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Friday, May 24, 2013

In sickness and health...

Shambhu was a poor farmer who owned a very small piece of land in the Vidharbha region (present day Maharastra). He and his wife Prema toiled day and night to grow food grains to sustain themselves and to take care of their two year old toddler Karna. Those were tough times but hard work and good amount of rain kept them afloat and content with their lives.
The following year a prolonged drought affected the kingdom. Shambhu had  sown the seeds into the earth and waited in vain for weeks. All the stored food was soon over. Everyone in the village had the same story. Everyone was surviving on meager meals. A month later the couple became week, they eyes sank like dark pits behind their cheek bones. The toddlers ribs could be counted from a distance. They were all desperate for food and water. They prayed deeply for respite.The last well in the village dried out, to walk several miles to the next source was getting increasing difficult for his weak body. The toddler was losing his consciousness and mother cried in anguish.

Frustrated and helpless he ran out into the parched fields and yelled at his merciless God who was watching them and his helpless child die a slow painful death. He cursed with deep pain and asked his God to take him first if he is so keen on taking a life.
After dusk they went to bed hungry, starving and staring at the thatched roof with hollow sleepless eyes. He murmured a quiet apology through his lips.
That night dark clouds gathered in the area, it rained and it poured. The villager's heart were lifted with hope. They rejoiced to see puddles of water in their fields the following morning. Within days the seeds sprouted like hungry infants seeking their mother's milk. In a few weeks green crops were standing on their fields. There was promise of abundant food again. They regained their health and admired their toddler who ran around the fields with gusto.

However, the out-pour continued incessantly, even after the rainy season. The earth was filled and saturated; and the water level started to pool around their homes. Soon the entire village was flooded. Shambhu's little mud house was soon submerged halfway. The family took shelter on the roof. Again looking at his terrified wife and child. He yelled at God for being so cruel.
This time he heard it loud and clear.

" Shambhu when everything was fine you did not remember me, then came the drought and you prayed day and night for water, so I gave you water. Then you forgot me again, now sitting on top of your submerged home you remember me again?"
" Why cant you remember me when you are sad and when you are happy. When times are good and when times are bad."
Shambhu was not sure whether he actually heard it or he was simply delirious from exhaustion.
He promised from that moment on  he would remember his Vitahala (form of Lord Krishna that he worshiped as his supreme deity)  before all good things in his life.

Next morning the water receded and the family survived. Everything went back to normal. Shambhu prayed before the beginning of his day and at its end. He prayed before his first morsel of every meal thanking the supreme provider for that meal. Several years of fulfillment drifted past. Their son grew up and helped his father in the field. One day hungry after a long day of work in the field, he put a morsel of food in his mouth without thanking God. He was filled with regret and disgust at his own weak nature. He left the house immediately to repent for his forgetfulness.

In the forest he sat in a cave and vowed never to eat again. How could he forget his Vithala his savior, protector and provider. He went hungry for days. He cried incessantly out of love for his Vithala asking for forgiveness. One night in the dark forest he saw a bright figure in golden light walking towards him with a platter full of tastiest and fragrant food towards him. It was none other but Vithala himself who could not see his devotee go hungry. He sat before Shambhu who was overwhelmed with joy, he wept in ecstasy. Vithala fed him food with his own hands. Through his tears he heard Vithala speak " Shambu I cannot see my devotee go hungry, your love called me from the heaven to come down and feed you. Shambhu dont love me so much, I have so many of my children to take care of. I cannot go and feed all of them"
As Shambhu laughed, Vithala melted back into the forest.


Gratitude for what we have is our biggest prayer to God. Our love for our creator can compel him to come to us and show us that he cares about us more than we can ever know. He is watching over us through good and bad times and filling us with his love and light every moment.
"Dukh Mein Simran Sab Kare, Sukh Mein Kare Na Koye
Jo Sukh Mein Simran Kare, Tau Dukh Kahe Ko Hoye." -Kabir Amritwani.
While suffering everyone prays and Remembers Him, in joy no one does
If one prays and remembers Him in happiness, why would sorrow come?- Saint Kabirdas


The suffering we experience in this world are designed to wake us up. We are awake when we realize God. If we remember God in our happy times, then we can not experience suffering.Because in difficult times the divine presence in our being makes all the suffering remain only on the surface while inside we  are wrapped up in bliss and joy. Cocooned in his love and mercy.


 

Monday, May 20, 2013

Surrender the mind.

Hope is an antidote to despair; a medicine of the divine healer to keep ourselves prepared for what is coming. The frustration and grief accumulated in the present moment takes away our capacity to create a beautiful future for ourselves. It clouds our hearts and binds ourselves to a repetitive loop of sadness and multiplicity of similar occurrences. Simply because we allow our fears to blindfold ourselves. We cannot see the beauty, the fulfillment that awaits us. It restrains us from following the divine plan.
There are two choices a human being can make in the course of different good and bad events of his life. One is to take charge, believe that we are responsible for setting everything right, to create happiness and fulfillment for ourselves. By allowing ourselves the delusion that we are the doers.  The cause and creation of all events in our lives. It gives us the power to exercise our will and direct the circumstances of our life. It has several disadvantages, primary disadvantage being the limitation of the mind to truly grasp the cause behind our circumstances and thereby creating any random effect because of the choices that we are making.

The other choice is rather simple, in fact too simple for us to believe, accept and to act in accordance with it. That is to follow the divine plan that is essentially designed to see us through the misery and pain into the realm of joy and consciousness. When we understand that all events good or bad ( which is again just a perception of our mind) are in fact created according to the divine plan. It is up to us to accept, learn from such circumstances and trust the divine to see us through both. 

When we remember to remember the divine in our happy moments, it prepares us to go in a similar manner towards facing hardships, loss, sadness or grief. It helps us to accept what our karmas have generated and put before us as these challenges that we must overcome and rise above. Happier times and circumstances would follow as a natural course.

Everything is cyclical in this universe,  birth follows death and death follows the birth, they are inseparable. Similarly happiness follows grief and grief follows happiness. They are both a certainty, the only thing that is changeable in this arrangement is our choice. When we accept hardships as a part of the bigger plan to resolve the imprints of our past actions from our consciousness; we accept it with open arms  and what follows seems more like floating above the circumstances rather then allowing those severe circumstances to drown us in fear and despair.

Choice is always ours, to accept that everything happens for a good reason and trust that the divine force that is testing our mettle through these hardships would make sure that we are not lost in our own darkness.
Every dark cloud has a silver lining and all silver linings exist to define the dark clouds. It up to us to focus of the light that envelops the darkness or to be lost in the darkness by forgetting that there is ought to be light surrounding the darkness.

Monday, May 6, 2013

The Sugar-coated Truth.

Once there was a beautiful girl called Parvati. She was an innocent effervescent being who loved  playing in the mango orchards all day with her friends.
 Rabbits, koyals and monkeys were her friends. She talked little with her human companions and more with the trees, clouds and animals.

One day an old fakir was passing through the village, he saw the little girl in a deep and animated conversation with a mango tree. It made him smile instantaneously. The girl reminded him of the beauty and simplicity of his childhood. 
How he valued and loved all forms of life. He decided that this girl deserves to stay in this blissful innocent state for the rest of her life. 
He walked upto her and offered her an enchanted orange. The girl remembered her mother telling her not to accept gifts from strangers. Though she understood that fakir's intentions were good, she refused his offer. Fakir shrugged his shoulders thinking atleast he tried.
The girl thought about what happened in the day, she decided to talk to the fakir the next morning and accept the orange that she had refused earlier. Fakir waited for her the next day by the orchards and gave her a little peanut instead of an orange. Again because she was conditioned not to demand things from people she gratefully accepted what he offered. When she ate that small peanut she felt the taste of the sweetest candy filling her mouth. She desired more for that taste, so the next day she waited there for the old fakir. Sure enough he showed up ready with another peanut. 

Days and months passed by, this game continued. Her elder siblings and friends got married one by one and started their own families. Whereas Kaashi desired nothing more than the taste of that enchanting peanut. She cared little about food, clothes or jewels. Her parents finally decided to get her married to a nice boy from a nearby village. She did not protest, the only question that weighed on her mind was what will happen to her fakir and will she be able to live without the everlasting sweet taste of those candies.
She migrated to her new home. Kaashi and her husband laughed, played and enjoyed their domesticity for a few years. Soon something started to gnaw at her being, she missed the fakir and those enchanted peanuts. All she longed for was the deepest truest sweetness that filled her being. She felt more and more empty by the day till she could not take it anymore. She fell severely sick; local healers and vaidhyas could not diagnose the disease that afflicted her. 
Finally the boy's family decided to send her back to her parents. When she reached home her parents were heartbroken to see their vibrant child in that state. She felt better being back under her parents care but she missed her fakir and those candies. She inquired from everyone but nobody had seen him in years. She sighed as she resigned to her fate;  a life without that sweetness.

That night in her dreams fakir showed up, they chatted about old times. Then she asked the fakir about those candy peanuts. He laughed and said there were no peanuts ever. What he offered her was a glimpse of the sweetness of divine. Just a glimpse a day! And she was so hooked that she yearned for the divine, that deep love, she missed it so much that it made her sick with longing.

 It dawned on Kaashi, 'what he said was true he always asked her " Are you hungry child?" When she said "yes". He would touch her forehead and offer her the peanut. The sweetness was never in those peanuts, they could be bought a dime a dozen from anywhere. The deepest fragrant sweetness that blossomed into her, came through the touch that conveyed the divine samadhi  of the Fakir to her. Peanut was just an illusion. She understood the secret and smiled. She took the old fakir blessings and thanked him for helping her to retain the memory of the divine in her being all those years. It was so effortless she thought!


She started her inner journey from that moment onwards. Everything else was unrolling as divine will before her eyes thereafter. All the external circumstances and relationships appeared like a divine play to her. She witnessed, indulged, laughed, played and smiled till she found the right moment to drop the cocoon to join the ever-flowing bliss.