Excuse : A deadly disease

 Excuse is a very pernicious disease. The treatment of this disease is not so easy also. No matter how much talent, skill, potential, power, and energy you have, you can achieve nothing significant in your life, if you are suffering from the disease known as excuse. It is the skill killer. It is the big obstructer of your success in your life. Making excuse of not doing any work looks very easy, and once you form this habit, you promptly and frequently use that. We can understand the difference between the success and futile person or the potential to be success and failure in his life, by the amount of his excuses and alibis. The people with excuses never try anything new in their life. Before taking any assignment, they find plenty of logic, why this assignment or plan will fail. They become expert enough to garner all the information and logic why this will fail. Even, without listening anything, they start speaking and fabricating the matter for excuses to get the failure in the particular pursuits. They live the life of lack of commitment. They do not want to take the responsibility of anything happening or going to take place in future. They remain ready for the taking the credit, if anything happens well. The person, who cannot take the responsibility of the action and result thereof, cannot thrive in his life, cannot be big achievers, and cannot claim a grand success in his life on his own. The brain is not negative or positive; it is up to us how we are using it. In  both the cases, our mind find the logic to prove it why and how you can accomplish this, in this contrast, when you make excuse, your mind find the logic why and how you cannot accomplish that.

 A successful person, never form a habit of making excuse, whatever the situation occurs in his life. He takes the assignment, make goal in his life to achieve, and find all the reason and logic why and how he can accomplish that. The futile person, who looks at the present situation, and declare himself, he cannot do this, because, lot of stuff like this has gone through failure phases, so this pursuit also would be. If someone put this kind of statement to his mind, although he starts his pursuit, yet he will not put his whole heart into it, he will use his partial energy and power to achieve it, hence failure is guaranteed. Nothing can be achieved half-heartedly. Might be not consciously, but unconsciously, he will getting the signal from the mind that why you are trying this, you will be getting debacle in this. Sooner or later, he will quit and again, will give the reason and logic why it got failed, and put the alibi on others. Everyone wants to have a grand success in his life, but the contradiction in the life makes them to recede from the success. If those persons get whatever wanted to get in his life with the help of others or by some other means; in this scenario, they can neither handle the success nor get the happiness, they would only accumulate ego, which is again a major cause for a person to plummet. The contradictory life, never help anyone to reach the acme of anyone`s profession. Prevent yourselves from the disease known as excuse.

Black Asuras and White Devas

In mythology, we find Asuras and Devas fight each-other to show their supreme over others. In Mythology, the stories, gods and goddesses, demons and idols; these all are the symbols to convey the message of the truth to the masses. The stories and symbolism leave the long lasting impression on the mind of the people. That is why; these media to tell the truth become so popular. Those fables and symbols were told more than thousands year ago, and still it is vivid among the masses. We can find these stories in the book of Puranas, the ancient stories. The strife between Asuras and Devas are prominent, and we can find it in almost all the Puranas. Asuras and Devas both are the children of Lord Brahma, the creator. A noteworthy thing is that the Asuras are depicted with black color and Devas with white color. These colors are also a symbolism, it does not mean, the person with black color cannot have the godly quality or divinity, and the person with white color cannot have the demonic quality. The realm of the Asuras is subterranean, and the realm of the Devas is sky. In the subterranean, there is darkness and in the sky, there is light only. Darkness means the lack of light. Light is the symbolism of knowledge and darkness is the dearth of the light, means ignorant. These reflect the colors of Asuras and Devas. The Asuras, do not distinct between what to be done and what not to be done, what is religion and what is irreligion, what is beneficial for the cosmos and what is not, they live in darkness, they are not clear about the real purpose of the life and existence, that is what their color is portrayed with black. Devas lives in the light, they are knowledgeable, they know what to be done and what not to be done, and what is the beneficial for the cosmos and the entire creatures, they are very clear about the real purpose of the life and the existence. The way darkness and light cannot co-exist, the knowledge and ignorant cannot co-exist, one need to sacrifice in the presence of other, in the similar fashion, Asuras and Devas cannot live together, one need to get defeated to make the regime of other. They are of opposite quality, hence strife between Asuras and Devas are portrayed as the symbol of the knowledge and ignorant.

Scientifically, the black color absorbs all the colors and white color reflects back all other colors. In this way, the black color is the color of the attachments and white color is the color of detachments and purity. Asuras means who indulge in only sensual pleasure, and Deva means light, who enlighten others, the person who has these qualities become Devata, who gives. In Veda, at one place, there is description, to get rid of the darkness. At that time, people did not understand the meaning of that, and the white people started fighting with black persons to get rid of them, and in this way, a huge differences and fight took place between white and black people. This took place of the racism, which Veda never allows. This was the cause of the short understanding of the Veda and its teachings. Black and white are the symbolism of the character not the color of the person`s manifestation.

The Purpose of Char-Dhaam, the Four Abodes

There are four dhaams which are highly revered in Hinduism, Badrinath, Dwarka, Jagannath Puri, and Rameshwaram. Apart from these four dhaams, there are four chota dhaam (small abodes) viz. Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. These four dhaams were constituted by Adi Shankaracharya, the expounder of Adaivta Vedanta, it consists three Vaishnavite and one Shaivite. These four Dhaams are situated at four direction of this country, and all four are situated at the bank of water (river or sea). Badrinath (in Utrakhand state) is in north, situated at the bank of Alaknanda; Dwarka (in Gujarat State) is in west, located close to where the Gomati River merges into the Gulf of Kutch; Jagannath Puri (in Orissa state) is in east, situated on the coast of the Bay of Bengal; and Rameshwaram (in Tamilnadu state) is in south, situated in the Gulf of Mannar. Geographically, the char dhaam make a perfect square with Badrinath and Rameshwaram falling on the same longitude and Dwarka (old) and Puri on the same latitude. It is said that Lord Krishna, take bath at Rameshwaram, feed himself in Puri, in Dwarka, he talks to his subjects and at last he reach to Badrinath in the Himalaya in the secluded place for meditation and penance. Traditionally the trip starts are the eastern end from Puri, proceeding in clockwise direction in a manner typically followed for circumambulation in Hindu temples. Chota char dhaam are situated in the Garhwal Himalayas, where Adi Shankaracharya attained freedom from embodiment.

At that time, the differences between Vaishnavite and Shaivite was bulging, the differences among the different regions was also conspicuous. Distinct people from different faith and regions had distinct understanding about the religions and spirituality. Hinduism itself was divided. The Adaivta Vedanta prophesies one supreme lord.  Adi Shankaracharya put his diligent effort to unite all the sects and regions together to obliterate the differences, and to understand the journey of life. The purpose of life is getting salvation, freedom from all of our Karma. After living your worldly life, at last, you have to meditate on your true self to get the liberation from all kind of malaises. These char dhaam is the symbol of the journey of the life. This was the effort of Adi Shankaracharya to make the masses understand the philosophy of life and eradicate all differences if you have among the same human. If you understand the purpose of these pilgrimages, you get all the fruit akin to vising those abode physically. If you do not understand and use in your life even after visiting these char dhaam, it is bereft of any result. You become only the part of the throng not the result out of that.

Children of Mind, the Negativity and Positivity

          
Lord Brahma, the creator, created this cosmos and all the creatures. Demons and gods are the children of Lord Brahma. Demons are elder and gods are younger. Although, they are the offspring of the same creator, yet they do not like each-other. They keep fighting to prove them right and control the regime of the cosmos. Demons look physically stronger than gods. Demons defeat gods at the beginning and control the entire regime. Once they get their regime and victory over gods, they start spread their atrocity, they go against the scripture, religions, they indulge only in sensual gratification, they do not think that there is bigger and supreme thing than this. They start assume themselves supreme and ultimate controller of the cosmos by rejecting the existence of the supreme personality of the Godhead. They prove themselves precarious for the established cosmos. They live in darkness, lack of knowledge, bereft of what to be done and what not to be done. They forget that God has made us to help the nature and prosper together and help the weaker existence to survive. They try to control over the nature and want to hoard everything at any cost. Gods with divine quality has the control on their senses, and have the knowledge of the scripture and religions. They think for whole the cosmos; they indulge in fighting with demons to take the control from demons to save the nature and all the creatures from the clang of the demons.

          

            Although, demons have the physical strength and power to do more penance, yet they do not have the control over the senses, they do not think beyond the sensual pleasure, which is the greatest weakness of the demons. Gods take the benefit of this weakness of the demons and defeat them, and release all the creatures and nature from the entanglement of the demons. Like Lord Brahma, we are also the creator of our life. As Vedanta says,” Aham brahmasi, tat tavam asi (I am Brahma, so you are)”. The demons symbolize negativity and gods symbolize positivity. Both negativity and positivity are the mind children of ours. Both have the contrast nature, although, the source of their origin is the same, yet they cannot foster and stay together. If one need to foster, second need to be defeated. It is depend upon us, to whom we give the regime of life, whether to the negativity or to the positivity. Seed of negativity and positivity is within our mind, it depends upon us to whom we are nurturing, and allowing being the prominent part of our life under the shelter of divinity.

Grow-up or Give-up, Choice is Yours

Mental preparation is more valuable than physical preparation. The person who has an equal capability to have mastery in both the preparations becomes invincible in his life. The real victory is not only handling the trophy, rather the real victory is the commitment not to give up at any situation. Ups and downs are the part and parcel of the life. You would not find anyone who has not confronted the ups and downs, victory and defeat, success and failure in his journey of life. Both the situations, favorable and unfavorable are temporary. The real champions are those, who never get perverted in both the situations. One boxer was almost invincible at his time. He challenged all the contemporary boxers to have bout with him; no one could have garnered the courage to accept his challenge. One person, who was an average boxer, accepted his challenge. He started his preparation for the big box day. No doubt, physically, the former boxer was stronger. The second boxer started preparing mentally that what could be the situation, till my last breath, I will not give up, I will get-up and grow with more confidence every time I would fall. With this attitude, he kept preparing rigorously for the fight.  The awaited box day came, the first boxer started dominating the second boxer, he was attacking him heavily, every time he falls, and ask himself, get-up or give-up, he always chose get-up and fight. It was startling to everyone, even at his dying condition; he was getting-up and taking his position to fight with the champion. The fight was going in the side of the champion boxer. The second boxer was not getting chance to counterattack to the first boxer. He had become defensive, and first was on incessant attacking mood. We know that many times more energy is required to attack than to defend. By continuous attack, the first boxer also reached at the verge of fatigue. And to the surprise to everyone, the second boxer`s one strong punch made the first boxer to lay down, and the second boxer won the bout.

Everything has the definite start and end. No matter how big your problem is, there is definite fatigue point for it. It is up to the individuals to make the choice between the give-up and grow-up. Making choice between give-up and grow-up is the habit. By sighting the critical situation, it looks easy to give-up, but this mentality make you an average person throughout your life, no matter how much skill and talent you are possessing. By confronting the odd situation, if you get frustrated, irritated, anger, worried etc. it means, you are at the verge to give-up, internally you do not want to get-up from the situation and grow. If you want to thrive in your life, commit yourself not to give-up. If you are ready to give-up, do not expect growth in your life. Choices are yours whether you want to grow-up or give-up.

Lit the Light to Dissipate the Darkness

Life is not something which can be left on chance. Groping in the darkness in the hope to find the way of a grand life is also not going to help. Floundering in the darkness means bumping yourselves against the wall. To get the door of the life, you must first dissipate the darkness from the life. You also cannot sham like putting your palms on your eyes and shouting and complaining about the darkness outside. In fact, there is no darkness; there is simply the absence of the light. Once you ignite the light, the darkness dissipates automatically. The light and darkness cannot co-exist. You have to learn to lit the light of knowledge to dispel the darkness of your life. You cannot see your life as it is without the light of knowledge. No one can help much to lit the light of your life on your behalf, if you are taking the responsibility in your hand. You have to struggle and strive to set alight of your life.

The spark of the vivid life is hidden within you, you need not go anywhere for its search, or you need not go to someone to ask for it. You have to just recognize and slog to lit it. In the ditch darkness, even a small ray of light make a huge different, it attracts the attention of all. If you lit the light of knowledge in your life, it will make you striking, and attracts the attention of others. Like the mustard seed contains the oil in it, the curd contains the ghee in it; the wood contains the fire in it. These contents are not visible from outside. To get the oil of ghee or fire, we need to create the struggle to make these contents come out. Similarly, the light of knowledge is hidden within us, which has the ability to show you the right path of your life and get you wherever you want to reach in your life. You have to strive for that to get this ignited within to see the path of the goal where you ultimately want to reach in your life.

The lack of knowledge is the darkness in your life, this is called ignorant, and the ignorant person never distinct what to be done and what not to be done, what to be feared and what not to be feared, what is action and what is forbidden action. He does everything in darkness and reach nowhere in his life, and at last he incriminates others for his destitute. The knowledgeable person, who have ignited the light of knowledge in his life by the viable slog and strive, he understand clearly what to be done and what not to be done, what to be feared and what not to be feared, what is action and what is forbidden action. He does everything in his awareness with proper understanding. He enjoys every bit of his life. This is just matter of alighting the light within and recognize the true self, to live the life to the fullest. Do not be in darkness, know yourself, your true being; once you know this, there is nothing in this world which is inaccessible for you. You become enlightened one.

The Creator of Own Path

Once, Thomas A. Edison was busy in invention with his team. He would have tried almost seven hundred methods to get this invention done, but with no luck.  Every time, he was getting debacle in his pursuit towards his invention. All his members who were indulged in this pursuit were younger and energetic. But after some time, they all had left all the hope to get the invention completed. Every time, Thomas comes to the lab with the same zeal and confidence. No one was understanding, why Thomas was looking so enthusiastic about this invention, although, there was no any ray of hope visible of getting it done. All the members were demotivated and demoralized expect Thomas, he had strong believe that he would complete his mission, no matter, how many failure he would get.  

Once Thomas came out from the lab with warm smile, everyone thought, might be, he got some way out. He told to them with smile, “I got one more failure in this pursuit”.  Everyone was numb by thinking, he got failure, and he is smiling and celebrating like he got the success. He told to them, “This is not merely the failure, I got one more step ahead towards my success, I am not going to use this method again, I will not knock seven hundred doors again to get the success, which I have already tried, it is clear that no way out hidden in these doors, I will knock another doors. One thing is certain that there is definite way out for this pursuit. Only remaining thing is to find out the right door which will lead us towards our invention. This attitude of Thomas made him the inventor of 1,093 inventions, and founder of 14 companies.

What we see in life as failure, in fact, these are not failures rather these are the steps to reach our goal. Some recognize this truth and gain the grand success, and some see himself as a looser and quit. There is no failure or success; there are only outcomes of our activities. It is easy to walk on the path made by others, but geniuses are those who make the path for themselves and leave their indelible footprint forever for others to walk.

 

Enjoy Your Freedom

The entire creatures are the creation of one almighty God. The almighty dwell in everyone`s heart. The entire cosmos is enveloped by the same almighty. He has proprietary over all. We do not possess anything, even; we do not have proprietary over our body. What we possess at this moment, has been provided by God to us for a temporary use, it has been given to us for a specific purpose and for specific time period. All the creation of God is bound by time and space, but the creator is beyond of this concept. He is the ultimate master and owner of everything moving here. It is our ignorant to show arrogance and proudness on all our temporary possessions. Some share of prosperity has been given to you according to your skill and Karma you have done in the past. The current Karma, the action, would determine your fortune for the future. Life does not put things in front of you which you are unable to handle. According to your need and capability, the nature provide everything to you, by using those in proper way, you can lead a happy and prosperous life. The nature follow the simple law; if you carve for more prosperity, knowledge , wisdom, respect and everything what you wish in your life, the simple fact is to enhance your awareness and skill to show your capability to handle those in your life. When your capabilities reach to the required standard, all those hankering things start following towards you automatically.

What the nature provides you, it is not for your use only, it has been provided to you, so that, you can use those to help others. The nature is not putting the fortune in the hand of someone, who is unable to handle it. You are found eligible for that, so that, it is in your hand, do not be arrogant with that, but be gratitude to God for your selection for this noble cause. You cannot get the happiness even after getting all the prosperity in your life, if you are not using it for the welfare for the nature and the established society. The person never be happy, who do not use whatever has been provided by nature, and crave what belongs to others. The person, who get the knowledge and realization that, the same almighty is dwelling in everyone`s heart, and the existence of all the creatures emanates from one source only. He never entangles. No one possess anything here, it is temporary. Whatever God has been provided to you, enjoy that. Keep some selected desires in your life, and strive to accomplish those desires, but do not use those for merely your benefit and do not attached much with that. The attachment and understanding the temporary is the permanent are the prominent cause of the miseries in your life. The understanding, nothing belongs to you, even your body, and everything is presented to you to use and enjoy without transgressing the moral law, bring the ecstasy in your life, and in this way you do not bind yourselves with temporary. Freedom is not which comes from exterior one, the real freedom is internal freedom. One cannot get the internal freedom without having inward journey. The inward journey takes place by knowledge, intelligence, recognition, realization and understanding. Human is born free, but human`s act and lack of knowledge and awareness entangle him. Do not fall in that category, enhance your understanding about the reality and law of nature, and enjoy the freedom, which is the innate quality of the human.

Ritual Purity or Moral Purity

In all the religions, some specific rituals are performed. The specific methods and guidelines have been prescribed to perform the rituals. It is said that, the missing of the purity and the prescribed guidelines in performing rituals is bereft of the result. The distinct rituals in distinct religions are the external symbols to create the internal purity. The spirituality, the knowledge of the spirit, cannot be regained without internal and moral purity. The purpose of all the religions is to get the knowledge of the spirit, the true self. There could be different methods to get the knowledge of the true self. The different-different religions have devised the distinct method or rituals to gain the knowledge of the spirit, depending upon the geographical and life-style constraints.

The internal purity can be attained by the knowledge, devotional services and rituals. These are the options available for one to know the true self. The persons who is elite and knowledgeable, for those do not require any rituals, because, they understand the spirit by the study of scripture and contemplation on that. It is not possible for all the people to study scripture and understand it and contemplate on that, for them, rituals were constituted to get the benefit and replicate those for the internal purity.  Those persons, for whom, rituals also look tough, they have option to indulge in devotional service, by this also, the internal purity can be gained.

The knowledge of the scripture is worthless without implementation its learning in the moral purity. The devotional services are useless without understanding its real purpose. It is sin, if it is being done for ostentation, and to gain the benefit of any kind materially. No matter how correctly and with purity, one is performing the rituals, if its meaning is not understood, and it is not replicating directly to your moral correctness and purity, it is waste and bereft of any result. The purity of the rituals does not make any sense, if it is not helping in your moral purity. Moral purity is the door to reach to your spirit. Even you are not studied all the scripture, not indulge in devotional service, not performing any rituals, yet you understand the purpose behind that, you can purity your moral, the door of spirituality. It is always supportive to pay attention on the moral purity rather than ritual purity.

Do not Expect Help from Helpless

Many a times it would have happened with you also that when you go to seek some help from someone, and before listening your requirements and problems, that person start talking about his issue and problems to you, it directly appears that the person is not in the mood to help you, rather that person is seeking help for himself. Even though, that person is capable enough to help you, still he would readily not help you, he would seek some request from you, he will seek your help to validate his stature and position, that person is helpless, if you not give him proper validation, it might be fake also, he will not help you. Various persons have many thing by which they can help others to make that person come out of his temporary problems, but they refute to help, because, they are under the influence of the habits not to help others but to take help from others. Those kinds of persons, even though, they have all the prosperity and means, but still they are beggar at different level. Internally they never feel that they are powerful, they may show their stature and power outside, but internally, they are living in a great scarcity. They seek your help to validate their power and capabilities. The real powerful and successful person never seeks validation of others to feel those. They know, they are strong and powerful, the temporary setback never make their thought and stature down. More than 90% persons are helpless. If you try to seek help from those kinds of persons, you will not get anything but frustration.

To feel yourself powerful and successful in your life, commit yourself to help others, not to seek help. Always seeking help from others would be very pernicious for the life. The simple method, if you want something from people, do not expect and beg, rather work for people what they want and you will get what you want. Suppose, you have some big dream and goal, and you go to someone to seek some advice, if that person is not in the position to evaluate and value your dream and goal, it is quite possible, he may deride your dream, and you may get demotivated, if you are not dogged determined person. This is not the mistake of that person; this is your mistake of choosing the wrong person to take help and advice, who is already helpless. Many persons lost their dream and could not garner the courage to think big and great, because of selecting and expecting helpless person to help them. That person never help you, rather, he takes help from you to prove his statements.

Make yourselves so strong and skillful and prosper, so that, you never need to take help from others. Commit yourself to help others not to take help from others. And you cannot help someone without helping yourself. Do not be or feel helpless at any kind of situation, help yourself and others to whom you meet as per your strength and standard. You are not taken birth here to be helpless and scrounger, you are here to be and live a life like an emperor. Recognize your strength, potential, energy and power, and awake those to live your life emphatically and help other to live their life meaningfully too.

The Power of Silence

There is no more than one person exist at the same time with the same talent and quality. Everyone existing on this earth is unique and has the potential to create a history by their uniqueness and talent. But very few persons understand and recognize their true being and do the different than others and create a unique life and achievements. Majority of people do not understand their potential and uniqueness and compel themselves to live a miserable life. They listen to the crowd, they are full of noise by the outer world, the outer noise is so dominating that they are unable to listen the inner voice, the true self, the reality. They never come to know about their true potential shrouded within. The inner voice is continuously coming, but we have created so turbulent in our life that we are not listening that voice and we perverting ourselves.

To catch any particular voice clearly, the other outer sound and noise should be shunned. To listen our inner voice, which continually sending the signal about our true potential and identity of the true self, we must silence ourselves. The silence allow you to stop all the noise which is coming from outside. Make yourselves calm and composed; keep yourself deep silence to listen the inner powerful and energetic voice. Just forget your all outer identification, just keep silence and listen. Everyone is powerful, but without energy power is worthless. The powerful engine is useless without fuel. This inner voice will reveal your true potential. It will help you to awake your energy to make your powerful personality to be visible outside. It is like a pond, when pond is still without any ripple, you can see and listen every voice there. When you drop a stone in the still pond, you can see the ripple created by your own stone. In the turbulent ocean, you cannot see the ripple of your stone. Similarly, if we want to search our true self in the turbulent life, we cannot. We need to be like a still pond to get our true self.

You can make yourself silence and listen and recognize your true potential by meditation and contemplation, and other way of this is to spend time with nature, understand the mind of the God who created this beautiful nature. How creative it is! With alignment with the nature, the creativity will take place within you too. Once you know your true self, the true potential, your uniqueness, you will not have any fear in your life; any goal will not look inaccessible for you. The achievers and great persons know their true self, and no-achievers get time for everything but not to know the true self. This is the difference between the achievers and non-achievers. Keep yourselves internally silence to listen and get directed towards your major purpose in your life. The inner voice is always genuine and true, and outer noise is confusing and most of the time misleading.