Girish's Blog

  Photo Credit: Bliss Quote Struggle with Laziness Discipline is a very general term because discipline can be good, and discipline can be bad. Discipline can be a pain in the neck and discipline can be enjoyable. If we can turn discipline into an enjoyable thing, which means finding the reason why this discipline is going to help us improve or succeed, then discipline doesn’t become mechanical. Discipline becomes difficult when it becomes mechanical because the mind reacts by saying, ‘I don’t want this control. I don’t want this discipline. I just want to be free.’ The irony is that we are disciplining our mind so that ultimately it blasts and becomes free forever. So, if we understand this, then we won’t have a problem with discipline. If we have a problem with discipline in our work place, then we ourselves have to work it out in an appropriate manner – depending on whether we are employees or business owners. Implementing discipline in the workplace requires intelligence ...

Photo Credit: QuoteFancy   True Prayer For most people, if we look at what their prayer is, it is: “God give me this, give me that, God save me.” What we are seeking in prayer is not God. We are seeking security and happiness. Ultimately, what we want with prayer is wellbeing, but we are not willing to admit it. The first step is to be straight and honest with ourselves. Then we can see how to cross the threshold of limitations to true wellbeing. It is time we realised that looking to God will not help until we look at our own foolishness. If we sincerely look at our deepest motivation for religion, we will see we have never aspired for the Divine. Our aspiration was never for the ultimate. Our aspiration is for comfort, wealth, power and pleasure. But we think God is a tool to achieve all those things. When we seek protection or material things, greed and fear have become the basis of our prayer. This does not work. Ordinarily, we think prayer is a means to reach God, but wh...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Fruit Bearing Trees In the south there is a common saying – a tree that bears fruit will be stoned! Just think about this – why will people throw stones at a tree? Most likely because they want the fruit! They long for the sweet taste of that fruit. So, it is with spirituality – many people who evolve on this path find that they are being targeted, being made fun of, and so on. Why does this happen? This is simply because there is so much of negativity in such people, that even though they want to get rid of their negativity they know that they cannot do so by themselves. So, the only way is to attack Gurus so that their chitta comes on them, and they get washed with the Guru’s energy. Nothing happens to the Guru when he is stoned, but the person throwing the stone sees a change within him. They will keep throwing stones. If somebody has to take a stone and throw it at us, it takes lot of effort. They are throwing it at us because we are of some valu...

  Photo Credit: The Mind's Journal Anxiety Amongst New People Some people find it very difficult to open up in front of new people – it could be a mental problem which makes people anxious in front of strangers or is it that we don’t fit into society. All kinds of thoughts bombard such people. Yoga and meditation help us in becoming one with the universe. In our perception of life, we are different and the world is different, hence the conflict. So, it is such anxious people versus the universe. We versus the universe is a bad competition to get into. Do we think we have any chance of winning this competition? Don’t compete with the universe.  This is why we found a way called yoga. Yoga or union means we must consciously obliterate the boundaries of our individuality, so there is no such thing as us and the universe – it feels like one. We need to do a little yoga, otherwise our mind will get twisted out with all kinds of ideas, emotions, and opinions.  If we ope...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Economic and Inner Wellbeing After the covid era we are seeing how Bharat’s economy is growing dramatically and is well on the way to becoming the third largest economy in the world in just a few years from now. With economic growth at the macro level, we see a phenomenal growth taking place at the micro level – individual financial security increases. As the financial situation changes, we must also be ready for very dramatic cultural changes in society. Along with financial freedom, the fundamentals of a particular culture always change. When every individual gets the choice to do whatever he wants to do, it is extremely important that we empower that individual with the necessary awareness to make the right choices. For most societies, a scourge of problems came along with economic affluence because the necessary awareness was missing in individual people to make the right choices. Instead of economic progress bringing wellbeing to humanity, gener...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Activity and Spiritual Practice To the casual observer this will appear to be a paradox – because it has been drilled into us that doing nothing is meditation. On the face of it this is true – but does it mean that? How can we live in this world by doing nothing? We have lived our entire life doing something or the other, achieving something or the other, going after career goals and so on. When we embark on the spiritual path we learn to live in the moment – whatever we do in the moment is the only real thing – and that activity being in the present just makes our life calm and peaceful. One should always do what one cares for, not do anything because so and so said so. If we do not do what we care for, we do not have to wait until the end of our life to check whether we have lived well or not – it is already a wasted life. If we think this work is important, we should do it. As we progress spiritually, we realise that we are the most comfortable ...

  Photo Credit: Twitter Bharata that is India In the East, spirituality and religion were never an organised process. Organisation was only to the extent of making spirituality available to everyone – not for conquest. Essentially, religion is about the individual, it is not about God. Religion is about our own liberation. God is just one more stepping stone that we can use or skip towards our ultimate liberation. This culture recognises human wellbeing and freedom as of paramount importance versus the prominence of God, and hence the whole system of God-making evolved into the science of consecrating various types of energy forms  and spaces. We find these in all our shakti peeths and ancient temples. Enter any of these premises, into the aura of these premises and we can feel a palpable difference in the energy. The essential purpose of God is to create reverence in a person. What we are reverential towards is not important. Being reverential is what is important. If we...

  Photo Credit: Instagram The Science of Liberation All methods of worship or religions as they are referred to, talk about love and humanity as the core of their values. Unfortunately, human beings subsequently became religious leaders and then that led to the use of religion as a tool for gaining power and control through the use of fear and war. Everywhere in the world, whenever anyone spoke anything other than the existing organised religion of that time, the first thing that the people said was, ‘Kill’. In Europe, thousands of women were burnt at the stake simply because they showed other kinds of possibilities and capabilities that were not logically understood by people. So, they were labelled as witches and burnt at the stake. Persecution has always been the thing. Some of the famous ascetics that we know who were persecuted were Jesus Christ , Mansoor and Socrates. They were persecuted simply because they showed other kinds of capabilities which were not considered nor...

  Photo Credit: PGurus Hinduism – A Way of Life The term and concept of Hinduism was coined only in recent times. Otherwise, there was really no such thing. The word ‘Hindu’ essentially comes from the word Sindhu. Anyone who is born in the land of Sindhu is a Hindu. It is a cultural and geographic identity. It is like saying - “I am an Indian” but it is a more ancient identity than being an Indian. ‘Indian’ is only about seventy years old, but this is an identity that we have always lived with. Being a Hindu does not mean having a particular belief system. Basically, the whole culture was oriented towards realising one’s full potential. Whatever we did in this culture was Hindu. There is no God or ideology that we can call as the Hindu way of life. We can be a Hindu irrespective of whether we worship a man-god or a woman-god, whether we worship a cow or a tree. If we don't worship anything we can still be a Hindu. It is only recently and due to external influences that this ...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Dealing with Negative Opinions People have their opinions about everything, but why should it matter to us or anyone? Their opinions will matter to us only when we are not very clear about what we are doing. Instead of trying to battle with others’ opinions, it is best that we strive to create clarity as to what we are doing and why we are doing it. If this clarity arrives within us, other people’s opinions will not matter. People will always have opinions about us, and that is their right. As the great saint Akka Mahadevi said, “You built a house in the mountains and the jungle, but now you are afraid of the animals – you should not have been there. You built a home in the marketplace, and you are afraid of the noises of the marketplace – that is not the right place for you to be.”  Now we are living in society, and we are afraid of what other people will say. This is part of social life. Somebody will always say something. Today it is magnifi...

Dandi Ashram - Sunrise   Living in an Ashram We are always curious to know what it means to live in an ashram – specially the newcomers – it is important that they understand the importance of living in an ashram for their own spiritual growth. What is the purpose of living in an ashram? Why does one move into an ashram space like any of our Samarpan ashrams, which is essentially for the spiritual process? What is the ingredient which makes it into that kind of a place? What is the significance and why be in such a place? These are all spiritual places because the necessary energy has been invested in these places. Dandi ashram has the most phenomenal energy, because of the number of anushthans which have taken place over there. Kutch, Goa, Saurashtra, Ajmer, Mahudi, Bangalore and now Nagpur – all these places have a different kind of energy. The moment we enter inside the ashram we are washed with a cleansing energy; we feel the peace and serenity inside. Our mind suddenly ...

  Photo Credit: WeHaveKids Responsibility Towards Parents With more and more young people entering the world of spirituality – many face the conflict of looking after aging parents vis-à-vis their desire to attend various spiritual programmes/camps. Some of these camps last for 8-10 days, and hence the conflict. Can we leave our parents to their own means and grow spiritually? Our parents sacrifice a lot so that their children get the best of everything – education, culture, emotional and financial security and so on. We don’t realise this as time flies and we grow up to become parents in our own right. The modern generations have everything readymade and even then, they are faced with the question of finding time for their parents. If children cared so much, then they could have ensured that their parents remain occupied and busy, they should spend quality time with them now, as they did with us when we were growing up. Different people achieve different kinds of lifestyle...

  Photo Credot: Gracious Quotes Life After Retirement For most people, by the time they become slightly wise, life is more or less over for them. It takes a lifetime for them to experience what life really has to offer. The experience of life leaves most people wounded instead of wise. But if people with so much experience behind them could make their life’s experience into wisdom, their wisdom could be useful for the world in so many ways. We would like to make life after retirement very productive. Different people retire at different stages but generally, there is such a thing called retirement because our body has reached a certain level of incapability. So, we bring our work down to a lower level simply because if we push it beyond that, we may ‘retire’ in a different way soon! That’s when for a lot of people, the question comes up: “What to do when we retire?” Once we retire our focus should shift from economic and family worries to our inner growth. All of us have come...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Fears and Insecurities All of us experience fears and insecurities during the course of our journey through life. Some more, some less and we always wonder how we can get rid of them. We don’t have to leave our fears and insecurities because they don’t really exist. We keep creating them unconsciously. If we don’t create them, they don’t really exist. So, then why do we create them and how should we stop creating them. The fundamental reason why fear arises in us is – one way of looking at it is – in this vast existence of which we don’t know the beginning or the end, we are just a little human being. Being the small entity that we are right now, naturally there is fear and insecurity about what will happen to us. As long as we are identified as a physical body, as long as our experience of life is limited to our physical and mental faculties, fear and insecurity are inevitable. Different people may be at different levels of fear and insecurity. Today,...

  Photo Credit: Twitter Involvement without Entanglement When we talk of detachment as a major spiritual objective, there is another side to it – can there be life without involvement? If we observe closely – life is not possible without involvement. Where there is no involvement, there is no possibility of life. When we are alive, why do we try to stay away from life? If this is so, then if we drop dead our objective will be fulfilled. This whole nonsense about detachment came up because people are afraid of  entanglement. There is a possibility of entanglement only because we are identified with something that is not the self. Once we are identified with something that is not the self, anything we put our hand on gets stuck to us. Because of this experience, there is fear of involvement, and because of this, people are talking “detachment.” But if we avoid involvement, we will avoid life itself. It is not about not wanting to get hurt. We try to stay away and detach ou...

  Photo Credit: Aeon Fear of Ghosts When we hear people talking about ghosts and see the fear writ large on their face – we wonder where this fear comes from! Especially of something which one has never seen! This only implies that one of the very important faculties in a human being is going out of control. Compared to other creatures, a human being has a very vivid sense of memory. We can remember every aspect of what happened yesterday. Because of this memory, we are able to understand how to handle today’s situations. This is what we are calling knowledge or information. What we understood, grasped, or experienced yesterday is today's knowledge. This vivid sense of memory and an extraordinary sense of imagination are two aspects of the mind that set us apart from an earthworm, a grasshopper, and every other creature . But these are two aspects that most human beings are suffering. So, all that is happening is that one is suffering one’s imagination. We are just watching a...

  Photo Credit: Sadhguru Anxiety-free Relationships When we live in this world, there are various types of complex interactions which are happening. As our field of play increases, the complexity of interaction also goes on increasing. If we are just sitting in a cubicle working on our computer with only one other person, we need only a little understanding. If we are managing a thousand people, we need a vast understanding of everyone. Suppose we are managing a thousand people and we want all these people to understand us, we are not going to manage anything. We need to understand the limitations and capabilities of these thousand people and do what we can. Only then will we have the power to move the situation the way we want it to go. If we are waiting for these thousand people to understand us and act, it is a pipe dream. It is never going to happen. When there is someone very important to us and thereby the relationship also has primacy – in such cases we expect better und...

  Photo Credit: QuoteFancy Being Straight with Oneself When we talk about a spiritual process, we are not talking about jumping to conclusions and assuming things that we do not know. If we are straight enough to see, “What I know, I know. What I do not know, I do not know,” we are already spiritual aspirants. The fundamental aspect of spirituality is just this – “I am not so flaky in my head that I make up things. I am willing to come to terms. What I know, I know, what I do not know, I do not know.” Once we realise and accept this, the very nature of human intelligence is such that it cannot live with - “I do not know.” It wants to know. Once wanting to know comes, seeking will come. Once the seeking comes, finding a way could happen. That is why, once we are on the spiritual path, we are referred to as seekers. But right now, it appears that the whole world is against this simple - “I do not know.” Nobody likes “I do not know.” Whatever we do not know we just believe. The re...