Life and Destiny

Goats have very little horns. Its requirement to dig the ground or do such other odd jobs is fulfilled by that. On the contrary, deers have long horns, most of which is of no use to it. Yet we enjoy and appreciate the beauty of a deer's otherwise useless horn. Similarly, the river flows in its own way. But very little water is put to real good use. Most of the water maintains the flow of the river save and except a little, which is used for irrigation. This maintenance of flow is important. The river must flow. We common people are also like that. We maintain the flow of mankind. After our deaths, nobody will ever write a biography on our lives. Nobody will build up our statue. After death very few people become immortal. That is why the world is still habitable.

Wise men say, "Get up, do some work. Do not waste time." There are people who do very little work and truly they waste a lot of time. But there is another class of people who cannot do their work properly. They spoil the work as well as the time. There is no harm if you cannot do any real good work. We common people are here to maintain the flow only. That is what God wants us to do. And Jesus Christ sacrificed his life only for us - the common mass. All great men have worked only for the welfare of mankind.....and the whole mankind is primarily composed of common people like us.

Everything in nature, like the grass, the stars, the sun and the moon, are all doing just that. Each of these does not ever try to go beyond their capacity. They devote themselves to their tasks very religiously. The grass never tries to become a big tree, or a small star never tries to become the sun, and thereby waste their energy. That is why so much beauty, peace and tranquility prevails in nature. Everything remains well within limits.

So we should not lament. It is the majority that keeps everything in motion. We are like tiny ripples in an ocean, without which the ocean will lose its greatness. Same way a large portion of all that nature has given to us is wasted, like sunlight. All grass does not produce rice. Very little of these are of any real value. The most common variety of grass simply covers the dust with a soothing green colour and gives the earth a soft, tender appearance. That is its job.

Mankind is basically divided into two parts. One part comprises ninety per cent while the remaining ten per cent makes up the other part. This ninety per cent mostly remains cool and calm. The other ten per cent always remains disturbed. Whenever a portion of this so called ninety per cent wishes to move to the other part and consequently tries to gain importance, they become restless, disturbed and quite agitated. That then becomes a dangerous situation for all and sundry. It becomes an unholy situation for all. Many a lives may be lost and they must get themselves prepared for that.

The river flows towards the sea. That is its wish ..... to get united with it. But a river can never become a sea. It can only get united with it. It is the same thing with us also. We can only get united with God.
The river passes through many a hills and dales, forests, villages, but never stops at any of these. It keeps on moving towards its destination, the sea.

We also, through all our actions, are constantly moving towards God. And that is at the root of all our peace, joy and happiness. The more we move towards Him, the more peace we get. We get so many things during the course of life, but we are unable to hold them for good. Ultimately we leave everything to get united with Him. That is our destiny ..... like the river. We can move closer to Him only when we exchange love and sympathy with others. That is the message of God. That is why we get so much peace when we get love from others, or are able to love others. Really we move one step closer to Him. The more we love others, the more peace we get. And then we feel just great.

Translation into English based on the Bengali works (essay) of Rabindranath Tagore

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Marriage and its intricacies

Marriage involves us completely, body and mind, and therefore tests us, makes and unmakes us, as men and women. It requires an always shifting or changing responsiveness that keeps us human and alive. We are reminded day by day, that we 'realize' the joy it promises, through our readiness to enter into the responsibilities it brings. Through him or her the partner discovers the whole mankind.

Marriage is an incarnation of love. It is the expression and open acknowledgment of a living affection that binds two people together, or rather two souls together. Beyond that love knows no rules. We all love affection. But we also love peace, we love security - and love is always insecure.

No marriage lives up to its expectations - least of all when the partners claim it does. No marriage is a full utilization of all the possibilities it offers. Somewhere even the luckiest of us falls short. We relinquish the adventure for the sake of security. We get tired of the life-giving friction that restores warmth and sensitivity to any human relationship. In marriage we hold ourselves apart for the sake of peace. The more peace-loving a person is, the more he or she holds himself or herself apart. We cease to explore the other, either because we find the quest too strenuous, or because we think that we have discovered all there is to know. We become satisfied with one another - which is another form of being satisfied with oneself. We waste our vital energies elsewhere separately.

Forgiveness in marriage is a passionate turning and returning to the beginning of our love and hope. It is our acknowledgment of failure and our active longing to have it redeemed. It is the re-affirmation of our hope that life is yet before us with all its colours and vigour. We forgive when we are ready to have our hearts broken, not before that.

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The Narrow Stream

A marshy area with big grasses, not frequented by people.

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One's Neighbour

Who is our neighbour ? There he is. We meet him in the street, at work, on the bus, or even over the garden wall. We also know him through different print media, the internet, different statistics, or even appeals for help. He is always there wanting us to turn towards him and make him realize what he is failing to realize right now. He may not know what he is missing. It is our responsibility to make him realize that. This is the challenge that is constantly being thrown towards us by our neighbour.

We are not human beings having spiritual experience. We are really spiritual beings having human experience. It takes a lifetime to come to know another person, and the knowledge is not gained once and for all, but by continuous adventures.

Every situation calls for a new response and every response creates a unique situation. In this responsiveness we not only come to know the other person, but we come to know ourselves also. We must have the imagination, the energy and the sympathy to experience our neighbour's life like we do about ourselves. We shall love them as we love ourselves, we shall want to do to him what I wish him to do for me. What we do to ourselves, we shall do to him as well, as a son of his parents, a husband of his wife, a friend of his friends. Any action which takes him for less would clearly be inhuman. We shall not be able to love ourselves until we come to love our neighbours as 'ourselves'. Whatever we do for our neighbour, it has to come from within ourselves as a spontaneous response. If we do something for him out of a sense of duty, we will surely miss him as a neighbour. We surely do not want him to show the same attitude towards us, a heartless, dutiful one. If we find any attitude of our neighbour not acceptable, then there must be something in us which is also unacceptable, unneighbourly. If we hate them, we would not be able to love ourselves, If we do not trust others, it shows that fundamentally we do not trust ourselves. If we are afraid of others, we should realize that there is much in us of which we are afraid of, and of which others have every reason to be afraid of. We are dissatisfied with others when we are dissatisfied with ourselves. Thus neighbourhood is a place where life is not worth living if we turn ourselves away from our neighbour.

What we see in the world is only ourselves as we see ourselves in the deep and honest privacy of our own heart. Our attitude to our neighbours reveals what we are.

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How to find peace of mind while living within a small budget

It is indeed very difficult to increase one's income within a short span of time. This becomes more necessary when the market gets affected by inflation and prices of necessities rise abnormally. Economic crisis is responsible for this inflationary pressure. Even in the long run, it is not very easy to increase the income. Money-earning is a difficult task indeed. More so when money at one's disposal in scarce. One has to be able to market oneself before being able to market and sell one's product or services. So when one has to live within a limited, small budget, managing ones's financial affairs becomes very difficult. A vast majority of people are toiling really hard every day to make both ends meet.

Under such circumstances, if one wishes to have peace of mind, he has to be a bit less materialistic. A more spiritual approach towards life will reduce one's need for money. Spirituality is the keyword for peace. Spirituality is an ultimate or immaterial reality, an inner path allowing a person to discover the true essence of his being. It helps a person to find the deepest values and meanings by which he lives.

Entertainment expenses can be curtailed and controlled to a great extent. One must try to entertain oneself and his family with the most simple things of life. Nature, that way, has given us enough to keep us entertained. Spirituality and wisdom will help a lot to keep oneself confined to the most simple forms of entertainment, for example, watching the television, listening to music, writing something, no matter what, or even drawing or sketching whatever one finds interesting. Going to a very nearby place of interest without spending much on conveyance and food is another way to get entertained at a little cost. If necessary, one can carry some food from home. If one searches properly, one will surely find some places of interest nearby which does not cost much to visit.

One's creative and artistic sense and quest for acquisition of knowledge will help him a lot. Creativity takes its highest form when it is regarded as the same as worshipping the God. Creation is nothing but making offerings to the God. This take the creator closer to the God and makes him spiritual. Creative people are surely more spiritual and psychic. A psychic is one who has the ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception because of their imaginative power. A creative mind will always find enough free entertainment stuff all around in nature. Creativity is there inside every human being in different degrees. People are all children of this mother earth, children of nature. Only one's creative aspect may not have been nourished properly. One has to do just that. Add to this the quest for acquisition of knowledge, which is the ultimate source of all happiness, and it will work wonders.

One must develop the habit of reading books, periodicals, newspapers, or whatever he comes across. The internet is there where one can find enough materials of his interest to read. Once a person develops this habit of reading, he will find enough peace of mind. One must also try his best to develop a liking for cooking, as far as possible and practicable.

So far as spirituality and wisdom are concerned, age plays an important role. Lesser the age, lesser the urge one feels to turn spiritual. This is nothing but natural. There seems to be no problem with that as more are then the opportunities lying in front of him because of his lesser age.

Every person is unique in his spending capacity or ability. One must understand one's situation very perfectly and lead each day accordingly. However, one must keeps his eyes and ears open to find out new ways to increase his income. But that should not keep him too much busy all the time. Then he will feel disturbed mentally and fail to perform his daily duties properly.

Thus, one must try to be an ardent follower and worshipper of nature, as much as possible. The more one can achieve this, the more peace he finds. The common grass can never grow up into a paddy plant. Neither it tries to do so. It remains satisfied by only covering the surface of this earth with a smooth green blanket. A little flowering plant can never grow up into a big tree. It does not even try to do that. This way one must take lessons from mother nature.

One must try to develop the habit of savings, however small it may be. This will help him to feel secure. Propensity to save is always good for the future.

During every pay-period, after meeting the fixed expenses (bills), one is left with a balance to meet his variable expenses. This amount must be divided by the number of days left to find out how much one can spend each day. He then should try to remain within each day's budget, though it is not always possible to do it everyday.

One must be cautious at the beginning of one's pay-period. At this time one has more money in hand. Just after receiving the pay one must be very cautious about his expenditure. When money in hand is more, it is less predictable where it will go. One tends to spend more in such a situation. As one approaches towards the end of his pay-period, he can afford to be less cautious, as money in hand is getting lesser. When money is less, it is very predictable. It will mainly go after necessities. This must be followed religiously.

Thus, one has to follow some basic guidelines and just shift one's outlook to remain at peace even with a small or limited income. Maintaining the current level of income is also equally important. If one can maintain the current level of income, it will increase one day. It is bound to. Creativity, if nourished properly and religiously, can turn into a new source of income some day. One must never get impatient to increase one's income overnight. One must be ready to work hard to bring in more income some day. This also takes time. Here again, spirituality and wisdom will help a lot.

Last of all, co-operation from other family members, especially spouse, is absolutely necessary.

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