Key learnings in Life so far ...

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it" - An Old saying

Letting go

Letting go of attachments causes lot of relief and brings peace of mind. Attachment is bondage and detachment is freedom. Affectionate detachment is the key -- to prove love by action than being flooded by emotion -- that is true love. Affectionate detachment is a spiritual power.

I have made a list of things, people and stuffs that I'm attached to. Just listing them and being conscious of the things my mind is attached to itself is bringing me lot of peace. I'm becoming more and more aware of those areas of mind where awareness tends to identify itself with what it is aware of. Once awareness is free there is a huge amount of willpower to accomplish anything in the physical world be it material progress or spiritual progress and it is towards this that I'm aiming constantly. To not get attached to any area of mind and to remain a free soul, a free awareness.

Cycles of recurring karmas

When things get too peaceful and when awareness is detached, there is a tendency in the ego which can make awareness to get strongly attached to the next thing which awareness becomes aware of in the subconscious mind (which previously the awareness wasnt that attached to). So in a nutshell--- the greater the detachment, the greater is the tendency to get attached. Some karmic cycles are recurring in monthly frequencies, some are short -- weekly frequencies, some are much longer -- one year/6 month cycles. its these cycles that i need to watch out for very very carefully. By observation and experience its possible to predict the next experience that will come and take active steps to keep awareness centralized.

Example : Lets say you were attached strongly to some person -- and after a while you managed to detach yourself of those thoughts and somehow managed to be successful. Once your mind becomes a little peaceful -- there is a strong tendency to get attached to the next thing -- such as watching a lot of TV for example, on getting detached from that, a strong attachment to listening music may develop and so on.

Discipline

There are days when spiritual progress is at its best with all the learnings, japa, meditation going in full vigour and then there are days when there is nothing what so ever -- as getting up from bed itself becomes late. A balance has to be cultivated which brings us to discipline. Its important to make a solid plan and stick to it regularly. Only by regular meditation can the benefits be really reaped, same thing applies to intellectual knowledge as well. Its discipline and persistence that makes our hard work finally pay off. Same thing applies to eating -- somedays eating frugally and other days over-eating -- this is ignorance and has to be avoided. As noted there are many many pitfalls in spiritual progress.