Yellowstone National park: the story of two picture post cards.

Dear readers,
My this post would be like a letter or picture post card.
I would love to narrate the story of two picture post cards received by me from persons very very close to my heart. Interestingly both are from same place "Yellowstone National Park", but with huge span of time in between or maybe four to five decades. First card I received was from my father in late sixties, when he visited USA. At that time a very few people used to go there, a far- off land  with seven seas to cross. Only a very few very rich industrialist or the high profile Govt. officials had the privilege to visit "The Great America". And truthfully rest would satiate their desire by seeing it on the round globe, which was a must have on the study tables, when I was growing-up. A time of no emails, no cell phones or even telephones, only letters used to travel, which hopefully would reach after a month or maybe twenty days. I hope you can imagine, how precious those letters would be for the receivers. During that time one day I received a picture post card from my father, who visited Yellowstone national park. With picture of "bears" on it and a very sweet message, as he used to call me "Bhallu" lovingly, a Hindi name for bear. The message was that he had came to this park and missing us all.
How the time has evaporated with twist and turns of life  and what remains are the sweet and sour memories.

Now the second card is from my son, who had visited this place recently, with a very sweet message, he has explained the park:  This park is magnificent. There are rivers, snaking the landscape, with pristine water, beautiful pools of colorful water, geysers shooting hundreds of feet into the air. There were deep canyons, mountains, lakes. There are many animals here like buffalo, bears, wolves, deer, and moose.

The morning glory pool.

I am not sure when I will see it, but I am certainly appreciating this gesture of sending me picture card.
Thank you dear

  P.S
I think we should continue the art of writing letters, if not possible in this fast paced world, then at least picture card once a while. And believe me you will just love it, otherwise e-mails are basically lost in the overloaded mailboxes.

 I have added a few more to show the beauty of wilderness.

pics :-
courtsyTarun Wadhawan

LIVING IN FOOL'S PARADISE.

A State of happiness based on false hope.

Where most of us love to reside.
This is the most comfortable situation that
we just do not like to be awakened.

Fool's PARADISE means: 
"To be happy because you do not know or will not accept how bad a situation really is". 
A very strange phenomena indeed, that we are not ready to accept the gory reality, and kept on living in a state of  euphoria, which our imagination weaves.
"Where ignorance is bliss tis folly to be wise". 
How true, our world of imagination, with us as a central character would dwindle if we know the reality. 
Now what is reality? 
It is a very, very strange and complex question, having multiple answers, which all can be proven true, somewhat paradoxical, depending upon the situations, space, time or even our mental state, (I mean it subject to change according to place we reside and in the century we are living). A common man's definition will certainly be different from the privileged one. And all the more different criteria would be given by a materialistic and spiritualists, the seers and seekers alike. And they all can be proven correct from their perspectives. 
Now back to the most consuming question here is, "what is reality", which can be feasible for all, atleast for most of us. As far as I know, we all want answer to this question, as nobody wants to be lost in maze and in this context wants to solve the riddle called "the truth of life", which has perplexed all of us at some point in our lives.  
In my opinion, reality is what we see around us or grasp with our sense organs, analyze with our mental faculties and intelligence and in the end, it got imprinted in our memories for future references. These are all the essential tools to grasp any knowledge. 
Since I had privilege to stay in Ashrams, for a few days in the holy and spiritual environment of Haridwar and Mount Abu. As I was quite naive about the ways of saints and their thought process, so got surprised, that most of the things, which consume us for the whole days in our whole lives, does not even exist for them. We spend our whole day in completing our desires including tasks, which are again off- shoots of our materialistic needs. Contemplating upon future and regretting past does not exist for them. It is a very difficult for  us to forgive ourselves and others for misdeeds, and eventually we spend quite a lot of our valuable time and energy to overcome that. I have seen we are so venerable that anybody can disturb us with their words or actions, and truthfully it turned out to be, as if we are living on their whims, where as saints either overlook such petty things, or do not pay any heed to them, for them this is just a residue of our karmas.
   A Guru played a pivotal role in the upliftment of a seeker. As I have mentioned, in my post - Under the patronage of Guru. The Guru raises the consciousnesses of a disciple to a certain level and then integrated mind with him/her, so for now, words has little or no meaning for the onward journey, and only "signs"  remains.

Raja Janak was a self realized king.

Ashtavark
Name given to him because he had eight deformities.

The signs plays an important role, all your actions even talks are minutely scrutinized, any evil actions or even loose talks are accessed, and duly be given 'signs' that whether you should repeat it in future or shy away from it. I am not in position to tell you more but I can explain it in simple language, that for an example, if you are remotely jealous of somebody or something, you will be see as if you are burning, or if one is indulged in back- biting, he will be shown that he is eating garbage. (These are all very elementary signs for a seeker), It is like warnings, that "where one is going". These signs comes in a stage of half- sleepiness called (sapshupti)  I think nearest English word would be "slumber"for this stage between awareness and deep sleep. A disciple knows it in his/her heart, what Guru wants or what and how he is showing him the path. A very individualistic experience, where no two person can have the same signs. Or maybe, they have. A seeker is strictly prohibited from talking much about it. 

Since, I am talking about a different topic here -reality, I think I need to narrate a story, as done by our Guruji in his book (Ati ki aur) "Towards Ecstasy" . He narrated a story about a mighty king Janak, who was self- realized person, one night he had a vivid dream that he had lost his empire, wealth and so on, so much so that he had nothing to eat, and was begging out side some temple, this indeed was very scary for a king, who had abundant wealth of each and every kind, with army of servants and soldiers. Suddenly he saw that one rich man was distributing rice, he rushed towards him to get it, but by the time he reached there, it was over, he started crying as hunger pangs became unbearable him, and then he saw a stray dog was licking some earthen pot with few rice in it. He rushed towards it to get it. He was totally blinded by the thirst and hunger. And sadly, he could not even get near it, as pot got broken by dog. Then he could not have it more, he started crying and howling, that was the point his hand got hit by bedside, and he just got woken up. To his shock he saw that he was sleeping on his gold bed, with  servants around it, but the dream was so vivid that he just could not shake it away. This whole experience sadden him a lot. He kept on thinking, was this a premonition or a message or may be a reality (as he lived it with full awareness). He was in a dilemma, what is truth, this life or that one, which he has just experienced. So much so that he lost his interest in everything, including his kingdom affairs, eventually his Guru was called to solve this riddle, which was consuming him day and night. His Guru Ashtavark  explained him that neither this world or that dream world is true, the truth or reality is totally different than these two worldly experiences, and now he should aspire to know "the ultimate reality". 
The most important aspect is that, the Guru can show you only the path, as it is your journey, so you have to tread it alone, but his presence will always be there with you like a "Guiding Star."

.

I will elaborate more on this subject in my next post...

pics from web.

LURED BY LEH

 LURED BY LEH

Awesome view of lake at the background of snow covered mountains.

This is the first time I am writing about a place without actually visiting it. But I had to write about it, 

I have heard so much about its serene beauty from my nephew, who is an Air Force personnel and is holidaying in Delhi for few days. 

Every family has certain traditions for get-together, with birthdays and festivals, we had 26th January to celebrate with fervor. 

My kids were always used to look forward for this national holiday, to visit maternal grandparents, where the pinnacle of their visit used to be to witness the fly-past by Indian Air-Force, which comprised of  the first fighter formation, comprising five Jaguar aircraft in the shape of an Arrowhead, followed by five MiG-29 upgrade aircraft in similar formation. The Sukhoi formation comprising three Su-30 MKI aircraft will fly in the last phase. The end of the parade will be marked by a single Su-30 MKI aircraft, pulling up vertically in front of the dais and carrying out the signature ‘Vertical Charlie’ rolls. It used to be such a grand treat for   everybody, age no bar, that you would always be left wanting for more. And during one such occasion, my young nephew, who was totally taken by this national pride moment, declared that "I want to be an Air Force pilot." This statement from young lad of less than ten years became the dream project for his parents. 

Now when I saw him yesterday, I thought what a great joint effort by the parents and the Air-Force officers, who had chiseled a  gallant officer from a young lad, whose eyes used to sparkle with dreams to fly, and that too for Indian Army. His dreams also got settled in the aging grand parent's trembling hands, folded in silent prayers and in the best wishes of near and dears. My father always used to remind me after every Flypast ritual that one day you will see that my grandson will be doing it. I used to say, "yes daddy I know."  And every time that day used to get culminated with all kids chasing each other and running through the corridors, 

Shanti Stupa

shouting and giggling and me doing hush hush to them, and my brother making huge club sandwiches, which were served with huge portion of potato chips to go along with cold drinks. 

"How the time has changed, and now the kids are chasing their higher dreams and we as parents are chasing sweet memories."

As he has now been posted in Leh and extended me an open invitation to visit it. Since I have not visited it, I had to gather information from wikipedia, and this is what I have gathered:

"Leh was the capital of the Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh, and now the district of Leh in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Leh district, with an area of 45,110 km2, is the second largest district in the country, after Kutch, Gujarat (in terms of area). The town is dominated by the ruined Leh Palace, the former mansion of the royal family of Ladakh, built in the same style and about the same time as the Potala Palace-the chief residence of the Dalai Lama until the 14th Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala, India, during the 1959 Tibetan uprising. Leh situated at an altitude of 3524 metres (11,562 ft), and connects via National Highway 1D to Srinagar in the southwest and to Manali in the south via the Leh-Manali Highway.

Leh was an important stopover on trade routes along the Indus Valley between Tibet to the east, Kashmir to the west and also between India and China for centuries. The main goods carried were salt, grain, pashm or cashmere wool, charas or cannabis resin from the Tarim Basin, indigo, silk yarn and Banaras brocade.

Now Leh has become a very popular and most sought after tourist destination. It has everything to satiate  their passions from trekking to  huge monasteries to awesome lakes. 

I think some of the most beautiful places on the face of earth are in the mighty Himalayas,which has stood as sentienal since ages providing beauty and cementing faith in God.

Lets see friends when I will visit this place, then I will be writing more about it.

Pangong lake

Thiksay monastery

This pic is from a Times world travel magazine.contributed by Archit Kapur.







Pic from web and inputs from wiki.

Impressions along the way

Impressions...

Impressions, Sunrise port of Le Havre 

Oscar-Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a famous French painter and one of the founders of the 'Impressionism movement' along with his friends Renoir, Sisley and Bazille.

Monet rejected the traditional approach to landscape painting and instead of copying old masters, he learned from his friends and the nature itself. Monet observed variations of color and light caused by the daily or seasonal changes. 

Claude Monet's painting of sunrise at Le havre port near his house had started a whole new form of art. This painting is so beautiful and genuine that I could not resist posting it. Monet must have been witnessing it everyday, and must be so obsessed with its sheer beauty that he reproduced it in oil, and certainly felt like sharing it with others. And I think that's what every artist, painters, writers, including photographer are aspiring for. We all want to share our feelings or work with others. That is what I am doing, sharing my thoughts, observations, experiences and my spiritual journey through my blog. 

Impressions are very important for everybody, for the person who is perceiving and at the same time, who or which, is being perceived. Or in other words for subject and object alike. The whole marketing strategy is playing with this "impression" nuance. We all generally talk about "first impression is the last impression". But is it really true?  I think, people, places or things starts unfolding their true nature after some time, so it is not very wise to judge at the first impression. Though it is so common practice, that we all fall pray to it. People with huge houses, designer clothes, big cars or I can say people flaunting their money have more admirers than the less fortunate ones. Nobody really cares how you have horded the wealth, (all that matters is wealth), and in respect to this, a honest person is at loss. This phenomena always saddens me, I do not know why, I think I need to narrate one small story here:

The Story of Bhai Lalo and Malik Bhago

One day Guru Nanak Dev ( sikh saint) reached a place named Mardana. There, a poor carpenter lived named Bhai Lalo. He invited Guru Nanak Dev to lunch. Guru Nanak Dev agreed for he had never differentiated between rich and poor, high and low caste or Hindus and Muslims, etc.On the other hand, Malik Bhago, who was a rich landlord of the village, also sent Guru Nanak Dev an invitation for lunch.

Guru Nanakdevji.

Malik Bhago had got various tasty dishes prepared for Guru Nanak Dev. Guru Nanak Dev sent a message to Bhai Lalo to join him at Malik Bhago’s residence. So Guru Nanak Dev went to Malik Bhago’s residence. There Malik Bhago served a large array of food for Guru Nanak Dev. Just then Bhai Lalo arrived there with two makki rotis. Guru Nanak Dev took the makki roti and started eating them. Malik Bhago saw this and asked, Guruji, I have served such a grand feast for you, yet you are eating this simple food from poor person's hands. "Have I done something wrong?” Hearing this Nanak Dev took a piece of poori from Malik Bhago’s dish in one hand and a piece of Bhai Lab’s makki roti in the other hand. Then he squeezed the food in this palms. Everyone saw that drops of blood flowed from the hand which had Malik Bhago’s poori and drops of milk flowed from the other palm having the makki roti. Everyone was surprised.

Then Guru Nanak Dev smiled and said, “Malik Bhago, you exploit and torture the labourers who work and earn for you. You eat of their blood. It’s their blood that is flowing here. Bhai Lalo works hard and eats his own labour, thus milk flows from his food.  Only saints can have such vision and perception.  So in my opinion it is not good to pass judgement on others at the first meeting or get enchanted by their flimsy material wealth, which would disappear anyway with passing time. As everybody knows that we cannot take anything from this world along with us. 

* Do not get me wrong material is also very important, but don't give it undue importance, that you have to compromised on morality to hoard it or never let it win over relations. Because at the end of day, what matters most is your near and dears and certainly peace of mind.

 Along the way through my life journey, I have also gathered a few "Impressions", which I have shared with readers in my travelogue. 

"Don't ever think, work should/could, be done by hook or crook and impressions does not matter, people forget. 

Because my dear, "impression does matters or only thing that matters is impressions you are leaving behind and people do not forget." 

My special regards to great impressionist french painter Oscar-Claude Monet. Lately I have acquired a strange habit of getting lured or I can say mesmerized by the geniuses, in any field.  All those known or unknown people, who lived or are living, left their imprints or impressions on the sands of time, and became immortal.

My humble obeisance to all of them, and I feel privileged to know them through their work. The list is too long but I would love to share a few names with my readers- Vincent Van Gogh, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Agatha Chirstie, Somerset Maugham, Jane Austen, Alex Haley, Ayn Rand the list is too long, and they all had left deep imprints on me and the millions of readers alike. I had lived their books through their characters.

Last but not the least is our lovable Ruskin Bond. 

Thank you all.

pic web.

Gratitude to all the Gurus in our lives-2

Living with spiritual knowledge.                         I will continue this post from my previous one:

Buddha the enlightened one.
who lived with spiritual knowledge and became a legend.

Gratitude to all the Gurus in our lives-1.

I will be writing about the glory of spiritual Guru in this post.
Only Guru, "a spiritual Guru" can teach how to live in accordance with the spiritual knowledge. It is a rare and very important aspect of life. 

Gathering this knowledge is tough, but to live with this is all the more tedious task. Only the enlightened one can show us the way, as we human are very vulnerable to all the temptations and deceits and always ready to fall pray to deviousness of bluffers. 

There are ample of stories (teachings) of Buddha "the enlightened one and his disciple on this subject", on internet. 

 Guru who has realized the Truth, is accomplished to impart the supreme knowledge. So one must try to please guru in every possible way.  Lord Shiva (one of the God in trinity) admonished, “If I am angry, guru can save you but if Guru is angry, than no God, not even I can save you.” 

And that makes the whole difference. The Guru won't let you fall into abyss of immorality. A spiritual awareness is needed in every aspect of life. 

 Only the Guru can impart the spiritual knowledge. I have already mentioned this in my previous post: Understanding divinity on earth. 

The Guru raises his disciple's consciousness to a certain level and then passes over the spiritual knowledge through integration of mind, and in turn the disciple surrenders totally to Guru and becomes one with him.  The Guru leads him onto the path of ultimate reality with the help of  Spiritual knowledge.

To explain how to live with this knowledge, I have to narrate one story about Raja Janaka, (as Guruji did in his book).

Raja Janaka was a Self-Realized King. His life taught us to have detachment in any circumstances and have a pure attention based on dharma (inner religion and moral conduct.

 King Janaka was called ‘Vidheha’ (means also ‘dead’ or liberated from the body’).

 The Milk Story or Lesson about Detachment. Great sage Narada asked him one day, ‘ Revered Sir, how are you called as Vidheha, you live in this world, how can you be a Vidheha?’ Raja Janaka said,’this is very simple. I will tell you about it in the evening. Now, please do this little job for me. There is milk in this bowl. You take this bowl & come along with me. Please see that not a single drop of milk is spilled on the Earth. Then only I will tell you why I am called Vidheha’. Narada took the bowl & followed Janaka everywhere. He had to be very careful because the bowl was such that by the slightest movement the milk might have spilled. He got very tired. When they returned in the evening,

Narada asked ‘Please tell me now, I am quite fed up with carrying this bowl & following you everywhere at the same time.`

Raja Janaka said, `First of all tell me what you have seen?’

Narada, `Nothing except this bowl of milk so that it won’t spill.`

Raja Janaka, “Didn’t you see, there was a big procession in my honour, then there was a court wherein, there was programme of dancing? Didn’t you see anything?

Narada said, “No sir, I have not seen anything”.

Raja Janaka, `My child, likewise with Me, I also see nothing. All the time, I just watch my attention. Where is it going? Making sure that it won’t spill away like the milk.`

“This sort of attention one has to develop: chitta nirod’. Nirod means the saving of your attention, so your attention should not be on saving money & worldly things and all that, but attention itself must be saved. As you watch your money, as you watch your road when you drive, as you watch your child, when it is growing, as you watch the beauty of your wife, or the care of your husband, all put together you watch yourself – your attention.”

With spiritual knowledge comes a whole new understanding of eternal/non- eternal and real/non- real, moreover one stop identifying oneself with the objects of external world including one’s own body. Non-attachment to this mundane world is the immediate outcome of spiritual knowledge.

According to Vedas - the  knowledge, worldly or spiritual is in the human mind and in many cases it is not being discovered, but remains covered, but when the covering is being slowly taken off, we say "We are learning," and the advancement of knowledge is made by the advancement in the process of uncovering. They maintained that knowledge is inherent in man, no knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside our mind.

    The religion and spirituality acknowledged ‘intuition’ a direct source of knowledge, they maintained “Chetna” consciousness as the highest source of knowledge, and all scientific ways of gathering knowledge come as secondary to it. They believed that knowledge acquired by the cognitive method is only partial and thus cannot be foolproof, and to prove their point cites the classic example of mistaken identity of rope as a snake. We might misjudge rope as a snake in dark light and then automatically our first instinct would be of fear and panic, we would either run away from it or would try to kill it, and both are wrong as they are based on the wrong perception. And this proved that we should not totally rely on our sense organs, our inferences and most importantly on our limited faculties of reasoning.

On a lighter note/mode, I think I must acknowledge modern day father/ Guru "wikipedia", without which, we are in lurch. Just at a click of mouse, a whole lot knowledge becomes handy. 

And I think I should call "youtube" as a foster mother rearing her millions of children and teaching them from cooking classes to grooming to etc, etc... well anything under the sun. 

We are privileged people to born in this century of booming social media. 
Now if our father, and mother are from social media then I think, facebook, twitter, instagram, and linkin are our siblings and they are the only few I know, but there could be more step ones also... who knows:)
Enjoy the modern day huge family. 

 Pic and inputs from web.

Gratitude to all the Gurus in our lives-1.

Psalm in praise of enigmatic "Gurus" of our lives. 
On this auspicious day of Budh purinama. I am dedicating my post to all the gurus, we came across in our lives, whether educational, religious or spiritual. They all are the requisite force in our lives.

Beautiful mother

Mother is the first guru, we learn most of our first lessons from her. She is the one, who gave her womb, and the best years of her youth to rear us, she protect us from the enmity. She teaches us first lessons on ethics, morality,  and the do and don'ts. She introduces her children to religion, faith, goodness and kindness.She emits an aura of love and kindness, though sometimes she has to admonished them, for their own good. Here I must mention that I was lucky to had one of the best mother in the world (I know every child must be thinking of that). But I have more reasons to say this, as now looking back in retrospect, she never taught us cheating, back-lashing, snubbing, sneering and most importantly compromising on truth and ethical values. I had always seen her praying with folded hands for her children. She had tremendous faith, which was unflinching even in the extremely bad circumstances. God, really tested her, in so many different faces, and relations, but she remained rooted to her values. I am really thankful to her for not teaching me revenge, lust and jealousy. Maybe I am at the receiving end for not practicing it all, but still I am happy as I am.
Myself and fortunately my kids really appreciated her power of endurance for all the ills, which sometimes she had to take, for being simple and unpretentious.

Father showing us the way.

Father is the second guru, in our lives, who provide us food and shelter. He is our strength, and  pillar of support. He gives a sense of security and dependency to his family. Again I am thankful to God for giving me the best father, who had sown the seeds of religion and spirituality in me. He was a learned man, scholar in Sanskrit and had tremendous knowledge of Vedas and Upnishads. I always used to look up to him, when got stuck in unpleasant situation. He got unflinching faith in religion and spirituality. He was a kindhearted and gentle person. I learned my first lessons on charity, bhakti (prayer) and scripture knowledge from him. I can never, ever forget his line, when he said," Rita, whenever you are tired of taking obnoxious situations in life, always look at earth, just see how much the impertinent, she can withstood". I want to tell him, "see, Dad I am doing that, and had not compromised on values and morality you instigated in me." It is ok, that I have not gathered fame, wealth, and luxuries in my life, people can sneered at me if they want, but I am happy as I am. (A simple daughter of a simple father).
As a child, I have never seen him fighting or plotting against his elder sibling for money and land. He always had been very respectful to them, and helped them without a second thought. My parents, are the invaluable gifts and gurus of my life given by God. I feel privileged to had them then. and now in my memories. I know fully well, that nothing could have been better than them, no wealth, no luxuriousness.

Teacher guiding us 

Outside home, teachers in school, and colleges are our Gurus. They also worked hard on us, always wanted us to do better. They worked hard on us, for us and with us, so that we can learn and excel in our lives. It would be like showing a candle to sun, if I would say anything in praise for them, because how much and no matter what, I would say, would ever suffice to show their indispensable value in our lives.
Now it is the time to pay respect to our religious Gurus, they help and direct us how to lessen our karmic burden in this birth. We all have certain karmic burden or obligation to give in this present life. All our governing planets come and sits stealthily in their particular house, either ascending  or descending to certain degrees and holding that person captive to their whims. I am not judging, their good or bad merits, but suggesting that this karmic burden can be lessened to a certain extent by following preaching of religious Gurus.
I will be taking up Spiritual Guru in my next post -Gratitude to all the Gurus in our lives-2.

Religious Gurus doing "Havan" rituals for the welfare.

pics from net.

Spiritual Knowledge

Guru initiating his disciple

UNFOLDING SPIRITUAL SECRETS

Spiritual knowledge changes the whole perception about the world. You will come to realize that nothing is superfluous. There is an inherent divine design in everything. Things, even relationships that appear real are not that way. I will cite one example- a modern day fad line is:  Enjoy to the fullest, there is only one life, you cannot take anything along with you.
 Now the saints or seekers would say, yes live to the fullest, let not even your single breath should go waste. Life is precious and being a human being is all the more precious. God has given us this opportunity, and you may not get another chance, rise above the flimsy pleasure, which are transient, and look for bliss. And you do take your karmas along with you, like a whiff of smell. So it is the sensual pleasure/serenity.  Though I do agree that there is nothing wrong with seeking pleasure, but how much, and without compromising your ethics or morality is very important. There is a very thin line between desire and obsession.

Spiritual knowledge…

SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE refers to the knowledge of our pure self, the knowledge of our being. Furthermore to find answers to these spiritual inquiries…“who I am, and what is my relation to the cosmos and the universe as a whole” is the spiritual knowledge.

     It is generally referred as enlightenment, where one gets the knowledge of one’s self and its relation to the universal consciousness. This awareness is the experience beyond time and space, and it can be identified with the limitless and the eternal consciousness, from where the whole universe emanates. This intuitive experience considers as the valid proof, and confirmation of the divine self- God, and it is like experiencing bliss, something very pure, reminiscent of the divine ecstasy. This experience is hindered by the layers of ignorance that have gathered on soul, due to which one is not able to see one’s true self; all pure, all divine, all shining.

    The Spiritual knowledge can change one’s whole perspective towards self and whole world as such. One is filled with unbounded happiness. Each one of us is capable of this spiritual contemplation, and experiencing its spiritual wisdom, love and the joy.

     The spiritual vision is not obtained by means of physical senses and not through the psychic faculty, but through a subtler faculty arising from the contemplative concentration, usually referred as the ‘spiritual eye’.  This awareness is beyond the mental as well as beyond the worldly perceptions. This knowledge is referred as ‘awakening’ in the Vedas and the Upnishads.

    The Hindu religion presents two kinds of knowledge - praoksh gyan (second hand) and prataksh gyan (direct knowledge).

 The Prakosh gyan is the second hand knowledge obtained from scriptures and books. Whereas praktaksh gyan is gained by the direct experience; knowledge that one discovers or the knowledge that dawns upon us.

Now the imperative questions are:

What is spiritual knowledge and what is the source of this knowledge?

How the spiritual knowledge is different from the worldly knowledge?

Why it is the sole purpose of life?

Generally speaking worldly knowledge can be described as- the understanding of someone or something, which includes gathering of information, facts, and whole description. This can be acquired with the help of the practical or theoretical description gained with the help of education or experience, whereas the spiritual knowledge means knowledge of self, and which dawned upon us, and this is the knowledge of the very core of our being and its relation to the divinity.

     The acquisition of spiritual knowledge is different from the gaining of worldly knowledge, where one needs the help of sense organs, mind and intellect and involves communication, and reasoning, and importantly the capacity of acknowledgement.

     Scientifically speaking, “knowledge” is based on- method of inquiry, collection of data, experimentation and lastly formulation and making of hypothesis, and whereas philosophers define knowledge as the justified true belief, based on the complex cognitive process, perception, and reasoning. 

    Many of us would probably agree that term ‘knowledge’ truly involves: Certainty, evidence, practicality, broad agreement, moreover, it also includes belief, truth, justification and subjective experience. In an attempt to define knowledge, it is helpful to remember that the human mind is believed to be capable of two kinds of knowledge, rational and irrational knowledge.

Here I want to request readers, not judge or doubt it, with your limited cognitive powers. It is all the marvel of Faith and Beliefs, which has made miracles possible for centuries till date, much beyond the realms of the human mind and is universally true or the ultimate truth. It means that you cannot explain it, as it is beyond the power of senses, but can only experience it. 

    The scientists failed to grasp the power of faith and totally dismiss these phenomena as irrational. They want to rationalize everything through intellect, but one need ‘Mind’, the core center of our emotions to fathom it.  

   Generally speaking, there are three main focal points around on which the whole life process rotates: Creation, expression and comprehension, (Sarjan Kendra, Bhav Kendra, Vichar Kendra). They are individually representing the three different main focal points of living beings- reproduction, expression, and comprehension. Now if we start from plants or immobile things, they have only "creation" faculties active, as only reproduction is possible, whereas in animals and birds, they have a more evolved system "expression" faculty is also possible with creation.

But considering human beings, they have all these three faculties active, and highly evolved. With creation, and expression, they have highly developed comprehension faculty. With these three aforesaid highly necessitating life force human beings have the power of Chetna,-consciousness, which happens to control all these three main focal points and keep the crucial balance between them.

    With this power of consciousness, we can comprehend the ULTIMATE TRUTH or GOD; which is experienced as so valuable, so real, that in comparison, all the other things appear false, profane and worthless. 

“To realize GOD is the sole purpose of Life…”









I am thankful to the artist, who has drawn this beautiful painting, and made it available on the net.