Me, My Guru – On learning!

Me, My Guru – On learning!

“Why is it that an anecdote narrated by you is taken differently by different students?” asked Rahul.

“Once a drug addict was asked “Why did you become a drug addict?” and he replied “Because of my father. He was an alcoholic and a drug-addict and I became one. Later a business man was asked “Who is inspiration for you success?” and he replied “My father. He was an alcoholic and a drug addict and I learnt how any weakness could bring down a person and decided not to become like him. Both had same father and both became what they were because of their father – but one used his example for his downfall and the other to uplift himself.

What ‘an example’ is, is of no importance. What you’ve decided to use it for makes it a good or a bad one.

Duryodhana knew what dharma and adharma was (roughly translated right and wrong). He knew his intentions wouldn’t fall in the category of dharma and hence Bhishma, Vidura and others (Characters from Epic Mahabharata) wouldn’t validate his actions and it was no good to go to them for advice. So, he choose Dushshasana and Shakuni for he knew their principles and how they would support his desires. But Arjuna wanted to walk the path of Dharma and he knew he would falter often and he needed a Guide who would see that he chooses Dharma always. So he chose Krishna over his army. You choose your master/mentor/Guru/guide depending upon your desire, intentions and character. (Even when you change your master/guide/mentor the same rule applies irrespective of what reasons you give). You read words the way you want to interpret them. Whom you choose what you understand reflects who you are” replied his Guru.

“And our every such choice makes or mars our Destiny” sighed Rahul heavily!

Our Destiny is the sum total of all the choices!

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Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

Contd.....

Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

She had said “let go” off your attitudes so many times...she had said ‘drop’ so times and yet....This time both those words seem to make sense. I saw what she was trying to tell all these years. Maybe, it was me all along who didn’t want to let go of the rope called ‘my attitudes’ and cited various reasons for that like ‘but you don’t know how much they ill-treated me’, ‘you don’t understand’ etc. Yes, the incident happened once and let it become mammoth size by replaying it

umpteen times in this little brain of mine. No doubt, I felt my brain would shatter if I didn’t do anything about people who were causing me this pain when in fact I was the one ‘wedded to them’ day in and day out! Surprisingly that applied to people whom I had to deal with on day-to-day basis too. Let’s say they hurt, torture or instigate me on daily basis. If I knew not to count the times they did or do this, then it was easy to deal with such a situation. But I connected various dots of such incidents and spelled it as ‘He does that always!’ or

‘everyone does that to me’. The moment ‘group words’ like always, everyone etc are used the pain becomes eternal. I seem to be fighting with everyone and that frustration drives me crazy. Wow! We figured this out as we discussed this among ourselves. It shut us up for quite some time. This was huge. It would take quite a long to let all this sink in. We then had to internalize all this to be able to see its effect on our

psyche, attitude, character and finally on our Destiny which reflected as ‘Life Situations’. Yes, our Guru was right when she said “You don’t need an astrologer or a star to chalk out your fate. Just take a look at your life and the situations in it to tell you who you are, what your karma was and where your Destiny is taking you or what it has in store for you”.

We talked other stuff too but who remembers after this wash-out....

Concluded....

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Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

Contd....

Guru smiled and continued with his work. In the evening they were going around the village seeking ‘bhiksha’ (sort of charity of food sought by monks who don’t own anything and decide to pursue their life in contemplation of God!). There they saw a man holding a rope that was tied to his cow. Guru showed this scene to his disciples and asked “Who is tied to whom?”

“Of course, the cow is tied to the man” replied his students beaming with self-confidence.

“Saying “now see” Guru cut the rope that was tied to the cow. The cow ran away. The man ran behind the cow asking it to come back.

“It seemed as if cow was tied to the man by the rope. But the moment it is set free, it ran away not thinking twice of that man. The man ran after the cow which was free. So, in reality it was the man who was held by the rope. He was tied to the cow. And he didn’t even need rope to be tied to cow. He was tied to it mentally.

Like-wise, mind is like that cow. It is not tied to us. We are tied to it. The moment we let the rope fall, the mind would leave us and go. But we go behind it and get tied to it again. Every emotion, thought is the by-product of this mind to which basically we are tied to. If we let go ‘off’ the mind, what say of the emotions and feelings like anger, depression, hatred, attachments, envy, inferiority complex or fear. They are not bound to us. We have bound ourselves to them “Untie the rope and let the emotion leave you”. See it happen. If you want to be bound, well then that is a different story but if you think they are bound to you so you can’t let them go, then here is the answer, fact and solution. Take it and be free of these pain inducing and limiting you attitudes!

Contd.....

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Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

Contd.....

No sooner had she sat that someone asked “so that means I should stop healing people as it would mean I am intervening in His plan as sweeper...”

I smiled. Years ago that would be me asking that senseless question. How many moved ahead didn’t matter to her or even God. They always were ‘attacked’ by such sincere students asking such profound questions. The amount of time we suffered ignorance, stupidity, arrogance seemed less when it was being suffered by her ‘forever’ thanks to the ‘new flow’ of students always adding to the already present ‘great minds’. And over and above that was the contempt received by her in exchange for all that she gave us! Boy, am I glad I am not ‘a Guru’!

“Sweeper was to not ‘act’ as per God’s command; I didn’t hear any of His such command. Did you get to see or hear Him?” she asked with a mischievous laugh. I would’ve taken that as contempt for me and asked that student to leave but she....where did she draw her patience and love from? How long did it take her to come here?

“Since we didn’t we are to follow His teachings from Gita “Do your duty and leave the fruits to me”. We are to play our roles as per ‘Dharma’ and fulfill each and every duty of ours – only rule being we shouldn’t condition the outcome but surrender it to him – not let go off our duties. Hope its clear now” she closed that session.

“But when we are angry, in pain and depression, how can we sit to heal? If we come out of it we would heal” this was one more great mind seeking answer.

“Once students complained to Guru saying “Guruji, it’s next to impossible to let go off anger. It comes in such gushes that we are swept off our balance. What do we do to control it?”

Contd....

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Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

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     Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

“But what I am complaining about is that He fulfilled my desire. He knew I wouldn’t be happy ‘in this place’ and yet He brought me here. If He could see that why didn’t He stop this from happening?” complained someone.

“He works our soul agenda through our desires. He knows the lesson you need to learn as a soul. He also knows the ‘debt’ karma that you owe and you’ve decided to heal or clear in this life time. Such of desires that are instrumental in helping you fulfill these two ‘Soul Agendas’ are fulfilled thereby giving you ‘Ideal’ situation and people in your life that would help you to learn the lesson needed to grow as a soul and clear the ‘karma’ for which you’ve incarnated in this body of yours”.

“In that case all I’ve to do is take it as a punishment and suffer this life” came the voice from somewhere.

“If it was so, then you wouldn’t be here asking this question and learning techniques to heal this situation. Yes, it our karma that brings us here but He is gracious enough to give us a solution or a respite from it in the form of sadhan. Like, we fall sick thanks to our hard work and long years of bad food habits and life-style and yet he sends us various medical professionals to heal us – be it Ayurveda, allopathy, homeo, sidda and what not. Think before you talk..” she replied.

“How would healing help in these cases?” came another voice booming.

“By giving us charity of thought to see the situation objectively.

By giving us determination to heal it saying “If I’ve created it then it’s my duty to heal/cleanse it too!

By giving us strength and patience to tide through the tough times.

By healing the karma and redeeming us of such situation sooner than actual time and by changing the situation and attitudes of all people who were part of that ‘karmic debt’, thereby also letting us enjoy our ‘desire’ our way – though later than now.

By changing our attitude which actually was instrumental in getting into this mess in the first place”.

“Wow!”

“Oooo” were the sounds en masse as she completed her explanation. There was so much work to be done, done and we kept complaining like an adamant kid rolling on the ground asking for 3^rd ice-cream inspite of having cold!”

The last part of her explanation hit us all! We had to go through that many more times. It was huge. It was vast. We took the much needed tea-break. She left us to fend for ourselves. Boy, were we glad!

Contd.....

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Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

Contd.....

“No, you didn’t that rich man earned his wealth by cheating people. He did not follow any ethics in his business. The amount he donated was hardly anything to the amount he has amassed. Whereas the poor man gave all that he had Rs.1/-. And he always lived within means and spent all his earnings in feeding and helping others who were in need. The money he wanted was to serve others’ needs, not to fill his treasury. That sailor is to meet death on that voyage due to storm that’s to rise in the sea. I wanted to save him and hence had planned so for his stay in the police cell so that he would miss his ship. You spoiled that too and sent him on that voyage” explained God. Now the sweeper felt ashamed and weak in knees seeing the consequence of his acts.

So you see when you see only your desires not being fulfilled, He is actually taking care of you the ‘right way’. You see only till the distance of your desire and its fulfillment. He sees beyond and all! Even when He is not working (as per your logic), He is working for you, concerned about you and loving you. There is love even in His seeming denial!”

“But what I am complaining about is that He fulfilled my desire. He knew I wouldn’t be happy ‘in this place’ and yet He brought me here. If He could see that why didn’t He stop this from happening?” complained someone.

Contd.....

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https://kantipadam.blogspot.in/search?q=butterfly

Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

Contd.....

“Sweeper stood in God’s place and in came a wealthy businessman who donated Rs.1000/- in the altar. He bowed down to seek Lord’s blessings and got up forgetting his money filled purse on the ground. He prayed “God, I donated Rs.1000/- to you and in return I seek your blessings to expand my business”. Having said his prayer he left. Few months later a poor man in rags came and offered Rs.1/- at the altar and prayed ‘Lord, give me enough money to do the needful’. Saying so he bowed to Lord and saw the money filled purse and seeing it as God’s reply to his prayer left with a gratitude on his lips.

Our sweeper who was God for the day couldn’t say anything on both these occasions as he was bound by his word to God. But he was highly agitated. He wanted to return the purse to its rightful owner who had so gladly parted with his Rs.1000/- and wanted to tell poor man that he was not receiving that purse by way of his blessings. As he was going through this turmoil a young sailor came and prayed “I am going on a voyage. Please make that journey a safe one”. Just then the rich man returned seeking his purse and not finding it there and thinking sailor to be a thief, he had him arrested. Police didn’t hear a word of what sailor said and it was then that our God for the day lost his cool and talked and explained all that happened. Rich man and the sailor both thanked Him and left and the poor man was arrested. Our God felt happy finally!

Later at night when God came back and asked ‘so, how was your day as God?’, he replied explaining all the events of the day. The God said “But I asked you to stand still! Why did you open your mouth?”

“But I set everything right!” replied sweeper rather confused, hurt and agitated.

Contd.....

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Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

Me, My Guru – On attachments, faith and commitments....

“Now this sweeper would see God standing day after day from morn to night as devotees come in hundreds to seek His blessings. Sweeper’s heart went out to God. He felt the tiredness of God and also the pain in God’s legs. He was moved with pity, affection and concern. In his innocence he told “God, I can see how tired you must be standing there day after day. Let me stand on your behalf for a day as you can rest a bit”.

God smiled and agreed but added “but as you stand there in my place, you’ve to follow a golden rule of not moving or saying anything. You just should stand and see everything silently and do nothing about it”.

“This is a child’s game” thought the sweeper”.

I had come when the session was already in progress. Initially, I would create lots of noise taking out and adjusting my papers, drinking water and with such activities. I would even say ‘hi, hello’ to everyone. Now I’ve come a long way from then. I would go and silently sit at the back. Today I can see how insensitively selfish was I! Now I don’t create pandemonium to go front. Of late, I’ve even stopped asking others as to what I missed. If I came late, I didn’t deserve to disturb others with my ‘assumed eagerness to learn’. So today I didn’t know how and when the session started and in what relation was this story being told by her (our Guru). Yet, I didn’t feel the need to as I sat silently listening to her today. She may have said it from other angle for all I know but I got my answers for my questions which remained so inspite of being answered so many times.

“Why didn’t I have the innocence of that sweeper?” I asked myself umpteen numbers of times that day and in the days to come. I was the one to go to God ONLY SEEKING and demanding or complaining about something or the other. But I never for once felt bad for GOD! Yes, wouldn’t HE be vexed of hearing our cribbing, hate words, angry bickering, our cries and what not? Wouldn’t he be tired? Wouldn’t His ears ache with all those words? Wouldn’t He want to run away from all of us? Yet He never did! Was this ‘Love’ that I didn’t get to see and validate all these years? Was deep in selfishness was I wallowing to be so ‘me-centric’?

Why did I never ‘do’ anything to work for Him to relax?

Contd.....

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Me, My Guru – on relationships.....

Me, My Guru – on relationships.....

“Guruji, I want to be happy and joyous again! There is nothing good in my life! I have lost touch with life after my marriage...this marriage has completely ruined me...if only I didn’t have these in-laws and my spouse! Oh! Why did you not stop me from marrying?” cried chakori...

“It was the coldest winter ever. Many animals died because of the cold. The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm. This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions.  After a while, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth.  Wisely, they decided to go back to being together. They

learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the heat that came from the others. This way they were able to survive. The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people,

which by the way is just an utopian possibility for there being no perfect person, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities.  

As long as we look at others’ imperfections, we can’t see their good qualities. As long as we look at others’ imperfections, we don’t realize we too are not perfect ourselves. We always have reason for being ‘less than perfect’ but they are ‘bad’ for being imperfect. Just think about this rule of ours...maybe we would look at the whole scenario differently. How many people do you have in your life with whom you have been happy always? You

have your problems with all the people in your life and yet think you would be happy with someone always? Just meditate on the question “why am I suffering in all of these relationships?” and if you are brave enough to listen to your heart, you’ll get to know where the problem is and then as a healer it is very easy job to sit and heal that. And if you don’t want to ask this question, then simply sit and heal regularly till you get the desired effects – be it weeks, months or years...yes even if it be years before you see results. Do you have that commitment towards your desire to be happy? Or do you wish to put the blame on others and run away from this situation only to land in next where only the name would change but the pain in life would still be same?” saying this our Guru left.

I don’t know if chakori got her answer or not. I don’t know if she would work on it or not. I didn’t even bother to check if she understood that there is a way to deal with her situation and bring it around if she so wanted it...but I knew I got my answer for my long awaited question. I knew where things were going wrong and why. I knew that part of me which needed healing ASAP. And without finding excuses to justify my ‘goodness’ and the other person’s ‘bad nature and qualities’ I set out on healing self and our relationship.........

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Me, My Guru

I was about to leave and then I remembered something and asked my Guru “Guruji, when will my wish be granted?”

“Are you in sadhan?” she asked

“I will when I get free” I said “But, please tell me, when will my wish be granted?”

“The day Universe/Reiki gets free” she said. 

Me, My Guru - On seeking!

"Sometimes, the best way to answer is to not answer" said my Guru.

I looked at her confused!

The one you feed!

Which one will  win ?  

An Indian elder was telling his grand children about life.

“ A terrible fight is going on inside me… between two wolves. 

One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, greed, Lies, ego… 

The other stands for peace, love, hope, sharing, kindness, friendship. They are inside everyone of us..”

One child asked.   ”Which wolf will  win ?….”

The old man replied.. “ The one you feed…”

and I hung my head in shame.....

Inner Peace!

Inner peace doesn't come from getting what we want...we get it by remembering who we are!

Most of our relationships fail not because of what they offer or what the personnel in that are made of ...it fails because we are too busy pointing fingers at each other's mistakes and failures instead of spending time with each other.....

The day you are vexed of your broken dreams and failed relationships, 

the day you are fed up of being sad and in pain,

the day you decide you deserve all the happiness that you want,

STOP talking about the problems of your life and the people who are causing it....

Instead, start talking about the joys of life, beauty of your dreams and the good times of your life......and before you realize your life and your attitude has changed for good!

Inner peace is a result of years of journey that you undertake to go within...it is not something that you get by just turning on the light...it is not that simple...it is a mental exercise that you do everyday and your mental space is cleared little by little over the years and one day you have the mental strength and peace that no one can take away from you......if you think now is not the time, then tomorrow will not be that day when you experience the 'inner peace'....

On every day healing!

On everyday healing!

Every incident in life leaves behind its mark on our character and personality. Now it is up to us to choose if each of such mark made had turned us into a better or a bitter person. Situation by itself is never good or bad. We decide whether we want it to break us or make us! 

We are the choosers! And our every such choice makes us decide how we write our destiny. And thus we become ‘writers’ of our destiny! With such powerful tool in our hand how can we be careless or negligent enough to not take our ability seriously? The day we own up our responsibility towards our fate and destiny we will be more responsible towards ourselves. That day know yourself to be ‘in actual words loving yourself’ correctly!

Everyday, take atleast 15-30mts at an allotted time sit and go through the events of your day slowly and clearly. See what hit you! What disturbed you and what affected you and in what way! Then you can heal anything that needs to be healed of that day immediately. Don’t wait for some distance pain in future to make you sit and heal it. If you heal it then the work required to do so is very minimal....

How long do I need to heal? Well, when you no longer are hurt by the past incidents, present situations and people around you no longer control your emotions, know you are no longer needed to heal yourself! 

You write your fate every single day! You write your fate every single night when you go to bed with your impressions of your day! Now you decide what you want to put in that 'writing' every single day and night of your life! And lo! Your fate is written by you beautifully or awfully - Choice is yours - literally!

Me, My Guru – On anger of Lord Shiva!

Contd....

Me, My Guru – On anger of Lord Shiva!

We were floored. We didn’t know what hit us and our senses and from where! Just then we heard a voice “so madam, when..”

“No!” she shouted strongly. She didn’t even let that person complete his statement or question whatever that was! “If you kill or hit someone it doesn’t and can’t come under this category. And bye the way, why are you asking about Lord Shiva’s anger? So that you can use that argument or answer to your emotion and act of anger towards a person whom you’ve assigned the role an asura in your head? Right? So, you have risen to a level of Shiva? Then, why do you need to know an answer from me or anyone for that matter? Since you are as good as Shiva, don’t you know everything yourself? How can you compare your anger to His? How smart do you think you are in trying to use His acts to justify yours? This is what I call as ‘crooked logic of Ravana!’. Using it he justified his acts and thought he was right. But was he? You can fool yourself to this belief but then that’s what you would end up being – a fool!”

Luckily for us, she left to receive a call! Phew! We felt relieved! 

Yes, why did we want to know about God’s anger in the first place? 

She said it right! We never had a single ‘right’ quality of a Guru, super humans like Rama, Jesus or Vivekananda but we used their life incidents to question their character and were ever ready with “but he shouldn’t do that. He is wrong no madam?” Who are we to judge these great people or Gurus? Leave alone them we didn’t leave the creator too. We were ‘good enough’ to judge the ‘Creator’ too! Wow! What arrogance! And we are good people and good devotees?! Such hypocrisy....

We had in a way become experts in finding faults so much that even Gurus and Gods came under our radar! Good for them and they are to still grace us by by fulfilling all our desires? If they didn’t we question their greatness and ask “But how can they get angry? They are not supposed to, isn’t it?” We decide everything that they are supposed to do and not do...

Why was I using their examples to hit, vent out my emotions and act as per my desire? Is it because deep down I know I am wrong and yet was so over powered by my emotions that I longed to flow with it and yet wanted an alibi that showed me in ‘good colour’? Is this smart move of mine actually a reflection of the flaw in my character which again is the basis of my fate? And I later asked ‘Why is my fate not good?’

The answers would surely not make me wee-bit good. So instead of searching for these answers I chose the easier way out. I chose ‘sadhan’! I chose sadhan to work on my weakness and then some time in future when I would be way ahead of my flaws, I would visit this ‘self analysis’ chamber more confidently. But for now, my action plan was ready!..

Concluded.....

Me, My Guru – On anger of Lord Shiva!

Contd.....

Me, My Guru – On anger of Lord Shiva!

“For this experience you’ve to undo the image of God that you have. You are asking this from a belief and centre which says “God is a person!” But it is not completely true! He is and can be a person too! But He is actually ‘the energy’ which is visible as ‘Light’. And any energy as you all know can never be stable for any amount of time. Energy keeps changing form. Even sun is a ball of fire which is losing its heat and energy slowly and gradually over time and in some millions of years, it’ll die like any other star. I hope you all know that ‘sun’ is actually a star and all stars die over the period of time. Imagine candle burning. It dies after a period of time. A sun or a star is like a huge candle burning but which would eventually die out anyhow. As it dies, wouldn’t it undergo change both physically and in terms of energy that it has, consumes, emits and radiates? You can actual see huge sparks of light in and around sun periodically which in a poetic way can be described as ‘it being angry’ but is it? It is just a natural phenomenon that has to happen in the natural course of events! Like-wise, natural calamities like earthquake, floods etc are ‘adjustment’ by-products of the elements which again are nothing but the ‘Lord Himself’!

When the water is boiling you see many bubbles. But as it starts cooling bubbles die out and finally there is no more bubble seen. Do you see or say it to be ‘anger of gas/fire/water’ which caused the death of water bubbles? When energy shifts from one state to another (for various reasons) then these ‘apparent cycles’ occur and the illusion creates ‘labels of emotions’ in our mind. Did bubbles exist? Yes, of course! Then where are they when water is cool? Nowhere to be seen! Did they die or were they killed? They seem to have died as they are no more seen. But are they dead for sure? Then no! They just lost their shape but ‘are’ in water merged into it as water molecule. So, now here, who killed whom? Who is born or dead? What happened? Natural course of events are labelled as per the labeler’s stand and then you ask natural elements to prove their innocence and nature? Think about it?”

Contd....