18. Transformation from Within

Out of dissatisfaction or frustration with the things and people around, we wish they would change. Almost everyone wishes their counterparts would change.

In work place boss wants his employers to reach targets while the employee want their boss to be less demanding. Wife wants her husband to listen to her always while husband would appreciate if his wife would not be nagging. Parents want their children to be obedient and children would love if parents are liberal.

Is there a solution to this problem, if we look deep into this problem the solution is in making a difference in our self. Any change has to start with “me.” In fact, the truth is that the major thing that ever needs changing is “me.” The moment we truly realize this, transformation happens within us. So to change the world, we first have to change within.

Once there was a king who was suffering from headache and many of his personal doctors could not cure him. One day a sadhu from Himalayas visited the kingdom and finding out about the king’s headache the sadhu wished to look into the matter. So the sadhu went to the king and gave him some medicine and advised him that his headache would be cure in a week time and in future if the king has to get rid of the headache he has to make sure that what ever he sees should be green in colour. As told by the sadhu king was cured of headache and the king ordered the entire kingdom to be painted green and all his subjects should wear green.

After about a month the sadhu returned back to the kingdom. He was stopped by the gatekeepers and was told by them to wear green dress. The sadhu was surprised and wanted to know about the dress code in the kingdom, when he came to know about the advice he had given to the king. He wondered how foolish the king was to have painted the whole kingdom green instead he could have used green spectacles.

15. Can out of Sight be out of Mind????

Something which is easily forgotten when we can no longer see it is "out of sight, out of mind” says an English idiom. Will this apply for people who share strong bonding? This idiom is created a myth among us that if we don’t see anyone for long time we get them out of our Mind, but the truth is that it may happen to the person who we meet on our jogging track. Maybe after some days we may not see him regularly and forget about him but he is not out of Mind if we happen to see him again we recognize him.

Have we not seen how foolishly husbands order their wife not to see her brothers or sisters so that she will get them out of her Mind, or have we not heard of cunning wives luring their husbands to living separately from his parents and siblings so that he gets them out of his Mind??? And this syndrome has invented micro, mini or nuclear families. Circumstances may only possibly get them out of sight but not out of Mind.

I do not know if this story told by Swami Sukhabodhanandaji in one of the discourse is relevant to the context of the subject. It goes like this; a lady approached a monk and said, "My mother-in-law is creating hell in my life. My husband always nodding his head to what ever she says I would like to get rid of her, Can you help me get rid of her?"

The monk gave her some powder to mix in tea and said there is one condition. "Be very kind and loving to her, when she dies no one will suspect you. She will die after two months. After one month she returned to the monk and pleaded, "I do not want my mother-in-law to die, she has changed she has started loving me of late and is very kind to me nowadays." The monk said, "More than the powder, it is your false love that worked even though it was false she has taken it seriously and started loving you and you have been responding to it."

Though we should practice Unconditional Love, I feel in a family sometimes even if we just act as if we love the consequences will be fruitful. There was a popular hind movie song “Pal Bharke Liye Koi Hame Pyar Karle Jhoota Hi Sahi” even though it is a duet if applied in life it works miracles. But for this to happen one should not be egoistic, adamant and with superiority complex but should be modest, humble and remain minuscule.

14. Supersitions and Rationalism

Off late people are inclined to astrology when they are in trouble to get solace, I would like to clarify that astrology is not for all it is for those who need it, like a clinic where a person feels by going inside and putting his problems before the doctor and taking the prescription he will get rid of his trouble. Let us suppose if the prescription or the doctor fails to treat the person it does not mean whole of the medical science is a failure.

Also it depends on a person’s mentality like if he is not a fatalist then he need to have some means to comfort his woes. To become a fatalist one has to understand the Karma Siddhantha, the Laws of Karma, and to accept the plays of fortune and failure in life which is only achieved in the later stages of life, but at the beginning we have to have some means of catalyst to help us do things in life. It is not wrong to take the help of astrology though it is bad to continue with it in all phases of life.

Further we were both God fear and Moral fear. Well now very few are God fearing and it is not good also to fear God who is like father to us anyway. What is harming the society is that people who call themselves rationalist are eradicating the Moral fear in people which is very very very bad for a harmonious society. We agree that they are some what superstitions but it helped construct a healthy society. People were afraid to put an eye on other people’s property due to the fear of morality but now thanks to these rationalists who behave like Charvakas, the sweet tongued rebels no one is afraid of the consequences.

At the end it is better to be innocent than becoming ignorant and spread things one doesn’t know!!!!

13. Greed and Jealousy creating CHAOS!!!!!!

The reason for all the chaos is not the outcome of doings of unintelligent or unemotional people. The real hindrance to happiness is that we have forgotten how to live content with what we have. Contentment is like a precious pearl. Whoever procures it at the expense of 10,000 desires makes a wise and happy purchase.

Gautama Buddha in his four noble truths declares that there is suffering and misery in life and the direct cause of it is desire or craving. People with passionate qualities are never satisfied with their position or possessions they always seek to accumulate more and more and enjoy flaunting what they have. In this way they lose the power of thought and power of emotion which are the two important parts for the integral way of living.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asks Krishna what impels a person to commit sin against his will. Krishna replies that desire and anger, born of passionate quality, are enemies that eat our Atman. They obfuscate wisdom like smoke covers fire.

Aristotle says, "I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self." Desire is unquenchable. Once desire is born, it knows not how to die. Desire, when transformed into aspiration, helps life soar into the highest liberation, and supreme salvation does not seem so out of reach, after all. All people desire what they believe will make them happy. If a person is fully content with Self, we can only conclude that he is engaged with another, more eternal state of happiness that is called Bliss.

12. Can Materialism give us all the comforts????

An object in possession hardly ever retains the same charm that it had in pursuit. Why it is that human mind is not able to enjoy the experience of a thing for which the person had struggled to get. The reason is that the comfort is not in the materialistic thing which we are in pursuit, but it is the state of mind. If there is nothing at all I can sleep on the floor, if there is a mat my mind says on the mat, if cot on the cot. This mind always asks for something better and makes the body plunge into hardships to get it. It is not that we should live without comforts at all. Our mind should never become a slave to it.


Comforts also make a person physically lazy. Let us suppose a person will have a drive to buy a car this will be his ambition, unfortunately what happens is that after buying instead of he driving the car, the car drives him; i mean he is so used to the vehicle that he forgets that he was living without it. Same thing with all the gadgets he possesses. And most important observation is that once he has possession of what he needs his interest is shifted to the other. The most awkward mentality is to be unique he wants all that is one and only; let it be a brand new product or an antique piece. Isn’t this a kind of disease?????


Then do we have a cure for it: YES, here are some of the prescriptions.


Simple living, High Thinking.


That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.


Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wantons of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.


Learn to live a life of honest poverty, if you must, and turn to more important matters than transporting gold to your grave.

11. Difference between Positive Thought and Right Thought.

Positive thought is the first step to put forth something once the Conscious Mind has conceived the idea of a desired deed. A thought is like blue print before the task is accomplished, every deed is done twice once in the Mind and then practically. Positive thoughts transforms into belief in ones Mind through autosuggestion, sending a clear mental picture of the desired deed to the Subconscious Mind.

Right thoughts are spiritual process carried out by the Intellect. In the spiritual mind our desired deed is transferred to Intelligence. Intelligence will deliver to our Subconscious Mind the knowledge necessary to accomplish the deed. Subconscious Mind does not think, it just responds to the thoughts that it receives from the Conscious Mind. Our Subconscious mind manifests to us anything that we ask for, whether it is good or bad. Therefore, we must direct it correctly through Right thinking.

An incident will illustrate the difference between Positive Thinking and Right Thinking:

It so happened that a group of friends were traveling in a bus to a hill station on a bright sunny day and the bus was going up the hill. The sight of the valley down was enchanting and one person asked the driver to stop the bus as he feels the beauty of the nature has to be captured in his camera. The person gets down the bus and goes to some distance when a big boulder came rolling down the hill and crushed the bus. His entire group of friends and the driver of the bus were killed. If the person or any of his family members think and thank his stars for being saved because he was lucky to be out of the bus, maybe it can be Positive thinking. But the fact or Right thinking is that the big boulder came crushing on the bus because the bus had stopped there at the moment because of him, had he not asked the driver to stop, the bus was traveling and maybe nothing like this would have happened.Let us not go into the logics of Karma here.

Positive thoughts take only the willingness and desire to act and think better in expectation of a joyful mood, while Right thoughts take full commitment to wellness and is inclined more to practice of the Truth.