BUTTER, THE MIND

There was an engineering college located in the holy city of Dwaraka. The college was known for producing excellent minds as admissions were open only for the bright students unlike the current educational system in India. The college along with the usual portions
taught the students ancient values, values only ancient in their birth although. In that college studied two girls, Meera and Radha who bonded really well and got very close. Everybody believed they added a new meaning to the term friendship. Out of the two, Meera lived in a village while Radha, born with a silver anklet, earrings, chain apart from spoon lived in the same city of Dwaraka. When the vacations came, Meera invited Radha to their village. The rich Radha had gone to Meera’s village for the first time from her city-dwelling. On the first day, before retiring to bed, Radha opened a pot in which there was cow’s milk and added little buttermilk to it. Radha asked Meera– “Hey, that was butter milk; and why have you mixed it with Milk? The milk may be spoilt!”
“God!Radha” answered Meera “ Since it is Krishna-jayanthi tomorrow, we require butter and by adding buttermilk to milk, we get butter.”
“But where is butter in it, Meera?”
“It is in every drop of the milk, dear Radha; but you can’t see it now. I will show you in the morning.” In the morning Radha, to her astonishment saw that what was liquid(milk) had become solid overnight(curd).
Meera put a churning rod into the vessel and started churning the curd vigorously. Butter began to float on the surface of the curd. Then she gathered it all up and presented it to the wonderment of Radha.
Meera explained-“The addition of buttermilk curdles the milk. Milk is transformed into curd. Then you have to churn it. By this process the butter which was all-pervasively hidden in the milk appears. At first you were not able to see it; it was hidden. From where has it come now? It has indeed come from the milk only.Do you understand now that it was there all the time? It awaited the process of churning to reveal itself to your great joy.”
Then Radha too followed the same process and got the butter for herself.

Eternal-happiness or supreme bliss like the butter lies within the mind which is the curd. However the search for the same must be begun as early as possible for nobody ever waits when on a journey of finding supreme-priceless treasure.Do we?
Questions such as how,when,why,where will be answered in the posts to come
Apart from Radha learning the nuances of butter-making from milk, the story incidentally points out at another fact ie : people living in the city may be better in terms wealth and technology though the lack of knowledge in a lot of basic things is definitely for the worse.

Chant

Hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare
Hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare

and be happy

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thank you

jai gurunath

RAMAKRISHNA PARAMAHAMSA'S PARABLE

There is a very thin line which separates needs from wants.It takes tremendous intelligence to recognise the true needs of an individual.Many times wants disguise itself as intellectual needs and gets the individual entangled into the web of misery.Ofcourse the basic needs of of food,shelter and clothing are absolutely necessary for sustaining a vegetative life.Here is a humorous tale based on Sri Ramakrishna paramahamsa's parable.
'I cant stand it anymore,enough is enough' said Joseph ramkrishna khan, a person who got bored of the material life,wanting to attain self realisation.He was very desperate in this respect and he was supremely convinced that he cannot achieve his goal if he stayed in a place inhabited by people and hence sacrificed all his ownage and left for the forest. En-route he turned an ascetic. He possessed only those equipments that are required to perform rituals by ascetics apart from two holy-robes which meant that while he would be wearing one of them, the other would have to washed and dried for the subsequent day's use.The fourth day after he'd reached the forest, while he was involved in intense meditation,he heard some noise in the direction of the drying-robe.
When he opened his eyes, he was shocked to find that a rat was tearing apart his robe. Since that was his only reserve-clothing, he got a little worked-up. He felt like killing the rat instantaneously but then his ascetic-status prohibited the same.Just when he thought he had ran out of options, his mind pointed out that he could rear a wild cat which would kill the rat in any case.Following his mind's order, he got a wild cat. A week had passed by. The second robe was now fully torn by the rat.The wild cat was of no help.The ascetic again while thinking about the same believed that it was due to the cat's poor health condition that it couldn't kill the rat.Hence he concluded that milk would make the cat healthy and hence got a cow from the forest.While the purpose of turning to a forest being meditation and god realisation, the renunciate didn't want to waste time milking the cow.Therefore he wanted to appoint somebody to milk the cow, but he knew too well that nobody would agree to work in a forest. Consequently he thought that marriage was his only resort as his wife would have to stay with him all the time.He got married.His wife was okay with everything only for a few days, she also started complaining about the forest and asked him to get her constructed a wall, a fence wall which would prevent wild animals from entering the place. The renunciate thought it was fair-enough and got a wall constructed. Again she got unhappy about the
conditions(Earlier,in the 3rd post we saw our mind being a monkey).She wanted her ascetic-husband to get her constructed a house. The sanyasi again felt it was fair and went on to construct a huge house, more like a bungalow.The ascetic now got worried and insecure about the future of this big super-structure ie: his house regarding its ownership and maintainence and it is said that a year later his wife gave birth to a baby.
The sanyasi,a renunciate that he is, sacrificed everything and came to the forest only to live a normal human being's life after falling into the renunciate-order.
With this example,one can easily differentiate between needs and wants.Though they may appear to be synonymous, they quite aren't.

Chant
Hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare
Hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare

and be happy

Visit http://namadwaar.org/

thank you
jai gurunath

MIND IS LIKE A MONKEY

Now then, let’s see what could be done to put the mind in order.

The human mind is always oscillating. The nature of the human mind is to project a desire and chase that desire, let us for simplicity call it 'A'. 'A' is what the mind wanted. As soon as it catches 'A', it ends up dropping it. Now again the mind is wandering and is instantly directed at something else (Economics supports this argument by telling us that human wants are unlimited).So now it focuses on something else, lets call it 'B'. Now it wants 'B' and it catches B'. Similarly as in the earlier case, after getting hold of it, it drops it. We can assume ‘A’ and ‘B’ as anything we want and yet we’d end up with the same result. Let’s assume ‘A’ as employment. A job-seeker has all his life only applied for jobs without getting any of them. His only prayer to god would be to get a job. That is his only want. And then finally, god blesses him and he gets employed, though for a meager salary (The mind has now caught ‘A’). Now, the meager salary causes dissatisfaction to him. He wants a higher-paying job in the same company which calls for a promotion. Let’s assume ‘B’ as a high-paying job. The same chap now stops appreciating his present job and wants to get promoted for want of more money(The mind has dropped ‘A’ and is chasing ‘B’).He again prays to god and god blesses him promotion and he gets promoted.
Do you think he’d be happy and content with the promotion?
All those who have answered NO are NO different from this person, the reason being very simple and straightforward. The first line of this paragraph is the reason for saying NO.
It is rather unfortunate that we do not even enjoy that we wanted for a
long time (The job as in the example). Before we cherish what we have won, we start looking for something else or something more
in most cases(Higher-paying job in the example).

Stay tuned for more.

Chant

Hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare
Hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare
and be happy

Visit http://namadwaar.org/

thank you
jai gurunath

MIND YOUR LENS

Once there was a scientist who was working on the solar system. He was known for his methodical approach and was also hugely popular because of his intelligence and brilliant interpretation of otherwise ordinary things, something that’s a pre-requisite for scientists. On one sunny day, as he was looking at the sun using his telescope, he was very excited about something that he had seen. He had seen some strange patterns on the sun, the ones that his professors acknowledged as something deadly. These patterns indicate that the sun would last for a few hundred years only. Nobody had ever seen such patters on the sun though speculation was rife about the same. He had also studied about the consequences of these patterns that appeared.

He jumped and shrieked in excitement and was secretly telling himself that he would earn global recognition for his discovery. We can imagine how happy this scientist would have been!!

As is commonly believed, identification of the problem is the first step towards the solution, and the scientist knew this too well.

The scientist informed his junior of his finding and the junior congratulated the scientist and told him he also wanted to take a look at the telescope. The scientist consented and the junior had a look. The junior smiled and asked the scientist to have his lunch before he informs anybody about this. So the scientist left for his lunch and returned in ten minutes. Now the junior asked the scientist to take a look at the sun through the telescope. The scientist was shocked to find out that the patterns were missing and enquired about the same with his junior.
The junior told him that a spider had settled on the lens of the telescope last night and it had woven a web on the lens, it was this web that when viewed along with the sun seemed as if the sun had web-like patterns on them. Since the junior cleaned the lens when the scientist had gone out, the web got disappeared when the scientist took a second look.

The sun can be said to be this world in which we exist and the lens can be compared to our mind. We look at this world through our mind, which is like the lens of the telescope. Since our mind (like the web) is not clean (like the lens of the telescope), we tend to look at this world with an impure mind which gives us a different picture as well as a false understanding of this world (Like the scientist’s discovery). We are required to put the mind in order before we look at this world (like cleaning the lens).

Let us take a look at another example.
A lot of eminent speakers had assembled in a huge hall for debating on an issue. The entire city had gathered in that hall for the mega-event. Unfortunately, the hall experienced a power cut. Learning that the event was postponed by a day, everybody left the hall. The organizer of the event called up the administrative official and asked him to place the chairs in order to keep the hall ready for the next day. This guy immediately rushed to work and re-arranged the chairs to keep them in place. After he had finished his work, electricity was back. This guy was shocked to find out that he had made things worse by attempting to arrange the already messed up place.
The arrangement seemed worse than before.
This is precisely what will happen if we try to see the world without putting our mind in order. The already shoddy world would appear more messy.
It’d have been a different picture had the guy waited for the power to be back to go ahead with the re-arrangement. He would have arranged the chairs perfectly in this case.
Similarly we should put our mind in order before we look at this world otherwise it would be a case of looking at a broken mirror wearing broken glasses.

Chant

Hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare
Hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare

and be happy

Visit http://namadwaar.org/

thank you
jai gurunath

INTRODUCTION

Swagatham
All living beings are in an endless quest for happiness. The only object of Human life is also happiness. Man endeavors to attain happiness through every single action of his. But, his actions also result in misery, though undesired. And the common perception that staying happy and sad are two sides of the same coin makes us human beings discount sadness for happiness.
Is there then a way to everlasting happiness, bliss, unalloyed with sorrow? If so what is it? Where or how can one get it? How does one know whether he deserves it?
While thousands of such questions run through our mind, this blog aspires to facilitate deeper thinking amongst us to find the answers from within.
This blog is an attempt at e-spreading the teachings of our Master, His Holiness Sri Sri Muralidhara Swamiji. Sri Muralidhara Swamiji, often called "Guruji" by his followers, a Spiritual Leader from South India, who is spreading the fragrance of the divine name in the hearts of people from all walks of life throughout the world. He advocates Nama Kirtan (singing the holy Name of God), especially chanting of the "Hare Rama" Maha Mantra as the easiest way to happiness for the common man.

The blog is powered by us(you and me)who are inspired by the teachings and writings and sayings of Sri Sri Swamiji. It would contain excerpts from his discourses and the like. The articles would expound the greatness of the Divine Names of God, particularly the Maha mantra and highlight on how this path is the easiest one for upliftment of masses spiritually and otherwise as proclaimed by the Sanathana Dharama and espoused by Sri Sri Muralidhara Swamiji.
Though there may be various ways to reach our goals, we human beings always want to achieve our goals in the easiest and most-confortable manner.The benevolent God knows this fact too well and hence has churned out the maha mantra . As one would have noted, Hare rama alone has been crowned as the 'MAHA-MANTRA'.
As we get rolling, in the articles to come, we would be discussing the various miracles that the maha mantra has performed the various benefits, uses and the gains that are up for grabs for people who chant it.
With your apt,interesting and constructive responses for the various articles, we are sure that this blogsite would turn out to be very useful,interesting and exciting.
"Chanting lips make many hands work" - Sri Sri Swamiji
Let our lips be on work and let our mind be immersed in a divine bliss.

Chant
Hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare
Hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare

and be happy

Visit http://namadwaar.org/

thank you
jai gurunath