I have grown up with my maternal grandmother. We seven cousins, lived with her and life was filled with fun and joy. She left her sweet doll like physical frame and I not only miss her more each passing day but yearn for those days where living with my brothers and sisters, cocooned in the womb of happiness and laughter, each day was a celebration.

There were a few things my grandmother spoke about and truly it made no sense when I was a kid, and I would scratch my head and tell her, ‘granny you are so funny’, but now all that she would tell me or bless me with, makes so much sense, that it brings an ache to my rather battered heart. I will write about one such philosophy which was consistently drummed into my fat thick head.

She would always tell me, “remember always think positively, think good thoughts, speak good words, and always wish well for others as God once a day says Amin and as we don’t know when S(H)e says Amin, you need to be always careful bachha“.

And I remember always telling her, “but why does S(H)e say Amen just once and why in Heaven does not S(H)e have a fixed time to say Amen”.

 And she would laugh, her tummy going up and down and tell me, “oh my boy, promise me you will never become an adult in your heart, always remain a child at heart”.

Now when I look back, I have realised that she was so wise. She instilled or at least tried to imbibe within me the power of thought, intention and word. I remember wondering when was the Big Boss going to sort of wake up from a heavily smoked induced trance and clear the throat and say, Amen. Thus, I tried my level best to shy away from negative thoughts, angry reflections, hurtful deliberations, self destructive as well as pessimistic silent ramblings all because I did not want to create issues for either myself or anybody around me.

This simple Amen philosophy has also helped me to become less judgmental (I hope), of all the freaking idiots who drive vehicles on our roads and so-called leaders who threaten to govern us and of course the world at large. I kind of say ‘bugger it, let it be, who knows when the Big Boss is going to wake up and say the darn Amen word’.

The philosophy is so simple, but if we realize the true purpose of this Amen philosophy it can make a tremendous difference to one’s quality of life; emotional, mental, physical but mainly spiritual. When you truly understand the essence of this sweet grandmother ideology, of thinking only good for one and all, staying on the path of positivity, wishing well for one and all, it makes spirituality so truly innocent and beautiful. Well at least it put everything in perspective for me. All spiritual books on one side, this simple Amen philosophy on the other, and I would choose this noble four letter worded ideology.

So often I have thanked my Lord and Master, Baba Sai, for not fulfilling certain wishes or whims of mine, for not granting my wishes, for doing exactly S(H)e wants to despite my fervent longings and being metaphorically on my darned bruised knees and not waking up and yawning aloud Amen. So often grace comes in the shape of a rejection slip.

I remember once I was upset with a friend and in a fit of anger told him a lot of things I should not have. A few days later his father informed me that my friend had died, all of a sudden, due to a heart attack and my friend was twenty seven. It has been over twenty and more years and I still cringe remembering my words and my anger and even now hope and pray that the Amen word wasn’t groaned out by a seemingly very distant Lord, when I had lost all control of my emotions and calmness and bloody common sense. 

We have been told by Masters that first came The Word. The Word certainly came first but could not have preceded The Thought, unless God does not think before speaking, which I hope to God is not true. I am certain a lot of thought went first before The Word, but it goes to show how important our thoughts and words are in the larger scheme of things. Thoughts and words have their own power and it is little wonder that Prophet Zarathustra has based the doctrine of Zoroastrianism on Good Thoughts, Good Words and Good Deeds.

If you think good, you will speak good and eventually do good. The Dalai Lama somewhere has mentioned that lifetimes of good karma can be wiped away by a single destructive thought and word. This is how important our thoughts and words are, and most often we give importance to everything but these two crucial aspects of our lives.

The breath determines one’s thoughts. Thoughts influence our words. The breath, thoughts and words become fuel for our deeds. Thus, it all originates from breath and leads to deeds which eventually germinates into karma which becomes all pervasive as one’s destiny and our karmic blue print. You do not become what you eat, you become what you think and may be this is why our elders spun such simple but deeply spiritual narratives to sow within our very fertile consciousness the foundations of very deep-rooted spirituality.

When I look around me, the professional mess we have created of our planet and our own spiritual journey and the utter rubbish going on in the name of God is sad and heart breaking and if God has taken shelter in His or Her own sanctuary of eternal bliss, it must be because the Creator’s heart too must be broken seeing the way we go about life and the perpetual disregard to goodness and simple decency. The ruthlessness of life around and the senseless tragedies and inconsolable sadness that prevails so profusely, I have begun to feel my grandmother was right, the Old Man, wakes up just once a day to say Amen and goes back to sleep. God is in Heaven and is fast asleep.

Thus, all the more, I would suggest, it is imperative for our own sanity and peace that we be careful of what we think, either of ourselves or those around us; be very vigilant of what you wish my friend, for God forbid, sometime your wish may be granted and you might not be able to forgive yourself. Sometimes one’s fulfillment of prayer might create a complete shipwreck of karmic onslaught waiting to be unleashed.

Be careful as truly, the less we go within, the more we are in danger of being pulverized by our free will gone wrong. Go within, wish for that, as within resides The One, waiting, aching, for you and me to finally embrace the only reality; the reality that everything is one big tamasha, one elaborated play gone horribly wrong and the only reality is that of Oneness and going back Home.

Be blessed always.