Category: spirituality

Itna to Karna Swami

I love listening and going to sleep with Anup Jalota’s music. I am addicted to his bhajans from the past 3 years. But there is one bhajan that shakes me up and brings tears to my eyes. I often catch myself humming this during my day. It’s called “Itna to karna Swami” (Oh Lord, Please do this much)

itna to karna swami
jab praan tan se nikale

Govind naam leke
ab praan tan se nikale
sri ganga ji ka tat ho
jamuna ka vansh vat ho
mera sawara nikat ho
jab pran tan se nikale

pitambari kasi ho
chavi man eh basi ho
hoto pe kuch hasi ho
jab pran tan se nikale

jab kanth praan aye
koi rog na sathaye
yam daras na dikhaye
jab pran tan se nikale

us vakt jaldi aana
nahi shaam bhul jaan
radhe ko sath laana
jab pran tan se nikale

ek bhakt ki hai arji
khud garj ki hai arji
aage tumhari marji
jab pran tan se nikale

Meaning:  Oh Lord, Please do this much, when the soul leaves my body, that I take Your beautiful name of Govinda. Whether it be the Holy Ganges River, or the Yamuna River where Lord Krsna spend His time playing the flute.

May Lord Krsna be present. Looking at Lord Krsna’s attractive yellow garnment made a strong prescene of my heart. I start to smile at this. When the souls starts to leave from my throat, and there is no way to stop this, at this critical, may I never see the face of Yamaraja.

At this critical time when death comes quickly, never forget Lord Syama! May I ask, “Oh Syama! Please bring Sri Radhe with You!” This devotee is making such a plea that is selfish. Since I have made such please, from this point, You can decide what You wish to do to me.

Appreciation and Contribution

There are two video sites, I usually hangout on. One is for fun, another one is for inspiration. I am always looking for ideas, inspiration in my environment. So, for fun nothing beats Apple trailers. Other than reading and trying to keep up with the latest movie releases from slashfilm, Apple movie trailers provide me enough fun in my leisure time. Another good source of videos which actually inspire me is at TED. This has an amazing collection of talks which could only be described as the cream of cream. The Rolls Royce of conferences.

So, the other day me and my wife were talking about Antony Robbins and I remembered that he gave a talk at TED. So, we decided to watch it. Now a thing about Tony Robbins. I first heard of him in 1999. I have never read any of his books but had him on the back burner that one day I will pick up one of his books. If you are a movie buff, you would recall that he did make an appearance in ‘Shallow Hall‘.  Anyhow, Tony Robbins has this amazing energy in his talk. You listen to him and boom your energy level goes up. So, we were watching this video on TED and he talks about two predominant emotions that we need to take care of. Those are:

  • Appreciation
  • Contribution

Appreciation and ContributionWhat he said, kinda stuck with me for a while. I kept thinking about it and then I realized how these two are connected. It’s a very well known fact among people who live their lives with ‘awareness’ that ‘being grateful’, ‘appreciating’ what we have, actually manifolds what we have. It’s very true. You should try it out some time. Think about something which you have in your life. It could be anything, even including something you don’t like. Find something good about it. Close your eyes and from the bottom of your heart thank the higher force for it. See how it changes. If it’s a problem you thought of, then the problem gets solved. If it’s a possesion you thought about then what you have will increase magically.

But that’s only the first part of the lesson. The most important aspect which most people miss is – contribution. We become grateful for what we have, but we stop at that. We stagnate. That kinda rots the system. So, to solve this we need to start contributing. So, what ever you are thankful for, try thinking of a way of contributing it in someway. The ideal example is ‘Money’. If you are thankful for the money you have, you can make it increase more and more by being thankful for it and also by giving it or passing it on. You see, like the picture above describes – you want to become the ‘Providence Pipe’ rather than a stinking stagnating hole. If you contribute to society, people, friends, relatives often – more and more stuff flows to you.

The whole idea is to become the owner of the pipe, not the owner of the content of the pipe which is ephemeral. As I kept thinking about it – I realized that it was so true. It reminded me of a quote which my dad is to use, “To teach is to learn twice”. Only by passing it on, by teaching (knowledge, wisdom, information) we learn more and more. Irrespective of what it is – knowledge, power, money etc – contribution creates a healthy society as well as healthy individual who is contributing.

Spiritual Force – An Idea

I am a fan of SaaS (Software as a Service). I love the Salesforce’s model of hosting software. Even though ASP (Application Service Provider) model has been around for a long time, I think Salesforce has injected fresh energy into this market. But this is mostly for business people. I think we should have something called spiritualforce.com. A web services hosting provider for all the new age guru’s like Deepak Chopra, Bob Doyle, James Ray, Wayne Dyer. This site would have facilities for:

  1. Hosting each Guru’s  course ware in all media formats: audio, video, text etc
  2. Providing easy contacts and mailing list options
  3. Able to conduct selective pilot programs with pre-selected members
  4. Provide discounts for members of one Guru to another or across the domain
  5. Once a week or month have a public panel of all the Gurus’ together online at one time so that member can watch them discuss and ask questions.
  6. Providing live chat with Gurus.
  7. Every teacher will have his/her own blog.

This basically will make it easier for any spiritual teacher to open up his own shop and teach what he/she believes in. I am sure this could either be done as a Salesforce module but I think it would be cool to have just spiritual people gather around one set of software services. I also believe the with enough customizations Drupal or mephisto could be used too. This will reduce a lot of redoing of the software for these teachers.

Manifestation and Ancient Scriptures

Listening to ‘The Secret‘ and reading a lot of literature on Manifestation and other techniques, it reminds me of some of the old sayings of Upanishads and Vedas. There is one saying that comes to mind  ‘Ekam Sat, Vipra Bahudha Vadanti‘ (more here) meaning -“The truth is one, the wise call it by many names“. So listening to Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer and The Secret has definitely changed my life. But it is amazing to know that this path has been shown and tread by many teachers and sages since age old times. It’s been documented so throughly in our ancient scriptures. I am only aware of Indian origin scriptures,  but I am pretty sure we would find the same language scriptures that are from other lands.

Another quote which resonates with me and which Swami says so many times is – ‘ Yad Bhavam, Tad Bhavathi‘  meaning – “As you think so you become“. This rhymes with the very core concept of all the new age gurus talk about. The reality which we sense with our 5 senses is an effect. It’s an aftermath of what is created inside of us. Within us lies a far bigger universe seeded with potential choices which needs to be manifested into our so called sensual reality. This means that we are in charge of our lives and it’s been said and documented since aeons.

So, the questions arises, how come after all these things have been said in our scriptures which are about 5000 years old – we still are being controlled by our environment? That’s something to think about and another blog post.