Strive Hard To Balance Life

The best of countries and corporations are so because they have the best of budgets. It is natural, therefore, that there is so much concern about our national Budget.

If only we spent as much time worrying about our domestic budget... but we remain glued to our television sets for hours, listening carefully to the Budget speech. We spend even more time criticizing it afterwards.

How many of us can say honestly that we have worked out a 'life' budget for ourselves? A life budget includes committing time to self, family, society and God. The lives of those who do this become richer not just financially, but socially and spiritually too.

Just as a country's budget must be well balanced for its economy to be healthy, life's budget, too, has to be well balanced for life to be lived fruitfully.

Many corporate executives invest all their time and effort in pursuing careers and climbing the professional ladder. When they reach the top however, most realise it wasn't really worthwhile. They discover that their victory is hollow and winning it cost their health, family and psyche.

They suffered obesity, heart disease and fatigue on the physiological front; separated spouse, estranged children and uncared for parents on the familial front; frustration, depression and stress on the physio-psychological front.

In the US, Canada, China and Japan, this phenomenon has resulted in a tragic burgeoning of suicides and cardiovascular and cancer-related deaths.

A leading bank in Canada devoted one of its monthly letters to this problem with the title, 'Let's Slow Down'. "We are victims of mounting tension", it enunciated. "We have difficulty relaxing: We are not living fully".

By Sadhu Vishwamurtidas

Detach Your Service From Expectation

The karma yogi avoids the chaotic activity of selfish desires; he also avoids the apparent inaction of total non-wanting. He leads a life of selfless service, in which there is not the slightest alloy of any personal motive and which furthers the release of divinity in all phases of life.

Service, even when it is utterly selfless, ought to be guided by spiritual understanding; for selfless service, when unintelligently handled, often creates chaos and complications. It could even be the opposite of the desired effect.

The real danger in service lies more in the possibility of your rendering it from a false motive than in making a mistake about the spiritual demands of the situation. If you render service in order to oblige a person and if you feel proud of doing it, you are not only doing spiritual harm to the recipient of your service but also to yourself.

The consciousness that ‘I am obliging someone' is the first to occur during the process of serving; but it can be annulled by the contrary thought, ‘I am obliged by being given this opportunity of serving'. This latter thought facilitates the attitude of detachment and secures freedom from the bondage of good actions.

Service based upon comprehensive understanding is not only selfless and adjusted to the spiritual demands of the recipient but is rendered with complete detachment.

Such service takes the aspirant to the goal most rapidly.

For most people the idea of service is inextricably bound with securing certain definite results in the objective world. For them service consists of removal of human suffering or illiteracy or other difficulties and handicaps that thwart the flourishing of individual or social life. This is the type of service rendered by aspirants, politicians, social reformers and other good people. Though this type of service is of immense spiritual importance, it is in its very nature unending. Therefore, as long as the idea of service is tied to the idea of results, it is inevitably fraught with a sense of incompleteness.

There can be no realisation of Infinity through the pursuit of a never-ending series of consequences. On the other hand, service that comes after truth realisation is spontaneous expression of spiritual understanding of the true nature of the Self. And though it also brings about important results in the objective world, it is in no way complicated by any longing for them.

The sun shines and the rain falls. In the same way the God-realised person also lives a life of self-offering because of the basic structure of divine life that is at the heart of Reality and not because he longs to achieve anything. His life is not a reaching out towards something with the hope of some kind of attainment. He is already established in the fullness of the realisation of the Infinite.

The overflow of the God-realised being is a blessing to life in other forms and actually brings about their uplift from the material as well as spiritual point of view. There is a vast gulf between service before truth realisation and service after realising it.

By Avatar Meher Baba

How to Manufacture Subtle Energies

Meditation is a way of manufacturing what we call ojas. When we eat food, digestion manufactures the body in a certain way. This is important for our physical existence, but the body by itself does not serve any purpose. The body can be a means of great suffering. The body is capable of pleasure also but its limitations will be unfulfilling over a period of time.

In meditation, we are using energy to manufacture something much subtler than the physical body. Now the process of shifting life forces into a different level of manufacture, where instead of physical body cells, it begins to manufacture subtler energies, or ojas, is known as meditation.

The quality, intensity and volume of ojas make the difference between one human being and another. Why one person's presence seems to be so strong and transforming, and another's weak is simply because of the ojas he carries with him. A meditator is someone who has set up an industry of ojas.

Right now, it is quite limiting and frustrating not to allow people to go into higher states of energy and ojas simply because people don't have the necessary balance, preparedness, discipline or are unable to understand the priorities they need to allocate to different dimensions of their life. There are many things you can do to dissipate and destroy the growth of ojas in you. Various types of mental activity can do that.

Certain types of physical activity, excessive sexuality, indulgence in food, too much of stimulants and being in contaminated atmospheres can also do that. Spirituality is going into processes that can enhance one's ojas and change the very fundamentals of life; to take a person to a completely different experience, of joy within himself and a blissfulness which is not only his, which will be everybody's around him.

Your meditation is not only about yourself. If 25 people in a hall become truly meditative, the whole town, without knowing why, will become peaceful. Without having any idea about what is happening to them, there will be a certain sense of settling. The deeper one goes into it, the more of a device he becomes for everybody's well-being. It is not by mouthing good things that true peace and well-being will come. Only when people carry the right kind of energy around them, only when their ojas is such that a hundred people can sit under their shadow, and experience it, only then well-being will truly happen.

Quite a few people are experientially open and definitely capable of generating higher possibilities of energy. But modern life has made people absolutely fickle. You're simply shifting all the time, from this to that, whether it comes to jobs, priorities, education or relationships. Your energy also becomes unstable.

If all we want to teach is a simple technique of meditation, or something for your health and well-being, i can train people to do that in two to three weeks' time, maybe four weeks. We can train teachers to go on imparting meditation, kriyas and whatever little things that are necessary for one's physical and mental well-being. Out of a thousand people who come, you may find a dozen people who are capable of higher possibilities.

Only if you make yourself available to higher and higher possibilities, it's only then that grace can descend and do something that you yourself could never do. Only then this can become a very fulfilling process for an individual.

By : Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Tribute To Parents Who Give Us Their All

By Saniyasnain Khan ,

Recently when my beloved mother passed away, I went into a state of prayerfulness, deep thinking and contemplation. The experience was a reminder that there is very little time at our disposal and at any moment death can come calling.

Fifty years ago my father said that only that person has truly taken part in a funeral who has actually felt as if it is he who is being buried. This means that he should feel that at any moment his turn can come, as if the counting has reached up to the last but one, and now it is his turn. Therefore, a visit to the graveyard becomes a source of awe and acts as a reminder of death.

However, we are so involved in worldly things that we never stop to think about the day which is fast approaching us. Prophet Muhammad said: "People are asleep, they will wake up only when they die". All of a sudden, death will bring you standing face to face with God, at which time you will be held accountable for all your deeds.

That will be the moment you realize that what you were doing was one thing and that what you should have been doing was something else. Prophet Muhammad once said that on the Day of Judgment, a man's foot will not move unless he has answered four questions: Where he earned his money from, and where he spent it; how he spent his youth and how he used his knowledge.

The Creator has divided human life into two parts:the pre-death and post-death periods. The pre-death period is very short (like the tip of an iceberg) in comparison to the post-death period, which is eternal. The pre-death period is the preparatory phase in which you prepare yourself to become eligible to enter Paradise in the post-death period.

This worldly life is a "test" for everyone, whether poor or rich, powerful or powerless, strong or weak. Man is required to pass in all these tests and trials by leading a need-based life rather than a desire and greed-based life, so that in the life hereafter, God allows him to enter Paradise, to live there forever in close proximity to his Creator.

Nirvikalpa Samadhi Is Knowledge Of The Soul

Any kind of meditation followed by a spiritual aspirant has only one aim, namely, to speed up the fruition of his longing to be united with the Infinite.

When this union is effected, the sadhak or aspirant becomes a siddha, one who has attained the Goal. This state of union with God is described by Jesus Christ: "I and my Father are One".

Many have written about this highest state of consciousness, but it remains essentially indescribable. Though it can never be explained, it can be experienced. This is nirvikalpa samadhi.

When the mind merges totally in the Truth, it experiences the nirvikalpa state of spontaneous bliss of uninterrupted Self-know-ledge.

The aspirant loses his limited individuality to discover that he is with God, who is omnipresent. By the grace of a perfect master, the nirvikalpa state becomes the culmination of earlier forms of personal and impersonal meditation and not their product.

The entire process of attaining the nirvikalpa state consists in gradually curtailing and transcending the working of the individual mind.

The mind has to be completely merged and dissolved in the Infinite to experience nirvikalpa samadhi. Form is solidified energy; energy is an expression of mind; mind is the covered mirror of eternity or Truth that has thrown off the mask of mind.

To discard the limiting mind is not easy. The mind has to be annihilated through the mind itself. One Master told his

disciple that in order to attain the highest state he has to be thrown, bound hand and foot to a plank, into a river, where he must keep his garments dry.

The disciple could not understand the meaning of this injunction. He wandered until he encountered another Master and asked him the meaning of the injunction.

This Master explained that in order to attain God he had to long intensely for union with Him as if he could not live another moment without it — and yet to have inexhaustible patience that could wait for billions of years.

It is only when there is a balance between infinite longing and infinite patience that the aspirant can ever hope to pierce through the veil of the limited mind.

To dwell in nirvikalpa samadhi is to dwell in Truth-consciousness. This God-state cannot be grasped by one whose mind is still working.

It is beyond the mind, for it dawns when the limited mind disappears in final union with the Infinite. The soul then knows itself through 'itself'and not through the mind.

The soul in nirvikalpa samadhi does not need artificial inducing of God-consciousness through repeated suggestions. It just knows itself to be God through effortless intuition.

One who experiences Nirvi-kalpa Samadhi is established in the knowledge of the Soul. This Self-knowledge does not come and go; it is permanent.

In the state of ignorance the individual soul looks upon itself as a man or woman, as the agent of limited actions and the receiver of joys and pains.

In the state of Self-knowledge it knows itself as the Soul, which is not in any way limited by these things and is untouched by them.

Once it knows its own true nature, it has this knowledge forever and never again becomes involved in ignorance. This state of God-consciousness is infinite and is characterised by unlimited understanding, purity, love and happiness. To be in nirvikalpa samadhi is the endlessness of life in Eternity.

By Avatar Meher Baba.

Neanderthal One: Straight Out Of A Laboratory

In the year 4050, a time of bliss on earth where robots and men live as friends, a fateful event occurs... arriving from deep space a small six ounce chunk of rock and ice falls unobserved into a deep sea.

The ice inside the rock melts and releases a virus so deadly that all humans on earth die. The robots are distraught and they vow to build new humans from DNA remains.

After many failures, the first laboratory-generated human emerges, a rough hirsute brute named Neanderthal One.

Decades after, the robots, for lack of spare parts and human foresight, die out and Neanderthal One evolves into our present day human race.

A fantastic improbability, certainly, but who's to say this hasn't happened or won't happen?

Serious human thought has been given to the number of angels that might fit on the head of a pin, "better ways to cut a cake", whether or not Pluto is a planet, and it wasn't so long ago that many believed the earth was flat.

Obviously reckless ideas attract us and enter our reality to such an extent that major aspects of human life are converted by them.

E=MC2, light contained in a glass bulb, voices travelling though wire, germs as the cause of infection are all examples of improbable ideas that came to life and changed the course of human history, and we know, most assuredly, that man was not meant to fly, nor breathe underwater, nor clone himself.

Given our past, Neanderthal One appears less absurd and even possible.

Humans, however significant we think we are, we must admit that our significance, knowledge and beliefs are an inadequate means of establishing finite parameters for objective reality.

We are prisoners of the subjective, the defined, the believed. Our only real freedom, it seems, lies in the realm of the imagination, in new ideas, guessing, observing and calculating "what ifs".

What if man past, man present and man future are not equally human or even human-like? What if mankind is a self-organizing system manipulated in its perception of self by dark energy, and E=MC2 reverts to M=E divided by C2 in the afterlife?

What if all we believe to be true is not true, if perspective animates matter, if memory is merely an impersonal process for storing data, if life as we perceive it is actually death as we perceive death to be?

From morphic fields, string theory and causal dynamical triangulation, to the nano realm, metaphysics, religion and God, mystery and questions abound.

But which questions deserve human attention and resolution, the speed of galactic withdrawal from the Big Bang, reconstruction of the speed of light and gravity, the origin of God?

Finding answers requires a journey over landless territories, a reach into multiple dimensions, the laws that govern them and the relationship such dimensions and laws have to our known laws and dimensions.

The trick, however, is to successfully traverse these multidimensional non-human worlds with human consciousness intact to such a degree that human identity remains observant and measurable.

Indeed, but at what point can we actually enter these dimensions? Is it now, at this point, with this word, on this page?

Behind all that has been gathered into the human consciousness and experience, there extends a veil of shadows outside the reach of imagination that attracts imagination.

Neanderthal One is not a mere improbability. We may, in fact, have come from where we are going.

Try an awareness bath

An old, uneducated woman approached the Buddha, wanting to meditate, saying that she was coming to it so late in life; she might not really be able to learn how.

He gently advised her, as she drew water from the well each day, to remain mindful and aware of every single movement of her hands, knowing that if she did so she would soon find herself in that state of alert and spacious calm that is meditation.

After several people had claimed that meditative awareness was hard enough to practice on the meditation cushion, to suggest that we bring it to the everyday is perhaps one of those nice sounding but ridiculously impossible things. I suggested what I thought was a simple mid-session project on taking an 'awareness bath'.

A woman leapt up, furious. Tired after a rough week at the office, she yelled at me about all the 'rubbish' i was talking. She had to knead, roll out and cook about 30 chapattis every single evening soon after getting home from work. Completely exhausted by dinner-time, she barely soaped all over in the shower before collapsing on her bed. She even added that maybe it was only 'jobless' people like me who could afford this silly luxury!

My first instinct was to argue with her; to convince her... But thankfully I remained aware – and shut up and went inwards. To my surprise, I got in touch with the sensory pleasures of making chapattis.

Without addressing her directly, i acted out a slow, invisible chapatti-making routine, all the time talking aloud of how my senses responded as i went along – measuring out the ingredients, the feel and colors of the deep red measuring bowl and flat silvery shiny thali that reflected my hands and movements. Really feeling the dry flour on my hands, pouring in cool, clear water, then the sticky-clingy coming together of the dough, the rhythm of kneading, breathing and the alchemy of the transformed 'just right' feel of the dough, all the time noticing the aromas changing constantly in the process. Then the rolling and flattening of individual chapattis, the feel of the weight of the rolling pin, sometimes the perfect round ones that showed up, the amazing smell of the fresh roasted ones, how they puffed pleasingly at the end, then slowly flattened down...maybe a few drops of aromatic ghee dribbled on each.

It took just a few minutes, and there was total silence. In fact, I recall the session for that day ended right there.

The next Saturday the same woman said smilingly that chapatti-time was now her stress management time. Not just that – it relaxed her enough to enjoy a really 'aware' bathing time.

Another called me last week – full three years after the sessions – telling me that over the years this has become her 'holy time' of the day. She willingly takes longer over it than before, and everyone, including her mother-in-law, agrees no one makes chapattis that look and taste as good as the ones she makes.

We can bring meditative awareness to washing dishes, eating, writing, walking, relating. We can let go of our usual excuses of 'no time' or 'wrong place'. Everyday things and actions can offer us unusual moments of holiness and blessedness.

A Brief Guide to Life

‘A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.’ ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life can be ridiculously complicated, if you let it. I suggest we simplify.Thich Nhat Hanh’s quote, which I’ve stolen as this site’s subtitle, is the shortest guide to life you’ll ever need:“Smile, breath, and go slowly.”If you live your life by those five words, you’ll do pretty well. For those who need a little more guidance, I’ve distilled the lessons I’ve learned (so far) into a few guidelines, or reminders, really.And as always, these rules are meant to be broken. Life wouldn’t be any fun if they weren’t.

the brief guide

• less TV, more reading
• less shopping, more outdoors
• less clutter, more space
• less rush, more slowness
• less consuming, more creating
• less junk, more real food
• less busywork, more impact
• less driving, more walking
• less noise, more solitude
• less focus on the future, more on the present
• less work, more play
• less worry, more smiles
• breathe

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow Him on twitter

How To Discover Your Potential Through Yoga

If there are two piles, one of gold and one of dirt, we will always choose the pile of gold. If the dirt and gold are mixed, we will separate the gold from the dirt. But are we able to do that with ourselves?

Our personality is a combination of both rubbish and gold, and generally we are affected by the rubbish and we ignore the gold.

Despite having so much to give, so much to receive, and with so many positive qualities within, we identify with the negative.

The purpose of yoga is to create the awareness to separate the negative from the positive. We have to reject the negative and connect with the positive. Why do we react?

Why do we desire one thing and not another? Reactions are a result of identification with negativity and dislikes. Actions follow positivity.

Neither meditation nor performance of asanas is important. We can practice asanas only as long as we are fit. We practice meditation only as long as there is the desire.

If there is no desire to practice yoga, we give it up. If we just revolve around our likes and dislikes, actions and reactions, desires and rejections all our life, it means we have not learned the lesson to bring out the positivity.

That positivity has to be expressed in every situation whether it is an exam, a human relationship, social living or reclusive living.

This is the understanding that yoga tries to give. This understanding cannot be intellectual. It has to be an experiential understanding of the process that leads to self-development and infuses one with contentment, peace and tranquility.

We go through various experiences, some good, some bad. Whenever we react, it is a bad experience and whenever we accept and act, it is a positive experience.

Positivity and acceptance have to be our focus if we want to succeed in life. If this focus is lost, we cannot claim to be practitioners of yoga, only practitioners of asana, or meditation.

Change has to come from within. This is not a momentary gain, but a gain of positivity in life. The satisfaction or fulfillment we experience within is due to harmony, which is both external and internal.

If we only identify with the inner experience of happiness, but react externally in our attitudes, behavior, relationships and communication, then that experience can never be complete.

That is the true meaning of yoga. In the third sutra of the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali discusses being established in one's own nature as the seer, the drashta.

To be established in one's own nature means there has to be harmony, a flow in life. This optimism and balance does not encounter nor is affected by blocks.

A river will simply flow around a large rock on the river bed and carry on with its journey. It does not come into conflict with an immovable object.

We all need to learn this lesson, because personal attainment is only a selfish subjective attainment, which can be lost at any time.

It is easy to attain and also easy to lose because life follows a principle of give and take. This is the flow of life with which yoga identifies.

At this stage yoga becomes a way of life, not just a practice. There is identification with and expression of nature which is balanced, positive and optimistic, and one attains physical health, mental health and spiritual wealth.

The writer is Head of Bihar School of Yoga.

You Are Worthy

Have you ever tried to pay someone a compliment and seen them embarrassed, confused, or even somewhat irked at your offering of kindness, love, and admiration? Or maybe, you have been on the receiving end and found yourself uncomfortable and unable to respond with gratitude and grace.

This everyday example of the difficulties that can arise when we are offered a gift reveals one of the important principles of learning how to receive the abundance that the Universe holds for us. In order to manifest, to take part in the process of co-creating your life and attracting to yourself the objects of your heart’s desires, you must know that you are worthy of receiving.

Manifesting involves using the power of your inner world to craft a fuller relationship with life. You can remind yourself all day long that the same power that brought anything into the physical world also brought you, but if you do not feel worthy, you will disrupt the natural flow of energy into your life and create a blockage that makes manifestation impossible. Remember that you are worthy of abundance. Feeling worthy of any blessings or desires is a feature of your inner life. Here are the major perceptions of those who know they are worthy and deserving of all of God’s blessings:

• My self-esteem comes from myself. (As a child of God, my worthiness is a given.)
• I accept myself without complaint and without conditions.
• I take full responsibility for my life and what it is and is not. (I blame no one.)
• I do not choose to accept guilt into my life. (I live in the present moment.)
• I understand the importance of having harmony between my thoughts, my feelings, and my behavior. (This harmony translates into peace and contentment.)

There is nothing your highest self wants more than peace. This peace makes you feel worthy of all of the richest blessings of the Universe, and when you radiate this out into the world, it is returned to you without fail.


BLOG by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Mother Teresa: a remembrance

This day marks the birth centenary of a simple nun who, through her work among the poorest of the poor, became the conscience-keeper of her century.

Today, August 26, 2010, the birth centenary of Mother Teresa will be marked with celebration and thanksgiving in many parts of the world. This simple nun with her unique brand of faith and compassion was able to alleviate loneliness, hunger and destitution by reaching out through a worldwide mission to millions of abandoned, homeless and dying destitutes, irrespective of their religion, caste, faith or denomination. In the process she became, indisputably, the conscience-keeper of her century.

Read More here The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Mother Teresa: a remembrance

Skydiver solves Rubik's Cube while free falling

You’d think while free falling out of a plane, a skydiver would have enough to worry about what with the whole parachute deployment and trying not to die thing. But that pesky little fact didn’t stop YouTube user KleinerLudewig from jumping out of an airplane at 4,300 meters while sitting in a small rubber boat and solving a Rubik’s Cube in a jaw-dropping thirty-one and a half seconds. The brave adrenaline junkie finished at 2,500 meters and then casually deployed his chute before making a safe landing.

Most people can’t even solve those frustrating things while sitting on their completely stationary couch.

Full story at Neatorama.

The Parable Of The Blissful Madman

The Nobel prize-winning mathematician John Nash who has a long history of schizophrenia, a mental condition in which the afflicted person creates a delusion of alternative reality.

Schizophrenics do this to make so-called normal life bearable for themselves. Very often, those suffering from schizophrenia are creative geniuses. Apart from Nash the long list includes musician Ludwig van Beethoven, painter Vincent Van Gogh, ballet dancer Vaclav Nijinsky and many others.

The life and works of gifted artists and creative geniuses show that their expanded consciousness is completely unconfined, giving rise to extraordinary potential beyond the reach of the average person. There is a tendency in the human psyche to reach for higher forms of consciousness.

Access to this state is evident though temporary in both schizophrenics and individuals who get inspired by sudden insight. Psychiatry has found no cure so far for schizophrenia and perhaps there is no cure.

For, on a deeper level, it could be said of all of us that we are indeed schizophrenics in that the 'normal' lives we lead and believe in, including getting a job, earning a livelihood, raising a family is, when seen from the plane of the spiritually enlightened, nothing but a carefully fabricated illusion very much like what the schizophrenics construct for themselves.

So how do we break out of our delusions? Not necessarily by renouncing the world and all its illusory joys and sorrows, its fictive triumphs and tragedies, but by recognizing the delusional nature of this world.

When we lose ourselves in meditation or in the exaltation that great music or art can create, the delusional world with its myriad anxieties and grief's seems to fall away from us and we feel a sense of untrammeled freedom. Nijinsky wrote in his diaries that he was God. This scandalized the pious Christian establishment of his time that considered such utterances as blasphemous.

Dynamics of ahimsa

The universe is dynamic. Irrespective of its speculated origin with the Big Bang or otherwise, its existence as we see it is a consequence of dynamism in a sustaining balance.

The concept of static is therefore a relative phenomenon. For instance life is dynamic and death is static, or so it seems. Though antithetical, the two states are inseparable. One without the other is untenable. Whatever our perspective, we find that equilibrium is the ultimate phenomenon in nature. Imbalance leads to chaos and destruction.

Once Jain guru Mahavira transcended from contemplation to direct perception, he realised that he lived within a dynamic system. He found his soul and body to be dynamic. Whatever object he set his eyes on he found to be intrinsically dynamic. He paused at anything that he apparently found static but after closer inspection he found that it was indeed dynamic. Once he established that the only thing static in this universe was death or extinction of the form under consideration, he set about framing codes of how best to live in such a dynamic system and pursue the goal of ultimate balance, the state of eternal bliss.

When dealing with a dynamic system we have to be careful not to disturb it and so precautions have to be taken. Any proposed variations should be thought out carefully. This is applicable when we are outside the system. However, when we are within the system or part of the system we have not only to be careful about such changes but also about changes within us, and our behaviour within the system. To pursue what one desires in such a multi-dimensional dynamic system is a daunting task. However, Mahavira devised a simple and universal formula — he called it ahimsa. As transgression is himsa, non-transgression or limiting needs and desires within these systemic standards is ahimsa.

Mahavir's definition of the living starts with visible forms of life, covers microscopic forms and extends to life-sustaining components of nature like earth, water, air, fire and plants. In Mahavira’s ahimsa way of life, non-transgression has been discussed in detail and given a wide definition. It is a fundamental principle and can be applied, with necessary variations, to every dimension and at every level within a specific dimension. At the micro level it covers all that is covered by particle physics. In biological field it covers all things and activities of the world of living, micro and macro. At gross levels it covers everything and every process existing in nature. At subtle level of human psyche it covers all disciplines of humanities.

Success of a complex system, like human society, lies in continued interaction and cooperation among its numerous components in terms of action and the driving thought process. Mahavir's ahimsa way of life involves three vital factors -- dynamism, discipline, and equilibrium or equanimity. These factors are linked with ahimsa way of life forming a mutually dependent progressive cycle of development. When any one of these factors improves it automatically brings improvement in other factors and the whole system.

The edifice of Jainism is raised on the foundation of this dynamic ahimsa. Mahavira expanded it into a way of life that helps one transcend into the spiritual realm. But prior to that, it ensures meaningful survival in this highly dynamic and fragile ecosystem by providing a symbiotic methodology of living based on ahimsa.

River Of Enlightenment

Long before the universities packaged the deeply spiritual science of Hindustani music into classroom textbooks, the masters used very little verbiage to communicate its essence.

They explained little, but when they did, it was in the form of idioms, proverbs, hyperboles and adages. But these would show you the world!

For instance, lesson one, they would say, 'paanee karo', asking you to repeat. Like the word simran or internal repetition in scriptures, you were to repeat the notes, phrases, scale and words, not just a few times, not for some time, but for hours nay, for years, till your words and musical phrases flowed to perfection.

Renowned master Ustad Amir Khan Saheb would often nod and hand over the so-called 'simple' prescription to his disciples: "Hmmm, sapaat..., karte raho". The word sapaat means 'straight', and he referred to the straight up and down movements of the scale or the raga, to be repeated at length till the gems of enlightenment about its inner nature began to flash through your mind in intuition, and the raga shed its heaviness, flowing out of you like a river of enlightenment.

Once, when Khan Saheb had just finished singing a big raga seated among his disciples, Pandit Amarnathji smiled at him and said, "Khan Saheb, you have turned the singing into light music," at which one of his gurubhais saw red, thinking it an affront. But Khan Saheb smiled at Panditji affectionately, saying "I appreciate your understanding". He knew what he meant to say. That the greatest of music 'sounded' simple though an immense amount of hard labour had gone into reaching its state of lucidity.

On another occasion, after he performed the muhurat for Garam Coat, a film whose music was composed by Panditji, his disciple, Ustad Amir Khan Saheb, asked, "Son, how long did you take to compose this song?" It was the beautiful 'Jogia se preet kiye dukh hoye', a Meera bhajan sung by Lata Mangeshkar. "About 15-20 days", was the reply. To which Khan Saheb said, "If you were to take the same amount of time to compose your rendering of any raga before each concert, how would it be...?" It was the same lesson in 'simplicity'.

Beyond the rational mind, it was repetition alone that took you to the highest peak in your sadhana to samadhi state, union with the Supreme. The very words aalaap and taan in the Hindustani khayal refer to dhyana or concentration on the raga's form till the point of its dissolution in the mind during singing, both slow and fast. Aalaap means to expand or 'spread the notes wide' during slow unfolding of the raga's scale, and taan means to 'stretch them taut' in the faster portion, as the artist reaches the peak of exhilaration in dhyana, forgetting all else. And in the process, taking along his listeners as well!

Pandit Amarnathji would say that the image of the raga's scale in your mind should be horizontal, not vertical, talking of the raga's inner direction during meditation, which is meant to take you to another kind of 'high' - and to the 'mental release'. Finally, as he said, "meditation means not to concentrate on anything when you sing".

That is why, when Panditji sang it, the raga was no longer a ladder-like scale. It was an aural poem.

Collision of egos

We cannot be successful in either the external world or the internal world while we are tossed about by a powerful ego. What is required is a strong will.

The difference between ego and will is that the ego is blind but the will has vision. Will has its source in the pure Self. Ego springs from a false sense of identification (avidya) with the external world, and is usually concerned with preserving self-image and self-identity. Ego is characterised by stubbornness, selfishness, and unwillingness to compromise.

The ego is like a little pool. An egotistical person is like a frog crouching in that little pool – his world is small, his borders insecure. He has only a vague awareness of the trees encircling his pool, and he cannot begin to imagine the frog-filled marshes just beyond. From his perspective, only his own feelings and his own voice are meaningful.

The power of will, by contrast, is like a spring whose source is the Pure Being. It infuses mind and body with enthusiasm, courage, curiosity, and energy to act. In spiritual literature this force – the intrinsic power of the soul – is called ichcha shakti, and it is from this force that all aspects of our personality, including the ego, derive energy to carry out their activities.

Becoming successful in the world requires a strong will, and that strong will needs to be properly guided so we develop a strong personality. A strong personality exhibits tolerance and endurance. It has the power to vanquish and punish an opponent, but chooses to forgive and forget instead. When we are egotistical, on the other hand, we demonstrate our weakness by answering a pebble with cannon. We lose our composure the moment our feelings are even slightly bruised. We have a hard time forgetting the injuries we have received from others, but an even harder time remembering how much we have injured others.

All problems – at home, work, in politics, everywhere – are caused by colliding egos. These problems are not overcome by one ego dominating others, but by a person of strong will and clear vision coming forward and overshadowing the trivial egos of those who are quarrelling.

A strong ego is as much of an obstacle in spiritual practice as it is in worldly matters. The stronger the ego, the bigger the hurdle it will create. However, the solution is not to kill or weaken the ego but to do our best to purify, transform, and guide it properly. We can do this by employing both our intelligence and power of discrimination. When we meditate, practise contemplation, pray, study the scriptures, serve others, and seek the company of the wise we make our ego pure and less confined, and this in turn inspires us to move one step forward. As we do, the purified ego, accompanied by a sharpened intellect, gets a glimpse of the next level of awareness, and naturally aspires to reach it. Thus the ego becomes the tool for purifying and expanding itself, and in this way the petty ego is gradually transformed into an expanded, more purified ego.

This transformation must end with the ego dissolving and becoming one with the pure Self and experiencing its union with Universal Consciousness. As the ego of a dedicated seeker merges with the Infinite, all confusion disappears, the veil of duality lifts, and the purified ego sees the whole universe in itself and itself in the whole universe.

www.HimalayanInstitute.in

Our Century's Greatest Injustice

Sheryl WuDunn's book "Half the Sky" investigates the oppression of women globally. Her stories shock. Only when women in developing countries have equal access to education and economic opportunity will we be using all our human resources.

 

As a journalist reporting on China, Sheryl WuDunn saw the everyday oppression of women around the world. She and Nick Kristof wrote "Half the Sky," chronicling women's stories of horror and,… Full bio and more links

Meaningful Meditation, Greater Understanding

Equanimous thought is balanced thought. Any kind of superiority or inferiority complex results in perverted thinking. The criterion for wholesome thinking is to determine whether thought is born of equanimity or not.

Two kinds of feelings dominate your life: like and dislike; craving and aversion. Totally unconditioned thinking is rare. Someone dear to us says something and we appreciate it; but the same thing uttered by an adversary and we feel contempt or fear. Why?

All action is conditioned or motivated by passion or disgust, approbation or disapprobation, attachment or indifference, attraction or revulsion.

On the one hand operates an attachment: "This is my family, my son, my wife; may they be happy! Let there be a bigger house, more money, no lack whatsoever". On the other hand, aversions prevail. Like and dislike go together.

A man shops for the best quality food; he does not want his family to consume adulterated foodstuffs. All because he is greatly attached to them. And yet the same person sells adulterated medicines to others, because he is indifferent to their fate; because he is not attached to them.

Due to lack of affection, he indulges in corruption. This feeling of attachment or unattachment powerfully affects one’s approach and all perversions in thought and action originate from there. Without equanimity, all thought becomes shabby and the contradictions therein can never be resolved.

True meditation helps you go beyond like and dislike, craving and aversion, to awaken in you a state of dispassion. Meditation which fails to develop equanimity is no meditation.

Often, when you go out of the meditation centre, you continue as before, there is no change the same world, and the same mischief's. This kind of meditation is sorely limited by time and space. Even a naughty child is quiet in sleep, barring some involuntary spasmodic movements. While sleeping, no one quarrels. By ACHARYA MAHAPRAJNA

A Dancer's Quest for Divine Love

The role of prema or devotional love is pivotal in divine dance forms such as Bharatanatyam. The combination of nritta or pure dance, abhinaya or pure expression and nritya or expressive dancing leads the dancer close to the infinite domain of the cosmic self.

For this, dance needs to be portrayed in a spirit of total ecs-tasy, rising above the physical realm and parameters of the body.

Natyopasana or devotional fervour in dance wherein the dance assumes worshipful nature, leads to natyabrahmn: Realising the Universe within the individual self, a dancer uses her own personality comprising physical form and mental states as the primary vehicle in the first stage.

She then acquires the personality of the various charac-ters represented as the secondary vehicle in the second stage and unwinds shackles of personal traits as the dance level evolves and deepens.

Finally she gets elevated to the highest spiritual sphere, sringara or love. This is the first among rasas that are aesthetic flavours of dance and drama.

Sringara considered as rasa raja as its portrayal alone has the scope to touch upon other bhavas too, taking its three basic delineations as vatsalya or motherly affection, rati or union of male and female principles and bhakti or self-surrender and devotion to the Almighty.

Sringara becomes delectable in any form and offers the easiest path to be one with the ethereal world: that's natya yoga.

A dancer could be skilled and sincere too, but unless there is sublimation of ego, the dance cannot create rasanubhava, the impact of splendour.

The dancer merges in the spirit of dance, surrenders to its magnificence and spontaneously expresses a divine energy, and transports the audience to similar experiences.

Through inspiration and intuition, dance makes the audience feel divine energy. The dancer's quest is to negate egoistic tendencies by submitting herself as an instrument to experience divinity.

It is said that true movement cannot lie. True joy can be experienced through devotional love.

This cannot always be taught but can perhaps be imbibed from eminent gurus. We can assess philosophical terms like advaita, vishishta advaita and dvaita in the context of dance.

The concept of a dancer becoming one with the dance through natya yoga is holistic and advaitic, while the aesthetic representation and appreciation of manifestations of divinity incorporated in dance are examples of admitting to theosophies like vishishta advaita.

Again, the bhakti-marg or pathway to God prescribed by saints is so suffused with infectious love, humble devotion and self-surrender, that dancing to their innumerable compositions has the potency to infuse spiritual well-being.

Creating, adding form — from nirguna to saguna — and placing this divinity on the highest pedestal become tools for communication, a must for successful dramatic representation.

Advaitam, true shantam, resting in Monism can be the 'end'. Indeed where there cannot be any mundane expression but natya, in order to carry the dancer and spectators, it has to be thoroughly expressive and appear world-related.

It is multidimensional, physically externalising through movement and emotions using eyes, parts of face, neck, limbs... and also all along internalising by correlating the mind.

Witnessing all these ephemeral states is the 'mystical eye' that can make one see divine reality in dance. Hence, one can understand dance as life itself... as cosmic movement... as infinite cycle of creation, sustenance and destruction. Presented at the first international indology conference, Goa, Feb 7-10. By Padmaja Suresh

Between Life and Samadhi, The Bridge is Love

The Bauls are called Bauls because they are mad people. The word 'Baul' comes from the Sanskrit root vatul. It means: mad, affected by wind. The Baul belongs to no religion.

He is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian nor Buddhist. He is a simple human being. His rebellion is total. He does not belong to anybody; he only belongs to himself.

He lives in a no man's land: no country is his, no religion is his, no scripture is his.

A Baul is a man always on the road. He has no house, no abode. Existence is his only abode, and the whole sky is his shelter.

He possesses nothing except a poor man's quilt, a small, handmade one-stringed ins-trument called ektara, and a small kettle-drum.

He plays with one hand on the instrument and he goes on beating the drum with the other and he dances.

Dance is his religion; singing is his worship. He does not even use the word 'God'. The Baul word for God is Adhar Manush, the essential man. He worships man.

He says, inside you and me, there is an essential being. That essential being is all. To find that Adhar Manush is the whole search.

The Baul wanders singing songs. He has nothing to preach; his whole preaching is his poetry. And his poetry is also

not ordinary poetry, he sings because his heart is singing.

Poetry follows him like a shadow, hence it is tremendously beauti-ful. He's not calculating it, he's not making it. He lives his poetry. That's his passion and his very life.

His dance is almost insane. He has never been trained to dance. He dances like a madman, like a whirlwind. And he lives spontaneously, because the Baul says, "If you want to reach to the Adhar Manush, then the way goes through Sahaja Manush, the spontaneous man".

Spontaneity is the only way to reach to the essence... so he cries when he feels like crying. You can find him standing in a village street crying, for nothing. If you ask, "Why are you crying?" he will laugh.

He will say, "There is no 'why'. I felt like crying, so I cried". If he feels like laughing, he laughs; if he feels like singing, he sings — but every-thing has to come out of deep feeling.

He's not mind-oriented, not in any way controlled and disciplined. So you cannot find two Bauls that are similar; they are individuals. Their rebellion leads them to become authentic individuals.

He leaves the world to itself. He does not interfere, he does not meddle with it. He starts changing himself. His revolution is absolutely inner.

A Baul is ready to die any moment because he has lived life as deeply as it was possible to live. He has no complaint, he has no grudge against life, and he has nothing to wait for. So if death comes, he is ready to live death also. He embraces death.

A Baul dies dancing, a Baul dies singing, a Baul dies playing his ektara and his duggi. He knows how to live and how to die.

He knows how to transform sex into samadhi; he knows the secret. And what is the secret of transforming life into eternal life, time into eternity?

The secret is love. Between sex and samadhi, the bridge is love. Through love, the Bauls say, one reaches the eternal home.

So that is the only provision for the path: love. Love is their worship, love is their prayer, love is their meditation. The path of the Baul is the path of love. By Osho

101 ways to live life to the fullest

Often times our intentions for a good life are not enough. We need a toolkit with road maps towards our goals, guidelines to navigate, a list of values to move forward to live a full life. Below are a few principles, reminders for many, to begin living your life to the fullest.

• Know yourself. It's a tough world out there, know your strengths and accept to improve your weaknesses.
• Be true to yourself. Let's face it, how full can life be if you ignore your personal happiness?
• Create your own opportunities. No one is going to hand you your goals, you must take initiative.

Here's to everyone living their lives to the fullest!  Full story at The Personal Excellence Blog.

Timeless and Boundless Dance of Shiva

He is the rhythm of life. He dances with timeless, boundless energy. His movements are extraordinary, like one posses-sed. He leaps like a leopard. He slides and slithers like a snake. He stamps like thunder.

He moves swiftly like the whirlwind. His dance is so vibrant that the earth trembles. The whole world is electrified.

He is: "Nataraja, the rhythm of life, The pulse that sets the beats, The measured mathematical monitor, The taal that sets the pace, Tat-dhit-tom-nam Tat-dhit-tom-nam".

Why does Shiva dance? Today's young would probably say: "To have a blast!" Exactly! Shiva dances to enjoy himself, to play and to have a ball. He plays and dances at his own will. At his own will, again, he stops dancing and playing. So, it is all nothing but kreeda, a mere sport.

Tirumular, the author of Tirumantiram describes the dance of Shiva in verse in Tamizh or Tamil, emphasising the principles of Shaiva Sidhanta. Tirumular says when Shiva dances alone he dances in four varied states of dance:

"The Nada-Nadanta-Natana-Nadananta,/ He dances through the Vedas,/ He dances through the fire of Kundalini,/ He dances in Bodha, the pure consciousness,/ He dances in all three worlds,/ He dances with gods,/ He dances with celestial beings,/ He dances with rishi-munis,/ He dances with Parashakti,/ He dances with jivas,/ He is the supreme dancer!"

What kind of adavus or steps does he execute while dancing? He does it all. He can stamp, kick and jump. He can twist, turn and twirl. He can raise his legs at any angle.

He can assume any dancing pose. He has no barriers or boundaries. Tirumular says: "He performs the dance of Atbudha — the dance of wonder. It is also called the dance of Sadashiva. It consists of both: dance of form and dance of the formless. The form is that of guru while the formless is that of Uma, the Shakti that glows within Shiva. Shiva is incomplete without Shakti while Shakti is incomplete without Shiva. When Shivashakti dances it is Atbudha or the dance of wonder".

Tirumular was a Siddha Yogi who lived in the Himalayas. Once he made a journey to the southern regions to meet Muni Agastyar.

At Podigai Hills in Tamizhnadu, he witnessed a pitiful sight. A herd of cows was standing and crying around the dead body of the cowherd, Mulan.

Moved with compassion for the cows, Tirumular left his own body and entered the body of Mulan. When Mulan came alive, the cows were overjoyed.

Mulan then led the cows to their village. On returning to the spot where he had performed the supernormal feat, he was taken aback to see that his body was missing.

He attributed this to the grace of Shiva. Accepting his fate, he remained in the same village of Thiruvavaduthurai and became a recluse. He meditated under a Peepal tree.

People in and around the village noted the saint in samadhi. In the state of samadhi, he would utter verse in Tamil.

This was written and recorded by his followers. Thus, Tirumular during his life span uttered 3,000 verses of high philosophy and came to be known as the Tirumantiram.

Tirumular says: "Chanting 'Shivaya Namaha', again and again, will make your body red, then gold, and in time, shall behold the golden feet of the Lord and finally witness the fantastic dance of the golden feet too".

Dispassionate Love Is Central To Satyagraha

Pursuit of truth does not permit violence being inflicted on the opponent. On the contrary, the opponent is weaned from error with patience and sympathy.

The doctrine of satyagraha propounds vindication of truth not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but on oneself. Real suffering bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone.

Such is the potency of suffering. It is a means to secure cooperation of others consistently with truth and justice.

The essence of satyagraha is that it seeks to eliminate antagonisms without harming the antagonists themselves.

Satyagraha does not seek to end or destroy the relationship with opponents. Instead, it seeks to transform or purify it to a higher level.

The concept of satyagraha is built on three basic tenets — satya, ahimsa and tapasya. Satya or truth implies openness, honesty and fairness.

Each person's opinion and belief represents part of truth, and in order to see more of truth, there is need to share the truth.

Ahimsa means refusal to inflict injury on others. It follows from commitment to share truths, and is an expression of concern for respect and love for others.

Tapasya conveys willingness for self-sacrifice and patience. Endurance of suffering is a means to an end.

Martin Luther King, who followed Mahatma Gandhi's path of satyagraha during the civil rights movement in the US,

described satyagraha as a silent or soul force, neither an act of cowardice nor a weapon of the weak.

King enunciated the six important principles of satyagraha. First, instead of physical aggressiveness, the mind and emotions are kept active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that he is mistaken.

Second, it does not humiliate the opponent but gains friendship and understanding. In the process, reconciliation is the result, not bitterness.

Third, satyagraha wages battle against the forces of evil and not individuals.

 Fourth, by accepting suffering, it opens up tremendous educational and transforming possibilities and becomes a powerful tool in changing the minds of opponents.

Fifth, humans have a cosmic companionship with God who is on the side of truth. Therefore, justice would occur in the future. And lastly, bitterness and hate are replaced with love.

Satyagraha is both a personal and social struggle to realize the truth, which is identified as God, the Absolute Morality. Central to satyagraha is passive love.

It is a love that is disinterested. It is a love that does not distinguish between worthy and unworthy people or friends and enemies.

It is a love that fulfils the need of another person. This love seeks to create and preserve community and is an effective instrument against the ills of society.

We are grappling in the vicious environment of competition and consumerism. Tension and conflict have become common. Community interest is largely replaced by self-interest.

The unfortunate outcomes have been that basics of humaneness are often trampled and morality has been denigrated as redundant.

It is time for us to introspect and reorient ourselves to understand and respect one another and live and let live.

It would, therefore, be meaningful to seriously reflect on the postulates of satyagraha and its philosophy. The best tribute in this centenary year of satyagraha would be to have determination for search of the truth, inculcate the principles of understanding, and internalize respect and love for others.

Satyagraha is a solution that could remove evils of present-day society and create a just society. We would then create a better world.

Enrich Yourself With Your Mistakes

Mistakes cannot be avoided, but we can learn how to become rich by them. Unless we teach ourselves to fail wisely, we cannot succeed in life gracefully.

Our gratitude should free us; not bind us. Four people were carrying a boat on their head. Someone asked them why they were carrying it. They said, "We are grateful to the boat that helped us cross the river. Our gratitude does not allow us to abandon the boat".

Religion should set us free and not bind us. Many people use religion to hold people in bondage and so kill the spirit of religion. A man fell into a well. He did not drown, as the well was not full. He cried out for help.

A Buddhist monk passing by said to him: "Buddha's last sermon was, we should be a light unto ourselves; since you are not, you have fallen. If I save you, the darkness in you will make you fall again into the well; so create light within and that light will help you come out".

He went away without helping. A little later, a Hindu renunciate passing by said to him: "It is because of your past deeds that you have fallen.

Even if I help you now, your past deeds will make you fall again. Perform a noble act and earn divine approval. Good deeds will help you come out". He, too, walked away.

A disciple of Confucius saw the man in distress. He assured him, "I will definitely help, but first I will go and tell the village authorities how important the teaching of Confucius is.

Confucius teaches that society is more important than indivi-duals. Meanwhile, you keep screaming; it will warn others of the danger of falling into wells. Then the village authorities will ensure that every well is covered properly". He too went away.

The person who happened to come next immediately helped the man out of the well. Then he made a request, "Any time you fall into a well, please call only me and no one else.

Importance Of Compromise in Life

If you can't go that extra mile, meet someone halfway. Value compromise, but don't compromise your values. Life is not a smooth journey. It should not be. It is marked by ups and downs. People and situations move in and out of life.

Some are easy to handle while others are difficult to deal with. It is the difficult ones that always come to us to test out abilities of how smoothly we manage to cope with them, with least resistance and friction offered in the effort.

We may not always get what we want. Does that mean we should not seek to get what we want? Or rue over the fact that what we set out to achieve is different from what we actually did? Disagreement occurs, not so much for want of agreement as to the lack of our desire to agree.

Our entrenched disinclination disposes us not to agree to something or with someone that is half as good. When we say half as good, we presuppose the half as bad already. This conflict between half as good and half as bad holds us back to arrive at a solution with regard to people and situations that are not past resolve in themselves.

When faced with people and situations caught in the spatio-temporal warp, different from our own, we fail to see them in objective light. Our subjective thinking gets the better of us. As a result what's obvious to others is not so to us. The solution to resolve a deadlocked situation or parties involved in it exists outside this warp. But for that to happen, people need to cede their stance.

This ceding of position is not acceptance of defeat, or meek surrender. It is not something to be ashamed of or to feel conscious-stricken about. Rather it is the brave attempt at surmounting the inflated sense of ego that comes in the way of us arriving at an agreement. It is a conscious choice.

Adoption of such a way requires us to recognize others' point of view. We can start looking for merit in others' case only when we presume an element of demerit in ours. For truth is never absolute. We mistakenly chase the shadow and miss the image.

Compromise is intrinsic to nature's scheme of things to avoid resistance. When a fierce wind threatens to blow away and uproot all that comes in its path, even the mighty tree, otherwise firmly standing, begins to sway and bends and bows. The fury of wind doesn't last, but the submissive bending of tree manages to see it through the rough patch. A blade of grass flattens itself against the swift current of water only to pop up its head when the current slackens. Nature uses this defense mechanism for survival. It also teaches us to live in harmony with one another and at peace with ourselves.

Nature provides us with the option of compromise as an effective means to achieve harmony and peace in times of personal conflict and emotional turmoil and interpersonal clash and collective wars. We only need to wake up to the idea and bring it into play to attain peace within and outside.

It is certainly not a big price, rather a welcome value addition in the objective evaluation of compromise. What are we waiting for?

Walking the pathless path

Sometimes a lesson has to be repeated for thousands of years, not because it wasn’t learned the first time but because new people arrive on the scene.

The lesson I’m thinking of was Siddhartha’s, a prince on the Nepalese border of northern India. He dropped everything and hit the road, becoming the original, or at least the most famous dharma bum. He travelled from master to master with his begging bowl, seeking enlightenment. As Gautama the monk he became impressively austere. Instead of a loving wife, a warm bed, and feasts, he tried the opposite: solitude, sleeping by the wayside, and subsisting on whatever scraps of food he could beg for.

It’s still an appealing choice, because we equate austerity with virtue. If the stress of a chaotic world is too much, perhaps harmony lies along a different, quieter, more solitary road. But the moral of Siddhartha’s tale led a different way. Leaving home didn’t bring enlightenment, nor did austerity, poverty, starving his body, or trying to force his mind to be still. Instead, Siddhartha became someone entirely transformed – the Buddha – when he hit upon a new road, the one called “the pathless path”.

The pathless path isn’t a straight line; it doesn’t even lead from point A to point B. The journey takes place entirely in consciousness. A mind overshadowed by fears, hopes, memories, past traumas, and old conditioning finds a way to become free. This sounds impossible at first. How can the mind that is trapped by pain also be the tool for freeing itself? How can a noisy mind find silence? How can peace emerge from discord?

The Buddha offered his answer, which is a variant on an even more ancient answer from the seers or rishis of Vedic India: transcend the personal mind and find universal mind. The personal mind is tied to the ego, and the ego is forever swinging from pleasure to pain and back again. But if you look at awareness when there is no pleasure or pain, when the mind is calm while simply existing, a fascinating journey begins. You have made the first step on the pathless path.

This is not to dismiss the other path, the one that takes you away from home into a retreat, ashram, meditation centre, or holy place. They have their own atmosphere; seekers have stopped there for a long time; therefore, the mind can breathe a different kind of air, so to speak, an air of tranquility and peace. When you arrive at such a place, two things usually happen. You soak up the peace, enjoying the contrast with your busy life at home. At the same time you notice how loud your mind is, how much chaos it has absorbed. So these holy places cannot do the work for you. They can only suggest what the pathless path is about.

Kabir sang of spiritual travelers: “There is nothing but water in the holy pools. I know I have been swimming in them. All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can't say a word. I know, I have been crying out to them. The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words. I looked through their covers one day sideways.What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through something, it is not true.”

These lines don’t deny the worth of spiritual journeying, but they tell us that there is no substitute for first-hand experience. Where you go to find it is irrelevant. The true seeker after truth discovers, sooner or later, that truth was seeking him all along.

Via [  DeepakChopra.com ]

Aurobindo's practical philosophy

Aurobindo's philosophy is called practical philosophy because its goal is both material prosperity and spiritual perfection of an individual. Integral Yoga is the name given to his technique for achieving perfection. It is called Integral Yoga because it does not aim at self-perfection alone at the cost of complete neglect of others. It is based on the principle that true individuality is not exclusive but inclusive. 

Aurobindo recognizes that an individual cannot either advance materially or evolve spiritually in complete isolation. According to him society is needed at least "as a field of relations which afford to the individual his occasion for growing towards a greater perfection". Society, though imperfectly, provides the conditions for human evolution from the present imperfect state to the distant perfect state, from mind to super-mind.

Aurobindo in The Human Cycle states that there are three echelons of human existence. These are: the individual, community, and humankind in general. He argues that the 'ideal law of social development' should aim at harmonious growth of each of these. They have their own definite destinies, distinctive modes of self-consciousness, truths, their own laws of existence, needs, and laws of growth.

Though all the three are autonomous, they are also interdependent. Like Plato, Aurobindo held that there is a parallelism between individual and community as one cannot be without the other. Moreover, the individual for Aurobindo is not merely an aggregate of 'body, mind, ethical ideals and aesthetic emotions' but more than all these put together. He is essentially spiritual Self. The individual and humankind are interrelated. The individual 'is not himself, but in solidarity with all of his kind'. He has 'to live in humanity' and humanity is manifested 'in the individual'. So, individual, community, and humanity are really one integral organic whole.

However, Aurobindo argues that even in the most evolved state, the conceptual distinction between the three must be retained 'for the purpose of mass-differentiation and the concentration and combinations of varying tendencies in the total human aggregate'. What is common to them is continuous evolution. Each evolves towards perfection according to its own true nature and dharma.

Aurobindo argues that the evolution from within is far superior to external development. He says, "As free development of individuals from within is the best condition for growth and perfection of community, so free development of community or nation from within is the best condition for growth and perfection of mankind".

Aurobindo's focus is on the eternal hope that human existence is full of possibilities. It is the conviction that 'man is what he can be' and that man has an unavoidable inherent tendency towards 'self exceeding', or 'self surpassing' the goals set by him in the past.

Since the evolutionary process advocated by Aurobindo aims at a comprehensive change and not at the emergence of something new, it is laboriously slow. It is able to bring about a comprehensive change because of an element of 'involution'. This process of evolution-involution operates at three levels. Only after the lower stratum becomes sufficiently complex, the higher form emerges. Even after its emergence the higher form does not reject the lower but transforms it radically. The newer and the higher form, in turn, expands itself and is ready to evolve into a still higher emergent form. The process goes on till consciousness becomes self-consciousness and mind becomes super-mind. The super-mind, thus, integrates in itself all lower forms of consciousness.

The writer teaches philosophy at Delhi University.

Every Rubik’s Cube can be solved in 20 moves or less

A team of math whizzes and programmers did some major number crunching and determined that every varying position of a Rubik’s Cube, all 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 of them, can be solved within 20 moves. Aided by 35 CPU-years of idle computer time donated by the algorithm-loving folks at Google, the team solved all possible Rubik’s Cube positions to find the so-called God Number.

Every solver of the Cube uses an algorithm, which is a sequence of steps for solving the Cube. One algorithm might use a sequence of moves to solve the top face, then another sequence of moves to position the middle edges, and so on. There are many different algorithms, varying in complexity and number of moves required, but those that can be memorized by a mortal typically require more than forty moves.

Full story at Neatorama.

5 Ways to Spend Less Time at Work

Technology is supposed to increase our productivity and reduce our work hours, yet many of us find the opposite to be true. We feel busier than ever, we stay at the office later than ever, and sometimes we leave without finishing a single task of substance! Do these five things right now and go to your family on time tonight.

1. Clear off your desk. When your office is cluttered, you’ll have the tendency to flutter around it aimlessly, without a clear sense of where you should channel your energy. I suggest thinking of every new item arriving on your desk as an insect that is infiltrating your territory. Your job is to dispose of it as quickly as possible, either by chucking it in the nearest recycling bin or putting it in its proper place. The only material on your desk should pertain to the task you’re working on at that very minute.

2. Get Your Google on. Manage your virtual world more time-efficiently by signing up for Google’s suite of offerings. The products, which include Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Sites, streamline tasks and facilitate collaboration among people working together on projects. Many are free, and the data are safely backed up and available everywhere you have an Internet connection.

3. Don’t buy that plane ticket. Do you really need to meet with that sales rep on the other side of the world? Video calling services like Skype, which is free and available in 28 languages, allow you to connect visually with anyone in the world via a webcam and a microphone. And what about that training seminar that will keep you out of the office for a week? Webinar technology like Cisco WebEx allows for one-way communication from an individual speaker to an audience, and it can include polling and electronic Q&A.

4. Order strategy – instead of donuts – for the team meeting. Do not call team meetings indiscriminately, and don’t put them on the calendar every week so that people take them for granted. Chit chat can be reserved for happy hour. We all know that real project work gets done outside the conference room and that we do not accomplish things simply by talking about them. Please don’t usurp an hour of valuable work time unless the meeting generates important strategy, delegates tasks to ensure team member accountability, or flags problems so that they can be managed before they get out of hand.

5. Nip procrastination in the bud. Raise your hand if you’ve spent weeks putting off a task that should only take a few hours because you know you don’t want to do it and fear you will spend too much time surfing the web and answering your e-mail? Fight the urge to put things off by breaking complex and overwhelming projects down into smaller chunks with easy starting points. After each mini-task has been completed, reward yourself with a special treat.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post For Zen Habits from workplace expert Alexandra Levit, a Wall Street Journal writer and published author. Follow her on Twitter.

Why Souls don't Grow ?

Monty Python's Meaning of Life is a very Different kind of movie ,but it had one line that struck with me ,Why souls don't grow ?  and the answer is so simple and beautiful ,what is it ?

People get distracted

Yeah that is the answer ,according to the movie ,after thinking it for a while ,it really makes sense . First we need to under stand Life and soul and then the relation and then the ultimate question “what is the meaning of life” . Then differentiating between Mind, soul ,ego and subconscious mind and your real self and then liberating your true self from you .

I think Making a missile is much easier than this . How can some one think like that , Life ,soul,ego weirdo's .

When your soul is really growing you will know it for sure and no one can explain it , Buddha  is  Enlightened and no one knows how it feels until you become enlightened too ,He suggested path and offered help on how to become enlightened, but he didn't say how it feels like (I think so) .Some things are just unexplainable and you have to feel them for yourself.

The path which can be explained is not the real path  Lao Tzu

How to Write an Editorial

Writing an article is quite different from writing an editorial ,Articles in news papers or magazines are data and news that flow in and carefully filtered and presented ,While a Editorial is a Carefully created work .

View the infographic

Editorials have a high reputation and respect in the hearts and minds of readers as they involve a lot of work and research to create them .They are also the mostly filled with facts and nonbiased opinions.

Editorial = Thesis + Research + Little bit of Emotions + Personal Touch of Writer or Team + Facts and Related Data + Good persuasive writing (with out grammar* or spelling mistakes ) + Never use ‘I’.

The above summed up equation is derived by reading the following articles ,they help you to give a basic idea on how to write a good editorial ,but only by honing and by practicing writing  one can write good editorials .

So here are some articles that will help you to Learn about Writing an Editorial.

• How To Write Better Editorial Articles
• How to Write an Editorial
• Writing Tips for Editorials and Persuasive Article Writing
• Writing an Editorial
• How to Write Editorial
• Writing a Convincing Editorial (Best)
• How To Write An Editorial For A Magazine

They also provide a lot of scope for expressing the present situation of the item under discussion and  length up to 800 words is considered good,its not how length or how many facts in it that matter,but the essential punch lines supporting the writers opinion that matter and ultimate decision of judging lies with the reader .

* Till 4th Grade I used Grammer instead of Grammar

30 Ways to Create Joy in Your Life

You can create the life you want by focusing on three simple ideas: joy, mindfulness, and connection. Your heart is warmed by joy, your mind is quieted by mindfulness, and your arms outstretched to connect. How will you warm your heart with joy today? Here are 30 suggestions:

• Grow joyful through obstinacy (I will be joyful!).
• Grow joyful by embracing joy.
• Grow joyful by dreaming again.
• Grow joyful by opening to wonder.
• Grow joyful through laughter.
• Grow joyful by opening to mystery.
• Grow joyful through surrender.
• Grow joyful through accomplishment.
• Grow joyful through intimacy.
• Grow joyful by breaking free.
• Grow joyful by exploring.
• Grow joyful by playing.
• Grow joyful in conversation.
• Grow joyful with the new day.
• Grow joyful with friends.
• Grow joyful through forgetfulness.
• Grow joyful among children.
• Grow joyful by relaxing.
• Grow joyful by singing.
• Grow joyful by indulging in small pleasures.
• Grow joyful by opening to fascination.
• Grow joyful by giving thanks.
• Grow joyful by creating.
• Grow joyful by living your principles.
• Grow joyful through renewed hope.
• Grow joyful by manifesting your loving nature.
• Grow joyful in nature.
• Grow joyful by embracing life.
• Grow joyful this very day.

Interview with MOTHER Teresa: A Pencil In the Hand Of God

Q. What did you do this morning?

A. Pray.

Q. When did you start?

A. Half past four.

Q. And after prayer?

A. We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus. That helps us put our whole heart and soul into doing it. The dying, the crippled, the mentally ill, the unwanted, the unloved -- they are Jesus in disguise.

Q. People know you as a sort of religious social worker. Do they understand the spiritual basis of your work?

A. I don't know. But I give them a chance to come and touch the poor. Everybody has to experience that. So many young people give up everything to do just that. This is something so completely unbelievable in the world, no? And yet it is wonderful. Our volunteers go back different people.

Q. Does the fact that you are a woman make your message more understandable?

A. I never think like that.

Q. But don't you think the world responds better to a mother?

A. People are responding not because of me but because of what we are doing. I think that before people were speaking much about the poor, but now more and more people are speaking to the poor. That is the great difference.

Before, nobody bothered about the people in the street. We have picked up from the streets of Calcutta 54,000 people, and 23,000-something have died in that one room (at Kalighat).

Q. Humble as you are, it must be an extraordinary thing to be a vehicle of God's grace in the world.

A. But it is his work. I think God wants to show his greatness by using nothingness.

Q. You feel you have no special qualities?

A. I don't think so. I don't claim anything of the work. It is his work. I am like a little pencil in his hand. That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be ) allowed to be used. In human terms, the success of our work should not have happened, no?

Q. What is God's greatest gift to you?

A. The poor people.

Q. How are they a gift to you?

A. I have an opportunity to be 24 hours a day with Jesus.

Q. Here in Calcutta, have you created a real change?

A. I think so. People are aware of the presence, and also many, many, many Hindu people share with us. Now we never see a person lying there in the street dying. It has created a worldwide awareness of the poor.

Q. Beyond showing the poor to the world, have you conveyed any message about how to work with the poor?

A. You must make them feel loved and wanted. They are Jesus for me. I believe in that much more than doing big things for them.

Q. Friends of yours say you are disappointed that your work has not brought more conversions in this great Hindu nation.

A. Missionaries don't think of that. They only want to proclaim the word of God. Numbers have nothing to do with it. But the people are putting prayer into action by coming and serving the people. Everywhere people are helping. There may not be a big conversion like that, but we do not know what is happening in the soul.

Q. What do you think of Hinduism?

A. I love all religions, but I am in love with my own.

Q. And they should love Jesus too?

A. Naturally, if they want peace, if they want joy, let them find Jesus. If people become better Hindus, better Muslims, better Buddhists by our acts of love, then there is something else growing there. They come closer and closer to God. When they come closer, they have to choose.

Q. You and Pope John Paul II have spoken out against life-styles in the West, against materialism and abortion. How alarmed are you?

A. I always say one thing. If a mother can kill her own child, then what is left of the West to be destroyed? It is difficult to explain, but it is just that.

Q. Is materialism in the West an equally serious problem?

A. I don't know. I have so many things to think about. Take our congregation: we have very little, so we have nothing to be preoccupied with. The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have, the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not a mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. This is the only fan in the whole house. It doesn't matter how hot it is, and it is for the guests. But we are perfectly happy.

Q. How do you find rich people then?

A. I find the rich much poorer. Sometimes they are more lonely inside. They are never satisfied. They always need something more. I don't say all of them are like that. Everybody is not the same. I find that poverty hard to remove. The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

Q. There has been some criticism of the very severe regimen under which you and your sisters live.

A. We choose that. That is the difference between us and the poor. Because that will bring us closer to our poor people. How can we be truthful to them if we lead a different life? What language will I speak to them?

Q. What is the most joyful place that you have ever visited?

A. Kalighat. When the people die in peace, in the love of God, it is a wonderful thing. To see our poor people happy together with their families, these are beautiful things. The joy of the poor people is so clean, so clear. The real poor know what is joy.

Q. There are people who would say it is an illusion to think of the poor as joyous, that they must be given housing, raised up.

A. The material is not the only thing that gives joy. Something greater than that, the deep sense of peace in the heart. They are content. That is the great difference between the rich and the poor.

Q. People who work with you say you are unstoppable. You always get what you want.

A. That's right. All for Jesus.

Q. What are your plans for the future?

A. I just take one day. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not come. We have only today to love Jesus.

Q. And the future of the order?

A. It is his concern.

By EWARD W. DESMOND Monday, Dec. 04, 1989 For http://www.time.com/   Part 1 and Part 2

Mother Teresa Quotes

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.

Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try.

Good works are links that form a chain of love.

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.

I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.

I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.

Intense love does not measure, it just gives.

It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.

It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.

It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy.

It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.

Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world.

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given.

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action.

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home.

Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.

Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.

Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.

Peace begins with a smile.

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.

The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.

The success of love is in the loving - it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done.

There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those.

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in - that we do it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.

There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.

We are all pencils in the hand of God.

We can do no great things, only small things with great love.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.