Krishna Seva

[Prashant]

Jai Shree Krishna,

Have you ever come across a good movie with some heart throbing thrilling shots and wonder how they shoot such scenes or what is going behind the scenes? Have you seen a magic and ever tried to catch the tricks and when you fail to do so have you wondered what's going behind the scenes. The curiousity to know such tips and tricks increases. If some miracle happens we all want to know how did this happen. In short we want to know behind the scenes of literally everything that excites us. But do we ever wonder what exactly happens with our life. Have we ever thought that life is full of miracles and have we developed the curiosity to know what happens behind the scenes, behind every activity we do in our life.

Now this question inspires me to look within and try to figure out behind the scenes for some of the activity we do in our life. Let us take one topic at a time and try to figure out its behind the scenes.......
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Life can be lived in several ways but the quality of your life depends on the things to which you give priority

- Prashant

[Prashant]

Let the fun begin.....

What happens behind the scene when we say something. When someone praises me I geel good. When some one abuses me I feel bad. When someone talks to me in an arrogant style I feel annoyed. When some one talks to me harshly I feel offended. So what is happening behind the scene. Language is tempering my emotions. Emotion, an abstract thing can be controlled by language.

The next questions arises. What is a language and what is the purpose of language. How did language came into existence. Is it possible to live without a language. Let us try to visualize what must be the situation that led to development of a language. People in ice old age must be facing lots of difficulty in expressing themselves like they may not know what to do or how to express when one is hungry or when one is in pain or when one is joyful.

This could have been the starting point. A need to express oneself. This could have started by making some expressions or by some signs. This must have sufficed the need for some time but as man progressed there must be a need of being more expressive. This could not have been possible without developing a mechanism, a system. This mechanism or system which gives one an ability to express his feelings, his emotions, is what we call as language.

This must surely be a starting point or an origin of language in its very raw form. As time progressed it may have undergone myriads of refinement to get into form of well structured and well developed language. Man is a developed animal because of his ability to express his emotions. And languages plays vital role in this.

Today, language may have been very well developed yet there are few emotions which are difficult to epxress by language or words. For eg when one is over joyous they become speechless and tears start shedding through their eyes. No word can replace such expressions. No language can do any justice to such emotions. Similar is the case when one is experiencing unbearable pain. He simply shouts, cries helplessly. When one is too angry he starts throwing things, breakings things. When one is overfilled with respect or love for someone he bows down to him.

I wonder man is so developed than why is there no word for such hyper emotions. Possibly at that state only one thing can sustain at a time, either feelings or word. The moment you try to describe it you loose the state. If you are too angry and If I ask you to hold on and describe your state or define a word what will happen. The moment you start thinking of a word to describe your state you are no longer in that state. You fall from that state to something else. Your temper is not same anymore but something less.

I believe peak level emotions cannot be described; neither now nor in future will it be possible to be described. Because the moment you try to describe it you are no more at its pinnacle. If you succeed in describing it than what you have described is not the peak level emotion or state of mind but something less. Perhaps that is the reason it is said that the state of a yogi cannot be described. The one that people succeed in describing could be close to the higest level but not the highest level. This could be the reason why yogi observes silence.

Now let us think what happens when we abuse these state of emotions. Meaning if we are not in highest state of emotion that cannot be described by the word and yet we behave as if we are at the higest level. Such expression of emotions would be a mechanical effort. A mechanical thing that creates no emotions within. When we bow down to someone as a sign of respect but if we do not have any respect within than that act of bowing down is just a mechanical effort. Similarly when we praise god in bhajans (stuti) without any emotions (bhaav) does that hold any meaning. Or is that just a mechanical effort?

To conclude, is it not that the state of our mind matters the most and not the language? Because language can be manipulated. Expression of emotions can be manipulated but emotions cannot be.
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Life can be lived in several ways but the quality of your life depends on the things to which you give priority

- Prashant

[Prashant]

Jai Shree Krishna,
Vasantji gave very good food for thought. He said we only donate things that we have in access. Why??? This inspires me to think what happens behind the scenes when one donates? Among all kinds of daan (donation) what could be the best of all daan? What is the significance of this whole procedure?

I have my thinking cap on for this topic, do you? Please do share with us...
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Life can be lived in several ways but the quality of your life depends on the things to which you give priority

- Prashant

[Prashant]

Jai Shree Krishna,
I hope all's well with everyone.

In this episode of behind the scenes we will try to find out what is the need for donation and how it must have come into existence.

No men in this world can be completely independent. First and foremost a person is dependent on his parents to come into this world. As a small kid a child cannot survive on his own. He is dependent on his mother to feed him. He is depedent on his parents to take care of him. He is dependent on some one to support him when he starts learning how to walk. He is dependent on his teacher for getting his basic education.

This dependency does not end here. As a grown up we might think that we are independent. Let us see how independent we are. We depend on the farmers to grow the vegetables so that we can buy and eat. We depend on textile industry to produce the clothes. We depend on paper industry to produce papers and notebooks. We depend on IT industry to produce computers and softwares. We depend on Automobile industry for vehicles. We depend on colleges and universities to educate us, we depend on guru to impart us spiritual knowledge and so on and so forth.

We are so dependent on every small thing in our life. But is this complete dependency? Perhaps yes if we do not contribute anything. If we do not work at all and just depend on some one to take care of our basic necessity and do not contribute anything in return. This is the case of a small kid, very old aged people or physically disabled people. But for an average young and healthy perosn this is highly unlikely as he works at some place thereby contributing in some way or the other in fulfilling others need. So we call this person as an inter-dependent person. We all are inter-dependent people as we depend on others at the same time we contribute or give back something to the society.

Society can function smoothly only when there is a balance between the contribution by an individual and his needs. But not everyone is gifted or talented or has the same capacity to contribute. So for better functioning of the society individuals who has more capacity to contribute should always willingly do that to reduce any social imbalance.

Imagine if every one wants to cross the river but no one wants to contribute in building the bridge or in running any boat. Or lets say every one comes forward and say we would like to build a bridge but we do not have any technical skills on it. People who have technical knowledge about building a bridge says we cannot contribute our time and knowledge because we have other needs to take care of. Besides we need people who can bring us the material for construction and we need man power to help us build this. Every person involved in this says that we have other needs to take care of. This can become a deadlock. So the solution would be that other people should help the people working on building a bridge in taking care of his needs, so that they can contribute their skills in building the bridge. In olden days barter system would have come into picture and in todays world money comes into picture. But not everyone has enough money to contribute. Now it becomes important for a society to urge the people for contributing money and this is what we call as donation.

So donations are very important to reduce the social imbalance. These donations could be in any form, may it be used clothes, blankets or shoes which could be used by people hit by natural calamity for eg Tsunami reliefs. Or may it be contribution of your skills like a doctor practicing free medical check ups for the poor, or a social worker fighting for the rights of the poor. Even the contribution of used car helps. Car donation participants are able to get rid of an unwanted vehicle and support a good cause. The folks who buy a donated car at vehicle donation auctions are able to find a donated car that might have otherwise been junked. And charities are able to develop a valuable new revenue source from their vehicle donations.

In short, donations are very important for the better building of a society. It doesn't matter what is the intention of a donor, be it for fame or getting rid of something unimportant but there is a class in the society that would always be benefitted by this donation.

Next we will see how donors are affected by donations.
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Life can be lived in several ways but the quality of your life depends on the things to which you give priority

- Prashant

[Prashant]

Jai Shree Krishna,

In this episode of Behind the scenes let's see what happens behind all our activities. What is the motive behind our activities. What matters the most in our life. What do we strive for in our life. Do we all strive for the same thing but through different mediums or we strive for different things.

What matters the most for a child? Good education, good grades, good at sports/arts etc. And what is the motive behind all this. Well, to get good education and or to develop the skill sets so that he can earn some good living in future. Right? And by good living I mean fetching enough money to support his family and raise his children and live a better quality of life.

Better quality of life means different to different people. For some it is all about money, as they say money can buy anything, literally any physical comforts. So they work all their life, burn both end of the candles to earn money. And if you ever happen to ask them what is the purpose behind this they will say in "pursuit of happiness".

For some, better quality of life is about up-bringing of their children. Good education and discipline in their children is what they strive for. This gives them immense satisfaction. So for them it's all about satisfaction.

For some, it is about bringing the balance in religious and social activities. They want to have best of both the worlds. For some it is all about involving in religious activities and devoting their life in God's work. For some it is all about fun. Enjoy every moment of your life.

By and large we all fall into one of this category but the ultimate goal is "better quality of life (Pursuit of happiness)", though the means may be different.

In general man's life revolves around three things. Sex, money and fame. A child is his late teen age or post teen age is attracted more towards sex. This is the age when sex takes pre-dominance and his life is revolved around that. Then comes a stage when it is necessary for him to earn money to support his family. He enters into the world where he sees need for money and constantly thinks on earning more and more money. At this stage of life money takes the driving seat. If he has earned enough money than comes a third stage of life i.e fame. Man spends his hard earned money to get some fame, popularity or recognition. This can be done either via throwing hefty parties on several occassions or by some charities.

This is a general human tendency with few exceptions. So why do we have such tendencies. Is it because this is what society has set the trend that we ought to follow? Or we enjoy following this suite? Well, I do not have straight forward answer for that but one thing I would like to do is dig deeper into each stage and see why we have such tendencies.

Sex is the natural instinct in all animals including humans. Its natures way of providing pleasure. Money as we all know is the most essential thing without which it is almost impossible to survive for a common man. No matter wether we agree or not we all need money. But no body knows how much money is enough and this is the biggest trap. Regardless we all want more and more money to buy us comfort and pleasure. And then comes recognition, popularity or fame which boosts and satisfies our ego there by giving us comfort.

Now what if we have all the pleasures and comfort in the world but no peace within. Ok, so now we need peace also. And what is peace? And I forgot to ask earlier what is pleasure or happiness? Peace, pleasure, happiness are abstract things. It is a state, a state of mind. When we attain the state of mind that has peace and happiness we call it bliss or ananad, full of happiness. So knowingly or unknowingly we all are trying to reach certain state of mind. So all that matters is a particular state of mind.

Remember, I talked about few exceptional people who do not follow the regular suite of life. Yogi's or sadhus are one of them who are not after sex, money or fame. Through various practices and meditation what are they seeking for? They are seeking to reach a heightened level of spiritual awareness. And what is their state of mind? Blissful - anandit.

Aha - the bulb glew in my head. Bhagwan anandit swaroop che. Meaning he is the one who has Samta, a balanced state of mind. He is full of bliss. So when we say that we want to attain god does that mean we want to reach (attain) a particular state of mind?

To conclude, all that matters is a particular state of mind. Behind every activity knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally all we strive for is a particular state, a blissful state of mind. So the purpose of life or goal of life is nothing but to attain and maintain the blissful state of mind.
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Life can be lived in several ways but the quality of your life depends on the things to which you give priority

- Prashant

[Prashant]

Jai Shree Krishna,
In the last episode of behind the scenes we saw that happiness matters the most in our life. Directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly we all seek for happiness. But what exactly is happiness and why does it matters the most? Let us take an oppurtunity and try to look little deeper into it.

Let us start with when we feel happy and how we judge whether people are happy or not. When we see people joking around, laughing and giggling we think they are very happy. When we see people with good health and wealth we say oh! they are so happy. When we dream for something and when our dream comes true we feel happy. When we strive for something and when we achieve our goal we feel happy.

So can we say that we are happy when we laugh? Not necessarily because we may be sad within and just laugh. Actors do that all the time. Is having good health and wealth a sign of happiness. Again not necessarily otherwise all the healthy and wealthy people would be happy which doesn't seems like. That means we can say happiness is not all about laughing or being wealthy. It has nothing to do with the external factors. So what exactly is happiness?

Happiness is something thats created internally. It is a state of mind. It is that state of mind in which one experiences well being, contentment and satisfaction. Joy and peace of mind are synonyms for happiness.

So what exactly makes us strive for happiness. Well, possibly because it is the most comforting state. Possibly it is the state in which our mind is in synch with nature or the energy in universe. I would like to take an oppurtunity to talk about science of matter and try to correlate on why a particular state of mind matters the most. Does the word science sounds scarry? Don't worry I will try my best to simplify it.

In essence everything in this world is made of matter. Simple meaning of matter is - anything which occupies space and have mass is known as matter. Every matter is made of atoms. Atoms are the smallest invisible particle of matter. Even though an atom is the smallest particle, in modern scientific usage the atom is composed of subatomic particles viz protons, electrons and nucleus. Atom consists of centrally located nucleus, positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons revolving around nucleus. For better understanding you can consider an atom as a galaxy in the universe, nucleus as sun in the galaxy and electrons as planets revolving around the sun. The path through which the
electrons revolves around the nucleus is called orbit. Each orbit can have fixed number of electrons called valency. First orbit can have maximum of 2 electrons and rest all the orbits can have maximum of 8 electrons. If an atom has 8 electrons in it's last orbit (or 2 in it's first orbit if it has 2 or less number of electrons) than it is considered to be stable. If it has anything less than 8 electrons in its last orbit than it is considered to be reactive or unstable. In order to be stable it will either give aways it electrons from the last orbit to atom of other element or will take electrons from atom of other elements to complete its valency.

Let me illustrate this with a quick example. Water as we all know is chemically known has H2O. H stands for hydrogen which has only one electron which means it needs one more electron in its first orbit to complete its valency. Oxygen has 6 electrons in its outer orbit which means it needs 2 electrons to complete its valency. When 2 atoms of hydrogen each with one electron combines with oxygen to complete the valency a chemical reaction happens (as they are unstable) to form a chemically stable element called water.

I hope I haven't confused you much. Well the comparission I wanted to make is like atoms, our state of mind is also highly unstable. We need to complete it's valency to make it stable. Perhaps in happiness we reach the state of mind which is highly stable and most comforting. In this state our mind attains its valency. Perhaps it is the state that is in synch with nature. Therefore knowingly or unknowingly we strive for that state of mind which we call it by different names like happiness, joy or peace of mind. Perhaps that is the reason happiness matter so much to us.

Next let us try to find how we can achieve this stable state of mind.
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Life can be lived in several ways but the quality of your life depends on the things to which you give priority

- Prashant