Unlimited Bliss in a Miserable World

After boarding our London-Johannesburg flight on 27 May 2010 I struck up a conversation with one of the flight attendants named Rod Culliford. I thanked him for not being on strike because this helped prevent our flight from being cancelled. (Many British Airways flight attendants are on strike now, causing many flights to be cancelled.) Although he is working in spite of the strike I could understand by his response that he was not that happy with his situation. And when I mentioned to him that the material world is a miserable place, I was surprised how he immediately agreed. I could understand that I was speaking with a deeply thoughtful person.

So I took the opportunity to explain to him how all or our miseries are caused by misidentification with our temporary material bodies. The reality is that no matter how well situated someone may be in this material world they must ultimately succumb to the misery of having everything that they are attached to ripped away from them at the time of death. I explained to him that the key to being always happy in spite of all varieties of miserable situations is to revive one's eternal all-blissful spiritual identity as an individual spiritual being by reconnecting with the Source of our existence, the Supreme Person. This process does not require us to switch from one religion to another. It simply requires that we meditate deeply with love and devotion every day on the holy names of God. We prefer to chant:

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

But anyone from any religion can chant according to the names of God from their own scriptures. Even the skeptics can try chanting as an experiment to experience the amazing transformational effects that it will have on their consciousness.

We certainly wish Rod the best for achieving the unlimited bliss of self-realization in this lifetime.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

27 May 2010 Conversation with
British Airways Flight Attendant Rod Culliford
En route from London to Johannesburg

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Questions: Divorce in the Vedic Culture?

Of late men and women of this century are regularly applying for divorces in the court of law. Does our Vedic culture permit this?

Anil Kumar

Answer: They Wouldn't Even Dream of It

In Vedic culture there is no thing as divorce because in Vedic culture marriage is so pleasing and satisfying that there is no question of divorce. Vedic culture is based on the spiritual conception of existence in which one derives unlimited pleasure by doing everything for the pleasure of the Supreme Person. It is in this spirit that one conducts his married life. Thus there is no question of dissatisfaction.

Our modern day culture is just the opposite. It is based on the pleasure of the material senses, and because the senses, like fire, are never satisfied no matter how much you give them gratification, in the modern day culture as soon as our senses get a little tired of enjoying one thing we want to switch the object of enjoyment to something else or, as in the case of divorce, to someone else.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari