Goalful Fortunates

Those are most unfortunate who spend most of their spare time in entertainment. No higher goal defines their life.

You don't need to be intellectually or skillfully special to have a goal. Material goals do require such qualifications, but not spiritual goals. Everyone can strive for personal spiritual upliftment irrespective of social, monetary, intellectual, or skill  status. Spiritual goals add meaning to living, and to life itself.

Entertainment centered life is meaningless, hence unfortunate. Goal centered life is purposeful, hence fortunate.

Every Teacher is Not a Guru

Teachers help one learn or hone a skill. Of course, as one becomes more proficient, other variants of teachers like mentors, coaches, and counselors become more relevant. Teachers are often indispensable if one wishes to perfect a skill in the least possible time with the most efficient use of time and energy.

A spiritual master - Guru - helps one make spiritual advancement and is absolutely indispensable if one wants to attain spiritial perfection - pure love for the Supreme Lord.

In modern times any expert or popular teacher is refered to as a Guru. This equation leads to the undesirable watering down of the position of the spiritual master or Guru. Dedication to a teacher is not absolutely indispensable for mastering a skill. No doubt teachers are invaluable, but there are many notable skillsmen who are self-taught to a large extent. These include singers, actors, dancers, writers, sportsmen, and so on. But a Guru - spiritual master - is indispensible; because he doesn't teach skills, he changes hearts.

A Guru guides his disciple in developing the disciple's relationship with the Supreme Lord. This relationship deepens as the disciple's heart becomes cleansed of selfish desires for godless enjoyment. And the heart is cleansed by submissive service to and sincere inquiry from the Guru. In fact, one's relationship with the Guru naturally extends into one's relationship with the Supreme Lord. The Guru is a very intimate dear devotee of the Lord and the Lord accepts one's relationship with Him to the degree one develops his relationship with the Guru.

A teacher, no matter how kind, learned, or austere, is not a Guru if he is not intentionally taking his disciple closer to the Supreme Lord by his teachings. But every genuine Guru is the best teacher because his very existence is to guide his disciples to an eternal ever joyful relationship of love with Sri Krishna!

The Social Gathering

Social get-togethers are memorable and warmer when in the presence of widely and genuinely respected loving elders. They are even more enchanting when people express their gratitude openly and downplay their mutual differences of opinions.

Otherwise social events are typically shallow formalities attended out of social pressure. Even if attended willingly, if devoid of the warmth of loving elders and heartfelt gratitude, social functions are like any other means of popular entertainment meant for passing (i.e. wasting, killing) time. Most of the times they degrade into gossip parties where nothing more enlightening than relatives, politics, sports, television, and economics is discussed. Despite coming together physically, people attending these gossip parties hardly feel the bond of togetherness - because there is no strong common ideal that binds them together. The ideal of "let's enjoy together" focuses not on togetherness, but on enjoyment.

There are a few occasions where social events are enlivening due to the warmth of relationships and the open expression of gratitude. Typically on these occasions the heart is overjoyed seeing the mutual affection flowing all around. These are the real social gatherings.

This principle applies at an even deeper level. Such gatherings are even more meaningful if centered around not just family relationships, but on our relationship with the supreme lord. If we accept the lord as the most loving and respectable person in our life and family, then no social gathering is warm enough without him. If we don't accept the Lord as such, any social gathering, no matter how pleasing to the heart, is merely a polished version of the shallow formal gathering. It might enliven us, but will do nothing to enlighten us.

From today, let's accept the supreme lord as our most respectable dearest relative and our best and most loving friend.


._.

The Independence Way

Happy people make a progressive nation.

Unhappy people are seldom willing to contribute to make other things better. They are too concerned about finding happiness in their personal lives. Ironically, most leaders pretend to believe that things make people happy. So a lot of energy goes in making unwilling unhappy people work hard to make things. But things don't make people happy. So the dreary hard work continues endlessly with happiness nowhere in sight.

Contentment brings happiness, not things. Content happy people are more inclined to contribute to bigger causes, are more charitable, are more willing to make sacrifices for others, are more willing to help the needy, are honest leaders, are less demanding, are more accommodative, and so on.

Contentment comes from systematic cultivation of spiritual life. A devotional spiritual life fosters service attitude and a genuine desire to make people happy. This dynamic contentment derives its power from a deep relationship of love and service towards the Supreme Lord.

The cherished goal of all nation-lovers should be to increase the happiness quotient of their fellow countrymen. Things play their part, but contentment is the very foundation of happiness.

This Independence Day let's start our freedom struggle against unhappiness by beginning our spiritual journey - a journey down the independence way.

The Tool of Laws

Another angle to the notion that "things just exist" is to say that "laws just exist" and that laws explain the order and intricacy found in nature.

When we pluck a stretched wire, it produces a sound. The pitch of the sound depends on the length of the wire. All this is governed by laws. But to say that laws explain rhythmic melodious music is naive. And to say that chance brings together laws to create music is a humongous leap of faith unacceptable to a logical and honest mind.

It requires intelligence to pluck the strings at the correct places at the correct moments to create well-designed music. Similarly merely laws do not explain the order and intricacy found in nature; intelligence does.

The universe is not governed by the rule of laws brought together by chance; it's governed by an intelligent being expertly wielding the tool of laws.

The Basis of all Existence

Creation, with all its orderly systems and intriguing intricacies reasonably points to an intelligent creator. To avoid acknowledging an intelligent creator, some scientists, philosophers, and even spiritualists propagate many imaginative theories. One of them states that nothing was created, everything just exists.

Even this attempt of keeping intelligence at bay fails. Because intelligence is a prominent feature of existence. Intelligence exists, and it controls other features of existence. For example, a dog is intelligent enough to circumvent uintelligent physical obstacles to  find the source of a scent. Similarly humans are intelligent enough to pick up an unintelligent instrument to pen down imaginative theories about how the pen originally came about.

If everything just exists, then intelligence also just exists; it's not a product of chance. Intelligence is a personality trait. If intelligence just exists, so does personality; personality is not a product of chance.

Personality is a manifestation of consciousness. Thus consciousness just exists. It's a fundamental feature of existence, not a product of chance. Since the posessor of consciousnesses can control unconscious objects and even other less powerful conscious elements, it's highly reasonable to argue that one supreme person exists who controls all else.

Yes, the Supreme Person exists without requiring anything else to explain his existence. The process of spiritual life is to discover that supreme person who, being most powerful, is the very basis of all existence.