My Little Effort to Transform Someone’s Life

Will Mother Divine’s vahana (mount) lion come to shake hands with me on the last day of Sadhana?

This thought came to my mind after reading Sadhvi Vrinda Om’s blog on Sadhana App website where she had mentioned that an owl came to her balcony to kill pigeon on the last day of her Sadhana of Ma Lakhsmi. Seriously speaking, I was sure that a lion could not arrive as I live in a high rise building in a densely populated area. Mostly I had experiences after doing three-four sadhana to the last day of Sadhana. Somewhere in between it can happen anytime; I had to be just watchful. Before reading Sadhavi’s experience, I was totally unaware of the fact that a spiritual experience could take place even in the outside world. I thought that it could be experienced with only closed eyes. This time the Devi I was worshipping did not manifest but I was watchful in my external world that something would happen.

Since the past few days, water from RO water purifier was dripping from the bottom. I kept using it, ignoring the leakage. After two days, it stopped working. I was left with no other option but to call the company to send a repairing mechanic.  

The repairing mechanic instructed, “Madam, send the location of your house and the photo of the product.” I shared the information with him on WhatsApp. When he did not arrive at the appointed time, I called him. “Madam, my mobile is running low on battery, and it could shut down anytime. Please tell me the name of your society and your house number.” I waited and waited for some more time. He arrived 45 minutes late.

He thoroughly checked the parts and told me that all the parts needed to be repaired except the RO motor. I asked him to repair all the parts as I did not have the enough funds to buy a new one for me and it should be repaired immediately as water in my locality was highly polluted. He started changing parts with a lightning speed. He completed it. But there was leakage of water from the filter. He checked it again and did the needful so that it might not leak. Still water was dripping. He was taking more time than usual with the result that my prayer time was delayed. At 8:15 pm, I asked him to wrap everything in the next 15 minutes or come again tomorrow morning.

“I cannot come tomorrow.” He replied. “Tomorrow is my wife’s death anniversary, so I have to do some rituals.” To put a check on my temper I started talking with him. In the conversation, he told me that last year his wife died of cancer within one year of tying the nuptial knot. He took a loan of 30 lakhs to spend on her treatment. Out of which10 lakhs he repaid, and 20 lakhs was remaining. He started earning at a very young age and spent all his savings on his wife’s illness and in helping his in-laws. I paid him a one-month salary as a tip to help him to repay his loan.

I realized that he was tensed, depressed and was surrounded by negative thoughts related to his wife’s illness and death. He had a strange cloud of thoughts that if he got married again his dead wife would haunt him and would spoil his new married life. He stopped the leakage, assembled all RO parts and left my house within the next 15 minutes.

After finishing my prayers around 11:30 pm I checked RO. It was working fine. I went to sleep. At 1:30 am I went to the kitchen to drink water before starting my morning prayers. I was a bit surprised to find that RO water was leaking from the same place.

Next day, when he came, it was my last day of Sadhana. I had prepared prasadam. I offered him ghiya ki kheer. He ate it. Devi, Herself blessed him!

Till he was working on RO, I was working on him. I talked to him for more than an hour, convincing him that he would be married soon, all his miseries would end, and he would be able to live a happy and prosperous life. I tried my best to drag him out of his gloomy past memories. I told him that I could only help the genuine seekers who had prayed to God and cried hard for help. He said, “Yes that is true. I had prayed to every deity, saint and sage I had known.”  

In Ramcharitmanas, Ma Sita prayed to a particular form of Mother Parvati before Swayamvara. Mother blessed her “Sunu Siye satye ashish humari, pujahein man kamna tumari (सुनु सिय सत्य असीस हमारी। पूजिहि मन कामना तुम्हारी॥) Ma Sita was married to Lord Ram. The form of Mother Parvati whom Ma Sita worshipped; I was doing Sadhana of the same deity – Ma Katyayani!

“Soon he will be debt free and married!” I blessed and prayed for that repairing mechanic in my heart. I knew Ma Katyayani had sent him to my house so that I could absorb his pain and could transform his life. Om Swamiji says, “When a sadhak prays with fervor, he/she becomes the divine in that moment.”

Soon after he left my house RO was dripping again, he had to visit my house repeatedly to rectify it. Till now, he had visited my house thrice, but the situation was the same. But I felt that Mother Divine wished that I must bring a change in his life and frequent leakage of RO was just an incident so that he must be given a dose of positivity of my powerful words time after time so that he could breathe properly in a fresh air of happiness.

It was the most beautiful spiritual experience of my life when I wanted to absorb the pain of a person who was suffering for no fault of his own. It was my tiny effort to transform his life.

My feelings are now his healing!

Pic : Unsplash

From Raw Mango Speech to Ripe Mango Speech

“Ma, you forget to put the leftover food in the freezer.” I said in a bit louder voice to my mother. “I cooked the food to eat and not to waste.”

“It was hot, so I did not place it in the freezer, later I forgot and as I was damn tired, so I slipped into the dream land.” She clarified.

I went into my prayer room to do the next set of chanting. When I came out of the room after one hour or so I went to my mother’s room and said to her, “In the dinner, have the soup. Last time you did not even taste it and the whole bowl of soup I had to finish as I did not want to waste the food.”

“Do you do prayers in the prayer room, or you keep thinking that when you come out you will talk rudely to me about this or that topic?” My mother inquired.

“Do not make excuses like a kid. Have the soup.” I said or rather ordered and went again in my prayer room to do meditation.

I could not focus on Devi and realized my mistake that although I did not mean to hurt her, but my loud voice and rude words did it. At my workplace, most of the people spoke Haryanvi, which is a lath mar language. To show my authority, I spoke to them in a high volume. Unconsciously, it has become my habit to speak loudly. My raw mango speech that was like a sour mango immediately needs to be replaced by a sweet tone as ripe juicy mango. I must apologize to Ma to maintain a good focus on MA.

I hurriedly completed my prayers and went to my mother’s room and said to her, “Sorry, I should not have spoken to you harshly rather I must have spoken to you just like Swamiji speak - softly, gently and mindfully.” I took a deep breath and continued, “Ma, please have the soup which I prepared for you with so much love and care.”

“It will be a miracle if you learn to speak soothingly like Him.” She said with a big smile on her face.

Sometime later, I peeped into her room. Surprisingly found that she was having the soup instead of regular glass of milk.

Pic - Pixabay

The Himalayan Rat(s) in My Life

“Rascal!”

“Scoundrel!”

“Bastard!”

Mr and Mrs Rat lived above my flat and quarrelled on pretty issues every now and then. Most of their fights were decided based on who could abuse more brutally, more loudly and more times. Coincidently their fighting time and my meditating time clashed.

Whenever they started shouting in their top voices, my mind would become curious to know the reason for their fight, the reaction of the baby rat - whether he was on mamma's side or papa's side, who was going to be the winner — Mr or Mrs Rat, to know whether the fights were action-packed or not, I had to focus more on sounds coming from the top.

Until I realized one day that I was meditating on them rather than on my deity. Slowly and gradually, I accepted that they were nuisance rats in my spiritual life. They caused obstruction in my concentration and distracted my mind every now and then. I had to learn the art of completely ignoring them. More importance I gave to rats, the more they jumped. The more I ignored them, the more they became quiet. I learnt with practice to pay no attention to noises coming from the rats’ house whether they were loud songs on T.V. or the abuse or the verbal clashes.

With my progress on the spiritual path, I became more sensitive to loud sounds. I found the loudspeakers were irritating. I consider them the worst invention done by humans. In the deep corner of my heart, I always wished that they should be banned permanently. My flat was situated close to a temple in which loud mantras were played every morning and evening.

It was also adjacent to a park where loud music played during Navratri for dandiya. I could not interpret the connection between the songs ‘Hat ja tau pachchhene’and ‘To Brazil’ being played for dandiya. Maybe it was more about dancing on beats than about the words of a song! The shopkeepers on the roadside put up loudspeakers to lure customers and boost their sales, which was jarring and harmful. I lived close to two marriage palaces so the loud noise from band baja and DJ could not be avoided during the marriage season.

Some daring neighbours played loud music on weekend nights in ‘No loudspeaker’ time between 10 pm to 6 am. During festive seasons, most of the time a low sound from far off kept hitting the glass windows. The residents in the nearby houses were very religious; they frequently did ‘Mata ki Chauki’ and ‘Jagran’ in which whole night katha vachak (storyteller) or sangit mandali (group of singers) sang or spoke loudly with loud music on loudspeaker. Is their God deaf?

The loudspeaker is a big Himalayan rat in my life, which I had to handle diligently to proceed on the spiritual path.

Earlier, as soon as the loudspeaker started playing music, I got irritated and disturbed. I used to tightly close all my doors and windows as well as draw all the curtains so that the sound did not reach my sensitive ears. Sometimes I could not sleep the whole night because of loud sounds from loudspeakers, which disturbed my next day's routine. Once I contacted a security guard and requested him to stop the music in ‘No loudspeaker’ timings. But who listened to a security guard? I contacted the police. I must confess that Bollywood police are more punctual than Indian cops are. It came after the function was over and all the stage decorations and tents were dismantled. 

The corona period was a very peaceful period of my life as there were no loudspeakers playing deafening music. During that period, I could do sadhanas as if I was meditating in a Himalayan cave — so serene and so calm was the environment.

As the corona restrictions were lifted, the loudspeaker again started causing a nuisance to me. First of all, I trained my mind not to be irritated if loud noise was coming from anywhere at any time. Secondly, I tried to focus on the object of my meditation ignoring disturbing music. Thirdly, I could concentrate on my meditation not entirely but mostly without being affected by parody songs.  As Om Swamiji says, “I can focus my mind regardless of what was going on around.”

Instead of saying “Alexa, stop the loudspeaker!”, I ordered, “O’ my mind, turn a deaf ear to the loudspeaker!”

Picture : Pixabay

Double Guru - The Secret Behind Initiation

How did Om Swamiji come to know about the secret that I shared only with my deity?

I searched the solution for this question in various books and on several internet sites for not only days, weeks but for several months. But I could not find an answer.

Some days back while chanting ‘Om Gum Gurve Namah’ on Sadhana App I visualized that I was touching His Padam Feet and requesting Him to reveal the secret to me. I prayed and prayed fervently. The next day, while surfing I landed on a site that revealed the truth behind the secret.

While initiating, He placed an image or copy of Himself inside me. An Inner Guru who always lived with me, knew everything about me, was well aware of my each and every thought, perceived all my sorrows and pains, recognized my penance, sensed my tears n smiles, noticed my hard life and was witness of all that I did in my life. Actually, Inner Guru was always with me but I did not realize it. Swami Satyananda Saraswati said, “The inner guru has to be exploded with the help of the outer guru. The inner guru should be approached by means of the outer guru.”

The Outer Guru how far He might live could scan my Inner Guru randomly at any time and could know everything about me. The Outer Guru could then guide me through my Inner Guru accordingly so that the thorns and obstacles from my spiritual path are removed and I could walk the spiritual journey persistently and effortlessly. If by chance an emergency came, then Inner Guru would inform Outer Guru about it and then He could send an immediately relief in the form of his golden advice.

In the book, ‘Light on the Guru and Disciple Relationship’ Swami Satyasangananda Saraswati said, “It is important to develop a link with your inner guru, which is the center you have been searching for. All the happiness, joy, pleasures you crave in the external world are only illusions in contrast to the infinite bliss that is contained within your inner guru.” As you all know that initiation is a seven steps process. First step is like drawing an outline of the image of Inner Guru and mapping out the general shape. In second step, improving of angles into smaller and more specific segments is sketched. Drawing features, aligning them horizontally as well as vertically, and checking the angles between different features are done at the third stage. Refining the contour is the fourth action. At fifth level, shading the soft layers carefully to achieve the maximum detail and impact is planned. Appropriate hues and shades of color are filled to create a live image is the sixth step. At the last step, the final touch is given so that it appears naturally soft and its elegance is captured. I am at level five and now I have to fill natural colors in it.:) I have drawn my Inner Guru in traditional way with crayons on paper but you can draw it with the help of modern technology in Adobe Photoshop, CorelDraw, DrawPlus or Clip Studio Paint. ;)

The connectivity with the Inner Guru and Outer Guru can be developed slowly and gradually by satsang, by kirtan, by remembering God, by serving, by chanting, by speaking the truth and by being kind in action, words and thoughts.

According to Swami Satyasangananda Saraswati, “As you develop the ties with the living guru, your contact with the inner guru becomes clearer, more vivid and tangible. And, in this way, the guru tattwa (Inner Guru) begins to manifest.”

Dear blogger family, let us sketch our inner guru more elegantly and jump to the next level of initiation together! :)

Pic : Pixabay

Kindness Towards an Invertebrate

“This is how an invertebrate struggle if it falls off and ends up on its back!” My mother pointed towards a beetle on a grass ground that was continuously moving its legs in air to get up. “Life is really hard for an insect as it does not have a backbone like us which helps us in turning over when we fall. It is very painful for all invertebrates. Therefore, with the help of a leaf we must help it in rolling so that it can stand on its legs and live a normal life again otherwise it will die fighting for its survival.” In the beautiful garden full of seasonal flowers like calendula, dog flower, sweet pea, nasturtium, petunia, dianthus, hollyhock and marigold, which attracted lots of beetles and other insects this site, was not uncommon. My mother not only explained the characteristics of vertebrates and invertebrates but also taught me a life lesson of kindness towards other living beings when I was in middle school.

After that, it became my habit to turn over the insect on its legs if I ever saw it struggling for its life. With the result, many a times in difficult situations in my life when I found that all doors were closed, Nature would send an unexpected help to protect me. Aesop said, “No act of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted.”

It had never happened before. As soon as I turned the black tiny insect back on its legs, it would take a few steps and then fall off again on its back. It happened numerous times. This time, I tried to be kinder than necessary. I gently turned it, supporting it continuously but again it fell off on its back. This incidence happened a few days back, I was in my prayer room doing my regular chanting when I noticed a tiny black insect struggling. I continued my chanting mentally while trying to help it. I did not know whether its leg was broken or injured, as I was not wearing my specs at that time. Although I concluded that, the slippery floor of tiles was the main cause of its frequent fall. I interpreted that it could walk on a rough surface. Raktivist quoted, “Kindness is doing what you can, where you are, with what you have”. I placed a round cotton wick on it, pressed it gently, turned it around and placed it on the floor. It was slowly moving on that wick. It did not fall again but keep moving round and round on it. Aha! It was doing salsa on the beats of joy! :)

Leaving it there, I went to my office, as I did not know what it ate otherwise, I would have served a delicious breakfast to it. ;) In the evening when I returned, I found that there was only wick; there was neither insect nor its dead body. I assumed that it must have learnt to move with practice and must be living a healthy and good life with its kith and kin.

Little things make big days!

Pic - Pexels

My Tiny Effort to Keep the Traditional Craft Alive

“STOP THE CAR!”

On seeing a shabby man holding many miniature rainbows on the roadside, I ordered my driver. Before he could react, I explained that I wanted to buy colorful pinwheel wind collector from a street vendor. The driver stopped the car near him and gestured him to come close to the window. I rolled down my window glass and asked him to show one pinwheel. He delicately gave me one.

“What is the price?” I asked.

“Only Rs. 10/-.” He replied in a low tone.

I looked at the craft with almost surprised as it was made up of two wheels and a long stick, thin wires were used to hold them as well as to give them rotating movement and strips of vibrant papers were glued to make it attractive. How much was the cost of raw material? Ten rupees included not only raw material but also its cost of making, time consumed in selling and his profit. How much he would save in one pinwheel, I wondered!

I asked for one more.

To support him, I bought one whistle of Rs. 20/-, one baja (plastic whistle) of Rs. 20/- and one plastic mask somewhat resembling a cartoon character of Rs. 20/-. I asked him to show a plastic car. On inspection I found that this piece of car was an old piece, it was somewhat wear and tear, and its wheels were not functioning properly even on my butter soft hands. I returned it. On seeing a bit disappointment on his face, I asked to give me two more pinwheels although I did not need them but to support the traditional craft and to encourage him I made that small purchase.

I gave him the total purchased cost, a hundred rupees note. A faint smile appeared on his face.

I rolled up the windowpane and asked my driver to give all these toys to his children. In the moving car, I realized that oxytocin was released in my blood in large amounts, which caused the release of a chemical substance known as nitric oxide, which dilated my blood vessels, and as a result, I was feeling a boost in my mood as if someone had injected a high dose of happiness in me.

I decided that if I ever saw this vendor again, I would buy all his pinwheels and would distribute them among the children who could not afford to buy even a ten rupees toy.

Only One Meal Per Day - From an idea to habit formation

Was I suffering from CANCER?

The search showed this answer after I googled the reason for the persistent sweet taste in my mouth. It also suggested that it could be because of a certain bacterial infection, diabetes or a neurological disorder. I refined the search as sweetness in mouth after prolonged fasting. It showed that low carb diets resulted in burning of fat instead of carbohydrates, which consequently increased ketones in blood stream and caused fruity, sweet, or metallic taste in mouth. During ketosis, excess fat got burn and outcome was weight loss.

In the last week of December, 2021 I decided to do a purasacharan of a lengthy mantra, which required sitting for quite a good time. I was not sure whether I was able to do it as my knees and back ached after sitting for long. Therefore, I decided to eat phalahara, a diet without cereals and pulses also, it included fruits, vegetables and dry fruits that too only once a day. One outstanding meal was sufficient to nourish the body. Moreover, my eating capacity was too good. I was eating three meals worth in one go. ;) It only saved my time of brushing teeth after meals. ;) Nevertheless, I would revise my decision if I found it difficult to do in the last days of sadhana due to weakness or any other health issue, and then I would shift to meals twice a day. When I started, I felt pangs of hunger during the evening, my bowel movements were disturbed, I felt tired most of the time and a bitter taste persisted in my mouth all the time. I kept moving, overcoming the obstacles one by one, as I knew my body would get used to this new routine, which was very difficult to master. Gordon Parks stated, “Enthusiasm is the electricity of life. How do you get it? You act enthusiastic until you make it a habit.”

In the third week of habit formation, I fell ill because of overburden of work as well as because of low energy levels. I did not stop. Will Durant in ‘The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers’ said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” I kept going until I reached the mark of 42 days. As Om Swamiji said, “A new habit is formed in 42 days.” Now, I was quite sure that I could continue with meal once during the day but I was not sure whether I could go for phalahara diet for so long without adverse effect on my health. For 47 days, I ate phalahara diet and as soon as Navaratra were over, I changed my phalahara diet to vegetable khichadi with desi ghee, soup, coriander chutney, roasted papad, curd, salad, fruits and dry fruits. This was the diet given to students when I was doing Sadhana Intensive training in Sivananda Kutir in Uttarkashi. Swami Vishnu Devananda said, “What is consumed by the human body correlates directly to the efficiency with which the brain functions. The diet affects the quality of meditation. The purer the diet, the more easily the mind is controlled. Then with time and practice, success in meditation is assured.”

Slowly and gradually, my body got used to it, now I did not feel hungry all the time, my bowl movements were regular, my energy levels were good enough and a sweet taste persisted all the time in my mouth. Oh! That was not a divine taste!

One meal during the day had now become a habit and a part of my life. With this big change in my diet, I could easily sit in meditation for prolonged hours without knee or back pain. “Just do it! First you make your habits, then your habits make you!”
― Lucas Remmerswaal, The A-Z of 13 Habits: Inspired by Warren Buffett

Pic : An idea that illuminates my spiritual path!