Don’t Get Intimidated

 

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Don’t Get Intimidated

Humans evolved to be fearful, since anxiety helped keep our ancestors alive. Consequently, we are vulnerable to being alarmed, manipulated, and even intimidated by threats, both real and imaginary ones.

This vulnerability to feeling threatened has effects at many levels, ranging from individuals, couples, and families to schoolyards, organisations, and nations. Whether it’s an individual who worries about the consequences of speaking up at work or in a close relationship, a family cowed by a scary parent, a business fixated on threats instead of opportunities, or a country told it’s under assault by “them” – the same human brain reacts in each one of these cases.

Therefore, understanding how your brain became so vigilant and wary, and so easily hijacked by alarm, is the first step toward gaining more control over that ancient circuitry. Then, by bringing mindful awareness to how your brain reacts to feeling threatened, you can stimulate and therefore build up the neural substrates of a mind that has more calm, wisdom, and sense of inner strength – a mind that sees real threats more clearly, acts more effectively in dealing with them, and is less rattled or distracted by exaggerated, manageable, or false alarms.

Only timid people get intimidated. If you don’t want to be like that, don’t compare yourself with others. You are what you are. Everybody is needed to make the whole drama, the cosmic play. A play has every role. Probably you are just acting your part.

What is unimportant in this world? Nothing. God has never created anything that is unimportant. If you think, “I am also equally God’s child. God created me like this. I am happy to be like this,” how can anyone intimidate you? It’s your own wrong notion about yourself. You think little of yourself. You don’t think you are potentially divine. You don’t think that you are the child of God, created by God. If you are a lion cub, and if you forget that and bleat like a lamb, who can help you?

Rise up, exert your birthright, affirm your true nature: “I am that I am.” Realising the true nature of the Self will take you away from all these problems. You are the same always, eternally. You are that immortal soul. Nothing less than that. All other things are just temporary. That’s what you call the highest knowledge.

Misconceptions About Meditation

 

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Misconceptions About Meditation

People have many different ideas about what meditation actually is. The meditator needs to understand the nature of the mind, rather than keep fighting it. Most of us for most of the time are dominated and run by our thoughts or feelings. As a consequence, we tend to think that we are those thoughts and feelings. Meditation is the state of simply being, just pure experiencing, with no interference from the body or the mind. It's a natural state but one which we have forgotten how to access.

There are several meditative techniques which help to create an inner ambience that helps one disconnect from the body-mind and thus simply be. Methods of meditation are only needed until one attains a state of meditation – of relaxed awareness, of consciousness, of becoming centred – has become so intrinsic to one as, say, breathing.

There are several misconceptions about meditation. People think that meditation is only for those who are spiritual seekers. Not so – the benefits of meditation are manifold. The main one is the ability to relax and to be aware without any effort.

Meditation is a practice to gain ‘peace of mind’. This is a contradiction in terms because the mind is a chronic commentator. Meditation helps you in creating a distance between yourself and the commentary, so that the mind, with its constant chatter, no longer intrudes on your inherent state of silence.

Meditation is a mental discipline to control or ‘tame’ the mind, to become more mindful. It is neither a mental effort nor an attempt at controlling the mind. Effort and control involve tension, whereas meditation is all about relaxation, letting go of tension. One only needs to understand how the mind works, one doesn’t need to tame the mind to become more mindful, but to grow more in consciousness.

Meditation is not about focusing, concentrating or contemplating because focusing, concentrating is narrowing of awareness. One concentrates on an object or thing to the exclusion of everything else. By contrast, meditation is all-inclusive, it is an expansion of your consciousness. The meditator becomes simply aware, but not of anything in particular – his awareness becomes all-encompassing.

Meditation is a new kind of experience. Not really – if you have been a sportsperson, you will be definitely aware of what athletes call ‘the zone’. It is that space where you can do nothing wrong, you are at the peak of your performance as things just start happening. This happens with singers, musicians, painters too as their creativity when in the zone surpasses whatever they have created earlier. Meditation is a natural state and one that you have almost certainly tasted, although perhaps without knowing the flavour.

Meditate Regularly

 

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Meditate Regularly

Swamiji keeps telling us to meditate regularly for half an hour in collectivity. The time of meditation should be fixed and so should the place. If you can do that, then with continuous meditative practice in a fixed place your energy gets established in that place and over time you will find it easier to slip into a meditative state because of that energy. This early morning meditation is done in union with the Guru-energies who are continuously transmitting their support from the Himalayas – this is done alone. Later in the day if you have meditation centres close by, you should also meditate in collectivity for half an hour. This, as Swamiji says, is necessary because like driving a car, when you meditate alone you are driving at speed and when you meditate in collectivity you get to control over the car, in this case yourself. So solitary meditation helps you in driving fast and collective meditation helps you control the car.

In fact, Osho explains: “A meditator needs no personal guidance. A meditator, on the contrary, needs only one thing: the atmosphere of meditation. He needs other meditators; he needs to be surrounded by other meditators. Because whatever goes on happening within us is not only within us, it affects people who are close by. In this communion people are at different stages of meditation. To meditate with these people, just to sit silently with these people, and you will be pulled more and more towards your own intrinsic potentiality.”

Everybody should make a point of meditating. We need the mind. It’s with the mind that we do everything. The mind is our key. If that key is not kept in good shape, how are you going to perform your duties? The one and only way to keep the mind in good shape, to keep the mind clean and sharp, is by meditation. So, make all the effort that’s necessary to be regular in meditation.

If you meditate regularly, you’ll have no complaints in life. All of your problems would solve themselves if you were regular in your meditation. Through meditation, the mind gets the capacity to solve problems and rise above difficulties. The people who complain, “Oh, I am this, I am that, I don’t get this, I don’t get that. I feel this way, I feel that way, physically, mentally,” who have constant complications, would find that it all could be easily burnt out by regular meditation. So please do not make any excuses for missing that.

Why Jealousy Hurts

 

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Why Jealousy Hurts

The feeling of jealousy is aroused when we compare ourselves with others. Since childhood we have been taught to compare. Look at your brother, he always comes first, look at so and so he is so well dressed and so on and so forth. Somebody has a better house, better car, more beautiful body, more money….. Compare, go on comparing yourself with everybody and the only outcome will be great jealousy!

If you stop comparing jealousy just disappears. Then you are just you and nobody else. We don’t compare ourselves with nature, else we would be jealous all the time – why are we not green, why don’t we bear fragrant flowers – why has existence been so hard on us? It’s good we don’t compare ourselves with birds, mountains and rivers – if we do, we will suffer more. We compare ourselves only with human beings, because we have been conditioned to do so since childhood.

Comparison is very foolish, simply because each individual is different, with different skill sets, unique and incomparable. Even though we accept the uniqueness of an individual we end up comparing our achievements and then the achievements of our offspring – a never ending cycle. The moment we stop comparing, we are just ourselves, nobody has been like me and nobody will be like me. And I do not need to be somebody else either. Existence creates only originals – no carbon copies.

With jealousy we create hell and because of this mindset we become mean and vindictive. Because of jealousy you are in constant suffering; you become mean to others. And because of jealousy we start becoming phony, because we start pretending. We start pretending things that we don’t have, we start pretending things which we can’t have, which are not natural to us. We become more and more artificial. Imitating others, competing with others, what else can we do? If somebody has something and we don’t have it, and we don’t have a natural possibility of having it, the only way is to have some cheap substitute for it.

But why does the idea of the other enter in our head in the first place? It is because we have not allowed our own juices to flow; we have not allowed our own blissfulness to grow, we have not allowed our own being to bloom. Hence we feel empty inside, and we look at each and everybody’s outside because only the outside can be seen.

The jealous man lives in hell. Drop comparing and jealousy disappears, meanness disappears, phoniness disappears. But we can drop it only if we start growing our inner treasures; there is no other way. Grow up, become a more and more authentic individual. Love yourself and respect yourself the way existence has made you, and then immediately the doors of heaven open for you. They were always open; you had simply not looked at them.

The Present Moment

 

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The Present Moment

Myrko Thum - “The present moment is the only thing where there is no time – it is here and now! It is the point between the past and the future – it is here and now! It is always there and it is the only point we can access in time. Everything that happens, occurs in the present moment. Everything that happened and will ever happen, happens in the present moment. It is impossible for anything to exist outside of it.”

99% of human suffering, mental issues, exists only because we are living in the past or in the future. When we are living in the past, we experience things like resentment, regret, shame, guilt and grief. When we are living in the future, we experience things like anxiety, fear, worry and self-doubt. And when we are living the present moment, there’s no such thing!

Meditation and mindfulness practice helps you stay in the present. The body is always in the present moment, it is the mind which vacillates between the past and the future. For instance, if you have a sick body, then whatever the body is suffering you feel it’s effect ‘now’. If there is an injury to your body, you feel the pain ‘now’ – not in the past or future. Whereas when your body is in the present, your mind travels into the past and into the future.

One can be in the moment by ensuring that the mind remains in the present in company of the body. You can be in the present by making the body and the mind unite. If body and mind are one, then the mind is in the present because the body is always in the present. It means that if you are walking, then your mind too is walking. It’s not that you body is walking and your mind is thinking something else. If you’re eating, then your mind too is eating – it is engaged in the process so body and mind are one.

The other way to be in the present is by focusing on the breath. The breath is always now – there is no past breath or future breath. It is the breath right now. By paying attention to the breath, you can use it as a door to the present moment.

Another thing that comes with our ability to stay present is that we are cultivating fearless presence to whatever shows up in our life. If you have that attitude, then you’re not going to fear any emotion. You’re not going to be a slave to any feeling; you’re going to be able to live life more freely, and that is the value of meditation. It frees up your mind, your heart, your life; it allows you to be more of who you want to be, who you were meant to be. In all of that, living in the present moment is key, and it comes naturally once you build a daily meditation practice.

Beyond Time & Space

 

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Beyond Time & Space

When we are in the present moment, we transcend both time and space. We are truly in the now. The present moment is beyond time. One can live in this no-time, no-space paradigm while fully breathing the present in its totality.

Almost all of us live our lives either in the past or in the future as we are never in the now. We go back in time and pick up a few nostalgic memories wrapped up as happy moments. Even if there are happy moments in our present we tend to go and chew on the past as a matter of habit, or go on hoping for something nice to happen in the future. We hardly ever think of the present moment at all as our mind keeps vacillating between the past and the future. If we manage to let go of the past and future, the present moment will appear in its immense beauty as eternity. This moment – this very moment – is beyond time. Through deep practice of meditation one can live continuously for months together in this no-time, no-space paradigm while fully breathing the present in its totality.

Osho says if you do not think, there won’t be any concept of time. That is why in meditation time stands still - one is suspended in a state of timelessness.

Love is something which transcends time, when in love the sense of time evaporates. Love is not thinking, it is a complete cessation of thought. The love relationship between a Master and disciple is one such relationship which transcends time, space and distance. Once your Satguru has established his seed of meditation in you, he is always there with you in subtle form. You can sense his presence around you, his love around you – you just think of him, and he is there!

Love is the only phenomenon which destroys space, distance, time. Perhaps science will never be able to understand it. Perhaps it is beyond the scope of science. But it is not beyond the scope of poetry, of religion. It is not beyond the scope of meditation. It is not beyond the scope of every individual who is ready to dissolve himself into love. Science then remains a faraway echo, and love becomes the only reality. Love cannot be proved. It can be only be experienced.

If you can feel your Master's love in your heart, if you can sense his presence, know that he is there with you always wherever you are in the world. He is looking out for you, he is protecting you, a part of him is embedded in you like a GPS chip sending your information to him. He will never interfere in your life, but you remember him from the bottom of your heart and you will sense his presence.

Go With Full Confidence

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Go With Full Confidence

There is a beautiful saying which I had once read somewhere, “Sorrow is nothing but what you borrow.” Nobody is going to give you sorrow, so you go and borrow it! Another way to look at confidence is to appear to be aggressive and a fiery badass all the time.

I feel learning to access your inner strength and inner power is a far more important part of confidence, because it leads us to courage and courageous actions often bring good opportunities with them. But there is far more to confidence than our inner fire.

Our fiery attitude is only a tool that is needed for the different forms of success that we are after – good relationships, enjoyability, self-expression and professional achievement. Self-confidence is nothing but a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities and judgement.

A simple way of experiencing this kind of trust in one’s self is through your inner guide. Access to the inner guide is through meditation under the guidance of a realised Master. Once you are bestowed with the seed of self-realisation and you obtain the inner experience, you awaken your inner self, the tiny little voice inside of you starts talking. This little voice has always been talking but the chatter that is continuously going on in your mind drowns out this little voice – it is only when the mind becomes silent through your spiritual practice and meditation that you begin to hear this voice.

This is the voice which guides you – your inner guide, your soul talking to you. Remember, this voice is never wrong – it always gives correct guidance even though in the short term the rational mind may think this to be stupid. But if you do what the rational mind tells you to do, ultimately you will realise that you made a mistake by not listening to your inner guide.

Listening to your inner voice will give you the kind of confidence that you have always wanted – and this confidence will come from faith in your inner voice, from your inner self. Your entire approach and attitude to life will be filled with confidence that oozes from your being. People who interact with you will feel that confidence and positive energy and help you in achieving whatever goals you have set for yourself. 

We make things change. Everything takes its own time. We are in a hurry to change things. We want everything instantaneously. Allow nature to have its say. Nature is God. Let our lives be filled with trust in the higher will. 

Worrying Doesn't Help

 

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Worrying Doesn’t Help

It’s natural to worry about what people think of you. But I feel it is more important for one to know who and what you yourself are. The worrying about what other people think about you happens when you yourself are not sure of who you are. This problem becomes acute when your sense of well-being is tied up in the opinion of others. You’re effectively giving up your own power and letting others dictate your life!

We worry about our family, our job, how to earn more, our home, what vehicle to buy, what dress to wear, about latest gadgets and so on only to abandon them when we reach our destination. That is because we cannot take them with us. We don’t realise in our life’s journey that these are just burdens we are carrying with utmost care for fear of losing them, only to find that at the end they are all useless as we have to leave them behind.

If you take a close look at spiritual Masters, none of them are bothered about what people think about them, that is because they are always centred in their own being – they ‘know’ who they are. When I see people let go of the need to seek approval from others, that makes me feel really good. Because that is one of the key signs of emotional maturity.

Osho always said, “No-one knows what’s best for you but yourself.” Just remember that nobody can say anything about you. Whenever they do, it is a reflection of what they are saying about themselves. But then you become very shaky, because you are still clinging to a false center. And that false center depends on others, so you are always looking to what people are saying about you. You worry about your image in the eyes of other people. And because you worry you try to live up to your false image by always trying to satisfy such people. You are always trying to be respectable; you are always trying to decorate and embellish your ego. This is crazy, suicidal even. Rather than being disturbed by what others say, you should start looking inwards, inside yourself.

When you are self-conscious you are simply showing that you are not conscious of the self at all. You don’t know who you are. Had you known this, then there would have been no problem at all – then you would not have been seeking the opinion of others. Then you would not be worried about what others say about you – that itself would become irrelevant! Stop worrying…..find peace with what you have…..you will always be happy. Remain centred, remain blessed!

What is Truth?

 

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What is Truth?

There is a saying, “What the mind believes is true or it becomes true.” This is exactly what has been happening through time – it is like auto-hypnosis. Is what the mind believes is true reality? Actually, it appears to be true. Also, “it becomes true” – it can never become true by believing it to be true, it starts appearing to be true. For the believer it can become true, although it is not true because belief begins in ignorance. Belief cannot create truth, truth exists – it is already there – only we cannot see it, we live in ignorance.

Truth is truth, it cannot be denied and nor does your believing or not believing change reality – it makes no difference to the truth! But if you start believing in something it appears to be true to you at least. When we say believe, what we are saying in reality is that we do not know the fact, but we believe it to be so, indirectly you accept your ignorance but rely on your belief to explain your position.

The journey in search of truth is arduous. It needs a great emptying of the mind; it needs a great cleansing of the heart. It requires innocence, the innocence of a child – you need to become a child all over again. Only very few people over the ages have actually discovered the truth. The truth will shake you by your very foundation, it is risky, it may shatter all that you have ever known before! You may end up rearranging your whole life. It is dangerous as it could shatter all your dreams, dissipate all your illusions. It is just like going through fire, it will burn you as you pass through, it will kill your current identity completely.

Just think about this – how does the seed know that by dying in the soil it will one day become a massive tree? The seed gives up its identity and becomes a tree – it is not there to witness the tree when fully grown. How can the seed know that one day after it dies, there will be great foliage, flowers and fruits, a home for birds, a shelter for the weary? The seed will not be there, the seed has to disappear and die for the great tree to appear!

Only a very few people have that kind of courage. It really needs guts to discover the truth, because your self has to die before the truth appears. One needs to die while alive to know the truth and that is possible only under the guidance of a living Master. Even under the guidance of a living Master we have to completely give up our ego and desires – literally die while alive – before the truth reveals itself!

Jesus says, "Truth liberates." But how to attain to truth? It is not a question of belief, but a question of meditativeness. And what is meditation? Meditation is emptying your mind completely of all belief, ideology, concept, thought. Only in an empty mind, when there is no dust left on the mirror, truth reflects. That reflection itself is a divine blessing.

Imagination and You

 

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Imagination and You

Sant Kabir says, “Put all imagination away.” We think we are poor; we have everything and even then, we imagine what will happen if we lose everything. Imagining in a negative manner will only give us stress. The idea that you are a beggar is also nothing but your imagination. Suppose you get fed up with the idea of being poor, your begging, your desires and your ambitions you start turning towards spirituality and you imagine – “I am God.” That too is imagination, it will not take you anywhere.

Instead of imagining things, drop all your imagination and go into a state of no-imagination. With imagination, you are not yourself, you are traveling in your mind and are moving away from yourself. You fall asleep and go into a dream-state and in your sleep, you find yourself in New York and in the next moment you are in Paris. For the full night you were stationary in your bed, but in your imagination, you had travelled to New York and Paris.

Similarly, if you look at yourself as a soul, then you have never left your divinity. It has always been within you under layers and layers of mental impressions collected over several births. Deep down you know that you are divine, but the heavy layers do not allow that sense to come into your consciousness. It is hidden deep within your subconscious. You have never left your divinity as you are rooted in it. But your imagination makes you an animal sometimes or a tree, sometimes you become a devil and sometimes an angel, sometimes you are kind and sometimes insulting, sometimes you are a gentleman and sometimes a rogue – you go on imagining.

But deep down you are pure consciousness and nothing else. These are all the roles you choose for yourself. You create, you project and then you enter your own projections in your imagination. The best is to stay stable and constant and tell yourself, “Do not go anywhere, stay put!” As Sant Kabir says, “Put all imagination away….”.

That is what meditation is all about – putting the imagination away. But many of us bring our imagination into our meditation too. In meditation too they start imagining – this happens because they hear someone else’s spiritual experiences, get fascinated and then during the meditation the mind tries to project that experience into you. I have heard a person narrating a story of how she went out of her body while asleep. That itself is an indication that she imagined it in her dreams. The very strong desire to go out of body manifested as a dream – that wasn’t reality!

In meditation, it is best to remain detached and aloof – just watch what is happening, do not become a part of it. That is the way to be – no imagination, just witnessing!

Friendliness & Love

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Friendliness & Love

Friendship is a relationship. One can be in that relationship with a few people. Friendliness is a quality not a relationship. It has nothing to do with anybody else, it is basically our inner quality. One can be friendly even when you are alone. One cannot be in friendship when one is alone - the other is needed - but friendliness is a kind of fragrance. A flower opens in the jungle; nobody passes by - still it is fragrant. It does not matter whether anybody comes to know of it or not, it is its quality. Nobody may ever come to know about it, but that does not matter; it is rejoicing.

Friendship can exist only between one man and another man or at the most between a man and an animal - a horse, a dog. But friendliness can exist even with a rock, with a river, with a mountain, with a cloud, with a far-away star. Friendliness is unlimited because it is not dependent on the other; it is absolutely one’s own flowering.

Love someone and you will feel helpless; hate someone and you can do something. Love someone and you are absolutely helpless - because what can you do? Whatsoever you can do seems insignificant, meaningless; it is never enough. Nothing can be done. And when one feels that nothing can be done, one feels that one is helpless. When one wants to do everything and feels nothing can be done, mind stops. In this helplessness surrender happens. You are empty. That is why love becomes a deep meditation.

Meditation helps in bringing to the surface the friendliness and love in our heart. We learn to love all beings and love becomes our very nature. Loving selflessly, responding to both aggressive as well as passive behaviour of both known and unknown people with friendliness, kindness and compassion, always leaves an indelible mark on the minds of the protagonist.

In our relationship with people, we usually choose to react to words and deeds. If we are in the moment then our action, both in words and deeds is spontaneous and is absolutely appropriate for that particular incident. The more we learn to live in the moment, the greater our sense of unconditional love towards all. 

So, be friendly, just friendly to all that exists. And in that friendliness, you will find all that is worth finding. In friendliness you will find the ultimate friend. Once you find that ultimate friend, love just starts flowing through your being – you yourself become love!

There Are No Problems

 

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There Are No Problems

Some people love to make mountains out of mole-hills – that is because their ego is not satisfied with mole-hills, the ego does not feel good – so the mind blows up every little issue! Even if such person is feeling miserable – it should be the Mount Everest of misery, nothing less will do! People go on and on, creating big problems where none existed. If one listens to someone else’s problem, on analysing it we realise that it is not really a problem and there are umpteen ways out of it.

People create problems to gather sympathy and self-importance – because without problems they feel empty, there is nothing to do, nothing to fight over, nowhere to go. The ego can exist only when it struggles, remember – when it fights. If you tell someone if you kill three flies you will get self-realisation, he will not believe you; but you tell him that if you kill a hundred lions, he will believe you – 100 lions, what a challenge! That’s how the ego works. The greater the problem, the greater the challenge – and with the challenge your ego rises, it soars high. You create the problems which don’t exist in reality.

The true Masters have been saying something else – they say just look at what you are doing, what nonsense are you doing! First you create a problem, then you look for a solution. Just watch why you are creating the problem in the first place, just the beginning of the problem, when you are creating it – watch that and that is the solution – don’t create the problem. Simple! But most of us won’t find this to be appealing, because the human ego wants something to ‘do’. Nothing to do? That becomes a problem in itself! And you begin to stuff yourself with nonsense.

You don’t have any problems – only this much has to be understood! This very moment you can drop all problems because they are your creations. Have another look at your problems: the deeper you look, the smaller they will appear. Go on looking at them and by and by they will start disappearing. Go on observing and suddenly you will find there is emptiness - a beautiful emptiness surrounds you. Nothing to do, nothing to be, because you are already that.

Start living this very moment and you will see that the more you live, the less problems there are. Because now that your emptiness is flowering and living there is no need. When you don't live, the same energy goes sour. The same energy which would have become a flower, is stuck; not being allowed to bloom it becomes a thorn in the heart. It is the same energy.

Nothing Serious About Life

 

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Nothing Serious About Life

Life is not serious, the individual is serious, man is serious. In life great achievements have taken place because of man’s intensity and strong desire to achieve certain goals. Intensity is very different from seriousness – if you are serious, you can never be intense, you can only be tense. With seriousness you can never be intense and deep, you will always be shallow.

Life is not at all serious – it is just a play with nothing to be achieved and nowhere to reach! Seriousness is objective-drive, it is always end-oriented. This means that you are living in order to achieve something and if you don’t achieve it, then life is meaningless. That is seriousness – the means lies in the end, not in the present moment, not in the here and now! The end has to be achieved. If you achieve it, great, if you don’t, then one feels everything is lost. One becomes serious because one has established conditions in one’s mind that something has to be achieved which will make life ‘meaningful’, and if that does not happen, if the condition is not fulfilled, then life becomes ‘meaningless’, frustrating even!

There is nothing static on earth, everything is in a state of flux, everything is changing with every moment in life – and when life is so dynamic and flowing there is every chance that whatever we plan in life considering all contingencies, something still goes wrong and we don’t achieve our goals. The real beauty of life is its dynamism, the constant change, which makes life interesting for those who learn to go with the flow of life. Adapt, adopt and move on – those who learn to convert every challenge into an opportunity, survive and begin to enjoy life in the moment – the only reality!

If you are ready to exist in any way whatsoever then you have become a part of the ocean of life. Then there are no more waves, there is no rising and falling – you have become the ocean itself. You are now ready to do anything – rise or fall, to be or not to be, once this happens you can flow with everything. The more you flow the more alive you are.

Seriousness requires a release mechanism to release the tension. Laughter becomes a release mechanism for tension, but that is only temporary and the individual goes back to becoming serious. Instead of laughter becoming a release mechanism, if you learn to laugh innocently at the joy in the moment, then this laughter becomes totally different. Make this a way of living, then innocent laughter becomes your nature and seriousness never consumes you. 

A person who is one with life, just flows. There is no resistance. Such a person has no resistance. He does not say such and such thing must happen. Such a person has become the whole, with total acceptance of life in the moment. A divine existence means to just flow. If you win, great, if you lose, great – no sweat. Nothing serious about life – just the moment which is reality.

Soul is Pure Consciousness

 

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Soul is Pure Consciousness

‘I am that’ – Nisargdatta Maharaj. This quote is what defines us human beings. I am the soul, minus my mind and body. We are all souls in our current state of existence, but we are not aware of this reality. To find the soul or to attain soul-realisation or self-realisation one has to become free from ignorance and delusion about oneself and only then can we know our own true nature. We can only become aware of ourselves by gaining knowledge about ourselves.

Liberation truly means becoming free from our ignorance and delusion and returning to our original state of freedom and pure consciousness. This happens once we realise that the mask and the costume represented by our ego and body are not who we are. Birth after birth we keep changing our costumes, our roles, our masks. While enacting numerous roles and living them, experimenting with numerous choices and preferences, likes and dislikes, we temporarily forget who we are.

You are nothing but the eternal soul, never doubt that. In your purest state you are the deity in the temple of your body. Even though you do not truly feel it or believe in it, you should think like one, live like one and act like one. If a person lives like a pious man for a long time in word and deed, even if he is not, he will eventually end up becoming one.

Therefore, instead of considering yourself a mortal being, live and act like an eternal soul, identifying yourself with the purest consciousness in you. Make that consciousness purer, brighter and stable with discipline and yoga. Through transformative practices make yourself wiser, gentler, peaceful, and virtuous, just as a sculptor chisels a rock and creates a beautiful form out of it.

If you continue the effort, eventually you will peel off all the layers of impurities which surround your consciousness, silence your craving for things, and wake up into the highest reality of yourself. In that state you will realise that the Self is not anything which is different from you, and self-realisation is a state of self-awakening in which you will not find anything other than you, but your very core consciousness which is all knowing, all pervading, eternal and indivisible. It is as if you wake up from a long sleep and suddenly remember who you are.

Your soul or Self is not a different entity. It is you, in your purest and pristine state. One way to enter that state is by withdrawing your senses into your mind and your mind into the self, and engaging your mind in the contemplation of the Self. To practice this, you have to spare time for regular meditation.

The Door is Never Closed

 

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The Door is Never Closed

In spirituality the door symbolises the famous philosophical concept of two worlds that exist in our Universe so faithfully, and that Doors represent the clearest picture of eternal life. You die and then you go through the Light Door and enter another world as they say. There are Universal Doors which we can open with our mind when deep in meditation, that is when we lose sense of time and space, we enter into different dimensions which we never knew existed. It is even said that the Doors are boundaries in the intersecting spiral galaxies.

As humanity progressed and evolved both materially and spiritually the path of the Doors became clear. The Doors became more and more important. There are two aspects in each one of us: the first leads to the tangible, the naked eye, the visible, the material and which places emphasis on our Ego – this personality of ours is accessible to the whole world. The other, however, remains visible only to a select few, symbolising our inner being, our soul, our most personal seal and the path to self-realisation.

Sometimes one wonders whether all souls that take birth on earth will attain liberation. From what little I understand about spirituality that door is never closed – it is always open! All souls that take birth have to go through their karmic cycles, evolving to higher levels with every passing birth, till they find their Master who takes them to self-realisation and from there one carries on the journey alone till one reaches the state of liberation.

Swamiji keeps telling us that he has been with us for the last 800 years and because of his promise to take all the souls he had come across in the previous births to liberation – he has taken this birth to carry everyone across to the other shore. Again, that is his promise, he has held out his hand and many of us have caught it too – but again it depends on each individual whether he wants to hold on tightly to his hand and reach the other shore. The choice is with every individual to hold on or not.

If one does choose to let go of the hand, then it will be difficult to catch it again in this birth. One may have to wait for one or more births to attain the state of liberation. So, it depends on the individual on which side of the door he/she wishes to remain. The door is always open!

No Loss in Giving

 

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No Loss in Giving

We are seekers after Truth and for that purpose we follow various religions since birth, which kind of become our schools of thought. Some of us may be atheists, nevertheless truth is not the exclusive right of any particular creed, or place, or age. It is a every man’s birth right. Just as every man has the right to breathe air, and bask in the rays of the sun, we are all privileged to draw divine energy from Universal Consciousness, as also, strength, and wisdom, which is within each of us. That infinite supply cannot be exhausted. Anyone belonging to any religion can delve it out from within with the help of somebody who is competent — call him by any name you like. Take all that you can. Not only will it suffice for you, but through it you will become instrumental in helping your fellows. Your smile will inspire another to smile. Your strength will impel another to be strong. A noble soul always draws forth the noble quality in others.

God is love, and our souls are also love and it is through love alone that we can know God. Love knows true renunciation, service, and sacrifice for the good of others without any consideration. A true man is one who is truthful, leads a life of continence, radiates love to all others for the sake of God residing in them, and knows ‘giving’, ‘giving’, and always ‘giving’. We never lose anything when we give. When you give love, do you find that you have less love in your heart? On the contrary, you are conscious of an ever-greater power of loving, but no one can be convinced of these things till he has applied them in a practical way. It is said that an ounce of practice is worth tons of theories.

It is a practical age — therefore, it is for us to make our idealism more practical. Believe in God, Who is Spirit; Love — the principle of all things; Who is in me and I am in Him; Who resides in every heart. We should therefore love all mankind and others. If one cannot love those whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see?

There is a Religion above all religions which teach rituals, dogmas, and doctrines. That is Truth. Religion truly means “re” — back, and “ligio” which comes from “ligore” — to bind; i.e., to bind our soul back to Truth — God. You have to be born into the Truth. All Masters who come from time to time speak of the same Truth. We are lovers of Truth. That is the True Religion, on the basis of which the whole world can sit together and the East and West could be united.

The purpose of all Masters who grace earth is to bring together all human beings of all religions to understand each other and find a way back to God, represented by Love. We are fortunate that we have the blessings and guidance of Swamiji to spread the message of love, become love personified, which is to attain a state of pure radiating love!

A Helping Hand

 

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A Helping Hand

Helping others has been ingrained in me since my childhood. As I grew up, I saw the example of my grandparents and then my mother (father passed away when I was a child) helping those in need in whatever way they could. We were not economically too well off, but we were rich at heart. In the kitchen we always had extra food cooked for any surprise visitor, plus food for the maids and cooks who came for daily work. My mother was a great cook and people called her ‘Annapoorna’ (Goddess of food and cooking) and tea and food was always available at very short notice.

With the passage of time as our economic condition improved providing financial assistance, clothes etc was a kind of norm at home and this sense got conditioned in all our brother’s psyche. Helping selflessly kind of became second nature. I’ll narrate a couple of incidents in my life, which in hindsight, I feel were the stepping stones to turn towards spirituality.

A friend and I had gone to attend his relative’s wedding in Belgaum. My friend was not treated with respect by the family, so he said let’s go for a walk and eat lunch outside rather than at the wedding. While we were walking down the street from the corner of my eye, I noticed something and instinctively looked back. I saw a young cow’s neck entangled in a nylon rope which was tied to a pole. In trying to free itself it had fallen in a nearby ditch and was literally choking itself on the rope. I ran back tried to free the cow from the rope, but it was too tight. I went to a nearby vegetable vendor and asked for a knife pointing to the cow and its predicament. He gave me the knife and I cut the cow free, it bounced up and looked at me with those doleful kind eyes and went on its way. That look in the cow’s eye is imprinted in my mind.

The second incident was while running early in the morning, I passed a person who was sitting on the footpath. I don’t know why, but I looked back and saw that he did not have feet and he was trying to get up and sit in his wheelchair. I ran back, helped him up on his crutches and then he sat on his wheelchair without assistance. Once I saw he did not need any further help, I continued running. A car passed by and someone shouted at me, “That was God-like, thank you.” Or something to that effect.

We are not all at the same level. With the proper understanding, you will not have any difficulty in liking everyone. If you dislike someone, it’s your mistake because you lack understanding. That person might be a terrible sinner who made a lot of mistakes, but your dislike is also a mistake. So, if you cannot help the person, at least don’t dislike him or her. You have probably done the same thing before but have just forgotten about it. People grow by making mistakes. That’s why we should never hesitate to give more chances to people. Give a helping hand rather than a condemning one.

Journey From Fear to Love

 

Photo Credit: QuoteFancy| Marianne Williamson

Journey From Fear to Love

There are two motivating forces which are fundamental to our existence – fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we feel love, fall in love, we open our hearts to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. First, we have to learn to love ourselves with all our imperfections. If we are unable to love ourselves, then it becomes very difficult to love others.

While meditating I realised that the opposite of love is not hatred, but fear. Fear with its sense of contraction, isolation, tension, diffidence and coldness towards others and towards life, and Love with its expansion, inclusion, trust, relaxation, empathy and compassion towards each other and towards the planet. Fear wants to control and makes you more easily controlled, and love gives freedom and makes you realise that you are free.

The biggest fear that man has is the fear of death. While this fear preys on the minds of everyone, there is one simple way to get rid of this fear. Meditation helps us see our own self for what we really are – just souls encased in a physical body. The soul has seen several bodies and is eternal – it is on its own journey to liberation.

Fear is a sense of lack of contact with existence. Imagine a child in a cradle, left alone, the parents have gone somewhere. The child wakes up and finds that it is alone and starts crying copiously in its cradle – left alone with no contact, nobody to protect, nobody to give solace, nobody to love, a loneliness, a vast loneliness all around – that is fear.

I see, understand and know this fear in me as I am sure almost all of you do, and these are the moments in which it is triggered and oftentimes even exploited by those who have their own private agenda; but these are also the moments in which our spirit can rise from the dark valleys of fear and move towards the luminous peaks of one of the most powerful qualities that man has within himself: the ability to love.

Love in the true sense of the word. A love that is bigger than our small world. A love that can embrace not only the other but all living beings on the planet. This is the glory of man who is able to destroy but at the same time able to feel and share love, one of the most divine creative forces that resides right in our hearts. It is up to us now to let it awaken. The time is ripe.

Dying Consciously

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 Dying Consciously

When one talks of dying consciously one is talking about the state one reaches through meditation and living every moment in conscious awareness. Swamiji has said that liberation is not something which one reaches after death, it is that state which one reaches while living – a state of void, nothingness.

Sadhana, either a specific practice or your overall spiritual transformation, begins with you as an ego and evolves into your being a soul, who you really are. The ego is identified with the incarnation, which stops at the moment of death. The soul, on the other hand, has experienced many deaths. If you’ve done your sadhana fully, there will be no fear of death, and dying is just another moment.

To die consciously apart from doing one’s spiritual practice in complete awareness, one can also take certain steps to approach your own death in complete awareness. You have to accept that death is the ultimate reality, there is no point being afraid, embrace the feeling and live in the moment. With every breath you take – you live, with every breath you exhale – you die; if the next moment you are unable to breathe, it is said that you have died. So, we could consider the following to prepare for one’s own death:

Live your life consciously and fully. Learn to identify with and be present in your soul and not in your ego. Fill your heart with love. Turn your mind towards God, Guru and Ultimate Truth. Continue with all your spiritual practices: meditation, mantra, kirtan, all forms of devotion. Be there for the death of your parents, loved ones, or beloved animals. Know that the presence of your loved ones will remain when you are quiet and bring them into your consciousness. If there is pain at the time of death, try to remain as conscious as possible. Medication for pain gives you some solace but dulls your awareness. To be peaceful at the time of death, seek peace within today.

You should be content – as if you have reached your goal; as if there is no further journey to be undertaken; as if there is nowhere else to go. No matter what may be achieved, it should be more than enough. There should be no thought whatsoever of achieving more than you already have.

If this happens to you, how will you be born again? You will die fully satisfied. And the man who dies completely satisfied has no reason to come back again. Such a man has known the art of death. The man who dies desireless, knows the art of death.