Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya

This is one of the very common and famous prayers in our scriptures which means "Lead me from darkness to light". I always have a problem with this line. When people say this line, I always used to argue what's wrong with darkness. Darkness did not do anything wrong. We always make our room extremely dark to be able to sleep properly. The movie theaters have to make it very dark in order for us to enjoy the movie. When we are really down, we tend to sit in dark places, because darkness is really helping us cope up with whatever we are dealing with in our lives.  So there is nothing wrong with darkness. Both darkness and light are equally important.

Most of the times, the meaning is not straightforward in our scriptures. Its hidden somewhere in the nature or other random places. We need to have the time and motivation to gain insight, otherwise we will end up with wrong interpretations. 

If you observe, the way we see the colors on a surface depends on what color the surface is reflecting. If we are seeing green color frog, the color we see is the light reflected off of the surface of the frog's skin perceived by our eyes. If we are seeing a yellow fruit, the surface of the fruit reflects the color yellow. If some surface absorbs everything, then we perceive it as black color (synonymous to darkness). If some surface reflects everything then it is perceived as white color (synonymous to light). So what this line is actually telling us is "Lead me from the state of absorbing everything to the state of reflecting everything", meaning, lead me to a state of being a witness to everything that's happening in the world. 

This is definitely a prayer that we all need

Discipline - Creating constants in a day

People associate discipline with time. Actually discipline has nothing to do with time. Discipline is all about three things. Effortlessness, Support and Perfection. If you do a task everyday in the exact same way, in course of time it will become effortless and you get so attached to the task that it will also become your support. This will eventually lead to perfection. 

We go through several things each day in our modern world and it will be a good idea to keep atleast few tasks in a day that will never change, that will act as a support in times of crunch. This is extremely hard, but it can also be a pillar of support once achieved. The so called people who are great at embracing changes definitely have few constants in a day. 

We are living in a world of instant food, instant result, instant gratification. So there is a sense of urgency created in our brain that will keep us away from discipline. Because this will take time and consistent effort. And we are not able to even handle simple pressures in life. We are waiting for a bus, bus takes few more minutes, we will check our phone 10 times. We are waiting in traffic, we will listen to the traffic news on radio or look at the alternate routes. We are watching a series and the first episode ends in a suspense, we cannot stop. We have to keep watching. The instant result culture created by the technology is preventing us from having  lasting friendships, lasting relationships etc. Keep atleast few tasks constant that we can do every single day that can eventually become our support

Character and Self respect

I believe that endurance builds character and the reasoning that you develop in your mind for that endurance becomes your self-respect. And that self-respect is what brings clarity/humbleness in speech. Based on the circumstances that you are facing in your life, sometimes you may have to endure a lot of things. You have to develop a certain reasoning in your mind to develop that endurance. It’s not at all easy. 

Different people develop different kinds of reasoning based on their brought up, circumstances or compulsions they are living in, or the kind of knowledge they have or acquired over the period of their life. Sometimes, reading about history or knowing about what’s happening around us can certainly help in developing that reasoning in your mind. The drive for this reasoning is that you need it because without that you have no endurance and without endurance you cannot live. So the desire to live creates purpose (or even the other way, purpose creates the desire to live) that will help us build the reasoning that will lead to developing endurance towards what we are going through in life

For example “I am living a life based on dharma” can certainly be a reason to develop that endurance. It need not always be based on a philosophy. Lets take the case of a janitor, if they think that they are creating a healthy environment for people to live, that itself will create a purpose in their life, which in turn creates the reasoning for endurance

Bring your day back to life

We keep seeing people and asking them "how are you", "whats up" etc. and most of the times we are used to giving responses like, "fine", "going on" etc and some other mediocre answers. 

The life that we have every day is the microcosm of our entire life or Our entire life is the macrocosm of our every day life. If you observe your everyday life and see what you feel about it. Most probably thats exactly what you feel about your life

So the overall outlook of your life will change if you are really interested and excited about your daily life. This is the secret. So if you really want to improve your life, improve your everyday

We dont go out on Fridays

Me and my daughter (she is 12 yrs old) sometimes play this game. The game is to take a simple line and make something very interesting out of it. I keep telling her that extraordinary things can come out of ordinary if you think deeper. So the line we picked was "we dont go out on Fridays"

Her version

On fridays me and my family never go out. Its not because of exhaustion. Its definitely not because of laziness. Why do we need to go out every weekend scouring for something that gives us happiness when there is one thing we bond over at home. TV. Sitting on our comfy couch, eating our favorite food, legs up, cuddled in a warm and soft blanket, watching and bonding over our favorite TV shows. What better way to unwind than spending quality time with our loved ones. Questioning every character, making funny jokes, having our family share every moment of it with us, and most importantly being able to relate to each other. All of our differences come together to share this one wholesome moment

My version

Our body and mind try to compensate each other to bring balance at the end of each day. For example if your mind feels happy, your body will jump up and down creating exhaustion thus creating balance. One friday I thought, why create a balance. I want to be high all the time. So if your mind feels high, make your body still. Dont make much noice. You will feel more high and it continues. Since friday is the day our mind feels high, we dont go out on fridays

Costco - The joy of abundance

I love shopping at costco. There is so much joy seeing everything in abundance. We all suffer from an issue of not knowing how much we want in life. Since our mind cannot accept uncertainty in any aspect, whenever we see anything in abundance, its such a joy. We all love abundance of food in our homes, funds in our bank, friends in our circle, love in our heart.

There is an important thing that needs to be observed. Whenever we experience joy, it makes it easier for us to do things. For example, if you love travelling and you have a travel planned, the joy of looking forward to that travel will give us an energy boost to do hard things, things we have been accumulating or the things that we have been postponing, losing some of that energy in the process. We still may not feel the losing of the energy, since the joy of looking forward continuosly generates life energy. So if you really observe the only thing that we really need in abundance is the energy with which we live. It creates positivity around us

Each of us have multiple different sources of energy. Some might feel happy singing/listening, or playing an instrument, or travelling, or even learning or whatever that we do, not because we have to do it, but because we want to do it. Thats the key to the abundance. Lets all start doing things that accumulate life energy and experience the joy of abundant life.

Affirmation gods

Every line that we say out loud will get registered in the universe. Every time we say the line, it will get registered. The more times a line is registered with the universe, the more compelling the universe will feel to act on the line. So it is very important for us to watch what we speak out loud. In our childhood days, our parents and grand parents used to call that phenomenon affirmation gods. They used to say that the primary and the only responsibility of these affirmation gods is to keep listening to what you say out loud and grant whatever you ask for. So now the responsibility lies with us that we have to be careful while asking. 

These apply to every line that we say every single day. We keep hearing these lines frequently from kids or adults. "Leave me alone", "I want some me time", "Go away", "I don't want to talk about it" etc etc. Now-a-days, for people these may not seem like a big deal, but we may not realize the impact of these lines while we are saying. They are getting registered

Sometimes I feel that if every kid in the world stops saying the line "leave me alone" there wouldn't have been that many divorces happening in the world. Or if every adult stops saying, I want some me time, may be we wouldn't have got a pandemic like covid which is a complete "me" time. Or if people stops saying "I don't want to talk about it", may be everybody would have been blessed with good friends. They wouldn't have to take the help of external stimulants to feel better in difficult situations. If you notice, every small line that we say has an effect that we may not immediately realize. Let's take another example, if somebody asks how are you and in response we say "fine" or "going on", or some mediocre answer. We have to remember that it's getting registered that many times. Eventually your day/life will become mediocre. But if we say "excellent", "going very well" etc the same thing will get registered and eventually your life will improve if it's not already excellent.

When I was kid, a small boy used to come to our house. He used to say that he always wanted to keep his mouth clean. He wouldn't even say one line that has a negative affirmation. He was very reluctant to even say slightly bad words like idiot. He used to tell that instead of saying that word just explain what the other person did wrong in a polite way and what they can do to fix it. 

Let us all cultivate the habit of speaking nice things out loud and contribute to the greater good of the world