Girish's Blog

  Photo Credit: QuoteFancy If We Die Tomorrow The whole work of a seeker is to attain a divine indifference to the non-essential. We are all caught up in the non-essential, in the mundane, the trivial. For the moment it looks so important, and the next moment it appears as if it had not happened at all. When one looks back, one is always surprised: the same things that had looked so important, look utterly futile… and one was ready to die for those things! Just some abusive word from somebody, and the mind becomes focussed on it out of all proportion and is ready to kill or to be killed. After a few minutes, when things have cooled down, it looks so stupid. Even to talk about it, even to say – ‘I got so disturbed by it’ looks silly. But almost ninety-nine percent of our whole life consists of such things, hence it is a wastage. One has to be very alert and aware. One has to save oneself for God. If we lose our energy in just collecting stones on the beach, by the time we come...

  Photo Credit: QuoteFancy Freedom from Bondage Realising the ‘self’ means the state of realising that one is actually the ever-free self which was never bound in the first place, never bound at all. Self-realisation or moksha does not mean becoming free from something; but realising that one is always free but has been labouring under the illusion that one is not. It is ultimate freedom; the freedom from which one never falls back to bondage. The Guru’s role is to be the pointer to the path. Which means, the guide, the teacher, or the friend who has crossed to the other side, who has learnt to swim and cross the ocean of ‘samsara’ – meaning the cycle of birth and death and rebirth to which humans are bound. Such a teacher who is our true friend, teaches us how to swim so that we can cross the ocean. He can’t give us the ocean because the ocean doesn’t belong only to him. It belongs to us too. Freedom belongs to him as well as to all of us. So, no one can give it to us becaus...

Photo Credit: Idle Hearts Living with the Momentary We live with momentary things. That’s why there is so much misery, because whatsoever is momentary is not going to satisfy us. By the time we become aware that it is there, it is already gone. This life is in a state of flux: it is continuously moving, slipping out of our hands. Nothing is certain, nothing is stable. Everything is in a constant movement. We cannot make our abode in this momentary world, on these shifting sands. If we do make our abode on this, it is bound to collapse – the collapse could happen at any moment, and we then cannot live in peace. We enter into relationships through love and friendship and then we fear whether this is going to end! Whether the relationship will be there tomorrow or not, we do our best to stabilise our relationships, to make them permanent, and in that very effort all joy is lost. Change is constant – both in nature and in our lives – so, as we continue to grow materially and spiritua...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Money and Meditation We can have all the money, wealth, power, prestige and still remain miserable. We all know Alexander’s story – where he had conquered the whole world and when asked what would he do if he was dying of thirst alone in a desert. He had said he would give it all up for just a glass of water – that is when he realised that what he had achieved was pointless. The misery of an Alexander is bound to be tremendous, but one can never be happy. The more we have, the more we become aware of the futility of it all and the more we feel an inner emptiness. Only the rich person comes to know what inner poverty is, because he/she can compare notes. Such a person has a background and he/she can see his/her own inner poverty against it. He/she is rich as far as the outside is concerned, but the inside is simply starving. Hence the paradox: the richer we become, the poorer we feel. The more knowledgeable we become the more ignorant we feel. The more...

  Photo Credit: Krsna Devotees|Wordpress.com Purifying Desire – Part 2 Money has brought a few blessings, but in the same measure it has brought many curses too. We can have a bigger house, but now we will have less peace. We can have a bigger bank balance, but you will also have bigger worries. Money has brought a few things which are good; in the wake of it many other things have arrived which are not good at all. And if we look at the whole thing, the whole effort has been a sheer wastage. And now we cannot even have the hope that the poor man can have. The rich person becomes hopeless. This person knows now the money will go on increasing and nothing is going to happen - just death awaits, nothing else. But desire in itself is not wrong. The desire for money, the desire for power, the desire for prestige, are wrong objects for desire - let it be very clear. By having wrong objects of desire, desire itself does not become wrong. We can have a sword and we can kill somebody ...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Purifying Desire - Part 1 The energy called desire has been condemned for centuries. Almost all the so-called saints have been against it, because desire is life and they were all life-negative. Desire is the very source of all that we see, and they were against all that which is visible. They wanted to sacrifice the visible at the feet of the invisible; they wanted to cut the roots of desire so there would no longer be any possibility of life. A tremendously great urge to commit total suicide has dominated humanity down the ages. Desire itself can be considered to be God. Desire without any object, desire without being goal-oriented, unmotivated desire, pure desire, is God. The energy called desire is the same energy as God. Desire has not to be destroyed, it has to be purified. Don’t drop desire, transform it. Our very being is desire; to be against it is to be against ourselves and against all. To be against it is to be against the flowers and the b...

  Photo Credit: A-Mused Spiritual Ego The spiritual ego is not something that is too different from the ordinary ego. Somebody feels their ego because they have money, somebody feels their ego is strengthened because they have political power. Somebody feels ego because they have great respectability. But the ego is the same. Somebody feels that they are spiritual - a great saint, holier than the other - that is also the same ego. We can call it “spiritual ego” but spiritual ego is a contradiction in terms. Swamiji talks about sadhaks having ego that they are sadhaks without knowing that those who are not sadhaks may have a better spiritual state than their own! There is a story about three monasteries in the Tibetan mountains. One day, three monks – one from each monastery – met by chance on the path on the way to do their daily chores. One of them said, “You have beautiful monasteries, but in austerity we are unbeatable.” The second said, “We are aware of the arduous disci...

Sunrise - Shree Guru Shakti Dham  Deep Meditation Anushthan - from Day 26 to Day 45 The weather started becoming warmer during the day, but the mornings and evening continued to be cool. The entire atmosphere is filled with consciousness. The morning meditation was wonderful, in fact the morning meditation in the room is becoming more and more intense. Parulji and I went for the morning 6 am mantra dhyan as we were requested to join in the arti post the meditation. The mantra dhyan is now being conducted by an Austrian sadhika who speaks in Hindi, which she is learning. I found that to be really inspiring for the other overseas sadhaks. After the arti, we left for the amphitheatre where Tanmayji was going to take the yoganidra session again on popular demand. The session was wonderful as usual as the soul’s journey to the Himalayas took place again, with the body sensing the cold of the Himalayas and the pristine breeze as it blew. Across the amphitheatre. This time too, I felt ant...