"Gems of the Rigveda: From Darkness to Light"

  

In Rigveda 5.44.15, Rishi Avatsara Kashyap।a offers a prayer to the Vishwadevas, describing how a person awakened in the light of knowledge naturally attracts sacred verses (Rucha-knowledge), melodic spiritual practices (sāma), and the blissful presence of the Divine (soma). This awakening is the foundation of true spiritual practice. Just as fire remains ever awake, so too must the seeker remain rooted in inner awareness. When the heart is awakened, wisdom, refined practices, and divine companionship flow naturally toward the seeker.

A question arises — what does it mean to be truly awake? In the Bhagavad Gita (2.69), Lord Krishna says:

What is night for most beings is wakefulness for the sage;

What is wakefulness for most beings is night for the sage.

"That which is night to all beings, therein the disciplined one is awake. And that which beings consider wakefulness, is night to the wise sage." This means that worldly indulgence is darkness to the wise, while inner awareness is true wakefulness.

Night symbolizes tamas — the quality of darkness, ignorance, laziness, attachment, and forgetfulness of the self. A person affected by tamas becomes inactive, loses discernment, lives in fear and anger, and forgets their true nature. Because of tamas, they lose interest in spiritual practice, service, and the pursuit of knowledge, while selfishness and ego begin to grow. This leads to a halt in their mental, social, and spiritual development. A person wandering in the darkness of ignorance becomes devoid of effort and purpose. They lose the courage to face life’s challenges, and sometimes, in deep despair, may even take the extreme step of ending their life

To dispel tamas, one must rise early, meditate, reflect, engage in service, and consciously choose the company of truth, wisdom, and spiritually awakened individuals — a practice that nourishes the soul, sharpens the intellect, dispels inner darkness, and enables one to make wise choices. For students, avoiding distractions like mobile phones and focusing on study is true discipline. Contemplating “Who am I?” is a gateway to self-realization. Through such conscious efforts, the inner darkness fades and the lamp of awareness is lit.

Awakening is the root of all spiritual practice. The seeker who lives with awareness naturally attracts wisdom and sacred sound. Such a seeker gains both worldly fulfillment and spiritual progress, ultimately experiencing eternal joy — not fleeting, but lasting. The Divine enters their life as a true companion, dwelling with them in the bond of sacred friendship.

Bullfight and the Clash of Superpowers

We all must have seen a bullfight at some point. A few years ago, I too had such an experience. Delhi’s Sitaram Bazaar was, as always, full of life that day. Evening was setting in, but the crowd showed no sign of thinning. The colorful stalls in front of the shops, the mixed aroma of spices and dishes, the voices of customers bargaining—all together created a lively scene.

The panipuri seller kept calling out, “Come brother, spicy panipuri!” Nearby, the ghee was sizzling on the aloo-tikki seller’s pan. Bargaining was going on at the vegetable and fruit carts.

People were absorbed in their own work when suddenly commotion broke out in the market. From nowhere, two huge bulls appeared in the middle of the street. First they stared at each other for a few moments, as if throwing a silent challenge. Then suddenly their horns clashed. The collision was so fierce that the sound echoed throughout the market.

Within moments their fight grew violent. Both bulls began pushing each other and running around. The narrow street of the market turned into an arena for them. Whatever came in front was caught in their clash. The panipuri seller’s cart overturned and his spicy water spilled onto the street. The aloo-tikki seller’s pan flipped and hot tikkis fell into the dust. The vegetable baskets scattered far—tomatoes, brinjals, potatoes rolled across the street. The fruit seller’s apples and bananas were crushed under people’s feet.

Terrified, people began to run. Some pulled their children to safety, some hid inside nearby shops. In the stampede, some fell and were injured. Bicycles and motorcycles too were knocked down and scattered on the street. Some shopkeepers stood helplessly watching their ruined goods.

I too was present in the market at that time. Frightened by the sudden chaos, I took shelter in a small grocery shop. Standing inside, we all watched the scene outside. The bulls’ clash continued. The horns colliding, the sound of hooves striking the ground, and in between, the frightened cries of people.

This struggle must have lasted about 15–20 minutes. Finally, both bulls, exhausted, went off in different directions. But the scene left behind was like the destruction after a small storm. Overturned carts, scattered vegetables, fallen utensils, and frightened people slowly coming out.

Today, while hearing the news of the America–Iran war, that old scene came before my eyes. Two powerful “bulls” stand face to face. The growing tension between them is affecting the whole world. In this fight, whichever bull wins, the result will have to be borne by ordinary people across the world—those who have no direct connection with the clash of these big nations. Just like in the market, after the bulls’ fight, the greatest loss was suffered by the panipuri seller, the vegetable seller, and the passersby.

In summary, the clash of great powers often shows its real impact not in the arena, but in the world’s markets and in the lives of ordinary people. Inflation and unemployment are borne by the common man. Then it becomes clear that the heaviest burden of the powerful’s fight always falls upon the weak.

Raju and the Goddess of Bribes

 Raju was a simple man—never troubled anyone, lived a plain and straightforward life. After his father passed away, the responsibility of the household fell on his shoulders. For the first time, he had to offer a bribe to get his father’s death certificate.

Slowly, Raju realized that every task required a bribe. So, he stopped worrying. Without anger or complaints, he began offering bribes happily. Thanks to these “bribe bundles,” all his work got done quickly. He firmly believed:

 “If you must give a bribe, give it with joy.”

He treated bribes like offerings to a goddess—the Goddess of Bribes. Through experience, he learned exactly how much to offer at which office to get things done.

When his wife gave birth, the nurse came out and joyfully announced, “Sir, it’s a boy!” Raju placed a ₹100 note in her hand and went in to see his son. The hospital gave him no trouble. From that moment, he began worshipping the Bribe Goddess for his son’s future.

Whether it was the birth certificate or adding his son’s name to the ration card, Raju offered bribes with devotion. He paid donations (disguised bribes) to get his son into a good school, then a good college. Even when he had to take loans and sacrifice his own needs, he kept the Bribe Goddess pleased.

Finally, after offering bribes equal to a year’s salary, he got his son a job.

Raju was honest—and meticulous. Before his son’s wedding, he calculated all the bribes he had paid over the years and recovered them by demanding a hefty dowry. He felt proud that his offerings to the Bribe Goddess had finally paid off.

One day, Raju felt a sharp pain in his chest. He knew his end was near. He thought, “Maybe even Chitragupta, the divine accountant, will need a bribe to send me to heaven.” He called his son and expressed his last wish. Respecting it, his son placed a bundle of ₹100 notes on his funeral pyre.

Raju reached Chitragupta’s court. Chitragupta asked, “Where should I send you—heaven or hell?”

Raju bowed deeply and offered the bundle of notes at Chitragupta’s feet. He said, “Whatever you decide is right. Just one request—please don’t send me back to India. I’m tired of worshipping the Goddess of Bribes.”

Chitragupta smiled slyly and said, “Raju, you never caused harm to anyone, so I can’t send you to hell. But you tried to buy me with a bribe. You forgot—this isn’t India, this is the court of justice. Because of this offense, I can’t send you to heaven either.”

 “You have only one punishment…”

 Raju’s eyes went dark. Suddenly, he heard a woman’s voice in Hindi — “Sir, it’s a baby boy!”

Raju realized his fate: he was born again in India, destined to carry the bribe bundle once more. Cursing his luck, he let out a loud cry— “Ta-S-S!”

The Night of Sweet Union

It was the night of their wedding. She entered the room carrying a cup of saffron milk. As soon as he saw her, the words “Shubhamangal Savdhan” echoed in his ears. He remembered how Saint Samarth Ramdas had fainted and fled from his wedding. Even Gautama Buddha had left his wife and child in the darkness of night.
 
A thought struck him: “If I don’t leave now, I’ll never escape this cycle of worldly life. I’ll never break free from attachment and desire.”
 
He turned to his wife and said, “I got married only to fulfil my parents’ wishes. Now I’m free from that promise. I have no interest in family life. I want to reach heaven and see the gods. For that, I must undergo intense spiritual practice. I have no choice.” Saying this, he ran away.
 
He reached a deep forest, far from people. To attain heaven, he began severe penance. He wore simple bark clothes. The earth was his bed, the sky his blanket. He ate roots and fruits. He never thought of worldly pleasures. He spent his days in prayer and meditation. Time passed. He grew old and eventually died.
 
Chitragupta calculated his deeds. He had earned the merit to spend one day in heaven. He was happy—at least he would see the gods once. His life’s penance would be fulfilled.
 
Angels took him to heaven. They bathed him with fragrant oils and dressed him in rich silk robes. He was taken to Indra’s court, where Lord Indra and other gods were enjoying dances by celestial nymphs like Rambha and Urvashi.
 
Lord Indra welcomed him and offered him a seat. A nymph brought him a cup of divine nectar. Lord Indra said, “Enjoy the dance of heavenly nymphs. Drink this nectar. Tonight, you may spend time with your favourite apsara. Don’t waste this moment. This is the reward of your lifelong penance.”
 
He looked around. Rambha and Urvashi were dancing in a drunken trance, their clothes disheveled, revealing more than they should. But they felt no shame. The gods were also intoxicated, enjoying the nectar touched by the lips of eternal beauties. Their clothes were more revealing than movie stars on Earth. The gods were celebrating lust openly.
 
Seeing this, he remembered a New Year’s party his friend had once taken him to at a farmhouse. There, bar girls in skimpy clothes served drinks. Men and women danced without shame, drunk and wild. That party had made him feel detached from worldly life.
 
Now, seeing the same scene in heaven, he wondered—was this the reward of his penance? Such pleasure could be bought on Earth with a little money. He had spent his whole life for this? He felt ashamed. He remembered his abandoned wife. He had hurt her for something so trivial. He wanted to ask her forgiveness.
 
He left Lord Indra’s court. But where would he find her now? Suddenly, he saw a faint figure—it was her. He shouted, “Forgive me!”
 
She replied, “What happened to you? What forgiveness? Did you see a dream?”
 
He was startled. He realized he was lying in bed. He quickly composed himself, took the cup of saffron milk from her hand and said, “The night of sweet union should be spent awake. I fell asleep. I’ve committed a sin. The guilty must be punished.”
 
She laughed and said, “There’s still plenty of night left. I’ll punish you as you wish.”
 
What happened after that—who punished whom, and how—was lost in the darkness.
 

he Blue Butterfly: A Quiet Guilt”

 
 
About 25 years ago, we lived in a small house with a front yard. In the yard stood a guava tree, a Madhu Malati vine, and pots filled with roses. Every morning and evening, sparrows chirped. The children loved feeding them and chasing butterflies.
 
But humans are selfish, restless, and never satisfied. I’m no exception. As our children grew, space felt tight. Sunlight barely entered the house because neighbours had covered their verandas. I kept thinking—if we build a bigger room in front, the house will look better and we’ll have a nice sitting area.
 
Eventually, whether due to my wife’s constant remarks or my own hidden desire, I decided to build that room. Naturally, the guava tree and Madhu Malati vine had to be cut down. In a few months, the new sitting room was ready. We moved the Tulsi plant and flower pots to the terrace. We even kept a water bowl for the sparrows. But they were gone. Without the vine, they had no place to nest. A few still came to the terrace for food and water.
 
About a year later, one evening after work, my children shouted, “Dad! Dad! There’s something like a bug on the wall!” I looked closely; it was a cocoon, with a faint blue colour inside. “It’s a butterfly cocoon,” I said. “Soon, a butterfly will come out.”
 
Maybe the butterfly’s mother had come out of habit to lay eggs. With no tree or vine, she must have laid them on a flower pot. The caterpillar crawled into the room, searching for a safe place to form its cocoon.
 
A few days later, I came home to find my kids dancing with joy. “Look, Dad! The butterfly!” A beautiful blue butterfly was flying around the room. The children were thrilled. They had turned off all the fans so it wouldn’t get hurt.
 
That night, they gently guided the butterfly out of the room, shut the doors, turned on the cooler, and went to sleep.
 
Next morning, I washed my face in the back veranda and entered the sitting room. In one corner, the butterfly lay dead. Maybe it had entered again and got caught in the fan. I stared at it for a while, feeling guilty.
 
What was the butterfly’s fault? Its mother didn’t know that a selfish man had cut down the trees. She came, didn’t find the vine, and laid eggs on a pot. The butterfly was born in a closed room instead of open nature. If it had survived, it might have returned to lay eggs here again. But now, that cycle was broken.
 
I picked it up with a heavy heart and threw it outside. Then I scrubbed my hands at the washbasin. While washing, I remembered Lady Macbeth—can we ever wash away our guilt?
 
It wasn’t just one butterfly. I had destroyed generations of butterflies for my own comfort. Since then, I’ve never seen a blue butterfly near our home.
 
Even today, whenever I see a butterfly, I remember that one. And one question keeps haunting me: While building that room, why didn’t I think even once about the lives that lived on those trees and vines? If I had, maybe that blue butterfly would still be alive.
 

The Poisoned Lake: A Dialogue Between Yaksha and Yudhishthira

 
After waiting a long time, Yudhishthira finally set out to search for his brothers. The desert stretched endlessly—no trees in sight, and the sun blazed mercilessly. His throat burned with thirst. At last, he spotted a shimmering lake in the distance. Hope surged: water at last, relief from thirst.
 
But as he approached, he was struck with grief—Bheem, Arjuna, Nakul, and Sahadeva lay lifeless by the lakeside. Yudhishthira was devastated. Who could have brought down the mighty Bheem and Arjuna? Perhaps the guardian of the lake—a Yaksha—had punished them. Maybe they drank water without permission.
 
Yudhishthira called out, “O Yaksha, you are compassionate. You guard this water in the barren desert and quench the thirst of weary travellers. My brothers may have erred. Please forgive them.”
 
The Yaksha appeared. Yudhishthira bowed and begged for his brothers’ lives.
 
The Yaksha replied, “Yudhishthira, I am not the one to forgive. Your brothers came here, desperate with thirst. I warned them—the water is poisoned, unfit to drink. But they ignored my words and drank. Death was inevitable.”
 
Yudhishthira pleaded again, “O Yaksha, you are wise. Is there no remedy? In ancient times, the Himalayas held the Sanjeevani herb. Hanuman used it to save Lakshmana. But now, not a single tree remains. The herb is lost.”
The Yaksha paused and asked, “What is the ultimate truth of life?”
 
Yudhishthira answered, “Death is the ultimate truth of life?”
 
The Yaksha laughed, “You understand truth well, Yudhishthira. Your brothers cannot be revived. There is no drinkable water here. You have two choices: drink this poisoned water and die swiftly, or die slowly of thirst.” The Yaksha vanished.
 
Yudhishthira sat in silence. “If death is certain, better to die with my brothers,” he thought. He drank the poisoned water. His thirst vanished. Moments later, so did his life.
 
All five Pandavas lay lifeless by the lake. The Mahabharata ended prematurely—not with the triumph of truth over falsehood, but with pollution’s triumph over humanity.
 
(Note: This is a vision of the future. In the coming decades, poisoned water may claim more lives than war. Conflicts over water—civil and global—may unfold before our eyes.)
 
(Inspired by Dr. Subhash S. Naik’s poem “Yaksha,” shared with generous permission for adaptation.)
 

“To die, but leave behind a legacy”—Why I became a writer on the internet

 
 A few days ago, a friend asked me, “Pataitji, tell me honestly—why did you start writing online?” His question made me pause. Why did I really begin writing on the internet? Unknowingly, the words of Samarth Ramdas came to mind: “To die, but leave behind a legacy.”
 
Every mortal being secretly wishes to be immortal. We can’t live forever in body, but we can live on through our legacy. Perhaps that desire was hidden somewhere in me too. I’m no King Harishchandra, but I shared the truth I had discovered with my friend.
 
People’s fame lasts for generations only when they’ve done something great. From Lord Ram to Gandhi, many figures are remembered for their deeds. But someone like me—a middle-class man, average in studies, who barely made it from clerk to officer—never imagined doing anything grand.
 
I didn’t have the drive for social service like Baba Amte. As Saint Tukaram said, “Let your son be such a rogue that his flag flies in all three worlds.” But with my single-boned frame, even rogue-hood was out of reach. Besides, fear is fed to the middle-class Marathi man from birth.
 
I didn’t achieve much in education either. The time to become a doctor or engineer had long passed. Even pretending to do social work wasn’t possible—my government job kept me too busy. From stenographer to PPS, I spent 39 years saying “Yes Sir,” including 18 years in the Prime Minister’s Office. Leaving home at 7 a.m. and returning at 9 or 11. p.m. there was no time for local committees or public service. Household responsibilities fell on my wife. Today, in my own neighbourhood, I’m known by my wife’s or son’s name.
 
Only one path remained—becoming a writer. To be a writer, you don’t need grand achievements or deep study. You just need to put your thoughts on paper. I had tried once in my twenties—sent some poems to magazines. None were published, none returned. Only the postal department earned a hundred rupees. Eventually, I accepted the truth: “I won’t become famous,” and gave up the idea of writing.
But they say—when one door closes, another opens. Twenty-five years passed. In 2010, I got internet at home. Maybe the internet was born to fulfil the unfulfilled desires of people like me. By then, I had developed a strong pride in being Marathi.
 
The first site I saw online was “Marathisrushti.” It boldly said, “Awaken the writer within you!” A blind man asks for one eye—here, I got two for free! I couldn’t believe it. Nervously, with Google’s help, I typed my first article. To my surprise, it appeared on the site the very next day.
 
That was it—my hidden desire came alive. I started a blog in my own name. I typed whatever came to mind. No worries about grammar or language. Within months, I discovered other Marathi sites like “Misalpav” and “Aisi Akshare.” I began posting my articles everywhere.
 
If there were mistakes, readers would quickly respond. Some praised the writing, others scolded me. But through essays, poems, blogs—and even the experience of my work being stolen. I learned one thing:
To earn recognition, you don’t need to slay a demon or win a war… you just need to install the internet.