TRUTH

What do we name this generation as? Gen X? IT Gen? Or Swami Gen? Shocked? Yeah. This is the generation of both IT as well as Swamis. We, human beings are the best race among all the other living beings of the universe. It is the same energy, same skeleton and the same body that we all have. During our childhood days, we believe in our parents. We do what ever mother or father say. If they tell us not to do certain act, we don’t. If they encourage doing something, we do it with 100% confidence. Slowly, rather unfortunately, we grow big to decide things upon our own. Every human being on the earth has a beautiful asset with him, mind. What factors determine the mind set of the people? There are no definite answers, since the mind set is always prone to change. Do we think in the same way as we used to at our 10 years of age? Or 20 years? Our mind set has kept on changing with our age. Why do we live? Rather, how are we living? We live with hope. We live with the hope that we have a tomorrow. Say suppose, tomorrow is the end of the universe. How will we live today? Now let us talk about some generic terms.

God. What is it? Or who is he? I saw God in my dreams. My friend saw an image of God talking to him. Does anybody like to treat me as a God? I have a question. Why at all the concept of God? My answer: If we are left without any knowledge about fear, good or bad, then our mind sets would never be stable or follow a path. In order to give a proper direction to our minds, to teach us what good is and what bad is, many religions have described God in their own ways. To enforce this belief and fear in people, they have depicted God in various forms. But what if an individual is good by himself, without any fear of God? Does he need to know God? Because of the concept of God, from centuries onwards, people started to fear, people started losing belief, faith and hope in themselves. What is Good? What is Bad? Who decides upon them? What is good for somebody might be bad for the others and vice versa. If there are universal guidelines for goodness and evilness, then why are there so many concepts about them? Most of the people speak about ‘Truth’. God is Truth. Truth is God, etc. What does Truth means? Truth means real. Something that is tangible. Is it something that everybody can realise, feel and prove? If so, what is truth, now? I can tell that irrespective of all the religions, castes, tribes, races of the world, every individual (plant and animal life inclusive) would truly realise, feel and prove that there is air, there is water, there is sun, there is fire, there is earth, there are stars, there is rain, there is wind, there is storm, there is calm, there is night and there is day. Do all these need proofs? Even animals feel this truth. But what about the Gods that we speak about? They are beliefs. If a person like Jesus Christ or Lord Buddha does all good to the human race with all the suffering, they are called God. Those qualities which they had in them are there in every one of us. We just need to realize them.

No body can claim that they are God. It is we, the people who make them God. Suppose you have an illness. You believe that if you approach certain person, your illness would be cured. May be it gets cured. What cured your illness? Did the person treat you with medicines? It is the hope that cured you. You had faith in him. You trusted him. You had 100% confidence in him. So you call him God. Suppose, if somebody believed in you. Say X believed you that you are his saviour. You are his God. But you know who you are. You know that you are an ordinary person with equal capabilities as much as X has. But to him, you are the God. He has faith in you. Hence God is a belief. It is a confidence. It is a hope with which we are living. Or rather I put it as, Hope is God. Confidence is God. Belief is God. God is intangible. What is the difference between an Olympic Gold medallist and a silver medallist? Both have same level of skill. But who ever feels confident, is the winner. But if I have confidence on somebody else. I pray him. I beg him to help me win. I trust him 100% with all my heart. Or rather I leave the result to him. I am happy even if I lose the race. But I need his grace. Even then you will win. This is faith. And that is God.

Hence we have so many different gods. If I tell you that I can heal your illness, will you believe me? No. You will ask thousands of questions. If 10 people tell about me, will you trust me? No. But if thousands and millions of people talk about me, you might believe me. You would try believing me and if you win, you would definitely believe me. Whether you believed me or not, I am the same. But you believed in the others. You believed what people talked about. Your belief has made me God. I am not God by myself. For one who believes me, I am God and for the other I am not. Hence God is a relative term. Why are then so many miseries in the world, when you trust somebody? It is a simple fact that you don’t trust anybody. By trust, I mean 100% faith. You want to trust somebody and at the same time you are unable to trust them 100%. That is why you do not have 100% faith in them. And hence your confidence is low and therefore you are unhappy. What is the solution to this?

Why do you need to believe in somebody? Why do you always want somebody to extend hand for you in case of a misery? Why do you rely on somebody’s answer, when you don’t trust him 100%. Don’t trust them. Don’t wait for someone to help you. Realise that the so-called God whom you wanted to trust and you, yourself have the same capabilities. Start believing yourself. Have faith in yourself. Be happy for yourself, first. Meditate on yourself. Make your people (people who have faith in you, who love you, who want you to be happy, your loved ones) happy always from your side. Be with nature. Enjoy the moon light. Enjoy the rainfall. Enjoy the cool breeze. Enjoy the candle light. Play a game. If you run, you get confidence that your legs and hands are working properly and that you are healthy. Why then you want to lose that opportunity of gaining confidence by yourself? Run, Play, Sing, Dance. If this is what the “So-Called” Gods tell you, these are the known facts. Even a small child would experience all these. As a child, everyone would have done all of these. Why then you want to lose that character? Why do you want to lose your self? Why do you want to fall on somebody? Don’t do that. Somebody might question me, what if I have a serious health problem, for which there is no cure. How do I be confident? Ok, tell me, how does your God heal you? You call it a spiritual healing. All that they do is they give you a hug or they might tough your deceased part of the body. There is no medicine in their hands. It is the happiness you get by their touch that made you survive. It is the faith you have on them. It is the love you have on them, that made you live longer. Again, its your trust, that made them God and not by the virtue of themselves. How often do you visit them? Once a year or twice? So except for those two days, for all the other 363 days, you are sorrow. You are sick. You are a loser. You are a low-confident guy. That means, you are living only for 2 days a year. All the other days are not meant for you. How bad this is? How silly this is? You made somebody God by your belief and you lose your life? Whose mistake is this? Your own. Don’t do that. Live all 365 days full enthusiasm. How can you do that?

By faith. Trust yourselves. Be happy always. Smile at the people. Let your apprehensions and anger go away from you. Treat everyone equally. Treat everyone with due respect that you show for yourselves. Feel that the other person is equally capable, important and lovable as you are. It is your character that makes you win, that makes you happy, that makes you have high spirits. Don’t blame any one for your sorrows. It is you who ruined your life. Don’t worry about the mistakes that you did. You have to forgive your selves. Never repeat them again. And that’s it, you are God. You have realised God. Why pay thousands of bucks to the others and make them rich? Yes. This is true. Do you know how many people have earned and become rich only with the beliefs of innocent people? There are a lot of people who are doing this in today’s world. They are still alive. This field of business is also going on par with the IT field. If they are selfless, they would never charge money for their darshan or they never would have any assets. But this is not the case. There was Mother Theresa, who served millions of people with out demanding thousands of bucks to see her. There were no huge adversitement campaigns made. Hence she received a nobel prize for peace. Refer to the following.

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main.asp?filename=ts032004LIC.asp

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main31.asp?filename=Ne300607Business_Of_the.asp

Smile at the world, Love your family and Be happy for yourself. You will realise the Truth.

ARE YOU HAPPY? PART-1

Ask an old man or an old woman about their life. We hear them saying "Our days were much happier than these days". Even our parents keep saying that their youth days were happier. Even we feel that our childhood days are happier than the present days. Why?

Let us see the reasons.

Upto 1980:

In the olden days (my grand and fore father's generation), life used to be definite. I mean, defined. Lets see how.There used to be certain specific tasks assigned to each one of the family members. And they used to have routine cycle of tasks to be performed, with out any exceptions. Saturday and Sunday also were much alike the week days, because they did the same things on the weekends too. Each couple had a minimum of 4-5 children. As the population of the country was very less (compared to the current day), there were very few educated people who were doing jobs in Govt. sector. Private sector jobs, mostly were in a small scales. A typical day used to begin at 5 AM, when the hen calls. Ladies used to have their routine of cleaning the house and preparing coffee for the entire family. Gents used to perform their regular ablusions and routines, besides consuming coffee. There was not much anxiety or tension to get ready for their duties as the dressing was simple. Ladies never worked. So their job was to prepare breakfast and lunch, hence no tension in going out somewhere. Men walked or used cycles or bus to travel to their work places. Most of the people had home food all 365 days in the
year. They had food outside only when they went out of station. Hence there were very few hotels. Even if there were, there used to be a simple menu rather than a book consisting of 10 pages. As there were no automated machines like fridge, mixer, grinder, blender, washing machine, dough, micro wave oven, etc., women used to perform the daily activities like cleaning, washing, cooking manually. They enjoyed doing those tasks. Most of the families being joint, there used to be many married men and women residing in the same house. All the woman used to share the house hold work of the entire family. Men used to work and come back home in the evening, by which time, women used to complete their household works and start preparing supper. Income of the entire family used to be in hundreds of rupees. 1 thousand rupees was a very huge amount. 1 lakh was a dream. Number of cities were very less. There were only 4 major cities in the country. Sources of entertainment were limited to radio and newspaper, which consisted mostly of political news. There used to be a lot of holidays for men at work and the work timings used to be from 9 or 10 AM to 5 PM. Distant relatives communicated through postal mails. Telephone was a luxury. Hence communication was quite often, say once a month (postal delya's included). Festivals were typical. There used to be home made varities of food, all the people celebrating together, etc. The head of the family, usu the father, used to dictate or direct the entire family and all the members, without any doubts, followed his words. There used to be certian do's and do not's in the family. No waking up after 6 AM. No sleeping in the evenings. No eating on mattresses. No questioning the elders. Writing the balance sheet of the money transactions to the detail up to the least denomination. No breakfast before taking bath. No cooking without taking bath. No being awake after 10 PM. When women are in their menstrual period, they had to live separately in a place in the house for those 4 days and no body touched her,etc. There used to be such guidelines set by the head of the family, which every one followed blindly. There were several advantages in such a rule. All the family members get accustomed to a single type of life, hence no chaos. Since every one share the same treasury, they maintain a common ledger. Raising children was easy, since there was fear of elders for the children. Ladies got full rest during their periods. There were ofcourse, certain disadvantages. Since everyone heeded to the words of the head, their views were never raised, hence there were lot of differences of opinions. If the head of the family was unwise and not concerned, then the family had to suffer. But facts apart, people still believe that those were the happiest days in their lives.

1980 - 2000:

Generation 2 (My parents and uncle's generation). Life was certain. As the population grew, many joint families got split into nuclear families. Each individual nuclear family had their own house. Head of the entire nuclear dynasty still remained. But the decisions of individual lives were upto them. Each couple had 2-3 children. Government and private sectors increased. Machinary was developed. Chemical, electrical, mechanical and civil fields have shown significant changes in the society. Every house now has television, refrigerator, mixer grinder, telephone (land line), gas stove, oven, etc. Women hence got educated in colleges and they pursued their degrees. Number of women doing jobs increased. Hence rules changed. No strict formalities. Lives were customised according to their comforts, core rules being still followed. Family get togethers were limited to once per year. However, marriages and certain rituals were celebrated together. Differences in the lives of individual family units have increased, with their jobs and life styles. Income increased from hundreds to thousands of rupees. 1 lakh was tangible, but with difficulty. Cities have increased. Municipalities have increased. Communication increased with the telephones. Cinema industry was developed from 'Black and White' film to 'East Man Color' and 'Scope' films. Automobiles included mopeds, scooters, while cycles were still in use. Public transport included taxis apart from buses. Local trains in metros have increased their frequencies. People now had no restriction to wake up at 5 AM. They took their own time to relax (be it in the evening or during the day). Women also worked, hence the house hold work and cooking needed help. Servant maids were employed to take care of such works. Newspapers increased. Apart from politics, there were news about films, film stars, geography, history, stock market, etc. GDP has increased with the per capita income in the country. Many new businesses arrived. People started feeling to eat outside their homes, to have a different taste, once a while. Restaurants, theatres, petrol bunks, magazine sellers, cloth show rooms, consumer goods, etc. have increased. Life became more comfortable. People were happy, at the same time felt that they were missing something.

21st Century:

Generation X (Me, My friends and cousins). Life is uncertain. Population of the country has increased exponentially. Nuclear families have become more nuclear. No more government jobs. Only private sector jobs. This is the Electronics, Communication and Software Era. With the advent of software and the increased number of software companies, there are a lot of jobs (in lakhs) in the country. Men and women, all are educated. Engineering colleges, Medical colleges, Hospitals, Business schools, banks, etc. have increased a lot. Per capita income and the standard of living of the people have shown a great hike. Significant increase in the number of people going to the foreign countries like the USA, UK, the Gulf, Canada, Germany, Singapore, Malasia, etc. for pursuing their education or their job careers. Everything has become global. Communication now includes mobile phones, e-mails, internet messengers, etc. Automobiles have increased rapidly. Motor bikes for men and women, cars have increased a lot. Hence pollution increased. Public transport still is limited to buses and local trains in metro cities. Mobile phone has become a necessary commodity in the society. Home appliances now include washing machine, iron box, micro wave oven, Air Conditioner, Digital electronics like camera, handy cam, computers, laptop, etc. Men and women both go to their jobs. A couple in this generation plan to have only 1 child. Many new businesses have increased. People started eating outside as they are deprived of the time to cook at home. Children are raised at cretches. Cooking is only a special activity, usually at the weekends, or a once-a-week activity. Mother and father stay together (in most of the cases), but children go away to various places to pursue their careers. Nuclear families have split. Bakerys, Pizza deliverers, restaurants, ATMs, theatres, shopping malls, electronic shops, have increased a lot. Most of the transactions became online. Banking, bill payment, booking reservations in trains, flights, etc., booking tickets for a movie, etc. Income has increased a lot. People started earning in lakhs. 1 Crore is also becoming tangible. Media has shown a significant diversity. Many private channels have opened up in the Television and Radio. Many different newspapers and magazines have emerged. Cities have expanded and the number of cities is in hundreds. Public administration also changed, but the politics remain the same. People have everything today. Money, comforts, etc. but they feel bored. They are not happy. They are missing something. Why so?

Analysis:

If we observe the trend from the previous generations to the current generation, the life style, income, expenditure, comforts, have increased, showing a positive note. Also on the negative note are the increase in population, pollution, crime, corruption, worries, anxieties, fear, etc. Happiness, on the overall, has decreased. Contentment and satisfaction are no more there with the people. People are stuggling to compete with one another to earn more income. Constructing a house was a life time achievement in the yester years. People used to venture such an act at their 40's or 50's. Today a college passed out student, with an age of 20 years is worried about purchasing an apartment. 1 lakh rupees is a very meagre income. People are losing their happiness and are increasing their risks of ailments. Money earned today is being spent to cure the diseases obtained because of the struggle to earn that money. Stress levels have increased. Students are complaining about head aches, migrane, indigestion, ulcers, depression, nausea, insomnia, etc. What do people want from their lives? Through postal communication, people were contended with the messages they conveyed once a month. Today, with mobile phones, we are addicted to communicate every minute. We are losing the patience to wait for some time to communicate. We are increasing the anxiety to receive phone calls or mails. We are not concentrating on ourselves. Our focus, time and energy are being misused for various practices. At the end of our lives, if we turn back to see what we have achieved, we see that we have lost our entire life to achieve something, which does not give us the real happiness. What has happened with us?

We lost the discipline that our previous generations had. We lost patience. We lost respect for the older generation. We lost faith. We started questioning every act. Questioning is not wrong. I believe strongly that one can practice certain act only if he/she is totally convinced about what one is doing. One can attain such conviction only if he knows what and why he is doing. But the point here is that we are not interested to know about such practices, because we feel that we are much more matured than our previous generation people. We feel that we know more than what they knew and that we are more wiser than them. If so, are we much more happier than them? The answer is a simple 'NO'. Somebody can question me, Is Happiness quantifiable, comparable or tangible? I say NO. But happiness can be felt. One can judge whether the other person is happy or not. Close your eyes, hold your heart and ask yourself "Am I happy?" Think about the reasons why you are not happy. Decide upon what makes you happy. By happiness I do not mean the materialistic happiness that one gets with money. I am talking about the true happiness, that even a peacock can be seen with, when it dances. Money has nothing to do with the real happiness. I know what I am telling and talking might be a bull shit for most of the people. But I am interested in those who really want to be happy. Because I want all the people to be happy. Imagine the world, with all the people being really happy. UTOPIA?