Tuesday 25 June 2013

As if Mother Nature did this deliberately, angrily, ferociously !!

A place, whose significance was due to the fact that Pandavas performed penance here to be relieved of sins of massacre, and to please Lord Shiva who was upset with them for being the reason for the bloodbath that happened in the war of Mahabharata, that place has today in itself become the reason of one of the deadliest massacre. This cannot be without purpose. This is some kind of signal or reprimand for sure. Was this nature’s way of telling us to see the Supreme in nature and naturalness? 


One of the holiest places in India today has turned into the scariest place. A place where thousands of people gather every year to pray, they come with faith and love. The aura, the vibrations, energy around that place and the atmosphere there is supposed to be so tranquil. On the main gates of the temple where the devotees stand with folded hands full of devotion is today full of corpses of those devotees.  It was as if Mother Nature was angry with us and this is how she showed her fury and punished us. But how can a Mother be so cruel to her own children?

We had seen such type of calamity some time back in Allahabad during Kumbh Mela. And every year we get to hear the news of people dying in such holy places or on the way to such places, due to stampede, due to accidents etc, but this time it wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a stampede, it was not due to a human error, as we always tell ourselves and move ahead. It was as if Mother Nature did this deliberately, angrily, ferociously.
There are some questions that come up in my mind every time I hear any such incident and this time they have become louder.  Is there something seriously wrong in our religious practices? Is the Mother Nature unhappy with us? This time has she sent a direct signal and big and evident one by blowing away one of the biggest sacred places? Is this a question we should put on our beliefs? Is the Mother Nature unhappy with the abuse done to her for our selfish motives?
I believe a Mother can get this furious only when something very wrong is being done to her children or by her children. We are all her children,   Was she fed up with our degraded morality? Was she fed up with our demands of trivial worldly things from her, was she fed up of our sleeping conscience and insensitivities towards her and towards each other?  Murders, rapes, and deceptions all such heinous crimes are prevalent and dominant in our society; and with all this we contaminate her sacred home, which is not just confined to few places but it is the entire earth.  We must know the nature to be the manifestation of Supreme, respect it, love it and preserve it. Efforts should be to make environment we live in as ‘sacred’ through our thoughts and actions. Imagine if each home is like temple and one can feel love and austerity in every home. We won’t need to travel to other places in search of divinity. Holy places are those places where someone with good deeds and steady mind realized the ultimate truth; they felt the presence of Supreme there. The energies at those places are of course divine, but we need to prepare our self to be able to receive and benefit from such a place eternally.  And not just go and ask for some worldly gain. That would in true sense be pilgrimage.  Those people who suffered and died are just the victim of the collective immorality, irresponsibility and insensitivity of the society. It’s high time we learn our lessons.

And last thing that I would like to tell all the reporters on Television who are now going there and coming up with the sensational news headline that – It’s a Miracle Look at the Strength of Lord even such a calamity could not destroy his idols- the idols are intact, the inside of the temple is damage less.  For God sake just think before thinking and calling this as a Miracle. This cannot be God’s way of showing strength or power. God cannot so self-absorbed to protect its own sculpture and let his devotees die.

Sunday 2 June 2013

Life is a matter of time and lifetime a function of choices


Time is eternal, it is forever and it is expiring every moment; we relate to it as past, present & future. Every past has had a past, present and future of its own and every future will have a present, a past and a future. We cannot live in past and future. We can only live in present. Every past was a present at a point in time and every future will become present at some point in time. The present that we are living in is becoming past every moment. Past is thus certain, hard-coded and gone by, we can’t live it again. So the past is determined by present. The future is uncertain, unknown and mysterious. The only future that is certain is that at the end of it the lifetime of a person has to become the collection of pasts.  While past is decided at the very moment by the choices we make in the present, does our choices, actions and deeds in the present also have an effect on the future?
At all moments in the present we are made available with choice, choice of right and wrong. You choose right, it goes by becomes the right past and a new present is available with another set of choice. But what if chosen wrong, the moment still goes by becomes the past but the same choice is again sure to show up in another present to make the right choice. So in a sense it slows us down, it becomes a hindrance in our evolvement. Because every present raises a new situation that helps us to learn something new and necessary for our evolvement as humans and until we have learned to make the right choice in that situation it tends to show up again; sometimes in a tougher form to kind of compel us to make the right choice and move on. This is called learning the hard way. This is what is referred to as samskara in sacred text. In other words backlogs. Thus time is teacher and life is a school.


Life is thus a sequence of events happening over a period of time. Albert Einstein said – “Time exists only because all cannot happen at once” which means time is a function of occurrence of events in the space and it is only relevant as long as events occur and statuses change. Imagine a world where nothing changes, everything is static and is going to be as is forever. No activity in the subtlest and grossest level of universe. In that scenario there is no time, no relevance of time; because there is no discrete past, present and future. But in the real world universe is ever evolving, nothing is static any moment and thus the time is never static, is always moving. We all get a window of this time for our life on earth. The window starts at birth and ends at death. Events that occur in between constitute lifetime.
The time window is not in our control. But the will power and consciousness given to us is to make the right choices and control occurrence of events. The only way to perfect a lifetime is to perfect the present. A series of well spent presents over the time becomes a well lived lifetime.  We may think what is the objective to identify right or wrong when we know that at the end of the day all this is going to be a thing of past. Neither right will be there nor wrong. Being a thing of past would it still effect anything  or anyone.
The right and wrong is differentiated on the basis of effect it has on others. The right is that which maintains balance & harmony among all the players , the one that disrupts it and disturbs other players is wrong. Everyone's  responsibility in the given life time is to help others in their purpose. A lifetime spent in accordance and cognizance of this fact becomes an example for future. Other Players get inspired, they try to understand such a life, imbibe and thus contribute to the overall harmony. The lives of special personalities which are somewhat depicted in our sacred texts are examples of such a lifetime.


To Conclude--Time is forever but a lifetime is certain to cease. The complexity to the lifetime is because of our incomplete unconsciousness or lack of complete consciousness. Life after all is a matter of time. And in the words of the greatest ever  scientist and visionary Albert Einstein—Time is an illusion !!!