👉 *Materialism and Spirituality: Two ways of Living (Last Part)*

🔶 *The mind is different from the rest of the senses in that it is always unsatisfied and ambitious. New hopes and ambitions arise once the old ones are fulfilled. Suppose a person desires to buy a house. He would remain preoccupied with that thought because there is an attraction in it. Once a house is bought, the attraction fades. If a person does not have children, he would yearn for them; once he has children, they appear burdensome. A similar principle applies to other things, such as household items, clothes, etc and to attachment towards people. Therefore greed and attachment are attractive only until they are fulfilled. Egoism also follows a similar principle.*

🔷 *A secretary in a company feels his job status is low and aims for a higher status so that he can elevate his standing in the society. It is possible that several persons within the company may be trying for the same position. Therefore he becomes an enemy for them, since now he is an extra competitor in the race. In case he does succeed in fulfilling his egoistic desire in progressing towards his dream position, mental peace would elude him because there would be several people scheming to dislodge him. His ego thus becomes his own dangerous adversary. The worth and importance of a well-mannered, disciplined person is obviously more than that of an egoistic person.*

🔶 *No circumstances or individuals can challenge a gentleman, whereas examples of egoistic people suffering ruin can be seen all around us. A gentleman is respected while an egoistic person is ignored....*

📖 *Akhand Jyoti, Jan Feb 2003*

https://bit.ly/2MZyZtU

👉 *Materialism and Spirituality: Two ways         of Living
 *There are two aspects of human life: one that relates to the physical body materialism; and the other that relates to the inner self (the soul) spirituality. Materialism means an inclination towards acquiring material possessions and comforts. In short, it is a tendency to lead a life in which pleasures of the body are given preference above anything else. Spirituality means, centred and established on the soul, that is, activities in life are decided keeping in mind the awakening of the soul. Normally a person's needs are fulfilled with limited materials such as food to satisfy hunger, few clothes to cover the body, a bed for rest, a house for shelter, etce ra. Anything over and above the basic needs either remains unused or is misused.*

🔷 *For example, if a person who can eat four chapattis for lunch were given eight chapattis, it would be beyond his capacity to eat the extra four chapattis. A single bed is enough for a person to sleep on; any more bed space would remain unused. Considering this, a few hours work is sufficient to satisfy bodys requirements. The same is true for senses also. There are five physical senses: touch, smell, taste, hearing and vision. No matter how beautiful a view may be, the eyes will tire of seeing it after a few minutes. The ears will not be able to listen to melodious music indefinitely.*

🔶 *A person will be able to eat only a certain quantity of food of his liking. Thus the senses have limited requirements, beyond which they become saturated. But senses are never satisfied they always crave for more. The mind is considered to be the sixth sense. Its attributes are greed, attachment (moha) towards worldly objects and people, and egoism. The mind experiences joy when these three attributes are attended to. Man generally engages his time and effort in satisfying the requirements of the body and the mind. The mind propels him to fulfill the three attributes and also employs the body in its schemes. This is not surprising, since satisfaction of the senses is a bodily requirement, and the mind is one of the senses.*

👉 *The Art of Sadhana*

🔷 *The essence of sadhana is self-discipline. The deities we worship are in fact the symbolic representatives of our own covert indwelling divine attributes. So long as these attributes are dormant, we live in a miserable state, but when the divine nature is awakened and activated, we realize that we are repositories of supernormal energies (riddhi and siddhi). The sole aim of sadhana is to activate these dormant attributes through a focused and dedicated process of self-refinement and self-transcendence.*

🔶 *A farmer understands the significance of sadhana. While tending his crops, he remains thoroughly involved in farming day in and day out throughout the year. In this process, he is least concerned about his health or the severity of weather. He takes care of the fields like he would of his own body. He keeps an eye over each and every plant. According to the needs of the crop, he nurtures it with manure and performs several operations such as tilling, irrigating, weeding and the harrowing of the field, and finally harvesting.*

🔷 *The wisdom for the preservation and maintenance of the fields, the bullocks, ploughs and the ancillary equipments comes to him intuitively from within. He does all this without feeling tired or bored, or showing any haste. He does not insist on the immediate reward for his labour because he knows that the crop takes a specific period of time to ripen and so he has to wait patiently till then. He remains free from the anxiety of filling his cellar with the produce. He also understands the futility of anticipating a plentiful yield. His sadhana of farming continues single-mindedly. He does encounter obstacles but he overcomes them with his own expertise and with the help of available resources. He refuses to relax without fulfilling the needs of the field. When the crop ripens and is harvested, he takes home the produce with a sense of gratitude to Nature.*

🔶 *This is sadhana of a farmer which he continues to perform from his childhood till death with unwavering faith. There is no rest, no fatigue, no boredom and no indifference. A sadhaka (devotee) should learn the art of sadhana from the farmer.*

📖 *Akhand Jyoti, Jan Feb 2003*

http://awgpskj.blogspot.com/2018/08/art-of-sadhana.html

👉 Success Mantra...
He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it; Who has left the world better than he found it, Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; Whose life was an inspiration; Whose memory a benediction."*

*Bessie Anderson Stanley*

👉 *Love is Supreme*

🔶 *Divine knowledge and selfless love enlighten every dimension of life, destroy all vices and worries; there remains no feeling of hatred, jealousy, discrimination or fear. And then, one is blessed by the divine sight to see the pure love, justice and equality evereywhere.

🔷 *If you want to experience the divine joy, make your mind a source of wisdom, firm determination and noble thoughts; let your heart be an auspicious ocean of compassion. Control your tongue, purify and discipline it to speak truth. This will help your self- refinement and inner strengthening and eventually inspire the divine impulse of eternal love.*

🔶 *If you have integrity of character, authenticity in what you talk and do, people will believe you. You will not have to attempt convincing them. The wise and sincere seekers will themselves reach you. If in addition, you are generous and have an altruistic attitude towards everyone, you will also naturally win people’s heart. The warmth, words and works of truth and love never go in the void. Their positive impact is an absolute certainty.*

🔷 *There should be no doubt in your mind that pure love is omnipresent and supreme. It contains the power to accomplish the eternal quest of life. It facilitates uprooting the vices and allaying the agility, apprehensions and tensions of mind. Selfless love is a divine virtue, a preeminent source of auspicious peace and joy.*

📖 *Akhand Jyoti, Oct. 1943*

👉 *You are the Architect of Your Destiny*

🔷 *If you depend upon others or look for someone’s help in the moments of difficulty, you must be living under some illusion. Otherwise, you would identify the root-cause of the problems you are facing and analyze your own vices and flaws that might have been responsible for those troubles. By overcoming those drawbacks and weaknesses, you would be best equipped to resolve or get rid of most of your problems on your own.*

🔶 *With the aspiration of being progressive and successful, you should also begin  adopting virtuous tendencies and sharpening and enhancing your potentials. Your destiny is indeed written according to your intrinsic nature, inner qualities. Intense impressions of your tendencies, sentiments and thinking and conduct, account for shaping of your inner personality, which is attributed to be the architect of your future evolution. God’s system works according to – “you harvest what you have sown”. If good qualities, abilities are not cultivated by you, and the seeds of virtues are left in a virgin (dormant) state within your self, and instead, negative tendencies, follies, untoward habits are allowed to accumulate and grow, God’s rule will formulate your destiny as full of sufferings; you will not have a good fate or hopes in future unless and until you refine yourself and inculcate the potentials of elevation. So it is in fact in your own hand to design your destiny.*

🔷 *If you awaken your self-confidence, set high ideals as your goal and sincerely endeavor to make yourself capable and deserving for that goal, God’s script will indeed destine you to have a bright and successful life accordingly. If you think wisely, know yourself and earnestly search for the illumined goal, you will certainly find the righteous path to achieve it at the right moment.*

👉 *Motivational Story...
        "Do not run"
One day, Swami Vivekananda was returning from temple of Ma Kali. On the path, Swamiji saw a number of monkeys who were not allowing him to pass through it. Whenever Swamiji would take a step forward, those monkeys would make a lot of noise and make angry face, showing their anger by shrieking near his feet.*

🔶 *As Swami Vivekananda took a step forward, monkeys got close to him. Swamiji began to run and the monkeys started chasing him. Faster Swamiji ran, bolder monkey got and tried to catch him and bite him.*

🔷 *Just then an old Sanyasi shouted from a distance, "Face them…" Those words brought Swamiji to senses and he stopped running. He turned back to boldly face them. As soon as Swamiji did that, the monkeys ran away and left.*

🔶 *Moral: We should not run away from challenges; instead we should face them boldly.*