The Joyful Child Is The Father Of Man

Everyone loves to look at a child. Not many, however, would find an elderly person as interesting or fascinating. We are inadvertently drawn towards a child and its actions. It's also true that every one of us wishes to look younger than our age. Why do we like children? Is it our own desire to look cute, play without inhibitions with no fear of reprimand or something else?

What attracts us first, and what makes an impact on us, is the child's innocence. Even the stoniest of hearts melts before the innocence of a child. Nothing can escape the child's guileless love that equalises all — whether rich or poor, worthy or unworthy. The child has never faced pangs of jealousy or manipulation and has never tried to impress others but does that what he feels happy doing.

To live like a child one must forego the obsession to please others. People will never be pleased even if you stand upside down for them. One out of hundred ways is enough to displease them, leave aside the ninety-nine things done in their favour, suiting their temperament. So why waste time and energy conniving ways to gratify others? From the bottom of one's heart, everybody likes truthfulness as compared to the superficial ways of impressing others.

For many of us today, often stressed at work and home, experiencing child-like joy has become a rarity. Everything is a chore; we place ourselves on a perpetually moving treadmill, trudging our way through life. Or we put ourselves in a rocking chair, going forwards and backwards, lulling ourselves into believing all is well, when in actual fact we go nowhere.

When a child goes up and down a staircase, he finds immense joy in the act — which, to us, seems completely un-productive. There is no visible gain in the process but the child is overjoyed whereas we find it useless. We prefer to get enslaved, busying ourselves to preparing endless 'to do' lists, most of the 'to dos' never get done.

Why have we forgotten how to be joyful? We don't giggle or break into peals of laughter spontaneously — things we did as a child. An average adult laughs heartily from his belly barely or not even once during a 24-hour period. A child is a born optimist.

He experiences joy in every action, because he is oblivious of the result. He is always in the present. He has the fortune to 'realise' the simple joy of being. Adults, on the other hand, tend to either brood over the past or worry about the future, thereby letting slip the precious present.

The mother takes care of the child's every need — expressed or otherwise — because the child has surrendered to her unconditionally. As adults, we forget spontaneity. We want things to be done as per our choice, not as per His will.

Swami Vivekananda said: "Let never more delusive dreams veil off thy face from me/ My play is done O Mother, break my chains and make me free".

Shed your inhibitions; dance like a child. Be spontaneous; laugh heartily. Look at work and home with new eyes — with the eyes of a child: discover the joy of simple pleasures, learn to live life joyously. Life is not a chore, it is a journey of discovery.

By om.radhika@gmail.com

It Is Not Too Difficult To Lead An Extraordinary Life

You can lead either of two kinds of lives: An ordinary life or an extraordinary life. When you lead an ordinary life, you move along with the current of your desires, preoccupied in fulfilling your own goals, aims and agendas. Ordinary beings are only conscious of their own life.

Extraordinary beings are conscious of their life and are also constantly aware of Divinity. They are confident that God's Grace will resolve all their problems. They know that whatever life brings is ultimately for the best.

Those who lead an extraordinary life enjoy every minute of it. To them, every moment is precious. Even ordinary circumstances elicit a different response from them. If you believe that you are extraordinary, then you start looking at the world differently. When you think that you are born special, you will lead a special life. Constant hope makes our life extraordinary. Without this, life is drab and ordinary.

If we look at life as a problem, it becomes ordinary but if we look at it as an opportunity, it becomes extraordinary. This bowl beside me is full of fragrant roses. If i pick up a single rose and look at it, it is really beautiful.

There is no need for any comparison. Like all the other roses here, it is unique. If we have the habit of comparing ourselves with others, our self-confidence sometimes soars and sometimes crashes. A truly extraordinary life is never based on comparison. It is the result of constant blossoming within.

Human life is a rare privilege. Why waste a single minute of this precious gift or lose a single opportunity to make it extraordinary?

If we cultivate the art of savouring every moment of life even when it brings unexpected challenges to us, our life becomes extraordinary. When there is interest, we feel exuberant and joyful. When there is no interest, life is mechanical and ordinary.

If we are travelling and our vehicle breaks down in the country-side, do we take the opportunity to revel in the natural beauty around us? Or do we fret, fume and grumble? When we perceive the best in everything, life becomes extraordinary and memorable.

When we live life like this, a special feeling arises in us. Our life is full of zest and joy. We can never completely control what happens in the external world around us, but our internal world is in our hands. We can allow it to be ugly or choose to make it beautiful.

When we enjoy every moment and every circumstance that comes our way, one negative element that flavours each day of our present existence disappears. This element is TENSION. Stress, tension, boredom, depression, impatience and frustration become things of the past. These emotions which were slowly draining away the energy of the Soul disappear. When we enjoy every moment of life, it is always full of wonder and never grows stale.

Each and every situation that comes our way is not custom-made to fit our present frame of mind. If every circumstance were to our liking, internal growth and transformation would never take place; our life would become stagnant and sub-human. So it is our own perception that decides whether our life remains ordinary or becomes extraordinary. Life will always pose challenges; it is up to us to make it joyous.

Flow like a river, revelling in every moment of life.  Website: www.shrinimishamba.org

Krishna's Humility And Infinite Love

Narada, one of Krishna's close friends, set out one day to the palace to give Krishna a message. But as he approached the huge palace, a palace guard stopped him and sternly said: "You cannot enter here". "What do you mean I cannot enter? I am Narada. I have access to Krishna's bed chamber". Which was true. Narada was so close to Krishna that he had permission to come anytime, anywhere, to see him. The guard, however, was adamant and replied: "I know who you are, but on this particular occasion you must remain here. The Lord Himself has ordered me to stop anybody from meeting him just now".

"What do you mean by saying 'on this particular occasion'? What is it that the Lord is doing that I can't go to see him?" The guard said: "He said he wanted to pray". "Pray? My Lord is praying? To whom does he pray? Who is greater than my Lord?" Thus demanding answers, Narada accused the guard of blasphemy. The dutiful guard stuck to his guns and refused to let Narada enter, saying: "I am only telling you what he told me. He said he wanted to pray and that I should not let anyone in because he did not want to be disturbed while he is praying". Narada had no choice but to wait, and all sorts of confused thoughts were going through his head... Narada simply could not understand why the Lord should pray and wondered who he addressed his prayers to.

After half an hour or so, Krishna came out of his room and saw Narada waiting outside the door. He greeted Narada warmly but Narada was so agitated that he made only the most perfunctory of greetings. "What's wrong?" Krishna asked. "You seem upset". Narada was so upset, in fact, that he totally forgot about the message he had come to deliver; he actually forgot that that was why he had come in the first place. Narada blurted out: "The palace guard said you were praying and that you were not to be disturbed". "Yes, that is so", Krishna affirmed.

"But to whom do you pray?" asked Narada, whose confidence in the Lord was shaken by Krishna's admission. Narada was worried, too. Why should Krishna, the All-Knowing One, have to pray, and for what? As though reading Narada's thoughts, Krishna laughed. "Do you really want to see to whom I pray? Come with me". And Krishna led Narada to his prayer room. "Here, here is my God", Krishna said.

And what did Narada see? He saw little figures, images of Krishna's mandali. There was a little figure of Narada, of Arjuna, of all the close ones. "These are the ones i pray to", Krishna explained. "I pray to my lovers. You see, the whole purpose of Creation was so that my love might flow. I eternally love my creation, but periodically i take birth to receive the love of my lovers. My lovers worship me and i worship their love for me".

A chastised Narada began to understand that it was the Lord's humility and infinite love that made him so lovable and approachable.

Go, Tell The Story, Sing A Song

In families of our traditional storytellers, the children make a break with the profession - most often because they barely manage to scrape together a living. Our Ajis, or grandmothers were our link with the world of story, but these days with the decline in inter-generational living, we lose out on that as well.

Telling, we have believed, must happen. Many cultures believe that if you have a story to tell - and don’t tell it - strange things will happen.

Stories have unique and startling ways of making sure they get told!

A Kannada story narrated by A K Rama-nujan, who collected and edited the most definitive collections of Indian folktales, is a wonderful example of this. This is how it goes:

There once lived a woman who knew a story. She also knew a song. But she kept them to herself, she never told anyone the story or sang the song. Imprisoned within her, the untold story and unsung song felt choked, trapped. They decided to run away.

One day, as she slept with her mouth open, the story escaped; it fell out of her, and taking on the material form of a pair of shoes, sat outside the house. The song too hurriedly followed, and took the shape of something like a man’s coat, and hung on a peg.

This caused the husband to be very suspicious, especially when she kept insisting she did not know whose they were or where they had come from.

In a rage, he picked up his blanket, and went off to the nearby temple to sleep.

The flames in the lamps of the town, once they were put out, did not really go out. They moved to the temple and spent each night there, gossiping together till the lamps were lit again the following day. On this night, all the lamps from all the houses had reached the temple - except one, which came in much later. "Why are you so late tonight?" the others asked. "Because at my house, the couple quarrelled late into the night", said the flame. "Why did they quarrel?" The flame told them the events. As he finished, the other flames asked: "But where did the coat and shoes come from?"

"The lady of our house knows a story and a song. She never tells the story, and has never sung the song to anyone. The story and the song got suffocated inside; so they got out and have turned into a coat and a pair of shoes. Seeing this made the husband furious. It seems they took revenge".

The husband, lying under his blanket in the temple, heard the lamp’s explanation. His suspicions were cleared. When he got home at dawn, he woke up his sleeping wife and asked her about her story and her song.

"What story? What song?" she asked. She had, sadly, forgotten both of them.

Among the Cree of Manitoba, there is a similar belief that stories, when they are not told, live in their own villages where they go about their own lives. Every now and then, however, a story will leave its village and seek a person to inhabit. Some person will abruptly be possessed by the story, and soon will find herself telling the tale, singing it back into active circulation. Go tell the story; sing the song.

Divine Cosmos, Sacred Earth: Scientific Pantheism

When we say "The cosmos is divine"... we are talking about our own emotional responses to the real universe and the natural earth.

When we say "That tree is beautiful", we are not saying anything about the tree in itself, but about the way we feel we must respond to the tree. We are talking about the relationship between us and the tree. In the same way, if we say "The universe is divine", we are making a statement about the way our senses and our emotions force us to respond to the overwhelming mystery and power that surrounds us. We are saying this: We are part of the universe. Our earth was created from the universe and will one day be reabsorbed into the universe.

We are made up of the same matter as the universe. We are not in exile here: we are at home. It is here and nowhere else that we can see the divine face-to-face. If we erect barriers in our imagination - if we believe our real home is not here but in a land that lies beyond death - if we believe that the divine is found only in old books, or old buildings, or inside our head, then we will see this real, vibrant, luminous world as if through a glass darkly.

The universe creates us, preserves us, destroys us. It is deep and old beyond our ability to reach with our senses. It is beautiful beyond our ability to describe in words. It is complex beyond our ability to fully grasp in science. We must relate to the universe with humility, awe, reverence, celebration and the search for deeper understanding - in other words, in many of the ways that believers relate to their God.

When we say "The earth is sacred"... we are saying this: We are part of nature. Nature made us and at our death we will be reabsorbed into nature. We are at home in nature and in our bodies. This is where we belong; this is where we must find and make our paradise, not in some spirit world on the other side of the grave. If nature is the only paradise, then separation from nature is the only hell. When we destroy nature, we create hell on earth for other species and for ourselves.

Nature is our mother, our home, our security, our peace, our past and our future. We should treat natural things and habitats as believers treat their temples and shrines, as sacred - to be revered and preserved in all their intricate and fragile beauty...

When theists worship gods, they unknowingly worship the cosmos. If they believe that God is also present in nature and the universe, they will perceive a part of the glory of Being, yet still they will attribute this glory to something beyond Being. Still they will fail to connect with nature and the universe in the deep intense way that pantheism makes possible.

But theists who believe that God is separate from the universe separate themselves from Reality. They turn their deepest attention away from the real divinity before their eyes, towards an imaginary divinity inside their head. It veils Reality like a thick mist. It turns believers into sleepwalkers.

Look For Happiness In The Right Places

All living beings are full of happiness. Our daily routine, rituals and activities are all directed towards achieving happi-ness. We might be working with different goals but the ultimate aim is to remain happy.

People search for happiness in various spheres of life. Those unable to find happiness in their self or others look outward for extra adventure. What is happiness? Happiness could be defined in many ways. Simply put, happi-ness is a feeling which imparts pleasure in us. This pleasure is derived either by meeting a friend, or fulfilling a long cherished dream, for instance.

Money can help us fulfil our dreams - we can move out, we can buy, we can please others. Happiness is also perceived as what your disposable income can buy. So the struggle continues for that extra sum. No doubt, if you have enough money to lead a comfortable and healthy life, have lot of friends, and enjoy luxuries, you might feel happy. However, even the richest are sometimes unhappy. The learned, too, are not always happy.

Krishna relates in the Bhagavad Gita that all living beings are made up of soul, gross body and subtle body. Soul is the master of the body and is composed of sacchidananda or everlasting happiness. Though we are made up of happiness, still we look for happiness in external objects. Happiness is a state of mind. So why are we looking for happiness outside? That is because we lack knowledge about ourselves. We study to become successful so that we become happy. While pursuing that goal we forget to attain knowledge of self - we failed to learn about ourselves, to learn where to find that happiness for which we had invested a number of years of our lives.

The basic problem lies with our approach. We are looking for happiness at wrong places. If we approach an ironsmith in search of gold, will we get gold? Similarly, looking for happiness and asking for happiness from beings and objects cannot give happiness. All living beings are full of happi-ness but are unable to distribute that happiness. To attain happiness we need to approach the one which is treasure of happiness and that is only one, the Absolute Personality of Godhead.

Limited beings tend to remain unhappy as desires are unfulfilled. One may see family disputes when family members pursue different goals. If we draw a number of circles with a common epicentre, they will never intersect. However, if we draw number of circles with different epicentres, they are bound to intersect. This happens when we begin pursuing different goals. Our desires clash.

The root cause of problems lies in the sphere of their desire. If one begins to work for the happiness of all and for the pleasure of others, it is going to please all. If everybody is pleased, the very atmosphere is cheerful. Once one begins giving, others will reciprocate. Newton's law of equal and opposite reaction works here as well.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna confirms that He will reciprocate when He tells Arjuna, "Those who always worship Me with exclusive devotion, meditating on My transcendental form - to them I carry what they lack, and I preserve what they have". What other assurance does one need?

The writer heads the All India Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math, New Delhi.

Parable Of The Canyon And Valley Of Flowers

Mountain wisdom is honed from stories told by "sky pilots", as mountain missionaries are called. In a Ralph Connor book, a wild, wilful lass, Gwen, always accustomed to having her way, meets with a terrible accident which cripples her for life. When she is in a rebellious and aggressive state, a sky pilot who visits her teaches her the value of gentleness, meekness and acceptance of suffering, which are today considered questionable virtues.

The sky pilot tells her the parable of the canyon. At first, there were no canyons, only the broad, open prairie. The Master of the Prairie one day walked through its tall grasses and asked the Prairie: "Where are your flowers?" The reply was: "Master i have no seeds".

The Master spoke to the birds. The birds carried seeds of every kind of flower and strewed them far and wide. All summer long the prairie bloomed with crocuses, roses, buffalo beans, crowfoot, wild sunflowers and red lilies. The Master was pleased, but he missed the flowers he loved best - the clematis, the columbine, sweet violets, windflowers, ferns and flowering shrubs.

Once again the Master spoke to the birds. Again they carried all these seeds and strewed them far and wide. But the winds swept fiercely, the sun beat mercilessly. The flowers did not remain. They either flew or withered away.

Then, the Master spoke to the Lightning, who in one swift blow cleft the prairie to the heart. The prairie rocked and groaned for many a day in agony, mourning over its gaping wound. But, the river poured its waters through the cleft and carried down deep black mound. Once again the birds strewed seeds, this time in the canyon. The rough rocks were soon covered with soft mosses and trailing vines. Clematis and columbine grew from every nook. Great elms lifted their huge tops high up into the sunlight. At their feet clustered low cedars and balsams. Violets, windflower and maidenhair bloomed. The canyon became the Master's favourite resting place. The sky pilot said, love, joy, peace can bloom in the open, but gentleness and meekness grow only in the canyon. Gwen listened to the story and was quiet.

Wistfully, she said: "There are no flowers in my canyon, only ragged rocks". The sky pilot said gently: "Someday they will bloom. The Master will find them".

Left to ourselves, none of us would like to be cleft and have gaping wounds. But there are sometimes strokes of lightning in our lives - the Master's touch. Suddenly, somehow we are struck by pain, illness, misunderstanding, and ever so often rejection. Our hearts are cleft leaving a gaping canyon. The river of life flows on and keeps filling the canyon. Seeds that would not remain and which we could not retain - of nobility, selflessness, sacrificial love, suddenly take root and blossom. Our hearts become more compassionate and open, inviting birds of every sort carrying seed of every sort. Our canyons are transformed by amazing grace to become home to every tree, shrub and flower. They become the Master's haunt.

Sometimes, the choicest blooms do not grow in protected hot houses. Rather you may find them growing on the roughest and craggiest of terrains.

Tune In So That You Can Listen Right

To listen is so difficult. To listen means to be here, now. To listen means to be without any thought. To listen means to be alert and aware. If these conditions are fulfilled, only then you listen.

The mind goes on spinning a thousand and one thoughts, and the mind goes on moving — in the past, in the future. How can you listen? And whatever you listen to, it will not be right listening at all.

You will listen to something else which has not been said at all, you will go on missing that which is said — because you will not be in tune. To listen well ordinarily means to listen in a deep receptivity.

When you listen, if you are arguing, judging, saying, "Yes, this is right because it fits with my ideology and this is not right because it doesn't..."

If you are continuously sorting out things inside, you are listening but you are not listening well. You are listening with your past mind interfering.

It is not you judging, it is your past. You have read and heard a few things, you have been conditioned for a few things. The past wants to perpetuate itself.

It does not allow anything new; it allows only the old that fits with it. To listen rightly means to listen obediently. This word obedience is beautiful.

You will be surprised to know that the original root from which the word obedience comes is obedire — it means 'a thorough listening'. If you listen totally you will obey.

You will not need any decision on your part. Truth is self-evident. Or as the Jewish tradition says, 'to bare your ear'.

If you have really opened your ear and there is no interference and no disturbance inside, and no distraction, you have not only opened your ear, you have opened your heart. And if the seed falls into the heart, sooner or later it will become a tree.

Ear locks have to be removed. Fear of truth is the basic lock. You are afraid of the truth because you have lived in lies... for so long that all those lies are afraid, if truth comes they will all have to leave you.

The moment you come closer to truth, the mind will become disturbed. It will create much stir, raise much dust, create a cloud around you so that you cannot hear what truth is.

Buddha has said that unless you are fearless you will not attain to truth. When you bow in a church, mosque or temple, to a statue, scripture, or tradition, where is your bowing coming from?

Just watch inside — and you will find fear, fear and fear. Faith appears only on death of fear. Faith means trust. How can a fearful man trust? He is always thinking, protecting, defending.

How can he trust? To trust, you need courage. To trust, you need to take risk. To trust, you need to move into danger.

The Chinese ideogram for crisis consists of two symbols: one means danger, another means opportunity. Yes, that moment is a critical moment when you are facing danger and opportunity, both. If you don't go into danger you will miss the opportunity.

If you want opportunity you will have to go into danger. Those who know how to live dangerously, only they are religious.

Excerpted from The Diamond Sutra, courtesy Osho International Foundation/ www.osho.com.

When Thoughtlessness Is The Only Way

Your thinking is governed by a very small part of your consciousness. The commerce of human life does not need more than a small amount of consciousness.
Sometimes you become spectator of your own consciousness and of what is happening therein. Delving into consciousness is the privilege of those who possess moral courage, patience and initiative, for consciousness is as infinite as the universe.
Since we are used to thinking and acting within certain limits only, we are unable to perceive the limitless expanse and depth of consciousness.
The raw material of intellectual knowledge is supplied by the sense organs that have their own limitations. They can establish contact with gross things only.
The mind works on the information supplied by the sense organs and the intellect organises and arranges it. Know-ledge, which the mind and intellect construct, is often alloyed with attachments and aversions, with feelings of pleasure and pain and with hundred and one other things.
How much value should we put on such knowledge? What we ordinarily call know-ledge is adulterated knowledge. We value it because we have not been able to go beyond its limitations; we do not know that there is a state of mind in which thinking does not exist.
Only when we arrive at a state of no-thought we will be able to understand what we really are. Thinking has a gravitational force and it is only when this force has been eliminated that we can realise the value of thoughtlessness.
How to come out of the gravi-tational field of thinking? We are swamped with sounds, forms and bodies. They keep bombarding us and so we remain conscious of one thing only — our body, which is itself a form in which the self is trapped. We cannot see beyond the body.
Philosophers have tried to prove the existence or otherwise of self. Assertion and denial also involve thinking. How can the self, which is beyond thinking, be known and realised or denied and disproved by thinking? The self is not an object in the world of thought.
That is why all our attempts at discussing nature of self have failed. Only those who have raised themselves above the level of thoughts can speak with certainty about the nature of self. The problem is how to see the formless self and understand the nature of pure consciousness.
The relation between form and essence is the central question of epistemo-logy. We produce butter from milk and scents from flowers through churning and distillation.
But how can the soul be separated from the body? How to sepa-rate the infinite from the finite? We can know the soul with the help of its reflection.
Sadhana of Chhaya Purusa is a yogic practice in which you stand with your face towards the sun. Then look at your shadow.
Close your eyes and again look at the sun. Repeat. Ultimately you see your own figure in the sky and the reflection of the sky on your shadow.
We can see the soul also, but this is possible only in moments of thoughtlessness, when we neither hear sounds nor see objects.
Preksha meditation is a process through which we can get rid of thoughts, sounds and forms and enter into the state of cessation of thought. Then we can get a glimpse of the soul.
As told to Lalit Garg. By Acharya Mahaprajna.

Shun Meaningless Ritual, Get A Hold On Yourself

Are rituals a way to become peaceful or are they a solution to life?

You can derive some benefits from ritual, if it has some element of science in it. However, rituals were popularly practiced when most people were ignorant.

When intellect is sufficiently evolved in society, the practice of performing rituals begins to slowly recede because this is just like old technology. We should use other methods that can easily transform a person. Rituals have now become a source of exploitation. There could be something to ritual, but it is overly exaggerated. If you want to be peaceful, there are some simple things that you can do with yourself. If you invest just a few minutes a day to yourself, remaining peaceful through the day is easy.

When the Gujarat earthquake happened, over 1,00,000 people died. Wherever I went, people asked: Is God angry with us? An earthquake is just Mother Earth stretching herself a little bit. It has always been happening. It is just that in India, if the smallest thing happens, 1,00,000 people die.

It is because of population density. In other parts of the world, an earthquake would not be a major issue. Everyday there are tremors in California, but nobody dies. Similarly, in Japan, almost everyday there are tremors, yet nobody dies; because they have taken necessary precautions and care about how to build their buildings, how to live there, how to be conscious about this. We have not done anything. We are a country that's still in God's hands. Unless we take it into our hands we will be a total mess.

Somebody conducted a major ritual on the coast of Andhra Pradesh so that earthquakes don't happen there. Over five lakh people had gathered; it was a major event. And i said, why is he doing a ritual for earthquake in Andhra Pradesh? In Andhra Pradesh, every year there are cyclones and if you can do a ritual for stopping the cyclone, I will bow down to you. Now you do it for earthquake in a place that has never experienced one.

In Tamil Nadu, someone put posters all over that said: "If you have any financial problems, come. If you do 25,001 rituals, all your financial problems will be over". Somebody's financial problems will definitely be over, but not yours. If someone has such a wonderful ritual that can solve all financial problems, why doesn't he do one for India?

Half of the country's population still doesn't eat properly, is that not danger enough? Over 300 million people are living on less than two dollars per day. That is a disaster of huge magnitude. One bomb explodes somewhere, one earthquake happens, one tsunami comes and a few thousand people die; yes, that is a tragedy.

But the poverty in this country is a far bigger tragedy and we are just sitting by and letting it happen. We can do something about it, but if we want to take up large responsibilities and do something, the first thing to do is we have to take care of our Self. You must be in a condition that you won't crack up and break down when situations demand exertion from you.

So it is important that you do some inner engineering, strengthen and stabilize yourself before setting out to face challenges. By SADHGURU JAGGI VASUDEV .

Eightfold Yoga to Integrate Body, Mind and Spirit

Patanjali, the father of yoga, enumerated eight steps to yoga called Ashtanga yoga. These eight limbs not only systematised the principles of the Bhagavad Gita but are elucidated also in the practice of Raja yoga. Each limb is designed to attain supreme cons-ciousness by quietening the mind and merging it with the infinite.

Ashtanga yoga consists of following steps:

1. Yama which espouses values of non-violence or ahimsa, honesty or satya, asteya or abstention from theft of both tangibles and intangibles, brahmacharya or non-greed and apari-graha or non-possession.

2. Niyama or observances that would discipline the way we treat ourselves. Constituting the niyamas are the habits of purity, to make you free from negative vibrations and preoccupation with the physical state, contentment or santosha, tapas to burn impurities at the levels of body, mind and intellect, study of scriptures or svadhyaya to motivate and inspire the seeker and lastly, devotion to the Divine or ishvara-pranidhana, to connect yourself to the cosmos.

3. Asana or body posture which prepares one for meditation. To sit for a long time in contemplation requires a disciplined body to control the mind. Patanjali says: "Posture is mastered by freeing the body and mind from tension and restlessness and meditating on the infinite".

4. Pranayama is the fourth step. Prana is the life force which governs each one of us through the breath. Pranayama is the control of breath. The basic steps in pranayama are inhalation, retention and exhalation. It is said that the rhythmic patterns of slow and deep breathing helps in attaining longevity. Moreover, pranayama removes distractions, making it easier to concentrate and meditate.

5. Pratyahara refers to the state of withdrawal of mind — which, according to Vyasa, "Is the state by which the senses do not come into contact with their objects". So, when you master pratyahara, you are able to focus because you no longer feel disturbances caused through external objects.

6. Dharana is that which involves training the mind to focus on one point. "Concentration is binding thought in one place", says Patanjali. The objective here is to quieten the mind by focusing on an object — such as a flame or point. Concentration is effortless and thoughts get pushed out of the system.

7. The seventh step called Dhyana or uninterrupted meditation is done without an object. The goal of meditation here is to create a sense of heightened awareness and to establish oneness with the macrocosm. So, how does one differentiate concentration from meditation? If there is an awareness of distraction then one is only concentrating and not meditating. The calm achieved in meditation subsequently spills over into all other aspects of life, thereby strengthening one's emotional and spiritual intelligence.

8. The last limb is Samadhi, the state of Absolute Bliss. This is the state when one merges with the Real Truth. Those who achieve the state of samadhi are enlightened souls who establish their linkages with the Over Ruling Providence.

All eight limbs described above work in unison. The first five steps which are primarily concerned with body and mind lay a very strong foundation for the last three steps, which ultimately recondition the mind to attain full realisation of oneness with the Spirit, leading to integration of body, mind and soul. By ULLHAS PAGEY

Mind Your Mind With Gentle Persuasion

The mind is an essential part of our personality. It is an expression of the consciousness. The stomach is hungry, but the hunger is felt through the mind. And the motivation for appeasing hunger by eating food also comes from the mind. As you go on eating, at one stage you feel satisfied and you stop eating. This action is also prompted by the mind.

The mind is independent of the body, though connected to it. It seems to be encased in the body but it has deeper significance and influence. It is the creator of your contentment or discontentment. It is the source of your fulfilment. It is the origin as well as terminus of all your interactions. When such is its influence and potential, should you not find out how the mind can be accessed and, if necessary, moulded in the most suitable manner?

The mind is the maker of human fate. Human beings are born with limited capabilities. We have evolved to the present stage with our physical limitations unchanged. Human 'supremacy' and options are also physically res-tricted. We cannot inhale poisonous gas — we need oxygen. When hungry, we have to appease hunger; it is not a matter of choice. Similarly, in many other aspects, we are bound by physical laws of Nature.

As a child, one might have been unaware of the potential of the mind. But can it be an excuse once he becomes an adult?

"Swamiji, I want to become better, but am unable to..." or "I want to remove my mind's impurities, Swamiji, but...". What is this 'but'? Is it so difficult? In reality, just gentle persuasion will do. You must want to become better.

That wanting should not be lacking. Otherwise, how do you claim to be an adult? How do you say that you are mature? I don't insist that you must have the best of qualities — but your 'wanting to have them' cannot be compromised. I do not demand that you be all virtues — but you must not lack in your love for virtues.

Once you want these noble qualities, the means to acquire them become smooth and pleasant. I put it as two-fold: persuasion and dissuasion; or, 'incorporational' and 'eliminational'. Bad things you dissuade sternly and good things you persuade heartily. Tell me — is there any other way of dealing with the mind? Other than looking at your own mind and treating it — is there anything else in life?

What is the purpose of ethics, morality, religion or even spirituality? Is it not all about purifying the mind? You may conduct any number of rituals and ceremonies — do they have anything else to give you other than a poised mind?

"Charity, adhering to one's own dharma, following disciplines — external and internal, listening to scriptures, performing meritorious deeds and observing holy vows, have but one goal — gaining control over the mind. Composure of the mind is the supreme yoga" (Srimad Bhagavatam 11.23.46).

Now tell me, when everything is so clearly explained, where is the difficulty? Why this doubt? Why this resistance?

Don't be a victim of your own negative tendencies. No more should you be thwarted by diffidence, self-condemnation or anything like that. Do not ever again say, "Yes, Swamiji, we understand, but...". Be confident. Rise like Hanuman. With clarity and proper evaluation, be ready to declare to the whole world: "Why only one? Ten such oceans i shall cross, if need be!" May you all have that strength and resolve!

By Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha  www.brahmavidya.org

Let there be more love, not meaningless ritual

What am I, essentially an agnostic, doing in this hallowed space? Though I am a Sikh — and proud to be one — I do not have the outward symbols of the faith, such as a turban and unshorn hair.

Though I love sitting in a temple, church, mosque or gurudwara every now and then, to take in the spiritual atmosphere, I am not a regular gurudwara-goer.

To orthodox Sikhs, I am an outcaste — as are a majority of Sikhs who, like me, have cut their hair and are labelled "mona" Sikhs.

The first Sikh Guru, Nanak, abhorred all rituals and superstition. He was once at Haridwar and observed Hindu devotees in the Ganga throwing water in the direction of the sun. "What are you doing?" he asked them.

"Sending water to our ancestors", they replied. He then turned around and started throwing water in a different direction, to the puzzlement of the devotees.

"If you can send water all the way to your ancestors, surely i can send water to my parched fields in Punjab!" he explained.

Guru Nanak also wanted to amalgamate the best of Hinduism and Islam to create a new creed. During a debate on the significance of wearing the sacred thread, Guru Nanak had this to say: "Make mercy your cotton, contentment your thread, continence its knot, truth its twist./

That would make a sacred thread for the soul; if you have it, O priest, then put it on me./ It will not break, or become soiled, or be burned, or lost./

Blessed the man, O Nanak, who goes with such a thread on his neck./ You purchase a sacred thread for four damris, and seated in a square, put it on;/ You whisper instruction that the priest is the guru./

Man dies, the sacred thread falls, and the soul departs without it!" One of Guru Gobind Singh's most famous sayings is, "Maanas ki jaat sab ek hi pehchan bo" — recognise all of mankind as one caste.

In other words, complete equality. By calling himself Ram Rahim Singh — representing Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism — and emphasising humanity in his teachings, the Dera Sacha Sauda chief is only echoing the two gurus. He attracts millions of followers, including many Dalit and "mona" Sikhs.

Meaningless ritual has become the bane of not just Sikhism but other religions as well. As a result, their essence has been lost. The Zoroastrian faith has three simple commands: good thoughts, good words, good deeds.

Guru Nanak virtually said as much: "Kirt karo, nam japo, wand chako" — work, worship, give to charity. Other major religions ask their followers to take a similar path.

There is a lovely poem about a man called Abou ben Adhem who awoke one night "from a dream of peace" to find an angel writing in a book of gold.

"What are you writing?" asked Abou ben Adhem. "The names of all those who love the Lord", answered the angel. "Is mine there?" asked Abou ben Adhem. "No", replied the angel.

"Then, write of me as one who loves his fellow men", said Abou ben Adhem. The angel returned the next night. "You are at the top of the list!" he announced. We need more Abou ben Adhems. By Rahul Singh

The Janaka Model To Overcome Stress

Stress defines modern-day human existence. Most people — whether rich or poor, young or old — are grappling with the spectres of growing depression, frustration and suicides. "De-stressing" programmes are in demand.

What is the root cause of this universal 'stress explosion'? Superficial reasons vary from economic meltdown to household concerns.

However, at the root of every tension, there is one common cause — losing sight of the ultimate goal of human existence — of the elusiveness of anand or the state of ultimate bliss.

Anand is a state of unconditional, undefined, ultimate contentment. Anand transcends all material aspirations and is the ultimate goal of all human existence.

Each one of us is caught in the vicious cycle of pleasure and pain created by the illusion of existence or maya, which is the cause of all physical stress in our lives.

The only effective way of getting rid of this stress and achieving anand is by practising renunciation. The words renunciation, maya and anand immediately bring to our mind visions of sanyasis, jungles and remote caves.

We often treat the concept of renunciation and detachment as esoteric theories meant to be confined to spiritual texts and discourses or we think it belongs to rishi-munis.

In reality, however, these concepts intricately govern our day-to-day lives and it is the absence of this realisation that makes our lives difficult and stressful. Renunciation does not mean abandoning worldly affairs and one's duties towards life.

This is escapism. The life of the legendary king Janaka, illustrates the way in which one can weave renunciation into day-to-day life.

The illusions and comforts of royalty failed to lure him into the web of maya. He performed his duty with a sense of detachment.

He was a sanyasi, even though he was householder and king. King Janaka is an ideal illustration of the fact that the virtue of renunciation can be introduced in life without one being indifferent to life's ups and downs.

A sense of detachment helps us to realise the transitory nature of life and keeps us aware of the futility of living in ignorance, veiled by illusion or maya.

Everyone in this material world, once in a while, faces a crisis. A crisis like a professional downfall or a personal upheaval; loss of a job or loss of a dear one.

The virtue of renunciation does not put an end to such sufferings and pain, but it drastically enhances our coping capabilities and cuts down stress.

It keeps us alive to those spiritual realities of life, which are hidden by maya, and hence keeps our faith alive in the higher governing forces of life.

A sense of detachment is the most effective antidote against agents of maya like desire of result, unnecessary expectations and peer pressure. It channelises our physical and mental energies and enhances the qualities of our efforts.

It is an art that serves the dual purpose of stimulating our progress in both the physical and spiritual world.

In the present-day world, where we are incapable of experiencing pure joy unblemished by tinges of stress, renunciation is an art that can enable us to explore our infinite spiritual potential to propel us towards the attainment of the ultimate state of bliss or anand.

Experience Divinity Through Kriya Yoga

Kriya yoga is among the shortest, quickest and most scientific way to attain your goal of self-mastery and state of deathlessness but it is neither a religion nor sect.

There are four major techniques in kriya yoga. You forget your ego and body sense and get extreme super- consciousness and cosmic consciousness.

Immediately you can change your life force into radiant all-accomplishing divine force which in turn hastens your physical, mental and intellectual uplift.

The second technique is panacea for all diseases. It gives you a healthy and lustrous body. It slows the ageing process.

By the third technique you can offer your whole system to God. Your hands are not your hands. They are the hands of God.

Your heart is not your heart, it belongs to God. God is putting breath in you, so that your whole system is acting.

We have two nostrils. So long as the breath will not come with equal pressure from both the nostrils, our spiritual field will not be cultivated.

We have to cultivate our own spiritual field, which is our own body. All our anger, pride and insincerity centres are in the right lobe, and our speech centre is in the left side of the brain.

Also we have another part called pons. Above and behind pons is the mid-brain; where the aggregated balance sheets of our lives are stored.

So, in a moment we can become bewildered and furious. By the practice of kriya yoga our thoughts become balanced. By the help of the fourth technique we will be able to feel that only the power of God is activating us.

We can get extreme calmness. We hear the mantras. Anybody, who has been initiated in the Rama mantra, need not chant Rama, Rama, Rama.

In kriya yoga, automatically he can hear the Rama mantra as if from a distance. He will even feel divine vibrations in his whole body and see divine light.

Also in his fontanelle he will feel the sensation of floating, swaying and rocking. By the help of this, all his negative and bad qualities will disappear; he will feel that the power of God is always with him.

The Kenopanishad says, what speech cannot reveal but which reveals the speech, know that alone is God. What mind cannot comprehend, but what cognises mind, know that alone is God.

It is only the power of God, which is pulling breath from the seventh junction of every being. The Bhagavad Gita says: If one can fix prana shakti with help of breath at the midpoint of eyebrows (pituitary), he can perceive the self-effulgent divine self.

So long as your mind is not fixed at the point where God is pulling inhalation and does not calmly seek Him there, your spiritual achievement is completely nil.

You require material prosperity and sense pleasures. Along with these, you should also start meditating.

Meditation means the mind is free from worldly objects. You are in knowledge, consciousness and supercons-ciousness.

In the Bible it is written: “Be still and know that you are God”. By the practice of kriya yoga meditation you can still your mind and feel the living presence of God.

Excerpts from a talk given in 1986 by Paramahamsa Hariharananda.

Unfold The Universe With Storytelling

In early cultures the world over, the storyteller had a special place. Before written language was used, historic, religious, and cultural knowledge was passed from generation to generation orally, and as the keeper of all this collective knowledge, the storyteller was one of the most important people in the community.

A story from Kazakhstan shows the value placed on storytelling and storytellers: It was the seventh day. God had finished making the world. Tired but happy, he suddenly realised he had forgotten to give human beings their brains. Calling some angels, he handed them jugs filled with this important 'ingredient' and said, “Go quickly, and make sure you give all humans their brains”. The angels flew down to Earth and found so many people, there were not enough brains to go round! So they made sure they gave each one a little.

God looked down on creation and was really sad to see wars, poverty, hunger selfishness and tears. "I think i know why", he declared, "human beings have only got a bit of brain each". So God created a few more people, making sure he filled their brains right up to the top. He filled those brains with sparkling words -- stories, songs, poetry and music. These were storytellers God sent down to Earth, to tell and sing wisdom into foolish human hearts.

While some stories can be deliberately told to perpetuate a narrow world view, most traditional stories can provide the 'larger context' within which we are invited to move beyond conflict. Conflict comes from a limited view that looks like you and i are separate. Story has the capacity to hold differing perspectives in the same story, and offer the wide-angle view that invites us to transcend our differences. Most significantly, even if it doesn't solve our differences; it creates something that's bigger than our differences. In the power to tell a story lies the power to shape our reality, to alter our perceptions, to create new worlds of experience.

The best storytellers are those who also listen, because inputs can come from many sources. In Stories From The Mountains and Beyond, Granny Sue reminds us: "...We must first hear stories from some source, whether it be another person, a book, our own inner voice, or the physical world around us. We need to be listening and aware to hear the stories being gifted to us daily... stories told with a glance, in a song, in children playing a game. Stories in the wind in the trees, birds calling, water trickling over rocks, the soft swish of snow falling...". All these have stories for those willing to listen.

David Spangler says, "We are a storytelling, story-loving species. Let someone be spinning a good tale at a gathering and watch a crowd collect to listen... If, as St John says, in the Beginning was the Word, then the Story followed directly after, unfolding the universe from the imagination of God. In emulation of the divine, we have sought to duplicate that moment of creation by being storytellers, too".

Reading a story is wonderful, but being in the presence of a storyteller who gifts you a story from her heart is a truly wondrous experience. A kind of 'field' is created between the storyteller and listeners that creates a space to learn, change and grow.

By : MARGUERITE THEOPHIL

Dream Even When There's Hate All Around

In the fairy tale 'The Last Dream of the Old Oak Tree', the oak tree felt sorry for the day-fly that lived but a day, while the tree was already 365 years old. The tree's sympathy only puzzled the day-fly who was happy with the thousands of moments of happiness that it enjoyed by dancing in the sun, smelling the clover and the honeysuckle. The day-fly's day ended as happily as he spent it, as he settled down on a blade of grass.

The story is not meant to be an apology for sensual and momentary happiness. It merely conveys that dreams are the substance of life all around us. If we do not allow ourselves to be defeated, crushed and oppressed, we will be able to enjoy the green shoots of grass pressing through the stones on the sidewalk, soak in the wildflowers growing by railway tracks, snatch pleasure from patches of blue sky visible despite high-rise buildings, follow the rhythm of waves either crashing against or gently touching the seashore.

We will be able to dream even when hate is all around us. We will stop clinging to the gate that has just been closed on us and look towards the one that has just opened to us.

Cultivating a garden requires hours of vigorous digging, planting, watering and weeding. There are times of intense movement. There are also times of quiet when life grows underground, in silence and darkness. Cultivating one's soul is like cultivating a garden. There is a time of preparation, of readying the soil. The sowing of seeds is followed by a period of waiting and nurturing.

The flowering and the fruit only come as a result of back-breaking work, constant self-giving and taking in all that is life-sustaining from the world around us.

It is said that miracles are only a prayer away. Prayer is also a question of what we see. A morning cup of coffee is a moment of grace by itself. A child's face lit up by a smile is an invitation to laughter. A regular schedule of work and rest are a source of deep ease and comfort.

Why do flowers open to the morning light? Because morning is the moment of awakening, of wonder,a time for tenderness and beauty. It is a time to start the day with happy dreams when the day is yet unspoiled.

Many of us hem ourselves in a closed horizon. We hesitate to dream. There is something about the way we live life that kills the quiet joy of the day-fly in us. We need not all grow into oaks. Not all who are old in years are also wise. Years can bring experience, but without the ability and will to nurse our dreams we lose the opportunity to make a difference.

Life is full of questions. We are questions ourselves. If there were only answers, there would no longer be a sense of mystery. Deep down within, there is the precious child that is longing to dream. Forget yesterday. It has gone, like the water and sand that sift through our fingers. Live today because it is all you have. And your tomorrows will rise like eagles from the dreams that you have woven from the even and uneven threads of your life.

Decipher The Formula Of Happiness

I prefer reading inspirational writings of people who have lived predominantly selfless lives - people who gave a great deal of themselves to society; who had the option to live comfortably yet chose discomfort (as some would perceive it) for larger good.

What makes selfless people so different from the rest of us? One wonders, does it matter if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, man or woman? Are selfless people sad or happy people? What is their source of sustained strength? What is their state of mind? Where did their training come from? Are they born with the propensity to act selflessly or did they learn it by trial and error?

All persons whom we tend to admire and want to see and be with, are those whom we have known to remain happy, naturally. Nothing seems to disturb them. They are truly happy within and without. They are not dependent on material acquisitions, nor do they depend on other people to come and make them happy. On the contrary, people seek them out. It could be happiness as they believe it to be...

As i have understood - from reading what these inspirational persons write - happiness is not external. It is truly internal. It is not something they buy or borrow. Nor is it fleeting. It is in their own state of 'minding' which they choose to remain in. And for that state of mind to be integral to them, they gradually schooled, graduated, and mastered the art in such a way that it became 'them'. Even after mastering they remain aware of their learning in such a way that happiness becomes a part of their 'self'. They 'become joy' and 'joy becomes them'.

We, too, can learn from them and begin in small ways to follow the path of living in happiness. It has been said that the longest journey begins with the first step. Happiness, too, is a constant journey of the mind, a journey that we choose to undertake and then stay on. Each moment the mind journeys it will constantly decide to remain on course - first by conscious awareness, then by habit. The mind stays alert on what impacts inner joy and how it constantly rejuvenates itself by self-watch.

Having been a sportsperson i am aware that a holiday of one day practice takes one back by three days. So is it with mindfulness. We in our daily lives encounter many (negative) stress-giving situations for which we are not always responsible. There are several kinds of reactions such a situation can evoke: Become unhappy, get angry, fret, frown, become moody, curse and blame others, or nurse retaliation and negative emotions. Or does the mind tell us to do whatever one can do and move on? And even if it warns us, do we listen to it and let it direct our subsequent responses?

Just as a well-tended garden cannot be so without a caring gardener, so, too, a happy human being has a well-tended mind - a mind which constantly self-cares and self-generates joy. It is independent and self-dependent. It gives and reaches out whenever needed, without any declarations. It remains grateful for anything it receives without seeking. And gives away without any asking. It is always there and yet is elsewhere. Empty, yet full.  By Kiran Bedi

Meditation Reveals Light of Love

Meditation is a magnificent power. With meditation, you gain the desire to serve and the ability to achieve spiritual and worldly goals; you develop compassion, fearlessness, divine wisdom, renunciation, love, and freedom from the cycle of birth and death.

Meditation allows us to meet with our spirit. To meditate is to become deeply silent, to keep listening to God. To listen is to become lost in God, perceiving Him in all of creation. Then one is merged with the Great Reality.

No worldly pleasure can compare with the sweetness of this communion. There are many yogic postures and methods of meditation, but even by practicing them you cannot attain God unless you feel the longing of love.

God is Love, and God is too great for any method. It is God who pulls us to meditate, and it is God who teaches us how to love Him. The only method of meditation that works is to offer God constant love.

At first, continually focus all your scattered attention on whatever form of God you worship, such as Jesus, Krishna, Shiva, Durga, or the Gurus. We can concentrate on God by repeating God's Name.

The energy which has been scattered among all our weaknesses will become focused on the positive; negative thoughts will disappear and truth will be revealed.

The more we meditate, bringing our attention back again and again, the sooner it will return to its Home. Once it comes back Home, it will listen and it will rest. Then there will be only peace.

Start this way, and then God will show you the path. Make no demands, except for One: "Oh God, make me as You want me to be". On waking up in the morning, thank God and do a bit of meditation.

Go deep inside, concentrating all your awareness on God. Then the whole day your mind will be focused on God; nothing will bother you.

The more you love God and practise meditation, your weaknesses and bad habits will be driven out, and love and truth will be revealed, as if dust were being cleaned from a mirror.

In deep meditation, awareness of yourself ceases. You are unaware of the passing time, and you do not become tired. Your breathing becomes fainter.

People may beat drums or shout around you, but you will not hear anything. Your soul maintains just enough connection to keep you alive.

Over time, very gradually, the inner light will awaken in you. Your Isht will enter your heart and start loving and talking to you.

As the Sikh Gurus say, "Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry, and sometimes you become silent, but you care for no one except God".

You will become detached from worldly things, for you are always connected with the Truth. You will not care if people are looking at you or laughing at you for you are looking only at God, absorbed in the bliss of God's Love.

Then you will not need to sit in meditation with your eyes closed in order to be aware of God. You will be joined with God at all times.

Whether you are walking, eating, or talking to someone. You will truly feel, "Tohi mohi, mohi Tohi" (You are me, and I am You). You will remain in the world, doing your worldly duties, and you will be always happy.

Excerpted from Loving God, the Practical Teachings of Baba Virsa Singh. ww.gobinsadan.org, e-mail:  info@gobinsadan.org .

Overcome Suffering Through Surrender

Swami, how are we to avoid suffering? You are so focused on action that you don't realise that an action which is born out of ignorance is an extension of ignorance.

Hence, more than engaging in action, we have to enlighten our action with understanding. Understand that you are the creator of your suffering. This understanding will help you dissolve suffering.

An unhappy person in heaven will convert even heaven into hell; a happy person can convert hell into heaven. So, change is not required anywhere except within yourself.

If you have an unhappy mind, even if you are in heaven, you will 'stink'. So, to overcome suffering, you have to understand that your unhappy mind is the cause.

There are two types of sufferings. Legitimate and illegitimate. Legitimate suffering is sorrow that is proportionate to the situation.

For example, your loved one dies. This sorrow is valid. But if you continue worrying for more than one or two years, then there is a psychological aspect to it.

To handle legitimate sufferings, you should understand that such suffering is the result of your past deeds. Illegitimate suffering is suffering that is not proportionate to the situation.

For example, somebody calls you a fool. You brood over it for days on end. It is this suffering that one can end through right thinking.

When your suffering is due to karma, your past deeds, you have to understand that you are only repaying your debt. Many people had gathered in a village to listen to Lord Buddha.

Buddha did not start his sermon, but waited for someone to turn up. After a couple of hours, a young maidservant arrived and joined the gathering.

Then he began his sermon. Someone asked, "Why did you wait for her?" Lord Buddha said, "In my previous birth, I had promised her that after my enlightenment I would teach her. I had to wait for her so that I could fulfil my promise".

A man was very unhappy. His friend had not returned the money he had borrowed. One of my students told him, "Your money is deposited somewhere, and at the right time, it will return to you".

Such an understanding makes us surrender our sufferings to the mystery of life. Surrender is a leap from the ordinary to the sacred, from the logical to the cosmic.

Surrender is like opening the third eye... 'I am'. Surrender is real growth. Growth involves no suffering. Resistance to suffering creates suffering.

For example, if a stone is thrown on the wall, it makes a noise. But if a stone is thrown in empty space it just passes through.

A wall is like the ego. When somebody says something unpleasant and you have a wall of ego, you get hurt. If you are empty of ego, the word will just pass through without encountering any resistance.

Surrender is in the realisation that God gives me what I need more than what I want. Surrender is trust. Surrender is being open to life.

Very often we suffer because we are not open to the vastness of life. We are bound by our know-ledge. We are dead to something that is beyond our knowledge.

What we know is finite and what we do not know is infinite. To be alive and limited to what we know, and dead to what we do not know, is a deep cause for suffering.

By Swami Sukhabodhananda  www.prasannatrust.org

Story of Nanak's Death And Birth of Japuji

The Japuji are the very first words uttered by Nanak after self-realization: Nanak sat on the bank of the river in total darkness with his friend and follower, Mardana.

Suddenly, he removed his clothes and walked into the river. Mardana called after him, "Where are you going? The night is so dark and cold!" Nanak went further and further, he plunged into the depths of the river.

Mardana waited... but Nanak did not return... Mardana ran back to the village and woke up everyone. It was midnight, but a crowd collected at the riverside because everyone loved Nanak... They ran back and forth the whole length of the river bank but to no avail. Three days passed.

By now it was certain that Nanak had drowned. The people imagined that his body must have been carried away by the swift current and perhaps eaten by wild animals.

The village was in mourning. On the third night Nanak appeared from the river. The first words he spoke became the Japuji. So goes the story — and a story means that which is true and yet not true.

It is true because it gives the essential truth; it is false in the sense that it is only symbolic. And it is evident that the more profound the subject matter, the greater the need for symbols.

When Nanak disappeared in the river, the story goes that he stood before the gate of God. He experienced God... God spoke to him, "Now go back and give unto others what I have given unto you".

The Japuji is Nanak's first offering after his God-experience. Unless you lose yourself completely, until you die, you cannot hope to meet God. Your annihilation becomes his being. As long as you are, he cannot be.

This is the symbolic meaning of drowning in the river. You too will have to lose yourself; you too will have to drown. Death is only completed after three days, because the ego does not give up easily.

The three days in Nanak's story represent the time required for his ego to dissolve completely. Since the people could only see the ego and not the soul, they thought Nanak was dead.

The one who is lost invariably returns, but he returns as new. He who treads the path most certainly returns. While he was on the path he was thirsty, but when he returns he is a benefactor; he has left a beggar, he returns a king.

Whoever follows the path carries his begging bowl; when he comes back he possesses infinite treasures. To appear before God, to attain the beloved, are purely symbolic terms and not to be taken literally.

There is no God sitting somewhere on high before whom you appear. But to speak of it, how else can it be expressed? When the ego is eradicated, when you disappear, whatever is before your eyes, is God Himself.

God is not a person — God is an energy beyond form. To stand before this formless energy means to see Him wherever you look, whatever you see.

When the eyes open, everything is He. Ego is like the mote in your eye; the minute it is removed, God stands revealed before you.

And no sooner does God manifest, than you also become God, because there is nothing besides Him. Nanak returned, but the Nanak who returned was also God himself.

Then each word uttered became so invaluable as to be beyond price, each word equal to the words of the Vedas.

Excerpted from The True Name. Courtesy: Osho International Foundation.

Seed of Contentment: The Beej Mantra

The basic beej mantra or Om Namah Shivaya, the panchakshri, inspires elevation to the highest levels of consciousness.

Marking the beginning of Creation, it is also equated with the Nada Brahmn. Shiva, as the creator-destructor, is invoked through this mantra at the beginning of any austerity and through japa or meditation.

Shiva is synonymous with cosmic time as He symbolises the beginning of awareness, that which created the universe. The concept of maya or illusion is woven around it to distinguish the different levels of consciousness.

Remembering Shiva reciting the beej mantra and studying the Shiva Purana can lead the spiritual seeker to higher realms of awareness, aspiring to merge in the mahavakya, 'Shivoham', to the highest level of consciousness where the individual ego dissolves into the Absolute Self.

Sadhana is the acme of human life, as it constantly evolves towards perfection. Sadhana is spiritual movement consciously systematised, and once reaching equilibrium, reflects in everyday living and adherence to core values of life.

This, therefore, becomes a lifelong process. As the mind gains more maturity and leads to equipoise, sadhana builds into life a rich repertoire of guidelines which define the contours of living.

The spiritual seeker begins his search for truth with an inquisitive spirit. He signals to fellow travellers on the spiritual path the need to rise from the mediocrity which is contrived and false, when life's actual meaning is just experience.

Ignorance is the beginning of the quest for knowledge. From ignorance arises the impulse to know. The journey is arduous, tricky, at times painful.

But having begun it, with proper sadhana and swadhaya, there is no looking back. As silence stills the mind, the moment is transfused with radiance and dynamism.

Jivanmuktas, yogis, nitya-siddhas and chiranjivis — all spiritually evolved — have, with their energies, lent a helping hand to aspirants on the spiritual path.

They have cautioned that shortcuts are to be abjured on the spiritual journey. There should be no half measure, no stop gap.

Discipline is required of the aspirant in whatever state of conditioning he may be. The gradual inward progress is silent and unseen, like the quiet unfolding of a bud into a beautiful flower.

As it progresses further, personality traits get refined and many of life's mundane problems get addressed by force of will power and unshackled energy which builds up within.

The aspirant by imbibing Shiva-consciousness brings Shiva-Shakti together and forges cosmic creation within, silently guiding the ego to its eternal resting place, where it merges in absolute consciousness.

The Immanent is sublimated in the transcendental, and this takes place within the human being, as repository of Divine Will.

From the individual, it should transmit to all levels of society. Sri Aurobindo had prophesied that it would rest on India to provide spiritual leadership to the world.

That India has to be a spiritual India, comprising spiritual beings, united in their mission to rid the present-day world of ignorance, poverty and squalor.

The combined energies of spiritual teachers and realised masters, past and present, should guide us all towards that goal.

The Desire To Oust All Other Desires

While other gurus have been telling us to give up desire, why are you saying "desire everything"? You want to give up your desire. Is that not a desire? If you say, "I want to attain God" is that not a very greedy desire? If somebody desires a small piece of creation, you call that greed. Now somebody wants the very Creator, is that not ultimate greed?

Most people just look for small pieces of creation. It is a very big desire when someone looks for the Creator himself. Have you ever seen anybody who has no desire? Can you imagine somebody without any desire? Maybe they do not have your kind of desires.

They may have different kinds of desires. But is there somebody who has no desire? There is no such thing, because the energy that you call as life and the energy that you call as desire are not different. No desire means, really no possibility for life. So what to do with desires?

Just direct all your passions to the highest in life. These teachings of desirelessness and detachment have come because people chose to involve themselves in a selective way with life. It caused much confusion and problems to themselves and to everybody around them.

When you choose to involve yourself selectively with life, naturally, you get entangled with the process of life; this is normally referred to as attachment. People say, "Give up attachment and be detached". If you remain detached from life, would you know life? The only way to know life is by involvement.

If you are not involved, you will not know anything. So all these teachings of detachment and desirelessness have come because of the fear of entanglement. Because a large segment of the population is entangled in something or the other, and entanglement always creates pain and suffering within a person, somebody gave this foolish solution "be detached". So the solution for life is, "avoid it". If you want to avoid life, at least do it more efficiently.

You could just shoot yourself in the head or jump off a mountain or go and stand in the middle of one of the busy streets, whichever way you like it; it is your choice, but at least do it little more efficiently... If you want to live, you need involvement. If you want to avoid life, you must die; it is very simple.

Being alive and wanting to die and not dying is a torture, because the fundamentals of either enjoying or not enjoying the process of life the fundamentals of what you refer to as heaven and hell are just this: If you are in anything willingly, that is your heaven. If you are in anything unwillingly, that is your hell.

What is most beautiful can become the ugliest thing if it happens to you unwillingly. What is the most beautiful thing and what is a horror is just a question of willingness and unwillingness. So the moment you say, "I want to be detached", you become unwilling for the process of life; you make a hell. No wonder you want to go to heaven.

Because people have made a complete hell out of themselves, they want to go to heaven, obviously. I hope they proceed soon because those who have made a hell out of themselves will invariably make a hell out of the world also. If somebody is joyful he will make sure that everything around him is that. If somebody is miserable, he will cause misery to everybody around him.

By SADHGURU JAGGI VASUDEV

The New Year Signals New Opportunities

The new year can help you understand death more deeply. By viewing death through the new year you may more easily inculcate that death is not a final dissolution, but is synonymous with all that a new year means to you: beginnings, birth, new life, new opportunities.

I am not speaking merely about physical death, but also 'death' in day-to-day terms: relationships breaking up, events terminating, careers coming to a grinding halt and any loss, ending, or change.

By understanding physical death in the macrocosm you can better deal with its representations in the microcosm of day-to-day life. Spiritual knowledge is about using the macrocosm to understand and enhance the microcosm. Knowledge is about you, and it must change your state of consciousness or it is meaningless.

Through death you will know that there is no death. It becomes the doorway to eternal life and growth. If 'death' exists at all it is in stagnation, inertia and fear. The endings, losses and changes that you feared because they implied 'death' to you, are instead opportunities for growth. Ironically, it is your very resistance or fear of this extension of self that is true 'death'.

Death is in your conditioning; in your reluctance or refusal to move on, accept change, expand or experiment. Having turned 'death' of the macrocosm on its head so to say, it dramatically changes your view of 'deaths' in the microcosm; and you are motivated to overcome fear, reduce stagnation and resistance.

Brahma the creator, looking at suffering humanity, wondered where he had gone wrong. Saraswati explains to him that 'death', through its constant opportunity for new life and eternal growth, is what will allow his creation to be infinitely joyous. Convinced, he creates the maiden 'Mrityu' to confer death periodically to all on earth.

Egoism Is Nothing But Poverty Of Spirit

Knowledge is increasing, is happiness increasing? Schools are multiplying, are happy homes multiplying? Today's knowledge inputs teach us to be selfish, manipulative, and more aware of our rights than of Dharma.

Sadhu Vaswani aspired to integrate education with atma vidya. He said that education is not a withered parchment, it is the flowing waters of spirit. It helps you reach out and touch the lives of others. You learn to live beyond your own narrow self.

Greed and selfishness increase with specialized courses in strategy. In such a situation of education, happiness is not included. Current education disintegrates the personality of students by keeping spirituality out. Man is whole and needs to learn to develop in all directions. So-called super education glorifies the ego.

Egoism is spiritual poverty. Allen Bradley writes in Future Education: The major portion of human family can see no further than the next meal, the next entertainment thrill, or new acquisitions a new car, flat, TV or the next holiday. True education should bring the realisation that these are a means, not an end. They could be aids to a happy life, but not happiness in themselves.

Recently, I met someone who was my classmate at university. She was a brilliant student. Her oratory and boldness had made her an icon on the university campus. We envied her. We presumed that she would have a brilliant career. Somewhere in her ascent, she lost touch with reality, made wrong choices and ended up living at the mercy and kindness of her friends.

She had received an excellent education but it was not related to life. It did not teach her how to cope with frustration. It did not inspire her to reach out to others. It did not give her enough humility to see reality, nor strength to fight her circumstances. Her education lacked a lot.

I was barely 10 when my father made me write an essay on the bushman in Australia, the pygmy in Africa, and the Eskimo in the tundra region, each of whom receives education in his own way. In his wisdom he added, 'What you learn in school is history, geography, and science'.

Today, between the controversies of single and multitasked skills, Montessori and top-of-the-line education, students miss out on the ultimate equation in life. Prestigious institutions claim to motivating students to realise higher goals, but none of them even mention the true goal of life happiness.

Brahmacharya meant training of physical and mental aspects. Thoughts when purified develop into a strong mind. Compare it with today's education; students receive information rather than life skills the most important of which is emotional balance. They receive degrees and grades but have no clue to equanimity.

In fact, students turn neurotic scrambling for marks. A spiritual element is necessary to meet the new demands of the dynamic but flat world. Yoga and meditation are processes that create space for Self and its need to love.

Practical lessons in compassion in action and love in action such as service to community, caring for the elderly, reverence for all life, if integrated with the regular teaching curriculum along with celebration of all festivals, will not only spread joy of unity but will also bring a sense of fulfillment so essential to happiness.

Enchanting Experience of Living Truthfully

Truth is bitter to those who live on the foundation of falsehood. They fear truth and so they call it bitter. For a person leading a righteous life truth is an asset, a source of strength.

To him truth is the basis on which he stands and negotiates all activities of life. Truth is the basis of wisdom. You can be an intellectual even if you disrespect truth but you cannot be wise if you are inclined towards falsehood.

Scriptures and religions value truth and define it in many ways. Brahman or ultimate Reality is described as truth in the upanishads.

Truth is Brahmn and Bliss. India's national motto is: Truth alone triumphs — Satyameva Jayate. Truthfulness in thought, words and deeds is the fundamental requirement for your elevation.

The Bhagavad Gita says that one should rise above different modes of nature or Prakriti and establish oneself in truth.

Saints say that Brahmn and Atman can be realised by holding on to truth. Truth is like a compass which shows you the right track.

The Mahabharata says that there is no virtue equal to truth and no sin greater than falsehood. To be truthful presupposes a prior commitment to non-violence.

Non-violence is the basis of the search for truth says Mahatma Gandhi. Vedanta declares that truth must be free from contradictions, so evident that it can do without any proof and truth must be universal.

Each plane of existence or consciousness has its own truth. As you progress on the path of self-elevation, a higher truth replaces the one that was active before.

Aurobindo advises that each one has to find out which form of truth is sought after by his soul and, then, he should organise his life around that truth.

Truth is absolute as well as relative. The highest truth is absolute truth or God and relative truth moves us higher and higher to get close to Absolute truth. When we know the truth all our doubts and misconceptions fall away and things become crystal clear.

A truthful person has great power of conviction. Truth also gives life. Truthful persons are a source of joy to all; they are kind, compassionate, childlike and loving. A truthful person is honest, just, straightforward and sincere as all qualities are modified expression of truth.

Both scientists and spiritual persons are in search of truth. Science and religion will therefore meet one day. Truth is the guiding principle for both worldly and spiritual life.

Since their goals are the same, there can be no contradiction between science and spirituality. Enlightenment comes only when there is complete understanding of truth.

Today you may feel that truthfulness cannot carry us far to obtain materialistic goals. You may call truth as bitter but if you follow truth it will eventually work out best.

When you realise the goodness of truth you will understand that you were living in misery by living in lies. Truth also creates a distaste for sense objects which raises us beyond sense perceptions.

While it may be true that truth as a value is compromised in the present times, this cannot overshadow truth as a virtue and truthful living as the greatest virtue of all.

Truthfulness coincides our outer life with inner life. When we become truthful we get past the avoidable tendency to hide things from others. Human relations can never thrive on untruth. Be truthful and gain the warmth of human relations.

Search For The Centre Of Consciousness

The brain's neurons are differentiated to execute specific functions. All sensory perceptions reach nerve centers that are specific for a particular sensory modality. However, all attempts to localize the centre for consciousness have failed.

In an experiment, an electrode was implanted in the brain adjacent to the pleasure centre of a caged mouse. When a lever was pressed, a small current would be released which would stimulate the locus of neurons and the mouse experienced a sensation of pleasure.

When the mouse realized that pressing the lever was the cause of the wonderful sensation, he endeavored to keep pressing the lever tirelessly till he died of exhaustion.

Happiness is therefore just a matter of neurotransmitters stimulating specific areas resulting in momentary gratification — a chemical reaction in the brain.

Duality is a warp in perception. In reality these partitions do not exist. They are just notional values assigned by the perceptive apparatus. They are actually variations in the intensity of only one modality.

The experiment where light is made to pass through two slits to determine if light is a wave or particle form, pronounced that light simultaneously exists as wave and particle.

This presented the scientific community with a paradoxical conclusion hard to fathom, a daunting task for the perceptive apparatus which is limited to comprehending only one of two possibilities.

Science is based on reductionism. Science teaches one to classify, make subgroups, and analyze all events as cause and effect.

It programmes the brain to fragment, not assimilate. But observations in quantum physics show that subatomic particles behave in a way incomprehensible to classical Newtonian concepts. Similarly, dark and light, pleasure and pain, cannot have an either/or existence. It is our perception that triggers this dichotomy.

Events or people get classified by the intellect, which analyses the event, compares the event with its database or memory and delivers a threat or no-threat verdict.

This makes the subject interact with the environment. This interaction is primordial in nature, in-built for survival.

The categorisation of reality into subgroups such as pleasant or unpleasant, endea-vouring only pleasant situations to prevail, causes unhappiness.

Medically, when there is a threat perception, there is a rise in heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar, which keeps the individual in a state of combat with typical responses: fight, fright or flight.

If the threat perception apparatus keeps getting stimulated too frequently, then the body, instead of shifting gears, often compensates by raising these parameters permanently. This causes high incidence of hypertension and diabetes where stress is a definitive cause.

In the enlightened state, what changes is not the environment but the perception of the environment. Consciousness is just awareness. It is non-judgmental, with no reaction.

There is no classification. It is just a witness. When perception eliminates all fragmentation, one become conscious, aware. Then we no longer get exhausted — like the mouse did, trying to manipulate the pleasure-giving lever.

The writer, a neurosurgeon, is setting up Centre for Consciousness Studies.

Gains from Independent Practice of T'ai Chi

One of the most significant benefits to accrue from the practice of T'ai Chi is an approach to learning, since the approach is often more valuable than the subject matter.

This is precisely why eastern cultures have placed greater emphasis on the process rather than the results.

There are three requirements for learning T'ai Chi, which also determine the rate at which the student learns and benefits from T'ai Chi.

They are: Correct teaching, natural talent and perseverance or diligent practice. Of these three requirements, natural ability is the least important, and correct teaching is the most important.

T'ai Chi endows the practitioner with benefits like improved balance, coordination, and reflexes; calmness of mind, patience, concentration, self-awareness and stronger bones, muscles and organs.

All these benefits come over an extended period of time, but the first thing to do is to cultivate the habit of practising on your own. It is imperative to realise that class practice does not make up for independent practice.

By freely sharing teachings and stimulating your thinking, the teacher leads you to the door of knowledge.

It is up to the student to absorb and incorporate that knowledge by reviewing what has been taught and following instructions.

Unless one maintains a fine balance between self-motivated study and class activities, possible benefits will remain unattainable.

The student who fails to practise on his own puts himself at risk of 'dual' failure. He may uncons-ciously feel, "I'm nowhere near where i should be"or "T'ai Chi is not as effective as it is claimed to be".

These self-limiting thoughts take away the joy of learning and increase the possibility of the student quitting the class.

There are many important bene-fits of independent practice, which can deepen your understanding of the art and greatly increase your engagement with it.

Firstly, when you practise independently, you have the freedom to stop any time you feel like and repeat a movement or a sequence of movements, which is not possible in a class.

Secondly, you can settle on the optimal speed that allows you to harmonize your breathing with the movements, thereby enhancing the Chi flow.

Thirdly, when you do not have anybody to follow or ask, you are required to sort things out on your own. This infuses greater self-reliance and self-discipline.

Fourthly, independent practice calls for memorization of the entire sequence of movements. Once memory hurdles are overcome, your mind is better able to perceive the beauties and intricacies of the movements.

This leads to greater progress. Practicing in a group, however, confers many benefits which are not accessible in independent practice.

China has a long tradition of group practice of T'ai Chi. One benefit is that the combined energy and enthusiasm of the group increases the energy and enthusiasm of each individual.

Another benefit is that group practice gives you an opportunity to process the movement, timing and spacing of other people.

Observing the movements of others and noticing differences makes you conscious of your own deficiencies. This processing improves your ability to move harmoniously with others.

As a result, you not only feel your Chi more intensely but also come away with a new dimension of connectedness.

Quilt Of Holes And The Illumination Of Christ

As i faced my Maker during the last judgment, i knelt before the Lord along with all the other souls. Before each of us we laid our lives like the squares of a quilt in many piles; an angel sat before each of us sewing our quilt squares together into a tapestry that was our life.

As my angel took each piece of cloth off the pile, i noticed, to my horror, how ragged and empty each of my squares was.

They were filled with giant holes. Each square was labeled with a part of my life that had been difficult, the challenges and temptations i was faced with in every day life. I saw hardships that i endured, which were the largest holes of all.

I glanced around me. Nobody else had such squares. Other than a tiny hole here and there, their tapestries were filled with rich colors and the bright hues of worldly fortune.

I gazed upon my own life and was disheartened. My angel was sewing the ragged pieces of cloth together, threadbare and empty; it seemed like binding air.

Finally the time came when each life was to be displayed, held up to the light, the scrutiny of truth. The others rose; each in turn, holding up their tapestries. So filled their lives had been. My angel looked upon me, and nodded for me to rise.

My gaze dropped to the ground in shame. I hadn't had all the earthly fortunes. I had love in my life, and laughter.

But there had also been trials of illness, and wealth, and false accusations that took from me my world, as i knew it.

I had to start over many times. I often struggled with the temptation to quit, only to somehow muster the strength to pick up and begin again. I spent many nights on my knees in prayer, asking for help and guidance in my life.

I had often been held up to ridicule, which i endured painfully, each time offering it up to the Father in the hope that i would not melt within my skin beneath the judgmental gaze of those who unfairly judged me.

Now, the time had come; i had to face the truth. My life was what it was, and i had to accept it for what it was. I rose and slowly lifted the combined squares of my life to the light. An awe-filled gasp filled the air.

I gazed around at others who stared at me with wide eyes. Then, i looked upon the tapestry before me. Light flooded the many holes, creating an image, the face of Christ.

Then our Lord stood before me, with warmth and love in His eyes. He said, "Every time you gave over your life to Me, it became My life, My hardships, and My struggles".

Each point of light in your life is when you stepped aside and let Me shine through, until there was more of Me than there was of you."

I was overwhelmed. It was wonderful. May all our quilts be threadbare and worn, allowing Christ to shine through! God determines who walks into your life... it's up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let go.

When there is nothing left but God that is when you find out that God is all you need — to let the light shine through. Via : E-mail forward