In sickness and health...

Shambhu was a poor farmer who owned a very small piece of land in the Vidharbha region (present day Maharastra). He and his wife Prema toiled day and night to grow food grains to sustain themselves and to take care of their two year old toddler Karna. Those were tough times but hard work and good amount of rain kept them afloat and content with their lives.

The following year a prolonged drought affected the kingdom. Shambhu had  sown the seeds into the earth and waited in vain for weeks. All the stored food was soon over. Everyone in the village had the same story. Everyone was surviving on meager meals. A month later the couple became week, they eyes sank like dark pits behind their cheek bones. The toddlers ribs could be counted from a distance. They were all desperate for food and water. They prayed deeply for respite.The last well in the village dried out, to walk several miles to the next source was getting increasing difficult for his weak body. The toddler was losing his consciousness and mother cried in anguish.

Frustrated and helpless he ran out into the parched fields and yelled at his merciless God who was watching them and his helpless child die a slow painful death. He cursed with deep pain and asked his God to take him first if he is so keen on taking a life.
After dusk they went to bed hungry, starving and staring at the thatched roof with hollow sleepless eyes. He murmured a quiet apology through his lips.
That night dark clouds gathered in the area, it rained and it poured. The villager's heart were lifted with hope. They rejoiced to see puddles of water in their fields the following morning. Within days the seeds sprouted like hungry infants seeking their mother's milk. In a few weeks green crops were standing on their fields. There was promise of abundant food again. They regained their health and admired their toddler who ran around the fields with gusto.

However, the out-pour continued incessantly, even after the rainy season. The earth was filled and saturated; and the water level started to pool around their homes. Soon the entire village was flooded. Shambhu's little mud house was soon submerged halfway. The family took shelter on the roof. Again looking at his terrified wife and child. He yelled at God for being so cruel.
This time he heard it loud and clear.

" Shambhu when everything was fine you did not remember me, then came the drought and you prayed day and night for water, so I gave you water. Then you forgot me again, now sitting on top of your submerged home you remember me again?"
" Why cant you remember me when you are sad and when you are happy. When times are good and when times are bad."

Shambhu was not sure whether he actually heard it or he was simply delirious from exhaustion.
He promised from that moment on  he would remember his Vitahala (form of Lord Krishna that he worshiped as his supreme deity)  before all good things in his life.

Next morning the water receded and the family survived. Everything went back to normal. Shambhu prayed before the beginning of his day and at its end. He prayed before his first morsel of every meal thanking the supreme provider for that meal. Several years of fulfillment drifted past. Their son grew up and helped his father in the field. One day hungry after a long day of work in the field, he put a morsel of food in his mouth without thanking God. He was filled with regret and disgust at his own weak nature. He left the house immediately to repent for his forgetfulness.

In the forest he sat in a cave and vowed never to eat again. How could he forget his Vithala his savior, protector and provider. He went hungry for days. He cried incessantly out of love for his Vithala asking for forgiveness. One night in the dark forest he saw a bright figure in golden light walking towards him with a platter full of tastiest and fragrant food towards him. It was none other but Vithala himself who could not see his devotee go hungry. He sat before Shambhu who was overwhelmed with joy, he wept in ecstasy. Vithala fed him food with his own hands. Through his tears he heard Vithala speak " Shambu I cannot see my devotee go hungry, your love called me from the heaven to come down and feed you. Shambhu dont love me so much, I have so many of my children to take care of. I cannot go and feed all of them"
As Shambhu laughed, Vithala melted back into the forest.

Gratitude for what we have is our biggest prayer to God. Our love for our creator can compel him to come to us and show us that he cares about us more than we can ever know. He is watching over us through good and bad times and filling us with his love and light every moment.

"Dukh Mein Simran Sab Kare, Sukh Mein Kare Na Koye
Jo Sukh Mein Simran Kare, Tau Dukh Kahe Ko Hoye." -Kabir Amritwani.

While suffering everyone prays and Remembers Him, in joy no one does
If one prays and remembers Him in happiness, why would sorrow come?- Saint Kabirdas


The suffering we experience in this world are designed to wake us up. We are awake when we realize God. If we remember God in our happy times, then we can not experience suffering.Because in difficult times the divine presence in our being makes all the suffering remain only on the surface while inside we  are wrapped up in bliss and joy. Cocooned in his love and mercy.

 

Surrender the mind.

Hope is an antidote to despair; a medicine of the divine healer to keep ourselves prepared for what is coming. The frustration and grief accumulated in the present moment takes away our capacity to create a beautiful future for ourselves. It clouds our hearts and binds ourselves to a repetitive loop of sadness and multiplicity of similar occurrences. Simply because we allow our fears to blindfold ourselves. We cannot see the beauty, the fulfillment that awaits us. It restrains us from following the divine plan.

There are two choices a human being can make in the course of different good and bad events of his life. One is to take charge, believe that we are responsible for setting everything right, to create happiness and fulfillment for ourselves. By allowing ourselves the delusion that we are the doers.  The cause and creation of all events in our lives. It gives us the power to exercise our will and direct the circumstances of our life. It has several disadvantages, primary disadvantage being the limitation of the mind to truly grasp the cause behind our circumstances and thereby creating any random effect because of the choices that we are making.

The other choice is rather simple, in fact too simple for us to believe, accept and to act in accordance with it. That is to follow the divine plan that is essentially designed to see us through the misery and pain into the realm of joy and consciousness. When we understand that all events good or bad ( which is again just a perception of our mind) are in fact created according to the divine plan. It is up to us to accept, learn from such circumstances and trust the divine to see us through both. 

When we remember to remember the divine in our happy moments, it prepares us to go in a similar manner towards facing hardships, loss, sadness or grief. It helps us to accept what our karmas have generated and put before us as these challenges that we must overcome and rise above. Happier times and circumstances would follow as a natural course.

Everything is cyclical in this universe,  birth follows death and death follows the birth, they are inseparable. Similarly happiness follows grief and grief follows happiness. They are both a certainty, the only thing that is changeable in this arrangement is our choice. When we accept hardships as a part of the bigger plan to resolve the imprints of our past actions from our consciousness; we accept it with open arms  and what follows seems more like floating above the circumstances rather then allowing those severe circumstances to drown us in fear and despair.

Choice is always ours, to accept that everything happens for a good reason and trust that the divine force that is testing our mettle through these hardships would make sure that we are not lost in our own darkness.

Every dark cloud has a silver lining and all silver linings exist to define the dark clouds. It up to us to focus of the light that envelops the darkness or to be lost in the darkness by forgetting that there is ought to be light surrounding the darkness.

The Sugar-coated Truth.

Once there was a beautiful girl called Parvati. She was an innocent effervescent being who loved  playing in the mango orchards all day with her friends.

 Rabbits, koyals and monkeys were her friends. She talked little with her human companions and more with the trees, clouds and animals.

One day an old fakir was passing through the village, he saw the little girl in a deep and animated conversation with a mango tree. It made him smile instantaneously. The girl reminded him of the beauty and simplicity of his childhood. 

How he valued and loved all forms of life. He decided that this girl deserves to stay in this blissful innocent state for the rest of her life. 

He walked upto her and offered her an enchanted orange. The girl remembered her mother telling her not to accept gifts from strangers. Though she understood that fakir's intentions were good, she refused his offer. Fakir shrugged his shoulders thinking atleast he tried.

The girl thought about what happened in the day, she decided to talk to the fakir the next morning and accept the orange that she had refused earlier. Fakir waited for her the next day by the orchards and gave her a little peanut instead of an orange. Again because she was conditioned not to demand things from people she gratefully accepted what he offered. When she ate that small peanut she felt the taste of the sweetest candy filling her mouth. She desired more for that taste, so the next day she waited there for the old fakir. Sure enough he showed up ready with another peanut. 

Days and months passed by, this game continued. Her elder siblings and friends got married one by one and started their own families. Whereas Kaashi desired nothing more than the taste of that enchanting peanut. She cared little about food, clothes or jewels. Her parents finally decided to get her married to a nice boy from a nearby village. She did not protest, the only question that weighed on her mind was what will happen to her fakir and will she be able to live without the everlasting sweet taste of those candies.

She migrated to her new home. Kaashi and her husband laughed, played and enjoyed their domesticity for a few years. Soon something started to gnaw at her being, she missed the fakir and those enchanted peanuts. All she longed for was the deepest truest sweetness that filled her being. She felt more and more empty by the day till she could not take it anymore. She fell severely sick; local healers and vaidhyas could not diagnose the disease that afflicted her. 

Finally the boy's family decided to send her back to her parents. When she reached home her parents were heartbroken to see their vibrant child in that state. She felt better being back under her parents care but she missed her fakir and those candies. She inquired from everyone but nobody had seen him in years. She sighed as she resigned to her fate;  a life without that sweetness.

That night in her dreams fakir showed up, they chatted about old times. Then she asked the fakir about those candy peanuts. He laughed and said there were no peanuts ever. What he offered her was a glimpse of the sweetness of divine. Just a glimpse a day! And she was so hooked that she yearned for the divine, that deep love, she missed it so much that it made her sick with longing.

 It dawned on Kaashi, 'what he said was true he always asked her " Are you hungry child?" When she said "yes". He would touch her forehead and offer her the peanut. The sweetness was never in those peanuts, they could be bought a dime a dozen from anywhere. The deepest fragrant sweetness that blossomed into her, came through the touch that conveyed the divine samadhi  of the Fakir to her. Peanut was just an illusion. She understood the secret and smiled. She took the old fakir blessings and thanked him for helping her to retain the memory of the divine in her being all those years. It was so effortless she thought!

She started her inner journey from that moment onwards. Everything else was unrolling as divine will before her eyes thereafter. All the external circumstances and relationships appeared like a divine play to her. She witnessed, indulged, laughed, played and smiled till she found the right moment to drop the cocoon to join the ever-flowing bliss.

The Phoenix of the Forest.

On the outskirts of the village of Samastipur there was deep dark forest full of dangerous animals. The villagers would even hear tigers distant roars and hyenas laughing in the dark hours of the night. People were afraid to leave their homes after dusk, except one man. His names was Pala, after his mother passed away from prolonged illness his only living relative was his little brother who was brutally tortured to death by a local landowner. His brother worked as an unpaid slave. He died of hunger and overexertion because the landowner refused to give him food.

Pala worked as a woodcutter in the forest. Overtime he became familiar with different pathways leading to rich corners of the kingdom. Sometime he would see opulent wedding procession  passing by. Glittering with gold and diamonds, loaded with all kinds of rich fruits and sweets. It made him feel anguish when he would remember his little brother's shriveled face when he found him, after slogging for months in the forest collecting and selling wood to gather enough money to buy freedom for his brother. 

He left the village experiencing apathy and disapproval from the known faces of his childhood and found his home in the jungle. His anger and frustration with the world grew manifold. Hatred brewed in his veins for years. His inner being hardened  to the beauty of life. He felt almost no connection to life there was not a drop of joy left in his soul. He transformed from a vulnerable and trusting young man to a vengeance seeking sociopath.

He started to terrorize the passers-by with his angry shouting and attempts to attack them with an axe. He developed a reputation of the most dreaded being in the forest. Now he would loot and rob the rich merchants, their wedding processions and hack the bodies of his victims in the most cruel way. Each blow accounting for the cruelty the world bestowed on him. He would crush their heads under boulders and chop of their fingers. He wore the fingers of his victims as garlands around his neck. Soon he came to be known as the dreaded decoit Angulimala ( one who wears garland of fingers). He did not care about the money and jewellery that he robbed from people. All he wanted was to hack and kill, more violence he unleashed on others more hateful he became. Hatred and vengeance became his reason to live. He lived to hate and spew his poison on anyone who crossed his path. His area became marked as the most dangerous zone in the region and was duly avoided by one and all. 

An old monk was about to take that route one morning. The guards warned him and tried to dissuade him from risking his life. The monk gave a radiant smile and said "To me life and death are the same I am beyond both now, they are both beautiful and full of bliss. It is immaterial to me if my fate goes either ways." The guards shrugged their shoulders in disbelieve and let the monk follow his path.

As he came closer to Angulimaal's territory smell of death and rotten flesh hit his senses. He almost felt the forest being angry at the perpetrator for this savagery. Fighting this wave of repulsion he moved further. Now he could sense the deep anger and hatred that reeked through the decoit's body.

He heard his footsteps following him, first out of an impulse to hunt all humans that ever crossed his path, then out of curiosity towards the one who had the courage to face him, the one who is known as death himself!

He mocked the monk "You cant find peace so you came in search of violence".

The monk said "I did, that is why I am here to give it to you.You almost seem belittled Angulimaal! that I am not scared of you."

Offended but intrigued Angulimaal retorted " I think you don't have any peace in you that why you have come to be killed and leave this world because it is irrelevant for you to live neither do you have the pleasures of the world nor do you have inner peace".

The monk calmly replied I can prove it to you that I do have inner peace, if I fail you can butcher me right here at this very spot into a 100 pieces and wear which ever part of the carcass around your neck."

Angulimaal fell for the bait, he agreed, but on the condition that the Monk cannot touch him or try to give him a sermon about peace. Apparently he gave a death sentence to many a fake sadhus who tried to preach him about the law of dharma and karma.

Monk sat right under the very tree banyan tree which was the site of the massacre of numerous innocent beings. He closed his eyes and forgot all about his external existence and went into a deep and blissful union with God. His body exuded the fragrance of a million magnolias that wiped away all the stench that was emanating from the rotten corpses for miles. All the dead bodies decomposed instantly and assimilated with the earth. The monk said a prayer to give peace to all the disambodied souls that were clamoring persistently around Angulimaal asking for the reason why he killed them.

Then the monk moved his focus on Angulimaal and said "why are you so sad Angulimaal?."

Angulimaal broke down sobbing incessantly at his feet. He cried because for the first after his brothers death anyone ever said a kind word to him. He cried for the anguish he felt, the pain and emptiness that turned him into an angry beast. He cried for what he had done, his each act of hatred, each murder flashed before him as he wept. He cried in agony as the enormity of his deeds loomed like a dark shadow over him. 

In between sobs he chided the Monk " why did you not come earlier? Why did you not come to me earlier?"

Monk looked at the vicious criminal that he came searching for, instead he found a rejected, sad and helpless boy hiding in the deep dark cave of his grieve. He said "Because it was not time for me. From the darkest of your acts, the fragrant flower will blossom. I could not have interfered with this divine process, so I had to wait before you could create enough karmas to earn your penance and salvation".

Angulimaal leapt towards his axe in an attempt to kill himself. Monk stopped him and said killing yourself would be a bigger crime than all the death that he has caused in his entire life.

Angulimaal dropped his axe and begged the monk to kill him.

The Monk felt deep compassion for the lost and aggrieved soul. He said "Angulimaal whats done cannot be undone but do good deeds for the rest of your lives and pray for forgiveness to God.Thats your only path to salvation".

Angulimaal touched his feet and took the monk's words to his heart. He lived like a monk, he cleaned the forest of his acts and sat and prayed for peace of each and every person that he had killed.

He looked after each and every tree and sapling in the forest with great reverence and care. He took care of injured and sick animals. He persevered and revered all forms of life. He mediated on the name of God asking for forgiveness. His penance was so sincere and his regret so deep that his heart healed and his being blossomed in that purity. Like a clump of earth mined from the ground holds both gold and dirt, it only reveals the purest metal when it is put through the molten fire.  He did severe penance and found the deep blissful presence of God in his being. He later wrote an epic on the supreme creator in his majestic form on earth.

When he left his body all the birds, animals and trees of the forest sang for the glorious fallen star that rose like a phoenix and claimed his space in the divine realm.

Affirmations on the path.

My  friend picks up her phone to find numerical synchronicity reflecting back at her, showing the time to be 12:12; like several other times past week when she would see 10:10 or 12:34 or several other such chronical coincidences.

Excitedly she asks me every time "PK what does it mean???"

I smile looking at her inner happiness as she is stepping on her inner path. The first few baby steps filled with endless sense of wonder at the things happening around you. Our puny little mind failing to grasp the vastness of the intelligence that created us, the apparently chaotic world with its precise organization.

I see myself in her how I was a decade ago when I got on the path and discovered the same numerical synchronicity. I asked my Guru in the same amazed tone "what does it mean?". He smiled indulgently and said " That means like meets like." I did not quite get it but I was too naive to know such cryptic answers require an inner query but at that stage we are like little toddlers any answer would suffice even if it turns out to be a key to a puzzle and not the answer.

My friend goes all out searching for the meaning of these number on the world wide web. She found sites claiming it is about spiritual journey/ purpose/angelic presence/2012.... and the list goes on. The conjectures are several but the answer is just one. It lies as a very cryptic codes thrown so loudly in our faces and yet we miss them. 

I came across a TV series called The Touch, about a child communicating in numbers instead of words.I jolted a little it's there again! the numbers and synchronicity is back.!!!!

For people on the path sometimes the push becomes so clear through several messages that our inner self starts feeling that we are about to stumble upon some big secret of the universe. It feels like we are on the brink of something so big, so evidently there and yet we are missing it.

It happened once in 2007 when I came upon the principle of relativity given by Einstein (rather the principle of relativity was given to him) and when the message was getting clearer I felt such an excitement of discovering something that is always in front of my eyes. I go through it every day yet when I 'got it' I was overwhelmed by the unfathomable vastness and the meaning it holds.

When such realizations happen we become aware of the divine presence in every thing. All things become sacred all life animate and inanimate becomes divine. A stone on your palms beats and pulsates like our heart. We commune with the universe. The mother invites us to experience the limitlessness of our beings. The curtain lifts and the light show begins.

The signs are very clear we start attracting similar energies, we meet more and more people exploring and trying to figure out 'what it means'.The Mother is bundling up souls so they can progress faster by helping each other. Just like a classroom. 

As we progress further we come across people who are at the same/similar level of spiritual progression.Then it is about recognizing our soul families. Further more we come across those who ARE Divine and yet they do not reveal it. As Ramakrishna Paramahansa once said "True men of God do not smell of Krishna". One's who have found the divine truth are unable to convey the beauty and limitlessness of the divine love surrounding all of us from around and within. When I meet such people I soak in their presence, feel the love they exuberate and get drunk in the bliss they feel. 

By the paths that converge by careful design the creator makes sure his children receive his messages and signs and find confirmation of his love by looking at others on the path.

The beauty of this path is that it has no levels high or low its about going inwards, the deeper we go the enormity of the universe pervades us.

One day we find ourselves sitting in an imperfect world feeling limitless joy filtering through an afternoon sun on a drying spring flower dancing with the wind. The sound of people talking, mixed with honking snarling traffic and dogs barking turns into surreal amalgamation of us reflecting through the windows of our eyes and exploring this beautiful life through our bodies. The infinite joy inside rediscovers the infinite in the ordinary and the mundane. As this discovery dawns upon us nothing remains mundane and no one remains ordinary. Everyone is divine and everything is divinity.

 The Universe is talking to us but are we listening??

The African continent:

A tropical storm:

A galaxy:

An egg:

Human Ear:

Monalisa's Potrait

Water splash from hair

A Shell

Roman cabbage

A Pine Cone

    Fern Plant

All of them are organized in a precise and identical symmetry called the Fibonacci Golden Spiral using the integer sequence 

 

when organized as a spiral it looks like this spiral created by drawing circular arcs connecting the opposite corners of squares. It uses the squares of sizes 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and 34.

And He Walked On Water..

Alif and Abu were wandering in the deserts of Persia. Ever since their Wali took off from his worldly sojourn. They desired being out in the open with the existence to feel the presence of their divine Wali in the desert air and shifting dunes. It gave their inner being immense peace and oneness to feel the resonance of the distant winds rotating over the untouched pristine landscape.

Alif was a recent disciple compared to Abu who had been serving their master all his life. He was an orphaned boy who was found in a city dump of Basra by Wali. He felt pity for the helpless infant and decided to give him the biggest joy a human being can experience, the joy of oneness with the Creator.

Abu learned about devotion, surrender and non-doing as pathways to God. When he was reaching his youth he came across Alif, an eight year old orphan and a petty thief. He snatched food and money from regular buyers in the bazaar. They knew its the little boy who lives under the debris of an abandoned house. They would forgive him and pray to God to have mercy on the lonely child. One day he snatched bread from Abu's hands and swiftly disappeared in a crowded narrow lane.

Abu was disappointed that his Wali would go without food today. He reached home with a heavy heart to find his Pir smiling knowingly at him. Before he could explain himself, Pir stopped him with a wave of his hand and explained in a soft kind voice. "Abu my son, you should be happy today you met your brother. He will come and meet you  shortly make sure you teach him everything I taught you, in time".Minutes later there was a knock on the door Pir opened it to find Alif standing there he was holding the broken end of kite string that has landed into the Pir's veranda.

Pir smiled mischievously and said "Abu, your brother Alif  is here to see you.".
From that day onwards Pir's humble abode became a home for two orphan boys. They lived in simplicity and with gratitude for God. Till they grew up and became renowned wandering darvesh's in the region. When Pir was taking his last breaths he told the two darvesh to carry the message of God to the far ends of the desert.

The two set out to fulfill the last wish of their master. The winter was harsh that year but they moved on through cold rocky mountain passes singing of his glory. The chirping birds gave the news of coming spring, they welcomed the summer with same joy. Seasons, food, clothes,external circumstances, everything becomes insignificant when you are drunk with the wine of supreme bliss.
They walked bare foot with minimal clothing, ate almost nothing and slept on worn out blankets, their only possession.

One summer noon, the heat was testing the strength of all forms of life in the desert, The two darvesh
walked on. Unmindful of the scorching wind and blowing sand. Singing the praises for God. Alif after a while, could not sustain his blissful state. He noticed how so very hot it was. The skin of his feet felt scaly and calloused. The cracks on his skin were burning and hurting with unspeakable severity. He started to limp and lag behind Abu who was walking ahead singing, unaware of any heat or the feel of burning coal like earth under their feet. Alif finally gave up and asked Abu to stop.

Abu came out of his high state, and found his brother darvesh in extreme state of pain. Surprised he gave a questioning look.
Alif finally asked, "How do you do this my brother? How do you not feel this unbearable heat, how do u appear as if you are walking on dewy soft grass, when my feet feel singed by this burning earth, How?"
Abu smiled, he said "I choose the love of Almighty over my external circumstances, when I feel the burning sand I think of his love and it feels as if a cool mountain stream is running under my feet filling my senses with the healing cool waters, I feel no pain. It may seem that I am walking in this scorching hot desert but to my being it feels as if I am walking in the middle of a cool mountain stream, that is touching and soothing my feet and ankles, taking away all my pain and tiredness, that is how I experience this desert, I do it in his love. It keeps all of us safe, no matter where we are, what we are doing. Sick or healthy, hungry or full, injured or depressed, fulfilled or empty, no external state can even touch or affect us the same way ever. His love carries you through the toughest storms, scorching deserts, thorny forests...absolutely unaffected and unharmed, just like a rose that blooms amid thorns it still remains fragrant, it still remains a rose." 
When you ask me why do I not feel this heat, its because my being is busy feeling the ecstasy of his presence. I feel nothing unpleasant anymore.I am always protected, I am always in bliss".

Alif bowed his head down in embarrassment; he lamented himself for forgetting this truth so easily,  he  saw droplets of clean cool water on Abu's feet, they still looked soaked in the water of that mystic mountain stream.