👉 Do Not Panic or Perplex

Life is full of challenges and testing moments! Many a times the adverse circumstances are so intense that one just can’t bear them, he loses patience, gets anxious and panicked; cries on his destiny and helplessness… But this doesn’t solve the problem. The only source of definite support in such cases is – prudence and patience.

Ups and downs, good and bad experiences are natural phases of human life. We must remember this fact and convince ourselves of the truth that wisdom and pure knowledge (gyana) are the only keys to conquer the agonies caused by the tides of adversities or tragedies. Firm faith in God’s grace and justice is a must in such testing moments of sufferings. We must understand that our knowledge is too limited to grasp the system of God. Whether we realize it at that time or not, the circumstances and experiences that appear so painful to us also occur in fact for our welfare only.

Because of our half or illusory knowledge and narrow attitude, we cannot grasp the real cause or purpose behind the happenings in our life. We must accept it that major cause of our agonies and anxiety is our ignorance; we want everything to conform to our expectation, our favor. But the course of life has many dimensions, beyond our perception. Faith in absolute justice and mercy of the Omniscient God is all the more important in the moments of hardships and pains.

This gives us instant courage and light and helps maintain our calm without which we can’t even think properly. All religious scriptures preach the importance of the feeling of content and peace in all circumstance. It is indeed the nectar source of annulling all worries and panics even in the difficult, tragic situations. Adoption of peace, patience and satisfaction does not mean that you should not transact your duties or progress in your life. Rather, it implies that you should complete all your tasks, all duties, with mental stability and calm and a sense of inner faith in all circumstances.

📖 Akhand Jyoti, April 1943

👉 A TRUE PRAYER

Our prayers should be worthy of us as children of The Divine. We must pray the Almighty to arouse our indwelling love, wisdom and strength, which would support and guide steps in all phases of the revolving wheel of circumstances. We, as sparks of Divine Light, ought to pray for illuminating our inner self with the subliminal glow of divinity so that no storm of hardship or turbulence of ups and downs of life could ever quaver the flame of our faith in the divine origin of our souls.

“Oh Lord! Bless us with strength, courage and wisdom so that we could meet adversities as opportunities to refine our qualities and strengthen our potentials. The roadblocks of obstacles and challenges of the path should serve as harbingers of a brighter tomorrow.” –– Such would be an ideal prayer to elevate the level of our optimism and enthusiasm and would protect us from becoming disheartened, weak or cowardly.

We have to become intrepid warriors of Light and not perplexed fugitives in the battlefield of life.  Prayer is less about asking for things we are attached to than it is about our relinquishing our attachments – thus taking us beyond fear. When we pray, we don’t change the world; we change ourselves. We move away from BEGGING to LETTING – “IN THIS MOMENT I AM HERE, OH DIVINE MASTER, USE ME. LET THY WILL BE DONE THROUGH ME.”

✍🏻 Pt. Shriram Sharma Acharya

👉 Don’t run away from problems: Face them

Very often it is observed that people try to avoid or run away from pressing problems, instead of finding solutions to them. The amount of time that we waste in searching the modes and methods of escaping from a problem is much more than what is required in finding a solution to it. In fact, we should cultivate foresight in anticipating problems, big or small, relating to our home or job and should also search for and keep handy possible solutions. When a problem does crop up, we should develop courage to face it. If your inner-self says ‘I can overcome this problem’, you have already won half the battle.

Every person feels that his / her problem is far more severe than that of others whereas this may not be true. People are often seized by the negative thought ‘What sins have I committed that I am not getting rid of my problems?’ Thus they waste all their time in blaming circumstances or fate for their problems. Have you ever calmly thought: what could be the real cause of these problems? Accept it or not, all your problems have been generated by your own unorganized actions, lack of farsightedness in planning, dearth of practicality and wrong assessment of your own strengths.

Always remember that once you firmly resolve to find a solution to the impending problem, the whole scenario and the concerned people would change. The circumstances or God do not help a person who runs away from the problems instead of facing them boldly and wisely. Therefore, don’t run away from problems; face them.

✍🏻 Pt Shriram Sharma Acharya

👉 Believe in yourself

If you wish that others should believe in you, the easiest and best way is that first you believe in yourself. There are many people who are considered irresponsible and unscrupulous; no one believes them; they are upbraided everywhere. Such people normally don’t have faith in themselves. Their faces, expressions and speech clearly indicate that they don’t believe in themselves.

People in the external world label us the way we present ourselves to them. When misery, poverty, incapability, disappointment, weakness, etc are expressed through our behavior, conduct and character, people consider us to be miserable, poor, incapable, disappointed, weak, etc and treat us accordingly. Those who meet the challenges of life courageously and confidently are surely able to achieve their objectives. God helps those who help themselves.

Whatever task is in your hands, try to accomplish it with full attention. Believe fully in your ability, wisdom and competence. Focus your entire energy and aim at accomplishing your target. Discard inferiority complex and laziness and learn to do the work in hand with seriousness, enthusiasm and confidence. Always keep in mind that only self-confident persons are successful in this world.

✍🏻 Pt Shriram Sharma Acharya

👉 Quintessence of Religion

The element of religion can’t be found in the mirage of rituals, cults or communal doctrines and rites. If you are true seeker, want to adopt religion in the truest sense, you must first introspect and sincerely analyze your aspirations, interests, habits and behavior to whether and to what extent these might trouble or hurt others or hinder their justified rights… You must restrain and curtail the tendencies of selfish possession, passions for sensual pleasures and ruthlessness and insensitivity to others.

Simultaneously, the altruistic tendencies and sentiments of kindness, generosity, love, amity, feeling of service, sharing and
cooperation should be cultivated and enhanced consistently. The only measure of one’s religiousness is – the less one’s selfishness and the more his/her altruism, the greater is his/her religiousness and spirituality. It is only through this path or religiousness that the individual self realizes higher realms of divine grace and salvation.

The major cause of all misery, adversities and sufferings in the world is that – knowingly or unknowingly, people do not behave with others in a manner, which they expect and like others to behave. This disparity of – “different weight used in the same balance for buying and for selling” is the root of all mistrusts, conflicts and animosity. Ego, avarice and selfishness make one blind and debauch from the path of religion. If you do what your conscience would not allow, or what you would not like someone else doing to you, then you are committing a sin. So be vigilant towards your ambitions, attitude and actions.

📖 Akhand Jyoti, Mar. 1944

👉 Everlasting happiness is within us.

Happiness is the natural characteristic of soul. When man is happy his soul becomes happy. Development of spiritual self increases the span of life and gives us an insight to life. The body languages, the radiant face, the romantic body speaks of the happiness. All of us in our lifetime experience such a bliss.

When we think of the passage from life to death, a point becomes clear that the center of happiness changes with the phases of life. At the time of birth in the lap of mother, childhood amongst toys and books, young age with wife and creation of wealth and fame and old age with grandchildren. When we think deeply we realize that we have spent our time in seeking happiness in worldly matters; in reality they are devoid of happiness. If there were true happiness the mind would be engrossed in it. But the center of happiness is always changing and that itself denotes that happiness is not there in worldly pleasures.
 
The center of our happiness and peace is our soul and is within us. Soul creates a state of happiness and makes us realize that state of happiness. Though happiness is within us we are seeking it outside in worldly pleasures and we accept it as a means of happiness.

Light rays of the soul, penetrate into things and create beauty, we try to own and enjoy the beauty but in vain. For some time it gives happiness but after some time it no longer gives us happiness. Then it is neither attractive nor feisty. The moment the light of the soul disappears from worldly things it ceases to be beautiful and does not give any happiness or enjoyment.

What kind of irony this is? The mockery of life goes on life long. From the time of birth, we try to find various ways of enjoyment and happiness. Though all of us have a flow of happiness within us we fail to realize it.  It is like exploring the jungle for the musk, instead of looking for a deer; similarly we look for happiness in the world outside. We must look for happiness within us and to do so one must use spiritual means. Happiness is the natural characteristic of soul; we can reach it only by knowing our soul through spiritual means.

📖  Akhand Jyoti

👉 Cost of body parts

A person went to a saint. ”I am unlucky. I don’t have anything. It’s better to die than to live such a life.” The saint said, “Do you have any idea of the things you have? If not then I’ll give you. What are you willing to take in return of your one arm, one leg and one eye? I am ready to give 100 gold coins for each of the parts.” The person said, “I can’t give them, how will I live without them?” The saint said, “Fool, you already have property worth crores, then also you are crying for having nothing”. 

There are many such people who don’t recognize their true worth and consider themselves unlucky. They realize when some enlightened one teaches them lesson. 

Pragya Puran Part 1

👉 ENLIGHTENED FAITH IS THE NEED OF THE HOUR

We are living in one of the most crucial periods of history, when humanity is passing through a momentous inner churning and transition into a new era of unitary consciousness. The voices of unrest, the sighs of disappointment, which we see throughout the entire world, demand a revolutionary change in our outlook and behavior, exemplifying the noblest ideals of humanity – understanding, compassion, mutual sharing and caring.  

If we do not consciously live these noble virtues and resolutely throw out of our psyches the devils of hatred, anger, avarice, etc, we will be committing collective suicide. We have acquired enough knowledge to create a great civilization and a bright future, but have not gained enough wisdom to apply this knowledge for the good of all. In the form of ideals, thoughts and principles, we have the rich treasures of the ages, but lack the wisdom, foresight and will to put them into practice. 

Our achievements in terms of fathoming and discovering the underlying principles of nature and its workings are mind-boggling, but we need more earnestness, nobility, courage and discipline to harness them for positive ends. Man is in agonizing search of the purpose of his life – which is enlightened awareness of his identity with the immutable and eternal Supreme substratum of the cosmic foam and flux of creation. Despite all our material progress, the degree of insecurity, the worthlessness and futility of life that we experience today were never felt by the preceding generations – because of an all-pervading loss of faith in our Divine origin. Such a firm faith has ever been the force that kept common people dedicated to nobility and goodwill. Lack of such a living and unwavering faith is the root cause of our plight.  

What we need today is an all-encompassing faith in Divinity for the entire humanity, to which all existing religions can make their contributions. We direly need such a redeeming and unifying faith; otherwise our very existence as a species is in mortal peril. Let us listen to the wakeup call of the scriptural admonishment – What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?

~ Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya

👉 ‘Balamupaswa’ – Worship Power

If there is any misery in your life, it is due to some weakness within you. Physical infirmity causes diseases, mental weakness gives rise to worries and if the intellectual abilities are poor, then it is certain that you are tied up in the bonds of slavery – you are searching for help of others for your progress. The communities, which are not united culturally, socially or nationally, are tortured by external attacks. Whatever it is, it is our own weakness of some kind or the other that is responsible for our misery. Therefore weakness is a sin. The Nature does not permit the weak and sinful to live with dignity and honour.

There is no dearth of resources in this world. Wealth and prosperity are available in plenty. One does not have to wander here and there to acquire material pleasures. But there is only one condition – Do you possess the requisite power to acquire and use them? If you are weak, then whatever wealth-resources you possess are also going to be snatched away. That is why Shruti says – ‘Balamupaswa’ – meaning ‘Worship Power’. Sins flourish in the absence of protective power. Therefore, if you are not powerful, then you are also responsible for the increase of sins even if you are a devotee of the Lord.

Whether you wish to benefit yourself or the society, power (Shakti – Balam) is essential. Therefore, first of all, acquire power. Then only will you be able to augment and protect your peace and prosperity and also help the needy.

~Samarth Guru Ramadas

👉 You are the Architect of Your Destiny

If you depend upon others or look for someone’s help in the moments of difficulty, you must be living under some illusion. Otherwise, you would identify the root-cause of the problems you are facing and analyze your own vices and flaws that might have been responsible for those troubles. By overcoming those drawbacks and weaknesses, you would be best equipped to resolve or get rid of most of your problems on your own.

With the aspiration of being progressive and successful, you should also begin adopting virtuous tendencies and sharpening and enhancing your potentials. Your destiny is indeed written according to your intrinsic nature, inner qualities. Intense impressions of your tendencies, sentiments and thinking and conduct, account for shaping of your inner personality, which is attributed to be the architect of your future evolution. God’s system works according to – “you harvest what you have sown”.

If good qualities, abilities are not cultivated by you, and the seeds of virtues are left in a virgin (dormant) state within your self, and instead, negative tendencies, follies, untoward habits are allowed to accumulate and grow, God’s rule will formulate your destiny as full of sufferings; you will not have a good fate or hopes in future unless and until you refine yourself and inculcate the potentials of elevation. So it is in fact in your own hand to design your destiny.

If you awaken your self-confidence, set high ideals as your goal and sincerely endeavor to make yourself capable and deserving for that goal, God’s script will indeed destine you to have a bright and successful life accordingly. If you think wisely, know yourself and earnestly search for the illumined goal, you will certainly find the righteous path to achieve it at the right moment.

📖 Akhand Jyoti, April 1943

👉 Henry Ford

When a young man asked Mr. Henry Ford for guidance to be as successful and  rich as him, the reply Mr. Henry Ford gave can provide inspiration to all those who are ambitious to acquire materialistic success. Ford said, “Maintain your honesty at any cost and strive in the profession with hard-work and strongly positive attitude”. Ford started his career as a simple automobile mechanic and reached the highest peak of success only through hard-work. He is considered the pioneer and founder of the entire automobile industry.

At the time of setting up his factory, he cherished a dream to produce a car so cheap that each of his employees can afford it. In the year 1930, each car that rolled out was costing 300 $ and the 70,000 cars that stood before the factory gate belonged to the people who worked inside the factory. Henry was believed to be the richest person in the world by the time of his death in the year 1937. He always championed peace and brotherhood. By establishing the Ford Foundation, he showed his generosity and compassion. This billion dollar institute is sincerely engrossed in acts of humanity and charity for the deprived.

✍🏻 Pt. Shriram Sharma Aacharya
📖 Badein Aadmi Nahi, Mahamanav Baniyein (Not a Big-Shot, Be Super-Human), Page 12

👉 Solving Life’s Problems - Last Part

I got her a job in a florist shop so she could earn her living working with flowers. She loved it. She said she would do it for nothing. But we used the other things too. Remember, she needed more than just a livelihood. She needed other things. The swimming became her exercise. It fits in with sensible living habits. The piano playing became her path of service. She went to a retirement home and played the old songs for the people there. She got them to sing, and she was good at that. Out of those three things such a beautiful life was built for that woman. She became a very attractive woman and married a year or so later.. She stayed right in that life pattern.

I knew another woman who was confined to her room and had been there for quite some time. I went in to see her and I could tell immediately from the lines in her face and her tenseness that it wasn’t physical at all. And I don’t think I had talked to her for more than five minutes before she was telling me all about how mean her sister had been to her. The way she told it, I knew she had told that story again and again and mulled over in her mind constantly that bitterness against her sister. I found myself explaining to her that if she would forgive, ask forgiveness, and make peace with her sister, then she could look for an improvement in her health. “Huh!” she said. “I’d rather die. You have no idea how mean she was.” So the situation drifted for a while.
To be continued...

But early one morning at dawn this woman wrote a beautiful and inspired letter to her sister, which she showed to me. (There is something very wonderful to be said about dawn. Sunset is good, too. The only thing is, at sunset almost everybody is awake and they’re hurrying and scurrying around. At dawn, mostly everybody is slowed down or asleep and they are much more harmonious when they’re asleep. So dawn is often a good time for spiritual things.) I immediately went into town and mailed the letter before she could change her mind. When I got back, she had changed her mind — so it’s a good thing I had mailed it! She worried a little, but by return mail came a letter from her sister, and her sister was so glad they were to be reconciled. And, you know, on the same day that letter arrived from her sister the woman was up and around and out of bed, and the last I saw of her she was joyously off for a reconciliation with her sister.

There’s something to that old saying that hate injures the hater, not the hated.

...End...
📖 From Akhand Jyoti

👉 Solving Life’s Problems - Part 4

Many common problems are caused by wrong attitudes. People see themselves as the center of the universe and judge everything as it relates to them. Naturally you won’t be happy that way. You can only be happy when you see things in proper perspective: all human beings are of equal importance in God’s sight, and have a job to do in the divine plan.

I’ll give you an example of a woman who had some difficulty finding out what her job was in the divine plan. She was in her early forties, single, and needed to earn a living. She hated her work to the extent that it made her sick, and the first thing she did was to go to a psychiatrist who said he would adjust her to her job. So after some adjustment she went back to work. But she still hated her job. She got sick again and then came to me. Well, I asked what her calling was, and she said, “I’m not called to do anything.”

That was not true. What she really meant was she didn’t know her calling. So I asked her what she liked to do because if it is your calling you will do it as easily and joyously as I walk my pilgrimage. I found she liked to do three things. She liked to play the piano, but wasn’t good enough to earn her living at that. She liked to swim, but wasn’t good enough to be a swimming instructor, and she liked to work with flowers.

To be continued...
📖 From Akhand Jyoti

👉 Solving Life’s Problems - Part 3

Difficulties with material things often come to remind us that our concentration should be on spiritual things instead of material things. Sometimes difficulties of the body come to show that the body is just a transient garment, and that the reality is the indestructible essence which activates the body. But when we can say, “Thank God for problems which are sent for our spiritual growth,” they are problems no longer. They then become opportunities.

Let me tell you a story of a woman who had a personal problem. She lived constantly with pain. It was something in her back. I can still see her, arranging the pillows behind her back so it wouldn’t hurt quite so much. She was quite bitter about this. I talked to her about the wonderful purpose of problems in our lives, and I tried to inspire her to think about God instead of her problems. I must have been successful to some degree, because one night after she had gone to bed she got to thinking about God.

“God regards me, this little grain of dust, as so important that he sends me just the right problems to grow on,” she began thinking. And she turned to God and said, “Oh, dear God, thank you for this pain through which I may grow closer to thee.” Then the pain was gone and it has never returned. Perhaps that’s what it means when it says: ‘In all things be thankful.’ Maybe more often we should pray the prayer of thankfulness for our problems.

Prayer is a concentration of positive thoughts.

To be continued...
📖 From Akhand Jyoti

👉 Solving Life’s Problems - Part 2

I once met a woman who had virtually no problems. I was on a late-night radio program in New York City. This woman called the station and wanted me to come to her home. I was intending to spend the night at the bus station, so I said okay. She sent her chauffeur for me, and I found myself in a millionaire’s home, talking to a middle-aged woman who seemed like a child. She was so immature, and I wondered at her immaturity, until I realized that the woman had been shielded from all problems by a group of servants and lawyers. She had never come to grips with life. She had not had problems to grow on, and therefore had not grown. Problems are blessings in disguise!

Were I to solve problems for others they would remain stagnant; they would never grow. It would be a great injustice to them. My approach is to help with cause rather than effect. When I help others, it is by instilling within them the inspiration to work out problems by themselves. If you feed a man a meal, you only feed him for a day — but if you teach a man to grow food, you feed him for a lifetime.

It is through solving problems correctly that we grow spiritually. We are never given a burden unless we have the capacity to overcome it. If a great problem is set before you, this merely indicates that you have the great inner strength to solve a great problem. There is never really anything to be discouraged about, because difficulties are opportunities for inner growth, and the greater the difficulty the greater the opportunity for growth.

To be continued...
📖 From Akhand Jyoti

👉 Solving Life’s Problems - Part 1

THE PURPOSE OF PROBLEMS is to push you toward obedience to God’s laws, which are exact and cannot be changed. We have the free will to obey them or disobey them. Obedience will bring harmony; disobedience will bring you more problems.

Likewise, when societies get out of harmony, problems develop within the society. Collective problems. Their purpose is to push the whole society toward harmony. Individuals can discover that they can not only grow and learn through individual problem solving, they can learn and grow through collective problem solving. I often say I’ve run out of personal problems; then every once in a while a little one presents itself somewhere. But I hardly recognize it as a problem, because it seems so insignificant. Actually, I want to do all my learning and growing now by helping to solve collective problems.

There was a time when I thought it was a nuisance to be confronted with a problem. I tried to get rid of it. I tried to get somebody else to solve it for me. But that time was long ago. It was a great day in my life when I discovered the wonderful purpose of problems. Yes, they have a wonderful purpose.

Some people wish for a life of no problems, but I would never wish such a life for any of you. What I wish for you is the great inner strength to solve your problems meaningfully and grow. Problems are learning and growing experiences. A life without problems would be a barren existence, without the opportunity for spiritual growth.

To be continued...
📖 From Akhand Jyoti

👉 success.

Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it

Viktor E. Frankl

👉 Happiness lies in contentment.

On a hot summer day a traveler stopped under a shady tree and lay down on the bare ground to rest for a while. Looking up at the sky, he wished he could be lying on a comfortable bed.

He did not know that he was lying under a magical tree that made every thought come true.

Lo! In no time a bed appeared and he was lying on it. ‘This is perfect,’ the traveler thought. “Now all I need is a maiden to give me company in this lonely place.’ Poof! A beautiful young maiden immediately appeared before him. She sat next to him, fanning him for his pleasure. ‘Wow!’ the traveler exclaimed, enjoying the cool breeze. ‘The only thing that could make things any better would be to have some food and drink to enjoy with my lovely companion here.”

As soon as he thought this, a wonderful feast lay before him. The maiden served him the food and drink. Lying in bed eating grapes the maiden served him, the traveler thought, ‘This is the peak of happiness! Wouldn’t it just be awful if it all disappeared and a tiger were to attack me instead?’

As soon as had he thought this, everything disappeared, and the scene was replaced by a ferocious tiger. The man scurried up the tree, thinking to himself - ‘If only I had been content with just the shade of this tree, I wouldn’t be at the mercy of this beast!’

👉 The Paradoxical Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

Kent M. Keith

👉 Life will give you back

A son and his father were walking on the mountains.
Suddenly, his son falls, hurts himself and screams.
To his surprise, he hears the voice repeating,
somewhere in the mountain.
Curious, he yells: ‘‘Who are you?’’
He receives the answer: ‘‘Who are you?’’
And then he screams to the mountain: ‘‘I admire you!’’
The voice answers: ‘‘I admire you!’’
Angered at the response, he screams: ‘‘Coward!’’
He receives the answer: ‘‘Coward!’’
He looks to his father and asks: ‘‘What’s going on?’’
The father smiles and says: ‘‘My son, pay attention.’’
Again the man screams: ‘‘You are a champion!’’
The voice answers: ‘‘You are a champion!’’
The boy is surprised, but does not understand.
Then the father explains: ‘‘People call this ECHO, but really this is LIFE.
It gives you back everything you say or do.
Our life is simply a reflection of our actions.
If you want more love in the world, create more love in your heart.
If you want more competence in your team, improve your competence.
This relationship applies to everything, in all aspects of life;
Life will give you back everything you have given to it.