Yad Drishyam Tad Nrishyam

The article is titled with this ancient vedantic sutra which means whatever you can see is susceptible to be destroyed by time. This vedantic aphorism intends to make it clear to the spiritual aspirant that visible objects with whom he is so attached, shall not last long as the objects themselves are ephemeral. Hence attachment that is today will certainly result in pain once the object is destroyed (read transformed) by time.

However today i am here to speak about some realisations that i got from a movie “Drishyam” that i watched few mins ago. It was beautifully picturised and is an amazing suspense thriller. A movie by its very design engrosses you in its scenes and characters. Pain and pleasure showcased by characters is felt by the person watching the movie. But i didnt experience any such emotions as i had already read the whole script of the suspense movie on the wikipedia :). Its not a good idea to know the script of a suspense movie before watching it, but as a result of this some realisations clicked about this movie of life. If you are already aware of the script of this life movie nothing can touch you. After a number of experiences i am convinced that future telling is a possibility and the world is not just an accident. Some years ago when a colleague of mine who harbours an interest in astrology predicted a future event which happened exactly as his predictions surprised me. Patanjali Yoga sutra also talks about siddhis of trikaldarshi in which an evolved yogi can see past and future perfectly. I have read , heard and seen many yogis who have some siddhis like mind reading and prediction of future among others. Even Jesus christ, yogi of west knew all that was to happen to him . If future is already decided then the world is more like a movie rather than an evolving planet.

In the movie Drishyam, Ajay Devgan skillfully saved his daughter from being prosecuted for the accidental death of a boy who died due to her. Ajay created a perfect other story to present that his family was not even in town when this accident happened. Although this was not true but his facts made it appear this (what is seen)“drishyam” as true. Whatever we know and perceive about this world depends upon what we see with out 5 sense organs and logically conclude. So its possible that whatever we know and perceive about the world is just a projection and untrue. Confused ? Ok just remember that vedanta talks about world as a dream as real or unreal as the dream we see in night. Just as when you awake from the night dream you realise that dream experiences have not touched you , in the similar manner when a person awakes from this he realises this experience also as dream. One doesnt remember events before his birth and after his death, in this infinite existence of time and space 100 years is like a drop. OM.

Neti Neti - "Not this Not this"

We come in this world through parents but know nothing about where we have come from and where do we intend to go. A newborn opens his eyes and starts wondering about the visible world. He sees the familiar objects which feeds, loves and cares for him and soon calls them as mother and father. The goals and aspirations of a growing child are the product of how his individuality adapts to his surrounding environment with which he associates. He starts running a race to seek this and that depending upon his aspirations which are awoken through association with his immediate outside world. For ex i became an engineer because i came to know that good students should become engineers. Next was the desire for a good job which will help me satisfy my desires. We all know beyond doubt that life on earth is transient but seem to overlook this fact in running behind this and that. We seem to avoid the basic question “Who we are ?”

Seeking an answer to this basic question has led to development of various philosophical systems. One of the foremost tools in helping one answer the question of “Who am I” is vedantic technique of “neti neti”. Neti is a sanskrit word and is formed after joining “Na” and “Iti” which means “not” and “this” respectively. The technique does not answers directly the question “Who am I” but removes the false associations that “I” has deluded himself to think. After all false associations are removed it is said that “I” shines on its own accord as sunlight reaches the earth once clouds are removed.

YOU ARE NOT THE BODY
One of the foremost doubts that a person has his considering himself just as the body. The illusion is so strong that the birth and death of the body is taken as the birth and death of the individual. The person even from his birth is greeted by outside world who say that he is looking good or bad and gradually a man begins to take himself as the body however on enquiry this is found to be incorrect. Lets enquire into it.

If the I is the body then does the “I” sense also suffer harm when physical body suffers harm. For ex Man who loose their limbs in accidents dont suffer any incompleteness in sense of I. 

The body initially was of the size of an ostrich egg at birth and grows bigger later. The sense of “I” does not grows with the body and remains static. Food which is taken becomes part of body. Food inturn comes from earth so in reality earth becomes body. What was earth yesterday has become body today. Earth becomes the body and body later become earth.  

When a man is dreaming during sleep, he although does not have a body but still the sense of I is there. The feeling that “I” was there persists even through the dream.

I therefore cant be body. Who am I then ?

This is the biggest wrong association and when it collapses it takes away all other associations with persons, job and emotions along with it. Nevertheless lets ponder on other associations.

YOU ARE NOT YOUR ROLE

People also often identify themselves with the role that time gives them. A person who takes cares of his child often takes the role of a mother and identifies herself with it. A little pondering on it will reveal that role is something which does not touches sense of “I”.

When someone is asked who you are ? The person often replies the role that he is playing. When a person who is working as a software engineer is asked who you are ? He replies that i am a software engineer. This also is not correct because if he leaves the job of software engineer I will still remain.

Pondering on these questions remove the false "I" and what remains shines as real "I". 

An experience with Pulse Diagnosis

It happened around 3 years ago in Lucknow when me and my friend Rohendra were doing a 4 day advanced meditation course of Art of Living in Lucknow. As service helps to purify the intellect, every participant was assigned certain service for an hour every day. Rohendra had tried to lift a heavy carpet alone and suffered back pain, however he chose to silently bear it. Since we were in silence so there was no way that he could share it with anyone.

Next day as part of course we were instructed to delay breakfast as some doctors of Nadi Pareeksha were to come and examine the participants state. Pulse diagnosis is better on empty stomach as otherwise food digestion disturbs the normal pulse flow. Me and Rohendra silently waited for our turn(we had no option as we were in silence :) ). Doctor diagnosed the pulse and started giving his analysis on ailments and general condition of the body.

He first of all told about the prakriti (Nature) of person. I was surprised when he said that Prakriti largely determines how a human being behaves. His analsyis of mine pretty astonished me for its correctness. He was able to predict the condition of stomach, some diseases like cold with which i usually suffered. He also told about some future diseases that might happen with my body and prescribed Ayurvedic medicines to balance my doshas (impurities in body). He said balancing the doshas would ensure that the seeds of the diseases wont sprout in the body.

Few days later after the course had ended, me and Rohendra had discussion about Nadi Pareeksha examination. Like me Rohendra too was satisfied with the diagnosis. He shared something which will indelibly remain a part of my memory, doctor by merely examining his pulse has also told him about his temporary back pain that he had acquired. 

Since then i have always got myself diagnosed from time to time and followed the prescription of Naadi Pareeksha chikitsik. The Ayurvedic medicines dosctor prescribes are free from side effect and lead to general well being of body. Practising yoga since last 9 years regularily and taking Ayurvedic prescriptions from time to time has ensured that body functions well and rarely there is need to visit a doctor.  Infact in last 7 years i have visited doctor only 2 times and both the times it was for getting  a medical certificate which was required by my workplace. I have discovered that balanced living and living close to nature, gives a gift of health and sense of well being which is normally unseen in an adult.

Interested as i was i started enquiring more about Nadi Pareeksha and its origin. Nadi Pareeksha as a technique was very famous in ancient India and used by nawabs too. India had few very accomplished doctors who were reknowned for their expertise. A nawab wanted to mock a doctor and invited him to diagnose his wife. Since there was a rule in muslim world that an outsider male can not hold the hand of female hence a thread was to be tied to female hand and given to doctor. The Nawab with an intention to mock the doctor instead tied the thread to the leg of a goat. The doctor examined the pulse and said, this pulse is not of a human but of a goat and the goat is 3 months pregnant.

Naadi Pareeksha is an established traditional medication system and I feel that even medical doctors should be taught the art of pulse diagnosis along with other medicines. Treatment through Ayurveda should be given priority. While this will reduce the financial burden of expensive medicines on those who cant afford, it shall also shover on people the gift of good health. We will also be developing the culture of coming near to nature by promoting Ayurvedic medicines which are created from tree preparations.

Swami Vivekananda jayanthi Frankfurt - Chicago address

In these troubled times when religious fanaticism threatens the existence of peace, Chicago address of Swami Vivekananda has much to offer to the world.

This was an event which i organised in Frankfurt and this address of Abhinandan where he emulated Swami Vivekananda Chicago address was inspiring to all. Swami ji's message is very much relevant even today due to never before seen multiculturalism due to enhanced modes of communication and travel in this era and has brought societies closer.

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance.

We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth.

They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

The World's Parliament of Religions has become an accomplished fact, and the merciful Father has helped those who labored to bring it into existence, and crowned with success their most unselfish labor.

My thanks to those noble souls whose large hearts and love of truth first dreamed this wonderful dream and then realized it. My thanks to the shower of liberal sentiments that has overflowed this platform.

My thanks to this enlightened audience for their uniform kindness to me and for their appreciation of every thought that tends to smooth the friction of religions. A few jarring notes were heard from time to time in this harmony. My special thanks to them, for they have, by their striking contrast, made general harmony the sweeter.

Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if any one here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, "Brother, yours is an impossible hope." Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid.

The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant. It develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.

Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character.

In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance: "Help and not fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction," "Harmony and Peace and not Dissension."