How to face challenges?

How to face challenges?

In today’s world where we live is full of complexities. Some people take these complexities as challenges. They face it boldly and counter the same. They consider these challenges as future opportunities. They don’t get afraid and sneak away. Because of this attitude, they ultimately overcome the barriers and find out the solutions and become successful.

When we face problems in our life, either we get puzzled or we feel energized to overcome the same. Some people term these problems as evil. Though they explain it in a negative way, it is actually the negative name of a positive phenomenon. You must consider the problems as problems, but not as an evil. No sooner, you think in this fashion, it will not be difficult to challenge the problem and find out the opportunities arise out of these problems. The best course of action is to challenge any problem so as to dilute the gravity of the same using your power of intelligence.

The phenomenon can be further explained, taking the plan of creation of God. Based on this hypothesis, you can identify the intellectual difference between the human beings and the non living beings.  According to spiritual practice and its tenets on which we have faith, God has not given any choice for the non-living identities. But He has given enough intellect to human beings to have a preference of choice. Man can choose his course of actions to perform various activities. He is free to choose anything, whether good or bad.  It is this choice only creates problems, which needs to be challenged in a positive way, so that the problems can be resulted in benefits.

To challenge the obstacles, you need enough power of dedication and development. Self-development has no place in the world of non living beings as they have limited choices.  Human beings, on the other hand, are born with unlimited potentialities of self-development. This development again is not that so easy to realize. It needs a lot of deliberations, perseverance, determination and desire to achieve the goal. When human beings are exerted to live with pressure or are forced to do many things or different types of works for the purpose of survival, they understand the importance of their potentialities, which most of the time will be hidden. Due to pressure, these hidden potentialities will be converted into actualities. This is really a difficult phase of life. If you say these difficult circumstances as evil, then it is the result of lack of understanding of the natural existence.

As per law of nature, everything falls down on this planet because of gravitational force and unless the same is being faced with a challenge, this sequence will continue to remain in force. This gravitational force is one of the main reasons for our planet’s existence. This particular gravitational pull was first identified by famous physicist Isaac Newton, who revolutionized the planet’s inhabitants with his famous law of gravitation.  Before his invention, we all used to knew this as the Creator’s blessings. When an apple fell on the head of Newton, he started to analyze the cause and established the above law. 

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In reality, every one of us has unlimited capabilities.  We have tremendous potentialities lying dormant, but we are not able to activate.  The incident of falling apple could have been ignored by Newton just as a passing time. But he did not do so and the rest was history. To inflame the potentialities, we need to have a cultural shock treatment.  We must need some hard facts, which will energize us to carry out with painstaking work to arouse our potentialities. Our mind needs to be properly used, agitated positively and then put into the work of thinking deeply on any subject to get an effective output. When we pass through any type of hurdle, do introspection, find out the causes and our mind will automatically  unfold and we will be able to achieve a success path.

Let us recount the story of Mahatma Gandhi. After finishing his studies in law, he went to South Africa to practice law. He never thought that he would be a great freedom fighter one day. His mind completely got changed when he encountered one incident.  He was  to visit Pretoria and he purchased a first class train ticket and ushered into the coach.  The railway officials ordered him to vacate the place as the first class was supposed to be the seats earmarked for white people.  Gandhiji did not bulge except to find his luggage was thrown on the platform and he was also pushed out of the train. He had to bear the extremely chilled weather of the platform and ultimately, decided to come back to India and formed a group to start the freedom movement and that was the year 1920. After that, people spontaneously joined his movement with an oath to oust the British and Gandhiji became the emerging leader of the freedom movement.

It is very easy to bypass any incident treating the same as a trivial matter and just not to accept any challenge. Supposed a substance falls on our head, we may cry in pain, we may shout to the person, who has done this mischief or we may curse our luck for this happening. But if we take this fall and utilize the power of mind to act as a super mind, anything can happen in the life.  Our life is full of challenges – small, big, trivial, non-related and sometimes, even of no use to us.  But if we accept all these challenges as a new phase in life, we may achieve a great success.

Spread the love beyond the boundary

We all like to be guided by our sensual feelings. When we feel hungry, we eat to satiate our hunger.  When we feel thirsty, we drink water to quench our thirst. We study books to increase our knowledge.  We visit temples to seek God’s blessings.  We love each other to show our sympathy, compassion, bonding and sexual gratification.  All these sensual feelings give rise to various types of emotions, which is very common to all living beings.  Through these emotional feelings, we can reach other.  Supposed, a man is thirsty and you provide him a glass of water, you reach him.  In this way, we are able to connect to other human beings and then, to nature and finally, the universe.  This emotion is increased when you power, the feeling with love. With this feeling of love, you can cross any boundary, barriers, obstacles, impediments, if not physically, but mentally. Ultimately, you  create an image of universal motherhood.

 

The greatest flowering, which is possible to bloom on this earth, is love.  A red colored beautiful rose blossoms quite naturally even from a small plant. In the way flower blooms, love also sprouts in our hearts and then, expands for the good causes. Love expands to create brotherhood. Love spreads the message of compassions. It removes hatred.  It brings harmony. It provides equanimity in the society. We should encourage the spreading of love.  We should not confine this love in a boundary.  We should love each other without any expectation.  It is really encouraging to observe the power of love when the strength and beauty of two hearts emerge that love each other.  Love can be compared both with the cool freshness of the full moon and the brilliance of the sun’s rays.  Why this similarity is drawn? Because, when love extends for the purpose of showing kindness, compassion and to help others in the distance, it is as pure as the moon’s coolness.  When this same love is interpreted for bodily and sensual actions, then, the same is treated like the scorching heat of the bright sun.  When a sun ray pierces the body, giving a burning sensation; we get exhausted. In the same way, the love with impurity and ill feelings destroy us.

 

A beautiful pair of husband and wife may say, “We are living together in mutual love.” They may be often fighting, but just to show off, they pretend their love and affection for each other.  This is a gross misconception of true love.  Love is an object given to us by God.  It is free.  One can take it, utilize it and savor its fragrance like a flower.  But the pretension in love will be construed as a make-believe love. It is beyond imagination.  You cannot love anything in your imagination.  Mentally, you can dream, but if you want to love a human being, you have to do so physically.  Love can not be imagined as a fake, it is to be lived. Wearing a mask, if you pretend to love, it must be removed.  Because, when you pollute the love, it loses its purity. It only happens in the absence of humility or the spirit of compromise.  Love is such a sacred aspect that you have to think its eternal beauty with your mind.  Unless you exert your openness and embrace upon anyone or any object with your love, the same will be known as an artificial behavior. For example, if you are not really thirsty, you will not touch the bottle of water lying on your table.  On the contrary, if you are very thirsty and you happen to pass through a river, you will bend down and take some water in your hand to quench your thirst.   

 

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In the case of conjugal love, when a man and a woman are involved, it is seen that after a certain period of time, they suspect each other.  In the disguise of loving relationship, they are not able to show this behavior because the sacredness of love is missing in today’s world.  When you cast a suspicion in a loving relationship, the longevity and the health of the persons involved  will suffer. This suspicion is also a one type of disease. When someone is afflicted with this kind of disease, he or she loses the concentration power to listen to the other person’s opinion thoroughly. An antagonizing feeling is being developed in the mind of the person.  In that case, the feeling of love will be less and the feeling of hatred will be more.  In this type of behavior, the relationships are destroyed.  Despite all these odds, we have not lost love forever.  By any chance, if love fades away, the world will be nothing less than a battlefield. Love exists  always in every person.  Simply, we have to inflame this for the better relationship.  We can never allow love to get extinguished.  We must ensure the importance of love.  We must respect, worship and show our faith in a divine power.  This power is not extrinsic; it is intrinsically developed within yourself.  If we want to discover this power, you must practice the same relentlessly. So, we have to spread love all over the surrounding.  To spread the power of love, we need to adjust our perspectives.  For example, while writing something on a paper, we focus on our thoughts, but not on the paper or the pen.  These papers and pen are the media only; the perspective is to write exercising the power of our thoughts.

 

 

Today, we live in an artificial world.  We give more emphasis on the artificial activities and follow cut short in every affair. The definition of humanity is brought down to the level of insincerity. Men and women have lost the power to provide the real cause of life and its sustainability.  They completely forget the fundamental reason that life is love. When we read, we must focus our attention to grasp what the words and its juxtaposition want to convey.  We must also know the fact that the paper, on which the words are written, is the substratum. In the same way, all of us, including our next generation must recognize the fact that the life’s core message is love.  Once this feeling of brotherhood is established, all afflictions will disappear and everyone will live in peace.

 

 

 

Why we so often incline to godmen?

India is a place where people follow many religions and sometimes they fight with each other on these issues. You visit any house, you will find either the photos or the idols of Gods and Goddesses.  Traditionally, every home has a small temple, every street corner has a medium sized temple and in some places, you will find a full fledged temple with crowd stand in queue to see their preferred Gods or Goddesses. Every family has a Kula Devta and mostly every important events of our life is governed by God. Apart from this, there will be various festivals to celebrate doing fasting and performing pujas so as to get the blessings of Gods and Goddesses. In fact, we are so obsessed with the power of divinity that we  greet each other on the streets, addressing in the name of “Hare Krishna” or “Ram-Ram” or “Radhe- Radhe.” In some places of India, of course, we simply smile or nod saying “Namaskar.” Broadly, the Hindu civilization is based on God-centric. If we discuss the details of the Vedic period, we find of Agni, Vayu, Surya and Marut and we used to perform all types of Yagnas for fulfillment of our wishes and also to bring solace to our families and other members. 

In the mythological scriptures, namely Upanishads, which teaches us to search the discovery of truth. Through this discovery of truth, we are able to find our inward contemplation.  Of course, not all of us are in a position to ascertain this fact, because this requires a bit of Sadhna and meditation. With the turn of the millennium, we have the Puranas, which provide the description of anthropomorphic Gods and get ourselves divided based on the belief to Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, Ganesha and Surya. Each person has accepted any of these Gods or Goddess and start performing Pujas and chanting hymns in their names. Then we bring in the semi-gods like Kubera and Kama and the celestial beings like Gandharvas and Kinnaras. Thereafter, we have the period of many sages and pious persons whom we respect almost as Gods because of their power. These sages were gifted with the vision and they brought the various truths closer to us. Despite the plethora of godmen, our belief in Gods and Goddesses remain intact. We turn to our God to solve all our problems and we turn to them in awe and veneration. We feel God only could  control our lives. 

The culture of this period was full of religious fervor.  Buddha, Mahavira, Bharata and Panini used to teach us the philosophy of life.  Their teachings used to enlighten the morality of people. They believed in a loving relationship.  Against this backdrop of the post-Vedic period, the modern India is getting spoiled because of fragmented traditional values, cultural shocks based on groups with respect to caste, religion, race and socio-constraints. The economic disparity is another reason for determination of traditional values.  In modern India, we are afflicted with various types of sufferings; we have more pains and less delight and that too also artificial.  We have sorrow rather than serenity. There is more uncertainty and less certainty today.  Because of this, we are forced to search for gurus to relieve our anxieties.  We hope that our gurus will guide us to grow in a more balanced way.  We start to think that the Gods are like a metaphor of idols and images, whereas the gurus are persons with whom we can interact meaningfully. The various types of Gods provide us a contemplation to convert a particular form to the formless and churn our minds to consider stillness. 

Godmen and godwomen very rightly understand this psyche and invite people with a hug and a beautiful smile.  Some of them offer mantras after making them as their disciples.  Some other godmen entices  them  and  say them to perform different ambiguous practices.

Precisely,that is the reason, we run to  these gurus.When they are not able to satisfy our desires and make us feel that they cannot  take  the roles of God,we again rush to the temples to seek the blessings of Gods and Goddesses. So, our Gods have never failed us, we are not able to understand the so-called charismatic power of these gurus, which is a momentary consolation. God is omnipotent, omniscient and He will protect us always. Is there any need to incline for these godmen?  

How to show an attitude of gratitude?

Gratitude is one of the essential traits that you must express to the person who is instrumental in your growth. In reality, many people forget to show their gratitude wholeheartedly to the other person. They think what is the big deal?  For example, you are very thirsty after returning back to your office from an outdoor work.  The office boy hands over a glass of water and you quench your thirst. Instead of telling a word of “thank you”, you simply return the glass. The other person, the office boy, of course, does not expect, but if you offer a simple appreciation, it shows your attitude of gratitude.  This gratitude must emanate from the heart. You may even express through your gesture.  Remember one thing, just for the purpose of expressing gratitude, you should not do; you must express with sincerity. In our daily interactions, we all utter words and show gestures, but mostly in a casual manner. By expressing gratitude in a casual way, you are not only disregarding the other person’s service, but also you are showing your pride of superiority complex. This gratitude is a power of expression of any human being.  When you become grateful to a person for his help, you tend to be loyal to him throughout your life. You do your best to show respect to him, hear his advices, follow his path of living and emulate him. All these things are done by you out of your respect. You develop a gratitude for him.

This gratitude is a basic human emotion deeply rooted in all of us. It is required to have a conducive relationship within the family, society and friend circles. You may be knowing that there is a day earmarked as “World Gratitude Day,” and on this day, we are supposed  to call upon  to show gratitude to others as we are mostly selfish and  want to be always busy in our own state of affairs. It is altogether a different aspect whether we celebrate this day or not, but God, the supreme power, wants all of us to follow this behavior. 

We live in a world where the outlook of people completely rests on selfishness. We even don’t show gratitude to our parents, our teachers and even our well wishers who is contributing incessantly in our growth.  Shakespeare had explained the critical nature of ingratitude in his famous play “King Lear” when the two daughters of the old king did not bother to show any gratitude to their father even. There are end numbers of instances where people become ungrateful to their well wishers.  Even today, we have always shied away to recognize the help of other persons, even after availing the same. Not only we fail to recognize, but also we malign them, if any chance comes. This is our nature. We are advancing in technologies, we have learned operating many new gadgets and we become prosperous in information technology, but we are yet to get the mastery in the art of showing gratitude. What could be the reason that makes us so ingratitude?  The basic reason is that we are very much egoistic. We feel if we show gratitude to the people who has done good things for us, we are downgrading ourselves in his eyes and then to the society. The other persons who have benefited us will take the upper hand. So, we find out a shelter of ungrateful and we escape through that route. Not only that, we also find fault of those persons, who earlier helped us. Vidyasagar, the great academician when heard that someone had abused him, he simply said, “I do not remember to have benefited him in any way; why should he speak ill of me?” Vidyasagar though helped many people in various ways, but never expected any gratitude in return.  He knew that today someone would show gratitude, but on the very next day, the same person would criticize him.  This is the nature of human being in general.

When Jesus Christ obtained the divine power of healing, he cured 10 leapers at the time when leprosy was an incurable disease.  Out of these ten patients, nine left  without even thanking him. Only one person waited to express his thanks to Jesus. When Jesus inquired of him what the reason of his waiting is, he simply replied, “To thank you for divine healing.” Jesus then said with all his humility, “Don’t thank me, thank God, because His healing power has worked through me.”  This is a glaring example, that we should not hope to get  gratitude from others in return of our services At the same time, whenever the opportunity arrives, you must show gratitude after accepting the help of the other persons. In general, most of us, because of our tradition and culture, express gratitude to our superiors either through words or gestures. We also show love for animals. We often show gratitude through gesture to inanimate objects from which we get the benefits.  There are many examples of our tradition in India to show respect to a cow as Gomata and rivers as mothers and mountains as fathers. In some parts of the country, we even consider trees and plants as deities. We treat these non-living beings as  respected entities and we worship them with great reverence.  All these  expressions are a part of our gratitude for something from whom we get benefits regularly or periodically.

Let us show our gratitude whenever possible and in whatever way it suits each other.  The gratitude is one of the major traits of human beings, which we seldom show, but it must be expressed abundantly.  

Spread the love beyond the boundary

We are all guided by our sensual feelings. When we feel hungry; we eat to satiate our hunger.  When we feel thirsty, we drink water to quench our thirst. We study books to increase our knowledge.  We visit temples to seek God’s blessings.  We love each other to show our sympathy, bonding and sexual gratification.  All these sensual feelings give rise to various types of emotions, which is very common to all living beings.  Through these emotional feelings, one reach others. Supposed, a man is thirsty and you provide him a glass of water, you reach him. In this way, we  connect to other human beings and then to nature and finally in the universe. This emotion is increased when we attach the same with  the feeling of of love. And, with this feeling, you can cross any boundary, barriers, obstacles, impediments, if not physically, but mentally. Ultimately, you can create an image of universal motherhood.

The greatest flowering which is possible to bloom on this earth, is love.  A red colored beautiful rose blossoms quite naturally from its  plant and provides an aesthetic beauty. In the way flower blooms, love also sprouts in our hearts and when expands for the good causes, all seems to be happy. Love spreads the message of compassions. It removes hatred. It brings harmony. It provides equanimity in the society. We should encourage the spreading of love. We should not confine this love in a boundary. We should love each other without any expectation.  It is really encouraging to observe the power of love when the strength and beauty of two hearts commiserate at ease. Love can be compared both with the cool freshness of the full moon and the brilliance of the sun’s rays. Why this similarity is drawn? Because, when love extends for the purpose of showing kindness, compassion and to help others who are in distress, it is as pure as the moon’s coolness.  When this same love is interpreted for bodily and sensual actions, then the same is treated like the scorching heat of the bright sun. As the sun ray pierces the body, giving a burning sensation and make us exhausted; in the same way the love with impurity and ill feelings destroy us.

A beautiful pair of husband and wife may say, “We are living together in mutual love.” They may be often fighting with each other, but just to show affinity, they pretend their love and affection for each other. This is a gross misconception of true love. Love is an object given to us by God. It is free. One can practice, utilize  and savor its fragrance like a flower. But when it is not from the heart, it is construed as a make-believe love. The pure and sincere love is beyond imagination. You cannot love anything in your imagination. That is fantasy. Mentally, you can dream, but if you want to love a human being or any other non-living beings, you have to do so physically either by expression or by your feelings.  Love can not be imagined as a fake.  It is life itself.  Wearing a mask, if you pretend to love, it must be removed.  Because, when you pollute the love, it loses its purity. It only happens in the absence of humility or the spirit of compromise. Love is such a sacred aspect that you have to think its  beauty with your mind.  Unless you exert your openness and embrace anyone or any object with your love, the same will not be treated as an artificial matter. For example, if you are not really thirsty, you will not touch the bottle of water lying on your table.  On the contrary, if you are very thirsty and you happen to pass through a river, you will bend down and take some water in your hand to quench your thirst. 

In the case of conjugal love, when a man and a woman are involved in any type of cordial relationship initially, it is seen that after a passage of time, they start suspecting each other.  In the disguise of loving relationship, they pretend  and  show disrespect to the sacredness of love, which is either way is missing in today’s world. When you cast a suspicion in a loving relationship, the longevity and the health of the persons involved  suffer. This suspicion is also a one type of disease. When someone is afflicted with this kind of disease, he or she loses the concentration power to listen to the other person’s opinion thoroughly. An antagonizing feeling is being developed in the mind of the person.  In that case, the feeling of love will be less and the feeling of hatred will be more. The relationship will be destroyed. Despite all these odds, we have not lost love forever.  By any chance, if love is only fading away momentarily, the situation can be revived in the course of time. But if it is lost forever, the world will be nothing less than a battlefield. Love exists for every person. We must inflame the same to maintain a for  good purpose.  We can never allow love to get extinguished.  We must respect, worship and show our faith in a divine power. This power is not extrinsic; it is  to be felt intrinsically. If we want to discover this power, we have to spread love all over our circle. To spread the power of love, we need to adjust our perspective.  For example, while writing something on a paper, we focus on our thoughts, but not on the paper or the pen because  these papers and pens are the media only; the main  perspective is to write exercising the power of our thoughts.

Today, we live in an artificial world.  We give more emphasis on the artificial activities and follow cut short in every affair. The definition of humanity is brought down to the level of insincerity. Men and women have lost the power of sincerity to provide the real cause of life and its sustainability.  They completely forget the fundamental reason that life is love. When we read, we should focus our attention to grasp what the words and its juxtaposition want to convey.  We must also know the fact that the paper, on which the words are written, is the substratum. In the same way, all of us  and our next generation must recognize the fact that the life’s core message is love. Once this theory is established, all afflictions will disappear and everyone will live in peace. There should not be any boundary. We have to consider love  like a sea; nobody knows from where it starts and ends.