THE EVERLASTING GIFT:

While celebrating good occasions (birthday parties, weddings, housewarming parties, retirement parties, festivities….) we have received many gifts 🎁 from our families & friends....(or bought gifts for someone) starting from toys 🧸 , bikes 🚲 , candies 🍭 , sweets, books 📚 , shoes 👞 , clothes, gadgets, cars, furniture......a long list. Unfortunately, each & every gift we have received or bought for someone gets used up, broken down or outdated over time. Whatever we have in our possession now is temporary; nothing lasts forever. 

Is there any valuable gift we have bought or have in our possession which is useful forever & never gets outdated? Yes, there is one Everlasting Gift--Bible, Quran, Torah, Tripitaka, Agama, Guru Granth Sahib, Gita or any other Scriptures...we should have in our lives. 

I am happy to share a few lines of wisdom from my Everlasting Diwali Gift-- Srimad Bhagavd Gita.

1. Regulate the Lifestyle: It is healthy for us & our family to live a regulated life meaning balancing our eating, sleeping, recreation and work. There is happiness in the Mode of Goodness lifestyle. Yes, we should work hard & stretch our boundaries to do more & achieve more, but at the same time, pay attention to our limitations & health. Bend yourself, but don’t break your self. Don’t sacrifice your family, friends & health for power, position, fame or wealth.

Bg 6.17 -- He who is regulated in his habits of eating, sleeping, recreation and work can mitigate all material pains by practicing the yoga system.

2. Duty without Expectation: We should do our prescribed duty either as a parent, child, spouse, student, teacher, friend, colleague, employee, employer....etc, but don’t expect anything in return & remain detached from the result. When we expect anything in return, we set ourselves up for misery.

Bg 2.47 -- You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.

3. Be prepared for miseries in our lives: All life on Planet Earth 🌍 wants to be happy & peaceful all the time. Unfortunately happy moments can not last for long time due to duality nature of the material world meaning everything rotates in a cycle like.....Illness-Recovery, Birth-Death, Success-Failure, Praise- Criticism, Winter-Summer, Happiness- Sorrowness....etc. The material miseries are unavoidable, unstoppable and sometimes come unexpectedly. Spiritual wisdom will help us to swallow & digest the Pill of Miseries..LOL... 😂.

TEXT 14: 2.14: O son of Kuntī, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.

4. Don’t Compete with others: Don’t compare & compete with others. Every one of us has a different mindset & passion to do good for our family & society. Be yourself but continue to improve yourself. Don’t expect a fish to climb the tree or a bunny to swim. Everyone is a genius in their own way.

Bg 3.35 -- It is far better to discharge one’s prescribed duties, even though faultily, than another’s duties perfectly. Destruction in the course of performing one’s own duty is better than engaging in another’s duties, for to follow another’s path is dangerous.

5. Sweet & Encouraging Speech: Our relationships, enthusiasm, success and overall direction of the life shape up by the sweet, beneficial & stimulating words we hear from our loved ones or we speak for our loved ones & others. And of course have some LOL 😂 😆 moments with friends/family/colleagues. 

Bg 17.15 -- Austerity of speech consists in speaking words that are truthful, pleasing, beneficial, and not agitating to others, and also in regularly reciting Vedic literature. Vedabase.io

Out of 700 verses from Gita, by implementing only these 5 verses in our lives, we can be on the right track. 

It is easy to say, but difficult to follow. 

Jay Shree Krishna

Thank You 🙏.

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I am inspired to read the Vedic Scriptures by regularly listening to Sri Pandurang Shashtri Athvale and the association of Swadhyay Parivar every Sunday in Swadhya Kendra. 

I also hear and read the discourses & literatures on Vedic thoughts from Srila Prabhupada & his disciples… ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness). 

A LONG LASTING RELATIONSHIPS:

Besides health and good thoughts, our happiness is also dependent on relationships. If you have good friends/family (spouse is one of them… 😊) in your life with whom you can open up your heart, share your feelings, joy & distress….…you become more content, fulfilled & cheerful personality. If you open your heart to your family/friends then the doctor doesn’t have to open your heart….😆 😂 

A beautiful understanding about relationships/friendships based on Sastra/Scriptures.

1. In this material world, which advances like a river that carries away living entities, all people become friends, relatives and enemies in due course of time. (bandhu-jñāty-ari-madhyastha-mitrodāsīna-vidviṣaḥ Śrīmad-bhāgavatam 6.16.5).
2. You can’t be friends with thousands of people. mṛgāḥ mṛgaiḥ saṅgam upa-vrajanti

   gāvaś ca gobhis turagās turagaiḥ

   mūrkhāś ca mūrkhaiḥ sudhayaḥ sudhībhiḥ

   samāna-śīla-vyasaneṣu sakhyam

   Translation: Deers roam around with deers; cows with cows; horses with horses and intelligent with intelligent. Friendship is between individuals of similar disposition and habits (Pañcatantra 1.305). We can have long lasting relationships with like minded people. We can be (we can have) fans, followers, encouragers, well wishers or admirers, but we can’t build the good relationships/friendships with everyone we come across in our lives.

3. Who’s a friend in the truest sense? Someone who makes our heart experience sneha which means affection. What is sneha?....when the inner self melts on seeing, touching, hearing or conversing with an individual, one is said to be experiencing sneha, affection. Śāstra says that success in the domain of friendship is attained when we have such intimate friends.......one should frequently converse with them, travel with them and/or stay with them, open up your heart to them, thereby avoiding all distress. (darśane sparśane vā ’pi śravaṇe bhāṣaṇe ’pi vā yatra dravaty antaraṅgaṁ sa sneha iti kathyate Subhāṣita-ratna-bhāṇḍāgāram). 
4. Don’t try to win an argument against a friend/family, especially in public. If possible avoid any financial contracts/business deals with the friend. Share your happiness & sorrowness with your friends/loved ones and give them mental support while in distress. Pṛcchati means asking for the friends opinion and also giving opinions when asked. Bhuṅkte means eating food offered by the friend. Bhojayate means offering food to the friend. Express the good qualities of the friend in front of others. Have LOL 😂 😆 moments with your loved ones. Laughter is the shortest distance between two.
5. Don’t expose faults, weakness of your loved ones to others. As a good friend, we should know how to keep secrets. These secrets are something which can cause immense public embarrassment to our friends if revealed. These are weaknesses that have been confidentially confided in us. Whatever the fault it is, we must hide it. A good friend will stand up to defend their friends in need. We should publicly protect them, but privately we should reveal our honest thoughts to them without worrying. It is the duty of an individual to rescue a friend who may have gone astray.(pāpān nivārayati yojayate hitāya

   guhyaṁ ca gūhati guṇān prakaṭīkaroti

   āpadgataṁ na ca jahāti dadāti kāle

   sanmitra-lakṣaṇam idaṁ pravadanti santaḥ)

Make a commitment to maintain the unconditional relationships with your friends/families…. ❤️

We can’t be a good friend to everybody but we can be well wishers to everyone in this world.

It is easy to say, but difficult to follow. 

Have a Wonderful Day. 

Thank You…..🙏