Life was a routine all along, doing mundane jobs through the day, and going to sleep, only to wake up the next day and follow the same old schedule day after day. But as the lockdown put a stop onto the routine, it gave me time to take a pause and reflect on a few questions that I asked myself:

•What is the purpose of my life,
•what is an ideal lifestyle for me,
•what should be my immediate goals,
•what is the significance of spiritualiy in life.

Fortunately, during this lockdown period, I hooked onto the online satsang channel of Pujya Deepakbhai which helped me change my perspective on number of things.

First and foremost, I realized that, be it lockdown or otherwise, while we laymen waste our time and life on trivial things, Gnanis make the maximum of it by constantly praying for the well-being of every living being.

In the present situation of the spread of Corona virus, Pujya Deepakbhai says that he is constantly praying so that the difficulty that has come onto this world finishes peacefully. And during this hour of difficulty, with great compassion in his heart, he guides each one of us and teaches how to deal with the fear that storms our mind in such situations. He says,

“Whatever is destined will happen. For example a stone weighing 10kgs is destined to fall upon us.
Now, the anxiety that we develop prior to it happening, “What will happen if it hurts me? If I die, what will happen? what will happen? what will happen?...”- this multiplies the suffering! We don’t want to multiply our suffering. ‘If calamity has dawned upon me, I will face it with strength and stability. This is a circumstance; it will give its fruit and go away. Nothing will happen to me.’ - if we hold onto this understanding and remain positive, we can minimize our suffering.” He says, “By worrying, we are only giving an invitation to miseries, saying, ‘Please come. Come, come!’”

This changed my perspective altogether, from worldly to that of spiritual, from negative to highly positive. And I too started praying for every living being in this world. The teachings of Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan say, “The purpose of life is to serve others. And our intention should be to lessen other people’s misery.” Owing to the lockdown, I cannot contribute as the Covid warriors do, but atleast I can pray for peace and well-being of all. Bearing this perspective in mind, I feel really nice when I do these prayers and hence have included it in my daily routine now.

At the end of each satsang, Pujya Deepakbhai also gives daily homework on some topic, which is quite relevant for our day-to-day life, more so in this situation of lockdown. Eg. one of the homework was, ‘take adjustment with family’, another related one was ‘strive to make your parents happy’, where he explained,...

Life is to be lived for the happiness of others
Due to lockdown, situation has so arisen that we have to remain at home 24/7 with everyone. Now, there are two ways to meet this situation. 1. where we get disturbed over little things, express our irritation before family members, say anything to them and disturb them as well. 2. Or at home, in our interactions with any family member, our dealing is in a manner that our family members become happy. If we learn to use the key ‘Adjust Everywhere’, we are able to accomplish the latter.

We must try our best to ensure that our loved ones do not get hurt, we do not give our elders a reason to raise their voice and shout at us, no family member experiences suffering because of us, we assist everyone in some way or the other by doing little jobs for them or working with each other and completing some task together & if we come across a situation we do not like, we arrive at a solution

We find out ways to stay with each other lovingly such that we don’t raise our voices at each other, we don’t get upset and angry; or else while staying all day home, the environment at home will get spoilt. Children will not like it, there will be conflict between husband and wife too, and we will all hurt each other. We instead want to pass days in a way that we do not clash with each other and we all remain in happiness. We keep taking adjustments thinking about how we can all remain in happiness, how we can help each other, etc. If possible do aarti, do bhakti, work on solutions that keep the environment in happiness. And in case we’ve hurt any of our family member, got into heated arguments or come into friction with them, then we will immediately seek pardon from them”

This helped me change my perception of how to live life. We invest so much of time in learning about how to make our lifestyle the best. But Pujya Deepakbhai’s simple words, “In the lockdown situation, since we all have to stay at home, we must take adjustments with each other” made me resolve that not only lockdown, ‘Adjust Everywhere’ is going to be my style of life throughout!

Free Time Is Best Utilized When Used For Clearing Our Faults
Lockdown has brought along good amount of free time for many of us. I want to utilize this time as Pujya Deepakbhai recommends to. This is the immediate goal in my life.

We all want to live a happy life; life that is free of sufferings; that is free of errors, isn’t it?! But how? Pujya Deepakbhai explains, “In any suffering we get, we must know that the other person is not at fault.” We are bound by our own mistakes and these are the mistakes due to which we suffer. Therefore, he teaches us what to do when we end up making a mistake. He says, “When we get upset, irritated or fed up, we must check in what situation we got disturbed and reset the understanding that, ‘I want to adjust with the other person, I want to stay with love between each other. I don’t want to get irritated; I don’t want to get into blaming or finding faults with each other.”

“And then, analyze what affected me - my attachment, my expectations, my possessiveness, what was it? Why did I get suffering? On analysis, we are able to see number of faults. And then as we clean them, we start becoming free from the bind of our faults.

He throws further light on how we hurt others, and also shows how we can mend the hurt. He says, “We hurt others when we’ve been insistent about something, we keep accusing them for something or the other, we go ahead and hurt them in order to get things our way, we get angry and furious over them, we overrule their viewpoint and term it wrong, we do not fulfil their expectations, etc.

Of these, whatever faults we are able to see, for those we must pray to God residing in the person whom we‘ve caused hurt saying, “Oh God! I have made this mistake. Please forgive me. And give me strength so that I do not repeat this mistake.” And finally, for the mistakes we are unable to recollect at the moment, we overall pray to that person, “In this life and in prior countless of lives, whatever mistakes I have committed towards you through my attachment or hatred, please forgive me.”

As our fault gets clear, we feel very light and happy and since we repented, our vibrations reach the other person and he too feels good for us.

The lockdown and the simultaneous online satsang of Pujya Deepakbhai I got during this period of lockdown has changed my life altogether. It has triggered my interest in spirituality. I want to progress on the spiritual path now, so that I can give good meaning to my life!

Please visit: www.dadabhagwan.org for more insight..

Author's Bio: 

Ambalal M. Patel was a civil contractor by profession. In June 1958, spontaneous Self-Realization occurred within Ambalal M. Patel. From this point on, Ambalal became a Gnani Purush, and the Lord that manifest within him became known as Dada Bhagwan. A Gnani Purush is One who has realized the Self and is able help others do the same. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan used to go from town to town and country-to-country to give satsang (spiritual discourse) and impart the knowledge of the Self, as well as knowledge of harmonious worldly interactions to everyone who came to meet him. This spiritual science, known as Akram Vignan, is the step-less path to Self-realization.