NEETMEDICALGK

By Osho

You don’t know the usefulness of the useless. In fact, the useful is only useful so far. It has a certain utility, but the useless has no limitation to it.

What is the use of a rose flower? No use, but life would be very empty without rose flowers. What is the use of laughter? It is not a commodity; it does not feed people. If you are hungry, it will not help. If you are ill, it will not help, it is not medicine. If you are fighting with somebody it will not help, it is not an atom bomb. Of what use is laughter? That’s why the people who look at life with the eyes of a utilitarian don’t laugh. They don’t love because what use is love? To them it is wastage, a wastage of energy, time, life. To them it is stupid because it is useless. They earn money rather than falling in love, because money is useful. Love has no utility, but love has grandeur and splendour. Without love what is life?Of what utility is meditation? Sometimes people come to me, and they ask, “What will we get out of meditation?” They are thinking of getting some profit, they want some result. And I say to them, “You are not going to get anything out of it.” Meditation is not a means to some end; it is an end unto itself – that’s why it has no utility.

What utility is there in poetry? That’s why in the countries where people become too money-minded, poetry starts disappearing. Have you watched it happening in America? Politicians, rich people, businessmen – they live long; poets die very soon.It was not so in ancient Greece. In ancient Greece, poets, philosophers, mystics lived very long. In India in the past, yogis and meditators lived very long, but now that is not the case any more. Politicians and actors in India live long.

We measure people by their utility, we reduce people into commodities. I’m not saying don’t do anything useful. I’m saying do useful things but remember that the real and the greatest experience of life and ecstasy come out of doing something useless. It comes through poetry, it comes through painting, it comes through love, it comes through meditation. The greatest joy floods you only when you are capable of doing something useless, useless in worldly eyes. Because it can’t be reduced into a commodity, that’s why they call it useless.Now if you invent something, a gadget, you can patent it and you can earn money out of it. But if you write a beautiful poem, you can’t earn any money out of it; it is just wastage. People ask, “What are you doing? Why are you wasting your life?” But writing poetry, if you really have been into it, is a great joy in itself. Nothing else is needed, you are already rewarded. No other extrinsic reward is going to make any difference to you. The reward is inward, intrinsic; it arises out of the activity. Writing poetry, painting, or playing on the flute – they are not utilities.(Abridged from The Wisdom Of The Sands, courtesy: Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com)

When Prized Possessions Gain Immortality

By: Sudhamahi Regunathan

Jan 06, 2022, 16:04 IST

One of the side effects of the pandemic has been that every one, at some time or other, has ‘cleaned’ their house. Looking at all the stuff they have collected they have asked almost innocently, ‘How did we manage to collect so much?’ Suitcases and cupboards full of clothes and other things that one had not even seen for the past few years but could still not be thrown away.

“Our desire to possess says a lot about us,” says psychologist Bruce Hood. “We own so many things that often the garage is full of stuff while the car is standing in the driveway.” Author of ‘Possessed’, a book about possession and the madness to do so, Hood says in an interview, “There is a little demon inside us that is compelling us to go for more and more things. Our need to have more than we actually require is born out of a desire to control.”

It is true that when a child goes to the park with a ball of his own, he becomes the leader to those who have not brought their playing balls. So this desire for the power of control is born rather young. And then we have memories attached to that ball…the first one my daughter played with or the one with which I won a game and so on. We never throw it away.

Does our self-esteem come from these past glories that we need to preserve them all? Does our sense of identity suck in these material objects too?

In the ‘Valmiki Ramayan’, Ram and Sita were preparing to go to the forest on their fourteen-year exile and the first thing that Ram told Sita was, “Now that you have decided to come with me, give away all your belongings.” She began distributing all her jewellery instantly.

Ram instructed Lakshman to collect all his possessions. They made a pretty pile with so much glitter and dazzle. Ram then began distributing them, carefully and with affection. Ram and Sita gave away not only their jewellery but also the livestock in their care, even their furniture.

They looked for the right person for their things. To the young disciples of sages, Ram said enough should be given so that they could pay their guru’s fees and would still be able to get married and manage a life thereafter. He gave to those who would be looking after his mother in his absence. He gave to young women who did not have adequate support and so on.

A man called Trijata was very poor and could not feed his family. He came to meet Ram. His wife had suggested he go ask Ram for she had heard he was distributing his wealth. Ram zested with him by giving him a stick and saying that he would get as many cattle as would fall within the area where his stick fell. Trijata did cover quite a distance, but Ram gave him even more than what fell within that mark.

There have always been many a Trijata around us, would we honour and give a longer life to our precious belongings, if we gave them away with joy in our hearts.

In an interview a few months ago, when asked why he chose to write fiction in an age when there was so much misinformation being propagated both in mainstream as well as social media, Salman Rushdie replied, in effect, that the art form called literature, at its best, creates not falsity but a reality that is truer than many ‘facts’ which dominate present-day discourse, fissured as it is by ideological antagonisms of all kinds. Apart from the virus of fake news that has infected public life, could there be a philosophical underpinning to fiction’s impudent claim to be ‘realer’ than ‘reality’?

The British Empiricists of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as John Locke and David Hume, laid the foundations of modern scientific enquiry by saying that any hypothesis about the nature of reality had to be based on experiment.

However, in the same breath, they also said that our experience of reality was founded on our senses, on our individual sense perception.

So, the colour blue, say, that I experience might be very different from that which you experience, and both may be quite different from what is ‘really’ blue, what is blue in reality. As the contemporary science writer Gary Zukor puts it: “Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our percepts. What we perceive is what we look for. What we look for depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.”

Round and round the mulberry bush. If we are enmeshed in this circularity of thought do we need even more windmills of the mind as represented by quixotic fiction?

Certainly not, proclaimed Plato, the most draconian of censors who wanted to banish all art, starting with poetry and poets, from his ideal Republic. In Plato’s view human life was a pilgrimage from being trapped in the world of false sense perception into the clear light of transcendent knowledge.

To illustrate this, he used the metaphor of a cave in which we are all held as prisoners, chained and facing a wall. Behind us is a fire which casts our shadows on the wall. We perceive this game of shadows to be reality. If we realise the illusory nature of sense perception we can emerge from the cave and bask in the sun of the immutable Idea of the Good. Poets and artists, by luring us with imitations of the Real distract us from this quest, which is why they should be expelled from society.

In her book The Fire and the Sun, the novelist and philosopher, Iris Murdoch, examines Plato’s critique of art and presents an eloquent defence of aesthetic creativity.

The creation and appreciation of art, far from being a form of escapism, creates a bond of empathy between the writer and the reader, the painter and the viewer. “Art,” she concludes,” is a great hall of reflection where we can all meet and where everything under the sun can be examined and considered.”

Which could include the ambiguous irony of Plato using the artistic metaphor of the Fire and the Cave to justify his repudiation of art, which in its limitless freedom of spirit can encompass its own negation.

A Genuine Hug Could Make All The Difference

By: Narayani Ganesh

Dec 14, 2021, 17:41 IST

For those who are grieving – either over the loss of a loved one, loss of, or on hearing news of a tragic copter crash that killed all on board – nothing one says can alleviate the pain and suffering they are going through. In fact sometimes words could have just the opposite effect, of aggravating the state they are in. But there is something in a hug that makes the aggrieved feel less pained, less stressed and less lost.

Scientists say that hugging triggers the release of oxytocin in the body, which is why it is also referred to as the ‘cuddle hormone’. Oxytocin tends to reduce stress and increases happy feelings.This is perhaps why Mata Amritanandamayi began hugging those who came and poured out their problems to her. One warm hug from her and poof! Everything seemed to get better, and the visitor went away feeling that there was someone who really cared and who could feel their pain and empathise with them. This wordless therapy has worked for millions who have met this hugging mother or Hug Ma as she is popularly known.

Scientists who explored ‘how to hug,’ say there are two kinds of hugs performed by strangers. What makes one hug better than another? In the first, “crisscross” style, each hugger puts one arm over their partner’s shoulder and the other arm under their partner’s arm. In the second, called “neck-waist” style, the researcher put both arms under the participants’. In total, each of the 45 female participants in the study received six hugs, each hug lasting for anything between 1.5 seconds to ten seconds.Anna Düren, psychologist at Goldsmiths, University of London, and the study’s first author, says the Covid-19 pandemic began before she and her colleagues could collect mixed gender data in follow-up studies. Nevertheless, part one of the study done in a controlled environment concluded that hugs of a shorter duration were less effective than those of a longer duration, even if the hug was from a stranger.

The experiment’s second phase took place in the real world. Researchers recruited 100 pairs of students observed socializing on campus to hug in public. The team gathered data on gender, height, and how emotionally close the pairs rated themselves.

Without prompting the students on how to hug, it was found the crisscross style was more common, accounting for 66 out of 100 hugs.

Düren says the male-male preference for crisscross hugs was especially interesting because previous work has indicated people feel more egalitarian about this style of hugging. The crisscross, she says, might convey closeness without adding romantic subtext.Hugs don’t just confer emotional closeness; they’ve been shown to improve our mental and physical health. Hug Ma has been hugging visitors for decades now, as a sort of spiritual therapy, and this has never failed to make the hugged feel better. It gives one a sense of being accepted, understood, and empathized with, resulting in a magical effect; hence the moniker in Hindi, ‘jaadu ki jhappi’, magical hug, that leaves one feeling loved, cared for and wanted.

Hugging speaks volumes without having to use words, and is comforting, calming, therapeutic and soothing. So long as the intention is pure and the feelings are altruistic, even hugs from strangers, at a time when you are down and out, can work wonders.

Recently I chanced upon a quote, attributed to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, which intrigued me: “Every man is born as many men, and dies as a single man.”A disciple of the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl who sought to interpret the in-built ‘intentionality’ of human consciousness which makes us invest meaning in the world – an artist will see a mountain as a painting, a tourist as a selfie opportunity, an entrepreneur as a location for a profitable ski resort – Heidegger broke from his mentor to pursue his goal to reconstruct Western philosophy by replacing the abstract foundation laid by Descartes (I think, therefore I am) with the bedrock of ontology, the investigation of Being, what does it mean for something to exist as opposed to not-exist.

In his seminal work Sein and Zeit, Being and Time, Heidegger took human being-in-the-world, which he called dasein, as his starting point to arrive at an understanding of Being. While he had a profound influence on later existential thinkers like Sartre, Heidegger remains one of the most controversial figures in the realm of philosophy. Even as his advocates cite him as the greatest philosopher of the 20th-century, his critics decry him as a fraud, a con man carried away with his own polysyllabic pomposity which makes his abstruse prose impenetrable to even the most devoted of readers.

Heidegger distinguished between what he called ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ existence, between life illuminated with the laser-light intensity of Being and life spent in the busy-ness of social conformity and the give-and-take of everyday transactions. “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers”, as Wordsworth put it.

So, short of renouncing everything and becoming a hermit in the Himalaya, how does one escape inauthencity and experience Being? How does one, as Heidegger wrote, experience “that wonder of all wonders – that things exist”.

Viewing human existence as a journey bounded by the horizon of Time, an odyssey of even-unfolding possibility culminating in the ultimate possibility of death, Heidegger defined ‘authenticity’ as a perpetual awareness of personal extinction.

To constantly be brooding on my demise sounds a proposition which is not just glum but calculated to drive me into terminal depression.

Not so, asserts Heidegger, in language more suitable to mysticism than to philosophy. Far from being a sure-fire formula for the pits of pessimism Heidegger claims that the steadfast contemplation of death liberates the individual from the distraction of daily triviality to ascend to a higher plane of consciousness and experience what Nietzsche called “dancing on the edge of the abyss”.

The seeming paradox Heidegger poses – that Being can be realised fully only through the inevitability of non-Being – is as difficult to assimilate as his obscure, jargon-laden language, which distinguishes between several stages, or levels, of Existence, including one in his later work in which the word is used with a line running through it.

Heidegger is certainly a hard nut to crack. But the kernel of his thinking might be found in the aphoristic quote that all men are born as many, but each man dies as one.

Life begins with an undifferentiated Everyman, who through traversing the manifold pathways of possibilities open to consciousness creates a singular and unique destiny with the termination of that existence, which sums up and gives meaning to the journey in between.

Some call this existentialism. Others might call it dharma.

Saguna Brahmn, Qualified Consciousness, is the cause of the creation of the universe. In other words, the universe has originated from Brahmn.

But if Brahmn or Bhagwan created the universe, a very pertinent question arises about the availability of the material or stuff from which the universe was made. Saguna Brahmn also needs some material to create the universe just as the potter needs clay to make his pots. A potter obtains his clay from the earth. So then has Brahmn also obtained the material from someone else? The material and its owner from whom Saguna Brahmn borrowed it must have existed even before the Brahmn came into being, and that this owner is bigger than Saguna Brahmn has to be admitted.

It has already been accepted that Brahmn is non-causal. Nothing existed before it. And so the material from which the universe is made could not have existed before Brahmn.What could be the material out of which Saguna Brahmn made this universe if nothing existed before or beyond it? The universe, which is so visibly existent, could not have been created out of nothing. The only material available to Saguna Brahmn for creation was its own Self. Hence, it has to be accepted that this creation is only Saguna Brahmn metamorphosed into all that we find in the universe.

The entire universe is formed from Saguna Brahmn. It is only this which is manifested as this creation. To say that Brahmn is present in a book means that the book is a separate entity and Brahmn occupies that entity. This gives the impression of two separate entities – Brahmn and the book which appears to be outside Saguna Brahmn. This is completely incorrect as it has already been established that everything is made of Brahmn; It has assumed the shape of everything. Hence the correct thing to say would be that the book is Brahmn or that It has assumed the shape of a book also. This shows that the book and Brahmn are not two separate entities and that the book did not exist before Brahmn. This alone is the correct expression, for Brahmn is infinite and eternal and nothing can exist beyond or before It. The book could not have existed before Brahmn. In fact nothing could have existed before Brahmn. Every speck of dust is only Brahmn.

Brahmn is the cause of the entire creation and it is the collective name for Prakriti and Purush. Which of the two then forms the creation? Prakriti is a unique force – a principle, the only function of which is to qualify Purush.

Purush cannot perform the tremendous task of giving Prakriti the form of creation. Prakriti does not assume the shape of the creation and it is only Purush who could take these forms. Hence, the stuff of which the entire creation is made is Purush. Prakriti qualifies Purush to give Him different forms and Purush has to follow the designs of Prakriti. For example, a potter shapes a lump of clay according to his designs. The lump of clay is comparable to Purush and the potter who provides the force, to Prakriti. Similarly, Prakriti gives all these shapes to Purush according to Her wish to create this universe.

By Narayani Ganesh

The essence of being human is illustrated beautifully through an Ubuntu proverb in Zulu culture, and this was often recalled by Nobel peace prize awardee and archbishop, Desmond Tutu: “I am a person through other people. My humanity is tied to yours.”

He would explain it as follows: “One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness … We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.” That is, the butterfly effect is as true among peoples of the world as it is true in the intricate web of nature, wherein all beings, animate and inanimate, are closely interconnected.Scholar-researchers Jacob Mugumbate, University of Wollongong, and Andrew Nyanguru, University of Zimbabwe, sum up Ubuntu philosophy as ‘I am because of who we all are.’ Such an attitude would likely lead us to the essence of the summum bonum philosophy that denotes the “fundamental principle on which some system of ethics is based, that is, the aim of actions, which, if consistently pursued, will lead to the best possible life.”Mugumbate and Nyanguru published a paper on the place of Ubuntu philosophy in the study and practice of social work in terms of its impact on ethical and social issues that require deeper understanding coming from a wider, humanistic perspective. Something that is desperately needed, in a world being riven by meaningless divisions and conflicts.When we dehumanise others, we end up dehumanising ourselves, said Tutu, who felt that to heal both spirit and body, one had to learn to look at the positive aspects of any person, group or situation rather than focus only on the negative aspects. Both Tutu and Nelson Mandela stressed on the significance of magnanimity, reconciliation and forgiveness rather than on revenge and retribution. This was the spirit in which the famous Truth and Reconciliation proceedings took place in South Africa to help both victims and perpetrators of the Apartheid to overcome all the unpleasantness and tragedies, inspire forgiveness and herald a new era of hope, faith and love that would lead to peaceful and dignified co-existence.Ubuntu provides one with a strong sense of community “to override divisions and heal the scarred collective psyche”, pointed out Tutu.

What we are as individuals is the sum of all that went before us; of all that we experience now and of all that could possibly happen in the future.

A beautiful Ubuntu practice Tutu often related, involves community members sitting around a person who has committed wrong, and speak of all the good that person has done, focussing on all his positive qualities, for a few days in a row, in a sort of purification, a revelatory ritual. The belief is that all of us are good, but we do sometimes make mistakes, which is really a cry for help. The ritual is intended to help the person reconnect with this true nature – in the belief that “unity and affirmation have more power to change behaviour than shame and punishment.” [email protected])

Ghalib’s Poetry Reveal His Spiritual Radicalism

By: Sumit Paul

Dec 27, 2021, 11:01 IST

One of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib’s couplet that showcases his 'spiritual radicalism' goes like this: ‘Na tha kuchh toh Khuda tha, kuchh na hota toh Khuda hota/Duboya mujh ko hone ne, na hota main toh kya hota’ -- When nothing existed, Khuda did exist, I'd have been Khuda, had I not existed/ My very existence sabotaged that possibility, my non-existence would have made me Khuda.

To the uninitiated, Ghalib was an agnostic, if not an outright atheist. But if you delve deeper, his poetry gives an impression of his profoundly spiritual bent of mind.

Ghalib was intrigued by human existence in the vast expanse of the kainaat, universe. Metaphorically speaking, the couplet defines Advait, non-dualism, of the Eastern consciousness, when the Creator and Creation are not separate entities but one. This couplet of Ghalib serves as a template for modern existential philosophy and solipsism.

Like Allama Iqbal, Ghalib also claimed to think in Persian. Poets with a Persian backdrop have invariably been influenced by the mystical poetry and ideas of the Sufis. At the same time, it's a known fact that Persian mysticism borrowed heavily from the Upanishads and Vedanta. Ghalib underlined that 'merging philosophy' of Eastern consciousness when he wrote, 'Ishrat-e-qatrah hai dariya mein fana ho jaana/Dard ka had se guzarna hai dava ho jaana' -- the glory of a drop is to merge itself in the vastness of the river/ When pain exceeds itself, it becomes its own remedy.

But towards the end of his life, the poet said, 'Khud ko bekhudi se bhi aage le gaya hoon/Khud hi khud mein nihaan ho gaya hoon' -- I've gone beyond the state of self-immersion/I'm lost in myself. This he wrote in a letter to his coeval poet Ibrahim Zauq, who was Emperor Bahadurshah Zafar’s teacher.

According to Ralph Russell, author of 'The Oxford India Ghalib: Life, letters and ghazals,' Ghalib represented true spiritualty that is humaneness and deals with humanity. That's why he could say: 'Bas ke dushvaar hai har kaam ka aasaan hona/Aadmi ko bhi mayassar nahin insaan hona' -- It's just difficult for everything to be so easy/Even a human is unable to evolve into a ‘humane being’. What Aldous Huxley thought of spirituality as 'humans practising humanity with humaneness' in the 20th century, Ghalib said the same a century before him.A nominal Muslim, Ghalib's faith had the conviction of spiritual courage and uprightness of a believer: ‘Bandagi mein bhi woh aazaad-o-khudbeen hain ke hum/Ulte phir aayein dar-e-Ka'aba agar waa na hua' -- Even in worship, I'm so free and emancipated that I'll come back if the doors of Ka'aba don't open for me.

Lastly, Altaaf Hussain Haali Panipati, Ghalib's shaagird, student, wrote in his biography of Ghalib that the poet had completely repudiated the idea of tasawwuf, Islamic mysticism, as dimaghi futoor, an idiosyncrasy of the mind. In one of his Persian couplets, the poet dared ask Jalaluddin Rumi and Hafiz Shirazi, two stalwarts of Persian mysticism, 'Your brand of spirituality is delusional/Step out of your ivory towers and experience God, if at all God does exist.'December 27 is Ghalib’s birth anniversary.

By Sant Rajinder Singh

As the world enters another holiday season against the backdrop of a global pandemic, vacationing in distant lands may not be in the cards.

We usually seek places that are relaxing, enjoyable and beautiful. Yet going on an outer vacation is often stressful. We have to earn money for the trip; book tickets; undergo the rigours of travel, find the right accommodations and food service. Often, we return from a vacation more exhausted than we had left.

However, there is still hope for a different kind of vacation that will leave us refreshed, rejuvenated and happy. A vacation that will fill us with relaxation of our body, mind and spirit, and put us into a state of tremendous love, joy and bliss. What would such a vacation look like?What if we could experience a vacation that did not cost anything and in which we could instantly travel to and experience unimaginable vistas more beautiful than anything ever seen in this world? What if we could tap into a restful peace that washed away our troubles and stayed with us even when we returned from the journey? What if we could take this trip anytime we wanted, as many times as we wished, by just closing our eyes?

This journey is not imaginary. Many enlightened beings and spiritual masters have taken this inner vacation.

It is a vacation where we stay at home and spend our time with God. He is an ocean of joy, happiness, love and bliss. To vacation with the Divine would be to swim in this ocean of happiness. God is available to all of us. It is simply a question of where we focus our attention. If we are continually distracted by the activities of the outer world, we will remain oblivious to the everlasting love and bliss of Supreme within us. Our true self, the soul, rejoices in closeness to God, and we can experience this through meditation.

People have been practising meditation for centuries. Meditation has been proven to benefit both our bodies and minds.

During the day our mind is filled with thoughts. When we sit for meditation and focus our attention, we begin to quieten the mind. We become at peace with ourselves and are not bothered by the problems around us. By meditating regularly, we develop sustained concentration. This increase in concentration coupled with reduced stress and tension, renewed energy, and improved relationships, helps us achieve success in our worldly activities. We become more efficient and productive and are better equipped to deal with life’s challenges.

Meditation is the art of inverting our attention from the world outside to that within. Sightseeing in the physical world may attract our senses with interesting and beautiful sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings. Yet inner sightseeing dazzles us. The inner voyage thrills our soul with bliss, love and joy that far surpass any sensory delights experienced in this physical world. It empowers our soul and we rise into dimensions of higher consciousness. The empowered soul is a tremendous source of wisdom, love and power. This is a purely spiritual experience.

So, this holiday season, rather than focus on the attractions of the outer world, why not take some time to meditate and focus on the joys of the inner world?

Is there a God or not? If there is, give some evidence for its existence. " Admittedly this question dilated upon here, there and everywhere, is not only a difficult question, but strange also because this is asking about something in which millions of people rest their belief and normally, inability is expressed to prove or disapprove scientifically the existence of God. Watching the ways of the world, everyone deplores the animosities that have plagued the society at large merely on the basis of differences in religious labels.The question shares genuine concern of all human beings. The apostles labored hard, the martyrs died in torments, the scholars and scientists proclaimed the beauties of higher life, sociologists untiringly inculcated the sense of duties of good citizen, the philosophers pioneered sublime thoughts and all agreed that God is one and that man's first duty is to know Him as one. Witnessing shocking crash of human values both vertically and horizontally, seeking evidence of God is not the question but answer to the multiple hydra-headed problems defying peace, purity and prosperity throughout the world.

One of the greatest modern psychologists, Sir Jung has described in his book, "Modern Man in search of soul" that among all his patients, there had not been even one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. Great thinker, Augustine of Hippo writes, "Restless are our souls until they rest in Thee, My God. " Life is incomplete without God. If a man loses faith in God, he loses faith in himself. It spells crisis in character resulting in chaos and violence all around.Her Holiness Satguru Mata Sudiksha Ji – Spiritual Head of the Sant Nirankari Mission says that oblivious of their spiritual identity, the people have raised suffocating walls inter-se. They do not go beyond their faith to mix up with each other freely. As a result, there is no mutual love. In the absence of love, there is no reciprocal respect. Lack of respect breeds distrust which ultimately culminates in hatred and violence, causing global turmoil and shocking crash in human values. To reverse the gear from hatred and violence to love and peace, it requires mutual trust between man and man.

Trust presupposes mutual respect borne out of love. Natural love is possible when man treats and tolerates the other man like a brother. Coming to this point, universal brotherhood and emotional oneness of mankind is the utmost need of the day and that is possible to achieve spontaneously and simultaneously through the realization of Fatherhood of God. God is oneAs God is one and omnipresent, He is cosmic and common to all. All the prophets have total agreement on this – God of one prophet is also the God of all other prophets.

Being one, God cannot be divided or sub-divided. Only such a God is to be worshipped. As per the Old Testament, man is made in the image of God, superior to all species having inherent power to know God. The prophets rejected the deadwood of religious rites and put forth the concept of true worshipper. As a social being man needs wisdom which is more valuable than material wealth, making one humble and lovable. The eternal continuity of True Master (Prophets) with their revelation of one Formless God, the process of humanisation and rearrangement of human relations on the basis of love and humility characterise the mainstream of spirituality in the world.

In this background, all the prophets and the acknowledged scriptures are part and parcel of the mainstream of spirituality. The centre of God is everywhere and circumference nowhere. The whole of the universe is stationed in the Omnipresent and the Omnipotent God. (Atharva Veda 19:53:3). TRUE MASTER (Prophet) SATGURUAs the Divine Truth is eternal, so is the True Master (Satguru) to bless the seekers with Divine Knowledge. "Prophet is said to be the oldest and the newest on the earth, like the day and night which have followed each other