Thursday, February 4, 2010

New Year Message from His Holiness Shri Shri Nimishananda


“We have assembled here on New Year’s Eve to tap the treasure of bliss within us and share it with the rest of the world. Today, we will welcome the New Year according to the Gregorian calendar. All of us begin every year with the hope that it will bring us new energy, new feelings, new circumstances, new inspiration and new ideas. From the time we are born till the time we leave this world, there is always something new hidden inside us. How we bring it out is up to each one of us. How can we tap our full potential and enjoy constant success? If we take a look at ourselves, we will find that there are three aspects which refine and define our lives every moment. They are:

1. Our relationship with the materialistic world or Adibhoutika

2. Our relationship with Divinity or Adidaivika

3. Our relationship with our Soul or Adhyatmika

“The amount of attention we give to each of these aspects decides the quality of our life. To give a simple example, when we cook a dish, we must add salt, spices and seasoning in the right proportions to make it tasty. If there is an excess of even one of the ingredients, the dish is spoilt. Likewise, when all three aspects of our lives are proportionately balanced, our life is always filled with love, peace, bliss and success. At present if we are not enjoying contentment, happiness and success all the time, it means that we have not yet learnt to balance these three aspects of our lives harmoniously.

“All of us would like our materialistic lives to be comfortable. We want to fulfill our desires and ambitions. There is nothing wrong in setting materialistic goals for ourselves. However, we should never be obsessive or compulsive about them. If we give undue importance to materialistic desires and neglect the other two aspects of our lives, it creates a total imbalance within us. Then these materialistic desires generate a lot of expectations in us and when these expectations are not fulfilled, we are bombarded by stress, tension, anxiety, worry and ill-health. So, instead of being joyous, our life becomes miserable.

“When we seek happiness only through worldly pleasures, the more we try to gratify the mind and senses, the more their craving increases. It is impossible to satisfy them. However, our Soul is very easily pleased. It derives great joy from a good bhajan or discourse. If somebody gives us a loving smile, the Soul savours the sweetness of their love and feels completely content. During the past year, have we paid equal attention to all the three aspects of our lives ? We should take stock of this and analyse how much fulfillment we have attained. How many of our materialistic desires have been fulfilled? How much joy have we shared with others this year? How many of our divine qualities have we brought out? How many qualities of the Soul – like bliss, peace and contentment – have we experienced?

“Integrating all three aspects with each other is extremely important. When we are making a hemp rope, the more tightly the strands of the rope are intertwined together, the stronger it becomes. When the fibers are perfectly interwoven, the rope can easily tether an elephant or even pull a truck. Likewise, when we intertwine the materialistic, divine and spiritual aspects of our lives, we attain great Will Power. Then we will not only have dreams, we will also acquire the power to make all our dreams come true.

“God has given us the most powerful tool in the world – our Power of Resolution. We have the very fount of resolution and determination within us. This New Year, let us all use this wonderful power and make a Resolution to ‘injoy’ the bliss that is inside us all the time. Let all of us now resolve – “No evil can affect me anymore. No sorrow can affect me anymore. Nobody can have a negative influence on me anymore. No person or situation can deplete my bliss and peace anymore. No bad karma will affect me this year. ”

Just making this resolution is not enough. We must go one step further to balance our lives correctly this year so that our Power of Resolution or Sankalpa Shakti is completely empowered. To accomplish this, we should do a few things :

1. To satisfy our materialistic aspect, we should have a dream; define a goal that we would like to achieve during the year. Then, we should spend about 15 minutes everyday working towards achieving this materialistic goal. How do we do this? The best way is to sit and pray. Once we pray, we should accept whatever God gives us as His Prasad. We should be content with whatever He gives us and accept it with complete gratitude. For instance, if our desire is to buy a plot of land, then we should place this at the His Lotus Feet. As we begin to pray, in a few days somebody may come to our doorstep and offer us free turf / grass for our garden. We should accept it with joy and gratitude and thank God for His benevolent gesture. When God sees how tranquil, happy and content we are, He will grant our prayer saying – “What I sent you earlier was just a sample. Here is the actual product ! Enjoy it.”

2. Everyday during the New Year, we should make a resolution – “Come what may, I am not going to lose my inner peace, joy and bliss today.”

3. Everyday we should perform at least one selfless act to make someone feel happy. We should share our love, time, peace, joy, knowledge, talent, skill or money with them. This is a way of recognising the divinity in everyone around us.

4. Management experts tell us to believe that we will get what we want, but God says – “You will only get what you deserve.” So, to deserve what we want, everyday we have to reserve some time for our Soul. Every morning, before we leave for work, we must meditate, chant or engage ourselves in some kind of spiritual practice that will activate the energy of our Soul. Sometime during the day, we should read a chapter from the biography or autobiography of an Enlightened Master, inscribe their teachings on our hearts and implement them.

When we follow this divine formula diligently throughout the year, God will send us everything we need in surplus. We will have an abundance of health, wealth, peace, contentment and joy. But, we should remember to share whatever we receive generously with others. If we feel that we have more money than we require, let us give it to someone who needs it. If we are filled with immense peace, let us pass it on to others. If we resonate with boundless joy, let us spread it to the rest of the world. All of us are born to be happy and make others happy. Let us balance our lives and establish ourselves in bliss forever and ever. May all of you have a wonderful New Year. May all kinds of prosperity, wealth, health, peace and happiness flow to you, not just this year, but year after year for the rest of your lives. May the whole world be happy.”

Jai Matha. Hari Om Tat Sat.
Courtesy: www.shrinimishamba.org