Freedom

It is an ordinary plant in a small pot on the shelf near my desk. For a long time it somehow escaped my attention until one day my colleague asked me to take care of her plant as she would be gone on a long vacation. That's when I started to observe the plant a little more closely. I used to water it, by emptying the bottle of leftover water. The plant had severe symptoms of nitrogen deficiency, I thought a little ammonium sulphate would encourage growth....but the thought that the plant would grow too big for the pot stopped me..I didnt want to starve the plant at a later date. I tried to conserve the nutrients it was losing by putting back the yellow dry leaves that fell on my desk every now and then.
The thought that the plant was a prisoner in the pot always made me sad. It was like caging a bird or putting a fish in a bowl. People might argue that we give them the best care possible. Something that would not be availiable to them in wild. But is that worth loosing one's freedom?Do we have to trade for the luxuries and security in life with the freedom? We assume they would like it in a cage and think of the description the author gives of what Gulliver felt when caged by the 'big people' (I forget their name) ...putting sword fight shows, held by little girls as a toy and being taken for a walk on the sea shore before an eagle swoops and carries the cage away! One of the poems in my Hindi textbook mentioned the tale of a bird in a golden cage fed with choicest of nuts yet still longed for freedom. What is it that drives us to be free?

Man, they say, is free by nature, but I think every living thing is free by nature. There is a finer aspect to this freedom. Most of us consider only physical freedom and seldom think of freedom of thought. How often do we follow things to confirm to 'society' and tend to go with the group? behaving more like a flock of sheep than a fiercely independent lion? Have we traded the freedom of thought for physical freedom that we enjoy? The plant on my desk always inspires me to be free and tells me not to be bound by any limits and listen only to one voice...the voice of consicence, present in everyone of us. And every time I stand up for the little guy and do something that my conscience tells me is right,even at the cost of my hurt ego, the little plant seems to smile and thats the way I keep it alive.
Jignasu.

Agnosticsm...does vedanta consider it?

One of the suktas in Rig veda (earliest veda) is nasadiya sukta (10th Mandala, 129th Suukta). It appears to succinctly state what many agnostics believe(am I right here? not being one, I really dont know) . It starts off saying that in the beginning there was no being or nonbeing(implied is the meaning that the world as we know had a beginning!) And goes on further to describe how the world came about...but the details are very sketchy; but any one who is familiar with big bang theory would clearly see the connection...darkness in the beginning, then the supreme being stirred and the light and heat produced the worlds as we know it. Then comes the part that any agnostic would really love.. it says since everything in the universe including devas came after the being...they would not know precisely what the conditions were before them.
Indeed, final remark is classical: The being/non being in the highest heaven (used figuratively here not the usual heaven-hell type funda) out of which everything came about may know or perhaps does not!!

Later suktas (eg purusha sukta) were more gnostic and firmly believed in a higher being who not only enveloped the earth and universe but also extended beyond it. They discuss the relevance of yagnas. This is also the first hymn to mention the division of society into four castes.

This could be the starting point for all the concepts emphasising on faith in the supreme truth/being before one could attain union. One of the examples that comes to mind is that one would have a great deal of problems if we are confined to a 2D manifold and then tried to understand a 3D world. The visualisation of 3D world comes only at a great practice and requires not only practice but in the initial stages faith that there could be a 3D world before we really get out of the 2D world. Perhaps there is a sound logic for the having faith in god before we could understand and merge in god...maybe the one in the highest heaven knows or may be he doesnt!!

For further reading:
http://members.tripod.com/~anusandhan/articles/article.html

http://members.cox.net/apamnapat/articles/Suktas003.html

Quest

How do we define death? It was a topic of the first ever blog written by me. Indeed it is queer that one should start with something many thinks of as bad. As many would agree, death is one of the best kept secrets of nature followed only by life. One of the questions that was posed by yaksha to eldest of pandavas was, what is the strangest thing of all. The reply was, everyone knows that they would die someday yet they behave as if they were immortal. The more I think of it, truer it seems.
By the way, what does the inevitability of death teach? Doesnt it tell us that, while it would be foolish to wait for the inevitable death by despairing(as Bhagavad Gita says in 2nd chapter) it would be even more foolish to quicken that journey by not caring for ourselves.

With its deepest silence, doesn't death shout in our face, only if we care to listen, that most important things in life are not things at all. The tracks that we leave behind us, the effect we have on the happiness quotient of the world are all that matter. Whether we made a lot of fame or money, visited so many places of worship, had the best car, best house in town don't really matter in larger scheme of things. Doing the best possible, according to ones abilities, for the best of others is the message of inevitable death that could guide our lives. Maybe its in that contentment one finds real meaning of life...completing a QUEST to transcend life and death.

Struggles...

Wake up, said a sweet voice. She didn't know where it was coming from and looked around only to find the dark confines of her house. That was strange; she had lot of space before she went to sleep yet it looked a little cramped now. She seemed to grow bigger in the sleep. Anyway, she listened more carefully, wake up and come out said the voice, sweet with kindness and love. She opened a small window only to be blinded by the brilliant light outside. She tried to come out, but alas the small opening was too small for her size. She couldn't come out.
Come out dear, said the sweet voice. I cant, I am too big said she.
Try harder my dear child, said the voice outside.
Who are you, she asked.
Iam your mother, said the same voice.
I don't want to come out. I'll be mocked by my friends as being ugly. Thats why I hid here after my lunch, she said. No my dear, you are the most beautiful of them all. Come out and see for yourself, said her mother's voice.
After a while she got accustomed to the light outside and she could now see clearly. On looking at a beautiful butterfly she blurted,"You cannot be my mother. Iam an ugly caterpillar. I dont want to come out". Trust me and try harder my dear, said her mother.
She struggled hard. It was painful to come out. She stopped many times, exhausted only to be cajoled into action by her mother. After a strenuous effort she was out of her self imprisoned coccoon and lo! she could fly now. She flew with her mother to the nearby pond. It was beautiful sunny day, with many nectar filled flowers swaying their heads in the gentle breeze as if someone was immersed in a divine music. Her mother taught her how to delicately drink the nectar from the flowers without damaging their gentle petals. In the cool calm waters of the pond flying alongside beautiful dragonflies and humming bees, she could see a beautiful young butterfly with multicoloured wings flying beside the bigger butterfly.

The stuggles are important in our life, they teach us to be human, to try harder and go past the boundaries we set for ourselves in thought and action. Just like the transformation of a caterpillar to beautiful butterfly, we all have the potential to transform ourselves. To become from someone who is a burden to the plants that fed to someone who drinks nectar yet does no harm to even the most delicate flowers.

But the question is, do we try hard enough? Look straight into the eyes and ask the guy in the mirror, you'll know.

Vedanta and Secularism

It was one of those typical days when jnani and jignasu were talking their walk after dinner. Jnani was a wise man and Jignasu expected him to be of broad mind and wanted to know what he thought of other religions. Jignasu asked him suddenly, are you secular? Jnani shot back, what is being secular? Jignasu said, it means to be tolerant of all religions; accepting them to be true. To Jignasu's utter surprise, he answered, then Iam not at all secular because neither do I tolerate all religions nor do I accept them all as totally true.
Jignasu pleaded him to explain the rationale to him. Jnani said, " You tolerate something that is wrong, not something that you believe is right. So in that way, I cannot tolerate all religions as I look at them as different paths to the same goal. But as different paths are just means to reach the goal and by themselves cannot define the goal, they can all be true. what is 3+2?" five, Jignasu said. Then what is 1+4? again five so you see? How is this related to god and religions, Jignasu asked. Jnani said, you have no problem in accepting that there could be so many ways just to get to one point on a number line, think of how many ways there could be in getting to that supereme truth of whom the numer is just one manifestation. So do not say you tolerate other religions, say they are other ways to get to the same destination. I do not accept all of the religions as completely true either, because the process of getting to the number cannot tell us anything about the number itself.
Remember the story of blind men and the elephant, while one called it to be like a tree, one said it was like a brush..knowing all these options will help you see the reason behind all religions. But religions cannot and should not stop at knowing one/ all the options. Their utility is just as a tool to help us see the whole elephant. For that what you need is vision and for that you need to open the spiritual eyes. Once the elephant is known all the religions are simultaneously true and false. After that like the two numbers used to get to the sum, the utility of religions remains just what it is... a tool. Do not be attatched to your religion either, because by doing so you say that there is only one way of getting to the number.
This requires you to revise everything you have known and to complicate the matters, no one can help you, you are on your own as you are given both the strength and resposibility to find that yourself.
Therefore rise up and be strong; physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually.

On Delhi blasts:

Jignasu heard about the acts of terrorism that extinguished so many lamps of life in the month of ramadan on the eve of diwali..a festival to celebrate victory of knowledge over ignorance, a victory of righteousness against tyranny. How could anyone place a bomb in a public place specifically chosen because there would be many people there, set off the timer and just walk away as if nothing had happened? He felt sad for the families but there was nothing that could be done to compensate their loss. Maniacs like these were the weeds in the society and had to be continuously uprooted as even one rotten apple could spoil the entire basket. When will these mad men realise that killing people will only harden the will of the nation, cannot weaken it. There is not one instance in history of mankind has anyone been able to subjugate other by force. Sure, there are times when power of tyranny wiped the weaker one, but still it was not a win it was just destruction. In contrast, India dominated the culture of china for two millenia without ever having to send a soldier across her borders.
Jnani came in and said, ignorant intoxicated by power always underestimate the stregth and resilence of silent majority. The next day, he heard of reports of people celebrating diwali as a definace to the terrorists and in their own way showed they could not be broken by terror. Closer home, when he saw people light the lamps and struggling to keep them burning against a cold wind, the perserverance of few people to light the extinguished lamps many times a smile came across his face and was reminded of the couplet Jnani told a long time ago:

Woh hamein rulakar has na paye der tak,
jab hum ro kar muskuraye der tak.
(They couldnt laugh for long at us after making us cry,
For we smiled for a long time after we cried.)