Decisions

We only give importance to our decisions. We only responsible for justifying a decision's validity. We are only responsible to trying to detect patterns in nature assuming that an extrernal force is helping us to arrive at a decision.

I have been going through tough decision making situations off late w.r.t work,home,career etc which could affect the lives of myself and the people I love both positively and negatively. There is no one decision which is clearly right or clearly wrong. And there isn't any external help from God though it appears that he is helping.

One alone is responsible for his thoughts, decisions and their consequences. Sometimes there are consequences for not making any decision too.

Life is complex and I'm experiencing the highest ramifications off late. Is there anything like intuition or is it my own mind throwing subconscious ideas ? I'll never know.

Consistency

The nature of the ego

When we are toddlers we are fine. We don't think of future or past. We enjoy every moment. Every instant and we think this is how life is going to be always.  I remember when i was a small kid I thought that I will always be the same size, my parents will always remain the same way (I didn't know that we all grow old). I thought my family will remain the same way eternally.

We start schooling then suddenly fear of past or future comes into the nerve system. Thanks to teachers and their punishments in the name of discipline. Thus we start competing with other kids. We just want to complete one class and move on to the next with better grades.  Then repeat the same in the next class and so on. We want to be better than all the other kids.

At some point we forget the present and focus on growing up fast, getting out of school and getting into a job. We struggle and work hard to get into a job.

Once we get into a job, we focus on being the best employee and get perks for the same from boss. We struggle to get a better raise, a better income,a better position and when things become  peaceful we finally want a better job with more money.

We strive again to impress the next organization with our work and talents. This repeats until we get bored of all this one day and want to have so much money that we don't have to work at all. We now get into the mode of investing and gambling in the stock market to get quick bucks. We hate to pay taxes and we find different means to reduce it or avoid it.

As the body grows more we strive hard to get out of the state of being single and find an attractive partner, we try dating but failing and retrying. At times we do find someone with mutual liking but have to still struggle to make it work and lead to marriage if at all it happens.

Once we are married for a few years. We want kids. If that happens after a while we find being single more exciting and want to get out of marriage.

Once we have money and the possessions we want, we strive again to maintain the same standard of income and earnings and maybe try to increase our assets more.

Always in a state of  discontent we strive for the next better job, partner, food or recreation.

We live as though we will never die. And we die as though we have never lived.

We live as though we are always right in life only to get reminded by life that we are always wrong. We search always for a limitless nature in every aspect food, sex, money yet we never recognize or awareness as that unlimited Self inside us which watches the whole unfolding drama.

During difficult experiences we feel like dying but when actually dying we badly want to live.

We want stability in job and career yet we want change as well.

Flying in an aeroplane

I was flying in air plane to a different city yesterday. Viewing the city from top from a few thousand feet, I got the mountain view perspective.

Each illuminated light below on earth represented a house or family. There were thousands and thousands of such lights. Some were stationary lights of houses and some were moving vehicles.

But the common thing was, each of those lights represented souls who are in pursuit. Some lights belong to corporations some belong to individual houses and people. Nevertheless all of them were in pursuit. Pursuit of more money, profits, better lifestyle, dealing with their own problems emotional, financial or intellectual. Trying to enjoy life meanwhile with various distractions like movies, drinks etc. Each one had their own attachments, and none of them were satisfied with whatever they had in the present moment.  They were all moving. Always on the move.

That's when I was aware that I too was one of those lights. Doing my own thing. Having my own attachments. I was one such light caught in my own pursuits.

I have decided to live a life free from all these things that make us human and earthlings. Every attachment is a pursuit.

No end

There is no end to the ramifications posed by the mind.  The Romans built the colosseum for entertaining themselves with wild animals & gladiators. Entertainment hasn't changed much. Now there is boxing, Wwe, dance shows, movies, singing competition etc. There are breakthroughs at work followed by failures in some other parts of the software putting you back in square one.

The mind gets elated and depressed and that's it's nature.  Nothing stays constant ever.

The is fear in management at the highest levels, blame game, followed by moments of relief. Thus the wheel of time and karma continue.

Bad experiences come stay and go. Good experiences come stay and go.  We try to only stay with the happy experiences often. Everyone wants only happiness. Yet it's just a pursuit. Lack of contentment kicks in sooner or later and the sense of unfulfilled feeling continues.

Despite being in this illusion we refuse to wake up. There comes a time in a man's life when he has to put an end to it all. When one has enough experiences that the mind will turn into itself and be aware of itself. That It realises that the root cause of all problems is within not outside. I'm going through this phase of life right now

Tough Experiences this week

Went through lot of tough experiences this week. Many things which I was not aware of myself came into light.

- My Extreme attachment to become rich.
- How anger can lead to insanity in every man, root cause of anger being fear.
- Humility is a strength far greater than any sort of power or ego.
- When you do things by thinking which is against what you know you should be doing, sooner or later there will be consequences
- If you are struggling and reacting over something the root cause of the problem, the sore spot is inside you.
- Both the God and the Satan are inside us, we choose what we want to become or how we want to behave.

Learnings this week

Watch the mind and be cautious. It always seeks a new desire, reacts quickly to circumstances and gets itself into trouble.

Wait for thoughts to collect before speaking. I'm yet to practice this.

Feel the spine, lean on it, this leads to the eee sound.

Realize the SELF this very life by transmuting the desires.

Don't be attached to anything money, career or people. Be affectionately detached.

Watch the mind think. Exercise half hour daily. Yet to practice exercising.

Live life in such a way that you walk in the rain without getting wet. Like water drop on a lotus plant leaf.

Conquer insensitive and cruel feelings towards people by understanding.

Live with Siva, Dance with Siva and Merge with Siva.

Availability and attention

I practiced these two qualities this week as per my gurus advice and the results are astonishing.

I was able to be an extremely good listener and due to this relationships with peers and family improved. People knew that I listen and was ever available for help. A new energy started building up in me which would never quell. At the busiest times when someone asked me for help, I consciously avoided the feeling of continuation of my work, stopped it and helped the other person. This gave a sort of satisfaction which couldn't be described by words. Also my own work became easier after helping someone.

Lift someone's burden and unknowingly somewhere you will be lifting your own burden. That's what gurudeva said. How fortunate I'm in this life to be associated with a soul like gurudeva. How I wish I had met him directly only once at least?

He lives in me each moment through his books. Thanks gurudeva for a lesson of a lifetime.

On earth to realize the self

The only reason to be here on earth is to realize the SELF. My gurudeva keeps stressing this again and again to drive the point strongly.

Not here to earn money, to clothe myself, to even have family or to eat. Only here to realize the SELF, to have that one dramatic experience where everything you thought is turned upside down.

It is what is always been known to the knower. That is the goal, direct your energies towards it. Yet it is even wrong to call it a goal. Self realization is an experience only after it has been experienced, yet it is wrong to even call it an experience, but the only possible non-experience.

When karma is controlled through yoga and dharma well performed, then the description of Truth mentioned by the yogis and rishis of yore becomes obvious.

After SELF realization you see the mind for what it is - a self created principle. That is the mind - always creating, preserving and destroying concepts and beliefs. What gives the mind that power? What's the use of asking this question and how does it matter when the SELF exists by itself.

When the instinctive mind and the intellectual mind have been conquered and when the energies are transmuted to their ultimate state, the subtle hidden truth behind obvious . One day you will realize the SELF.

Poise

"The struggle with the mind is an easy struggle if you are constantly vigilant, all of the time, doing always what you know you should do, not allowing the mind to become instinctive, not excusing the mind when it does become instinctive, not allowing the mind to justify, rationalize, excuse, become combative, but making the mind always remain poised, like a hummingbird over a flower, so that you begin to live in the eternal now, constantly, permanently. And then the within becomes natural to you, not something you hear about, study about, talk about, sing about, for you become open, awakened within."

Excerpt from the "power of Awareness"

The world moves with motiveless necessity. By this IS meant that it has no motive of its own , but is under the necessity of manifesting your concept,the arrangement of your mind, and your mind is always arranged in the image of all you believe and consent to as true. The rich man , poor man, beg-gar man or thief are not different minds, but different arrangements of the same mind,

Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind-that is, by your concept of yourself [and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true.] What you consent to can only be discovered by an Uncritical observation of your reactions to life.

Man's CHIEF delusion is his conviction that there are causes other than his own state of consciousness . All that befalls a man -all that is done by him - all that comes from him - hap-pens as a result of his state of consciousness . A man's consciousness is all that he thinks and desires and loves, all that he believes is true and consents
to . That is why a change of consciousness is necessary before you can change your outer world.

You know a thing mentally by looking at it from the outside, by comparing it with other things , by analyzing it and defining it;[by thinking of it:] whereas you can know a thing spiritually only by becoming it,. [only by thinking from it]. You must be the thing Itself and not merely talk about it or look at it.

New discoveries

Excerpt from Tibetan book of Great Liberation:

All appearances are verily one's own concepts, self-conceived in the mind, like reflections seen in a mirror. To know whether this be so or not, look within thine own mind.

Divine Wisdom is undoubtedly indestructible, unbreakable, like the ever flowing current of a river. To know whether this be so or not look within thine own mind.

Being merely a flux of instability like the air of the firmament, objective appearances are without power to fascinate and fetter. To know whether this be so or not, look within thine own mind.

There being not two such things as meditation and object of meditation, there is no need to fall under the sway of deeply obscuring Ignorance; for, as the result of meditation upon the unmodified quiescence of mind, the non-created Wisdom instantaneously shines forth clearly.

Gratitude

I'm grateful to God and life for providing me the following

# for providing me such loving parents who selflessly cook, daily help and care for myself, wife and their grand kid

# for giving me a very sweet loving wife who understands, takes extreme care of my son and helps in innumerable ways, and who gave me the privilege of becoming a father

# for giving me a loving little son who has kept everyone happy and busy at home and for promoting me to a role of a father, who is my stress reliever every day when I see him hug me

# for giving me great colleagues at work who are passionate about making a difference in the life of our customers / patients, some who are very technically inclined and talented, some who are extremely good in planning and strategy

# for giving me loving friends both local and international (my loving friend from Italy and a few more in the US) who enlighten me of things which I'm ignorant about, with whom I can talk anything under the sun comfortably, and enjoy couple drinks and feel great

# my employer for giving me the sustenance and money for keeping us going and also for providing me a playground for exhibiting and improving my skills and talents and things which I love doing. Its such a beautiful campus with so much nature and greenery around.

# The great mature souls in this world whom I have met or read about them in their books namely : Satguru Sivaya Subramuniya Swamy: the ultimate guru of mine who taught me everything including this gratitude which is pouring from my heart, my current guru Sri Bodhinatha Swami who made my Sadhana steady and made me understand the subtle aspects which I had always overseen during worship of God, Swami Ramakrishnananda who made me understand the true meaning of meditation, Srila Prabhupada who taught me how to love Krishna and introduced me to bhakti yoga, Baba Ram Dass who introduced me to the world of psychedelics, loving unconditionally, his great experiences with his guru Maharaj in India during the 1960s and how different paths converge to spirituality.

# for giving me wonderful and loving siblings and cousins who are extremely talented and persistent in life in whatever they do.

Yes, I'm extremely grateful to all these blessed mature souls who have taught me how to live and love and also to those not so mature souls who have also by their example taught me what not to do and how not to live. Yes all are our teachers, some teach us what to do, some teach us what not to do.

Finally my sincere thanks to Lord Siva, the life within my life, who created this beautiful world of experiential learning's, for creating the law of cause and effect - karma, for helping souls advance in their own way by making mistakes, repeating mistakes, learning that they have been repeating mistakes and thereby come out wise.

Last but not the least thanks to the loving Lord Ganesha who guides me everyday by sitting within the muladhara chakra.

Aum Namah Sivaya

Goal of the sadhana : master course study

The thrust of The Master Course Correspondence Study is to improve all aspects of one’s life.

Step one is for the student to prove to himself that he can work positively in the world, performing his duties with full energy, intuiting how the whole mechanism of life is constructed -- the exterior world, his mind, himself.

Then ten, fifteen or twenty minutes of good, dynamic meditation a day and The Master Course studies to guide the mind along in a step-by-step manner are more than sufficient.

It comes down to readjusting our thinking and making our point of reference the reality within ourselves instead of the reality and permanence of the external world of things, forms and fancy.

Once our whole philosophical structure is in line with Saiva Siddhanta thinking, it is easy to throw the mind into meditation. Then when we are working in our daily life, involved in external things and material affairs, the point of reference is that the energy within and the core of the energy and the Self itself are real.

Difference in Beliefs

I firmly believe that there is no such thing called one path which leads us to God who is both outside and inside us. Religions can be compared to be rivers, all of them eventually merge into the same ocean which is God.

Here are some basic differences in beliefs between Hinduism and Christianity

Differences in beliefs between Hinduism and Christianity

Aum Namah Sivaya

Resting Mind

I feel I'm done with this mind

Can't afford to remain entangled in this mind and its endless cycles of Maya

Am thinking of taking a break from my own mind

By going deep within

Until I find that which hasn't changed, will never ever change

Of seeing that aspect which doesn't see, which just knows

All of us would have experienced this some time or other in our lives

Wish me luck dear friend, in this journey of the mind towards its own death

The death of the ego

Maya and it's cycles

Every unfulfilled desire (karma) is what triggers a new cycle of Maya (getting caught in illusion)

Once you get the ability to see this, Anava (ego) seems to reduce somewhat. Then you begin seeing how others are still caught in this Maya matrix.

Its easy to identify when you are caught in a cycle of Maya:

* when you are worried about future
* when you are thinking about good/bad experiences with people/places that occurred in past.
* when you are thinking of your job/ career
* when you thinking about better things in any aspects : company, phone, lifestyle, country, home etc
* when you are doing something you love doing and ending up in ramifications (burning new better ROM in my case)
* watching and enjoying movies, TV family time
* when you are attracted to someone who you think is physically beautiful or intellectually great.

All these are triggers for a new cycle of Maya to start in your mind's real estate. Once started the linking of thoughts occur and the strong current of the mind and its ramification takes over. 

This is because the conscious mind has one goal only : to keep seeking better things and seek ramifications. Thus the endless cycles of Maya go on and on until the great awakening strikes you