Life and Spirituality

I n a companion blog, I described the story of a friend from college – Alok Sagar – who after a great education, a doctorate in Engineering from Rice University in USA and a faculty job suddenly dropped it all, to take to the forests as a hermit and began service to forest Tribals, wild life and forests of Central India. He is now known as Maharishi Alok a title of great respect for the spiritual and the educated. In the comments to that post a family friend expressed disappointment and said the family had tried to convince him not to take that road. Good men and women of the world strive to succeed in their worldly careers and serve their families through that success while reserving a portion of their time, effort and money to serve the world, others in need, quietly, anonymously whenever possible for a deed of compassion does not emerge from a desire for worldly rewards. However, the saintly serve the world instead. Buddha and Jesus abandoned their families (although a...

A s a step towards peace and happiness, humans seek many different things. Some of these are - wealth, health, fame, beauty, ability, worldly education, education of life etc. A few achieve excellence in one or more areas. For the moment, let us confine our attention to two prominent acquisitions - wealth and wisdom. There are examples in human history when a few individuals attained excellence in both. Two famous examples of this are - King Solomon the Wise and King Rama of Asian prehistory. However both were godly personalities. More often, among humans we find persons have attained either great wealth or much wisdom but not both. Examples of wealthy persons in modern times are the billionaires of the world. Examples of excellence in wisdom are a series of saints and hermits through human history. These latter have shown the way to other humans when they were in distress. While wealthy persons have fine jewels, clothes from leading designers, fine mansions with expen...

The God Matrix S ome believe ardently in God, others do not believe and there are those who are unsure or too busy at the moment to bother about the question just now. Each human has his or her own understanding of what God means and therefore a detailed discussion must begin with clarifying what one means by God, nevertheless when speaking of God all understand it as a higher Almighty power that has huge, even infinite powers to influence our lives, those of others as well as all large or small events in the universe. Without discussing the question of existence of God, without agreeing or disagreeing with those who believe or do not believe, let us consider where our position lands us. It is simple logic that even a child can understand and it is summarized in the table. The point the table illustrates is that even if one does not know yet if God exists or not and one has no sure proof of it either way, it is a beneficial position to believe in God because then o...

Castles in the sand T here was beautiful seaside sand around Johnny’s home and Johnny loved to get to it and build beautiful castles. Often times his mother would have to come out and say, “Johnny your castles are very nice, but please don’t not spend so much time on them, your papa says, spend some time in studying your school books too, that is what will last in the long run, these are castles in the sand, they will be swept away with the first tide.” Johnny would often respond, “ I don’t believe a word of what papa says,” continuing with play until it became too dark to continue. Humans too spend a lot of time building homes, family, career, skills, wealth etc. and if someone with a spiritual bent of mind comes along and says, “Dear friend, your works are very nice, but please don’t spend so much time on them, The saints and prophets say, spend some time with God and  your soul, that is what will last in the long run, these are castles in the sand, t...

  Sant Dashrath of Gehlaur (Dashrath Manjhi, 1934 - 2007) W hile India is famous for ancient esoteric yoga knowledge and leading mystic lights of humanity such as Buddha and Gandhi, the situation and state of the general population in modern times is far from the lives of saints that inhabited the land. While India boasted in the past of leading international universities like Nalanda that were the light of the   ancient world even as Harvard and Princeton are today, the less said of its modern universities the better. And on the street chaos rules. From remnants of ancient education people still keep their bodies and homes clean, but they pick the garbage and many throw it on the street outside. When they visit a market or office, instead of parking their vehicles in an orderly fashion, they leave it anywhere in a random manner so that disorder is the order of the day. If there is a hole in the road, few will venture out to fill it or remove some obstructio...

Jose Mujica on his farm W hile democracy has spread across the world,  many politicians are not regarded very highly by the population at large in several countries. Several are seen as working for their own interests or to protect the interests of a vested minority and sing the song of the one percent. However on this scene there is a clear exception. He is Jose Mujica, the President of Uruguay, a politician who is loved by his people. José Mujica has been President of Uruguay since 2010. Mujica was born on 20 May 1935 to Demetrio of Basque Spanish ancestry and Lucy, a daughter of Italian immigrants. Mujica's father was a small farmer who faced bankruptcy. At a time when many world leaders impose austerity on their citizens, Mujica himself maintains a simple and austere lifestyle. He has been described as the world's poorest president due to his austere lifestyle.  Yet in his heart he regards himself as the richest and most fortunate of human beings. The joy ...