A Man's Existence under Sri Sai: Purpose of Pain

I recently read an excerpt from ‘Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space’. You will realize that scientists and philosophers have been constantly striving to visualize an object from different frame of references and one such was the view of earth from Saturn. It was merely an obscure pale blue dot in a vast universe. That brings me to believe that a Guru's vision of earth and lives on the surface of the planet is way better that what can ever be captured by satellites and all possible man's inventions. The spiritually elevated seekers like Guruji and the supreme incarnate Sri Sai could very well see beyond the worldly existence and affairs of man on the time constrained existence of planets and lives. Like the satellites in outer space refer to earth as a small dot where the man, his machines, his creations, his love and hatred, his accomplishments have no relevance what so ever in the infinite universe, so does the Sadguru visualize much beyond the worldly affairs that we are engrossed in our lives. He under the influence of the Paramatma can visualize clearly what ordinary eyes and our thought process cannot. He can see from far and high and deep in the hearts and minds of the mortals.

That brings me to think why in our short lives and our finite existence, we get into conflicts - conflicts within one's self, conflicts with ideologies, believes, faiths and practices. And why such conflicts cause pain? Why do we get hurt? Why can't the supreme power control and diminish such sufferings? The more I think and focus on Baba, I faintly and vaguely get a reply. EVERY PAIN HAS A PURPOSE. Everyday challenges, everyday sufferings have a reason. An ignorant like me have interpreted the reasons being two fold - Self development and Spiritual progress. One intends to cleanse your senses, helps hold yourself together, makes you more tolerant, more patient, execute your daily duties and social responsibilities, builds your character, helps feel sympathy for your fellow beings, helps you being kind and generous and makes you able enough to dedicate your life for services to others. The other intends to take you closer to the Supreme power. The spiritual journey through realization where you get a bit closer to your Guru, Sadguru and the Supreme Lord every single day. Man like any other animal seeks help, cure and comfort when in pain, this seeking of help reaches its pinnacle when one seeks the blessings of the Guru and ever emancipating Baba. Understanding and accepting not only comforts for the pains and losses in our life but also drives us a little closer to Sri Sai. Every pain has a reason and purpose and we need to accept that and seek His blessings. May Sai Bless.

No Body, One Soul

Question arises when someone address you as 'You are no body'. Questioning - who you really are? Are you irrelevant and non-existent for somebody at that moment? May be yes and may be not, depends on the person who addressed you as no body and depends on the situation which provoked the speaker to say so. No matter what goes through your mind at that instant, the reality is that he or she was right, if not in whole, partially right. You are No-Just-A-body, you are a soul embodied by matter, the matter is called body. A man's relevance and identity is beyond the matter because science has proven that matter change. No matter can stay in one form forever, it has to change under different circumstances, it has to erode and decay and eventually take another shape. Your body is no different. Referring to science, what remains intact is the energy. It can transform from one form to the other but the total energy remains the same. This is something our vedas and ancient scriptures have referred as a phenomenon with our soul. Soul like energy is intact is often encapsulated by a body or rather matter which changes form time to time.

Now having realized that, the next question that arises is having a limited span of time of the body which we refer to as life on this earth, would you focus on caring, uplifting and realizing the eternal soul or the short lived body? One side of the coin is no mystery for humanity since its origin. The reality is that matter changes and the body dies. No one ever with what so ever power of science has been able to stop the nature's process of death or diminishing the matter. One the other side of the coin, the intangible part of this concept is that who will validate the ever existence of a soul?. Trying to find an answer to this question, it makes me wonder why in a time limited span of life, a man seeks God, why he/she feels the pain and happiness of something completely unrelated to his/her life? why a living being cares for his/her siblings, relatives, non living things around them, animals, trees and flowers? Why do you and like all your forefathers have been seeking guidance from books and scriptures? We have knowingly and unknowingly shaped our lives in a way designated by ancient and prehistoric texts and we constantly go back to these books for showing us the right path in this short life. Why reading the Mahabharat, the Ramayana, The four vedas, the Gita, the Sai Satcharitra, the Bible and many other religious scriptures have influenced mankind in achieving peace and happiness. The answer lies in the question itself. Souls exist through these books.

The lives and after-lives of souls, both good and bad has lived through the ages. The lives of saints, kings, teachers, disciples, farmers, warriors, servants, and Gods have been passed over for ages from one generation to the other, sometimes written, sometimes by folk lore. All these books have are individuals, incidents, teachings and realizations that can help us learn and shape our lives for a meaningful existence on this earth. If we have ever been influenced by the life of great saint, we know his soul is present. Reading the Sai Satcharitra and vaguely relating to the life around Sai Baba and for that case reading the Bhagwad Gita or Bible and being able to learn from the inferences of Lord Krishna, Jesus and Sri Ram makes us realize that those great souls of Gods and Demigods still live and exist. Had that not been true, we would not have felt the greater necessity or seen the greater expansion of spirituality in this modern world. If closing your eyes and for a moment seeking blessings from the Guru or the Paramatma or seeking comfort from someone you love gives you peace and happiness, you already realized that there is no Body but one Soul. And yes, you are nobody and you are one of them....

Happy Indi-Pain-Dance Day

I wish all my fellow Indians happy Indi-pain-dance day. Sounds weird isn't it? How can I be so sarcastic on a day that we have celebrated for over 60 years with enthusiasm and pomp? The sound of the national anthem and the hoisting of the tricolor always brought goose bumps for all these years. Not any more. I dont feel it. May be we forgot what independence means or may be the whole concept of independence on the 15th of August, 1947 was not meant to be in the first place.

My heart aches as I write this and its been hurting since I gained conciousness and have been trying to figure out why we celebrate this day. We should have gained independence from the British raj by waving a war. The PAIN caused by the shameless DANCE of corruption that mother INDIA is going through, I have felt that for years now. Gandhiji's non-violence method did pave the way for our independence but sadly enough we lost the zeal and fighting spirit of the Aryan's whose blood still run in our veins. Bapu would surely be ashamed of us all and specially of the clan he lent his surname to. He would have never realized that one day we would drag the nation to the morgue, killing it a little every day for over half a century.

I don't want to and don't have to mention the instances of how corruption has become a part of our lives like daily meals. We eat it every day and reason it with a energetic word called survival. Yes we survive, we forgot how to live and in the process have killed the values and ethics that built this civilization thousands of years ago. I don't want to mention how corruption and bribery and siphoning of public money is happening in front of our eyes every day. We know the names and how it is done, media can't help. Even if they do, the bad guys are not scared any more, people like me have given up and how many of us would go to the court to fight a public litigation, charge-sheet the corrupt and how many courts and judges would be needed to bring the demons to justice? As I browsed through the news everyday for the last ten years or more, only thing I have realized is that corporations and political leaders are getting unaffected by anything around them. We are a tolerant nation - we do our job well.

Joseph Marie de Maistre, a 18th century french philosopher said "Every country has the government it deserves". I can't agree more to this statement. Yes we deserve the corruption that is affecting our lives today. And the reason is because we are corrupt and we hardly try to lead our lives in a righteous path. We do whatever is convenient for us and profitable to us. How may of us have said NO while paying bribe at the local driver licenses office? how many of us said NO to copying in exams? how many of us have said NO to easy money that comes through any profession? how many of us are doing or at least trying to bring in a difference to the lives of the under privileged? The list is endless. Have we ever tried to think beyond are needs and satisfactions? Answer would be bleak to none.

Then why complain? Why are we complaining that political leaders are corrupt? Are you right in your own small world? Are you doing things or at least trying to make things right at home, loving your family and friends? Are you doing your job properly ? Are you sympathetic to your countrymen? Do you care for the the injured person laying unattended in an accident scene? If the answer is NO, then do not blame any government, do not take out rallies against the system. Rectify yourself. Change the way you live and think. Become less selfish and think beyond your small little world. Remove yourself from the shackles of bondage and you will realize the true meaning of Independence.

And for the day when India will be Independent, I will wait and strive for it every day. Will you join me?

Journey of a Soul

Of millions of cars in the street across the world, GPS has changed the way people reach their destinations. In the early age human beings had a limited mobility in terms of the land they could reach. With the evolution of the species and its interaction with the nature's creations, man started conquering lands then water and air. Technological advances raised mankind to new heights when we floated in the space and landed on the moon.

On the earth evolved a more sophisticated species from a mere four limb crawler to a man who created cars and rockets. Roads were built and man started exploring new lands. Every man, woman and child realizes the joy within when he or she steps on a new place on earth, may be a few hundred miles from where he or she was born or across continents in a new country. When one watches the sun rise from a shore of the sea in an unknown land, the ecstasy and the joy within surpasses all adventures and achievements. As the man feels the warmth of the rising sun, he slowly closes his eyes to absorb the energy and that brings smile to his face. Even when he knows it is the same sun he has always opened his eyes to. It's a indefinite joy and cannot be defined in words. It's personal and intimate and can only be felt.

On his journey of never ending conquest and search for the knowledge, man created roads and highways, ocean routes, air traffic routes and even a definite route to the moon and beyond. Man started travelling in seek of something unknown, something new. And suddenly he realized the importance of guidance. Guidance for the traveler, information of the route undertaken and definition of the destination. Our ancestors created landmarks and monuments, rigorously drafted maps and learned to read the stars for not getting lost. The twenty first century man created the GPS, the global positioning system. Twenty four earth orbiting satellites powered by the energy of the sun send signals to the earth for man to navigate. The GPS unit in the car and in hand receives the signals and guide us to our destinations.

If we divert from the route shown by the GPS, it guides us back to the original route, at least it tries. If the driver is adamant to take a different route, GPS always re aligns by recalculating the driver's location as how to reach the destination. Eventually he reaches his destination. The driver has the option to set up the navigation options in his GPS. He can choose the shortest route, fastest route, whether to avoid toll roads or take a particular scenic route. And man follows the GPS because he believes in his choices, he believes in the options he set for himself. But man knows he has to reach his destination , destination that he chose. And he does.

The world is governed and run by the supreme power in a fashion similar to Satellite and the Driver. Replace Sun with the ultimate power, Satellite with God we believe in, Signals with the spiritual energy, GPS with the Guru, Options with the methods of belief, GPS instructions with the faith and rules, driver with the soul, car with the life, highways with the path to salvation, new lands with the realm of self realization and happiness, and destination with the Supreme God.

Some drivers choose not to use a Guru or GPS. Sometimes they use their instinct, sometimes knowledge and sometimes maps. Some of them make it to the destination some of them don't. Some people choose to get a Guru. Their journey of life becomes easy and they reach the destination. That also calls for constant education for the disciple and the Guru, in other words maps and software upgrade for the GPS and education for driver. That ensures the driver reaches destination or in other words soul reaches to the Master.

PS: Guruji CB Satpathy in his book "Shirdi Sai Baba and other perfect masters" wrote a chapter 'The divine journey of the soul' written between 1991-95 and later published in the book. I came across this book towards the end of 2013

Spring came along

Chilly as it could be, was the wind

sweet as could it be,was the song

love was kicking in, waiting

O-one November seemed so long

Frozen was I, i don know who've I been

Lonely,all in the crowd, i dint belong

Day and night, I was dying

suddenly i felt your presence strong

Eerie, my world, now was fast changing

Darkness around, my worries flung

only had I heard cloud number nine

with you, floating above, it was cradlesong

one, two and came the third spring

fine morning, my heart ached,you're gone

had no clue, it came as a lightning

flowers bloomed all over,my fall came along

Here among all the glitterati and bling

know not what I do, where I go

I wonder why, had to come that dark spring

May be now I wish, there never had come

that November, never, ever, my lifelong

Scubrats Cafe Diary: The green bicycle girl

On a sunny afternnon with the humid Houston loosing its moisture as a little soft chill mingles with the setting sun, Harriet takes a break form her coffee vending schedule to soak in the setting sun and chit chat with her freinds who had stooped by. Erika who also works at the Scubrats cafe and had taken that day off had come to smoke her lungs out as Harriet chatted incesentaly. The third girl, Heidi, in teh party was not so into the converstaion but was very much a company as she sipped her passion fruit drink.

Harriet was twenty one. Fair, skinny, weighing a little more than her green bicycle who lies locked to the cafe bench all day long. A tom boy character and unstoppable force when it comes to talking. She could talk anything ranging from her struggle as a student to the concern of her freakingly tiny breasts to the huge amountof loan she has taken to buy something valuable, which I had missed to over hear, to the arrangement of her sharing her apartment and eventually life with a man who was more than a decade older than her.

She has been home-schooled for more than a decade before she was put into a church school and this transition resulted in a very narrower view of the world. With least intercation with people in her home schooling days to the church's pattern of over powering one's independent thoughts with strict religion-influenced teaching resulted in creating a rebel who would later break the bondages of religion, family, sterotypical life style to the bike riding, tattooed, pierced rebel. The other day when I saw her behind the counter brewing my cafe-misto, I saw her limping and she must have run into some kind of trouble I deduced. She has been thrown out of school in her childhood, thrown out of the jobs when she did odd jobs to meet her tuition expenses, out of apartments by the sharing renter, out of another cafe for failing the weekly employee attitude-something tests, which I guess is fairly easy to conquer. She eventually landed in Scubrats.

But as you look into her eyes, you will always find something mysterious, something very innocent, something very childish and mischievous yet sensible human being.

All the names are fictitious, although the characters are not. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely intentional

That's what she knows

You will notice, there are three categories of flocking people (gatherings) that you would encounter often in your life. These gatherings of flocking people can be categorized by the type of crowd or audience or spectators. When I say CROWD, no one is noticing you, for instance a crowded beach, mall or a fair. In other words, you do not know a single person in the crowd and do not expect to meet them ever again, even by coincidence. AUDIENCE – somewhat attending to you but not that concerned on the specifics, look at you but they don’t smile back and neither are you so concerned what the expressions on their faces are. It’s like you performing at the stage and all the lights blind you from seeing your audience, except for a few near the stage. Instances of audiences will be the people who you often meet at the neighborhood coffee shop. You do not know their names but you definitely know what she has been wearing over the last couple of weeks or may be the bald guy who prefers seating on that particular bench and likes to have only iced mocha. By the way, they too feel the same about you and notice things about you. As you notice there is a degree of personalization and acquaintance as we move from the crowd to the audience. The highest degree of the influence is the SPECTATOR. The closest synonym would be critics. These are the people who really care and feel about what you wear and what you do and the way you talk, even if they do not care to know which part of the city you are from. You will find such specimens at the social gatherings or community events. They influence you to the extent where you would ponder whether to put on Armani’s Aqua di gio or just manage with Davidoff ‘s Coolwaters.

EVENTS in terms of the category of the crowd can be broadly classified into two. Now the difference is – the perspective. Here I am talking about the crowd categorized by your better half (BTW, this blog is for the guys already chained in the sweet bondage of marriage). So, quite evidently I am referring here to the fairer sex. They categorize events into two kinds based on the crowd or audience or the spectators.

One thing you would always notice is that they are always well dressed, looking sexy, attractive, ready to acknowledge the admirers, give room for pouring compliments, sometimes in words and sometimes just a silent look of the passer by. Anyways, the events they categorize are – ‘The partner (guy) should look very attractive, sexy, match-up-to-her’ category and ‘Need not be too smart, dress casually, not un-attractive’ category. The first category (let’s say, match-up-to-Event !) would be applicable where there would be spectators and sometimes audiences. An event where people know you and would come up to you to talk to you and comment about other’s attire. Such an event would be community events and parties. They want to hear- how good her partner looks. It’s a pleasure you can never feel and I can never express but we will always be a party. They want to show their possession and when on display, better be the best among all. Here you are handed over with the choice of shirt, perfume, matching shoes, absolutely clean shaven – argument even if you had done it the very morning on your way to office. Every single properly-not-shaven spot would be inspected and redone. It’s like her best dress she has worn and wants others to look at it. In other words – sometimes you are just an accessory to their perfectly matching Louis Vuitton purse or the Estée Lauder lip gloss.

The second category of the event (let’s say Whatever-you-want-Event ! ) occurs in the crowd like a beach or a mall where the admirers ranging from the desperate sexagenarian to the not-so-yet teens would not care to look at the side screen, where you would be lingering holding her hand and is just a part of the hundreds walking by. Imagine a scene where the gorgeous lady is the only being in color and rest of the characters are in black and white and the whole scene moves in slow motion, one you would see in innumerable movies, you are one of the characters in the black and white who the millions of movie goers ignore. That’s you in the crowd. So it makes sense that you do not spend much time dressing up to her. She is the best as ever and you are JUST fine. The thing to take away from the joy of this event and being in this category of the crowd is – you get not to shave for the cause, wear the most comfortable tees, although wrinkled, and slip in your flip flops, grab a coffee from starbucks and glide through the crowd. I love that.