ennar’s blog

We must proceed towards the Truth.There are many approaches to it.The soul is following a certain trend of evolution,and sometimes it goes up and sometimes down,but the net result must be forward progress.There must be a system in our movement.Our ideas must be clear and systematized.They may be childlike at first,but they must not be hazy or indefinite.Our conception of the Divine must grow more and more as we proceed.

The first step is to find out where we stand.Find out your relation to God, the soul, and the universe. To begin with, let us stand where we are and perform our duties of life. Our concept of duty evolves as we evolve, but purity and devotion to God are fundamental. We must get a better conception of ourselves,of what we are and then think how to bring about a change in ourselves. Changes are seldom uniform.We have ups and downs, but we must be progressive,grow better.If we are dragged down,we must move upwards again.We have our moods,but we should have one dominant mood –  the calm , spiritual mood. If we are angry, we should at least not be angry with our whole mind.Keep at least a part of the mind under control.Learn how to remain unaffected.Maintain your mental balance.

In everyone there is restlessness for something higher, the hunger of the soul.The fact of “soul hunger” is there deep below.Temporarily we may forget it, but again comes that yearning in the soul.

GURU CAN  HELP  FREE  YOU  FROM  BONDAGE

Whether you know anything else or not,you do know that you exist.It means there is a self and it is only a question of realising it.Can everyone climb mount everest?Definately not,because not everybody has the capacity to do that.But all of us have a self,and realising it is an inward process,so it is definately possible.

What you can do on the outside depends on many things.When it comes to what is within you,it is just a question of your willingness.If you are interested in living your life with full depth and dimension,how can you live without self-realisation?If you are interested in experiencing all the possibilities you carry within yourself,how can you explore them without self-realisation?Self-realisation is not an abstract dimention that is not relevant to people.Every human being should strive for it because the more you realise about yourself,the better you live.

When we say self-realisation, we are not talking about understanding your physiology or your psycology alone,we are talking about understanding the very fundamentals of who you are. Just think……When you stand there,you look at yourself as a person,but how did this person happen? This body, when it was born,it was so small.Now it has become so big — how?Was it created from inside or from outside?Definately from inside.

So that which creates this body is within you: the very source of creation is within you.Without knowing that,you do not know much about yourself.So when the very source of creation is within you, self-realisation means befriending the creator within you. And if the creator is your friend, what is your problem with life.

A guru becomes relevant to you only when you have an aspiration to constantly enhance your life;When you want to touch dimensions within which you yourself have not been able to touch.When people hear the word “Guru”, they may have a lot of resistance,essentially because of the misuse of the word. A Guru is like a road map.If you want to travel uncharted terrain,do you go without a road map? You can; maybe you will anyway reach there.But there are also chances that to reach a destination which is right next to you,you may go around the world and come back,or you may never get there.

When you want to walk uncharted terrain,choose a person who has already walked the terrain. A Guru has already walked the path,so you are just seeking guidance;you are using him as a live road map. “Can’t i do it without a Guru?”— Definately you can,but what could be done in a short span of time,you may take a lifetime to do it.

Your whole perception of life is through the five senses.If you look at these five sense organs,you can clearly see that all of them are outward bound. But now you want to look inward in a completely different way.Because you do not have this perception right now,the inner dimension is not visible to you, so you seek help.

Let’s say you need surgery to be done.You go to a surgeon,because you trust that he will do it better than you. Self-realisation is a much deeper surgery than your doctor does.Your doctor cuts only the physical body; but here,you have to cut through many layers of your own misunderstandings and misperceptions. If you are trapped in a prison and you want to get out,it is good to have outside help. Bondage is an inside job,you need outside help for liberation.That is where a Guru fits in.  

Life is a challenge, meet it ! Life is a song, sing it ! Life is a dream, realise it ! Life is a game,play it ! Life is love,enjoy it !

As children bring their broken toys with tears for us to mend, I brought my broken dreams to GOD because He was my friend. But instead of leaving them with Him in peace to work alone, I hung around and tried to help with ways that were my own. At last I snached them back and cried, “How can you be so slow?”  “My child”, he said,”What could I do? you never did let go.”

Nothing in the world,it seems shatters like a broken dream.It is the ache behind the mean,of shadows silent and unseen,and in this fortress dream of sorrow,Exist no dawn and no tomorrow.Just hours that cut you as they pass.Like little shards of broken glass,and yet another and another.Sometimes the night is meant to suffer.But look up now and see how far they light your way like little stars.Oh,if i had a star to shine for every broken dream of mine,the whole night sky would turn to day, and all my troubles melt away.

• The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
• Unforgiveness is the poison you drink everyday,hoping that the other person will die.
• Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak.Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
• If a man does not keep pace with his companions,perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
• All that we are is the result of what we have thought.The mind is everything.What we think,we become.
• As we cultivate peace and happiness in ourselves,we also nourish peace and happiness in those we love.
• We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking,only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.
• The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.

E I G H T F O L D     P A T H

When your boss praises you for good work done, everything goes just right,and when you return home you begin to dream of all the things you can do with the support of your boss and the heights that you can reach.Perhaps the next time you meet him he is very busy in attending to some urgent work and is curt with you.You feel snubbed,hurt and all your plans go out of the window. … To remove the imponderables that lie on the growth path, to overcome the feeling of being let down and to achieve your ambition,often such ways are adopted for which stars need to hide their fire so that no light can expose their deep desires.

Suffering and frustration in life are inescapable. The root cause for these is uncontrolled desire and ambition.The cause of frustration can be removed through overcoming desires and drawing a line to craving for more.This can be attained by being mindful of all the things that you use to pamper and harm yourself with.To feel relieved from queasiness and frustration,BUDDHA laid down the eight fold path.

• First - view the world in the right perspective.Instead of imposing your expectations onto things,see things simply as they are.
• Second - do not try to manipulate situations in line with preconceived notions of how they should be.Just work with what is.
• Third - You should not hesitate about what you say.
• Fourth - give up the tendency to complicate issues that usually cloud relationships.Be simple and straight forward.
• Fifth - it is only normal that you should earn your living.Many are disgruntled with their jobs.The truth is you should perform your responsibilities properly and be happy with what you do.
• Sixth - make the right effort to see things as they are and work with what it is with out any kind of aggression.
• Seventh - be prescise,clear and mindful of what you speak,perform and behave.
• And lastly - eighth - be absorbed in things as they are instead of being absent-minded  and captivated by all sorts of distractions and speculations.    

Human consciousness is made up of temporary mental processes and events.Everything is impermanent.And,because of not recognising this truth, a feeling of uneasiness and anxiousness occurs even at the best of times.

This underlines the need for practising cessation of passion and aggression and recognising the truth that life is full of suffering and frustration.The wisdom then attained provides deep enlightenment on understanding of life in the right perspective.    

DHARMA   WILL  PREVAIL  WITH  GOOD  KARMA

Why do people who do good suffer while those who commit injustice go unpunished ?

Such questions arise when we see an event in its limited framework. No good action will yield a bad result. Or, no bad action will bring a good result. This is the law of karma. As you sow , so shall you reap ! If you sow a mango seed, a mango tree will grow. But along with the mango tree, some thorny bushes may come up because of the seeds present in the manure brought from somewhere else. It is not the mango seed that brings up the thorny bush. Your mango seed will bring mango fruit, in due course.

The question of justice and injustice arises only when one sees the world from a limited framework. This is probably why the jain philosophy does not even accept the judge. They simply believe that the whole world is goverened by the law of cause and effect. And they call it the law.

When seen from this perspective, there cannot be injustice. If there appears to be an injustice, there are people who are bringing justice; this is also part of the law. For example, if some one gets a disease, there is someone else who has the cure for it. If the person with the cure knows that somebody is suffering, it is his dharma to bring him relief. If it’s somebody’s karma to steal, it’s dharma of the police to catch him.

Karma and dharma go hand in hand. Karma is always dynamic, in the sense that there is perception and there is action. Karma means the action, its impressions and its result. It has three phases — latent action, the action that is in process, and the root of the action,or the cause of the action.All three things are a reality.

Karma is beyond all logic and reasoning. It causes people to be together or seperate. It causes some to be weak and some,strong. It makes some rich and some poor. All the struggle in the world, whatever it may be, is the bondage of karma.

Some karma can be changed and some cannot. Only human life is blessed with the chance to be free from karma. And only a few thousands aim to be free from it. As a human being, you can accumalate karma. Awareness, alertness, knowledge and meditation all help erase past impressions. Only through grace can the bondage of karma be burnt.

The awareness of dharma helps in comprehending the strange ways of karma. Whenever you see a bad karma or someone suffering, you need to help him. That is your dharma. Karma is also always bound by time, because every action has a limited reaction.

If you do something good to people, they will come and thank you ; they will be greateful to you as long as they are experiencing the effect of your action, but not forever. Our perception of suffering, of good and bad, is always relative. God does not come within the purview of relativity. He is the absolute reality — Sarva Sakshi — a witness of all that is.

See God as a movie director, rather than a judge. He has no ill feeling for the villain, and no special favour for the hero. Each one is playing his role. In the end, both the villain and the hero are rewarded.

That is why in the puranas, every villain who dies also goes to heaven. After so many years, when the Pandavas reached heaven, the found Duryodhana already sitting there happily.

• The thing always happens that you really believe in : and the belief in a thing makes it happen.
• Atheists in our midst are proof that all consciences can be accommodated here,even those that have no ground for holding that conscience is sacred, inalienable, and prior to civil society.
• The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said “This is mine.” and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society.
• See Him present in every experience and remember He is always with you, ready to assist whenever you turn your thoughts to him. And above all, remember he is not to be won by words, but by deeds.
• May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. 

Cleaning a floor can be a tremondously creative act. Creativity has nothing to do with any particular work. Creativity has something to do with the quality of your consciousness. Whatever you do can become creative if you know what creativity means.

Creativity means enjoying any work as meditation; doing any work with deep love. Are you thinking that if you paint, you will feel creative? But painting is just as ordinary as cleaning the floor. You will be throwing colours on a canvas. Here you go on washing and cleaning the floor. What is the difference? Talking to somebody, you feel the time is being wasted. You would like to write a great book; then you will be creative. But a friend has come:a little gossiping is perfectly beautiful. Be creative.

All the great scriptures are nothing but conversations of people who were creative. What do i go on doing here? Conversing. They will become gospels some day, but originally they are conversations.But I enjoy doing them. If you really love something,it is creative.

A man of understanding is continuously creative.Not that he is trying to be creative.The way he sits is a creative act.Watch him sitting.You will find in his movement a certain quality of dance,a certain dignity. Life consists of small things; just your ego goes on saying these are small things. You would like to do some great thing — great poetry. You would like to become Shakespeare, Kalidas or Milton. It is your ego that is creating the trouble.

Drop the ego and everything is creative. Then everything is tremendously great. If you don’t love, then your ego goes on saying, ” This is not worthy of you.” cleaning is great. Don’t go on an ego trip. Whenever the ego comes and persuades you towards some great things,immediately become aware and drop the ego,and then by and by you will find trivia sacred. Nothing is profane: everything is sacred and holy.

And unless everything becomes holy to you,your life cannot be religious. A holy man is not what you call a saint. A saint may be just on an ego trip.And also he will look a saint to you because you think he has done great deeds. A holy man is an ordinary man who loves ordinary life,chopping wood,carrying water from the well,cooking — Whatever he touches becomes holy. Not that he is doing great things, but whatever he does, he does it greatly.

The greatness is not in the thing done. The greatness is in the consciousness that you bring while you do it. Each moment of your life has to be transformed by your meditative love. When I say be creative, I don’t mean that you should all go and become great painters and poets. I simply mean let your life be a painting, let your life be poetery.

Never allow yourself this tendency for being great, famous, someone bigger than life size — never. Life-size is perfect. To be exactly life-size, to be just ordinary, is as perfect as it should be. But live that ordinariness in an extraordinary way. That is what nirvanic consciousness is all about.

Charity has the distinction of benefiting the receiver as well as the donor.

Victor Hugo in his novel ‘ Les Miserables’ highlights the benefaction that charity brings to the receiver. A convict had escaped from prison and sought shelter for the night.The priest obliged, gave him supper and a bed to sleep. In the middle of the night he decamped with the silver plates of the house. The next morning the police who had caught him brought him in. The priest feigned surprise and asked the policeman : ” why did you harass him ? I gifted the plates to him last night.” The policeman apologised and left. The convict was astounded.To crown it all, the priest picked up two solid silver candle stick stands from his desk and gave them to the convict with these words : “Remember,life is to give,not to take.The convict took them and departed.Thence,he was transformed.Living a life of service and sacrifice.Such would be the outcome of true charity.

Likewise,the donor is blessed with the effect of charity.Charity is a synonym for prosperity.So is sacrifice for success.Swamy Rama Tirtha proclaims : The way to gain anything is to lose it.The more you run after wealth,the more it recedes.You crave for it, and it eludes you.Leave it alone, and it follows you. Work earnestly,dispassionately ; the reward of work shall court you.

The phenomenon of colours illustrates this law of life.Light is constituted of seven colours.When an object is bathed in light the seven colours impinge upon it.An object appears blue when it actually gives away blue and takes in the other six.It appears in the colour it parts with.An object gains colour it gives away ! You gain what you give away.What you sacrifice.Not what you take.Develop the spirit of dispassion,renunciation in life.You turn pure,divine.And when you amass wealth you turn impure,demonic.Oliver Goldsmith wrote : Where wealth accumalates,men decay.

Social service is indeed a noble trait.But these scattered units can in no way solve the problem of poverty and misery in the world.Hence the world needs not just bouts of social service but education and dissemnination of social conciousness among people.That one should empathise,share and live in harmony with fellow beings.The idea of social consciousness needs to be introduced at the level of primary schools for children to grow with that concept.And gradually inculcated in families at home. ‘ With the dawn of social conciousness the mist of social service disappears.Every individual becomes a social worker.

Just imagine a country devoid of literacy barring a group of literates.The residual literates have to choose one of two options : Each of them starts teaching people ‘individually’. Or start schools for teachers’ training.And these teachers in turn produce more teachers.

The former method can provide only a limited satisfaction for educating a few pockets in the country,while the latter can gradually cover the entire country and solve the problem of illiteracy.

Similarly, Social workers and their social work can only create pockets of relief while the perennial problem of poverty and misery persists.The problem can be solved only through mass education and dissemination of social conciousness. Vedanta,the ancient philosophy of India,educates and inculcates this spirit of social consciousness in human beings.

You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength, and say,”I am proud of what I am and who I am,and I am going to be myself.”

After a while you learn the subtle difference, between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that, love dosen’t mean leaning. And company dosen’t mean security, and you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises.

And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of a man, not the grief of a child, and you learn to build all your roads on TODAY, because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans, and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you have too much.

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers, and you learn that you really can endure…….. That you really are strong and you really do have worth, And you learn and learn with every person you meet or employ. You learn with every friend or lover, you learn with every goodbye,you learn.