In Right Spirit

ISKCON Bangalore – 1

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ISKCON stands for International Society for Krishna Consciousness. The society is the outcome of hard work of 12 years of his divine grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada ( Photo left side), established on 11 July 1966, and spread Krishna to the west. I am a regular visitor of the temple for the reason of my own solace out of my consciousness.

ISKCON is just again a vision of globalization of Krishna consciousness, arising from a small place of West Bengal. This has turned out to be a multinational organization/ society. In west Bengal, the Gauriya Math (The Gaurango-Nitai – devotees photo -right) is the center of Krishna devotees. And ISKCON is the outgrowth of its sibling which has succeeded with its approach.

Now the good thing, I noticed there while registering for the Yoga retreat course (I shall write more once I attend it), that those great MNC guys coming for solace like me. Most people I see in the MNCs are seeking for some sort of satisfaction in their daily monotonous (strenous) life. The course may be one of such way to find the solution.

ISKCON Bangalore is just not a temple of Hindus, but a society building to spread the basic Indian cultural values all over the world for the consciousness about the Krishna avatar which is the most popular in Indians. The thing which made this organization successful is its youth power. The priests/managers are young; many joined after leaving the lucrative jobs and hone the technical/managerial/literary expertise. Their fund raising efforts are well crafted, and I do support this with active participation.

Not as a devotee of particular religion, but as a unique persona, I do feel that Religion is just not the specific way of remembering the supreme and finding or not finding the shape out of it, it’s the way we try to understand the relations between “I and around”.

Their Fortune – Our Fortune

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If, I am lucky, in the sort span of time,
Will Castle, be there, fresh sand and lime.

Flower

I am learning to run before the walk,
There to draw sketches with red chalk.

Yes, they love the creepers, the crowd,
Should I feel little shame or proud!

Great the meanings of bread and butter,
Lucky fellows, if roof becomes shelter.

My bare shoulders are hard as wood,
To carry the religion called brotherhood.

Here, I travel smooth, dawn to dusk.
To make, Our fortune out of the husk!

Stolen leaves

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I have a book of poems which I can’t read. My every attempt to read it becomes a setback. In so many days I have been able to read only few pages of it. Reading the poems gives me pain. The author seems to have stolen my poems, so I feel cheated. Those poems have almost same rhythm and tunes, as I had written in those days under the tree. I wonder if I find the author, should I sue him.
Those poems were written by me under the tree in the barrens when I was crying. I used to write those poems on the falling leaves of the tree. May the author have collected those leaves and arranged them in the book.
I like to cry in the barrens, because I am a man. Men are not supposed to cry in public. If not barrens, pillows become the companions. When I cry, the tears fall on my heart where the heavy stones are kept. These infinite tears are capable of melting them down. Reading those poems may dry out my tears. And the heavy stones will not be able to melt down due to lack of tears.
I feel those heavy stones put on by the circumstances around me and the society I live. The woman inside me wants to cry loudly. I want to shed my tears under the tree in the barren land again. There I shall write again on the falling leaves and recollect those poems again. I shall collect every leave from there, and this time I will not leave any leaf there. Once every poem is recollected on those leaves, I shall open the book and read to see what alterations have been with my poems.
I can’t throw that book because I am a human with my own limitations. Apart from my limited capacity I see more probable things that can happen. May today I shall not find out the tree again. May the leaves not fall now, on which I can write again. May in the barrens the rain start falling and wash out all my tears and melt down those heavy stones and the leaves will become useless for me.
I can’t read the book and I can’t throw it too. I feel angry as well as guilty.

Spikes in Roses

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I have planted a flower garden in front of my house.
It has Dahlias, Marigold, Chrysanthemums, Panjee and so many flowers.
The Dahlias and several seasonal flowers don’t have fragrance but I plant them because they look nice and of course the persons who pass by my house are happy to see them most of the time. I never tell them to see my garden but being my house on roadside, travelers see them. I don’t plant them because they should appreciate them but because I feel nice to spend my time and take care of them. Seeing them grown up and flowering looks beautiful and please me.
But I am especially interested in roses, so I take special care for them. These roses are of many variety and sizes. Of course the rose is king of flowers. These roses have spikes too. Some times my visitors could not resist smelling the beautiful roses after holding their stem. While trying to get their fragrance apart from their beauty the spikes pierce in their hand too. And their fingers get hurt a bit. When they get hurt they wish that if roses did not have spikes! I can’t help them. But these wishes are frequent from them. I like the spikes and also get hurt from them because I know someday these stems, which have spikes now, will have buds and full flower stems will grow from them. I could not help myself one day when a frequent visitor of my garden who again wanted to give me lesson about the gardening and was telling me about the spike less roses, I told him to stay away from my garden for some days and if he passes by the nearby road not to see towards it. His eyes had tears.

The real life firewalls

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Everywhere apart from the computer life, I can see a firewall in every second of the life. The firewall becomes inevitable to lead the life. But what makes me concerned that where does it exist and why does it exist.
The situation becomes difficult when two or more firewalls are to be constructed on the same place.
Approximately one year ago during a chat in yahoo the other person was probable some girl from Philippines. During the chat about painting and hobbies once I called her dear, a sudden reply came about this word that why I called her dear since she is not my girlfriend or relative. I was shocked. I have a general tendency to call anyone dear without thinking of the sex or age of the person.
So a firewall was being constructed there. I gave my clarification to her that you are like my other friends or relatives or any one else on the earth to whom I love and being a girlfriend is a far away thing. She accepted my feelings and still she is on my contact list. Even being firm on my principle I fear to call anyone dear, I have formed a firewall around me during chats.
Yes, why the love word is used here should not be a question.
Although it does not take more than 10 minutes to be accommodated with a new place or person may be it’s due to my inherited nature. I can be like a family member within 24 hour in any family I enter as a guest or friend.
But when I see reservation regarding the distance being formed, I can feel a firewall. But many a times these firewall I have succeeded to put water and vanish. But I think why I fail to see the firewall around people? And how many firewalls I have to form more as the life goes on?

In praise of Unique

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Your existence is unique .
Your empire is unique.

Your creations are unique.
Your stage is unique.

Your rules are unique.
Your judgement is unique.

Your stability is unique.
Your change is unique.

Your melody is unique.
Your love is unique.

Your nearness is unique.
Your distance is unique.

O my Unique ,
Am I unique?

Newton’s Law of (E)motion

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“Every action have equal and opposite reaction.”

It’s the formal definition of Newton’s third law of motion that we have learnt in our school days applicable to all physical objects. I take courage to widen it’s domain beyond the physical objects. For me this new (old) domain is made of abstract feelings. In other words the every emotion have equal and opposite reaction. Love gives love back, Hate gives hate back, terror gives terror(ism) back.
But many of us might have seen the reverse situations in our life which may seem to defy this rule of emotion. Like..
A person laughs when the opposite wants to tell something else. A person laughs when the opposite cries.A person frowns when opposite could not express something.
These emotions may appear in any combination. When we start thinking of these it seems a quiet complex situation. But I like to find out the simplicity in every complexity.

First of all I never believe that any person wants to hurt the other person knowingly. When he/she want to make other laugh because after seeing opposite’s laughing face he/she will be happy .How the person cruel may be , he/she will prefer to see a happy face rather a angry or sad face. For getting this ambition she/he will go to any measure. This is where the fault starts. This is where the person is blamed to be cruel or rude.
And the fault is breaking the law of emotion.

Actually we did not allow to complete the emotion (action) of the person. In a case when I want to make a person laugh, do he is sitting with some untold emotions?If I want to tell some pains in my heart to a person does already she is crying himself? Should I tell my pain to other when he/she is happy? Let his/her emotion complete, and it’s me who can return the emotion’s action (flow) and the person will get all the energy back.After this I can start a new action wishing that it will complete. The law is quite simple like our own Newton, like me, like you.

What do we need to think is, did the first action have completed the reaction ?

Still in simpler words…
“I need to cry when the other cries” even though I have a great news to be happy.
“I need to hear when the other wants to tell” even though my life is facing disaster.
“I need to laugh when my friend laughs” even though I have untold pains in my heart.

But still the fallible human like me thinks that if sometime I fail to do so, my friend will pass the test of time.

15 Laws of Life – Vivekananda

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What You Need to Keep in Mind
1. Love Is The Law Of Life: All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love's sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.
2. It's Your Outlook That Matters: It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.

3. Life is Beautiful: First, believe in this world – that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!

4. It's The Way You Feel: Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.

5. Set Yourself Free: The moment I have realised God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him – that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

6. Don't Play The Blame Game: Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.

7. Help Others: If money helps a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

8. Uphold Your Ideals: Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

9. Listen To Your Soul: You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

10. Be Yourself: The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!

11. Nothing Is Impossible: Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin – to say that you are weak, or others are weak.

12. You Have The Power: All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

13. Learn Everyday: The goal of mankind is knowledge… now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows', should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers' or 'unveils'; what man 'learns' is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.

14. Be Truthful: Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

15. Think Different: All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

Who Am I ?

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“Sir, I am Prem Piyush on the motherland with a purpose to lead my life in such a way that I can remain alive in the heart of the People”—-was my answer when ,the chairman,an army officer asked me to define myself during the interview at Army School, Khaprail, Darjeeling.Surprise to me the Madam Principal along with other members in the interview board, started laughing with other members and told me to tell about my educational background, family background etc”. I answered accordingly and my interview lasted 15 minutes.

That day I got a lesson from the interview. Adding to my surprise, next day my name was enlisted on the notice board among selected candidates. Still I would like to introduce myself this way except interviews of course. What I believe that,the person himself is more important than his family background and educational background.

Yes I have an identity, of course nurtured by our parents, society, and the culture I belong. But can it be judged only by parental and educational background? Even if it matters for me , it does not matters for other millions.

Again There are millions who are devoid of such identity of educational or parental background. Millions die, so millions born .Sure, I am not an exception. The infinite string which connects everyone is the humanity and it’s pain, it’s joy. So we together need to strengthen the string.

I and you should be replaced by we. Yes, I agree that Self Help is the best way to Help the world. One should explore one’s capacities to full extent. And are not millions who underestimate their capacity? Don’t they need elixir to revitalize themselves? What is the call of the time is, to know their heart, their brain, not only their qualifications, money, status, etc.

In my context free language I would mention a short episode:

Last December I had traveled with one of my elderly relative on a “passenger train” crossing a railbridge over a river called Mahananda. He indicated me the sand down to bridge which was a cremation ground with a small pucca shelter. Alas! He could not return through the bridge.When he died of illness, I accompanied his abode body to the same cremation place for last rituals. Now we were down the bridge, at the cremation ground. Suddenly I heard the long whistle of the same “passenger train” again and saw it passing over the bridge. We don’t know where are weat what point of time. Every body’s state changes with respect to time.

We are just the fortunate travellers of the passenger train which completes one trip in 24 hours. How many trips we make ( I thank God since he allowed me for 27 X 365 + trips till now) is upto Him. How we behave with your co – passengers is upto us .What impressions we create among the co-passengers who will remain travelling while I have to get down.

So this is just not an episode. This episode will replay for every one of us some or the other way. What we can leave is our essence . “I” cannot travel long. Long live “our journey”.