Keep the inner lamp burning

HI FOLKS !

Today, I want to talk about keeping the Inner Lamp burning even as there are financial and/or personal storms raging outside.

Thats an important thing to remember, you know.

The storms always rage OUTSIDE. Things always happen OUTSIDE of us.

The markets crash.

Our stock loses its value.

A loved one decides he/she does not love us anymore and moves on.

We may lose our home , our car or boat.

The job looks very, very shaky and may be gone.

Dark, scary clouds on the horizon, aren't they ?

And very real too.

So what does one do ?

Understand that they are outside of you.

They will scare you and beat you down just as much as YOU let them do.

These are layers and layers of soot on the lamp which is still burning inside, giving light and warmth.

To begin with, remove the layer of despair.

It's not easy to accept responsibility for one's own actions.

WHY NOT ? is so very powerful a motivating factor !

We had wanted everything NOW, and it has not worked out.

Polish the lamp some more with a determination not to buckle under the pressure.

Time does not stand still, and this too shall pass.

You may be left poorer for a while but you will be richer with the experience of having survived through trying times.

These are times when one learns a number of lessons all together.

About oneself, one's character and integrity and quiet strength.

All of us have enough of it inside us, but we have never felt the need to test these qualities in us.

Now the Universe is doing it for us.

The funny part is, once the lessons are learnt, of acceptance and thrift and hard work and caring for Mother Earth and being humane and large-hearted, the situation outside may take its own time to change, but WE change, and INSIDE, where it matters.

After all, our thoughts and reactions and responses go along with us, wherever we go.

So it it is important to be both aware of what is happening to us inside and be as equanimous to it as possible.

INDIA will celebrate DIWALI next week, popularly known as the Festival Of Lights.

Its origin is in the epic Ramayana, which tells the story of Lord Rama, who killed the Demon king Ravana and came back to his kingdom in triumph after completing 14yrs in exile.

His subjects had not wanted him to leave at all, had waited for 14 long years, and guess what - ?

He was to reach very early in the morning, before day-break.

So the whole kingdom stayed up all night, decorated their homes with colours and festoons, burst crackers and lit thousands of lamps so that he would know the way !

That night, the one which was the last of 14 long years, was probably the blackest, slowest and the longest .

For his old mother, his brothers, his loved ones and his subjects.

But they had kept their inner lamp burning, even when things were very dark.

The demon king Ravana is depicted as someone with 10 heads.You could give these heads contemporary headings !- Greed, Self-Centredness, Indifference, Weakness, Anger, Carelessness, Sloth, Lust, Pride, Ego -



It was these that the man of strength and perseverance conquered, and there is a fighter in each one of us.

Tough times will come, will keep coming. If we practise staying calm and strong, then they won't be so trying.

Believe that you will come out of them and keep your Inner Lamp shining by polishing it just a little everyday.

WISH YOU ALL A GLOWING FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS.