Survivng or Living, the choice is yours !

I recently happen to read an inspirational article ,which told  doing what you love is as important as finding your life partner and spending rest of the life with him. The entire idea of the speech was to stay hungry and stay foolish.
              In any cultured,educated Indian family , all that parents want for their children is a happy, secured life and for which the children's thinking and creative button is disabled with a fear that they might become a  loser before  the society.well, the parents are not to be blamed ,they were taught to lead their life that way and they want us to be happy.The choice is ours if we want to choose their kind of life which is similar to a travel itenary with a predetermined start and end or to make our journey more adventurous

Well ,heres me ,who accepted that travel itenary,risk free,hassle free itenary. It was so easy to abandon the voice inside me,which kept telling "this is not what you want,this is not what you love",but  I kept doing whatever was told and tried hard to love what i did. Now at this point in my life ,when i look back there is no joining of dots .I have just been fighting with my conscious so long, with a hope that its going to support me and appreciate my way of life.

By "joining the dots" i mean., i really dont understand the reason behind me passing an engineering degree  with  high class grades , then getting married to a good person whom my parents chose for me ,then to be a full time wife and mom ,supporting my husbands dreams and aspirations and doing the regular chores to  keep my family healthy and happy .
Atleast my parents are so happy and proud of me. when i think of them all i hear is " we are proud of you , you are the best daughter ever." well again my own inner voice  ,which i so badly want to mute ,keeps laughing at me " The best daughter in the world, Are you proud of yourself,Are you happy?", oh I hate that voice so much,I hate the truth.

How long can one pretend to  be happy and contented. well, ask me.I dint want to accept that i failed and as usual i resorted to my guru and he told "when you make me the object of your devotion you attain self realization". I understood what he meant by that and decided  to give up the idea of muting my inner voice and listen to it, I also gave it a form of my guru as there is no best place for god than your heart and i listened to it and waited for signs , signs that could show me the right way ,i was meant to go.

The first  sign  was from a book ,which i read recently told JOY - was J- jesus ,O -others ,Y -yourself

this was sign that god and others were well satisfied but i lost me, I never satsisfied myself,  I abandoned me and so there was no JOY in what I did.

I still have  a major part of my adult hood left, life is going to be a bumpy ride, will meet many failures but never shall i once regret or stop doing what i love at the same time balance the "Os "in my life who form my family and friends .

I have got strong feelings that from now on my travel itenary is going to be more adventerous , i might fall down but again start doing what i love and soon in future i shall be able to " Join the dots" and trace the path that lead me to the pinacle of what i love the most.

It felt so much better when i listened to my inner voice , earlier i was planning on muting it because i thought its going point out my mistakes  and curse me for leading a life from somebody else's brain, how pathetic can that be, Instead it told me you have lost nothing at all,all you have to do is to differentiate between surviving and living .

How does everything becomes so easy when we give it  a form of someone you trust the most..in my case its sai..and he knows very well that i am now more conscious  and eager about the signs he going to give.

Forgive but do not Forget..

life is a journey .Every good or bad situtation we have been through is a mile stone reached .Learning from our mistakes and celebrating our success is a part of life.

Remembering the bad experiences in our life and chosing not to retaliate is most challenging task that has ever been placed before us .
There are several occasions when i have prayed to swami to punish my enemy,eventhough i knew that this was a wrong kind of prayer.Praying to punish someone is nothing but a form of revenge.

All it does is ,demoralise the beautiful relationship that I have with swami .I soon realised that if i don't put an end to this, I might squander my entire time and energy plotting on counter attack, leading to several unhealthy thought and behaviour.So as a corrective measure i chose to forget and forgive.

I have always been under the impression that forgiving and forgetting go hand in hand ,so if i forget them, i forgive them and i was working so hard on forgetting these "not so good" people in my life that I kind of started hiding from them and forgetting them seemed practically impossible.The problem seemed so elusive to me.

Thats when i happened to have this random conversation with my friend and it gave me an aspiration to solve my ever so long problem.Her opinion was Forgiving is not forgetting

Forgetting is running away from the problem you have faced so far and forgiving is being prepared to face such similar situations and handle them more smartly.

Swami says DO NOT RETALIATE TO PEOPLE WHO HURT YOU
whoever has committed a mistake would face the consequences, by advising us to stay calm doesnt mean that swami would punish the person and pacify our anger, all he expects here is that we dont forget the person and problems caused by them but forgive them and be prepared.
when we start practising this ,any encounter with that "not so good person" whom we used to loath will be so easy that they will appear as any other normal person to us , not with a " I hate you" tag and our normal behaviour towards them would make them quizzical.

Whatever i say happens..

sai says : Whatever i say happens.


If we see the life history of our sadguru , there are enumerous occasions where people would seek his opinion, to proceed further and satisfy their desires , be it for their materialistic needs, for problems concerning health,permission for travelling , spritual needs and the list goes on. Surprisingly we are doing it even now, what if he not physically around us,we can always feel his presence and we carry on asking whatever we need.Sometimes I feel guilty thinking , I'm using him as my fortune teller and then i console myself , you know, who else can we resort to in diffuclt time other than this embodiment of love.
Sai loves us unconditionally , he is overwhelmed by our love for him and he opens his darbar for us . He is so happy doing all this for us, he even says he is indebted to the people who love and believe him.Why should this poor man pour his love on us,give us a dwaraka mai and obey our command like a servant.
My opinion is that he secretly hopes by satisfying all over materialistic desire we might, one day become dispassionate and follow the spritiual path.
There is no harm in having a materialistic desire, its not a shame, sai himself says wealth is a impornant factor in carrying on life and he even promises that his devotee shall never have a problem with food ,shelter and clothing.
But he also hopes one day we become dispassionate about all these and follow the spritual path.
SPRITUALLITY might sound a bit too complicated, its nothing but realising the inner peace, which is propagated by so many holy men and what happens then ,dont worry we dont become sanyasi and go to forest or something.. we start loving each other . Love alone can make us lead a happy life , erase all discrimination and make world a better place.
There is always a learning curve isn't it , which swami understands and supports us in the best possible way so that, we dont get destracted and follow our goal and spread love, thats when he says dont worry my dears march on and remember me because whatever I say happens.

Nobody is scared of death

Sai says : I shall draw my devotees from the jaws of death

Terrorism, violence , natural calamities, pandemic diseases,pollution, global warming , recession and the list goes on , is world a safer place to live??
Swami says he would save his devotees from jaws of death . Saving from death ?? sounds like an oxymoron to me .
When death is inevetibale, how can i be saved ? . How can he save me from the jaws of death when he himself fell in its jaws?.

what is this "death" that is haunting us...
scientificaly ,when the heart stops functioning,the person is considered dead.
speaking spritually death can be explained as a phenomenon when the soul leaves the body and goes into another cycle of birth and death.
The haunting fact is that there is no escape from death.

Being a staunch devotee myself, it's a shame for me to accept the fact that I'm scared of death. Swami propagates the idea of dispassion and slavation but how can i be dispassionate when i desire to live ?.
I do accept the fact that there is no escape from death and as swami's devotee I should not be bothered about the soul leaving my body .
Yet I secretly feel i'm still not ready to face death.It's just that i have certain duties to complete , some desires to satisfy, some people to take care of and facing death now ,would be so incomplete. So,I'm not prepared to see my loved ones leave me or vice versa.
Thinking about all this has made me weak,just then i realise what swami had wanted to convey.
Obviously there is no escape from the jaws of death, every living being has to meet their end and so did sai . swami cannot eradicate death,
but would protect us from its jaws till the right has come for us to face it and would give us the maturity to accept it when it occurs.
In this turbulent world ,when every moment the hope of having a safe future seems to fade away ain't this a timely assurance.
A devotee who has completely surrendered to sai would never choose death over life and now having recieved this devine guidance, everybody should be inspired to live life to their fullest.

I'm The Chosen One

SAI SAYS : I only ask and take from him whom the god points out .

" If he wants something from us,he can always say he needs it ,why pull the god in this?".
Well ,This would be any normal person's opinion.
It was my opinion as well for a while.
But when one realizes the presence of sri sai in their life ,obviously their opinion changes.We tend to view this scenario with a new perspective.Don't worry we are not abnormal though.
According to me this is eternal.
Intially we knew him as an idol in a temple like any other hindu god, we might have or might not have bowed to him , but then arrives the "D day" when miraculously we get to know this old man much better than before and spontaneously we are attracted to him like the iron filing gets attracted to a magnet.
is this magic? are we becoming lunatic ? ,no
It's just that we have become a part of sai samraj and are realising his presence.
All these happened without our control , we have been deprived of the option ,wether or not we want to be a part of sai samraj ,this should have left us exasperated .
Instead we felt blissful,relaxed , happy , contented , i myself felt like i got a confidence boost jab.
so here it goes ,we are the chosen one and what did swami "take" from us , our ego,anxiety ,greed and a promise to follow the path of shradda and saburi.
So whats next ,now that we are in the team ,obviously our boss would "expect" something from us..it might range from a penny dakshina to writing his biography.who knows what task we are assingned to.
so to summarize the action of "asking and taking" ,is only to ease our effort towards the destined goal, it varies from person to person .
Sometimes it feels like we have been blindfolded on this wonderful journey and sometimes the vision is clear .But ,as long as we are with sadguru , who cares.
well now it leaves me thinking and makes me want ask deva...
" we do know there is some supreme power(god) which is guiding us and when we think you as that power ,why are you referring to god as somebody beyond yourself ?"

Am not Greedy

SAI says : A greedy man can never attain dispassion or salvation

well this kept me thinking of a while.. why is my old man telling me something or the other and making me think.. i dont like this thinking business , c'mon i know i'm not greedy but what if i'm .. so where this sai.. i got to ask him something ,well you know to make sure i'm not greedy .

ME : deva your word on greedy man has kept me thinking and i have began to doubt myself

SAI : doubt yourself ?

ME : yes , you know i want to make sure i'm not greedy..

SAI : That you should know... how will i know.

ME : well i will know only when tell me who a greedy man according to u is.

SAI : obviously somebody who asks for more than what he has

ME : Then tell me dear sai you mean to say somebody who wants to improve in his life , somebody who wants to achieve more , imagines himself leading a more comfortable and luxuries life is he greedy?.

SAI : In a way yes , when he is not enjoying what he has already achieved and is always trying to push himself further more ,he is greedy . well this also a kind of addiction.

SAI : Its always good to set some goal, work hard towards reaching that goal and when you reach your desired level enjoy it, why do people always think of whats next and dont enjoy what they have , and thats when i say they are greedy. with greed comes jealousy and with jealousy comes hatred. you tend to compare yourself so much to that extent you might even start hating your own sibling.

ME : But deva when i work as hard as my friend and when i see her reaping the fruits of her hardwork while i recive nothing it makes me feel jealous and angry , what should i do then, why me alway ?

SAI : dont compare yourself with her, do justice to whatever you are doing and leave the rest to me.then you tend to become less greedy, mebbe beating your friend and winning the competition might make you feel happy, pleasant, proud of yourself , but dont you feel those feelings are just fugitive ? then comes the phenomenon of whats next , what if she beats you the next time... then comes greed...

instead when you be patient and dont be too keen on the result and dont compare yourself with others ,you slowly become dispassionate,that gives you more power and slowly you tend to attain salvation and the feeling is not momentary it forms your characteristic and gives you peace.

ME : true sai how silly i have been ,always requesting you to do this and that for me and that also used make me feel guily sometimes because i knew i was becoming greedy.Instead i could have always asked you to give me attachment in any duty that has been assigned to me but be dispassionate towards the result , i think if i have this attitude it makes me feel more secured aint it swami.

SAI : better late than never my darling.

ME ; i love you sai.

Trust him or not

God says : Iam the controller of all the actions of a man who trusts me and merges in me.
Now people do you belive him or not..well ,I feel we definetly do have the rights to question him. I have decided ask him and here goes our conversation

ME : who do you think you are? how can you pass such a statement without actually proving how genuine it is?
GOD : I know it is definetly genuine , it all depends on how much you believe in this truth.
ME: i definetly do trust you god.. it's just that i'm confused , the other day when i came crying to you about my problems you told me it was because of my karma.
GOD : Yes i did dear, so what did you do after that ?
ME : i thought i have to endure this because you said its because of my karma.so i kept facing it as a punishment and even you dint help me out.
GOD : Did i ever say i wont help you out
ME : But i thought it was understood because you told "good or bad i have to face the results of karma"..
GOD : Yes I did dear, but I never told you I won't help you and this is where the question of trust comes and the depth of your belief in me comes.
GOD : If you had really believed me , you wouldn't have left me when i told you it was because of your karma but held me more tightly ,merged in me and thats when i start controlling your action.
Trust might sound very simple dear but it's very difficult to practice indeed.
GOD: As an infant, whenever you cried your mother nursed you provided you with all you need.. did you ever doubt her at that time? did you ever think of your karma then .. no, you trusted her so much and merged in her while she found a way out of all your problems and worries. It's that trust i'm asking for my dear. That is the only way i can control all your actions my beloved and remember you are always an infant to me and all i need is ,you to think me as your mother.
ME : In that case are you suggesting not to believe in karma..
GOD: i'm suggesting you to believe in me dear :).