Don't give up

With practice, you come to realize that our life experiences relate directly to our psychological wellness, habitual consciousness and our understanding of the purpose of life. Practicing meditation takes you closer to your inner self and makes way to live life with the higher understanding and maturity.    

However, many times we tend to go back to the old patterns of crying and wining and worrying i.e. shifting attention from 'now' to that unreal moments of 'what ifs' or 'whys'. Our lives and minds are trained to go back to the relentless circle of worry, regrets, chaos, sadness, fear. Being on the path of spiritual awakening can be a continuous struggle. But don't give up. 

When the world says, ‘Give up,’ Hope whispers, ‘Try it one more time.’ ~ Unknown. 

There are so many energy flows around us that can cause us to sway away to the 'easy mind trick' to go back to the comfortable and those familiar feelings of anxiety and helplessness. One of the things I have noticed to influence me is the health of the body. Hunger, thirst and lack of sleep seem to be obvious reasons but are easily ignored. Attend to the health of the body. 
Negative influences and or people who always complain or never find time to talk about good things. If possible we could try and talk to them to help them know their true potential. But until you get to yours and if they are affecting your progress, better to avoid them.
Believe it or not but full moons and new moons can cause enough energy to make you loose 'your center'. Ever felt restless for no reason? Check the lunar calendar :)
And of course hormones! Do I say more? 

Know that you can get back to your inner core as quickly as your next breath. Breath-in to connect to the Life Source and breath-out and relax all the thoughts that cross your mind. By nature, we are at peace. We are full of love. We have got a small shot at life (earthly life, don't know what is after). Live every now and breath every moment. Separate out the situations you are in, from your true nature. Whatever are those situations, be present.
If you know the situation that you are in will continue for some more time, will you wait to be happy after it changes? Then it may be your whole lifetime because you are trusting your mind to decide if you are happy; and mind keeps changing the definition of happiness with situations.

"The meaning of life is to find your gift, the purpose of life is to give it away."
~Joy J. Golliver

This post is mainly to say that Life's gift is right next to overcoming small barriers. Don't give up. 

Meditation - what to expect

Meditation is the ability to be in a state of awareness which is beyond place, whats going on around you, thoughts in your mind and beyond time. With practice, you have the ability to meditate anytime and any place. This meditative state is inherent to everyone of us. But gets lost somewhere amidst the train of thoughts approaching and leaving our mind.

The whole idea is to focus on one thing such that you stop the flow of thoughts and completely relax and get connected to the inner stillness. It could be looking at an object while concentrating on the breath. Somebody told me how cooking was meditative to her as it relaxed and calmed her mind. In the Art of Living Silent course, there was a meditation session that used physical pain to focus. For some people it is praying and chanting while for others it is cooking or exercising or going out for a walk. Everything is a theory, so if something works for you, go with it.

How do I meditate?
I usually start with Art of living short Kriya or the last breathing rounds. That way I am able to relax and become aware of the thoughts. I imagine 'me' as a being who is beyond the thoughts and just acknowledge any thought that comes to my mind. I can listen to the silence around me. Then I use one of this below techniques.
Become aware that you are in a room, which is part of the house, your parking lot, your city, all trees you saw during your walks in the parks, the mountains. You then slowly move your awareness of your being in the country, the other side of the earth, the relativity to sun, the moon, planets, solar system, galaxies and so on. As I do that, my mind becomes so quite that I feel I am part of the space in the universe.

All this sounds fiction. Isn't it? I am finding it funny as I type this but this is what I do and works for me. I picked this process (or like process) from Love yourself like your life depends on it, by Ravikant. There is a some special power you experience when you imagine yourself being part of the bigger part of this universe.
I keep my mind focused on my breath all the time.
Sometimes I try the other way round, where I imagine my whole body, the organs, blood, the cells, the particles in the cell and so on till I get to the electrons. That energy, the space between those particles. I feel part of that.

Do I get cut out from everything in this state?
Not at all. I don't know about others, but I don't. I can still hear if my phone rings. I can still hear if the water tap next to my room is opened. But I am relaxed to a point where I just want to continue breathing. I just want to continue observing the stillness, the quietness. The breath is so slow, like a baby.

How can I make use of meditation other than the time I actually sit to meditate?
Well, its the honey you have tasted. You have been in touch with the innermost core of yourself; which I have believed to be love.
As I breath in, I tell myself how much I love myself and think of the meditative state I know of. As I breath out, if there were any other thoughts I say 'OK'. I know I don't have to deal with them at that time. But I don't want to stop them either.

What is the Success Rate of this whole process?
There are times I sit for 1/2 hour and I feel I was in there for 5 minutes. Other times I sit for 5 minutes and I feel it is 1/2 hour.
The success depends on how much you work hard. No, no. You don't need to work hard to meditate; in fact it should be just the opposite; effortless. The effort is in getting yourself to spare some time of your day to meditate; those 10 minutes you want to invest on yourself. To leave the bed of laziness and sit on the floor of meditation.

It was challenging for me to make meditation as a everyday process. I still don't get time everyday. I had promised myself that I would make it regular and used to get very disappointed if I missed a schedule. But with practice, I am learning that we don't have to be over critical to ourselves. Just listen to the moment. Make sure you have a comfortable and quite place to meditate and the will to. If not, no point wasting time, you rather do something else.

The power of being in the moment of 'now' is magical. If I struggle and keep getting distracted, I simply observe the frustration and my reaction to that situation. And slowly I am learning that this process can be applied to everything in life. Every situation, emotion, interactions, likes, dislikes, communication and so on.

Key is to keep the light of life alive through love and being in the now. Through meditation or other ways. It could be thanking small things in life, awareness meditation where you focus on everything you do like while eating, taste the food, bite every piece of food. Be aware of every moment like walking, hugging someone, talking and so on. Observing the trees and birds when you go out for a walk. Watch a baby laugh or cry.
Nature gives us all the opportunities; we just need to be present. 

Photoshop - Learning and Practice

Learned to add vector-mask to remove a person/thing from an image. Always wondered how it can be done easily without the lasso tool. Can be easily done using brush and vector-mask. 

Reflection - Photoshop practice

Photoshop - Learning and Practice - Lomo Effect

Original image

Photo with lomo effect

What is lomo effect - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomography
Usually photos with dark vignettes, blurs, focus and bright colors.

Photoshop Practice and Learning - Painted Look

Duplicate image and to each layer add filter for brush strokes. Learned to add adjustment layers for different effects that applies across all the layers.
Tutorial - http://www.inspiks.com/create-a-painted-poster-using-photoshop-filters/

Photoshop Practice & Learning - Cinematic Effect

Learnt Overlays, add noise, filters, depth
Tutorials from Ebin - Digital media, tutorial, Mac & iPhone and lots of fun stuffs!