rajeshvora’s blog

Karma

Two persons are born on the same day and time ' yet one goes on to be most successful and the other lives a life of tragedy.

Four people are traveling in the same vehicle ' it meets with an accident; only one survives and the other three die.

Two people ' both go to the same place of worship. One is very affluent and the other is very very poor. Even after years of worshipping there, things don’t change for the poor person. The rich person keeps getting richer and the poor remains where he is.

Two persons worship with great devotion to the same god / deity. One’s every action turns out favorable to him, whereas for the other person life is always an uphill task.

One person has a Midas touch. What ever he does reaps him rich dividends with no effort or least effort from him. For another person, inspite of working hard and toiling for years, all he gets is peanuts.

A person has been doing very good deeds all his life. No vices. Yet he suffers from some terrible disease and dies an agonizing death.

A person has lived a life full of vices and crime etc. Yet he doesn’t get caught nor gets punished (atleast as far as we know). He is a great public figure and lives life to the fullest and dies peacefully without any problems.

Can you co-relate one common factor among all the above hypothetical situations. I am calling it hypothetical, but the truth is such things are happening for sure around us. We all must have come across such instances, experiences around us, or even experienced them ourselves.

The common denominator for all the above is Karma - that unseen, unheard and untouched factor, yet, it permeates our life every breathing second. There is no escaping from it, even if we wish to. What exactly is it?

Karma in simplest of terms means action. There is a duality in the meaning of this word ' on one side it refers to a verb ' action and on another front it refers to a noun. Karma the noun is what you acquire by performing karma the verb. All living things are performing karma continuously . When we eat, breathe, sleep, walk, talk etc. Some karmas are involuntary (like breathing etc.) and unavoidable. You can’t live without breathing, eating etc. Yet others are avoidable ' that is your life does not depend upon that action. 

Our past, present and future is totally dependent on the Karmas that we have done in the past and are doing at the present. We are at present the sum total of all the Karmas that we have done in the past. If everything is going well for you, then you may take it that your good karmas are at work. If everything is going against you then it means at that point of time your bad karmas are more powerful than your good karmas and thus you are facing difficult times. Keeping calm and being steadfast will help one in weathering the effects of the same.

Karmas are of two types ' the good karma ' where we do good to others and reap good benefits. For eg. Giving food and shelter to persons in need. Being kind and compassionate to others. Taking care of and feeding birds and animals etc.

And the bad karma ' where we hurt others. Speaking badly, speaking the untruth, killing, intention to kill etc. We will in turn face the same consequences.

Good karma begets good to us and bad karma begets bad. One can recall the scientific law that we studied in school ' for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Well it stands very much true here. You commit a good deed and that good will come back to you. You hurt someone and that hurt will come back to you. You kill someone and that someone is bound to kill you.

Like what we call input devices for the computer . there are three input devices for performing karma ‘Mann’ means mind; ‘Vachan’ means speech and ‘Kaaya’ means physically. So it’s not necessary that karma be performed only physically. Even your thought process is equally responsible as to physically committing karma. Even by abusing someone or threatening to kill someone results in karma, a bad one at that.

There are eight types of Karma:

1. Gnanaavarniya karma ' Helps you in attaining knowledge or preventing from attaining it, as per your previous karmas.
2. Darshanaavarniya karma ' acts as a hinderance.
3. Vedaniya karma ' ‘Vedanaa’ means pain. Absence and presence of pain in your life is because of this karma
4. Mohniya karma ' Moh means attachment. We get attached to things and people. Attachments prevent us from liberation.
5. Antraaya karma ' it is responsible for acting as a wall between what we want and are not able to get it.
6. Naam karma ' Responsible for our personal nature, appearance, etc.
7. Gotra karma - depending on our past karma, we get a good family, great surroundings etc. or conversely too.
8. Ayush karma ' it decides how long we live here, or for that matter in all our avatars.

These eight karmas together are responsible for what we are right now. We are born are human beings because of some supreme good karmas that we have performed in the past. God has rewarded us with giving us the highest life form for the taking. Let us not waste this wonderful opportunity that has come our way. Let us be good and do good unto others. We will be doing ourselves a favor ' we are ensuring a good future by performing the good karmas now.

Always put yourself in the other person's shoes and then think for a minute ' would you like it if you were in that place? For eg. You are angry with someone. Would you like someone to be angry with you? You are hurling abuses at others? Would you like to be hurled at? You are killing a chicken, a goat or something (you might not have done it yourself, someone might have done that job for you) to have as food. Would you like to become someone's food? Forget that. Can you tolerate it when you hurt your little finger? You make the entire house upside down. Then do you think the chick will love you for you having slaughtered it? No way.

We are interconnected to every life in this universe. To ensure our own happiness we have to ensure others happiness.

God bless all.

Today is the last day of our festival Paryushan. It is called "Savantsri". This day is of utmost importance to us Jains. We are required to ask for forgiveness and give forgiveness to all the living beings in this world. Today is the day of Universal Forgiveness.

I may have hurt your feelings knowingly or unknowingly thro mind, speech and body. On this day of universal forgiveness, I humbly ask for forgiveness from all of you ' "Michchami Dukkadam".

I am presenting a great poem written by a great saint Srimad Rajchandra below. The actual Gujarati poem is reproduced and below that a translation by me.


Maitri bhaavnu pavitra zarno, mujh haiyaa maa vayaa kare
Subh thaao aa shakal vishwa nu, evi bhavana nitya rahe

Gunn thi bharela gunijan dekhi, haiyu maaru nritya kare
Ae santon na charan kamal ma, mujh jeevan nu arth rahe

Deen krur ne dharm vihona, dekhi dil ma dard rahe
Karuna bhini aankho maathi, ashru no shrot vahe

Marg bhulela jivan pathik ne, marg chindva oobho rahun
Kare upeksha ae marg ni, toye samta chith dharoon

Vir prabhu ni dharm bhavna, haiye sau manav lave
Ver zer na pap tyaji ne, mangal geeto ae gaave, prabhu, mangal geeto sau gaave.


Meaning:
Let the noble thought of friendship flow through my heart
Let goodness prevail over the entire world ' let this thought prevail over me.

My heart dances when it sees goodness flowing from good people
Let my spirit bow and touch the feet of the great saints.

Let my heart feel the pain when I see the poor, down-trodden and without dharma
And a stream of tears flow through my compassionate eyes.

I will show the right path to those who have forgotten the righteous path
And be patient enough to stand there even if I have to face difficulties.

The Lord's great spirit, brings out the humaneness in all
And burying our enmity and sins, we sing his praises, Lord, all sing the praises.

Note:
I have never attempted to translate Gujarati before, much less such noble hymn. So, the thought and meaning conveyed gets diluted a bit. But then, one can still understand the spirit and soul of the poem. Hope you all liked this poem very much.

I am not in town for the next 20 days. So shall be out of action at iLand totally. Please don't expect me to post blogs(might do so thro mobile sometimes), and also please forgive me coz I wont be able to comment on your blogs too or reply to your comments made on my blogs.
I am away on a spiritual sojourn. Generally I go on a vacation every year to look at the world outside. But this tour is intended to look inwards into the heart(ok..ok.. neither am I a cardiac surgeon nor am I a forensic expert). Hope to make this an annual mission apart from the travel tour.
(There is no net connectivity at my village. Thus no cyber cafes. There are cyber cafes at Bhuj, Gandhidham and Mundra, but the place that i am gonna be put up is far off and i wont be able to log in.) So i think this will help me in de-addiction to the net and particularly iLand. ha ha ha.

Wishing you all the very best.

Fasting

Fasting has got great significance in Jainism. Though there is no compulsion on people to fast, it is advised to do so according to individual ability. Also, this fasting can be done any time throughout the year, but everybody should attempt to do so atleast during the festival time.

Like I told in my previous blog, this ain't any celebration. While in other festivals, we eat more, we eat sweets, we prepare special dishes etc. here we eat less, we eat nothing or we eat very simple food.

The various types of fasting are as follows:

Upvaas: This is a one day fast. Normally you would associate a upvaas with abstaining from eating cereals and sticking to fruits and milk etc. But in Jainism, it is altogether different. The fast starts from the day preceding the day you are going to fast. One stops eating after sunset of the day preceding the day of the fast. After sunset even water is not consumed till sunrise on the day of the fast. On the day of the fast, one can have water(boiled water) only throughout the day, that is only till sunset. After that even water should not be consumed till sunrise the next day of the fast. So in effect,t a typical day's fast lasts for more than 36 hours.

Ekaasnu / Ektaanu : Here everything is similar to above but only difference being, one can have food one time only, preferably lunch. That does not mean that one should stuff oneself. One should take food what one does everyday. One should not get up during the lunch, one should be seated at one place and complete the meal in one sitting. ( this is what i do and its my fourth day today.)

Aayambil : Same as above, but more difficult for the following reason. The food that is being taken should be devoid of salt, oil, ghee, chilly and other masalas. In short it should be bland.

Bayaasanu : Here one is allowed to take food two times a day. All other things remaining same.

Chchat: Doing upvaas for two consecutive days is called chchat.

Attham: Doing upvaas for three consecutive days is called attham.

Atthaai: Doing upvaas for eight consecutive days is called atthaai.

Maas Khaman : Doing upvaas consecutive for a period of 30 days is called Maas Khaman. Believe me friends, you may think how can one survive if one does not take food for a month. But lots of people do it every year. My aunt in Mumbai had done once for a period of 42 days of consecutive upvaas'.

Varshi Tap: One day upvaas and one day break your fast. Doing this continuously for a year is called varshi tap.

There are other kinds of fasting also. There are various benefits of fasting. The primary religious reason being to reduce our karmas and be free from them. But there are many scientific and social reasons which vouch for fasting too.

(thanks to Ash, Sumita, Sudheer, Isha and Meenakshi for comments on my previous blog)

for regular visitors to my iLand : Do read my previous blog ' My Blogging Philosophy.

Today, starts a very important day in the calendar of Jains worldwide. It is the beginning of the 8-day long festival of "Paryushan" celebrated by all the Jains. I would like to make a small clarification here before proceeding. To label Paryushan a festival would be a misnomer. And to mention it as a celebration, an even greater blunder. But for the sake of clarity and purpose let us call it a festival and a celebration.

This week long festival starts on "Shraavan vadh baaras" every year. Just like every business organization compiles and organizes its activities for the year to view its profit/loss, so too, we as individuals take stock of our actions of the past one year and do a deep introspection. It is that time of the year, where we have to see how much we have fared vis-à-vis the path shown by God.

Instead of going on overdrive, as we do to celebrate other festivals, here we are supposed to tone down our actions. We are supposed to do penance. Sat-sangs, singing of hymns, discourses, prayers, sharing of knowledge, fasting of various forms, all form the activities of this festival.

It culminates in asking for forgiveness and giving pardon to all lives of the universe. That penultimate day is called "Savantsri" ' a day of Universal forgiveness.

The forthcoming week, I shall be posting blogs on some of my beliefs and customs. I shall be posting other stuff also. But this will be the predominant theme for the week.

Friends, one small request to all of you. Its not a compulsion, all of you have your full liberties. Please avoid consuming meat, eggs, fish and all its by-products for the next one week till 28.8.06. This is only a humble request. You are under no obligation whatsoever to do so. But if at all you do heed my request, I will be glad. This time around no prizes though. You would have touched my soul and yours too. There's no bigger prize than this.