Spirituality from a materialistic point of view:
fame, sex and money being goals of the material life...
"Vyasadev wrote all these scriptures... he wanted a name for himself, and had ideas, so he wrote the scriptures. And now we all remember him."
"Spirituality, reading, film-going, entertainment are all different tools with which a person develops his or her relationship with the other sex."
"God was invented by man to make money. Spirituality today is an industry."
Materialism from a spiritual point of view:
keeping God and God consciousness in every sphere of daily life.
"When one is emotionally detached the results of his work, he is thinking less of the consequences of his work, and can therefore concentrate more on the work alone. Giving it their best shot, and using it as an offering to God is the essence of karma yoga, as espoused in the Indian scriptures, and this is essentially what they do."
"Another question which has come up is how a spiritually inclined person can be married. Rather than being an abominable enemy to spiritual goals, having the right partner can actually be beneficial to spirituality. We are all imperfect people here, and marriage provides a guard against the biggest enemy of spirituality, lust. One is much more controlled when one is able to express his desires in a controlled manner with a wife, and focusing mainly on higher goals."
"Having children once again, is not a way of enjoying material prosperity, but is merely a way of increasing God conscious people in the world, once again a service for the Lord. "
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Why do we need a Guru?
There are so many bogus paths, and bogus sanyasis around, that I have a very negative view about this whole guru thing. Why do we need a spiritual master? Why can’t we follow a spiritual path on our own, make up our own set of rules, and go towards spirituality?
We cannot deny the fact that we are all lost in this world. Which philosophy is which, what to do, no one really knows. Even more dangerous is the fact that we have the inclination to mentally concoct our own ideas and start believing that it is true. This, for some extent is there in everybody, but when it reaches beyond a certain limit, it jumps over to insanity, schizophrenia. But the bottomline is we are all lost. We all think differently, this is why we have quarrels and fights, basically because of misunderstanding between people. Since different people believe in different things, we can naturally conclude that not all of people’s thoughts are true.
The very essence of spirituality is in figuring out and enquiring into the basic questions of life. We desire to no longer be lost, but to find the way. But when we are essentially lost, how can we find the way on our own? If you are stuck in an alien land without a map, and make up your own ideas as to where the exit is, can you get out? Not at all. Now here is where the need for external help comes in. Help from a person who is not lost, or no longer lost.
So the arguing party might ask: fine, you may have external help. But why should it be in the form of a personal guru? Why can’t it be books? Now consider our position as that of the patient. We have a mental disease. The disease is that we are lost in this world. We don’t know what our business here is, why we have to go through miseries, and where we are to essentially go. Now we want to get cured. Can we read books, go to holy places, and try curing ourselves? It can be used to improve the general health. However, each of our individual mental make ups is different. Although everybody is supposed to eat fruits and vegetables to improve general health, a doctor advises some patients to eat more, and others to eat less, some to drink milk, some to stay away from milk and so on. For physical health, if such specific instructions are needed to cure the similar body, why not for mental health, when we have already seen previously, that we have different thoughts? For example, some spiritual aspirants are told to get married, as they are not emotionally stable enough to handle sanyas. For others, it is advised that sanyas or celibacy is the best method. This diagnosis can only be given by an expert guru.
Now we come to the third question, which is especially relevant in the Kali Yuga, with a plethora of bogus gurus, claiming to be God, and promoting weird ideas and customs; how to we know the right guru? If we go to a wrong doctor, it may prove fatal; if we invest our faith in the wrong guru, we would be abjectly misdirected. This is the trickiest question, as there is no cut and right formula for what a true blue guru looks like. Obviously if there was, the bogus people would copy these symptoms, and they would no longer represent the true blue guru. However, it is true that a lot of people have their own idea about what spirituality should be, and with that in mind, they try to match a guru to their own criteria. Don’t forget, the very reason why we look for a guru is because we are lost. If we look for a suitable guru that fulfills our own ideas (and believe me, at this day and age, there is a guru that fulfills every single idea a person may have) we might as well dig up our own spiritual path; what is the point in a guru? As a simple example, I used to think that a guru should look calm and serene in all his photographs, and should always have a smile on his face. On seeing people who didn’t have these characteristics, I would automatically say they are not gurus. Later I realized that a true blue guru wouldn’t even care to put a serene look on the photos.
The truth is we are lost. And we don’t have the capability of recognizing the guru. To this, I have to revert to saying something which the ‘logical’ population of today’s youth wouldn’t agree too well with. Pray to God that you would get a guru. Pray that when a real guru comes across your way, you would be able to recognize him. If you say this is illogical, let me ask you a question: when you are faced with a desperate situation, where you are completely helpless, and don’t see a way out, whom do you turn to? Don’t you pray? Well, this IS a desperate situation - it’s just that no body realizes how bad things are. We are all lost, we don’t know what we are doing here, and to add to the misery there are so many imposters claiming to give us directions, in order to fulfill their selfish motives. And we don’t even know how to recognize which is which. So there IS nothing we can do but pray. Like the other prayers that you know have been fulfilled in your life, why wouldn’t a sincere prayer help this time?
We cannot deny the fact that we are all lost in this world. Which philosophy is which, what to do, no one really knows. Even more dangerous is the fact that we have the inclination to mentally concoct our own ideas and start believing that it is true. This, for some extent is there in everybody, but when it reaches beyond a certain limit, it jumps over to insanity, schizophrenia. But the bottomline is we are all lost. We all think differently, this is why we have quarrels and fights, basically because of misunderstanding between people. Since different people believe in different things, we can naturally conclude that not all of people’s thoughts are true.
The very essence of spirituality is in figuring out and enquiring into the basic questions of life. We desire to no longer be lost, but to find the way. But when we are essentially lost, how can we find the way on our own? If you are stuck in an alien land without a map, and make up your own ideas as to where the exit is, can you get out? Not at all. Now here is where the need for external help comes in. Help from a person who is not lost, or no longer lost.
So the arguing party might ask: fine, you may have external help. But why should it be in the form of a personal guru? Why can’t it be books? Now consider our position as that of the patient. We have a mental disease. The disease is that we are lost in this world. We don’t know what our business here is, why we have to go through miseries, and where we are to essentially go. Now we want to get cured. Can we read books, go to holy places, and try curing ourselves? It can be used to improve the general health. However, each of our individual mental make ups is different. Although everybody is supposed to eat fruits and vegetables to improve general health, a doctor advises some patients to eat more, and others to eat less, some to drink milk, some to stay away from milk and so on. For physical health, if such specific instructions are needed to cure the similar body, why not for mental health, when we have already seen previously, that we have different thoughts? For example, some spiritual aspirants are told to get married, as they are not emotionally stable enough to handle sanyas. For others, it is advised that sanyas or celibacy is the best method. This diagnosis can only be given by an expert guru.
Now we come to the third question, which is especially relevant in the Kali Yuga, with a plethora of bogus gurus, claiming to be God, and promoting weird ideas and customs; how to we know the right guru? If we go to a wrong doctor, it may prove fatal; if we invest our faith in the wrong guru, we would be abjectly misdirected. This is the trickiest question, as there is no cut and right formula for what a true blue guru looks like. Obviously if there was, the bogus people would copy these symptoms, and they would no longer represent the true blue guru. However, it is true that a lot of people have their own idea about what spirituality should be, and with that in mind, they try to match a guru to their own criteria. Don’t forget, the very reason why we look for a guru is because we are lost. If we look for a suitable guru that fulfills our own ideas (and believe me, at this day and age, there is a guru that fulfills every single idea a person may have) we might as well dig up our own spiritual path; what is the point in a guru? As a simple example, I used to think that a guru should look calm and serene in all his photographs, and should always have a smile on his face. On seeing people who didn’t have these characteristics, I would automatically say they are not gurus. Later I realized that a true blue guru wouldn’t even care to put a serene look on the photos.
The truth is we are lost. And we don’t have the capability of recognizing the guru. To this, I have to revert to saying something which the ‘logical’ population of today’s youth wouldn’t agree too well with. Pray to God that you would get a guru. Pray that when a real guru comes across your way, you would be able to recognize him. If you say this is illogical, let me ask you a question: when you are faced with a desperate situation, where you are completely helpless, and don’t see a way out, whom do you turn to? Don’t you pray? Well, this IS a desperate situation - it’s just that no body realizes how bad things are. We are all lost, we don’t know what we are doing here, and to add to the misery there are so many imposters claiming to give us directions, in order to fulfill their selfish motives. And we don’t even know how to recognize which is which. So there IS nothing we can do but pray. Like the other prayers that you know have been fulfilled in your life, why wouldn’t a sincere prayer help this time?
Introduction to the blog
Hi,
Welcome to my blog. For some time, a lot of people asked me if I wanted to create a blog. I never did want to because I never really had a theme. Writing about your own life? Well, you have thousands of 'life stories', and everyone loves writing about themselves, perhaps much more than others woud like reading about them. So I wanted a theme, rather than to write about myself alone. Now I feel I have a theme.
Before you read on, let me let you know that this blog is about spiritual realization and Hare Krishna. If you are not interested perhaps this is the time to leave. Else, please read on.
I had a few basic questions ever since the age of five. I used to ask myself, why we are here. Why as a kid, do I aspire to be an adult? Would I as an adult be happy? And then after we came back from holidays and vacations I used to feel sad, and then feel happy after a few days...then I used to think that happiness really is context dependent, and not on dependent on the "object of happiness" itself. As a young kid, no one really listens to you, so I kept my thoughts to myself. Thoughts like all ignored thoughts faded away in due course of time, as I grew up. However, they were revisited when, at 15, I went to the Chinmaya International Residential School, a school with spiritual education. There I got my first introduction to Indian Philosophy as well as complete answers to questions I had had a long time ago. I loved these classes. During my university years I completely drifted off from the spiritual mindset, and felt that perhaps I just had been "infatuated" with the idea of spirituality erstwhile, and ignored the idea for a while. But four years taught me, that sprituality really makes sense, and at times when I am down, spirituality is the only thing that makes sense.
In my fourth year I seeked spirituality. However, it didnt come to me because of any 'search'. I devotee fellow-classmate that I had known even before started meeting me for lunch. We became much better friends, and I was introduced by him, to Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna philosophy is at loggerheads with the Chinmaya "mayavaadi" philosophy, and so I had huge problems accepting the HKs. We had a lot of debates, and arguments regarding this, and slowly, I came to accept, and then be completely convinced of the HK philosophy. It came gradually.
Once I accepted this philosophy, my interest picked on the pace. I started reading more, getting more interested...and finally started to realize that the spirituality, or more specifically, as in HK terms, devotional service is more than just a nice thing to do...
...It is the purpose of existence.
What made me feel this way? How did I come to these conclusions? These are the topics I'll talk on, in this blog.
Any comments, ideas, and questions can be directed to my email: hakrlax@gmail.com.
Welcome to my blog. For some time, a lot of people asked me if I wanted to create a blog. I never did want to because I never really had a theme. Writing about your own life? Well, you have thousands of 'life stories', and everyone loves writing about themselves, perhaps much more than others woud like reading about them. So I wanted a theme, rather than to write about myself alone. Now I feel I have a theme.
Before you read on, let me let you know that this blog is about spiritual realization and Hare Krishna. If you are not interested perhaps this is the time to leave. Else, please read on.
I had a few basic questions ever since the age of five. I used to ask myself, why we are here. Why as a kid, do I aspire to be an adult? Would I as an adult be happy? And then after we came back from holidays and vacations I used to feel sad, and then feel happy after a few days...then I used to think that happiness really is context dependent, and not on dependent on the "object of happiness" itself. As a young kid, no one really listens to you, so I kept my thoughts to myself. Thoughts like all ignored thoughts faded away in due course of time, as I grew up. However, they were revisited when, at 15, I went to the Chinmaya International Residential School, a school with spiritual education. There I got my first introduction to Indian Philosophy as well as complete answers to questions I had had a long time ago. I loved these classes. During my university years I completely drifted off from the spiritual mindset, and felt that perhaps I just had been "infatuated" with the idea of spirituality erstwhile, and ignored the idea for a while. But four years taught me, that sprituality really makes sense, and at times when I am down, spirituality is the only thing that makes sense.
In my fourth year I seeked spirituality. However, it didnt come to me because of any 'search'. I devotee fellow-classmate that I had known even before started meeting me for lunch. We became much better friends, and I was introduced by him, to Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna philosophy is at loggerheads with the Chinmaya "mayavaadi" philosophy, and so I had huge problems accepting the HKs. We had a lot of debates, and arguments regarding this, and slowly, I came to accept, and then be completely convinced of the HK philosophy. It came gradually.
Once I accepted this philosophy, my interest picked on the pace. I started reading more, getting more interested...and finally started to realize that the spirituality, or more specifically, as in HK terms, devotional service is more than just a nice thing to do...
...It is the purpose of existence.
What made me feel this way? How did I come to these conclusions? These are the topics I'll talk on, in this blog.
Any comments, ideas, and questions can be directed to my email: hakrlax@gmail.com.
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