ONE OF THE REASON WHY FEAR ARISES…. GET RID OF IT….

I don’t think there is anyone who do not want to live fearless life. Fearlessness is the basic quality if one wants to live like true hero. Despite of this, rarely there is any one who have not feared of something in his/her life. Sometime or other fear pops up in our lives and many times we are not even aware that fear is taking over us and ruining our lives.

Swami Vivekananda says

“ It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven even in a moment”

“The earth is enjoyed by heroes. This is the unfailing truth. Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear”. Tell this to everybody “Have no fear”.

 

Everybody wants to live like hero. When we watch movies many of us are on the side of hero only and later on copy/mimic what hero did in that movie but one thing ruins our heroism and that is fear. Why this fear haunts so much that people even forget their lives to live?

One of the main reason I have found is selfishness. It is one of the biggest reasons fear pops in people’s lives and many of the times people are not even aware that they are being selfish. When our thoughts, our lives, our motives revolve only around ourselves this thing called fear keeps chasing us!

Just do this experiment with yourselves – whenever you are fearing something, someone or some situation ,central figure about whom you are thinking is yourself. This “I” or “My” is predominant there. We are always thinking about my life, my money, my wife, my children, I may get hurt, they may kill me, I may lose, I may get beaten up etc. Our central thought revolves around only ourselves. If you ask somebody to raise his/her voice against corruption or bad elements, many will say “I have family, children and I do not want to get involved into this”. They accept this injustice out of their fear and out of selfishness their thoughts are evolving only around themselves and which is leading to fear.

If somebody has fear of water then central thought is “I may get drowned”. If somebody has fear of exams then central thought is “I may fail”. Even few students do not attend exams out of fear. Fear takes over them and then they start feigning illness or something else. Ask someone to join Army and if he is fearful then he will say “I do not want to die so early”. Again this “I” takes over. Ask someone to stand up and address audience of 1000 people and out of fear and ego he /she may not be even able to stand up properly. Hands & legs may shake. Central thought of the person could be “Will they laugh at me? Will they accept me? Will I speak properly?” etc etc. People get drowned in thoughts of future where they are the only central figure.

It is out of fear, selfishness that people do not raise their voice against bad elements, corruption and wrong in society and this is biggest reason why many countries are in bad shape.

To overcome this fear, solution is very simple. One must broaden his/her vision. Start thinking about others, have higher and broader aim/vision. If you are thinking then think big, why to think about only about our one family, think about entire society, think about entire nation ,think about entire planet. More and more vision is broader, more and more responsibility is taken then this fear will disappear. When this selfishness will disappear then this fear will also stop popping up. When we start working towards bigger goal which will benefit for entire society then many of fears will disappear. Look at all the freedom fighters, look at all the soldiers they have no fear as they lived/ are living for bigger cause.

One needs to remember that there is difference between being fearlessness and being stupid. One cannot say that I am fearless so I will go and stand infront of train or one cannot say that I will go and stand up infront of roaring tiger as I am fearless, then that person is being stupid.

Once we overcome this fear then we can move in the right path and that too with speed and right now need of the time is people overcome this fear with broader vision!

“If you are really my children, you will fear nothing, stop at nothing. You will be like lions. No cowardice. Do you understand? Be true unto death!” – Swami Vivekananda.

DEMON MAHISHASURA..REAL MEANING, GODDESS DURGA (MOTHER GODDESS / MOTHER NATURE) AND ITS CURRENT RELEVANCE…FREE YOURSELF OF THIS DEMON…

As I have mentioned in my first blog, our ancestors were very wise and they knew that over the years people’s dialect, culture, languages will change. Apart from writing things in scriptures, they presented most of things through pictures and symbols as well so that future generations will be able to understand through these. One such picture & story is of Demon Mahishasura and Goddess Durga. Lets see how it is relevant in current times.

General story goes like this, once upon a time there was a demon called ‘Mahishasura’. He had done severe penance/austerities and out of that he got a boon from Lord Shiva (Shiva is called as Destructor. He is destructor of all the bad thoughts in out head Ex – Thoughts of attacking someone, stealing something etc come in our head. He resides in our body as well. He resides in head and all bad thoughts are destroyed there). Boon was- no man, animal or god will be able to kill him. After getting this boon he thought himself as invincible and started misusing it and terrified all human beings and creatures. In his arrogance he forgot that woman can kill him. All people and even Gods approached mother goddess for help. Mother goddess took form of women called Durga and killed Mahishasura and freed planet from this demon.

Lets understand this demon first and then lets see its current relevance. Asura is the person with immense power who uses his/her power for selfish/evil motives. One of the meaning of Mahisa in the Sanskrit is Buffalo. That is why in above picture demon is shown sitting on buffalo. If you observe carefully buffalo is symbol of inertia. For example suppose you come across a buffalo on a road and you push the button of your vehicle’s horn so that this animal moves out of the way, you will observe that it do not move so easily as it is filled with inertia. Most of the times you will have to wait or go sideways but it will not move. Mahishasura means demon inertia gripped humans and Asuras made this to happen deliberately for their own selfish motives. Lets see how it helps them.

Today if we closely observe many people, infact many countries are under the grip of this inertia. Mother Nature has showered everything in every part of world. I mean all types of resources are available but people do not want to do anything. You can see this across many countries. See some examples…

• • Many parts where it rains in really good amount, they do not have clean potable water or water for irrigation. People are absolutely doing nothing to create more water reservoirs etc. They are waiting for some government scheme or some officer or leader to do something for them. Just imagine even few hundreds if join hands can dig one lake for themselves.

• • Many people are homeless today. Nature has given everything, wood, stones, sand etc. Such homeless people can come together and build their own homes with whatever resources they can collect from their surroundings. Educated people can also help them but we see very less time such thing happening

• • Farmers have their good arable farm lands but rather than learning better natural way of producing multiple crops, they run behind quick money making things, sow things which require less effort (like sugarcane). I have seen many of them do not even prepare their own seeds, own plants. They buy everything from outside and keep on increasing their input costs. Just little effort and they can make huge money but very few actually do it. Infact in many parts of the world people wait for special financial packages for governments to announce and they are happy to get such benefits. Infact it is becoming yearly norm to receive such benefits. People are not realizing that they are being paralyzed. In few parts of Africa they think that it is their birth right to receive these packages. This trend is emerging in India and other parts of world as well.

• • Many people in Europe do not take jobs, they live and enjoy the benefits provided by council or governments. Once in UK, I came across this news – one couple was living in council house with 5 or 6 children and each one of them was receiving per week monetary benefits. Reason he gave was, he lost his job and his wife is suffering from chronic depression! This is not good, this way almost half of the Europe is going towards bankruptcy and people are becoming paralyzed without learning any skills and work.

• • Another tactic used by few politicians is putting in place some public welfare schemes with corruption engulfed in it such as some rural employment schemes etc. Honestly speaking such schemes do more harm than any help. For Ex – In India Govt launched a scheme called MANREGA. If you are jobless then you register your name then you will be allocated some work and you will get some daily wages. People say most of the people do not do any work, they register their names and get benefits. Huge money of country is being wasted. Another harm it is causing is to farmers. They don’t get any labor for farm work as laborers are refusing to work as they are getting free money elsewhere.

• • In many parts of the world, if you tell people to learn good skills and start their own work such as plumbing, painting, and electrical work or start their own little business, they simply refuse to do anything. In fact many of them simply say give us some safe government job where I can retire without much headache.

• • Most of the people want good vegetables, fruits, grains to eat but none of them want to grow. Can’t we grow our own organic vegetables! So much land, water is available. We can easily do it. People prefer to buy from market which may have hazardous chemicals responsible for diseases like Cancer!

• • If you ask many organization managements, they say we are in need of good employees. Mind it good employees who have real knowledge and ready to work. There are more than 6 billion people and organizations are short of skilled people! This itself speaks a lot.

• • Rather than relying on hard work for making money, out of their inertia to do hard work and urge to become rich very early, people invest in many Ponzi schemes, take route of gambling and lose all their money or greedily buy shares, properties and lose everything at the end.

• • Nature has given so many herbs which are freely available around us. We can prepare our own medicines, tooth pastes, soaps, shampoos and many more such things. People say “who the hell will do this”. Things are readily available in market and buy from there. This is how big corporate houses are becoming bigger and bigger and on top of it their products have so many hazardous chemicals as well. Can’t we learn and prepare many things on our own?

• • Buying ready to eat, ready to cook or eating in restaurants and hotels is new trend. People do not even check what quality of food they are eating and how much money they are spending on it. If you visit rural India, everything is prepared in home. Right from pickle, sweets, lunch, dinner, various delicious food verities, everything is prepared at home. Extremely hygienic, nutritious, healthy food and on top of that you save huge money! If we don’t know then can’t we learn from the people who know and make our lives better?

• • You will observe when you are involved in some creative work then you will not have any sexual thoughts and when you are engulfed with sexual thoughts you will not be able to do nay creative work. We need to be aware of this. Excess of anything is bad. People who are involved in more sex, you will see them more lethargic, dull and inertia takes over them. Surprisingly if you look around, business houses are operating on tagline’ SEX sells’. Women are being used as sex symbols in movies or to sell products. Even pornography has become industry which is destroying many people’s lives.

There could be many such examples and this list can go on. Question is from our inertia who are benefitting? Many of the above examples are self-explaining – Politicians, big corporate houses, big money lenders such as bankers etc. Few are explained in detail

• • Our inertia to work and earn on our own leads to enjoying free perks from council/Govts which in turn is leading your country to Bankruptcy. So lenders and their associated politicians will take over your country.

• • Due to our inertia many corporate houses are becoming bigger and bigger as we are not preparing on our many things and buying from them. In this process, we are losing big money and money is getting accumulated in few hands.

• • Out of our inertia we do not do hard work, our farming goes in loss and then farmers sell their land which again bought by these politicians and big corporate houses or few rich people. If you observe, thousands of people are leaving farming every day.

• • Out of our inertia, every time we demand relief packages and paralyze ourselves. It is so easy for politicians to come in power buy throwing some money in front of people.

Then how to overcome this inertia and how it has engulfed us? How mother Goddess is related to it. Mother Goddess is symbol of energy. Our motherland is giving us food, water which we consume and get energy. If we have energy in us then we can walk, work or do any activity else we will not be able to do it. IF we have good energy created in us then inertia simply vanishes.

• • First thing we need to do is to be aware of the tactics used by politicians which make us paralyzed. Once we are aware then we remain alert and do not fall in that trap.

• • Next is good sleep. Right amount of sleep gives right amount of energy. If you sleep too much or too little then it is not going to help. Have 7-8 hours of sleep.

• • Next is food. Food creates energy in us. Kind of food you eat, same kind of energy it will create. If you eat quickly digestive food items then you will have very good energy created in you and you will overcome this inertia. If you have sedentary lifestyle and you eat food which takes lot of time to digest like meat, fish, etc then most of your energy will be used to digest that food only and you will feel sluggish, lethargic and this becomes your norm and inertia takes you over. Even if you stuff yourself with too much food then also lot of your energy is wasted in digesting that food and you become lethargic.

• • Next is avoid drinking buffalo milk. Prefer cow milk and that too of natural breeds. Buffalo milk has high fat content and takes time to digest compared to cow’s milk. Once again remember that what you eat or drink you become like that. You want to be lethargic like buffalo or active like cow?

• • Next is lack of physical activity – you will observe many times if lethargic people are forced to do some physical work, initially they are slow & resist but slowly their inertia goes down and they work very well. We all need some exercise daily to overcome this inertia. Yoga, Pranayama some exercises will help in this. Pranayama gives lot of energy to body. Every breath we take energizes our body and every breath we release relaxes our body so little bit of pranayama will help, if you do not know then quickly learn it as many teachers are available.

Transformation from Inertia to blissful activeness happen in three stages. As per food we eat, physical activity we do and purity we have in our thoughts and heart, our body remains in three Gunas (Guna means quality or Type) – Sattoguna or Rajoguna or Tamoguna. Each of these three Gunas have impact on you and are as below

Tamoguna – If you have Tamoguna then body has lot of laziness, lethargy, you do not want to work, lot of inertia and this is demon Mahishasura!

Rajoguna – If you have lot of Rajoguna then you will show symptoms like – You want to work to achieve something. You are too ambitious. Plans are going on in your mind like what are you going to do one after another. Your mind is running very fast and so you are. You want to be rich, want land, want to expand your kingdom. Many a times feverishness sets in to achieve those things and many times too much ambitious people land up in depression as well.

Satoguna – If you have Satoguna then you are working but with content in your heart and mind. You are in bliss, centered in you and not running behind things. Nothing can shake you. You will keep walking in your life with smile on your face. You work in blissful lstate but without constantly wondering or focusing on end result.

Ensure that you transform yourself from Tamoguna to Rajoguna and from Rajoguna to Satoguna! Correct food, correct exercise, meditations, yoga, pranayama will for surely transform this and pray to Mother Goddess to help you defeat this demon with her energy in you! Prayers do Work!

DON’T CONVERT PEOPLE YET SPREAD YOUR RELIGION!

In today’s world, we have so many religions, cultures, languages, music, costumes, food etc. Instead of seeing the beauty in this diversity and celebrating it, people are busy in converting people into their religion (for whatever reason), environment of distrust growing and people end up seeing only bad thing in others and end up separating from each other.

Whenever we speak of religions it becomes very sensitive issue and many times people boast that only my way is the way, only my religion is true, only my religion’s followers will get heaven, my religion’s followers are highest etc. In this whole process main crux of our faith is lost, ego sets in and then whole list of issues arise including riots and terrorism.

Lets look at it in simple terms our religions and what we can take from all in simple way. I am not any religious head but fortunate enough to be born in India and have visited many religious places, I felt let me put my feelings & thoughts in simple way. There could be many more things about every religion. Lets look at few of them

HINDUISM – Oldest religion followed by many on this planet. It is so vast that you cannot confine it into fixed set of ideas, methods or procedures. If you go and try to strictly find a Hindu in India then you will be stunned to see that every 200 kilometers everything changes, language, costumes, food, style of rituals etc. Hinduism is encompassing all ways. It has freedom for all, to worship type of GOD you want, the way you want to worship. You will find people worship rivers, mountains, trees infact whole nature. Whole nature is given respect and worshipped. You can worship it in Aakar (form) or Nirakaar (formless). If you want to go to temple then fine, if you want to meditate then that is also fine. You need to travel across India to understand its vastness which fills us with wonder. I don’t think we confine this way of life even in the boundaries of religion. Because of this freedom, Hinduism has survived till far and so many other religions also flourished in India. You don’t need to convert people to make them Hindu. One who is on his path and not distracting others from their path is Hindu. One who is respecting nature, one who is respecting all creatures is Hindu. If you respect your motherland and live for it then you are Hindu. I feel this is the time when all people understand this freedom of Hinduism which is true secularism.

Look around you, in greed for money, people are destroying nature, polluting motherland (by pesticides, plastic), polluting air & water. Corruption is spreading, people are fighting over religions, wars are destroying countries. This is the time when teachings of Hinduism need to spread.

ISLAM : – Saints say real meaning of Islam is surrender and peace. Surrender to divinity and peace within yourself and surrounding. If you are not peaceful then how will you spread peace. If you yourself are agitated, irritated, unhappy then you are going to spread same thing. Today is era where people really understand its true meaning and become peaceful and happy. True surrender happens when one is helpless. When you have tried all your options, put all your efforts but nothing is working then helplessness comes. In this helplessness you pray and for prayer to emerge you need to surrender. Such prayers get answered and fulfilled. So one who is peaceful and surrendered to divinity is already Islamic. You don’t need to convert him/her; infact you need to spread peace and happiness & automatically Islam will spread.

Few years back, I visited Jerusalem first time, I was walking innocently towards Al-Aqsa mosque and but at entrance itself I was stopped and told that you cannot enter. I asked why? Got answer that you are not muslim. I got stunned and shocked. In India I had never experienced this as we can go inside mosques and offer our prayers. I prayed from outside but thought of what is Muslim or Musalmaan? I have come to conclusion that it is nothing but Musallam- Iman . Musallam meaning very strong and Iman means Character/faith/honesty -one who is faithful for his/her motherland, duties.

Look around and today we see that corruption is spreading like cancer and trying to be omnipresent. It is spreading because people are becoming characterless and they are not honest in their duties. So it is need of time that you make Iman of people Musallam and wipe out corruption from this planet and create peace & happiness. You don’t need to convert people as whoever on this planet has his/her Iman musallam, he/she is Musalmaan.

CHRISTIANITY: – If we say Jesus then you don’t need to say Love and If you say Love then you don’t need to say Jesus. Love and Jesus are so synonyms. Just see how beautiful is this. If someone tells you that ‘Jesus is only way’ then tell them ‘Yes, it is true. Jesus is love and love is the only way’. Spread this love and automatically you spread Jesus and Christianity. If you think only followers of Jesus will be in heaven then it is wrong. Whoever is filled with love and spreading love is already on his path.

Infact this is the time when you need to spread love. Look around, so many people are in sorrow. Wars, corruption, poverty, diseases, loot, fear, disbelief, illiteracy, unemployment, depression are taking over society. This is the most important time when people need touch of love and they will get healed. Without any expectation and returns from others, work towards bringing genuine smile on others faces. Spread love, serve people and no need to convert people.

SIKHISM: – Whenever we say Sikhism, image of robust, happy and always ready to serve community appears in front of us. I am lucky as I got a chance to visit few Gurudwaras and got blessings there. If you visit Gurudwara then you will realize the meaning of selfless service. Everyone is ready to help each other. Selflessly lunger is run and food is served to all. I was stunned to see same level of service maintained even in London, in such an expensive place every one is offered food.

Robustness and fearlessness of Sikhs saved India for many centuries. Each mother dedicated her elder son for country’s cause. We need to spread this robustness, fearlessness and attitude of service. I feel every town, village, city must adopt this and start lunger. Out of poverty, no one shall remain hungry and shall not sleep empty stomach on this planet. Every household must contribute towards his country, city, village, society.

One para of Guru Gobind Singhji is stunning and tells about valor and removes any fear if we have

“Chirian to mein baaz tudaun
Gidran to mein sher banaun
Sawa lakh se ek ladaun
Tabe Gobind Singh Naam kahaun”

Meaning “It is when I make sparrows beat eagle, I turn jackals into lions, when I make 1 capable of fighting with 125000 alone then I am called Gobind Singh”. One must surrender to such Guru and get this valor & serve people.

BUDDHISM: – There is no bigger manifestation of Silence & peace like Buddha. He was born in the era when there was huge prosperity in India and when there were huge number of intellectuals. He himself was born in royal family but he left everything in conquest of truth and got enlighten in deeper silence.

He showed path to many and many got liberated along with him. His message of peace got spread almost across Asia. This is the most appropriate time to spread Buddha when earth is filled with so much violence, decreasing moral values, corruption , greed & endless desires of people which are leading them nowhere. For this purpose as well we don’t need to convert people.

We can observe similar things in all other religions take it Jainism, Judaism etc. If we observe basic teachings of all religions are same and they are of Love, peace. It is we in our Ego started converting people, infact since last few decades conversions are happening for the greed of power. Particular religions people will vote only to their religions leader so convert people and capture power. Instead of choosing leaders at looking at their honesty, valor, knowledge & service oriented attitude, people choose leaders looking at their religion! This is not good, people are cheating themselves!

We need to know and see that all religions are like beautiful rivers which are finally meeting same ocean. Various saints, messengers, Avatars came on this planet, showered their knowledge, love on humanity and uplifted humanity. Converting people from one religion to other is like trying to convert water into water so pls stop this & spread love to fill this planet with happiness!