Girish's Blog

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Living a Meaningful Life Everything that we do is in some way contributing to someone’s life. If we can find how to make this a conscious process of contributing to everyone’s life through our work, then our life will be very different. Contributing does not mean that we will not make money in our business. If we constantly see how to give our best to everyone around us, then we will profit from it and also not have to worry about it. Contributing is not about money or material – it is the basic volition of our life. If we make our life into a contribution, then our life will become truly meaningful and worthwhile because we are creating what we care for. If we are creating what we care for , then it will be a joy to go to work every day. With this, we will never die of stress, believe me. We may die of exhaustion, but we will not die of stress - and that is a very good thing. The moment we see the way how to contribute, the moment there is a certa...

  Photo Credit: Sanatanshop.com Role of a Guru The person who seeks  Moksha  (salvation) or the one who desires the Lord’s  darshan  (sight) hasn’t even started his journey until his heart is overwhelmed with the hope of what he seeks. If in his heart there is intense longing for the Lord’s  darshan , as a hungry man longs for food and a thirsty man longs for water, then there is no need to run around looking for a Guru. It is not that the Guru is not there, he is. The person, whose heart has so much thirst for  darshan  of the Lord that he cries for not being able to behold the Lord, and offers to give up everything in order to get a glimpse of Him, for such a person a Guru will come on his own. God himself can come as a Guru. When the Lord comes, he stays near the seeker, never far off. It is the true disciples that are a scarcity. How does one recognise one’s Guru? From his attire,  rudraksh , from his long hair or by his long beard?...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Quality in Nothingness Nothingness can either be just emptiness or it can be a tremendous fullness. It can be negative - it can be positive. If it is negative, it is like death, darkness. Religions have called it hell. It is hell because there is no joy in it, no song in it, there is no heartbeat, no dance. Nothing flowers, nothing opens. One is simply empty. This empty nothingness has created great fear in people. That’s why in the West particularly, God has never been called nothingness except by a few mystics like Eckhart and so on; but they are not the main line of Western thinking. The West has always conceived nothingness in negative terms; hence it has created a tremendous fear about it. And they go on saying to people that the empty mind is the Devil’s workshop. The East has known its positive aspect too; it is one of the greatest contributions to human consciousness. Buddha would have laughed at this statement that emptiness is the Devil’s w...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Love, the Only Light Love is the only light there is in life. Love is the inner light. It needs no fuel; it is eternal. It is not caused by anything - hence it cannot be turned off. Anything that can be switched on can be turned off. It is simply there; we cannot put it on, we cannot put it off. This light, this love, has not to be invented but only to be discovered or rediscovered. And becoming a sadhak is nothing but an inquiry into this inner world of love and light. They are two aspects of the same phenomenon: when we look in, it is light; when we share it with others, it is love. When we are alone with it, it is light; when we communicate it to others, it is love. Light communicated is love; love burning inside as an alone flame is light. And this is the whole quest of humanity, to discover it. Once we have discovered it all fear of death disappears, because then there is no death. And all fear of darkness disappears because then there is no...

  Photo Credit: IAI TV Free Will – Ego Concept? There is nothing like free will. It is just an ego concept, there cannot be anything like that. Mind moves into opposites very easily. It creates dichotomies - either one is a free agent (free will), or one is a slave. Both are untrue, both are false concepts, because you are not, so you cannot be a slave, and one cannot be a free agent, because for both, you will be needed. Life is a vast interdependence. We are just an organic part of the whole, we are not separate, so how can we be free. But one is not saying that one is not free, remember that, because how can you be not free, or free? One is not, one doesn’t exist at all. It is a vast interdependence, and this interdependence is the totality - God. But the ego goes on finding its ways. Nobody is free. We are just puppets, and the threads are in some unknown hands, and whatsoever HE determines, happens. We are just slaves, nothing else. Both parties are wrong. We are neit...

  Photo Credit: Boldsky.com Are Lives Predestined? Our lives are both predestined and they are not. Both yes and no. And both answers are true for all questions about life. In a way, everything is predetermined. Whatever is physical in us, material, whatever is mental, is predetermined. But something in us constantly remains undetermined, unpredictable. That something is our consciousness. If we are identified with our body and our material existence, in the same proportion we are determined by cause and effect. Then we are like a machine. But if we are not identified with our material existence, with either body or mind – if we can feel ourselves as something separate, different, above and transcendent to body-mind – then that transcending consciousness is not predetermined. It is spontaneous, free. Consciousness means freedom; matter means slavery. So, it depends on how we define ourselves. If we say, “I am only the body,” then everything about us is completely determined. ...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Effort - Effortlessness The logical mind creates the problem between effort and effortlessness, because the mind says that these two things are contradictory. If we make an effort, we make effort; how can we make it effortlessly? If we become effortless, there is no effort; all effort disappears. So, the mind divides these two – effort and effortlessness. But try to understand this in a different way. A child is playing and he is absolutely absorbed in his play – so much so that even if a neighbour’s building falls and collapses he may not even hear the sound. He is absorbed… maybe making sandcastles, but he is absolutely absorbed. There is effort, tremendous effort – the child is perspiring – and yet there is no effort because the child is simply playing; there is no motive. Or a painter is painting, a singer is singing, a dancer is dancing, a jeweller is creating something. We are absolutely absorbed in whatever we are doing. Then effort is there a...

  Photo Credit: Facebook Knowing the Inner World If one is a mirror, if one is silent, if there is no turmoil within one, if there is no thought process and traffic of the mind inside one, the other is simply reflected. If we go to the lake and there are no ripples and waves on the lake, we are reflected in the lake, the moon and the stars are reflected in the lake. The lake knows no art; anyway, it is not an art, it is a simple phenomenon. If a person is sitting silently, with no traffic of the mind. Another person comes in front of him, the mirror reflects that person. The lake of one consciousness reflects the other - he sees the other person, all and all, from one end to another end, in complete totality. But this knowing is not knowledge, this knowing is just mirroring. It is as simple as that. A story explains this concept. Satish had gone camping in Yellowstone National Park. There were warning signs asking visitors not to feed the bears. A bear approaches Satish’s cam...

  Photo Credit: Likehindi.com Nisarga (Nature) Nisarga means to be natural, to be spontaneous, to be simple and poor. And blessed are the poor – only they shall inherit the kingdom of God. Only the poor are rich. This inner poverty is really an inner richness. When we simply move with nature, by and by we disappear. We are so poor that even we are not there – the poverty is total. When the poverty is total, there is nothing to possess and nobody to possess it. That is why in the streets of big metro cities in India we see street urchins playing happily with not a care in the world. That is the life they know, and they make the best of it – they are happy and healthy with great naturally built immunity! That’s what Jesus means when he says ‘poor in spirit’. A man can be poor but may not be poor in spirit. He may not have anything to claim as his own but at least he has his ego. He may not have possessions but he has the possessor. The inner poverty, the poor in spirit, means that ev...

  Photo Credit: Journal for Cultural & Religious Theory Psychoanalysis and Spirituality In science, analysis is an important tool to arrive at cognitive results. But when it comes to spirituality analytical methods are in a way incomplete. They help us only to a certain extent and then they leave us in a limbo. One feels that something has happened, but a lot is missing. Something seems to be incomplete, hanging, suspended. But that is natural because analysis is a very new process. The inventor of any process or new study dies and then that process continues to evolve over a period of time, till it reaches completion, till it comes full circle. Sometimes it takes centuries for a certain method to become so complete that once we pass through it, we don’t have any feelings of  incompletion  or of missing something. And once that happens, that means that the process has become a circle. It gives us a smoothness, an ease, an at- homeness , a relaxation. Psychoanal...

Photo Credit: The Chopra Centre Relationships Fail… When one becomes too fed up with ordinary relationships with people, one starts imagining a relationship with God; that is the longing for the divine. Now God is a little better in the sense that we can never be disappointed because we will never meet him; for the simple reason that there is going to be no honeymoon, the honeymoon can never be over; for the simple reason that there is going to be no living together with God, we can go on hoping. Now we are alone - it is a monologue; it is not a dialogue. All human relationships fail because the other is there and we start clashing with each other, we start dominating each other, we start being jealous of each other, we start being possessive of each other. We are afraid that we may lose the other. And then one day we see that there is nothing to lose – the other is as empty as we are. One dream is shattered, then another dream and so on. That is the beauty of the religious dream -...

  Photo Credit: Spiritual Crusade Capacity to ‘See’ ‘Darshan’ means the capacity to see. We don’t call it a love of thinking, as the word ‘philosophy’ means. We call it: the capacity to see. In India becoming a witness has great importance – the capacity to see. The whole emphasis is not on the object; the emphasis is on the subject. Subjectivity is religion. Objectivity is science. To pay attention to the object is to be scientific. To pay attention to the subject is to be religious. We look at a flower. If you pay attention to the flower, then it is scientific. If you pay attention to the witness of the flower, it becomes religious. A scientist and a religious person may be standing side by side, looking at the same flower – but they are not looking in the same way. The scientist is looking at the flower and has forgotten himself completely. The religious man is witnessing the flower, and remembering himself. When we are listening to Swamiji’s discourse, we pay attention ...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Moments of Separation We all have to leave at some time or another – the only truth about birth and life is death. It cannot be denied – the causal body takes birth and dies – but there is something within that is permanent, indestructible! All of us mortals come to grief when someone near and dear passes away – but Osho, when he merged with universal consciousness told his disciples to rejoice and celebrate because on leaving the causal body, he will be with each and every one of them. When we even leave any meditation camp in the proximity of the living Master, we feel sad, we feel that these days should never end, because we are in the presence of a powerful aura which radiates joy and bliss. But we need to remember that every parting is the beginning of something new. Parting is inherent in coming together again – they are the two sides of the same coin. Although they appear to be different, they always go together. Because they show up separatel...

  Photo Credit: Daily Inspirational Quotes One Moment of Determination A single moment of determination, of sankalpa , of complete determination is enough, whereas a whole life without it is nothing. Remember it is not time but determination that is the important thing. The achievements of the world are accomplished in the realm of time and those of truth in the realm of determination. Our determination, must live in our spiritual practice. We have heard Swamiji as well as other Masters say that transformation happens in a single moment, one pure moment without desire and expectation filled with total and unconditional surrender! We attend spiritual programs for a couple of hours, one day, three days or eight days and still nothing happens. The happening is not dependent on what we are hearing, or the energy flowing through the medium of the Master’s words, this revolution or transformation can take place in a moment. Just one moment of will, of complete determination is enou...

  Photo Credit: Quote.Pics Own Effort is Important Nobody can give anyone the ‘truth’. If anyone says he is capable of giving it, we can be certain that the person is lying. No one has the capacity to give the truth. This is no comment on the capacity of the giver, it only shows that truth is a living thing. It is not an inanimate object that can be given or taken away. It is a living experience one must obtain by oneself. Whatever is achieved in the world of the Self is only achieved through self-effort. In the world of the soul, no debt, no borrowing, no depending on others is possible. Nobody can walk there on borrowed legs. There is no refuge there apart from one’s self. To attain to Truth, we must be our own refuge. This is the inescapable condition. We listen to discourses of various Master, we absorb their teachings in the form of words, sometimes we also feel the energy in the words. When Swamiji is rendering his discourse, most of us fall asleep, or go into a trance,...

  Photo Credit: Inner Spiritual Awakening Experience and the Experiencer The way I look at a rose and the way someone else looks at a rose may be different. If I am a student, I will have a scientific viewpoint, but a poet will look at the rose in a  completely  different way. The experience does not depend on the object, the experience depends on the experiencer, on the quality of experiencing. When the scientist looks at the rose, he thinks of colours, chemistry, physics, atoms, electrons, neutrons and so on - except beauty. Beauty does not come into his vision, and that’s what the rose is. To the poet, to the painter, the rose is a totally different experience - the rose is a manifestation of the unknown, of the transcendental, of the secret of life itself. It represents something of the divine, it brings into existence something of the sky, something of faraway stars. It grows on the earth, it is rooted in the earth, but it is not just part of the earth; it cont...