Peace within

 Murugan, the proprietor of a coffee shop had been busy all day. Being Saturday, his shop was very crowded and the customers seemed unending. 

He had been on his toes since morning. Towards the evening he felt a splitting headache surfacing. 

As the clock ticked away, his headache worsened. 

Unable to bear it, he stepped out of the shop leaving his staff to look after the sales. 

He walked across the street to the Pharmacy to buy himself a painkiller to relieve his headache. 

He swallowed the pill and felt relieved. He knew that in a few minutes he would feel better. 

As he strolled out of the shop, he casually asked the salesgirl, "Where is Mr. Gopalan, the Chemist? He's not at the cash counter today!" 

The girl replied, "Sir, Mr. Gopalan had a splitting headache and said he was going across to your coffee shop. He said a cup of hot coffee would relieve him of his headache." 

The man's mouth went dry and he mumbled, "Oh! I see."

This is a typical case of looking outside ourselves for something that we have within us. 

How strange, but true! 

The Chemist relieves his headache by drinking coffee and the coffee shop owner finds relief in a pain relieving pill! 

Similarly, many of us travel across the lengths and breadths of the universe and also visit several shrines and ashrams to find peace. 

Eventually, we come to realize that real peace is within our own hearts. 

Peace is really a state of mind.????????

Detachment is the opposite of attachment, not the opposite of enjoyment

 Once upon a time there was a great fakir [an ascetic] who lived a simple life. He ate whatever he found, drank water from the nearby river and meditated under the tree in the forest on the outskirts of a town. Word spread and the king of the province came to know about the fakir.

He decided to meet the fakir. The king was so impressed with the fakir’s unpretentious demeanor that he invited the fakir to live with him in the palace.

The fakir agreed readily, which surprised the king, who was expecting that the fakir will have to be persuaded a lot to accept the invitation. Nevertheless, the king took the fakir along with him and made lavish arrangements for his stay.

The ascetic settled down quickly and started enjoying all the luxuries of the palace—imperial clothes, royal food and a life of absolute comfort. Soon, the king started suspecting that perhaps he was being hoodwinked by the fakir.

But he kept his thoughts to himself and continued to observe the fakir. Six months on, the fakir was still enjoying his stay and didn’t seem to mind this majestic life one bit.

By now the king had become convinced that the fakir had only been pretending in the forest. He decided to confront him. On meeting the fakir, the king said, “When I first met you, I was impressed by your austere lifestyle and minimum needs. Your life was an example of renunciation. But what I now see is totally the opposite. You seem to be enjoying every material pleasure there is. So what is the difference between you and me?”

The fakir smiled and said, “I was waiting for you to ask me this question but I will answer you tomorrow morning.” The next morning the fakir appeared before the king wearing his old tattered clothes.

The fakir said, “I am leaving for an unknown destination. If you really want the answer, you will have to leave your palace, your family, your kingdom and accompany me.” The king was stunned. He said, “You know, I can’t do that!”

The fakir smiled and replied, “Yes, I know. And that is the difference between you and me. I can leave all pleasures and comforts whenever I want because I am not attached to them. You are. I hope you have your answer now.”

It dawned on the king that the fakir was indeed great. He pleaded him to stay on but the fakir had made up his mind. As he was leaving, he said to the king, “Remember, what you hold on to, holds you. And since I hold on to nothing, I have nothing to renounce. I am forever free.”

Beautiful story to depict how sacred teachings are misinterpreted

 A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws by hand.

He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk, says. "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."

He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot.

So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing. "We missed the 'R' ! We missed the 'R'."

His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.

The young monk asks the old abbot. "What's wrong, father?"

With a choking voice, the old abbot replies. "The word was... CELEBRATE!”"

Most unfortunately this is the story of every religion. Now the real, may not sound interesting but what will you do about it?

What we pickup we pass onto next generation. If I pickup wrong, and I tell my child Celibate and there is protection from life force. This is the reason Buddha and Jiddu Krishnamurti stressed upon being a light to yourself..??

which one do you feed?

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Devil and His Friend

You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of
his, were walking down the street. Right head, they saw a man
stooping down to pick up something from the ground, look at
it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil,
“What did that man pick up?”
“He picked up a piece of the truth,” said the devil.
“That is a very bad business for you, then,” said his friend.
“Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to help
him organize it.”

Most or all of our inward chattering is about organizing what is.

Kisa Gotami

Kisa Gotami was the wife of a wealthy man of Savatthi. She
had only one child. When her son was old enough to start
running about, he caught a disease and died. Kisa Gotami
was greatly saddened. Unable to accept that her son was dead
and could not be brought back to life again, she took him in
her arms and went about asking for medicine to cure him.
Everyone she encountered thought that she had lost her mind.
Finally, an old man told her that if there was anyone who could
help her, it would be the Buddha.

In her distress, Kisa Gotami brought the body of her son
to the Buddha and asked him for a medicine that would bring
back his life. The Buddha answered, “I shall cure him if you
can bring me some white mustard seeds from a house where no
one has died.” Carrying her dead son, she went from door to
door, asking at each house. At each house the reply was always
that someone had died there. At last the truth struck her, “No
house is free from death.” She laid the body of her child in the
woods and returned to the Buddha, who comforted her and
preached to her the truth. She was awakened and entered the
first stage of arhatship (attainment of religious goals according
to Buddhism and Jainism). Eventually, she became an arhat.

Peace of mind

Once, Buddha was walking from one town to another with a
few of his followers. This was during his initial days. While they
were traveling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped
there, and Buddha told one of his disciples, “I am thirsty. Do
get me some water from that lake there.” The disciple walked
up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that some people
were washing clothes in the water and, right at that moment, a
bullock cart started crossing through the lake. As a result, the
water became very muddy and turbid.

The disciple thought, “How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink!” So he came back and told Buddha, “The water in there is very
muddy. I don’t think it is fit to drink.” After about half an
hour, Buddha again asked the same disciple to go back to the
lake and get him some water to drink. The disciple obediently
went back to the lake. This time he found that the lake had
absolutely clear water in it. The mud had settled down and
the water above it looked fit to be had. So he collected some
water in a pot and brought it to Buddha. Buddha looked at the
water, and then looking up at the disciple, he said, “See what
you did to make the water clean. You let it be and the mud
settled down on its own, giving you clear water. Your mind is
also like that. When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little
time. It will settle down on its own. You don’t have to put in
any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless.

Once the mind calms down, it can see things clearly and out of that
seeing, action emerges, leaving no place for conflict or pain in
that action.”

Burdens of the past

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At
one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the
monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young
and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young
woman asked if they could help her. The senior monk carried
this woman on his shoulder, forded the river and let her down
on the other bank. The junior monk was very upset, but said
nothing.

As they both were walking, the senior monk noticed that
his junior was suddenly silent and enquired, “Is something the
matter, you seem very upset?” The junior monk replied, “As
monks, we are not permitted to touch a woman, how could
you then carry that woman on your shoulders? The senior
monk replied, “I left the woman a long time ago at the bank,
however, you seem to be carrying her still.”
Children live with a similar state of mind as that of the
senior monk. Psychologically, past is always a burden. In the
present, all of us or most of us are conditioned by our past.
We all want to live with a fresh mind, without any burdens
of the past. Rarely do we find the traits of the senior monk
in us. To be in a calm, balanced and peaceful state of mind,
depth of knowledge about our psyche is mandatory. We have a
superficial knowledge about our psyche, and this is the reason
why there is no balance in our mind. Only silence can penetrate
into the nature and structure of the psyche, a chattering mind
cannot dwell deep. We all want to live in the present attentively,
but we fail to do so. Through this book, I want to explore the
same. So, let us examine together, the different aspects of our
psyche in the coming chapters.

Note: Feel deeply the state of mind of that senior monk.

The story of watermelons

The story of watermelons by Manohar Parrikar:

"I am from the village of Parra in Goa, hence we are called Parrikars. My village is famous for its watermelons. When I was a child, the farmers would organise a watermelon-eating contest at the end of the harvest season in May. All the kids would be invited to eat as many watermelons as they wanted. Years later, I went to IIT Mumbai to study engineering. I went back to my village after 6.5 years.

I went to the market looking for watermelons. They were all gone. The ones that were there were so small.

I went to see the farmer who hosted the watermelon-eating contest. His son had taken over. He would host the contest but there was a difference.

When the older farmer gave us watermelons to eat he would ask us to spit out the seeds into a bowl. We were told not to bite into the seeds.

He was collecting the seeds for his next crop. We were unpaid child labourers, actually. He kept his best watermelons for the contest and he got the best seeds which would yield even bigger watermelons the next year.

His son, when he took over, realised that the larger watermelons would fetch more money in the market so he sold the larger ones and kept the smaller ones for the contest.

The next year, the watermelons were smaller, the year later even small. In watermelons the generation is one year. In seven years, Parra's best watermelons were finished. In humans, generations change after 25 years. It will take us 200 years to figure what we were doing wrong while educating our children."

Without employing the passionate teachers, how can we train the next generation?

Unparallelled Donor

Once Krishna and Arjuna were walking towards a village. Arjuna was pestering Krishna, asking him why Karna should be considered an unparallelled Donor & not him ?

Krishna, turned two mountains into gold.

Then said, "Arjuna, distribute these two gold mountains among villagers, but you must donate every bit of it ".

Arjuna went into the village, and proclaimed he was going to donate gold to every villager, and asked them to gather near the mountain. The villagers sang his praises and Arjuna walked towards the mountains with a huffed up chest.

For two days and two nights Arjuna shovelled gold from the mountain and donated to each villager. The mountains did not diminish in the slightest.

Most villagers came back and stood in queue within minutes. Now Arjuna was exhausted, but not ready to let go of his Ego, told Krishna he couldn't go on any longer without rest.

Then Krishna called Karna and told him to donate every bit of the two gold mountains.

Karna called the villagers, and said "Those two Gold mountains are yours. " and walked away.

Arjuna sat dumbfounded. Why hadn't this thought occurred to him?

Krishna smiled mischievously and told him "Arjuna, subconsciously, you were attracted to the gold, you regretfully gave it away to each villager, giving them what you thought was a generous amount. Thus the size of your donation to each villager depended only on your imagination.

Karna holds no such reservations. Look at him walking away after giving away a fortune, he doesn't expect people to sing his NM praises, he doesn't even care if people talk good or bad about him behind his back. That is the sign of a man already on the path of enlightenment".

Giving with an Expectation of a Return in the form of a Compliment or Thanks is not a Gift, then it becomes a Trade.

Do we really know what is love? Is not the love in our relationships a form of trade?

Zen dialogue

Zen teachers train their young pupils to express themselves. Two Zen temples each had a child protegé. One child, going to obtain vegetables each morning, would meet the other on the way.

Where are you going? asked the one. I am going wherever my feet go, the other responded.

This reply puzzled the first child who went to his teacher for help. Tomorrow morning, the teacher told him, when you meet that little fellow, ask him the same question. He will give you the same answer, and then you ask him: 'Suppose you have no feet, then where are you going?' That will fix him.

The children met again the following morning. Where are you going? asked the first child.

I am going wherever the wind blows, answered the other. This again nonplussed the youngster, who took his defeat to his teacher.

Ask him where he is going if there is no wind, suggested the teacher.

The next day the children met a third time.

Where are you going? asked the first child.

I am going to the market to buy vegetables, the other replied.

Is not our minds restless like the first child?

The other side

One day a young Buddhist on his journey home came to the banks of a wide river. Staring hopelessly at the great obstacle in front of him, he pondered for hours on just how to cross such a wide barrier. Just as he was about to give up his pursuit to continue his journey he saw a great teacher on the other side of the river. The young Buddhist yells over to the teacher, "Oh wise one, can you tell me how to get to the other side of this river"? The teacher ponders for a moment looks up and down the river and yells back, "My son, you are on the other side".

Why don't we approach great obstacles in life with a simple & silent mind? Why we always desire for an end result from the beginning? why don't we stay with the problem, so that it can reveal itself?

The flapping flag

Once two Zen monks were walking down the road. It was a breezy day. One of them said to the other: "Look, the flag is flapping in the breeze." The second monk replied: "No, that is foolish. The breeze is flapping the flag!" And so they spent an exciting quarter hour: "The flag is flapping!""The breeze is flapping!"

As the debate was heating up, the Zen master appeared on the road. They ran to him. "Roshi, please settle our dispute. I say the flag is flapping in the breeze, he says the breeze is flapping the flag. Which one of us is right?" The master looked at them with a penetrating eye. "You are both wrong," he said. "Your minds are flapping!"

This story best resembles the present news media, how they take simple issue and turns it into a major crisis without resolving it. Are we not influenced by media, leaders, religious propaganda?

A Mother's Advice

Jiun, a Shogun master, was a well-known Sanskrit scholar of the Tokugawa era. When he was young he used to deliver lectures to his brother students. His mother heard about this and wrote him a letter: "Son, I do not think you became a devotee of the Buddha because you desired to turn into a walking dictionary for others. There is no end to information and commentation, glory and honor. I wish you would stop this lecture business. Shut yourself up in a little temple in a remote part of the mountain. Devote your time to meditation and in this way attain true realization.

We understand a little, but talk extensively. Is not verbalization a major factor, which prevents realizing truth?

Mokusen's Fist

Mokusen Hiki was living in a temple in the province of Tamba. One of his adherents complained of the stinginess of his wife. Mokusen visited the adherent's wife and showed her his clenched fist before her face. What do you mean by that? asked the surprised woman.

Suppose my fist were always like that. What would you call it? he asked.
Deformed, replied the woman.

The he opened his hand flat in her face and asked: Suppose it were always like that. What then? Another kind of deformity, said the wife.

If you understand that much, finished Mokusen, you are a good wife. Then he left. After his visit, this wife helped her husband to distribute as well as to save.

Doesn't it mean we are living with closed fist, when we try to possess a person in our relationship? Is possession, attachment, jealousy love?

What are you inside?

A conversation between Wayne Dyer and his student:

If I were to squeeze this orange as hard as I could, what would come out? I asked him.

He looked at me like I was a little crazy and said, Juice, of course.

Do you think apple juice could come out of it?

No! he laughed.

What about grapefruit juice?

No!

What would come of it?

Orange juice, of course

Why? Why when you squeeze an orange does orange juice comes out?

He may have been getting a little exasperated with me at this point.

Well, it s an orange and that s what s inside.

I nodded.

Let s assume that this orange isn t an orange, but it s you. And someone squeezes you, puts pressure on you, says something you don t like, offends you.
And out of you comes anger, hatred, bitterness etc. Why?

The answer, as our young friend has told us, is because that s what s inside .

It s one of the great lessons of life.

What come out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you?
If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it s because that s what s inside.

It doesn t matter who does the squeezing: your mother, your brother, your children, the government.

If someone says something about you that you don t like, what comes out of you is what s inside.
And what s inside is up to you, it s your choice.

When someone puts the pressure on you and out of you comes anything other than love, it s because that s what you ve allowed to be inside.

Once you take away all those negative things you don t want in your life and replace them with love, you ll find yourself living a highly functioning life.

Squeeze out of yourself Love and Compassion!!!

When you ignore to learn what you are inside, suffering follows.

Corporate ant story

Every day, a small Ant arrives at work very early and starts work immediately.

She produces a lot and she was happy.

The Chief, a Tiger, was surprised to see that the Ant was working without supervision.

He thought if the Ant can produce so much without supervision, wouldn’t she produce even more if she had a supervisor!

So he recruited a Bee who had extensive experience as supervisor and who was famous for writing excellent reports.

The Bee’s first decision was to set up a clocking in attendance system.

He also needed a secretary to help him write and type his reports and he recruited a Rabbit , who managed the archives and monitored all phone calls.

The Tiger was delighted with the Bee's reports and asked him to produce graphs to describe production rates and to analyse trends, so that he could use them for presentations at Board‘s meetings.

So the Bee had to buy a new computer and a Laser printer and recruited a Cat to manage the IT department.

The Ant, who had once been so productive and relaxed, hated this new plethora of paperwork and meetings which used up most of her time…!

The Tiger came to the conclusion that it was high time to nominate a person in charge of the department where the Ant worked.

The position was given to the Monkey, whose first decision was to buy an Air Conditioner and an ergonomic chair for his office.

The new person in charge, the Monkey, also needed a 💻 computer and a personal assistant , who he brought from his previous department, to help him prepare a Work and 'Budget Control Strategic Optimisation Plan' …

The Department where the Ant works is now a sad place, where nobody laughs anymore and everybody has become upset...

It was at that time that the Bee convinced the boss, the Tiger; of the absolute necessity to start a climatic study of the environment .

Having reviewed the charges for running the Ant’s department , the Tiger found out that the Production was much less than before.

So he recruited the Owl, a prestigious and renowned consultant to carry out an audit and suggest solutions.

The Owl spent three months in the department and came up with an enormous report, in several volumes, that concluded...
.
.
.
.
“ The Department is overstaffed ...”
.
.
.
.

Guess who the Tiger fires first?
.
.
.
.
.

Of course, the Ant.........,

"....because she showed lack of motivation and had a negative attitude. "

The real leader tries to replace fear, control, pressure with passion. Creating passion for work is real solution.

Three monks

“There are three monks, who had sat in deep meditation for many years amidst the Himalayan snow peaks, never speaking a word, in utter silence. One morning, one of the three suddenly speaks up and says, ‘What a lovely morning this is.’ And he falls silent again. Five years of silence pass, when all at once the second monk speaks up and says, ‘But we could do with some rain.’ There is silence among them for another five years, when suddenly the third monk says, ‘Why can’t you two stop chattering?”

You may attend many spiritual programs or run away to mountains, but can you end something in you if you don't face it?

cartoon in a magazine

The other day I saw a cartoon in a magazine, " he(Jiddu Krishnamurti) recounted to the audience. "It's in New York City, at a busy intersection in Times Square. There are two dogs sitting by the curbside, watching the people hurrying by, always busy and in a rush. And one dog says to the other, 'you know, reincarnation gives me the creeps.

Why there is this incessant chattering of the mind "to become somebody, to reach somewhere"?

Few books by me:   Amazon link to my books

Meaningless practice

A young man wanting to find truth goes to see a famous guru. 'Master, can you teach me meditation and truth?' he asks. The guru agrees, and the disciple immediately assumes the lotus posture, closing his eyes and breathing rhythmically to show what he knows. The master doesn't say anything but picks up two stones from the ground and starts rubbing them against each other. Hearing the strange noise, the disciple opens his eyes and asks, 'Master, what are you doing?' The guru answers 'I'am rubbing these stones against each other to polish them into a mirror so I can look at myself.' 'The disciple laughs, 'but master, if you don't mind my telling you: you'll never be able to make a mirror of these stones by rubbing them against each other. You can do that forever, and it won't work.' 'Similarly, my friend,' the master says, 'you can sit like that forever, but you'll never be meditating or understanding truth.'

Do you ever question your practices, knowledge, especially about life? or you take shelter in some guru, philosophy, religious book...etc?

Few books by me:   Amazon link to my books