The Flower and Its Fragrance

The most beautiful thing on earth is our gratitude to divinity. Children always see more beauty than grownups do; because of their tremendous inner purity they see beauty in everything. Therefore we have to appreciate and admire them because they are still in the world of the soul.

When the mind is “developed” it also goes through conditioning and so begins to find fault. We love to see ugliness and impurity even in things that are really beautiful and good. If an artist has created something, we look for anomalies. The child however regards everything as his very own, so he sees beauty in everyone and in everything. He feels that there is nothing in comparison with other thing is beautiful.

Divine love and divine beauty are inseparable. Love is the flower, beauty is the fragrance. They go together. A flower is an object, God’s creation. But the flower has to offer its quality, that is, its fragrance. Only when you come near a flower will you see and appreciate its beauty. But even when you are far away, its fragrance can permeate the air. If a flower does not have any fragrance, half its divinity is gone. Beauty comes forth from the flower which is love. Flower and fragrance are inseparably one.

When earth’s cry and heaven’s smile meet, beauty’s perfection dawns. Joy is a bird that we all want to catch. It is the same bird that we all love to see flying. What is the difference between pleasure and joy? Pleasure is followed by frustration, whereas joy is always followed by peace and more joy. There are two kinds of joy, outer joy and inner joy – there’s a subtle difference between them. We feel that the possessor of outer joy is somebody else, not ourselves. Very often we want to snatch this joy from others.

Inner joy is not like this. When we meditate or contemplate, at that time we feel that we are the soul of joy. This joy that we possess inside is like a fountain; it comes spontaneously. Inner joy has no fear. It can, if it wants transform our human nature in the twinkling of an eye.

If we can experience true inner joy even for a second we will feel that the world is totally different. Now, we feel that we will have to change our attitude towards certain aspects of the creation if we want to have joy, because the world is constantly fighting and doing all un-divine things. But if we can look at the world with our inner joy, we will see that the world has already changed?

How can we get this inner joy? If we really feel that inner joy is the breath of our life, if we feel that we cannot exist without joy and we will die at this very moment if we do not have it, then God showers his choicest blessing, which is joy, upon us.

Real joy comes from the feeling that we are constantly in the lap of the Supreme. Twenty-four hours a day we cannot meditate. But on the strength of our imagination we can feel that 24 hours a day we are in the lap of the Supreme.

Of Strangers and Friends

Normally preoccupied with family members and a small circle of friends, most of us do not generally want to become familiar with strangers; we look upon them as ‘others’. This kind of thinking is based simply on suppositions about others and sometimes such suppositions are unfounded. Experience shows that it is perfectly possible to make friends out of strangers.

Swami Ram Tirath a man of considerable education decided in the last decade of the nineteenth century to visit the US, despite paucity of funds and not knowing anyone there who could receive him and host his stay there. After a long sea voyage, he reached the American coast, where he disembarked along with the other passengers. There were many Americans who had come to receive their friends and relatives at the port. However Swami Ram Tirath found himself walking all alone by a corner of the port. An American, seeing him there approached him and asked, ‘Do you have any friends in America?” Swami Ram Tirath said: ‘Yes, there is one friend and that friend is here.’ Saying this he embraced the American.

This kind of behavior was unexpected and the American was impressed. He said: ‘Yes, I am your friend.” And then he took him along to his home. Swami Ram Tirath remained his guest till he left America for India.

No one is a stranger to you; everyone is your potential friend. Just behave in a friendly way and accept others as your sisters and brothers. If you can sincerely adopt this kind of friendly attitude, you will find that everyone is your friend and no one is alien to you.

The fact is that all the men and women have common ancestors. This means that the whole world is a single family and everyone has that kind of attachment with others that is no noticeable in family life.

It is only distance that makes you a stranger. If you eliminate distance, nature will prevail and all can be like blood brothers and sisters to you. The formula for friendship is very simple. If you are truly a friend to others, then you can safely predict that they will also become your friends. Develop genuine love for others in your heart and then others cannot but love you in return.

A Philosopher said that man keeps radiating feelings all the time. If you are a compassionate person and you are radiating compassion then others are bound to receive those radiations of compassion from you. If you have developed love for others, then you are radiating love and others are bound to receive the radiation of love. This is the law of nature. You will therefore receive a positive response to positive radiation and a negative response to negative radiation.

The only condition in this regard is that you should be a selfless person. Positive behavior combined with selflessness always works. It is selflessness that makes your behavior ring true. On the contrary, if you are a selfish person, your behavior will be like that of a salesman. And such behavior cannot have any positive effect.

Abide by your own nature and you will be a successful person. Everyone is born like an angel but, after receiving negative impulses from his environment, he becomes otherwise. So, return to your original nature and you will be acceptable to all.

Mind Your Manners

Vedanta says earn and acquire as much wealth by honest means as you can but also upgrade yourself as a human being that is, as the one who can see self in other. It means cultivating pleasing manners. The least you can do is not to offend and hurt others with your behavior. To become a better and responsible person with good civic sense, to embrace virtues like honesty, truthfulness, patience, consideration for fellow human beings and compassion for those who are not as privileged as you are. However, material prosperity tends to erode character, values and behavior in some and this is something that we need to guard against.

For example, some of us are so proud of our children – who are not even eligible for a driving license – when they drive cars in by lanes at high speed. We don’t mind telling lies for petty gains. Arrogance and ego grow along with growth in income. Patience in one is seen as a sign of weakness, you are called a “loser”. You are seen as an achiever, as one who gets things done if you can jump the queue as others wait patiently their turn. The more we earn and the more things we acquire, the greedier we become.

Another distinguishing feature of our prosperity is – as we acquire wealth we start looking down on the less privileged. Suddenly we feel we’re different – and so create a separation. We change our manner and demeanor according to who we address – a VIP or someone who is less known. Test of our behavior is not how we treat VIPs or those who matter to us but how we treat the people who are less fortunate than us.

One’s behavior and conduct in society is not only about how we relate to each other but also in the way we treat public places and facilities. The Delhi Metro train service is a case in point. Within five years it has grown so much in popularity that it is almost always full of commuters. However, if it were not mandatory for Metro doors to remain closed, chances are that people would think nothing of hanging out, risking their lives and others’.

Etiquette and pleasant manners need not be restricted to the home, office or among peers and friends – it needs to be evident in public places as well. Pushing and shoving each other to catch a train or bus does not behave those who otherwise project themselves as educated or evolved people. Senior citizens and others who might be physically challenged need to be given preference in seating and so on. With material progress and technological advance, we need to also take care to nurture comparable upward evolution of our own selves.

To come back to Vedanta culture and tradition, a truly evolved human being would be perceived as one who would be sensitive to the needs of others and not only his own. This is the reason perhaps why all Vedic rituals and prayers are directed not at the welfare of any one individual but are meant for the common benefit of all. Hence, the tradition promotes the concept that all life is one family – vasudhaiv kutumbakam.

Good manners and compassionate outlooks are marks of one who is on the path of onward evolution, striving to reach higher planes of consciousness. Good ethical practices and mindful living are not the preserve of the renunciation – they are equally important for those who choose to live in the world and yet perhaps strive to rise above it.

Gita and Business Ethics

The word ‘ethics’ comes from the Greek word ‘ethikos’. It refers to one’s moral character and the way in which society expects people to behave in accordance with accepted principles.

Business ethics is the code of good conduct that a business adheres to in its daily dealings both with other businesses and with customers.

Most philosophers conclude that ethical failure occurs because of lack of character. Virtuous people will live ethically. Therefore, we need to think about the desired virtues and how one can develop those virtues.

In the month of Magha (December) 5,000 years ago, on the battlefield at Kurukshetra just before the start of Mahabharata war, Krishna outlined to Arjun a system of ethics that has withstood the test of time. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna not only how to build character but lso the rood cause of ethical failure and how to avoid it.

Krishna outlines 26 qualities of a gentleman to be merciful, obedient, truthful, equitable, saintly, magnanimous, mild-mannered, clean, simple, charitable and peaceful. He should have surrendered to God and not be greedy or possessive but remain steady and determined, free of the six bad qualities not gluttonous, sober, respectful, humble, grave, compassionate, friendly, eloquent, expert and concise.

It is easy to give a list of positive qualities that we can all agree upon. Yet, even though hundreds of trainers work day and night to teach people good character, when it really matters people’s character still fails why?

Krishna answers in chapter three, verses 37 and 38, “O Arjuna, it is lust… later transformed into wrath, which is the all devouring sinful enemy of this world. As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, the living entity is similarly covered by different degrees of this lust”

To maintain good character, we must overcome kama, that is lust or selfish desire. Most people think kama means just sexual craving, but it simply refers to an overwhelming desire for anything, such as lust for power. Greed, dishonesty and corruption are all by product of lust. To be happy, successful and well situated, the Gita says one must control lust.

Gita’s solution to the ethical failure and downfall of corporations and society and family is controlling the senses with spiritual strength. Ethics is linked to spirituality. For the last century or more western business separated work and spirituality. Kurukshetra was also about mind control. Every one of us, whether s manager or employee, is fighting his own battle, his own Kurukshetra. The Gita can help us to learn to regulate our senses, control our minds and gain spiritual strength.

The Gita is as fresh in insight and as relevant today as it was 5000 years ago. If only every manager, administrator politician employee, worker and others pick a copy of the Gita and spend a few minutes daily reflecting on its message, one can experience the positive transformation. Who doesn’t wish to be disciplined, to achieve home work balance and bring peace and harmony in a secular environment?

Focus on Your Breath

Concentration is the key to success. The student taking an exam but distracted by a popular song running through his head; the businessman trying to write an important contract; but worried over an argument that he had that morning with his wife; the judge distracted by the fact that a teenager to whose defense he is trying to listen bears striking resemblance to his own son. All of these persons could tell us something of the disadvantages of poor focus.

A focused mind succeeds not only because it can solve problems with greater dispatch but also because problems have a way of somehow vanishing before its focused energies, without even requiring to be solved. A focused mind often attracts opportunities for success that to less focused (and therefore less successful) individuals appear to come by sheer luck.

Concentration awakens our powers and channels them, dissolving obstacles in our path, literally attracting opportunities insights and inspirations. In many ways, subtle as well as obvious, concentration is the single most important key to success.

This is particularly true in yoga practice. The mind in meditation especially, must be so perfectly still that not a ripple of thought enters it. God cannot be perceived except in utter silence. Much of the teaching of yoga therefore, centers on techniques designed specially for developing concentration.

Of these techniques my guru Sriram Sharma Acharya Yogananda, considered the most effective to be one which involves attentiveness to the natural process of breathing…. The simplicity of this technique causes many a beginner to ignore it; yet in its very simplicity lies much of its greatness.

Concentration implies, first an ability to release one’s mental and emotional energies from all other interests and involvements and second an ability to focus them on a single object or state of awareness. Concentration could be dynamic outpouring of energy to perfectly quiescent perceptions and in its higher stages. It becomes so deep that it is no longer just practice. The yogi becomes so completely identified with the object of his concentration that he and it, as well as the act of concentration itself, become one.

In this way he can even temporarily become one with something external to himself, gaining thereby a far deeper understanding of it than would be possible by scientific objectivity. But focusing on our own higher realities, identification with them becomes lasting. For we are the infinite light, and love and joy and wisdom of God. Consciousness of diligent practice ought to be refined into an effortless process of divine becoming.

The most effective technique of concentration will be one which both interiorizes the mind, and permits a gradual transition from technical practice to utter stillness. The technique of watching the breath fulfills both of these requirements – better perhaps than any other technique possibly could. For not only is the breath one of the most natural focal points for attention, the more deeply one concentrates on it, the more refined it becomes, until breathing is automatically and effortlessly suspended in breathlessness. Mediator, the act of concentration, and the object of concentration, become one.