Girish's Blog

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Consciousness! Many of us wonder about consciousness – what is consciousness? Is there a source of consciousness? And so on…. Let us make an attempt to understand consciousness. Consciousness as explained by various Masters is the source of everything – consciousness is the stuff existence is made of. But there is no source of consciousness itself. Consciousness is another name of God — a better name, more scientific, less mythological. We never ask for the source of God, do we? We know that God is the source of existence, but never ask for the source of God, believers just accept that God exists. The religions have been saying that existence cannot be without a creator; nothing can be without a creator — that has been the argument of all the religions for centuries.  Gautam Buddha, who had a greater clarity than anybody else ever had, said that bringing God in is absurd. Existence has always been here. Nobody has created it, and nobody can dest...

Photo Credit: Pinterest   Becoming a Witness Before we can transform our suffering our misery into something good, we will have to learn to become a witness. To do this we have to learn to transform ourself from within – we need to change our inner alchemy. We can do this by learning to accept evil - don’t resist it, don’t fight with it, don’t be angry with it; absorb it, because it can be transformed into good. The art of transforming suffering, pain, evil, into something good is the art of seeing the necessity of the opposite. Light can exist only if darkness exists. Then why hate darkness? Without darkness there will be no light, so those who love light and hate darkness are in a dilemma; they don’t know what they are doing. Life cannot exist without death. Then why hate death? Because it is death that creates the space for life to exist. This is a great insight, that death is the contrast, the background, the blackboard on which life is written with white chalk. Death is ...

  Photo Credit: IdleHearts Anger to Creativity We have all observed children – they are so full of energy which needs to be expended – if that opportunity is not there then it results in anger and tantrums – energy gets released, isn’t it! It is not really anger. It looks like anger only on the surface. Deep in our being we are so full of energy that we don’t know what to do with it; that’s why it takes the form of anger. We have great creative potential. It is creative energy which is not being rightly used; it becomes sour. We cannot change it by doing anything with anger. It appears to be anger, but it is not. Anger is negative energy and creative people are filled with positive energy. It is just that this creativity is hidden deep within and has still not found an outlet. When we don’t know what to do with it, we become angry; then we find excuses, any excuse will do. Those excuses are not very important either but we must find an excuse - that we are angry because of ...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest From Mind to Meditation Mind is misery and cannot be otherwise, because mind lives in desires, ambitions, it is always hankering for more - and that hankering cannot be satisfied. It always goes on jumping ahead of us, wherever we may be, the mind will be asking for more. It is always ahead of us. The distance between us and the mind always remains the same. We have this much money, the distance is there. We can have that much money; the same distance is there. And it is this distance that creates the misery because it is always frustration, always a wound. It hurts that “I have not been able to fulfil myself,” but nobody has ever been able to fulfil anything through the mind. Mind’s very texture consists of unfulfillment. Hence the people who teach peace of mind are doing simply something very absurd. Nothing like that has ever existed. It cannot exist. Peace of mind is a contradiction in terms. One can get out of the mind, and that is what meditation is....

  Photo Credit: LonerWolf Confusion in Spirituality When we embark on the spiritual path, it is very important that the spiritual aspirant is not trying to reach some particular ‘place’, because the moment we want to get to something particular, the mind will immediately start creating that place. We will create our own private heaven. The spiritual process is not about giving up one level of hallucination and moving into another level. This is about giving up hallucination altogether and being able to live with reality just the way it is, because the effort is about truth . Truth means something that is existential, not what we make up in our ever-fertile mind. One may see a God or a devil in the mind – both do not matter. What we see is a question of culture and what we are exposed to; it is a question of whether we are an optimist or pessimist – when we see people, whether we see God or devil in them. It has nothing to do with reality. The reality is, we are here right now...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Ego Makes Us Miserable Whenever we listen to the voice of our ego, sooner or later there will be trouble. We will fall into the trap of misery. We have to watch this - ego always leads into misery, always, unconditionally; always, categorically, absolutely. And whenever we listen to nature, it leads us to well-being, contentment, silence, bliss. So, this should be the criterion. We will have to make many errors; there is no other way. We have to watch our own choice, from where the voice is coming, and then you have to see what happens — because the fruit is the criterion. When we do something, watch, be alert. And if it leads to misery, then we should realise that it was our ego. Then the next time, we should be alert, and not listen to that voice. If it is nature, it will lead us towards a blissful state of mind. Nature is always beautiful; ego is always ugly. There is no other way but trial and error. There is no criterion so that we can judge every...

  Photo Credit: Quora Pain Can Become Samadhi Every pain and suffering in life can lead us on to attaining a state of samadhi – this is simply because the points of pain become breakthroughs. It is through pain that one transcends, never through pleasure, because in pleasure one indulges and one becomes more and more oblivious of one’s being. When everything is going well, who bothers? Then one is on a merry-go-round, lost. But when pain is there, suffering is there, one naturally becomes more alert, more aware – one has to be: the pain is a great challenge. If we accept pain, if we don’t deny it, if we are not scared of it, if we accept it as part of life with no judgement, with no idea of whether it is good or bad – it is simply there, it is a fact, neither good nor bad. Once we accept this as true, we start transcending, we become more alert, more a witness. The pain is there but we are no more identified with it. If we suffer an accident and the leg can’t be saved, then t...

  Photo Credit: Global Stewards Forgetting God’s Love One of the most fundamental tenets of life is that God loves each and every one of His creations. Most of us tend to forget this basic fact and only call God in an emergency. There are problems in life and there are agonies to be encountered and to be surpassed. Life is not just a bed of roses; hence many times one tends to forget that God loves us. In fact, great doubt arises: “How can there be a God if I am in such suffering? How can God allow such suffering? If he is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, then why does suffering exist at all? Why always me? Then why does the world go on living in suffering?” There is every reason not to believe in God and there is no reason to believe in God. The mind can supply a thousand and one reasons why God cannot be, but the mind cannot supply even a single reason for God’s existence. In fact, from the mind there is no way towards God. Mind is just the opposite of God: it keeps our...

  Photo Credit: QuotesGram Bliss Helps to Serve Selflessly One can become a helper for two reasons: either out of misery or out of bliss. One can be a servant to humanity out of misery. One can become interested in others’ misery just to avoid one’s own misery. Just to remain occupied with others’ problems, so that one need not look at one’s own problems. One can become too involved with others’ problems, for the simple reason that their problems are so big, so great, so complicated, that in comparison our problems look very tiny, small, meaningless. Many people enter public service just to hide from their own misery. Such people don’t have the guts to face their own misery, so they drown themselves in other people’s problems; they don’t have the courage to face their own situations, so the best way is to get involved in others’ misery. This provides consolation that we are not the only one’s who are miserable. Our issues are nothing compared to those of others – that itself is...

  Photo Credit: DevianArt The Sun’s Energy Before the sun begins to come up on the horizon, at approximately 3:20 to 4:00 a.m., the sun’s energy starts reaching us. Light will not yet come, but the  solar energy  significantly rises on the planet at that time. In the night, the solar energy actually goes down well before sunset. In different parts of the world, the sun sets at different times, also depending on the time of the year. As you get closer to the equator, the sunset is somewhere between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. In India the sun usually starts setting around six o’clock. Somewhere around 5:20 p.m., the solar energies start dwindling away. Light is still seen, but the energy will recede. Because of the turning of the planet, the sun is moving away from us and energy begins to withdraw. It is that withdrawal of energy that people experience as a kind of ethereal happening. If we really pay attention to the sunset, we will see there is a transcendent nature to it bec...

  Photo Credit: Facebook||Rumi by Rumish Richa People Cannot Accept Bliss Easily Embarking as a spiritual practitioner is not prayer with sadness, seriousness. It is not prayer as a ritual, as a formality. It is prayer as playfulness. It is prayer as cheerfulness. The birds in the morning singing - that is prayer. They are not Christians, they are not Hindus, they are not Muslims; they don’t know anything about the church and the temple and the mosque, and they have never heard that there are scriptures - but their singing is prayer. The wind passing through the pine trees is prayer; although it knows nothing of prayer, it is filled with prayer. Space is filled with prayer. The stars are prayerful, the trees are prayerful, the oceans are prayerful. Except for humans, the whole of existence is always in a state of prayer; only humans need to move towards it consciously - for a certain reason: humans are the only conscious beings. Hence humans have a choice: they can fall out of ...

  Photo Credit: The New Indian Express Living in a Mental Hell Hell is always our own creation – whether we wish to live in heaven or in hell, we live in our own creation. This creative capacity and propensity lie between our ears – in our minds only. Nobody else is responsible. Don’t throw the responsibility onto God, fate, luck, society, economic structure. Don’t throw the responsibility on past lives, on others. We should take the whole responsibility on ourselves, because that is the only way to move, to change, to go beyond. The only cause of hell, the only cause of misery is us and nobody else. Except us, nobody can cause it. And it is not the past; we are creating it every moment. Osho narrates a story which explains our predicament – there are two drunkards talking to each other in a pub. “My name is Viking”, says one. That’s strange says the other, “My name too is Viking, where do you live?” “Just across the street”, responds the first one. “Wowee! me too! Which floor?...

  Photo Credit: Good Housekeeping Why Can’t We Create Joy? We should learn to live in a climate of divine delight, breathe in it. It is only a question of remembering, and it comes. And we can do it very easily. We can easily become miserable; we can easily become blissful; bliss is one’s own creation. And once we have learned the fact – that it is our own creation, heaven or hell – then there is no point in being miserable, no point in choosing hell. We go on choosing hell because we are not aware that we are the creators. We think we are forced to be in it, somebody else is doing it, and we go on finding scapegoats. We go on avoiding the real factor that is behind it: it is us. When we are in misery, remember, we are its creators, and we can uncreate it immediately because it is just imagination. So, we can attain inner realisation if we sincerely follow these three steps. Firstly, recognise that misery is our own creation.   People are such great artists in creating m...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest A Demanding Mind Expectation always creates misery. If we expect something, that very expectation will become the barrier. So, live a life without any expectations. Our expectations are our demands on life and a demanding mind always becomes miserable. Bliss is where demand is absent, because only in a non-demanding state can we relax and receive it. So, this is not a problem which is personal to us; this happens to many people. Naturally, we come with great expectation – that this is going to happen, that is going to happen… many fantasies are there in the mind. Because of those fantasies we cannot relax; we are always waiting for the result. The journey is no more important; the goal has become important. If the goal is not arising within us, we become miserable. And the more miserable we become, the farther away the goal goes on receding. It’s a vicious circle. We cannot demand anything of life; it has no obligation to fulfil our demands. That who...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Worrying About Small Things I remember my mother was a born worrier – if everything with the family, extended family, society, city, state and country was fine, then she would worry about global politics – it was like an intoxicant for her; in the end any kind of worrying is poison for the system. We need to go deep into our worries and find out the root cause – that is the only way to get rid of them and if that is not possible– suffer them and let them go. Suffering liberates us, it sets us free. We want to get out of it without getting into it; that won’t be possible, we have to pay the price. The way is through, remember. Never escape from anything. If this worrying is happening then it must be something essential that our being has to go through.  And don’t call those things small. They are important, otherwise the worry wouldn’t happen. The worry always happens around something important. Those things may not be important for somebody else...

  Photo Credit: QuoteFancy Can We Live Without Misery? Very few people can live without misery. Very few people can afford to live without misery. Misery gives us a sense of being, misery defines us. Misery gives us the ego, the self-identity. Misery gives us something to hold on to, we can cling to it. Bliss is very elusive. We can possess misery, but we cannot possess bliss - on the contrary, bliss possesses us – it is a happening. We can control misery; we cannot control bliss. In bliss we have to disappear, the controller has to disappear. Very few people can afford that much, they are so afraid to go into the unknown. Misery is known; we are well-acquainted with it. A thousand and one times we have suffered the same thing, the same nauseous thing. But by and by we have become accustomed to it. A kind of familiarity has grown between us and the misery. The ego, the ‘I’ cannot exist without misery. We will not be there without our misery – just recall Descartes’ famous say...