Sublimate The
Ego
To
be appreciated, to win acclaim for every personal attribute, is the natural
desire of every individual. Enthusiasm coupled with a heightened sense of
self-esteem are core components which motivate a person towards great
achievement. Having reached a high position or gained gratifications in many
other ways, one begins to feel a sense of pride. That’s when one tends to get
ensnared in the web of ego.
A
proud and status-conscious person, full of vanity, demands exclusive treatment
and such a person goes on throwing his weight around. He becomes egocentric. It
is under such conditions that ego becomes a trait which earns unfavourable
views and is decried. But the same trait employed gainfully, urges a person to
do his best, to appreciate even the humblest of professions and he wins.
The
principle to be followed would be to remove the sense of drudgery from work and
replace it with a sense of praise.
Impelled
by the most natural desire to understand or unravel the mysteries of Creation
and the Creator, a person evolves towards the spiritual realm and thinks about
and interacts with the Creator in many different ways.
The
tendency to talk about one’s incredible or other in the spiritual sphere can be
quite compelling.
Solving The Complex Problems Of Life
If
your centre is pure, even complex situations of life can be easily understood
and handled. If your centre is not smitten by greed and not lost in addictive
pleasure modes, then the world becomes a delightful field to explore and live.
But if your centre is bullied by greed, then, you do not see the world, but the
world will be polluted by your greed.
Q:
Why is one’s centre complicated?
A:
No one has thought of this deeply. Are you just lost in fulfilling the illusion
created by a greedy centre? Do we have the time to think or is our time lost in
fulfilling what we have thought or assumed to have thought?
Why
have human beings become complicated? Somewhere along the line, we have stopped
looking at ourselves, is it not? We have assumed that we have looked at
ourselves just because we have concluded on what we want.
What
we have thought is the extension of what we want and what we want is a product
of some hypnotic state we are in.
To
observe your centre involves your being free to observe without likes or
dislikes. If you are caught in what you like and dislike, then your thinking
gets muddled up with likes and dislikes and hence the observations get
polluted. To be free from likes and dislikes and from wants and then see,
involves a different quality of observation. Like how a scientist should be
free when he observes and not get lost in what he wants through his
observation.
Q: How can one be free from likes and dislikes?
A:
These questions arise because we have already programmed and loaded ourselves
with the conclusion that it is natural to live with likes and dislikes. Look at
this deeply. I want this or don’t want this, or i like this or don’t like this
is a movement of thought. Without thought, no likes and dislikes can emerge.
The mistake one makes is seeing likes and dislikes as one’s core centre. One
gets defined by thought, which means one gets defined by the content of one’s
thought. If one’s thought has likes or dislikes as its content, then one gets
identified with it and hence the movement of thought is the movement of
oneself. This is the error in one’s living.
Thought,
with its likes and dislikes resides in an inner space and this space is beyond
thought. In sleep, there are no thoughts, but still, you exist. So one’s centre
is not thoughts. The centre is pure, empty, space. Understanding this is easy,
but it may appear to be extremely difficult. This is because one is heavily
programmed with what one knows and does not know. Also, one does not allow true
knowing to take place. Learn to discover this truth.
The Lord Of High Spirits
SONAL
SRIVASTAVA discovers the real meaning of prasad when she visits the Kal Bhairav
Temple in Ujjain
Jai
Kal Bhairav,” chant devotees standing in a serpentine queue outside the Kal
Bhairav Temple in Ujjain.The huge crowd outside the temple deters me from
attempting a darshan, but the enthusiasm that devotees exude is so infectious
that I succumb to it. I also join in, slowly chanting the Kal Bhairav mantra.
The queue is moving at a snail’s pace and I wonder whether I will be able to
survive the heat and humidity to catch a glimpse of the almighty Kal Bhairav.
Barely a few steps later, a boy offers me a bottle of liquor to offer as prasad
at the temple.“No thanks,” I say and move on. Alcohol as prasad? Is it okay to
offer whisky to God? I look around to see if people are actually buying the
hard drink.“Alcohol is sold at the temple because it is offered to the deity as
prasad,” a devotee informs me. I move on ignoring the vendors; they continue to
do brisk business by selling whisky and rum along with garlands of marigold
flowers, oil and incense sticks that are also presented to Kal Bhairav.
Those
eager to please the Lord buy the puja basket and give it to the priest at the
sanctum sanctorum.
As
I move forward, I am struck by guilt pangs.Why should I come between the deity
and its favourite tipple, even if it is against my conventional understanding
of what can be offered to the Lord? I go back to buy the basket, a bottle of
rum included. Devotees believe that the original Kal Bhairav Temple was built
by a king called Bhadrasen and finds mention in the Skanda Purana. However, the
presentday temple building reveals a Maratha influence with a conical tower,
studded with stone lampholders to keep diyas or earthen lamps on them. I keep
chanting the mantra quietly to gain strength to survive the heat and the crowd.
Slowly, I enter the temple; hanging from the ceiling is a board with a notice
that prohibits devotees from opening the liquor bottles meant for the deity
before they reach the sanctum santorum. The temple is central to tantric
sadhana or practice. It is said that on auspicious days,many tantriks gather
here for different types of sadhanas in which alcohol is offered to the Lord.
Finally I get to see Kal Bhairav, at his sanctum set on a raised platform. He
is all but a huge stone smeared with vermillion with two eyes made on it. He is
represented not by a murti in human form but by a vigraha cast in stone. A
vigraha is an embodiment, the house of Parmatman. It has no form; it is a
shapeless lump! It reminds us that this body is temporary, but what’s inside it
— the essence of Universal Consciousness — is eternal. The eyes render a
lifelike quality to the stone image of Kal Bhairav. It’s now my turn to offer
prasad.
Gingerly,
I hand over the bottle of rum to the priest,who pours a little on the deity and
then gives the bottle back to me. I really don’t know what to do with the
unusual prasad. I give it back to him signaling him to keep it. It is my gift
to the mighty Kal Bhairav who shuns nothing and no one. He embraces all that is
there in creation for everything is representative of nirakar nirguna.Whatever
is first offered to Him becomes a prasad. He accepts it as it comes from the
devout who see entire creation existing in Him. It is said that offering liquor
at the temple is a part of tantric panch makar sadhana that includes five ‘M’s’
— madya, liquor; maas,meat;meen, fish; mudra, hand gesture and maithuna or sex.
Devotees say that except liquor, all others are offered in a symbolic form to
the deity. I come out of the temple feeling overwhelmed. Many devotees take
liquor in their hands and rub it on their children’s forehead and head as a blessing.
Some even pour it on the tyres of their new cars for it is a prasad from the
Divine. Some devotees also claim that the deity drinks alcohol that is offered
to it on a plate when placed near its lips. Next on my travel itinerary is the
Chintamani Ganesh Temple.
Here
also the deity is shaped like a lump with eyes on it. Chintamani Ganesh takes
away the worries of his devotees,hence the name Chintamani. He is invoked by
making an offering of besan laddoo for that’s his preferred food. It is said
that the temple was constructed in the 12th century during the rule of the
Parmara dynasty, although most of the temple has now been reconstructed. The
murti is swayanbhu, or self-manifested. I offer laddoos to the deity and
happily keep the prasad the priest gives to me. While devotees in Ujjain offer
liquor to Kal Bhairav and besan laddoos to Chintamani Ganesh, in New Delhi,
priests are busy preparing chhappan bhog for Bhagvan Jagannatha at the
Jagannath Temple, where I go to meet a friend. Here myriad dishes are offered
to the Lord of the Universe as prasad. The priests say that rasa or taste is
also one of the divine forms and when devotees partake of the prasad, they
become one with Jagannath. The deity accepts whatever the devotee offers with
love for there is nothing that is outside the purview of Universal
Consciousness. From chetan or consciousness comes jada or the unconscious,
inanimate objects. When the deity accepts prasad, it becomes divine.However,
the prasad is only had in small portions even if it is the chhappan bhog.The
different types of prasad that are offered across temples to deities in the
country only represent diversity of Indic belief systems where nothing is
considered profane if it is first offered to God.
No Matter What's
Happening In Your Life Right Now You Must Read This Short Story
It
was one seemingly ordinary day when I decided to QUIT… All of a sudden I made a
decision to quit my job, my relationship and finally my spirituality. I just
wanted to quit my life.
But
before that, I went to the wood to have one last talk with God.
I
started: “God, can you give me one good reason not to quit?”
His
answer really surprised me: “Look around”, He said. “Do you see the fern and
the bamboo?”
I
replied: “Yes. When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good
care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from
the earth.
Its
brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I
did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and
plentiful.
But
still, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo.
He
said: “In year three there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would
not quit. In year four, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. I would
not quit.”
“Then
in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth.
Compared
to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant…But just 6 months later
the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall.
It
had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it
what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it
could not handle.”
After
that, He asked me: “Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been
struggling, you have actually been growing roots. I would not quit on the
bamboo. I will never quit on you.”
“Don’t
compare yourself to others.” He added. ”The bamboo had a different Purpose than
the fern. Yet they both make the forest beautiful.” God said to me: “Your time
will come”
“You
will rise high”.
I
asked: “How high should I rise?”
“How
high will the bamboo rise?” He also asked.
I
was confused: “As high as it can?”
”Yes.”
He said, “Give Me glory by rising as high as you can.”
After
this conversation I left the forest and I wrote this amazing story. I really
hope that these words can help you to see that God will never give up on you.
You
should Never, Never, Never, Give up.
Don’t
tell the Lord how big the problem is, tell the problem how great the Lord is!
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