Your ‘Mahamaham’ moment awaits you – not in Kumbakonam, but within you!

A dip in a ‘holy’ river or tank can never ‘cleanse’ you. Pausing, reflecting and awakening alone can.

A friend feverishly texted me on WhatsApp a few days ago. He’s close to me and believes that the financial challenges that my family and I are enduring, for close to a decade now, is directly related to my past karma – a ‘carry forward’ of sorts of ‘sins committed in a previous birth’. He furiously appealed to me I must make the pilgrimage to the Mahamaham tank in Kumbakonam and take a dip to ‘wash away all my bad karma, my sins’. “You will see an immediate change in your fortunes,” he insisted. I merely thanked him for his compassionate perspective and offered no justification for my choice not to accept his advice.

Mahamaham - Kumbakonam
Picture Courtesy: Internet

The Mahamaham is a Hindu festival that happens every 12 years in the Mahamaham tank in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. I have no disrespect for the Mahamaham. Nor do I intend questioning its legend that’s drawing several millions in (what they think is) piety. Yet, I sincerely don’t believe a ritualistic dip, however ‘holy’ the site may be, can ever cleanse anyone. In his memorable 2003 classic, Anbe Sivam (Love is God), Kamal Hassan beautifully explains to his co-star Madhavan why the God within us – the Universal Energy that keeps us alive – must awaken for us to realize the magic and beauty of Life. That realization, to me, is the biggest awakening. And only an awakening from within can truly cleanse us.

To be sure, there is a Mahamaham moment waiting for each of us – provided we are ready and willing to understand Life and have seeker’s, a student’s, attitude. And that moment need not be at a temple tank, where millions are crowding with a herd mentality, throwing personal and public hygiene to the wind! My own Mahamaham moment happened in my living room, some time in 2007, when I was having my favorite Royal Challenge whisky, and was utterly bored with two other things I was trying to do at the same time – swap channels on TV hoping to find something interesting and make sense of the English translation of the Sai Satcharita, a book on the Life and teachings of Shirdi Sai Baba. My search for something meaningful on TV drew a blank. And I soon turned it off. My family had long gone to sleep. Even as I poured myself another drink, I tried – but failed miserably – to understand what the Sai Satcharita was trying to say – it will easily rank as among the most horrible works of translation ever, from the original Marathi to English! I put the book away. And I thought deeply about what Shirdi Baba had taught the world in his lifetime. In a Eureka-like flash, it dawned on me that the two principles around which all his teachings were anchored are – Shraddha, Faith and Saburi, Patience. To face Life and to overcome the challenges that you are faced with, I realized that, you must keep the faith and learn to be patient.

Over time, I employed this awakening very constructively, through my daily practice of mouna (silence periods), to understand the impermanence and inscrutability of Life. I learned that this is the only Life we have. And to live this Life well – and happily – we must train our mind to be in the present moment. In the now. I discovered that the way religion is practiced in the world today is that it encourages you and me to fear people (who peddle religion) than inspire faith in creation – that if you have been created without your asking to be born, then the same energy that created you will care for you, will provide for you. When there is fear, how can there be faith? When there is no faith, how can you be patient?   

This clarity is helping me live my Life with total inner peace, despite the storm that rages on outside, in my business, professional and material Life. This clarity makes me believe that a dip in an insanely crowded temple tank will hardly cleanse anything – not even your body, let alone your mind. I am more with Kabir, the 15^th Century weaver-poet, here. He said:

Kabir Man Nirmal Bhaya, Jaise Ganga Neer 

Pache Pache Har Phire, Kahat Kabir Kabir

Translation

Kabir Washed His Mind Clean, Like The Holy Ganges River

Everyone follows behind, Saying Kabir, Kabir

That is, Kabir urges us to remove all impurities from our mind, from our thinking process, thus letting the light of divinity to shine forth. Truly, there is divinity in each of us. That divinity is suppressed, lying buried under layers and layers of grief, guilt, anger, fear and such debilitating emotions. This is why we are searching for God outside of us. This is why we are running to a Mahamaham.

Seriously, you don’t need to wait for 12 years to scramble to a Mahamaham for cleansing yourself. Your Mahamaham moment awaits you if you can simply pause, reflect and awaken to the opportunity of cleansing your mind, of living in the now! 

Spike Fear, Embrace Uncertainty, Have Faith

To peacefully journey through Life you must understand uncertainty and let go of all that you fear.

Indeed, none of us knows what lies in store for us in each approaching moment and, most of the time, we are running scared of this uncertain, unknown, dark future. The way to nullify the impact of the lethal cocktail of fear and uncertainty in Life is to have faith. The faith that can remove fear and help you embrace uncertainty is not the faith that religion tries to dispense and that we all claim we profess. All religious faith is dogmatic, puerile and fanned by seeking to identify with a power that (we are made to believe) is outside of us. God, per all religions and their diktats, fatwas, gospels, is external. Which is why anyone who is deeply religious will still be plagued by worry, anxiety and fear. Whereas, true faith is having conviction in creation itself, in the Universe and its Master Plan. The same energy that powers you__and me__and keeps us alive also created the mountains, the trees, the gorges and the valleys, the petals and the fruits, the oceans and the drops of water. It is part of the Master Plan that the Earth goes around the Sun and not the other way round. It is the same Master Plan that divined you were born to the family that you call your own and were endowed with whatever faculties you had at the time of your creation! That Master Plan has no flaws.

Knowing this, feeling this and living this reality in wondrous amazement is faith. When there’s this real faith, no imposter__religion, dogma, beliefs, rituals, superstitions__can get anywhere close to you. Nor can fear and uncertainty torment you! Where people have true faith, no explanation is required and no amount of explanation works for those who don’t have faith!

Jaluddin Rumi, the 13^th Century mystic Persian poet, described living in faith thus: “Do you think I know what I’m doing?...As much as a pen knows what it’s writing, or the ball can guess where it’s going next.” He compared himself to a flute, a wind instrument made from bamboo reed, that cannot create music, unless it is played by a master flautist. So are we, he said, played on by Life. Thinking that we have no song in us is letting fear and uncertainty get the better of us. Knowing that our lives will be music is faith. Spike the fear, embrace the uncertainty, keep the faith and you will live happily ever after! 

Pray in the buff if you like, who cares? Teri Marzi!

Faith is deeply personal. It is a communion between the Source and you. Nobody and nothing, least of all, religion and law, can come in between you and your faith.

Picture Courtesy: Internet

I was amused reading in the papers this morning that the ruling of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court stipulating a dress code for visiting temples in Tamil Nadu has come into effect from yesterday. Obviously the new dress code has evoked mixed responses. The Hindu reports that devotees were “bemused and irritated, stopping just short of being outraged”. I am not surprised. I will not be surprised either if someone challenged this order. I do sincerely hope it is struck down.  To be sure, Justice S.Vaidyanathan, who was concerned “over the use of improper clothes worn by many people visiting temples”, has stipulated that “men should wear a dhoti or pyjama with upper cloth or formal pants and shirts and women should wear a sari or a half-sari or churidhar with upper cloth,’ and for children, ‘any fully-covered dress’.”  So, anyone coming in jeans and/or shorts will be denied entry to temples in Tamil Nadu. Similarly, sleeveless-tops, spaghetti-strapped tops, skirts and mini-skirts are a strict no-no.

Wow!

I was even more amused reading a fellow citizen’s view favoring the new dress code: “If clubs can have dress codes, why not temples?” With due respect to the honorable judge’s ruling and to those favoring this new system, I would like to invite attention to why we must not confound an already complicated situation.

Really, to me, what matters is who you are – not what you wear or how you worship or who you pray to.

Let me tell you a story. The disciples of a venerable Master invited him to visit Benares with them. The Master asked them why they were embarking on the trip. One of the disciples replied, “We want to take a holy dip in the Ganges so that we can cleanse ourselves.” The Master smiled and said he was not keen on the making the trip. He instead gave them a bitter gourd fruit, karela, and asked them to immerse the fruit in the Ganges and bring it back with them. The disciples found the Master’s instruction weird but did not question him. When they returned in a few weeks, they handed back the bitter gourd fruit to their Master. He asked them if it had indeed been immersed in the Ganges. When they said yes it had been, he asked them if it would be tasting sweet now. One of the devotees responded with utter bewilderment, “How can a bitter gourd taste sweet, Master? A bitter gourd is always bitter. How can immersing it in the Ganges change its intrinsic quality?” The Master beamed his big smile and said, “So it is my child. How can you cleanse yourself by merely dipping in the Ganges? You are who you are. Look within and if you don’t like who you are, work on changing yourself. You can’t expect change by merely visiting a temple or taking a dip in a river!”

I relate to this perspective fully. For someone like me, even going to a temple to worship, is a wasted exercise. I feel communion with the Source, the Higher Energy, that has created us and governs this Universe, can happen any time and any place. It saddens me, therefore, that we now have a dress code that dictates how you must show up to worship. But Tamil Nadu is not the first state to have this sartorial idea – some of Kerala’s temples have had, for years now, strict dress codes too. Besides, it is not only Hinduism that’s confused with rituality, division and protocol. Religion as a concept is all messed up. It has become a fear-mongering charade – anyone telling you that God will punish you or that something is a sin wants you to be scared. If you pause to think about it, God has never come forth and said, do this or don’t do this, God has not said be scared of me; yet every religion and every vendor of religious discourse insists on inducing fear. So the truth is that those who peddle religion dogmatically want you to be scared of them. Isn’t it tragic that you cannot celebrate your creation and be one with the Creator, whenever you want, wherever you want; and that you must be fearing rule(s) that religion’s peddlers want you to follow so that they can control you in the name of God?

I must hasten to inform that I am not an atheist. In fact I like Swami Vivekananda’s (1863 ~ 1902) definition of an atheist: “Only the one who does not believe in himself or herself is an atheist.” I am not against religion either. But I refuse to practise religion the way (some) people expect me to practise it. Just like you, I too was created without my choice. Religion was imposed on me too, through family – it is therefore a human act. Whereas, to me, my creation, just as yours, is divine. So, the best way to celebrate the divine in me, is to communion with the Source, the Higher Energy, the way I want to – and when and wherever I want to.

I owe this perspective to Kabir who has written these immortal lines – rendered here beautifully by the legendary Bhupinder – way back in the 15^th Century!

मोको कहाँ ढूंढें बन्दे,

मैं तो तेरे पास में ।

ना तीरथ में ना मूरत में, ना एकांत निवास में ।

ना मंदिर में, ना मस्जिद में, ना काबे कैलाश में ॥

ना मैं जप में, ना मैं तप में, ना मैं व्रत उपास में ।

ना मैं क्रिया क्रम में रहता, ना ही योग संन्यास में ॥

नहीं प्राण में नहीं पिंड में, ना ब्रह्माण्ड आकाश में ।

ना मैं त्रिकुटी भवर में, सब स्वांसो के स्वास में ॥

खोजी होए तुरत मिल जाऊं एक पल की ही तलाश में ।

कहे कबीर सुनो भाई साधो, मैं तो हूँ विशवास में ॥

Translated, it simply means that the Creator, the Source, the Higher Energy, is not in places of worship or in rituals or in penance or in prayer, but is (to be found) within you – in your faith, in what you believe in. So, pray if you must – and for all you care even in the buff in your home – but pray to the Higher Energy within you, the one that keeps you alive and has helped you read, and hopefully internalize this post! J

Of a Priest, Prayer, God and Job Security

Does prayer really work? Does it lead you to God? Does it solve your problems?

I guess these are questions that often rise in our minds at a deeply rational, logical level. But I have come to believe that the questions are misplaced! The question we really need to ask ourselves is, of what use are all the religious rituals that we conduct monotonously and mindlessly when we are not mindful of Life’s gifts__the grace, abundance, blessings in our lives__ itself and we continue to still worry, fear and agonize over what the (unknown) future holds for us?

I am reminded of a conversation that I had with our family priest a few years ago. A self-confessed champion of piety, who called himself a ‘strict Brahmin’, he came to me asking for career advice for his son who was looking to join an IT services company after completing his undergraduate studies in software engineering. He explained that his son had been selected by a leading software company through campus interviews. Yet he claimed he was worried. Our conversation went somewhat like this:

Me: Why are you still worried Sir?

Him: I don’t know if IT companies can offer job security the way the government can!

Me: Why would you, a faithful servant of the Lord, for years now, be insecure __ and want to seek security in a government job?

Him: Sir, how can God guarantee job security?

Me: What is God there for then if HE/SHE can’t guarantee you security?

Him: Sir, velayadathengo! Don’t pull my leg, Sir! God can’t come and tell me that my son’s future is assured!

Me: If God can’t tell you that, the one who has direct access to HIM/HER, who else can reach God? Why do you pray then?

Him: Sir, praying to God is my profession. I still need ‘something else’ to tell me that my Life is on track and that my family and I will be secure!

With due apologies, and respect, to my family priest, I must confess that this is the problem with praying mindlessly. That ‘something else’ which my priest was looking for__and I hope he found it in his own way subsequently__is ‘mindfulness’. When you are mindful of the present moment, and are grateful for it, that would be prayer enough to make you realize your God!

You will then find God in this blessing__that you have to access Facebook and are able to read a post. You will then find God when you feel the air in your lungs. You will the find God in the sunrises and sunsets that happen outside your window every single day without fail. You will then find God in a child’s smile, in leaves rustling in the night breeze, in a cow mooing and in a dew drop! You will then find God in every form of creation that you connect with. You will then find God in each moment. And then you will understand and value what being prayerful is all about. You will then realize that such true prayer, of living in the moment, alone can lead you to your God! 

A weaver, a verse and 4 haunting questions

Pause. Ask yourself four quick questions: 1. What am I rushing in Life for? 2. What security do I need in this Life to live doing what I truly love doing? 3. What am I praying for? 4. What is my deepest aspiration in Life?

Understandably, these questions cannot be answered in a jiffy. But asking them doesn't cost anything. On the contrary, it awards you with inquiry, grants you thinking that can transform your Life. But these are also uncomfortable questions. And so we don't want to dwell on them. We prefer just rushing along with our daily lives __ continuing to work without joy, to live in fear, feeling frustrated and insecure. Every now and then, we turn to God, demanding that our financial, emotional and physical problems be solved. With some element of probability coming in to play, when our prayers are granted, we thank God. When they go unanswered, we blame God.

Kabir, the 16th Century mystic poet, a humble weaver by occupation, invites us to find the God, who we desperately seek, in the Faith we (must) have in ourselves. For those who follow Hindi, find the verse rendered in Bhupinder's soulful voice on this link:

This verse translates as follows in English:

“Where do you search for me? I am with you

Not in pilgrimage, nor in idols, Neither in solitude

Not in temples, nor in mosques

Neither in Kaba nor in Kailash

I am with you O man, I am with you

Not in prayers, nor in meditation, Neither in fasting

Not in yogic exercises, Neither in renunciation

Neither in the vital Life source nor in the body, Not even in the ethereal space

Neither in the womb of nature, Not in the breath of the breath

Seek earnestly and discover, In but a moment of search

Says Kabir, Listen with care, Where your Faith is, I am there.”

So, stop running. Stop searching. Stop seeking. Stop fearing. Start living. Live in Faith. You will find meaning in your Life. And, ah, yes, you will also find the answers to the four questions above! When you answer those questions, you will find joy filling your Life!!!

The God you seek is within you

You wait and you wait and you wait for God to come to you, and when you give up, you find the God that you seek: right within you!

This is the world's most open secret but alas nobody gets it. Because we all think we are educated, we are wise and are capable of knowing what's inside us. And we believe God is not inside us. We know we have a beating heart, we have two lungs, two kidneys, all that and more inside us. How do we know what's inside us biologically? Because we have been taught so. And what else have we been taught? That God is in places of worship that we must physically go to and pray. But hold on a second. Why do we go some place to pray to some God? So that we find peace, so that we get energy to perform our roles with diligence, so that miracles may happen to get us out of miseries, so that we are able to provide love, warmth, security for our families and such. But all of those capabilities are resident in us. Just as they were resident in the Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed or Krishna. No, but I don't see them, you may argue. Then consider this: do you see your heart, your lungs or your kidneys?

Break free from this belief that the source of solutions, the fountainhead of miracles is outside of you. Go within. Seek within and ye shall find, says the Bible. Swami Sathya Sai Baba was ridiculed and taunted for being a miracle man. But he never claimed to perform miracles. We interpreted them so. He only said, "I know and accept that I am God. The problem with you is that you don't know and don't want to accept that you are God." 

Please don't get me wrong. I am not an atheist. I am an i-theist'!!! You too can discover such clarity in thinking and realize the true nature of your creation. In that moment of awakening you realize the Godliness in you and discover miraculous powers. More power to you on your journey of self-awareness and discovery....!

Don’t agonize over pain; instead, celebrate!!!

If you think Life has treated you harshly, celebrate, don’t agonize!

Extraordinary pain is not a sign of your “past sins” catching up with you as we are often told it is. Instead it is a precursor to extraordinary grace that is on the way. So, if you are battered, bruised, bleeding from Life’s blows, don’t bemoan your state. Celebrate. Because you have encountered the God that you so desperately seek.

God? In pain? Indeed. The reason why you haven’t seen God so far is because you __and I__have always been told that God is in places of worship. But we haven’t been told that our pain is a place of worship, an arena to surrender to a cosmic design, the Master Plan, that which has no flaws. They say that religion is for those who want to avoid going to hell and spirituality is for those who have been there! Writing recently in The Times of India’s Speaking Tree column,  Rajshree Birla, the Chairperson of the Aditya Vikram Birla Foundation defines spirituality thus: “Spirituality is not about a religion. Neither is it about gods and rituals. Spirituality is a principled way of Life; it's an attitude.” She couldn’t have said it better and simpler! You can’t borrow that attitude nor can you acquire it through training. You can imbibe it only from experience. That experience can come to you only from your deep, personal, pain.

When you are in the throes of such unimaginable anguish__physical, due to some health challenge, emotional, because you have lost someone, something or broken up in a relationship, or have lost your own self-respect because of an act committed in haste or in stupor__you, in your innermost, private recesses, will seek relief. You will want this Life to end. You will want this suffering to go. In that moment, when you plead, when you surrender, you will have felt a stirring in you. That, my dear friend, that’s your God within you. Maybe when you reminisce on your painful experience now, you may relate to my sharing this. When you feel this way, you will realize that your pain was a conduit, a Visa, if you may, to travel within and find the Godseed embedded in you. Just at it is in all of humanity. So, doesn’t pain, if it can take you to your Self, to your God, call for a celebration? Then, why agonize?

We are all a product of the time we go through

The situation that you are dealing with is your God. This is where experience comes from, this is how you learn – and unlearn.

The other day a cousin visited us. She’s been fighting cancer and has lost all her hair consequently. But she was her usual cheerful, well-groomed self. She’s been through a lot in her Life apart from her own health situation. And it was inspiring to see how she had coped with cancer with equanimity and cheer. We got chatting a bit on her positive attitude being her biggest asset. She corrected me – she saw it as her only asset! I agreed wholeheartedly. I told her: “The crises we go through in Life are our teachers. They are the God we seek. Because only through them, do we learn and unlearn to live inspired and intelligently.”

This morning’s story in Chennai Times on the Tamil star Simbu (Silambarasan) only reiterated this perspective. Simbu confessed to TOI’s Janani Karthik: “I have had no (film) release for the past two years. But personally, in the last two years, I have learnt a lot about Life. I have had personal experiences that have tried me... I might have been born with a silver spoon, but I went through a lot. I lost everything. I lost films, I lost money; it hurts when I go and ask for money from my mother for my daily expenses. When I lost money and films, I thought that, at least, I have someone who loves me, who I was in love with too, by my side. But now, the girl (Hansika) also has gone. Throughout that period, I thought that I would get married one day, have children of my own... But that too is not happening now. It was when I lost everything in Life, that I realized that I have only my breath with me. I am still alive, and I believe that I am alive for a purpose on this earth...” That’s a very evolved Simbu talking there. And that’s what Life’s situations do to you.

You, me, everyone – all of us, are a product of the time we go through. Our situations mold us. They make us the people that we are now. And they will further make us who will be in the future. So, in effect, in reality, each situation is God. To be sure, situations are just events, mere happenings, in Life. You can go on and label them as good, bad, testing, whatever, but you can’t change a situation. Only time can. In going through any situation, you can learn – or unlearn – from it or you can resist it and so suffer. When you accept a situation and learn from it, you evolve. It is as simple as that. So, to me, God is not in a temple or a mosque or a church. The God we seek is right in us, with us, in each situation we experience in Life.

When you reach this state of understanding of Life, you are unmoved by the situations. Nothing can rattle you anymore. You remain anchored in your inner peace. You have then realized that everything is transient and impermanent. Why worry about anything that will go away from you certainly some day? Without exception, each of us has to go – empty handed. So, the best way to live is to live intelligently – learning from each experience and going with the flow of Life!

Live Life for what it is: pure and happening.

Life is neutral. It is neither good nor bad.

It is how we view it, use it and live it, that shapes our experiences and therefore our sentiments about Life. A man before entering a city paused at the gate and asked an old fakir, a nomad, “What kind of people live in this city?” The fakir replied with another question: “What kind of people used to live where you come from?” The man replied saying, “Thugs, cheats, venomous creatures, which is why I decided to migrate from that city.” The fakir remarked: “Then you will find the same kind of people here too.” The man went away without entering the city. A week later, another new visitor arrived at the city’s gates and asked the fakir the same question. The fakir asked him to first say what kind of people lived where he came from. The man replied saying, “Wonderful good souls. Peaceful, helpful and kind. I wanted to never leave them but also want to grow my business. Hence I am migrating.” The fakir said invitingly, “Go on! You will find good souls, peaceful, ever helpful and always kind, here.” The man entered the city.

Life is like that city. Always there. Always happening. Good or bad is based on our interpretation of it. Swami Vivekananda asks us, ‘Is fire good or bad? When it warms us during the cold winter nights or when it helps us cook food, we say fire is good. But when it burns down our forests or scalds our fingers, we say it is bad. But is fire changing its properties? Or are we changing our perception basis our experiences?” So it is with Life. Someone somewhere in this world right now is celebrating the arrival of a new baby. And just at this same time, someone else is grieving the loss of a dear one. But isn’t it the same world? So, when Life, that is giving us all these experiences, this discerning ability, when that energy source itself is neutral, why are we clinging on? Why are we attached? Let go of that which is a creation of your mind, this definition of good and bad. Live Life for what it is: pure and happening. Life’s playing in you, for you, right now. Where are you?

Being human, not being religious, is the way to finding your God

Stop being humanly religious and instead be religiously human.

Religion, at best, is the path, not the destination. If religion could have helped us find God, all of us, you, me, everyone, should have met God and got Her autograph. Why is it that only few have seen God, fewer have experienced God, only a miniscule have KNOWN God and maybe, just a handful, know that THEY ARE God? That’s because, a large mass of humanity is religious, while a minority is spiritual.

To be sure all religions, and there are over 300 of them globally, champion God-realization. And promise the path to God. Not that they are wrong. But we, the followers, have become so obsessed with the path, not even the journey mind you, that we have come to imagine that being religious IS knowing God. To be religious is to be dogmatic, persistently ritualistic, about a faith. The only faith worth being religious about is being human. Most of humanity, however, while obsessing over religion, has completely forgotten what it means to be human. Take the case of Republican Jon Huntsman, who once was in the race for the Amercian Presidential nomination. A principal__political, not principled__charge against him was that he was raising two adopted daughters from other religions: one a Chinese Buddhist and the other an Indian Hindu. Does it really matter? The color of our skin and the nature of a faith that has been__like our birth__thrust upon us, without our asking for it, without choice to us, is not who we are. We are all human. Period. And we are not divided by race, nationality, faith and such as we imagine it to be. We are all one. Period. All of us have the same 5.5 liters of blood. And it is all red in color. All of us breathe the same Life source. What I exhale you breathe. And what you exhale I breathe. When I can breathe in what you breathe out, and live, why can’t I raise a child that happens to have embraced the same faith as you? If I can, why can’t Jon Huntsman? Huntsman and his wife have seven children, including Gracie Mei, 15, who was abandoned at a Chinese vegetable market at two months of age, and Asha Bharati, now 9, who was left to die on an Indian village dirt road the day she was born. A hands-on dad, Huntsman speaks to Mei in Chinese and is encouraging little Asha to learn about and appreciate her Indian culture and Hinduism. Had Huntsman got his party’s nomination and gone on to win the race to the White House, America would sure have shown the world what it means to be human__not just a Democrat or Republican.

Take also the case of a lady who is seeking an alliance for her daughter ‘within the same faith’, despite hating, from the bottom of her heart, the inhuman rituals of her faith that are perpetrated on girl children__a crude form of female circumcision__because she ‘does not know how people outside her faith are’. What would you call people who claim to be upholders of a faith that indulges in an act of violence against girls, and that too innocent children? We could call them terrorists. Terrorism and terrorists don’t belong to one religion. Anyone who kills humanity, kills Life, in physical or spiritual form, is a terrorist. Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), American sci-fi author, puts it so aptly: “If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.”

So true. Let me hasten to clarify that I am neither for atheism nor against religion. I am pleading for us all to just be human. And it begins with each one of us. We don’t have to adopt abandoned children, if we don’t want to, to do this. We don’t have to stop practicing our individual faiths to do this. We just have to stop clinging on to anything that divides us__race, nationality, color or religion. Instead, let’s celebrate being human. And let’s do that without fail, every moment of our lives, from here on__religiously! Believe me, that’s when you will find, just as I have, God!

Finding the real you!

To be free from stress, pressure, worry, pain and sorrow, you need to go within and find the real you!

There are three layers of each of us. Imagine yourself to be a Russian Matryoskha nesting doll which is a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other. The first, outermost, you which is attached to all the material things in Life__that which is also trying to possess, protect and control all these things. The second, immediately inner,  you which recognizes and is aware of a larger cosmic design__but still leans towards possession, protection and control of all the things acquired in a lifetime. The third, the core, you which does not see itself as separate from creation and in which your Godseed really is. All the pressure, the stress we take on ourselves is because we are playing on our Life’s surface layer! Think about your worries, for example. You worry about your house, your car, your job, your business, your bank balance, your insurance claim, your Visa__and such. And any threat to any of them causes you to be under pressure, be worried, be stressed. As you advance in Life, with age and experience, you realize that there’s more to Life than material things and see a larger cosmic design, you appreciate it, and so your focus__and perhaps concerns__begin to include more meaningful things like your health, your family time, your passions, your causes or your beliefs. You feel you need to ‘invest’ in the quality of your Life than focusing only on the ‘quantity’ of whatever you have in Life. This phase is what is erroneously, and historically, called the “mid-Life crisis”. Please know that this is NO crisis. This is the biggest opportunity. Because someone, actually Elliott Jaques, a Canadian psychologist, called it so in 1965, we have believed it to be one! Hence while we see that our lives are perhaps pre-designed, we are worried about our time on this planet ticking away and so rush to go on to further control, further possess and further protect our lifetime’s acquisitions. Instead of reaching outward one more time, which we already know is the source of much pressure and stress, try going one layer below. The third you, your core doll in your personalized Matryoshka nesting doll set, is where you will find complete peace. Arriving here is when you will find no pressure, no want, no worry, no sorrow, and complete, unadulterated bliss. This is the layer that insulates you from all the chaos and turbulence in your Life. This is when you can feel__and therefore say__that you are capable of living in this world and yet being above it! Or when you can claim to live in the world but not be of it, as the Bible says.

This really means that when you are the outermost doll, which we all are, when we are emerging into early adulthood with starry eyes, dreams, wants, aspirations, lusts and desires, you are individualistic. Your worries are about you. Your wants are about you and your loved ones. But when you go deeper, to the next doll, you do see that things have been happening much beyond your own control and imagination. You see the design. You may deny it. But you can’t claim to have been untouched by it. It is only when you encounter the third doll, the real you, that you see how you are Creation, the Universe and the God, that you have always been seeking!

Celebrate creation’s essence, the Godliness, in you!

The beauty of Life lies in understanding that you have both the ‘essence’ and ‘presence’ of creation – a.k.a God – in you.

We are all created with the essence of God in us. Yet, not realizing this miraculous grace, we continuously seek God’s presence in our lives. We run from temple to mosque to church. From idols to godmen. Resultantly, we grieve. Because how can you find what you seek outside of you, when all along, it is within you? The presence of creation, of God, according to me, can be found only when we are present in the NOW. Life’s what’s happening to you right now. Are you there? 

When you are in the now, you can feel the Godliness in you. You can experience the miracle called you. You can see the manifestation of the Universe’s creative energy in you. The ‘essence’ of this energy is your ability to see, hear, touch, feel, speak, move about, apply your mind, feel love, touch another Life. Without this energy, we would all merely exist like a rock does. The fact that you are able to live a Life apart from, and beyond, inanimate objects, which are also manifestations of creation, is evidence of the Godliness in you.

So, stop seeking the presence of a God outside of you. Look within, and you will find all that you need. Osho, the Master, said this simply yet profoundly, “There’s no God. Only Godliness.” Celebrate creation’s essence, the Godliness, in you! Have a great day ahead!

I drink alcohol…and I am spiritual

Just because you don’t like the message, don’t shoot the messenger!  

A couple of days ago I received an email forward of a media release purported to have been issued on behalf of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the Art of Living organization. I don’t know if the release was indeed issued on Sri Sri’s behalf. I hope not. The release attacks, albeit in a veiled manner without naming them, director Rajkumar Hirani, actor Aamir Khan and their movie PK, for “projecting sadhus (Hindu saints) in bad light”, for “promoting dargahs (Muslim shrines) and putting down ashrams (Hindu monasteries)” and for “influencing young minds”. The release also says that the makers of PK have been funded by a terrorist to put down spirituality.

I find the content of the media release preposterous. And the charges against Khan, Hirani and PK baseless. Whoever authored that release and whoever authorized its circulation neither understands spirituality not do they understand PK’s message.

Spirituality is the flowering of inner awareness. It is the realization that comes from within that you are the divinity that you seek. Spirituality is deeply personal, it is intense and it is liberating. It sets you free. Religion, on the other hand, tries to achieve the same result but ends up making bad spaghetti out of a good recipe. Not because there’s anything wrong with the recipe. But because the cooks, the high priests of the various religions (as the PK character says in PK, “the managers of the various companies”), have hidden and divisive agendas; they promote ritualism and hold gullible people – like you and me – hostage! In the movie, in one brilliant scene, PK picks up a new born baby to inspect if the baby is born with a “stamp”, a means of identification, that he or she was actually created (“sent down”) to be a Hindu or a Christian or a Muslim. The message is stark and uncomfortable: that our religion has been thrust upon us. We are born free to simply be human. But the label of Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jew and such is stuck on us as an afterthought. Our family and society force us to follow the religion that they have chosen for us. To add to the confusion, people who are self-proclaimed leaders of the various religions, induce fear among their followers saying that if you question what is being told and practiced, you will be punished by your God! PK makes another important, uncontestable point – the God, he says, that created you and me, is different from the God that we humans have created to suit our convenience. God, the creator, is compassionate, loving and is ever present – within us. The God we have created, he says, is forever elusive, being “managed and protected by agents and managers” and making people fearful. The truth is where there is fear, there is no faith. And when there is faith, there can be no fear. Faith is like light and fear is like darkness. You can bring light to drive away darkness. But you cannot bring darkness into a room which is well lit. You cannot, therefore, claim you have faith in a God, your God, and yet be fearful of either God or Life or both!!

The media release makes one other ridiculous, erroneous point. It states that people who consume alcohol are not spiritual! Spirituality is totally unconditional. Being spiritual means just being. You can be whoever you are. You don’t have to abstain from anything, you don’t have to fear anyone, you don’t have to fast, you don’t have to pray and you don’t have to follow any rituals. You just have to be who you are and enjoy being who you are. Spiritually empowered people employ this freedom, this fearlessness, this faith – that they will be taken care of and provided for by the Universe – to live in bliss. To them nothing is a sin. And nothing is forced. They live simply – seeing the divinity in themselves and in everyone and everything around them.

I seriously hope Sri Sri’s ashram did not issue that release and that the mail I received was just one of those hoax forwards. If it was indeed a genuine communication, I pity those who put it out – for they are missing PK’s central message and shooting the messenger, Aamir, just because he’s seen, per worldly definition, as a Muslim.  PK is not about Hindus and Muslims. It is not about Hindu Gods and a Muslim God or a Christian God. It is about you and me and how we are allowing ourselves to be trapped in the vicious cycle of religion, rituals, godmen and fear. Watch PK if you can and care. And even if you don’t want to watch it, raise a toast when you drink tonight!! To Christmas, good health and happiness. My toast, however, is to the authors of that redoubtable release: “Hey, I drink alcohol…and I am spiritual”!   

If you want rain, carry your umbrella

Keeping your faith in times when everything is going the way you have intended them to is easy. Obviously it is a lot more challenging to keep the faith in times of stress, self-doubt, pain and suffering.

There’s a simple way in which you can overcome this challenge. And that way requires you to ask yourself: 1. What are the most precious things in Life that you still have and treasure? 2. How often have you been let down by Life for you to give up your faith now? 3. Define ‘let down’: Does ‘let down’ (to you) mean not getting what you want while still getting everything that you need? 4. By giving up on your faith, do you think you can solve your problems? When you sit calmly and answer these questions to yourself, in the context of your own Life situation, your faith will be restored.

Faith here does not refer to a God or a religion or a belief in an external entity. Faith really means the ability to trust Life, which gave you the gift of this lifetime, without your asking for it, to take care of you and help you to reach the shore despite your treacherous and turbulent circumstances. Faith also means refusing to get trapped in the imagery of your current circumstance but to believe that every dark night will be followed by a beautiful dawn. 

Here’s a story that illustrates this the best. There was once a small village, which was suffering from a severe drought. The crops were dying, and the villagers and their animals had very little water to drink. One day, to try to find a solution to the drought, the village priest called the villagers to gather at the village square to pray together for rain. He told them to bring along a token of their faith, so the prayer would be done in sincere faith. And so, the villagers gathered at the square bringing with them tokens of their faith. Some brought the Bible while others carried small crosses as tokens of faith. Others brought the Holy Quran and still others carried the Bhagavad Gita. They all prayed aloud with great faith and hope. Sure enough, within a few moments it began to rain. The whole crowd was overjoyed and danced happily. The priest noticed that among the joyous crowd was a nine-year-old boy, the only one holding open an umbrella as a token of his faith. The priest admired this little boy who had brought an umbrella in total faith that his prayers would be heard and that it would rain.

Learn from, and live inspired by, the little boy! What token of your faith are you willing to show Life today? 

What a Siddha yogi and ‘PK’ taught me about ‘my’ God

Learn to value and celebrate the divinity within you. It may not solve your problems but will show you a better way to live with them!

Yesterday, I heard of the demise of a good friend of mine, Kavi Rajan, who was a Siddha yogi and was only 47 years old. We first met him 10 years ago when we had gone to him “seeking solutions” to our debt problem. He said, rather simplistically: “Embrace your debt. Love it. It is a guest in your Life. It has come to teach you something. It will go away just the way it has come.” Initially I resisted his advice. But, over the years, I found his call to “accept Life for what is” very meaningful. This drew me and my wife closer to him. We met him probably once or twice in a year. But each time we came away enriched and energized. He was not the bearded, saffron-clad yogi. No, he was not a Godman. He wore a lungi, a sleeve-less vest or a shirt, smoked a beedi and led a normal, worldly Life with his wife and two young children. But he was a man who, according to me, certainly had realized his God. He would tell us: “Don’t make me a guru and don’t think I am your God. Realize the divinity within you. I am only a means to your spiritual awakening. Once you are awakened, you won’t need me.” My wife and I will miss him in his physical form but we are sure we will always feel his presence in our lives.

Aamir Khan in 'PK'
Picture Courtesy: Internet

I only wish many of the seekers out there get an opportunity to be guided and awakened by evolved souls like my friend Kavi. What is unfortunate is that almost every religion’s preachers today claim to find “solutions” to people’s problems and in turn make them fearful and confused. In the name of helping them reach or connect with God, those who have made religion their business, exploit gullible people of their money, time, resources, emotions and faith. This is the central theme of a beautiful movie I saw yesterday – Aamir Khan’s PK (2014, Rajkumar Hirani). Khan’s character PK makes an impassionate appeal to all of us. He says, that there is no problem with the creator, the one who created the world and its people. The problem is with the God that man created. That God, he said, was a hostage of individual religions and the self-proclaimed custodians of these religions are exploiting mankind. PK urges us to snap out of our stupor and awaken to a more meaningful way of living our lives! He makes a pertinent and sound case for a world without religion, where all people are equal – just the way they are created – and who respect the divinity in each other.

Indeed there is a divinity in each of us. This divinity is nothing but the Life energy that is powering us – because of which we are alive and are capable of experiencing the abundance in our lives and in the Universe. But we miss this abundance because we don’t realize this divinity. We are trapped in our self-defined world of limitations – our anxieties, insecurities, grief, guilt and fears – and in our elusive search for a God outside of us. Only when we break free from our limitations and look within – a journey which can commence through self-realization and awakening – will we find lasting inner peace and happiness.

When you realize yourself, you will appreciate and celebrate the fact that there’s no greater God than the one you see in the mirror every morning. You will understand that there is no better way to live than to accept what is or whatever is happening to you. You will then value each moment and begin to live your Life fully – without fear and without expectations!

You are an ‘avatar’ too … created with a specific Purpose!

The key to intelligent living is to look within and find your Life’s Purpose manifest itself in front of you!

Here, take a break. And think about this calmly. There obviously is a reason why you and I have been created as human beings. Else, we could have been created as the swine that spreads the flu. Why be created as the human who gets that dreaded flu? So, let’s stop cribbing and instead celebrate being human. 

The problem with most of humankind is that we lament being human. We say, justifying our limitations and frailties, 'After all, I am human'. When we look at our creation from that perspective, we miss seeing the limitless power and potential within us. We are so overwhelmed by stories from history that we fail to see our true Self. We have grown up imagining that we are lesser mortals. For instance, when Krishna was born, so we are told, the prison gates opened and the serpent sheltered the baby as the father crossed the overflowing river in pouring rain. When Jesus was born, again as we have been told, the three Kings were guided by a star in the sky. When Nanak was born, I remember reading this in an Amar Chitra Katha edition, those visiting the child found a halo around the baby's head. But who recorded what they saw when you and I were born? Who tells the stories of our birth? Therein lies the reason as to why we don't recognize who we are and what we are truly capable of.

Know that if Mother Teresa's Life had a Purpose, if Swami Vivekananda's Life had a Purpose, if the Prophet's Life had a Purpose, so do our lives__your’s and mine. Swami Sathya Sai Baba says it beautifully,"The difference between you and me is that I know that I am God. And you don't know, or you refuse to accept, that you are God!" We will start living intelligently when we know that each of us has been created as a human with a specific Purpose. We are 'avatars' too....or 'messiahs', if you like.

Simply put, your Life’s Purpose will manifest itself in front of you when you stop searching for God outside of you. Being human is to know that the Godlight is within you. When you find it within, you too will 'awaken' to a lifetime of loving, serving and living!

What an FM station producer taught me about compassion!

Among all the qualities that we human beings have – and are capable of invoking – the most precious one is compassion. When we are compassionate, we are truly human!

This morning I was on a live FM radio show. I was invited to share my views, and answers questions from listeners/callers, on “What do you do when you hit rock bottom in Life?” The FM station had set up this show around the enduring theme of my Book – “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money” (Westland, August 2014). One of the questions I was asked by a caller was how do you take decisions when you are in an end-of-the-road situation. I replied saying, there can’t possibly be too much strategic thinking when you are surrounded by darkness and you don’t know where you are going; and when you don’t even know if there is a way ahead. You simply keep doing what you must do. I cited the example of having to take an auto-rickshaw to the FM station’s studio this morning. I had barely a few hundred rupees left with me in Life and the auto-rickshaw driver was unreasonable and demanded I pay him fifty rupees more. I did. And I did it without anger, without exasperation and without anxiety (over the fact that I was going to be poorer by Rs.50 when I had only a few hundreds left with me in Life!). I said I simply did what I had to do. Period. One of the producers at the FM station was riding into work when my show was on air. She was apparently listening into my show while riding. She reached the station just as I was leaving the premises (I had almost boarded an auto to take me back home). But she came running down the parkway, calling out my name. When I asked her what she wanted, she requested me if I could spare five more minutes. I agreed, feeling a bit lost though. She took me back into the FM station’s office and said: “AVIS, I heard your entire show. I want to pray for you and your family. I don’t know what your faith is and how you pray, but I have to pray for you.” As I looked on, surprised, overwhelmed and humbled, she asked me, “May I?” I said that she may. She then closed her eyes and for the next five minutes she sought, what she firmly believed to be, a divine intervention to solve my family’s ongoing financial crisis. Her prayer had a healing energy. All of what she said was in English. And her words made great sense to me, they touched my soul and empowered me to believe – not in the power of prayer or religion – but in the power of compassion and the power we all have of being human. Both she and I had moist eyes at the end of her benevolent prayer. I shook hands with her, thanked and left the FM station one more time – thoroughly recharged and re-energized.

All of us are capable of compassion for all of humanity. All our energies can heal the worst of situations that we see around us. But we are so busy running our rat races, earning-a-living, fighting battles with imaginary situations that we conjure up in our minds, that we are simply not pausing to see how people around us are coping with their lives. Often, when we see them closely, we will realize that there are so many people out there who are stronger through their grave Life situations than we are through our petty scenarios. To be compassionate is to be able to see and think of someone, other than you, feel their pain and help them with your prayer and energy.

My enduring penniless, work-less situation has helped me understand Life and religion better. To me now, there is no greater God than a fellow human being and there’s no greater teacher than Life. When a fellow human being – like this producer who hardly knows me or who I hardly know – takes time to send me and my family healing, positive energy, I realize that we are indeed blessed. And she – this FM station’s producer – is not the only one. Barring my immediate family – who, for their own reasons, continue to imagine that my wife and I have cheated them – everyone I know of has always been compassionate with us and patient with our situation. This is the biggest asset we have – that we are drenched in the love of fellow human beings and all their compassion that carries us onward every single day.

If you can, and would like to, please invoke the compassion within you. And unlock its potential. Pause and reflect on the fellow voyagers through Life that are around you. Give them your love, your understanding and send them your prayers and your positive energy. Watch them heal and watch yourself feeling blessed!