Reflections of Passions

February is just one of those months where we see the power of consumerism in full swing. It is a month with a specific date dedicated exclusively to love. But wait! Said who? I leave you to ask these questions to yourself as I go ahead and explain to you the discovery of an awesome Indian character that surprisingly enough has a lot to do with love! There is a character in our mythology who is very similar to Cupid, I would even go and say that he plays a role very similar to Cupid... he is none other than Kamadeva. Have you heard of him? The name Kamadeva can be translated as "God of Love". Kama meaning longing or desire and Deva meaning love. There are several variations regarding the birth of Kamadeva in different Puranas. One such Puranic story narrates his birth as Kamadeva arose from Brahma's heart and is always portrayed to be serving Lord Indra. He is characterized by a greenish or reddish complexion, decked with flowers and ornaments, armed with a bow made of...

Swami Chinmayananda  No activity in human life is taken up with so much sincerity and elaborate preparation as is man's search for the joy of love and yet, no enterprise of man fails so constantly with such regularity, as his quest for love. He helplessly waits to receive love and yet everyone is always disappointed.  In a nutshell, the love that leaves us with agitation is lower love and the love that leaves us with profound peace and joy is higher. In true love, every action and sacrifice you make towards the object of your love reduces your egocentric desires and calms the agitation in your mind. When love is directed towards a Higher or Nobler object or person than yourself, it is called prema. When it is towards a lower object, it is called sneha. Higher love alone can help us come out of our sense of incompleteness and alienation.  The lower type of love called sneha is an escape from a person's sense of loneliness. Without this protection the person feels l...

Swami Tejomayananda  Most of us will agree that we are born rich and yet somehow we are unable to truly realize and harness our true potentials. In order to harness the great potential that lies within each one of us, it is important to manifest it and for that it is necessary to have a great goal in life. Our potential lies in the body, speech, mind, intellect and also through external means. Indeed, the treasure that we possess is vast and invaluable. It is due to this reason that psychologists would agree that we are not entirely using the true potential of our brains which is why we remain as extras in our own movie. Much of our potential has been manifested out of necessity to survive or thrive. A police officer once tried catching a weak-looking thief who escaped. When asked why the thief outran him, he said, "I ran as part of my duty. He ran to save his life. His motivation was greater." Great potential may at times manifest out of sheer necessity but usually if ...

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar The Guru tattva is the principal and the wisdom of a Guru is a tattva (an element), a quality which is present inside each one of us. The Guru tattva is confined to a body or form. There is a story that Lord Krishna once Uddhava, his close friend and a very wise man, to the gopis and gopans, who were full of devotion. Uddhava went to give them wisdom, to talk about liberation but none of them was interested in listening to that. They all echoed: "No, tell us about some story about Krishna, tell us what is happening in Dwarka, where He is. We don't want to hear this wisdom; you can keep that to yourself. But tell us what news you have of Krishna? We don't care about wisdom; we are happy with longing and we are happy with love. So, let us sing and dance." That's all they wanted to do. This is how love makes you crazy. That's when all the boundaries drop and you feel one with everyone around and one with the whole universe--and that...

Sudha Murthy There are two photographs that hang on my office wall. Everyday, when I entered my office I look at them before starting my day. They are JRD Tata and Jamsetji Tata. It was a long time ago when I was young, bright, bold and idealistic. I was in the final year of my Master's course in Computer Science at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) in Bangalore, then known as the Tata Institute. Life was full of fun and joy. I did not know what helplessness or injustice meant. It was probably the April of 1974. I was the only girl in my postgraduate department. I was looking forward to going abroad to complete a doctorate in computer science. I had been offered scholarships from universities in the US. I had not thought of taking up a job in India. One day, while on the way to my hostel from our lecture hall complex, I saw an advertisement on the notice board. It was a standard job-requirement notice from the famous automobile company Telco (now Tata Motors). It stated that ...

Swami Tejomayananda The Speaking Tree Man has made remarkable progress in the fields of science and technology. Technology has made it possible to travel faster than the speed of sound. New avenues of communications have opened up with the advent of computers. The advances in the field of medicine have produced wonderful results. All these changes have affected the pace of life. Man is forced to think of various issues in the light of these new discoveries. Issues that were unimaginable a few decades ago such as euthanasia, cloning, morality and ethics are demanding immediate answers. It appears that there has been progress in various avenues, but paradoxically on the other hand one sees so much of destruction and violence. The old value system is degenerating. Families are now breaking down giving rise to a lot of mental discomfort and distress. People are becoming more unruly and violent. Nations are itching for conflict at the first opportunity. At this, what will happen in the pres...

Swami Tejomayananda The Asian Age In my last article, I dealt with the existence of God. Once we know and accept that He exists, the next question is how do we "realize" Him? Each one of us is endowed with three powers--the power of knowing, the power of desire and the power of acting. It is only when we become aware of our potential powers that desires arise and we want to possess, create or become something. Knowledge creates the desire and this in turn becomes the motivating power behind all actions. The source for all this is the infinite potential within us. Our scriptures refer to this potential as "God". Once we understand that God is the support and substratum, the Self and the infinite potential in all beings, how can we deny His existence? People are happy when God is far away because His proximity poses a problem. Whether we know, we believe or we understand it or not, God is the power that exists in us. So there is no question of not realizing God; we ju...

Swami Tejomayananda The Asian Age The existence of God is a very popular and fascinating question and has been asked from time immemorial. Various people over the ages have conclusively tried to answer this timeless question but it still keeps coming up. To answer this question conclusively, we will have to examine this question from various angles. In the present day and age of the Internet, with the advancement of science and technology and an information explosion, it may interest one to know that there is even more information on one topic--God. Even God would be surprised and amused at this!! God reigns supreme, whether or not we believe in His existence. The atheists endorse it by not believing and the believers by surrendering to God. The former do it by disproving His existence and the latter by trying to establish it. The question that therefore arises is, "Does God really exist?" Believers take the knowledge in the Vedas or the scriptures of other religions, as thei...

Swami Tejomayananda The Asian Age Man has always craved happiness. All material sciences and fields of activity are geared towards achieving this one goal. Whatever we do, or even what we renounce, is meant only for happiness. But despite the goal being one, happiness still seems to elude us. It is not that we lack comforts in life, we do have moments of happiness; all is not misery and sorrow. Despite experiencing and knowing moments of happiness, there is no contentment, peace or fulfilment in life. We say that we have pleasures and comforts, but something is missing and not knowing very clearly what we want, we go through nameless sorrows. If we want to be happy in life, the first prerequisite is good health. If we are unhealthy, weak or suffering from some pain or disease, any joy of life means nothing. Then there are our addictions, whether smoking or drinking. People drink to someone's health and destroy their own! Can we say that such people really love their bodies or care ...

Swami Tejomayananda The Asian Age At an informal gathering, someone asked me: "How do we have fun in life?" "By being serious," I said rather seriously, because the pursuit of happiness is such a serious matter. A superficial approach to anything leads one to trouble. So, the philosophy of "eat, drink and be merry" is a very shallow view of life. Only deeper enquiry will take us to the truth. Life is constituted of perception and response. We cannot help responding to people, situations and events. A response depends on individual perceptions. Everybody sees the same object but how each one sees it makes all the difference. Perceptions, therefore, can be called as the vision of life and response as an action or reaction that depends on this vision. We consider what we experience with our sense organs as real. No wonder, we find the world enchanting with its infinite variety and matchless beauty. But when we try to understand the same world a little deeply,...

Swami Tejomayananda The Asian Age "Why do good people suffer or why do bad things end up happening to good people?" This question seems to be very common these days. It seems as though the good people end up bearing the brunt of all sufferings while the evil doers seem to enjoy life. But if we observe closely, we see that everyone undergoes suffering in some form or the other. Keeping this in mind, our question becomes meaningless. Just because a person is good does not mean that there would be no suffering in his/her life. But how exactly do we define "good"? In Sanskrit, "sadhu" is the word used to define a good person. The Sanskrit word Sadhu is derived from the root word, "saadh" which means "to accomplish". If we work for ourselves and achieve great things, there is nothing laudable about it but if we help others to achieve their goals then it becomes an accomplishment. It is courtesy to return good for good. But if someone harms y...

Anonymous, The Economic Times Kubera, the Lord of wealth and the king of Yakshas, is the treasurer of the Gods. One day, he paid a visit to Mount Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva, the hermit-God, where he met Lord Shiva's elephant headed son, the corpulent Ganesha. He thought to himself, "Ganesha clearly loves food and Shiva can clearly not afford to him to his heart's content." So as a favour to Lord Shiva, Kubera offered to feed Lord Ganesha one meal. When Ganesha accepted the invitation and entered Kubera's kitchen, the Yaksha king said, "Eat to your heart's content." Kubera regretted these words. Ganesha's appetite was insatiable. He ate everything that was available in the kitchen and still asked for more. Food had to be bought from the larder and then from the market. But Ganesha was still hungry. "More please," he said raising his trunk. Kubera had to spend all the money in his treasury and buy all the food in the world to feed G...

Steven Paul Jobs, the CEO of Apple Computers, delivered this commencement address to the graduates of Stanford University, USA. Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months before I really called it quits. Looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the 5 cents deposits to buy food with, and I would walk seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Here's one exa...