How you react to life defines you

If health is not good, you are obese or diabetic - look at the reason for it. Chances are it's your lifestyle which contributed to it. A rolling stone gathers no moss, so also an active body does not suffer diseases.

Lifestyle became less active probably because of the fact that you have given importance to studies more than any physical activity or sports during your formative years, reason was probably that parents wanted you to focus on studies, always asked you to focus on studies than anything else.

Many stock market biggies have poor health as they have given money as the most prominent role in life than health. Then they lose all their hard earned money on treating diseases.

Sometimes you're not spending nature may affect your partner who may want you to spend more. You may be conservative. Again there would be a reason for it. You might have grown up in middle class or poverty due to which you value money more. Or your parents trained you that way as money was scant.

The law of action and reaction constantly at work in shaping up experience.

Movies I recommend

Here are some movies which changed my perspective about life and helped me unfold spiritually

* Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
http://imdb.com/rg/an_share/title/title/tt0374546/

It is a beautiful story about the law of karma and it's consequences.

* The Tree of Life
http://imdb.com/rg/an_share/title/title/tt0478304/

A beautiful story which focuses on meta physics. About how everything is connected. About love and how life is meaningless without it. Evolution and human experience.

Being Detached

The whole process is designed to make you detached. I was in USA had everything around me including alcohol, best LED TV, comfortable hotel, but i had no interest in anything, because inside i was burning with an issue which is i was away from my family. But then everything came my way. New experiences which i had never expected, easy comfortable life.

The people who make you forcefully step outside of your comfort zone are the ones which make you detached / or make you aware of your attachments. Thanks to my wife -- she has played a great role in this. She made me aware of many of my attachments. Sleep, money and parents being some of those.

Approaching death of the ego

Sometimes god gives our ego a new low. He redefines how much the ego should bend to humility. such an experience lightens the heart but leaves a memory and a mark.

I observe the same fear in people all around the world -- job related insecurity, old age and being single, divorced people who feel people with family are blessed, lonely people who resort to mindfulness and meditation. Happening all over the world. I attended a sangha meditation centre in Milwaukee and saw that a pediatrician was there, an old lawyer was there, a man who was about to get divorced was there, old women who are about to die were there, relative middle aged people who have gone through much sufferings were there.

Sometimes we don't understand why people dislike us -- but go deep inside them and it becomes clear the sufferings that they are going through and what it is which is making them hate us. when someone does something to you which you are not able to understand, it means there is something about you which you don't understand yourself. Why? because the same energy flows in them which is flowing in you. Everyone is behaving out of conditioning and therefore nobody is guilty. Yet nobody is innocent because they have a choice on how to use their energies. Wow -- such an awesome creation of God. He creates the world of opposites and gives a choice to souls.

Looking again at the back of the mind, there is nothing else other than the present moment all the time. memories is what makes the mind interfere. As UG Krishnamurthy says there is no way you can experience anything at all without the knowledge of it. The vicious cycle is such that Knowledge "enables" experiencer to experience and the experiences fortifies the knowledge. In the present moment there is no memory, no knowledge, no experience -- just beingness. Yet there is no word to describe the state. Buddha calls it emptyiness, Jesus called it the fullness of life. Yet they all describe the same thing.

Summary of learnings over the last few months

- Dissatisfaction usually works as a catalyst for good meditation.
- The motivation thought stratum preceeds every thought.
- Have the goal "final end result" very clear even amidst confusion.
- Affirmation is believing, Believing is everything - its the key to getting things done.
- Add a new habit in life - by setting up consequences for yourself.
- When you feel empty inside (no internal dialogues) and breath regulated - you are perceiving.
- Even When perceiving only the physical plane - you are superconscious
- When there is too much to get done - use the ajna chakra - as it functions at a higher rate of consciousness
- How we breathe is how we live.
- Give up the illusion that you are the "Doer" - Master Oogway
- Regulate all the time-pass activities - so that you don't get carried away by them (Ex: 2 hrs of TV - after that no more, similarly the computer time, internet time etc)