Finding Nemo

Expanding on the thought I seeded in the previous blog, generosity is also the display of the mental state of the human being. This is seen through a comparison of two interesting stories from the Mahabharata. Both the stories start on similar grounds with two friends spending their childhood together playing, learning and growing up. One of the two friends grows up to be a king and the other a poor Brahmin. Bowing to their family and financial pressure, the poor Brahmin friend goes to the king friend asking for help. Now the stories take different turns. In the first story, the Brahmin is unable to ask for any help. Yet the king understands the need and provides everything without being asked. In the second story, the poor Brahmin approaches his friend and demands for provisions as they discussed in the childhood. The king, in return, derides the Brahmin and throws him out of the court. The first story is of Krishna – Sudama, while the other is of Drupada – Drona. It's the den...

Generosity is often described as charity. Are they same? I believe not! While charity is an act of giving away something from your possession to the needy, generosity is the spirit that helps you think about charity. Charity is materialistic and is related to tangible resources only. While generosity on the other hand involved intangible resources like love. A generous heart soothes the needy more than the charity. Charity is transactional in nature – you give what is asked for – nothing more, nothing less. While generosity goes beyond the boundaries of transactions and gives away without being asked or looking for anything in return. Throughout or vast history, there are stories of generous kings and their subjects that have stood out as examples of greatness. Be it Karna, Bali, Virochana, Bhoj etc. However, in each of the story we always focus on the act of charity than the spirit of generosity. All these great men gave what they had and much more, when asked. At the same time, there...

"I could have done better in the exams, if the neighbor had kept the music on a lower volume" "These stupid people don't know when to stop partying. Can't they see I'm focusing for my interview?" "I find happiness in other's happiness. I have given away myself for the others." I am sure, we all come across such statements every day. We often know and revere the originators of such statements. May I please have the liberty to hurt your feelings and call these revered people as cowards? Yes these people are cowards who shy away from taking the responsibilities on their head and solving it. It is the easiest path for anyone to walk away from our responsibilities. After all, the world was created by the God for all of us to live happily or live with the consequences of our choices. God made all of us equal – giving the choice and the ability to think through. Then why do we blame someone else for our happiness? It is because we do not want to t...

We have all heard innumerable stories about the Devas or Suras and their arch-rivals Asuras . The story of their enmity has often taken heights and has been showcased by multiple high grossing Hollywood as well as Bollywood movies. Do you know that there are positions available amongst the Suras and Asuras equally if you are interested? Many of us might recall the Sura and Asura are both brothers from the same father – Maharishi Kashyap but different mothers – Diti and Aditi . Due to their constant strife for power they are both assigned different homes – the sky (Heaven or Swarga ) and underground ( Patala ), We have always visualized the Suras as the nice looking heroes who are always struggling to keep ugly looking, wrong doing Asuras at bay from capturing their abode. Let's take a slightly distorted view and consider them equal and then understand them both! Both Devatas and Asuras are the offspring of the same maharishi. They are both the creatures of the same God – ...

A few weeks ago, in my blog on "Did Yudhishthira went to heaven?" I mentioned that he saw Kaurava brothers in the heaven. And he was enraged. But do we know why? Kuru – the great ancestor of the Pandavas and Kauravas once tilled a land close to Hastinapuri – his capital. He tilled the earth with such determination that he used his flesh as the seeds and his blood as the water for the seeds to germinate. Upon seeing this, Indra descended from his throne and asked Kuru for his wish. Kuru requested nothing for himself, but for others. He asked ascension to heaven for anyone who dies on the land he tilled. Though Indra could not refuse Kuru's request, he added a condition that the person must die as a warrior. The land was later known as Kurukshtera and all who died (mainly Kauravas) ascended to heaven for just having died on the land. Sometimes, we may have done our best and have been the most righteous of all, yet we may not be the one to achieve success. Never loose the ho...

In my own quest, I missed my daughter's questions – Wh do we celebrate Diwali or Deepawali? What is this festival? And why is there so much hype about it? Let's see! Deepawali or the festival of lights has always been called Diwali in the easy linguistic terms. It is a festival to mark the return of Sri Rama in Ayodhya after completing his 14 years of exile. However, Deepawali in today's terms is a 5 day festival and each day has its own story. I will try my best to explain for each one of these. Day 1 – Dhanteras Dhanteras is the combination of two words – " Dhan " and "Teras". Dhan means money or wealth while Teras means thirteenth. Thus Dhanteras falls on the thirteenths day of the month of Kartik. It happens to be two days prior to Diwali and thus marks the start of the celebration. As evident from its name, the festival of Dhanteras is celebrated in the honor of Kubera – the yaksha and the symbol of wealth accumulation. Per the legends, there are ...

In continuation of the ideas from my previous post, I take the liberty of writing some more. We worship Lakshmi in many forms and strive to get more of her. In fact our thirst for Lakshmi never ends. The question is how do we get Lakshmi? History tells us that you need to churn the ocean to get Lakshmi. Churn resembles hard work and also collaboration of the driving forces. The collaboration is to be understood from the perspective that there are two different opposing forces which work in tandem to give some and pull some fashion. The competition between the groups, the churn of ideas, and the dilemma in mind is fruitful till the time the forces work in tandem to produce greater goods for the organization and decision making. Consider the benefits for the consumers in the market when two product companies compete to enhance their shares. However, there is one more point to the churn. When Lakshmi came out of the Kshirasagar , she immediately went to Sri Vishnu overlooking the handsome...