India's Divine Gifts: Spirituality & Gurus

Being an Indian I often get enquired about spirituality by foreigner friends. And it was in this context recently that i got to briefly put forth my basic understanding – acquired from Gurus’ teachings and preachings - in a discussion on the topic: India, Spirituality and Gurus.

Billions of years ago, the God - the ever-present being - got an “Idea”, wanted to experiment and thus decided to Create and created the Universe. Billions of years later, It’s latest and the best creation – Humans – realized the theory of ‘Big Bang’ and came a bit closer to the concept of Life.

Around five thousand years prior to the ‘discovery’ of the occurrence of the ‘Big-Bang’, on one of the millions of planets in the universe, a few advanced sages realized the real meaning of Life – body, mind & soul being the principle constituents. From the humans’ evolution-index chronology, the land mass was on the earth in the solar system and was called Bharat or later Hindustan - where germinated the thought of human civilization in the ancient era. India, as it is referred to in the modern times, is the place of the origin of the ‘idea of spirituality’ i.e., a soul’s communion with the Spirit, the God.

Human, though came last in the chain of earthly creations, had the most developed brain with an unprecedented power of thoughts and feelings. Inquisitiveness being its inherent nature, and not being satisfied easily with its external/outer discoveries, soon humans embarked on their inner journey to explore the realm of life beyond the mundane world of daily living – littered with sufferings - and occasional happiness. During their exploration the celestially blessed saints experienced the Creator Itself and passed on their understanding of creation to the rest of the human race. Few spiritually dedicated followers recorded the realized souls’ preachings and teachings in form of the Sacred Scriptures for the benefit of the humanity. As Bharat was the holy land of the oldest human civilization, The Vedas, The Puranas, The Upanishads, The Ramayana, The Mahabharata and The Gita - the holy compilations of Divine Intelligence captured by the highly advanced human intellect - became the moral compass for living in the big, bad world.

Rest of the curve of human progression, spread of human civilizations and advent of various religions are well known facts to the world. In the same period India too witnessed those inevitable and gradual changes in its societies. From having a spiritual foundation to its life, the way-of-life went on to rest on the fulcrum of a new concept of connecting with the God called religion; Hinduism evolved from the Vedic - Spiritual – base. From an absolute-yet-abstract being, the God went on to get myriad faces and forms and names. As a natural progression, Hinduism influenced and embraced everything in its vicinity and within its reach including various non-Indian religions. However, Hinduism too became besotted with dogmas and unfounded beliefs and illogical practices; the erosion of its spiritual core was unavoidable. Spirituality – in all its glory and description – remained in hearts and souls of a blessed few whom the Indians and the world went on to revere as Gurus.           

India, the land of the origin of ‘the idea of spirituality’, is today as far removed from this concept of life as a goat would be from a guitar! For a few quasi enthusiasts, religion, in its modern form, has become the method of acquiring some iota of so-called spirituality. For the rest, religion, with its contemporary interpretations and current practices, is the sole way to connect with God – for praying for granting wishes and taking away pains; God-realization and Self-realization are terms ‘not-applicable’ to most. Simultaneously, in the name of spirituality, India has witnessed the flourishing of a new breed of beings called the modern gurus – God-men & God-women, who have severely damaged the spiritual fabric of India.

Many a times it feels to me as if the nation is carrying the baggage of anciently acquired spirituality, now considered archaic from its practical purposes.    

However, the issue is not of rejection of spirituality by the modern masses; the case is of mass ignorance. If made to understand or even exposed to the concept of spirituality in the right manner, many would be willing to get deeper into the subject.

For walking on the spiritual path one needs the guidance from a Guru, and in India of today there are well known gurus with millions of followers to boast of. However, how many of them will qualify to be revered as a real Guru is a million dollar question.

Nevertheless, the current situation does not paint so faded a picture of India’s fast-fading spiritual treasure. Real gurus are there; one needs to search for them - in cities like Banaras and in the foothills of Himalayas; a few saints are present in down south as well. Because they are not ‘mass-gurus’ – commercial gurus – general public is generally not aware about their existence; they too remain aloof and are not easily accessible. However, every person knows about all the revered Gurus of India who were the founding fathers of Spirituality and whose work were carried further by the contemporary yogis; their teachings and preachings are well recorded and preserved and accessible to all; the requisite is an individual’s desire for wisdom.

India’s widespread prevalence of spiritual ignorance has become chronic. Actually as we have progressed as a society over the millennia, our spiritual interior has worn out and diminished to the extent that today we suffer from spiritual-amnesia! We have lost the vast knowledge base we had built about Life: with its God, Its Universe, and Life in it; the purpose of life, a soul’s journey through many physical incarnations including human form, and inclination of a soul to remain in its natural state of being i.e. in Bliss, and its return to its origin – by merging into the Supreme Soul, the Supreme Spirit – the God.

Compounding the problem, general public has a perception that being a ‘family’ person one cannot practice spirituality. Ignorance, again! In fact, being a family person – a person of the world – an individual is subjected to various types of stress in daily life, leading to ever-present unhappiness, lack of peace, frustration and insecurity. The genesis of these miserable feelings is rooted in human relationships and in events & incidents of life. Not that everything and everyone in a person’s life are bad. But because a person does not understand the meaning of Life, therefore, he/she senses life’s ‘happenings’ in an altogether a different manner than the real occurrence. Reason: Ignorance.

So, as it becomes clearer, human ignorance is about Life per se. That Life is about the Soul and its journey into the Ether through a pre-destined time spent on the Earth, interacting and living with all other souls in various situations and relationships, is a simple theory not many can comprehend.

“But it is not souls we interact with! We live with humans! Soul is released from body after death of a person!” ...  So, for most of us mortal beings, a human is a body which turns into a soul - ghost ! - after death. 

The biggest ignorance of Mankind!

Therefore, what is the solution for a soul’s salvation?

A Guru.

A Guru, the enlightened, God-realised soul, sent to the earth to take people from the darkness (ignorance) to the light (knowledge and wisdom) and thus guide them on the path of God-realization through self-realization, for attaining soul’s salvation and union with the Supreme Soul – the God. 

A Guru, to talk to the mankind that there is One Soul, the Supreme Soul, from whom all souls have originated. And because the Supreme Soul is ever-present and cannot be destroyed or killed, thus all souls emerging from It cannot be destroyed or killed either. However, once a soul gets originated, it is given a life-form – the physical form of a lowly creature, to begin with. The soul has to live the life of that creature and then pass through many more – millions! – births & deaths before it gets the opportunity to inhabit a human body.

A Guru, to teach the humankind that they are fortunate to be born in the physical body of a human being, the highest creation of God, and they should utilize this opportunity to tune with the God and return to the Source, and be free from the burden of rebirths and life-associated miseries.

A Guru, to enlighten we humans that the blessings to live in a human body is given to a soul based on its past lives’ Karmas i.e., actions. The purpose of a human life of a soul is to utilize the birth to work out its Karmas and pave its way towards returning to its Origin – the God.

A Guru, to tell us that though the human life is the highest form of life, however, the Creator has made the return journey of a soul to its Origin fraught with challenges; nevertheless, It has given adequate intelligence to a soul to overcome the challenges and carve a path for its joyous reunion with It.

A Guru, to give us the wisdom that human intelligence is actually the God’s Intelligence, and, with the Intelligence It has given us Free Will – to choose between good and evil. It depends upon an individual to utilize his/her free will and the given intelligence to his/her benefit, by either getting caught into the illusions of life ‘Maya’ or get conned by the Satan – the evil and the opposing force in the Nature – and get sucked into the vortex of life or get carried to the God by employing the Divine features of the given intelligence and the free will in living the life.

A Guru, to inform we human beings that the God has bestowed us with Its Intelligence because It has made us in Its Image. And that is the reason why a human is Its best and the ultimate creation! It is no coincidence but by Divine design that the world hasn’t seen any higher form of life being created after humans. And, because we are created in the image of the Supreme Soul whose nature is absolute Bliss, a human being also becomes happy when at absolute peace. 

A Guru, to educate us that though we are made in the image of God but we are yet not God! All God-features are latent in us; all powers stored but hidden in our body and mind. The God wants us to learn and become conscious of our Divine nature and work towards God-realization through Self-realization – and return to It!

A Guru, to divulge to us that we can realize both Self & God only through good Karmas by following the path of Spirituality – the quickest and the surest method for a soul’s union with its Source!

A Guru, to reveal to us that the fastest and the highest spiritual technique for Self & God realization is through the scientific method of Kriya Yoga – Yoga with Action, centred around deep and intensive meditation. Kriya Yoga is a practical approach by which a person leads his/her normal day-to-day life and simultaneously is spiritually active and gradually evolves towards attaining the highest goal of his/her soul – union with the Supreme Soul.    

A Guru, to give sermons on the Kriya Yoga. Kriya Yoga, the ancient and the most complete form of yoga, was taught by Lord Krishna to his dearest disciple Arjuna while giving him the Divine Wisdom through his discourses of the Gita. The Guru of all Gurus, Babaji, revived the Kriya Yoga by teaching it to his most advanced disciple Lahiri Mahasaya, who in turn carried it forward through his followers – especially Sri Yukteswar Giri. Babaji, the still living Guru in the Himalayas for over three millennia now, further bestowed the Divine responsibility on Sri Yukteswar-ji to train his pre-destined and blessed disciple Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Kriya Yoga who, as Paramahansa Yogananda, took the ancient yogic teaching treasures to the West. Jesus Christ had requested Babaji to send a suitable soul to America to teach Kriya Yoga for liberation of deserving and willing souls there.

A Guru, to make us realize the real meaning of Life – human life in particular; that Life is not the few years a soul spends on the earth but its origin dates back to its emanation from the Soul itself and its existence is till eternity. That a soul’s human life is not one life but many human lives – till it has worked out all its karmas and has no desire left absolutely, a state when the soul is ready to travel to the next and the higher sphere of existence.

A Guru, to impart the knowledge on the intriguing intricacies of a soul’s human-life journey, which passes through many incarnations on the Earth to the Astral world to the Causal space before it dissolves in the Supreme Spirit. Earthly life form is the grossest physical form; a soul gets to go to the astral world – in its finer form made up of ‘light’ elements – once it is fully realized. An Astral being is either kept there for further evolution of other astral beings or sent back to the earth – as a Guru – to liberate suffering souls. Once an astral being has finished its assigned duties, it is brought closer to the God – by the God itself – as a Causal being. In the causal space every soul is in its finest and its initial state of existence - an abstract appearance, without any physical form - in form of an idea! The soul is now closest to the God in its character and power. After spending pre-assigned time in the causal world, the soul finally merges with its Originator. The entire journey of a soul takes millions of years. A causal being could be sent back to the earth if need is felt by the God. Jesus Christ, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna are some of those souls!

A Guru, to highlight the fact that the Creator has ensured Its presence in every created particle – animate or inanimate – of the universe, which is in actuality a part of Its own body. It resides in the Heaven, a place beyond the universe and within the universe itself. There is absolutely nothing in this world without the manifestation of the Lord within it. And, at the fundamental level everything in the creation is made up of Its Idea - which is vibration and light in form. The entire cosmos and the life in it is Its’ show entirely; various creations have their allocated role to play and then exit into the next life, till the soul is able to overcome the births-deaths cycle and mingle with the Creator. Everything and everybody belongs to the God, and to nobody else.

A Guru, to put forth the essence of consciousness and its various stages: sub-consciousness, consciousness, super-consciousness and cosmic consciousness. Only a human being can comprehend the various stages of consciousness in one life – through the practice of Kriya Yoga. Sub-consciousness denotes the ‘sleeping’ stage; a human has consciousness when it is ‘aware’ and is ‘awake’ in the worldly sense; in super-consciousness a person is connected with the higher consciousness of the universe; and, a super advanced being - yogi - with a universally expanded consciousness can comprehend the cosmic consciousness - the God’s consciousness. Only a Guru qualifies to have the cosmic consciousness.    

A Guru, to explain to us that as all souls have come out of the same Supreme Being, thus, we all are one in every aspect. In numerous human births our individual souls have inhabited many places with various nationalities and races and religions and creeds and castes and colours, and have been in both genders and all possible relationships. Therefore, in effect, no single human life defines a human being. A human being is the sum total of all the human lives it has lived and will live.

A Guru, to reiterate that with the wisdom about Life per se, there is no need to obsess about anything in the world. A human being should do its worldly duties walking the path of morality and aspire towards its soul’s liberation. Rest all endeavours are foolish and cause only sufferings and miseries for all including the self, and make no sense at all. Universal unity, brotherhood, respect and love should be the fundamentals of our human existence. 

Finally, I pray to the Heavenly Father and the Divine Mother that It resends the Causal Souls as reincarnations - God’s Sons & Daughters & Gurus - to preach to each human being the practical paths of spirituality, following which every person will get uplifted into a higher being – transforming the Earth into the Heaven, with Love, Peace and Bliss pervading its every element and the ether!

Jai Gurudev :)    

P.S.: 'Hand of God' photograph courtesy NASA.

Meeting the Yogi - finally !

The Gita puts it succinctly: ‘Jab Jab Jo Hona Hai, Tab Tab Wo Hoga.’ For Hindi-ignorant Souls, ‘Whenever Something Has To Happen, It Will Happen Only Then.’  And it happened exactly like that!

Wandering through the corridors of Connaught Place with a friend, I finally picked up my copy of ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’. It took me 4 decades to come face-to-face with the Manuscript on Life; and another two months to start reading it. And, to put it simply, the book spellbound me and pushed me into the realm of Cosmic Consciousness! The liberating shock of Cosmic Vision was so powerful that I took time to absorb the whole meaning of ever-present, omniscient nature of the nurturer of Life in the ever-expanding Cosmos!

The impact was felt immensely because, being a book-lover with a good collection of books (including on religion and spirituality) and most of my ‘free-time’ spent in reading, I couldn’t believe that I had kept away from the Life Book all along. By the time I reached the end of those magical pages, I felt blessed but simultaneously ignored: I was quarreling with the God that how could It be so cruel in keeping me deprived for so long!

My inner reactions were strong because besides being a book-lover, I am primarily a Life-lover! I love Life immensely and, therefore, I try to be the change that I want to see in Life. And Paramhansa Yogananda’s account of his life is Life-Changing! 

As a spiritually ever-evolving being, overcoming my limitations of 5 sensory organs and using my inner eyes to perceive the world around me, the essence of my Life has been in Living: living in the Soul with a beating heart and a functional mind to support my Life; living with peace, love, dignity, health & wealth; living an absolutely a normal life – mundane, day-to-day life of a mere mortal. If the world says that you in effect live in your mind (It’s all in the mind), I say, you actually live in your Soul!  

With a Soul-centered approach towards Life, since my beginning I have strongly believed that the common thread running through Life – human and all other forms of life including the inanimate life-supporting objects – is The Spirit, the One Wave who flows through all, ensuring inner-connectedness of Life per se, controlling and connecting Life throughout the Universe through Universal Laws of Nature; that essentially Life is an interplay of energy at various levels. And that we mortals, in spite of having landed on the Moon 4 decades ago, will take at least a couple of millennia more to get a grip on the true definition of Life.

By the time I was at the end of his magical memoir, I experienced a strong soul-stirring emotion; I felt transformed as a human being. My outlook towards my own life and Life per se appeared to undergo seismic alterations; things/aspects which were so dear and crucial for my survival, all of a sudden seemed to dissolve into oblivion; those felt trivial in the Grand Cosmic Scheme of my Life; glancing around I saw people struggling with their ordinary state of living with an eternal quest for ‘something else’ to bring them complete and unending happiness - and I prayed for each of them for the much needed Divine Guidance.

I was hearing Yogananda-ji’s words: “ … You realize that all along that there was something tremendous within you, and you did not know it…”  

The beauty lies in Yogananda-ji’s narrative; he doesn’t sound preachy, rather far from it; the saint’s tone is human-like, with expressions extremely close to that of a divinely blessed author; the difference, nevertheless, lies in the content which clearly establishes the fact that he was indeed The Chosen One! And he was indeed the chosen one for spreading the concept of ancient Kriya Yoga in the West (America).

Through his life-story, he unveils the long forgotten secrets of Life and its universal cycles which had got faded from the humanity’s canvas in the daily millings of ordinary survival, and, which was otherwise well understood by the ancient yogis and gurus in the spiritual crucible of the world i.e. India. The revelations are so profound and extraordinary that I, a self-believing spiritually evolving being, marveled at the miracle called Life! How shallow was my knowledge about Life! My mind- prism which spread rainbow understanding even before, however, the real expanse of those lights was actually narrow all along! Today, post reading his autobiography, I am conscious of the veil over my Cosmic Vision earlier.

“When you go beyond the consciousness of this world, knowing that you are not the body or the mind, and yet aware as never before that you exist— that divine consciousness is what you are. You are That in which is rooted everything in the universe.” 

Yogananda-ji smoothly initiates his readers into the sphere of the higher beings – the yogis - and their miracles, explaining every aspect with solid scientific evidences through the fundamental theories and laws in Physics viz. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Newton’s Laws of Gravitation, Electromagnetism, Optics, etc.; his explanation of Cosmic Illusion presents the otherwise incomprehensible - Supernatural ! - as purely logical!

Yogananda-ji became what he became because of his Masters: an eclectic array of enlightened entities! Reading about his Masters - Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar Giri and others – I sensed little bit of Cosmic Intelligence wrapping around me! He intelligently explains that the things – which an ordinary human perception calls as miracles – are accomplished by the great gurus by summoning the basic particles of the Nature and transforming them into the objects of desire -- Babaji being the greatest amongst them all! Introduction to Babaji, the Maha Avatar, transported me into the higher spaces of Infinite Existence!

…The northern Himalayan crags near Badrinarayan are still blessed by the living presence of Babaji, guru of Lahiri Mahasaya. The secluded master has retained his physical form for centuries, perhaps for millenniums. The deathless Babaji is an avatara. This Sanskrit word means "descent"; its roots are ava, "down," and tri, "to pass." In the Hindu scriptures, avatara signifies the descent of Divinity into flesh.  

"Babaji's spiritual state is beyond human comprehension," Sri Yukteswar explained to me. "The dwarfed vision of men cannot pierce to his transcendental star. One attempts in vain even to picture the avatar's attainment. It is inconceivable."  

The Upanishads have minutely classified every stage of spiritual advancement. A siddha ("perfected being") has progressed from the state of a jivanmukta ("freed while living") to that of a paramukta ("supremely free"-full power over death); the latter has completely escaped from the mayic thralldom and its reincarnational round. The paramukta therefore seldom returns to a physical body; if he does, he is an avatar, a divinely appointed medium of supernal blessings on the world.  

An avatar is unsubject to the universal economy; his pure body, visible as a light image, is free from any debt to nature. The casual gaze may see nothing extraordinary in an avatar's form but it casts no shadow nor makes any footprint on the ground. These are outward symbolic proofs of an inward lack of darkness and material bondage. Such a God-man alone knows the Truth behind the relativities of life and death… 

My Net search on these Great Souls further established my ignorant state of being so far; The Beatles had them on their cover of their album ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club’; Rajnikant had tried to spread his reverence towards these great saints through his movie ‘Baba’ in 2004.

Thunderbolt hit me while reading the Chapter 43 “The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar”! Howsoever mindblowing the content – conversation between Yoganand-ji and his resurrected Guru – sounded, but never for a moment did I doubt the pouring Cosmic Revelations! This is a must read for all souls inhabiting the planet earth; the experience is going to be earth-shattering! His Guru shared indepth knowledge about the three phases of a Soul's Life before it merges into the One Soul - which begins on earth (physical) lives, which is followed by astral lives and finally the causal stage of life. Though most of us have a basic understanding about life and its cycles but the details in the chapter is simply out of this world, literally! I had to read it a couple of times before i could get a broader insight into it.

After reading the chapter I was on a celestial journey, floating among the stars and the moons in the Infinite Cosmos beyond my humanly horizons, experiencing a fraction of the Infinite Cosmic Joy, simultaneously trying to get into my past lives and imagine myself in various avatars - I mean, in various humble life-forms possible for a mortal creature like me!

Becoming deeply aware about the real side i.e. the spiritual aspects of Life and its Cycles through Yogananda-ji, I felt immensely sorry for the humanity and especially for the Indians; India, the crucible of culture and spirituality, today is so far removed from all what it realized thousands of years ago and contributed majorly to the evolution of Homo sapiens into humans that it amazes me enormously that how could we lose almost all of our treasure!

That how could we be led to a life so superficial and hollow, devoid of spiritual moorings? That how could we forget the meaning of religion and get into the chaos of dogmas and rituals and castes and other divisive pathways? That how could we, the teachers to the world, forget about the purpose of human life in its transitory phase on earth? That how could we continue to suffer from collective Cosmic Amnesia?

Today, most of the Indians do not even know the definition of spirituality or even religion; for them it is laughable and for either the elderly or for those who “have nothing else to do” or for the “conmen” (India has them in abundance!). The same people, however, regularly resort to religion and flock to places of worship whenever they feel the “need” for it. No wonder it is said that “Ignorance is Bliss”!

Shashi Tharoor describes it comprehensively: “India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.”  

And when I say Indians, I also include myself but only to a limited extent. And, when I say humanity, I mean the entire human race in every part of the world - the conduct has been equally confused and irrational. I wish every human on this earth gets to meet his/her yogi and evolves into a liberated being and soul and enjoys the all-pervading Cosmic Bliss …And for myself, I pray that I complete my journey of life with Cosmic Blessings ... :) 

I, Alien

As the aircraft approaches its landing, and if I happen to be seated at the window, I start getting strange sensations. I feel like an alien. And I am sure that if ever an alien comes visiting the planet earth, she would feel the same. Various divergent thoughts start appearing in my mind. The Life per se seems to be getting cloudier in my thoughts, denser than the clouds surrounding the descending machine.

At that height I don’t only get a 360 degrees view of the earth but also seem to get a new perspective on life. I see the earth below and the sky around, space actually - if I speak in a non-technical term. If the time is before sunset, the ground shows numerous activities, all suggesting a vibrant habitation below. Post sunset the scene is much more beautiful with lights shining all around, concealing the ugliness of humanity superbly. If Capt. Satish Sharma said “saare jahan se achchha” about India from the Space, which we so naively believe to be true, the same is equally applicable to every part of the world. There is hardly any distinction till the earth comes closer. And I could be landing on any planet in the Universe!

At that distance away from the earth and up in the sky, with the space pervading all around, I marvel at the God for having these marvelous ideas about life! I wonder at Its’ creations which are so consistent in every sense of the term. Simultaneously looking at the fast approaching earth below, I wonder at the significance of our earth in Its’ vast scheme of things! With billions of stars and billions of planets and moons strewn all across the Universe, I wonder about this tiny little speck of mass called earth. The earth, a revolving landmass around the Sun, over which we have been fighting ever since having straightened up! Yes, from a bent cave man to a walking being supposedly with a straight spine!

It doesn’t take an eternity for the aircraft to descend but the time seems to be sufficient enough to let my mind race faster than any conceivable time machine. Amazingly my thoughts remain consistent in all voyages. Once having marveled at the God for creating this beautiful Universe, I also wonder at the loss of control It suffered thereafter, especially in case of humans. The biological Evolution, the pre-historic times, the medieval period and the modern and contemporary history flash in my mind as if I were watching a classic movie in fast-forward! From complicated human behaviors to predictable yet weird human traits cross my thoughts. (Looking at a kid I always wonder what kind of a person she/he would finally be.) The man-made geographical divisions, the numerous nations built within boundaries, the thoughts and traditions and cultures and civilizations and philosophies and ideologies and wars and death & destruction and jihad and terrorism and poverty and pollution and politicians and pollution and police and army and brutality and torture and broken hearts and senseless minds and troubles and tribulations and oil and nuclear weapons and religions and regions and skin colors and castes and creeds and genders and intellect and talent and ambitions and dreams and awards and arrogance and emotions and relationships and fights and arguments and daily living and life … everything, absolutely every aspect of life seems so insignificant …

We never seem to realize that we are not even a full dot in the grand scheme of things in the unending and ever-expanding Universe! And we never ever seem to be ready to believe that like us – the so-called intelligent and the evolved creation! – there would be millions of creations much more evolved and intelligent, and humane than us. It is only a matter of time that they would traverse the space and discover us. So far we have not displayed those capabilities to reach out to them – the Aliens! … The co-existing irony, nevertheless, is that we as humans are yet to discover – understand – ourselves and our fellow humans cohabiting on our earth!

If I look at the Life from up in the sky, and think about the Life in general, I fail to understand the purpose of Creation per se. Why did the God make all what he made? Why did he lose all control over Its own creations thereafter? Does It regret having created human beings? From astronomy to astrology, did Its plans go all awry? I think about all the living beings including the ocean dwellers which include the microscopic beings to the visible souls in the animal and the plant kingdom. I think about the food chain and the social pyramid. And the entire thing looks like a grand “time-pass”! Yes, every body aimlessly busy in doing nothing except for doing the basic things in order to sustain its life within the assigned and designed body so as to be able to pass into the next stage of being in form of soul at a designated time. The life which was created to be simple in existence but it becoming hugely complex in practice. Every thing so consistent and predictable and so routine and repetitive that, from a distance, as an alien, I feel disillusioned!

I know that if the Buddha were alive today, and he would have travelled with me in an aircraft seated in a window seat, post the touchdown he would have embarked on a journey yet again in search of enlightenment – renouncing his theory of nirvana. The Buddha too would have felt like an alien …