Girish's Blog

  Embracing Adversity We face a lot of challenges in life as we grow up – the mark of a person is how he/she faces the challenge. Sometimes the challenge is so daunting that one mentally gives up even before trying. If you take sports or adventure sports then the challenge is something to be achieved. It was said in the early days that the four-minute mile barrier would never be broken – till Roger Bannister came along and proved them wrong. Mount Everest could never be conquered till Hillary and Tenzing reached the peak! Human spirit rises to every challenge – you get strength and courage to overcome and overpower such challenges, you have to have faith and belief in yourself, and you find yourself overcoming near impossible tasks! The moment you feel scared that challenge becomes a problem, that adversity becomes an issue – that is because your mind has taken a negative turn, you are now afraid! The fear is in the mind, fear is a thought which comes from a negative bent of mi...

  Listening to the Silence We live in cities which have noise pollutions at unhealthy levels so listening to the silence appears to be completely paradoxical. We live with sound as a part of our life – the sound of vehicles, people chattering, trains, aircraft and what have you. That is why it is peaceful at night – but in large cities that total silence still eludes, you can enjoy that silence in the villages. But even if you are living in a village and you can listen to the external silence – the chatter inside your mind is continuous and even though it appears that everything is quiet – the mind is on a roll and you cannot actually hear the silence! Listening to the silence is something that one has to work towards. With the stress in day-to-day life, we crave for our holidays and run away to beach resorts, forest resorts, hill resorts or just go trekking in nature to get rid of the stress. We do feel good in these places with less human population as there is less noise and...

  Feeling Divine Energy I am sure many of you would have contemplated on the concept of energy and how it works! All those seekers who are on the path of self-discovery, whether going solo or under the guidance of a realised Master would definitely have come across energy, felt it, enjoyed its bliss too! My first tryst with energy was on the fourth day of my first meditation camp way back in February 2009. The cold little eddies of energy whirling on the palms of both my hands as soon as Swamiji says some people will feel cold energy on their hands – and at that very moment to feel that energy – that was mind-blowing and the thought in my mind was – what kind of magic is this? Swamiji in his discourse continues to say that those who felt cold energy – their state is good! One begins to feel the energy, experience and to a degree read it after one’s chakras are cleansed and purified through regular meditation. Regular meditation is important as this helps in maintaining the spir...

  Genesis of a Beautiful Heart Have you ever wondered how the heart becomes so beautiful over time? Well, at least for most of us, if not all! Right since childhood, we go through a whole gamut of experiences some good, some bad, some traumatic and some downright scary. All these experiences leave a mark both on our psyche as well as on our heart. Just imagine going through life without any bad experiences – if that happens, we will never understand pain and nor will we know the meaning of healing. Each one of us hold memories of pain and trauma and how we overcame those moments. Every time we experience such moments our heart cracks and then heals over time. These scars remain on the heart and more the scars, means more the experience, means more beautiful the heart. You may well ask – how come, why? Well, the answer is simple – God tests those he loves the most, and as you pass every test with flying colours your heart heals and gives you the emotional strength of character t...

  The Value of a Moment We all live our lives blindly going from crisis to crisis, joy to joy, anxiety to anxiety and so on and so forth! We live either in the past, dwelling on memories and sometimes moping about them or thinking and dreaming of the future which is nothing but a dream. To make that dream come true we have to learn to value the present moment, because if we live in the present moment, giving it our full focus, then whatever work we are doing in the now becomes the foundation stone to what could be the potential future. We never learn the value of a moment unless we have some close encounters with fate. For instance, I was out for my early morning run one day and as I was approaching a T-junction on the road, suddenly in my mind’s eye I saw two headlights careening towards me at great speed, I instinctively slowed down and in the next couple of seconds a mini-van shot out of the lane at the T-junction, that too in the wrong direction of a one-way street! If I ha...

  Religious Places and  the Pandemic Swamiji has been saying right since the beginning of this pandemic that universal consciousness or as we in India say Paramatma has shut down all places of worship; this is an indication for us to go and pray in our inner abode, the temple within. Most of us think of ‘God’ or a Supreme power when we are in trouble – if we face a financial, health, emotional or some such problem – that is when we run to a temple to pray – “God, please help me in overcoming my problem”. God, invariably helps you and then God is forgotten till the next problem. So, in a way we can say that we live from problem to problem and remember God from problem to problem! God becomes a solution to our problems – that is not the way it was meant to be – but God being compassionate and loving always steps up when you really need Him. But this time, the pandemic is His way of telling you enough is enough – the pandemic may be man-made, but the devastating result is His...

  Just Live your Life All of us have taken birth for a specific purpose – each one is working out our own karmas – we all endure them or enjoy them based on our past birth activities. At the time of birth, we remember the purpose of our birth, but as we grow up, we are filled with so much of external information that we completely forget the purpose of our birth. We are again in the dark as we start creating new karmas in this birth while enjoying or enduring the previous birth’s karmas. This cycle just goes on and on. Many of us try to emulate other people’s lives as we try to imitate or follow in the path of our heroes or idols – some of us go to the extent of living such lives perfectly. But this was never the purpose for our taking birth – it is better to live our own life imperfectly than to live the life of others perfectly – this is mentioned in the Bhagwad Geeta. Just remember this much – whatever happened happened for the good, whatever is happening is happening for th...