Learnings in 2011

This year had been one of great year of learnings for me, I'm really grateful to Almighty for this. Met the right souls living in various places on earth who happened to catalyze my observation skill.

Let me quote my gurudeva here: "observation is a quality of the soul, advanced souls are in a state of observation all the time"

The biggest learnings the year provided me is mainly due to internet and technology, so thanks to all the engineers for making this possible by their hard work, passion & willpower.

This year I owe my major learnings to Sri Ramakrishnananda whose teachings made me understand the aspects of my ego and of course this coupled with my gurudeva's and his gurudeva's (Yoga Swami) teachings helped me gain the perspective of "arise of wisdom by observation"

Last but not least my thanks to the great seers, yogis, swamis, munis, Sannyasins, gurus & spiritual leaders of Hinduism in both present and ancient India who discovered all this knowledge of the soul and its journey from their gurus, deep meditation, contemplative life and spiritual counterparts.

some of the biggest realizations this year:
+ we are whom we meet

+ ego has only two characteristics: seek pleasure, escape from pain, all activities of all people in all of the universe can be categorized in these two aspects. This is the game of the ego

+ whether you are loving God for  escaping from pain(hell / difficult life, death, disease) or expectation of pleasure (heaven), you are back to square one and playing the game of the ego

+ only if you can renounce this game of seek pleasure/escape pain and remain the watcher in all action (karma yoga), all emotion (bhakti yoga), all physical body movements (hatha yoga) can you be a free soul capable of going in any direction of infinite possibilities

+ ego is when the seer identifies himself with the instruments of seeing: the physical eye and third eye

+ all that we know today is an imitation

+ fear and desire arrive due to memory of past and their projection into future

+ everything external to you is a representing an aspect of your own ego

+ there is this vicious cycle of jnana (knowledge), icha(desire) and Kriya(action) that all our mental activities are composed, this is how we go about making decisions in life

+ once you begin observing your consciousness, you also end up observing where others are in consciousness when you interact with them, thus you are now looking at a person inside out

+ the conscious mind aspect of the ego: its ability to keep the awareness busy in some sort of ramification our the other examples: internet, songs, social networks, videos, movies, food choosing: breakfast and dinner, new clothes, accessories, shopping etc

+ the subconscious mind aspect of the ego: repressed desires, instinctive desires, animal nature, repression unleashed in dreams and their benefits and threats, alcohol and its effects on catalyzing the subconscious as well as superconscious mind

+ the sub of the subconscious mind: its ability to mix two separate subconscious experiences to provide a third experience which is totally new, surprising, unexpected and uncalled for.

+ the superconscious mind aspect of the ego: The one which observes and knows all the time, the eee and c sounds meeting at the top of the head to provide the inner light experience, breath and its connection with thoughts, benefits of hatha yoga to sustain the super conscious states of contemplation, intuition and inner guidance through help of Gods in temple, kundalini energy, chakras and the evolution of soul, knowledge of advancing the souls evolution by many lives by reciting the Vedic mantras (inner psychic sounds) in a proper way

All this and more just by attempting to be in the "now", Aum Namah Sivaya, Jai Ganapathi