Friday, November 11, 2011

Messages From Beyond

Have we ever wondered what we have come into this world to do? Surely there is a reason for us to be here! We have not come here to EXIST but to LIVE and progress! How many of us truly understand the purpose of our lives? Nature is forever giving us small little hints and messages in the form of developments, circumstances, events, dreams, visions, scenarios and people who ever so subtly aid or guide us towards whatever we have come here to achieve.
In addition, we are forever getting messages from our inner self, from our subconscious mind, which we perceive as instinct or intuition, but often fail to comprehend the meaning due to their subtle nature. To appreciate them we need to be at peace with ourselves because it is only then that we can “hear” or appreciate those divine messages.
All of us have come to this world to do SOMETHING through which not only do we enrich ourselves (not necessarily materially) by evolving but at the same time help others by affecting them in a positive manner. Each one of us is capable of doing something which only we can do best, far better than anyone else in this world. Osho has said….” Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny. He has something to fulfill, some message to be delivered, some work to be completed. You are not here accidentally, you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.” Most of us, unfortunately are not aware of our true capabilities or potential. As I understand we have all taken birth to ultimately merge with the Divine and to do so we need to keep evolving and progressing.
We come to this earth with a blueprint of our destiny only while the actual progress depends on the gift bestowed on all of us, called “free will’ which enables us to take correct (or incorrect) decisions. If the decisions are correct the purpose of this “free will” is fulfilled as they are good for our spiritual development. Whenever we choose to exercise our free gift correctly, nature creates situations or circumstances or sends people who aid us in our quest. The important thing here is that very often we fail to realize or appreciate the message. Before going any further, it is important to understand that life is a continuum , it does not end, even after “physical “death. The process of physical death only means shedding of the material or physical part of our body, while our intelligence still remains intact along with all the memories as well as desires. In other words the karmic imprints remain. This is because the astral and the causal parts of our bodies do not perish with physical death. After reaching the astral plane (the realm we reach depends on our karmic imprints), we take birth again, based on our karmas as well as our latent desires. We get a human birth if we are lucky. When we are reborn, we come to fulfill our desires, our aspirations and to experience certain things. All of these are in accordance with a sort of contract we have entered in the astral plane, basically to progress and evolve.
Similarly, all of us have both strengths as well as weaknesses, but often we tend to focus on only the positives with which we have been bestowed. Nature creates circumstances which continuously remind us of those weaknesses which we need to transgress in order to evolve. But, alas, how often do we heed Nature’s message, which in reality is a message from beyond?
Do we realize that when we are confronted with a problem in life, we are being given a chance to try to solve it and progress further? The experience we gain in the process is invaluable for our maturity. It is something like a teacher giving problems to a student to solve, if he solves it satisfactorily, he gets better marks. As he continues to solve more, succeeds in his examinations, he gets promoted. This is precisely what happens in life. Problems are thrown at us so that we take them as challenges, confront them, solve them and move ahead. Most of the time problems come to us in the form of circumstances or situations we do not like. Rest assured, when that happens we are being given a message…”Look…this is what you need to grow out of”. We can take another example, while driving down a busy road, someone honks repeatedly from behind, we get irritated and lose your cool and blame or perhaps foul mouth the guy. If we do this, similar or perhaps worse episodes will continue to happen. We need to recognize this as a message….that one of our weaknesses is impatience. We are being told to develop patience! In case we do not heed this warning, it will keep recurring till either we grow out of it or do something rash or silly, after which these episodes may become worse. Once we grow out of it, we grow out of our irritability.
Another every day scenario….we go to an office to get something done and find a long queue at the window, which irritates us, and by the time we reach the window, we, in all probability have lost our patience and cool when on seeing the irritated face of the clerk behind the window, and we respond by snapping at him, he snaps back and perhaps finds some fault with our application and our work does not get done. Again our patience is being tested…nature has realized that one of our weaknesses is impatience. If, on the other hand,we choose to smile at him, perhaps sympathise with him for having to face a lot of irate people, it is quite likely that he would do our job willingly!
Are we not facing such situations every day?
Some messages are so very subtle. A new born comes into this world with a rare birth defect which has no treatment. The parents are very attached to the child and leave no stone unturned for its treatment but to no avail and are struck with grief when they lose their precious child. But somehow they heed the message given to them….they set up a Centre for Research on rare maladies of children, thereby helping hundreds of other children. Their beloved offspring came into this world to teach the parents the meaning of compassion! I think such a child needs to be worshipped!
A young boy aspired to be a Dentist. His father approached a Private Medical College for their son’s admission but was shocked when asked to shell out a huge sum of money which they could ill afford. A similar thing happened with some other parents who had come there for the same thing. They decided that they would not yield to the blackmail and there and then, planned to build a Dental College of their own and help many other aspiring Dental surgeons. Since their intentions were genuine and designed to help others, they managed to get loans and in no time built an Institute which very soon overshadowed the other one. In the process they helped so many more people. The person who had demanded the money had actually thrown a challenge and given them a subtle message….. which was heeded.
A couple has been married for many years but the wife has not been able to conceive. Suddenly they come across an abandoned child, a child crying for love and affection. The message is so clear! Nature has responded by giving them a baby!
What message are the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law living together and not seeing eye-to-eye giving to each other, without knowing it? They have been brought together again after possibly so many earlier acrimonious relationships to resolve their age old differences and to evolve higher!
Similar is the case of the irate and demanding boss and the employee. The employee needs to take his job as a challenge, think of new strategies to handle the problems thrown at him by his boss, evolve and progress in his career as well as spiritually. Both the boss and the employee are being given a subtle message….resolve your differences positively, progress and evolve.
Almost every situation we face in our lives is teaching us something. Each and every disease comes with a subtle message. Diabetics develop Diabetes because they have failed to appreciate the “sweetness of life” due to their busy lifestyle….the subconscious mind responds by denying you that sweetness! Similarly, those who have a “Type A“personality are prone to develop Peptic Ulcers, Heart Disease, Hypertension etc. The message is clear….”slow down, take it easy…relaxe”! There are myriads of such examples. If we develop problems in our neck….Cervical spondylosis or pain…we are actually being told not to treat life a “pain in the neck”! Relaxe, live and enjoy the journey of life!
Very often people manifest different types of phobias….fear of heights, darkness, closed spaces, water etc. All of these indicate an unresolved trauma much earlier in life, the trauma may have been an actual occurrence which may have left an indelible mark in the subconscious mind and could not be resolved. This may have happened in early childhood or perhaps in an earlier life. All of these indicate that the energy system of our body is out of balance and needs to be corrected. Often, past karmic patterns may manifest as physical disabilities in this life. Some people are victims of repeated accidents…these “accidents”are conveying another message…they are holding too much energy in those areas and need rebalancing of their energy systems.
All of these can be resolved either by developing spiritually when we may actually see or perhaps live through the event causing the problems in this birth or taking the help of a Psychiatrist trained in past life regression. If not resolved, these problems might be the cause of serious life threatening events. The most important message to take from all these examples is “Accept reality….live in the present’
Sometimes, Nature shows us something which may be loaded with meaning… if understood. When Sir Isaac Newton saw the apple fall, it set him thinking and led to history being made. He too heeded the message given to him and produced wonders. So also, as per legend, when King Arthur saw the spider trying to climb and falling repeatedly but ultimately succeeding in the end, made him realize that ‘failure is the stepping stone to success”! In our day to day life also, we may “accidentally” meet someone or find something which quite literally changes the course of events and our thinking. Actually, there are no accidents…everything happens for a purpose and EVERYTHING in Nature has a meaning.
Have we ever appreciated the messages a tree is forever giving us? It is so “Giving”… shade as well as Oxygen to breathe, it is home to birds, small animals, the leaves provide manure after falling, the wood has so many uses….the list can go on. The tree is doing all this selflessly, so also the Sun and so many other things in nature.
What is the message to a person of a particular community who hates people of another community, finds himself living in the midst of that community? “Love thy neighbour”….rise above hate… evolve… progress! Nature has done its duty by bringing them together for a purpose.
Very lately we have been seeing turmoil in so many parts of the world, one of them starting from the middle East, then Egypt, Libya and so on. There is a very strong message…but are we heeding it? The Anna movement is another case in point….does our government understand the message? Have we wondered what made Anna do what he has done? His purpose of this life is to help his countrymen by bringing about a revolution, though a very peaceful one. How did he realize this? When he was driving the army truck while working in the Indian Army in his younger days, he saw 25 of his comrades dying in front of his eyes while he survived. He being the lone survivor made him wonder as to why his life had been spared….could there be a higher purpose? We now know better!
Similarly, Mahatma Gandhi got his message after being thrown out of the First Class compartment….is it not ironic that his being thrown out ultimately culminated in the British being literally thrown out of this country?
It is not necessary that these messages tell or show us the ultimate eventuality. Most of the time the message makes us take a small step in the right direction….then another….yet another…and so on….till we reach where we have to….and then these messages are inspirations for even greater progress….the journey continues.
Our Intuition is our best guide. All of us are born with at least grade one of intuition. In order to progress in life we need to develop it further. Sri Yoganand Paramhans has described five types (“God Talks to Arjun Vol I, Verse 29).In the first form, which is the crudest, is the intuition of the “Annamaya Kosha” or the food sheath and is related to gross matter, limited to sense knowledge or inferential knowledge, which most of us possess. The second form is the intuition of the “Pranamaya Kosha” which is the plane of pranic energy or life force which creates and sustains the body. As a result one can appreciate subtle sounds and lights etc. In the third type, that of the mind plane, called the “Manomaya Kosha,” visions are seen and appreciated and one may not be aware of the outside world. The fourth type of intuition is of the “Jnanamaya Kosha” or intellect plane, and leads to appreciation of the truth associated with wisdom. Finally, the fifth form leads to direct knowledge of bliss and is of the “Anandmaya Kosha”.
Very often the message we get from our subconscious mind is at variance to what our conscious mind believes in and we tend to disregard it. If our intuition is well developed we will choose to give more relevance to the message from beyond rather than listen to our conscious mind, act accordingly and reap the benefits.
The very few blessed ones who have been able to climb high on the spiritual ladder have access to so many “mukta’ or enlightened beings, no longer in physical form, with whom they can actually “converse” and get direct messages. They are the ones who are perpetually guided at every step of their lives. They are the ones who have direct access to their gurus in their physical or spiritual form. Needless to say, it is this category of blessed beings who are forever helping and guiding humanity…taking them higher and higher on the spiritual ladder.
To conclude, in order to grasp Nature’s whisperings and messages in totality we need to “go inside’, connect with the self…our subconscious mind….listen to the small little voice which knows everything about us…keeps giving us messages in the form of ideas, images, figures, dreams…. meditate….. and slowly but surely progress, evolve, develop feelings of divine love, compassion, empathy, appreciate the inter connectedness which binds us all together, happiness, bliss and travel to the bright and simply beautiful astral realms beyond!