1) Why Facebook, Why not Face The Book ?
Facebook has become part of our life, there are more than billion of users. Their day starts with seeing Facebook notifications and ends with the same. The amount of time users engage in Facebook activities, like updating statuses, posting photos, commenting and ‘liking’ posts is only increasing. You may ask, what’s wrong if we use Facebook frequently as a means of entertainment, or as a means to relieve your stress? Well, there’s nothing wrong. However, when Facebook activities start interfering with your everyday life and become detrimental to your daily functioning at work or office; they do interfere your activities. People are addicted to sharing, they are most concerned about their profile image, they keep changing it every now and then and keep waiting for poking and comments. It has become the obsession, and they keep wandering aimlessly.
Many feel empty and bored without Facebook, but is Facebook adding any value to our life or it's just entertaining us and taking our valuable time? Yes, it may be adding some values, some information to our life but real values are added by knowledge contained in Books. A book can give us so many things that which we can never imagine, but the problem is that we don't open the book, we are habituated to keep book as it is. There was one boy, he asked father, "if I graduate with good marks will you give me a Sports Car", Father said, "off course I will give you Sports Car". The day came, results were out, he passed with flying colors. He went to father and asked for the gift, father handed over a nicely packed book. Boy was very angry he kept the book as it is for many years. But after the death of his father he thought let me check what was that book, he removed the gift wrapper, opened the book,started turning the pages. Suddenly a key dropped from that book with a tag on it with the dealer’s name, the same dealer who had the Sports Car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words 'PAID IN FULL'. He realized his mistake. What to say of a car, a book can give us life full of eternity and bliss but let's open it first.
I just heard a famous Ted Talk by one gentleman Tai Lopez, who was sharing his secret of success, he reads a whole book everyday from last 15 years! Someone said well, "If you think reading is boring then you are doing it wrong way." So many things and information we have for reading but only information that can make transformation is in scriptures. It's mercy and compassion of Vyasdev who complied scriptures for us, so that we can get knowledge of self and about the God. Our Aacharyas like Rupa and Sanatan goswami and Prabhupad had done so much struggles to present these scriptures to us in a simple and understandable way, why not to take advantage of these transcendental books?
Lord Krishna says in 18th chapter of Gita, "One whoever reads and hears the Gita, he worships Me with his intelligence.", reading is the best way to show our appreciations to it's writer, so when we read the Gita we are appreciating Lord and reciprocating with His love. So let's reduce our Facebook time so that we can give more time to Face the Book especially Bhagavad Gita and perfect our lives.
2) Don't Trust the Lust
Lust means to yearn for something very passionately, especially to fulfill sexual craving unrestrictedly. Lust also means to take another person or things for our own gratification, this enjoyment tendency is cause of all sins, sufferings and problems in the world. Many crimes like human trafficking, rapes and so many others are the result of lust only. Practically all the songs, movies, news, magazines are centered around this lust, no one talks how to subdue it but everyone talks how to fulfill it and proclaim it to be source of all happiness, but scriptures of all religions tell the reality of the lust, they say don't trust and try fulfill the lust as it is sinful enemy of soul, in whose contact person forgets his real identity as servant of God and becomes utterly miserable.
Still there are some so called gurus who teach their disciples to satisfy this lusty craving which will eventually lead to samadhi( Sambhog se Samadhi ki aur). In Gita Arjuna asked Krishna what's the reason person commits sin even he don't want to do it? Lord Krishna tells,“It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world.” This lust never gets fulfilled, Manu smriti explains lust is like a fire, any amount of fuel you supply it will only increase. So satisfaction of lust will not lead to samadhi but there will be more agitation and hankering of senses and mind. As Prabhupad says, "one can control this lust by strength of Krishna consciousness".
By our own endeavor one can't eradicate lust but one should take guidance of proper authority. Who is that authority who can destroy this lust which is destroyer of self realization? He is 'Lord Balaram' the Divine brother of Lord Krishna, once when Krishna, Balaram and their cowherd friends were playing in Vrindavan, one demon named Pralambasura entered into their association by changing his form as gopa and started behaving very friendly with boys and cows, but Lord Krishna recognized him as demon. Two parties were made, pralamba took the side Krishna. Balaram's party won the match, He rode over the pralamba, pralamba took him away from Krishna and thought it's great opportunity to kill Balaram, but Balaramji with the one blow of His feast killed the pralamba.
Aacharyas explains us that pralamba represent the mentality to enjoy opposite sex and to have desire for profit, adoration and distinction. Initially these desires look like friends to us just like pralamba who behaved very friendly with gooas, but later they try to devour us. Everyone of us think that this lust will make us happy and we endeavor to fulfill that but lust only takes us away from ultimate source of pleasure and that is Krishna, in this situation we need the help of blow of Balaram who only can bring us back to God. So let's not trust the lust but trust the destroyer of lust- Balaram and pray for His mercy.
3) Don't miss the Bliss
'He took 6 years to find bliss, you can get it on coming weekend, don't miss the bliss', this was an advertisement of holiday homes at Lonavala which I saw on big billboard(there was the photo of Buddha depicting he took 6 years to find bliss). What not people do to get bliss and advertising companies also falsely promises such bliss. They go to movies, theme parks, adventures and amusement parks etc. but still that doesn't give us fullest pleasure which we are seeking for. Bliss not available in market or online shops or in holiday homes...actually we are missing the real bliss and running after imaginary bliss like mirage in desert.
Everyone is searching for bliss but don't know where to find the real bliss? Basically it's soul's nature to be in bliss always, but when it comes to material world and gets covered with the body of five elements he starts thinking that I am this body and tries to gratify his senses and mind to be blissful because of misidentification with body. Actually we are not these bodies made up of blood, bones, skin etc. but we are eternal soul, part and parcel of God, this body is just temporary covering which soul will give up when it's gets old and will accept new body(reincarnation). One more disadvantage of bodily pleasure is it's temporary just like body.
Actually bliss is present but we need to understand where it is...scriptures says soul gets in bliss when he is in contact with super soul(God) just like child is happy in the arms of mother. The special privilege of this age is that God appears in His name and when we chant His name we are in direct contact with Lord. Because God is absolute His name, pastimes, form and qualities are non different from Him. Yugavataar Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has personally introduce the method of chanting the Holy names of God just 500 years before in Mayapur, West Bengal and predicted every town and village will be introduced to this chanting of holy names. He explains in His teachings(Siksastakam) that, God has induced all his powers in holy name and whoever chants holy name with humility he realises the transcended bliss, He says,"Anandambudhi-vardhanam- “The chanting of Hare Krishna expands the ocean of transcendental bliss". Pleasure found in anything of this material world is like drop in front of nectarine ocean of holy name.
Yes, he took 6 years to realise the bliss but you can realise the bliss in 6 minutes(it takes approximately 6 mins to complete one round of holy name) If you chant sincerely. So let's not try find bliss anywhere else but know that it's available easily in holy names as proclaimed and experienced by all saints and scriptures of the world!!
4) Selfie makes you forgetful of Self
There was no word as 'selfie' in Oxford dictionary till November 2013, but by seeing the craze and popularity of selfie amongst the people this word was included in the dictionary as 'Word of the Year-2013', selfie means when one takes photos of oneself to share on social media. A year ago parent took his 18 year old daughter to hospital, because she was unable to keep her mobile away from her and had a habit of taking 10 selfies per day and upload them on social sites. A review by psychiatrists found that she had 'Selfitis' – a newly termed mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Here, a person develops an obsessive compulsive disorder of clicking selfies, "They strike different poses as they are not happy with one picture. They then upload them on social networking sites to get approval in the virtual world," said Doctor.
According to the study, the people who post their selfies on different online social networks have a problem of being praised by others. They seek attention and always pose in weird and unnatural styles in their photos for taking the attention of their friends and getting more “likes”. In another study, American Psychiatric Association says “if a person takes three selfies in a day, then he has mental disorder. People are so much worried about their looks and poses".
Speaking on the selfie craze, Benedict Cumberbatch summarizes it well in his comments to Business Standard, “What a tragic waste of engagement. Enjoy the moment. Do something more worthwhile with your time, anything. Stare out the window and think about life”, yes don't only click selfies but think about life, let's have small exercise. See your photo when you were 1 year old, and check the photo when you were 5,10,15 years respectively, now let's compare them with your today's selfie. What difference did you find? Are you looking exactly the same in all pics? No...our face has changed, nose has grown, our whole body has changed and it's is changing every year, every day, and it will be different in future but we don't say that old picture is not mine, we feel the same identity, isn't it? Body is completely different but we feel we are same person. What this change and transformation in body signifies, Bhagvad Gita says,"The material body of the indestructible, immeasurable and eternal living entity is sure to come to an end; therefore, fight, O descendant of Bharata".
This important principle Gita teaches us, we are not this body but we are eternal soul, body is temporary but soul is eternal. In the craze of selfie we have forgotten this reality and started taking this temporary body more important and serious, according to scriptures we keep taking different different bodies according to karma, so we had been to many bodies previously not only this but in current life also body is always changing, but real self had remained the same and that is spirit soul, it's ever lasting and that's our real identity. So let's focus on our real and permanent self than selfie of temporary self, the body.
