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. 

The Secret

In the last few days there has been a major shift in the way I look at life. Importance and impact of living in the present moment has not been more revealing and rewarding. So what changed or what caused this change? Frankly, I don't recall exactly what and why, but want to share my learning here in the hope that someone will benefit just the way I did.


Quite frankly I don't know where I should begin this post. So let me tell you of a book I came across Tim Ferris FB feed. He shared a book by an Indian author Kamal Ravikant; book name was 'Love yourself like your life depends on it'.
Indian Author, 5 star rating to this book and 99 cents download on Amazon, I thought to myself, sure!
What is in the book? Well, just what the title says - love yourself like your life depends on it. I would highly recommend this book to everybody.
The Author has described things he did to get out of rut; to bring changes in his own life; for miracles to work. And believe it or not, those things have definitely helped me get aligned with 'my being' and get 'on track' on my journey to happiness. I don't want to give out more details from this book; it is just some 50 odd pages I think and takes less than an hour to finish. Only advice I can give is keep your mind open and try out some of the things. I am sure you will see a change; anyway there is nothing to loose.

Our minds are busy all the time building false dreams, fear of uncertainties or remembering times of despair, sadness or simply going back memory lanes explaining self, how beautiful life was (which means it is not now or less now) or worse telling what bad things can happen to us.
This chatter has such an impact on our subconscious mind that it creates life patterns and situations that follow the feelings and emotions our thoughts produce. So then, one way is to break those patterns. Correct? And the answer to that is my secret. Actually the secret opens roads wide open to endless possibilities. Bringing 'magic' back to your life, the freedom and innocence and happiness your childhood mind had.

So as you may have guessed secret lies in being in the present moment; being in the now. There are many ways to achieve this not-so-easy task. Such an obvious fix to Life's problems, we may think. But took me this long to figure out. Some people don't even get that chance or opportunity.

And why would you do this? Why would you want to bring about this change? Because of Love! We our this source and it is our very nature. Goes back to the book 'love yourself like your life depends on it'.

The more I talk about this, I feel I am being repetitive. But that is what it is. Every explanation of Life's meaning, findings and truth leads to this simple state of Now.

What is Life? What is our part in this life? I have often been struck by this question.We are born, cared for, get education, make friends, go into relationships, earn big bucks, fulfill dreams of big house, big car, big business, get married, raise kids, get them married, get retired, travel places.
But before we get to each of this, there is so much anxiety, fear of failure, sadness of loss, bad memories.

What if I get to all this sooner than I planned? What if I don't get to this at all?

What I have began to realize is that all this doesn't matter. Because if you want something this Life is going to get you to it anyways. You just need to have the intention. As simple as that. Then what's the fear about? What's the hurry?
Problem is like I said before. The mind has so much fear, worry, sorrow and negativity going on already, the universe thinks, that is what you want and gives it back to you.

Living in the present moment has taught me many things I want to share. 

• Life's achievement is how you can make your life simple. Sacredness lies in simplicity. 
• Happiness is in 'mindful' living. Mindful - as in present - being in the now.
• Have faith in God - the Life Force - the super being, whatever you want to call it. It knows what is best for you. Surrender to the present moment. 
• Meditate to connect to the innermost magical Life force. Feel the connection to the Universe. 
• It is not easy to change the habits; you will be bogged down and will go through tons of emotions. It's OK, just part of the process. 
• Find abundance in all small things you would otherwise ignore. 

I would love to continue writing but got to go. But I will continue to share my experiences and how I learn to make these changes.