The need for detachment

Family and societal life is very important for every human being. It is in family life that one learns the virtues of tolerance, love, forbearance, forgiveness. Not only that, it is in family that one finds all joys of life and a feeling of fulfillment. It is not possible to stay disconnected from family and society for long. Even sanyasins – persons who have renounced all desires of material pleasures - stay connected to families and societies as they find fulfillment in helping people to stay focused on higher goals of life prescribed by sanatana dharma.

For having the best experience during family and societal life, sanatana dharma recommends to follow chaturvarnashram paddhati – system of four ashramas or four stages of life (bramacharyashram – a stage of student, gruhasthashram – a stage of family man, vanaprasthashram – a stage of reclusion and sanyasashram – a stage of renouncement) and four varnas to be followed during gruhasthashrama stage (brahmin – a role of teacher, kshatriya – a role of protector, vaishya – a role of professional and shudra – a role of serviceman). This system is currently in doldrums due to the failure to understand the goals and benefits of this system. This system is meant to maintain harmony in families and society. However, there is a complimentary practice that is required while following this system and that is - the practice of performing yadnya – making offerings to god of fire through a process of havan – instantiating a fire and then making offerings. It is yadnya that really binds all in love and harmony. Yadnyakunda – a structure where fire is instantiated for performing yadnya - in a temple, is a very important and pious place. Yadnyas performed in temples help maintain harmony in society.

Out of love for all fellow beings, sages and saints researched about yadnya and found simpler ways of performing it for individuals.



The most joyful activity common to all is eating, is it not? They say, this action of eating can be transformed into yadnya by simply chanting the name of Lord Vishnu – be it Shrihari, be it Shriram or be it from thousands of His holy names. The fire in the belly that inspires one to eat is nothing but a form of God – Vaishwanar. By chanting the name of god while eating, one automatically performs a process of havan and hence it results in performing yadnya.

Whereas yadnyas performed in temples help bring peace in society in general, yadnya performed by chanting name of god helps individual to find fulfillment of life. For an individual, Yadnya helps to develop detachment by developing attachment to God. Detachment breeds mental peace much required not only here but hereafter as well. That’s why they recommend developing detachment slowly from the early age of life so that one can enjoy all pleasures of life yet be detached from the world, making leaving this world painless. The more a person is detached and hence at mental peace, the more are chances of not committing any sin and hence, more are chances of not getting entangled in the cycle of going through 84 lakh types of births.

They say that the achievement of detachment and the mental peace finally helps at the time of the last moment.

Families, friends, wealth are all good and give joy only till last breath. However none of these can accompany at last moment. At the last moment when eyes are losing their ability to see, the tongue is losing its ability to utter a word, ears are losing their ability to listen any word, there is nobody, but only Self and the King of Death. In worldly affairs one may receive company and help from the families and friends, but during encounter with Yama, King of Death and Yamadutas, Yama’s army, there is nobody to give the company. That encounter has to be faced alone. The practice of chanting name of God incessantly and the mental peace achieved through that practice are the weapons that help to face that encounter and make it a friendly encounter.

Blessings received through sincere service to Guru help in long way to get firmly established in practice of chanting the name of God.

Wisdom quotes by Bhagwan Nityanand Baba (Ganeshpuri)

Business Continuity and Resiliency Planning

Businesses spend large of amount of time and money to develop Business Continuity and Resiliency Plan that describes actions to be taken to quickly recover from disaster. The idea is to have minimum or no impact on business operations in case of disaster - be it a natural calamity or market crisis.

Life is also like business. Anything can happen in life. Those who have thought about and have prepared for the worst are the ones who survive through the disaster with minimum or no impact on day to day life. There is a saying that "when going gets tough, the tough get going". This toughness is a result of deep thinking about life from all angles.

Whereas paying too much attention to threats of life can destroy joy of life, paying no attention can pose the great risk of getting heavily impacted by disaster. There is a saying in marathi "पश्चात्तापापेक्षा ताप बरा" meaning it is much better to have stress of thinking before action than the stress from the undesirabe result of an action.

However, there is an easy way to get secured from all threats and yet enjoy the life to its fullest. And that is – follow dharma.

One who protects dharma gets protected by dharma. To protect dharma, one has to know dharma well. The real dharma is swa-dharma. Every being has a role to play in the life ecosystem. A man, during his life has to play many roles such as - a son, husband, father, citizen, professional, friend. Similarly a woman has to play roles such as – a daughter, wife, mother, citizen, professional, friend etc. All these roles have their codes of conducts. Following these codes of conducts is dharma.

Pandavas and their consort Draupadi are classic examples of dharmic (religious) persons who faced unforeseen dire calamities throughout their life and yet in every calamity they were protected by creator of dharma i.e. Lord Shrikrishna. Lord Shrikrishna always stood behind Pandavas. Relation between Lord Shrikrishna and Panadavas demonstrates how protection of dharma protects the protector of dharma. Pandavas never ignored their Guru’s i.e. Lord Shrikrishna’s warnings and promptings. For them Lord Shrikrishna’s word was final word. Whereas Duryodhana and his brothers ignored warnings of Lord Shrikrishna and so they met a painful end.

Pandavas received immense knowledge from their elders and Lord Shrikrishna himself. All that knowledge is available to all human beings through the story of Mahabharata.

After kurukshetra war, Pitamah Bhishma, lying on a bed of arrows, explained to Yudhishthira, eldest of Pandavas, all dharmas that a king is supposed to follow. Though Yudhisthira received very valuable knowledge from Pitamah about running kingdom, he still had some doubts in his mind about dharma that is common to all human beings. He asked six questions to Pitamah Bhishma in relation to this, one of them was

O Pitamah, in your opinion, which is the best dharma (righteous deed) among all dharmas (righteous deeds)?

Pitamah Bhishma, exhilarated by Yudhishthira’s questions, answered

In my opinion, the best among all dharmas is to worship lotus eyed Lord Vishnu by incessantly chanting his thousand holy names.

After answering such, Pitamah Bhishma narrated all thousand names of Lord Vishnu to Yudhishthira and they were then compiled by Sage Vyasa as Srimad Vishnusahasranama.

One who incessantly chants or listens to thousand holy names of Lord Vishnu gets easily protected from all calamities.

Not only that, by chanting these holy names, or by just chanting Rama nama, which is equivalent to chanting thousand names, all dharmas of an individual get automatically followed.