Royal Science of God Realization, the Bhagwad Gita

My own exposure to great epic, the manual on art of living " Shrimad Bhagwad Gita" was initiated by "Kalyan", a Hindi spiritual magazine from Geeta Press Gorakhpur through a pocket size booklet "The Bhagwad Gita" in my school days, which still I carry. The habit was carried forward to college when I made a habit to read it's few pages before sitting for long hours of studies in nights. Thereafter, I came across many versions of Gita, by Tilak, Sant Dhyaneshwar, Bhagwad Gita by Swami Ranganathananda, published by Advaita Ashram, ISCON etc, but the most remarkable version to which I was introduced by a friend was the "Song Divine, God Talks with Arjuna, the Royal Science of God Realization, the Bhagwad Gita" by Paramhans Yogananda. I believe this is the ultimate interpretation, a key to realisation of God within and outside and a true guide in the journey of life. It has become a life companion for me and the force within make me to read it again & again. It's interpretation is so deep that every time I read it, I get into more & more depth leading to a deeper & deeper meaning. I realised that the good, bad & ugly are within me and is nothing but accumulation, the sum total of my past karmas. My today is the product of yesterday and my tomorrow will be the product of today. Therefore, I have realised that I have to be conscious enough to live in today, in this very moment, the present, take a pause and ask the consciousness within what is right & what is wrong. I have to be conscious enough to be aware what I am thinking, what I am doing and why I am doing. I have to be conscious enough to be aware that the same force, the same power & the same energy is at work within me, you, he/she and everybody & everything & everywhere. This lead to the truth that, you, me & he/she are "ONE" and no different. The oneness leads me to transact any thing with anybody in the same way as if I am transecting with self. The oneness leads me to the unity of all religions, all sects and all animate & inanimated beings. We all have come from the Same source and it is certain that all we will merge into the same source.

I am also lead by the Gita to unconditionally believe that the life and death, the physical phenomenon does not travel on a straight line, with a start and end but revolve around a continuous circle with no start and end. We are just oscillating on this circle, without any beginning at birth and end at death, like the waves, an energy form,  of vast sea, rising  from the sea at birth and falling back  to the sea at the death. And the vast sea is the "God" itself whom we, the human being give many name but in essence is the sea only. This philosophy even stands the test of science which establishes that the energy, neither can be destroyed nor created but can change the form. Accordingly, today we have this body as uniform and tomorrow we may have or not have another uniform, the soul remaining in essence, the same .

I admire the statement made by our Present PM, Shri Narendra Modi when he gifted a Gita to Mr. Shinzō Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan during his last visit that he is gifting the Gita to his highness as he does not have anything better than this to gift. It is true, there is no better gift than Gita given to mankind which is the essence of all the Vedas & Upanishads. When you have this, you don't need any other life guide.

The phenomenon of desires, fear and anger personified......

The phenomenon of endless desires coupled with fear of the thought of possible non fulfillment and slipping into bewilderness and deep rooted anger, an emotional response to obstacles in the way is personified in Arvind Kejriwal. The endless desire of Kejriwal is to become prime minister of the country, though nothing wrong in it; but the fear of apparent non fulfillment of this desire due to self hollowness in subconscious gives rise to his deep rooted anger and hatred towards Prime Minister Modi. These three impelling forces in Kejriwal are his greatest enemies which disallow him to think and act rationally & truthfully.

When one is incapable and hollow, how he can challenge the greater force like Modi? By just going on and on blaming Modi for each and every thing in the universe! Keep repeating Modi, Modi, Modi……endlessly, calling Modi names, asking Modi to come and beat self & but spare people of Delhi, pointing fingers repeatedly are proofs of his irrationality. He tries to bring down Modi to his level so that his position appears magnified. This reminds of the famous saying that when there are two parallel lines drawn on a paper, one bigger and one smaller and the task is to make the smaller one bigger, you have two choices; either to lengthen the smaller one or else erase & shorten the bigger one to make it the smaller one. Kejriwal’s philosophy appears to believe in the later. Blame Modi for self failures and go on and on glorifying self, incurring huge expenditure in wasteful advertisements all over the country, throwing away senior founder colleagues out from the party, promote policy of minority appeasement, dividing society, siding with corrupt politicians, supporting sloganeering by anti national forces and so on..........

Kejriwal, a product of Anna Hazare movement for Lokpal appeared sincere & honest when he jumped into political bandwagon forming the Aam Aadmi Party. His political narration highlighted the bitter truth of corruption in Indian politics. He could secure the trust of the people of Delhi and taking advantage of internal contradiction within Delhi BJP, the AAP rose to power with a thumping majority. However, the dream of having honest politics was short lived and due to internal power struggles, theatrics and gimmickry of AAP, the people of Delhi gradually realized its hypocrisy. Kejriwal used to say when he entered the politics that they have joined the politics to the change the way the politics is done but now writing on the wall is quite evident that they themselves have changed the way of other established political entities.

The three perennial enemies of Kejriwal, the endless desires coupled with fear and anger, I am afraid, may lead to final disillusionment of one and all with passage of time and ultimately to the disintegration of the party. The Kejriwal phenomenon also appears to have impacted the greatest damage to cause of honest politics as people in future will be afraid of giving opportunities to new comers, howsoever it may be sincere and honest.

Har Har Mahadev!

Just finished reading the three novels of Shiva Trilogy; i) the Immortals Of Meluha, ii) The Secrets of Nagas and iii) The Oath Of Vayuputras by Amish Tripathi, though it took  more than six months to complete the reading. This is my first attempt to write a book review which I acknowledged is greatly inspired by a friend,  Shrikant Pande for some of his recent exemplary reviews. Thanks  Shrikant.

In the Trilogy, the mythological story of Hindu God Shiva, the Neelkantha is beautifully humanized and intertwined as if he walked on this planet in the annals of history from Mansarovar Lake in Himalayas through the wide canvas of  India, starting from an  empire of Meluha created by Lord Rama, to Aydhya, and then to the land of Nagas in east, the Branga in search of evil, passing  the journey through Pachavati, the Naga capital on the bank of river Godavari in the west and further far west to the land of Pariha to obtain daiviashtra to fight the evil of Somras, the elixir of life manufacturing facilities at Meluhan capital, Devagiri under the kingdom of King Daksha, causing the poisoning the river Brahmaputra and leading the river Saraswati to die. Shiva meets many obstacles and faces numerous  hostilities in the journey but walks away victorious always as a righteous fighter.  The Shiva meets Sati in Meluha, the daughter of King Daksha, marries her, the son Kartik is borne and later at Branga realizes that Sati's first child Ganesh is still alive  with her twin sister, Kali, the Naga queen. They all join Shiva as great warriors to fight and destroy the evil of Somras. Amish through his novels also leads to the philosophy of balancing the good and evil as both being the two sides of the same coin and both serving a purpose at particular points in the wheel of time. The good believes that there is a time when the evil is to be just taken out of the equation, not to be destroyed completely as the same will serve a purpose of good at another time. While Shiva returns with the daiviashtras-pashupatiashtras from Pariha, he finds that the war has ended at Meluha and his beloved wife Sati has been killed through a cruel conspiracy enacted by none other than her father, king Daksha to assassinate Shiva.  Learning this, Shiva is so infuriated that the capital of Meluha is totally destroyed by him using the pashupatiastras, though forbidden by Vayupuras at Pariha and wiping out the somras manufacturing facilities completely, but saving the lives of scientists associated with the objective of larger good that the somras might be required at another point of time. The evil is just taken out of the equation by Shiva. The story concludes with an old man, wrinkled Shiva, sitting at Mansarovar Lake some thirty years later. The human legend thereafter regarded as God, for his righteous acts and as destroyer of evil and the savior of good.

Har Har Mahadev; each one of us is Mahadev, the Shiva!

My Little Experience

In my opinion, most of the media houses appears to be sold. You will get many stories about the prominent media editors and personalities. Similarly, through my experience of over 40 years in public and private sectors, I have realized that the most of the so called NGOs are dishonest and are in the business of making money. Even some of the left minded organisations appear to pursue anti-development agenda with vested interests and it is possible that some might be acting at the behest of external forces. Even as a society, we are not honest and often tempted to compromise when it comes to our self interests. It is easy to blame the establishment but walking on the path of truth is like walking on razor edge. We get the government, what we deserve. Award wapsi by writers and intellectuals was an insult to the nation and part of the partisan politics, only to defame and weaken the present government. I myself was a supporter of AAP in Delhi initially and had great hopes but feel deeply disheartened and cheated today due its constant “dramabazi” and wasting huge public money on self glorification. For Kejriwal, Modi is the root cause of all problems. Earlier, Shiela Dixit was the problem and was to be sent to jail by him. I do not belong to any political party or organization but I have realized that if the poor and downtrodden are to be uplifted, it cannot be achieved by mere slogans of freedom of speech and taking the country on the path of constant agitations but only through development of the nation with a central theme of united and integrated India. The present government may not be a perfect one as the society itself is not and therefore, true Indians have to and must support the development plans of any government and should not become hurdles which are counter-productive and anti-people.

Freedom of Speech

We often come encounter very pathetic, distracting & saddening pictures of poverty across the length and breadth of India, right at our door steps, nooks and corners of our residences, behind high rise buildings and ultra modern malls. Farmers are starving and committing suicides, poor children studying in pathetic school buildings, common citizen struggling for a decent health service in poor hospitals, humanity surviving in slums in inhuman conditions etc. etc. The list is long but the few examples give a glimpse of disturbing realities in India. That is even after seventy years of independence. I don’t want to put your mood off and disturb your senses by highlighting the sad  facts but no one can escape from these realities without getting affected from it in one form or other, irrespective of the fact that you may be a wealthy and well placed person with enough comforts of life.

I have a question to the so called intellectuals and liberals who have opinions to express on each and every event in the country, sitting in plum and cozy drawing rooms and TV studios. After anti national sloganeering in JNU by few students and subsequent police actions, these liberals, joined by some political parties and even media, with vested interests are alleging that the freedom of speech is in danger and is being curtailed by the present government. I want to ask them what is the meaning of “freedom of speech” to poor farmers who find it difficult to feed his family and force themselves to commit suicide?  What is the meaning of “freedom of speech” for little children who do not have school buildings? What is the meaning of “freedom of speech” to poor citizens who struggle for basic health facilities? What is the meaning of “freedom of speech” to slum dwellers living in inhuman conditions? What is the meaning of “freedom of speech” to the poors who sleep on footpaths? What is the meaning of "freedom of speech" to citizens who do not get even pure drinking water to drink?

I would like the intellectuals, liberals and the great politicians to demand the development of the humanity first, demand the welfare and progress of farmers first, demand good habitation and healthy living environment for poor citizens first, demand good health and hospital facilities for all first, demand good school facilities for children first and above all, demand the progress of Nation First. Else, your demand and slogans for “freedom of speech” is self defeating, false, taking India on backward path, mere self serving tool and in a sense anti national!

Technology will bring the Social changes…….

Technology will bring the Social changes…….

India or the “Bharat”, the more appropriately should be called as; is evolving as a nation step by step for better from the shadows of dominant views and acts of few rich, powerful and governing classes and their agents. Bharat is also step by step evolving for better from the clutches of mental slavery and cult worshiping masses who in the past treated their political masters as demigods and ‘ruling mai-baaps”. There was a time couple of decades post independence when the personalities like Gandhi, Nehru & Indira were worshiped as gods and whatever they said was considered sanctimonious, not meant for questioning. During those days, the passion of new free India and patriotism was so overwhelming that children used to feel proud in singing songs like “vande matram”, “jana gana adhinayak jay he” “kadam Kadam badhaye ja, khushi ke geet gayeja” during “school prabhat pheries” and national celebrations. As an example of cult worshipping (vyakti puja), I myself remember an incident in my childhood days in the summer of 1964. The people of my village, a hamlet of less than 5000 population had expressed their profound grief at the demise of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of Bharat, by observing a mourning for thirteen days and performing the “terhavi’ ceremony, (the thirteenth day ceremony to offer prayer for peace of the departed soul) by offering food to entire village. Of course, this was with their own financial contributions, without any media propaganda and government support. The emotions running across the country must have been similar.  In those days, there were only the print media, news papers, magazines, journals and radios for mass communication though accessible to a fraction of population. The general masses could only express their voices through the ballot boxes and that too with few exceptions of a segment of society riddled by extreme poverty, illiteracy; caste and class biases whose voices were silenced by powerful and they could never used to see the ballot boxes.  

As the time passed and country progressed, the technologies started penetrating across the width and breadth of the geographical regions, in far flung areas and in villages and towns. The diesel pump sets across the farms, followed by electric pump sets, electricity poles in connecting villages and towns, better roads and vehicular transportation facilities, spread of educational facilities, movement of people from one corner to another; all these stared making a difference in the lives of people. The dark period of emergency also came as anti climax and attempts were made to silence the voices of dissents. The JP movement united the opposition which gave birth to new leaders like the brands of Sharad Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and brought an experiment of short lived united Janta Party government lead by Morarji Desai, soon to be collapsed. The voices of the people again gave rise to the re-emergence of Indira Gandhi lead Congress government back to power. The Asian games in Delhi in 1982 gave a big impetus to emergence of television, a visual media in the country. The monotonous Doordarshan news programmes were supplemented by interesting TV serial and the first soap opera, “Hum Log” became so popular that the character of Dadi, her health, Basesar and Lallo used to become the topics of lunch talks in offices and on the roads all over the country. Then came the Vinod Duas and Pranav Roys to start interviewing dignitaries, conducting TV debates and feeding hungry minds of people waiting for thrills of investigative journalism. Simultaneously, the common man also started finding space in the visual media and the growth in the sector made the TV an essential item in everybody’s drawing and bed rooms irrespective of his/her financial status. With the spread of visual media leading to rising awareness among masses, the fire walls between the common man and those unquestionable political and wealthy demigods started crumbling. The people started questioning each and every action of government authorities. Mighty government fell and Rajeev Gandhi, who got whopping 411 parliamentary seats in 1984 election, could lose in 1989 to his fellow politician, V P Singh under the onslaught of corruption scandal in Bofors gun deal.

The advent of main frame computers and personal computers and subsequently the internet technologies have further armed the masses. With the information boom, they started demanding more and more transparency and accountability from government authorities and agencies that matters in any field of governance and public services. The rising awareness further fueled the demand for information sharing and consequently, the government of the day had to legislate the RTI act. For a developing country like Bharat with large population and scarce resources, information technology has now become the greatest tool for social transformation. The information technology has revolutionalised the field of communication and as a result, the governments of the day were forced to introduce ways of stopping leakages in the subsidies and benefits in many social schemes by introducing direct benefit transfer to the bank accounts of eligible population. The multifold spread of mobile penetration to the remotest corners within the country coupled with the convergence of mobile and internet technology has changed the way now Bharat communicates; conduct e-governance, e-commerce and e-business. The present Prime Minister’s Jan-Dhan Yojna, a scheme of financial inclusion of population lead to opening of 20 Cr. bank accounts in the country during the first year of its launching with facility for Rupay cards, will also change the way masses transact and do business.

Along with the above, the foremost social transformation is also happening as the technology is giving the “voices” to masses on day to day basis, 24X7, without waiting for the reach to ballot boxes. The millions and millions of accounts of Indians on social websites like Twitter, Facebook, Google, e-blogs, blogs, e-news papers etc. demonstrate the trend in rising voices of the masses on any issue. The impact is immediate, reach is instantaneous and the masses become more and more powerful to make or break an opinion. Earlier, only those in position of power or authority, or a celebrity could find a way to express his/her voice in news papers or in TV programmes but today, through the social media, everybody like you, me and a person walking on the road within or outside the country can instantaneously express his views on any issue. The casualties of the process are the demigods whose sanctimonious temples of authorities have started taking serious dents. Their unquestionable authority and every actions/reactions go under scrutiny which may become questionable. Even the powerful position of the prime minister is not spared.  The beneficiaries are the masses, armed with great powers. Rare beneficiaries are also the activists like like Arvind Kejriwal, who claims to be holier than thou, but as people say, has a great driving expertise while negotiating U-turns and standing tall hand in hand with Lalu.

The dominant views on social media can make or mar a career of a politician, a common man, a worker, an official or a even a celebrity. The media demand more responsible acts from every person in the society. Also, like any other arms, the fire-arm of social media can also be misused by vested interests and therefore puts a greater accountability on everybody to conduct himself/herself on the social media as well as out site its’ domain in a responsible manner conducive to social norms, national ethos and interests. However, the trend will definitely bound to bring the social changes in the country, make the governments more accountable, and people friendly, transparent and more responsible society eventually to empower the common man more and more.

WHO AM I?

Who am I? Who are you? Who is he? Where from I, you and he/she came? Where are we going? Where are we leading?

These are the eternal questions bothering everybody and there comes a time in everybody’s life when one tries to seek answers, partially or fully? Should everybody wait for the natural way to wait for such time to come to the realization or make immediate earnest efforts to recognize the “self’ and find the universal truth? I think it would be too dangerous for the humanity to wait in natural way and not act earnestly.

Ultimately what we are made of? Our bodies are made of flesh, bones, blood derived from the earthen elements. We take birth through a process of reproduction in mothers’ womb. All human beings come in the world through the same process. They also go back from the world through the identical process of decay and deaths. It is a different matter how our bodies are treated and extinguished after death. The processes of birth and death are universal. Nobody can claim that we come to and go back from the world in different ways. When these two end points between the start and end of life are identical for everybody, irrespective of caste, colour, creed, race and nationality, then from where the differences appear between the two end points. The difference is definitely there and it is more dominant. The difference is an acquired one, the difference is an assumed one, and the difference is an imposed one. I say, I am a Hindu because I am borne in a Hindu family. Other may say he/she is a Muslim as he/she is borne in a Muslim family, another may say that he/she is a Christian due to birth in a Christian family. As we grow, we also acquire other faith, traits, habits, mood swings, likes and dislike and other behavioral patterns. We live, behave and carry our lives generally on the basis of these acquired faith, traits, habits & practices. But, above the realm of this acquired identity, we are, in essence, the same natural beings we call it human beings.

When in essence, we are “same”, we have the same natural rights and same natural responsibilities; “live and let live”. No one has right to snatch anybody’s life whatsoever the reasons may be.  Nobody can have any justification to kill other human being whatsoever the reasons may be. We are also conscious to the reality that the same blood flows in our bodies and bodies of others. If we suffer from some disease, we go to a doctor who can treat us, on whom we have faith. We have faith in him/her whosoever he/she may be. Do we bother whether the doctor is a Hindu, Muslim or Christian?  Never! He treats you, me and everybody in the same way and all we benefit from the treatment. And when our body needs blood during treatment or surgery, do we buy the blood asking for a Hindu, Muslim or Christian labeled Blood? Never! If one asks such a silly question, he/she will immediately be labeled as a stupid.

Similarly, in the matter of religion, we believe in different faiths and philosophies. Like when we go to a doctor, we have certain faith in him to treat us. Likewise, in case of religion, it is an acquired one either by birth or by reposing faith in certain way of life or philosophies. We believe in certain supreme power, a supreme force, name it God, Allah or Christ, Krishna, Buddha or whatever. The common thread is the faith on the Supreme Being.  Our faith may be we believe in none. However, whatsoever greater or lesser one’s faith might be, it is again an acquired faith and is definitely not above the basic essence of “oneness” among the humanity. Therefore, the concept of “live and let live” emerges from this oneness and I believe is the basis of all world religions.

Then why the acquired faiths, traits and habits become so dominant in ones’ life that we forget our basic essence, our basic origin?  Why the differences acquired during the process of our growing assume such a larger force that we forget the oneness between humanities, between races, religions and nationalities and act so foolishly to kill each other and carry out mass murders of innocent people. Mumbai, Paris, New York and other innumerable terror acts proves that we are not realizing the grave threat to humanity. Such acts sometime may lead to wiping out the entire race or communities? Today, the world possesses lethal weapons of mass killing and it will not be a surprise that eventually, the same can be used to annihilate the entire life from the planet earth. Then who will live and who will dominate?

That is the reason it is very imperative and important to know who we are, where we are going and where we are leading others. The world needs to make immediate earnest efforts to recognize the “self’ behind each one of us and realize oneness amongst us. Then and then only we can act wisely and arrest the growing madness. Then and then only we can adopt the philosophy of “live and let live”. The world needs to act immediately otherwise, it would be too late, too late and too dangerous for the humanity.