July 2017 archive

Love, devotion and enquiry were the inherent qualities of Sage Upamanyu. We can find them in his life if we read his life history. The family of Upamanyu was very poor. In his childhood, when his mother gave him pudding made out of flour and water instead of milk, the little Upamanyu recognized that it was not the actual pudding and in fact it was flour mixed with water. The mother then told the child that they do not possess cows. Then, little Upamanyu asked her who gives the cows. Mother replied that it is God alone who gives everything. Immediately, Upamanyu asked where he (God) resides. Mother told that he resides in the hearts of those who contemplate upon him.

The next moment, Upamanyu prostrated to his mother and started to meditate Shiva in solitude. Shiva wanted to test him. So, he appeared to Upamanyu in the guise of Indra and asked him to pray for any wish. The lad realized that he was not Shiva based on his mother’s description about the appearance of Shiva. He also asked why he had come when he actually called out for Shiva. He even rejected the boons that the Lord was about to give and sat again to continue the penance. Such is his unwavering devotion! Shiva was glad to find out that the concentration of Upamanyu is on him. Hence, Lord Shiva directly gave his darshan and blessed Upamanyu. Shiva gave him a boon that he would appear in front of him whenever he calls out. Also, he blessed Upamanyu that the ocean of milk will flow right in front of him if he wishes for. He was blessed with immortality and was also blessed that he would have no grief at all. Finally, Shiva blessed Upamanyu with union into him at the end of Kalpa (unit of time). By the several boons of Shiva, Upamanyu was thus blessed. In this way, Upamayu seeking the blessings of Lord Shiva left for Himalayas and immersed in the contemplation of Shiva to do severe penance

In Dwapara Yuga (eon of Dwapara), Lord Krishna came to Upamanyu, served him and grasped the principle of Shiva. He pleased Shiva and obtained progeny. It is only because of Upamanyu that he understood the Shiva Sahasranama stotra (the hymns of Shiva with 1000 names). Sri Krishna later taught the same to Dharmaraja, eldest of the Pandavas. Sage Upamanyu was engrossed in the worship of Lord Shiva. He was the treasure house of Vedas and Science. He lived till the end of kalpa. He became popular as the Guru of Sri Krishna. He could become so great only because of his constant enquiry about God, immense love and devotion towards him. Hence, when we inculcate such qualities, we too can become like him. The story of Upamanyu is the greatest example. We have learnt about concentration and determination. If devotion, love and true faith are coupled to them, then we will be blessed by the grace of Upamanyu.

Jai Guru Datta! Sri Guru Datta!

Excessive talking is not good at any point of time. It will cause lot of problems. Many talk extremely like a chatter box. We need to be careful.

In a village, there lived a woodcutter. He used to sell wood for his livelihood. He had the bad habit of taking excessively about the unnecessary matters neglecting the important issues. He keeps on babbling to the person on the way till the latter puts an end to his talking. Few are like that. They keep on chattering. People try to escape from such chatter boxes by catching some other way. Same was the case with the wood cutter. People ran away seeing his arrival.

One day, the woodcutter went to forest for wood. On his way, he saw a skull. He was thrilled to see it. Hence, he took it into his hands and continued walking. Meanwhile, he heard the noise of laughing from somewhere around. He looked around and found nobody. So, he continued with his walk. He hardly walked 2-3 steps. Once again, he heard the sound of laughing. Finally, he understood that it was the skull that was laughing. He was surprised. He asked the skull why it was laughing. He was a chatter box and had no fear to ask anything. The skull then told him to forget the matter of laughing and instead asked him to identify the reason for its lying down. The woodcutter asked the same. The skull replied that it was because of excessive talking. Saying so, it kept quiet. The woodcutter felt like sharing his strange experience with the King. So, he immediately went to him. At that time, the king was very busy with some important appointment. The woodcutter hurriedly went to the king and showed the skull that he carried in his hands. The king looked at him in exasperation. The woodcutter immediately told the king that the skull talks. The king ordered him to make the skull talk right in front of him.
The woodcutter tried in many ways to make it talk. Despite his efforts, the skull neither laughed nor opened its mouth. The irritated king, who had left all his important works aside giving time to listen to the skull, became annoyed. He immediately looked at the soldiers and ordered them to chop off the woodcutter’s head. The soldiers did so and threw away his skull and head in the forest. After everybody left, the skull of woodcutter could now understand why it is lying on the floor in the form of a skull. The woodcutter’s skull understood this. By excessively chattering and by indulging in unnecessary talk has made it so. Hence, excessive talk and engaging in irrespective matters is not good. Many talk continuously even if there is no meaning in it. They talk on till the other person gets headache. We may not face the same as in the story but the people around us will suffer. We must be careful.

Jai Guru Datta! Sri Guru Datta!

Each and every individual have the desire to become leader. People keep on dreaming that they will become leader one or the other day. Despite being incapable, any person becomes glad to utilize the opportunity of spearheading. One enjoys being superior over others. There are two reasons behind such desire. The first thing is one wants others to follow one’s orders and secondly, others must serve oneself. Man strives a lot to fulfill these desires and attains the leadership over others. These desires are extremely powerful and hence man does not step back to tread the path of non-righteousness. This is what we usually see in this world.

There are also certain people who are quite opposite to this. The quality of leadership comes to them without any difficulty. They get such opportunity suddenly. Such people believe that the opportunity of being the forerunner has been bestowed upon them by God only to serve the society. There are many such people. They do not have other thoughts. Leadership quality comes to them automatically and they accept it gracefully believing it to be the boon of God. In their opinion, a leader is only meant to serve the people and instead he is not meant to be served by people. Few have understood this. They order others only for their benefit. They do not get any happiness just because their orders are obeyed. The latter are very rare to be seen whereas the former persistently strive to retain their leadership. The people of first category have satisfaction.

In today’s world, each and every person has the yearning to dominate over the one who bears the higher position and he tries secretly to reach that stage. Long ago, this kind of longing appeared in the form of severe penance. In those days, there was no cheating in the name of God. But in this time of Kali, deception has increased. We have the strong feeling that this is the age of Kali. As a part of such deception, the feelings of atheism also are ruling the world. Each and every one is worshipping God to attain the leadership but if the same worship is done by others, then it becomes a danger for him. So, he instead publicly criticizes the religion. We must not become atheists because of that propagation. We need to be careful. We must analyze such kind of evil politics around us. Nobody should tread the path of evil politics to attain leadership. Similarly, we must not surrender ourselves to the teachings of wicked politicians. You all must follow these instructions. Few consider scolding God, Gurus and dharma to be leadership. People also appreciate and clap. They also follow. But, such leaders secretly go to God and safeguard their future. This is not good. You need to be careful. Let us learn about this further.

Jai Guru Datta! Sri Guru Datta!