Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Monday, June 7, 2010

Exaggeration


We are living in the age of exaggerations. Everything is exaggerated to its nth power to get the maximum mileage. Whether it is a small problem or big problem, everything is exaggerated. This is due to media explosion via all forms from the newspaper, television, internet and other avenues. Everything has to be splash news. This tends to portray an issue for not its real worth. As a result of this splash mentality, the torchbearers of information sharing are setting a standard whereby news with no firepower is not news worthy. Translating that to our mundane lives, this exaggerating culture sub-consciously influences the minds of people who have a desire to make the news. We may not desire to make the national news or the local news but perhaps our audience reach might be as small as my family or friends. Still our desire to be recognized and adored and ultimately be in the family news will push us to exaggerate incidents and make a splash out of every story we have experienced.

This exaggeration is detrimental to our interpretation of life. After all…ever since we are born and growing, we interpret life and life incidents and make future decisions accordingly. Ask any famous personality and he or she will have a childhood story to tell where their consciousness was molded. Therefore when we start to interpret life at a fairly young age and in the process molding our ideals, if we unduly weigh them, we are invariably pushing our own self to disappointment ultimately leading to depression, sleeplessness, and artificial suppressants for the future. Isn’t this the common story of child movie stars shooting to stardom at a fairly young age only to lose it after growing up and become depressed ultimately reverting to dangerous mind altering drugs for constant exaggerations or highs? They do this because they are not able to deal with extreme realities from exaggeration to common Joe in short time frame.

Therefore, the way to counteract such extreme realities is by taking a deep breath, looking around and interpreting my own life and life in general with a grain of salt. To take it one step further, to understand that our material positions and acquisitions are like flowing mercury, all the time changing and unstable. Understand that there is an unchanging phenomenon within the ever changing phenomenon. Revert back to that unchanging, primeval phenomenon by practicing a spiritual outlook to life. Experts who have mastered this art of connecting back to the unchanging phenomenon recommend meditation on the Holy Names. This type of meditation is best possible by chanting.

This chanting can keep us real, simple and help us interpret life as it is without much ups and downs. Life, then, becomes peaceful and ultimately happy.

Try chanting and see the difference.

Hare Krishna

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