Saleel Pulekar

Nature, God and Me Flower, flower rose flower, Who made you so beautiful? Looking at you, the love in me stirs, You make me feel so full. Tree, tree banyan tree, Who made you so huge and endless with care? Looking at you, I feel, I too must share, You bring out the life in me. Sky, sky blue sky, Who made you infinite? Looking at you takes me inside, You make me wonder, Who am I? Who am I?! Well, this poem was written by me in 3 minutes, in a desperate attempt to complete my HW (sitting in class when the others were reading out their's :-) ), while attending the NOVICE TTC last week in the Ashram in Bengaluru. Love n Jai Gurudev Saleel Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from !DEA

Ved Vyasa once felt that even after blessing the humanity with the storehouse of knowledge, Mahabharata and the rules of conduct, the four vedas, he had not done enough.  He felt  that his work didn't grant him satisfaction. Then sage Narada came to his rescue and told him that even though he was interested in the welfare of the world through his works, there was a drawback. Mahabharata talks about Dharma, righteousness in action and the vedas tells about Karma Yoga, the rules of conduct. But none has the 'Exclusive' praises of the Lord. In all his works, the Lord was 'Incidentally' praised. There was no single-mindedness in his devotion. Narada told him,  "the praises of Narayana even if they are sung out of tune, will assure man of the Grace of the Lord.The easiest path to the Lord is that of Bhakti. So sing the praises of Narayana. Let nothing come from the your lips except words of praise describing the glory of Narayana and you will find Peace. Unveil to t...

This time, We all felt really lucky to have Saleel Bhaiya in our weekly Saturday YES!+ follow up, who talked about “ DESIRES ”. Now, the knowledge in itself is so profound and when told by a teacher like him, in such a practical manner, gets understood easily. Ref: Knowledge Sheet 135: You are pure Electricty, on Pg 177 in 'An Intimate Note to the Sincere Seeker' by H H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Saleel bhaiya talked about the electric nature of desires for sensory pleasures- whenever a desire arises, one can feel an intense sensation inside. He gave an example which every youth can relate to – ice-creams!! J As by the power of electricity, trains, machines etc. can be moved, the inner electricity can pull the whole body! Just the thought of having ice-cream creates such a powerful pull. It can make the whole body move to the ice cream parlor! All the distortions - Lust, greed, jealousy etc. are powerful because they are energies/electric in nature...

In the second week of April, I had an interaction with YES!+ participants on the last day of their course. I thought of sharing one of the conversations on the blog. Student : I had watched the silver jubilee celebration of 'The Art of Living'  few years back. But i felt it was too much wastage of money. The money could have been used elsewhere effectively. Don't you think so? Me : You know how many people came to attend that event? 2.5million. They meditated together and only God knows how many people were healed. Had they been told that they have to come and meditate together. How many would have come? Very few. That's why they were told that there's a big Celebration and actually there was :-) So many people came to know about Art of Living through this event. And so many lives got transformed. Student : But why so much spending? It was un-necessary Me : Why are you wearing that watch?   Student : To check time Me : Don't you have a mobile phone?   Studen...

In your presence, all my problems just seem to vanish and automatically a smile appears on my face. Your warmth and love makes me feel that I am the most special person on this earth. You have inspired me to give my 100% in basketball and I am very thankful to you for that. I love your sense of humor, your acting, singing and the way you talk to people. You are a true inspiration bhaiya. I would love to imbibe all these qualities from you and become a better person in life. - Chinmayee, Delhi   You have helped me find out what I want in my life.I have learned a lot from you. But these two are my 'Special' learnings. Never do anything to escape from the situation rather face it. Follow your passion and more than following your passion, follow that thing which is made for you. For me, you are a friend, mentor, Guru. I love you. Thanks for being there darling. :) - Arjun, De...

This incident happened about a few years back when Guruji was in Narayana Hall, the old side of Art of Living Bangalore ashram, conducting a session for teachers, just after the Navratri Celebrations. All doors and windows had been closed while the session was going on and it was all jam packed inside. Suddenly a lady who was late for the session and couldn't manage to get inside called out to Guruji and said "Guruji, andar walo ko bahar bhejo mujhe andar aana hai.." Guruji with a wink in his eyes replied, "Main bhi to tumse kabse yahi keh raha hun." When you are Hollow and Empty, you give a chance to the Divine to fill you up. Fill you up with? With beauty and bliss!! Jgd :-)

We have a very famous bhajan in The Art of Living. "Nikunj me biraaje Ghanshyam Radhe Radhe", a song from the KRISHNA album. The lyrics of this song give such wonderful knowledge. The song says, "Nikunj me biraaje Ghanshyam Radhe Radhe,  Ghanshyam Radhe Radhe tu Shyam se mila de,  Radhe Radhe, Shyam mila de,  Shyam mila de, Radhe Radhe" Meaning: The 'Best' way to get to the man is through his girlfriend/wife. So, if you want to meet Krishna go through Radha or become Radha. So who is this Radha? What is this Radha? Where is this Radha? Can I get her phone no. or atleast her email id? Can I add her as a friend on facebook?  :-) Ok. Ok. Relax! Don't Panic. Whatever is happening to you right now is 'DHARA'.   The mind is pulled by the five senses. The eyes want to see. The ears want to hear. The nose wants to smell. The tongue wants to taste. The skin wants to touch. This mind flowing outwards is DHARA. And RADHA is the reverse, the mind flowing inw...

It is said “Bachche bhagwan ka roop hain”. Every child is Divine. So we are born as God but as we start observing ‘Human beings’, we start becoming more and more human. The element of Divinity starts getting lost and more and more of the human aspect creeps in. But we don’t stop there. The seeds of corruption, greed, lies, competition are sowed in us by our very own dear PARENTS and they ensure that the seed is watered, manured and fertilized. They tell us to be first in the class, to eat the entire tiffin  and keep all good things with us without sharing. When someone else starts getting more than us, we are taught to be jealous. And this is how we are demoted further from Human beings to ‘Rats’. We enter the vicious 'RAT-RACE'. On one hand we say, these are my friends and on the other hand, we compete with them, we pull them down. As we grow up, we become ‘DOGS’. We join some company as Employees. We do ‘NAUKRI’. Like a dog has a master and t...

The Vrindavan trip had something special about it. The way it got organized and the way things unfolded without any plan whatsoever, was wonderful to witness. Here is how Anjesh has described it. All of a sudden at 9 in the night, we, the 'Super-Enthusiastic' YES!+ volunteers planned a trip to Vrindavan the very next morning at 6. Bharat and Swati Gupta took the charge of organising the entire trip and they did an outstanding job. There were in all, 18 bright smiles (Neha, Bharat, Swati, Anjesh, Sonal, Mukul, Varun, Sanjana, Simran, Vrinda, Yajur, Tripra, Sajida, Richa, Deepak..to name a few) and 1 brightest smile (Saleel bhaiya's) going in a cute little mini-bus. And another bright smile(Sanampreet) was following  on a bike. We started playing Antakshri to begin with...Saleel bhaiya found it more noisy than musical and asked us to play Dumb-cherades and then the game was taken to levels unheard of. That is, we played Shabdakshri, guessing the tune, singing one song's w...