Mistakes

A jug fills drop by drop.

--Buddha

I think that every person is in their own growth state, each takes his/her own time to learn and grow. So we need to respect that fact and allow nature to teach him/her or if we can help we should help and encourage him/her to grow. And I think it is very natural that we may be childish and immature during the growth state where we may commit mistakes without proper understanding or reasoning. Every person commits mistakes. It would be a miracle to find a person who has not made any mistakes in his life.

Committing a mistake is just one side of the coin; it has meaning only when you consider the other side – realising your mistake and correcting it - else it remains as black dots in your journey.

But once we have progressed in life towards a state of understanding, realizing or more mature thinking, it is important for us to introspect deeply about the mistakes that we have committed and if it can be fixed it should be fixed. One should make sure that he does not take it negatively and blame himself, because this will only damage his progress, instead he needs to take it in the right perspective and move ahead.

This is the positive side of mistakes, if a person realizes his mistakes truly and can change himself to become a better person then the learning that he gets from the mistakes he has committed becomes his wisdom.

Past is past, we cannot change the past. But we can change our future to become pure souls, better human beings by moving towards Divinity. Choice is yours!!!

Authored by GANDHARV

Photosource : courtesy blog.caplin.com/2011/07/27/the-psychology-of-ux-part-3/ ,Vanessa 

Intelligence

Seek Within,

You are the emblem of peace,

You are the ocean of love,

You are the fountain of bliss,

You are intelligence.



You can ask a question about something only when you know about it. If you don’t know anything about it what question can you ask? This is the state of unknowing. Knowledge takes you from state of unknowing to knowing.

Never fear or worry if you don’t know something, because you have immense potential and power in you to know and learn whatever you want in life.

Knock and the door to knowing will open for you. There is nothing that can stop you from understanding. Understanding is the basis and fundamental essence which gives meaning to life. Without understanding we are as good as any inanimate object.


"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
-Matthew 7:7-8

Authored by GANDHARV


Photosource : courtesy Elena Ray

Tree of Knowledge

The Tree of Life

You, the human race are the best of my creations,

You will live and live,

And give and give till you are untied,

In happiness and pain!

My bliss will be born in you,

Love is a continuum,

That is the mission of humanity,

You will see every day in the Life Tree.

You learn and learn,

My best of creations.

---APJ ABDUL KALAM

Life is the biggest teacher.

When learning stops, you stop growing. You start to lag behind. You start to get frustrated with limited thought pattern. You start to lose interest and feel everything boring. You start to become dull. You start to become depressed. You don’t feel freshness in life.

There is no age limit for learning. Love learning, experiment, always be in learning mode. Learning should be a lifelong companion. Think that you are a student of life. Never have “I know everything” attitude.

Don’t learn for the sake of learning. Don’t try to compete with others. Learn because you want to learn and evolve. Learn because you want to truly understand about the subject at hand. Take your own time but learn it. Understand that each person is in his own stage of learning. So respect everyone. There will be something to learn from everyone. Each person is unique by himself.

Start the day by praying and with a thought to learn something new.

Learning is growth. It is very important for us to realize that there is learning in everything. Every struggle and situation you come across in life has something to teach. Learn it. There are 2 ways you can look at these situations

1. Grumbling, blaming and making noise about what happened and not learning.

2. Trying to see the positive aspect and inner workings, learning from them and moving ahead. You are the owner of your life and your life path depends on the choices you make. It is up to you to choose.

There is a Chinese proverb I remember “learning is a treasure that follows its owner everywhere”.

A wise man is one who uses all his energy towards growing and becoming an evolved being.

THINK ABOUT IT!!!!!!

Authored by GANDHARV

Photo source: courtsey http://themachoresponse.blogspot.com

Self- Knowledge Simplified

Meditation is the first step in the path of realization of self, realization of GOD and being in touch with the soul. This is the path to Enlightenment.

When the person’s awareness level is at SOUL, then the person is said to be an Awakened person, a Complete Man- A person who remembers everything about himself ( about all his lives) and his connections with everyone and everything. This entire process of realizing or becoming aware of his true nature is Realization of the Self. This is Self-Knowledge. After this a person can become aware of his true connections with the Creator. And the process of realizing GOD or CREATOR is known as Realization of GOD. After all these a person is said to be liberated Soul. Such a person is out of the cycle of life and death, a person who has gone beyond life and death by decoding the secret of himself. Such a person is called Enlightened being. This is also known as Nirvana or Moksha or Liberation or Enlightenment.

Evolution-Growth- Knowledge, Self-Realization, GOD Realization, Our Connections (with everyone, universe) are the four important fundamental things that a person should explore in life. Only then can a person truly can know himself the TRUTH of reality and existence. 

Authored by GANDHARV

Fable of the Porcupine

Have you ever seen a baby porcupine?

It was the coldest winter ever. Many animals died because of the cold. The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided  to group together. This way they covered and protected  themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest  companions even though they gave off heat to each other.


After a while, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of  their companions or disappear from the Earth. Wisely,  they decided to go back to being together. This way they learned to live with the little wounds that were caused by the  close relationship with their companion, but the most  important part of it was the heat that came from the others.This way they were able to survive.


The best relationship is not the one that brings  together perfect people, but the best is when each individual  learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities.

The Moral of the story:

 LEARN TO LOVE THE PRICKS IN YOUR LIFE!

The Eagle-an interesting, beautiful story!

Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes.It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinary results. 

When it rains, most birds head for shelter; the eagle is the only 

bird that, in order to avoid the rain, starts flying above the cloud.

Source:Mail

Seven secrets of success

Every thing depends on how you PERCEIVE and ACT

                                                                           --GANDHARV

Photo source : Mail

Break Your Boundaries

You are not limited,

You are unlimited,

There is a way,

Find it.

Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding and examine deep so that you don’t miss anything. Only by knowing can you get freedom from unknowing, it is like a light that clears the darkness in the room.

Freedom is the very nature of our being, whatever stands against that freedom must be set aside, be it belief or superstition or limitation in any form. It is our birthright to know the Truth of our existence. It is very important for us to understand our true roots and nature. We have to realize and awaken our true unlimited potential. We have to have that burning desire to learn and explore. Everything can be mastered but you should have true burning desire to learn.

What is certain? Everything looks uncertain and unclear…And the uncertainty becomes certain only when we explore the unknown territories of that uncertainty. Only Truth is certain. Go for it!

Authored by GANDHARV

Determination & Persistence

BROOKLYN BRIDGE

              BROOKLYN BRIDGE

In 1883, a creative engineer named John Roebling was inspired by an idea to build a spectacular bridge connecting New York with the Long Island. However bridge building experts throughout the world thought that this was an impossible feat and told Roebling to forget the idea. It just could not be done. It was not practical. It had never been done before.

Roebling could not ignore the vision he had in his mind of this bridge. He thought about it all the time and he knew deep in his heart that it could be done. He just had to share the dream with someone else. After much discussion and persuasion he managed to convince his son Washington, an up and coming engineer, that the bridge in fact could be built.

Working together for the first time, the father and son developed concepts of how it could be accomplished and how the obstacles could be overcome. With great excitement and inspiration, and the headiness of a wild challenge before them, they hired their crew and began to build their dream bridge.

The project started well, but when it was only a few months underway a tragic accident on the site took the life of John Roebling. Washington was injured and left with a certain amount of brain damage, which resulted in him not being able to walk or talk or even move.

"We told them so."

"Crazy men and their crazy dreams."

"It`s foolish to chase wild visions."

Everyone had a negative comment to make and felt that the project should be scrapped since the Roeblings were the only ones who knew how the bridge could be built. In spite of his handicap Washington was never discouraged and still had a burning desire to complete the bridge and his mind was still as sharp as ever.

He tried to inspire and pass on his enthusiasm to some of his friends, but they were too daunted by the task. As he lay on his bed in his hospital room, with the sunlight streaming through the windows, a gentle breeze blew the flimsy white curtains apart and he was able to see the sky and the tops of the trees outside for just a moment.

It seemed that there was a message for him not to give up. Suddenly an idea hit him. All he could do was move one finger and he decided to make the best use of it. By moving this, he slowly developed a code of communication with his wife. He touched his wife's arm with that finger, indicating to her that he wanted her to call the engineers again. Then he used the same method of tapping her arm to tell the engineers what to do. It seemed foolish but the project was under way again.

For 13 years Washington tapped out his instructions with his finger on his wife's arm, until the bridge was finally completed. Today the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge stands in all its glory as a tribute to the triumph of one man's indomitable spirit and his determination not to be defeated by circumstances. It is also a tribute to the engineers and their teamwork, and to their faith in a man who was considered mad by half the world. It stands too as a tangible monument to the love and devotion of his wife who for 13 long years patiently decoded the messages of her husband and told the engineers what to do.

Perhaps this is one of the best examples of a never-say-die attitude that overcomes a terrible physical handicap and achieves an impossible goal.

Often when we face obstacles in our day-to-day life, our hurdles seem very small in comparison to what many others have to face. The Brooklyn Bridge shows us that dreams that seem impossible can be realised with determination and persistence, no matter what the odds are.

Even the most distant dream can be realized with determination and persistence.

Source: I came across this on mail, thought everyone should read....

Mother Nature

She's Alive.....Complex..... Beautiful... Finite... Hurting... Worth Dying for.

4 Pointers To Believe In AFTER LIFE -There is always life after life.

This post is meant for people who are scared about death, for thinkers and for anyone who wants to enquire, learn and grow in life. This post should be treated as an outline pointer and it is left to each individual to experiment and find out the truth for himself.

1. Bhagavad Gita: As everyone knows that this is one of the most sacred texts of Hindus, written some five thousand years ago. A book that has stood the test of time for more than five thousand years itself shows the importance and greatness of the book. One of the scared wisdom it teaches is about Soul or Atma or the spirit that embodies the body. Let me quote few texts from it relating to our topic of discussion -

“Just as the embodied soul experiences the different states of the body like the childhood, adulthood and old age, so will it acquire another body after death. Learned person are never deluded about this”

“The bodies are for the soul just like clothes are for us. Just as we discard worn garments the soul discards worn out bodies and accepts new one”

For those who have not read this epic, this is a must read book at least once in your life time.

2.  Past Life Therapy: In past life therapy we move backward in time and place where the original event has occurred. This can be achieved through hypnosis, guided imagery, or other states of deep relaxation where memories that are normally unconscious can be accessed. Here a therapist guides a person and takes him to deep relaxed state and helps him/her to review past lifetime.

It is mentioned in Upanishads and discussed in detail in Yoga sutras of Patanjali. Patanjali called the process of past life regression as Prati-prasav which means “Reverse birthing”.

Although past life regression dates back to 4th Century BC when Patanjali instructed how past lives can be recalled through meditation, it made a comeback in modern times around 20th century with Albert de Rochas, a French colonel who practiced hypnotism. Dick Sutphen, an American past life regression therapist popularized its use in 60’s. Raymond Moody, author of Life after Life and Coming Back, French educator Allan Kardec author of the book Heaven and Hell, Brian L. Weiss, a prominent psychiatrist, author of best-selling book Many Lives, Many Masters and many other eminent psychiatrists have written and spoken about this.

3. Child prodigy cases: There are so many child prodigy cases where a small kid remember his past life times and skills that he has learnt in his past life.

4. Meditation:  For those who have gone deep within themselves know or remember their past lives. This is truly one way to remember all the wisdom that a person has accumulated in all his lives. A person who comes in touch with his soul can remember all his lives.

One may think why bother about what happens when we die or why think about after-life?

To answer this question, let us understand how this knowledge can change our thinking pattern -

• The greatest fear of an old person is death. Once you realize that there is no death, fear of death disappears.
•  You may start to ponder or think about Karma, life and its working. Why some people suffer while some people don’t. How everything is linked? You may start to enquire about spiritual laws that govern creation.
•  You start to give more importance to things that are eternal.
•   The maturity that comes with knowledge can change your life forever.

To understand the true meaning of life, life should be viewed as a whole else you will miss the bigger picture of life.

By watching few clips of a movie can you understand the full movie?

Think about it. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photo source: courtesy :http://photobucket.com/images/reincarnation/

Authored by GANDHARV

Self Created Cage

If you clearly examine our present times, people are fancied by the idea of becoming rich, gaining power and having popularity. But in reality all these ideas are created by whom?

All these are created by the people and now they are chasing their own fancied ideas.

Does the pursuit of these goals have any true meaning?

Is this life?

Is it worth wasting our valuable life chasing artificially created desires?

When we were born we had nothing. We came empty handed. When we die we will have nothing. We go empty handed. And in this short life the basic necessity that a person requires is food to fill his stomach, few clothes to cover his body, a small place to live. Keeping apart what people's beliefs are if you see in reality these are the only few basic essential requirements that a person requires for his survival.

Why should we not live in contentment with just enough to fulfill reasonably the few needs imposed by nature, devoting the time we could save thereby to the acquirement of assets of a permanent nature, which would be with us forever, a lasting ornament to the unchanging eternal Self in us instead of serving merely to glorify the flesh?

The real measure of a man's wealth is what he has invested in eternity

Think about it.

Is this all there is to life - going to work, making money, eating, watching TV and sleeping?

Or is there some thing we are missing or we are not seeing and we are ignorant.

What is the difference between us and animals then? Are we not living blindly like animals in our self created cage?

Photo source: courtesy h.koppdelaney @ flickr.com

Authored by GANDHARV

           

Stress Buster

Simple Technique to calm your mind. Every effective stress buster.


The technique mentioned below acts as a foundation for all other breathing techniques. This technique is also called slow deep breathing or full breathing or complete breathing.


Sit comfortably in a cross-legged position on the floor or lie flat on your back in the Corpse pose. Place a cushion under the buttocks if you need more support when sitting on the floor. Hands may be relaxed by the sides or you may place one hand on the abdomen and the other on the rib cage to check that you are breathing correctly. Inhaling slowly through the nose, feel the abdomen expand first, then the rib cage, and finally feel the air filling the upper chest. Your abdomen will automatically be drawn in as the ribs move out and chest expands. Slowly exhale, emptying the lungs from top to bottom. Your shoulders and head should stay essentially in the same position throughout; don't raise your shoulders on the inhale or slouch forward on the exhalation. Your inhalation and exhalation should be about the same length of time. Do not hold your breath either at the top or the bottom of the breath but make the transition smooth. Repeat five times.  


Benefits: This is the technique you will probably use most often to combat the tensions and stress in your life. You can use it anywhere, anytime to calm your mind and help quiet physical responses to stress - rapid heartbeat and breathing, and tense muscles. Use this technique to center yourself before your meditation and before asana practice to make them even more effective.


Note- You can also sit on chair but remember that your back should be straight.

Super-natural

What seems obvious is not always the truth. Often truth lies concealed in the shadows, just out of reach of our keenest gaze.

Everything is Super – natural in its true form, only we are not aware of this.

People have coined the term supernatural since they don’t understand the laws behind it. A farmer who sees a mobile for the first time and comes to know that he can talk with people in distant lands through the mobile it is a supernatural thing for him. He feels it is a miracle. Similarly an advance science can be supernatural. This world is full of mysteries.

What is not a mystery? Birth is mystery. Death is a mystery. Laws that govern are a mystery. Life itself is a mystery.

Gravity always existed before man discovered it and it continues to exist even if man were to forget it. Just like gravity existed even before its discovery, similarly are the laws governing the universe. They exist irrespective of man’s discovery. These laws don’t depend on any person’s belief or perception. They are the building blocks of nature. They bring order in chaos.

Just like there are natural laws similarly there are spiritual laws. Everyone is aware of natural laws up to some extent but very few who have tried and explored the nature of their Self have discovered spiritual laws.

Now you must be wondering what this spiritual law is and why it is necessary for us to seek to know them.

The laws that govern the spirit are known as spiritual laws. It is necessary for us to know them because we are spirit embodied in this body. Our body is just a vehicle. Just like we change our clothes when it is dirty similarly we change our body when the body loses the capacity to hold the spirit or when the spirit finishes its allotted life span in that body. Spirit is also known as soul or atma in a living being. All the knowledge that a soul has learnt in its long journey (many lives) is stored in it. There are ways to access this knowledge. It is for this reason that knowledge of Self is known as Mother of Wisdom or it is also known as Brahmavidya, by realizing which, it changes his/her life forever.


Authored by GANDHARV

Self Excellence

On this path effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure. Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear.

--Bhagavad Gita

Every person goes through different stages of transformation and understanding. Just because a person does not always behave in a mature manner does not mean he is immature and dull. Every person has the power in him to change himself. He has the power in him to learn from his mistakes and implement them in his life. He can become a good person. He can become a pure soul – a holy soul. He has the ability to master himself to self perfection. Self mastery is the key. Meditation is the way. This world is like a playground where we give our best performance from the learning’s that we have acquired in our journey. There is nothing in life which can stop a person from realizing the true potential of what he is.

There is a saying that goes “Anything in life that is really worth is worth working for”. Every person gets what he seeks if he really works towards it. Listed here are a few pointers towards working on self-

1. Listen, keep your mind open to all ideas and what others have to say, reason it and take your own individual decision.
2. Express your thoughts only when required and think clearly before you speak or any action (Action – consequences).
3. Continuous sharpening of communication skills helps to express clearly and put your point across.
4. Consciously self introspecting about the actions and speech and working on building good and noble character traits.
5. Don’t advice until asked for.
6. Don’t expect others to behave the way you want. Value and respect their feels and their way of life. Don’t try to control other person’s life for your desires or expectations. His/ her life is their own and has the freedom to lead it the way they want it.
7. Should not have an attitude of “I know everything”.
8. Work on self mastery, to have complete control on one self’s thoughts and emotions. Don’t work for self excellence because you want to show off in front of others or because others want. Do it because you want to attain the highest perfection and want to be the purest of purest soul. 

Authored by GANDHARV 

Love & Smile

We should not differentiate between people based on the work they do. He may be a CEO, software engineer, a clerk, peon or a toilet cleaner - at the end of the day each person is a human being. Everyone should be treated equally without differentiation.

GOD sees people as they are inside, not for what they do.

This world is a beautiful creation, where it is meant to be filled with love and happiness. Love is the very nature of the soul. Without love the soul dies and the world would too.

Every person wants to be loved. When you love a person without seeking anything in return or without any expectations, such a love is said to be unconditional love. Here you love a person because you love. When you do this and when you smile everything changes around you. You create a strong vibration of love and positive field around you. People start responding to you nicely, nature starts responding to you. It has been found by scientists that even plants respond when you love the plant and nurture it. And if you have pets you can understand what I am saying.

You feel good when you love whole heartedly. At the same time when people reciprocate you feel overjoyed but we should not worry about whether they reciprocate or not.  One day or the other they will reciprocate. This is the beauty of love. Have you ever wondered why people like to love small babies and to play with them? It is because babies smile and love everyone around them without differentiation.

Authored by GANDHARV

The 4th State

Dream is such a beautiful phenomenon - when we dream we don’t realize that it is not reality. We only come to know this when we wake up. In that state we experience and act as if we are living that particular dream. Each night we don’t go to bed with a story in our head, but our mind is so creative it creates a new story each time we go to sleep. Some dreams are pleasant and some may be scary. It is a world of its own reality. This is just a clue from nature how reality can alter and can make a person believe what he is experiencing as reality.

How many people have tried to figure out the secrets of Maya of this very existence and have found the truth of reality?

When we start to discover our self and world of reality in which we are living we come across so many questions and one gets lost in them. One such fundamental and curious phenomenon we experience is the states of reality. We all are aware and have experienced 3 states of reality namely, dreams, deep sleep: no dream state and waking state. Almost all our entire life, at any point of time, we can be found in either one of these three states. We would not have given much thought to it and would be busy in the daily rat race of life: Eat- Work – Sleep

Our scriptures say there is one more state of reality: Super conscious state. Westerners call it as Christ consciousness and easterners refer it to as Krishna consciousness or Awakened state or Transcendental consciousness. We are not "consciously" aware of this fourth state in the normal course of living. However, in certain moments that can only be described as sublime, we get a hint of this fourth state which exists within us, which is all ours to explore.

It is also called “turiya” experience of pure awareness.

“The fourth state of consciousness is beyond the states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep and stringing together all the states; the Metaphysical Consciousness distinct from the psychological or empirical self; the Saksi or witnessing consciousness; the transcendental Self”.

                                                                                                            --Wikipedia

Yoga is meant to lead a person towards this direction, to experience the Truth as it is. Experience is the only direct way of understanding the truth. Without experience everything seems like a concept or a notion. The question here is how many are ready to come out of the rat race of life and know for themselves the reality of truth? If they are not experiencing this state of existence then they are missing the truth of life.


Authored by GANDHARV