Happy Mothers' Day!

" When I stopped seeing my mother with the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped give birth to myself "

When I was in school, I hated writing essays and I had an imagination the size of a peanut. Though I loved reading, I could never get the words to form while writing something and would struggle for days together and then my mom would jump in at the last minute to save my skin.

Once, when I was in 6th grade, we were told to write a simple essay about my mom. Though thoughts flooded with how good a cook she was and how she would take the form of a tigress protecting her cubs when it came to us and how bad she could get when we were bad but I simply could not put those thoughts on paper in an appropriate manner and struggled all Sunday afternoon. My mom simply refused to help me on this one. She thought it was high time I learnt to write or else I deserved to get negative rating at school. My Mashi (mom's sister) -the darling, stepped up and saw what I had written and actually thought it was a good way to start an essay and just helped me fine tuning a bit, thus tickling my creative bit of the brain. From there on, I started scoring the highest in all my essay writings and also went to the interschool level competition standing 3rd. But that would always be the first essay I ever wrote - My Mom.



Can't imagine her without him beside



Mothers sure have a peculiar way of teaching their kids. They pamper them, love them and also are extremely ferocious sometimes but yet the heart beats like only the mothers heart can. So Mothers day seems to be very minuscule in size to that what symbolizes motherhood. According to Hindu scripts, we exist because of karma(our past doings) and also karma is the reason we are born where we are because of a debt clearance. But what occurred to me today is if that holds true then we are forever bound to life, as how does one clear a debt to a woman who has borne you for 9 months?

To talk about something as mundane as the sacrifices laid down to raise her kids is I think, demeaning motherhood. Mothers never sacrifice. They do what they do because they love too much. They do everything in their power to see that their child is happy and smiling. And unfortunate are those children who never understand that the mothers primary role is only the happiness of their child and everything else is far beyond their understanding. It took me 30 years to realise that my mother learnt nothing else in life other than to love her kids and to give them all the happiness that she could gather from her universe. And yet she is forever happy and is always dancing with love. I also realised the reason of her dance is due only to her children.

Some books say that God created man first and then the woman out of the mans rib. I so disagree with that; as ,if god created the woman to be born out of the man then why would the creator give the right of creation to a woman? The scripture further states that God cursed the woman so that she would bear the labour. Ask any woman today if they think that they have been cursed. And if the curse can be so beautiful that I am born out of my mother then God please curse us woman folk some more!

The Mother symbolizes the spirit of love. Love exists in between the mother and a child in the most purest and divine form. I seem to be reiterating love in most blogs but it seems to be the only blissful state of existence. Right from creating the child to nurturing the child, watching it grow up and then standing by to see the child flourish, is it not love? Just imagine the quantum of love a mother can contain in the heart in proportion to the love that we have showered on them, I think we are forever indebted.

To all the mothers of the universe and Mother Earth Herself I bow before thee! We seek love everywhere and it is at disposal at your feet. Whoever conceived you must have done so with so much of love!

God can only bless you!

Spiritual warfare

" Without you nothing could exist "

Recently I started reading the Bhagawad Gita, the holy book of the Hindus. I had nothing better to read and out of curiosity I just wanted to understand what the scriptures say and where we went wrong in our understanding. Apparently according to my ex-colleague and mentor, one starts out with reading fiction then moves to court room dramas and espionage thrillers, thereafter philosophy and then grows as a spiritual reader. That according to him is the life cycle of a book lover. So when I told him I started reading the Gita, he was thrilled but at the same time said that the turmoil starts now- The Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre (Chap 1:verse 1) ; and yes, he is right.

These are the first two words of verse 1 and basically means "on the holy plain of Kurukshetra"

But it is used as a metaphor for something much more deep. This book was not written as an evidence of some battle that happened in some land between the most prominent and influential monarchs of the time. As I continued reading, it became evident that the historical battle was created as a background and the characters therein have been used for the purpose of illustrating the spiritual and psychological battle going on between the attributes of the pure discriminative intellect in attunement with the soul and the blind sense infatuated mind under the delusive influence of the ego. Thus it is an allegory for the battle that happens in our own body every moment that we live.The first 2 words talk about the battle on the holy plain which is a symbology to our own body.

Man's soul consciousness-the realization of oneness with the eternal blissful spirit-has desceded through various gradations in the mortal body. The senses and blind mind, and the power of pure discrimination, both rule our bodily kingdom; there is a constant conflict between the forces of materialistic senses and the pure discriminative power that tries to return man's consciousness to its native state of soul realization.

The material desire is the supreme ruler for a person who does not meditate. It is desires power to lure man towards sense pleasures rather than soul happiness. Meditation awakens the discriminative qualities and hence one can experience the joy of inner world spirit. Therefore the battle occurs within us to overcome discrimination tendencies by presenting the memories of the past habits. Gita does not teach us that it is a sin to use senses with discrimination and self control; but a spiritual aspirants supreme duty is to seek God and self realization.

The full measure of God's consciousness is manifested in those who have full realization of Universal Consciousness. A perfected being is one who has attained complete liberation in Spirit; he becomes supremely free and can then return to earth as an avatar (divine incarnation) - as did Krishna and Christ among many others.

An avatar has dual purposes: one to teach the general populace about good and evil. But their main purpose is to create other God realized souls, helping as many as possible to attain liberation. This is the very personal and private bond formed between a Guru and a disciple. An union of a loyal spiritual endeavour on the part of the disciple and divine blessing bestowed by the Guru.

Arjuna signifies such a disciple and the whole Gita is the conversation between Krishna and the disciple Arjuna- the spiritual aspirant seeking knowledge from his Guru about how to overcome this battle and fulfill the supreme duty for which he was chosen. It is the spiritual dialogue that takes place between the omnipresent spirit and the soul of the ideal devotee.

I am reminded of Harry Potter, when he goes to buy a wand and he is told the wand chooses the wizard and I feel like Harry Potter where the Gita has chosen me. I had no reason to pick up this particular book at this stage of life and yet I did.