ARISEAWAKE

A call to wake you upfrom your unconsciousness

ByDR. P. V. VAIDYANATHAN

A WVPD PRESENTATIONBooks from Wisdom Village (Publications Division) envision toenhance and enrich their readers with life changing experiences from thebusiness, mind, body and soul genres. They strive towards holisticdevelopment.Edited by Mrs. Krishna Ahuja

Copyright ©Dr. P. V. Vaidyanathan, 2011All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilizedin any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrievalsystem, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN 978 93 80710 136

Published in 2011 by:

WVPD is a part of Wisdom Village649, O4U, Udyog Vihar, Phase V, Gurgaon, Haryana – 122001www.wvpd.in

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Published by Anu Anand for WVPD; Cover Design by Glimmerize;Page Setting by Mamta ; Printed by J.K. Offset Graphics (P) Ltd, C-21,O.I.A, Phase-1, New Delhi-20.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION 5ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 9PREFACE 13THE NEED TO AWAKEN 17TOWARDS ONENESS 24THINKING ABOUT THINKING 30

LIFEIS LIFE A PROBLEM? 41WHAT IS YOUR ACCEPTANCE THRESHOLD? 52HAVE YOU ACCEPTED YOURSELF? 58PERSON WITHOUT PERSONALITY 66LIFE IS ENERGY 78OUR BIGGEST ENEMY — US 84CONSCIOUSNESS AND COURAGE 93BEING UNPRETENTIOUS 97HOW UNDERSTANDING HELPS 100DISCOVERING YOURSELF 103THREE STAGES TO NIRVANA 109

HAPPINESSWHY WE ARE UNHAPPY OVER OTHER’S HAPPINESS 115

SEEK HAPPINESS, NOT SORROW 118EXPLORING HAPPINESS 122RE-DEFINING HAPPINESS 127HAPPINESS AND MONEY 132

GOD, RELIGION ANDBLIND FAITH

UNDERSTANDING BLIND FAITH 139WHERE IS GOD? 143RELIGION: POISON OR NECTAR? 154RE-DISCOVERING THE HUMAN BEING 168GOD WANTS US TO BE HAPPY 173GOD IS NOT FOOLISH 176

TRUTHTRUTH IS NON-TRANSFERRABLE 183THE TRUTH ABOUT ULITMATE FREEDOM 187TRUTH DOES NOT NEED ANY SUPPORT 189ATTAINING THE TRUE SELF 191MEDITATION — THE FINAL GATEWAY TO THE TRUTH 194RELIGION AND TRUTH 197WHY YOUR BELIEF OFTEN BECOMES YOUR TRUTH 201

ISSUES WHEN YOU ARE OLDRETIREMENT: THE VEDIC PERSPECTIVE 213BRIDGING THE GENERATION GAP 219LONLINESS VERSUS INDEPENDENCE 222ABUSE OF ELDERS 226RESISTING CHANGE AND SUFFERING 231THE GREATEST FEAR 237CONCLUSION 244

THE NEED TO AWAKEN

The first question that automatically comes to mind onreading the title to this book, or for that matter when you pickup any spiritual book is “Why do I need all this spiritualinsights?” I’m quite happy with my life the way it is. Yes, it has itsups and downs, it has its happiness and sorrows, it has its assetsand liabilities, but isn’t that true of everyone on this earth? Whycan’t I just carry on my job, my life, without getting into all thisspirituality nonsense? Anyway, half the things about awakening,meditation, soul, inner self, atman, bliss, nirvana — seem toofarfetched, lofty and don’t really seem to make any sense at all.Can’t I just live my life the way I want?

This question is very valid and a very important one, for aspiritual awakening or awareness is not mandatory for one to gothrough life. One can go through life living it at the basic level,eating, drinking, sleeping, getting married, having children,growing old, and of course, eventually leaving this world. Unlikean education or a profession, or a set of moral values orcharacter, one need not have even an iota of spiritual insight orknowledge, to go through life. Animals and birds do it, and sodo a vast majority of humans. The journey from birth to deathneeds a lot of things that are compulsory — but spiritualknowledge or insight is not one of them.

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The basic nature of life, as seen by man, is one ofhardships and sorrows. Though we are all striving to be happy,to be joyous, and to achieve peace and harmony, from a normalhuman being’s standpoint, life is a struggle, life has plenty ofsorrows, plenty of heartbreaks, life needs a lot of thought andplanning, life is full of worries, problems, accidents, andincidents. The moments of happiness or joy in life are small; theamount of time we spend feeling happy, enjoying ourselves, islimited as compared to the time we spend feeling unhappy ornegative. The amount of time we spend thinking about a millionthings that can go wrong, worrying about what will happen tous, what will happen to our parents, our spouses, our children,our personal possessions, our health, to our country, our world— this amount of time is much more than the times in life whenwe are totally at peace, totally happy, feeling no burden over ourshoulders, feeling no heaviness in the heart, singing and dancing,without a care in the world.

Children do it regularly, living in the moment and withouta care in the world. Teenagers do it to a large extent, youngpeople do it, but to a lesser extent than teenagers, but as aperson grows older, the moments when he is totally happy,when there is a spring in his step as he walks, when there is asmile on his lips, when there is a glow on his or her face, whenthe world seems a nice place and when tomorrow or yesterdayare completely forgotten, is rare. Invariably, as a person becomesolder, he looks serious, sad, he is weighed down by theproblems that life has thrown at him, he or she is struggling withmost relationships, the joy is missing, and the worries go onincreasing, from day to day, leaving the person despondent andde-motivated. Such a person is always yearning for a break,yearning for a vacation, and yearning to party, so that he can

forget himself and his worries for a brief period. This is thenormal state that most of us live in, a default state wheresadness, worries, anxiety, tensions, guilt, anger, jealousy and stressare our foremost preoccupations.

But the human mind is always looking for joy, alwayslooking for the pot of gold, at the end of the rainbow, alwayslooking for a heaven on earth. Such is the way it has beenprogrammed. It is not that we have been taught, trained orconditioned to be happy. We have been told and conditionedfor a lot of things — but to be happy is not one of them. Noparent, no grandparent, no teacher, nobody in fact actually sitsdown and teaches a child that it is necessary to be happy, orteaches the child how to be happy. A lot of things may betaught, but not the mantra of happiness. Seeking happiness issomething that is innate, inbuilt in us. And when one does notfind this sanctuary, this heaven on earth, when one does not findjoy and happiness, and when the burden of life becomesunbearable on a day to day basis, people turn to a lot of things— hobbies, fulfilling relationships, social service, creativepursuits, or to drugs, alcohol, or extra-marital affairs. Theseactivities do bring happiness and joy, but come with their ownset of problems. Eventually, man wants to know the meaning oflife, the purpose of life, and wants to know how to get out ofthis sorrow, this misery, that seems to follow him or her like ashadow, not only when he is awake, but even in his dreams. It isthen that one turns to spirituality, to the path of awakening,hoping to find the answers to a lot of life’s questions, hoping toachieve a little more happiness, a little more joy and a little morepeace of mind. Man hopes to find a meaning to this life onearth, for he feels that it is only by finding some meaning, orhaving an understanding of life can he achieve happiness.

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As man gets a little interested in spirituality, he or shequickly realises that reading or understanding spiritual valuesimmediately brings about some level of peace and happinesswhich he did not have earlier. He slowly comes to know aboutthe working of the mind, about conditionings, about beliefs,attitudes, and about something that lies beyond the body andmind — the soul or being. And as he starts off on his innerjourney, to find his own true being, his life, his consciousness andhis levels of awareness starts to improve. He soon realises thattrue happiness can only be found by going beyond the ego, bybecoming aware, and by raising one’s level of consciousness.

Here is a case in point — a lady, who was not veryeducated, and who had very orthodox values, had a nineteenyear old daughter who was fairly well educated and smart. Thisgirl, whom the parents were trying to marry off to someonefrom the village, against her will, ran away from home one dayand got married to a boy who belonged to a different caste. Intoday’s time and age, such things are quite common and arewidely accepted in many households. But this was a highlyorthodox family, and the parents of the girl refused to acceptthe marriage. They tried everything — coaxing, cajoling,threatening, filing a police complaint — but nothing wouldconvince their daughter to give up her husband and come back.They even tried to pack off their daughter to the village, but thesmart girl got off the train and came back. Not willing to acceptthis alliance, in spite of many people counselling them, the familydecided to leave the city and go to the village. The husband andwife both had a job in the city, which paid them reasonably well,and kept them going. They left their jobs, discontinued theeducation of their other two children, and took off to thevillage. With no suitable job to be found in the village, after six

months, they came back, impoverished, malnourished, andlooking for a job and a place to stay. In the village too, they hadbeen ridiculed and ostracised, no one gave them jobs, and theyliterally had to beg to survive. This family, which was makingboth ends meet, and living a fairly decent life, was suddenlyreduced to beggary. All this time, I kept wondering, “Could notthe parents have handled the situation in a better fashion, andcreated some compromise and a win-win situation foreveryone?”

This is a clear cut case of one’s consciousness andawareness being at a very low level. If the parents had beenmore educated, understanding and a bit more evolved, had beenbroad minded enough, if they had realised the basic truth thatthe only 2 different groups of people on this earth are man andwoman, and that the rest of the religions, castes, sub-castes, etc,were all manmade and could be overcome with our thoughtprocess and by changing our beliefs and outlooks, and haddecided to accept their daughter’s inter caste marriage, life wouldhave been fine and comfortable. In fact, the parents actuallysaved thousands of rupees because the daughter had a lovemarriage, for, in their caste, it costs the parents of the girls agood lakh or two, to get her married. This is one scenario wherea person who is more evolved spiritually, and in terms ofawareness and consciousness, would not see the inter castemarriage as a problem or as an issue at all. He or she wouldeasily understand that love cannot be restricted to one’s caste orcreed, for the sake of conformity or convenience, and that thesedivisions don’t really matter. For a person who has reached ahigher level of consciousness than what most people are at, suchthings automatically become a non-issue, a non-problem withouthaving to make any effort or without having to accept anything.

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If every mother-in-law agreed to accept her daughter-in-law, as they are, as a human being, life would be so peaceful foreveryone. If every daughter-in-law accepted her mother-in-lawwithout prejudice, life would be easier. This non-acceptance ofeach other, when one human being feels the need to asserthimself or herself, where one human being feels superior toanother in terms of caste, creed, religion, monetary status, socialstanding or achievements, often go towards spreading miseryand unhappiness. And the root cause of this non acceptance, oftrying to asset oneself, of trying to act superior is the ego, whichhas been taught, conditioned and nourished on all sorts ofstupid ideas of superiority. One of the first things that a spiritualperson comes to know is that he must first dissolve his or herego, in order to achieve peace and happiness. Our ego andhappiness are mutually exclusive — when one is there, the othercannot be.

Spirituality is not a science or a religion. Spirituality onlyhelps to strip man of all the conditionings that has been given tohim, individually and collectively, over many years, and manycenturies, helps the man to become aware of his ego, histhoughts, his mind, and to get over them, to go beyond them.Spiritual knowledge gives you little; in fact it helps you by takingaway a lot of load, or burden that you are unnecessarily carrying,thinking that the load, the burden is good for you, for that iswhat you have been told, and that is what you see ninety ninepercent of the people around you doing. Spirituality serves toget you out of this misconception, and helps to liberate you, tofree you, so that you may soar into the skies, on wings that youdid not know that you actually possessed. Spirituality gives youwings, spirituality destroys the invisible cage, the invisible prisonin which you dwell, and gives you tremendous freedom, from

yourself and from others. For any human being, after food,water and sleep, the next most precious thing, is freedom.Spirituality helps you find this treasure which was always yours,but which you have somehow lost or misplaced, in the courseof your life.

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