Complaining, Criticising and Comparing

I have gone through various comments in the recent posts written and published by Swami ji. A common line of thought that I found everyone mentioning is that whenever they speak of Swami ji some or most of them for that matter hear taunts about Swami Ji’s teachings to the effect that ‘What is this Om Swami teaching you?’. Please note the word this Om Swami. That’s because those who ask this question do it out of ignorance and not because they wish to know more about our beloved Guru. Before anyone jumps to conclusion – the above is my paraphrased version of the comments I had read. 

The first teachings of Swami ji has been removing the 3Cs of my life. I had a consistent habit of complaining about my life’s happenings to my mother. She would empathise and sympathise as a loving mother would do. I thought I was sharing. But there is a fine line between sharing your problems and /or complaining. To be honest, I was in immense pain and difficulty. I am alive due to his grace. But there is no room for justifying one’s wrong traits. N.B. – This does not mean you won’t discuss about your problems with a friend / companion or a therapist. I want to rise above my negative thought processes, hence the attempt to describe this. You know what happens when you complain everytime? You lose your spiritual power. You lose spiritual consciousness. As a result, all of the pujas / worshipping that I was doing, was actually not being able to give me the desired effects. It was just flowing out of my system. Let me give you an example – you know why they say one should use aasan to sit upon while doing Sadhana? The answer in simple words is to conserve the energy that you are building through Japa / Sadhana.  When you are doing japa – you are building your energy. If you don’t use an aasan you will be unable to conserve the said energy. Using the above example – we can truly appreciate the fact that if you are worshipping / performing Sadhanas and also complaining about your life – how will the effects of worshipping or the Sadhana stay? The effects of one’s practices will not show. The energy one builds, flows away by one’s consistent complaints. I have learnt to be grateful and express gratitude to the divine through various difficult times of my life as well. It’s all his divine grace that he is moulding this daughter of his. 

In the past I have criticised people, situations / circumstances, myself among various other things. In the past 10 years I have hardly ever cribbed about my food. I am extremely grateful to whosoever prepares my food. I value the effort that is put into making of the food. I value the fact that I get food to eat whereas millions would be going to sleep without getting the night’s meal. Having said that in the last decade, my criticism about circumstances, people or myself has happened. However, after having come under my beloved Swami Ji’s umbrella, criticism has slowly vanished from my system. I always look for a brighter thing about whatever has happened in a particular circumstance or perhaps Swami ji has his own way of making a particularly difficult situation come around and be in my favour. The sceptic would say ‘What rubbish’! Let me validate – though I hardly like to explain or justify my beliefs to anyone. But let me give it a shot. As I had stated before, I suffered from typhoid in April this year. My fever was 103. I prayed to Swami ji as I was all alone dealing with this situation. Everyone at home was very worried. One night I received a lot many missed calls from home, because nobody would get to know if I collapsed here where I stay. I, somehow developed the courage to book a flight ticket to go home. Thereafter, I chanted Maha Mrityunjay Mantra and got dressed. I was unable to get up from bed. But just about managed and put 2-3 sets of Kurtis in my bag and left for home. I was apprehensive of my high fever and the checking going on in the airports in that month due to a sudden rise in Covid Cases in Delhi. I left it at his holy lotus feet. Nobody checked me. I travelled peacefully and reached home. Got my tests done and got to know it was typhoid. Would you believe that my typhoid got cured in 2- 3 weeks or so? Though the effects of typhoid stays and I still feel a bit weak every now and then. But I had only one tablet each across those days. Coming back to the point, I was grateful to the almighty because it certainly could have been worse. There you go, criticism gone. 

Many a times in life, we are pitted against different people either professionally or personally. I have had to deal with comparisons at various junctures of my life. Many a times, I felt bad when I was showed in good light against a person who was pitted against me. It may have felt good momentarily but it drains energy out of your system. In the times before I got to know Swami ji, on many occasions I placed myself in the lowest rung of the ladder. However, the said scenario was erroneous on so many levels because it was my mind playing games and I feel it’s not true. Even if it’s true, I’d like to believe the opposite. Guess what? – it’s called the Om Swami effect.  The result was a whole lot of insecurity and unhappiness. Any sort of comparison that makes you feel worthless is not worth anything in life. I don’t remember comparing myself to anything or anyone in life after Swami ji came into my life. I have never felt like comparing. It just organically got removed out of my system. Now there you go, complaining, criticising and comparing – all got churned out of my system. 

Now, time for the good news and the bad news. Good news is that I am able to follow the above 90% – 95% of the times, the bad news is that I have not reached 100% yet. Now the good news is that self purification is an ongoing everlasting process and the bad news is that one can never become complacent. 

I offer my gratitude and my prostrate obeisance to my Guru, my Lord and my Master without whose grace I am nothing. As I always say Swami ji, I am dust beneath your feet. Don’t shake this dust off. I am hoping you will never abandon or forsake me as I am indeed trying so that oneday you will be proud of me. I have got a lot of awards in my life – but nothing would be bigger than you saying ‘Mahamaya, I am proud of you’. 

Love and gratitude to all of you,

Mahamaya