What do you do when, you are asked to explain why you have done/ are doing/ or do something. Where do you position your raison d'etre?
The reason this question is of importance, is that a lot of time and energy and direction is often given minimal importance while justifying issues dear to us.
The precept or guidepost to be remembered here is that,
"While excuses tend to turn focus on the past, reason/s maintain focus on the present and future."
Picking up the gauntlet of giving excuses, is almost like being a willing participant to criticizing and belying one's own position de forte.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Permanence of Wealth and Immortality.
India is a land of worshipers. India has always been a land of worshipers. Our forefathers (and some of us even today) have worshiped the sun, the moon, the stars trees, stones, animals birds, holy men, film actors, cricketers, or in other words, just about everything that God has made. However, the quest for God Himself (for most) has remained elusive.
As elusive as the search may have been, it would be hypocritical to say that it (the search) has been fruitless. Man, in his quest has always been rewarded with spiritual gifts, most of which, he has been able to transform into material pleasures as well as joys. As Marvin J. Ashton has rightly observed, "Pleasure usually takes the form of me and now; joy is us and always."
Having gained all these riches, man has sought security in the idea of permanence of wealth. Here, many have metaphorically put the cart before the horse - by ensuring more permanence for their wealth than they have been able to ensure for themselves. With multinational banks and supportive governments and their armies to protect his wealth, Man himself still finds himself to be a vulnerable non entity in his existence in this vast universe. Man has belittled and dwarfed himself by his own creation. Man appears to be losing out to matter (read materialism). He has realized (it's not too late), that his own erosion as a result of his worshiping and deifying matter (materialism), is costing him his own permanence (immortality).
How then, do we gain back our status - our status that we have surrendered to materialism? Where do we find the solution or elixir to immortality?
Luckily we need not look far. We only need to realize that the 'Love of God', has created Matter for Man, and not Man for Matter. We need to realize that we can only be 'trustees or guardians' of wealth, we cannot be owners of wealth _ and this is irrespective of what the laws of our countries may tempt us to believe. We can never own wealth -not because we are not immortal (potentially we are), but because it belongs, in its original form (matter), to The Creator. Man has merely rearranged matter, made relevant paperworks, traded with it, and set a price on it to call it his own. But whom are we fooling?
Like little children, our tendency has always to remember the gift and to forget the Giver. Our material tendency has been to forget the Creator.
Matter in its original or any subsequent form, cannot be ours. It was and forever will be The Creator's. Hence... hence... Lakshmiji is not ours; She was, and forever will remain Bhagwan Narayan's....remember Amrut Manthan?
What then has this new found wisdom to do with Immortality??
Everything.. . Just about everything. That includes our involvement with wealth. The question here is, ''do we consider wealth to be our own - to earn and use as we please, without legitimate acknowledgement or remorse... or do we realize that we have only been entrusted with it? The first belief would create further material bondage, erosion and decay. The second belief would give birth to material freedom/ detachment and gratitude, thereby ensuring further gifts for ourselves... gifts far beyond and above the realms of matter (materialism). These gifts would certainly contain the seeds of our immortality
As elusive as the search may have been, it would be hypocritical to say that it (the search) has been fruitless. Man, in his quest has always been rewarded with spiritual gifts, most of which, he has been able to transform into material pleasures as well as joys. As Marvin J. Ashton has rightly observed, "Pleasure usually takes the form of me and now; joy is us and always."
Having gained all these riches, man has sought security in the idea of permanence of wealth. Here, many have metaphorically put the cart before the horse - by ensuring more permanence for their wealth than they have been able to ensure for themselves. With multinational banks and supportive governments and their armies to protect his wealth, Man himself still finds himself to be a vulnerable non entity in his existence in this vast universe. Man has belittled and dwarfed himself by his own creation. Man appears to be losing out to matter (read materialism). He has realized (it's not too late), that his own erosion as a result of his worshiping and deifying matter (materialism), is costing him his own permanence (immortality).
How then, do we gain back our status - our status that we have surrendered to materialism? Where do we find the solution or elixir to immortality?
Luckily we need not look far. We only need to realize that the 'Love of God', has created Matter for Man, and not Man for Matter. We need to realize that we can only be 'trustees or guardians' of wealth, we cannot be owners of wealth _ and this is irrespective of what the laws of our countries may tempt us to believe. We can never own wealth -not because we are not immortal (potentially we are), but because it belongs, in its original form (matter), to The Creator. Man has merely rearranged matter, made relevant paperworks, traded with it, and set a price on it to call it his own. But whom are we fooling?
Like little children, our tendency has always to remember the gift and to forget the Giver. Our material tendency has been to forget the Creator.
Matter in its original or any subsequent form, cannot be ours. It was and forever will be The Creator's. Hence... hence... Lakshmiji is not ours; She was, and forever will remain Bhagwan Narayan's....remember Amrut Manthan?
What then has this new found wisdom to do with Immortality??
Everything.. . Just about everything. That includes our involvement with wealth. The question here is, ''do we consider wealth to be our own - to earn and use as we please, without legitimate acknowledgement or remorse... or do we realize that we have only been entrusted with it? The first belief would create further material bondage, erosion and decay. The second belief would give birth to material freedom/ detachment and gratitude, thereby ensuring further gifts for ourselves... gifts far beyond and above the realms of matter (materialism). These gifts would certainly contain the seeds of our immortality
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