Dedicated to Swamiji Ajay Jain ji

Swamiji says …

” All of you are well – versed with the age old proverb – ‘Birds of a feather flock together’. I am certain that each one of you can relate , very closely, with the import and truth of these words, as at every stage of your life, you either willingly savoured the truth of these words as you benefited immensely or , were unwillingly forced to experience the negative essence of these words in their true context.”

” It is true that similar to the manner in which birds of the same species flock together , human beings too have a habit of making a beeline for people with similar tastes and interests. Very often , like – minded individuals with common goals, leanings and interests are drawn towards each other and derive great pleasure in spending time in each other’s company. This could be an ideal situation – but only when the net result of the time invested in each other’s company is fruitful and purposeful. The problem is when one willingly prefers to spend time with a person whose company is looked upon with disapproval, and can only bring about one’s downfall. At a juncture like this one has to be cautious and behave in a manner befitting one’s age.”

” If you recall the directive that your parents or elders often repeated … ‘achchi sangat mein raho’ – seek the company of good children – was, at times, not heeded to by you, and when you had the choice of either adhering to their words of wisdom or disregarding their good counsel – you opted for the latter. During your formative years, any such advice by parents is mostly looked down upon, and considered as intrusion in your privacy and you dislike them for doing so. Your parents are aware that their young and tender child – ‘ ek kacchi kali jiski daal kamzor thi ‘ – can go astray and ruin his future. Curiosity and inquisitiveness of a young mind to seek answers to questions which he is not mature enough to handle can send him wayward and he can easily fall prey to immoral and bad behaviour. He wonders what characteristics make some other children wear the badge of ‘being bad’? He too desires to be labelled adventurous at any cost. It is trite, but, true, that ‘opposites attract’ and you alone know how strong that pull is. It requires mammoth effort and grit of steel at this tender age not to fall into the trap of wrong – doing and worthlessness, as is rightfully and repeatedly, highlighted by your family members.”

” At times, you are influenced by such influencers as .. ‘How boring!’ ‘How passe’ it is – to be always called ‘good’ and how exciting and invigorating would it be to rebel just once !’ You decide to tread on the path taken by the crowd , join the multitude , venture into forbidden territories and deliberately associate yourself with a group that revels in indulging in illicit activities. The hours that were to be utilized by you in the library to gain more knowledge about your subjects, are whiled away in bunking college and cheating. The delusionary world of drugs and alcohol beckons you and you are willing to waste precious, valuable hours of your short life by living momentarily as the king of La La land. You try and convince yourself – ‘ What is the harm in trying these things just once? ‘ ‘ Nothing happened to the others ! What can happen to me ?” And before you know it, you are enslaved by this slow poison ! What will you gain by choosing to live a life that is addicted to substances ? Does your ‘soul ‘ which is always in a joyful state need any such ‘relaxers’ to stay happy and high?”

“It is the choice that you make at a young and impressionable age of flocking with the right peer group – at the right time – that holds you in good stead, throughout your life.You should be judicious while making your choice. You can walk away from all the negativity and ill – effects of drug abuse and instead gravitate towards a positive, inspired and motivated peer group who happily walk on the path of principles and values – ‘nek raaste park chalte hain ‘ and live an uncomplicated life , achieve the goal that they have set for themselves , maintain a fine balance between academics, sports, ethics, fun time and take out time to remember and thank God for enabling them to live a life that is purpose driven , fulfilling and worth living – and when they continue to live a life of good morals, they are not too far away from questioning the purpose of their birth.”

Swamiji says …

” Our faith , our religion is determined the very moment we are born and it plays a very important role in influencing us and evolving us into individual personalities as we grow. The prayers said and sung by our family members in praise of God ; the manner in which the Almighty is worshipped by the elders of our family ; the rituals that are followed by them are keenly observed by us, right from our nascency, and we try our level best to emulate our parents and imbibe the teachings of all that our religion teaches and directs us to do. We, as children , find the ritualistic pattern very complicated in the beginning, but over a period of time, learn the art of performing the rituals that have been observed by the previous generations of our family.”

“It is extremely good to do all that you can do as an individual to portray our love and devotion for God…but whatever you do should be done with sincerity ; with a pure heart and without any expectations from Him. The love with which you weave garlands for your ‘ishta dev’ … ‘ishta devi’; the faith with which you conduct ‘katha” and ‘havans’ on auspicious days for your favourite deity ; the offerings that you make to God – should all be done with a pure heart. You should not be pretentious while serving God. No religious act of yours … no ritual performed by you should be coated with a selfish desire of benefiting monetarily or otherwise, but rather, performed reverentially with the intent of enabling you in establishing a personal rapport with God and to gain proximity with Him. ”Tum bhagwaan ke liye jo bhi karte ho , usme koi dhong nahi ho na chahiye…Sacche , saaf dil se bhagwaan ke liye har kaarya karo.”

” You try to tempt God , lure Him by offering Him gold … cajole Him to fulfil a long unfulfilled deisre of yours by making a financial deal with Him. ‘I will give you this IF you do that for me.’ Do you really think you can buy God ? And when things don’t work out the way you want them to .. then God really gets it from you. You curse Him , abuse Him, hold Him guilty for not giving you what you want…for not paying heed to your call … for not granting you your wish …for not giving you in return an equivalent amount of what you have offered Him as a bribe. Did He ask you to do anything for Him ? Does He need you or is it vice versa? Has He ever asked you for recognition in any way ?’ ‘Kya Bhagwaan ne kabhi tumhe kaha hai ki tum unhe maano ?’ It is you who needs Him…’Garaj insaan ki hai … Bhagwaan ki nahi.” You require Him. He does not ask you to take His name , remember Him. He has ‘devtas’ … demi-gods , ‘farishtey’ … angels to take His name and worship Him. ‘Jo ‘neeli chatriwalla’ hai …’sabka ‘maalik’ hai , unki aradhana karne ke liye sachche sant baithe huey hain’. He is not dependent on you for anything ? Would your barter system impress Him and make Him your subordinate and subservient to you ? “

“But the one and only thing in which He is actually interested and that would really make Him happy is when you make an earnest , honest and genuine attempt to draw Him within you …’jab tum apne andar Bhagwaan ko utaar te ho’ … and want to cleanse your soul from the layers of impurities that have nested on it .This is the only thing that He requires from you.But you fail to discern this simple requirement of His as you are busy blaming Him for every mishap or misfortune that takes place with you! Who has given you the authority and right to hold Him responsible for the hurdles, obstacles and difficulties that come your way and challenge you during your journey of life? Desist from doing so! You have the gall to question the Master plan that He has drawn out for you ? The irony is that you blame ‘He’ who has created you!You accuse Him of being careless and not taking adequate care of you! Have you ever thought for a second about His capabilities and compared them with yours ? Try making a grain of wheat ! Try creating a small finger! Can you do it ? You know you can’t. What you can certainly do is try to follow the path of ‘dhyaan’ , ‘gyaan’ and goodness – the spiritual path – that alone will make you realise that ‘parmatma’ is already seated in your heart and your foremost duty on becoming aware of this reality is to draw Him inside you , within you. When God sees your implicit trust in this path, He decides to guide you towards Him, free you forever from the cycle of life and death and finally makes you His.”

Swamiji says …

“‘Pride, arrogance, an inflated ego… ‘I’ ‘me’ , ‘myself’… A superior attitude…’Who can be better than me?’ ‘I am the best !’ ‘There are none compared to me.’ One can sing these words of self – glorification for hours on end. Yet these same words – that look good printed on paper, and sound complimentary to the ears- if fed on regularly like a diet of supplements, can prove to be one’s nemesis. These traits, if possessed in abundance, can turn one into a narcissist. The magnetic power of these words captivates you. The more you experience them, the stronger the stranglehold that they have on you. You are mesmerized and start believing in the hypnotic sounds of these words which create an illusion around you, one in which you see yourself as ‘better than the best’ and ‘mightier than the rest’!”

“Is it extremely essential to live the emotions that these words release within us? Does one really have to gratify them? Does one have to be proud on being blessed with an incredibly high IQ or on being breathtakingly beautiful? Should your academic or professional brilliance propel you to develop an inflated ego?
The thought that you can never make an error, that you are perfect and faultless, that your high standard of work has always been applauded; and that it would be blasphemous for anyone to point mistakes in your work and draw your attention to them – are all signs of arrogance and conceit. The lap of luxury in which you have been raised; your wealthy family background; your affluent social status, your ever-increasing bank account, your coveted degrees from world renowned universities – all these highly treasured ‘positive’ points, can easily go to your head and affect you in the most ‘negative’ manner, unless you remember to keep yourself grounded.
Is the constant chest thumping, the warranted or unwarranted recognition and accolades being showered on you, turning you into a demanding, shrewd person, forever looking to retain that top slot?
Do the consequences not scare you? The fact that you are becoming a stranger to yourself – impatient, selfish, averse to criticism, manipulative, aggressive…is staring at you!
Are you willingly sinking to the most volatile and dangerous levels of ‘self-destruction’ while being churned in a tide of these undesirable emotions? Are you functioning in this manner for the satisfaction of your ‘soul’ or is it to satisfy your ‘ego’? Don’t let the insincerity of these delusionary words give you a sense of false strength.”

“Let us envisage a similar scenario, wherein a spiritual aspirant has evolved spiritually, manifold, under his guru’s guidance. Now, the moment this devotee starts entertaining self-fabricated thoughts in his head – that he has the greatest access to his guru; is most devoted to his guru and is closest to his guru – his ego balloons up , and his brain starts transmitting messages of ‘You’, ‘Your’, ‘Yourself’ and he receives them happily as this is what he wants to hear. Such a person will start developing a sense of false pride in himself – that he alone is the beneficiary of his guru’s Grace and is the true recipient of ‘guru gyan’. This misplaced confidence can prove to be detrimental and regressive, and his all-pervading ego might stall his further spiritual progress. Complacency at receiving enlightening knowledge from the guru might make him think of doing the unthinkable. He might think twice about the necessity of bowing his head before his guru, as he starts feeling that he has acquired greater mystical and spiritual powers than his ‘guru’.”

“In comparison, a humble devotee will always thank God for ear- marking him as the Chosen One and for considering him worthy enough to allow him to sit at his guru’s Lotus Feet. He will make an earnest attempt to seek True Knowledge as his soul benefits from it. He will want to utilize every living moment in remembering God and his Guru; and ensure that his acts are selfless and aimed for the betterment of everyone. He is devoid of ego, pride and arrogance. Everything that he does is done solely with the divine purpose of making his true ‘self’ happy. No temptation will distract and deviate him from leading a life of self – respect, self -pride and self -esteem. He seeks recognition only from His guru and God, as only they matter to him. He is aware that it is their Grace alone that will enable him to open his Third Eye on the day chosen by them.”

Swamiji says …

“I am sure most of us remember the words of concern – ‘What happened to you?’ ‘ Where did you fall?’ ‘How did you hurt yourself?’ ‘ Oh! You have a headache. How bad is it?’ The moment these questions were asked by our well-wishers, we would, being children then, burst into tears and bask in their attention, till the time, either our wounds healed, or we were cured of our illness. Did questions of this kind make us relate too often with the pain that our external self suffered with repeatedly? Did all the fuss around our physical pain make us enjoy being the center of attention? Were we unknowingly being trained to be body-centric?”

“Time passes by. We grow up and mature; but as far as a few of us are concerned, our emotional quotient remains nearly the same. Suffering of any kind – physical, emotional or mental and the trauma of bearing distress, till date, still triggers a tide of negative emotions within us. These emotions find an escape route when people enquire about our welfare. We readily begin narrating the story of our aches and pains in graphic detail; and, once this conversational odyssey related to our pain begins – there is no stopping us. We go into the details of how the illness made home within us; the nature of the disease or how the unfortunate incident happened; and we recall its onset and follow- up-procedure vividly. Our personal distress is so great, that at the slightest suffering, we pour it into the ears of anyone and everyone, who is willing to listen to the recital of our ordeal, over and over again. After all could anything be greater than our duress and pain! Could the other person actually relate with the intensity and severity of our suffering? We wonder, and then convince ourselves that he most probably could not as he had not experienced it. But we feel a sense of peace and lighter mentally, as we have shared our problem with other people. It doesn’t matter to us if we have increased their stress by pouring out our anguish to them. They express their sympathy and do everything possible to make us feel better and livelier. But then, till when will we depend on their pity and empathy to feel better? We need to battle out our fears and worries ourselves, and emerge victorious.”

“Is it possible for us to outgrow this weakness? Do we really need to wear our pain on our sleeve and display it to one and all incessantly. What do we truly gain by doing so? Will we get better only by earning their sympathy and seeing a look of compassion in their eyes? Do we spare one precious moment to pause and think of the unecessary unhappiness that we could be causing our sympathizers? Have we ever tried to understand the deeper, hidden, underlyind meaning behind our ‘kasht’ – problem and suffering? Is it possible that God could have chosen us for the beautiful purpose of staying connected with Him and remembering Him through our suffering? What if the unbearable pain being experienced by us is enabling us to reduce the baggage of our previous bad ‘karma’ – ‘humare purva janmon ke kasht kat rahein honge’. ‘ Hum chote se chote kasht ko itna bada bana de tey hain ki hum swayam usi mein kho jaatey hain’. We give such importance to the most insignificant physical suffering that we are more than willing to drown in the waves of pain that engulf our physical being. Shouldn’t we make ourselves stronger and test our endurance power without making a big hullabaloo about our suffering?”

“It is possible only for a ‘sachcha sant’ – a self realized ‘guru’- to rise above the shackles of the ‘state’ and suffering of his gross body. Only he can disassociate himself totally from ‘it’ – as he understands that ‘He’ is not the ‘body” – and welcomes with his head bowed and arms opened, every opportunity, painful or painless, that will further enhance the possibility of cleansing his soul and awakening ‘him’ in the ‘true’ sense as He realizes that he is being shepherded closer to God. Oblivious and undeterred by his physical state, a true saint will shoulder his responsibilities selflessly and perform His duties towards society and His devotees uncomplainingly; without as much as mentioning a word about the good that he has done for those who seek His Grace. Can he curse his fate, bemoan and lament the fact that he is suffering the way he is?
He ‘suffers’ in silence, quietly; without paying any heed to his ‘kaaran shareer’ as that form doesn’t hold any relevance for Him. There is no one with whom He can share pain. At times, a guru’s vital organs might not be functioning adequately , but the power bestowed on him by His Creator, empowers him to ensure the revival of a failing organ of His ‘sachcha bhakt’ – a true devotee – and to rescue him from the jaws of death in time.
After all, His soul too resides in a human body! The vital difference between Him and others is that He, unlike others, has conquered his senses and trained his physical being to rise above pain or pleasure; to accept all that comes His way as His Master’s will and blessings, and above all has taught Himself to smile through his pain.”

Swamiji says …

“Man, undoubtedly, is God’s most fascinating creation; creative, competitive and combative. The world has witnessed , time and time again , amazing rags-to-riches stories of how men with burning ambition, complemented by their intelligence, business acumen and innovative ideas, were successful in turning around their fate and destiny , and established huge business empires.
Every person wants to improve his financial condition, standard of living and seeks a better tomorrow; and in order to change his lifestyle, he pursues his dream with determination, focuses to swing the tide in his favor, by doing all that is needed to ensure that he achieves his goal. At times , he educates and empowers himself with knowledge pertaining to his field of interest, with the sole aim of becoming successful and wealthy. One can’t really blame him as ‘to be successful and wealthy’ is the new ‘mantra’ echoed by one and all these days.”

“A man of humble origins, endeavors to realize his goal of making it big in the world. He is often distressed by the manner in which life treats him and aspires to change his state of living – monetary, professional and personal. During these trying and tiring moments, he beseeches God, implores to his ‘Gurudev’ to pay heed to his appeal for compassion and consideration, and spends countless hours remembering God, chanting His name and worshipping Him devoutly, unfailingly, every day with the hope that his voice will be heard by Him. He crosses the threshold of His ‘Gurudev’s’ Darbar, regularly, in his times of despair and want; stands in a long queue to prostrate in front of his ‘guru’ and to seek His blessings. His devotion and love for both God and ‘Guru’ is unquestionable, during this difficult phase of his life, and he is more than willing to do anything to appease ‘them’, as he understands that they alone are his problem solvers.”

“But it is in the latter, successful phase of his life that he will have to withstand the test of time. He will have to see for himself whether, after attaining his dream of being a wealthy person, and having made a name for himself in industry and society, some distance and stiffness has developed in his proximity to God and Guru?
Has the fruition of his fanciful fantasies, the habit of living in the lap of luxury, around which his life has begun to revolve now, taken away from him the time to think of God and to thank him? Are his priorities misplaced now ? Do only swelling bank accounts, excessive wealth creation, and acquiring more assets only, interest him and give him happiness now? Have prayers been replaced by worrying thoughts of the never-ending payments that are to be made by him? Is the fruitful time that was spent in worshipping God and ‘Guru’ earlier, most probably, being spent now, in settling disputes between his warring family members. Has chanting of the ‘guru mantra’ been replaced by chaotic and confusing thoughts of brokering a deal with a rival company to buy mental peace? In many cases, when people live such a fast -paced, hectic life-style, it is but natural, that they find it difficult to take out time to think of God, everyday. Since time is money now, they procrastinate visiting their ‘Gurudev’…the same ‘guru’ who had meant the world to them earlier, and without whose advice they wouldn’t take any decision in the past, is now relegated to the background. Once they have benefited from the blessings that He had showered on them, they conveniently forget Him. Their indifferent attitude causes a major reduction in the quality time and number of hours, that had been genuinely devoted by them, earlier , in communicating with God and ‘Guru’.”

“Lord Krishna had been so greatly moved by Sudama’s plight and poverty, that without being asked for anything by him, the Lord had given him everything. All the comforts of life that one could have wished for, were given to Sudama by Lord Krishna. The lure of these materialistic gifts ensnared Sudama to such an extent, that he was completely blinded by their sparkle and shine. He forgot everyone. He forgot the Lord Himself, Lord Krishna…his best friend…that very person, that very spiritual power that had made him wealthy. When a person as worthy and humble as Sudama could not resist the vile, magnetic effect of excessive wealth, then can normal human beings like us stand up to, and thwart the temptation of acquiring wealth, without compromising on the most valuable asset that we have? ‘His Grace on us … His love for us’. Never let anything come in the way of your divine connection and sacred relationship with God and your ‘Guru’. Don’t make ‘money’ alone…bundles and bags of it, the single purpose of your life; but earn enough, so that you can provide your family with a dignified life, and meditate with a calm mind … a mind at peace.”