e-the-real

 It is natural for a person to love one’s own family and the people around and develop some attachment or bonding with them. It is also natural to covet some relationships and cherish some others. Next, it is an instinctual feeling to acquire or even amass material possessions just for the family. Here the family is taken as an extension of self or ego. This bondage tends to harden to an extent that it becomes a passion, selfishness, forbearance of malice, sheepishness, and defiance among other undesirable things that are harmful to the conscience when in excess. At one point in time, these traits will become obstacles when one attempts to achieve something big or entertain a higher objective in life. This is when the person gets bogged down and becomes helpless to move forward because he or she sinks into self-doubt and begins to wonder if they can discard their human ties which are but chains in prison cells to be freed from. This is the stage just as the crossroads or Hamletian dilemma. Here is the need for a guru or master to deliver the person with self-doubt from out of the living morass. Again, to get the best advice from one’s chosen master, he/she seeking clarity has to submit himself or herself completely to the guru. Only then the master will be in a position to give the needed advice to such keen and willing disciple and prepare the latter battle-ready. The disciple, in turn, imbibes the new knowledge from the guru as if it's the manna from heaven and executes what is counseled to him or her in letter and spirit. Here the eligibility of the disciple and the competency of the master are doubtless concerning belief, faith, and trust. That solution from the guru which brings the pupil from out of the eternal dilemma is nothing but a prasad or medicine whose price is fixed in the form of one’s submission or prayer or the ardent call expressed to god. Successful implementation or even sincere attempt to follow the laid down dharma principles from ages down the line which only determine what is right and what is not right. This alone translates into deliverance of the soul or gives moksha. In other words, it is the essence of the Bhagavad Geetha. What ought to be followed without question in so far as it is dharma or faith or religion must be the aim of all. All faiths are founded on this basic principle to give humans some practice to attain peace and obtain objectives in life and beyond without the need to nurture uncertainty in pain, poverty, disease, and advanced later life or beyond in this otherwise mysterious life ridden with morass or Maya/ illusion of the world.