Category: Charity

All about prosperity!

Ma Lakshmi is known as Goddess of Wealth and Fortune in India. She is one of the most important deities for people to pray and why not? Everybody needs money. Every human has a desire to have a prosperous life full of wealth and luxury. Everybody wants all the good things and all the happiness & pleasures that they see around themselves.

But, does everybody achieve all the desires one has? The answer is NO. Because despite having a certain amount of money and luxury, people tend to be jealous and greedy. Out of jealousy people gossip, spread false things about others, do wrong actions, manipulate situations, may even take extreme steps, deriving sadistic pleasures – you start feeling nice and accomplished when you see the other person sad, worried or victimized.

Do you think you can ever get prosperous by doing such things? You are knowingly and unknowingly inviting Alakshmi to yourself. Alakshmi is the opposite of Lakshmi. Lakshmi is the Goddess of wealth and fortune while Alakshmi brings misfortune, hurdles, poverty and grief (Law of Duality).

Alakshmi comes when there is an accumulation of bad karmas. So if you think you can have lots of money & luxury and at the same time seek sadistic pleasures, you’re on the wrong track. Haven’t you seen people in depression in the wealthiest of families? Haven’t you read news about people doing heinous crimes in the most affluent class?

To be prosperous not only means just to have wealth but also having other types of luxuries like sound physical and mental health, peaceful mind, good family, cheerful atmosphere at home,  pleasant relations with others,  knowledge, etc.

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Enjoy all types of wealth

Hence, Lakshmi manifests Herself into eight forms, popularly known as Ashtalakshmi. She signifies eight different forms of wealth – prosperity, fertility, good luck, good health, knowledge, strength, progeny and power.

  1. Adi Lakshmi – Adi means the ‘source’. It means the wealth that supports a seeker to reach at his source – consciousness. In other words, it means spiritual wealth / knowledge. Whether a person believes it or not, happiness, bliss and peace  comes effortlessly by spirituality. With the blessings of Adi Lakshmi, a person attains a strong, focused, unwavering mind full of wisdom and strength.
  2. Dhana Lakshmi – Dhana means money. She is the giver of wealth in the form of money. With the help of money one acquires all the material things like big houses, expensive clothes, far away travels, exotic vacations, jewelries, etc.
  3. Dhanya Lakshmi – Dhanya means ‘grains’. She is the Goddess of agricultural wealth depicting fertile land, clean environment, good produce of crops, abundance of food. This also means prosperity in the form of food. The person would love to throw parties where sumptuous delicious  food is made and everyone enjoys it!  It denotes pleasures of life in relation to food, family and friends. A person might also be inclined to donate food in charity to the poor and needy .
  4. Gaja Lakshmi – Gaja means ‘elephant’. In this context elephant means cattle or animals. Prosperity in the form of animals might be linked to farmers owning a number of cattle, also people owning dairy farms and pleasures a person can receive from having pet animals, aquariums, farms etc.
  5. Santaan Lakshmi – Santaan means ‘offspring’. It means, wealth of having children, having a family. Having the fortune of giving birth to another life through you and also the happiness one gets from raising ones children, seeing them grow, watching them being successful in their endeavors, is immeasurable. Having sensitive and well character-ed kids with strong moral values definitely makes life rich for the parents.
  6. Dhairya Lakshmi – Dhairya means ‘patience’.Patience is a positive quality in a person. With patience one can achieve greatest things in life. It is a strength. An impatient person will be quarrelsome and will face hurdles in the smallest of things.
  7. Jaya Lakshmi – Jaya means ‘victory’. Victory means conquering hurdles of life to achieve success. Through courage comes victory. Courage, focus and clarity of thoughts leads to having a fulfilling life.
  8. Vidya Lakshmi – Vidya means ‘knowledge’. Knowledge here means knowledge of subjects like science, arts and everything that is material by nature.The degree one gets, the field one is in, the subjects one is passionate about- physics, mathematics, commerce, languages, history, etc. all comes under this category. And the pleasures and success that one acquires by studying and utilizing the knowledge of ones favorite subjects into wholesome careers and earning and enjoying life through it comes under Vidya Lakshmi.

These are the eight forms of Ashtalakshmi. From here, one can realize that wealth doesn’t mean only money but also how happy one can be from the bottom of one’s heart – by means of having patience, courage, material and spiritual knowledge, raising kids by providing them good environment, by being social, by enjoying sumptuous food with friends and family, and by spending time with animals – one becomes sensitive to Nature, thus, enjoying ALL ASPECTS of life.

 

 

Is someone bothering you ?

Laws of karma are complex. While it is clear that you reap what you sow, some believe karmas affect us from our previous lives and some believe that everything happens in this lifetime only.
Somehow, I have always felt attracted towards concentrating on solutions. Also,having the fortune of meeting a lot of spiritual masters in my twenties might have altered my thought pattern.
Most people have experienced this common life situation where someone keeps troubling/bothering them. It becomes a painful situation and may even get out of hand.
But there are solutions for even the toughest situations; we just have to decode them.
There are some laws of the universe that we need to understand and one of them is the Law of Duality. – Day:Night , Good:Bad, Sweet:Sour , Beautiful:Ugly, Hot:Cold, Problem:Solution.
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Law of Duality
If someone is bothering you, the human body has only two responses – Fight : Flight.
Fight – Fight may lead to dangerous consequences or may aggravate the situation.
Flight – Flight means to run away or to avoid the person or situation.
But for how long can you run away from a person whom you meet everyday or every few days? This can be a very tough and uncomfortable  situation but the level of suffering is in your hands.
The solution is to increase your good deeds/ karmas. Start helping people as much as you can, indulge in charities, start some new project  or a hobby ( the idea is to get busy MENTALLY so that your whole ATTENTION  DIVERTS from that particular person to other GOOD THINGS that are constructive and positive in nature). Also by doing this you accumulate merits.
Karmically you will get so busy doing healthy activities, meeting new people, creating new situations, new friendships, getting aware about new things, gaining knowledge and bringing smiles to people. In a way you won’t realise that you have stopped thinking about the person troubling you anymore.
You may be seeing him/her everyday, but he/she wont be ALIVE IN YOUR MIND  in the form of negative thoughts.
Once you achieve THIS state of mind, that person won’t trouble you anymore.  Any attempts to provoke you would fail as you have become mentally powerful.
This helps you in understanding and applying one of the other laws – Law of Attraction.
The more positive your thoughts, the more positivity you will attract for yourself  and vice versa.
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Law of Attraction
In this situation you break your negative thought pattern by diverting your mind through engaging in positive activities, thus breaking the cycle.  By using the Law of Attraction, thinking good things, taking actions to help people, you provide yourself  with good days ahead and ultimately free yourself from the sufferings and the painful situation which you had that time.
This was a piece of advice given to me by one of the spiritual masters years ago.

Abhay Daan – Ever heard about it?

Daan means charity and in every religion, charity has been given a special place to accumulate spiritual as well as material merits/benefits. It is rightly said that whatever you give (good or bad) comes back to you ten times in return.

You may have seen people doing meritorious activities like giving food to poor , water to thirsty people, donating money to hospitals, educating the girl child, giving away books and stationary items, building temples , wells, parks, planting trees etc but one needs MONEY to do charity of this kind.

Even to educate someone, YOU need to be educated and for that also you need money or have some financial standing to educate yourself.

But there is one charity where even “A BEGGAR CAN GIVE TO A KING” and that is “ABHAY DAAN”.

Abhay means ‘fearless’.To make someone fearless by one’s own speech, by motivating the other person to face any tough situation fearlessly is called Abhay daan.

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By your motivating speech you can make a person stand tall in the toughest situations.

 

You need not have a formal education or immense wealth to do this charity. This is the beauty of this daan!  You seriously do not require anything- no money, no food, no water, no physical item, no soil, no temple, no education, nothing. Absolutely nothing!!

Just a motivating speech- to a person who is in fear due to a troubled situation s/he is going through; and by your calm speech and sweet words, their HEART and MIND feel a sense of relief.

According to our scriptures, this charity is of exceptional importance. It is easier to have people donate money, food and land but people who offer protection from fear are rare.

Abhay daan is considered to be more fruitful than feeding thousands of people or donating any amount of material things to the poor for their comfort. Why? because MENTAL comfort is far more important than PHYSICAL comfort.

Abhay daan is indestructible because it is not material / physical in nature. Any other charity can be destroyed with time…food can turn sour and spoiled, water can be contaminated, buildings can catch fire, trees can be uprooted by storms, money can be stolen because these items are physical in nature. But Abhay daan is beyond physical dimensions. Since it involves a direct transfer from one’s heart and mind to another person’s heart and mind by the mode of  calming and motivating speech, it cannot be destroyed by any means hence its merit /punya stays for a long time.

One must strive to do this kind of charity whenever possible.