A moment can change life…..

A moment can change our whole life. It has the power to turn our world upside down. Yes it is true. There are reasons innumerable which makes us take decisions in the heat of the moment. Out of anger and frustration, we sometimes take decision which only makes us repent later and sometimes for whole of our life. Vexation, annoyance, irritation, any weakness of character or any such feeling can work as a catalyst for us to make such hasty decisions in just one moment but what this decision of a moment resides for us in the womb of time is really dangerous and sometimes fatal . Even in some small conversations with people around us we sometimes say something spontaneous which not only makes us remorse over it later but also ruins our relationships with them or at least we end up upsetting or tormenting them. No matter how resentful we later are; or we may even apologize but till then we already distress people to an extreme extent. Also, most of the people think that we speak our mind on the spur of the moment when we are annoyed or disturbed or even angry; now that makes them take our words really seriously no matter how frivolous we were while uttering some gibberish words. These one moment decisions or statements have ruined many relationships in the past in almost everyone’s life and definitely will be doing the same in the future as well because it is what humans are born with; this  is our very innate foible characteristic. A very famous maxim says that we must think before speaking but that seems to be the thing of the past. In the stressful and extraordinarily busy life schedules today we rarely think twice before we speak when we are in fury. But all we can do is to give it a try; to try and think before we speak in such a manner to others especially if they are important to an extent that we cannot afford to lose them in our life. Also, it is very very important to think not only twice but as many times as it takes to convince our-self completely for a better and peaceful future before taking any important decision in life no matter how minor it is; because subsequently there is nothing we can do except crying. I hope it will bring some change not only in me but also in those who read this writing.Thank you.

 

By-Shekhar Srivastava

What is inner life actually?

“The man who has no inner life is a slave to his surrounding”, this quote by Swiss philosopher Henri Frederic Amiel is very relevant to people in today’s world.

Every man has two lives that he lives in this one life. Thinking about our success, what we want to achieve in life, what material wealth we want to possess etc are all a part of our outer life which we live very actively. We feel joy, sorrow, agony, frustration and experience many emotions as a result of our surroundings. But, deep inside we all have one life which remains intact of all these worldly affairs. That is the inner part which doesn’t become week with our growing old age but becomes younger and nourished with each passing day once we realize about its existence. This inner part is our inner life.

Inner life is not a religious or spiritual term. It is ones connection with himself. If the person is not connected with himself, he is like without soul. Living for earning money and fame, not thinking what he actually wants in life, what makes him peaceful, or what makes him satiated with life and himself means that his inner life is not active and he is not in the connection with himself.

Being a social animal, attending parties and having hundreds of friends also cannot make us feel satisfied in life if we are not satisfied with what we do. “What would people think about us if we do this?” , “I should do that because my friend has done that” ,”that job is lucrative.” “ I should do this because others feel good while doing this”… all these statements coming in our minds imply that we are doing things in life not because we want it but because we see our surroundings and feel like doing them. This means that we are slave of our surroundings.

A person with no inner life basically is one who lives life by seeing others around him, wants to do what others are doing, and tries adapting his surroundings. In these circumstances, when he is not surrounded by people, he feels that he doesn’t have anything to do for himself out of interest or wish and he feels all alone because he has no inner life.

Inner life makes us feel the emotions which are not germane to the repercussions of the actions that we take in worldly affairs to gain wealth or success. It, on the other hand, makes us feel the divine or peaceful happiness and satisfaction from either worldly affairs or from inside. In today’s world, every individual from waking up in the morning till going to sleep at night thinks about the affairs cause affect from outer side. But inner life deals with what we realize from inside. It totally depends on an individual as to what are the matters that he or she wants to think upon. For example, if a person is going through a phase in which he has been betrayed, it totally depends upon him if he wants to continue it to disturb him for life or he wants to make it a past and move ahead. A person with an inner life will not think about it for a long time and would move ahead with taking it as a learning experience. But the fact is that most of us are not even aware of what an inner life is and how does it make us happy and satiated in life.

A person without inner life is like the one devoid of an arm or a leg; this is indeed true but with an inevitable fact that even a person without an arm or leg can have an inner life which can make him much more satiated and happy in life than a person with leg and arm and that too with all the material possession of life because despite of having all the wealth and possessions and having realized all the dreams seen by him, if he does not know how to be happy and satisfied with his life, all the wealth possessed by him would be like the piece of pebbles and stones. If we won’t be able to realize the blissful joy and our conscience is dormant, then no matter what we do, achieve, and possess, we will always be unhappy in professional life as well as our personal relationships with only few transitory happy events.

Man has always been in dilemma about his existence on earth and has been trying to know it. But as the time passed, man stopped living in caves all alone and started living in communities. He developed many traits which vanished the thought that he had in mind regarding the prime goal of existence of its race on planet but as we say no one can go outside the cycle of the nature, man, after six millions of years of its existence on earth is again moving forward towards the fact that without an inner life, he is nothing more than an animal. The ways to realize inner life has changed though today for humans all over the globe. Some try to find it with their religious texts, some with the help of preachers, some by living solitude on mountains and travelling and some by not believing in any of these mediums but with the notion that humans are about humanity and no one is above it and if we really want to live life with an ultimate joy and bliss, we will have to understand that living only for one’s own inner peace, happiness and satisfaction won’t let us realize and live our inner life. And having the feeling of compassion and empathy with self motivation and dedication with forgetting the barriers that man has made on the basis of country, color, caste and creed would make it the easiest way to achieve the ultimate bliss and joy with an active inner life.

 

By-Shekhar Srivastava

Kacha and Devayani-a forgotten love story

He was probably the first spy in the history of world. He was extremely charming. He was from heaven . He was the son of sage Brahaspati-the sage of demigods or devas or suras from heaven. His name was Kacha. The story of Kacha comes in the Indian epic Mahabharata.

The story starts with the deva and asura war. The sage or teacher of asuras-sage Shukracharya did penance and was granted a boon by lord Shiva. He was granted mrit sanjivani vidya by lord shiva. With the help of mrit sanjivani vidya, sage Shukracharya could resurrect all the dead asuras everytime they got killed by the demigods whereas the demigods were being diminished everytime with each war with asuras. The king of demigods-Indra got depressed by it and went to his guru Brahaspati for advice. After thinking for some time, Brahaspati thought of an idea which was very unique and novel. The idea was to send his son Kacha on a secret mission to the ashram of Shukracharya as a disciple to get the secret of mrit sanjivani vidya so that devas or suras could also get resurrected after being killed. Now as per the plan, Kacha went to the ashram of sage shukracharya and shukracharya admitted him as his student. Other asura disciples of shukracharya did not like this idea of shukracharya of accepting a sura or deva as his disciple and shukracharya was very well aware of this fact and hence asked kacha not to leave the premises of ashram as he would be safer only inside the vicinity of ashram. It had been nearly one thousand year since kacha had come to ashram and shukracharya by now had become very fond of kacha because of his decency and intellect. But still he never disclosed the secret of mrit sanjivani vidya to him. Kacha many times tried to see him using mrit sanjivani vidya but shukracharya was more than just intelligent. He never used it in front of kacha. Once kacha saw him using it to bring one of the asuras back from death but seeing was not enough. Here comes the twist in the story. Shukracharya had a daughter named devayani who was extremely beautiful, graceful, young and charming like kacha. They had become good friends. She was the only friend kacha had had in that ashram. Kacha would bring her flowers from forest for her hair decoration though it was extremely risky to get out of the ashram. By now, devayani had fallen in love with kacha. They would spend time with each other. But it wasn’t sure till now what was in kacha’s mind. One day, when kacha was out in forest, asuras conspired against him and murdered him. In ashram, when devayani realised that it’s been a long time since kacha left the ashram, she tried finding him and finally found his dead body in the forest. She was devastated now to see her love dead and asked her father to bring kacha back from death. Shukracharya resurrected kacha with mrit sanjivani vidya both because of his daughter’s love for kacha and his own affection for his disciple. Kacha was alive now and asuras were furious but could not do anything. After few days, kacha again went outside the ashram to bring flowers for devayani and was again killed but this time they fed his body to a dog but again at his daughter’s plea, shukracharya brought him back from death-kacha tore apart the dog’s body and came out. Kacha , by now was sure that he would be resurrected everytime asuras would kill him. Being a man of such great wisdom, an idea stroke his mind. He went to the forest intentionally and was very well prepared to get slaughtered this time as well by the asuras. But asuras were no less intelligent, they made a plan which was lethal and perfect. Now kacha was in forest and asuras followed him. After reaching a point, he realised that he was shrouded by a bunch of asuras. Asuras killed him but this time they neither left his body nor did they feed it to the dog. They burnt his body and mixed his ashes with liquor in a big bottle and went to their guru shukracharya. They said they wanted to celebrate with their guru and asked him to drink the liquor. Shukracharya could not say no to his asura students and drank the whole bottle. When devayani told his father that kacha is missing again then shukracharya tried to locate him. But while doing so, he realised that kacha was in his stomach. Realising that, shukracharya looked at devayani. Devayani realised that in order to bring kacha back, shukracharya will have to die. Now here it can be seen that this was kacha’s flawless plan. If shukracharya will recite mantras for kacha then he himself will die because kacha would tear his body apart and will come out. And if he wants to live then he will have to teach the mrit sanjivani vidya to kacha so that he can resurrect shukracharya after coming out of his body. Shukracharya had no other choice than to resurrect kacha because he knew it that devayani won’t be able to survive without kacha. And devayani had already told shukracharya that she could survive neither without kacha nor without his father. There was only one way now. Shukracharya started the process of resurrecting kacha in a way that kacha could also listen to the mantras and process of using mrit sanjivani vidya. It is noticable and very commendable that being a man of such great honour and such a great personality, shukracharya never asked kacha that after resurrecting him , he will also have to resurrect shukracharya in return. He just started the process and after some time kacha tore shukracharya’s body apart and came out. Shukracharya was dead and devayani was weeping badly. Here it is also noticable that kacha could have just left the ashram because he now had the mrit sanjivani vidya. His mission was accomplished and with shukracharya dead, no one could ever resurrect the asuras. But he was after all a great person and a disciple of shukracharya. He used the mrit sanjivani vidya and resurrected shukracharya. Both the reasons of love in devayani’s life were alive now and she was in extreme ecstasy. After few days when kacha was about to leave the ashram, devayani went to him and proposed him for marriage. Kacha liked devayani. Maybe he loved her but that was not what he was there for. He was on a mission and he could not let the suras and his father down. He told her that since he came out of shukracharya’s stomach, he is like a brother to devayani now. He could not marry her. Devayani was dumbstruck to hear that and couldn’t say anything. But when kacha was leaving for heaven and leaving the ashram of shukracharya, she cursed him.

 Furious, heartbroken, failed in love and betrayed devayani cursed him that he will never be able to use the mrit sanjivani vidya which he had come to the ashram for. Kacha politely replied that he will teach this vidya to other devas or suras who could use it for benefit of demigods. Saying so, he took the blessings from his guru shukracharya whom he respected very much and Shukracharya also blessed him because he also was a great man. He did not say anything bad to kacha and allowed him to leave. Kacha’s task was complete, his mission was accomplished, he had emerged victorious in his secret mission. He left for the heaven.

We can not say if he was right or wrong. From his father’s and demigods’ point of view, he was a successful spy or warrior; from Devayani’s point of view-a lover who betrayed her. But from his point of view? did he consider himself a successful spy or a failed lover? we do not know. He just came in the great epic Mahabharata and just left. He is never mentioned in any story or epic as far as I know. But he was great, he was no less than Indra or other heroes of our mythology, but less talked about. And this was his story-the famous story of Kacha and Devayani from the great Indian epic Mahabharata.

 

Hey friends, I have written my debut novel, “The Monsoon Marigolds”! read it and show me some love! 🙂 It will be very special for me! 

By- Shekhar Srivastava