New year Wishes

We are all good people. We all have good intentions and always want to do good things to people and in general. In the process of living our life, we might have some screw-ups. If we don't fix the screw-up right away, they turn into something big. For example, if we had a trouble or a fight with a friend or a relation, if we don't fix it right away, it might turn into something big. Similarly if we want to do a certain thing and have been postponing it, it will become increasingly difficult with time to accomplish the same thing. These kind of screw-ups require great deal of energy to fix

Even though, we have all the good intentions in the world, sometimes we lack that little push. Sometimes the energy we have may not be enough to give that push to accomplish a certain thing. As the things grow, we tend to give up and start looking for a fresh start. The many special days and festivals we have will give us that necessary boost to do the right thing

New year is one of the best occasions that will keep giving us chances for a fresh start and a boost of energy. It gives us an opportunity along with a fresh start and a new hope to push ourselves to do the right thing, to fix the screw-ups, to complete the things that we have been postponing

I wish this new year gives all of us the necessary boost of energy to build better relationships, to work a little more harder towards prosperity, to live a little more disciplined life towards better health, to pray/meditate to get us a little more closer to god and all the necessary push to move towards our overall well-being

A Very Happy New Year 

Boring Routines

Most of the people live their life with a standard routine. People looking from outside might call it boring. For all those people, I would like to say a few words. Whenever you are really enjoying something, you cannot think of anything else. You will not be even conscious about whats happening while you are really enjoying. If you are thinking about something else, you really are not completely in the moment. Not completely enjoying the current moment you are in

People living the so called boring/routine life do not think of anything else. They are so happy with their routines that they don't even want to think about anything else. First of all they wont even remember to think of anything else

People who always think of vacations and going somewhere else, escaping from these routines are the ones who are not happy with their life. They have no right to challenge the people living a routine life. Be thankful and be blessed that you have a routine life

Real beauty of a house

The real beauty of a house doesn't depend on how big or spacious it is or how beautifully it is decorated or how much furniture it has, but it depends on the number of people in the house who are ready to work and serve without taking turns or looking for turns

ThanksGiving

One of the best things anyone can give or receive is thanks. It makes you feel that you are surrounded by a universe that cares for you. Giving thanks is a blessing that everyone should have that will make us celebrate all the care we receive and acknowledge that we are never alone irrespective of what we go through in life. This is one of the very few tools in life that can fill our heart with gratitude.

The culture of celebrating thanksgiving has an interesting aspect. The transition from the season of putting efforts to the season of reaping its benefits will remind us every single time that the efforts will never go waste. And giving thanks at this time, will keep us grounded irrespective of the results achieved for the efforts we have put in over time, and will also keep us humbled for the resources we are going to enjoy. Both aspects of this culture will let us master the cycle of efforts and results, resulting in a true gratitude that we can share with the world around us and contribute to its well being

Morals for the new age

The morals in the world have to be changed from time to time during the course of evolution. Every generation needs a new set of morals to maintain their course of life without much deviations. Earlier people/religions have created concepts of heaven and hell, virtue and sin. But the current generation don't even understand those or they think why they have to worry about something that will happen after they die. Why cant we have something for living? And regarding virtue and sin, the lines are blurring between them for a long time now. In a way people have slowly started living in the moment than what was previously perceived. 

In this age of advanced and more present thinking will there be any concept of moral that we can think of, to teach our kids, that will be imprinted in their brain and will help them in maintaining their course in life, not deviating much from the so called good. I realized we need a new set of morals. Then came to the rescue is "law of karma". I am a very strong believer of karma. Whatever you do, comes back to you. Either good or bad. 100%. There are absolutely no exceptions. If I imprint this concept in my kids brain, atleast they will be careful when dealing with other people. 

I kept thinking, this covers for the societal living,  but how can I create a moral that will prevent them from causing any self harm. Is there any such thing?. Unfortunately the tools we still have in our society are based on fear. May be thats why people are literally flocking to the places of worship. But its all about creating a moral without fear. whats the point of having fear in morals as well

This made me think about beautiful/meaningful relationships. Relationships are what keeps us going in life. How much ever we feel that sometimes we want to stay alone, but we all long for good and meaningful relationships. They are the ones that weaves the fabric of our friends, families and eventually societies keeping us safe and creating a feeling that our life is completely not ours and we are absolutely ok with that. So its rather not a moral thats required but beautiful, meaningful and long lasting relationships

Piece of joy

I have been looking for the following words (given by a very learned person) for a long time. Finally found them. Didnt want to miss them again. So sharing here

 

You are not accidental. Existence needs you. Without you something will be missing in existence and nobody can replace it. That's what gives you dignity, that the whole existence will miss you. The stars and sun and moon, the trees and birds and earth - everything in the universe will feel a small place is vacant which cannot be filled by anybody except you. This gives you a tremendous joy, a fulfillment that you are related to existence, and existence cares for you. Once you are clean and clear, you can see tremendous love falling on you from all dimensions

Person at the waves

Today after a long time, I went to a beach. It is such a beautiful sight to see the waves and the people playing and having so much fun around the waves. It is science that waves in an ocean are influenced by several external factors like wind speed, direction, moonlight etc. Some waves are pleasant and some can knock you down. But the person next to the waves always enjoys them irrespective of how pleasant or strong the waves can be.

Then I thought every person is a like an ocean. We have so many waves in the form of feelings. Sometimes we are happy, sometimes we are sad which are influenced by several external factors. Some are pleasant to the person next to us and some can be real hard that can knock them down. Imagine we have a friend or our life partner enjoying the waves irrespective of how pleasant or how hard they are, just like the person at the waves. It will be a beautiful sight/life

Have a big enough jar for all your pennies

In this current state of constantly changing world, we all keep looking for stability. In the process of gaining stability, sometimes we feel that our resources are getting wasted, our time and energies are getting wasted. I would like to talk about a phenomenon that used to happen in our previous generation (my dad's). They used to buy a house soon after either getting a job or getting married. They used to pay for the mortgage through out their job life. By the time they retire, the house value used to grow enough to save them from any financial hardship. Imagine an investment big enough rightly made and contributed through out your life and benefitting you by the time you retire

The current world and life is different. For example, if you join a job, you want to prove yourself, you work really hard. You become a key person getting involved in multiple things. But let's say if you have to change your job, you have to start from scratch all over again. Whatever you did was gone and you have to start from scratch. Let's take another example, you moved to a community, you worked really hard and made so many friends. Everything is going well. Let's say due to some circumstances you have to move to a different community far away from the current one, then you have to start from scratch, work really hard, make friends again and this cycle continues as long as the world around you is changing. Similarly you are in a relationship. You have spent a lot of time. Suddenly if you have to part ways from your current relationship, you have to start from scratch. 

Every time you keep putting all your pennies into a jar. But the problem is that the jar was not big enough to hold all your pennies. If you consider the above examples, imagine a job which you don't have to leave, imagine a community or a relationship that you don't have to part ways with. Then you would have found THE jar that's big enough. Choose your aspects of life wisely before putting any efforts. Imagine your life if you have a dream that's worth your life. That's the biggest jar you can ever get

Coffee - A new idea for satsang

When you feel happy meeting or interacting with somebody, a positive energy is created in the process that will spread in the vicinity. people coming into that vicinity will also feel that positive energy. Similarly when you don't feel happy meeting or interacting with somebody a negative energy is created that is spread and people around them feel the negativity. For example, when parents fight with each other, kids around them feel sad. 

Our elders used to advice us to meet and spend time with good/noble people. They called it satsang. The idea was that in earlier days good people are synonymous with happy people. As days passed by, the word satsang is still in existence. But if we keep waiting for good people/happy people then we might keep waiting for a long time. So we may have to redefine the word satsang as well. Satsang - Is it meeting happy people or meeting people happily. If we get into the latter habit then whoever we meet, it would be a satsang meaning we will meet them happily and in the process a positive energy is created that spreads.  But it may not be possible to always meet happily whoever and whenever we meet. 

The idea is you need not always meet a person right. you can meet coffee or a book or whatever makes you feel happy. If you are sad meet coffee, it makes you happy. If you are happy, meet coffee and it feels happy. what other better satsang you can find. 

Put more life into life

If I have to explain the concept of nirvana or god in a few words, it's like you are standing on a platform. God is right in front of you. But imagine a train with infinite compartment coaches is crossing the platform and is the only thing that's stopping you from seeing god. Now you have to wait for the train to leave which may not happen. So there are 2 ways to see the god. Either make the train slow down so that if you focus, you can see god during the gap between the coaches, or you start running at the speed of the train so that you can identify the gap between the coaches and if you maintain that speed with focus on the gap then you will be able to see God. 

So if you think of the compartment coaches as thoughts, the first way is to slowdown your thought process which is what they will teach if you attend any yoga camp or a meditation camp. But I would say, start running to match the speed of the train. Doing things as soon as you think of them. At the speed of thought. Living a lot more life, trying out a lot more things, having a lot more life experiences, that's putting more life into life.

Hold the stillness

I am not sure if the title makes sense. If something is still, why do you need to hold it. We need to hold it because we want to be still and not because it is not moving. 

In our life, we always tend to prefer things that dont change (basically still). We already do that. What kind of friends we have, friends who always behave the same way, means no change. What kind of people we want to talk to when we are in trouble, ones that we can count on, how we can count on, because they dont change that much. When do you think, we can settle down in a relationship, when we understood all the possible changes in the other person. Which means after that they dont have any changes as far as we are concerned. So in life, we tend to stick with things that are still (not changing or when we know all the possible changes, which kinda makes it not changing) 

This is our natural way of living. But we tend to deviate from this path by choosing change because we get bored. The line "change is the only constant thing in life" has become famous because we are forcing this upon us that we have to get used to the change when our natural way of living is stillness. 

So if we stick to our natural way, we can do great things. 

Add how to all your doubts

We keep having so many questions in our life like will I make it? will I be happy in life? will I be successful? etc etc. Those are not the right questions we need to ask ourselves. We just need to add how in front of all those questions. How will I make it? How will I be happy in life? How will I be successful? 

This will narrow down the list of choices for us that will get us going in life. 

Car - The new head of the family

In earlier days, there used to be a concept called "head of the family". The idea behind that is, apart from him/her being the only earning member, that person used to be the member with the most wisdom and who cares for the well being of the others. Gradually this concept faded away as every person has their own jobs, ideas, way of life and thinking. Earlier the idea was that the head of the family used to keep everyone together, inspire them to follow the same path, protect them from external influences and keep them safe. In this modern age, this is an extremely difficult task just for one person

Now imagine the car. In this age of varied thinking, independent thought processes, life styles and personal freedom, Car is able to bring all the members of the family together, trying to move them together in the same direction, protect them from outside noise, weather etc. (imagine playing light music in the car while there is a big thunderstorm outside), try to keep everybody safe. Who else can achieve all these in this time and age. So as time went by, Car emerged as the new head of the family