matter of dogma, belief and ritual, something which is totally divorced from daily living. You may, or you may not, believe in God, but that belief has very little meaning in daily life, where you cheat, where you destroy, are ambitious, greedy, jealous, violent. You believe in God or in a saviour, or in some guru, yet keep that far away so that it does not actually touch your daily life.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam or Christianity, which are all organized beliefs with their propaganda, conversion, proselytism, compulsion, and so on. Is there any truth in organized religion? It may engulf, enmesh truth, but the organized religion itself is not true. Therefore, organized religion is false, it separates man from man. You are a Muslim, I am a Hindu, another is a Christian or a Buddhist and we are wrangling, butchering each other. The whole concept of religion is “not to question, not to doubt - but to blindly believe texts written by other men” .

Religions throughout the world now are utterly meaningless. We want to be entertained spiritually and so we go to the church or the temple or the mosque and that has nothing whatsoever to do with our daily sorrow, confusion and hatred. A man who is really serious, who really wants to find out if there is something more than this terrible thing called existence, must obviously be completely free from dogma, from belief, from propaganda, he must be free from the structure in which he has been brought up to be a religious man.

To be free to inquire, one must be free from fear, from anxiety, from the desire to be psychologically secure. These are the obvious requirements for a very earnest and serious person who wants to find out. The instrument that is capable of inquiry is a mind that is clear, that has no distortions, or prejudice of conclusion, of formula, or belief. 

Anyone can interpret the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, Bhagavad Gita , etc., ... After all, they are all just books - men wrote these books, they did not fall from the sky or were delivered to the human kind. And that's a fact.
Yet, somehow we let ourselves judge one another by quoting them. The whole concept of religion is “not to question, not to doubt - but to blindly believe texts written by other men” .

It is obvious to everyone I guess, that the whole purpose of it is control.
By believing in a religion, and firmly stick to what it says, one loses his/her spirit of inquiry and open mindedness.


Attachment to ones Religion make people think that they are the only ones who are true. They claim that they have the absolute truth, that everyone else who are not in their religion are 'lost' and will be damned for eternity. They claim that they have God's words, and if anyone disagree with them, then they're disagreeing with God Himself. They claim that their way is the only true way, while the others are wrong. They even believe that in the afterlife, God would ask man about what religion he was in instead of his deeds during his life. If he had done countless deeds in his life, but didn't follow this one religion, then all of it will be in vain. They view others badly, always bad-mouthing other religions, like the Sunni Muslims here talking bad about Christians, Jews, Shiites, Syrian Orthodox, etc., claiming that they're all are against them and trying to make them 'lost'. They always think bad about others. You can't have freedom of thoughts and freedom of choices, that's for sure.


(Excerpts from Jiddu Krishnamurthy talks)

Tuesday 29 September 2015

Death!

Death is the ONLY "Definite" phenomena of all Living beings , and everything else is ephimeral. And , most of us Live our lives, as if the life is eternal. Of course , in a way, 'Life' is eternal, ‘bodies’ are temporary. As it is said, 'life' is independent of the body, in whichever form , it may manifest. Actually, what is 'life' that gives the 'life' in all the Living beings. Is it the ‘consciousness’, ‘soul’, ‘atma’ , or energy -- in whichever way it may be labelled as.  But, 'something' is in continuum. And I call that ‘something’ as ‘consciousness’ for convenience sake.   Any organism is ‘conscious’ if it can sense and respond, communicate and interact with living - and non living things in  nature. By this, we can say that all living beings , whether it is a human being, plant life, or animals etc., are ‘conscious’ . And the ‘BIG’ Question is that , whether this “Consciousness’ has any ‘DEATH” or ‘NOT’ ? 

Friday 7 August 2015

Why do we want to be busy?

Why do most of us want to have our Minds continuously occupied & keep ourselves busy, with one activity or other, inwardly and outwardly ?

Most of us want to have our minds continually occupied , so that , we are prevented from seeing ourselves , as we actually are. We are afraid to be empty. We are afraid to look at ourselves

Most people are constantly occupied with something (even after retiring from jobs) - with puja, with the repetition of certain words, with worrying over this or that - because they are frightened to be alone with themselves. You try being alone, without any form of distraction, and you will see how quickly you want to get away from yourself and forget what you are. That is why this enormous structure of professional amusement, of automated distraction, is so prominent a part of what we call civilization. If you observe you will see that people the world over are becoming more and more distracted, increasingly sophisticated and worldly. The multiplication of pleasures, the innumerable books that are being published, the newspaper pages filled with sporting events, TV soap opera’s etc., - surely, all these indicate that we constantly want to be amused. Because we are inwardly empty, dull, mediocre, we use our relationships and our social reforms as a means of escaping from ourselves.  Have you noticed how lonely most people are? And to escape from loneliness we run to temples, churches, or mosques, we dress up and attend social functions, we watch television, listen to the radio, read, and so on.

Each one of us has an image of what we think we are or what we should be, and that image, that picture, entirely prevents us from seeing ourselves as we actually are.
One must learn the art of looking, not only at the clouds and the flowers, at the movement of a tree in the wind, but actually looking at ourselves as we are, not saying, 'It is ugly', 'It is beautiful, or 'Is that all?', all the verbal assertions that one has with regard to oneself. When we can look at ourselves clearly, without the image, then perhaps we shall be able to discover what is true for ourselves. And that truth is not in the realm of thought but of direct perception, in which there is no separation between the observer and the observed.

When you remove all the ‘labels’ attached to you, namely, your name, profession, lineage, place, roles in the society etc., what is that remains in “You” . A big ‘NOTHING’. ‘Shunya’. Shunya means ‘void’ or ‘emptiness’ or “Nothingness” in snaskrit. It is the true nature of all phenomena, devoid of all individual self or substance. This space of stillness is deeply replenishing to life. When we allow ourself to rest for some time in stillness, we can get back in touch with the essential quality of pure being, just as we are –  “NOTHINGNESS” .  And nobody wants and fears to travel into nothingess or emptiness or void . Hence we keep ourselves busy or engage ourselves with something or the other, to avoid entering to the true nature of the being-SELF.

Meditation as per Hindu philosophy is used to reach a state of nothingness and peace, or Buddhist nirvana, which refers to attainment of salvation by merging into the void of eternity.

                                                                    (with inputs from J.Krishnamurthy talks) 

Sunday 7 June 2015

LOVE

LOVE
Love is always new. It never becomes old because it is non-accumulative, non-hoarding. It knows no past; it is always fresh, as fresh as the dewdrops. It lives moment to moment, it is atomic. It has no continuity, it knows no tradition. Each moment it dies and each moment it is born again. It is like breath: you breathe in, you breathe out; again you breathe in and you breathe out. You don’t hoard it inside.
If you hoard the breath you will die because it will become stale, it will become dead. It will lose that vitality, the quality of life. So is the case with love – it is breathing; each moment it renews itself. So whenever one gets stuck in love and stops breathing, life loses all significance.
Love is an expression of your being, not an emotion. Emotion is very fragile, very changing. One moment it seems that is all. Another moment you are simply empty.
So the first thing to do is to take love out of this crowd of overwhelming emotions. Love is not overwhelming.
On the contrary, love is a tremendous insight, clarity, sensitivity, awareness.
But that kind of love rarely exists, because very few people ever reach to their being.
There are people who love their cars.... That love is of the mind. And then you love your wife, your husband and your children – that love is of the heart. But because it needs change to remain alive, and you cannot allow it its changeability, it becomes stale. The same husband/wife  every day – it is such a boring experience. It dulls your sensitivity, it dulls every possibility of joy. You slowly start forgetting the language of laughter. Life becomes simply work without any joy. And one has to work because one has a wife and one has children.
You have to take your love out from the emotional grip where it has been since your birth, and you have to find a route to your being. Unless your love becomes part of your being, it is not much different from pain, suffering, sadness.

---Osho

Wednesday 3 June 2015

The Third eye


The Third eye


As we all know the two physical eyes are just sensory organs. Through which we see the world and perceive things as per our conditioning of our Minds. They feed the mind with all kinds of nonsense, because what you see is not the truth. The opening of the third eye means , you are aware of your Mind and its activities, thought/thinking as it happens. For me , the observer in you, which observes the thought as it arises in your mind is the ‘Third eye’. The opening of Third eye means that , you are  aware whats  going on your mind and can literally “see” what is going on your mind . People say that , if Shiva opens the Third eye the world is destroyed etc., What it means is that , if one is conscious and aware of one’s thought/thinking as it arises in the mind, it destroys the ignorance in you. That is the destruction of illusion. You are ‘Shiva’! Don’t believe that you are your Mind. This is delusion. Consciousness arises when you start watching the ‘Thinker in you’. When you start watching the thinker in you, all the chatter that goes on and on in your  Mind stops.


So when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought, but also of 
yourself as the witness of the thought. As you listen to the thought, you feel a conscious presence – your deeper self – behind or underneath the thought, as it were. The thought then loses its power over you and quickly subsides, because you no longer energizing the mind through identification with it. And this stillness of the Mind  is the beginning of the end of involuntary and compulsive thinking and the beginning of arising to your natural state of oneness with the universe.  

Tuesday 27 January 2015

Homo sapiens!

Homo sapiens (Latin: "wise man")

Homo sapiens is the scientific name for us, humans , on the earth. It is a latin word, meaning – wise-man. Now the question is are we, the Homo sapiens- Human species , on this earth --- really “WISE”, in the true sense of the word.

In the Natural Habitat of our Planet , we, the homo sapiens , are the only species, that can use our intelligence,  consciousness, for development of self and for others.

But, to the credit  of our species is, We are the ‘sole species’ that can harm and kill other  members of our species. Even the most dangerous animals, need not fear of their own kind.  Have you seen any species, that kill the members of the same species? i.e., Tigers killing tigers, Deers killing deers, Parrots killing parrots, etc., In Nature, that does not happen. If at all it happens, its an exception.  Ofcourse, the few carnivorous animals devour other animals , only, for their food requirements.


We, the Homo sapiens , lost the capacity to live harmoniously with each other, may be due to our intelligence, even though we belong to the same species. We have built barriers between us and fight , in the name of Religion, Caste, Class, Race, Country and other 100s of reasons, and  hate each other, KILL each other. And people kill others in the name of a ‘cause’ or invent some divine or sacred causes for doing harm to fellow beings and other beings and justify the killings. This is most disgusting, horrible and sad. And we should stop calling our species as ‘wise’ or ‘intelligent’ than other species on this earth. We are the most ‘destructive’ and ‘dangerous’ species, ever inhabited, in our planet , and due to our Ignorance, going in the direction of destroying all the natural habitat of our  beautiful earth, which has given ‘LIFE’ and ultimately destroying ourselves, due to our GREED. – (“Yeh Dil Maange More”)