Saturday 15 November 2014

39. Listen to Heart – Un-Due Advantage is Not Advantage…..

Hari Bol...


39. Listen to Heart – Un-Due Advantage is Not Advantage…..

Advantage and Un-due advantage is a very commonly used word by all of us. Advantage is a state or opportunity or circumstances especially favorable to success, interest, or any desired end. It is used as similar to benefit, gain and profit. When a person has benefited more than his counterpart in a business deal he says that he had an opportunity to take advantage so as he did and thus gained more profit. One is in advantageous position if he is superior to the other. The superiority could be due his experience, his position, his wealth, his health, his knowledge, and many more. Advantage, benefit, profit all mean something that is of use or value. Advantage is anything that places one in an improved position, especially in coping with competition or difficulties. It is to one's advantage to have traveled widely. Benefit is anything that promotes the welfare or improves the state of a person or group, a benefit to society. Profit is any valuable, useful, or helpful gain, profit from trade or experience. Avantage (later altered to advantage on the model of words beginning with Latin ad-), from Old French avant before, from Latin abante from before… Undue advantage is exceeding, what is appropriate or normal. The situation could be unwarranted for. It is not taking a proper or inappropriate benefit of the circumstances. It could be due to influence and not capability. It is lacking of justification or authorization. It could be due to desire for undue profit and benefit. It may lead to unwarranted limitations of freedom. It represents beyond normal limits. Generally advantage is in positive sense whereas undue advantage is in negative sense as it may hurt someone physically or emotionally. When one wants to run away from the facts he focuses on taking undue advantage of the situation. Taking advantage is a positive thought from within which leads to positive action i.e. action with ethical intension but taking undue advantage is vice versa.

·        People take advantage of people, but Heaven does not. - Anonymous
·        Although the left hand may conquer the right, no advantage is gained - Anonymous
·        The advantage of love at first sight is that it delays a second sight - Natalie Clifford Barney

I was going through an article which I would like to share with all because we all are part of it, even in today’s world of different thinking and it is up to all of us individually to take a call and decide is it advantage or undue advantage….
A heart touching message by a woman...
"Someone asked her......., “Are you a working woman or a house-wife? She replied: Yes I am a full time working house-wife. I work 24 hours a day.....

I'm a "mum",
I'm a wife,...
I'm a daughter,
I'm a daughter-in-law.....
I'm an Alarm clock,
I'm a Cook,
I'm a Maid,
I'm a Teacher,
I'm a waiter,
I'm a nanny,
I'm a nurse,
I'm a handyman,
I'm a Security officer,
I'm a Counsellor,
I'm a comforter,
I don't get holidays,
I don't get sick leave,
I don't get day off......
I work through day and night.....
I'm on call......
all hours and get paid with a sentence..... "What do you do all day?"


·        Woman has the most unique character like salt - her presence is never remembered but her absence makes all the things tasteless!!

In today’s world, people are taking spirituality as their business. There are cases which we see on TV screens everyday about frauds who declare themselves as Gurus and they are the people who serve God directly. By giving false examples they attract simple people and cheat them and they even go for dirty practices. These gurus (fraud), so as they call themselves take undue advantage of simple people who believes in God and who hast faith in God and trust God for everything in life. So called gurus take undue advantage of spirituality with people and give a bad name to spirituality. Let us all stand together to get free from these entire fraud spiritual guru. I am not capable of saying how to know, who the real spiritual guru is. I would like to share an article which may help us.

I would like to share a story for your judgment. One Saint asks everyone who comes to pay obeisance to him their name and age. Once that is told he says, “Both the answers are wrong. The name and age belong to the body. You are the soul. It has neither a name nor age”. Then he speaks on Spirituality and asks, “Are you doing spiritual practice?” If someone happens to reply in the affirmative, he asks “What spiritual practice?” If one replies, “The one recommended by my Guru”, he says “You were not able to answer simple questions about your name and age. Then what has your Guru taught you? Only a real Guru can reply to these questions. Come to me. I will tell you.” One should tell such fake Gurus, “Actually your questions were meaningless! You asked me my name and age only because of your awareness of the body (dehabuddhi), so I too replied with awareness of the body”. What kind of Guru is he who is unable to make out at the first glance whether one has a Guru, or if one’s spiritual practice is going on appropriately or not?

The word ‘Guru’ is derived from the Sanskrit language and has a deep spiritual meaning. Its two syllables Gu and Ru stand for; ‘Gu’ denotes the spiritual ignorance that most of humankind is in. ‘Ru’ represents the radiance of spiritual knowledge that dispels the spiritual ignorance. In short, the Guru is the One who dispels the darkness of spiritual ignorance in humanity and bestows upon them spiritual experiences and spiritual knowledge.
There are many psychological benefits for a student to have a spiritual guide in the human form where he can take advantage of his preaching’s and guidance.
·        Unlike God and deities who do not display their existence and potential, the Guru displays His form through the human Guru. This way the student of Spirituality has a tangible guide to take care of him on his spiritual journey.
·        The Guru in human form is omniscient just as the un-manifest Guru and is able to perceive everything about his disciple. He knows through His access to the Universal Mind and Intellect whether the student is sincere or not and where he is making mistakes. As a result, the student being aware of this ability of the Guru, often refrains from doing bad deeds.
·        The Guru does not allow the disciple to develop an inferiority complex from the fact that he is lesser than the Guru. He eradicates the inferiority complex in the deserving disciple and grants him the all-pervading nature of the Guru.
·        A Guru is beyond organized religion and He looks upon all of humankind as the same. He does not discriminate on the basis of culture, nationality or gender. He only seeks the student who intensely desires spiritual growth.
·        A Guru will never ask one to convert from his religion. He will lift the student to comprehend universal spiritual principles that underlie all religions.
·        Whichever spiritual path or religion one follows, they all finally lead to the path of grace of the Guru.

We really, to find a real Guru; who does not take undue advantage of our poor knowledge and blind belief. Salvation follows a difficult process of self-transformation. It demands many personal sacrifices on the part of aspiration, both physically and mentally to undergo a vigorous self-cleansing process without any guarantees and promise of solace. It is a journey through a course of unknown risks and destabilizing forces, in which the path appears and disappears as you move forward, filled with distraction and demons of deception, which is why we must need a Guru. Only a Guru can show us the way through this densely population of delusion and protect us from harm by taking responsibility for our lives and actions. He neutralizes our karma and saves us from evil. A fake guru does just the opposite. He throws us to the demons of doubts and despairs and leaves us to our fate. With his ignorance and incompetence, he compounds our problems and leads us into the darkness of ignorance and incompetence. According to Hindu beliefs, a Guru comes to us by the grace of the God, according to our preparation, readiness, aspiration, karma and faith. Just as the aspirant are eager to find their gurus, the gurus are also eager to find their follower. Their coming together is said to be an event of great significance for both of them and also the world in general, as it happened in case of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, because their association has the potential to elevate the entire earth consciousness by suffusing it with powerful positive vibration and the promise of great progress.

I would like to share a story of a cup of coffee, which you all must be aware and heard of it. This story tells us in a simple way that we choose to take undue advantage of life and then suffer with the pain. Let the life be simple, do not make it complex. This is how we make our life complex which is simple because we do not ‘Listen to Heart’ and we want to take undue advantage in life whereas undue advantage is not advantage….

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain-looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to hot coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice-looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain
and cheap ones. It is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves. That is the source of your problems and stresses in life. "What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other's cups."  

Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold Life, but they don't change the quality of Life. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it. "So, don't let the cups drive you. Enjoy the coffee instead!"

Arjuna was taking undue advantage of the situation by sayings, that how can he fight with his guru, brothers, uncles, relatives before he surrendered to Krishna. He forgot that he was a khashtriya as his duty was to fight. This battle was a battle of righteous and righteous. He was not supposed to grieve and he should not have mourn for those who are not worthy of grief. Arjuna was taking a wrong approach to life by taking undue advantage of relatives and friends by treating opponents not as opponents but as relatives and friends. So Arjuna surrendered himself to Krishna for his guidance as he was confused and dejected.


All Glories to Lord Krishna & All His Loving Devotees….. Hari Bol……
Courtesy: Bhagavad-Gita As It Is (by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada ) , Srimad Bhagavad-Gita ( by A. Parthasarathy  & www.gitadaily.com ) Chapter 2 : Text 11 , www.google.com, Wikipedia. www.krishna.com, www.krishna.org, en.wikipedia.or, womensera, www.spiritualresearchfoundation.org, www.hinduwebsite.com

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