MY RENDEZVOUS WITH LIFE PART- 2

Colors of my palette. 

Colors of my palette, I am born with.

If my rendezvous with life -1 is the sketch of my life, then there has to be some colors, with which I tried to fill it to make it a painting. If my destiny played an important role in making my sketch, then the colors are also provided by destiny for sure. 

Bragging people

Okay, okay (I do not want to offend people who cried horse over the statement that we are the choosers, and we make our own destiny). Well even they won't disagree, that we can not choose our parents and siblings and place and time of our birth. Our parents can decide it, be the of time and place of our birth (thanks to our modern science) but certainly not we. So one thing is for sure that destiny decide our colors(family and extended families, including place) too. I will be talking about people in my life as colors, as they are the ones, who helped me to paint my picture. We all want our painting to look beautiful but somehow it does not turn that way, over the years our palette, start gathering dust or I can say a few very dark gory colors. And with the result, we happened to be more disappointed with our painting than others. Please, do not misinterpret me colors are colors, there are no good colors or bad colors. Each one has its own significance and no painting would be complete without using them. I have talked about them at length in my post in Journey of Beings of light towards light, that how our disposition can be judged by our particular color aura, which we emit. There is saying also that "people show their true colors after sometime". We cannot hide it, but yes we can certainly improve it, by following certain steps: improvisation of Aura & chakras. I think most of the people are like a flock of colored parrots repeating same things.

Anyways, I have noticed that people can be categorized into a few basic colors according to their traits.

Saffron color of saints

Generally women talk about their beauty, age, and bragging or lamenting about their husbands and kids. (me too, I am not an exception.) And well, if men have little interest in these talks, then money, intelligence, power, and their infallible ego takes toll on their personality or their painting. Precisely colors can make you happy, sad, serene, violent, aggressive, evil, honest and pure. If the "fifty shades of grey" can lure you to sensual pleasure. Then white can show you the way to stay virgin, innocent and pure. Each color has significance, some good and bad virtues. Red is associated with energy, war, danger and strength. Orange combines the energy of red with the happiness of yellow. it is associated with joy, sunshine happiness and creativity. Yellow is the color of happiness, joy, intellect and creativity. Whereas Green denotes growth, harmony freshness and fertility. Blue is often symbolizes with trust, loyalty, wisdom, intelligence, faith, truth and heaven. Purple conveys  wealth, extravagance  wisdom, dignity, independence and creativity. In the end whereas black can make you elegant and powerful but it is also associated with death, evil and mystery. So we have seen every color has a few good and bad points. If Saffron denotes aggression, Green can push you to be jealous and greedy. And no body would love to watch painting absolutely white or black. as it wont be a painting rather a piece of colorless paper. Now I am taking all these colors in the perspective of religions in India. We are multilingual, multi-religious nation. We as its inhabitant has the tremendous responsibility to balance its colors, only then we can paint a beautiful painting of our country.

 Roaring dark clouds with a hint of rainbow.

Cool shade

I have a very strange relationship with colors, they confused (coaxing/pampering) me in Chicago, and became cool shade in Houston and Galveston. And not very long back, I could see the importance of saffron (Guru) in my life. Found the lovely yellow (faith) color in prayers and with the help of red(rage) tried to empower my internal demons. The color green helped me with creativity and blue provided serenity and peace. So dear readers/ friends if roaring black thunderstorms are scary, let it settle down for sometime, you would be seeing a beautiful rainbow peeping through them.   

In the end I would suggest, that if relations are like colors. So in a  way our methods of dealing  or our manners would be like color pencils. All we have to do, is to sharpen them once a while, so that they won't get blunt. It is your canvas, your color palette, let the painting be good, so that, you would feel proud of it. 

Another suggestion:  

DO NOT GIVE YOUR HALF PAINTED SMUDGED PICTURE TO YOUR CHILDREN, IT IS NOT A LEGACY TO PASS OVER YOUR HATE, REVENGE AND YOUR MISDEED TO THEM. YOU HAVE PROVIDED THEM A FRESH BEAUTIFUL CANVAS. LET THEM EXPLORE THEIR OWN LIFE AND MAKE THEIR OWN PAINTING.

Sharpened colors. symbolizing our mending manners.

pics. from web

Extended post on Power of Prayer part-1, 2. Allegory explained.

Allegory has been used widely throughout history in all forms of art, largely because it can illustrate complex ideas and concepts in a way that are comprehensible to its viewers, readers or listeners. They are used typically or as rhetorical device that convey hidden meaning through symbolic figures, actions, imagery and/or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wants to convey.  (This is the description by wikipedia.org).
It has also given a beautiful painting as an example.
^Allegory of Music by Filippino Lippi (between 1475 and 1500): The "Allegory of Music" is a popular theme in painting. Lippi uses symbols popular during theHigh Renaissance, many of which refer to Greek mythology.

I have talked about Goddess as cosmic energy in my post:

Power of Prayer part-1.
Power of prayer part-2
I felt the necessity to elaborate on a few terms I used in that posts.

Allegory has been widely used in "Devi Mahatmyam (glory of goddess.) This text is also known as Durga Mahatmyam. to make ideas simpler.
The whole concept has been weaved into a beautiful story of Cosmic energy, with the three central characters.

The Sanskrit word Durga means a fort, or a place that is protected and thus difficult to reach, here it is compared with ourselves. The projection of the stronger and fiercer side of womanhood is but obvious in the tales surrounding Goddess Durga.  

The inner metaphorical significance of the Devi Mahatmyam

The King, the Merchant and the Sage are as allegories to the Body, Mind and Intellect

The cycle of World (samsara) and its inevitable sufferings goes on as long as man does not realize that it is the Self (Atman) that is the rider and not the body or mind or pseudo-self. Unfortunately we continue to suffer till we realize this. It has three main characters smadhi, king and sage Medhas. 

Samadhi, on the other hand is a merchant (vaishya). The word ‘samadhi’ indicates an integrated or concentrated or focused mind, a mind that is absorbed in meditation (‘sam’: together or integrated; ‘a’: towards; and ‘dha’: to hold). In other words the word ‘samadhi’ denotes a focused or concentrated mind, a mind in meditation

The king and the merchant are archetypal characters. We are all a bit like the king and the merchant. We all share their predicament. At some point of time we all experience suffering, hurt and loss. At times our close friends, relatives, and family members fail us. In spite of our deep hurts we still cling on to our old ways and old associations. We fail to discern. We fail to learn from our past. Instead we simply brood over the past constantly reliving our miseries in the present. The king and the merchant find themselves in the hermitage of a great sage in whose hermitage even wild beasts have successfully tamed themselves of their ferocity. Yet the king and the merchant find it hard to awaken their abilities to discern or be dispassionate. Here again we share their plight. Most of us go to a temple or an ashram or a spiritual retreat or a great saint only to find that the mind is still under the conditioning of the past. We worry about our losses and hurts. It would be good if we could reflect rather than brood over our losses and hurts. This is our predicament. Returning back to the merchant Samadhi, though he had the natural inborn ability to engage his mind in meditation, in single minded pursuit, it did not bring him happiness. Instead the end result was unhappiness. Why? He concentrated on wealth alone. The object of his single minded pursuit was only material wealth. You always get what you pursue with a focused mind.

Thus Suratha (a good chariot) and Samadhi (a concentrated or focused mind) cannot serve their true purpose, cannot find true happiness till they meet the sage Medhas (intellect or insight or knowledge), who can lead them to the Goddess, to the Supreme Self. ‘Medhas’ is another word for ‘buddhi’ or ‘intellect’.

The Divine Mother is our own true being, our inherent divinity and wholeness. Her clashes with the demons symbolize the outward and inward struggles we face daily. The Devi, personified simultaneously as the one supreme Goddess and also the many goddesses, confronts the demons of ahamkara or ego (our mistaken notion of who we are or what we identify ourselves. This tale also denotes our constant battle with duality, good or bad, auspicious, and inauspicious.
And in the end one realizes that we are just part of this one cosmic whole. 

pics. and inputs from web.

OBEISANCE TO COSMIC ENERGY

Goddess Laxmi 

I have introduced cosmic energy as Goddess Durga in my previous post and all her different forms. She is adored as Divine mother of the universe or in other words the unifying force of existence. She is the divine power behind every creation, their sustenance and their transformation.
She is the mother of all origin, the matrix of unborn.
Now, it is the proven fact among scientist as well as spiritualist that everything in this universe is a manifestation of imperishable energy. She is referred as Shakti- the epitome of  cosmic energy. She has two forms a malevolent and benevolent.
 In her terrible form she is depicted as destroyer of  demons and bad forces. But in her destruction one can see the light of a resplendent regeneration too..The example of her being portrayed as the unified force of an abundant beauty with a ruthless destroyer in the form of treatise and sacred book named as "Devi Mahatmyam (glory of goddess.) 
Atheist or critics would question, that how come if she is so ruthless killing an army of demons and drinking their blood, and would still be considered as Goddess.

Goddess Durga with her armors.

As we all believe that goddess should acquire all the good, saintly and virtuous qualities to be a Goddess.
But if you look closely, the life story of Durga relate to our own psycho- spiritual landscape. This story depicts our own important existential questions. These questions have plagued mankind ever since time immemorial. 
Well this story can be taken as a half myth and half philosophical with great underlying esoteric meaning. If you happened to have watched the movie of great mathematician Ramanuja "The man who knew infinity"( it is one of my favorite movie.)

 In that movie Ramanuja admitted that all his great work was dawn upon him with Goddess help. She is the ultimate knowledge. 
So in my opinion if we want to understand  the significance of Durga's true nature,with  all its duality and contradictions, which is perplexing to common man, then we must understand that Divine Mother as our own true being, our inherent divinity and wholeness. The clashes with the demons symbolize the outward and inward struggle that we are facing  in our day to day lives. The demon  are the manifestation of ego, which in turn gives birth to other demons  like excessive craving, greed, anger and pride and incessant thought process springing from our past karmic residue. Our constant battle between good and bad or our fighting with duality. In the end one realizes that both are part of single paradoxical reality. The Devi Mahatmyam derives at home this message beautifully through different stories, that it is an internal pilgrimage far more important that the outward one. We all have the king, the merchant and the sage in us as allegories of the body, mind and intellect. Divine Mother, protects mankind from evil and misery by destroying evil forces such as selfishness, jealousy, prejudice, hatred, anger and ego. Goddess Durga is the goddess of power and strength. She is the most powerful deity with many names and many personas, and has many facets. She through her all forms, encompasses the essence of salvation and sacrifice. She is the mother of bounty, wealth, beauty and knowledge, with her daughters as Laxmi and Saraswati (Goddess of wealth and knowledge.) 
and Kali/

Goddess Kali depicted as destroyer of ego, and desires.

 Out of these goddess Kali had been depicted as the most ferocious one as she complied the most difficult task of destroying desires. Here as the story goes the demon Raktabeeja was blessed with immortality that even if a single droplet of his blood would fall on the ground, it would soon create another demon. So as the legend goes it was becoming very difficult to defeat him. Here the Goddess Kali came to salvation by drinking his drops of blood and not allowing them to fall on the ground thus disallowing the further creation of demons.  Symbolically like our desires, you fulfill one another one is born. Here one needs to have her blessings and strength to stop them, otherwise they would keep sprouting and

haunting us. These unfulfilled desires are the biggest cause of our unhappiness and in a way deterrent to our salvation.                                                         


A humble request to my dear friends/readers:

 Always keep your faith intact and pray to this beautiful, merciful embodiment of cosmic energy.

pics from web.

*On a true note, my knowledge was quite naive on this subject so I had to consult a few already posted articles from web.

My humble thanks to all.

POWER OF PRAYER-1

I will start from where I left in my previous post, I talked about praying to cosmic energy for revival, in my post Phoenix rising from ashes.

Divine cosmic energy.

Now let me explain the different forms of this cosmic energy, in very elementary way, I mean who has the power to understand the very cause of this universe and the power of infinity with our finite facilities, at least not me, I do not have that much insight, knowledge, perception and comprehension to unfold her hidden secret nature, that has manifested in different forms since the time immemorial or one can say, at the very first energy explosion (big bang). I will only try to draw the rough sketch of this universal power, which is considered as cosmogenetic. She has manifested in everything and yet so elusive, I think just like an essence, which is present and yet cannot be seen with the naked eyes. Goddess Durga symbolizes power, divinity, energy both kinetic and potential with immense compassion for devotees. 
The nine different forms of Goddess Durga (cosmic energy) and the benefits of praying to her.

1.) Śailaputrī (Daughter of the Himālayas).

2.) Brahmachāriṇī (One who observes the state of celibacy doing penance).
3.) Chandraghaṇṭā ( One who bears the moon in her necklace).
4.) Kūṣmāṇḍa (the creator of the universe).
5.) Skanda-Mātā (The mother of Skanda, Kārttikeya, born out of her powers).
6.) Kātyāyanī (The daughter of sage Kātyāyana, who incarnated to help the Devas).
7.) Kālarātrī (black as night, destroyer of Kālī).
8.) Mahāgaurī (the wife of Lord Shiva, doing great penance).
9.) Siddhidātrī (Provider of Siddhis, giver of mystic powers).

Though I had always prayed to her, since my childhood. But she remained a very fearful figure in my mind, as she is the one who can cause illusions, and punishes you for your bad karmas, with illness, poverty, depression, anxiety and many more forms of physical and mental illness. We humans are very prone to bad deeds, so I used to get very apprehensive about her, that suppose I will make some mistake while praying or fasting et al, I will be punished for that, because most of the religions advocates that, there are three types of sin a human being can commit, by their actions, thinking, and saying. All these three types of wrong deeds are prohibited in our religion and considered as sin.
The Hindus worship Goddess Durga with fervor twice a year for nine days across the world. I think I need to mention here that Hinduism is not a religion, rather than represents a way of life, but sadly so many impurities or debasement has filtered into it over the period. 
During these nine days of Durga puja, the devotees keep fast for eight days, pray to her with passion. They try to abstain from bad deeds and celebrate by distributing sweets and gifts on the ninth day. They conclude this ritual by praying to nine small girls, representing the nine forms of goddess Durga (mentioned above).

Sage invoking energy through mantras.

Divine energy taking shape of female form.

There is an esoteric representation of each form including her armors and her particular vehicle. Our sages understood the power of this cosmic energy, without which everything is lifeless. They found that energy can be invoked with the particular sonic sound with a specific resonance. The sound is supposed to be very important mode to seek providence's help. This proved the very base of origin of "mantras" for prayer. Most of us does praying, chanting, or singing in praise of God. With meditations, and deep insight they could be able to provide Mantras for each God and Goddess, and they recorded them in different books for reference for a seeker and future generations. It is a very revered science or metaphysical science. This all had been put into stories having great esoteric meaning. Nothing is superfluous in our prayers and scriptures, only one needs to understand them with great insight and by repetitive readings and chanting. I always got awed by the sheer intelligence and wisdom of our sages and saints, who could made it possible for us to lessen the burden of our bad karmas, by following their preaching.
"In layman language this cosmic energy is like an electric current without, which any electric appliances does not work"
 Now it is a proven fact, that umm or OM is the first sonic syllabic at the time of big bang or one can say this universe originated from this sound. The mystic power of Mantras reinstated in me when I came across the book SHAKTI MANTRA in Houston, as if some divine power has led me to that section. I was very much impressed by the cover of this book. Though I could not read it much at that time but the thought of reading a very Indian concept through western eyes tempted me. The subject matter of this topic is like an ocean too vast and too deep to fathom or I can say sky endlessly reaching out to different horizon. But I will be taking up a few interesting topics of this Divine power duly in my upcoming posts.
Till then " Happy Praying".

Goddess Durga with her family.






Pics from web.

PHOENIX- RISING FROM ASHES

In Greek mythology, a phoenix or phenix is a long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor.
This is the definition according to wikipedia.org
Very interesting explanation, and the more interesting is its uses in English language, especially while explaining some body. Now here the person or somebody mentioned is ME. This name is given to me by my elder son, long back while he was in school. But somehow this phrase has got imprinted in my memory, and when ever I look back, I remember his statement.

Phoenix at its full glory.

 Now I think I owned you explanation for his simile...
Kids, though while staying noncommittal in house, noticed every thing and those small, small events in the family leaves a strong imprints on their untarnished mind.
While not going into any details about my struggle and all...When he saw me giving a speech on dais, on my job as an editor, his first words were when I came down, "mummy I am very proud of you. You are like a Phoenix". 
Omg!!! No words could have been more encouraging than these, coming out of my adolescent son's mouth.

Burning pyre.

And since then, this phrase have stayed back with me and cemented our mother-son bond, even after so many years, whenever I look back, I remember his words. Generally people say criticism is necessary for growth but I disagree, sometimes small words of appreciation, or an acknowledgment is all the more necessary or you can say to revive and move on. 

Rising from ashes.

I would request my readers/ friends, when ever you are at the dead end of your life, professionally, health related issues or maritally, or financially in life. Take that as pyre and collect your utmost energy, as "now or never", and rise from your ashes. We all must have experienced this somewhere in our lives, when death seems a better option, never, ever lose your heart. Collect your own ashes, and rise again, to look for some more avenues which are yet unexplored, some door, which is still unlocked, and  unknocked.

But do pray, and pray with full faith, to seek almighty's help. 
And I am sure GOD cannot close his door on you. But you must know how to knock at that door. And that's what prayers does for  us. 

And if somebody ask me; Pray whom, when you are lifeless?
Then my reply would be- Pray to cosmic energy. In Hindu religion, we have Goddess Durga, which is an incarnation of cosmic energy. She does shower boon on devotees.
There are plenty of videos uploaded on youtube to invoke her for specific favor by DhyaanGuru Dr. Nipun Aggarwal. And the one of them is "Durga mantras for power and protection."
and truthfully I have been listening to them religiously, everyday for peace, protection and for spiritual favor.
Most importantly, I prayed to goddess Durga, manifestation of the cosmic energy. As I have mentioned in power of prayer part-1. And elaborated more in power of prayer in part-2. As the subject is complex, I had to explain few allegory in extended post on power of prayer part-1, 2 allegory explained.
If you have "faith" as only faith has the tremendous power  to  make  miracles. Do pray to her.
She appears in nine different forms to uplift a seeker. Which I will be taking up in my next post.
From goddess of wisdom to money, good luck to combat fear and internal demons like depression, anxiety, she is the answer.
There is whole lot of scientific reason behind this, which I will be explaining it duly step by step.
I would say by chanting mantras, one can invoke great power, irrespective of caste creed, religion or nationality.
"As Mantras are like vehicles, on which your prayers ride to knock  at the particular door (specific God or Goddess), so it does not matter, that who is riding only how well you are riding matters".

This is purely my opinion.

pics from web.

Is loneliness-BOON OR BANE?

 Is loneliness-BOON OR BANE?

LONELINESS

Dictionary meaning is sadness because one has no friends or company. Feeling of depression, rejection and lack of companion. Or we can say the quality of being unfrequented and remote; isolation.

This phenomena is not new to mankind or animals alike, or I can say any living being.

We had always preferred to stay in family, community or society, if all these above mentioned is not possible then at least with group of friends. As they give us company, a sense of security etc etc...And almost same is the case with animals, they also prefer to stay in herds, or group.

We are social animals. We all love to interact, share our fears, griefs, agony, and pleasures with our family, and friends. Interestingly sometimes, they are the ones who pushed us to loneliness physically or mentally. We always try our level best to adjust to stay in family or society. We are so scared of loneliness that we sometimes forgo our choices, our core values or I can say the desires, ambitions for others. As we do not want to lose our near and dears, so in a someway, forget to live for ourselves, according to our own wishes or choices. And we think that we are living, but are we really living or surviving day to day to please others?
 We are so much scared to be left alone, that we are ready to do anything to overcome that. 
I have never felt more lonely than on FRANKFURT AIRPORT, amid masses of know and unknown faces. There and then I realized that this loneliness is not my any physical status, I have multitude of people around me. And I can befriend anyone, I want. This loneliness I am experiencing is my mental status, not physical, and indeed not spiritual in any case, as on that road, we are always alone or I can say that we have to walk alone.
Even known figures, who are followed by masses are so lonely. As Albert Einstein quoted: "It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely".

Why we are scared to be alone? 
I think we need other's help for simple things, or for simple chores for day to day living, and for our emotional and mental support (companionship).
But can anybody provide us emotional, and mental support? 
And the most foremost answer in my opinion is "NO", people around you can only provide you material things. Or can gossip with you, or to kill time in other words, but afterwards you would be all the more lonely.
I am always surprised with the phenomena of being alone, in other's words, it is like living with yourself.
 But are we such a bad company for ourselves that we feel depressed or anxious, when thrown like that? 
Why can't we enjoy our own company?

If you have crystal clear conscious, then you need not to feel lonely. If by chance due to some circumstance, you are lonely, then take this time as "sabbatical" and grow up in every respect. We had always stayed with others and listen to their blabbers, and working endlessly on their whims. Why not take out some time for yourself and discover "the real you", it is like rediscovering yourself, which is somewhere lost in the jungle of relations, friends, family etc... and listening to their constant coxing and preaching. Their long list of Do's and Don'ts. Treading the tiresome road of life and exhausting yourself, you feel the need to sit and take a look at your life. Somewhat like stock- checking, that how much one has left, and how much one can afford to spend. 
Where as solitude is completely different, that's what saints and hermits recommends to stay in voluntary seclusion to work upon self or to meditate upon truth.
You will find that one is not lonely if one finds to befriend oneself. One is at complete peace with oneself or as the picture said:
BUT THE HAPPINESS IS YOU.

  

pics. from web

SEEING THROUGH MY SON'S EYES PART-2

 He went there with his friends for couple of days, camping, swimming, well walking on this beautiful track.

Pics mayank wadhawan

SEEING THROUGH MY SON'S EYES-1

I AM GOING TO POST BEAUTIFUL PICTURES, WHICH MY YOUNGER SON SHOT WHILE VISITING OCALA NATIONAL FOREST AND SIESTA KEY BEACH. FLORIDA
This place is about one hour drive from Gainsville.

 He has send me these pics, which I thought I must share with my friends/readers across the world.

 Pics. Mayank Wadhawan