Business to the Buddha

Category: Buddha

  • Bhakti






    The Buddha only spoke about scientific path of liberation – Meditation. According to Indian philosophy there are more ways, one is Bhakti or devotion. Remember Meera bai, Meera bai followed Bhakti path?in_union_with_krishna_oq05

    I was speaking with someone. I said I recite Hanuman Chalisa but find it very strange. Hanuman Chalisa is a prayer/song/devotional hymn for Lord Hanuman (Foreigners know Hanuman as Monkey god of Ramayana’s time).

    According to Hanuman Chalisa, Hanumanji suggested Vibhishan (brother of King Ravana) to go to lord Ram, thus Vibhishan became king of Lanka after Rama defeated Ravana.

    तुम्हरो मन्त्र बिभीषन माना।
    लंकेश्वर भए सब जग जाना॥

    I never liked this part of the Hanuman Chalisa (statement). What I know is – Vibhishan suggested Ravana that Ravana has done wrong and Ravana should make amend. Ravana does not listen to Vibhishan and ostracize him. Vibhishan knew what is right and wrong. He made his choice to be on the side of Rama in the war. I dislike Tulsidas (author of Hanuman Chalisa) giving credit to lord Hanuman for Vibhishan’s choice and decision. I would not question on Sugriva‘s anointment though.

    At times, I have reservations with these prayers where we keep on praising the lord with a result in mind. “Please give me this thing or that thing.” Effectively we are making a business deal with them an example is Ganesha’s aarti – http://greenmesg.org/mantras_slokas/sri_ganesha-jai_ganesh_jai_ganesh_aarti.php which seems more of a business than a loving relationship.

    My this hesitation was broken by one Art of Living Bhajans. I had seen (almost met) Guruji – Sri Sri Ravishankar – in 2003. But I did not do the course for 1.5 years because I felt “My Guru will have time for me, he (Sri Sri) has a lot of followers.” My sister forced me into the course. Besides the interesting method – Sudarshan Kriya – I learnt in the course, what I loved was this bhajan, link below. It has “no demand”, it has “no praise” either. It just repeats one name of lord Krishna.

    This is real Bhakti in my definition. I love this bhajan – no request, no appeal, no begging and no demand. This is Bhakti – whatever you want to confer, confer; it is your wish/will. I am reciting your name no matter what, no matter in what situation you keep me. That is the other path for liberation according to Indian spirituality.

    Hari Hari || Chitra Roy Art Of Living Bhajans

    Image source – http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Pvuexh7J1Cs/S–9pMcpNaI/AAAAAAAACUU/7c7rmt5eIbY/s1600/in_union_with_krishna_oq05.jpg

  • Symbol of Faith







    Question markLet us have question mark as symbol of Faith! Hope this will help us question the blind faith. Interesting thing with blind faith is – none of the blind faith follower (believer) wants to accept that – “his/her’s is blind faith”.

    Question mark as symbol and the book of faith should contain questions on everything – what, how, when, why, who and where. Everything written in the book should have question. Questioning every assumption, every belief and every point raised in the name of faith.

    [Tweet “Let us have question mark as symbol of Faith! “]

    QuestionI was thinking about the religious books, the point to make symbol of faith as “?” is because many a times asking questions and raising opposing thoughts are not accepted in many religions. Earth is round was contested and people are killing just because their religious book states that. How long will we and should we accept these stupid things?

    Question mark in different shape, size, color and gender. Let us not spare any kind of division!

    I remember reading that the Buddha said – “…Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it…”

    There are religious atrocities everywhere these days, if we question everything and then decide to take action will we not reduce many unnecessary atrocities?

    Image source – various Google images search results Feb 15, 2015

  • Ek Omkar Satnam







    You know what? Whatever you are thinking is not your thought! This thought is the will of God. There is no FREE-WILL.

    when I thought about the last lines of Ek Omkar Satnam Gurbani I felt helpless. The last line means – “O Nanak, it is written that you shall obey the Hukam (order) of His Command, and walk in the Way of His Will.”

    Check some distorted meaning based video from the movie Rang De Basanti and read a better English translation of the Gurubani here.

    When I tried comprehending the meaning of Gurubani, I felt as if I am egoist. I questioned myself – then what am I doing? Why am I doing it? And why should anyone even have ambition or goals or anything? Is everything is what THE God wants me to think do and act? What is my CHOICE then? What if the thought and CHOICE is also implanted by HIM? Who am I? Am I a dead weight that should just flow with the river of life?

    Things get complicated when such questions come in mind. The mind doesn’t want to accept its “non-existence” and heart says that is right, who are you? [check the hearts reasoning universe and Two men in a room – Ego] Why do you go on and on, where do you want to go, where will you reach – remember it is a treadmill you are running to stay wherever you are. More your mind runs faster you will have to run. Just leave it to His WILL.

    Are you a swimmer? If you can not swim and kind of drown, the more you try to save yourself more you get into trouble. That is how the FREE WILL and HIS Will business seem to work. The harder your try miserably you fail.

    Today when I learnt the meaning of Ek Omkar Satnam, it made me realize that I am just “an insignificant nothing”, but the mind doesn’t accept it.

  • Reaction and response







    RR-at-weddingI have an adopted uncleji (Uncle – for Hindi is father’s brother) – Ramana Rajgopaul (picture on the left side). Question should not be asked whether I adopted him or he did, ;). What is important is he has been a great support to me always. He writes almost daily at www.rummuser.com the first question I asked him when I contacted him was is it Rum User or R-Musser or r-muser. A gratitude blog on him in future. Here is a story he shared with me recently.

    The cockroach theory for self development.

    At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady.  She started screaming out of fear.  With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.

    Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky.  The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but it landed on another lady in the group.  Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama.

    The waiter rushed forward to their rescue.  In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.  The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt.  When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.

    Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behavior?  If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed?  He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos.

    It is not the cockroach, but the inability of the ladies to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach that disturbed the ladies.  I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, but it’s my inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs me.  It’s not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs me.  More than the problem, it’s my reaction to the problem that creates chaos in my life.  Lessons learnt from the story:  I understood, I should not react in life.

    I should always respond.

    The women reacted, whereas the waiter responded.  Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always well thought of.

    Reminds me of a story in the life of the Buddha. That story some time in future.

    Disclaimer – Author neither owns copyright on the photo of Mr Rajgopaul nor on the story.

  • Why not Celebrate daily? Happy New Year







    In India we celebrate maximum number of New Years – Hindu New Year, Christian New Year, Parasi New Year etc etc. Besides all these new year celebrations we have many more festivals. I believe is we go by every tradition and religion followed here, every second day would be a reason to celebrate. And why not? We should enjoy and celebrate life, why wait?

    When I reflect and visualize ancient India, I can only visualize happy songs and some festivities of this movie – Utsav. Not the whole movie but the rustic milieu and everyone knowing the other and festivity. I remember as a kid we used to have almost a one month holiday during Diwali. We used to celebrate a lot of festivals, one was Vasant Utsav during Feb March followed by Holi. Holi too used to be an interesting festival and we used to say – “Do not mind its Holi today” (बुरा न मानो  होली है).

    holiI relate most celebrations to Holi (though now a days holi is celebrate with wilderness, which I do not like). Our every celebration should be like Holi celebration. Wish we can learn from that one sentence – do not take life seriously, Enjoy life. Now we search for reasons to be happy and enjoy life. Thought this “search” can be accommodated however “joy” should be with awareness. I think we are missing that link of awareness now a days.

    I heard Sri Sri’s (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) old talk QnA session. In that session he emphasized on celebrating every moment. It is a good idea.

    Celebrate daily, celebrate every moment – with full awareness.

    Image source – http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/120308/holi-celebrations-color-poisoning

  • I was robbed… learnt something







    IMG_20141204_194356I was very happy. Just before I was planning to leave for my wedding ceremony, I had received a congratulatory message from my friend, philosopher, guide and deity – all in one person. Whenever I had communicated with my personal god – all in one – I have always felt blissed.

    I reached home after office at about 7:30 PM on 4th Dec. I was shocked when I saw there is no lock at the door. I live alone and there was no reason for door to be unlocked. With shock, surprise and a question in my mind – “who could have done this?” I went inside. I saw my stuff was scattered all over the places. In utter shock, dismay and puzzle I took some pics (bag), informed my landlord and told him that I am going to police station to lodge a complaint.

    I had never thought that someone would break into my apartment. I am just a nobody in the crowd of millionaires/billionaires in Mumbai. I was thinking do I have any valuables that someone should break in my apartment? Except consumables everything is owned by my landlord. I think thieves do not know that I am a guy next door.

    This incident helped me learn a very important lesson. I had been robbed and an unknown amount of things have been robbed and some thousand rupees physical damage was done. However, beyond these material possessions there are some things that none can steal from a person. One I had owned the day my apartment was broken by robbers. Deep down somewhere in my heart I was happy/elated/blissful, I had just had a communication with that special person. That blissful experience could not be robbed from me. I wondered in all ados around the world, somethings cannot be stolen – one should strive for that possession not the material ones. Who knows these material possessions can be taken anytime without your knowledge.

    I had another parting thought when I wrote this blog – why should one STRIVE for even this possession. Mirdad says in The Book of Mirdad –

    Less Possession Less Possessed.

    Wish I can live upto it sooner rather than later.

  • The God; missed!







    PlaceI went to Kolkata a few weeks back, it is a wonderful city. Predominantly “god fearing” cultural city. [Question is – if God made us why should we be scared of him? Anyways] [Tweet “Question is if God made us why should we be scared of him?”] There are a lot of temples there, historical places. I was impressed. Well, I shall be going there once in a while, reason some time in the future.

    I went to Kalighat temple there. I also went to Dakshineshwar temple. Unfortunately, I could not go to Belur math, next time some time.

    The best part makes me laugh at myself. Actually we were running short of time, so when we went to Kali Temple, we bribed the Brahmin there and had “Darshan”. Yes it was a complete corruption there – at the doorstep of the God! 🙂 Amount of bribe was meager INR 5 (~10 cents) – well I did not pay that. Does it take so less to get to know the God?

    [Tweet “we bribed the Brahmin there & had “Darshan”. Yes it was a complete corruption there, a meager INR 5″]

    When we went to Dakshineshwar temple, we were told that the place where Ramkrishna used to sit, meditate and taught Swami Vivekanand was just next to the temple [check Google Maps image]. That places was kind of abandoned. There was no one to bow at that temple – as against the long queues I had been seeing at Kalighat and Dikshineshwar temple. In fact, the place was locked!

    I felt that the real place which was filled with the presence of an enlightened master is abandoned and we are “again” missing the real essence. At one place we are bribing to have a glimpse of the God and at a place we are ignoring the existence of the master, who walked this place just last century.

    At both the places, I felt as if I/we missed the Gods – once we even bribed and other time the temple where everyone must go is empty, not even maintained. It reminded me of Neeraj’s poem

    पंडित मुल्ला सब झूठे है (pandit mulla sab jhute hai – Pandit, Mulla all are liers)
    इनसे हाथ मिलना छोड़ (inse hath milana chhod – leave them, dont follow them)
    Read complete poem Neeraj in Kabir’s style
    This is a scheduled and thus auto published blog, author is currently having limited access to the internet.

  • Karma







    The Endless Knot

    Associating Karma with financial success seems completely falsified way of using the doctrine of Causality.

    I was reading an article and it referred to financial success of people as the results of their Karma. Specially when we speak of “Karma” the context is effect of past life on the current one. Additionally, Karma of current life influencing the future life.

    The conceptual explanation of financial success of people to their Karma made me question the concept of Karma itself. Does Financial success mean everything and is the END in itself?

    I believe – Not necessarily.

    I have seen kids playing with mud, plastic bottles & almost without cloths very happy and kids with LEGO toys at home crying for something else. Just let the kids be little old and see adults or old aged people – they start grumbling about money! But we forget we leave empty handed. Karma in my opinion should be construed as – something that will help us progress. Progress spiritually – if finances help in spiritual progress – be it. But otherwise putting the whole concept of Karma around Financial success is not agreeable.

    Specially, when west misunderstands the concepts and tries to prove every point of their belief using concepts such as Karma – I remember Ashtavakra. I remember reading that Ashtavakara in his Geeta denied the concept of Karma.

  • landslide







    When Alan Greenspan said in 2008 – “I really didn’t get it until very late.” It was as if someone was digging under his feet and Mr AG did not know. May be Mr AG really did not know, because he was keeping his eyes and ears closed. May be he was so inebriated in the wheel of growth that not just Mr AG but any banker was not willing to feel the “overheating economy”, hear or see that someone was digging deeper – under their feet.

    These words overheating and digging remind me of environment and when I received the above video* from someone on Whatsapp I could relate this video to one and only thing – economy.

    When I was watching this video, I was having strange feelings in my mind that the economy is going to do in down turn once again in 2015-16. “Everything just works as perfectly as it can…until it stops working!” That seems to be the case yet again for the economy.

    There are other reasons to believe that we are going to have a tough time. Though I do not want to be a doomsayer or conspiracy theorist, but here are few things – Developed world wages freeze analysis (The Economist), ISIS is likely to help economy sustain (wars have helped bring economy back on track), Upcoming elections in the USA, France unhappy and rise of EU opponent leader there. Though when it comes to EU, I wish it remains an integrated unit, that is a start for unifying the world in the lines of – interdependent co-arising.

    Watch that video once again – remember Economy goes down like this. Have we ever questioned the actual reasons for these things? Dig deeper! This digging deeper to make some extra pound creates the problem. Economy crumbles like this when we do not nurture it the way we – as a collective group – fail to maintain the hill which just crumbled in the video. As capitalists too – we are individually smart collectively dumb.

    *The origin of this video is unknown to the author – video shared by Dr Mala Kapadia.

  • Interdependent co-arising in Ecosystem







    As I have been writing a lot about interdependent co-arising, I came across this video and thought to share it without delay on my blog.

    If you can understand this video you can understand the concept of Buddhism on interdependent co-arising. Please watch this small <5 min video a wonderful experiment. According to the description of the video – When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable “trophic cascade” occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers?

    “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” – John Muir

    An interesting way to explain interdependence. Hope we learn this sooner rather than later that ecology has to be balanced, political, social and religious ideas should also be balanced because perhaps nothing is perfect! I think therefore Mahavir used the concept of Syadvada (doctorine of postulation) and the Buddha middle path.

    Source – Youtube channel Sustainable Human http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYv_csqWJTSfQK3vOZDJKQw