Girish's Blog

  When and Why do we Pray? We are all used to our parents telling us to pray, go to the temple, church, mosque, gurudwara, etc and pray to God for overall well-being. This used to happen with my generation – nowadays even that has reduced substantially as gadgets have taken over life and the youth consider these gadgets to be God! Nothing happens without these gadgets, cell phones, ipads, laptops, etc. Information is available at the click of a button. The information overload has made the later generations feel that they know it all, nobody refers to books any more – books are passe! With the surfeit of available information on any subject – the reader becomes confused because currently there is a huge trend of fake news doing the rounds – so what is correct, and what isn’t – God knows..lolz!! People are actually becoming dumber as their brain is not exercised as much as in the earlier days, no rationalization required, no application of logic – press a button and you have inf...

  Understanding Spiritual Vibrations Vibration  or Universal Life Energy is simply a method to describe your overall state of wellbeing. Everything in the universe is made up of energy  vibrating  at different frequencies. The  vibration is  called by "porous breathing" of the entire body. You  are  simply opening up your channels and allowing the intake of energy from around you. The spinal feeling  is  what we call the opening of the back channel. It's simply the movement of bodily energy. The first time I felt vibrations was during my first meditation camp in February 2009 – on the day of awakening Swamiji says – some of you will feel cold vibrations on the palms of your hands – the moment he said that there were two eddies of ice-cold energy whirling on both the palms and I was wondering what kind of magic is this. Then Swamiji goes on to say those who felt cold vibrations are in a good spiritual state. After that, with regular m...

  Why Meditation is Required – a Simple  Explanation I have been practising Samarpan Meditation for the past 12 years now and the benefits are tangible and for me have attained a kind of permanence. Meditation is recommended for a whole lot of reasons – it calms the mind, it dissipates anger, it increases love and compassion, it perpetuates good health, it conserves energy and at higher levels it begins to give you deeper insights about life. I will try and explain meditation in relation to the human anatomy. The human body is supposed to have about 72000 channels through which the energy flows – but the important ones are the Ida (Right), Pingala (Left) and Sushumna (Central). The energy flows through these three channels and as you know for doing any activity energy is required – whether it is studying, playing, eating, sex, etc. But to go into deeper levels of consciousness we need to clear our mind of prejudices, hatreds, anger, preconceived ideas – once we do this, we...

  Remaining Joyous in Tough Times You may have met people who never seem to lose their equilibrium under any circumstances and wondered how this was possible! As we go through life, we ride the ups and downs which come along with it. Life’s roller coaster ride gives us emotional highs and lows. Remaining balanced and joyous during this roller coaster ride is at the core of spirituality. There are simple steps one needs to follow to remain in balance. Firstly, one needs to have a healthy body, because without a healthy body one cannot develop the ability to go within and look for inner peace. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind – so stay fit, eat healthy food, exercise, meditate and achieve that inner balance. Once you do that you will be in a mental state that is joyous and happy. Once you have achieved that mental state however tough the times you will sail through harmlessly and joyously. Secondly, you need to always have a positive outlook – even though today’s world an...

  Facing Life’s Challenges From the time one is born life is a challenge – this is true for everyone! At every turn we face a challenge, some challenges are just tests, and the others are serious, some even life threatening. The test of human character lies in how one faces life’s challenges. Do you face it head on, or do you look for an escape route? Sometimes in life, the circumstances are such that you do not have the will to take on such challenges, in such times it is fine if you move away and pray to God to give you the strength and the wherewithal to face such challenges when they crop up in the future. Fear is a factor which inhibits you in facing challenges. You need to overcome this fear – remember fear is just a thought – with control of the mind you will find that your fear also disappears. Learn to accept and let go, overcome your fears, and practice gratitude – all these help you in facing life’s challenges. With every challenge that you overcome, you find your ...

  Losing Hope is not a Choice Once you embark on the search for the ultimate truth there is no turning back. Whatever the difficulties you may encounter on your journey, however hopeless you find your quest to be at times, do not lose hope, losing hope is not a choice for those who have set out on the journey to discover the ultimate truth! You will find a lot of people giving you advise on what to do, what not to do and so on. Control your breath, train your mind they will say. But they have no clue how to do it. You should realise that breathing ultimately supplies oxygen to the brain – after inhaling fresh air, it passes through the lungs into the heart which pumps the blood throughout the body, also providing its payload of oxygen to the brain in the bargain. If you observe yourself when you are angry or excited, you will notice that your heart is racing and that the blood-flow to the brain is thus accelerated – when there is excessive supply of oxygen to the brain your tho...

  Slow Climb up the Mountain For a true seeker, whether under the guidance of a realised Master or for one who chooses to go it alone, the journey is akin to climbing a very tall mountain with all its pitfalls, crevices, crags, steep rockfaces, and so on. For the person who chooses to go it alone, he has to find his way through all the dangers which he comes across on the way up from the bottom of the mountain. For such a person the journey is really arduous and a test of faith and spiritual commitment. For those who have a Master as a guide, they are shown the path the Master has taken and then thousands of followers tread the same path making it a kind of well beaten path which is easier to climb. This is the path we will talk about because, with Samarpan and Gurutattva, this is the path we are traversing. His Holiness Shivkrupanand Swami has given us a lift directly onto the 8 th step of the ladder of ashtang yoga . From here we have to find our way to our inner abode – tha...

  The Physical and the Subtle Bodies We all know that the physical body which we adorn since birth is our vehicle to endure – enjoy our karmas and move towards liberation during the current lifetime. The Bhagwad Gita describes the subtle body as a combination of the mind, intellect and the ego and that it is the subtle body that control the physical body. More than 95% of the world’s population is not even aware of the subtle body as they live their gross physical lives in a state of spiritual ignorance, without understanding the core purpose of why they have taken birth! In our physical plane of existence, we all take birth and go through the motions of living based on our past karmas – we may be born in a poor family, live as orphans, be born rich, born with some physical or mental deficiency, etc. But after taking birth in whichever layer of society, we live our lives and strive to better our lot and go up the societal chain through hard work, dedication etc. There are some ...

  The Essence of being Human Do you know what it means to be born as a human being? As per Sanatan philosophy one is born as a human being after evolving over thousands of births from lower life forms to reach a state where one ultimately takes birth in the human form. Once you take birth as a human form, you adopt the religion or better still the form of worship that is followed by your parents. So, a child born into a Christian family follows Christianity, Jews-Judaism, Muslims-Islam, Buddhists-Buddhism, Jain-Jainism, Sikhs-Sikhism and Hindus-Hinduism – actually there is no such thing as Hinduism. Hinduism is nothing but the following of Sanatan Dharma which is age-less, ancient and goes back more than 20000 years in time! In this you are allowed to worship whoever and whatever you want – you are allowed to see God in anyone or anything – here we know that God is formless but if you want God to take form you can choose that form for yourself. All these forms of worship are no...

  Is being a Seeker Fun? When one talks about spirituality in today’s world – the look one gets is – ‘Come on, get out of here’. It is like you said something absolutely unreal an impractical! But is this really the case? People think that to be spiritual is to be serious – sit and meditate, go to the forests, mountains, etc. This is really not the case. As a seeker of the ultimate truth, one usually begins by visiting the samadhis of saints and trying to get inspiration or guidance from there. Swamiji says that for you to find your own living Master you need to pray from the core of your soul for guidance at any of these samadhis and you will definitely be guided to the medium who will be your guide in your lifetime. The plea has to be ardent and desire deep and this divine occurrence of reaching your own Guru happens like magic. Your Guru then provides you with the guidance to awaken your soul, give you self-realisation and ensure that you set out on your inner journey. The...

  International Yoga Day Celebrations It is extremely important as to understand the deeper significance of celebrating the International Yoga Day, which is today – June 21. I personally feel that it has a far deeper significance than just keeping oneself physically fit – PM Narendra Modi’s words when addressing the UNGA on September 27, 2014 give an indication of the underlying purpose – I quote: “Yoga is an invaluable gift of India's ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and nature .  By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help in one’s well-being. Let us work towards adopting an International Yoga Day. ” Later the UN General Assembly  with a record co-sponsorship by 177 nations adopted the resolution to declare June 21, ...

Mantras and Meditation A question which is often asked is whether mantras help in meditation. The response I usually give is to try it out for yourself and examine the theory. Swamiji and many Gurus of the past have always told us not to accept anything blindly. Even mantra chanting though it is well established that it helps one attain vibrational balance during meditation, I always say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Sit down and try it. Whichever mantra you decide to chant – it has to be chanted rhythmically – when you do that it creates what is known as a neuro-linguistic effect. According to scientists such an effect occurs even if the meaning of the mantra is not known! Chants create thought-energy waves and the person chanting it vibrates in tune with the energy and spiritual appeal of the chant. As a child I used to find great solace in ‘Om Namaha Shivaya’ – this actually used to help me go to sleep whenever I felt afraid of the dark and helped get rid of the ...

  Energy and Investment I remember my grandfather asking us when we were small – what makes the world go round? And my elder brother, being the smarter one with a scientific bent of mind would reply – the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun! My grandfather would laugh and say – no, it is money which makes the world go round and round! If you really think about it – that is true, isn’t it – man’s invention money is what has actually corrupted the world and that is what we all run after for taking care of our short term and long-term needs, goals etc! If you go to the tribal areas people are happily unaware of money and live life in tune with nature! Whenever we invest our surplus earnings, we need to be very careful of the feeling or sentiment which we apply while investing the money. It is well known that the whole universe is nothing but energy, we are energy, money is energy – in fact everything is just energy. You would have heard the elders in your family ...

  Loneliness In today’s world we find that children go abroad to study and then settle down overseas. They fly away and live their own lives. Many of us who stay behind, with the passage of time we find that one by one our companions, friends have moved away or moved on. This is when a feeling of loneliness begins to set in and we start living in our minds. We keep recalling past events and incidents and reliving them as sometimes there is no one to talk to or talk with! As we grow older this feeling of loneliness starts growing on us – the question is do we convert this feeling into an opportunity for inner development or we start living in the past and create a sense of depression in our minds?! It is a very real scenario as most of the children from middle class India are going overseas for studies as the competition in India is humongous and most of the students find it tough to cope up. With the massive population if you have to compete then you have to be better than the ...

  Accept who You are In India because of the huge population, we are taught to be competitive right since childhood, especially with academics. It is drilled into us that education is our ticket to a better life and so the grind begins really early in life! There is so much pressure with classrooms having an average of 60 odd students and to try and come in the top ten in the class - a tough ask! Some of us who are naturally talented, gifted, academically smart tend to do well in all aspects in school, college, life. But others are told by their peers, their parents, their teachers – look at so and so and look at you. See how many marks he got and look at you and so on! This actually demotivates you and you start developing low self-esteem and start thinking that you are useless. This is the mistake we make. Never ever accept that you are useless – know that you have taken birth for a specific purpose, a good education does not mean that you will succeed in life – it just means...

  Never Give Up Human beings have been given the ability to think, the sense to achieve beyond expectations, the drive to succeed and go where ‘no man has gone before’. It is said that we use just a fraction of our inherent abilities as we have not learnt to use the full power of our brain. When we have such hidden abilities within us, then why do we feel afraid and scared at the smallest tragedy that befalls us. There are innumerable stories of people who are born with disabilities or people to whom life throws a curve ball and they fall victim to accidents which make them wheelchair bound, but these people dive deep within and come up with the strength to fight and discover and develop new skills which makes their life far more outstanding than those who are considered ‘normal’! A simple net search will give you a whole list of such stories – many of them have gone on to become motivational speakers inspiring people with similar disabilities to get up and live their life with...

  Being Grateful The quality of expressing gratitude for even the slightest assistance one receives is really admirable. The catch here is that the expression of gratitude needs to come from the bottom of the heart, you have to really feel grateful for the help or assistance that you have received. Nowadays it has become a fashion to say ‘thank you’, ‘sorry’, etc at the drop of a hat – but do you really mean it? Only when you truly mean it does it help in keeping your heart and mind pure. Lip service is of absolutely no use. When you start travelling on the spiritual path this quality of expressing gratitude is one of the top qualities which helps you remain pure internally. It becomes necessary to cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that happens to you or comes to you and then continuously express your thanks. And because things have contributed towards your progress, you should include all things in your gratitude. It is extremely important to tell pe...

  Regrets in Life People have regrets in life – I should not have done this, done that, said this said that and so on. One feels that by doing something or saying something one hurts other and then they feel guilty about it. That guilt stays with them for a long time. As it is words are said to have a sharper blade than swords as the scar which is left affects both the heart and the psyche! Unless one is totally forgiven at the subtle level the effect of the negative vibrations remains for a very long time, sometimes affecting the health of the person concerned. The best way to overcome such feelings is to give it a positive twist and go and actually say sorry to whomsoever you feel you have hurt through deed or word. This is the most difficult part – saying sorry! This is where the ego comes into play and your mind tells you, “Why should I say sorry? That person deserved it? What did I do wrong?” and so on and so forth. The mind gives you all kinds of excuses not to apologise....

  You are the Best Our parents consider us as the best thing that happened to them, and once we become parents, we carry the same sentiments. All of us differ in our uniqueness and skill sets. We are all born for a purpose and all of us are enduring or enjoying our karmas. We all face different sets of challenges in life and some of us do not cope up as well as others. Such people sometimes feel less of themselves and develop a low self-esteem. They forget that they are unique. Unfortunately, our society too can be cruel as it compares one with the other – look at him, look at her, see what so and so has achieved and look at that fellow, in spite of having talent he is unsuccessful and so on and so forth! Our opinion about people keeps changing based on additional information which we keep getting. To get the whole picture we need to know the entire spectrum of circumstances. Just by knowing a part of the whole picture we should not form our opinion. As more and more informatio...