32. Life is full of Problem-

Life is not easy and simple but it is filled with many problems that can never be solved. Every single situation demands that we review all the options before we can come to any solution.

We should not worry and become upset because we cannot solve problems permanently and forever. Sometimes we have partial solutions to the problems. But we should not forget that way solution brings new problems. This does not mean that we should not try partial solutions. Each of us has abilities but we have to develop these abilities to overcome a problem. Abilities without efforts are nothing.

Many times in life we put the cart before the horse. We do not put things in proper perspective and therefore, we come to false conclusions. It is very difficult to know what the right way to solve our problems is.

Sometimes we must confront them head on. Other times, we must be flexible, diplomatic and be willing to zig and zag and maybe even backtracks a little in order to solve them. We must overcome our obstacles in order to thrive and grow.

Life is filled with all sorts of unexpected twists and turns. Life is filled with darkness, thunder and lightning. Tears are inevitable in life but there is still also a lot of joy in life and we can feel that joy.

The light, the joy must be refracted through the tears. But life can still bring us happiness and joy like the rainbow. It is the love and concern for each other, which allows us to overcome all obstacles. It is the love and concern of our parents, which allows us and still allows us to overcome the many trials and tribulations of life.


One of the difficult problems in life is how can we be reconciled with our enemies. In life, there will always be disputes, exchange of words, threats and blows. This happens within families, friends, within and between Nations. War many times is a product of these disputes.

The major problem on earth is not the bomb or nuclear or chemical weapons. These are actually the products of the problems. The main problem is that the human imagination has not yet expanded to the point where it comprehends its own essential unity.

That these unfortunates/seek after the goodness whose source within they bear this golden verse of Pythagoras reveals the meaning of life, which has been cursed and poisoned by none else but human beings themselves. Pythagoras says that people who go on seeking and searching for bliss and happiness are unfortunate. No body has cursed them, they have cursed themselves.

We are constantly running after power, position and self in the hope that they will provide happiness but we are sadly mistaken. We are searching for happiness in the outside worlds whereas the source of happiness is within us. This is the folly we commit.

Seeking means we are running after something – some shadow, illusion, dream, desire. And it is this desire, dream that makes life miserable. What Pythagoras says in not different from what Buddha said: that we suffer on account of our desire. Here both Buddha and Pythagoras spell the same message to drop the desire, which means to stop running after something and to stop running after something means to drop the mind. Mind always thinks in terms of achievements. To achieve more money, high flying post and much popularity. Mind exists through goals, mind exists in the future.

That’s why human suffering is tremendous. In suffering we run towards temples, mosques, synagogues, churches etc but alas! Our suffering doesn’t come to an end. Even when we go to the temples and mosques to offer prayers, we go with our minds that are with some goals and desires in our minds.

That’s why Pythagoras says, “Don’t be goal-oriented. Goal –orientation is the way of mind. Mind exists in ambition, in future. So drop the mind that is, to live in the stage of no-mind.”

Pythagoras calls those peoples unfortunate who live in the mind, who live in the tomorrow. And when one lives in the tomorrow, he automatically lives in the yesterday also. But the yesterday is no more and the tomorrow is not yet. Between the two is the present moment, which we have been missing and unfortunately we are sandwiched between theses two falsities.

Our misery is our whole invention. Nature knows no future; nature is always here – this very moment. The enlightened person lives in no-mind. No- mind is enlightenment.

The Enlightened one can’t be goal-oriented for he has no future, for him all is present. The stage of mindlessness is the stage of being religious – when no desire exists, no passion exists. Buddha बुधः laid emphasis on meditation that simply means no-mind-stage of “mindlessness”. But the term mindlessness should not be confused with the term “unmindful”. Buddha बुधः says that it is possible only when we drop our egos. The moment ego disappears, everything becomes crystal clear inside. And when there is no body inside, only god remains. When one disappears, he appears. Then whole existence overflows with godliness.

Our concept of god varies. To some he may be a stern old man with a stick. To others a loving, forgiving father. Mira says: mane chakar rakho ji- allow me to be a servant in your house. This is the essence of Bhakti. भक्ती Simple.



The teachings of all faiths are good. We distort them in application to suit ourselves. Religion is a personal, private affair. Why rob it of its dignity? The time tested and old set of values to be treasured is honesty, sincerity, love, courtesy, compassion, thoughtfulness and concern for others.

If these are observed and practiced in our daily lives, is that not religion? Is that not what god expects out of us? Surely it is the way we lead our lives and our relationship and behavior towards others that is religion, a way of life. What is the purpose of prayers recited mechanically according to ritual if observed without sincerity and then we express negative actions that against those principles in testing times?


We don’t have to comprehend each and every ritual. It is more important to be a good human being – this is what god expects of each one of us irrespective of our religion. It does not matter which festival we celebrate: Diwali, दीपावली Christmas or id. Similarly it does not matter if the child that is born is a male or female. Any child is a blessing to be cherished and treated the same way with love and kindness.

Each one of us is not merely a physical being. Every one of us possesses four distinct personalities within ourselves:

1. The physical, 2. The mental,
3. The intellectual and 4. The spiritual.

The modern world, with all its activities- domestic, commercial, social national or international- has taken up objective service as the basis for establishing the manifestoes of human rights under the false conclusion that each individual is a mere human.

Materialism served by science can only conclude that more food, adequate clothing, better shelter, more leisure and education will ensure happiness for everyone, in short, people are not considered much different from animals that are aware only of their physical existence.

If we, like the great thinker philosophers, divide humans into four distinct personalities, we can analyze how each of these act and react with each other, and how they can be developed and integrated through the process of concentration, contemplation and meditation.

There’s so much food in restaurants and stores and yet many die of starvation. The existence of food in the world is no guarantee against people starving. Even though food is in front of us, unless we take it and have the strength to assimilate it, our own health doesn’t improve.

Similarly, the Masters lay down rules and codes of conduct and explain the greater reality in life. Their words of wisdom make us aware of the other three personalities within us, besides the body. We have to digest these ideas and assimilate them to make them our own.

It’s painful to weed out the mind of lust, make it tranquil and then replant it with new ideas. In the generations in which many recognized and lived the educated values and moral virtues, there was more peace and progress. But when, as in our times, morals and ethics are discarded and true religion is misunderstood because of false fanaticism and the baseless arguments of secularism, we find immorality, corruption and faithlessness in every field.

Yet, when we look around us, we see how the Masters are still serving the world. There are many evidences of their contributions everywhere. In great Master such as Sri Swami Vivekananda स्वामी विवेकानंद we see perfection in behavior and a heart overflowing with kindness and patience. Their words of wisdom spring out from the heart soaked with sincere and subjective experience.

It is a world of futile search for happiness. After all, who is not in the race for that ever-eluding phenomenon called happiness? What he is laboring hard for day and night vanishes, like the mirage, in the vast boundless desert (The dreamy world of materialism). Man soon finds that the happiness he has supposedly earned after a Herculean effort is clouded by illusion. It is a satiation that is fleeting and leaves him still unhappy. Plenty or everything, sex, violence, barb threats, the inebriating swill at the cocktail parties, and all the mundane amenities at his back and call, thanks to the staging strides of science and technology and only finite dawns on him only very late in life. The resources that the modern society has squandered in stack pilling weapons of destruction are militarisation of outer space would have released man from the thralldom of the ages if we had started exploring the “Inner Space.” Everyone can listen to his inner voice that guides him to the path of rectitude, but in these days of wanton materialistic atrophying man has stopped listening.

All the masters of world religion have taught man the quintessence of real bliss, and to extricate mankind from the mine of the cycle of misery. God has been sending to earth great souls like Lord Krishna, भगवान् कृष्णा the Buddha, बुधः Sri Sankaracharaya, श्री शंकराचार्य Chaitanya, चैतन्य Ramakrishna Paramhansa, रामाकृष्णा परमहंस Kabir,कबीर Guru Nanak, गुरु नानक and Christ, Prophet Mohammed, Swami Vivekananda स्वामी विवेकानंद and others. The modern world gasping for the fresh air of spiritualism, can forget the eternal gospel if these great souls only at the risk of a great catastrophe.

For a long time the Hindu religion had remained the preserve of only a few. It was Sankaracharya शंकराचार्य who first made earnest efforts to popularize it through authoritative commentaries. Century's later Ramakrishna Paramhansa रामाकृष्णा परमहंस took up the work of the great Adyaita अद्वित्य philosopher and interpreted the great religion in such a simple way that even the most illiterate could follow it. The world saturated with the bitter fruits of a soulless technology based civilization look to India as the only oasis of eternal hope. To Ramakrishna रामाकृष्णा religion was a way of life, his life was bold and unassailable answer to those who spurned religion as the crutches for the old when the entire world forsake them including their own children. But a person who had never thought about God all his life, how could he think about him all of a sudden at the time of death? The old man would still be obsessed with his bank balance, the fate of his shares, the marriage of his daughter, a job for his son and scores of other worries.

The majority of us do not know that we are shackled in the evanescent pleasures of the mundane would until the pain inherent in these trifling sensual escapisms starts making us miserable beyond measure. Ramakrishna रामाकृष्णा cautioned the world against being carried away by the swift current of Sansara संसार the glitter of fame, name, and fame, live in the world, but the world should not live in you. Like the lotus though rooted in mud aspiring to heaven man should lock beyond the fluting objects. “The boat should be in water, but the water should not be in boat.” How simple it looks? This myth was exploded by the eternal message of the Bhagawad Geeta, भगवत गीता The great Sankaracharya, शंक्रचार्य्या and other seraphic matters। The master of Swami Vivekananda स्वामी विवेकानंद used to say that we shed tears for the non-fulfillment of our worldly desires.

The yogi योगी immersed in his cauldron of true happiness and bliss conjures up the image of a being, which is alone in this vast ocean of humanity। He is a part of, yet remains quite apart and is ever growing in his knowledge of god’s will for him and having the power to carry out the role god has planned or determined for him। In the yogi योगी one finds a cosmic whole that far from being in the nature of a black hole is more in the nature of a quasar brightest object in the universe. Against the backdrop of a chaotic society and humdrum of today’s turbulent life, it is a relaxed state free of stress. He is one who observes the goings on and plays of samsara with a witness-like attitude or Shakshi-ending roller coaster with undistinguished equanimity. He is not perturbed, nor is the unduly excited.

It is not that the pattern of the yogi’s योगी life stays unchanged. The external environment is always in a flux of change for him just as it is for all of us but the योगी remains undaunted and rarely influenced. Just as in the laws pertaining to nature there are a few eclipses and occasional leap years, so too are minor disturbances and infiltration to a yogi योगी calm. All alone, however, he is detached and free from the clutched of samara.संसार He is now beyond Dukha। दुख:।

The greed to get- rich- quick may even make them resort to illegal methods though they may possess enormous wealth; this has to be curbed.

(Alferd B Ford, the great Grandson of the Legendary Henry Ford, was born into one of American richest families, the tycoon who gave the world the Motor Car and the assembly line. As he himself says that he belong to a family which has everything, still there was unhappiness and frustration.)

But the spiritual guides are like the clouds, which bears the evaporated water from the sea, and empty it elsewhere on the standee crops. These types of people will spread essence of love. Associating with there spiritual guides should be considered a privilege.

He who is happy himself has the capability of making other human beings happy. Happiness comes from within. It is a state of mind and, of course, it is the mind. That guides the body. And pray. What is it that guides both mind and body! Well, it is the Atama. It is the soul that gives an individual his or her permanent identity.


“The woman crying, because a son is not born to her, another crying, that he is unemployed, the employed one crying, that he is not getting any promotion, another worried about, the profit of his business, the thief worries, that he should not be nabbed, the householder prays, that his house should not be burgled, while he is away, this goes on.

But who on earth cries that he has not been able to see God? So we suffer like, as Sri Ramakrishna says, the camel in the desert which goes on Nibbling at the prickly plant despite the fact that its mouth bleeds. For a householder to tread the path of devotion amounts walking on the razor’s edge and if he succeeds, he is greater then a devoted saint. He better sees up his contention with an interesting anecdote.