Girish's Blog

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Facing Life’s Challenges We live in this world, and it offers us lots of challenges. When we are thinking that everything is going fine, something happens, and everything goes off balance. Some of the great teachers have said there is no point in wearing different robes and going away into the forest and sitting in caves and meditating. We are in this world; we have to sort out this world’s problems first and we have to live in this world and face so many situations. It is important how we face the world. The moment we think everything has been sorted out, something raises its head. It is normal and it happens to everybody. When we think that now life is all fine, we are enjoying it, there is something lurking on the other side. This is not to paint a pessimistic picture of life, but life is like that – these are facts that we have to accept. Life is full of ups and downs. We do not have to be afraid of it but understand that when we are on a ...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Life – a Continuous Evolution The most fundamental question to be remembered is that one has to be constantly aware – one can never take for  granted that suffering is over and there is bliss all around. If one takes it for granted that the suffering is over, then rest assured that the suffering will enter through the back door. One has to be constantly alert and aware. Today, for the moment, there may be no jealousy, no passion, no anger, and so much love flowing naturally. When there is no passion and no jealousy, all the energies move into the direction of love. It is the same energy that becomes passion, that becomes jealousy. When there is no jealousy, no passion, all the energy is available for the flowers of love to bloom. But do not take it for granted. Do not think that the suffering is over for ever. Life is a continuous evolution, and we have to be constantly alert, otherwise we can fall back into the old patterns very easily. And the...

  Photo Credit: Everyday Power Comparison and Misery Most of us in our growing years and some of us even today are compared to others – “look at so and so, see how well he studies, plays, etc and look at you – you need to become like him/her.” I am sure most of us have faced such comments in our life – all this does is give us a kind of inferiority complex, which is very difficult to get rid of later in life. We too begin comparing ourselves with others, we too try and become like someone whom we are not. That comparison always falls short, and we always end up feeling stressed out, we feel that we are failures. We are comparing our happiness to someone else’s happiness, someone else’s bliss – when we are so concerned about other people’s bliss and happiness how will we find time to transform our own selves? Comparison always brings misery, and misery becomes a great hindrance for anything to happen to us. So, the first thing is: if it is happening to many people, drop the ol...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Manipulation All of us have at some point in our life manipulated others and have in turn been manipulated ourselves. It is not a very nice feeling once you know that you have been manipulated and have been taken advantage of. We have seen people in college, in office, amongst our friends, people who try to turn things to their own advantage by manipulating circumstances or manipulating other people. These are nothing but mind games and in the end the manipulator too becomes a victim of his/her own manipulation. People use manipulation as a tool to get ahead in life, try to protect themselves – but all these actions just add to one’s karmic bank account. Once one becomes aware of being manipulative and expresses a desire to change – that is the first step – becoming aware of being manipulative! Once we understand that we are trying to be manipulative, then the base disappears. Manipulation is so useless and futile a thing. If we succeed, nothing is gai...

  Photo Credit: Radhanath Swami Quotes Mercy and Ego Mercy can be of two kinds. It can be very egoistic, then it only appears as mercy but is not; unless mercy is absolutely egoless it is not authentic. And the difference is very subtle: from the outside there is no difference at all, but one can feel the difference inside. If mercy arises out of one’s bliss, then it can never be an ego trip. If we share our bliss, we feel thankful to the person who receives it, we feel humble. Bliss never makes anybody egoistic; on the contrary, dropping of the ego is the basic requirement of being blissful. Unless one drops the ego, one is never blissful. Bliss happens within us like a flame of light and mercy is the radiation of it. When our bliss starts reaching to others it is mercy, compassion. The person who is merciful towards the poor, the starving, the ill, and is using it as a means of attaining heaven, of attaining God’s grace, is exploiting these people. In fact, this type of man will ...

  Photo Credit: BrainyQuote Inferiority and Ambition Ambition is nothing but the strong desire to be successful, to have power, to have great wealth, etc. Where does this desire come from? Most of us come from humble beginnings and get educated, get a job and then ‘progress’ in life as we start fulfilling our desires. After our basic desires are fulfilled we keep wanting more and this sense of ‘more and more’ comes from a sense of inferiority. The sense of inferiority comes from our nature of comparing ourselves with others and the desire to do better than the ‘others.’ This is a never-ending cycle. The more inferior one feels, the more ambitious one becomes. Through ambition we want to prove ourselves in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes that nobody would consider us to be inferior. The mental states of inferiority and weaknesses within us – the lameness and blindness – want to be hidden. We are running to hide them and to prove that the whole world is wrong, that we...

  Photo Credit: QuotesGram Misuse of Power We are all aware of the famous statement – “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And we have seen this happening throughout history and even in the modern era. Politicians refuse to let go of power and hold on to the same by fair means or foul, in the bargain looting the taxpayer and lining their own pockets – this is a global phenomenon. We can look at this in another way – everybody is full of violence, greed, anger, passion, but they have no power; so, such a person remains a saint. To be violent one needs to be powerful; to fulfill one’s greed power is required and similarly to satisfy one’s passions one has to be powerful. So, when we get power all the sleeping dogs begin to bark. Power comes as a nourishment, as an opportunity. It is not that power corrupts; we are already corrupted from within – power only brings that corruption out into the open. It is not power that corrupts us, we carry corruption within our...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Judging People We need to understand why and how we judge people. It is impossible to judge people whom we really do not know, so we end up judging the behaviour and thus judge the person. Only the behaviour is available for judgement, the person is hiding behind, the person is a mystery. We can judge the act, but we cannot judge the being. And the act is irrelevant. It will not be right to judge a being through the act. Sometimes it happens that a man is smiling. The act is there on the surface and deep inside he may be sad. In fact, he may be smiling because he is sad. He does not want to show his sadness to anybody – why bring one’s wounds to everybody? Why? That seems embarrassing. Maybe he is smiling just because he is crying deep down. Just by seeing a smiling face we cannot judge what is happening inside. The inside is not available to us. The inside is private; it is not available to anybody. So, the first thing to understand is that we can l...

  Photo Credit: Sadhguru Quotes Seeking Attention An attention seeker is someone who acts solely in a way that is geared towards garnering the attention of other people. The attention they get makes them feel better about themselves, boosts their self-esteem, and it does not matter if that attention is good or bad. Today, we see a generation of attention seekers who express their happiness, their sadness, the details of what they did today, the food they ate, and the people whom they met by posting them on WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. Particularly for their problems, rather than seeking a solution or speaking to a friend, they tend to post it and tell the whole world out loud that they are sad. There is nothing wrong or right in seeking attention, but one should be judicious about what one is posting on social media. Today, one may think it is the thing to do, later you may delete the post, but social media is such an animal that   one really does not kn...

  Photo Credit: The Minds Journal Domination and Ego It is best if we do not try and influence others, unless advice is being given selflessly. Also, we ourselves should be alert and ensure that no one is directly or indirectly influencing us. The ego can do both, but it cannot remain in the middle. When the ego tries to influence, then it feels good dominating others; also, the ego feels good when it is being dominated by others. Like Osho would say, “the masters feel good because so many slaves are dominated, and the slaves feel good because they are being dominated." There are two types of minds in the world – the mind of those who dominate, typically the masculine mind; and the mind that likes to be dominated, typically the feminine mind. You will find males with a feminine mindset and also females with a masculine mindset – so this is not restricted to the male and female only. These are two types of minds: one which likes to dominate and the one which likes to be domin...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Stress and Strain Stress is not a part of our life – stress is nothing but our inability to manage our own system. Stress does not happen because of the nature of work – the Prime Minister says he is stressed, so does the owner of a conglomerate, so does the employee, the unemployed, the family man, the student, the teacher – everyone is stressed out. Why? This means that one is suffering because of the job – then one should quit – will that be the solution? Obviously not – stress is not about the job. It is just that we do not know how to manage our body, our mind, our emotions, our energy – we do not know how to manage anything. We function by accident, so we feel the stress. If we get into a car and turn the wheel one way and the car goes another way, we will be stressed, isn’t it? That is how we are today. We are blundering through life without understanding the purpose of our existence. Stress is not because of the nature of the activity that we a...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Hypocrisy There are more than 300 religions in the world, methods of worship as Swamiji says, they are all alternatives available for the human being; but how many follow the true religion of mankind – humanity? All these so-called religions tell us that their religion is the best and some of these Abrahamic religions are so insecure that they do not believe that their flock will stay with them all the time and indulge in conversion of innocent tribals in Asia and Africa through force, deceit, or temptation or plain simple bribes. We can pick any kind of fanaticism, neurosis and keep ourselves engaged all our lives – this will not give us the time or space to dance, sing and celebrate! All the goals that we create for ourselves create a split deep down within us, a hypocrisy. We are what we are at the time of our birth and as we grow we try and become something that we are not. In the beginning it is just an effort to be that which we are not, and late...

  Photo Credit: YouTube | PMC The Mind is Greedy The average mind is nothing but greedy, it symbolises greed because it keeps wanting more and more. It never seems to be satisfied. So, unless the mind disappears greed keeps hanging around in one form or another. If you look at it in another way, it is nothing but the constant fear of the emptiness of the mind – it is an effort to somehow stuff the emptiness. It can be stuffed with food, relationships, love affairs and the mind can move away from materialistic stuff and become spiritual. But it remains the same – the greed is greed. One can be greedy for money and power, or one can be greedy for meditation – it is all the same. One can be greedy for power or for paradise – it is all the same. In fact, the greed for paradise is far more subtle. The ego of the meditator – “I am into spirituality, my spiritual experiences, my guru,” and so on – I, my, mine! A spiritual seeker can easily pretend that he/she is not greedy – but deep ...

  Photo Credit: Dreamstime.com Family Problems and Conflict It is human nature to love, but it is also true that human’s have faced conflict both in the home environment and outside since the beginning of time. We have always asked ourselves – when there is conflict and discord in one’s immediate family, either with parents or siblings, whatever the reason then how does one arrive at some harmony? When we say parents and siblings we need to remember that we did not choose them, unlike in marriage where there is a choice. In our relationship with our parents and siblings we cannot blame others, whereas in marriage we can always make excuses. We should realise that the family (now we have nuclear families as against joint families in the past) is a good training ground for one to find one’s limitations. We are cocooned with a set of people – which means we get to know them very well and we get to step on each other’s toes too. There are things that one hates bout some of them, bu...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Helplessness The feeling of helplessness is good because prayer arises out of this helplessness. And that helplessness helps one to drop one’s ego. When we feel we can do something in every situation then the ego never drops. It is only when we face such drastic situations where we feel totally helpless, completely impotent; we would like to do something, but we cannot do anything…it is simply impossible to do anything. Just see the helplessness of man…..neither birth nor death are in our hands. Once we realise this, prayer arises. Prayer is a cry, a deep cry which comes from the depths of our helplessness. And prayer makes one religious, makes one come closer to oneself. But man has created a façade of power. We try in many ways – our doctors, our medicine, our this and that, this is nothing but a power trip. It gives one the feeling that everything is in control – and nothing is in control. It is just a mask. It is not that only we feel helpless, i...

Photo Credit: Pinterest   Stop Running “Miles to go before I sleep” – are lines from Robert Frost’s poem ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’ – these lines depict the state of most people today. They are running, chasing their goals and dreams, and these goals, dreams keep changing and man never stops running. People say that they want to stop, but they are not yet tired – so they say one thing and they do just the opposite. Because to stop running means to stop ambition. To stop running means to stop desire. To stop running means to drop the future completely – to live here and now. Then there is no running. If there is a then and there, one runs; one has to run. To stop running is difficult as that means stopping the goal-oriented mind. To be in the here and now without any goal, without any desire, is the greatest renunciation – just to enjoy oneself as one is. If one is really tired there is no problem, one can stop running this very moment. We need to understand ...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Feeding the Ego The most obvious and simple thing in existence is the Truth. This has created great difficulty as the mind is simply not interested in the obvious. The mind does not get excited by the simple, because deep within the mind there is nothing, but the ego and the ego gets its food, its nourishment from the most difficult of challenges. The more arduous, the more torturous, the more difficult an achievement is, the more the mind becomes fascinated. It is ready to go to the farthest star, not even bothering what it is going to get there; that is irrelevant. There is a remark by Edmund Hillary – the first man to climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. After he had descended, the whole world’s media was there to ask him about his experience, and what he had gained from the climb. For a long time, people had been trying their utmost to conquer this mountain and they had been consistently failing, so many people had lost their l...