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including Live Session With Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar ji .

2nd July to 5th July

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Let's Make Some Noise About Peace

We were enthralled! We were blessed! We couldn’t believe what we have just heard. It was live, right in front of our eyes. Vikram Hazra on his electric guitar and his troupe on percussion and flute together created energy in the audience that is rarely experienced. I knew that it is not just music that he is playing but also the way he is involving the audience in the music that is making the difference.

It was a collective effort of each and every soul in Yogi Sabhagriha that I felt, that one cannot have this experience by choice. One needs to be blessed to experience this musical phenomenon.

Then Vikram Hazra took the microphone in his hands and said, “Imagine the energy created by just 3500 people …” and he paused. The audience started laughing and applauding to his way of bringing the WCF topic. “Imagine 1000 such musical concerts happening in parallel. Imagine the noise of those 3.5 million people and imagine the silence of those 3.5 million people.” We held our breath for a moment.

What a vision H H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has! It is phenomenal. We generally struggle to get an audience of 20000 for any major event. He envisions creating a stage for the capacity of 20,000 people. 

How many countries participate in FIFA? We had 43 nations participating in the 2014 world cup. In which event do we have people from 155 countries flying in to celebrate humanity, to celebrate diversity and work towards the direction of world peace?

If you still haven’t understood the gravity behind what World Culture Festival is going to do, let me tell you what Guruji said in UN during the World Yoga Day last year. “The term religious tolerance is of the bygone era. 

You tolerate something that you don’t like. Now the time has come for everyone to celebrate diversity.” Imagine 3.5 million people who would assemble in Delhi carrying this vision ahead. I believe that this one thought can prove path breaking. When we start appreciating each other’s cultures, we start appreciating the goodness in every part of the world. There blossoms hope for us to be comfortable with each other, to belong to each other despite of the differences.

I wonder how come such event was not organized by UN all this while! Especially in the world ridden with terrorism, events like these sow the seeds of hope. Be a part of this hope. I urge each and every soul on the planet to be a part of this event in whatever way they can.

Let us make some noise about peace 

Jai Gurudev!

Sex and Spirituality

I was once going through a knowledge sheet where H. H. Sri Sri Ravishankar (Guruji) talks about love and lust. In love he says, even an object gets life. We name our vehicle, we talk to our toys, children draw sun with a smiling face :) . And in lust he says, even human beings become objects. Such a wonderful description of why lust bothers some people? Here I am not staging a dharna against lust. I believe that every aspect of humanity has its place in the creation. And food and sex being the most common impressions among all the species, lust has definitely played one of the most significant role in the way our world is designed today.

But what does lust really give you? Osho once said, "Is it sex that gives you the pleasure? Think about it. I do not want you to give up on sex. As a matter of fact, I would say meditate on sex." While I am yet to come  to a level where I can understand how to meditate on sex, I certainly loved to contemplate on what he said next. "Think about it, is it really sex that gives you the joy or is it the moment of completion of a desire that gives you the joy?" And I tried to relate it with every desire that I had so far. Is it my degree that gave me the joy or the moment of completion of the desire to graduate? Is it Rasagulla that gives me the joy or the moment of fulfilling a craving that gives me the joy? So while attempting to understand what he said, maybe this kind of material joy is simply filling up of a crevice or a craving.

So is it possible to live that crevice-free life? Is it wrong to have lustful feelings? I think it is perfectly normal to have these feelings. In fact if you are lust free then quite possible that there is some hormonal imbalance and you need some medical check up. But in such a situation how to keep a check on that craving? Is that craving really bad? Is it wrong if I crave for sex?

I am no guru to answer such questions. And most certainly sex is the only contributing factor for the survival of life on this planet (and I can fairly assume elsewhere too). Sex was never a trouble for mankind. It is sex that ferments into lust which eventually takes form of violence that create issues where people quit their day's work and come on streets hampering law and order. It is this form of violence that has the power to destroy generations of the victim's family. Well of course I agree that not everyone is curious to rape women. But then lust in milder forms encourages forced flesh trade where millions of girls everyday are crushing their hopes, aspirations, dreams and most importantly their self respect to satiate a man's uncontrolled desire.

Again agreed, it is certainly not that easy to curb your desires. And I am not even going to encourage that here. But I would certainly like to share certain insights that I have got in my spiritual journey so far. There are certainly spiritual ways in which we can keep a check on that energy. The life force energy entering into various chakras of our body vibrates our body into different emotions and feelings. One of these feelings being lust. Breathing techniques and meditation certainly help to channelize this life force energy in and out of various chakras. And from what I understand, a person meditating for many years gets a say over the flow of this energy. Imagine where you get to decide, what emotion should you be in rather than the situation dictating your emotions. Among various simple techniques that Guruji has suggested, one is taking cold water bath. Try it out, certainly helps.

What helps further is understanding lust from a broader perspective. Certainly lust is an unfulfilled desire. Once Guruji said, every desire eventually ferments into a botheration. And similarly, an unfulfilled desire of sex dwells into lust. Where does this desire come from? From a feeling of lack, from a space of 'I don't have something'. This feeling of lack gets one into grumbling mode. Isn't it? Do we like grumbling people around us? Do you think anyone would enjoy your company if you are in a grumbling mode? Hence certainly if someone is full of lust, s/he automatically exudes repelling vibrations. And then we have youth grumbling upon, "I don't have girl friend." "I am 20 and still a virgin." Why would someone like to get close to a person with such vibes? So what is an antidote to this unfulfilled desire?

Take your mind to the time when you had complete gratitude. Maybe for your parents, your teachers, your friends who helped you in a dire situation. If you cannot find such moments, think harder. Still if there is no trace of a single moment, then we certainly have a problem that needs quick attention. When we are in the moment of gratitude, we are full. We are complete. We notice no lack. There are no desires and hence no crevices to be cemented. It is this feeling of gratitude or contentment that empowers us to get over any negative feeling. It is indeed our way to tackle the Dermentors (Yeah! Harry Potter geek). So how to be in this energy of fulfillment, contentment and gratitude? Just keep counting your blessings. Be happy about the people in your life, the events that brought smile to you, the situations that made you brave. I would certainly encourage you to experiment on this and discover if there is any relation between this act and your unfulfilled desires.

The freedom of applying simple yet profound knowledge

Ever since I did my research on ill effects of cigarettes, alcohol and drugs on human body, I started loathing these aspects of human evolution. This happened to the extent that I started feeling uncomfortable and unnatural amidst such a company.

I always cherish the time I have in a party devoid of all this. The energy of that party is altogether different. It is so pure, so very enthusiastic. You can totally sense difference in both the environment. One seems to be pulling evolution down while the other clearly uplifts the spirit. I slowly started feeling why on earth do people get into these stupid activities! Why can't they understand that is something really bad for them and in turn for the rest of the world? All these thoughts cramped up the space in my mind when I used to sit in any such parties. It became increasingly difficult to be natural and interact with the same set of people with whom I used to spend most of the time before I did my research. Educating them did not work and their mockery to my sensibility fuelled my detachment towards them. At the same time I found it difficult to come in terms to the fact that these are my old time buddies and I cannot just be away from them. I was getting anxious about my straining relationships with them. I closed my eyes and asked for help from within. Sri Sri's soft voice made a soothing tune from inside while saying, 'Accept people and situations as they are'.

I opened my eyes with a smile. Yes they drink, smoke etc, so I just need to accept them as they are. This is how they are, these are their choices. I realised that I was loosing my peace of mind just because I didn't accept the fact that my friends are smoking and drinking. I realised that the real fight was on the question 'why?' "why are they doing this?" "why can't they understand what is good for them?" "Why can't they understand that this is spoiling the whole world?" Acceptance dissolved all the WHYs. And thus dissolved all the questions taking all the frustration with it. "OK, they don't understand. Now I have to make my choices instead of getting into whys."

This may seem like a common sense to everyone. But so many times in our lives do we crib over, "why my boss did this?" "Why can't my dad can't understand my dreams?" "Why my girlfriend always does this?" "Why does he always shout on silly things? " etc. And we end up being in agony. The way Sri Sri puts up this knowledge point, it becomes very obvious and yet something that we can easily apply in our daily lives easily with full awareness.

This piece of knowledge has helped me a lot to take faster decisions, crib less and move on quickly in situations like missing flight, traffic, unhygienic toilets, angry colleagues, work burden, bus delays and almost every daily life occurrence. For me this point has become the fastest way to instant piece of mind.

This is the beauty of the way Sri Sri delivers knowledge. It comes out when we need it. And not comes out in its best answer easiest form.

Once while working I got little scared of the amount of load on me. The anxiety didn't let me even start the work. I then remembered the steps Sri Sri suggested in such situations. First move away from desk. Relax. Break the work into smaller parts and execute one part at a time. I was able to finish that work very comfortably.

I make a point to watch at least one video of Sri Sri everyday. His knowledge is inclusive, it is something you can apply anywhere and everywhere. It is simple to understand, yet it is deep enough to understand the aspect from all situations.

The ease of managing stress

I knew the answers but couldn't remember them. The clock on the right hand side corner of the screen was trickling down faster than what it ideally should have . The stakes were high. "If I am not able to clear this exam today, I must forget my annual appraisal." Every minute spent in that exam center now mattered more than ever. But if I'm not able to remember these answers, it's a total waste of time, money and effort. "Why am I not able to remember these answers now? I studied them last night only."

I came to the awareness that stress is building up. And in stress you cannot do anything, remember anything and hence you cannot act productively on anything. I realized that I now need to take care of my stress first. I removed my shoes, got into the folded legs position over the chair, and started mudra pranayam. I knew that the security camera overhead was watching me, but at that moment clearing that exam was more important to me the anything.

The night before I had barely studied for an hour. Based on that I marched out towards the exam center. My biggest strength in the morning was my Guru - Sri Sri . I prayed to him that I should clear this exam. And I knew that he would answer my prayers. So I was not entirely surprised when only the questions I studied last night popped out in front of me. I was more surprised with the fact that I was not able to recollect the answers. Sri Sri always says that stress overshadows intellect. Fortunately I retained the intellect to invest my time in the mudra pranayam. It's because of those 5 minutes that I when I opened my eyes, I started remembering certain points and from those points I remembered all the answers. I cleared that exam and got a whopping bonus because of that.

I never knew that the knowledge of mudra pranayam can bring such a significant shift in my career. Breath is such a wonderful technique to take care of stress. People always knew this that long deep breaths take care of stress to some level. But which breathing technique can take care of what kind of stress is something I learned when I came to The Art of Living. These different breathing techniques help me when I get caught by cops, when I have to ask for a long leave, when I have to go and present something crucial, when I conduct my trainings, when I wait in the traffic for hours kissing the front car's bumper, when I sit patiently to a 8 year old's questions etc.

Apart from breathing Sri Sri's timely wisdom helps big time. Once during a Satsang, as if listening to all of my mind chatter, he said "Take all the mind chatter, collect it and dump it in the sea." A devotee from the satsang group needed clarification in this, "But won't that give us instant gratification in turn leading us to inaction. We would again have to pick up the matter to work on it." "OK, why do you have to eat again and again? " "Because the food gets digested and the I need more food. But that is a different context since that process gives me energy" " Aaah! Precisely, do you get the point?" and everyone in the satsang started applauding to the simplicity of the process to get that renewed mental energy to resolve our problems.

Earlier the only option I knew to take care of stress was desserts. I knew eating something sweet would take care of my stress. Today I have a platter in front of me that contains a variety of tools to take care of my stress.

My idea of h@ppiness

"Live life as an expression of happiness and not in the pursuit of happiness" stated Bawa in my first yes plus and I was blown away by this line. I so admired the movie 'In the pursuit of happiness' But somewhere I pondered is this state of frustration, agitation mandatory on the path to success? Why am I really here on this planet if I am supposed to go through that agony?

Everyone is doing some or the other thing for happiness. Some struggle to get decent job while some struggle to excel in it. Some strain hard to have a perfect marriage while some strain harder to get out of it. Some prefer to sit in the Himalayan cave while some prefer to booze in an urban cave. Rather every activity of the human race is in the pursuit of happiness. Sri Sri goes ahead in saying that every creature on this planet craves for happiness and peace. He chuckles further, "Those who want happiness, pray. While those of who forgot to pray invented alcohol." We pray for a variety of things. But those who pray for happiness and peace know the true essence of the being.

But this prayer also comes to soothe an agitation in our minds. So does this mean that life is journey of agitation? Because this agitation doesn't settle down until either our desires get fulfilled or the desires become insignificant. And by the time this desire settles in, a new desire takes up the space of agitation and frustration.

"What do you mean by that of course I am happy many a times!" I know this thought would pop up in your mind. You would naturally tend to think that your life is not as miserable as I am putting it here. Rather let's assume that your life is not miserable at all. Are to you smiling right now? When was the last time you had a hearty laugh! When was the last time you danced like crazy and sang irrespective of whether you have audience! When we laugh without reason, dance as if there is no one around and sing as if this is the last chance to sing we get in the state of natural self. If we meditate, we can harness that natural self. With meditation we get to comprehend our natural being. And as Sri Sri says, happiness and peace is the state of our being.

So while we look for happiness somewhere outside, happiness is actually deep within us. Thus meditation is the most reliable way to remain happy. When we are deep in meditation, we get close to what our true self is. The joy in meditation can only be expressed in gratitude people have after meditation. Happiness index is scientific term to quantify how happy a person is! And the person highest on this index so far is a meditator practicing meditation since past 30 odd years. Hence Sri Sri says joy is in this moment.

Coming back to the movie 'In the pursuit of happiness' Chris Gardner finally experienced the tears of joy at the end of the movie. It took him a long struggle to finally reach that state of mind. If he were meditating, he would have been smiling all through his path of success. Being happy brings equanimity in mind and balance in our thoughts and decision. We seldom need frustration to pump our efforts to get out of a miserable situation. But we certainly need joy to get out of misery. And where is joy? With you right now. Then why live life in the pursuit of happiness? Be little smart and live life as an expression of happiness.

The notes of stress beat

He was aloof, alone, sitting with his head down in the Ram Temple at Hyderabad. One of my friends, Kiran approached him and asked him to join us for the meditation centre. As a new project we started running free meditation centres at different places with an intention to reach out to people who are yet to experience meditation. We call this club as Meditating Monday. When I initiated this project in Hyderabad in the year 2011, I had no idea about the gravity of this idea until this boy decided to follow Kiran to the room where our team was conducting the meditation. A simple 10 minutes meditation and we could see wrinkled foreheads becoming soothing smiling faces. This is quite a regular experience for us now. People do recognise the peace within them during guided meditations by Sri Sri. All the participants hugged the volunteers and expressed their intention to join us again. This boy did not seem to move. When Kiran approached him, he hugged Kiran tightly and started crying profusely. "I was planning to jump from 6th floor yesterday. Today I came here to say my last prayers." He had no idea then there exists something in this world that can take him out of his depression.

If this is the impact of a 10 minutes meditation, then imagine what the unique breathing technique of Sudarshan Kriya can do to us. "Nice, but I'm not depressed, what can AOL do to me?" Comes a natural question. If a depressed person can get life then can you imagine what it can do to you. Because of all these techniques, normal people have become super dynamic and dynamic people have become instruments of change that are bringing waves of positive energy to masses.

In 2013 after the Uttarakhand floods, a team from Mumbai took out time from their busy lives with a mission to bring some change in people. My sister was a part of that team. Together the team of 8 boys and 5 girls in 8 days reached out to more than 800 people bringing peace in their minds and hope in their hearts. How is it possible to generate this level of dynamism from the otherwise dormant crowd?

What makes us inactive is the inability to handle stress. What really happens when we cannot meet deadlines at our work place? Assuming that the deadlines are reasonable, we tend to reduce our speed in the fight between focus and relaxation. When we get relaxed we lose focus. When we get focused, we get anxious leading to stress. Breathing techniques taught at The Art of Living really increase the focus and at the same time keeps us relaxed. Thus we get more productive leaving us ample time to do all the things  that we always wanted to do.

We start with full enthusiasm to learn a guitar. But soon the guitar becomes a wall hanging. We end up spending more time on things that we have to do. Focus comes on ways to earn money and how to survive in the rat race. When we delink stress from our lives, we discover the gaps in our day which we generally miss, since they get covered in anxiety, worry, regret etc. This newly discovered time gives us the opportunity to do things which we always wanted to do. Be it preparing for an extra curricular exam, learning Krav maga or taking up some kind of social responsibility. The Art of Living through its stress management programs have brought in vibrancy amidst so many people that today are leading lives much higher than their potential.

Thanks to these techniques that today we are leading lives that we want to live and not the ones that we have to live.

An Infinite Moment Passing By

Let us take every morsel with the taste,
Let us make every move devoid of haste.

Let us revere life in every breath we inhale,
Let us surrender worries in our every passing exhale.

Let us discover music within the noise around,
A symphony of various instruments limitless & unbound.

Let us listen to everyone with care and concern,
Let empathy dawn as their life we learn.

Let us lighten our thoughts as the future worries float goodbye.
Let us loosen our fist so that past regrets heave a relieved sigh.

Let us smile back to every moment of anger and fear,
Let us fight back lethargy while keeping our intentions clear.

Let us feel divinity in every stranger we meet.
Let us experience the infinity in every moment we greet.

How big clues of life unravel themselves! Aho!

Observe the reasons why can one not get deep sleep.

" I am having a bad stomach ache." That's the effect of eating wrong food. Take a pill and it can be healed.

"I have bad headache, fever, cough & cold etc " That's again the effect of not maintaining health properly. Still we can manage it by pill or Zandu Balm etc.

"There are just too many mosquitoes tonight." Now this is the effect of your community not maintaining proper healthy surroundings and everyone in your community will have to face this issue. But again this can be taken care of by various "techniques" like liquidator, coil, odomos, electric bat etc.

Every effect mentioned above is because of some action, right? That action is nothing but our karma. It's because of our actions or our community's actions we bear certain fruits or bad consequences. I'm enjoying an urban lifestyle because of the actions of my grandparents. I have to bear a wrong government because of the action or for that matter inaction of my fellow citizens. I enjoy the good marks in my exam because of the action of my studies.

So now coming back to reasons as to why one cannot sleep properly, we saw there are are certain actions that we do all day that lead us to lack of sleep. But then certain actions out of them do have cure. Certain scientists or gurus in the field of science have deviced certain ways (pills, Balm, liquidators etc) in which you can be relieved off your/your community's actions/inactions.

One of the prime reasons as to why one doesn't get deep sleep is when some botheration constantly hovers over one's mibd. In one of my sessions with Rajima Ratan she said desires eventually ferment into botherations. Look at any botheration that doesn't let you sleep, it was a desire some time back. "I have exam tomorrow." is a botheration that arises out of the desire to get good marks. And stronger the desire, stronger is the impression of botheration. And stronger the botheration, the shallow our sleep is.

So unless we lighten ourselves with desires, we effectively won't have good sleep. Now as H. H. Sri Sri Ravishankar puts it up, desire is an intention with feverishness. To take my example, the idea to write this blog dawned on me when a storm of mosquito bites shook me out of my sleep. The intention to blog about this sudden realization (Aho Niranjan!) was good enough to complete my action without any negative effect on my sleep. But associated with this intention was the feverishness to blog it right now which fermented into a desire. And I won't get proper sleep tonight until I completely drop this desire because even after publishing the blog comes the desire to get reader's comments. So I simply won't get my peace of mind until I get completely dispassionate about this action.

So to sum it up, in order to get liberated in deep sleep:
a) one has to implement the techniques and the instruments invented by the gurus in the field of science to overcome the effects of one actions (karma).
b) get dispassionate about one's actions by dropping feverishness off the desires thus preventing it to become a botheration.

Now with this, we do realize the importance of repeating advance meditation courses, don't we? Those who have understood the implicit meaning of the blog would concur. So keep repeating AMCs and keep exploiting the botheration basket in the course that will eventually lead you to that deep sleep from where getting up and going back to bed comes completely under your control.

:-)

Jai Gurudev.

My Major Take Away From Ashtavakra Gita

Disclaimer1: This blog is meant only for those who have completed Ashtavakra Gita. For those who haven’t, please go through the discourse of H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on Ashtavakra Gita before reading this blog.

Disclaimer2: Ashtavakra Gita is not Bhagwat Gita.

“Music is harmony in sound” – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

When there is no harmony in sound, it simply becomes noise. It is the tune that brings this harmony in sound. The way the sound goes high pitch or low pitch, you can virtually draw a graph in air as your favorite song beats the speaker. This graph basically comes from the fact that the song is jumping up and down over few notes. In Indian classical singing, these notes are Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa. So you take any Indian song, it is basically permutation combination of these 7 notes or Sapta Suur as we call them. The other day after we completed one of the pieces of Ashtavakra Gita, this aspect just struck me very hard. Whether we like a particular song or not, whether the song is comedy, tragedy, romantic, blues, classic or whatever genre it may belong to, it is finally a composition of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa. At the root, it is nothing but Sapta Suur. 

When I tweeted this piece of realization, Ajay replied, "Nimish, knowledge oozing out?"

For those who couldn't relate well to the above example, here is another realization that dawned on me few days ago.

Remember the birthday song we sing, "Sagar me ek leher oothi tere naam ki"

Let us take a dive in this Sagar. Nice blissful ocean with amazing flora and fauna right within. The flora and fauna in an ocean differs from the flora and fauna in the river. Reason being, the water differs from the ocean to river. We generate tons and tons of salt every day from the great ocean and yet it generously produces salt again and again for our sake.This level of salt differs from ocean to ocean. The salinity in the Bay of Bengal is lower as compared to that of the Arabian Sea. So if you take a bowl of Arabian Sea water in one hand and a bowl of Bay of Bengal water in another hand, you'd agree that the waters are different. What would happen if both of them go through distillation plant? Now try to compare both the bowls, its no rocket science that the distilled water is just the same. So what differs the Arabian Sea water from the Bay of Bengal water is the salt and mineral content or anything which is not water. Let us call this "anything which is not water" as impurities. So if we are able to remove the impurities from both the sea waters, there is no difference in any of these oceans.

I can see few nodding their heads and few smiles by now, as this is something they can relate to.

Now think, why is it necessary to do Sudarshan Kriya daily and advance courses regularly? What sort of distillation we go through when the master says, get back to your source? Why do we feel blissful and pure after every advance course? And what is that purity?

It is the impurities that create distinctions. So imagine, tomorrow a bucket of water from Bay of Bengal flies to the Arctic Ocean and says, "The water there is very hard in nature. It is very stubborn." A bucket of water from Hawaii flies to the coastline of Mumbai and says, "The water there is brown in colour." In all these comments, is it really the water that's being judged? No, water is always H2O. Poor water gets the attributes of its impurities.

"Love is not just an emotion, it is your very nature. Just like this table is made up of wood, our body is made up of flesh, we are made up of a substance called love." - H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

I am devoid of anger, I am incapable to hate,

I communicate in silence, I love to Meditate

Om Shanti Shanti

I hear people give up on religious beliefs in the interest of preventing terrorism. It seems they take the lines by Colonial Cousins 'Religion is the reason, the world is breaking up into pieces ' too seriously. But honestly, the world will anyway break into pieces. If not religion there will be something else to take care of that aspect of human evolution. We need a paradigm shift in our understanding of terrorism.

Paradoxically, hatred is an emotion that people love to nurture. Add to that our daily encounters of fear, anger and jealousy that creates a pool of sewage where we sink our tender hearts . Then eventually comes one intellectual with amazing oratory skills and mind blowing convincing power, that points finger to a section of community while belonging to another particular section of community thus channelizing this sewage into that direction. So whether it's religion or something else depends upon the 'leader', and his/her oration. Hitler channelized this hatred against Jews, Osama Bin Laden channelized this against Americans, Hafiz Saeed channelized this against Hindus while L. K. Advani channelized this against Muslims, Rahul Gandhi used this against the saffron clad sadhus, Digvijay Singh against the anti-corruption lobby, Maoists against the capitalist government, KCR against non telangana brethren and Raj Thackeray did the same against north Indians giving equal opportunity to Sanjay Nirupam against Marathi people. What we need to understand here is what is at the core? Is it religion or is it a philosophy? If you look deeper you will understand that it's human emotion given a shape of philosophy that eventually vents into religion, caste, nationality, community et al . And the opportunity for such philosophies to crop up is plenty because the breeding ground of anger, jealousy and fear eventually leading to hatred is bountiful with our minute to minute encounters.

Our leaders have a hobby of collecting such pieces of hatred and then channelize them with their convincing power. "You see that fellow is going ahead of you killing your opportunity to progress" thus blossoming jealousy into hatred. "You see the way so and so religion is growing? They will soon eat up our space on this planet" thus allowing fear to rise into hatred. "You know why you were late for the interview? Because chaps from the unwanted community have occupied all of our public transport leaving no space for you to travel and breathe", sculpting anger into hatred. All these "leaders" need is; to nurture hatred in us which coincidentally turns out to be our favorite hobby. The argument they make to convince us seem plausible, since it is something we can relate to and is served to us in oration at its best.

Try to look little deeper, in their arguments; it's not the solution of the problem, but but it is our emotion of hatred that gets pumped up. And what is missing in all of the scenarios mentioned above is understanding of human values.

There is a very valuable quote from H. H. Sri Sri Ravishankar that says "Fanaticism flourishes when religious concepts are kept before human values." And there lies the solution to our problems. Understanding the depths of human values is what can help us get rid of these emotions.

I am not in denial of the problems people face. With increasing population and limited resources to live on, our socio-economic fabric is bound to go through the acid test. But we tend to find out solutions in philosophies that promote hatred, and probably because that's an easier way out. When it is hatred that we need to get rid of, we struggle to get rid of a particular community or religion. Who imbibes this hatred within us? Is it religion? No, it is a philosophy without the background of human values. It is religion without the spiritual essence.

Sri Sri has the perfect metaphor in this context, "Religion is the outer banana skin, while spirituality is real banana. People stuck on religion chew on the skin while throwing out the banana." What really is this word spirituality? Sri Sri puts it up simply, "Spirituality is nothing but caring & sharing ; offering oneself in service." When we are in service, we end up taking a voluntary responsibility, thus committing ourselves to be the social change agents, attempting to build an ideal society through love and compassion.

So changing our religious beliefs will not help since the trend says that our "leaders " always have some agenda to make sure we nurture hatred for the sake of their power in our society. Society changes, ideologies change, philosophies change, beliefs change, what remains the same is the "leader " with a pointed finger, with new ideology, new belief, new agenda to nurture hatred so that s/he can securely fasten the seatbelt of power and enjoy the ride while we juggle the tower of our principles and religious beliefs on the tune of those new philosophies. Whether it's the way Muslims say Aamin, Christians attend mass prayers or Sikhs sing Ek Onkar every religion in its every prayer harbors peace and happiness in our hearts. Observe the way Jews greet, Buddhist meditate, Jains live their lives and the Hindus end their sessions.

Loka samastha sukhino bhavantu,
Om Shanti Shanti Shaaantihi

(Let there be happiness everywhere.
Om peace peace peace)