"I am a weak and ordinary person. I have absolutely no control over my senses and desires. This material world is full of allurements and illusions (Maya). A multitude of forces is always at work to beguile me into following these allurements and illusions and diverting from the path of truth and righteousness. I have not found any worthy guru who can teach me how to face and win over these illusionary and demonic forces. I have however learned the art of dodging these demonic forces myself.

1. 02 August 2019
Vijay explores the treasure you know as India. He shares his experiences about social, economic and
cultural events and conditions of India through www.investrekk.com. He contributes his pennies to the
society as Director, Equal India Foundation, He can be reached at vijaygaba.investrekk@gmail.com
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Art of dodging demonic forces
It was a brilliant Sunday morning. As usual I had come to the local temple with my teenage
daughters. Today my elder daughter would turn eighteen. After we completed our temple
routine, my daughter who had just attained adulthood asked me two questions:
"(1) Can I have driving license now? and
(2) Why do we come to the temple every week?"
The answer to the first one was easy and I promptly said "yes" without a blink. But the second
one made me think.
I have been regularly visiting the temple for as long as I can remember, but I never explained to
my daughters why I do this.
We lived in a big joint family. My grandfather would visit a temple, located near our family
home in Agra, twice every day. I watched him for 29yrs, never breaking this routine, come what
may. He would never eat his morning or evening meal without visiting the temple.
Even when he was visiting other towns, he would find a temple to visit twice a day. Once, he
almost missed his train as he alighted to pray at a small temple on the railway platform itself.
All the grandchildren would often accompany him to temple, mostly for the sake of the
delicious prasadam we would get there. The pair of peacocks in the temple was an added
attraction.
I distinctly remember the day when I entered Class VI and had science as a subject for the first
time. The very first day into the new academic session, our science teacher lectured us about
scientific temperament. She explained how superstitions, bigotry, religious malpractices and
mythological beliefs are hampering the development and growth of our country. From a twice a
day temple visitor, I turned into a non believer within 40 minutes.
The first thing I did after coming back from school was to confront my grandfather. I told him
confidently that he is wasting his time by visiting the temple every day. I even dared to counsel
him, "You are doing no good to yourself, family or the society by visiting temple twice a day.
This is all superstition and harmful to the society!"
He heard me out patiently and handed me a prasadam ladoo he had brought home that
morning with a glass of fresh buttermilk. After cooling me down, he called all the other children
in the house to explain why he would visit temple twice a day, without fail.
He said in a calm deep voice-
"I am a weak and ordinary person. I have absolutely no control over my senses and desires.
This material world is full of allurements and illusions (Maya). A multitude of forces is always
at work to beguile me into following these allurements and illusions and diverting from the
path of truth and righteousness. I have not found any worthy guru who can teach me how to
face and win over these illusionary and demonic forces. I have however learned the art of
dodging these demonic forces myself.
You must know that all human beings manifest themselves through three things -
(a) "The physical body" that is made of five primary elements (panchbhoot), i.e., Earth (bone,
muscle, skin and internal organs), Water (body fluids), Fire (metabolism), Air (respiration
etc) and Ether (mind, cohesion, comprehension power etc);

2. 02 August 2019
(b) "The behavior" as defined by the consumption of the subjects of five senses, i.e., Taste
(what you chose to eat), Touch (how you like to feel external objects), Smell (how you sense
external objects), Sight (what and how you chose to see), and Sound (what and how you
like to hear);
(c) 'The character" as defined by handling of five vices, i.e., Lust, Anger, Greed, Attachment
and Pride.
To lead a normal life, I must manage these three things in such a manner that I do not get
allured to a path divergent from righteousness and stay true to myself.
I go to the temple and do the following routine:
• Bow at the temple door and apply the dust lying on threshold to my forehead. I thus
surrender my Ego to the Lord.
• Leave your hand and fold my hands. I thus surrender Attachment to the Lord.
• Put some money in the donation box to surrender my Greed to the Lord.
• Close my eyes and ignore all beautiful idols, pictures and other objects of attraction to
surrender my Lust to the Lord.
• If someone pushes me, I do not mind. I allow all others to move ahead of me, I mingle freely
with people from all socio-economic and cultural background, and thus surrender my Pride
to the Lord.
• Light an earthen lamp to surrender my Earth and Fire element to the Lord.
• Offer water over Shivalinga to surrender my Water element to the Lord.
• Ring bells to offer the Ether element to the Lord.
• Blow conch to surrender the Air element to the Lord.
• Offer some sweets to the Lord to surrender my sense of Taste.
• Offer some cloth or sacred thread to the Lord to surrender my sense of Touch.
• Burn incense etc to surrender my sense of Smell to the Lord.
• Close my eyes to surrender my sense of Sight to the Lord.
• Ring bells loudly so that I can't hear any external sound and thus surrender my sense of
Sound to the Lord.
I thus surrender my entire being to the Lord and pray, "Please keep me on the path of
righteousness". This total surrender keeps me committed to the path of truth and
righteousness for 12 hours, before the strong demonic forces of illusion and allurement begin
to dominate my senses, character and body once again.
I therefore must go to the temple every 12 hours, just like I take my BP medicine every 24
hours. And I can tell you, it has worked perfectly fine so far, as I have not consciously
committed any wrong in my life."
As he finished, there was total silence for a few minutes, before I exclaimed, "My science
teacher knows little. She needs to learn the art of dodging demonic forces from grandpa!"
The problem now is that my daughters do not have a grandfather to teach them the art of living
peacefully. And I somehow never thought of explaining to them what I had learnt from my
grandfather.
That week four things happened:

3. 02 August 2019
1. My elder daughter applied for a driving license.
2. Next Sunday morning, she was ready before me for visiting the temple.
3. My younger daughter's science teacher called me to complain that she has suddenly lost
interest in studying science. (It took us three hours of intense discussions to convince her
that art of living and Science are not mutually exclusive things. But that is a story for
another time.)
4. My daughters refused to visit their maternal uncle complaining that he pays money to an
agent to let him bypass the queue at the temple and therefore is not a righteous person.
(Convincing them on this is taking little longer than I had initially anticipated. My wife is
obviously not too pleased with me on this.)