How To Be God Minded

We generally have things of the world on our mind. These are our daily affairs, our family etc. which are on our mind most of the times. To have God on our mind or to be God minded, we need to develop love for God & need to understand that our own self is a spark of the almighty consciousness. We need to understand that we all are a reflection of the Divine Light.

So just have faith & belief that you are a Soul, and that you live in this physical body. Your Soul is part & parcel of God, the light of the Lord. God, Your Savior, is guiding you into all the truth through your Soul. You are a child of the God, born of the Spirit of God. Having such thoughts you shall always delve in God.

As per Bhagwat Gita, think yourself to be that Soul which is beyond this body, which is unthinkable, imperishable, ineffable, eternal, all pervading, immobile, un-manifest & immutable. In fact your nature is also that only which is also called Brahmn. Also see the same Soul present in other beings as God is seated in everyone's heart. When you shall see God present in all the people around you then you shall always have God on your mind.

"aham atma gudakesha
sarva-bhutasaya-sthitah
aham adis cha madhyam cha
bhutanam anta eva cha" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Ten verse 20)

"Sri Krishna said: I am the Super Soul, O Arjuna, seated in the hearts of all living entities. I am the beginning, the middle and the end of all beings."

Other than this just have devotion in God as through devotion towards God, He shall always be on your mind. Lord Krishna says in the Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Eight verse 14

"ananya-cetah satatam
yo mam smarati nityasah
tasyaham sulabhah partha
nitya-yuktasya yoginah" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Eight verse 14)

"Lord Sri Krishna says: Whosoever, always & constantly remembers Me with undivided mind; by that person, I am easy to obtain, O Arjuna, because of his constant engagement in the devotional service to Me."

How to be Happy in Life

Happiness is a state of mind. It is a choice that we make in our life. If we choose our state of mind to be happy, then we feel happy, otherwise we feel sad.

In our life we have always options to choose & feel happy in all of the circumstances in our life. So always make a choice about happiness & not otherwise in your life.

We cannot be happy all of the time, but we certainly can be more fulfilled than others if we are having a positive attitude towards life & we handle all of the situations in life with rational & positive attitude. Happiness is not much to do with material goods or high achievements in life, rather it is all about our outlook on life.

Here below are few points which needs to be considered for happiness in one's life:

1) Believe in yourself. Your inner strength is your Soul strength, Mental strength which comes into action in your hard times, which defeats all of your negative symptoms of sadness, depression etc. in your life. In hard times your self confidence builds your low esteem. When you are passing through bad times, you have a feeling of self dejection & a feeling that you have lost all in life. In all such times, your Soul strength comes into play & if you believe in that inner Soul strength then you can easily over come all of your negative traits & can feel happy. Bhagwat Gita teaches us that we are a Soul which is indestructible & is having infinite powers in it. Problems in life, how big these may seem are too small in front of the infinite powers of your Soul. So believe in that Soul & it's inherent infinite powers. As our Soul is a spark of the Infinite, all powerful, all pervasive Universal Soul, so it's powers are also limit less. This soul present inside our human body, in fact gives strength to our mind to carry out all difficult tasks. Believing in oneself is nothing but believing in one's inner Soul. All fountains of knowledge & strength come out of this inner Soul only.

"You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength, and say, "I'm proud of what I am and who I am, and I'm just going to be myself." Mariah Carey
2) Appreciate what you have: We generally do not appreciate the positive aspects in our lives. Our nature is to ponder on the negatives & what we don't have in life. To us others grass always seem greener. In fact we should appreciate what we already have. That shall give you a strength that at least you have been able to achieve that much. Do not compare yourself with someone very rich & with much more facilities & resources than you. Just see how good you are from those who lay a life along roadside without even having a roof over there head. We should be grateful to God for whatever we have in life. If you are able to thank God for, whatever, He has given you in life, then also you shall appreciate what you have in life. We should always focus on the positives in life. So let's start appreciating what we have. Appreciate what you have achieved in life till now. Appreciate your own looks & body. Appreciate the house you live in. Appreciate that you & your family are having good food while there are many who are not just having that also. Appreciate your loved ones, your children. Appreciation of yourself shall bring confidence in you, it shall also bring peace & happiness in your family life.

3) Have positives in your life: Just have positive traits in your life & you shall feel happy. Having a nature of Forgiveness shall remove unnecessary tensions in your life. Showing Gratitude towards others is also a positive aspect in life as it makes you humble & creates an environment of peace & harmony in your life. Have smile on your face & laugh a little in your life as it makes your mind cheerful. Don't be dormant in life & be physically active as active people are the one's who feel happiness in life.

4) Be peaceful in mind: To be peaceful at mind, the first & foremost thing is to be satisfied with what you have at present in life & try to make harmonious relations with the people all around you. Once you are able to do that then you shall find that you are better off & much peaceful. Other than this do little prayer daily to God & if you are able to find time then do little meditation daily, as meditation makes one's mind peaceful. Here below is a verse of Bhagwat Gita & as per that let's control our desires & let's not hanker after these desires. One who is able to control his/her desires finds peace in life & with peace comes happiness in life.

“aapurya-manam achala-prathistham
samudram apah pravishanti yadvat
tadvat-kama yam pravishanti sarve
sa shantim-apnoti na kama-kaami” (Gita: Chapter II verse 70)
"As the waters (of different rivers) enters the Great Ocean, which though full on all sides remains undisturbed, like wise a person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires - can alone achieve peace, and not the man who runs after these desires & strives to satisfy such desires."

God helps those who depend on Him only

It is said in Puranic stories that God rushes to His devotees, whenever, he/she calls on Him with sincere prayers & devotion. Lord Krishna came rushing to save Draupadi, when she called on Him when kauravas (Duryodhan, Dushashan etc.) tried to disgrace her. Similarly God came rushing to Gajaraj (an elephant) when he was caught by a crocodile, when he went to drink water in the river. At that time Gajaraj called on God & God came rushing to save the Gajaraj.

In Bhagwat Gita Lord Krishna tells Arjuna to always have faith in Him only as, whosoever, keeps faith in Lord Krishna, He always protects that devotee. But here below is a story of a holy man of India who due to his ignorant acts could not get favors of God. Here below is the story.

In some Indian villages people generally wash their clothes by the river side. Over there washermen generally take the clothes down to the river bank, where they can wade and wash these clothes. The clothes are soaked and whacked against big flat stones & are then spread out in the sun to dry these clothes on the green grass.

During one sunny day, a Holy man, a lover of God, came that way who was praying hard and was walking with his eyes almost closed. Accidentally he stepped on some of the clean clothes spread on the grass and the washermen saw it. Angry, they came to give him a beating.

Now this holy man became very frightened. He earnestly and loudly called on the God to come to his rescue and save him from the washermen's anger. When God heard the Holy man crying, He came rushing to intervene. But just then the man himself picked up some bricks & stones to throw at the washermen; seeing this God just returned to his heavenly abode. So the Moral of the story is, "God helps those who depend on Him only".

In "Bhagwat Gita", Lord Krishna Says that if a person is devoted to God only then God rescues that person from all the miseries of life. Lord says:

'Those people, who worship Me by surrendering all their activities unto Me, are always devoted to Me, always meditate upon Me, Having always fixing their minds upon Me, O Parth - to them, I swiftly rescue from the ocean of birth and death i.e always protect that devotee.'

"ananyas cintayanto mam
ye janah paryupasate
tesham nityabhiyuktanam
yoga-ksemam vahamy aham" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Nine verse 22)

" Lord Sri Krishna says: But those who always worship Me with exclusive devotion, meditating on My transcendental form—to them I carry what they lack, and I preserve what they have."

"ananya-cetah satatam
yo mam smarati nityasah
tasyaham sulabhah partha
nitya-yuktasya yoginah" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Eight verse 14)

"Lord Sri Krishna says: Whosoever, always & constantly remembers Me with undivided mind; by that person, I am easy to obtain, O Arjuna, because of his constant engagement in the devotional service to Me."

So If a person has the above said assurance of the God, then one should make a resolve that one shall not let God slip out of his/her mind till he/she lives on this earth. Do not let anything else take control of your mind & let God be always on your mind. By doing so God shall always be with you in all of your circumstances & shall protect you always from all troubles of life. Then God shall be your Savior always.

Believe it or not, Prayers can Heal the Sick

Prayer is an act of addressing the God with devotion. Prayer can be done during the worship or can be done just silently in our mind. Through prayer we have a personal experience & an intimate connection with our loving God. If we pray to God with sincerity then He shall answer to our prayers immediately.

Recently as per one news item "Prayers really can heal the sick":

"Prayers can heal the sick, especially if the well-wisher is standing near the person he or she is praying for, says a team of researchers from Indiana University in the US. Researchers say the vision and hearing of patients in their tests improved after healing practitioners prayed for them.

One elderly woman who could not see a person’s hand when they held two fingers up in front of her face from a foot away, is said to have been cured after a healer placed their hands over her eyes and prayed for less than one minute, reports the Daily Mail.

Researchers found that some subjects with impaired hearing could hear better after prayers and other subjects had their tested vision improved."
So Let's pray to God with our heart & God shall have mercy on us. A simple prayer is enough for the God to become Happy with us. Below verse of Bhagwat Gita ensures that only:

"man-mana bhava mad-bhakto
mad-yaji mam namaskuru
mam evaishyasi satyam te
pratijane priyo ’si me" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Eighteen verse 65)

"Lord Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend."
Below is a beautiful quote about the Prayer:

God looks not at the oratory of your prayers, how elegant they may be; nor at the geometry of your prayers, how long they may be; nor at the arithmetic of your prayers, how many they may; not at logic of your prayers, how methodical they may be; but the sincerity of them He looks at. -T. Brooks

God is in Which Direction?

Recently as per one news item "Saudi villagers prayed in wrong direction for 10 years". As per the news:

"Muslim worshippers at a mosque in a Saudi Arabian village near Mecca discovered that they were praying for 10 years in the wrong direction. Muslims are meant to pray in the direction of the most sacred site in Islam, known as the Kaaba, a large granite structure in the holy city of Mecca.

Villagers in Hadda, 20 km north-west of Mecca, should have prayed southeast, but instead bent down five times a day in a northern direction. After realizing the error, the mosque's leaders changed the direction of the prayer carpets so the worshippers now face the Kaaba."

As per another news item, "Indonesian Muslims told to change prayer direction". As per the news:

"Indonesia’s Muslims learned that they have been praying in the wrong direction, after the country’s highest Islamic authority said its directive on the direction of Mecca actually had people facing Africa.

Muslims are supposed to face the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia during prayer and the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued an edict in March stipulating westward was the correct direction from the world’s most populous Muslim country.

“But it has been decided that actually the mosques are facing Somalia or Kenya, so we are now suggesting people to shift the direction slightly to the north-west,” the head of the MUI, Cholil Ridwan, told Reuters. “There’s no need to knock down mosques, just shift your direction slightly during prayer.”

Now the main question is, in which direction God actually is?

Actually the God is the Omnipresent Soul who is invisible & is all pervasive in this world. God is present all around us & is hidden in this invisible space & is there in all the directions. God gets seated himself always within this all pervasive Space in all directions & sees all our activities & controls this whole world. In the "Antaryami" aspect, God is seated in our heart & listens to all our prayers. So the belief that God is present in only one direction is not correct but that God is present in all directions. In, whatever, direction you pray to God, He will always listen to your prayers. So if you think that you were praying in the wrong direction then just don't worry, your prayers have not been wasted as God has already listened to your prayers as He is sitting in your heart & is always listening to your prayers.

"O Lord, In all directions are Your heads, all faces Your faces,
O Lord, You dwell inside the heart & also in all hidden places.
O Lord, Through the whole universe, You have extended Yourself.
O Lord, You are the auspicious, the ever-present Lord."

"O Lord, With hands and feet everywhere, eyes and ears
Everywhere, heads and mouths everywhere,
O Lord, You have filled up every corner of the space.
O Lord, Smaller than smallest and larger than largest."

"O Lord, Present are You in the depths of our heart.
O Lord, When free of desires and unshaken by sorrow, we
Seek for You only, then by Your grace,
O Lord, Your Form and Your glory stand clearly before us.

Below are verses from Bhagwat Gita which explain about God's Omnipresent nature through which He is present all around us.

sarvatah pani-padam tat
sarvato ’ksi-siro-mukham
sarvatah shrutimal loke
sarvam avrtya tishthati (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Thirteen verse 14)

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, Everywhere are His (God's) hands and feet, His eyes, heads and faces, and He has ears everywhere. In this way the Super Soul (God) exists, pervading everything in this world."

"athakasa-sthito nityam
vayuh sarvatra-go mahan
tatha sarvani bhutani
mat-sthanity upadharaya" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Nine verse 6)

"Sri Krishna says in Gita: Just like the mighty wind, blowing everywhere, rests always in the sky, so do all created beings rest in Me i.e. in God, who in its unmanifest aspect always rests within this all pervasive space."