Author: Mrs. Preethi Dhiman

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Love without a cause!!

Unconditional Love

Unconditional LoveTears streaming down my face, I just completed the last few words of the classic novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte. The book is all about love without any reason, love with intense abandon—just like Heathcliff loved his Catherine. Emily Bronte in this classic book brings out the destructive and obsessive nature of love. What is love? That raging fury of emotions which threatens to burn our insides and tears our heart till it flows out like a river, out of control. In this book we see the power of love that can destroy everything in its path. It is truly a love without a cause, a pain that drives a knife through the heart and makes our stomach churn. Oh! What havoc has this love created in this world—unimaginable pain and suffering! They say love has a brighter side which illuminates and elevates. But where is that to be found in this world? Does it even exist?

Like an animal searching for food for existence the dried up heart searches for this most elusive thing. A person may search for his whole life and still be left bereft of it. There are countless people who have died searching for it. Blessed are those who find this love – everlasting and eternal, that not only liberates one but also enlivens one.

Surely, this is not the love of this world, because the love of this world torments and tortures and breaks our heart as we live. If not, then definitely at death. But still there are fools like us who keep on searching. Oh, when will this search end? Great poets and writers whose lives end tragically realize like Heathcliff that love is beyond this body and one has to look for a love which will transcend everything. Is there really such a love?

Yes, Bhagvad Gita speaks of a love which is eternal. That is the love between the Supreme Lord and the living entity. But how elusive this love is too! You feel that you have almost touched it but then next moment you are miles away. Understanding this divine love is difficult without the causeless mercy of the Lord. Yes, truly this is love without a cause. The lord reciprocates with us causelessly. His love is all encompassing and most compassionate. He like a true lover fulfills our each and every desire and finally when we reach his lotus feet we finally experience that love which we have been searching all our lives.

Radhanath Swami, my spiritual father once told me “Even if the whole world is against you , I will always love you”. And believe me that was the most emotional moment of my life. Such all encompassing compassion, I could see, can come only from a true representative of God. Such is God’s love!! Leaving this spiritual divine love behind how foolish I am that I am searching for this love through mundane relationships of this world!

– Dr. Sandhya Subramanian

…Read Articles in Sandhya’s Blog

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Appreciate

Remember the Mantra

Remember the Mantra

Remember the MantraBeneath the veneer of superficiality if we look, we will rightly understand the situations that come in our life—Radhanath Swami

When we marry our partner, we look forward to an exciting journey of togetherness. At first, we are able to see the other person’s love and care in his/her daily acts and we appreciate it. Every time we appreciate each other, love seems to grow and the happiness seems boundless.

But gradually, with passing time, this infatuation fades away and instead of counting the loving ways of our partner, we catch ourselves counting their intolerable faults and picking up fights based on it. What happened to that ‘exciting journey of togetherness’ that we had dreamt of?

Radhanath Swami says, “Beneath the veneer of superficiality if we look, we will rightly understand the situations that come in our life, especially the conflicts—we will know that they are meant to purify our existence.” In the Vedic marriage ceremony the mantra, “Om apavitra-pavitro-va sarva-vastam gato api va yah smaret pundarikaksham sah bhayabhyantara suchih.” is chanted. In essence, this reveals to us that the purpose of human life as well as the purpose of marriage is to purify our hearts and our existence. When we forget this as the purpose of marriage and see our partner as a mere instrument to satisfy our senses, trouble arises.

The Vedic principle suggests that one must see the spouse as a gift of God for purification from conditioned existence. When we rightly understand this purpose, we are better able to appreciate our partner and weave in happiness once again into the marriage.

 “dampatyoh kalaho nasti tatra srih svayam agatah”. When there are no fights between husband and wife, the goddess of fortune automatically comes to the home -Canakya Pandita

 

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Tolerate

Toys are poison

Fighting for Petty Things“My mother witnessed her three little sons as they fought amongst themselves over toys. She used to say “toys are poison” because they cause so much trouble” — Radhanath Swami

Adults look at children and say, “Such stupid children, fighting over such stupid things. After all, what is a toy? Just a cheap piece of plastic. And these children are fighting over it!” But adults have their ‘toys’ too, both animate and inanimate, over which they fight—who belongs to whom, what belongs to whom. And sometimes that fight ends in a divorce. If we simply understand the second chapter of Bhagavata Gita, all problems of this world will be solved. This chapter tells us who we really are. We are not this body, for whose needs we childishly fight. We are spirit souls. Our original nature is that we are eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss.

As a spirit soul passes from boyhood to youth to old age, at the time of death, the spirit soul will simply enter another body (BG 2.13). Why then should we make such a big deal out of superficial temporary situations? As for the temporary happiness derived from temporary ‘toys’ of this world, Prahlad, a King of Vedic times, said something interesting. “Nobody tries for miseries, but they come anyways. Similarly, even happiness will come anyways. So, why endeavor for happiness?” He goes one step further, “If anybody wants to be happy, it is very easy. Just stop endeavoring to be happy in this material world. Because as soon as we endeavor to be happy, we become implicated by all the causes of suffering. Whatever happiness and distress is going to come, will come anyways, whether you try for it or not. So why not spend our valuable time to cultivate spiritual happiness by turning to God?”

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Appreciate

United We Stand

United We Stand

“In today’s ‘I’ society, everyone thinks in terms of ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘mine’. But for people to be happy there has to be unity based on the understanding that everyone requires everyone else” — Radhanath Swami.

On the battlefield, every soldier is completely dependent on all his comrades. When there are thousands of people shooting guns and bombs at him, what can he do alone? His life, his survival, depends on all the others around him. At that time, he does not harbor petty feelings like “I do not like the color of his skin,” or “I do not like the things he eats,” or “I did not like what his wife said to me two years ago.” No. He understands that without the other, he will perish. On the frontlines, everyone is dependent on everyone else.

Similarly, this world is also like a battlefield staging the battles between the good and the evil, sin and piety, sentiments of the religious and the irreligious, love and sectarian hate. Our relationships are tested as the many situations of this world threaten them. At that time, it’s important to understand that we need each other to maintain and fortify our relationships. Without each other’s help and support, the relationship will perish. If we live by this understanding, then we will remain united and stop harboring petty thoughts about our spouse, and instead appreciate just how important our spouse is for us.
Strong relationships come from two things: (i) having each other’s association, and (ii) learning together the science of depending on a power beyond our own.

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Tolerate

See the Whole Picture

Lessons from life of Monk

See the Whole PictureA lesson from his life as a monk….

If you see the whole picture little parts can be adjusted, but if you don’t see the whole picture one little part can create chaos.—Radhanath Swami

According to all the scriptures of the world, at the very centre of the whole picture of marital relationship is a higher principle:  to help each other in loving God, in serving God, and in serving humanity. Keeping in view this higher principle, both the husband and wife can easily adjust and go on with their marital relationship.

In the 1970’s Radhanath Swami lived in an austere Ashram (monastery) on a mountain top in West Virginia.   At that time, how this relationship tip of ‘seeing the whole picture’ helped him maintain friendship with another monk, Radhanath Swami explains, “When I first came to live in an Ashram there was a person, he joined after me but became my authority. There was nothing about him that I liked, and even more important, there was nothing about me that he liked. I was thinking that if weren’t in that Ashram I would never want to do anything with that kind of a person, and I knew that he felt exactly the same way about me. But somehow, we were milking cows together; we milked the same cow, one on each side of the cow. Despite our differences we both accepted in our hearts that the higher principle of our relationship is to help each other to love God, to serve God, to serve humanity, and to follow the path that would purify our hearts. That was the higher principle and everything else we somehow just tolerated. Because we focused on that principle within a year we became best friends for the rest of our lives. We were so absolutely loyal, faithful and helpful to each other. I saw no faults in him anymore and he saw no faults in me. We were serving together practically all day, every day.”

 

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Look at the Himalayan Mountains

Himalyas

HimalyasThe nature of the mind that’s not finding inner fulfillment is that it makes insignificant things seem so important — Radhanath Swami. 

Things that are practically meaningless we sometimes interpret as so meaningful. Fights, arguments and even divorces are often based on these trifling things. Radhanath Swami explains in this connection. “If there is a little hill in front of your house and that’s all you have ever seen, it seems gigantic.” As long as we don’t focus our consciousness on higher principles, unimportant things are important, at least they seem that way. Radhanath Swami, continuing his analogy of being overwhelmed by a little hill, says, “But if you look at the Himalayan Mountains, then that little hill is insignificant because you have seen something greater.” We have to see something higher in life. “Krishna is great, devotion is great, and the satisfaction of Bhakti is great. When we have some connection to that, some experience with that, then all of these little things we see it for what it is worth. Otherwise, things that really has nothing to do with us, nothing to do with reality, obsess us, possess us, rule over us and cause us to fight, to battle, to become envious and angry. We can only overcome these things when we experience something higher. That’s the real solution.”

The stage of perfection is called trance, or samadhi, when one’s mind is completely restrained from material mental activities by practice of yoga. This is characterized by one’s ability to see the self by the pure mind and to relish and rejoice in the self. In that joyous state, one is situated in boundless transcendental happiness and enjoys himself through transcendental senses. Established thus, one never departs from the truth and upon gaining this he thinks there is no greater gain. Being situated in such a position, one is never shaken, even in the midst of greatest difficulty. This indeed is actual freedom from all miseries arising from material contact.’ (Bhagavad Gita 6.20-23)

 

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Learn From the Tortoise

Learning from Tortoise

Learning from Tortoise“There may be unlimited reasons for us to argue and not co-operate but there is one sufficient reason for us to love and co-operate—it is pleasing to God” – Radhanath Swami
No matter what the circumstances of your life are, when two egos are living so close to each other, there is bound to be conflict, there are bound to be differences and disagreements. “It is natural,” says Radhanath Swami, “but it is not more important than the sacred principle of why you are together as partners in life; it is not more important than the marriage vows you take before God to help each other become pure, to help each other practice the yoga of life, and to love and protect each other for that purpose.”

We can learn a lot from animals. When a predator attacks a tortoise, the tortoise swiftly withdraws its head inside its shell to protect itself from attacks. Similarly, we must learn to retract and withdraw our minds from the enemy called selfish egoistic agendas. While the tortoise is motivated by the principle of survival, we can be motivated by the sacred principles of married life. Then there can be peace and harmony.

A person who has given up all desires for sense gratification, who lives free from desires, who has given up all sense of proprietorship and is devoid of false ego- he alone can attain real peace. (Bhagavad Gita 2.71)