Amma’s message on Ugadi – the Telugu/Kannada/Maraati/Konkani New Year

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Part 2 –

Part 3 –

 
Amma’s mangaLaaSaasanamulu (blessings) to all.
 
Amma started with addressing everyone as immortal beings and prayed that “peace” may prevail in the world consisting of all nations. Amma’s blessings to all on this New year day of Ugaadi in the year of Saarvaree. May the blessings and peace rain on us all the time and every minute in these testing times.
 
Now there a poisonous virus that is circulating around and has taken away the peace from everyone by inflicting ill health in droves across many countries. The main reason for the current situation is – in the current day human thinking has been at loggerheads with nature and the pancha-bhootaas(five elements of sky, water, air, fire and soil/earth). Four of them have chosen and pushed the 5th element, air/vaayu, to deliver this blow to humanity so that they learn to start respecting nature and the pancha bhootaas, and live & lead the life in harmony and conformity.
The actual seed for this Corona virus was laid before January 26. What we are seeing is the effect of that seed. Amma wants people to start and resume praanaayaamam. Praanaayaamam helps to expand the Lungs. Lungs should expand. In fact, we make babies cry so that their lungs can expand. This, therefore, is an opportunity to resume pranaayaama. Do not worry about the virus.
 
But do not blame anyone. Develop good qualities. That will give mental peace.
Gossip is very bad. Only when there is a person to hear, there will be someone to tell. If there is no person to listen to, one cannot tell. It is the listener that accruing more sin.
We have to stop gossiping about the good and the bad alike, especially about the bad. We should neither be talking bad nor about the bad people. Do not even go near the bad people and definitely not mingle with them, do not discuss/argue with them. Even Ravanasura’s Lanka has many good people. But because of Ravana’s evil deed, even those good people of Lanka have all paid the price.
 
Question: Should not we try to correct the bad people and change them?
Answer: We can only change those that are willing to listen and change, not otherwise.
Unless one gets that Mumukshatvam (self-motivation to act), we cannot help. Just pray to God or Paramaatma, that such people get that motivation and thought to listen and to change. That is all we can do. Sometimes people do not listen nor give some thought because of ahamkara (ego) coming from power, wealth, knowledge, etc.
 
Ugadi blessings to all.
 
Comment: America is now shaking as you had said earlier
Amma: Did I say so?
Comment: Yes Amma you said about the 3 “C”s long ago that bring misery to people.
We realize that this is the first C (carona virus)
Amma: Yes this is the first “C”. it has brought in a lot of misery across the world. But the other “C”’s will bring in even more calamities. Humans have been very disrespectful. Humans will fear humans and will shake.
Comment: In that case should not we be getting realization?
Amma: When did Ravana realize. Did Duryodhana ever realize? He has insulted a pious woman, while she in her menstrual periods. The suffering the Kauravaas went through did not happen immediately. There is a long gap of many years before the punishing Kurukshetra war broke out.
Except for Vikarna’s walkout, not a single person stood up to this ignominy. The Ego coming from position and power is such, they did not realize even when the war is almost over. The war ended in a state of total “un-realization” – they(kauravas) felt what is not available to them should not be available to paandavaas till their last breath.
Comment: If people are dying with the same bad thoughts and are born again with the same thoughts, how can a person ever get out of this vicious cycle?
Amma: Every animal has a natural characteristic. Scorpion bites, tiger kills its prey, etc. God has given such natural characteristics to each animal. For the human being, God has given that capacity to even change his character. Humans have all the characters – good and bad – can kill, can donate, can rescue, can curse, can praise etc. Apart from these good and bad characters, he is also given the intellect (buddhi) to discriminate and use the wisdom to change for better in one of their lives. It could happen in any one of the lives that he takes.
Vedaantam is telling us to develop detachment. That needs to be done in practice. When we harvest paddy, we should know how to store it and use it when necessary. Similarly, it is not enough if one knows vedaanta, but should know how to use it. Developing Ego because one knows vedaantam is not good. One should learn to be humble and polite. Humility is very important for a truly learned person. Take the example of Viswaamitra and Vasista. Viswamitra could not conquer the Ego. Vasista is a contrast. He did not lose patience even all his 100 sons are killed. His patience made all the weapons of Viswamitra impotent. That is when Viswaamitra realized that Vasista has divine grace and then went on to gain that divine grace for himself. He did penance for 100s of years. Divine grace is unparalleled. Despite having divine grace see how Vasista has not lost his humility. That is the characteristic of a Yogi.
We all said all these stories – do not think it is a waste of time. It is to put the manassu (mind) in the right path and divert it from the short-cuts full of arishad-vargams. High-way drives are always smoother and faster than the bylanes and pucca roads. Until one gets into the main track, one needs to strive and work hard. Once we are in the main path and cultivated one good habit, the others will follow through. Our reading gets better as we move up the classes from 2nd to 3rd, to 4th grade etc.
satyam (truth), peace (saanti), patience(sahanamu), ahimsa (non-violence), Sama dharmamu (Equality), sahaja vairagyamu (natural renunciation) Sankatamulalo soumya nidaanamu (calmness in the time of difficulties).
It should like the poem we all sing all the time — Dikkulu paTaarille taara lokambulu …
Amma explained the meaning of the song – The meaning is posted earlier.
No one is permanent. Even a bad person can change. We need all the tastes to make a palatable curry. In god’s creation, we have all kinds of people good, bad and indifferent. We need all, otherwise no drama.
 
Question: Who are the bad people?
Amma: There is no one who is an entirely bad person. People have bad thoughts and bad feelings. Everything is good in nature. Sage Yaagnavalka has asked is there any useless material in this world.
King Janaka replied saying that feces is. YaagnaValka begets feces and does Brahmaarpanam to that – and now it is food. We are excreting feces, but when it joins the soil/earth, it turns into manure and enters into the food we grow in subtle form through the seed and to the tree/plant. Therefore there is nothing that is useless or bad. It is all there to carry on the drama of this world.
 
Question: The other day you were saying that we should be away from bad people.
Amma: When the approach people take to make a conversation/discussion is not proper, then do not accept such. Not to accept means, do not listen to such conversation/discussion. If we end up listening, it generates thoughts, leading to karma. To call people with bad-thoughts is a sin or bad karma. To praise good people gives us good karma. Listeners get 90% of the sin and the tellers get only 10% of the sin. If a butcher is selling meat, when there is more demand, he kills more. On the other hand, when the demand is feeble, he kills fewer. Thus if we keep listening, people will keep finding things to tell. If we cut them off, they will not be gathering stuff.
 
Question: In Mahabharat – Yudhistera & Vidura, though learned and smart and could’ve easily outwitted Duryodhana & Sakuni. If not they could have at least wriggled out the evil mazes, instead they played along, why?
Amma: Yes, but Vidura has eased himself out and stayed away from adharma.
When Lord Krishna, the embodiment of dharma, came, he invited him to his house.
He stayed back in the forests saying that he will not return to Hastinapur until goddess-Dharma returns to Hastinapur. Sakuni also is fully determined that he wants to bring goddess-dharma to Hastinapur, even at the cost of his life. What we see outside, Sakuni may look bad. But his inner thoughts are very pure and serene. He wanted the goddess-adharma completely destroyed even at the cost of his life. We may think that it is Sakuni that encouraged and abetted adharma to Duryodhana & co, right from their childhood. Sakuni is simply a catalyst. Duryodhana & co are intrinsically and inherently bad. They are in a state that way below tamo guna. Knowing that Sakuni poured water to the seed. Even if one tries to teach them good, it will not fly and therefore Sakuni took the path of expediting the growth of adharma. He left the final result of paramaatma. Sakuni told Krishna at the beginning itself that Krishna is the director and he is simply a player. He asserted to Krishna that until these trees of adharma are completely uprooted along with their roots, he will not sleep and required Krishna to do the same. It is simply a drama. When a drama is being played on a stage, different roles come onto the stage, but will the light change. No. Simply the lights show different colors based on the color of the paper that is put in front of it. Vudura just simply kept himself aloof from everyone. Sakuni could have done that too. But with his vichaarana, deep thinking, he concluded that they will not be amenable to the good path, so he felt it better to encourage them in their evil path so that they would at least get killed by the righteous people. To get killed by the people of righteous nature is in itself like a boon. To be killed by the parama-aatma himself is a great boon. We should learn to cultivate positivity. However negative, we should take it positively. Instead of bemoaning that we do not have a car, we should be grateful to God that he has given us two legs to walk. For those of us with eyes, often we are lost in what we visualize, but a blind can visualize any description with Vichaarana or nidhi-dhyaasa or analysis. Blind have this bestowed to them. In a garland, it is the same thread that weaves all the flowers. But at different places, we keep different flowers with different smells. Some flowers smell bad as well. Like a thread, the parama-aatma is the same for the entire universe. Every living creature in the universe is just another form of God. It is all covered with maaya or illusion. How do we get to remove this illusion or maaya. We need sadhana-chatushtaya-sampatti or the wealth of 4 weapons to conquer in the practice of spiritual study. Before we cook rice, we try to separate and throw away the stones and paddy from it. Thus we have a layer of illusion around us and we need to break it away to enjoy and realize the self. I f I am hungry and you have paddy at home, You cannot cook paddy directly. You need to pulverize them and take away the outer skin, then we can cook the rice that is edible. Thus if we can remove the arishad-vargaas – kaama, krodha, Moha, lobha, mada, maatsarya – then we are left with pure parama-aatma. And it cannot sprout. Whereas a grain of paddy, if sown in the soil, we sprout again. Our life is not any different and we keep taking births as long as there is maaya or illusion around. Because the illusion of impurity is not removed, we keep taking births. The moment the out skin of the paddy grain is removed, it can be cooked and can never sprout. Similarly, when the illusion of impurity is removed it can shine with the light of true spiritual knowledge and will not be born again. The important thing, therefore, is to cultivate positive thinking. Sakuni is not bad. Kauravas did not get spoiled because of Sakuni. Kauravas we inherently and intrinsically bad by nature. They have been egoistic, drowned in bad character, and with unreasonably bad desires. They have no discrimination as to when one needs to be worshipped and when one needs to be rejected. Without Sakuni, Kauravaas would still have lost. But because of Sakuni, the process is expedited and the kauravaas got killed in the hands of the dharma purushas. Otherwise, the drama would have prolonged many more years. Vidura, on the other hand, tried every bit to preach to his brother the virtue of a good path. But who would heed to the good? People have a tendency to cater to the bad. Righteousness is always alone. Because, if it is otherwise, there is no drama. It is all god’s game. If we think we are just a player in such a game, then karma would not attach to us. On the other hand, if we think, we are the winners, we know everything then the karma will attach to us. Even paandavaas have their own karmas from prior lives. But even if we do not have any prior karmas, if we wish to go back where we came from, having taken a human birth one should have intense patience to bear the troubles. We are building these houses only after the wood went through a lot of carvings and difficulties. We could not have planted the tree and constructed a house as good as what we have. Thus when we all came from parama-aatma, we are all pure. But because of discriminating intellect, people acquired aham or Ego and hence all this drama.

What is saadhana-chatushTaya sampatti?

Four weapons for spiritual practice: (1) wisdom – to distinguish the permanent from the transient (2) renunciation or vairaagyamu – to have NO desire for the pleasures in the world nor for pleasures in the heaven (3) the tool box 6 tolls to keep the manassu or mind pure and unpolluted –– (i)samamu or inward focus (ii) damamu or attention (to divert the senses from their acts) (iii) antar-drishTi or unperturbed inward-vision (iv) titi-kshayamu or patience to bear – all kinds of sorrows without indulging in medicines, addictions and luxuries (v) sraddha or unwavering faith in guru, in scriptures and in truth and (vi) samaadhaanamu or to quench the Manassu with pure knowledge — and (4) Mumukshatvamu or attitude of self motivation.

Lokaa samastaa sukhino bhavantu!!!
Om santi santi santihi

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