There was a guy, who wanted to know the truth. He explored around the world to listen to the people who claimed to know the truth and the path to ultimate bliss. The information filled him with cloud of questions and stifled him in a world of confusion leading to nowhere. Sphered by dark, suffocated by doubts, the only thing he could ask for was - a divine light.
And comes a Guru with a torch of knowledge to rescue him. He disperses the clouds and breaks the sphere of dark. Enlightened, the guy sings in joy in the rain of right knowledge. Expands his wings of knowledge he starts to learn the world by flying high and salutes the feet of Guru.
Gradually the light gets clearer and clearer, until the guy gets confident. Now he know the truth and next step is the journey towards the path to ultimate bliss.
Misfortune strikes with mix of immaturity! Now the guy listens to sermons of the Guru with less devotion. Because he is overconfident, also can figure out the minute faults in the preaching by the Guru. The old habit of negative thinking from multiple births persist, and it hampers his progress towards the path. Because now he is happy and satisfied with his achievements and deviates in the directions of negativities because of not having strong pursuit of the path to bliss.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Emotional world and Physical world
It seems we live in two worlds - emotional world and physical world.
Physical world are the objects for which we have emotions. For example- body, parents, wife, son, siblings, friends, house, city, possessions etc.
Emotional world consists of emotions we have for the physical world, and also imaginations for its future, and pasts. The imaginations for the future would include our possible planning for the future, bracing ourselves for unexpected incidents etc.
In our journey of life through various births and deaths- it is the emotional world and its consequences (karma) which we carry along, and not the physical one. For example: When we do good to someone because of love or compassion- It is not the 'someone' who goes along with us, but the emotions of love or compassion goes along with us.
When we hate someone and want to do bad to him. It is not the 'Him' who will go along- but just the consequesnces of emotions.
Then whey do hate or love someone ---- ? It does not make sense in the world where soul in inherently detached because of no longterm attachments.
On other angle, our physical world today is manifestation of what our emotional world was in the past. When someone do good to us- it is not 'someone' who is doing good- but our Punya who is doing good. And when Punya ends, the 'someone' shows his/her bad face. And because of 'not having wisdom' we start blaming him/her, and not hold my past emotional world responsible for it. If we start our past emotional world responsible, then we would only want to go emotionalless from there.
When one understands this secret- his love and hate towards physical world starts diminishing. And therefore emotional world also starts diminishing. And the pure sublime rises, bringing endless bliss and knowledge .
Physical world are the objects for which we have emotions. For example- body, parents, wife, son, siblings, friends, house, city, possessions etc.
Emotional world consists of emotions we have for the physical world, and also imaginations for its future, and pasts. The imaginations for the future would include our possible planning for the future, bracing ourselves for unexpected incidents etc.
In our journey of life through various births and deaths- it is the emotional world and its consequences (karma) which we carry along, and not the physical one. For example: When we do good to someone because of love or compassion- It is not the 'someone' who goes along with us, but the emotions of love or compassion goes along with us.
When we hate someone and want to do bad to him. It is not the 'Him' who will go along- but just the consequesnces of emotions.
Then whey do hate or love someone ---- ? It does not make sense in the world where soul in inherently detached because of no longterm attachments.
On other angle, our physical world today is manifestation of what our emotional world was in the past. When someone do good to us- it is not 'someone' who is doing good- but our Punya who is doing good. And when Punya ends, the 'someone' shows his/her bad face. And because of 'not having wisdom' we start blaming him/her, and not hold my past emotional world responsible for it. If we start our past emotional world responsible, then we would only want to go emotionalless from there.
When one understands this secret- his love and hate towards physical world starts diminishing. And therefore emotional world also starts diminishing. And the pure sublime rises, bringing endless bliss and knowledge .
Monday, February 9, 2009
Their world is small
There seems like a rough scale associated with living beings. The scale consists of their number of senses, knowledge, time and emotions. This scale is rough because there are many exceptions to it.
As living being has a less senses, he has less knowledge, less age and specific emotions do not last longer. Their world is smaller.
For example -
1. An Ant in the kitchen has a small body and less understanding of the world around. For him the world would be where it stays and how does the food smell. Sense of hearing, and the landscape of whole house is also not known to him.
2. For a more advanced living being like a fly, the world is little bigger. He can move around and know more. His age is more, and the world gets a little bigger.
3. For a more advanced living being like a child, the world is little bigger - he has more knowledge. And for an elder human, the knoweldge is even more and has more understanding of the world and that gives them ability to have longer lasting emotions.
4. For a dev, it would be even more- as his age and knowledge is more. However the 'Dwesh emotions' are less in them, because they are in 'comfortable zone'.
As living being has a less senses, he has less knowledge, less age and specific emotions do not last longer. Their world is smaller.
For example -
1. An Ant in the kitchen has a small body and less understanding of the world around. For him the world would be where it stays and how does the food smell. Sense of hearing, and the landscape of whole house is also not known to him.
2. For a more advanced living being like a fly, the world is little bigger. He can move around and know more. His age is more, and the world gets a little bigger.
3. For a more advanced living being like a child, the world is little bigger - he has more knowledge. And for an elder human, the knoweldge is even more and has more understanding of the world and that gives them ability to have longer lasting emotions.
4. For a dev, it would be even more- as his age and knowledge is more. However the 'Dwesh emotions' are less in them, because they are in 'comfortable zone'.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Proving Mahaveer Swami was omniscient
Conversation in between two persons to find whether Mahaveer really exisited and omniscient:
Non Believer: How do we know whether Mahavir Swami really existed?
Believer: He did. People during those times saw this and passed it on to the new generations.
Non Believer: It may have happened that some one created just hype, and there was actually nobody with the name Mahavir in those times.
Believer: Just imagine if we want to do that kind of thing in current time, would we be able to do it? Lets say we want to create an imaginary person 'XYZ' and propogate around that XYZ exists. It will not be possible, since people will be able to figure it out.
And let us say we are able to succeed in propagating it, then there would be a set of people who would not agree with us without really seeing 'XYZ', and would create scriptures telling that either XYZ does not exist, or not seen by the masses. None of above things happened to Mahavir. Nobody refuted his existence. The contemporary schools of religions like Buddhism and Hindu schools accpeted his exisitence. Hence there is no question that he really existed.
Non Believer: Okay, I agree that he exisited. But how do I assure that he was omniscient.
Believer: Okay.. Let us imagine in current times a person 'ABC' who is actually not omniscient, but he himself starts propagating that he is omniscient. In that case there would be three ways people would react to it:
a. One category is people who will start worshipping him.
b. Second category is people who will outrightly reject it, and do not agree to it.
c. Third category is peope who will get curious and go to meet him to test his omniscience.
The first category of people will start following him. Second category may talk about their rejectence around- but they are not worth listening to.
The third category will meet him and test his omniscience. And if they are not satisfied, they will propogate their doubts around. And disprove his omniscience based on the facts they saw. And this way the hyprocrisy of ABC will be known. And nobody will believe 'ABC'.
With Mahavir, there was no third category who disproved his omniscience. People who came over were able to see their previous and next 7 births. And were able to get satisfactory answers to all questions.
It is not at all possible for someone, who is not omniscient, to be on the earth and claim that he is omniscient. His hypocrisy will be broken very soon. One who is on the ground, has to be omniscient in order to claim that he is omniscient.
And the most important thing is - Arihants are the only living omniscient soul who stay on the ground. In no religion other than Jainism, had the omniscient preaching on the ground. They all have messengers or God in some other form coming down to the ground.
Non Believer: How do we know whether Mahavir Swami really existed?
Believer: He did. People during those times saw this and passed it on to the new generations.
Non Believer: It may have happened that some one created just hype, and there was actually nobody with the name Mahavir in those times.
Believer: Just imagine if we want to do that kind of thing in current time, would we be able to do it? Lets say we want to create an imaginary person 'XYZ' and propogate around that XYZ exists. It will not be possible, since people will be able to figure it out.
And let us say we are able to succeed in propagating it, then there would be a set of people who would not agree with us without really seeing 'XYZ', and would create scriptures telling that either XYZ does not exist, or not seen by the masses. None of above things happened to Mahavir. Nobody refuted his existence. The contemporary schools of religions like Buddhism and Hindu schools accpeted his exisitence. Hence there is no question that he really existed.
Non Believer: Okay, I agree that he exisited. But how do I assure that he was omniscient.
Believer: Okay.. Let us imagine in current times a person 'ABC' who is actually not omniscient, but he himself starts propagating that he is omniscient. In that case there would be three ways people would react to it:
a. One category is people who will start worshipping him.
b. Second category is people who will outrightly reject it, and do not agree to it.
c. Third category is peope who will get curious and go to meet him to test his omniscience.
The first category of people will start following him. Second category may talk about their rejectence around- but they are not worth listening to.
The third category will meet him and test his omniscience. And if they are not satisfied, they will propogate their doubts around. And disprove his omniscience based on the facts they saw. And this way the hyprocrisy of ABC will be known. And nobody will believe 'ABC'.
With Mahavir, there was no third category who disproved his omniscience. People who came over were able to see their previous and next 7 births. And were able to get satisfactory answers to all questions.
It is not at all possible for someone, who is not omniscient, to be on the earth and claim that he is omniscient. His hypocrisy will be broken very soon. One who is on the ground, has to be omniscient in order to claim that he is omniscient.
And the most important thing is - Arihants are the only living omniscient soul who stay on the ground. In no religion other than Jainism, had the omniscient preaching on the ground. They all have messengers or God in some other form coming down to the ground.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Western Education and Satisfaction
Western education teaches us to optimize things. In all engineering problems, we learn how can we optimize things.
And by solving these problems we get this attitude of optimizing things in all aspects of life. And the same things happens with career also- we want to optimize life to get the best out of career and lose the family life and Dharma.
This attitude increases greed and takes us away from satisfaction, which has been an inherent element in Indian culture.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Trip to Acharya VidyaSagar
I present my trip details and learnings from my first and only visit to Acharya Shree Vidya Sagar Ji Maharaj's Sangh.
I got fortunate to have my first Darshan of my life to Acharya VidyaSagar Ji Maharaj's Sangh in Ramtek, Nagpur. I started on 14th Dec'08 in the morning from Delhi to take flight till Nagpur and then took taxi to reach Ramtek Jain temple at around 1:30 PM, where VidyaSagar Ji Maharaj was present with 40 Munis in his Sangh.
I got a room in DharamShala and then attended Acharya Shree's pravachan at 3:30. His Pravachan was towards the spiritual side, and some of highlights were as follows:
Acharya Ji's face was the most calm face I had ever seen in my life. His face was oozing out compassion for the whole world. It seemed that, if there any negative emotion would come to him, it would be like a small wave in a calm spring, which comes and vanishes in no time. For some moments I felt I can spend my whole life just looking at him.
After then I roamed around the temple to see the place, saints are staying. There were many rooms around the temple where saints were staying. And they were all crowded by people, who were asking them questions. I was trying to find someone whom I can talk to, but seemed I did not know anybody there and could not interact to anyone. To add to my misery, my cell phone roaming was not working.
I went to bed as early as 7 pm, then woke up next day. In the morning I saw the Maharaj Ji coming to take Ahaar, and Jain Shravak and Shravikas were lined up to give Ahaar to Mharaj Ji, and were full of devotion.
I visited a saint in the afternoon. He also had a background in engineering. I chatted with him on Dharma. I asked him - how good he finds sainthood. He told me that it is far less miserable than a householder life. For a householder- one misery goes, and many miseries come along; while for a saint there are no miseries. There are 2 kind of miseries- physical and mental. Mental miseries make people suffer more than physical miseries. And householders have 80% mental miseries, which are gone in sainthood. And rest physical miseries are gone by controlling emotions. Also he told me that many people only emphasize attaining knowledge. While there should be equal emphasis on to practice, which I realized I personally am lacking.
Then I roamed around and in the room there was a young man asking questions to saint about what soul is, and what is the purpose of life. I also sat close to them to listen to their talk to get some learnings. I was deeply impressed about the keenness of the young man to understand his real self, and the clarity of the saint while explaining it. After asking I learnt that the saint was in the Sangh for 33 years. Later I talked to the young man and found that he was keen on taking Brahamcharya for life.
Then I roamed around and saw the saints face full of happiness and completely stress free. And I could sense the devotion they had for Acharya Shree.
In the afternoon, Ashok Bhai and Abhaya Ji took me close to Acharya Vidyasagar maharaj Ji. And I got to touch his feet, which I had never imagined I would ever be able to. I got blessings from him to have Dharma-Vridhhi. He asked me to take care of Bhaksha-Abhaksha.
In the evening at 6 pm, I again got chance to meet Acharya Shri. Ashok Bhai took me inside where there were around 10 people. Some of them were doing his VaiyaVritii. Then some people left the room and we were 5 people in the room surrounding Acharya Ji. I was doing his VaiyaVritti. And we started asking questions - following things were discussed:
Next day I gave Ahaar to a saint. I was surprised to see he did not take any fruit. Later I was told that none of the saint is taking fruits in the Sangh, since it is expensive and one Shravak made a bad comment and they stopped taking fruit. For one mistake done by a Shravak in worshipping, Acharya took a Prayashchit to take just 10 Anjuli. And again nobody understood at that time why he was taking less Ahaar.
I left the place in the afternoon. And I was more than satisfied to visit him. I was personally thinking when I would be fortunate to become a saint, but seemed my time is too far- may be in next births. I could very well extrapolate- how Moksha state would be infinitely full of bliss, when the saints are so blissful.
pics: Please click on the pic below to view all the pictures.
I got fortunate to have my first Darshan of my life to Acharya VidyaSagar Ji Maharaj's Sangh in Ramtek, Nagpur. I started on 14th Dec'08 in the morning from Delhi to take flight till Nagpur and then took taxi to reach Ramtek Jain temple at around 1:30 PM, where VidyaSagar Ji Maharaj was present with 40 Munis in his Sangh.
I got a room in DharamShala and then attended Acharya Shree's pravachan at 3:30. His Pravachan was towards the spiritual side, and some of highlights were as follows:
- Knowing that my soul has capability of attaining KevalGyaan is Samyakgyaan.
- Do we dream of getting kevalgyaan in night?
- As a small agarbatti gives good odors to the whole room, the same way Atma has the capability to have knowledge of whole world.
- A chip is used to stabilize a rock which further is used in the foundation of a building. And people usually focus on the building, take picture of it, paint it. But nobody looks at the chip at the bottom which is an important factor in stabilizing the building.
Acharya Ji's face was the most calm face I had ever seen in my life. His face was oozing out compassion for the whole world. It seemed that, if there any negative emotion would come to him, it would be like a small wave in a calm spring, which comes and vanishes in no time. For some moments I felt I can spend my whole life just looking at him.
After then I roamed around the temple to see the place, saints are staying. There were many rooms around the temple where saints were staying. And they were all crowded by people, who were asking them questions. I was trying to find someone whom I can talk to, but seemed I did not know anybody there and could not interact to anyone. To add to my misery, my cell phone roaming was not working.
I went to bed as early as 7 pm, then woke up next day. In the morning I saw the Maharaj Ji coming to take Ahaar, and Jain Shravak and Shravikas were lined up to give Ahaar to Mharaj Ji, and were full of devotion.
I visited a saint in the afternoon. He also had a background in engineering. I chatted with him on Dharma. I asked him - how good he finds sainthood. He told me that it is far less miserable than a householder life. For a householder- one misery goes, and many miseries come along; while for a saint there are no miseries. There are 2 kind of miseries- physical and mental. Mental miseries make people suffer more than physical miseries. And householders have 80% mental miseries, which are gone in sainthood. And rest physical miseries are gone by controlling emotions. Also he told me that many people only emphasize attaining knowledge. While there should be equal emphasis on to practice, which I realized I personally am lacking.
Then I roamed around and in the room there was a young man asking questions to saint about what soul is, and what is the purpose of life. I also sat close to them to listen to their talk to get some learnings. I was deeply impressed about the keenness of the young man to understand his real self, and the clarity of the saint while explaining it. After asking I learnt that the saint was in the Sangh for 33 years. Later I talked to the young man and found that he was keen on taking Brahamcharya for life.
Then I roamed around and saw the saints face full of happiness and completely stress free. And I could sense the devotion they had for Acharya Shree.
In the afternoon, Ashok Bhai and Abhaya Ji took me close to Acharya Vidyasagar maharaj Ji. And I got to touch his feet, which I had never imagined I would ever be able to. I got blessings from him to have Dharma-Vridhhi. He asked me to take care of Bhaksha-Abhaksha.
In the evening at 6 pm, I again got chance to meet Acharya Shri. Ashok Bhai took me inside where there were around 10 people. Some of them were doing his VaiyaVritii. Then some people left the room and we were 5 people in the room surrounding Acharya Ji. I was doing his VaiyaVritti. And we started asking questions - following things were discussed:
- Soul/Body: I asked him that it is easy to understand things like motor engine, the economy of word etc. But it seems very tough how soul functions in the body.
- He answered by saying that it is very easy. He used analogy of current and bulb to explain soul and body.
- Education: He made comments on education these days. He told these days we do not have teachers, we have speakers. He told the connection extablishes when a teacher says 'Shabash' to the child, and the child reverts with respect for the teacher. This lacks in present education by speakers etc.
- Vision and television: He explained by saying Vision is 'act of seeing', and Television is something which brings things from a distance. Science is all engaged in television and not in the vision which is the property of soul- and should be focussed on.
- Telepathy: He talked about telepathy. He told that telepathy only happens to someone emotionally bound. For example, when a mother remebers her child- the child gets Hichki. He explained that Mano vragana vibration occurs by remembering the child and they strike the child and telepathy occurs.
Next day I gave Ahaar to a saint. I was surprised to see he did not take any fruit. Later I was told that none of the saint is taking fruits in the Sangh, since it is expensive and one Shravak made a bad comment and they stopped taking fruit. For one mistake done by a Shravak in worshipping, Acharya took a Prayashchit to take just 10 Anjuli. And again nobody understood at that time why he was taking less Ahaar.
I left the place in the afternoon. And I was more than satisfied to visit him. I was personally thinking when I would be fortunate to become a saint, but seemed my time is too far- may be in next births. I could very well extrapolate- how Moksha state would be infinitely full of bliss, when the saints are so blissful.
pics: Please click on the pic below to view all the pictures.
 |
| VidyaSagar Ji Sangh in Ramtek |
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Fear of Dhyaan, Bhavana
Sometimes we have fear that we should not dhyaan, or Bhavana. Because we think the intensity would be high when we do it for the first time, but as we do it continously the intensity decreases. And this is practically seen- when we do the dhyaan for the first time the intensity is high and then the intensity decreases. And sometime people conclude that this is how Dhyan mechanism works. But actually conclusion is wrong.
As we keep doing dhyaan and Bhavana, the intensity actually keeps increasing, if one has complete faith in it, and it gives immediate results. And the immediate results are seen only when one know how to do Dhyaan and Bhavana and how does it help.
For example: When one does Pindastha Dhyaan, one can notice the spiritual advantages and worldly advantages. And as he does more, he find more improvement in himself. And this motivates the Sadhak to do more. More dhyan and bhavana purifies one more, and keeps the day peaceful and calm.
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