Finding a solution

Finding a solution to a problem can be difficult. I mean this in the practical sense - finding a solution to a problem encountered in our everyday lives and in the academic sense - finding a solution to a problem we encounter in our schoolwork. Often we have to think outside the proverbial box to come up with an adequate solution to whatever problem is bothering us. And that is okay, because that is how we learn new things. It is how Kanha teaches us about life and our academics. We should remember that He is always seeing everything that we do and so He also knows when we encounter problems. He sends solutions and we should remember to thank Him for helping us to find the solution. We should also pray that we can remember the lesson He wanted us to learn. This is important because we may forget certain things that we learn. However, if we pray and apply ourselves to our studies we will remember. Let us all remember to ask for Kanha's opinion when we need to find a solution. Jai Shri Krishna!

Balancing commitments

We all have the task of balancing multiple commitments daily. Some are more important than others or more urgent than others but we already committed to several things so we need to strike a balance. It may seem impossible at times and we may feel harassed and stressed, but somehow we still accomplish it all. Have you ever wondered how that is possible? How are we able to accomplish it all? It is only with Kanha's help. His divine intervention in our lives makes all things possible for us. He keeps us safe and takes care of us always. He provides a solution to our every problem. So, the next time you feel overworked or stressed please remember to turn to Kanha and ask Him for His help in finishing your tasks. He will help you. I know because He always helps me. Jai Shri Krishna!

Loving without fear

Again I am back to the topic of love and loving. We all know the poem about love being patient, kind etc. However, is love fearful? Sometimes it is. Sometimes the fear of losing the person we love is so intense that we are afraid to show that person how much they mean to us. We act out against them, we hide our feelings, we shy away, we push away. But we should love fearlessly. The way Radha loved Krishna. Her love is always an example to me about the purity and selflessness and fearlessness of love. Her love was pure and she never expected anything from Kanha. Recently I read a story that said that when He was sick the only cure was the washing water (of feet) of the person who loved Him. Many gopis were asked and all refused because giving Him their feet-washing water to drink was considered a sin. However, she willingly agreed to help Him to feel better and did not fear the consequences of that. In the end she never married Him but we still revere her because she loved Him so intensely, so purely and so truly. Her love was without fear because He gave her the strength she needed. Let us all love as fearlessly as she did but let us do so while asking for His guidance. Jai Shri Krishna!

Personal space

A lot of my posts for this year have been about interpersonal relationships. But there is one added thing we should remember - at some point we need to respect a person's desire for personal reflection and personal space. If we truly care about our friends and relatives then we will respect their need for personal time or time with other loved ones. And we ourselves need time to think and reflect in our daily lives. We need time to connect with Kanha, and this is why we need personal time and personal space. Kanha is with us all the time and He instinctively tells us when we can trust people and when we cannot. He takes care of our personal needs and He helps us to understand those around us better. He helps us to like spending time with Him alone. He helps us to be nearer to Him in this way. Let us all take the time to see if we are crowding our loved ones too much and take a step back to re-connect with Kanha and show Him how much we love Him. Jai Shri Krishna!

Praying for others

We often think of prayer as a selfish time. It is a time during which we can talk to God and ask Kanha for whatever we want. However, how about we practice the selfless side of prayer? That is where we pray for someone else. It sounds easy enough but actually sit down and start to pray for someone else, you will see what at points your mind begins to wander. Why is this you may ask. The truth is that Kanha tries many times to bring us away from and hurt or pain. He tries to keep us safe and loves us always. When we pray for someone else - someone in our family, a friends, an acquaintance, it is because we have found time to ask Kanha for shower his blessings on this person. This is truly an admirable feat to accomplish. Let us all try to pray with all our hearts for someone else. Jai Shri Krishna!

Falling in love

Falling in love is easy and sometimes people say negative things like 'love hurts' but there are other sayings like 'it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' which is the one I like to believe in. Truly falling in love means giving of yourself to another person and caring for their feelings above yours. Can we really do that? Can we really say that we were truly in love before when this is the definition? Those of us who are in love find ourselves becoming jealous of the object of our affection's interest in anyone else. It is only natural to fear losing the person we love. But, we should trust in Kanha. He never does anything to intentionally hurt us. If certain relationships don't work out then it is because they were not meant to work. If love is unrequited and we feel hurt because the other person does not share our feelings, it is because Kanha was trying to tell us that this was not the right person for us. I know that many people may think otherwise and debate this but that is what I truly believe - Kanha sends us signals that will prevent us from having a difficult life. He always takes care of us and a little heartbreak now is better than a difficult separation in the future. I also think that fear of being hurt in love is not enough of a reason to stop falling in love. We need love to be healthy. In medical studies of persons who are healthy in the long run are always those who are in love and having loving family members and care around them. Love guides us to do well and to be a better person for the ones we love. It helps us and gives us strength. In the end, can you say you will never love again because you are afraid of being hurt? I think that is untrue because you love Kanha and you always will. His love for us is the one thing we can always count on and believe in. So go ahead, fall in love. I love this picture of Radha and Krishna because their love is portrayed so well in it. If you fear hurt from love, think about Radha, she loved Kanha with all of her heart but she never asked him for anything in return except His love. Let us all love Him as truly as she does. Be happy and love Kanha forever. Jai Shri Krishna!

Reaching out to others

Reaching out to others can be difficult. We sometimes feel vulnerable when we do this. However, most of the time helping someone in need or reaching out to find a friend works out in the end. Kanhaji always takes care of us and keeps us safe but we should reach out to others who don't know that and may need His blessings, His love and His support. We can be kind to others and not lose anything of ourself. We can love others and not feel anything bad. We can discover Kanha once more and fall in love with Him again. Jai Shri Krishna!

Working hard

No one really likes hard work unless it bears some fruit of success in the end. Working hard is something we all do when we know that we have to. But, we may not really like working hard. Instead, we prefer to relax and enjoy life. However, we must remember that in order to enjoy we need to be able to compare our lives to a state of difficulty, which often translates into periods of work and periods of vacation. This is true for all jobs and for all educational institutions - there are times when we work hard and times when we are allowed to relax. Kanha made it so that when we are done working hard we feel a sense of accomplishment for what we have achieved. Kanha knows that we like feeling that sense of accomplishment and so He offers us opportunities to feel better about ourselves by achieving our work goals. Let us all remember why we work so hard and remember to dedicate our days to Kanha. Jai Shri Krishna!

Rest

It is important to get enough rest to be able to function properly. Rest can be defined in different ways - the state your body takes when it is relaxed is the most common definition. But I disagree with that. I think that rest also has to do with mental rest. Your mind must be at ease for you to be fully at rest. If there are burdens on your mind then you will not rest well or even sleep well. Kanha is there to help ease our burdens on our minds. He will clear away the negative thoughts and bring us only positive ones. He will take care of us and love us in a way that no one else can. He will allow us to confide our thoughts in Him and He will bring us peace of mind so that we can achieve a restful state. Thank You for being with us Kanha, Jai Shri Krishna!

Accepting our limitations

Sometimes in life we have to learn to accept the limitations imposed on us by Kanha. He imposes these limitations to help us to understand how to behave and to understand that we cannot always plan our lives perfectly, He is in control. When we learn to accept our limitations then we will be able to work around them and to succeed in spite of them. Kanha, please help us all to accept the limitations and boundaries which are set for us. Please help us to continue to make right decisions and to remember You at all times. Jai Shri Krishna!

Mistakenly hurting others

Sometimes we hurt others even though we didn't mean to. Kanha guides us to feel better when such things happen. He tries to help us find a way to make amends. As He did with Radha. Many times He hurt her by going and chatting with other gopis. She would feel jealous and He would attempt to pacify her. However, all negative situations may not end as perfectly as theirs did. Instead we should make it a point to think positively and try to apologise to the person we hurt, even unintentionally. Doing so will ease the burden on all of our minds. Jai Shri Krishna!

Understanding others

People tend to be unpredictable. We all react in different ways to different things and even the same people may not react in the same way to the same stimuli in different time periods. It is just how we are. We always adapt and change. And you may say that if this is indeed true then how can we ever understand another person fully. The truth is that we may never fully understand other people and the intricacies of their thought processes. Kanha did not make it so that we can read each other's thoughts. He wanted us to be independent. Instead, we can display understanding about their personalities. When our friends go through silent periods because they need to, we should allow them their time. People who are not very happy with themselves may find cheerful people annoying. Before we say negative things about those closest to us we should try to understand why they may behave the way they do. Even if we cannot understand that, we should at least understand that they deal with things in a different way than we do. Kanha, please grant us the patience and the love required to display understanding to others. Please help us all to remember that You are with us at all times and we can always count on You. Jai Shri Krishna!

The importance of good friends

We all have friends in our lives - people who are like family and who we can trust more than anyone else. Our friends are the people we turn to for cheering up when we are down. They give us advice, they take care of us when we are sick, they carry us out to parties and get togethers. They love us and we love them. Sometimes we take our friends for granted but that's a wrong thing to do because our friends help us sometimes even when we cannot help ourselves. Let us all say thanks to Kanha for our friends today and thanks to Him also for being such a good friend and to everyone as well. Jai Shri Krishna!

Looking towards the future

Looking towards the future is not always easy. We sometimes like to dwell on the past and how we should have done things differently. But dwelling on the past is harmful, it makes us think that we can change what happened in the past and we can't. Whenever we say or do something, we cannot change it or take it back. That is why our actions and our thoughts must be guided carefully. However, Kanha often gives us an opportunity to change and to do better than we did in the past. We must let our past mistakes guide our future actions. We should be positive about our futures and try not to have regrets in our lives. Kanha is there to guide our actions. Sometimes He does not give us what we want but that is because He has a bigger and better plan for us in the future. Let us all look towards the future with positive minds and remember Kanha in our thoughts so that our actions today will also be positive to reflect on. Jai Shri Krishna!

Dealing with disappointment

Disappointments are a part of every person's life. We have to learn to deal with disappointments and to trust that Kanha has something better in store for us and a very good reason why disappointments should not be allowed to cloud our judgement. Kanha will always love us and take care of us and we have to believe that everything He does is with a purpose towards a better plan in the future. Jai Shri Krishna!

Being a good person

Sometimes being a good person is hard. Its difficult to always do the right thing especially when you feel that you are not being rewarded for it. However, Kanha said that if someone keeps doing good but having bad things happen to them, they should not be discouraged and begin to do bad. Instead, they should continue to do good deeds to store up good karma for themselves in the future. Sometimes people start off doing wrong or negative things and then they turn around and begin to do good things. But others continue to judge them based only on what they did in the past. It seems unfair but that's the way that life is sometimes. I know that I too am guilty of misjudging others and I hope that Kanha will forgive me for doing so. I think that we all should ask for His forgiveness where this is concerned and try to recognise when people are trying to turn around for the better. We should encourage them to be good people and to do the right thing. Jai Shri Krishna!

Overthinking

It is in our human nature to believe that we could have done things differently. We over think situations and come up with different ways we should have responded and reacted. But we should remember that the important thing is to really think before we speak and act so that we will not have to regret the things we do and say later in our lives. Kanha helps us with what we should do and say in the first place, but we should also remember to whisper a little prayer and ask Him for guidance so that our words and actions are the sweetest and the best things that we have to do and say. Kanha makes every situation happy for us in different ways - perhaps it will be a nice lesson to reflect on later in our lives even if it is unhappy now. He knows what is best for us and we should not over think things because in the long run, we are only wasting time. All we can do is do our best every day and pray to Kanha for His divine blessings. Jai Shri Krishna!

Limits

There are limits to everything in life. We should remember that and try not to overindulge in the good or harp too much on the bad. We must learn to impose limits on our behaviour - even when we are having fun. Kanha reminds us to set limits on our behaviour. Another word for this is discipline. We should learn to discipline our minds so that we know when things are being done in excess and stop. We should remember that in the Mahabharat there were many persons who were unable to realise their limits. Duryodhana was one of them. Dushasan was another. Shakuni, yet another. The divine story is filled with examples of those who do not know how to control themselves or set limits for themselves. However, there are also others who learned the art of control and were able to set limits on their own behaviour - when they were not able to do so they were able to see the negative consequences of their rash actions. The Pandavas all went through phases of learning and accepting their individual limits. However, as they did, we will often discover that in learning our limits we discover hidden strengths to be found within ourselves and among those around us. Kanha will take care of us regardless of what happens but He will also try to make us learn for the future and send consequences of what we do to teach us lessons if our limits are breached or if we had not bothered to impose them for ourselves in the first place. Jai Shri Krishna!

Life's little enjoyments

Kanha fills our life with little moments of happiness when we least expect them - a phone call from a friend or relative, a friendly face in a daunting place, a giggle from a baby on the street. There is just so much about life to enjoy that we should take a little bit of every day to really stop and thank Kanha for blessing us with His divine presence in our lives. We should thank Him for taking care of us and keeping us safe and we should thank Him for giving us our very lives. What do you think about this picture of Radha and Krishna? I love it, they seem so happy. Let us meditate on this picture today and try to hold on to happiness in our lives. Jai Shri Krishna!

Good things come to those who wait

Have you ever heard that saying? 'Good things come to those who wait' is something that I hear people saying all the time. I think its true though. Another saying that is linked to that is 'God is always on time' and 'The early bird catches the worm'. The truth is that when things are supposed to be given to you, Kanha will ensure that they are given to you. He will keep you safe always and He will give you what He knows is right for you. He will take care of us all till the end of our days. Let us remember that good things come to those who wait and try to be a little bit more patient and accepting of others. Jai Shri Krishna!

Acceptance

Loving Kanha means that we have to accept His will and we must learn to come to terms with both the positive and negative things that happen in our lives and to trust that He will open new doors for us in the future. Kanha always wants what's best for us. He will always take care of us and think about what is best for us. We should not look at the past and regret because the way things turned out is exactly the way that they are supposed to be. He always brings good for us and to us and we must truly trust in Him, especially when things are not going our way. Kanha thank You for helping us to remember to trust in You and please help us to be able to accept and deal with the bitter moments in our lives. Please help us all to deal with disappointment and please help us to accept Your will. Jai Shri Krishna!

Kanha guides

Kanha offers us guidance when we need it. He does not always do so directly but He may direct our thoughts to something, give us little clues and help our friends help us make the right decision. Kanha always listens to us and He knows what is bothering us. He wants us to help us and we have to understand and find a way to accept His help. He always wants to keep us safe and this is something that we must believe in. I was watching the TV serial 'Choti Bahu' and Kanha in the show said that those who do good and still experience negative things in their lives should persist in doing good because the negative experiences are due to past sins we committed. If we continue to do good then He will bless us in our future lives to be good people. I think that this is true though I am sure that there are many who disagree with that school of thought. But again, it is up to us to decide what we want to believe in. There are many conflicting thoughts in every religion and we have to recognise what we believe in our heart of hearts. I truly believe that Kanha is with us every single day, every single second or millisecond of every day. He will never leave us and He will always guide us and love us. Jai Shri Krishna!

Kanha accepts

Acceptance is something that we all strive for. Even when we dare to be different we would like our peers to accept our differences and perhaps even admire us for them. Acceptance is what Kanha gives. He accepts all of us into His arms and He makes us better people. Think of His divine words in the Srimad Bhagavat Gita: "If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it." Srimad Bhagavat Gita Chapter 9, Shloka 26 Kanha accepts us and He wants us to accept each other - think about how peaceful the world would be if everyone accepted the differences in each other's personalities. If we accepted the quirks and traditions people come with into our lives then we would be happier because a large part of our human experience is that we strive for perfection or something better than we had before. We strive for goodness and happiness and we wish to share that with those around us. However, we feel that to share such happiness we need to make others persons think the way we do or act or dress or talk the way that we do. In truth, this is not so. Kanha made us all differently for a reason - He loves us and He wants us to all learn about different ways to expand our intellect and to be able to deal with difficult persons, those who are pushovers, to deal with loved ones and friends. Thank You Kanha for accepting us and please help us to learn to accept others. Jai Shri Krishna!

Having fun

Come on, let's admit it, we all like to have fun! We love partying and enjoying with our friends and our relatives. However, we should remember that there are limits to all good things and before we go to a party we should mentally set limits for ourselves. We must think about what we need to do to be sure that our fun is safe and accident free. Of course, we must ask for Kanha's help to guide us to make the right decisions while we are having fun and partying. Kanha's purpose was to show us how to enjoy life, my pundit told me that. I think I've told you that story too many times to count! But, even though that was His purpose, He also showed us that we must remember to refrain from overdoing anything and from doing anything that is against His wishes. Think about how you feel when you make a bad decision - you feel awful and sad and upset for a long time. You wonder how to make things normal and better again. You wonder about apologising to people you may have hurt, but sometimes you feel too ashamed to do so. I am sure that you do not like feeling upset or sad after you have had a fun time. This is what Kanha wanted us to know also. He showed us that we must have the presence of mind to make the right decisions. Let us all make a resolution for the new year to enjoy ourselves in a dignified manner and to seek Kanha's blessings before we go out to parties. Remember that He approves of us enjoying ourselves. Jai Shri Krishna!

Fate

Fate is what Kanha meant for us. We cannot interfere with His plan for us. We can only go along with Him. Jai Shri Krishna!

Just a little note to connect

Hello once more! I am just writing to expand on my previous post - and connect you to my other sources of internet communication. My Facebook isn't working right now - the page is sticking so I will post the link to that later but this is the link to my tumblr account.

Devotion via the internet

"Being freed from attachment, fear and anger, being fully absorbed in Me and taking refuge in Me, many, many persons in the past became purified by knowledge of Me--and thus they all attained transcendental love for Me." Chapter #: 4 Shloka #: 10 Please check out this site. It is remarkably useful in obtaining proper quotes from the Bhagavad Gita. Devotion is something that we all engage in. We say prayers, we sing bhajans, we talk to God on a daily basis. However, there are so many other ways we can show our love for Him. Many people advocate that technology is the enemy of mankind but I cannot agree with them. Instead I think that technology, like everything else, can be used for good and for bad reasons. It is up to us as the persons using the technology to decide whether we will use it for good or bad reasons. Let us identify the good ways we can use technology, specifically, the internet (a few, the list in not exhaustive!) 1. Skype call our family members abroad 2. Email friends, relatives, work colleagues, international experts 3. Read religious texts 4. Watch religious videos 5. Create religious blogs 6. Create online charities to help others 7. Organise social events with our relatives, friends, colleagues 8. Use technology to aid our education And there are many more reasons. There are also negative ways in which technology can be used and I will not list these since I do not approve of people using technology for bad reasons. Those who are reading this blog are using the internet to further their spirituality since they are reading about Kanha and they are focusing on Him. How about you give me some suggestions for things you would like me to deal with in the future? Jai Shri Krishna!

Change

We are sometimes afraid of changes in our lives because we have become comfortable with the way that things are. However, change is not a bad thing and it is not something to be feared, instead, we must cope with change. We must try to find a way to deal with changes that may be unpleasant to us sometimes. We must find a way to embrace change and to make the best out of our situations. Kanha went through many changes in His life and His ability to deal with every situation should inspire us and create confidence in us that He can take care of everything and if we ask for Him to stay by our sides then we too can deal with even the most challenging changes occurring in our lives. Kanha was born to Devaki and then His father Vasudev took Him to Yashoda. That was the first major change He endured that many children also endure daily - He was uprooted from His birth parents. When He was growing up many times evil came to try to destroy Him and He defeated the evil beings over and over again. Eventually His friends began to see Him in a different light - that was another change He dealt with. When He was a teenager He left His parents to go to His birth parents - yet another change. At that point He also left behind His one true love - Radha - how difficult that change must have been for Him! He got married when He grew up - change again. He met the Pandavas and befriended them, then He began to impart advice to Arjuna, He changed His role to become Arjuna's charioteer in the battle at Kurukshetra. Kanha's life, like our lives was filled with many changes. He will always take care of us and keep us safe and continue to help us if we ask Him to. His love for us is something that we can feel always and He will help us deal with every change that occurs. Jai Shri Krishna!

Love

Love will be a recurring theme in this blog because it is so very important. We should always remember that Kanha came here to show us how to love - how to love our parents, our siblings, our relatives, our friends, our pets, and when we get older, our spouses. Kanha always taught us and continues to display to us His loving nature and the desire to have us love Him. Let us make a vow this year to display more love in our behaviours - tell our dear ones that we love them, express our love in little everyday kindnesses, pray to Kanha and tell Him specifically that we love Him - do not pray to ask for anything - just to say, 'Kanha, I love You and I will always love You'. Today's post is a short one because I want you as the reader to think about ways to share our love with others in the name of Kanha. Do you want to make any suggestions? Jai Shri Krishna!

Service

Service has several different meanings - it may mean the act of serving someone, a ceremony organised for a particular purpose are the two most common meanings. However, in this post I want to focus on the act of serving someone, specifically Kanha. We all know that serving God is the highest form of service. However, many people shy away from the idea of having to serve anyone, even God because we associate service with menial tasks that are beneath us. But Kanha knows this, He knows the meaning of service and He wants us to serve Him fully and with all our hearts. I recently read an account of the incident with Draupadi and the never-ending sari that Kanha sent to her. The story says that Kanha did not help Draupadi until she put both her hands up to pray to Him, trusting that He would cover her body. Prior to that, she used one hand to protect her modesty and the other to pray to Him. This is what Kanha wants from us, complete surrender to His will and we do not have to feel like we are losing anything when we do this, because, like Draupadi, we have everything to gain from surrendering to Him - He will always help us in the end and He will always take care of us in ways even better than we imagined. What then does it mean, service to God? Service to Kanha involves several things: 1. Prayer and worship to Him - bhajans, direct prayers, meditation 2. Aarti and polishing of His murti or picture 3. Telling His stories to others 4. Serving others in His name 5. Incorporating His name and His will in everything that we do. The last one is of course the most difficult. We all like to keep our worship, our work and our play separate. But Kanha is always with us, whether we accept it or not He sees everything that we do and we have to find a way to account for our actions to Him in the future. We must hold ourselves accountable to Him for everything that we do - good and bad and as we begin to accept that Kanha is all around us all the time we will begin to talk to Him more regularly and eventually incorporate Him in everything that we do. We will realise that our actions all have consequences and we will begin to do only things that will please Him. This is our ultimate goal. Jai Shri Krishna!

Preparation

Whenever we have an important task to do we like to take some time preparing for it - we study for exams, practice for interviews and big sporting games, we train our minds and our bodies for these things. But, do we prepare for worship adequately? Do we train our souls? We should. Kanha sends us little messages throughout the day and we should become attuned to His little bits of information. We may see His picture or a temple on our way to school or work, we may hear a bhajan on the radio, we may see His murti in our houses or a forwarded email may come up about prayer and praying. We may even see an ad that reminds us of Him - there are so many little things that remind us of His presence and we should train our souls to recognise these things. We need to learn to whisper little prayers and thoughts to Him throughout the day so that He feels included in our lives. We all advocate that relationships are hard work and we have to make the effort to connect to our significant others. But isn't Kanha also significant in our lives? He should be the most significant and so we should try to connect with Him all through the day and all through our lives. Often I hear people say that older persons should detach from the material world and focus on God some more. However, when we get old should not be the only time that we want to be closer to God. We should build up our relationship with Him all through our lives. In doing so we are preparing our souls for Kanha and are making ourselves better people. Jai Shri Krishna!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope that you all remembered to thank Kanha for allowing us all to see the new year and to be able to continue reading and writing and educating ourselves about Him as well as worshipping and talking to Him. Most of all I asked Kanha to please continue to be with me always and to guide my thoughts, words and actions. I do hope that in 2012 I can continue to faithfully post entries in this blog. I hope that all of you had a good time ringing in the new year and making your new year's resolutions. It was a little difficult for me to make some resolutions because there are things that I know I want to accomplish but I feel a little worried about writing them down because I fear that if I don't achieve or accomplish them then I will feel like I have failed. However, my relatives and friends tell me that this is normal and it is okay to not achieve absolutely everything you set out to do for the year because other tasks do come up as the year progresses and any person may wish to achieve some new tasks as well as the preset ones at the start of the year. Kanha will help us to achieve what we set out to do. But sometimes He also imparts certain obstacles in our way when He realises that the task we set out to achieve is not one that He feels is right for us. Of course, we may be disappointed if things do not always go our way. But, we should remember that Kanha is in charge and if He wants our lives to be a certain way, then we should accept His wisdom. Kanha, please bless us all in 2012 and please continue to guide us and be with us all. The picture I've included is actually borrowed from 'Art of Krishna' on Facebook. I absolutely loved it when I saw it because to me it means that Kanha will be with us all through 2012. Jai Shri Krishna!