The Pilgrimage

Dear friends, lets share a story of two friends, Dharma and Karma and their experience of pilgrimage.

Long ago, Dharma and Karma- the two friends lived in a village and did day to-day chores to meet their daily expenses and support their respective family. Their lives were not luxurious but giving them satisfaction. Their family were happy with them and blessed them for providing necessary good things of life. 

Once both of them while discussing about various things, decided to go for a journey to pilgrimage so that they could see the other cities and also fulfill the purpose to know other places as well to pray with reverence and spirituality. As for that purpose they needed enough sum of money for traveling expenses therefore both of them first decided to work hard and to save some money for that purpose. After some time, when both of them had saved enough money to meet their travel expenses thereafter they decided to begin their journey for pilgrimage. 

During the way, both of them got opportunity to visit various religious places and listened good words from many preachers. They stayed in different villages with many villagers offering them food and shelter in the night as per their status and earnings. It gave them  to see and know the humane side as well as peace of mind but as they had decided to go to main shrine which was quite far and time taking journey. They kept their journey continued. 

On one of a day they traveled a good distance and reached to a village. The people of village were not  very well-off and poor in comparison to other villages. They reached to one of the hut-house and knocked the door. The hut-house was not in a good condition however the family which lived there, welcomed them and served the best available food to their guests. Both of them had food and rested in the house. They were also given the cots to sleep and family put their bed on the floor. As they had to leave early in the morning therefore they got up early and went for morning calls and bathing at the well. The host family also got up early and preparing food for their breakfast and lunch. While bathing at well, they noticed some commotion and  voices. Immediately they reached to the house of their host and found that that house had been burnt accidentally while cooking the food on the wood-stove. The family were dousing the fire by putting water over it. Both of them also helped the family in doing so but in between the whole of the house turned into a rubble in the short period. After dousing the fire, Dharma asked Karma to leave the place and to start moving on for their pilgrimage. Karma told him that as that family had provided them food and shelter and that problem of their survival had occurred while they were also staying therefore they had further moral responsibility to help the family till they recovered from their trauma and loss but Dharma did not get agree with him and decided to move on for further journey without Karma. 

Karma stayed in the village and helped family to reconstruct their house. The head man of family was also got injured in the accident. Karma helped him in recovering and did all house work for them. 

On the other side, Dharma started moving and after traveling for many days reached at the place of Shrine. He was happy and satisfied as he had achieved his goal. He felt sorry for Karma's act for not coming here and missing this chance to pray in peace. There was a big crowd. He looked at the crowd gathered there. Suddenly at one far spot, he saw that Karma was standing along with many people who were taking care of him. Dharma was surprised as his clothes had been worn out in the journey and on the other side Karma was wearing prince-like new clothes. He called him in a loud voice but the distance and gathered crowd could not allowed him to attract Karma towards him. In between Karma lost in crowd with other people. Dharma thought as when he had decided to move from village, it seemed that Karma must have moved after him and reached here. Before pr,ay,  as per rituals and customs Dharma decided to take a dip in the holy river. There was a big crowd for bathing at river and Dharma faced lot of difficulties in taking dip however he observed that Karma was also taking dip in the holy river but not with the crowd also at royal ghat where he was being served with many people. Dharma felt jealous and angry as both of them had departed together for that journey and now he was being treated as royal and he still was facing all hard-ship of journey. After the bath, Dharma reached at the Shrine and joined the long 'Q' of devotees. He stood in the 'Q' for long time and as he reached near the shrine, he could not enter inside due to over-crowd but surprised him the most that Karma was allowed to pray inside the shrine and priests were assisting him in performing the pray. Dharma got angry and infuriated over that facility provided to him. He decided to teach him a lesson once he would reach to their native place. 

After the pray, he started going back to his village. Dharma was worn-out and tired but he traveled fast to reach as early as possible. 

During the journey, he reached back to same village where the incident of fire had occurred. Dharma due to curiosity went to same house which was got fire. On his surprise, he noticed that the hut had been converted into a beautiful  house. The family had all good comforts in house. They welcomed Dharma and requested him to stay and rest in a big room having all amenities till they informed Karma about his arrival. On hearing that Karma was staying here, he thought to humiliate him from this place till the native village. By late evening, Karma came and welcomed him with warm hug. Dharma was surprised to see his reaction and got another surprise when came to know that Karma had not left that place and since Dharma's departure, he was with the family and helping them in improving the life of family and native villagers. He had used his innovative methods and introduced new techniques for agriculture and craft work. He got opened a school for village children and work-shop cum learning center for village women. Due to his contribution the village did not fall in poverty area. The villagers had become self sufficient and living happily. Now the Dharma had returned from the journey therefore he would be joining him back in the journey onwards to their native village.

Next morning Dharma went to village and found everything true. All villagers welcomed him and gave them farewell good bye when they made their departure from the village. They were also gifted with a few souvenirs by the villagers.

Through out the journey, Dharma never got courage to face and look in Karma's eyes. He was puzzled that when Karma was helping, remained in the village and did not complete his pilgrimage then how did he was every where in the shrine?

Dear friends, A pilgrimage is only gets completed when the traveler knows his purpose of doing so. Karma understood the meaning of his journey that is why he preferred to stay in the village. he knows that God's search may occurs in the dark mind but an enlighten mind knows that God is with him.

A prayer is thank to God and to his creations. It may be missed if intentions of doing good is motive i.e. helping the poor and needy makes difference. Saint Ravi Das did the same and brought out the holy water of Ganges from his utensil which was used to keep leather wet and soft for making shoes.

Spirituality does not require to connect every time with practice,  it needs to connect your soul and mind with wiping tears from poor and weak. 

A pilgrimage may be accomplished if your reverence reaches to your doing karma's.

Happy Holi - a festival of colors

HOLI- A day of playing with colors, spreading joys and happiness, forgeting all false ego and annoyance, leaving arrogance behind, laughing out loud with the help of lungs, having all sweets, high calorie food with no guilt. Sending water waves to one and all w/o prejudice.

Respecting elders and taking blessings  and get rub by scent/perfume. Say a prayer and thank God for everything you have been blessed with. Get a 'Tilak' of sandalwood on your fore-head.

Wear a white dress and see the magic of colors on yourself.

Becoming toy for children.

If color is life, it is the day.

Go, meet and thank those who have always stood by you even when you were broken  and lonely.

Share your food with friends and needy ones.

Be respectful to one and all. The true spirit of festival may be seen in every one.

Do not over speed, honking and irritating while driving. Spread colors not hatred.

Lets celebrate the mood of welcoming summer with fun and joy.

Happy Holi to all.

Do not misbehave and forget to enjoy it completely without forcefully putting colors on those who abstain due to health, medical or personal reasons.

Remember over-drinking will kill the happiness.

Have fun...

The God Existance- The Maxim and the fact

Recently while reading an article about the God there are several arguments were given by a preacher to prove that god is no one but the imagination of human mind. The points raised are: Some foolish men declare that creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill advised and should be rejected. If God created the world, where was he before the creation? Where is he now? How could God have made this world without any raw material? If he is ever perfect and complete, how could the will to create have arisen in him? If he is form-less, action-less and all-embracing, how could he have created the world? What advantage would he gain by creating the universe? If you say that he created to no purpose because it was his nature to do so, then God is pointless. If he created because of the karma, he is not the Almighty Lord, but subordinate to something else. Why did he not make creation wholly blissful free from misfortune? And God commits great sin in slaying the children whom he himself created. 

I would like to add that the preacher has mentioned that this approach is quite known in one of the faith practice in India and other places however I have studied about it and have interacted with many people of this faith, I have not found such issue ever be raised with such an angle by any one. I always believe that people have all rights to choose what they like to be do for their uplifting and progression of soul however the points given by the preacher are not found convincing and seems to be motivated and guided by raising an issue to become popular in overnight as many people use this method to become a known face w/o doing anything in real life. I have not tried to reply or answer the points raised by preacher as it would be an endless war of conflict for everyone. There are always guarded sides in all time so arguments are endless for any side.

The world is such a beautiful concept that we have become so much possessive about its creation that we are giving credit to everyone except the creator. Sometimes some of the people raise this question that if god has created this world then where was he before the creation. It is like a child asks after seeing the clay toy about its origination. For him the clay toy is the fore most creation as he is failed to see the source i.e. clay. As they further question that where is he now? For that I would like to say that everything which is visible to us does not created from the moment we see it. It exists much before we notice it and still we see only little due to our limited vision. An endless discussion about logical conclusion by suspicious mind is not possible as it requires open acceptance to unseen today and concluded tomorrow. An emotion does not require any raw material rather needs a vision to understand. A process which is not understood to us we call it impossible w/o realizing that the output is still to understand. A world is a sports or play/drama created for the audiences of upper world and we are like the characters of a book written by none other than god. Remember only seeing is not the evidence to understand the world, we need to know it by living this beautiful phrase. The creator understands of perfect and complete that is why imperfect and incomplete are created. We are like the basic senses and know limited role about our existence. For us eyes are related with seeing and tongue with taste but how could we forget that the eyes cry too and tongue speaks as well. That is the difference between perfect and imperfect. Those who have understood it have understood the world and its creator. A less-experienced mind will lead a least knowledge life that is why people who lived 300 yrs. back had no intention to use phone, computer or radio. A complete soul will believe in creating things beautifully and for advance progress of soul. It is a never ending journey otherwise the purpose of soul is ended as soon as it attains nirvana but that will be selfishness and self ‘kalyanam’. A good soul never believes in getting himself far from other souls nor in keeping himself at apex just to show other that they are far behind or below than him. It would assist and guide them to know their respective path and that is why the soul will visit us again and again. That will earmark his journey. Everything is not created with the sole purpose of taking advantage or using it for self-benefits. Some of the things are being done with intention to keep alive our emotions and thoughts. Do we create children, we just have sex to entertain ourselves and the result comes as in the shape of our extension- extension of soul too. What a strange thing a human in us tells us to take a dive into the ocean of thoughts but the ego and self-interest stops us to take a dip into it as it would wet our soul with love and reverence. Can we pretend that we will not get wet despite taking a bath in ocean? We human wants to have all learning’s in seconds and want to become familiar with our own existence in blink of an eye lid w/o realising that everything which we experience is  few atoms of an object. God is like a master chef and this life is like a kitchen for us where we are given with few substances, some recipe, some tools and some fire to cook. We prepare what we think to cook and try to make good from it. Some prepare a wonderful dish which is good to eat and presentable as well and some of us make a mockery of our recipe and cook which is not even like to be eaten by ourselves. We blame our creator for giving us poor substances. We must know that what people are doing with the same stuff so that next time we should not remain hungry and foolish again.  Dear friends the purpose of life is not to see like an eye or tastes like a tongue but to know the worth of tear drop from those eyes and to recognise the power of speech occurred through tongue and for that we must be ready to live a life not in at least easy tone but in a learning tone. A misfortune is not the end of world but beginning of knowing and finding new and fresh. The question raised in your mind are not the end of this world rather a new beginning but one should fair enough to respond them w/o bias or rejection only then one day when you will be alone not lonely and intact not broken, understand the journey and your creator. There is no Satan outside and there is no good exist there too. It is all inside and when you come up with the victory of one over the other, you react in the same pitch. It depends on you which one of that gets the winning edge. It is easy to denounce the good but difficult to leave the evil as it takes many turns before retreating from you. A good man must understand the relation between self, other and divine because that would be a door to be opened with doctrine of character. Understand this world which is created with intention to make you understand the role of learning in living this beautiful imperfect life. A soul is indestructible so as the life as it can endure the most complicated nature of human being.

Free your soul, relate with lived life so that it would connect you with your best friend – GOD !!