DO NOT JUDGE OTHERS AND BE INTROSPECTIVE

 Unless you quit the habit of judging others, you will be very unhappy. You should never entertain the thoughts like "I am not fit for this (sadhana)". In fact you need to be free from this inferiority complex. There can be many reasons for this inferiority complex like "Others are better then I at practicing the tools of the sadhana". So there is a distinct possibility of developing inferiority complex from the habit of judging others. We need to strengthen our will power to produce lively and vigorous energy that is also capable to do just that (develop self confidence). Who can help us to remove this uncertainty but ourselves? The very desire that encourages us to be like certain other person has to be rejected completely. Our consciousness has to grow from within ourselves so do not get discouraged by these thoughts about capabilities of others. Not only that you cannot judge the level of inner sadhana of persons by their external efforts and certainly it is not possible to judge their degree of development spiritually. We will do injustice to ourselves if we try to judge others in this situation, resulting in grief and discouragement. We need to understand our own perceptions, inclinations and inner instincts regarding others and use it to develop our own introspection. After observing our defects, work and effort is needed to move forward from the prevailing situation. We need to use the tool of prayer at the same time to achieve the desired results.

Pujya Shree Mota
Jivan Darshan
Edition 8; pages 146 - 147.

APPROPRIATE PRAYER OF FORMLESS (GOD, DIVINE) BHAVA

If  a soul cannot express the bhava for the God in his satguru meaning he cannot embodiment this bhava for God in the form of his satguru, is it still possible to express this bhava genuinely with prayer full of feelings and sincerity (bhavna)? When it is thought further it is apparent that these feelings may be produced by some incident, reaction and counter reaction to an incident or the memory of the person who is supportive and helpful in spiritual development (satguru). Also it may be produced by the desire to pray at the time of difficulty or sorrow to get the solace. But to generate sensitivity in the prayer, there must be feelings and sincerity of the purpose at the root of the prayer.
For some it may not be possible to express the divine bhava in the form of the satguru, meaning it may not be possible to visualize the image of his satguru even though he has heartfelt feelings, sincerity and devotion towards him. The feelings and devotion is considered appropriate and genuine if there is an expression of this support and help of the satguru in actions and behavior. The prayer is considered appropriate and genuine only if feelings and devotion (towards satguru) is expressed in actions.

Pujya Shree Mota
Jivan Darshan
Edition 8, pages 260 - 261.

UNDERSTANDING THE DEATH -- (2)

Humans have always feared and disliked death. The reason behind this is their static mental attitude. Human nature likes to stay in the same position without the change if it is possible. Death comes in the way of this nature. We know that everything changes in this world and yet we wish to keep our surroundings as it is without change. Death is necessary transformation in this situation. Even though the purpose behind the death is for the good of the humans, they fail to welcome the event. How can the humans tolerate death when they have spent all the energy behind their lives making and executing the plans; have taken enormous interest and pleasure with lots of expectations and all these vanishing completely in an instant? We developed attachments as per our nature, took interest and thought that all these belong to us. We cannot bear this transformation that happens as per natural order. It is absolute ignorance and blindness in not accepting this necessary transformation when it is a natural order of the things. Habit of taking interest in this illusory world made up of bones and skin has caused this pathetic situation while forgetting the reality.

There is lots of attachment behind expressing grief, sorrow and lamentation and there may be unknown and deep selfishness too. Our feelings get awakened due to the attachment with the deceased. Sometimes we see the death of the swajan conflict with our gross or subtle self interest and we cry for our own self interest. We even do not realize this since we have not developed inner wisdom and keep on believing that our grief is due to true love we had towards the deceased. There is no sattvic (honest and truthful) quality behind the grief. There is no new creation or development of life from these negative feelings. So we should continue to use constructive feelings for the development of our lives. If we can keep equanimity towards these negative feelings at the time death then we can make good use of it in our sadhana. Since we cannot keep equanimity towards negative feelings in the beginning of the sadhana, it is safe and easy to keep constructive feelings for development of our  lives.

Death means great necessary (and unavoidable) transformation.

Pujya Shree Mota
Jivan Sandesh,
Edition 3; pages 236 - 238.

UNDERSTANDING THE DEATH -- (1)

Death itself is not as dreadful as believed by the world. People identified death as a horror in the weakest moment in their lives. They also supported this thoughts and feelings and saw it as a catastrophe. All these shows mere ignorance about death. In this ever changing universe death is equally if not more important condition. Life and death, their practical form is the same. Where there is life, death is present for certain and vice a versa. In other words everything changes at every moment. Old gets destroyed and new is formed instantly. So life and death is the same version of the life eternal. We humans have separated these two as sky and deep abyss of earth and have made this death as something terrible instead of ordinary and natural condition. This shows how ignorant is this world regarding death. Death is as auspicious as life eternal.

The reason for the fear is the inability of humans to comprehend the reality behind death. Humans are afraid to jump at the unknown due to their fearful nature. They try to comprehend death but have no clue about it. When they fail even to have a glimpse of it, they declare it as something terrible. Humans are fearful and hate death when they fail to understand what happens to soul after death and before birth. By nature humans fear death. They tremble at the thought of this unknown transformation and unimaginable consequences. They are used to live in stable condition and hate to change into different condition. Poor humans do not understand that death is as natural a condition in the universal order as a birth. Humans know 'anything with name is always destructible' and yet always ignore this truth and keep on living their lives.

Pujya Shree Mota
Jivan Sandesh
Edition 3; pages 235 - 236.