Truth is, What we say by experience

K M Gupta

When the Kurukshetra war was all set to begin, Krishna converts interspace into a classroom. To set Arjuna to proper action, Krishna has to put him on the right approach that comes from right attitude which in turn comes from proper understanding and that, from proper knowledge.
Life is a classroom and you never cease to be a student. The moment you cease to be a student you become deadwood. So the first lesson for all students of life is how to be a good student. And that is the first lesson to be taught to all students from Kindergarten.
How can a student be a good or even best student? Look at the knowledgeunderstanding-attitude-approach chain. Knowledge comes first. Gaining knowledge is the primary aim of education. Knowledge metamorphoses into wisdom in the form of understanding-attitude-approach. So go get knowledge first.
But knowledge doesn’t favour all. It comes only to those who have curiosity which is the mother of knowledge. It is the greatest virtue. What do all science, discovery and invention owe their origin to? Curiosity. What made Albert Einstein the greatest of all scientists? Curiosity. Those without curiosity are ‘knowledge-challenged’. So cultivate curiosity, for curiosity cultivates knowledge.
I have one thing in common with Isaac Asimov, the renowned science fiction writer. He said, “My father taught me all that i have today. How? He taught me curiosity, and with that i learned all i have.” Once the head teacher of my son’s school summoned me and gave me a dressing down: “Your son has fared awfully badly in maths this time!” I taught my son maths at home. Not for long, only for a short while. Next time he became a topper and also, maths became his first love. What was the magic? I taught him maths. But not just maths but curiosity as well, which i learned from my father.
In the present system of education students can’t expect curiosity to be taught. So students must teach themselves curiosity. Don’t just cram lessons. Cultivate curiosity towards what you learn. Anything can be the subject of your curiosity – grammar, maths, even morals. Convert everything into curiosity. What is it about? What is it for? How does it work? How does it fit in with life? If you have curiosity, nothing is dull or tough. Mathematics is usually the bete noire for average students. But mathematics is the most interesting of all subjects in the world – if only you are curious. If you are dull in mathematics, it means your teacher has failed in cultivating curiosity in you. Don’t wait for the teacher. Teach yourself curiosity. Start looking at things with curious eyes. Sit for a while in the class of the greatest of all teachers of all times and listen: ‘Shraddhavan labhate jnanam.’
Attention is the sharp edge of curiosity. In the Upanishad the guru tells his student, ‘sharavat thanmayo bhavet’ – be like an arrow set on its aim. To be an arrow set on its aim, you should have no diversions. And to have no diversions you should have your senses in control. So Krishna adds: ‘Tatparah samyatendriyah.’ Have no diversions and have your senses in control. Curiosity can lead to bad things also. So Krishna asks you to know what is day and what is night, in which to wake up and in which to sleep, when to open your eyes and when to shut them. The Gita is a guide on how to be an Arrow of Attention.

    guptkm@gmail.com

B S Nishkinchan Maharaj

One day we got stuck in a traffic jam. Some desperate moments later our host swore and grumbled, “Damn, red alert!” After some moments of honking, eventually we cleared the police barrier. He began to explain that the government had sounded a red alert and cops had blockaded the road to check terrorist movement. He lamented that this results in nothing but waste of time and harassment to the public.
Our impatient host could not understand that our security personnel are under so much pressure in such tense situations. They do their duty and try to avert gruesome acts. They try to protect us so that we can go back home safely to our families. And all we do is to complain and ignore red alerts.
Red alerts are sounded not only in the material world but in the spiritual world as well. And as usual we ignore them. Once, the Pandava brothers – Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Sahdev and Nakula – got lost in the forest and were thirsty. They sat down to rest under the shade of a large tree. Yudhishthira instructed Nakula to climb a tree nearby to locate any source of water in the vicinity so that they could quench their thirst. Nakula did so and informed Yudhishthira that there was indeed a cluster of trees not too far off and that he could hear the cries of water cranes.
Yudhishthira requested Nakula to fetch some water in a quiver. Nakula proceeded and located a crystal-clear lake, surrounded by trees. Nakula was thirsty and as he was about to drink water, he heard a voice warning him not to drink without answering some questions first. Nakula ignored the voice and drank the water. He died instantly. When Nakula did not return, Yudhishthira asked Sahdev to look for him. Sahdev arrived on the scene and was shocked to see the supine Nakula. He too drank the water despite the warning and fell dead. A similar fate awaited Arjuna and Bhima. Eventually Yudhishthira went to look for his brothers.
When he arrived at the spot, he could not believe that his brothers were lying dead. Dismayed, he began to look around. Puzzled that there were no signs of violence or footprints, he assumed the killer to be supernatural. He then proceeded to collect water. The voice boomed, ‘‘I am the cause of your brothers’ death. You may also die if you drink water without answering my questions.’’
Yudhishthira asked politely, “Who are you?’’ The Yaksha revealed his form and said, ‘‘I warned your brothers, but they did not pay heed. This pool belongs to me and unless you answer my questions you shall not even touch this water.’’
Yudhishthira complied. One of the four questions Yaksha asked was: ‘‘Kim ascharayam?’’ – What is the greatest wonder of the world? Yudhishthira replied, ‘‘Everyday we see our dear ones dying, yet we think this will not happen to us.’’
Every death is a red alert that this is going to happen to you as well. But we continue to ignore those red alerts and get involved in useless pursuits and conflicts instead of leading a peaceful life. Why not end this cycle of birth and death? Why not end suffering permanently? Why not follow the instructions of elders? Why not become a devotee of the Supreme? After all red alerts are for our benefit.

    All India Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math.

Janina Gomes

Dear Life,

You promised me a lot. But what you have given me has surpassed all that you promised. I knew that both beauty and ugliness would come my way for nothing comes unalloyed in life. My life has encompassed both good and bad because you have made me understand only too well that nothing comes unalloyed. When i look back and also regard the present, i realise that the richness of life is in bringing all these experiences together and weaving a beautiful tapestry of them.
When i try to achieve my goals in haste, you slow me down. You teach me patience; the value of waiting for what is worthwhile. You teach me that life is ever-flowing; like the river that gets around so many bends and boulders, you also make me flow over and around obstacles and difficulties.
The trajectory i choose for myself now is different, on account of the lessons you have taught me. By choosing not to identify myself completely with difficulties that come my way, i look beyond them and myself, despite my multiple identities, to the spiritually awakened Self that’s inside me.
I had the same expectations as many others do – marriage and family. But you showed me that there are infinite ways of reaching my full potential. There are conventional structures and landmarks, but not all of us pass by the same way.
You often squeeze me like a lemon and so stress, pain and defeat become part of my experiences. You make demands on me. I was made to take on responsibility, to care for others and to give something back to you. However, when the demands became excessive you have shown me that sometimes i have to be squeezed to give out my best.
You have also given me the chance and opportunity to recover when the feeling of being squeezed of all energy threatens to take over. There comes a healing touch – or there is sickness that forces one to stop and take stock, and helps one emerge fitter and stronger for the experience.
Looking, back, i find that you have enriched me with a gamut of experiences. You’ve let me experience the fact that being tested does not mean one has to seek escape from you. When we say ‘yes’ to life, we are really saying ‘yes’ also to surprises, setbacks and personal tragedies, and not only to happy times.
In the course of my life, so many things have happened, but not every happening was significant. I have now learned to skip and not mull over or get bogged down by happenings that could have been accidental, coincidental or negative, and therefore they do not say much to me anymore.
Life, you are a twin sister of Time. In learning to make the best use of time and putting our talents to best use in activities that are essentially time-bound, we are really living life to the full. There is time for everything under the sun. But you have impressed upon me that i should do and undertake only work and activities that promote life, not destroy it.
Yet, may i request you: Please don’t squeeze me like a lemon. I have learnt my lessons and the need to put up a good fight and keep the faith. I will celebrate you and not waste the opportunity.
And when i whisper a prayer, i will say, ‘Thank You Life, for the gift of Self to me’.

    With gratitude,

    Janina

Discourse: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Meditation is the journey from movement to stillness, from sound to silence. The need is present in you to meditate because it is your natural tendency to look for undiminished joy and love that doesn’t distort or turn negative.
Is meditation alien to us? That’s not true because you have been in meditation even before your birth. In the womb you were doing nothing. You didn’t even have to chew food; you were fed directly and you were happily floating in fluid, turning and kicking. That is meditation or absolute comfort. You did nothing, everything was done for you. Isn’t it natural for us to crave for that state of absolute comfort? And getting back to that state which you have had a taste of, just before entering the hustle and bustle of the world is very natural because everything in the universe is cyclic, and wants to go back to its source.
The natural tendency is to recycle all that we’ve collected in life as impressions, getting rid of them and getting back to the original state we were at birth is what meditation is all about. Becoming fresh again, alive, is what it is. Getting back to that serenity, your original nature, is meditation. It is absolute joy and happiness; pleasure minus excitement. A thrill without anxiety is meditation. It is love without hatred or any of its opposite values.
Meditation is food for the soul. When you are hungry, spontaneously you eat something. If you are thirsty you drink water. Similarly, the soul yearns for meditation and this tendency is in everyone. Hence, there is not a single individual who is not a seeker. It’s just that they don’t recognise it. The problem is that we try to look for that food where it is not available. It is like going to a grocery shop when you want to fill fuel in your car. You keep going around the grocery store saying, ‘I want fuel for my car.’ It won’t work because you need to go to the petrol station. So, find the right direction. Meditation happens in transition. Actually meditation happens, you can’t do it. You can only create a congenial atmosphere for it to happen.
Meditation is uplifting energy and mind and spreading it out. When you’re happy, you associate it with a sense of expansion. And whenever you have felt miserable, you associate it with a sense of shrinking or contraction. There is something in you which expands when you’re happy and contracts when you’re unhappy. But we never pay attention to what is contracting and expanding. We only keep our attention outside; we have not paid attention to the reason.
Sage Gaudapadacharya said, “There is something in you that is expanding that is worth knowing.” Even a glimpse of this consciousness, this energy inside you, can make the smile on your face so strong that nothing whatsoever can take it away from you. Nobody can make you miserable or take away the joy from your life. Life assumes another dimension suddenly once you glimpse something inside that is expanding. You don’t have to leave things here and go. Just being amidst all the noise and still recognising that beauty is so wonderful, so fascinating, right here and now and that is meditation, which is supreme prayer.
All powers are hidden within the Self and everything will manifest when you connect to your consciousness.

Marguerite Theophil

It is easy, too easy, as we get caught up with so many things in an overly-busy time, to lose sight of what is important in our lives. And if we are lucky, sometimes a teacher – in the form of a person, a sentence, an image, a book – will appear…
One such teacher was a book, How to Train a Wild Elephant: And Other Adventures in Mindfulness, authored by Jan Chozen Bays. Abbess of a Zen monastery, also paediatrician, mother, and grandmother, Bays’s book on mindfulness is designed particularly ‘for those who would love to practise mindfulness, but…can’t seem to find the time!’ We are offered one mindfulness exercise per chapter. Each is meant to be practised for one week, mindfully, before moving to or including the next practice.
All suggested practices deal with one of three central tenets of mindful living: staying in the present moment, being aware of our own actions, and observing the world around us. One of my favourites is ‘Use loving hands and a loving touch, even with inanimate objects.’ Sounds simple, yes? However, it is so revealing when you get down to doing it. For a whole week!
Entering this practice, we soon become aware of when we ourselves or others are n o t using loving hands. We begin to notice, perhaps as never before, how doors are slammed, purchases shoved at us, money handed over impatiently, luggage hurled onto the conveyor belt at the airport. We all know how to use loving hands and touch, Bays points out; after all we touch babies, faithful dogs, crying children, and lovers with tenderness and care. So how come we don’t use loving touch more often, if not all the time? This is the essential question of mindfulness – Why can’t we live like this all the time? Once we discover how much richer our life is when we are more present, why do we fall back into our old habits?
Bays not only offers us a challenge – or invitation – each week, she leads us into deeper reflections around each one. Ordinarily we are more aware of using loving touch with people than with objects. And yet, when we are in a hurry or upset, we do end up turning someone into an object by the way we treat him. We rush out of the house without saying good-bye; ignore a co-worker’s greeting because of a disagreement the day before; fail to pause a moment to express appreciation. “…This is how other people become objectified, a nuisance, an obstacle, and ultimately, an enemy.”
I was reminded once more that mindfulness also involves working with discomfort – walking right into it, and feeling within the body what is true. And when we are this attentive, when our meditative absorption is deep, what we call discomfort or pain begins to shift, reduce and perhaps even disappear. The practices range from the simple to do, to ones that are harder, even ones that might make us uneasy. Confronting difficult truths is an essential part of the mindfulness process, and this is brought home sharply in the practice ‘This Person Could Die Tonight’ which encourages us to remember that when interacting with someone, anyone, it could be for the last time.
In our quest for inner peace, sustained mindfulness practice is a method that i find works even for the most excitable and reactive among us. And even if we lapse, we will come upon those who bring us back to the path.

P V Vaidyanathan

We don’t often see it clearly, but the fact is that for everything, there is a subject and object. Everything we perceive in existence is a combination of subject and object. If one changes, so does the other. And since each of us, as subject or object, is different and unique, we perceive the same world differently. It is almost as if we are all carrying a bubble around us. What we see is what the bubble allows us to see. The bubble may be transparent, tinted, dirty, distorted or damaged; depending on the properties of the bubble, we ‘see’ reality. It is as if each of us is wearing glasses which function differently. And we see the world depending on what sort of glasses we are wearing currently.
Truth or reality is what exists; but due to our bubbles or tinted spectacles, we are almost never able to see the truth, as it exists. Invariably, we tend to add our feelings, thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, interpretations and reactions to this reality. If reality is the actual dish that is being cooked, our perceptions become the spice and salt. If the dish forms the major portion and spice and salt form a minor one, the serving would be palatable. But if our additives are more than the nature of the actual dish, the food would taste terrible, and would be unfit for consumption. This is what is happening with most of us; we tend to add too much of our own perceptions or interpretations to every event that occurs in our lives. Perhaps that’s why we have more unhappiness and sorrow, since we read too much into reality.
The bubble or spectacles through which we see the world is our mind and ego. Everything we experience is filtered through the mind. Every sight, sound, sensation, emotions, and every word that we encounter is analysed by the mind. And no one mind is like another. Hence, my interpretation of any event or person is totally different from yours or anyone else’s. This is also the basis of every conflict that arises in the world, for it is rare for two persons to see things in exactly the same manner. The more still and peaceful the mind, the less judgmental we are, and the greater the chance of us coming close to reality. The degree of conflict that we have with others will be directly proportional to the amount of thoughts that our mind generates about any situation.
In order to achieve joy, harmony and happiness, we try and change things, events and circumstances. We want to achieve happiness without changing anything about ourselves. We rave and rant, manipulate, beg, borrow and steal, struggle, work hard, put pressure on others, confront, accuse, make others feel guilty – we basically try and do whatever we can, to bring about harmony. Sometimes we succeed and at other times we don’t.
While we are trying to change situations to suit ourselves, we often forget that everyone else is also doing the same. The intelligent aim, however, would be to get a favourable outcome not by trying to change what is outside us and over which we have limited control, but to change what lies inside us, something over which we can exert total control. Any situation can change provided w e are ready to change. By changing our behaviour, and by taking the path of acceptance and surrender, in one instant, we can convert conflict into compromise and cooperation, and misery into happiness.

    vaidyanathan.pv@gmail.com

Neellam Nanwani

Do you suffer from low self-esteem? Do you wallow in self-pity? You don’t have to. We are conditioned to believe that loving oneself is being selfish and, therefore, we experience a sense of guilt.
Loving your own self doesn’t mean ignoring your imperfections or being selfish – it doesn’t mean that you say, “I am perfect and don’t need to change.” Loving yourself is not a selfish act. It does not imply that you must ignore the needs of others. Nor does loving oneself need to involve doing so with arrogance.
Instead, to love yourself involves personal awareness. Self-love means you pay attention to your feelings, your perspective. You are fully aware of your own needs while recognising the needs of others. If you don’t feel fulfilled within, how can you properly reach out and become deeply fulfilling to others?
If you cannot love and respect yourself for the person you are, how will others accept and love you? If i don’t enjoy my own company, how can i expect others to find me interesting? Ask: Could you live with yourself on a deserted island?
Self-love means loving and accepting yourself the way you are, while acknowledging fully the changes that you need to make in your life. Recognise the areas in your life that you need to improve upon or enhance, and all the while, do so without beating yourself up for it.
It’s human to err, to make mistakes, to know defeat and to face failures. We grow from this. However, what is important is not to indulge in self-blame but to accept what needs to change, while acknowledging and respecting what is good in you. Release the past and move on.
When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you feel? What or who do you see? Can you look in the mirror and say, “I love you exactly the way you are?” Can you say, with conviction: “I love you, because i recognise that you are unique and wonderful?” Can you forgive yourself for not being what you want to be? Can you forgive others for the hurt and the pain they caused you?
By forgiving yourself and others, you begin to feel grateful for what is rather than running for what should be. With forgiveness, you can experience the beauty of the present moment. Forgiveness is one of the essential ingredients of accepting and loving your unique self.
We often feel that forgiving and letting go is for others. We forget that when we hold on to the pain and the grief and hurt caused by others – and if don’t forgive – it is like holding hot coal in our hands, refusing to throw it.
Do you trust your abilities and know what is good, unique and wonderful in you? If your answer is in the affirmative, it means you are manifesting a life of your dreams. If negative, then you need to delve deeper into your mind and soul to find what is stopping you from living your dreams.
We talk about loving others and of doing things for others but, if a part of you, somewhere deep down, is aching, frustrated and belittled, how can you do justice to others? So your first responsibility is to your own self ?
Reach within and find the real you; feel assured that you have great potential. Use it.
The writer is a past life regression therapist.

neelamnanwani@yahoo.in

Andrew Cohen

When you take the perennial meditative journey to the depths of your own self, you discover what it was like before the beginning. You come to rest in the timeless empty void before the Universe was born, which the mystics call the ground of Being. When you taste the profound freedom that is the inherent nature of that primordial ground, it can seem like the end of the path. Where else could there possibly be for you to go? The very notion of seeking for liberation, for enlightenment, for meaning or purpose seems absurd. The question, who am i? is answered before it is asked. And the question, why am i here?, simply does not arise.
In traditional enlightenment, this is the end of the path. But the journey of evolutionary enlightenment does not end here. Why? Because the cosmic experiment that is life did not end here. If that empty ground, where every question is answered, was all there was to know and to discover, why would the universe exist? Why did something come from nothing?
This is not an abstract philosophical question but a profound spiritual contemplation that can take you to the essence of what it means to be alive. Why did something come from nothing…and become light, energy, matter, life, consciousness, and you– 14 billion years later reading these words? Why are you here?
If the eternal perfection that is the Source of everything knows no desire, why would the universe have emerged? If the ground of all things has no impulse but to be, why did it become? But it did. And thanks to evolutionary science, we can behold just how far this miraculous explosion of Becoming has brought us in the 14 billion years since that initial burst. We can reflect on its aweinspiring progress, and wonder at its evergreater complexity and integration and creativity. And we can ask ourselves, why did all of this come from nothing?
You don’t need a powerful telescope to see all the way back to the Big Bang – you can go there, right now, in your very own experience.
The Big Bang is not just a metaphor or a disputed scientific theory about what occurred 14 billion years ago. It’s happening right now. Something is coming from nothing every second. You might not be conscious of it, but it’s true. Your own experience of action and reaction is not unbroken – there are countless moments of zero between each and every thought, every impulse, and every response. If you slow your experience down, and
keep slowing it down, you’ll start to see that there is a vast chasm of empty space that is the foundation of everything that is occurring, the ground out of which each impulse arises. Even as you are aware of the body, of the passing of time and the movement of thought, beneath it all you can become conscious of this current of stillness that is the ground of Being.
Because you can locate that empty ground in your very own experience, you can also locate the seed of everything that came out of that nothingness. The essence of evolutionary enlightenment is found in that precise moment when nothing became something. When you contemplate the ground of Being, you can begin to intuit for yourself what that very moment must have been like.

From the writer’s Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening.

M P K Kutty

To be the No. 1 – this is what seems to make life worth living for most people today. However, if not qualified by right values, success could lead to downfall. “Work hard, study hard, nothing comes easy…there are no short cuts. No matter how menial the job, the important thing is to do it well.” Charles Colson recalls his father’s words: “Tell the truth always, for lies destroy you.”
His was a family of small means. To meet expenses, his mother would sell off household items. One day, Colson returned from school to see strangers carrying away chairs from the living room. He determined that he would be an achiever.
Success in academics, a stint with the Marine Corps and later as campaigner for President Nixon, Colson tasted status and power and this emboldened him to often disregard ethics in getting things done.
Eventually Colson went to prison after pleading guilty to Watergate-related charges. In prison he underwent a transformation. “I shudder to think what i would have been if i had not gone to prison,” he was to remark later.
The accusations levelled against him as the hatchet man of Nixon and the humiliation made him “broken inside” though he put on a tough exterior. A friend gave him a book by C S Lewis that spoke of spiritual issues.
He read: ‘‘…it is pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and family. Other vices may sometimes bring people together; you may find good fellowship, jokes and friendliness among drunken or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity; not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.’’
Looking back, he found it was pride that had propelled him through life. And he recognised, too, that “pride is spiritual cancer. It eats up the very possibility of love, contentment or even common sense.”
Sensitised by repentance, he could now empathise with the fellow prisoners trapped by circumstances and marked by tragedy and injustice. Haunted by the desperation and hopelessness he saw Colson knew he must do something to help those left behind once he was out of prison. To this end, he set up the International Prison Fellowship ministries in 1976 now operating in more than hundred countries.
Colson received 15 honorary doctorates, and in 1993 was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, the world’s largest annual award – amounting to over $1 million – in the field of religion, given to one who ‘‘has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension’’. He donated this prize to further the work of Prison Fellowship, as he did all his speaking fees and royalties. In 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Citizens’ Medal by then president George W Bush.
Colson’s life is a reminder to those, in and out of office, of seductions of power and rewards of service. His now famous redemption story written in Born Again, a best-seller, will remain an inspiration to all those holding top offices anywhere in the world. Power often corrupts the one who wields it; but God does give another chance to those who are willing to repent and reorder their lives based on moral and ethical standards.
Power could do much good if used for common benefit in the conviction that leaders are here ‘to serve and not to be served’. Servant leadership is the answer.

mpkkutty@yahoo.co.in

Thich Nhat Hanh

In western philosophy, the term “being-initself ” is very close to the Buddhist term “suchness” – reality as it is free from conceptions or grasping. You cannot grasp it, because grasping reality with concepts and notions is like catching space with a net. So enter reality in a non-conceptual instant. The Buddha handed us an instrument to do this. If you continue to cling even to Buddhist notions and concepts, you miss the opportunity. You are carrying the raft on your shoulders. Do not be a prisoner of any doctrine or ideology, even Buddhist ones.
Our notion of being is dualistic, the opposite of the notion of non-being. The reality of being that the Buddha tries to convey is not the opposite of non-being. When he says “Self ”, it is not the opposite of anything.
In Mahayana Buddhism, we use anti-notions to help us get rid of notions. If you get caught by the notion of being, the notion of emptiness is there to rescue you. But if you forget that true emptiness is filled with everything, you will be caught by your notion of emptiness and bitten by the snake. All other notions can be healed by the notion of emptiness, but when you are caught in the notion of emptiness, the disease is incurable.
The belief that the Self is there before i was born and will continue after i die is a belief in permanence. The opposite belief, that after you die you enter absolute nothingness, is a belief in annihilation. These views are discussed in the Sutra on Knowing – the better way to catch a snake. Take care not to fall into either trap – the belief in a permanent Self, whether great or small, or the belief in annihilation, becoming nothing. These two notions must be transcended. When you are caught in one notion or the other, you get bitten by the snake over and over again.
One day i was contemplating a stick of burning incense. The smoke coming off its tip was creating many beautiful forms in the air. It seemed alive, really there. I perceived an existence, a being, a life, and i sat quietly enjoying myself and the “Self ” of the incense stick. I enjoyed the smoke as it continued to drift up creating various forms. I used my left hand to “catch” the smoke. The last moment the stick was burning was especially beautiful. When there was no more incense at the other end, there was more oxygen on both sides, so it burned most intensely for a moment, revealing a bright red colour. I looked at it with all my concentration. It was a parinirvana, a great extinction. Where had the flame gone?
When a person is about to die, he often becomes very alert at that last moment of life and then fades away, just like the stick of incense. Where has the soul gone? I had several other sticks of incense, and i knew that if, at that last moment, i took another stick of incense and touched the first stick with it, the flame would have continued onto the new stick, and the life of the incense would have continued. It was only a matter of fuel, or conditions…If I feed one stick after another to the fuel, is the life of the incense eternal?
Is the Buddha alive or dead? It is a matter of fuel. Perhaps you are the fuel, and you continue the life of the Buddha. From Cultivating the Mind of Love.

www.ahimsatrust.org

trust@gmail.com