#prarabdha

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For those who do not intend to destroy the letters (of destiny) by scrutinizing where they were born who have learnt the letters (of the scriptures), what is the use of (their) having learnt (those) letters? They have (merely) acquired the nature of a sound-recording machine. Say, O Sonagiri (Arunachala), the knower (of reality), who else (are they but mere sound-recording machines)?

~ Reality in Forty Verses - Supplement (Ulladu Narpadu - Anubandham), V. 35

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Note: The writings of destiny or prarabdha, can be destroyed for ever only by destroying the ego, the experiencer of prarabdha. The only purpose of reading the letters of the scriptures is to learn the path by which one can destroy the ego, and to strengthen in one the liking to destroy the ego. Therefore those who have no intention to destroy the ego learning the letters of the scriptures will be of no use. Instead of attaining the egoless state of self abidance, such people will only attain the proud state of being able to repeat whatever they have learnt like a sound – recording machine.

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My friend and I were taking a walk around our hostel and as we returned to gate of hostel , he said “oh look ! We are at our prarabdha”. Unable to curb my curiosity I asked him what are you talking about and I know about it but that’s not what it is. And then we took few more circles around the hostel and discussed about it at length but our discussion amounted to nothing concrete. I went back to my room , browsed on the Internet and search through library books. Prarabdha which can closely relate to an English word inception or conception. If our life is a circle, it’s perhaps the start point of it. How we all are closing the circle of our life. How we are becoming what we hated about our life the most. I remember when I was learning bicycle and it was 6th day, I was passing by a gigantic pothole which was a usual site back then if you live in Agra. I started hundred metre from the pothole and then braced my shoulders before bicycle tyres rolled on that ten inch space beside the pothole. But I was not content so I turned around and took another chance. This time as tyres reached that ten inch space , my hands trembled and my legs stopped paddling. Perhaps my whole nervous system got corrupted and the next moment I found myself inside this puddle of muddy water. Luckily, pothole was not that deep and I could stand on feet but my left calf got rubbed with the side of pothole but I jumped up to my feet and picked up my bicycle and went to home. Soon I realised a trickle of blood was also finding its way through my forehead to my cheeks and then dripping from my chin. I went to my parents and first they got shocked and worried but when I told them what happened they seemed awfully relieved. Deep furrowed lines on my father’s forehead faded away. My mom said ‘oh finally you’ve learnt bicycle’ I said ‘no, I failed mom. Perhaps you didn’t listen.’ My father “but that’s how learn son.” That was the time I was not familiar with the concept of how you have to go through hell fire before reaching heaven. But still I hated that how they believed that learning pattern for everyone is same and I hated how confident and condescending they were about it. They saw patterns in every thing in my life and theirs. And now I see myself how I’ve become the same person as my parents used to be. The ideas that I rejected so outrightly that i called a bundle of napkins not even worthy of wiping my ass. But that’s what I was taught in my childhood and partially believed in the cosmic way universe works without knowing the philosophy of it. now too as the circle of life is closing , I’m getting to believe everything and become all those things that I hated about my parents. l’m starting to see pattern in everything that happens with me.

There was one more incident that deepens my belief in closing the circle of life. I think most us had that idea of running away from our home and never coming back. I too had thought and done it numerous times. There was one time when we four siblings were spending our summer vacations at our paternal aunt’s house and father came to visit us. My aunt served snacks and tea for him. I was gnawing at nugget sitting at one corner of the table and my sister staring at me with her bloodshot eyes reminding me my mannerism. But that really hit hard my pride and gate was at height from the ground so I took a plunge into the street and make my way to an unexplored road. Before anyone can fathom what happened I had already crossed the last familiar street and completely lost in a labyrinth. There was only one thought in my mind that is to make my family suffer more and then blame my sister for my psychotic venture. With each turn, roads were transforming into a hazy maze. But then I see a building garnished with blue tiles as its façade. I was in a street that I’ve never been before but I was completely acquainted with the sight in front of me. I saw my cousin running towards me. I looked back and forth making my face flutter like a leaf in heavy wind. I was perplexed whether to execute my long thought plan or recede to the desire of me getting another bite of that snack. Then I felt a tight grip on my shoulders. My cousin had grabbed me with both his hands and picked me up like a trophy as a sign of his victory. But I know that wasn’t his victory rather my surrender to the taste of hand made nuggets that my aunt served.

Om Namo Bhagavathe Sri Arunachala Ramanaya

“You dragged me into the Heart, so that expired in the Siva-ocean of true jnana. Praise be to you!” ~  Sri Muruganar

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THE PRACTICE OF THE TRUTH

Do not determine God’s Grace merely by the achievement of various kinds of prosperity [such as wealth, health and so on], which come as a result of meritorious deeds [punyas], but only by the peaceful clarity of consciousness, which is devoid of all mental anxieties, which are caused by forgetfulness [of Self].

in “Guru Vachaka Kovai” - The Garland of Guru’s Sayings, by Sri Muruganar,  Chapter 60, Practice (Nididhyasana) - Verse 753

Sadhu Om:

Ignorant people often think that they have obtained God’s Grace merely because they are provided with different kinds of worldly well-being such as wealth and health. But these are not the correct signs of God’s Grace, since they are given to one merely because of one’s own punyas, that is, they are the result of prarabdha [1]. The state of Jnana, in which one knows Self and thereby abides in unbroken peace, devoid of miseries, alone is the true sign of God’s Grace. It is also to be noted here that the peaceful clarity of Self-consciousness, which was said in verse 751 to be "the ultimate goal of tapas", is said in this verse to be the true sign of God’s Grace.

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‘Just as dream and magic…’ (19) - (Un)reality of the world.

[From: “Mountain Path”, July 1981, Pg 154; from “Conversations with Bhagavan” by Swami Madhavatirtha, extracts from the text - on persistent questioning of Shri Bhagavan on the (un)reality of the world; Also in “Surpassing Love & Grace”, Pg 142]

Bhagavan: It is not necessary to think of the view of other seers. Those others are only in your imagination. Know the one seer and all will be well. In a dream, many are seen, but they are all in the imagination of the one seer. When you wake up from the dream, the dream and those seen in the dream will take care of their own prarabdha.

Q: Is it a fact that dreams arise because of impressions received during the waking state?

B: No, it is not true. In your dream, you see many new things and many new people whom you have never seen before in your waking state. You may even see a second dream within the dream. After waking up from the second dream, you feel that you have woken up, but that is the waking state of the first dream. In the same way, man wakes up daily, but it is not to a real waking state.

Q: Why does the waking state look so real?

B: We see so much on the cinema screen, but it is not real; nothing is real there except the screen. In the same way, in the waking state, there is nothing but Adhisthana. Jagrat-prama (knowledge of the world) is the prama of jagrat-pramata (knowledge of the knower of the world). Both go away in sleep.

Q: Why do we see such permanency and constancy in the world?

B: It is seen on account of wrong ideas. When someone says that he took a bath in the same river twice, he is wrong because when he bathed for the second time the river was not the same as it was when he bathed for the first time. On seeing the brightness of a flame, a man says that he sees the same flame, but this flame is changing every moment. The waking state is like this. The stationary appearance is an error of perception.

Q: Whose is the error?

B: Pramata (the knower)

Q: How did the knower come?

B: On account of the error of perception. In fact, the knower and his misperceptions appear simultaneously, and when knowledge of the Self is obtained, they disappear simultaneously. Just as in a dream, a false knower, knowledge and known rise up, in the waking state, the same process operates. In both states, on knowing this ‘I’, you know everything, and nothing remains to be known. In deep sleep knower, knowledge and known are absent; in the same way, at the time of experiencing the true ‘I’, they will not exist. Whatever you see happening in the waking state happens only to the knower, and since the knower is unreal, nothing in fact ever happens.

Q: After waking from sleep, why does the world of the previous day appear the same?

B: The world seen on the previous day was not real. It was the knowledge of an unreal knower; similarly, the world of the next day is also the knowledge of an unreal knower. Truly there is no real world. What appears separate from us is called by us “the world”. It appears separate to us due to ego-consciousness (ahamkara). When ahamkara goes there is nothing separate and then there is no world. Time also arises from pramata (the knower). Because pramata is not real, time also is not real.

— Source: Blog “You have been told; why have you not realized?” - http://bhagavan-sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.pt/2013/02/just-as-dream-and-magic.html

Arunachala Hill - photo gallery - sriramanamaharshi.org 

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      Thou art Thyself the One Being, ever aware as the selfluminous Heart! In Thee there is a mysterious power (shakti). From it proceeds the phantom of the mind emitting its latent subtle dark mists, which illumined by Thy light reflected on them, appear within as though whirling in the vortices of prarabdha(*). Later developing into the psychic worlds, they are projected without as the material world and transformed into concrete objects which are magnified by the outgoing senses and move about like pictures in a cinema show. Visible or invisible, O Hill of Grace, without Thee they are nothing!

~ Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi  Eight Stanzas To Sri Arunachala (Sri Arunachala Ashtakam), V. 6

(*) Prarabdha: That portion of the sanchita karma, a collection of past karmas, which influences human life in the present incarnation

Guru Vachaka Kovai (The Garland of Guru’s Sayings) by Sri Muruganar - V. 151

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"Poverty is itself cancer." – This hard-hitting tagline defines PRARABDHA, a deeply moving film directed by Mr. Anand Ramesh Deodeshmukh. The film tells the emotional story of a single father struggling to save his daughter after she is diagnosed with cancer, highlighting how poverty makes survival even harder for the underprivileged.

For his brilliant storytelling and impactful direction, Mr. Deodeshmukh won The IndieFilm Award for Best Direction in 2024. His work not only touches hearts but also sparks awareness about the harsh realities of healthcare inequality.

In a dusty village where ancient myths still whisper through banyan leaves and miracles hide in plain sight, four bumbling thieves set out on what seems like an easy score: robbing the ashram of the enigmatic Jaggu Baba, a guru cloaked in rumor, riddles, and a hint of the supernatural.

But this is no ordinary holy man — and his ashram is no ordinary target.

What begins as a petty heist spirals into a riotous, mind-bending journey filled with bizarre visions, surreal twists, and absurdly hilarious chaos. As the thieves descend deeper into Baba's world of illusions, they're forced to face not just his secrets — but their own inner contradictions and long-buried truths.

A sharp blend of satire, suspense, and spiritual mischief, Jaggu Baba Aur Chaar Chor is a wild tale of faith and folly — a reminder that sometimes, the biggest cons lead to the deepest awakenings.