Make Room for Spirituality In Your Material World.... SURESH PADMANABHAN

CONTRARY TO THE POPULAR BELIEF THAT SPIRITUALITY CAN EXIST ONLY THROUGH RENUNCIATION OF MATERIAL COMFORTS, THERE ARE WAYS ONE CAN STRIKE A PERFECT BALANCE BETWEEN THE TWO PURSUITS...

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The western world is considered materialistically inclined while the eastern world is rooted in spirituality.  People think that the material and spiritual world are two heterogeneous entities independent of each other's existence, which is not true.  Thousands of years ago, our scholars established fundamentals that  became the backbone of human existence.  Watered down to the basics, they are health, relationships, work and money.  Life is a mixture of these interdependent aspects.  A shortcoming in one of them could set off a chain reaction in the others.  For instance, if you find it tough to maintain a loving relationship with your close ones, it's bound to affect your state of mind and in turn your health.  And when your health gets affected, you lose your focus at work and that hampers your earning capabilities.  So in a way, you just can't separate the aspect of finance from the dictionary of life.

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One needs to do learn to connect the material domain with the spiritual.  And that's what the mystical Freemasons did when they created the one-dollar bill for the American currency.  Look carefully and you'll find the words 'In God we trust' inscribed onto every dollar.  The act of putting your trust in God when it comes to matters of finance is symbolic of the close relationship that the material and spiritual world share.  The green colour of the dollar represents abundance and prosperity.  It's why the American currency has become the top instrument of monetary exchange in the world.  And if you wonder about the Indian Rupee, there are analogies to explain the aforementioned link between the material and the spiritual here too.  The image of Mahatma Gandhi, which is the mainstay of every Indian note or coin, is a metaphor for the Mahatma's responsibility of being the father of the nation.  It shows how he took up a huge responsibility and set off on his struggle to free the nation.  His image is a clarion call to Indian asking them to take responsibility for their lives.  Just like how Lord Krishna spoke to Arjuna when he was confronted with the dilemma of waging war on his lover ones at kurukshetra.

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Learn to spend and save wisely, invest prudentially and generously distribute to the needy.  Following these simple instructions can help you lead a life that's what happier and more fulfiled on a spiritual plane...................THE WRITER IS AN AUTHOR, PUBLIC SPEAKER, COLOUMNIST, AN EXPERT IN THE FIELD .."mind science and creator of the Money Workshop"......

Over come Your Fears to Face Divinity... BY MANI SHANKAR

"Neti, neti..."
"Not this, not this..."  --- Chandogya Upanishad
"Tear the Veil from Deity's face"__ Sri Aurobindo.. Not 'God'
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Vedanta's position on God is very clear.  What ever supreme being is 'out there', is also 'in here', inside you.  You are a wonderful creative expression of That, and in a sense, you tare That.  You don't need to go anywhere else but the depths of your own being to discover that 'God'.  And conversely, if you cannot discover that 'God' inside you then you cannot discover 'God' outside either.  So all the time spent in visiting a temple, for instance, is pleasant time pass, but of little value in tangible terms, since the real temple is within, the real 'darshan' is within.  If you didn't get that 'darshan' within, then the 'God' outside is just a stone idol.

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If you don't hear the music within, then the ritual outside is just a soothing meaningless chant.  If you didn't open your inner eye, then you are blind to the subtle truth of existence.  Inversely, if you did get the experience within, then it does not matter what or who your worship in what form, culture, religion or language.  It does not matter even if you don't worship anything at all.  All external rituals become inherently meaningful or completely meaningless.  Either way it's ok.

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The inner vision is aglow.  No words can describe  the experience, so it's pointless to talk about it.  You have found an impenetrable peace within, a words don't matter any more.

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Strangely, the path towards this experience discovers atheism as its first stage.  Atheism is a far more honest attitude than theism without the inner experience.  The atheist rejects the untruths his rationality and common sense cannot accept.  While he may not know what to believe in, at least he knows what not believe in.  In glaring contrast, a so called believer chooses to override his plain common sense and believe in a whole set of practices and customs that his instincts are telling him is not true.  But that is the power of mass deception.  When a lot of people accept some irrational thing to be true, they gain comfort in the assurance that either all are smart or all are dumb.  Either  way it's comforting to know you are not alone.

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Vedanta does not have much use for the G word, simply because its effort is to take you beyond words, beyond thought, beyond mind itself.  'God' is just a convenient term the mind has created to express the inexpressible.  Having stated the G word, the mind feels it has touched the inexpressible, and moves on with a false sense of achievement.  The G word is more an idiom of blindness than sight.  Too much use of the word just leads to delusion.  In fact the more a person uses it, the less they know anything about what the word means.

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'Neti, Neti."  Not this.  Not this.  God as a notion is just a creation of the mind.  You can keep on describing that concept in the most glorious of terms, but all the descriptions are only more words.  You will never experience God by just using more words.

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You need to go beyond -- you need to overcome your fears and dive into deep pools of joy, you need to touch the source which created the mind in the first place.  If you can do this, you will suddenly, spontaneously come face to face with Divinity itself.  You will, as Sri Aurobindo said, 'tear the veil from Deity's face'.  You will understand what every great Vedantic master has understood from the last 35 centuries, and like them, you will never be able to describe what you felt.  When Buddha was asked about God, he looked at a flower and smiled in silence.  Your answer will probably be the same........

You need to see tomorrow as an unfulfilled today...EMOTIONAL FITNESS

Have you ever come across health?  You have been healthy many times, but can you say what health is?  Only decease exists.  Health is non-existential; You cannot pinpoint it.  If you have a headache you know it is there, but have you ever know the absence of headache?  In fact, if there is no headache, the head also disappears.  You don't feel it anymore.  If you go on feeling your head, that simply shows that there must be a certain tension inside, a certain stress, a strain.

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In Zen, when meditators sit for many years, just sitting and doing nothing, a certain moment comes when they forget that they have bodies.  That is their first satori.  Not that the body is not there; body is there but there is no tension, so how to feel it?  If I say something you can hear me, but if I'm silent how can you hear me?  Silence is there --  it has much to communicate to your -- but silence cannot be heard.

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YOU DON'T FEEL A HEALTHY BODY...

When your body is perfectly healthy, you don't feel it.  If some tension arises in the body, some disease, some illness, then you start hearing.  If everything is in harmony and there is no pain and no misery, suddenly you are empty.  A nothingness overwhelms you.

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the self is nothing but accumulated tensions.  The self is nothing but desires unfulfilled, hopes frustrated, expectation, dreams -- all broken, fractured.

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WHY IS TOMORROW NEEDED?

You want to be there tomorrow also because today is unfulfilled.  The tomorrow is needed; otherwise you will die unfulfilled.  The yesterday was a deep frustration; today is again a frustration; tomorrow is needed.  A frustrated mind creates future.  A frustrated mind clings with the future.  A frustrated mind wants to be because now, if death comes, no flower has flowered.  Nothing has yet happened; there has only been a fruitless waiting.  That unlived life creates a desire to be.

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PEOPLE WHO MISS LIFE ARE AFRAID OF DEATH...

People are so afraid of death:  there are the people who have not lived.  These are the people who are, in a certain sense, already dead.  A person who lives totally does not think about death.  If it comes, he will welcome.  He will live that too, he will celebrate that too.  Life has been such a blessing, benediction; one is even ready to accept death.  One is not afraid because the tomorrow is not needed; the today has been so fulfilling.  The desire for tomorrow is always out of fear, and fear is there because lover has not happened.  Once the meaning has happened, you are ready to die-- silently, beautifully, gracefully...