The Hindu : Life & Style / Metroplus : My Husband And Other Animals — Plant’s poison, man’s potion

The Hindu : Life & Style / Metroplus : My Husband And Other Animals — Plant’s poison, man’s potion

All You Ever Wanted To Know About Love

I went through the following article in Times Of India newspaper and found it very ideal thoughts about Love. Hope you too find it good.

Love is a basic emotion, yet you cannot plan to fall in love or create conditions for being in love. It is something over which you have no control. Either you fall in love or you do not. It is ordained. Ramakrishna explains this with the following analogy: "When a huge tidal wave comes, all the little brooks and ditches become full to the brim without any effort or consciousness on their own part”.

However, there are some criteria for judging whether one is in love or not.

The first test is that you do not want exclusive possession of the object of your love. You wish the world to know of your love. You could declare your love from the rooftop. And you wish to do or say whatever makes the person you love happy. M K Gandhi said: "Love and exclusive possession can never go together. Theoretically where there is perfect love, there must be perfect non-possession”.

The second test of love is that there can be no bargain. It does not recognise reward or punishment. Love itself is a merit, and itself its own reward. Beyond itself love seeks neither cause nor outcome; the outcome of it is one with the practice of it.

You love something or someone for its own sake and not because you want or desire a favour in return. Love is not a means to some ephemeral or non-ephemeral end, but is an end in itself. Love is not a response to a certain positive situation. You can go on loving... for when you give your love it comes back millions of times more.

The notion of giving is so consequential to love that "if you do not give it, it goes, it becomes dead, it becomes a dead weight on you. It becomes hatred — it turns into its very opposite. It becomes fear, it becomes jealousy, it becomes possessiveness”, said Osho.

The third test of real love is the annihilation of the ego.

It obliterates the distinction between the self and the other by an unconditional surrender to the other; rather it is a total merger, a complete synthesis with the beloved.

In true love the lover and the beloved are one. The sense of your own identity and individuality vanishes. The other, therefore, does not place a limit on the lover’s freedom; rather, communion with the beloved leads to unbound freedom. It frees us from limits imposed on us by our ahamkara — ego.

The fourth test of real love is that it knows no fear. Fear could be of unfulfilled desires. If your love springs from fear of punishment, or from your desires being fulfilled, then it is no love at all. Love and fear are incompatible, because in love there is no place for desire.

The fifth test of love is that you love what you consider to be the best. Therefore, the beloved person, object, or ideal is unique. It is the highest from the perspective of the lover; from others’ perspective it may not be so. For others some other ideal could be higher than this one. But for the lover the beloved is the best.

The sixth test of real love is that the lover does not so much believe in pedantic and powerless reason which merely argues but is not able to establish a direct contact with the beloved.

The lover gives up the fruitless intellectual groping in the dark, and trusts his own direct experience. He does not give reasons and argu-ments, nor depend upon inference but depends on direct perception and lived life experience.

Courtesy : Times Of India

Do not spread rumours

One more video from old days of Doordarshan. And the theme of this video is 'Do not spread rumours'. Watch this video and enjoy.

Those sweet days...

I hope everyone of us can remember this video. It reminds us, our childhood days.
Though it was made more than a decade ago, it is still very relevant to today's world.
Anyway i just wanted to share this video so that all of you can remember you childhood days. Enjoy...

Life is still beautiful, in spite of complications.

In my last post, i said about Life being beautiful. Let me add more to it here.
I still believe that Life is beautiful, but it has got its own complications. We try being good to everyone. In the process we try to satisfy others' expectations. And finally we mess up with life. We try making one person happy and end up other relationships. I am sure many of us would have faced this problem. But then, facing these problems and overcoming them, are our real challenges. We face criticisms from everyone, for something we haven't done and try to prove our point to them. But sometimes, it is better to ignore criticisms. Because only we know, our intentions are good and honest.
Leading a happy life in spite of these complications, is the real big challenge.
And if we are able to overcome these challenges, life indeed becomes very beautiful.

Life is very Beautiful

Life, is not one thing but many things. Well, i am still in search of a correct definition for LIFE. And i believe, my search will continue till my death. Its not that i am not getting a definition for Life, but i find a new definition , at every stage.
Whatever the definition, it is very beautiful. We keep facing problems everyday, but still make an effort to live happily, forgetting the sorrow of the past. Isn't this very thought beautiful?

Our Dreams, are HIS Dreams, too.

When God gives us dreams, He shares them with us. Whatever we consider our dreams, are actually His dreams and He gives us the capability to realise them. The part we are required to play is to ensure the optimum usage of the capabilities bestowed upon us. And once we have played our part with utmost honesty and effort, we need to let go, step aside and let God step in to fulfill our dreams. After all, they are His dreams, too.

Inspired by Chak De! India

Towards the end of the story in the Bollywood film Chak De! India when the hockey team returns triumphant, ready to relish all the attention, coach Kabir Khan is conspicuous by his absence. He prefers instead to go reclaim a home he had left in disgrace many years earlier. Why does Kabir not wish to bask in his moment of glory, after erasing the stigma that he carried for years?

It took him seven years - after a failure saw him shunned, ostracised and branded a traitor - to gather the strength to redeem himself. Taking up an unlikely challenge, he met with cynicism and indifference. He met further resistance from the very individuals he tried to shape into a team. His past record, integrity and judgment were all questioned. Even the players who seemingly believed in him succumbed to peer pressure; he saw the team apparently united for only one goal, that of ousting him. Confronted with this, yet refusing to do things differently, he all but walked out. The innuendo and slander continued even after that storm blew over. At many points, the opposing teams were the least of his challenges.

All through this, Kabir did not question his fundamentals or his approach; neither did he become vicious in his responses. Whether officials or players applauded or smirked, he stood his ground. He was no longer concerned about disdain, once he believed in what he was doing. And he was equally unconcerned about gathering adulation after having proved himself. He had, simply put, outgrown the need for both.

Rudyard Kipling wrote of treating triumph and disaster just the same, but that is easier said than done. The moments that test our reactions are when the anchors that hold our sense of selfworth are forced loose. These are moments when we can only look within to know that we are right, while few seem to agree and most are indifferent. Those moments tell us whether our consciousness has grown in strength, or whether the absence of support breaks us.

Explaining verse 38 in the Gita's second chapter, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan describes the man who has discovered his true end of life: "Though everything else is taken away from him, though he has to walk the streets, cold, hungry and alone, though he may know no human being into whose eyes he can look and find understanding, he shall yet be able to go his way with a smile on his lips, for he has gained inward freedom". The strength to know no one in whose eyes he could find understanding, and yet go his way without wavering, is the strength that Kabir Khan displayed. It is the strength we need if we are to live without being at the mercy of world opinion. That strength comes from within, from understanding our real nature.

Rejection and failure can spur us to know ourselves, to go beyond the world's parameters of praise and criticism. Kabir was unfairly made to bear a cross for seven years. It could happen to any one of us. One of the unfair verdicts ever was given to the man who was literally nailed to a cross. But He faced crucifixion with courage, and He was the one who had the strength to get resurrected. If we know and believe in ourselves even when the rest find it convenient to crucify us, we would have the strength to resurrect ourselves, too.

Courtesy : http://spirituality.indiatimes.com