Girish's Blog

  Photo Credit: Positive Provocations Sincere Souls Swamiji has given us a very simple mantra – I am a holy soul, I am a pure soul. The question is – how many of us actually feel that we are at the soul-level? Have we done our spiritual practise and reached to the level of the soul? Or are we still filled with body consciousness studded with desires, wants, expectations and so on? In the West the spiritual guidance that is received is not like what we receive in India. In the West, it is more about going to church and listening to sermons. These serve as a mode to awaken the desire to seek God – but most of such people have listened to such sermons so many times that a kind of fatigue has set in. They know what has been said and what has been sermonised – but they are not living it. What needs to be done by such people is to live the truth in their lives – absorb the sermons and meditate and practise His presence every day. Try and connect within. For example, when we go to a...

  Photo Credit: Facebook Right Attitude & Detachment Most people start praying to God or seeking God in times of stress and tension in their lives. And for some the question is what is the use of this life if we are not seeking God? The life of an average person is such that for every ten bitter experiences you will probably have one great experience. Life gives more slaps than caresses – it is like a rule of life. That is why we find more people who are unhappy as compared to those who are happy. A very select few can say that they are truly happy. Unless and until one learns self-control, control over the mind, something always comes along to make them unhappy! We face many tests in life, in fact, since the time I have embarked on the spiritual path I have felt that everything is a test – the Master keeps testing us at every moment, it is a test of patience, test of compassion, test of kindness, test of resilience – believe me everything is a test. We have to be aware tha...

  Photo Credit: SF Yoga Mag Focus on Divine Consciousness All great saints have told us that we are divine, we are all made in the image of God. We must not desecrate that image with negative emotions like fear, anger, jealousy, hatred, impatience and so on. When this happens are mind gets disturbed and we involuntarily dislodge ourselves from our innate divine state. Learning to live in this world without disturbing or giving up the divine image of calmness and joy in which God has created us – that is the art we need to learn and thus solve the mystery of life. Ashtanga yoga teaches us exactly that. Samarpan meditation is a step forward – it takes us directly to the final two steps – dhyan and samadhi . Yoga helps us stabilise and calm the body whereas dhyan helps us stabilise and quieten the mind, samadhi unites us with the divine and duality disappears into the union of perpetual bliss. Even though God has surrounded us with all kinds of limitations everywhere, still the...

  Photo Credit: Unsplash Good-Evil – Mystery? In human beings we see that some people enjoy marvellous health, and some people have been ailing and sick from the very beginning of their lives. We always rationalise saying that this is the Law of Karma. And still karma alone doesn’t seem enough to explain everything. It is definitely true that people reap the result of their evil actions. But who is it that creates those impulses in us which induce us into such evil actions in the first place? We say that we are made in the image of God, then logically our innate nature has to be good, isn’t it! We have not created negative emotions such as hate, jealousy, anger, greed and so on – but they are there. The question also arises why is there mass destruction and death from floods, other natural disasters which do not make a distinction between good or evil. In such cases people from both sides of the spectrum fall a victim to such disasters. It is human beings that created the vicio...

  Photo Credit: Dreamstime.com Face The Reality A spiritual Master does not distribute lollipops, he is not there to mollycoddle you! He is there to make us face our reality, to look at life and see where we stand, how we have improved; are we progressing or are we stagnating? The Guru provides the mirror for us to see our own reality. The Master is like a polished mirror, such that when we look at him, we see ourselves just as we are, no image distortions, no false images – just who and what we are! Because if we can’t actually see ourselves for what we are, how will we ever change? Once in a while look in the mirror and ask yourself – “Have I changed?” Be honest with yourself, then only will there be room for improvement, for progress. In order to facilitate our spiritual progress, the Master keeps testing us by giving rise to such situations which literally test us in the aspect of ourselves that we think has changed for the better. Don’t run away from such situations, face them...

  Photo Credit: Bhagwad Gita Always Choose Peace In these days of human conflict, maintaining one’s own peace has become a huge challenge. When a person feels danger there is only one way that our body responds to the perceived danger, whether it is a threat to our life from a wild animal or a hostile, angry exchange with a colleague. The response usually comes in the form of a ‘fight or flight’ response based on our instant analysis made by our brain as the response releases adrenaline and cortisol into our bloodstream. Such instantaneous response is actually harmful for us when we are not responding to actual physical attacks where we need to fight or flee, it is also harmful in another way: Instead of being able to act in alignment with our values, we fall to the level of habitual responses. This is purely reactional! Choosing peace is something we can train ourselves to do by practicing yoga and meditation. There are martial arts forms which also train us to maintain our ...

  Photo Credit: QuoteFancy|| Richard Bach The Real Achievement Lots of people talk about self-realisation, God-realisation and spirituality but they have no clue as to the amount of effort, grace and blessings that are required for attaining that goal. One practices hard – day and night – and becomes an Olympic champion winning all kinds of medals. One can also become a statesman, diplomat, wealthy businessman, professional through one’s own efforts and hard work. That’s easy, anybody who has the will power and commitment can do that – and you can see that a lot of people are doing it all over the world. The real achievement is in doing something that everyone else is not doing. There are lots of pinnacles in the world and all of them have more or less been conquered by people – these are all achievements in the physical, mental or academic spheres. It takes an extraordinary person, an extraordinary mind, a super-human to achieve the highest goal. There is no point in thinkin...

  Photo Credit: QuoteFancy|| Deepak Chopra Awareness is Never Lost Since birth we are aware, we are always in the moment as children, but as we grow up our awareness is diluted. It appears to have disappeared as it gets entangled in other objects. Awareness is our nature, it is never lost, one can focus it on anything one chooses to. Once you are tired of focusing it on material objects like money, power, prestige, then a moment comes in life when one wants to focus one’s awareness within by closing the eyes. One begins to look for the source of this awareness, where is it coming from, on the roots – once this happens, in that split second life is transformed. There are no steps to be followed – just one step – turn within. There is a story in Judaism which explains this concept. There was a man, Bal Shem, every day in the middle of the night he would go and sit on the banks of a river. That was his routine, night after night without fail, he would sit in that absolute calm and...

  Photo Credit: BukRate|| Dada Bhagwan Nothing Will Bother You We get so easily disturbed by occurrences which happen in our life – we question, “why should it happen with me all the time?” Our being is so in tune with our ego that we always feel hurt by even the littlest of things. We take offence, we are offended and keep question everyone and everything! We are unable to see that the problem is “me” – because we are not looking within, we are looking for external scapegoats! Let’s suppose you are involved in an accident; you may have been trying to wrongly overtake and in the process lost control and caused the accident. But your ego will never let you accept that fact and you will end up blaming the other driver, and if no other driver is involved, you will blame the vehicle manufacturer, the road, or anything else – but not your ‘self’. Why is that? Acceptance of any situation is the core solution to all problems. Why me? is never a solution. Everything happens for a purpo...

  Photo Credit: Fearless Soul Me, Me, Me - You, You, You Most people's thinking revolves around their own selves – it’s always about ‘me, me, me!’ The more one’s thinking centres around your own self, the more karma you attract. “What can I get? What should I wear? How do I look? What should I do?” I, I, I – all the way I! It is not possible to avoid karma which has already accrued, but we can avoid fresh karma by not doing anything for our own sake. We can do this by always feeling, “Everything is happening through God’s energy, I am only the medium. Whatever I am doing is not with selfish motive. Whatever I do is for the sake of others, for the overall benefit of humanity in the name of Paramatma.” If we think and act like this, all our actions become selfless service, Karma Yoga. We do not create any new karma in this manner. It is not possible to exhaust all the accrued karma in one life-time – this is simply because we live life in ignorance and as we endure our old karma, w...

  Photo Credit: Quotefancy || Sri Aurobindo Holy and Pure Spirit We have been given a soul mantra by our revered Master, His Holiness Shivkrupanand Swami – ‘I am a holy soul, I am a pure soul’. Anyone can chant this mantra and internalise it to actually then get the feeling of being a holy and pure spirit! Everybody has a clean and pure Self, the image of God – the soul! Each soul is an expression of the same God. In Sanatan dharma – we say ‘Atma se Paramatma tak’ – meaning, ‘the journey from soul to Supreme Soul’ or ‘Nar se Narayan tak’, meaning ‘the journey from man to God’. You can choose to perceive that divine element in each and every living being in nature, functioning through every mind and body. When you learn to do that, you will see the divine element in each and every being and you will realise that the Self is common to everything and everybody. Once you learn to recognise the Self in everybody – like Swamiji says, 'I see my Guru in every person', similarly we lear...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Utilising Love Human beings’ existence is based on love – humanity means love and compassion. When we feel an extra surge of love gushing from our heart, our capacity to love increases manifold – the question is where do we direct this love? Or do we have the capacity to direct it? Is it a natural process that happens unknowingly? When we meditate regularly our energy centres keep getting purified on a continuous basis. We go into society, gather muck, and when we meditate, we cleanse ourselves – this is an ongoing process which continues till we reach the stage where our aura has become so strong that the muck stops entering our being. From here on in, our heart chakra starts flowering and love starts flowing from within us. This is a natural process – the love energy envelops all those beings – sentient and non-sentient – who enter our energy field. You will hear comments from people who meet you – I was feeling low, after speaking with you I am al...

Photo Credit:Our Father's House Soup Kitchen   Anything Can Roll Down Once one starts consciously walking on the spiritual path, one has to be very careful about one’s thoughts, words and deeds. The first person who climbs an unconquered mountain always struggles to find the path to the top. He keeps failing again and again before he finally succeeds. After coming down he maps the route for others to follow. He becomes the path-breaker the path setter – ‘I went this way, now you too can follow!’ Swamiji went to the Himalayas repeatedlly spending a cumulative period of 16 years in gaining spiritual knowledge from various Gurus, being passed on like a football (his own words) from one Guru to the other. After gaining knowledge he came down to society and since 1994 he has been showing the easy way to self-realisation by teaching Samarpan Meditation free of cost to all and sundry. Currently this is practiced in 62 countries and spreading very fast! He went to the Himalayas and is ...

  Photo Credit: Wisdom Quotes Advising Others! With the passage of time, as we go through life, we feel we have become wise and are prone to giving advice. Taking someone else’s advice can prove to be dangerous. Many will give advice even though they aren’t truly in a position to be giving it. Others will give advice that is very one-sided and that cannot be catered to by every person in every situation - in fact, it’s rare to find any sort of advice that holds true for any given situation. Every situation that a person finds him or herself in is entirely unique. The outside factors and our own state of internal affairs can’t be replicated or fully understood by ourselves, far be it for anyone standing on the side-lines to give conclusive advice to anyone in the midst of action or turmoil. For every problem there is always a solution. When we are unable to arrive at an answer by ourselves, we seek the help of others. We either ask our family or friends, read books on the subj...

  Photo Credit: Crosswalk.com The Best Victory Right since taking birth we are struggling, fighting for survival. The child is so comfortable in the mother’s womb, it doesn’t want to come out – it gives the mother labour pain as it struggles to emerge from the womb. This struggle helps in making the child strong and capable to take on the world. An early lesson – nothing comes easy in life – life is a struggle. As we start growing up, we realise that we have to share our parental love with our siblings – for some that is easy, in others it creates a sense of jealousy, competition even for seeking one’s parents’ attention! Then off to school – where again you are competing with children of your own age – and you begin to think, ‘When will all this end?’ We seem to be in a race which never seems to end. The race to the top with peers is fine – but there will always be those who are better placed than you – they have a huge advantage over you – how do you compete? You cannot win...

  Photo Credit: Twitter The Whole Is Yours Just like the legs do the ‘walking’ for you, the mind does ‘minding’. That is what the mind does for a living! As Osho explains, “It immediately divides things into two.” The moment the mind thinks, it divides into two. That is its job – it is part of the duality of human existence. To think and to divide into two constitute one and the same thing. The more a man is used to thinking, the more he will keep on dividing. Ultimately, he will end up with fragments and the whole will be completely lost. The answer to every question lies in the wholeness, in this totality. The mind is unable to find the answers to any question. The mind is helpless. It cannot function without making divisions. Then what use is the mind? You can definitely use it for preparing tax returns or doing any other mundane job or activity for which it is very good. No matter what you do, life only turns out the way it turns out. Struggling with life does not help at...

Photo Credit: Love Messages   Learning All The Time It is said that we are learning right since the time we are born. If learning stops then progress stops! The only thing that is constant is change – so as we pass through different stages of life our learning continues and helps in changing our perspective about life with the passage of time. The hidden message in this statement is – remain in the present moment! In spirituality we should not deny anybody just because he or she follows or doesn’t follow a certain path. Ultimately, we are all learning.  If anyone is interested in knowing what practices you are doing, talk about it; explain how you have benefited, but don’t try to persuade another to do the same thing. Today, meditation is needed more than ever before. Meditation is needed to such an extent that it has almost become a matter of life and death. In the olden days it was a luxury that only a few people enjoyed – a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna – only such pe...

  Photo Credit: Thinking Faith Rest At the Top As we progress in life, we start from getting an education, then finding a job or starting a business, then making ends meet and then going on to make money and generate wealth in life. Most of us don’t stop to rest as we feel we have very little time to achieve our never-ending life goals. All this applies to us in our material life; some of us get fed up of the continuous stress of living up to not only our own expectations but to the expectations of our family and friends! Some of us get fed up of this rat race and try to find a solution which is outside the rat race. A true seeker finds a spiritual guide, a realised Master, and then turns inwards to find inner peace. Here too, the task is tough and one has to follow all the rules of an ascetic before one reaches a stage where he can ultimately rest. The way to the goal is through yoga and meditation. Meditation is rest, absolute rest, a full stop to all activity — physical, m...