Holy Mother Birthday

Today, according to Indian Calendar is Pausa Krisha Saptami, the birthday of Holy Mother Sri Sri Sarada Devi. Many of us know about the illustrious Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, but few know about Sri Sarada Devi. Sri Sarada Devi was the spiritual consort of Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna, who accompanied Him for His Divine play, like Sita to Rama and Radha to Krishna.

Here is a small anecdote before the birth of Sri Sarada Devi, which throws some light about the divinity of Her.

“Once when Shyamasundari Devi (mother of Sri Sarada Devi) was living with her father in the northern part of Shihar (in West Bengal of India). She had occasion to sit in the dark beside a potter’s oven under a bel (bilva, aegle marmelos) tree. There suddenly issued a jingling sound from the direction of the oven, and a little girl came down from the branches of the tree. She laid her soft hands round Shyamasundari’s neck, whereupon she fell down unconscious. She had no idea how long she lay there thus. Her relatives came there searching for her and carried her home. On regaining consciousness she felt as though the little girl had entered her womb”.  

Sri Sarada Devi was utterly simple and modest. Therefore, Her divinity was always concealed from the public gaze. For this reason, many people even some of the followers of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda could not accept her as Supreme Divine Mother incarnated in flesh and blood. In this following incident, the great Swami Saradananda answers the question of a devotee about the divinity of Mother.

“A devotee once said to Swami Saradananda (a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna) that he could easily believe in the divinity of Sri Ramakrishna; at least he cherished that faith. But he could not comprehend Holy Mother as the Divine Mother. The swami replied: “Do you mean to say that God married the daughter of a woman who maintained herself by gathering cow dung?”

Today let us pray to Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi to grant us supreme devotion at Her feet.

What Inspired Me

Well, every man has a religion; has something in heaven or earth which he will give up every thing else for - something which absorbs him - which may be regarded by others as being useless - yet it is his dream, it is his lodestar, it is his master. That, whatever it is, seized upon me made me its servant, slave - induce me to set aside the other ambitions - a trail of glory in the heavens, which I followed with a full heart .... When once I am convinced, I never let go . . .

What is Truth?

What is Truth? A difficult question: indeed become very difficult to define exactly. Just imagine a bridge that is painted yellow on one side, and red on the other. Observers could argue for years about who is right about the colour of the bridge? Because each is right from his own view point, and each is wrong from the view point of the other. Mahatma Gandhi says: “But I have solved it for myself by saying that it is what the voice within tells you.”

LET THE MAGIC BEGIN

LET THE MAGIC BEGIN!

It's a true story that had happened in 1892 at Stanford University, but the morale is still relevant today. A young, 18-year-old student was struggling to pay his fees. He was an orphan, and not know­ing where to turn for money, he came up with a bright idea. A friend and he decided to host a musical concert on campus to raise money for their education. They reached out to the great pianist Ignacy J. Paderewski - who was quite a superstar those days. His manager demanded a guaranteed fee of $2000 for the piano recital. A deal was struck. And the boys began to work to make the concert a success.

The big day arrived. Paderewski performed at Stanford. But unfortunately, they had not managed to sell enough tickets. The total col­lection was only $1600. Disappointed, they went up to Paderewski and explained their plight. They gave him the entire $1600, plus a cheque for the balance $400. They promised to honour the cheque soonest possible.

"No way!" said Paderewski. "This is just not acceptable!" He tore up the cheque, returned the $1600 and told the two boys "Here's the $1600. Please deduct whatever expenses you have incurred. Keep the money you need for your fees. And just give me whatever is left!" The boys were surprised, and quite overjoyed. They thanked him profusely.

It was a small act of kindness. But it clearly marked out Paderewski as a great human being. Someone special. He would have been within his rights to demand his "guaranteed money". And why should he help two people he did not even know? We all come across situations like these in our lives. Times when other people need our help. And most of us only think "If I help them, what would hap­pen to me?" The truly great people think, "If I don't help them, what will happen to them?" We only think of ourselves, the loss we might incur, the trouble we might have to go through and the sacrifice we need to make. The great guys don't think of themselves. They think of the difference it could make to other people. And that's what drives their actions.

They help not because someone else is watching, or because it will look good when the world comes to know about it. They don't do it expecting something in return. They do it because they feel it's the right thing to do.

It may not surprise you to know that Paderewski went on to become the Prime Minister of Poland. He was a great leader, but unfortunately when the World War began, Poland was ravaged. There were over 1.5 mil­lion people starving in his country, and no money to feed them. Paderewski did not know where to turn for help. He reached out to the US Food and Relief Administration for help. The head there was a man called Herbert Hoover - who later went on to become the US President. Hoover agreed to help and quickly shipped tons of food grains to feed the starving Polish people. A calamity was averted. Paderewski was relieved! He decided to go across to meet Hoover and person­ally thank him. When Paderewski began to thank Hoover for his noble gesture, Hoover quickly interjected and said, "You shouldn't be thanking me Mr. Prime Minister. You may not remember this, but several years ago, you helped two young students go through college in the US. I was one of them."

Make it a habit to help others. It is rightly said that you can achieve everything you want in life if only you help other people achieve what they want in their lives.

Do something selfish today. Help some­one! Just do it. And don't expect anything in return. The world is a wonderful place. What goes around usually comes around.

Let the magic begin!

N.B. - I request all to circulate this story to all of your friends. If Possible leave a comment on the blog.

ROUGH SEA

ROUGH SEA: It is foolish to think to take bath in sea after the roughness of waves subsides. When we have an adventurous idea, we should be mentally and physically prepared for a tough job too. In life too we want happiness without a tinge of misery. Swami Vivekananda says: “Because happiness and misery are the obverse and reverse of the same coin; he who takes happiness, must take misery also. We all have this foolish idea that we can have happiness without misery, and it has taken such possession of us that we have no control over the senses…… When I was in Boston, a young man came up to me, and gave me a scrap of paper of which he had written a name and address, followed by these words: "All the wealth and all the happiness of the world are yours, if you only know how to get them. If you come to me, I will teach you how to get them. Charge, $5." He gave me this and said, "What do you think of this?" I said, "Young man, why don't you get the money to print this? You have not even enough money to get this printed!" He did not understand this. He was infatuated with the idea that he could get immense wealth and happiness without any trouble.

There are two extremes into which men are running; one is extreme optimism, when everything is rosy and nice and good; the other, extreme pessimism, when everything seems to be against them……. When we are healthy and young, we think that all the wealth of the world will be ours, and when later we get kicked about by society like footballs and get older, we sit in a corner and croak and throw cold water on the enthusiasm of others. Few men know that with pleasure there is pain, and with pain, pleasure; and as pain is disgusting, so is pleasure, as it is the twin brother of pain. It is derogatory to the glory of man that he should be going after pain, and equally derogatory, that he should be going after pleasure. Both should be turned aside by men whose reason is balanced. Why will not men seek freedom from being played upon?”

To be continued…… under “THE SAGE WANTS LIBERTY”

WAY TO HAPPINESS

WAY TO HAPINESS: We live in an unhappy and discontented age. There is a lack of direction and a lack of faith. Happiness is what everyone is seeking, but the majority seeks in things which are evanescent and not real. No happiness was ever found in the senses. Happiness is only found in Spirit. Vedanta emphatically states that freedom is our real nature and it is only God or experience of our real self that can give us permanent happiness. “Man may try through his technical advances to roll up the sky itself as it were a piece of lather, but with all that, he will never succeed in achieving peace and the end of his sorrows without realizing the luminous Divine within him” (Shvetashvetara Upanishad, 6.20)

CHASING THE CHIMERA OF HAPPINESS

CHASING THE CHIMERA OF HAPPINESS

In some oil mills in India, bullocks are used that go round and round to grind the oil - seed. There is a yoke on the bullock's neck. They have a piece of wood protruding from the yoke, and on that is fastened a wisp of straw. The bullock is blindfolded in such a way that it can only look forward, and so it stretches its neck to get at the straw; and in doing so, it pushes the piece of wood out a little further; and it makes another attempt with the same result, and yet another, and so on. It never catches the straw, but goes round and round in the hope of getting it, and in so doing, grinds out the oil. In the same way you and I who are born slaves to nature, money and wealth, wives and children, are always chasing a wisp of straw, a mere chimera, and are going through an innumerable round of lives without obtaining what we seek. The great dream is love; we are all going to love and be loved, we are all going to be happy and never meet with misery, but the more we go towards happiness, the more it goes away from us.