A Transformed Village - Unbelievable !!

Jai Gurudev !!

Unmanned shop in Kathewadi village .

There's a surprising news about the tiny village ,Kathewadi,which is situated  in Nanded district in Maharashtra.


A Complete transformation has happened in this village ,much to our awe in the present day scenario with violence and corruption prevailing everywhere.

Just imagine a shop  unmanned by a shop keeper !Meaning the goods bought would be paid for, without supervision ?!
Could you believe it ?

Yes , a shop near this village main temple houses that unique facility Each product is labelled and marked with the prices. There is a large box in which the villagers put in the money for the items they pick up and another little one marked Daan Peti(donation box) in which they collect money for development work in the village.

Food packets labelled and kept in the shop.

The village is maintained clean and the homes neatly painted in a uniform shade of soft pink !!


All  homes have a toilet. The village people have collected money and built one toilet outside each house.


Men and women have come out of their homes to gather for the satsang that they all participate in every evening.


The whole village has become totally addiction free is the highlight !!
All the money that was spent on vices like alcohol and tobacco is now used constructively , says the 25-year-old  sarpanch of this village , Sangeeta Suryavanshi .
She adds proudly , "  "One member of every family in this village has done an Art of Living course: The Nav Chetna shivirs, youth leadership training programme and the basic course. It has brought such a change in our society. And Sri Sri Ravishankar Guruji is the inspiration behind all this !!  " 


They have self help groups of ten people each and these groups solve any issues and implement solutions.


Allauddin Sheikh , an old man of  this village of 700 people says , 

"My family has lived here for generations. My son has done the Art of Living Course and he is very happy with all that he has learnt. In all my 80 years I have never seen such a transformation in our village. We live in complete harmony and help each other in times of need."

Courtesy : Rediff news 

Love & smiles...

Have we grown up ?!

Jai Gurudev !!

When we were small kids, we used to say ," My toy is the best !"," My mom is the best !! ", "Mine is the best !!"  . When we think of that , it brings a smile to our face now , " Oh ! we were so childish  !!"  


With the growing age, we move our subject from toy to our place to our country .
And we think , " My religion is the best !! " , "My race is the best !" .

Is there really any difference in our mental attitude when we were small and  have grown up ?!


May be the *toy* factor alone has changed and not our mental attitude. 


Have we grown up ?!

Love & smiles...

What's Fishy out there ?

Jai Gurudev !!

Just came across a story rather an imaginary conversation among the fish .
It goes like this :


"One fine day , all the VIP fishes in the ocean gathered for a meeting , to discuss about the fish who had seen the ocean in their lifetime. Every fish opined their views and hearsays .
Fish 1 said  : It's a wonderful thing that we all have joined together for a great purpose .
Fish 2 : True ! I've heard that there are fish who had visited the ocean and were well acquainted with the habitats there too .
Fish 3 : My Great Grandfather had seen the ocean , it seems. Alas ! he's no more now.
Fish 4 :  Yes , that's a fact as far as the news , I've heard so far .
Fish 5 : In that case , why not we build a temple or a memorial for that great fish , who had the opportunity to visit the ocean ?
Fish 6: Well, that seems to be a novel idea . I think we need to go ahead with that plan.


Then , a temple indeed was built for that one fish and every other fish started believing the same from then on and began performing the puja in the temple too .


Though it's funny to read , we people also behave in a fashion  somewhat similar to those fish in the said story.
Puzzling ?


You see , we say and believe that God is omnipresent ,  present everywhere .
God is omnipotent , has infinite power .
God is omniscient , has unlimited knowledge .


But , yet we confine the God to one particular place , in a temple or a Church or the mosque and think that God exists only there . And we go all the way there to pray , asking for a favour to the God , who is believed to be present there. 

If God is omnipresent , is He not present everywhere , in our house , in our place , in ourself  , in all the living and non living entities ?!

Are we not behaving similar to those fish , who are ignorant of their living place and searching for one such ?


Are we not seeking the God elsewhere , when He is present with all His glory within us in our Heart ?!






 Love & smiles...

Oh ! Pretty Little one !!

Jai Gurudev !!

Accomplishing any a job without a hand is quite unimaginable , as humans . That way , we can say the hand is the most useful part in our body . We do innumerable jobs with the help of our hand . The hand is designed and formulated in such an efficient manner . Independent movements of the fingers along with the Flexibility of each finger is  a wonderful innovation by the nature ,no doubt.

Out of all the five fingers in a hand, each one is very unique in size and looks .Thumb , Index finger , Middle finger , Ring finger and the little finger , each has its own significance. The least used finger would be the little finger . It is seldom used .  Perhaps , it is used to clean some dirt in our ears or scratch the itching part in case if necessary . It doesn't seem to be strong enough to lift anything or perform any tough job .No big usage as such can be thought of , as far as the little finger is considered .


Though that is the case , we can recollect one case , where the little finger had gained immense importance in the history of Mahabharathan  age . It had saved the lives of the whole village for 2 to 3 days .

Yes, it had helped the little Lord Krishna , to lift the Govardhan hills during the time of heavy torrential rains , caused as a result of the fury of  Lord Varuna . It is believed that all the cowherds and the cattle had sought the refuge of  Shri Krishna under the Govardhan Hills . The pictorial representation of Krishna lifting the huge hills with his little finger , that too of His left hand is the most popular one  . This picture brings some sort of joy within us and indirectly makes us to feel the promising and protective nature of the Divine.

Can we say ....
 with the Divine consciousness , even a little finger attains the status of a King !!
  


Love & smiles...

Ants or Humans ?!

Jai Gurudev !!

I still remember the first time , I happened to catch an electric train at Mumbai , years ago . The reason being , it brought an unusual comparison in my mind screen . Initially  before the arrival of the train the crowd would seem to be scattered all over the station . But once the train arrives and stops at the station , we can see the crowd getting dense near the train entrance doors . And within moments , the train would leave irrespective of whether the whole crowd alighted the train or not.
And the people are seen scattered once the train leaves .
The same thing would repeat again and again  , the crowd getting  dense and sparse  ...
Suddenly it flashed to me , "Is this a crowd of people or a swarm of bees or ants ? "
Normally we used to see the swarm of bees attacking the enemy or the swarm of ants surrounding its prey . 
What a striking similarity !



This type of comparing habit did not stop there . Whenever I come across huge crowd , the same visualisation strikes in my mind , followed by a smile within me.

We see huge gatherings of people in religious places or pilgrimages .Sometimes I wonder how the people would breathe in such a big crowd. Recently we came across the news of the accident in Sabarimala at Kerela , which led to the death of more than 100 people .

On having a glimpse of the crowd in pictures , it flashed in my mind the huge cluster of ants concentrated at one particular point. Both the pictures used to occupy my mind and sometimes it would call for the differences , if any between them . 

A  funny interpretation ofcourse !!

In due course of time , the comparing attitude extended not only to the crowd but also to the individuals.

For instance , watching the man carrying heavy loads , the mind immediately switches over to the ants carrying its food items .

 It is identified that  , an ant would carry twenty times more than its weight itseems.
If at all , I'm given the opportunity to question the ants , I 'd seriously like to ask , " Hey Mr.Ant , what would you do with so much of food tirelessly carried by you , when only a drop of it can satiate your hunger ?" 

And soon I came to realise , 

"Doest not the very same question applicable to a human being ?


An ant collecting and gathering the food throughout the lifetime , not even bothering to taste and relish the food it had collected , if it sounds absurd , 
then what about the man , who sports a similar behaviour or even to a much greater extent , involving corruption , scam etc ?
What is he going to do with all the illegal  material things he had collected  , when his lifetime is too short to even to have a look at it and count it ? 
Is it not quite amusing ?!






Love & smiles....

Going Republic ..........

Jai Gurudev !!

Happy Republic Day wishes to all !!

The Republic Day is one day which everyone looks forward to ....to watch the colourful Republic Day Parade live in Television . The kids can be seen more enthusiastic going to schools , participating in the Republic Day functions , flag hoisting etc.

Watching the parade is a prideful moment for every Indian . It evokes a sense of patriotism and a sense of oneness among us Indians , who are united in diversity.
Innovative ideas have been brought in creating and conducting tableaux year after year is an interesting factor .One tableaux displaying the Narasimha Avatar , instantaneously brings to mind , the need of the hour is one such avatar to pull out the corruption / tainted personalities in the leading posts of our country and bring a relief to us people.

We can see the arduous amount of work and plenty of time put in by huge number of people in making the Republic Day parade , a huge success.
Many prestigious awards given posthumously as mark of  valour and sacrifice brings tears to our eyes. Children bravery awards amazes us.

The Motorcycle batallions executing the migratory birds and Human pyramids in 9 motorcycles this year creating a Guiness record is an amazing feature , which makes us to move to the corner of the seat and sit erect .

The highlight of the parade , the airshow involving the aircrafts, helicopters, Jaguars is simply superb .
The trishul formation in sky has sought a huge applause from the audience.

 Happy Republic Day !!

Jana gaṇa mana adhināyaka jaya he
Bhārata bhāgya vidhātā
Pañjāba Sindh Gujarāṭa Marāṭhā
Drāviḍa Utkala Baṅga
Vindhya Himācala Yamunā Gaṅgā
Ucchala jaladhi taraṅga
Tava śubha nāme jāge
Tava śubha āśiṣa māge
Gāhe tava jaya gāthā
Jana gaṇa maṅgala dāyaka jaya he
Bhārata bhāgya vidhāta
Jaya he jaya he jaya he
Jaya jaya jaya jaya he!


Jai Hind !!




Love & smiles...

Hey Ram .....

Jai Gurudev !!

What effect does the continuous chanting of the name of a Guru or God  make ?Does it really have any sense ?An atheist would definitely say a "No !" ...Others would say , "Ofcourse yes, it brings a positive vibration !"

I do remember reading a story elsewhere sometime ago . 

The train was moving at a fast pace ...quite crowdy .One person was sporting a peculiar behaviour in that lot. He kept on murmuring to himself continuously . There was an young blood , sitting by the side of  him, who had seemingly got annoyed at this person's non stop lip movement . Further the  carefree attitude of that person tested the youth's patience even more. Unable to control himself , the youth interrupted him  ," Hey Mr , would you please stop that and keep quiet ? So Irritating !!

"Mr.Peculiar , slowly lifted his head up and looked at the youth , " I'm chanting the name of the Lord , my friend" , he said .

"What difference does it really make , Sir ? I guess , it's just a blind belief . " bounced back the youth .

Mr.Peculiar paused for a moment and started uttering  abusive words ....

The youth got wilder at this unexpected behaviour of Mr.Peculiar . Unable to control himself , he caught hold of his collars , " Hey you , what do you think of yourself man ? "

 

On this , Mr.Peculiar stopped his abusive language and resorted to his chanting of  "Ram ...Ram....Ram " in a soft rhythmic tone.

The youth visibly cooled down in few moments and quietly started to gaze outside through the window.

Mr.Peculiar smilingly said in a friendly manner , " What Sir, do you get to see the difference it makes on chanting the the name of the Lord ? Has it not brought a harmony in the mood and behaviour  of the persons around ? "

 A beautiful smile blossomed in the youth's face ,in response...

Infact , the Hindu Mythology has defined many divine characters to indicate numerous unique divine qualities , a man can acquire in his lifetime. 

Say for instance,  

*Ram * character depicts " Valour , Righteousness , Truth "

*Hanuman * character indicates " Supreme Devotion and Strength "

*Shiva * marks " Inner peace , Dispassion , Meditative powers "

* Shakthi " means as the name indicates "Power , Dynamism , Knowledge "
Hence by chanting the names of a particular deity , the associated divine qualities gets imbibed in the individual who does the chanting meticulously and with devotion .
The chanting of " Ram " makes a person shine with His characters of Righteousness , Truth and Valour .

And so with other names of the deities.

The peaceful vibration can be noticed in the atmosphere , when one chants the God's name. No doubt !!

Just give it a try and check for yourself !!

Love & smiles....