Bangalore, India
I have no experience in this.
Let’s think. All problems are caused by love only. There are two things. One is people express their love too much, and then there are others who do not express it at all. Both are no good.
If you express your love too much, the person who is receiving it doesn’t know how to respond. Just imagine yourself in that place, if someone gives you too much love, you will feel like running away. You don’t know how to respond, unless and until you are so centered and you have one pointed love towards the Divinity.
If you are connected with the universal spirit of one pointed love, it doesn’t matter. Then there is only one thing, that is one sided love.
I think God also feels the same thing: one sided love. The biggest victim of one sided love is God. He loves you so much and you don’t even recognize it. So he must be feeling the same way. God loves you, this creation loves you, and you seldom recognize it. If you recognize this and be quiet in yourself, then you'll see. The universe pours so much love on you. You can't handle it, the universe pours that much love on you.
The world always loves you more than you love the world.
You should know this, the universe loves you more than you love the universe. God loves you more than you can ever think or can ever imagine.
As I said, a seed will not sprout if put on the surface of the mud. And also if it is too deep inside the mud, then it won’t grow. So it should be somewhere in between. It should not be deep inside the soil or in air, just a little bit covered. In the same way, expression of love should be somewhere in the middle. When you don’t express it verbally, it shows in your actions.
That is a good realization. Once we recognize that we are not applying the knowledge. Once we realize it then we start turning around.
Do you know why mistakes are tempting? It is because we think we are going to get some great pleasure and joy out of it. But over a period of time, it will drop.
Real master does not make any effort at all. He has purity in heart, clarity in mind and spontaneity in action.
You know some things, at the same time, you don’t know many other things. It is as simple as that. Whatever you know, you convey with certainty, and whatever you don’t know, you simply wait in the hollow and empty space. <br>
Life is a journey from an angry ‘I don’t know’ to a beautiful ‘I don’t know’. <br>
Whenever someone is upset or frustrated, he says ‘I don’t know. I don’t care. Don’t ask me’. From this ugly ‘I don’t know' to a beautiful ‘I don’t know’, that is wonder. <b><i>From frustration to wonder is the real journey</b></i>. <br>
As a child, we are all born with this beautiful ‘I don’t know’; wonder. Unfortunately it is moving from the beautiful space of ‘I don’t know’ to an ugly ‘I don’t know’. This should be reversed.
The spiritually inclined people will have a better attitude in life. They will not have prejudice. They will work with humility, dignity, protect others' dignity, care for others, and have compassion. All these things naturally come to spiritually inclined people.
Spirituality creates sense of belongingness. When there is sense of belongingness, corruption will go down. Corruption begins where this sense of belongingness ends.
He said by negating all the religions, i.e., one who is not a Muslim, one who is not a Christian and so on, whoever is left is a Hindu.
So all those who accept everything, are Hindus. It is very difficult to define a way of life as a religion. A way of humanism is really what Hinduism is. It does not force you to follow just one scripture, one book, or one ritual per say. It simply says that the world is a family, accept knowledge from every side. Realize yourself and serve others. This is the principle.
When I was in America, I was talking to some people about, the constitution of America. It is exactly what Hinduism is, honoring diversity, freedom of worship, liberty, and justice to all; the whole philosophy is what Hinduism is.
This universe is versatile, there are so many dimensions and so many ways to go to the one truth. That is exactly what the essence of Hinduism is.
Unfortunately, in this country the self-esteem of Hinduism has gone down so much. In the colonial era, they suffered a lot. So the self-esteem and prestige went down. It is only during Mahatma Gandhi’s time, or little before, when Swami Vivekananda tried to tell people and reestablish their pride in their culture and religion.
Lord Macaulay, when he went to London, he wrote to Queen Elizabeth, saying, 'I have travelled the length and breadth of India, and I have not see one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage'.
He wrote this letter. It is a very famous talk that he gave in the British parliament. After that they systematically destroyed the Indian culture.
He said that people should think that they are no good, and that was successful. In the 40's and 50's people started thinking that way. That anything from India is not good.
But now times are changing, we simply have to tell people this country had some very good things and some bad things also, like everywhere, because our culture has been interpolated by things which are not good.
Originally, the caste system was for professional convenience. People of professions were grouped together. Later on it became hereditary, and then the rigidity increased.
Anyone who did not follow the rules of a particular community were kept out for a small period of time as untouchables, as a punishment. Like you are in chamber of commerce, and you did something bad and you were thrown out.
But untouchability was never bad so it became a big problem for the Hindu religion later on. Saints throughout the ages have worked to eradicate the untouchability, and they have been successful.
I have written a book, the heritage of Dalits. Many saints were from the untouchable community.
Coming back to this lack of self esteem, this needs serious attention because there is no one big authority. Hinduism is just a way of life. It has its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that you cannot bring uniformity. On the other hand, the advantage is it has a lot of scope for growth.
Religion alone is not enough, the spiritual aspect is needed to regain the self esteem and prestige.
