Karma

Sometime back I read a story of two friends, one was pious individual, strong believer in God, who used to daily pray and visit temples. Second one was alcholic and never said any prayers or went to any temple.

One day while the first one was returning from a temple he stumbled on a stone and fell down and sustained a severe head injury. On the same day while the alcoholic was returning back home he found a Rs 100 note on the road.

Next day when they met each other, they both shared their experiences with each other. Alcoholic said to his friend see you pray daily stay away from all vices still you got hurt and I spend my day drinking and do not pray at all still I got Rs100 note So how do you explain this why did your God do this to you?

First one says let us go to a astrologer he may be able to answer this. So both of them go to an astrologer who draws their kundali (horoscope) based on their date and time of birth and says to the first one yesterday was your doom day, as per the horoscope you could have had life threatening accident but since you survived with only head injury you are really lucky. Your good karma of years has saved you.

Then he turns to other one and says as per your horoscope you were supposed to receive millions of rupees but you only got 100 rupees this is the result of your bad karmas.

In life we see multiple time good people unnecessarily suffering whereas evil people growing their wealth and fame and wonder why is God doing this but sooner or later everyone has to face their karma. We will all get punished for our bad deeds and rewarded for good one. Remember God is watching…..

Wanderlust – Singapore

Reason”Life is a book and those who do not travel read only one page”

I am a voracious reader of this book of life and cannot feel happy without experiencing new things. I have travelled to lot of places in India, USA and Dubai (UAE) and also shared post about tourist attractions in some of them but this time I am going to write about a place which I am yet to visit, basically I am sharing my travel plan and would like to hear from my readers who may have have already visited the place, about how this can be improved maybe by addition of new attractions or change the order in which I view to attraction so as to optimise time, travel or more economic options basically any kinds of comments and suggestions are welcome.

There are many tour operators who provide complete group tour packages to the destination of your choice, all you have to do is pay the money and submit the required documents and just relax and enjoy your travel, rest everything is taken care of them.This is the easiest way to travel but this does not give you the complete experience of travelling I feel, there is different kind of joy in planning your own travel, researching internet for best attractions and prioritising them from not to be missed to only if time permits, approx time taken at each attraction, entry fees, flight tickets,best hotels as per budget available, shopping items etc sometimes the difficulties encountered in travel teach you valuable lessons and help build a stronger person.

Next place on my travel list is Singapore, an island city-state in SouthEast Asia is also referred to as the Lion City, the Garden City or Little Red dot.

Day 1– Reach Singapore preferably early in the morning and check into a Hotel in Little India preferably one near to MRT station so as to make local commute easy. Most of the hotels here have check-in time as 2 pm but some of them allow for early check-in Reason for staying in hotel in Little India is that there are lot of Indian restaurants around here with multiple vegetarian options.

In the afternoon post lunch take the Sentosa afternoon tour, pickup is available from select hotels details of which are available on tour operators site, pickup is usually around 1:30 pm.Tour starts by cable car ride from Mt Faber to Sentosa followed by visit to Merlion Tower and Tiger Sky Tower, Images of Singapore LIVE, the Wings of Time show (a music, light, fountains and fireworks show), Madam Tussauds wax Musuem and Sentosa 4D Adventureland for Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.

Day 2– Next day post breakfast visit Asia’s biggest SEA Aquarium to admire the rare species of the marine world. After spending about 2 hours in sea aquarium visit the Universal studio to experience thrilling shows, and attractions like, Light Camera Action, Transformer, Accelerator ride, Revenge of the Mummy, Water world, Jurassic Park, Madagascar – A Crate Adventure, Donkey live, Shrek 4D adventure and flying Dragon etc. Both sea aquarium and Universal studio are open from 10 AM to 7 PM and are in close proximity of each other.

Day 3– I would be booking a hop-on hop-off one day tour alongwith the night tour to visit following places Suntec City, Fountain of Wealth, City Hall, Orchard Road, Swissotel the Stamford – tallest hotel in Singapore, Parliament House, The Esplanade, Marina Bay Sands, Merlion – Symbol of Singapore,Garden by Bay – Flower Dome and Singapore Flyer ride.

Singapore Night tour– board a open double decker bus and watch city attractions at night. Watch a spectacular show of the supertrees coming alive at night with a dazzling display of lights across the sky at the Garden Rhapsody.

Day 4- Take the Singapore river cruise, followed by visit to Jurong bird Park and then in evening visit Night Safari to experience wild animal encounter. Will be taking a Tram ride which takes through 7 geographical zones followed by dinner.

 

Day 5- Morning free time for shopping  and later on board the flight to home town. Tour concludes.

All my readers please let me know your thoughts and suggestions in comments area. Finally I would conclude my article with a quote which I like

 

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. -Ray Bradbury”

Buddha and beggar

Today while browsing on internet I came accross this beautiful story sharing it below for all my readers

Tu na jaane aas pass hain khuda (You are not aware, God is around you)

Everytime I went for appearing an examination, before leaving from the house I used to bow down before God and pray for success in exams, many of you must have done the same thing. Before any important event in life we pray to God and seek is blessings. Ever thought why do we do this?

If I have studied hard and prepared very thoroughly am I going to fail if I don’t bow to good ? or the other way round if I have not studied properly, Is God going to suddenly put the answers in my head? no right……. Then what is need to pray?

I once read the answer to this question somewhere, eventhough I am well prepared, while traveling from home to examination centre anything can happen, I may have accident or may get stuck in traffic and may not be able to reach in time or there might be issues with public transport like  strike of drivers etc which might make my reaching there difficult. There are things beyond your control which may disrupt your plans in life to save yourself from such things you pray.

Prayer also gives you peace of mind and helps you improve your concentration which in turn helps you to remember what you have read or studied.

Sometimes inspite of knowing the answers we make silly mistakes or mind becomes blank and we cannot write anything, like once while solving a sum I did not read the question properly and read the coordinates of point as (0,2) instead of (2,2) and went ahead with my calculation after spending an hour in calculation looking at final answer I realised that I have gone wrong somewhere , I checked my calculations again and again but could not find my mistake …..

One and half hour had already passed, half the time of exam and I was struggling with only one question and that too the answer was coming wrong. My hands started trembling, my mind become blank for few minutes I just sat down thinking what to do ? Somehow I got my mental strength and for time being left that question and solved some other question, still I had only attempted questions of 32 marks, passing marks being 40 and less than half hour was left for paper to end.I was doomed to fail in that exam, but something inside me said use whatever time you have don’t give up. As I was trying to find  next easy question to answer I realised my mistake of taking wrong coordinates in the first one and  quickly corrected the same.

Inspite of knowing the answer I had done a silly mistake because of which I panicked, my hands started trembling and my mind went blank. Had I not been able to gather my courage at that time and regain my mental composure in exam, I would not have been even able to attempt other question and would have surely failed.

So just studying and thorough preparation is not enough maintaining your mental composure inspite of anything that goes wrong is equally important for success in exam of life and prayer helps you with that, it gives you a feeling that somebody is always there with you, support you in your low times and you feel as if you are never alone.

Pride comes before fall

When Ravana succeeded in getting control over all the nine planets, he installed them face down on the nine steps that led to his throne. Each morning, he would step on their back to ascend his throne, causing insult and anguish to them.

One day sage Narada came to Ravana, and upon seeing the state of the nine planets asked Shani, “how as the mightiest and most terrible of the planets, he could bear this insult?” Shani replied “because he was lying face downward he was helpless, but if he could cast his gaze on Ravana, matters would change. “

After Narada was shown around the magnificent palace of Ravana the proud king wanted his opinion. The wise sage replied that everything was excellent at the palace of Ravana, except for one. ‘How can Ravana get the pleasure of subduing the nine planets when they were lying face downwards?’ he asked. It was better if they were lying with their faces upward so that when Ravana stepped over their chests, he could get the pleasure of seeing the discomfort on their faces.

Ravana due to his arrogance and pride liked the suggestion and he quickly ordered his staff to turn the nine planets around on their backs. As soon as that was done, Shani’s gaze fell on Ravana and his reason abandoned him.

Within a few months he kidnapped Sita, the wife of Lord Rama that led to Lord Rama’s invasion of his kingdom. Ravana and his entire family were killed.So, even Ravana, mighty king and worshiper of Shiva lost everything due to his pride.