Girish's Blog

Photo Credit: Healthline   Influencing One’s Surroundings As much as we would like to think that during most times, we are immune to our surroundings, we are not. In fact, our surroundings affect us in many different ways, and possibly impact our personal needs, interests, and mindsets. On a daily basis, we are in constant contact with the environment we choose to place ourselves in, and the main factors, such as colour, location, nature, family, and social environment, they all influence the way we behave and how we interact. All those factors are underestimated very often. We, as sensitive creatures, have an awareness of the environment we are in, and during most times, we try to seek places with certain qualities. Each of us perceives things like colour differently, triggering emotions dissimilar to each other, affecting our mood and behaviour. Throughout the course of our lives, humans tend to associate colour with an emotion that was evoked at the very moment it was introd...

  Photo Credit: Tripadvisor The Valley Spirit The valley spirit dies not, aye the same; the female mystery thus do we name. The first couplet of Tao Teh King Part 6 introduces us to the valley spirit. The valley spirit is nothing but the latent divine feminine energy lying at the base of our spine, which we call the kundalini shakti in India. Kunadlini as Mulaprakriti, is not just primal power, but Primal Consciousness. It is very crucial to understand this because the seeker can be fooled into thinking that the Kundalini needed ‘awakening’ and then could be directed or ‘used’ in any way. This would be really absurd! Just imagine that the Creative Consciousness of the Universe needed some Yogi to awaken Her! Swami Rama says, “In Her true nature Kundalini is not even energy but the consciousness behind all energy. We need awakening – not Her. She is the one who awakens us, not the other way around.” The valley spirit has boundaries, it has definition and form. It is circumscr...

  Photo Credit: Templepurohit The Grand Illusion In the great epic Mahabharata, when Duryodhana enters the hall of illusion ( maya sabha ), he loses his way, becomes confused and envious. The epic Mahabharata shows in many ways how human beings can bring misery and destruction to themselves and others through their weaknesses, egoism and selfishness, unmindful of the consequences of their thoughts, desires and actions and where they may lead them eventually. The world in which we live is also not very different from the hall of illusions we read about in the Mahabharata. We also live here enveloped by illusion ( maya ), in a state of ignorance about ourselves, whereby we fail to discriminate between truth and falsehood, become confused, engaging ourselves in egoistic struggles and binding actions, and lose our connection with God and our own divinity. One of the unique concepts of Hinduism is maya, which is actually used to describe our current state of existence, how much a...

  Photo Credit: Pinterest Awakening Your Inner Religion The spirituality of the self through spiritual awakening   refers not to the religion of a person but to the consciousness or awareness of being, the realisation that one exists .  As we are born as human beings, the only religion that we must consider as ours is humanity. All others are nothing but forms of worship – they are paths with guidelines to reach your inner religion. With time the purity of the various saints that gave rise to the religions have messed around with the original purity and documented the thoughts and sayings to form different religions. The Abrahamic religions are based on what is written by people who did so as per their understanding – over time these religions have become means to seize power and control over the minds of their followers. The results of the same are there for all to see today. The ancient civilizations that worshipped nature like the Mayans, the Incas, the Red India...

Photo Credit: Quotefancy||Jack Kornfield   Try This Yourself In the West, Yoga has been adapted by many so called health professionals who have twisted its purity to convert it into a physical fitness regime. There are umpteen kinds of yoga with their originators claiming that theirs is the best! Patanjali’s yoga which is absolutely pure no longer holds the charm for people who are only concerned about physical fitness, how they look and appear! These are all related to the outer, what happens to the inner fitness? The inner fitness relates to your mind and heart – your soul really! Have you ever thought about keeping the two most critical parts of your inner being – your mind and heart pure so that the soul, or your inner voice can make an appearance? The aim of practicing yoga is to prepare you to sit still and steady – it is really your preparation to sit for meditation comfortably. A body that is filled with toxins, weak muscles, and jumpy nerves will not be able to stay ...

  Photo Credit: Unsplash Used But Never Emptied This is a quote from the Tao – ‘The Tao is like a well, used but never emptied. It is the eternal void, filled with infinite possibilities.’ Tao means different things according to different interpretations – from the advaita vedanta  consciousness comes closest to the meaning of Tao. Something that is there and not there – the eternal ever expanding void filled with consciousness. When you introspect on the phrase you realise that there is a force in the universe that is being used all the time but it is never emptied, it can never be emptied – it is infinite and ever expanding. When we sit for meditation and go deep within; we find that our consciousness is expanding and as it expands more and more dimensions open up and the divine inner experiences keep unfolding. On introspecting you feel that everybody should get rich and famous and so everything they ever dreamed of so that they can see for themselves that this is not...

  Photo Credit: Crosswalk.com When You Think of God When you think of God, he thinks of you too. I am sure many of you have actually experienced this, but due to your rational mind you have called this a coincidence or pure serendipity. We all think of God or of a Supreme Power when we are in distress, very few of us know and those of us who do know very few have actually realised the God within. In moments of distress, when a medical or financial emergency stares at us – that is when we think of God the most – we need that psychological crutch to take us through those difficult times. When we think of God with a pure heart and nothing but love and faith, he listens; not just listens but also acts! It is all about our faith and our will to pull through difficult times. God does not come and physically rescue us from our crisis, he just gives us the strength or sends someone who helps us tide through the difficult times. In India, we are told to chant God’s name or mantras whi...