GENERAL-ONE

– if we are to summarise whole of ‘Dharam’ into one word, then that word is ‘Ahinsa’. For earning Punya, everyone will like to follow the path of ‘Ahinsa’. For that let us know, that is, understand the meaning of this term. ‘Ahinsa’ refers to ‘not bringing pain’ to any other without a justifiable reason just for the pleasure of our senses, Here, ‘मन’ or mind is included in our senses, for example, killing an enemy by a soldier is ‘Ahinsa’. Now, let us expand this term to know its subtle meaning. The act of not knowing about God, his soul and nature can not be called ‘Ahinsa’ because this act of ours is just for the pleasure of our senses including ‘मन’. By not knowing the truth of these three, we are harming or bringing pain to the society we live in, although it may be unknowingly. All our actions are rewarded whether they are done knowingly or unknowingly.

-It is really painful to go through the process of birth. In the womb, soul has to live amidst scorching heat, bad odour et cetra. Today, we just cannot think of going to a similar environment. But, we repeat this process of birth time and again forgetting this painful process. We, that is, souls experience a lot of pain while coming into this world.

-Like a man sitting on a mountain-top sees the others, who live on the foot-hill dying of flood et cetra, and feels himself safe, in the same way a person, who has started moving towards God feels himself lucky enough on seeing the others, who are totally engrossed in the world, leading a painful life.

-There is a notion that persons, who worship God on their own without a teacher fall preys to several physical and mental ailments. There are certain people who consider stillness of thought process of their ‘मन’ as meditation. But it is wrong. Such people, who forcefully keep stilling the thought processes of their impure ‘मन’, get the fruit of their such actions in accordance with the impure thought-processes of their ‘मन’. But the persons, who concentrate the thought-processes of their ‘मन’ on God, never face a loss.

-Sun rises and sets at a pre-decided time. All celestial bodies move around the other celestial bodies in a pre-defined orbit and at a fixed speed. On this Earth, variable surfaces like mountains, rivers, oceans, innumerable varieties of vegetation et cetra and beneath this Earth great treasures of different minerals, coal, gold, diamonds et cetra are all have been created by God. All these move in a systematic order. Everything of this world is systematic. Likewise, life of man too is systematic.

-Sanskaaras refer to systems by which qualities of a thing are improved. Before cooking of a vegetable et cetra washing, cutting et cetra can be called sanskaaras of the vegetable, as these processes improve the qualities of vegetables. No one can call the processes of washing and cutting of vegetables meaningless. Likewise, rishis, who can be called scientists of olden times, have suggested certain sanskaaras or processes for improving the quality of life of man. Without sanskaaras or education man is nothing more than an animal or a weight-carrying donkey. If we want development in our lives, we must perform the right sanskaaras (not performing mere rituals) at the right time.

-People think that gold is worn by making different ornaments of it but actual gold is ‘jyoti’, that is, brightness of education or ‘tej’ or glow, which on wearing in different parts of the body makes the owner really powerful and great.

-Words of Nachiketa, name of the character mentioned in the book, Kad-upanishad-Opulence never brings peace. Desire to have more and more money never ends. One may become a king, there may be mountains of gold and silver, there may be huge piling up of diamonds, even then, all these things end one day and one goes from this world empty-handedly. I do not want the things which are bound to end.

-Man has to decide between two paths. One is ‘श्रेय मार्ग’, that is, the path for the welfare of man. This path is full of drenches, hurdles, difficulties, downs. This path lacks all sorts of comforts. The other path is ‘प्रेय मार्ग’, that is, good-looking path. This path is full of all sorts of comforts. Moving on this path brings destruction of man. The reason of increasing miseries in the world is- most of the persons have chosen ‘प्रेय मार्ग’.

-There is increasing mentality amongst us that white skin is better. This is a completely wrong notion. Colour of the skin, in no way affects one’s qualities, knowledge, behaviour et cetra. The literate people should always keep it in mind. Better would be if, we include this topic in our elementary education. This will help in bringing the right mentality in our future generations.

– It is talked of that circumstances become cause of fall of great yogis. But it is not true. Fall is possible only of that person, who does not possess vivek and any person devoid of vivek can not be called a yogi. It is similar as a baked seed can not ever germinate and seeds which germinate prove that they have not been baked. As such, it is wrong o say that yogis can ever fall.

-‘Tap’, that is, austerity is very necessary for spiritual development because without ‘Tap’, ‘मन’ or mind can not be controlled or channelized. But how can ‘मन’ be controlled by torturing body? ‘मन’ and only ‘मन’ is responsible for all sorts of ills. Body’s fault lies in blindly following the commands of ‘मन’. As such, for commitment of ills ‘मन’ and not the body should be punished. Torturing body can never be ‘Tap’. In the real sense, ‘Tap’ is always a source of inner peace of soul.

-Just because of saying of a particular person, any belief of a religion does not happen to be true. If because of sayings of a person, we commit any sin, then the fruit of that sin is to be borne by us only. No person, however great he may be, can save us from bearing the fruits of our ill deeds.

– It does not affect the entity of God in any way, even if a person starts calling himself God and people because of their ignorance or fear of that person start worshiping him as God. God was, is and will be ruler of all, irrespective of the deeds of persons. No one has or will be able to escape from the systems of God. All persons are alone on their eternal journeys. It does not affect any person whether all the people of the world accept his religion or all the people accepting his religion vanish from the world. We come alone in this world and one day will go alone from the world. After death, who knows whether his religion is alive or not. Actually, religion refers to sects like Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh et cetra and not to ‘dharam’ as is often understood. ‘Dharam’ of all the persons cannot be more than one. Actually, nature of soul is unchangeable.

-From God, souls are free to accept whichever religion they like. Welfare of a soul lies in accepting only true beliefs of a religion. To accept a belief of a religion merely for the reason that soul has taken birth in that religion and his ancestors had accepted particular beliefs, is very wrong. If our ancestors did not have eyes, then should we make ourselves eyeless? We can not know the circumstances in which they accepted particular beliefs. It is very much possible that our ancestors had accepted particular beliefs because of ignorance, influence of others or fear of someone more powerful. To waste this human body in protecting or sheltering the wrong beliefs of our ancestors is very unintelligent. Our welfare lies in abandoning wrong beliefs and following true beliefs. Now, how can one know which beliefs of a religion are true and which beliefs are false? Method is very simple. Let every belief pass through logic and rationality, which in other words, is called vivek. In the beginning, our vivek may tell a wrong belief as true or a true belief to be false. Even then, to accept our vivek or give preference to our vivek to that of others develops our vivek and soon our vivek reaches a state where it can discriminate between a true belief and a wrong belief.

-Every relation of this world starts with blending of soul with a body and finishes with un-blending of the soul with the body. A person, who because of his attachment with his relatives accepts their beliefs without trying to know which of them are false and which of them are true destroys not only his present life but also his next life.

-Certain people believe that

 (i)        God created all the enjoyable things of the world.

(ii)        God has restricted human beings from receiving the pleasure of these enjoyable things.

Logically thinking, how is it possible that on the one hand, God creates all the pleasurable things for souls and on the other hand, He does not allow the souls to receive pleasure of these things. These people give the plea to this objection that by restraint of worldly things, it is meant that to enjoy bliss of God, one has to leave these things. It means that it is not possible to enjoy bliss of God along with having pleasure of these things. The solution given in vedaas to this dilemma is very logical and worth following. It is- A person can very well enjoy bliss of God along with having pleasure of the things, created by God. The condition is- enjoyments of the things, created by God should be had justly and without encroachments over the rights of the other souls. It is difficult but not at all impossible. Certain people question that how is it possible that a person, who does upaasanaa, that is, meditation does not get distracted by the pleasure of worldly things? Let us understand this through an example. Tea taken after sweets tastes to be less sweet. In the same way, for a person, who has enjoyed the bliss of God, pleasure received from the worldly objects falls short.  

WRONG PART AND THE RIGHT PART OF A THING-All the worldly things possess two sides- wrong as well as right. Knowledge given by Vedaas has not been created by man. This knowledge has been bestowed on man by God. Now, this knowledge of Vedaas has become available to us in the form of books. Since this knowledge has been given by God, the books termed as Vedaas cannot be called worldly.

Path towards God-realisation moves through truth only. Untruthfulness or falsehood cannot pave the way to God-realisation. For moving towards God, we are bound to assimilate in ourselves the right part of a thing and leave the wrong part of it. As such, the principle is- If wrong part of a thing cannot be separated from the right part, then whole of the thing should be abandoned, that is, in that case even the right part of the thing need be left.

-True spiritualism does not forbid enjoying the pleasures of world. All worldly things have been created for the benefit of the souls. Every person whether spiritual or not makes use of these worldly things.  The difference in enjoying the worldly things by yogis and ordinary men is that of mindset only. All the sense organs of yogis too do the same job of combining ‘मन’ with the subjects and obtaining knowledge about such subjects as in other men. For instance, eyes are to see and tongue is to taste. Even yogis too get the good secretions on tasting a good object which help digestion but they use all their senses for the primary objective of welfare of their souls. They enjoy the pleasures of tongue to the extent, these are helpful towards welfare of their souls. Their main objective for using all their ‘knowledge-senses and karam-senses’ is welfare of their selves.

-Many books of different sects are said to be written with God’s inspirations. But many things written in these books have been proved to be wrong by science, which clearly indicate that the notion that these books were written with God’s inspirations is wrong. Despite this, the persons sitting on the high seats of these sects refuse to accept this fact. If such persons accept only that corresponding portions of these books, have been adulterated and are not the result of God’s inspirations, even then mankind will be benefited a lot.

-As we shirk from doing anything bad or unethical in the presence of our parents, teachers and other kiths and kins, in the same way we can save ourselves from doing anything unethical or against humanity if we realize that God is noticing, whatever we do. Our kiths and kins can know our works only, they cannot know our thoughts until and unless those thoughts are executed. Unlike this, God can know our thoughts, even. Realizing the presence of God everywhere in this universe is the spirit of ‘believing in God’. Without such realization, a person cannot be called a true theist

-Our karmas are affected by three things-our sanskaaras of past lives, environment and our teachings. These are the basis of our present day karmas.

-Pleasure can be said to be different as to the level at which it is generated, that is, physical level, intellectual level, mental level and soul-level. Karmas necessary for having the pleasures of different levels are different. We explain it through an example. When we have sensual enjoyment of any sort, then we have the physical-pleasure at the physical level, the pleasure we receive by understanding a thing through our intellect is intellectual- pleasure, the pleasure received through various arts and music is that of mental-level. Pleasure, received at the level of soul can be divided into two categories namely, internal happiness and bliss. The internal pleasure or satisfaction, we receive on considering other souls at par with our own soul and realizing the pains of other souls. Highest pleasure at soul-level is bliss and it is received when a soul is in communion with God in Samaadhi. In having the pleasures of different levels, all parts (our physique, intellect, mind and soul) have their contribution, for example, in having the pleasures of soul level, the contributions our physique, intellect and mind is very less. A misery of one level can be nullified by the pleasure of higher level. As such, bliss is a perfect medicine for all sorts of miseries.

-Whenever development of a man is talked of, we mostly mean development of soul. Richness of man should be judged not from his physical opulence but from development of his soul.