Dearest Shirin, A Reply to Your Query On My Blog, "I Am Eternal"

All around us, in us, outside us, in our minds, in rocks and stones and everywhere, there is this Universal Consciousness, the spirit, the light. What is this Consciousness made up of, except human thoughts?
Whatever thought you've had, negative or positive, is merged with Existence. If you believe in God, this world is His manifestation. If you believe in no God, and only a Consciousness, again, this Consciousness is full of these thoughts.

I experience what I am writing, and may not be very clear on the theology of various religions. From my feelings and the query of my friend, I asked myself, "Do I want to be Eternal because of my ego?" and I felt "Yes," because what I feel and think is all part of the Universal Consciousness, and this is with or without the ego.

This thought makes me conscious of the fact that whatever I do in my life contributes to shaping the Universe. This shaping of the Universe, lives through my children, my environment and is absorbed by the Universal Consciousness. In the same way, dear friend, whether you have children or no children, your thoughts will always be a part of the Universe, and whether you desire it or not, you will be eternal. Or, you may choose non-eternity and darkness in space. Both are the same, from nothing to something and from something to nothing.

I want to plant this thought in the Universe, because human beings do not feel any responsibility for their thought patterns and they spew out negative-positive, kind-unkind thoughts, to float around in space, resulting in destruction, annihilation and of course, a lot of beauty and purity.

In all of this, we forget our Divinity. Please remember, you are Divine.

A Secret of Untruth Revealed

When I was born, I was more soul and divinity and less body and thought. I did not have to play games to please people, I did not have to develop a personality according to other people's choices, I could gurgle and play and laungh and be a joy for everyone. All those around me felt unconditional love, which brought me great peace and joy.

The three Magis came to me, adored me and laid at my feet the three gifts as they did with the baby Jesus: my three gifts were love, peace and joy. I had a parallel love in the life of Jesus and all the other great masters, gods and goddesses, but I felt nothing in my heart, till my awakening.

Time went on and that unconditional love changed to accomodate the demands of parents, home, family and society. The unconditional love disappeared and maybe somebody will say that there was conditional love, which is 'liking', when you like a person, you have expectations of them. Unconditional love has none.

I became smart, like the rest of the world, I hid my secret, my great desire for love, for that divine exchange of energy at the soul level. I developed a charming, charismatic personality, and hid my need from the world and from myself and lived in dishonest, false words, saying, "I love, I love, I love." I didn't. I never knew the meaning.

Like went on, I lost my love. I lost my joy. I lost my peace. I looked for it in rock and stone, in the clouds, in water, in liquour, in lust, in greed, in friendships, in children, in husband and wife, in society. No luck, no joy, no peace...all was lost.

I read books. I cried out to my teachers, "Tell me what is love?" But all I got back was, "to be a committed person, to be a good daughter, a good son, to play the role in the family that society has assigned you." I did all that, but at the end of the day, all I had was the emptiness in my heart and hands.

Can you help me? Can you answer my question? Have you found love? Unconditional love, without demands, without expections, without role playing?

The Great Awakening

One day at satsang, we were discussing relationships and in the relationship, unconditional love leading to interconnectedness with all things in the Universe. During this talk, my heart was crying out, "What do I know about love? will I get my answer today?"

We were told to sit in silence and feel the interconnectedness with all the other people in the room. I felt nothing. The question hour began.

"Did all of you feel interconnectedness with each other?"

A hand shot up, and a cocky voice answered, "Of course I did!" My heart sank. If I am asked this question, will I be dishonest? And then it struck me, so often, when I say, "I love," I don't love. I come from untruth and dishonesty. I waited with baited breath and the person who answered next spoke the words which I would have used if I had had the courage to do so.

The person answered, "I feel no connection with anybody in this room." Shock, disbelief and dead silence. The teacher asked us all, if we could feel interconnected with one person and connection and the flow of energy from one to the other? She told us the flow of energy from one person to another is concentric and all benefit by it.

I realized having lived in the dishonesty and the untruth of no connection harms his or herself and the others, because there is a break in the flow. This break in flow results in disease, unhappiness, stress.

Then we were asked to meditate and bring in front of us some relationship which was not working and to see how it had happened. I picked on someone who is very dear to me, and discovered that instead of being in a loving relationship, I was in a personality exchange to impress my friend, and the love was hidden under the personality.

The secret was revealed to me that this relationship and others were not satisfying, were at times unsuccessful, because there was no exchange of love, only pretense, performing and play acting.

I've realized that in today's world we are all working at the thought level, and a lot of us believe that your thoughts can make things happen or not happen. This led me to feel that my secret of nonloving was causing no love to happen.

Personality exchange without love occurs because we believe we are the body. But all mankind is soul and spirit, and love is an exchange of energy from soul and spirit to soul and spirit. Love is. God is love. And Man is Divine. And Divine exchange can only be at the energy level, the spirit level, and the soul level. And this is the secret the Magi revealed to me.

I am Divine, Therefore I am Eternal

One day, I was taking a lesson in biology and going through the water cycle, the food cycle, the nitrogen cycle, etc., all about matter being used for rebirth, all about God’s recycling habit, without wasting anything.
As my students got busy with some written work, some pictures in the textbook caught my eye, and my imagination took flight.
I saw a picture of a bird, a flower and a gazelle. Suddenly, I felt my body had made the bird, and there was I, flying high, soaring into infinity. I looked at the flower and found such beauty, which was me and suddenly, a thought came, “But you’re ugly. Are flowers ugly or only beautiful?”
And I was so proud that God had recycled me into a flower. The gazelle leaping and bounding gave me so much pride that my old body had been transformed into a gazelle running with the wind.
Dear God, you have used all of me for rebirth. You have shown me, because of this recycling there is rebirth and this rebirth makes me eternal. However, why did I ever doubt it, because I am in your Divine image, and Divinity means that which never changes. Divinity is eternal. I am eternal.
I came back down to earth and continued teaching the lesson, but with a new insight, a spiritual one.
One day, I was going through pictures of my family in the family album, and once again, my imagination took flight. I got a message which I am sharing with all of you: that we never die, through our children we are eternal. How?
Through our genes, through our thought processes, at the time of pregnancy, at the time of birth, with living together, we send signals to our children, to fulfil our wishes for the sake of continuity and wish fulfilment of the parent. I know I’ve subconsciously fulfilled so many of my parents’ wishes, by picking up where they had left in their growth. I can see the same with my children.
Each child of mine has completed a wish of mine, communicated through my thought process. I can see it---a wish for wealth, a wish for beauty, a wish to be able to sing well, a wish to be an intellectual, a wish to be a career woman, a wish for all my children to travel on the spiritual path. Whatever are their unfulfilled wishes will be carried on by their children, and so on and so forth. And the consciousness that is in all of us shall carry on through me, my children and their children. Life is eternal. Not only that, O Lord, I am using all of this as a proof, to prove to me, that I am eternal. But all I have to do is to believe in my Divinity and bask in the gift of eternity.
Dear God, in my rebirth, may I be a flower, a bird or a gazelle....or am I already that?

Rebirth of Perception

Night Sky, Eye of God
March is a month of rebirth, of spring, of blossoming and flowering. It is also a month in India where you play with color, you have huge bonfires to celebrate the arrival of spring, and maybe in these bonfires, you can throw in all the darkness of the winter months. So, it is again, a rebirth.
Can we have a rebirth of perception? Would you agree with me if I were to say, “perception is each man’s personal viewpoint, and his way of viewing things?” But this viewpoint, or perception, can be changed, that is called a shift, through meditation, insight and also, imagination. In this space today, I am writing about ‘to be blessed,’ is a daily gift, an opportunity, that God gives us, but we do not see it, we go to churches, temples, etc., we go on pilgrimages to collect blessings and merits, when this facility is at our doorstep.
One morning, my car stopped at the traffic lights and a little beggar boy knocked on the glass of the car door, asking fro alms. I made a grimace, tried to shoo him away, and thought to myself, “My day is ruined.” Imagination knocked at my brain. “Imagine, if you were that boy!” My heart filled with gratitude and I thanked the Lord that here was I, enjoying the comforts of life, with everything to be grateful for, and here was this boy, who had nothing.
I looked at him with an attitude of gratitude, and I looked into his eyes, and I found in them, the light of compassion and joy. My day was made, at meeting this boy, feeling gratitude and joy in my life. The sacred touched me.
Next day, I met the boy again. This time, I wanted to give him a gift, but of course, I couldn’t give him money, he would use it for all the wrong things! I was the moralistic, rich man, who took paperclips and pens and writing paper from the office, but the little beggar boy had to be the keeper of morals.
I had taken a packet of biscuits to give to him and when he knocked on the window pane, I handed the biscuits to him, he gave a whoop of delight, cart wheeled and thanking me, ran to the other side of the road. My day filled with joy at his delight. “Thank you, Lord, for giving me this fantastic experience.”
On the third day, I met this boy again. And this time, I wanted to share my love and energy and I wanted to trust him to use my money wisely for his happiness. His cup was a temple of God into which I was going to put my cash offering, my small tithe. I dropped the coins into the cup, he looked at me with so much love, the energy we exchanged was so charged with the Divine and his words of “thank you” touched my heart. God sent me a message, “Did you know that you can buy blessings for two rupees every day?”
All this never happened. But, at a satsang one night, somebody asked the teacher, “Why has God made beggars?” This question is asked so often. At that moment, my imagination held sway, my perception changed, and my mind gave birth to this story. Today, in this Divine space, I want to share this story with you. And I too, am going to buy blessings every day, would you like to join me?

Who's Way?

Husbands and wives are always quarreling over the fact that, "You always want your way!" and the reply is, "But you always want your way!"

How do we solve this impasse?

Maybe this story will help us in understanding the nature and needs of men and women.

Lord Shiva and Parvati, a celestial couple, living in the abode of Gods and Goddesses, were having a discussion one day. Parvati wanted to attend a puja at her father's home, even though she and her husband had not been invited to it. Lord Shiva explained to her that it was bad manners, to attend a function without an invitation, even though the function was in her father's home. "That home today is not your home," he said.

Parvati, a typical woman, willful and always wanting her own way, argued and insisted that they should go.

In the end, she decided that even if the husband did not go, she was going to attend the puja. Lord Shiva warned her there would be serious consequences to this visit of hers, but she insisted and departed.

With her went an escort of Shiva's disciples. When Parvati reached the puja, no one greeted her or spoke to her, she was given the cold shoulder, except for a lukewarm welcome from her mother. To her horror she discovered, there was not even a seat for her husband in the gathering of Gods and dignitaries.

No woman can bear her husband to be insulted in the father's home, so Parvati cursed her father and to teach the family a lesson, jumped into a sacrificial fire and died.

There was a commotion, a war, Lord Shiva had to intervene, Parvati's father had to pay the price, all because of the willfullness of a woman.

From this story, it is said and explains the nature of the woman who always likes to have her own way. But what about the husband?

The way to approach him is through his ego. Letting him know he is the hero in your life, he is the provider, his home is your shelter. You do not belong to your father and brother anymore, they are not your heroes. The husband agrees to everything the wife wants, the wife believes that her husband is the wisest man in the world, who loses, who wins? And the impasse is broken.

Since we have given advice to husband and wife, parents who choose a husband for their daughters and women who choose for a husband for themselves, please remember, that very often a girl wants a handsome man on her arm, so that he can be the envy of her friends. Please choose wisely.

Valentine's Day advice!

Jihad for Love

Jihad: 1-any vigorous, emotional crusade for an idea or principle, for love.
2-a holy war undertaken as a sacred duty by Muslims.
One day I was listening to a radio program, and unfortunately I came at the tail end of it, so all I heard the speaker say was that "why could I not be a Jihadi for love?"
Earlier on, I had heard a couple of sentences, how he had training in Jihad to be a terrorist and had done what was demanded of him, but in the midst of everything, it came to him, that if he has to fight a war, to save the world, why should he not call himself a Jihadi who fights the war of love?
And his battle will be Jihad for Love.
Is this the kind of battle all of us want to fight? Is this the kind of mindset we would like anyone and everyone to have? This statement is very profound, because all the time the terminology, terror, terrorist, terrorism, is being shot in our environment, and we do know that in today's age, love and unconditional love is the need of the earth. So let us all be Jihadis for love.

Sacred Exchange in the Tenement

The marriage takes place, the couple comes home, the bride's new homewhich is an 8 by 8 room, a 4 by 4 kitchen, a common bathroom and toilet, shared by the family.

The family consists of mother, father, bride, groom, and two younger children. One elder daughter is married and visits quite often with her three children and husband.

Is the marriage consummated? No. The bride and groom just exchange glances and do not even the privacy to talk to each other. Desperate, the groom thinks of a plan. He buys movie tickets for the whole family, sending them away to the theatre a little early, saying he and his bride would follow, as they had some shopping to do on the way.

At last, privacy, heaven in each other's arms, but there is a knock on the door.

An ailing aunt has arrived from the village. All his plans are foiled.

Nowadays, life is not so tragic, because young couples do go on a honeymoon, but we don't know about the consummation part.

Very often, the groom sleeps in the kitchen, he has bed space all to himself and in the middle of the night, surieptitously, the bride sneaks in to the kitchen and heaven is found.

Who wins, who loses? This is a team effort for love.