Dear All,
It is indeed a great joy to see that the group's forum is back in action after a little lull. Thanks should go to Padmini for starting off this exciting thread. Stirring sharing is being exchanged and some salient points are being raised for all of us to ponder on.
Ponder we must, as the true jewels that we actually have are water, food and words of wisdom as clearly stated in the scriptures - prTHivyAm thrINi rathnAni jalam annam subhASHitham / mUDaihi pASHANa khaNdESHu rathna sangyA viDHIyathE which means in this world there are only three precious gems - water, food and words of wisdom. They are but fools who call mere pieces of stone as gems.
Water is something neutral that we all have no problems with, it is food and the words of wisdom that we have to focus on. There is a saying that a man is but a creature of his habit. The food that we have been consuming since childhood is something very personal, very close to our heart ,conditioned through our mind by the "words of wisdom" that were the "truth" for us then. These food habits or conditioning happened based on the environment and the people that we grow up with. If our parents were vegetarians, than being a vegetarian will be our second nature; we will only have to struggle when we are brought within the close proximity of a non vegetarian food. The joy felt in the senses of a meat eater will be a nauseating feeling for the vegetarian.
However both the vegetarian and the non vegetarian are hooked to their sensory system. This is called as the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). What language that is planted in our mind through our brain since childhood as far as food is concern becomes the linguistic programming of our neural system .This controls our senses. That is why we salivate when seeing delicious food (sense of sight); our nose sweats when someone talks of tasty food (sense of smell) and so forth. This science is actually derived from Bhagavad-Gita – you may ask how?
Bhagavad-Gita propagates three Yoga – Nyana Yoga (Yoga of Transcendental Knowledge); Bhakti Yoga (Yoga of Devotion) and Karma Yoga (Yoga of Action). When the conscious mind is unified with an embedded knowledge that is gained over the years by habit (has a bit), the Bhakti (devotion) for this knowledge is naturally expressed by the body through its action (Karma).We call this voluntary expression in layman's term "willpower" i.e. "with lots of love power".
Through Science and Psychology we can prove our past conditioning till our childhood but what about beyond that i.e. all the karmic actions that we have carried in our past lives. This limited knowledge is what makes us to have a yo-yo action as far has giving up our bad habits are concerned. Till that past is known or at least the knowledge that there is past conditioning before our births which has tagged or hatched along to this birth is made aware to us we will not be able to make any impact on our present action in order to change our lifestyle habits. Only The Grace of Guru can guide us and remove us from the bonding of the past karmas. That is the reason why some people gain immediate change and feel instantaneous peace in their heart, when they come in close proximity to a Guru during the first darshan itself.
On a personal note, together with my wife; we have experienced several failed attempts in trying to become vegetarians for several years because just like everyone, we knew that eating on animal meat is bad just like how everyone knows that drinking alcohol and smoking cigarette is bad but did not how to establish a permanent change in us. Our will was not strong as it was powered by the fuel of the past.
All this changed when through several chain of events; we were brought to the Lotus Feet of Paramapujya Guruji. There are no coincidences in life, we know that all that happens has been destined to happen, we just have to be present one hundred percent at the moment (nimisham) of the happening. As Nimishambians, my wife and I realize that now. However at that time we were not able to comprehend the change that is about to come. Our thanks should go to a close and dear friend, Sailendra through whom we were introduced to Pujya Guruji. To him we always give our gratitude of love.
From day one of we allowed ourselves to become direct beneficiaries of Paramapujya Guruji's(PG) teachings that gave us the Jhanya(Self Realisation) (SR) which transformed us from a meat lover(ML) to vegetarians(
We can say with great humility that the constant bombardment of Pujya Guruji's teachings into our system for 8 months from July 2002 till Feb 2003 gave us the Knowledge of Self Realization of our inner core which is linked with the ultimate unlimited infinite source of compassion residing in heart – the Holy Nest(honest) . That gave me a paradigm shift in my thinking. From the "survival of the fittest" mentality with an attitude of live and let die, I was made to embrace the unconditional love in my heart with the new attitude of "jeevastha,jeevyasa
This was my state of Jyana. A state when time freezes a moment and in that frozen moment you gasp in awe of the knowledge that has synced into your system. That moment of truth for me came on Feb 2003 when Paramapujya Guruji gave a talk in Tamil in a town called Kajang some 40kms away from the city of Kuala Lumpur.
Someone in the audience asked Pujya Guruji on why should one become a vegetarian- Pujya Guruji gave a simple but life changing impactful answer – it is because animals are conscious that they are alive, whereas plants are not. Whether that person who asked the question has changed, we wouldn't know but he has definitely helped me and my wife. Our gratitude goes to him. As we were driving back from the discourse, told my wife from this day we are vegetarians and vegetarians we are ever since.
One ancient Mantra that Parampujya Guruji resides at every satsang that we have listened over and over again that has helped to soften our hardened mind and synced in to our hearts allowing the compassionate joy of our soul to be felt by us is:-
Lokaha Samastaha Sukino Bhavanthu (May the whole world be happy)
Sarve jana Sukhino Bhavanthu (May all the people be happy)
Sarva jeeva janthu sukhino bhavanthu (May all forms of life be happy)
Bahujana hithaya (Welfare of all)
Bahujana sukhaaya (Happiness of all)
devan
No comments:
Post a Comment