Let go of the Banana

Once upon a time, there was a farmer. This farmer was bothered by a monkey, on a daily basis. The monkey, from the trees, would come down, through the window, come in to the little house of the farmer and steal the bananas kept in a jar, when the farmer was not at home and away with his farming job. Read More

Being an atheist, a non-believer, a sceptic ~ is as per Vedanta one who does not believe in his own self. Believing in yourself is believing in God.

Krishna, as per Hindu Mythology, the God himself, becomes the chariot driver for Arjuna, when he sees Arjuna quitting. Krishna persuaded Arjuna, that he should stick to his duty as a warrior and engage the enemy. The Bhagavad Gita is presented as a conversation between Arjuna and Krishna, a man and his friend. In this case, as claimed in the Hindu mythology, the God Himself. Arjuna, as per the ancient heroic epic ‘Mahabharata’, is depicting people in this Samsara ~ live ~ like us ~ a seeker and a knower. The message in Bhagavad Gita is that ~ ‘In our day to day life, God himself is always there, to guide us, to protect us, to help us; only we have to surrender to Him unconditionally and trust Him’. The message in this Hindu book depicting a guide line for all of us, “Divinize the life itself’. Read More

“Words are meant to create Silence”

‘Silence’ is where we come from and ‘Silence’ is where we go to.

Notice whenever, we are in peace or in a mood to pray, worship, even through rituals of singing and dancing forms of worship ~ through some other dogmas of worship or prayer, we eventually drift in to, slide in to silence. When we drift in to sleep, we go in to silent zone.

Please reflect on the power of this ‘Silence’. Read More

(Continued from Part 6)…

So we do see that, all of these different relationships, that we can form, we find some however, reflected in one-way or the other, in a Mother. So Mother therefore, we could say that according to this way of thinking, is to us, more of an all-encompassing ideal.

Now instances of Mother worship are found in all faith and traditions. But officially the practice was not encouraged in some parts of the world, after the patriarchal form of society came into being, to dominate many societies the world over. Read More

(Continued from Part 7)…

All creation according to the above way of thinking comes from Mother. The Mother brings everything into being, its Mother’s power that sustains the universe and it is through, into Mother that the entire universe, returns again. In fact, once Sri Ramakrishna had said, that all incarnations are really, Shakti’s incarnation. So in some ways although, later on as the concept develops, we speak about the Shakti of an Avatar’; is also the incarnation of Shakti. After all, the activities and everything else, which happens, on this Universe, happens due to Mother alone? Read More

(Continued from Part 8)…

May I encourage everyone, at all times, when have a Mother’s Puja, especially during this Mother season, as we go for all the pujas that had come up would be a good time, to reflect and meditate upon ‘How great our Divine Mother’ is and how easily she could be depended upon? We do have often times, a kind of a confusion in our mind, when we do have a puja going on, many of us probably, do not know exactly, what ritual is occurring or what exactly is happening? Although we do feel nice and a pleasant sense of sanctity, Whether or not we may not understand every little detail of the offering of flowers, the ritualistic worship of the Mother which are performed. But that time is well spend, even when the Mother is being invoked and worshipped, to look in our own hearts, to find that a little child within me is seeking the Divine Mother. Where she permanently reside. Read More

(Continued from Part 5)…

On earlier occasions we have seen how a Mother can be a very calm, loving presence, like the ‘Shanta’. A Mother can be friend. A Mother can be sometimes, especially when we were very young; we treat our Mother, almost like a servant. “Mom, get me this, get me that.” And a Mother does that. This one relationship of God as “The Mother”, brings forth to several essential and yet the most important understandings. This in turn alone, with ‘The Divine Mother’s Grace’, would take us closer to God! Read More

(Continued from Part 3 and 4)…

A description is simple, for these five types of relationships! The first kind of relationship is called‘Shanta’. Shanta means calm and detached. So that’s one way of relating to God. The example that is often given is ~ from the ancient Vedic sages, the great Rishis who inspired, to whom the Vedic wisdom was revealed. They were intensely connected with that reality. You see them, always in a state of calmness! In fact, many times, the Sanskrit word for the sages is ‘Muni’. ‘Muni’ means the silent one. So, they had this intense love for God. Some of the relationships are like that. We can see that among human beings and animals, it can be in any form and different ways, the intense love, but it’s kind of a calm and serene way. There is not much way of externally expressing it. So that’s called ‘Shanta Bhava’. Read More

(Continued from Part 3)

How do we then connect with God? Because we did need that, we feel the need to create some kind of a connection with God. In fact, Swami Vivekananda defined religion as the eternal relation between the eternal soul and the eternal God. So that’s one very good way of looking at what religion is, irrespective of the specifics, of different religions.

Paramahansa Yogananda explains “The theologies of all great religions, which have one common foundation – the searching and finding and realization of God.” But religious truth without practical realizations is limited in its value. How can the blind lead the blind? Read More