Krsna's Teachings

I wanted to write a post on what I would like my friends and the rest to do in 2012. Those who are my dearest friends and disciples upgrade your connection into a one of love from deepest friendship. The ones who are only distant friends should upgrade to deeper friendship and if need be fall in love also. Here falling in love means expressing deeper bonds of love for humankind and not any other, like lustful type. LOL! Those who know me slightly should express their willingness to become my friend and keep on being a good friend. Maybe we could meet and express our friendship with each other, rather than just saying a hi and bye on facebook or other such sites. It sounds too impersonal and distant on such networking sites. Now for those who do not know me and still would like to be my friend I would suggest you to first acquaint yourself with my known data which can be culled from various locations and then send a mail or sms or a snail mail and then let us carry on from there towards

This post will tell you how you make an offering to the Lord. When you go to some temple and make an offering to the Lord in the form of some cash or kind or some sort of a pooja, you do it with an intention of gaining something from the Lord. The flowers, incense sticks, dhoopam, naivadya, colored powder called kumkuma, money, some special items that the Lord loves and show it with reverence with the aid of the panditji over there with prayers. The Lord accepts them and asks you after sometime if you remember what you had given the last time you visited me? You naturally remember what you had done there. You say that of course I had offered over a thousand bucks and some sort of prayers too. The Lord then knows this person has used his or her mind and remembers what was offered to me. I need to give it back to him a thousand times of what he gave me. So he gives you back. But if you do not remember having offered anything to Him or even praying there, He is very happy and clears the m

This question was asked by one of my disciples as to what kind of love is divine? Now let us see how human love looks like and then let us know divine love. When a man loves a woman, it always starts with the look and some sort of human communications. The type which can be expressed in the form of words or actions. There would be a load of messages in the form of letters, sms', chat, words spoken in the phone and the like. There would be exchange of mails, gifts, meetings at odd places like the coffee shop, malls, railway stations, airports, buses, roadsides, gardens, homes, terraces and some such places. The need for physical touch rises as the love gathers momentum. The two parties need the physical aspect of expressions also. They resort to petting, hugging, kisses and love making also. The loves seems to grow with time and after the physical consumation it seems to double if the act is very good and there is a need for further exploration. The wants keep on growing by age and

The picture to the left is the ruins of Borobudur which houses a number of stupas which contain Buddhas inside. The picture below is the Mountain Merapi which spews ash and water vapour even today. This was the same vulcano which had stopped all air traffic last year. It covers the entire ruins of Borobudur and they had to dig for them and remove the ash which had covered it all. The place to visit would be Borobudur and Jogjakarta in Indonesia. Here are some images which I captured. Have a look..... The small images are of the Shiv Linga with the Linga missing. The next image is of Vishnu and Nandi with the ears broken away. The photo below are of the temple of Prambanan at Jogjakarta with images of Vishnu and Brahma. Also seen are the ruins of smaller temples around the same Prambanan temple. The time to visit would be late in the year since it is very hot there during summer being close to equator. The most important thing to do is to see the morning sunrise over Borobudur. There ar

In the various texts mentioning Radha, the consort of Shri Krishna it is said that she never could get Krishna and be with Him after He left for Mathura. I was asked if it was true and how was she able to cope up with this separation! Here I shall tell you how she could do what she only was capable of doing. To establish the highest form of love and yet never get tainted with any other form of mundane act. Even though being a married lady she never could give her heart to another except to Krishna! The parting of Krishna was terribly upsetting for all the Gopi's. They implored Akrura not to be so hard hearted and take away their beloved to Mathura from Brindavan. Radha was inconsolable and could never get over this trauma ever in her life. She wandered about in the grooves all by herself, lost in every tree, flowers, leaves, swings, festoons, creepers, still waters, the various kundas where they met. Every place smelt of His presence, every branch dangled in anticipation of the han

The way in which the world construes that Krishna tells lies to His devotees makes Him out into a liar and cheat. The Gopi's have themselves called Him a cheat and liar many a times but that happens because no one has the complete picture anytime. They only see a facet and make immediate judgements on Him. Here I am going to tell you how He goes out of the way to keep the promises He makes to His beloved devotees. Right from the first yuga when he gave the promise of teaching Devahuti the knowledge of Brahman, He took birth through her as a son and taught her the knowledge of Brahman. He promised the two dwarpals of His that after taking birth in the various yugas, He will come to destroy them and absorb them. He did it to hiranyakashyap and hiranyaksha. Then later to Ravan and Kamsa as well. As Rama , He met the ten thousand Rishis from His kingdom(Goloka Vrindavana) performing yagnyas and there He promised them that they will appear with Him in His next birth too. They appeared

I know everyone of us feels that God tests the limits of our patience and the level we can withstand the afflictions and troubles that He has put in our path. A point comes in our lives when we feel that this is it! No more and if there is any more we shall break. How many times have we said to ourselves that I am unable to bear this and can the good Lord just take me away from this life. Can I run away somewhere or someplace? Can You take these problems away and give me answers? Can I have my little piece of heaven on this planet and some solace in my world? Just a little of that which every other person enjoys but I cannot since my problems never seem to end ever. Why have You given me this life full of trials and tribulations and no sense of joy or fulfillment in it? Now so many words to describe it and yet they are insufficient in every which way to describe what you go through. I am sure almost all of you will agree to this ultimate truth. Let me take you through the paces from Go

We come across so many people in our lives who want more than they can handle. Take the case of a star of yesteryear's who does television, advertisements, movies, shows and so much more that you really wonder what drives the man? Is it the drive to make more money, more fame, more adulation or is it that to get out of the Rajasic state is impossible for him? Then there are the doddering fools who want to keep their posts for such a long time that the newer and younger generation never get a chance at all. What drives these fools in doing so much with their lives? They have reached a stage when giving up is far more important yet they continue to be so much active in their lives working hard towards some goal which is completely useless. Take the case of this great industrialist who worked so hard to make a very big conglomerate that today his children have broken it to pieces and hiving them off after his death. So what happens to all that you made in your fast paced life? You mig

I am sure you have seen these days when everything seems so bleak and run down and there is no hope for you anywhere. You rack your brains to find solutions and there are no solutions that can raise your mood or remove the pall of doom. The reasons could be many. Maybe you have lost something valuable like a diamond or an old friend or simply you would have broken your heart. Or you would have not got into a prestigious institution or just had a broken marriage. The reasons for feeling might be any. But the cause for your spirit being completely dejected and hurt or just destroyed could be many. The most important news that you were waiting to hear has changed to being the worst news. The mind plays on and you get more and more depressed by the minute. In other developed nations you call in the shrink and get yourself a quick fix but here in India we have no such stuff to look forward to. You may have a good friend to whom you may pour it out to but can you actually tell that? You

I recently met a person in the store whom I couldn't recognize. She came and wished me. After sometime I realized who she was, one of my past disciples. This is the same person who called me in the dead of the night when her husband was in coma and about to die. Her prayers were to save him then. I told her that he will be fine soon. I got a message next morning that he is out of danger now. Few days later when I inquired about him, I was told he has been discharged from hospital and there is no trace of the disease too. Later she called me to come and bless her new home, but when the day to do the same came she asked me to bless it on the phone which I did. Now she is well settled and her husband is back in business. That day she met me after two years and never even said anything at all about the fateful night. We sometimes do not acknowledge the right One. Few days ago a child was taken ill and her mother frantically called me to take care. I advised her that I am always with he

When does ignorance begin for a human being? Ignorance begins the moment he is born. Imagine the jivatma trapped inside the body has to see everyone around calling out funny names and making faces when the body comes out of the womb. He, who has no name is called by some name. Then the process of ignorance begins. Water when poured or bottled inside a container is called by some name which is imprinted on the container. Do you think that water had a name? Now comes the price for it. The qualities associated with it. Just the same way our bodies have qualities like color and shape and size and all other appendages which makes the world believe that I am that which you can see. Though the jivatama is self effulgent and all knowing we teach it our methods of living further making it a jailed bird. The bondage increases when it is told about the various relatives it has like mother, father, brother, sister, etc. Then comes the school where it is taught the methods of living in this jail ca

In our material world you do something and you have to report to so many people. When you buy a new car you will be asked by a whole load of people how come you bought that car? I could have suggested a better option, I wish you would have told me earlier I would have taken you to my dealer who would have offered you a great discount, if only you would have waited for a few days then they would have the festival offers and so on. Every one thinks that your decision are not worth a cent and that you are wrong in what you did. Some outright tell you that you are an idiot just like your parents or relatives. The same situation arises when you are getting married too. There are people who love the boy and some think that you have got a raw deal. With your qualifications and salary you could have easily landed a great husband! Huh? Now why do we need to tell everyone everything at all? Is it required to divulge every detail about our life to all and sundry? Anyway who cares for their reacti

Yudhistir sent his brother to far away lands to bring them under his dominion by means of the ashwamedha yagnya. Arjuna travelled far and wide bringing vassals under the regime of Yudhistir. He went as far as the south east Asia and rode to victory everywhere. He could not return for a very long time. Now it seems so very innocuous to any person and the valour of Arjuna can be written paeans about. But let us see from the point of Yudhistir and how he would consider sending his brother far away. First and foremost he would gain a lot by having Draupadi all to himself, second his brother who was the dearest to her would be far away from her. Yudhistir could govern the kingdom all by himself without any interference from another headstrong person. In case he died on the journeys it would be gainful to him. So why would Arjuna not be a thorn for Yudhistir? So sending him away suited the purpose. We never see how the truth looks like from any other point of view. All because we have been

The mother gives birth to the child and rears it up giving her milk and tends to all needs of the child forsaking her own happiness and desires. Even when the child is in the womb she makes the child comfortable and attends to every need that arises. Never a moment in time she feels disturbed or lazy to attend to the child's demands, be it of food, emotional or whatever. A time comes in life when the child grows up and wants to spread its wings and fly away. The mother only looks with trepidation and hopes the child is safe and cared for the same way she did. The intensity of the love can never be gauged by any other than the mother. In the same way the Master who has become the mother of the disciple does the same. When He initiates the young raw nubile and innocent sadhak into the fold, he takes of the young one with the same love as a mother's. When the disciple joins Him, He has to perform the tarpana or the death ceremony of the material life that she has led earlier. He b

Today I was expounding a doha of Kabir wherein he talks about how we spend time doing all mundane stuff in our life and we hardly have any time for God. The reference was to how we need to give time to our Master who will take us towards God. We always seem to find shortage of time when it is a matter of listening to satsangs or discourses on God. We occupy our entire life towards living to the fullest in worldly sense. Our family, job, friends, parties, lunches, movies, picnics, outings, illnesses, hospitals, births and deaths, marriages and ceremonies, television and music, beaches and parks, family and friends holidays, games and matches...can I go on more enough....these and many more occupy our time of life. The major part is earning a living and studies for students and sleeping and resting take up the chunk of life! Kabir mentioned how we procrastinate even the smallest act of prayer and thinking of God. Tell me in all your life you have given time to sleep, rest, daily toilet a

I remember getting up early to catch the Churchgate local from Virar running backwards for getting the seat. I used to get the fourth or third seat from the window. The same crowd used to be there standing all the way till their destination. Late at night I used to return thoroughly exhausted and ready to hit the sack but wait there were loads of clothes to finish and taking care of the kid too. Where was the sleep if you have a wailing child at home? Stuffing him with Nestum and Cerelac and all other stuff all the time was the household duties too. Sundays too were very disturbing and full of mundane jobs. Getting the household groceries and all other stuff happened on the days meant by God for holidays and rest. During the course of the week I did find time to attend the evening Novenas at Mahim church changing trains at Bandra. That I guess was the only time I found for God and even then it was all about asking stuff. Can you please give me better job, better salary, good health, ma

In our material world things deteriorate faster than you can imagine. Relationships go down faster than objects. A car nowadays becomes older in a few years but a laptop becomes ancient in a matter of few weeks. Even the cellphone does not stand the vagaries of time. Life has become too fast for words and the time for moving on has become shorter by the day. Even kids move out faster today than earlier. I remember when my French friend asked me when I was moving out of my house, I was aghast at that question but when she moved on at the age of 16 to Nantes from her village in France I was wondering whether such a thing will ever happen in India. Now that it does nothing surprises me any more. Now when we look at relationships in our age, they are flimsier than the will'o'wisps! Getting married has become a fashion and then it is all about this is mine and that is yours. No one is ever able to contend with someone who does not work for or in the relationship. I was surprised to

Every person who is in love believes there should be a reciprocation of the same. So when we love our child we feel that our child should return back the same. Should love us back! In the same way we love our spouses and wish they reciprocate it back. It never happens the way we believe it should happen. The child grows up into a handsome young man and goes away to find his own. In the same way the spouse searches for the one he/she can shower their love on to. Now you will feel cheated at the above and wonder what is it that lacked in your love? Don't you think it all started with your expectation and desire to be loved back? True love never expects any returns or reciprocation of any sort. When you love someone unconditionally, you can never have any expectations at all. Unconditional love means that exactly- no conditions for loving someone or something. Our love is always one sided or biased. We love our children and relatives more than we love anyone else. Have you ever shown

What it means to be in love! There is no space or time required to fall in love. It happens for reasons far beyond your control. It happens for some special reasons which have no logical explanations in this world. The feelings that arise due to this special condition are numerous. You feel like crying sometimes, the tears roll down your face spontaneously and suddenly. You smile at some vague feeling or person or in space and those who observe you may feel strange. You suddenly start jumping with joy and laugh as if you have heard some funny joke. You cannot relate to anything in this world at all. You become a recluse and are lost in your own world. You shun friends and relations are a pain in the ass. You want to blurt out yet you are restrained by some unknown force. You feel terrible inside,as if your insides are being churned or your heart is about to explode. Your stomach has a very queasy feeling and the hollow of the stomach turns into a whirlpool. You sweat at random and your

I was talking about how the mind works and how things get tainted. In a restaurant if there was a used glass on the table would you pour water in it and drink? Never! In the same way if we carry previous thoughts inside the mind from previous day would we not get tainted by newer thoughts pouring in? A glass full of liquor is emptied by someone and then used for serving regular water, would it not carry the tinge of smell of liquor? Would a vegetarian like to be served with a ladle used to serve a non-vegetarian food? No! Our mind contains conversations, items from the past in the form of memories, bits of information where we make judgements about someone or something and such a thing would remain with us as remnants in our mind. We never empty our mind before we use it for the next purpose. Sleep is a special tool given us for emptying our mind at night. But we use it for the purpose of making more memories and gathering more trash in it. The one who dwells in the sleep state dwells

Many a times have we come across this word in our life and scriptures and yet the true meaning is hardly understood by many. So let me explain the term Dharma. The Dharma of a tree is to bear fruits, leaves, seeds and give shade. The Dharma of a tiger is to hunt for himself and his brood. The Dharma of sun is to give light and power to the world and others in the universe and burn bright. The Dharma of a human being is to study, work for a living, get married and procreate. These are few explanations for you to just start with but let me tell you this is a huge list of things that we have to naturally do in this creation. It is the natural law that supports this creation or the firmament that holds up this creation. Let us see if the sun stops shining then this world will end for sure. If the tree stops giving seed or bearing fruits and giving shade that would be disastrous. If the humans stop procreation then there would be no further generations to come. If the moon does not reflect

This question constantly rankles all of us as to how destiny works and what can we do about it. Let me put it first to you that destiny is like a fixed, bounded and circled tank or jail for you. There is no escape to anyone even if they are the avatars in this world. all have to bow down to this fixed path called destiny. This is not terminable or avoidable. The next thing to know is that we do not accept anything at all in our lives without questioning and fighting it ever. So when we are faced with some situations in life which are very difficult we tend to take the easy way out of it or the least cumbersome. We hope we are not caught with our pants down. But destiny has a lot of twists in store for us. Here are some examples for you to understand this. A woman thinks that the one she is married to is her God and their marriage is made in heaven till she faces the worst human on earth. Then can you think it was made in heaven or is it in hell? Similarly another has to see her most be

Now it may seem that they drove all night to reach the destination and finally could get the darshan of the Lord without much efforts, all because of the advance bookings at the temple and the well planned trip. The human ego decides that their efforts paid off and they could get such superb darshan. If there is no call of the divinity then they could never have reached the destination or got the darshan. Many a times we are deluded so much by our own ego that we are not able to see the divine hand anywhere. You are able to visit temples, mosques or churches or places of religious interest only because the divinity allows you to visit there. Even your visit will be facilitated by some strange methodology and you wonder at the end of it all, how it all happened so smoothly. But sometimes you are faced with very stiff resistance and the trip itself is very difficult or you are not allowed to reach the destination. Sometimes you may reach the desired location but are unable to see

You have reached your rock bottom and feel that there is nowhere to go. You wonder can there be tomorrow and whether you will be able to face life on even keel. Then there are so many commitments and you have no idea how you are going to fulfil them. There is no hope and all that you have left is fear and trepidation for the morrow. Everything seems so bleak and hazy. Your eyes are searching for answers in the mist. You have no clue how you are going to pay so much and that too so fast. Your mind just throws up all sorts of deathly pale hues around you. Now let us see how you can overcome such dangerous situations. You are clinging to that one hope for some miracle to happen in your life. That one glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Is it about God, your own self, some bogeyman or some saint or is it something to do with asking an oracle, a palmist, an astrologer or some such! Do you think these can pull you out of this rut? Think again! Even those trapped in the mine were rescu

I have often been asked this question about destiny and free will. Here I shall explain about both. We all come with a fixed path and that is called destiny. It is just like the railway line from which the train cannot get off otherwise it will derail. That is called "prarabdha karma"! That means if you are destined to get married or bear a child at a particular moment, that will happen as per our destiny guidelines. Everything that happens at any moment in time is governed by this fixed destiny. We are all born and die due to this kaal chakra or the wheel of fate! There are no exceptions in this path. Even Krishna who was cursed to die had to die at that moment as per the laws of destiny. There is no escaping it and we have to bow down to destiny at all times. We loose jobs, get divorced, there are deaths in the family, we loose all money, do not get selected for the big post, we get to win the lottery, get top rank and there are many such destined things which occur in our

You asked me what is the meaning of Krishna's maya and whether this maya exists or not or do we exist or not? Let me first of all tell you that Krishna means the Supreme Consciousness which can never be understood or measured by anyone. There is no way of understanding this in the form of words or mere expressions. What we are able to experience is called His maya alone. That which we experience is all in this manifest world whereas what we are talking about is even the unmanifest. How can one experience the unmanifest? There are no ways or methods in the manifest world that can tell us how to experience this unmanifest. So the difficulty that we understand here is how do we know that which is the unmanifest. Krishna in turn has to manifest himself so that you can know and understand just a minuscule of His potency. So for Him to take a Form is very important for us humans to know something about Him. Since everything is encompassed in His unmanifest can there be anything other tha

We were discussing about how every other God and saint gives what you ask for and how they go out of their way in fulfilling your smallest wish. You go to Shirdi or Tirupati and ask for gifts, boons and release from afflictions and the patron saint or the God in attendance fulfils your deepest desires. But when you ask Krishna you are in for a shock. He never gives you what you asked for but doles out some stuff in very small or minuscule quantity. You ask for 100 and He gives you 5 or less. His ways are very strange and you often wonder when your wish will get completed. Krishna takes away all that you have as well. If you ask for money from Him, He will promptly take away even that little you have. If you ask for peace of mind, he will give you more tensions than you could ask for. He gives darshan to those who curse Him and are not at all friendly towards Him. At such times you wonder if there is truly a God called Krishna. How could someone give more problems when you are asking Hi

I read a story of a village chieftain who met Guru Gobind Singhji and took Him around the village which was in abject poverty. The Guru looked around and exclaimed-"How beautiful these trees are full of mangoes and fruits!" The chief looked around the barren land and thought how silly this Guru was! How could He talk this way when there aren't any shrubs either! Then the Guru looked at a patch of grass and exclaimed"How lush these fields are!" The chieftain knew then the Guru had gone mad. He gave a scornful look at Gobind singhji and told Him that there are no such dream lands here. The Guru looked at the chief and told him that if only he could have had a little belief in Him, the fields would have been lush right then and there would be trees laden with fruits. But by showing disbelief in the Guru, he had stopped the universe acting on it. After the chieftain died the place turned into an oasis full of mango trees and lush green fields of Basmati rice. Today

One of the strangest truths about spiritual is that it makes you seem much younger than your body's age. Now you may ask how come such a phenomenon occurs and does it not have anything to do with genes et al? No my dear friend, ageing is a process which starts with us the moment we are born and our bodies deteriorate at a much faster rate once we cross the age of 20's. We get married and have to bear the brunt of everything that marriage entails. We seem much happier and younger when we are just married but as soon as the baby appears in the womb, the ageing happens at the speed of light. The body sags and is laden with weight and every other stuff we eat and stuff our poor bodies with. Later we are blown away with the tensions of work and family life. As a grihistha we have to face a lot of tensions and pressures of life. This brings about our run towards death and faster ageing. In the true spiritual sense the ageing process is reversed by means of a few changes that are affe

Kumarila Bhatta was a great scholar who joined the Nalanda University so that he could refute the Buddhist doctrines. He knew the Hindu scriptures and could expound on them very well. One day his teacher Dharmakirti made an error in explaning the Hindu scriptures so Kumarila stood against his teacher and corrected him. This in turn turned all the Buddhist students against him. They plotted to throw him from the top of the building. Before they could throw him, they asked him whether his Hindu Vedas could save him from death. Kumarila answered that he thought that they would save him. The students dropped him from top and hoped that he would die but when they reached down they saw him laughing away and unhurt except for a small injury to his eye. They ridiculed him and told him that anyway his Vedas saved him but still gave him that small injury to his eye. He answered that though he had full faith in the Hindu scriptures, he still "thought" that they would save him, whereas w