Aavarana – The Cover

​”Your body is just a cover. It is only there to help and communicate with other. What matters is the Aatma.”

I have read such and related thoughts numerous times. Once a thought is repeated to you so many times, it has a tendency to affect you. My problem is that I understand it but fail to implement it. A part of my mind loves the thought. The other acts exactly opposite to it. The human tendency to reject ugliness is deeply sown into the brain. That makes it difficult to judge someone from their appearance. Even if you are able to judge, You will reject the idea in case if it’s ugly. 

When you go to the market, This ability acts as a boon. It helps you in buying groceries, fruits, vegetables, clothes and so on. Here the appearance often plays a big role. If an apple doesn’t look good from outside, It won’t be good from inside most of the times. Although there is a practice to wax the apples to make them shine so as to fool the buyer. Some are fooled due to this extra shine. Vegetables, are as good as they appear. So is the case of clothes. Such decisions condition our mind to reject ugliness. 

I am still trying to get around this. I understand that the person in front of me is genuine. He is kind hearted. But if he doesn’t appear good, then I blacklist him. I stay away. I don’t know how many people, good people I have missed because of this trait. Though it has reduced substantially, I still think I can do better. I want to do better. 

As they say, Do not judge a book by its cover. 

Let’s see how long it takes me to implement this. 

Philosophers Phone

“Aim for the stars. If you miss, You’ll land on moon.”

I bet the guy who said this, Must be bad at physics. I mean, What the heck I am going to do on Moon? Anyways, I am not an inspirational speaker or a spiritual guru. But I can always copy. That’s what I did.
These days, It’s very easy to find inspiration. You have zillions of social media websites and apps which are have turned into garbage bins for quotes. Go to your app menu and open Whatsapp. Then check out the contacts list where you are able to view the status of all the contacts. See? You don’t need to read Socrates. You have more than one in your contacts list.
When you drink one pint, You are fine.
Two pints, You start enjoying the beer.
Six pints, You feel dizzy.
Twelve pints and you start giving back to nature.

The same thing is about those quotes. I simply cannot handle the sheer large number of quotes served to me. I feel like vomiting. At that very moment, I wish that person is in front of me who churns out this many quote. I’ll throw up on him and say, “These are the quotes I wasn’t able to digest. Please keep them with you.”
That contact list also displays the hypocrites in your contacts. Not all of them, But it has most of them. When you know a person and that person puts up a copied quote from all the garbage, You compare the behavior of the person with that quote. Most of them, They act completely opposite to the quote. Then whats the point of putting the quote as your status? What skills you are showing off? What I can deduce from it is complete lack of creativity.

So please.. Please stop putting up this quotes everywhere and every now and then. Once in a while it sounds good. But more than that is bad for digestion. You can post nonsense instead. That will at least help someone smile.

My rants about God

The subject of this post is really boring. I mean, Why would I waste my time talking about God when I could use the same to watch a movie or listen to music or party with my friends? For some it would be, My family believes in God, So do I. A bunch of them will say, My friends don’t believe in God, So I don’t. The rest remain skeptic and will choose side according to their  convenience. But there exist some like me, Who want answers. They may be theists. They may be atheists. But they search for answers. And while searching for the answers, They discover the meaning of that fourth word of the blog title.

Yes, I was an atheist once. For almost two years. The typical human being who cursed God for all the problems in his life. Because, Rather than searching for the solution of the problem, Cursing God was easy. And that blaming reached a peak where I turned into atheist. This stage was the worst stage of my life. And since I didn’t believe in God, I had no one to blame for my problems. It would have been very easy to start believing again and as a bonus, Get someone to blame for the problems. But I resisted. I wanted answers. I had to find answers. If someone asked me why I don’t believe in God, I had to answer. Being born in a Brahmin family, I was surrounded by believers who were ready to bomb me with questions.

Why so many people believe in God? Is this world filled with billions of fools who believe in something that doesn’t exist? Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, Why these highly literate people believe in God? Fools they are. I am the only intelligent person who doesn’t believe in God. I am different. Am I? Or it’s the other way round. This is the stage where I became skeptic. The question started haunting me. To believe or not to believe? In the process, Two years passed. Then came the bright and sunny day on which a small incident happened. That small incident turned me into a  theist. I wish I could share that with you. It’s nothing extraordinary. But I cannot share it. Sometimes, I think I was a fool to turn theist because of that incident.

I turned theist but I couldn’t establish the definition of God. This thought process was something I cherished. I asked question to myself and Started searching for answers. It was quite fascinating that I already knew the  answers  but I hadn’t realized that these were the answers.

The first question that comes to you when you try to understand God is “Who created God?” One thing I learned while trying to find answers to the question is that, There are some questions which have answers in form of another question. Answer to the question is another question. The concept of God varies from religion to region. Hinduism has 33 types of God. Christianity believes in Jesus. Muslims have their faith in Allah. When some of them find it hard to  believe  in one concept of God, they create another concept. Thus religions were formed. In Hinduism, We believe that God exists but we cannot see God. To make it easier to worship, God was given a physical form. Human, Animal or a combination of both. Worship the form you like. I am attracted towards elephants because they are intelligent creatures and their life span is almost that of an average human. So I worship Lord Ganesh.

A bunch of people couldn’t accept this concept. They didn’t want human form but one human to  represent God. Thus Jesus was born. Then there were some who didn’t like both the concepts. They found it  convenient for God to be something without any form. Nothing should  represent  God.  This was the era of Islam and Allah. There exist many other religions. I don’t want to go any deeper. The point is, Find a concept of God which is believable according to you. 

What is God? Who is God? Two more question when I haven’t even answered the first question. I’ll answer these first. God, According to me, Is an energy. When I worship God, I find that some of the energy is transferred to me. It gives me a push. Motivates me. When I was in high school, I learned about Law of Conservation of energy. It says, Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed. It can be only transformed from one form to another. If I apply this concept to my concept of God, God can neither be created, Nor be destroyed. It can only transform from one form to another. Doesn’t this answer the question “Who created god?”? 

In Hinduism, There are Gods like Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. They are the examples of this energy. Brahma is the creator. Vishnu is the caretaker and Shiva is the destroyer. You can see that the same energy can act differently. We all are made of that same energy. How we use it, Is upto us. Because we have the ability to think. What is right and what is wrong. What is good and what is bad. It’s foolishness to blame God for what we do. Use your ability to think and have faith in God. You’ll make most out of this life.

I may be right, I may be wrong. This is just my concept of God. 

Smile Can Make Big Difference

Today, I was listening to some old songs. One of my favorite tracks “Purani Jeans” started playing. My college days started rolling in front of my eyes. I thought of recalling those days through pictures. Very few photos those days as there were hardly any cameras. Mobile revolution had just started. I couldn’t find those photos from my college days anywhere in my backup. I logged into my email and did a query. I found some photos and while going through the search result, I found this beautiful story which I thought is worth sharing.

A little boy wanted to meet God. He packed his suitcase with two sets of his dress and some packets of cakes and he started his journey. He walked a long and felt tired. So he sat in a park on the way and opened a packet to eat a piece of cake. Then he noticed an old woman sitting sad with hunger nearby, so he offered her a piece of cake. She gratefully accepted it with a wide look and smiled at him. Her smile was so pretty that the boy longed to see it again. After some time he offered her another piece of cake. Again, she accepted it and smiled at him. The boy was delighted! They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word. While it grew dark, the boy was frightened and he got up to leave but before he had gone more than a few steps, He ran back and gave her a hug and she kissed him with her prettiest smile.

The boy returned home. After a while, When the boy opened the door, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face.
She asked him, “What did you do today that made you look so happy?”
He replied, “I had lunch with God.”
Before his mother could respond, he added,”You know what? She’s got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen in my life!”

Meanwhile, the old woman, also radiant with joy, returned to her home. Her son was stunned by the look of peace on her face and asked,”Mom, what did you do today that made you so happy?”
She replied, “I ate cakes in the park with God.”
Before her son responded, she added,”You know, he’s much younger than I expected.”

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, All of which have the potential to turn a life around. Remember, nobody know how God will look like. People come into our lives for a reason, for a season, or for a lifetime. Accept all of them equally.

Please share this story with everyone you love. If not this post, then copy-paste this. Or tell this during a conversation. Don’t forget to smile and…
Think Nonsense…

Life and Death

Death: Are you afraid of me??
Me: Yes I am.
Death: I am coming for you…
Me: You are always welcomed.
Death: *Turns back and leaves*

Life: Are you afraid of me??
Me: No.. Why should I??
Life: Then I am leaving you.. (*Turns back and starts leaving*)
Me: As you wish. You are always welcomed to return.
Life: *Turns around and gives me a hug*