Questions and Answers

Question 1 I lost my only son two years ago in a road accident in Bangalore. He was 33 and in the Indian Navy. He had no children and did not live with his wife.We are senior citizens and live near our daughters house. We are financially independent. But somehow, we are unable to bear the loss of our son, constantly think about him and ask why this tragedy happened to us. My wife has become a recluse and ceased to have contact with family and friends. Could you advise us how to overcome the pain ?


Life and Spirit believers reply.


Demand an answer from your inner god or your Ishta Deva, you have absolute authority to ask from Him why such a incident took place. In doing so. not only the cause will be known, you will be guided protectively in your further path . In case you have not found the God within or without, now is the correct time to go searching for Him.


Question 2 I live my Life with patience, fulfill my responsibilities, dont hurt anyone and try to accept whatever comes my way. But I've faced many problems - my dear ones have passed away, the marriages of both my children collapsed and my investments failed. Then there is my brother and his wife, who are selfish, hurt the family and do not follow any dharma. They are flourishing in every way. How does one accept this ?


A Life and Spirit believers reply.

We are not the physical body, our centre of power lies beyond the senses in a very subtle realm. Have you ever got in touch with it ? Probably when you do you will realise that whatever incidents you have witnessed have been your doing and unconsciously they have reflected out from your psyche.

Question 3 A year ago , I suffered a severe bout of depression and was cured after six months of medication. Now once again I have started to feel anxious. But i Now want to overcome depression, using meditation. I have tried sudarshan kriya but my thoughts wander when I meditate. Can you suggest a simple way to meditate.?


A Life and Spirit believers reply.

Finding a true Guru is very difficult but with God's grace people do get them. It is advisable to first remove the cause of depression and search for a Guru who can speak to you from beyond His grave. Meanwhile continue searching for answers and paths within yourself and if the answers are ambiguous or vague, search for reasons within you why they are so. Try to stabilise the mind by purifying your inner desires and the answers shall be forthcoming.

Question 4 In recent years, I've observed that many people believe in advaitya. I've noticed that after coming out of dhyan, aperson feels sad and may be irritated and harsh with others. Is this the usual outcome of meditation ? If yes, why so one meditate.


A Life and Spirit believers reply.


No, this is not the usual outcome if done correctly, not only does the process culminate in calmness, but the individual also starts developing empathy for all life forms as the consciouness expands to include him with the power of the self.



Question5 There surely must be some purpose in the minute details of the cycle of life and death. What could be the purpose of the creation of the universe in its totality?


A Life and Spirit believers reply.


The univers and its events are considered a play " lila" and as such they have no purpose in totality, but coming down to an individualistic arena of this play , we certainly have some purpose. Our first inquiry is to find out the purpose as all of us have been given different roles to play and so our purposes must surely be different as well and the second is to fulfill it to some extent. Vedanta says our purpose in life to realise the divinty inherent in us.





Question6 When all of us are God;s creation, we must surely be able to see him in each individual. Why then do some people suffer miserably, such as the poor and why do some people commit heinous crime such as rape, murder or incest ? Are they to part of God ?

A Life and Spirit believers reply.


Yes everything that surrounds us is a part of God , but the degree to which God is present could be different. What we are able to see is a part of the creation, never the full reality, why things happen to others are beyond our understanding and our need to know is not very important as we cannot drive another persons car by steering our own. but the incidents that affect us should be thoroughly searched for its purpose and our response to it should be prompt.


Question7 What is Luck ? Why does it matter so much to succeed in life ? Why cant a person succed just by working hard with commitment?


A Life and Spirit believers reply.


Luck is an elusive element that picks up any individual from the many that covet it
Theories have been not so lucky to explain it. Sucess is relative and we all measure it with someone else. In the long run if you complete your life by imbibing some charcteristics that take you closer to the creator then it is considered a succesful life.




Question9 Spiritual Laws work well when life is normal and the mind is stable. But at times, there are extreme presuures in life, which cause mental stress. This comes when you face failure despite your best efforts. How de we cope with such situations? Do we accept such phases because they are predestined?

A Life and Spirit believers reply.


Spiritual Laws is a contradiction. There are no laws or limits except the ones we set for ourselves. Mental stress and presuures are indications that our physical body is weak and our desires are beyond the scope of this body to fulfill. When the mind and body is strong then either the desires will keep away or they will come to fulfill themselves.
As for predestined events we have been given the capacity to alter them to our liking and use them as oppurtunities to gain more knowledge about ourselves and our wonderful exsistence.


Question10 I am very confused about my current state of mind. Is it possible to disregard your own good fortune and feel miserable because of your parents misfortune? I have been blessed with everything, yet my parents and I keep mourning the loss of my young brother who died three years ago. Should grieving have a time limit? It impairs your daily life and keeps you from appreciating all that you have, do you need proffesional help to overcome it?


A Life and Spirit believers reply.


Grieving for a loss is natural and so is overcoming it. This state of continuing grief is not natural. Our fears in not knowing that things keep changing get reflected to others and brings the mind to a point where it engulfs our judgement. But a proffesional help might be useful in such cases where a person who is spiritually inclined is given the task to bring their fears into the outer psyche from where they are allowed to disspate.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE 5TH DIMENSION

The Case of the 5th Dimension 

Physicists speak of dark matter. 

There are basically 2 reasons which prompted the physicists to speak of  dark matter or anti-matter as it is also called.

Reason 1 

A noticeable difference arises when visible matter and estimated matter in the universe is mathematically calculated.

This discrepancy is about 10 times shorter than the estimated matter. Physicists therefore believe the universe contains embedded matter which has no visibility but exsists. This is dark matter.

Reason 2

There is however another reason for the exsistence of anti-matter.The universe acts like a cosmic superconductor not for electricity but for weak forces. Since there is nothing in the universe with such attributes, it is accepted that the universe is floating or surrounded by something unkown. This anti matter though without mass or visibility exerts force which cannot be quantified.

The Physicists have started believing that butter though not visible exsists in Milk.

It is only by churning the milk that  the butter is discovered.They have started the process of discovering anti-matter or  matter which has a very short life and is invisible  by building a machine that looks like a giant mixer but is actually a collidier which could be a inspiration from the hindu puranas that speak of a giant mountain used by the gods and demons to churn ( this collider is at cern) the ocean to search for a elixer of immortality . 

Instead of observing the outcome, this time science wants a glimpse of the phenomenon.

This churning wants only to get a glimpse in to the process used by the magician to create magic.

To understand such identities which are formless yet exsistent , we have to believe that certain objects are beyond the 5 senses that we are endowed with and the 4 dimensions that we are aware of.

Vedantist call it the bhavarupam yatkinchit or the not non existant positive something. The same defination applies to Maya or ignorance too. 

A dimension is described as the amount of space occupied by something.

we are coming across a dimension which is occupying space, but since it is beyond the 3 spatial and 4th dimension of time we shall number it  as the 5th Dimension.

There is a delibrate attempt by the Creator of this dimension to keep it beyond the reach of the senses. This resonating room has a definate purpose on hand . Mystics and Seers who could access this dimension have written that its  sole aim  is to hide the truth ( avarana ) and project the illusion (vikespa )

This subtle and intelligent dimension hides the future while projecting the present . Just as the shadow is a projection of 3 dimensional world onto a 2 dimensional plane , so could the world be a projection of the 5 dimensional reality on to a 4 dimensional space-time continium. Just as the shadow has no real lenght and it depends on time , could then it be that this projection has no real exsistence and its appraisal will depend on some factor outside of this reality.

This projecting light of intelligence ,say that vedantists is inexplicable , impossible to comprehend and disappers into something else the moment we wish to know it.  A classical case of unending mystery and a possible provisioning for more dimensions.

Since this could be the place in the universe fom where all elements are projected, it is this realm that mystics try to access to get answers to the happenings around them and within them. Physicists have assumed the role of the mystics in this age and are now on to the same path which was tread by the seers a long time ago.

An illusionists keeps certain props invisible to the audience, which help him conjure up a trick.

A seasoned magician not only hides the real intention deftly but also projects the untruth. Another word for the creator of our multi-sensory world could be the magician. As the pre requisite to knowing the truth about ourselves and our exsistence in vast space , vedanta tells us to discriminate the real from the unreal by knowing that in an illusion the magician is real but his magic is not.

Unlike the magicians act , the universe seems to move without any definate script and keeps making fun of any physical or natural law by avoiding all logical turns. This has now  been proved by particle physics experiments which confirm that there is no linear event in time and all occurences are tendencies or probabilities to exsist , events are randomly produced, and though our logic does not agree , God does play dice. 

Out of many undeveloped available options the dimension chooses one option to manifest.

The theory behind the selection is very difficult to understand as here cause is not valid as a reason. Our choices bring about consequences in the projected world is what we have been told , but  the incentive to make a particular choice is inspired from this dimension, after all this place is responsible for providing motive to the other 4 dimensions.

The ways of this world are unscrutable, so says the Vedantist and now the particle physicists.

The world we see around us is the consequence of this projection. An illusion created by a projector based in an unseen hidden place whose exsistence cannot be verified by our senses whose purpose cannot be clarified by the happennings , nor the working understood by our finite intellect. 

Another fallout of this imaginary reality is that we are able to change the multi-sensory photoplay as the patterns for energetic transformations in to matter ( e=mc2) in the 5th dimension are just tendencies to exsist and not the real or the definate events waiting to reveal in our ( 4 dimensional ) reality.

Anais Nin was right when she said that we do not see things as they are but we see them as we are.

The world around us therefore  is our own creation based on our past accumulated feelings notions and experiences.  

After all what we are seeing are projections, only here it becomes a phenomenon because the projected entity is watching another part of the same projection. A movie in which the character is watching the same movie in which he is a part of. weird. Not entirely impossible Vedanta says. 

The explanation that Vedanta gives for this weirdness is that we have a higher self and a lower self. The higher self watches over like an elder brother on the doings of the lower self that enjoys and takes this illusion to be true and develops it with his mind and justifies with his intellect.

Questions and Answers

This blog is my humble attempt to answer the questions in Soul Mate which were published in the Sunday Times of India Mumbai Edition from a different perspective.

In no way does this blog intend to show the answers given in the newspapers as incorrect or incomplete and I understand that we all see and believe in things what our mind wants us to see. In this journey which we are given to call life , it is our desire to know the truth that keeps us feeding with fuel.

Question 1 If the philosophy of Karma is true, then is it right for me to pray to God and ask him to rid me of my miseries?. If my sufferings are a result of my deeds, then do i have the right to pray for my sorrows to be alleviated? I've been struggling with this question for quite some time ?


A Life and Spirit believers reply.


We dont know if the present is a culmination of all our past actions or a prelude of the future.Hence the Karmic theory could be flawed. If we are suffering in the present for our past actions then when in the present do we make our future, since time is singular.Praying to God for eradicating our miseries is natural for us as our relation to Him is of a child to a Father/Mother and we have every right
to cry and ask for favour or to shield us. As to whether the sufferings are a result of our deeds, nobody could answer that as our preview of this universe has been drastically altered by faith shaking theories in physics which believe that the consequence could come first in time and the cause later.

Question 2 I am 25 and have a good job and wealthy family. But everytjing seems utterly futile. Its been a long time since i lost interest and enthusiasm for life.
I started to meditate 10 years ago but that didnt help. Please suggest a practical way to find my real potential and achieve inner peace in my journey through life.

A Life and Spirit believers reply.

It is really surprising that meditation did not give you a glimpse in to the wonderful world that we inhabit and the nature of the spirit behind it.
Probably you are missing something in your life. Could it be the struggle that all of us go through to fulfill our desire ? or the companionship of a friend guide and
co-traveller on your journey ? Well we are only guessing but I am sure if you look inside your SELF, not only would you find the answer but the means to posses it.


Question 3 I am 18 and studying for a B.com degree. I feel that somehow I cant succed at anything, be it academics or my hobbies. I have no confidence in my abilities. I am always beset with negative thoughts. I am a loser who cant do anything in life. I want to be free of negativity. Could you help at all and guide me.?


A Life and Spirit believers reply.

Most probable causes in a teenager and even later in life adults with regards to inconsistencies in their outlook which is sometimes bashful and sometimes gloomy has to do with Wastage or Disipation of Energies by means that give gratification for a small time but take a big cost on our confidence and worth. Negativity usually does not come easily to a strong person who has character and health but negativity uses the weak body to grow and cripples it after use. But all is not lost and a fair realisation of our doings with some amount of thrust can undo all the done in the past