ADD THAT TRUE ONE WITH YOU

ADD THAT TRUE ONE WITH YOU

Prophet Mohammad’s life is in danger. Information has reached him that people are out to kill him under cover of the night.

It is a dark hour. Mohammad leaves his home and the town of his birth; with him is his faithful friend and follower; Abu Bakr.

In hot pursuit of these two devoted servants of God are those who wish to kill Mohammad. They are so many; they are riding strong steeds and in their hands are drawn swords and sharp lances. Abu Bakr sees hem from a distance and feels nervous. In the agony of terror, he says to Mohammad, “They are coming; soon they will slay us with their sharp swords. And our bodies will lie on the desert sands to be devoured by wild beasts.”

Mohammad is silent; he speaks not a word. In his heart, he feels sure that God is with him and no harm can come his way. Nearby is a cave. Mohammad and Abu Bakr hide themselves in its depths. The party of persecutors halt at the mouth of the cave; their leader suspects that Mohammad has entered the cave. Abu Bakr begins to tremble and whispers to Mohammad, “What shall we do now? We are two and they are so many!”

Quietly answers Mohammad, “Not so, my friend, we are not two but three! The third is Allah. When He is near, we need not fear!”

A miracle has happened. Just after the two fugitives entered the cave and little before the party of persecutors arrived, a huge spider crawled to the entrance of the cave and wove its web across it. Seeing the web, some of the persecutors exclaim, “Mohammad could not have got into the cave. Don’t you see the spider’s web covering the entrance? Had anyone got in, the web would have been torn. Let us not waste precious time; let us move on!” Mohammad is saved!




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HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 6

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 6

Purna was a devoted disciple of the Buddha. One day, as he sat in meditation, he got an urge to go and spread the Master’s message among the wild people of Sronapranta. The plan appeared preposterous to many of his of his fellow bhikkus. But Purna was a man of faith. He was fearless. His heart was filled with love and compassion for all who dwelt in the house of darkness.

Purna came to the Buddha for his blessings. And the Buddha said to him, Purna, you know so well that the people of Sronapranta are wild and ferocious. They insult and slander one another and are given to fits of anger. If they speak to you insultingly and abuse you and get angry with you, what will you do?”

“If they behave with me thus, Master!” answered Purna, “I shall think them to be kindly and friendly, since they do not beat or stone me.”

“And what if they beat or stone you?”

“Even then I shall think them to be kind and friendly, since they do not kill me.”

“And what if they kill you, Purna?”

Purna said, “Even if they kill me, Master! I shall still think them to be kind and friendly, since they have liberated me from the limitations of the body.”

The Buddha was well-pleased with Purna. To him, the Blessed One said, “Purna, you are gifted with the greatest gentleness and patience. You can go and dwell among the people of Sronapranta. Show them the way to be free as you are free!”

Blessed was Purna. He was free: he was fearless. He showed to many the way to be fearless and free. It is not the way of lusting after pleasure or of accumulating possessions or of acquiring earthly power. It is the way of knowing that we are very near and dear to God. “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings?” asked Jesus. “And not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God. Fear not ye are of more value than many sparrows.” It is the way of giving gratitude to God for all that happens, of being glad in all circumstances and rejoicing forever, singing the song: “The golden age is in my heart, today. ”In the midst of poverty and privation, Saint Tukaram sang:-

No food have I nor shelter:
A homeless wanderer I,
Whom no child doth greet at eventide!

Yet there is none richer than I,
For I have all love and all joy.
I have God: His grace and His love
Fill me to overflowing!

Come poverty, come pain,
With God enthroned within my heart,
No ill can lay me low!

All things pass:
As a dream they come,
As a dream they go!

I dwell in deathless joy,
And I have no fear:
For I abide in Him,
And His immortal touch is on my soul!

-Concluded
(Author: Sri J P Vaswani)

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 5

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 5

I can never forget the sweet serene face of a child I saw sixty years ago. I was on board the S.S. Versova, travelling from Mumbai to Karachi. Suddenly, a terrible storm arose. Thick clouds appeared in the skies, covering face of the sun, and the day become dark as night. Huge waves lashed against the steamer which tossed as a paper-boat. All the passengers were filled with terror. It looks as though we were doomed to a watery grave. In the midst of this sorrowful scene sat a little child – barely six years old – calm, serene, undisturbed by the shrieking storm and the rolling wave.

I was, then, about ten years of age: and I marvelled at this child’s unruffled serenity in the face of death. I said to him: “The steamer is about to sink: are you not afraid?”

With a cherubic smile he answered: “What have I to fear when my mother is near?”

I can never forget those words. When in the depths of despair and sorrow I have repeated the words to myself, repeated them again and again, I have felt relieved: “What have I to fear when my Mother is near?”

Our Mother – the Mother Divine – is so near to each one of us. Closer is She than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. Alas! We have turned our faces away from Her. In our shouts and shows, our engagements and occupations, our business and commerce, we have forgotten Her. We have lost the child-like spirit. To be child-like is to renounce criticism, is to rejoice in life, is to share all we have with all men, is to love and laugh. We think we have grown up and no longer need the Mother’s loving care. We need to become children again, friendly and loving towards all – not critical, never fearful.

We need to contact the Mother. This is done through meditation and prayer and constant repetition of the Mother’s Name, Writing the Name, again and again, is a great help. To start with, it may appear laborious, but as concentration develops, writing the Name becomes a source of indescribable joy. As you keep on writing the Name, again and again, one blessed day you lose yourself: you find the Mother! This is all that matters.

It must not be forgotten that it is impossible for me to find the Mother through my own efforts and endeavours. It is only through the Mother’s grace that She is found. On our part we must make an attempt to radiate thoughts of love, to speak words of comfort, to live a life of service and sacrifice.

“You are not lonely, O, Arjuna!” says Sri Krishna to His beloved disciple in the Gita. “I am with you, within you, all around you. Whatever you eat, whatever you give, whatever you do, do it unto Me!” So may our petty wills be blended with the Will Divine. And in the measure in which our wills are blended with the Will of God, in that measure do we grow into the likeness of God. Then we think as God would have us think: we speak and act as God would have us speak and act. Then it is that fear vanishes from our life as mist before the morning sun. and we move through life trusting every ray of the sun and every drop of rain, every rose and every thorn, every stone and every grain of sand, every river and every rock, trusting the sun and moon and stars, trusting thunder and storm, trusting every thing and everyone, giving the service of love to all.

Significant are the words of Saint Francis: “Where there are compassion and wisdom, there can be neither fear nor ignorance.” The secret of fearlessness is sympathy, is compassion, is love for all. When love, unselfish love, enters into the heart, fear departs.

-To be concluded
(Author: Sri J P Vaswani)

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 4

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 4

Fear is a poison that quickly circulates through the entire system, paralyzing the will, producing a queer sensation in some parts or the other of the human body. Fear is a great foe of man. Overcome fear the moment it appears or it will overpower you. And fear is a merciless master. Strike fear with the weapon of the Spirit, -the word of God. Utter the sacred Name dear to you, the Name of the Beloved: Krishna, Shyama, Rama, Jesus, Buddha, Nanak. Utter it, again and again. Utter it in child-like faith, and He whom you call will rush to your aid. Say aloud some prayer which has an appeal to your heart. Recite prayer lines which may appeal to you: recite them, again and again, until fear departs and you feel strong as steel.

Is not fearlessness the first essential condition for spiritual growth? Sri Shankaracharya, -one if the greatest teachers of all time, -urged that he who would walk the way must have vajur hrdaya, - a heart strong as a thunderbolt. When Swami Vivekananda returned from his American tour and entered upon his work of regeneration in India, the one message which he delivered, as he travelled from town to town, from village to village, in this ancient land of heroes and sages was: “Be fearless! Be bold!” Listen to his words: “Stand up, be bold, be strong! Strength is life, weakness is death. Weakness is the one cause of suffering. We become miserable because we are weak. We lie, steal, kill and commit other crimes, because we are weak. We suffer, because are weak. We die, because we are weak. Where there is nothing to weaken us, there is no death, no sorrow.”

I recall a moving incident in the life of Swami Vivekananda. He is in America, speaking to large audience on the wisdom of India’s Rishi’s and Saints. He urges that the way is not for weaklings: the way is for heroes, for those who would be fearless in the face of every calamity, even death.

A few young men wish to put the Swami to the test. They know of so many who are wonderful preachers but whose life, alas! Does not bear witness to what they teach. Does Swami Vivekananda belong to the same class? They invite him to deliver a lecture. Gladly he goes to their meeting. He speaks to them of faith in God as the secret of the true life. And the man of faith, he urges, is fearless in the face of difficulty and danger.

Suddenly there is the sound of pistal-shots. Bullets fly past the Swami, just grazing his ears. Pandemonium reigns in the hall. Men rush out: women shriek in fear, and some of them drop down in transient unconsciousness. In the midst of this confusion, there is one man who stands firm, immovable as a rock, fearless and bold. He is Swami Vivekananda. The bullet that is not meant for him cannot touch him: the bullet meant for him will seek him out even if he is protected by a thousand body-guards.

Soon the shots cease. The Swami picks up the thread of his talk he left it a long minute ago. People return to the hall. Women wake up from their fainting fits. Things return to normal and it seems as though nothing untoward had taken place.

When the lecture is over, the young men meet Swami Vivekananda. “Forgive us,” they say to him. “The shots were fired by us to see how fearless you were. Your courage and your confidence put us to shame. Verily, Swami! You are among the most fearless men on earth. Pray forgive us!”

Why is it that the vast majority of us perpetually in fear of something or the other? Perhaps, one reason is that we are lonely. The deepest tragedy of the modern man is his loneliness. In spite of an ever-increasing number of clubs and cinemas, museums and parks, hotels and restaurants, at heart we feel so lonely. A distinguished visitor to America was taken to a big cinema-house. Throngs of people stood in rows awaiting their turn to get a ticket. Asked for his opinion, the visitor said, “The Americans must be very lonely at heart: else there would not be endless queues at cinema houses!”

Yes, - if we will confess the truth to ourselves we will not deny that we feel lonely. We lack the security of protection. We are like the child who, taken to a fair, lost its mother in the crowd. With this difference that the child rent the air with its cries for the mother, “Ma! Ma!”, but we have forgotten even to cry for our Divine Mother. We are like the orphan who was never tired of complaining that there was no one to care for him in this big, boisterous world. It is this sense of loneliness that leads to a feeling of frustration, and so many of us do not find it worth while to live in the world. Not long ago, a multi-millionaire brought an end to his life after leaving a brief note on his writing-table, “I feel lonely. Therefore, I kill myself!”

Life is become a burden to untold millions. Only a few commit suicide. The rest die what are regarded as natural deaths but which are, in many cases too premature. So many feel lonely: and loneliness sits as a heavy burden on the heart, sapping its strength, eating into its vitals. Heart diseases are on the increase. Hypertension is become a common ailment. Nervous breakdowns take a heavy toll. A heart-specialist said to me only last evening: “Not a day passes but I am called to the bed-side of a dying heart-patient. It was not so a few years ago.”

We feel lonely: we feel lost: we feel abandoned: we feel forsaken and forlorn. Again and again, we lose the sense of security which belongs to us as children of God: we fall into the abyss of fear.

-To be continued
(Author: Sri J P Vaswani)

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 3

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 3

A group of old friends met at an informal dinner. They reminded each other of many things that had happened in the past. Then someone raised the question: “What was the best day of your life?”

A couple answered: “The beautiful April day when we get married.”

A woman said, “The day my child was born. O, it was a wonderful day!”

Someone said: “The day I was fired from my first job. It was my best and worst day. That day made me take stock of myself and it set me on a new path that has since led to contentment in every area of my life.”

And so it went on. Until finally they turned to a woman who had not spoken at all. “What was the best day of your life?” the asked her.

And she answered: “The best day of my life is today. Because it is the day that I value the most. After all, I can’t get back yesterday and I am not sure of tomorrow. And this day is mine, to make it into whatever, I want it to be. And because it is new, and I am alive in it, it’s the best and I thank God for it!”

There was a time when Kagawa served T. B. patients and himself caught tuberculosis. Doctors examined him and felt frightened. “You will surely die in a year,” they said to him. He was serenely indifferent. Turning to the Christ in his heart, he said: “Lord! I shall spend each day in Thy service!”

Each day that Kagawa lived was spent in the service of the Lord. Days rolled into months and months into years. Kagawa lived on, communing with his Master who dwells in the midst of the poor and lonely. “Doctors gave me up years ago,” he said. “It is faith in God that has kept me going. I am amazed at the strength that comes to me when I pray and trust God.”

Fear is a child of unfaith. He who lives in fear does not truly believe in God, howsoever much he may have in the name of God on his lips. The man who believes in God is realised from the bondage of fear and egocentredness. The worst may happen to him: he is unafraid. Misfortune may follow him as a faithful dog: he is unafraid. Poverty and pestilence may stare him in the face: he is unafraid. Imprisoned in a dark cell, taken to the gallows, thrown into the midst of ferocious beasts, he is still fearless, brave, and unafraid. For he has given himself over to an All-loving and All-wise God. No longer does he belong to himself: he belongs to God. It is God’s sole responsibility to look after him, to guard him against all pitfalls, to provide for him. There can be nothing better than what God wills for him. So, in every situation and circumstance of life, he gives praise to and glorifies the Lord and utters the one word of gratitude, “Shukur! Shukur!”

Of a Sufi dervish it is said that, one day, as he took bath in a river, he was bitten in the foot by a crocodile. Blood flowed from the heel of his foot. He swam to the river-bank and there he sat uttering word of praise: “Shukur! Shukur!” A man who was near was amazed at the behaviour of the holy man. To him he said: “How is it that even though bitten by a crocodile, you still say, Shukur? What have you to feel grateful for?” And the dervish calmly answered: “I feel grateful to God that: I fell into the mouth of the crocodile: I did not fall into the mouth of sin!” The dervish was a man of faith.

The man of faith knows that God is the controller of his destiny and the destinies of all individuals and nations, - indeed, of the entire cosmos. The life of every single individual is a small but very essential part of life on Earth, and life on Earth is a small but a very essential part of the life of the universe. All that happens anywhere in the universe is controlled by God. And God is good and loving and wise. So the man of faith moves through life without fear or worry or anxiety. Knowing that whatever happens is for the best, he resists nothing. He expects nothing and rejoices in all that happens to him. He is never on the defensive: he never feels isolated or alone. Life to him becomes friendly. He trusts everyone, everything. This is what keeps him fearless in a fear-ridden world.

-To be continued
(Author: Sri J P Vaswani)

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 2

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 2

There are some, however, who, even in this fear-ridden age, bear witness to the ideal of fearlessness. One such was Kagawa. He lay in a hospital threatened with total blindness. He spent many months in a dark room with thick bandages covering his eyes. They said to him: “Your health is gone: your sight is gone. Are you not afraid of approaching death?” He calmly answered that there was nothing he feared in this spacious, star-lit, God-filled world.

“As I lie in this dark room,” he said, “God still gives light. Pains that pierce the very fires of Hell itself sweep over me. Yet, even in the melting fires of Hell, God’s mercy, for which all of earth’s manifold treasures would be an utterly inadequate exchange, still enfolds me.”

“To me all things are vocal,” he continued. “Oh, wonder words of love! The bedding, the tears, the spittle, the perspiration, the vapour of the compress on my eyes, the ceiling, the matted floor, the voice of the chirping sparrow without, all are vocal. God and every inanimate thing speak to me. Thus even in the dark I feel no sense of loneliness.”

“You suffer so much,” they said to him. “And you cannot see. Don’t you find it inconvenient?”

“Yes,” he answered, “but it is inconvenient for people not to have wings, isn’t it? If, however, they invent airplanes, these take the place of wings. The same is true regarding external eyes. If they go blind, it is simply a matter of inventing internal sight. My God is light itself. Even though every outward thing is shrouded in darkness, in the inner chamber of my soul, God’s Eternal Light shines on!”

Kagawa believed that the sufferings that come to us are part of the Divine Plan which is working in and through our lives. The All-loving and All-wise Architect of the universe means no harm to anyone. Every arrow of pain has a purpose behind it. Every experience of misery and agony comes to teach us a lesson we need to learn. But this becomes clear to him who joyfully accepts everything that comes to him, attempting to avoid nothing.

Joyful acceptance of God’s will, - is what leads to holiness and harmony. The way that leads to the Lord may be paved with suffering and sorrow: but the pilgrim, who accepts all experiences of life in the true spirit, is released from the clutches of sin and earth-desire. Such a one finds no burden oppressive, no suffering irksome.

We do not have to wait for some great crises to occur in our life to see if we have learnt to walk the way of acceptance. We must joyfully welcome God’s will in all the interruptions and irritations with which our daily lives are full. In every simple task, in every trial that comes to us unmasked, let us see the working of the Will Divine. Let us accept all, giving thanks to God for every little happening, knowing that there is a meaning of mercy in all that occurs. So may we be enriched in purity and perfection.

When Kagawa was threatened with blindness, many felt puzzled. Kagawa has surrendered his life to God, they said. Why does God not take care of him? Why does God let the light go out from his eyes? They could not understand, as we do not understand when we see a man of God suffer.

To them Kagawa said: “In the darkness I meet God, face to face. Here lies the reason for this long blindness. This is the purpose back of this wearisome confinement. I am being born, - born of God. God has some great expectation regarding me.”

The expectation was more than fulfilled. Kagawa came out of the hospital and, through him, God’s message travelled to millions of mankind. He became a channel of healing to many, leading them out of poverty into plenty, out of unrest to rest, out of sorrow into joy, out of weakness into spiritual strength, out of darkness into light. Through him new life was poured into innumerable “dead souls”.

When Kagawa lay ill in the hospital, friends visited him and, if only to comfort him, they said to him: “With so many things waiting to be done, don’t you find this long illness tedious?”

Listen to Kagawa’s answer. “I realise that a lot of work is waiting,” he said. “But work is not the purpose of my life. I am given life that I may live. It is impossible for me to stupidly moon away this present precious moment in boredom by idly thinking of tomorrow. My life is focused in this one moment. My present task is here and now to fellowship with God on this bed of pain.”

“I am not thinking of tomorrow or the next day,” Kagawa added, “or even of this day’s sunset hour. I am concerned only with being, this present moment, without any sense of tedium, with God. And for me constantly praising God for the joy of the moments live with Him there is no such thing as tediousness.”

Here is the secret of the truly fearless man. He is not anxious about the tomorrow. The tomorrow, he feels sure, will take care of itself. He knows that, in this world of transitoriness only the present moment belongs to him. The moment just over is no longer his: the moment to come may not belong to him at all. And the present moment is best utilized not in worrying over what may have happened or what is yet to happen, but in praising God for the joy of living with Him.

-To be continued
(Author: Sri J P Vaswani)

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 1

HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 1

I am thinking, today, of two men. One of them is Toyohiko Kagawa, whose entire life bore testimony to the truth that Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount” is not a mere vision of a Prophet but a profound reality in practical life. Kagawa’s life is, verily, an “imitation of Christ”. For Christ he lived: on Christ he meditated: to Christ he dedicated every act of his altruistic life: in Christ he moved and had his being.

This great, little man was called the “Gandhi of Japan” I love to think of him as a Saint Francis of our century. Kagawa’s child-like faith and simplicity, his love of poverty, his compassion for the forsaken and forlorn, his joy in the midst of suffering, and his courage in facing the difficulties and dangers of life remind me, again and again, of the Little Poor Man of Assisi.

In a highly materialistic age, Kagawa dared to be a disciple of Christ, -loving, faithful, true! He clung to the great ideals of poverty and peace, simplicity and self-abandon. To be poor, he said, to be truly free. When he renounced his all and moved out of his home to live with the poor, many of his friends called him a fool. Some even thought he had gone off his head. But he smiled and said: “For the love of my master, I am become a fool. But of this, I do not boast, for I have no other choice.”

The other man I think of is a friend who recently had a heart-attack. He is an ordinary person, subject to the worries and cares of the world. Some days ago, he was being taken to a Nursing Home for treatment. On the way he halted at one place, to receive blessings at Beloved Dadaji’s Shrine. Anxiety was writ on his face: he was filled with forebodings of a dark future. “I fear going to the Hospital,” he said, “I am afraid I shall not come out of it alive!”

Fear – is the one mark which characterises us, children of a sceptical age. We are afraid of the future, afraid of poverty, afraid of unemployment, afraid of dishonour and disgrace, afraid of disease and death, - afraid even of life! We live in constant fear of losing what little we have. I know of a woman who has a small metal box with a little gold in it. She stayed as our guest for some weeks. She spent sleepless nights often getting up to see if her gold was intact. She was afraid lest someone pilfered her gold under cover of the night! We live in fear: we work in fear: we walk in fear: we talk in fear. We move through life from one fear to another, crushed beneath the weight of a woeful existence.

-To be continued
(Author: Sri J P Vaswani)