The Wisdom Park

The theory of oneness with God is something that is not very appealing to Vaishnavas, in fact it is the one thing that they vehemently oppose. But the oneness I am talking is not about loosing our soul - it's about gaining it. Losing oneself in any activity means to fully absorb ourselves into it or as they say, "to get into it fully". In the pages of the Srimad Bhagvatam there is mention of an Avadhoot Brahman who had 24 gurus. One of his guru was an arrow maker. This arrow maker was so absorbed in sharpening his arrow that he didn't even recognize the entourage of the King passing by. The Brahman learnt the quality of absorption from this arrow maker. If there is one word that is of utmost importance in spiritual life - it is ABSORPTION. In order to truly experience happiness in spiritual life, we need to fully absorb ourselves into the practice - kind of forget our present identity . We identify with so many things that we are not - our various aspects...

Courage is sometimes the silent voice at the end of the day that says - "I'll try again tomorrow." - Shubha Vilas Life is all about learning the art of balance . Balancing various aspects of our lives be it our physical, social, spiritual or professional life can itself be a struggle, what to speak of balancing opposite forces in our hearts. Lord Krishna explains in the 16th Chapter of Bhagvad-Gita entitled 'The Divine and Demonic Natures", the opposite qualities of these two natures and how there is constant struggle between these two forces. The interesting part is that both these natures exist within us. That's the reality of being a conditioned soul. Life is about, how we nourish the good within us and deal with the bad. Just like a magnetic field is held between two opposite poles, similarly the truth is many times held between two opposite forces. Answers to questions in life lies in the middle, not in extremes. Coming back to our topic - how d...

In a play written by Shakesphere, King Lear asks Gloucester: "How do you see the world?".  Gloucester, who was blind answers: "I see the world feelingly." Shouldn't we also see the world and others with feeling of love and compassion. The problem is as soon as we become selfish and identify ourselves with our mind and senses, we disconnect ourselves from our own feelings and thereby we disconnect ourselves from the feeling of others too. This is when, we reduce people to mere commodity whose only purpose is to satisfy our selfish desires . Selfishness makes one insensitive to the needs and feelings of others. History is filled with stories of people like Ravan and Kamsa who didn't mind inflicting pain and suffering on people because of their own selfishness. In the Ramayana, there is the character of Queen Kaikeyi. When she became selfish and started to think of her own interests and enjoyment, she became so ruthless and hard-hearted that she coul...

Time and tide wait for none. Time is one of the most powerful feature of this world. In fact, Lord Krishna introduces Himself as time in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita. However powerful a personality one may be, at the end everyone has to bow down in front of time and surrender to it. History is the proof of the power of time. Big, big people reduced to dust by time. Time is so imperceptible in it's working that we don't even realize how days, weeks, months and years pass away - until it's too late . Our life can be compared to a video game with a timer on. Only, the one who wins the game before the time runs out is declared the winner. The only difference between the video game and and the game of life is that in the video game, you know how much time is left but in the game of life, you don't know how much time is left. If while playing a simple game we have to be fully focused and conscious not to waste time to win it, how much more, we hav...

" When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. " - Elon Musk Many times we look for solutions everywhere but overlook what is right below our nose. We expect that the solution to our complicated problems has to be equally complex. But many times, true solutions are counterintuitive that means complex problems could have simple and straight solutions. If we carefully observe our life, we will see that we have only those things that we consider important and those things missing in our life is because we feel they are not important. When I say important, it is not important in the general sense but the attitude that "it's important to ME." You see, once something is important to us, we will find every way to get it and overcome all the obstacles, just because "it's important to me." Another angle to see this is in when we have something in life, we are sending a signal to others saying - "so and so thin...

The quality of answers in our life depends on quality of questions we ask. Special prerogative of the human mind is that it can think and ask questions. Given a problem, we have the ability to find solutions. The ability for making inquiries is in-built in us. That's why one of the most important medium of knowledge comes through questions and answers. It's not astonishing then to understand why both the most important Vedic scriptures - the Bhagvat-Gita and the Srimad-Bhagvatam are in a question-answer format. But not everyone is interested to ask questions and find solutions to problems that they face. Most people prefer to embrace a life of unthinking - "of playing dead", they prefer to run away from problems rather than find solutions to them. Why? For the simple fact that the answers - the truth may not always be palatable and the more difficult part is that, it may be demanding of us. We may have to leave our comfort zone and tread an unknown path. The e...

One of the game changing mindset of high achievers and successful people like Gandhi, Lincoln, Mandela or Steve Jobs is that they dared to think big. Some people may be skeptical of this idea. Their argument is - after all how does mere act of thinking big, lead us to achieving big? Let's try to analyze this question. Guided imagination First thing we need to know is that thoughts are not mere thoughts as we think them to be, but they are the seeds of reality for us. Our thoughts slowly turn into beliefs, attitudes, habits, behavior and finally our destiny. So, if we start to think big, slowly but surely it will become a reality. Secondly, we need to know a little of the functioning of our minds. The mind has two parts - memory and imagination. 'Memory' is part of the mind which is a storehouse of previous experiences and 'imagination' is part of the mind that just dreams. 'Memory' is formed by the experiences we have had and 'imagination' ...

Everyday there is a different reason for not being happy. Someday, it is because someone hurt us and we keep thinking about it, someday our health is not good. Someday it's simply because we are not in a mood. Someday, it's because a plan of ours didn't work out....and the list goes on and on. Very rarely are we happy. All these reasons are valid and true. But the question is 'when will there be a day when the mind will offer no reasons to be happy?' Material world is a place of continuous drama and happenings, and the mind knows how to perfectly en-cash on it. Even if all our problems went away, will we be happy? A new set of problems will come or even if there are no further problems, the mind will make one. After all it's expert at it - creating problems where none exists.  Happiness, joy, peace or love are unconditional, which means that they are not dependent on any conditions. Waiting for the perfect condition to be happy or peaceful is a gre...

Rivers are considered lifelines of humanity. They not only nourish us physically but also emotionally and spiritually. No wonder, our culture has rightly given them status as mother's. Imagine, if rivers could speak, what message they would like to give us. Here are few lessons that we can learn from them. In fact if we remain in the mood of submissive students of life, there is so much we can learn even from "so called" inanimate objects. Many of these lessons are from Radhanath Maharaj's memoir - 'The Journey Home'. Lesson 1 - MAGIC OF SETTING GOALS The river is so desperate, so determined, so focused to reach the sea that nothing can stop it. It goes over, under or around all impediments. It never gives up. It has learnt the art of overcoming all obstacles. In fact it is said that, obstacles are those things that you see when you loose focus of your goals . The river teaches us that the first and most important key to overcome obstacles in lif...

One of the greatest power a human mind has is the power of absorption. Absorption means to fully give ourselves to the task at hand, doing things wholeheartedly, with focus and attention. In fact a high sense of absorption means complete immersion - a kind of loosing oneself. Absorption is the key to true experience of life. What is the subject matter of our absorption? For children it may be a favorite cartoon serial or an engaging video game. For teenagers it may be cricket or the latest blockbuster movie. For some the topic for absorption may be a new romantic relationship building in their life. Irrespective of the subject, this sense of absorption makes one feel exhilarated, the senses come fully alive and there seems a sense of purpose to live. For many the subject of absorption is not the physical plane - the level of the senses but their own minds. People tend to be wrapped in their mental stories, their mental movies. Problem with absorption in matter - in the life o...