The Sinner

Ten Chinese farmers were working in a field, when suddenly the sky darkened. There was thunder and lightning. It began to rain heavily. The farmers, holding on tightly to their large straw hats, ran for shelter to the ruins of a temple nearby. Lightning flashed again and again and the thunder shook the walls of the temple.

“The gods are angry with us,” said one of the men, his voice shaking in fear. 

“Why?” asked another.

“Obviously, there’s a big sinner amongst us!” a third voice said with apparent panic. 

“We must find him and throw him out, lest we all perish!” 

“I have an idea,” said one. 

“Let us all hold our hats outside the window. Let the gods show us the sinner.”

So they all thrust their hats outside the window. Immediately a lightning cracked and instantaneously one of the hats was reduced to ashes. The owner of the hat was a quite, middle-aged man who had not uttered a word till then. Now he began to plead with his companions to protect him.

“I’ve a wife and three children and aged parents to support,” he said. 

“What will happen to them if I die?” But the others were merciless.  

“Out, out with you!” they shouted and lifting him, they threw him out of the temple. The man scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as he could to the shelter of a tree some distance away. Hardly had he reached the tree, when a lightning struck the temple, which collapsed, killing all nine men inside.

Till then they had been protected by the presence of the only good man amongst them. God alone knows how often we are spared due to the goodness of others, whom we make scapegoats. 

Jose Kaimlett

Unitive Divine Consciousness

Baba continued: “True prosperity and abiding peace in the world need justice and sustainable development based on an integral vision of life and reality, and on a holistic and ecological worldview. Prosperity and sustainable development are impossible without a peaceful social order. Peace needs justice. Economic justice is basic to a just and peaceful social order….

“Economics and politics today are inter-related like the two sides of a coin. All economic progress comes from right political decisions. All political decisions are influenced by economic considerations….

“Hence, both economics and politics need to be rebuilt on the strong foundation of an integral vision of life and reality, and on a holistic ecological worldview if we are to find justice, sustainable development and lasting peace on earth. A unitive divine consciousness needs to provide their foundation… There is no other way….. Do you agree with me, my son?”, the Baba asked.

“Yes, guruji, I fully agree with you.” Atma Prakash responded to his guru’s question. 

The Baba continued…

“Peace in the world also needs appropriate technologies and renewable energy sources. Ecological harmony and environmental health are essential requirements for sustainable development and abiding peace on earth. This will mean that science and technology also need to be rebuilt on the foundation of an integral vision of life and reality, and on a unitive divine consciousness….. 

“Mother Earth is our common mother. She nurtures and nourishes all of us, and all forms of life. On her health and vitality will depend the health and vitality of all species of living beings inhabiting this planet, which is our common habitat in space….

“Today’s concept of ‘development’ is very short-sighted. It is also lop-sided. ‘Immediate gains at the cost of long term irrevocable losses!’… This is the model of development pursued by most of the countries today…

“The health of Mother Earth will depend on the health of her individual parts. By destroying her natural resources, and by polluting her air and water, we are destroying our mother and ourselves.” 

“Yes guruji. I was reading the book ‘Tao of Physics’ by Fritjof Capra that is in our library. He uses similar expressions to explain reality. He speaks of creation as ‘an interdependent organic whole in the form of a network of relationships.’ The unity of all life that you have mentioned is a profound experience that I myself am going through in this jungle during these days, guruji,” said Atma Prakash.

The Baba seemed very happy with his disciple. 

He continued… “As human beings, we are the most evolved species in the Earth Family. We are like responsible elder brothers and sisters to all other living beings constituting this Earth Family…

“We need to develop such an ‘earth family consciousness’ if we are to do full justice to the gift of life. But at the back of such an earth family consciousness, there has to be the unitive divine consciousness. This is our ‘planetary responsibility’ as human beings…

“The world today is being torn apart by individuals, communities, nations and religions that are divided within and among themselves. The oneness of reality and the wholeness of existence are being lost to us today. They are being replaced by conflicting worldviews and opposing claims…..

“The secular and the sacred, which are the two sides of reality, are being seen as being opposed to each other. The masculine and the feminine, the rational and the intuitive, which are complementary dimensions of the one reality are also seen as being at conflict with one another…. We need to rediscover an integral vision of life and reality, and a holistic ecological worldview. Don’t you think so, my son?’ 

The Baba stopped with a question.

 

Excerpts from ‘Integral Revolution’: Swami Sachidananda Bharati 

Some Practical Aids to Living

Conscientious living is difficult but extremely joyous and rewarding. I am putting down here some practical aids to living that I found helpful from my long, lived experience.

• You are a subject; you are not an object to be used and manipulated.

• You are a person on your own right. You are not any better or worse than anyone else as a person. No one is big or small.

• Do not lead; do not follow; be led by your own inner light.

• Do not imitate, though imitation may be necessary in one’s early life as all can follow good models; observe the world and the living around you, learn from all, and select what helps you without doing violence to your inner being.

• Be always a student of life.

• Learn from the school of hard knocks; adversities have precious lessons for life.

• Every bad happening contains a message for life; learn to interpret the message contained in it to guide your life.

• Adversarial and unpleasant situations, if taken in the right spirit, will purify and strengthen you instead of making you a bitter person.

• Change the world by changing yourself; when you change, the world automatically changes as you are a part of the world, and you will not be disappointed. Your business in this world is not to change anyone anyway.

• Put into practice first the very advice or suggestions you want to give to others.

• Give to others the freedom you take for yourself.

• Do not preach what you do not put or intend to put into practice.

• Say what needs to be said, and do what needs to be done courageously.

• Do not carry in your head evil and toxic persons who wronged you or betrayed your trust; become wiser so you do not place yourself in similar situations; consider the loss as the costly fee you gave to learn a little more about humanity. In spite of all your cautions, you will still be deceived. Nonetheless, be more cautious, but do not stop trusting lest you stunt your own growth. Besides, humanity cannot progress without trust, and a life without trust and faith is no life at all.

• The good you do for others always comes back to you in some form though not necessarily from expected persons. Besides, doing good is being part of human, and does not require any reward as it is its own reward. Being good and doing good are a beautiful way of being. 

• Criticize persons only when your love for them is stronger than your criticism; when your near or dear ones begin to resent what you think is helpful criticism, stop it because they will not be able to benefit from it anyway.

• Things could always be worse. Be grateful that they are not worse than they really are.

• Let no one condition you or program you without your conscious permission.

• The opportunities that we get to help others and make their lives more bearable and worthwhile are truly privileges to celebrate life and bring humanity back on its track toward its destined course.

The above guidelines may help us examine our own contribution to humanity. For those who love and have a positive outlook on life, everything ultimately works unto good.

Swami Snehananda Jyoti

Sounds of Success

For some people success speaks for itself. For some others they have to speak a lot to be successful. One fine day I was just sitting in my balcony and was watching the passersby on the road. I heard a vendor selling his food items by creating original verses. His sound was loud and his verses were definitely quite interesting. Children on the street were attracted towards him. While preparing his recipes, he created more verses and I could see children laughing and enjoying his preparations as well as his poems. Then came one more vendor, who started banging the karahi in which he used to fry the pop-corns. His way of attracting the customers was to create peculiar metallic sound that goes straight into hearts of the children even if they are sitting quite deep inside their study rooms. 

These two vendors also reminded me of another vendor who comes in my lane every morning and plays a rubber horn, while selling bread and biscuits on his bicycle. There is a sound behind every sales made by these sales people. Behind this sound is a well thought out strategy. For these people their strategy has been working for many years. No amount of raw material price rise affects their enthusiasm. Every day has been same for them, but every day is always eventful. 

I started thinking behind the philosophy of such “Sounds of Sales” or “Sounds of Success” for these people. The books I read during my management course talked about push and pull concept of marketing. These people are pulling customers, by pushing their unique sounds. I feel that success anywhere in any domain can be related to such an approach. We have to persuade people and push all our efforts to convince them that we are also worth their attention. Attention seeking is our basic need, as basic as food, clothes and shelter. Since early childhood we know, how to get attention of our mother. We continue this habit all through our life. Our attention seeking instinct can also have positive or negative impacts. It is up to us whether we do it with a planned strategy or we just do it for the sake of it. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg 

Are You Mad?

Habits are hard to dissolve. Try deleting one letter each from the beginning of the word ‘habit’; all combinations and even the last of letters appears to be meaningful. Habits are good and bad; and there are many in both these categories. Each one of us is sure that all others we have met have bad habits about which they are not at all aware of. The question is on how aware we are on the details and grade of all the habits we inherit. Unless you are aware of what you do, I am compelled to call you mad.

 

Madness is not limited to getting angry or showing severe mental illness only. It also means lack of clear and sensible thinking. Science knows that no human being is exactly what we see with our outward eyes but a combination of subtle and gross energy units called body, mind and spirit. So it is not exactly what you eat that you are but more what you think. Clear and sensible thinking is proof of one’s overall health. Almost all of us are under some sort of personality disorders at some degree. Personality disorders are relatively stable patterns of thinking, perceiving, reacting, and relating that differ from expected norms and that begin early in life.

 

Yes, mind and consciousness keep on playing a big drama here. Whatever you do, your inner conscience supports you with enough of necessary justifications. You will be surprised to realize that the most heinous criminal you have heard of also had a conscience that justified everything he did. Here is the crisis! We need to double check before we speak something, think something or do something. This ends up in awareness. Doing everything with absolute awareness is practically impossible. It took some time for Gautama Buddha to scare a mosquito, which landed on his shoulder. By the time Buddha lifted his hand as if controlled by an operator, the mosquito had sucked enough blood and fled away in joy. However, Buddha affirmed that being aware is the only way to realization. Our road to absolute awareness is through awareness exercises done in daily lives. It is quite an interesting experience to do everything after a double check and being fully aware of what is being done. Awareness exists only in present simple tense, nowhere else.

 

Joseph Mattappally

KABIR PEACE MISSION — Brief Introduction

Today, there is an atmosphere of despondency all around and most of the people believe that the evil has overtaken the virtue. Though this in itself is a subject of discussion, but even if it is true, such belief only strengthens the negative forces and in the process, the positive forces get discouraged. The problem is further compounded by the fact that most of those who believe like this take no steps to change this situation. Even those few who think of taking some steps, do not proceed much as they do not find the atmosphere conducive. In such a situation the question arises how to solve the problem and further, who would do so.

We feel that the situation is not so horrible as it appears. No doubt that today the negative forces are raising their head but such has been the situation always in one form or the other. It is also true that in the end, the negative forces have to face only defeat. Therefore, firstly, it is necessary to believe that the negative thinking is a symbol of ignorance and those who think negative only harm themselves. On the other hand, though the positive thinking may not appear rewarding in the short run, eventually our welfare lies only in the positive thinking. It is also true, there is no dearth of positive forces in the society. Had it been so, the creation would have ceased to exist. If at a point of time, negative forces appear to be flourishing, it is only a process of their destruction.

Therefore it is very essential that, first of all, we make our thinking positive so that the process of establishing peace in the society is expedited. `Kabir Peace Mission' was established in the year 1990 with this objective in mind and since then, this mission is humbly endeavouring in this direction. The results of our endeavour have been very encouraging and this gives us motivation to work further. We believe that more important than ‘Gross National Income' is `Gross National Happiness'. In the absence of peace, money loses its importance and happiness eludes us. The purpose of naming the mission after `Kabir' is that our central point is man and we consider him above any religion, caste or nation. For us peace has a comprehensive meaning and we see it as an integrated development. This is possible only when our life has a clear mission.

`Mission' is taking several steps for achieving its objective. Among them, publicity and extension of inspirational books is a major one. From this viewpoint, the mission has published many books and the process is on. We also promote the publicity and extension of other similar books. The mission is specially engaged in making the thinking of young students positive. We believe that the future of the country and the world is in the hands of today's children. The effort made on them, is therefore, the best investment. In addition, we are trying to make every work place, be it in any field, positive. For this we organise special lectures, seminars, discussions and other programmes. We also honour the positive forces of the society from time to time. In this humble effort of ours, we need the cooperation of all. We believe that essentially every man or woman is divine and virtues are hidden in all. If their virtues can be brought out, every one's contribution becomes positive. Our request is that we must also see the positive side of every situation so that inspiration and the strength to overcome the negative side is generated. We shall be very happy to extend any cooperation in this effort of yours. Our mission has the cooperation and the blessings of many and this is our real asset. This is what we expect from you also.

(Those who are intereste to join Kabir Foundation may kindly contact :

Rakesh Kumar Mittal IAS (Founder & Chief Coordinator)

‘UPVAN', 1/14, Vishwas Khand, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow-226010

Tel: 0522-2309147, E-mail: kabirpeacemission@yahoo.co.in).

Return to Nature

Guruji continued: “We often forget the fact that the evil in the world are mostly social expressions of the evil within us. Injustice, corruption, rape and murder are only outer expressions of the selfishness, greed, lust and violence lurking within our own selves... 

“A healthy body is the most important requirement for a happy and fruitful life…. Most of our sicknesses are created by ourselves, because of our un-natural food habits and life-styles…. Then we set up multi-specialty hospitals and spend a lot of money to treat our sicknesses…. We refuse to accept the truth that a return to nature is the only way to regain our lost health. It is the only way to live healthy and fruitful lives… 

“A return to nature will imply eating uncooked fruits, nuts and vegetables; drinking unboiled and unchlorinated fresh water, exposing the body to enough sunlight, breathing fresh air, and walking barefoot on mother earth. But we refuse to return to nature, even when we fall seriously sick, though we know pretty well that such a natural life-style alone can cure us of all sicknesses, and keep us healthy and happy,... and this form of natural and non-violent lifestyle alone can help us build a culture of peace on earth… 

“Economics and politics also need to be rebuilt on the basis of such a holistic ecological world view…. The true basis of a New Creation,…. of an Integral Revolution that the world so badly needs today,… is a return to nature and natural life-styles…..

“Violence and bloodshed in the world are caused mainly by the greed, anger or frustration accumulated within individuals, communities and nations ….

“Seeds of peace, my son, have to be sown in the hearts and minds of individual human persons. That is why the UNESCO Constitution begins by saying: ‘As the wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that defenses for peace must be constructed’…..

“An inner transformation of the individual and a return to nature and natural life-styles are pre-requisites for any true and lasting social transformation, and for abiding peace in the world… It calls us to develop a unitive divine consciousness. This means a consciousness of our inherent unity and divinity as children of God created in His own image and likeness. 

“A unitive divine consciousness will develop in us an awareness that we are united with all living beings,… that we are one family bound with a common destiny;... not only the whole humankind, but also, all life and the whole creation… Religions and nation states are smaller families within the larger human family…”

The Baba stopped and looked at his disciple.

Atma Prakash was all attention.

After few minutes of silence, the Baba continued: 

“The means and ends are inter-related, like a tree and its fruits. Violent means cannot bring peaceful ends. Corrupt means cannot build a corruption-free society or a corruption-free Government….

“Selfish and corrupt Parliamentarians and Legislators cannot bring forth just and righteous laws and rules. Unjust laws cannot build a world of justice…

“Hence, just as inner transformation of the individual and a return to nature and natural life-styles are pre-requisites for any true and lasting social transformation and for abiding health and happiness, right means and right people alone can bring about right ends. Do you understand these realities, my son?’ The Baba asked and looked into the eyes of Atma Prakash.

“Yes guruji, I understand and accept fully what you have said so far. But I want to hear first all that you wish to tell me. Then I may please be allowed to clarify my doubts, if any.” Atma Prakash told his guruji.

‘Yes, of course, my son. That is how it should be.”

The Baba said and was silent for few minutes.

Excerpts from Integral Revolution: Swami Sachidananda Bharati