Some guidelines for better life—-
1) Your deed is your Destiny.
2) Building character in student life is long lasting.
3) Dreaming is good, but real dream, not the day dreaming. Don’t make castle in the air.
4) Follow the right norms of the society.
5) Don’t destroy the culture of the place.
6) Planting tree per number of persons to save the environment.
7) Conservation of energy and water is essential.
Education must be knowledgeable, not informative. Information converts into knowledge when action is taken after analyzing by asking an experienced person.
9) Spirituality makes the person strong in mind. ” I’m powerful soul”.
10) Healthy society,character, culture, education ,environment and spirituality make the nation strong and enthusiastic.

This life is based alternately as Unknown-Worldly-Reasonable. Let’s share views where debate abounds from time immemorable, without giving away to Abuse & Violence.

An example, (myself visiting USA): ‘I meet an Indian at a market and ask him, “Are you from India?” Replies, “No, from Pakistan, but my wife is from India”. Oh! I say, “I am from Mumbai”. He replies “How nice, she is also from Mumbai”. I ask, “Where in Mumbai?” He says, “She stays in MALAD and I have visited them many times”. I say, “Well we could meet and talk a lot as I am also from MALAD!” This incidence shows, we get closer and interact amicably when we have similarity between us. “Birds of the Same feather flock together” is well known. Thus discussion can be a nice Social set up when we talk of Spirituality and Science.

Social condition bridges the Spiritual and Scientific understanding. We can now define each. Religion is a social setup where spiritual philosophy is a part and we try to prove some of the situations scientifically based in a particular Culture. So religion (worldly) developed politically during a certain Period at a certain Place due to an important Person. Most of the ancient preaching by realised persons had no written text. Those illustrious poetic words were memorised in a set tune. This could be interpreted variously, so leaders misrepresented to suit their own selfish ends. Many great philosophical thinkers did not get political support and so did not develop into a cult. Those which developed into Religion were due to the kings’ clout and sometimes spread by force. Most of the intelligentsia who could not experiment in their own country, travelled where peace existed. So history tells that India was a place where philosophy developed through research in ‘Gurukul’ (residential schools) run by Saints. Here bountiful nature and hospitable people helped these intellectuals to think further and experiment without worrying for the physical condition. So Yoga and six philosophical ideas came into existence. Here, body was a part of Science to be experimented till death was defied. Thus an understanding of Life-n-After (Spiritual) was defined till existence of Soul and its constituents were made known to all. Then body and its control by the senses were to be regulated. Here the leader (guru) who guides the students had to control Ego and Desire, or else the system could be overruled by lineage and will be taken over by the pampered son. This has been the case in our society. The unknown (sprit) had to be connected with existence and its laws of Life. The ‘Cause and Effect’ theory and law of Karma (deed) was created into philosophical rules as ‘Upanishad’. Life and living was studied and public counselled to change accordingly. The story of ‘Valmiki’ was known as a great saint, after he was transformed from a looting and murderous outlaw (dacoit).

The social arrangement which connected our Body with the surrounding had to be ruled by an Intellectual mind. These humans had to be studied and defined. ‘Vedanta’ as the sixth ancient philosophy analyses in details stating, “We live by Choice and not by Chance”. Humans are looked upon as five types, based upon the relation with the surroundings:

1) Stone-man is one who lives depending on others and is totally self-centred.
2) Tree-man grows by sharing with closely attached who help themselves.
3) Animal-man is ruthlessly attached to same species (family) only.
4) Human are emotionally bound, reasonably defends rights with laws, not instincts.
5) God-man remains detached, desiring little for survival by serving others.
Humans are animals but Intelligent-animal, Social-animal and Rational-animal. Lastly God-man is elevated kind of selfless personality, always desiring realisation by trying to know the unknown logically through this body. We have to strive for this in Spirituality.

Also another form of analysing takes place by differentiating ‘Self’ and ‘World’. At every moment there is interaction between these two, where ‘My’ denotes World and ‘Me’ denotes Self when we ask “Is it my …….?” Answer ‘yes’ will denote world. If not then it is me = self. We find that even our Name belongs to the world. The world is developed by Scientists, Economists, Politician, teachers of today who go to build desire and motivate for worldly gains. But Self is developed my Saints (God-man). We have noticed that most of the projects have short life. The world is continuously changing and selfish short goal desires serve only the economic conditions. But, if the Self is developed before the World, then the projects can be lasting. The self and selfless serving acts are nearer to the Truth, which is everlasting. The everlasting things in the spirit system are the Soul and GOD.

We have related the Social and Scientific terms and seen how spirit is connected to the social set up. Now, how does the logic in Society relate to Science considering the Spirituality? The unknown is always seen as the image of the known. The self is considered as the shadow of the world. So the attributes of GOD is taken as the equivalent to modern definition of Energy. GOD is the Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent growing positive Energy, which can reduce due to our deeds (Karma) into the crashing negative energy (the devil).

Yes, if the Self is not properly trained by the society, then the world will slowly and steadily increase into negative energy (Global warming). Short sighted desires will finish this beautiful world as we have lost quite a lot of things which we see now in the Museums.

Spiritual<————-Social————->Scientific

BRIDGE

Modern outlook has a Scientific bent of mind. Also with me, trying to see science in all our deeds. We are all Unique physically, as our finger-prints are exceptionally different. So must be our thinking.

Our Mind and Body are inter-related and inter-dependent. When we are stressed Mentally, our wish is to rest physically.  Similar is the act, when we have Body ache.  Looking at science, we know it proves physically or chemically. This requires our senses to guide us. Anything outside its purview falls under ‘Logic’, which is Developing science.

This mind when at rest gains energy. We call this ‘Dhyaan’ or Meditation. During this condition, our inner energy gets connected with the vast energy outside. The greater outer energy starts flowing into us. The process is called ‘Yog’ or joining two things. The door to the mind is through bodily activity and conditioning. The path is via our senses. So we use many Items (Yantra) in our Process (Tantra) to pacify our mind along with Words or Prayers (Mantra). The items awake and direct our senses towards a particular Goal. Thus Prayer is one form which helps in Yog. We are involved emotionally bounds by words which motivate us. This is ‘Bhakti Yog’(Refer: HUMAN as Body & Mind), where our Heart is totally impassioned into this action. As we are connected with the Society, our emotions (Bhaavnaa) are related to the bountiful beauty which conveys creation of GOD. Here our relations with Living and non-living objects play a great role in the prayer. So our Senses and Relations are part-n-parcel of our prayers. We now imagine beautiful GOD as related to us and always connected. Prayer is then a form of interaction with GOD.

A story as case-in-point:  A priest visited one village and discoursed on the greatness of Jesus Christ. After the talk, he had his food and went around the village before retiring for the night. In one of the hut, he pried upon a voice talking to someone – a child must be. On peeping through a window, he saw a person lovingly speaking to little ‘Krishna’ and put the idol to sleep. Next day, he left in the morning by boat. As he was almost in the middle of the river, he saw someone calling out and running towards the boat. When the person came near, he realized that it was the same person he had seen in the hut. Now the person asked him, “What was the name of the GOD you had mentioned last night?” The priest replied, “Please forget it, as you are well-off with ‘Krishna’”. The priest could not comprehend for the moment ‘that this person near the boat was floating upright on the water’!  Jesus had done so as per the Bible.

We know of many Saints, who have led groups into prayers and helped all with Miracles. The psychological power is achieved through ‘Bhakti Yog’. Our breath and senses help in attaining this condition. When our body stills into calm and composed posture, we then reach a point where energy increases in us. In our prayer, the breathing technique of ‘Hathayog’ is combined with words. We can breathe-in (inhale) and hold (kumbhak) and as we say our prayer, we must exhale. In ‘Praanaayam’(breathing technic-Yogaasan), exhaling intermittently is one process. At this moment, when we say our Prayers, the breath is regulated. The holding of breath helps in blood circulation through pressure and thus calms and regulates our system, even increases life span.  All the senses are combined together to get maximum inlet into the mind. So along with words we use an image (to eye), incense (to nose), lamp, flower, water, items which we could offer to a guest or teacher, rituals with pleasant music and even dance. The place could be a temple for a gathering. This could be compared with studies in a class where attentiveness is the utmost in the mind of all present in the congregation. The prayer could be a single sound of ‘AUM’ or repetition of words called ‘Bij Mantra’ as name (Jap) of GOD which appeals to the mind. The prayer can be extended to have a meaning which describes, praises and thanks the Lord by playing upon the emotion of a person. The prayer can be put to tune and sung which is memorized easily. This song can increase into a tempo and frenzy called “Utsav”(celebration) until converted to a trance. There can be action along with the words where things are added into the place of worship that helps in concentration. The process or method of prayer should not be forced on others. Similar to food, when forced on others, can harm one if it is not to ones liking. Forced food does not suit the body, so also forced prayer does not help in the Meditation. Body likes variety of food, so also Mind is attentive with different form of prayers.

All these methods instill a system which helps the person to get engrossed into the process and a constant methodical breathing takes place. If added action of Fasting is done, then all bodily activity is pointed towards the prayer without any other symptomatic problems. The fasting helps in continuous breathing where the time of gulping or intake of food does not stop the breath. The concentration can be farsighted thought in heaven, near at hand around us or within us into our Self. This is from outer (Baahirgat) to inner (Antargat) self. How intense has to be the Emotion in prayer – case in point: Two saints from ‘Bhakti Yog’. One was Guru (teacher) Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, who was a worshiper of Kali. The idol is very famous at Dakshineshwar, Kolkata. This saint relished Fish as his part of food. He had a great disciple named ‘Vivekananda’, who detested Image worship. Saint Vivekananda built a temple at Belurmath, Kolkata inculcating architecture from all over the world. The temple has only the image of Guru Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, revered emotionally as next to GOD. This emotion has to be so intense that Vivekananda could absolve himself of Fever once when Ramakrishna insisted on the method of praying. The first emotion of a human as a baby is Crying. If our prayers can draw this emotion out from within our self, we can go into that trance and point of Meditative state. This emotion is created from Faith.

This process of Prayer termed as ‘Bhakti Yog’ increases the inner energy of a person connected with the Society and deviates his mind from other vices at that moment involving one into a Good Karma. This is my personal view, based on practical experience and reading.

Emotional-mind when at rest gains energy by 'Bhakti Yog' as our inner energy gets connected with the vast energy outside