From the Chief Editor's Desk: Listen to the Call of the Time Spirit as the New Year Heralds
Please accept my best wishes for each day of the New Year 2015, and for every moment of each day! With these heartful greetings I would urge our Gayatri Pariwar Parijans in particular and the readers of this magazine in general, to contemplate on adopting a new way of living as the New Year heralds. This new way should be such that we are able to achieve peace, prosperity and progress for all.
In general, all of us humans look like nondescript living beings trapped in greed and attachment, ensnared in selfishness and ego, and mired in the marshes of problems and difficulties. Other than humans, all living beings in nature seem to earn their living and are able to fend for themselves easily by putting in dedicated efforts, and seem to live a contented life as compared to human beings in general. We get so entangled in our inner complexities, lofty desires, mental distortions and adverse outer situations that our minds get filled with anxiety and each day becomes a burden to be borne.
Circumstances are the Same for All
This misfortune is neither thrust upon us by God, nor by circumstances. If God was responsible for this, then every one of us would have faced the same situation all the time. God loves each one of His creations equally. He has, by bestowing on each one of us sufficient talents and capabilities, given us a chance to develop discretionary wisdom and farsightedness so that we can create a happy life for ourselves and also spread happiness among others who are in touch with us. Circumstances keep changing, just like seasons. To gain or lose in these changes is in our hands.
In spiritual parlance, the error that makes our life dull, prosaic, worthless is called as avidya or maya. With what kind of attitude we must live our lives and what should be the logical basis for choosing our actions? Normally we make grave mistakes in taking these decisions. As a result of these mistakes, we lose our way in confusing, wayward trails and get trapped in such a mesh of maya that we end up creating only jealousy and frustration in our minds.
What is Required is Self-Confidence
The intent behind presenting these thoughts of Param Pujya Gurudev and the insistence on attainment of a new way of happy and fulfilling life, is only this — that we must carefully identify all the impurities and undesirable traits that have got incorporated in our thoughts and actions, and then we must put in single-pointed effort to uproot and get rid of these vices. The bravery, courage and combativeness needed to uproot ill tendencies that have become part of our nature and to instill benevolent tendencies and righteousness in their place, is termed as inner force or brahmavarchas in parlance of spirituality. All genuine spiritual practices are performed only towards this goal.
Listen to the Message of the Great Time Spirit
At the doorstep of the New Year 2015, the Time Spirit has conveyed only this message — that each member of Gayatri Pariwar and each awakened soul must contemplate on the problems of life in a new manner. In this contemplation, there are three advisors whose advice we must heed to: (i) our soul, (ii) Supreme Soul, (iii) idealistic tradition; and then take courageous decisions. If millions of people are on one side of the weighing scale and the above three advisors on the opposite side, then paying heed to the advice of the latter will be better and more beneficial.
Param Pujya Gurudev always advised that benevolent feelings and righteous tendencies act like water and fertilizer to nurture the tree of a refined personality. To increase and develop the feeling of oneness with others, it is essential to learn to share others' sorrows and share our joy with others. So long as the narrow boundaries of selfishness and ego obstruct our ways, divinity would not be able to enter our lives.
For those who can appreciate what is being said here, this is an appeal — that they must not procrastinate any more in fulfilling their duties towards their country, society and culture. The most urgent need of today is the refinement of the entire mankind's ways of thinking. In these difficult times, the last ray of hope is only with the people who take a resolve to adopt a refined way of life in this New Year. Their actions would then certainly infuse a new life into our country, society, culture and the world, at large.
(Pranav Pandya)
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." — Mahatma Gandhi
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." — Nelson Mandela
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a cleverer devil." — C.S. Lewis