Ch. Maharaj in campus

Got a telephone call from SMu at about 12 noon, the day before yesterday...that Ch. Maharaj is coming to IIT campus at 3-3:30 pm. Will stay for one hour or so. Our alumnus Vin. of www.parivaar.org and a team is accompanying. He is interested to talk to all study circle members. The time was short. Still there was a good gathering. JS was out of station. But many others came. We had discussion in dept. seminar room. Maharaj was very very inspiring.

Some of the points that comes to my mind now are :

1. We often complain that we don't have sufficient time to look within-It is like that wood cutter who need to work entire day with his blunt axe to amass certain amount of wood for his living and thus has no time to sharpen it.

2. The difference between an intelligent and meditative mind-Intelligence : to be able to focus outside, meditative mind can focus inside which is very impportant specially after one attains the age 25-26, faces failures or unexpected turn of events which in most of the cases unavoidable.

3. On rat race, career : There is no competition - each one is runnig in his own track. We will get slower if our attention diverts o other track. Best if we have that faith - I am what God wants to make out of me.

4. Our role is to introduce Swami Vivekananda to newcomers. Rest will be done by Swamiji himself.

5. We need to start with Swamiji as Sri Ramakrishna is too simple to understand. Sri Ramakrishna was careful enough to give different prescription to different kind of people with different level of preparedness. Swamiji is straight forward. Speaks what is right without inhibition.

6. Sri Ramakrishna - sutra, Ma Sarada- demonstration, Swamiji - bhasya.

7. Need activity to keep young people engaged. Field trip is a good option.

8. Should have closed door discussions with young monks visiting the campus rather than discussions in open forum with large gatherings.

In the evening we had study circle at SBh's residence from 7 to 8 pm. SMu explained few things with nice examples. I tried to focus on practical, implementation aspect and consciously remove theoretical overtone of the erstwhile discussion.