Trying again

Someone once told me that there are two kinds of people in life - those who keep trying and those who fail. Sometimes bad things happen to us, we fail at things we really wanted to achieve. We find ourselves feeling hurt and sad and upset about things that we should have been happy about. Sometimes we try and reach out to people and over and over again we find ourselves getting hurt and feeling upset. At certain times people decide to throw in the towel and stop doing good, stop trying, stop being good. They may turn to negative and bad influences. They may do things that they never thought they would have and they may hurt others in an attempt to make themselves feel better. However, religious scriptures emphasise that even if we do not feel that our good work is having rewards now and we keep getting hurt or abused or upset, we should continue to do good. Because, in the end it is not only what happens in the present life that matters but our good deeds add up over all of our lifetimes and bad things happening to us now may be the result of us doing something wrong in the past. Kanha knows it all and He records everything that we do. He insists on us being held accountable for all our deeds - good and bad and so if we persevere and continue to do good, He will bless us. Let us continue to do good even if we feel that our labours are not being rewarded immediately. Jai Shri Krishna!

Self-soothing

I first heard the term self-soothing on a tv show talking about mothers training their babies to self-soothe. I was horrified by the idea of leaving an infant to cry himself/herself out without any intervention on the part of the parents or an adult or anyone to soothe the crying child. How could someone be so horrible to leave a baby crying and not feel like rushing to go pick him/her up? As I got older I realised that the technique, though not necessarily kind to babies, would do well for us adults. We should learn to self-soothe. But in our case we do not really self-soothe. Instead we can talk to Kanha when we are upset. Many times we get the habit of calling a person to help us feel better - a relative, friend, significant other. However, I have found that becoming too dependent on other persons is not really the best course of action. Instead, we should learn to talk to Kanha and ask Him to help us to feel better. Singing prayers and bhajans also help. The important thing is to look deep inside and find peace with yourself. Kanha will show us the way to feel better. We just have to trust in Him. Jai Shri Krishna!

We can depend on Kanha

Kanha is the one we can depend on no matter what. He always takes care of us and keeps us safe. He helps us to do what is right and He shows us the right path. However, we may sometimes be led astray if we do not take the time to listen to Him. We should remember that going with our inner instincts is the best course of action on things. This is how He talks to us - by using those instincts. He wants us to know what is right and what is wrong. But He also gives us room to make the decisions for ourselves. We have to learn to discern what we should do and what we shouldn't. But sometimes it is a harder task than it seems. Finding out what is right takes some time and we have to learn to truly pray about things and open our hearts to His answers. Jai Shri Krishna!

How do you talk to Kanha?

As a young child growing up we are all taught manners and the proper way to speak to people in our lives. There is a different tone that should be used with those in authority and we can be more relaxed with peers or siblings. In a work setting when we speak to superiors we do so in a different manner than we would speak to our colleagues. And even so, when we speak to our colleagues in a meeting, it is different than when we speak to them in the lunchroom. There is a proper way to speak in general and we learn that also. Kanha is different. He is God. He is in our lives all the time and He sees how we relate to everyone else in our lives. He sees the good and the bad and He also notes how we talk to Him during the day. We may say things to Him in passing but we should remember to always treat Him with respect and of course, everyone else in our lives also. Respect is a major thing that people sometimes do not understand the value of until they are themselves disrespected and then they feel hurt and upset and wish to know what went wrong and why. Kanha is God. He is the number one person in our lives and He should always be our priority. He takes care of us no matter what happens in life and He always keeps us safe. We should make an effort to speak to Him in a nice and respectful manner at all times. Even though I keep saying that He is our friend, the truth is that we should also make an attempt to be respectful to every single person in our lives all the time. Jai Shri Krishna!

Kanha helps us to deal with bad as well as good

Kanha is with us at all times. We have to remember that. When we begin to forget it, then we also start to make mistakes in our lives and we begin to feel alone. Kanha never leaves us to be lonely or alone. He always is with us. He knows what is best for us and He sends us those things. He sends us trials and hiccups in our lives also. But, He does it to make us stronger. He knows exactly what we can bear and what we cannot and He will only send us as much as we can bear. And we should not think of this in a negative way - He knows how much happiness we can take and how much sorrow we can take also. He loves us and He will always love us, no matter what happens. He always takes us into His arms and comforts us. How about we try to remember Him when we are happy and thank Him and when we are sad, we can ask for His comfort instead of saying negative things to Him. Jai Shri Krishna!

Living our lives without regrets

It seems like a difficult thing to do - we can all think of any number of things that happened to us in our lives that we regret. However, the truth is that every single occurrence and experience that Kanha sent to us was planned by Him to make us who we are and who we will be in the future. He wants us to look at every thing that happened in our past with discerning eyes and see where we went wrong and where we did the right thing. Kanha loves us unconditionally and as our devotion becomes stronger we will learn to trust Him in all things and even when bad things happen, it is because He wanted us to learn from them to forestall some even worse thing from happening to us. Kanha's goal is to keep us safe and to help us to become better people than we already are. He sends persons into our lives for reasons, seasons or lifetimes. He sends situations for us to deal with to bring us out of our comfort zones and to help us to become stronger and more aware of the world around us. He shelters us from bigger pains with smaller ones because sometimes some pain is necessary to learn a lesson. Kanha knows what is in store for us in the future and He knows how to take care of us. We have to learn to trust Him though. Let us all make an effort to try to live the rest of our lives without regrets and to learn the lessons Kanha wanted us to learn from the things that happen to us. Do you see the way that Kanha is looking at us in the picture I chose today? He is trying to say to us many different things - among them, that He loves us, that everything will be alright in the end and that we should trust in Him. Jai Shri Krishna!

Enjoying life in the way Kanha wanted us to

I have referred to this many times before, but I will do so again, a pundit once said that Kanha came to earth to teach us how to enjoy life. We should remember that but we should also remember that we cannot take Kanha's example very literally. After all, He is God and the things He did were acceptable because He did them. He gave us the means to enjoy life within rules and regulations that we have to follow. For example, He was called 'makhan chor' and we all know that 'chor' means thief. Does that mean to enjoy life we will go out and steal? Of course not, it means that we need to learn to enjoy our lives and eat things that we want within limits and not restrict ourselves unnecessarily. Kanha was also well-known for stealing the gopis clothes, teasing them and the like. However, if a young man does that now, does that mean that he is a good person? Of course not. Kanha's teasing was His way of accepting their love and worship to Him. When men treat women badly they are going against Kanha's wishes. Kanha upheld the utmost respect for women - He treated both His mothers with love and affection. He always regarded His parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and relatives highly. He taught us that our siblings and cousins should be our friends, we should learn to do good and be good from Him but we need to listen to His messages while asking Him to help us to interpret them properly. Jai Shri Krishna!

Trusting Kanha even in difficult times

There are times in all of our lives when things don't go our way and we feel like it is the most difficult period of our life. When we have passed it and overcome the obstacles, we look back and consider what we have learned from it. But, at the time, it seems like we will never overcome it all. We feel scared, upset, hurt, angry, worried and sometimes we may be tempted to ask Kanha why He is doing this to us. However, when we do that, we defeat the purpose of our prior devotion. We must never even question Kanha's will and we should learn to accept everything that He brings to us and not compare our lives to others. We have to learn to deal with obstacles in our path in a way that will please Him. We need to ask Him for guidance, love and protection and we must learn to accept His help when He sends it in the most unconventional ways. When we have dreams about Him, we have to talk to Him and listen to what He says. We have to learn to be true to Him in every way, every thought, every deed. Only then will we be able to say that we are truly Kanha's devotees. Kanha, please give us the strength to deal with everything that You send to us today and always. Jai Shri Krishna!

Loving with all your heart

We are all afraid of being hurt and so we do things to protect ourselves every day from pain. We wear protective clothing and shoes. We invest in vehicles with protective attachments. We put measures in place in our homes, workplaces, schools and in the general public surroundings to protect persons from harm. We protect our hearts and we try to keep ourselves from feeling emotional pain also. However, there is still a saying that we should love with all our hearts. How do we do that? We can love without fear. Love is a powerful emotion and sometimes we may get hurt but instead of looking at it as a negative thing, we should look at it as a lesson learned and hope that we will deal with another situation better the next time. Kanha sends us love and He gives us love. We should remember that when we focus on Him we will be alright. He will take care of us even if we get hurt and so we should not fear to love with all our hearts. If we feel ourselves pulling away from a situation, it is because He wants us to and we should listen to Him. We should be strong and pray to Him to help us to do what is right and what He wants us to do. Let us love with all our hearts and love each other as He would want us to. Jai Shri Krishna!

Kanha gives us compassion

Do you feel hurt when your loved ones are hurt or humiliated or made to feel badly? Of course you do. That is compassion. However, we also feel hurt, angry or upset when we see strangers hurt or treated badly. That is also compassion. Why did Kanha give us compassion? So that we too would understand others and their feelings. So that we would see that those we love and even strangers, should be treated with respect, love, and understanding. Kanha wants us to care for all living beings and so He gave us compassion so that we would feel upset when wrong is done to them. Kanha wants us to care for others, it is a part of being human. What if we feel little compassion? Something must have happened to upset us in the past and perhaps we cannot even remember it happening. But, when such things happen we should look inside ourselves and ask Kanha to help us to understand others and to become more compassionate. It is something that we can practice. But for some persons it just comes naturally. We need to understand than Kanha wants us to be good to others and He wants us to have love in our hearts as the most important emotion instead of anything else. Jai Shri Krishna!

Being a devotee of Lord Krishna, what does it mean?

I admit, that even as I am writing this post I do not fully know everything about what it means to be a Kanha devotee. I know that I fast, I do puja, I talk to Him daily and I try to follow His rules and His laws. I try to do what is right. I try to accept His will and see the positive in every situation. But, even so, I know that my devotion is falling short compared to what Kanha does for me every single day of my life. He wakes me up in the morning, and even before that, He sends me pleasant dreams. Sometimes He even appears in my dreams and I don't even fully realise the meaning of it until I talk to others and they tell me how blessed I am to have Him come to me while I am dreaming. Kanha takes care of me through the day, making sure that no harm comes to me, that I make the right decisions, that I learn to come to terms with things that I cannot change and decide to look for better things in the future. Kanha knows how to help me come out of sadness, how to deal with anger, hurt, sorrow, pain, suffering, hardships in general. He sends me good things and He helps me to grow. But those are all things He does for me. What do I do for Him? It cannot be compared. I feel ashamed to think that I do not do nearly enough to worship Him. Yet, He still accepts what I give him. One of my favourite lines from the Srimad Bhagavad Gita goes like this: "If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it." Srimad Bhagavad Gita Chapter 9, Shlok 26. Don't you think that is an amazing thing for Kanha to say? Jai Shri Krishna!

Kanha sends little messages to us

He sends us messages all the time and we just have to listen to them. Sometimes we may not wish to listen or to believe what He has said because sometimes the message is not something that we would like to hear. However, He sends us these messages to guide us and we have to truly believe that and understand that He will never do anything to hurt us in the long run. He will always do what will make us happy and we have to learn to trust in Him. So, the next time Kanha sends us a message, do you think that we will be smart enough to listen to it and to interpret it properly? Do you think that you will truly listen to Him with an open heart and ask that He helps you to listen to Him? Kanha knows what is best for us and we have to truly believe that and to trust in Him. He is our guide and our leader. Kanha, thank You for helping us, even when we don't think that we want to be helped. Thank You for helping us to see that the life You have planned for us is so much better than the one we planned for ourselves. Thank You for sending us friends, relatives, loved ones who make our lives better. Thank You for being with us every day and in every way. Jai Shri Krishna!

Motivation

Motivation is something that we all have in us but it is also something that we need sometimes. It is an inner force that drives us to do something, to succeed at something, to pursue a goal. Kanha gives us motivation to do things that He knows that we are suited for. He helps us to find a passion for something and to follow that passion. He helps us to become motivated when we feel that we have lost the willpower and drive to succeed. He sends people to us who will guide us, comfort us, protect us and help us to restore our lost motivation when that happens. Kanha always wants us to succeed and He will always help us to do so. Jai Shri Krishna!

Kanha is our support system

The phrase 'support system' is quite popular now. But what is a support system really? To me it is everything that makes us feel safer, better and helps us to carry out our everyday tasks. Kanha is the only support system that we need. He does all of these things for us and much much more. He helps us in ways we never even imagined and He teaches us things that we don't even realise that we learned until it is time to apply the lessons we learned from Him. Kanha is our guide, our friend, our helper, our caretaker, He is everything that we want Him to be and He always will be. He sends people to us to make us happy, He sends us love, happiness, peace and joy. Jai Shri Krishna!

Jai Kanhaiya

Jai Shri Krishna! That's how I end every post and it's how I try to greet my friends. Every day when I think about life in general I realise that Kanha is very amazing. He takes care of us in a way that no one else can and He shows us things that others cannot. He teaches us life lessons in a loving way and He keeps us safe. He helps us to slowly realise what is good and what is bad. But He does not ridicule us. Instead He always accepts us with loving hearts and minds and souls. He will always be our protector and our friend.
Kanha,You never fail to amaze me. Thank You for Your presence in my life.
Jai Shri Krishna!

Kanha guides us

Many times I have written on this topic in many different ways but I cannot escape it because over and over again I see ways that this is true - Kanha guides us to do what is right and He helps us to make decisions that we thought we could not make because they were too hard. He helps us to realise what is the right choice on our own and sometimes we may make the wrong choice at first. But then, He enters when we pray to Him and ask Him to help and at that point He helps us to make the right choice. He helps us to do what is right. He guides us away form the bad and toward the good. He teaches us lessons along the way that will keep us safe and happy in the long run. There are some things that He knows that we are unwilling to sacrifice even if we say that we can. He knows what we can stand for and what we can't. He knows that not everyone understands our beliefs but He sends people to us to help us keep our faith firm and strong and He sends guidance for us. Let us listen to Him today and always. Jai Shri Krishna!