The social image

Everyone likes to play with a playful dog. Nobody likes to play with a angry barking dog.
Universe gives us so many examples to learn, you just need to observe.

We are given birth on the planet earth to liberate ourselves however we spend a life time entangled in series of our outer world.

What do you love in a person?
A blood relation, body, nature. All of it changes as time goes by, isn't it?
Thus love becomes a fallacy. Body is going to die, will the love die?
So what should you love? You say spirit but you can't see the spirit.

You can only connect. Only connection lasts it does not need blood relation, body or nature. When you feel one, the distinction goes away.
Confused, not yet, let me try more.

We are here spending a life time of making a social image of a good father, mother, brother or sister. In all of this, you loose your real self.
You should rather be yourself and let time be the filter of one's who want to be with you.

We are busy satisfying our senses and living sensation where as we were born for liberation.

We are busy earning money, fame, power where as life is in silence, gratitude and peace. Choice is yours.

Life is neutral, we create polarities.

"Live in the hearts of people, let mind have the thoughts and not you"

Life is a game, Play it Easy!

New turns in life are amazing. Yesterday was at a party and somehow there was no craving for the food. I begin to wonder - A world without cravings. It would definitely make life worth more living as there would be a sense of freedom. Well, easier said then done in the city life where you need to be worthy enough to live a stupendous life.
I am getting more into my senses, healing the anxiety within me for anything and everything. There is a thin line between enthusiasm and anxiety, isn't it?
I want to be more peaceful and watchful going forward. Not trying to be happy always but just trying to BE irrespective of the circumstances.

Pay it Forward

Pay it forward

A lot has been written about the big bad and mean world of today. Much ink has been used to describe how indifferent we have become to people around us. I, however, choose to see a different side. We all know that a small act of kindness can go a long way in transforming someone’s life. I will show you people actually living by it.

Visit www.yourturnnow.in

A selfless initiative by a 33-year-old Rushabh Turakhia is changing the way people live. It encourages us to be kind, compassionate and help those who need us. Next time someone thanks you, do not end it by simply saying welcome. Instead, hand over a Your Turn Now (YTN) card and insist that they pass on the benignity.

Here’s how it works:

* Request a FREE stack of YTN cards and carry them with you everywhere.
* They are the size of a credit card, and will hence fit in perfectly in your wallet/purse.
* When you help out somebody, don’t forget to pass them a card, and explain to them that it is now their turn to be kind and help someone else out.

These cards are free of charge and will be couriered to you, whichever part of the world you may be in, in a maximum of 10 days.

You can visit their Facebook group HERE, to read stories uploaded by users sharing their YTN experiences.

Visit www.yourturnnow.in or send an e-mail to rushabh@yourturnnow.in to get free YTN cards.

Spread the good word, and the kindness, people. I know you want to do it :)

If you can trust yourself when all Men doubt you

If you can trust yourself when all Men doubt you
I got some message today from god. He showed me what is "ahmkara"?
And my perception that I have no Ego was shattered to pieces.
I was unable to stop myself from reacting. This effectively means that there is bondage.
The only good thing this time was the awareness of the bondage.
The "ahmkara" was still present but introspection made me realize the same.

This ahmkara was invoked by the doubt in somebody's mind about myself.
And the result was that I doubted myself and that is precisely my ego.
We mis-interpret ego as pride. Ego changes form in different circumstances.
Ego is your reaction to an event. The reason for the reaction is your sanskar which is embedded in your chitta.
Unless you do sadhna you will niether realize this nor will come out of it.
By purifying your chitta through sadhna, you become sub-consiously aware of the events and your
chitta stops reacting. It is a slow process. First your awareness increases, you still react.
But remember, interpreting and introspecting is good but these are only the means.
Sadhna is the only way to imbibe the above in oneself.
I will end with few lines from Poem "IF" -
"If you can trust yourself when all Men doubt you, But make allowance for thier doubting too" :)

Outside Vs Inside

Be rich, Be a king outside.
Be satisfied, Be a Buddha Inside
Live life outside, remember death inside

Think with the mind, do with the heart
Be with the body, live with the soul

Open your eyes, see the world outside
Close your eyes, see the universe inside

Go to the temples outside, worship the god inside.
Help others outside, help yourself inside

What does meditation do to you?

Well, First thing is why are you meditating? Mostly to get peace, harmony, soul searching.
If you are doing it correct, it will have tremendous result in your life. If there are no results, you are not doing the right thing.
There is so much agression all around us that we get angry very easily. The disturbance is already in the mind, a slight trigger results into eruption. First thing that happened to me is awareness of the moments spend in anger.
Next was reduction in number of anger episodes and also the level of anger. One of the important points here is to have saatvik food, it will by far tune your mind as well.
The next level is constant awareness of living in the present, just be and do nothing (not in literal sense). Once the triggers to you stop, you with awareness stop the triggers as well.
After this, everyone likes you and they have smiles on thier faces when they meet you.
The sour relations turn sweet, there is no detachment or scare in the relation.
Thus it has extremely good effect on your life if done correctly, done with right guidance (not books, experience guidance)

Lord Mahavira's Sankalp

Lord Mahavira's sankalp -

Lord Mahavir looked at her and noticed that one of his pre-decided conditions was still missing. So, without accepting food, he kept on going. [His conditions were, 1) The person who would be offering should be a princess, 2) she should be bald headed, 3) she should be in chains, 4) while offering uncooked lentils, her one foot should be inside the house and other one out side the house, 5) and she should be in tears.] So, you might have realized that she met all conditions except tears in her eyes, and therefore, Lord Mahavir went on. Chandana felt very sad and tears started running down her face. She started thinking that how unfortunate she was that even though she had a chance to offer food to the monk, he would not accept it. She, in her crying voice, once again, requested a monk to accept the food. Lord Mahavir turned back and saw tears in her eyes. Mahavir came back to accept the food knowing that all his conditions were met. She put the lentils in Lord Mahavir�s hand and felt satisfied.
Lord Mahavir was looking for pre-conditioned food, and meanwhile, he fasted for five months and twenty-five days.
This is what I call Sankalp. Immensely strong.

Goals, Desires etc

We live direction less life currently. There is no direction to it.
Often, we say this is my goal in life. It will either be an end point or career related etc.
But we never think beyond it. What is beyond it?
Beyond it is a harsh reality called "death".
If we build our goals as an end point, we often invite bad times.
Take for example a CEO of a small company, he will desire to make his company big. For the same he works, overworks
and in the end screw his own life. He does not realize that the life is too short for him to grow his company. He forgets his identify, he becomes the company. That is where the error lies. Our choices are wrong, Our goals are wrong.

Love Thyself

Loving yourself is an art. We all love ourselves but from a wrong perspective.
From the perspective of the people around you.
On the other hand, The biggest mistake we make is trying to love others around us before we love ourselves.
I still make this mistake at times. Its a wrong perception that loving everyone is good.
Without loving ourself, loving others usually means a selfish love, external love and not ethernal love.
This is the most common pitfall causing disharmony among our loved ones.
Consider a mother who loves his son more then herself Or wife who love her husband more then herself or vice-versa.
Eventually, it ends up in huge expectation from the other person.
This in turn causes disharmony, fights, rights and wrongs.
Instead in all the above cases, if one would love himself first and more, the expectation will become zero.
And the love will be eternal. The action of anyone other then you will not effect and that is the reality, it should not effect. Why? Because you have no control over other's action. You have only control over your actions.
So its a logical conclusion.

Awareness makes a difference

Awareness makes a difference -
Recently I have been through a shibir whose sole purpose was "awareness".
Awareness is the first step to success in anything be it personal peace, work etc.
What changes when you are aware?
Its not that you will stop making mistakes once you are aware. But you will learn from incidences, small incidences big lessons. For e.g. you get angry due to some incidence, if you are unaware, you will mostly miss the reason you became angry(I am not saying this will stop your anger next time as well). But if you are aware, it will be clear to you that the anger was a waste of time, emotion and happened for a reason which is not within your control. Then you suddenly realize that then its not worth getting angry. And we already know the effect of realization at all levels. But this realization will have an immediate impact.

The recent experience

I attended a diksha Shibir for 2 days. It was a truly amazing experience. It was about awareness. The experience cannot be described in words because words will always short fall of the indiviual experience. Some take aways for me were:
If not applied, its a waste.
Consistency is the key to progress.
Be aware.
Love life, Live life, do not complain.
Although mind still wanders but now in the right direction. The effect of the whole thing is self-observance. The realization is that I have been taking everything seriously, my work, my family, my games everything except myself, the inner self. It was rightly asked in the shibir, what do we do differently then other biengs even when we know we have a superior mind. I did not have an answer, atleast from my indiviual perspective, myself. We do the same routine thing as other creatures. We may have some sophostication in everything but nothing different, nothing deep. One thing is sure that you have to go through the shibir to get the experience because everyone's experience is different. Now the only that matters is consistency, awareness and a clean life (be it food, emotions, work).

The spiritual me

I always wondered about the life. Can something be so temporary? We are born, we live and then die. So the time we lived is just the time we existed? If so life can be futile because you will anyways cease to exist. This makes me believe that there is something beyond this external world.
Always wondered where have I come from and where will I go? If it were only this life span then, I should probably leave my job and enjoy as much as I can. Only return when I have no money left ;) I wish it could be this simple.
To explore I have decided to have a simple life, clean, disciplined life.
I attend these shibirs arranged by NIRA, it has been really good how it helps to actually use meditation instead of just talking about it.
Here is the link to NIRA: http://www.niramultiversity.org