Path to self-awareness

Knowing what is right and what is wrong in your own inner consciousness is insufficient. It is not the knowing of truth that transforms a person; it is the doing of truth that has an impact on you and on the other people that you interact with. You may know that it is inappropriate to think selfishly and look out for your own best interests first, but your inner emotions may drive you to be blinded to the needs of others.
You may know that it is against your basic truth to judge another individual, but your inner emotions may cause you to look at that person and make a judgment because of the effect you are allowing them to have on your life.You may understand that all of God's creatures were created equal, but that doesn't stop you, on an emotional level, from feeling that the human race is the most important life form on the planet.
The discrepancy lies not in a lack of information, for the information is available on a world-wide basis for those who would seek it, evaluate it, and accept it as their own; the discrepancy lies in the ability to integrate Universal Law into your lifestyle. Awareness of the self does not just focus into the positive aspects of a personality, or the positive aspects of skills and talents that you brought with you into this lifetime, but into the negative as well; it is only when the positive is weighed against the negative, and the balanced perspective is used as a guidepost in integrating higher consciousness into the self that the influence becomes apparent in your relationships and in your lifestyle.
Self-actualisation can be translated to mean, making the self actual. It means there is no difference between what you think and what you do. There is no contradiction between what you tell others and how you respond yourself. It is manifesting who you are and what you believe in on a dayto-day, consistent basis. The path is a long and solitary one, and many individuals give up. It is difficult to accept what our conscious choices in the course of a specific existence have driven us to do to other people. It is hard for us to accept that we have been selfish, or resentful, or spiteful. It is hard for us to see where we have deliberately manipulated our lives so that we have control over the people and the situations and the events within it.
It is not easy to admit that we are not the positive, smiling, loving person that we prefer to see ourselves as; when, in the course of personal growth, it becomes necessary for an individual to truly, honestly evaluate how they have interacted with their fellow human beings, the drop-out rate skyrockets.
This is unfortunate, because personal growth cannot proceed — self-awareness and self-actualisation cannot be accomplished — without a true and open acknowledgement of who we used to be and how we used to live our lives, no matter how unpleasant that panorama may be. This does not mean that we need to spend years of our lives suffering regret and remorse for the wrong we have done in their lives to other people. It does mean that we need to take a reasonable amount of time to look back and to evaluate honestly what was really at play in any particular situation, where the two parties were really coming from, and where each conducted themselves with less than universal love.
We cannot change the past; we cannot undo the influence that we have upon other people by our thoughts and our feelings and our reactions, but we can learn from that experience and make a personal commitment never to treat anyone with that lack of respect again. If that person is still in our life, we can have the grace to apologise, and share our learning experience, and say, "I'm sorry that i used to be like that. I want to be like this, now, and i hope that you will help."
It is only by acknowledging our past weaknesses, and sharing our future aspirations, that we can experience the support and encouragement of others on our journey to self-actualisation. If we are not willing to admit that we have ever made a mistake, ever reacted inappropriately, ever deliberately hurt someone, then we cannot admit that we need to change, or that we need other people's help in doing so. It is, from a soul evolution perspective, self-defeating behaviour to remain in situations made from the lower consciousness that create less than fulfiling situations and relationships in our lives.

Concept of GURU

Prince or commoner, rich or poor, every individual who wishes to get empowered and enlightened benefits greatly from the guidance of an able guru. Even the gods sought out gurus for themselves. Lord Krishna's guru was Sandipanirishi. Rama and Laxmana along with many other princes learnt all skills from their spiritual master, Guru Vasishtha. When Swami Vivekananda first visited Ramakrishna Paramahansa he asked: "I have read the Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures several times, i lecture and give discourses on the Gita and Ramayana. Do i still need harbour of a saint; do i still need a guru?" Ramakrishna didn't reply to Vivekananda's question. After a few days Ramakrishna called upon Vivekananda and handed him a parcel to be delivered at a nearby village a few hours away by the sea route. Early morning the boat and sailor would be ready and all he needed to do was to go to the village and deliver the parcel to the designated person. Vivekananda agreed and decided to start early. He found the boat and the sailor ready to put out to sea. Suddenly, upon sitting in the boat, Vivekananda realised that he didn't know the road to the village. He inquired of the sailor who had no clue, either. Vivekananda decided to go back to his guru to ask him the shortest way to the village. Upon this Ramakrishna said, "Narendra, this is my reply to the question you asked me when we met the first time: Today, you have the medium (the boat), you have the resource (the sailor), you have the road (the sea), you know what to do (deliver the parcel) and you also know where to go but you don't know the way. Likewise you have read all the scriptures, and you can conduct wonderful discourses on them. However, to realise the wisdom of scriptures one needs a guru, someone who has already traversed that path so that he can guide you through the journey and encourage you to not give up." In Sanskrit, 'gu' is one who dispels and 'ru' means darkness. Every individual who wishes to rise above his existing levels needs a lighthouse, a guiding star to guide him on the journey of life, who can help by dispelling darkness at every step. Lord Swaminarayan ordained Sikshapatri, containing 212 conventions of code of conduct for every human being. One of the points reads: "Even the most learned of men will become morally declined if he is not involved in devotion to God and in good acquaintance." Many seers have made various suggestions on how to embark on the spiritual path according to their perceived wisdom. Is there a universally accepted spiritual definition? How should one lead one's life which balances both the spiritual and the material? To understand all this and choose the right path for a balanced life of duty, responsibility, love, detachment and striving for higher consciousness, you need the grace and guidance of a spiritual master. As the saying goes "When the disciple is ready the Master arrives." Like a lone ship sailing in turbulent waters hunts for a safe harbour to anchorage, similarly one needs to constantly endeavour in the journey of life for a true guru, a harbour against all storms.

Divine Message of the Vedas

Character Formation

Message-1: Human life is an invaluable gift from God. Man has received the facilities not granted to any other life-form. He has been granted a family, medical-care, industry, housing, vehicles and entertainment and the power to talk, laugh, read, write and think. Do other animals enjoy all these? Why all this special grace of God on man only? Every animal born in this world, meets death after some time. No one knows when he will die. God has given the facility to man only to push death on one side and achieve immortality. He should not lead the life of a mortal, but live determinedly like an immortal.
By studying the history and the characters of excellent men, it becomes clear that some qualities are extremely essential for man’s progress. These qualities by themselves are the test of man. Man will become excellent with immortality of name in proportion to the qualities possessed by him. The lives of all great men of the world are replete with these qualities. No man will achieve immortality of name without the help of these qualities. The grandeur of these qualities has been mentioned in many places in many ways in the holy books. These qualities are called ‘Daivee Sampada’. Man can become immortal in this world only by adopting these virtues in his life. Ours is the country of great men. From the time of Lord Ramachandra (or Ram), up to to-day, world-famous men have been born here. But it will be of no use to create only great men. It is both improper and impossible that people who can be counted on finger-tips become great by imbibing divinity and the rest live the life of hell. The level of our ordinary, very ordinary people also should be excellent.

Our bodily requirements, like other animals, are ordinary and can be easily fulfilled. But we utilize our extra capacity for indulging in our desires, for luxurious living, for hoarding and for satisfying our ego. We stray from aims of this life and like a dying man just pull on with the burden of our lives.
By proper diet, proper daily routine, exercise, austerity etc we should keep the body clean and the mind pure and live our life (i.e. live for others’ welfare). In that case we can ‘live over a hundred years by doing good deeds, enjoy the happiness of excellent wealth and children and enjoy the bliss of immortality of the soul.
How surprising it is that it does not occur to us to take advantage of the invaluable opportunity of human life and we waste it away just like that in childish games. Not only that, but we utilize the human life in various wicked activities and take away with us the heavy burden of mountains of sins and hellish tortures for our next birth. On the contrary, the animals are better, who leave just as they came into this world. Is this the only intelligence of man? Is man incapable of using proper discretion after obtaining so much knowledge, wisdom and education?
We may boast of ourselves as knowledgeable, clever, and shrewd by knowing the ways of success in the material world, but it is not the less important that we understand the fundamental aim of life and seriously think about it. We should also think ‘who am I? what am I? and how do I achieve meaningfulness of my existence ? If man does not develop this knowledge, then he will be forced to live a contemptible life similar to an animal.
Every man with discretion must think on his current situation, and if possible should venture to employ his life in fulfilling God’s expectation and thereby saving himself from repentance. When such an inspiration arises in the heart, then you should understand that God’s brightness has started shining and God’s grace is manifesting. Most people are not prepared to amend their bad conduct. They are not willing to replace wicked conduct with good conduct and they expect God to fulfill their desires. They are doing ritual-worship, sing hymns etc with desires. They think that praising God, prostrating before him, by imploring or by making offerings, they can get their work done through Him. The real meaning of worship is that God’s qualities be firmly impressed on our memory, and to create maximum cleanliness, discretion and purity in our minds. Depending on his situation, every man can contribute in some way to raising the level of sentiments of the world’s humanity. The extent to which we can devote our time, labor, intelligence, money etc for this purpose, to that extent we have ventured for fulfilling God’s wish. For that we should include the maximum purity, generosity and excellent ideals in our thinking, attitudes, qualities, deeds, nature and activities. Simultaneously we should be dedicated to surrender with enthusiasm and feelings our insight and capacity for people’s welfare.

!!!Will Continue!!!

How to Judge a character of a person?

24 thousands of slokas are there in Valmiki Ramayana. Rama lives for For 11,000 years. But Ramayana gives importance only to the 14 years of Rama's life, in the forest after renouncing his kingdom. The great epic of 24,000 slokas mainly concentrate 14 years of the life of Rama, who lived for 11,000 years. More over it talks about the Sita devi, in Sri lanka, for 10 months in detail. Why it is so?

It is because, the great sage Valmiki thought that if a person lives with honesty, truthfulness, dharma and tolerance without compromising all his values during the time times of adversity and difficulty, then there is no question about his tale during the times of happiness. If the character of a great person is shown during the period of difficulty, it is sufficient the timing of the remaining period is not necessary at all. If a person when he is sorrows, and when he is in trouble, amazing sometime different sources, which is kingdom gone, which is wife abducted, which he is living in the forest, facing a lot of enemies, can lead a life without loosing his bound ness. and he is not compromising his values even in the smallest level, without changing his attitude. without loosing truthfulness and dharma, it is not necessary to see the remaining years of his life to understand the weakness of his character.

It is for this reason that out of 11,000 years of Sri Rama's life, 14 years of his life has been detailed in 24,000 slokas. To judge a character of a person, during the times of difficulty, even at so tough difficult times, if he could control his tongue, if it is possible for him to keep his mind cheerful, and not have differently or and even more better, then it is enough to determine his sterling character.

That's what Ramayana tells us.

This is the beauty of the Bharatiya Samskruti.

Heard from the speech of H.H.Sri Muralidhara Swamiji