Wednesday 31 December 2008

MANOVIKAR

MANOVIKAR form iLand blog

तनाव प्रबंधन के कुछ सटीक सूत्र
तनाव मनः स्थिति से उपजा विकार है.मनः स्थिति एवं परिस्थिति के बीच असंतुलन एवं असामंजस्य के कारण तनाव उत्पन्न होता है. तनाव एक द्वन्द है, जो मन एवं भावनाओं में गहरी दरार पैदा करता है. तनाव अन्य अनेक मनोविकारों का प्रवेश द्वार है. उससे मन अशान्त,भावना अस्थिर एवं शरीर अस्वस्थता का अनुभव करते हैं.ऐसी स्थिति में हमारी कार्यक्षमता प्रभावित होती है और हमारी शारीरिक व मानसिक विकास यात्रा में व्यवधान आता है. इससे बचने का एकमात्र उपाय है -परिस्थिति के साथ तालमेल रखना , जिससे तनावरूपी मनोविकार को हटाया-मिटाया जा सके.

परिस्थिति को स्वीकार न करने पर तनाव पैदा होता है. यह तनाव कई प्रकार का होता है. पारिवारिक तनाव , आर्थिक तनाव, आफ़िस का तनाव ,रोजगार का तनाव, सामाजिक तनाव. मनोनुकूल परिस्थिति-परिवेश के अभाव में व्यक्ति उद्विग्न ,अशान्त एवं तनावग्रस्त हो उठता है. इसमें केवल एक व्यक्ति प्रभावित होता है, परन्तु यह सीमा जब व्यक्ति को लांघकर परिवार में पहुँच जाती है तो परिवार तनावग्रस्त हो जाता है.पारिवारिक तनाव से परिवार के संवेदनशील रिश्तों में दरार एवं दरकन् पैदा हो जाती है जिससे छोटी-छोटी बातों को प्रतिष्ठा का प्रश्न बनाकर कलह एवं कहासुनी जैसी उलझनें खड़ी कर दी जाती हैं. सुन्दर व सुरम्य पारिवारिक वातावरण व्यंग्य और तानों का दंगल बन जाता है.

वैयक्तिक एवं पारिवारिक स्तर पर संपदा व संपति के सुनियोजन एवं सुव्यवस्था के अभाव में आर्थिक तनाव का जन्म होता है. उपभोक्तावादी अपसंस्कृति के कारण अपव्यय एवं जीवनशैली की अनियमितता में वृद्धि हुई है,जिससे यह संकट और भी गहरा हुआ है.सामाजिक तनाव समाज के विभिन्न घटकों,समूहों एवं वर्गों के बीच तालमेल के न होने से उत्पन्न होता है.आज का व्यक्ति , परिवार व समाज तनाव के इस विघटन,टूटन एवं दरकन् से ग्रस्त हैं. व्यक्ति हो या समाज,आज ये इस कदर तनावग्रस्त हैं की उन्हें अपना भार भी असह्य लग रहा है. वे अपने ही बोझ से दबे-कुचले किसी तरह अपनी गुजर-बसर कर रहें हैं.

तनाव परिस्थिति से नहीं मनः स्थिति से उपजता है.अगर ऐसा नहीं होता तो विपरीत एवं प्रतिकूल परिस्थितियों में भी आशा,उत्साह एवं उमंग की परिकल्पना नहीं की जा सकती. जीवट के धनियों एवं मनीषियों ने प्रतिकूलताओं में जीवन की राह खोजी है,अपने गंतव्य,लक्ष्य को प्राप्त किया है.सूरदास,अष्टावक्र,सुकरात आदि मनीषियों ने शारीरिक विकृति को हिनताजन्य तनाव नहीं माना और इसी समाज में उत्कर्ष व सफलता की बुलंदियों को स्पर्श किया.सन्त तुकाराम का पारिवारिक जीवन तनाव के घनघोर कुहाँसों में घिरा हुआ था,परन्तु वे इस कुहासा-हताशा के आवरण को चीरकर भक्ति की भावधारा में सदा सरोबार रहते थे.कबीरदास के जीवन में आर्थिक तनाव सघन घन बनकर बरसा था, परन्तु प्रभु के अलावा किसी के आगे उनने हाथ नहीं पसारे,याचना नहीं की और अलमस्त एवं आन्नदपूर्वक जिंदगी जीकर दिखा दी.सामाजिक निंदा,अपमान एवं तिरस्काररूपी गहन आंधी-तूफान के बीच मीराबाई ने कृष्णभक्ति की ज्योति जलाई. विपरीत परिस्थितियों में इन महामानव ने जितना कर दिखाया,उतना तो सामान्य एवं सहज परिवेश में भी संभव नहीं है. इसका एकमात्र कारण है,मनः स्थिति की सुदृढ़ता-सशक्तता. अतः तनाव परिस्थितियों में नहीं दुर्बल व अशक्त मनः स्थिति में वास करता है. मनीषियों व मनस्वियों को यह स्पर्श नहीं कर पाता है.

तनावजन्य मनोविकारों का आक्रमण केवल दुर्बल व कमजोर मानसिकताओं पर होता है. परिस्थिति तो सबके लिए समान होती है.एक ही परिस्थिति में रहने वालों में से संकल्पवान अपने इच्छित लक्ष्य को प्राप्त कर लेता है और विकल्प तलाशने वाला केवल विकल्प तलाशते रह जाता है. परिस्थितिजन्य तनाव ही प्रमुख व प्रबल होता तो एवरेस्ट के शिखर पर चढ़ा नहीं जा सकता था . जिसका मन परिस्थिति से तालमेल नहीं बैठा पाता उसी के अन्दर तनावजन्य विकृतियाँ अपना जाल बुनती हैं. ऐसे व्यक्ति का तंत्रिकातंत्र मन के आवेग को संभालने हेतु असमर्थ होता है.कष्ट-कठिनाइयों का हल्का झोंका भी इन्हें तार-तार कर देता है.

तनाव मुख्य रूप से नर्वस सिस्टम को प्रभावित करता है. तनाव से यह तंत्रिकातंत्र अत्यंत सक्रिय हो जाता है. इसकी सक्रियता हृदयगति एवं शर्करा के स्तर को बढ़ाने में सहायक होती है. इससे घबराहट होती है एवं सिर भारी रहता है. ऐसी अवस्था में नकारात्मक विचार उठते हैं और मन में निराशा-हताशा के बादल मंडराने लगते हैं.

तनाव मन में उत्पन्न होता है.अतः तनाव से मन प्रभावित होता है. तनावजन्य नकारात्मक
एवं निषेधात्मक विचारों से शरीर की प्रतिरक्षात्मक प्रणाली पर भी विपरीत असर पड़ता है. तनाव की अवधि
में श्वेत रूधिर कोशिकाओं की सहज सक्रियता कम हो जाती है.ये कोशिकाएँ शरीर की रोगों से रक्षा करती हैं तथा शरीर को स्वस्थ एवं निरोग बनाए रखने में अहम भूमिका निभाती हैं,परन्तु तनाव इस प्रतिरक्षात्मक
प्रणाली की मुस्तैदी को कम कर रोगों को प्रवेश करने का अवसर प्रदान करता है.

तनाव से मन में कई प्रकार के मनोविकार अपना स्थायी आवास बना लेते हैं. तनाव
से चिड़चिड़ापन पैदा हो जाता है. ऐसे व्यक्तियों का मानसिक संतुलन लगभग गड़बड़ा जाता है,परिणामस्वरूप नींद न आना,

हताशा-निराशा,कल्पनाओं में खोए रहना, डरना आदि मनोरोगों का प्रादुर्भाव होता है. ऐसे लोगों में निर्णय करने की क्षमता नहीं
होती है.

तनाव प्रबन्धन का प्रथम सूत्र है- वैचारिक खुलापन अर्थात आग्रह ,पूर्वाग्रह का अभाव . अच्छे विचारों को स्वीकृति एवं समर्थन देना चाहिए.इसी के आधार पर
सहयोग- सदभाव की भूमि तैयार होती है. सहयोग से स्वार्थवृति मिटती है और सेवा का भाव पनपता है,जिससे अपना विश्वास
प्रगाढ़ होता है. विश्वास ही विकास का मूल मंत्र है,उन्नति - प्रगति का साधन सोपान है. इस स्थिति में आकर ही स्वायत्तता की परिकल्पना की जा सकती है और स्वतंत्र रूप से अपनी योजना को कार्यरूप प्रदान किया जा सकता है.इसी में आंतरिक चेतना के परिष्कार तथा
वाह्या उन्नति की समस्त संभावनाएँ सन्निहित हैं.संभावना जब मूर्तरूप लेती है तो प्रामाणिकता के रूप में अभिव्यक्ति पाती है.
प्रामाणिकता आत्मविश्वास को जन्म देती है, तभी महान कार्य हेतु स्वयं का योगदान सम्भव हो सकता है और दूसरों का सहयोग मिल सकता है.तनाव प्रबंधन के इन सूत्रों में तनाव का समाधान समाहित है.
इसके साथ आवश्यक है सर्वशक्तिमान ईश्वर के प्रति श्रद्धा-आस्था की भावना. ईश्वर सर्वसमर्थ है, वह हमारी सभी समस्याओं का समाधान ,हताशा के कुहासे में ज्योतिर्मय पथ प्रदर्शक है.
वह हमारे तनाव का निवारक भी है. वह हमारे सभी मनोविकारों के सघन जंजाल को काटकर उत्साह,आनंद एवं प्रकाश से भर सकता है.अतः उसकी स्मृति को हृदय में बनाए रखने के लिए
गायत्री मंत्र की एक माला का न्यूनतम जप करना चाहिए.प्रत्येक दिन अपने नये जीवन का आत्मबोध एवं प्रत्येक रात्रि अपनी मृत्यु का अनुभव तत्त्वबोध भी तनावमुक्ति
के लिए रामबाण साधन है. यही तनाव का एकमात्र निदान है और उच्चस्तरीय जीवन का पाथेय पथ भी है.

साभार :- अखण्ड ज्योति

TRUE BLISS IS WITHIN YOU

TRUE BLISS IS WITHIN YOU

Placing your happiness in the hands of others will lead to a lot of pain and disappointment, says Donna Thomson



The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet,” said James Oppenheim. True happiness cannot be sought outside of yourself — not in your relationships with others, the groups you belong to, or in the things around you. Unless you can stand alone in your own shadow and feel happiness from within, true happiness may always elude you for external things come and go like the tide. The only constant in your life is you. Love you, admire you, value you and be happy to be you.

Why do we seek happiness from outside of ourselves? From His Holiness The Dalai Lama: “Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”

So we learn from a young age to rely on others rather than on ourselves. If we rely on others for our food, shelter and other needs, why not happiness? Well happiness of course does come from many things and our social relationships and other external factors can bring us much joy, but many of us have not connected with ourselves as we have connected with others. The negative side is that placing all of your happiness in the hands of others will lead to a lot of pain and disappointment throughout your life.

No matter how much you love a partner, a child, or a friend, you cannot make your happiness conditional upon them. Why? Because you will have certain expectations of others and when those expectations aren’t met, you may feel hurt, betrayed, misunderstood, taken for granted, invalidated, confused and so on. Everyone is individual. We have each grown to develop our own sets of values, beliefs, attitudes and ways of looking at the world. Our views may not be exactly the same as our loved ones. However, we often expect those loved ones to know what we want from them.

When someone else’s actions don't live up to your expectations you are let down. Often the other person won’t even realise they’ve done something to cause you pain because they don’t know your expectations unless you have explicitly shared them. Often we don’t even realise our own expectations until we feel someone has hurt or disappointed us.
For example
, you may unconsciously expect your partner to show their love in a particular way such as saying “I love you” regularly and when this doesn’t hap
pen you start to wonder if they truly care for you. You may feel unacknowledged and unloved. However your partner may feel that they are showing their love through their actions. You have one belief while your partner has another. Is there a lack of love? No. While you let your feelings build into a stressful negative state within you, your partner would probably be very surprised to know you feel that way.

It’s unrealistic to expect another person to know what's in your head — your values, beliefs and expectations. Thinking “Well they should know!” is not good enough, yet most of us would have thought this of someone else at some stage. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. They see you become sad, angry, unresponsive to them, or upset and don’t know what they’ve done, or if it’s even them who has made you unhappy. This leads to negative feelings from both sides and possibly arguments that could be avoided through open communication.

Rather than looking to others for your needs, begin by looking within yourself. When you feel a sense of disappointment in someone, use it as an opportunity to analyse your own expectations. The only person who should truly be able to disappoint you is yourself — when you are not being true to yourself in some way. You can take that disappointment and turn it into a positive — a pledge; an action that you can take to better yourself.

Analyse why you are disappointed or hurt. You may find your initial thoughts or statements begin with “Because he did” or “Because she didn’t”. Now look deeper to the true reason for your disappointment. Such statements will start with “Because i expected”, “Because i wanted” or “Because i thought he or she should”.

You truly only ever have control over yourself and realising this can save you a lot of pain. Of course you can be disappointed in others but you have no control over their actions and reactions. You can share the reasons for your disappointment but you cannot expect the other person or situation to change because the other person has free will.

When you realise that you are responsible for your thinking and expectations, you will start to see that you’ve placed much of your happiness in the hands of others. You can now take your power back by recognising that you have the choice to react to something either negatively or positively. By making your happiness conditional upon another person, you hand your power over to them. You feel a ‘victim’ whenever things don’t go as you want or expect. In doing this, you set yourself up for pain, but you can now turn this around and instead set yourself up for happiness.

The key is to not expect a particular outcome. What happens next is up to you. You can choose to wallow in negative feelings which may further damage a relationship, or you can try to place a positive spin on the situation. Perhaps you can find your happiness in the fact that you’ve done your part in dealing with the situation by getting your issue out into the open. Realise that it may not be an issue to the other person, but ideally you will work together to reach a compromise. You can also decide to be happy for the other person and the pain they show you because it helps you to grow. There are always choices and different ways of looking at the same thing.

It puts things into perspective when you resign yourself to the fact that people do make mistakes — they forget things, they don’t think properly, they don’t always consider how others may be affected by their actions, they can act selfishly at times, and so on. We are all humans and we are designed to make mistakes as they are our greatest opportunities to learn. As Horace Friess says, “All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within.”


Some nice quote from iLand blog

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.
Robert Frost

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
Lana Turner

A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be thankful for a good one.
Mae West

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his.
Oscar Wilde

Women and Cats will do as they please. Men and dogs had better get used to it. Robert Heinlein , Time Enough for Love, Lazarus Long

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.
Charles Wadsworth

Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent ages as much as 20 years.
Anonymous

Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.
Anonymous

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.
Anonymous

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.
Oscar Wilde

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title.
Virginia Wolf

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana

We do not remember days; we remember moments.
Anonymous

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.
Frank Lloyd Wright


virag sharma

Contentment in Life

from iLand

Benjamin Franklin said, "To the discontented man no chair is easy." What is contentment? Is contentment happiness? Contentment has been defined by words like satisfaction, happiness, pleasure, gratification, ease and peace. So I would express the thought that contentment is basically happiness but maybe not entirely all that happiness may contain.
Happiness is now being defined in two ways. The first way is happiness as it relates to having good humor. The second is happiness as it relates to inner satisfaction. It is here under the second definition that contentment is properly defined. Smiling and a sense of joyfulness are some of the things that happiness contains. You can be content without showing signs of a smile or feeling joyful. These aspects of happiness are not exhibited in contentment, yet contentment still remains a strong aspect of happiness.
Contentment is a strong sense of well being. It could be a state of being satisfied, or a source of satisfaction, such as the contentment of seeing children playing.
Contentment is happiness with one's situation in life. When we talk about satisfaction regarding contentment, we have to make sure we are receiving satisfaction from our own feeling of liking something; as opposed to the satisfaction we would feel from getting approval from someone else. This is an important distinction because in one case you know how you feel about yourself in relation to anything else. Doris Mortman said, "Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have."
Seeking approval from other people in order to feel satisfaction, creates many problems. We have all heard about people who try to become famous so they can be happy. They are trying to feel good about themselves through the approval of others. No matter how much approval or fame you receive, it will never be enough. The more you get, the more you think you need. So satisfaction is never found out there, or by the approval you receive from other people.
Lillian Eichler Watson said, "...true happiness stems from a quality within ourselves, from a way of thinking of life. Of all the millions of words written on happiness, this is the oldest and most enduring truth. If the principles of contentment are not within us, no material success, no pleasures or possessions, can make us happy."
Pleasure is certainly an aspect of both happiness and contentment. But many people think that pleasure is happiness and contentment. Although it is certainly a part of both states of being, it is not all of it. Pleasure can never be all of it because pleasure is a passing thing. Once it is gone the question becomes, how do I get it back or how do I get more of it. So pleasure in this sense very quickly becomes an addition, unlike happiness or contentment. The fact that you need and want more, and you are not content, proves that it is an addition.


Socrates said, "Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty." Contentment means that you feel you now have enough of something and you are enjoying what you have, rather than needing any thing more. Happiness is the very same thing, when you have enough, you have enough. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor." Gratification is another word for contentment. It also means satisfaction, fulfillment, indulgence, enjoyment and delight. These are all words that mean and describe happiness and contentment.


Another word that describes contentment is the word: ease. This is one of the reasons that contentment and happiness is so important to practice. The benefit of being content is to enjoy all the things that you already have when you practice ease or contentment. Ease is a really great word because it means effortlessness, easiness, no difficulty, straightforwardness and simplicity. All these characteristics can be yours with "ease," when you practice contentment. "For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." - St. Paul: Philippians 4:11


Finally the word peace has been used to describe contentment. This is one of the most powerful words of all. It is true that peace is also happiness as well as contentment. Look at the opposite of the word contentment: discontentment. The word and the state of discontentment are actually the state of experiencing dissatisfaction, unhappiness, restlessness, displeasure and disgruntlement. Not a very pretty picture of what can happen when we are not using contentment and happiness as strategies for better living. As Doris Mortman said, "Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have."


We have words, like: self-content, self-satisfaction and self-gratification to describe what we can choose to do and to be. Maybe this is a good time to introduce you to self-happiness. Og Mandino has said, "Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself."


Happiness is like a do-it-yourself project. Like self-contentment, you can do it for yourself and help yourself to as much as you'd like. If you get too much, you can always give away a little happiness and share it with others. Greg Anderson said, "...the supply of misery, pain, and suffering is unlimited. But so is the supply of pleasure, contentment, and fulfillment. It is we who do the rationing. Ration no more! Capture wellness this instant! This instant is all there is. Live it!"


I read this article in an online magazine called Happiness, and found it informative.

Positive Thoughts for Self Empowerment

When you say you don't like abc ..... you set filter in mind and try to search same in all the instance.

Following is from iLand post

Positive Thoughts for Self Empowerment

I read the following article online and realized how true it is for most of us:

These days, normally everyone is aware of the power of positive thinking theoretically. However, when it comes to practically being positive in life, one finds it difficult to do so. Most of the times, even though we may be thinking of ourselves as a person of positive attitude, but we end up reinforcing negativity.
Let me give you an example of that. Once, I asked one of my friend, what kind of people she likes. She answered, “I don’t like hypocrites and liars”. I told her that I had asked her what kind of people she liked and not what kind of people she did not like. Obviously she became angry on this and banged the phone.
This set me thinking, how often we attract negativity in life and think of it as positive attitude. We try hard to push the negativity away, but still it shows up again and again. But actually we are not being positive. We are just trying to fight negativity, which not only turns out to be futile, but also has difficult consequence. Someone who says that she doesn’t like hypocrites and liars, is bound to end up with the kind of people she doesn’t like and will face difficulties because of that.
Why does this happen? Because universe always responds to whatever image is stored in our sub conscious. So when one has a strong image of hypocrites and liars, such people are eventually attracted and she end up being not liking them. Instead of this negative thinking, if she thought like “I like authentic and honest people”, then she is bound to attract such kind of people in her life.
I have heard people using negative statements very often. For example “I don’t want to hurt people” But I have experienced that such people often end up hurting others, even if they don’t want to. Instead of that, they should use the affirmative approach like “I care for people” or “I love people” .
Let us understand, we can’t fight with the absence. You can’t fight with the darkness, however powerful you may be. Why? Because darkness does not exist, it is simply the absence of light. You can not drive the darkness away, you can only switch on the light and darkness will run away on its own. Same way, one can’t fight with negativity. One can only cultivate positivity.
Using affirmative language can turn your life around. From now on, I invite you to watch yourself, when you use negative language and realize that your thoughts are centered to negativity. Be aware of your negative thoughts and discover the positivity you are longing for. The moment, you start to think, feel and speak positive, you would experience ecstatic energy arising from your within, which will attract joy and success. Thinking and speaking the affirmative language can turn out to be miraculous.

Tuesday 30 December 2008

Some nice quote from iLand blog

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.
Robert Frost

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
Lana Turner

A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be thankful for a good one.
Mae West

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his.
Oscar Wilde

Women and Cats will do as they please. Men and dogs had better get used to it. Robert Heinlein , Time Enough for Love, Lazarus Long

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.
Charles Wadsworth

Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent ages as much as 20 years.
Anonymous

Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.
Anonymous

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.
Anonymous

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.
Oscar Wilde

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title.
Virginia Wolf

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana

We do not remember days; we remember moments.
Anonymous

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Mindfulness Defined

Mindfulness Defined
by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

What does it mean to be mindful of the breath? Something very simple: to keep the breath in mind. Keep remembering the breath each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out. The British scholar who coined the term “mindfulness” to translate the Pali word sati was probably influenced by the Anglican prayer to be ever mindful of the needs of others—in other words, to always keep their needs in mind. But even though the word “mindful” was probably drawn from a Christian context, the Buddha himself defined sati as the ability to remember, illustrating its function in meditation practice with the four satipatthanas, or establishings of mindfulness.

“And what is the faculty of sati? There is the case where a monk, a disciple of the noble ones, is mindful, highly meticulous, remembering & able to call to mind even things that were done & said long ago. (And here begins the satipatthana formula:) He remains focused on the body in & of itself — ardent, alert, & mindful — putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world. He remains focused on feelings in & of themselves... the mind in & of itself... mental qualities in & of themselves — ardent, alert, & mindful — putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world.”

SN 48.10

The full discussion of the satipatthanas (DN 22) starts with instructions to be ever mindful of the breath. Directions such as “bring bare attention to the breath,” or “accept the breath,” or whatever else modern teachers tell us that mindfulness is supposed to do, are actually functions for other qualities in the mind. They're not automatically a part of sati, but you should bring them along wherever they're appropriate.

One quality that's always appropriate in establishing mindfulness is being watchful or alert. The Pali word for alertness, sampajañña, is another term that's often misunderstood. It doesn't mean being choicelessly aware of the present, or comprehending the present. Examples in the Canon shows that sampajañña means being aware of what you're doing in the movements of the body, the movements in the mind. After all, if you're going to gain insight into how you're causing suffering, your primary focus always has to be on what you're actually doing. This is why mindfulness and alertness should always be paired as you meditate.

In the Satipatthana Sutta, they're combined with a third quality, ardency. Ardency means being intent on what you're doing, trying your best to do it skillfully. This doesn't mean that you have to keep straining and sweating all the time, just that you're continuous in developing skillful habits and abandoning unskillful ones. Remember, in the eight factors of the path to freedom, right mindfulness grows out of right effort. Right effort is the effort to be skillful. Mindfulness helps that effort along by reminding you to stick with it, so that you don't let it drop.

All three of these qualities get their focus from what the Buddha called yoniso manisikara, appropriate attention. Notice: That's appropriate attention, not bare attention. The Buddha discovered that the way you attend to things is determined by what you see as important: the questions you bring to the practice, the problems you want the practice to solve. No act of attention is ever bare. If there were no problems in life you could open yourself up choicelessly to whatever came along. But the fact is there is a big problem smack dab in the middle of everything you do: the suffering that comes from acting in ignorance. This is why the Buddha doesn't tell you to view each moment with a beginner's eyes. You've got to keep the issue of suffering and its end always in mind.

Otherwise inappropriate attention will get in the way, focusing on questions like “Who am I?” “Do I have a self?”—questions that deal in terms of being and identity. Those questions, the Buddha said, lead you into a thicket of views and leave you stuck on the thorns. The questions that lead to freedom focus on comprehending suffering, letting go of the cause of suffering, and developing the path to the end of suffering. Your desire for answers to these questions is what makes you alert to your actions—your thoughts, words, and deeds—and ardent to perform them skillfully.

Mindfulness is what keeps the perspective of appropriate attention in mind. Modern psychological research has shown that attention comes in discrete moments. You can be attentive to something for only a very short period of time and then you have to remind yourself, moment after moment, to return to it if you want to keep on being attentive. In other words, continuous attention—the type that can observe things over time—has to be stitched together from short intervals. This is what mindfulness is for. It keeps the object of your attention and the purpose of your attention in mind.

Popular books on meditation, though, offer a lot of other definitions for mindfulness, a lot of other duties it's supposed to fulfill—so many that the poor word gets totally stretched out of shape. In some cases, it even gets defined as Awakening, as in the phrase, “A moment of mindfulness is a moment of Awakening”—something the Buddha would never say, because mindfulness is conditioned and nirvana is not.

These are not just minor matters for nitpicking scholars to argue over. If you don't see the differences among the qualities you're bringing to your meditation, they glom together, making it hard for real insight to arise. If you decide that one of the factors on the path to Awakening is Awakening itself, it's like reaching the middle of a road and then falling asleep right there. You never get to the end of the road, and in the meantime you're bound to get run over by aging, illness, and death. So you need to get your directions straight, and that requires, among other things, knowing precisely what mindfulness is and what it's not.

I've heard mindfulness defined as “affectionate attention” or “compassionate attention,” but affection and compassion aren't the same as mindfulness. They're separate things. If you bring them to your meditation, be clear about the fact that they're acting in addition to mindfulness, because skill in meditation requires seeing when qualities like compassion are helpful and when they're not. As the Buddha says, there are times when affection is a cause for suffering, so you have to watch out.

Sometimes mindfulness is defined as appreciating the moment for all the little pleasures it can offer: the taste of a raisin, the feel of a cup of tea in your hands. In the Buddha's vocabulary, this appreciation is called contentment. Contentment is useful when you're experiencing physical hardship, but it's not always useful in the area of the mind. In fact the Buddha once said that the secret to his Awakening was that he didn't allow himself to rest content with whatever attainment he had reached. He kept reaching for something higher until there was nowhere higher to reach. So contentment has to know its time and place. Mindfulness, if it's not glommed together with contentment, can help keep that fact in mind.

Some teachers define mindfulness as “non-reactivity” or “radical acceptance.” If you look for these words in the Buddha's vocabulary, the closest you'll find are equanimity and patience. Equanimity means learning to put aside your preferences so that you can watch what's actually there. Patience is the ability not to get worked up over the things you don't like, to stick with difficult situations even when they don't resolve as quickly as you want them to. But in establishing mindfulness you stay with unpleasant things not just to accept them but to watch and understand them. Once you've clearly seen that a particular quality like aversion or lust is harmful for the mind, you can't stay patient or equanimous about it. You have to make whatever effort is needed to get rid of it and to nourish skillful qualities in its place by bringing in other factors of the path: right resolve and right effort.

Mindfulness, after all, is part of a larger path mapped out by appropriate attention. You have to keep remembering to bring the larger map to bear on everything you do. For instance, right now you're trying to keep the breath in mind because you see that concentration, as a factor of the path, is something you need to develop, and mindfulness of the breath is a good way to do it. The breath is also a good standpoint from which you can directly observe what's happening in the mind, to see which qualities of mind are giving good results and which ones aren't.

Meditation involves lots of mental qualities, and you have to be clear about what they are, where they're separate, and what each one of them can do. That way, when things are out of balance, you can identify what's missing and can foster whatever is needed to make up the lack. If you're feeling flustered and irritated, try to bring in a little gentleness and contentment. When you're lazy, rev up your sense of the dangers of being unskillful and complacent. It's not just a matter of piling on more and more mindfulness. You've got to add other qualities as well. First you're mindful enough to stitch things together, to keep the basic issues of your meditation in mind and to observe things over time. Then you try to notice—that's alertness—to see what else to stir into the pot.

It's like cooking. When you don't like the taste of the soup you're fixing, you don't just add more and more salt. Sometimes you add onion, sometimes garlic, sometimes oregano—whatever you sense is needed. Just keep in mind the fact that you've got a whole spice shelf to work with.

And remember that your cooking has a purpose. In the map of the path, right mindfulness isn't the end point. It's supposed to lead to right concentration.

We're often told that mindfulness and concentration are two separate forms of meditation, but the Buddha never made a clear division between the two. In his teachings, mindfulness shades into concentration; concentration forms the basis for even better mindfulness. The four establishings of mindfulness are also the themes of concentration. The highest level of concentration is where mindfulness becomes pure. As Ajaan Lee, a Thai Forest master, once noted, mindfulness combined with ardency turns into the concentration factor called vitakka or “directed thought,” where you keep your thoughts consistently focused on one thing. Alertness combined with ardency turns into another concentration factor: vicara, or “evaluation.” You evaluate what's going on with the breath. Is it comfortable? If it is, stick with it. If it's not, what can you do to make it more comfortable? Try making it a little bit longer, a little bit shorter, deeper, more shallow, faster, slower. See what happens. When you've found a way of breathing that nourishes a sense of fullness and refreshment, you can spread that fullness throughout the body. Learn how to relate to the breath in a way that nourishes a good energy flow throughout the body. When things feel refreshing like this, you can easily settle down.

You may have picked up the idea that you should never fiddle with the breath, that you should just take it as it comes. Yet meditation isn't just a passive process of being nonjudgmentally present with whatever's there and not changing it at all. Mindfulness keeps stitching things together over time, but it also keeps in mind the idea that there's a path to develop, and getting the mind to settle down is a skillful part of that path.

This is why evaluation—judging the best way to maximize the pleasure of the breath—is essential to the practice. In other words, you don't abandon your powers of judgment as you develop mindfulness. You simply train them to be less judgmental and more judicious, so that they yield tangible results.

When the breath gets really full and refreshing throughout the body, you can drop the evaluation and simply be one with the breath. This sense of oneness is also sometimes called mindfulness, in a literal sense: mind-fullness, a sense of oneness pervading the entire range of your awareness. You're at one with whatever you focus on, at one with whatever you do. There's no separate “you” at all. This is the type of mindfulness that's easy to confuse with Awakening because it can seem so liberating, but in the Buddha's vocabulary it's neither mindfulness nor Awakening. It's cetaso ekodibhava, unification of awareness—a factor of concentration, present in every level from the second jhana up through the infinitude of consciousness. So it's not even the ultimate in concentration, much less Awakening.

Which means that there's still more to do. This is where mindfulness, alertness, and ardency keep digging away. Mindfulness reminds you that no matter how wonderful this sense of oneness, you still haven't solved the problem of suffering. Alertness tries to focus on what the mind is still doing in that state of oneness—what subterranean choices you're making to keep that sense of oneness going, what subtle levels of stress those choices are causing—while ardency tries to find a way to drop even those subtle choices so as to be rid of that stress.

So even this sense of oneness is a means to a higher end. You bring the mind to a solid state of oneness so as to drop your normal ways of dividing up experience into me vs. not-me, but you don't stop there. You then take that oneness and keep subjecting it to all the factors of right mindfulness. That's when really valuable things begin to separate out on their own. Ajaan Lee uses the image of ore in a rock. Staying with the sense of oneness is like being content simply with the knowledge that there's tin, silver, and gold in your rock: If that's all you do, you'll never get any use from them. But if you heat the rock to the melting points for the different metals, they'll separate out on their own.

Liberating insight comes from testing, experimenting. This is how we learn about the world to begin with. If we weren't active creatures, we'd have no understanding of the world at all. Things would pass by, pass by, and we wouldn't know how they were connected because we'd have no way of influencing them to see which effects came from changing which causes. It's because we act in the world that we understand the world.

The same holds true with the mind. You can't just sit around hoping that a single mental quality—mindfulness, acceptance, contentment, oneness—is going to do all the work. If you want to learn about the potentials of the mind, you have to be willing to play—with sensations in the body, with qualities in the mind. That's when you come to understand cause and effect.

And that requires all your powers of intelligence—and this doesn't mean just book intelligence. It means your ability to notice what you're doing, to read the results of what you've done, and to figure out ingenious ways of doing things that cause less and less suffering and stress: street smarts for the noble path. Mindfulness allows you to see these connections because it keeps reminding you always to stay with these issues, to stay with the causes until you see their effects. But mindfulness alone can't do all the work. You can't fix the soup simply by dumping more pepper into it. You add other ingredients, as they're needed.

This is why it's best not to load the word mindfulness with too many meanings or to assign it too many functions. Otherwise, you can't clearly discern when a quality like contentment is useful and when it's not, when you need to bring things to oneness and when you need to take things apart.

So keep the spices on your shelf clearly labeled, and learn through practice which spice is good for which purpose. Only then can you develop your full potential as a cook.

Sunday 28 December 2008

Stress Management Techniques for People Searching for Answers

Stress Management is more than anger management and relaxation. It is self management. There are many different ways to manage stress. I have compiled the various stress management techniques that are simple and most effective to follow and practice. Please feel free to use as many as you can, keeping an open mind, so you can have a collection of techniques that are the most effective for you.

  1. Feel Good about your Self
  2. Take Care of your Body
  3. Develop the Right Attitude
  4. Develop the Right Environment
  5. Short Tips for Busy People

1. Feel Good about your Self

If you want to bring down your level of stress level in a matter of minutes, these techniques will help you. Use them as needed to feel better quickly; practice them regularly over time and gain even greater benefits.

  • Deep Breathing from the Abdomen

  • Meditation

  • Having a dose of Laughter

  • Progressive Muscular Relaxation

  • Listening to light music

  • Practicing Yoga

  • Aerobic Exercises

  • Creative Visualization

2. Take Care of Body

When we’re stressed, we don’t always take care of our bodies, which can lead to even more stress. Here are some important ways to take care of yourself and keep stress levels lower.

  • Eat Healthy low fats â€" high protein meals

  • Have six to eight hours of regular sleep

  • Exercise regularly

  • Develop a Hobby

  • Have healthy Sex Life

3. Develop the Right Attitude

Attitude plays a great role in managing stress. Much of your experience of stress has a lot to do with your attitude and the way you perceive your life’s events. Here are some resources to help you maintain a stress-relieving attitude.

  • Let go your Ego

  • Have a Optimistic approach to life

  • Do not react under pressure

  • Stop Worrying about things not in your control

  • Accept that everything cannot be perfect

  • Find an opportunity in every problem

  • Say good things to your self â€" affirmations

  • Have a health sense of humour

4. Develop the Right Environment

Having ambiance and pleasant environment make stress management very easy. Your physical and emotional surroundings can impact your stress levels in subtle but significant ways. Here are several ways you can change your atmosphere and less your stress.

  • Clutter free home, office and working desk

  • Green and Clean surrounding

  • Light instrumental music

  • Motivational Posters

  • Words of Wisdom

5. Short Tips for Busy People

Busy People add a lot of stress to their already stressed life. People who may have more stressors in their lives is because they have more activity in their lives, and less time to devote to stress management. If you’re a busy person, these resources can help you to manage stress efficiently in a short amount of time, and eliminate some of what’s causing you stress in the first place.

  • Time Management Tips

  • Communication Skills

  • Listening Skills

  • Managing Priorities

  • Enhancing Team Work

  • Enhancing People Skills

Sunday 7 December 2008

Be honest, be also resourceful

Be honest, be also resourceful

K VIJAYARAGHAVAN



MANY who claim themselves to be ‘practical’, feel that to go ahead in life, it is often necessary to compromise on one’s integrity. They also point out to many simple and honest persons suffering, especially financially, while those who have been corrupt appear to thrive.
Such philosophy would, prima facie, in fact, appear to hold some water, especially because there
also exist many ‘honest’ persons, who, on observing others’ comfortable living, nurse doubts about their own values. They even conclude that one cannot be honest and also be above want at the same time — that is, one cannot have the cake and eat it too!
A deeper analy
sis would, however, convince that those who take such a cynical view are not simple persons but mere simpletons, whose list of virtues commences with honesty and also ends there. Such ‘honest’ persons do not have the urge to extend honesty to other needed virtues, so necessary for true fulfilment. Life, limited in this manner, is prosaic, laughable and is, actually, no life at all!
Honesty, inspired by true courage of conviction, would always also go with intelligent hard work, enterprise and dynamism. Thus the seeker not merely obtains peace of an honest mind but also materialistic gains (artha), to
fulfil his true desires (kama). Established in righteousness (dharma), he finally wins liberation (moksha) from all wrong living and worldly bondage.
It is through this holistic and integrated approach, “tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection”. Its practical working is illustrated by Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Striving for excellence in flight,
Jonathan learns to “find the rare and tasty fish that schooled ten feet below the surface of the ocean” and to “ride the high winds far inland to dine there on delicate insects”. He is thus the winner, even from the materialistic point of view, having also fulfilled the call of the spirit within.
The late Gomathy Krishnanand, the first principal of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Trivandrum used to inspire her students, telling, “there is always room at the top” in this vast world, for him, who is good, honest and also willing, daring and resourceful. This awesome combination of such abiding integrity within and also effective persistence would obtain the twin blessings of being both honest and also being prosperous in every way — the blessing of having the cake and eating it too! This, doubtless, is unmatched skill in action (karmasu kaushalam)!

Friday 21 November 2008

And when you're in deep shit, keep your mouth shut

Lesson 1

A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?" The crow answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate him.

Moral of the story: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.


Lesson 2

A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy. "Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull." They're packed with nutrients." The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the first branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fortnight, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree.

Moral of the story: Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.


Lesson 3

When the body was first made, all the parts wanted to be Boss. The brain said, "I should be Boss because I control the whole body's responses and functions." The feet said, " We should be Boss as we carry the brain about and get him to where he wants to go." The hands said, "We should be the Boss because we do all the work and earn all the money." And so it went on and on with the heart, the lungs and the eyes until finally the asshole spoke up. All the parts laughed at the idea of the asshole being the Boss. So the asshole went on strike, blocked itself up and refused to work. Within a short time the eyes became crossed, the hands clenched, the feet witched, the heart and lungs began to panic and the brain fevered. Eventually they all decided that the asshole should be the Boss, so the motion was passed. All the other parts did all the work while the Boss just sat and passed out the shit!

Moral of the story: You don't need brains to be a Boss - any asshole will do.


Lesson 4

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold; the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, it began to realize how warm it was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him!

Moral of the story:
1) Not everyone who drops shit on you is your enemy.
2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
3) And when you're in deep shit, keep your mouth shut!


Lesson 5

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbor.

Before she says a word, Bob says, "I'll give you $800 to drop that towel."
After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob.

After a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.

The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, "Who was that?" "It was Bob the next door neighbor," she replies.

"Great!" the husband says, "did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?"

Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.


Lesson 6

A priest offered a Nun a lift. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.

The nun said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?"
The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again.
The nun once again said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?"
The priest apologized "Sorry sister but the flesh is weak."
Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way. On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, "Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory."

Moral of the story:
If you are not well informed in your job, opportunities for advancement will pass right by you.


Lesson 7

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out. The Genie says, "I'll give each of you just one wish."

"Me first! Me first!" says the admin clerk. "I want to be in the Bahamas , driving a speedboat, without a care in the world." Puff! She's gone.
"Me next! Me next!" says the sales rep. "I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life." Puff! He's gone.
"OK, you're up," the Genie says to the manager.
The manager says, "I want those two back in the office after lunch."

Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.

THIS CONCLUDES THE 5-MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE.

Wednesday 15 October 2008

Enjoy The Present By Shedding Ego

An average person always thinks he is above average. The perception of ‘easy and difficult’ is the result of one’s state of being. Swatting a fly is ‘difficult’ for some, while killing thousands is ‘easy’ for others like terrorists. Dropping the ego is easy when we realise that we are less than a dot in this vast cosmos. It is foolish to live with the illusion that we are the centre of the cosmos. Dropping ego becomes difficult when we have this illusion.
In any circle there is a centre
and a circumference. If the centre of your life is hope then you will experience deficiency. If the centre of your life is enjoying the moment, living in the moment, being total in the moment... then hope will be a circumference... then it is not a problem.
Let kitchen items be in the kitchen and bathroom items be in the bathroom. If they are placed elsewhere, then there is a problem. There is no problem with ‘hope’ as such, as long as it is in the circumference and not in the centre. Be alive to the present.
The self with arrogance is ego. Self with the ignorance of who we are is also ego. Self filled with hopes and dreams is also ego. Ego lives either in the past or in the future, but never in the present. If its centre resides either in the past or in the future it misses the present.
We are living in the world of ego... the ‘lower self ’. But if our centre is gratitude and devotion, then we live in the present. Both past and future become mere reference points. The ‘higher self’ is a space from which possibilities arise. It is a flow. It is a learning energy. It is an evolving being. You have the choice to operate either from the lower or higher self.
When you operate from ego, your relationships will be affected. Ego wants to prove its point of
view. The point of view is more important than truth or happiness. In that state, you demand and not command respect. If a couple demands respect from each other, then they are beggars of happiness and not givers of happiness. In the egoistic state, an argument feeds the ego. Remember no one wins an argument. You accumulate more of bitterness and at different periods of time you settle scores with the other.
When you operate from the ‘higher self ’, there is a healthy discussion. In discussion, truth is more important than who
has said it. Happiness and well-being become more important than the survival of one’s point of view.
Then a relationship becomes rhythmic. You enjoy being with the other and you enjoy being alone. You are neither dependent nor
independent but interdependent. You share your joyous being and not beg happiness from your partner.
Identity is created by what others have said about us. If others have told you that you are a great speaker, then you feel you are a great speaker. So your identity is dependent on others. In fact, others create your identity. Others validate you. It is painful, as you have invested much on others. Your image is in the hands of others.
The fact is, the real ‘I’ in us is not created by others. The lower self is a product of others, but the higher self is our essence. The higher self is a presence. It is awareness. We have not learnt to operate from that state of being. Hence, we are alien to ourselves.
When your partner separates from you, you feel you are at a loss. Stop and look within. You find a higher self, God waiting for you. Learn to discover aloneness in a relationship and beyond a relationship. Aloneness is not loneliness.

Tuesday 30 September 2008

The Greatest Things

The Greatest Things

Greatest joy... Giving

Greatest loss…Self Respect

Most destructive habit… Worry

Greatest problem to overcome… Fear

Most beautiful attire… a smile

Deadliest weapon… the tongue

Most powerful force… Love

Most crippling failure disease… Excuses

World’s most incredible computer...the brain

Most satisfying work...Helping others

Ugliest personality trait… Selfishness

Greatest “shot in the arm”… Encouragement

Most effective sleeping pill...peace of mind

Worst thing to be without...Hope

Two most powerful words...I can

Most prized possession...Integrity

Most contagious spirit...enthusiasm

An Attitude Of Gratitude

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire.
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something,
for it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations,
because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge,
because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes.
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary,
because it means you've made a difference.

It's easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who
are also thankful for the setbacks.

Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles,
and they can become your blessings.

Tuesday 26 August 2008

What Happens Once You’re Faster, Higher, Stronger

What Happens Once You’re Faster, Higher, Stronger


"Nearly all men/women can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's/woman's character , give him power "

Everyone is celebrating the gold medal victory of master shooter Abhinav Bindra in the individual event at the just concluded Olympic Games in Beijing. On his arrival in Delhi he answered many questions from the media and some of his observations on his success reveal a mature approach. For instance, when he was asked what it felt like winning the gold at the Olympics, Bindra remarked: “It was a sort of emptiness. You climb the mountain and there is nothing at the top. When you work so hard to achieve something and you get it at the end, there is a feeling of emptiness. But then life goes on...”

The other day i read about a man who wanted to win a place in the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’ by drinking maximum amount of
water in one sitting. Unfortunately he collapsed in the effort and died. Now and then newspapers bring to our attention such daring deeds undertaken to draw attention and seeking fame but ending in disaster.

There is also the current story of ambitious men driving themselves to insanity and ruining their health in their obsession with success. It is the brainwashing of a materialistic society and prodding of the competitive spirit that sends many a young man early to his grave!
It is a psychological truth that for a person, the pleasure of anticipation is more than the pleasure of actual realisation of a goal. Many of us might have dreamt of heavenly experiences on reaching the top of a career. The less fortunate ones watching close by are overcome by envy while the successful ones are overcome by a sense of emptiness. This is what is termed in Biblical language, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!”

Dreams begin in the prime of
one’s life and their fulfilment take up a good part of one’s waking life. Yet it happens that very few could claim as in fairy tales, that “they lived happily ever after”. Once they thought heaven lay in supermarket shopping. Somewhere along the line they learn that the joys brought by earthly possessions, fame and power do not last for long.
When Alexander the Great had come to the end of his conquests, he is said to have lamented that he had “no more lands to conquer”.

Some scriptures speak of life as “nothing but a pastime, a
momentary delight”. If anything, it is our materialistic bragging that has made success a matter of life and death; as if only rewards and honours make life worth living. In the race for being Number One, many stake their all only to end it all in the grave.

Albert Einstein said: “A successful man is he who receives a great deal from his fellow men, usually incomparably more than corresponds to his service to them. The value of a man, however, should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.” The striving, the effort to achieve success and to excel is not a bad thing. However, to make that the ultimate goal of life is nothing short of being foolish for earthly gains and achievements are short-lived. It is the search for the divine truth that ultimately brings real fulfilment.
The adventure is in the journey, not in the destination. And they say it is not winning or losing, but how you have played the game that matters.

We are so made and the restlessness within is so evident that we appreciate the profound truth uttered by St Augustine, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee...”

Thursday 31 July 2008

Power Mantra

Robin says “Power doesn`t come from forcing people to listen to you and coercing them to do what you say because you have the right title on your business card.Real power comes when you spread your passion, offer people a reason to climb your strategic mountaintops, treat them with rare respect and give them permission to shine, grow and Lead Without Title.Be there for people and they will be there for you”

Amazing and True !

Saturday 26 July 2008

Handling ego/anger with Acceptance , Approval , Appreciations (AAA) Part-1

Handling ego/Anger with Acceptance , Approval , Appreciations (AAA)


Two of my good friend fall in love and got married

One day, I was asking my friends wife , who you handle my friend ( her husband ) because some time he seems to be very egoistic. She say simply by “acceptance” , acceptance is power. I oppose and said that mean you compromise too much and it look unfair. She just say no …….

She keeps explaining me, See ego is like hunger and everybody has ego (little or more). Until unless you don’t feed hunger s/he will not think any thing else. If you say your problem is that you thinking too much on stomach. It is no use. So feed hunger, once s/he satisfy , then tell what we think is right and what is wrong again make no demand just tell preferences. If you demand and keep thrashing,
it will increase his/her ego/hunger and make person more demanding. Once her/his hunger is satisfy, s/he ready to listen (that is important). In bottom of mind and heart every egoist person know what is right and what is wrong. It is his/her ego(=hunger ) that keep them away from wisdom/truth/understanding. Once his/her ego/hunger is satisfy, s/he able to concentrate on wisdom/truth and will behave more understanding way. Give person there space so he/she able to
analyze them self other wise s/he keep repeating.

Again if cup is full of tea and if you pore more tea , it will fell down. Same bubble of ego ( = wrong belief/image ) occupy all space in cup(= mind). Once ego / hunger is satisfy , bubble bust and there is enough space to occupy new thought / belief / wisdom / truth.

I oppose again and said , this way you will make person more demanding , every time his/her ego grow up. She Said use this formula AAA, ego will never grow up. AAA means

A – Acceptance
A – Approval
A – Appreciations

She future said gratitude is power. First Accept what you have , Approve what you have and appreciate what you have. End of the day stability in life and peace of mind is more important then any other things.
She further explain relation between belief system and ego. ………..
She is from Big metro city and her husband is from Small town … and how she handle belief system clash and culture differences clash …….. very peace fully ……..with AAA

Person died who hindering your growth

The most important relationship you can have, is the one you have with yourself

One day all the employees reached the office and they
saw a big advice on the door on which it was written:

"Yesterday the
person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite
you to join the funeral in the room that has been prepared in the gym".


In the beginning, they all got sad for the death of one of their
colleagues, but after a while they
started getting curious to know who was that man who hindered the growth of his
colleagues and the company itself.

The excitement in the gym was such that security agents
were ordered to control the crowd within the room.

The more people reached the coffin, the more the excitement heated up.


Everyone thought: "Who is this guy who was hindering my
progress? Well, at least he died!".
>

One by one the thrilled employees got closer to the
coffin, and when they looked inside
it they suddenly became speechless. They stood nearby the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest part of their
soul.


There was a mirror inside the coffin: everyone who
looked inside it could see himself.

There was also a sign next to the mirror that said:

"There is only one person who is capable to
set limits to your growth: it is YOU.
You are the only person who can revolutionize your life.
You are the only person who can influence your happiness, your realization and your success. You are the only
person who can help yourself.

Your life does not change when your boss
changes, when your friends
change, when your parents
change, when your partner
changes, when your company changes.
Your life changes when YOU change,
when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when you realize that you are the only one
responsible for your life.

"The most important relationship you can
have, is the one you have with
yourself"


Examine yourself, watch yourself. Don't be afraid of
difficulties, impossibilities and
losses: be a winner, build yourself
and your reality.


The world is like a mirror: it gives back to anyone the
reflection of the thoughts in which one has strongly believed.


The world and your reality are like mirrors laying in a
coffin, which show to any individual
the death of his divine capability to imagine and create his happiness and his
success.

It's the way you face Life that makes the difference

I recieved this email box .............

Attitude

Attitude



Once there was an old and very wise man. Every day he would sit outside a gas station in his rocking chair and wait to greet motorists as they passed through his small town. On this day, his granddaughter knelt down at the foot of his chair and slowly passed the time with him.

As they sat and watched the people come and go, a tall man who surely had to be a tourist -- since they knew everyone in the town -- began looking around as if he were checking out the area for a place to live.

The stranger walked up and asked,"So what kind of town is this that we're in?"

The older gentleman slowly turned to the man and replied," Well, what kind of town are you from?"

The tourist said,"In the town I'm from everyone is very critical of each other. The neighbours all gossip about everyone, and it's a real negative place to live. I'm sure glad to be leaving. It is not a very cheerful place. "

The man in the chair looked at the stranger and said," You know, that's just how this town is."

An hour or so later a family that was also passing through stopped for gas. The car slowly turned in and rolled to a stop in front of where the older gentleman and his granddaughter were sitting. The mother jumped out with two small children and asked where the restrooms were. The man in the chair pointed to a small, bent-up sign that was barely hanging by one nail on the side of the door.

The father stepped out of the car and also asked the man,"Is this town a pretty good place to live?"

The man in the chair replied," What about the town you are from? How is it?"

The father looked at him and said,"Well, in the town I'm from everyone is very close and always willing to lend their neighbour a helping hand. There's always a hello and thank you everywhere you go. I really hate to leave. I feel almost like we are leaving family. "

The older gentlemen turned to the father and gave him a warm smile. "You know, that's a lot like this small town."

Then the family returned to the car, said their thank yous, waved goodbye and drove away.

After the family was in the distance, the granddaughter looked up at her grandfather and asked,"Grandpa, how come when the first man came into our town you told him it was a terrible place to live and when the family came in to town you told them it was a wonderful place to live? "

The grandfather lovingly looked down at this granddaughter's wondering blue eyes and said,"No matter where you move, you take your own attitude with you and that's what makes it terrible or wonderful. "

It's your attitude, not your aptitude that determines your altitude.
Happiness is not something you find, it's something you create. It is within you , nobody else is responsible for it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Picture this : your flight is delayed due to weather and you miss your connection.

You can either have a bad attitude about it and blame the airline and every person who is associated with the airline and then go off unhappy and late

or

you can accept it and move on to the next solution.

Attitude is everything.It can make or break a situation !

Recently there has been a lot of hubub over the show “The Secret” so much so that Oprah and Larry King have done shows about “The Secret”. The story revolves around a universal principle that we get what we give in life. I believe this and while I think that “The Secret” is an old message in a new package, I believe that we all should heed the message. Stephen Covey has taught this for years, in fact in 89 he stated, “Our behaviors are a function of our decisions not our conditions”. In other words we decide what we will do, we being the key word, not the world around us.

Take some time and think about your attitude and the priniciple that you get from life what you put into it. If you are negative, you’ll get negative, if you are positive you’ll get positive. In fact if you are positive, the hiccups in life will be value laden and if you are negative the hiccups in life will be sorrows with no value.

Make the choice and have a positive responsible attitude in life, then teach this very principle to someone else. Its the way we move the message and make the world a better place



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Soch ko Badlo, Sitare Badal Jayenge. Nazar ko Badalo, Nazare badal Jayenge. Kashtiya Badalne ki Zarurat Nahin, Dishao Ko Badalo, Kinare Badal Jaayenge!!

Love all , trust few , don't do wrong to anybody

Be Brave
A real man is who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. It's the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

Treat everyone with politeness, Even those who are rude to U.....Not because they are not nice, But bcoz u are nice....!!!


Don't cry in Love coz 4 whom u r crying does not deserve ur tears & the person who deserves it will never let u cry!!!


You can win me, you can lose me but never try 2 use me

Interests: - Enjoying life as it is........ you are another child of god pure , calm , loving
DOn't be Judemental - Critical - Rigid - Close Mind


The most important relationship you can have, is the one you have with yourself

Just for today, do not worry.
Just for today, do not anger.
Just for today in good and happy, cheerful mood.
Just for today keep similing
just for today MAKE A DIFFERENCE, HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY
Just for today, do not egoiest. -> Open Minded -> try to see world with others POV.
Just for today , do not short tamper ...PTR ... patients ..limit is set by your mind/thinking/communication
Earn your living honestly(Ask yourself every day: "Did I give my best effort to today's activities?").
Honor your parents, teachers, and elders.
Show gratitude to everything.
See BIG Picture ...concentrate on your need , Never Let Small things Bother You
If need a help , speak out/communicate honestly or take experts help

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> *Love While You Live**
> Realize things before its too late.
> Have lots of friends before you are alone.
> Accept things rather than deny them.
> Love people before you loose them.
>
> Life comes just once.
> Love it while you live it.* * *
>
>
> I'm not the best
> but I 'm not like the rest

“The Secret” -> that we get what we give in life.

Attitude is everything.It can make or break a situation !

“Our behaviors are a function of our decisions not our conditions”

“Your mind can only hold one thought at a time, make it a positive and constructive one.”

Sunday 20 July 2008

Lose your ego and bow down! : Good One

Gautam Buddha was once travelling from Shravasti to Varanasi. When he got tired, he rested under a tree, on an ancient podium. A poor farmer saw Buddha and came to pay his respects, but before bowing down before him, he prostrated himself in front of the podium. Buddha asked him why. He replied: "I'm uneducated but it is our village tradition to bow to this podium. I feel a certain reverence towards this podium and I feel very happy when I follow the tradition."

Buddha blessed him and told him to continue the tradition. Buddha's other disciples asked him: "We don't understand this. You don't teach any prayer. You don't support tradition. Why didn't you advise the poor farmer to be free from this blind faith? Just the other day, you scolded a Brahmin Agnidatta for doing the same thing!"

Buddha replied: "This farmer bows in innocence. Agnidatta is educated and egoistic. His prayer has no heart. It is important to learn the art of bowing down and being humble. Then, it does not matter where you bow-to this podium or to any temple. Agnidatta is a scholar, and he is proud of his scholarliness. He has a mindset but no humbleness. I had to shake him and wake him up. I don't give the same advice to two people, as every individual is unique."

After explaining this to his monks, Buddha asked them to meditate near the podium. All of them experienced divine light radiating from the podium. Wonderstruck, they asked their master about the mystery of the podium. Buddha replied: "This podium is 'alive'. It's the samadhi of Kashyap, a past Buddha. In my last life, I met him. I was simply a seeker then. Kashyap told me: 'You will be enlightened in your next life. I see it.'" Buddha went on: "Kashyap made me aware of my potential and I have attained it. There have been thousands of Buddhas in the past; there will be thousands in the future. What is important is to learn how to bow down. It rids you of your ego. It makes you divine."

The modern world is becoming intellectual and rapidly losing touch with innocence. Everybody knows a lot but feels very little. The head becomes heavy and suppresses the heart's softness. The head creates a false centre in us and we lose our individuality. Ego is false life.

Osho explains: "The ego is not an individual. Ego is a social phenomenon. It gives you a social hierarchy. If you stay satisfied with it, you miss the opportunity to find yourself. That's why you are miserable. With a false life, how can you be ecstatic? Ego creates miseries, millions of them." You cannot see it, because it is your own darkness. You are attuned to it. All miseries enter through the ego. It cannot make you blissful, only miserable. Ego is hell.

Whenever you suffer, watch and analyse. You will find that ego is the cause. And the ego goes on finding causes to suffer. You are an egoist. Everyone is. Some people are grossly egoistic, just on the surface, so they are not so difficult. Some are subtly egoistic, deep down-they are the real problems. This ego clashes continuously with others because every ego is under confident about itself. It has to be, for it is a false thing. A man who attains his true self will never clash with anyone.

Osho illustrates this with a Zen story: "A Zen master was walking. A man came and hit him. The master fell down, got up and started walking, just like earlier. He didn't look back once. His disciple was shocked. He said, 'If one lives in such a way, then anybody can come and kill you. And you have not even looked at that person... Why did he do it?' The master said, 'That is his problem, not mine.'"

You can clash with an enlightened man, but that is your problem, not his. If you are hurt in that clash, that too is your own problem. It is like knocking against a wall!

Ego is attachment to wrong image or believe system. Believe system consist from your "sanskar" ( how you brought up) , surrounding ( friends , school/collage , society etc ) and information ( news ...etc).

Thought -> Believe -> pattern -> Habit -> Character -> Destiny


Tuesday 15 July 2008

There Are Absolutely No Paths To The Truth

There Are Absolutely No Paths To The Truth

Jiddu Krishnamurti


We have been told that all paths lead to Truth — you have your path as a Hindu, someone else has his path as a Christian and another as a Muslim, and they all meet at the same door — which is, when you look at it, so obviously absurd.

Truth has no path, and that is the beauty of Truth; it is living. A dead thing has a path to it because it is static, but when you see that Truth is something living, moving, which has no resting place, which is in no temple, mosque or church, which
no religion, teacher, philosopher, nobody can lead you to — then you will also see that this living thing is what you actually are: your anger, brutality, violence, despair, the agony and sorrow you live in. In the understanding of all this is the truth, and you can understand it only if you know how to look at those things in your life. And you cannot look through an ideology, through a screen of words, through hopes and fears.

So you see that you cannot depend upon anybody... There is no guide, no teacher, no authority. There is only you — your relationship with others and with the world — there is nothing else. When you realise this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else are responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. Normally we thrive on blaming others, which is a form of self-pity.

I am not formulating any philosophy or theological structure of ideas or concepts. All ideologies are utterly idiotic. What is important is to observe what is actually taking place in our daily life, inwardly and outwardly. If you observe very
closely what is taking place and examine it, you will see that it is based on an intellectual conception, and the intellect is not the whole field of existence; it is a fragment, and a fragment cleverly put together, however ancient and traditional, is still a small part of existence whereas we have to deal with the totality of life.

And when we look at what is taking place in the world we begin to understand that there is no outer and inner process; there is only one unitary process, it is a whole, total movement, the inner movement expressing itself as the
outer and the outer reacting again on the inner. To be able to look at this is all that is needed, because if we know how to look, then the whole thing becomes very clear, and to look needs no philosophy, no teacher. Nobody need tell you how to look. You just look.

Can you then, seeing this whole picture... easily, spontaneously, transform yourself? That is the real issue. Is it possible to bring about a complete revolution in the psyche?
If i were foolish enough to give you a system and if you were foolish enough to follow it, you would merely be copying, imitating, conforming, accepting, and when you do that you have set up in yourself the authority of another and hence there is conflict between you and that authority. So you will lead a double life between the ideology of the system and the actuality of your daily existence. In trying to conform to the ideology, you suppress yourself — whereas what is actually true is not the ideology but what you are. If you try to study yourself according to another, you will always remain a second-hand human being.

Extracted from Freedom from the Known. Another view on the subject was published on June 28: ‘According To Your Ability Choose Your Path’ by Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati.

Tuesday 8 July 2008

LIVE LIFE TILL THE END

LIVE LIFE TILL THE END

Even though our bodies may age, if we maintain an active, positive attitude our hearts and minds will remain young for as long as we live, says Daisaku Ikeda



When i was younger, i thought i had nothing to do with those who were elderly. I think most young people find it hard to believe that they themselves will grow old. The reality is however, that now i am among the “elderly” and I can’t move with the speed and ease that i once did.
My teacher used to say that the last years of our life are the most important. If those last few years are happy ones, we have had a happy life. Old age is a time of spiritual fruition and completion. When people are no longer pursuing position or status, money or material possessions, they can look closely at themselves and at the reality of life and death without the distractions of superficial concerns.
When you reach old age, you know in your heart if you have lived a satisfying life or not. No one else can know this or decide it for you. The single greatest challenge we each will face is whether we can honestly say at the end of our days on this Earth that our life has been well spent.
I believe that whether we can live a truly satisfying life to the end depends to a considerable extent on how we view death. Sadly, many older people are anxious and fearful about death. But, as a Buddhist, i find it helpful to compare the cycles of life and death to the daily rhythms of waking and sleeping. Just as we look forward to the rest sleep brings after the efforts and exertions of the day, death can be seen as a welcome period of rest and re-energizing in preparation for a new round of active life. And just as we enjoy the best sleep after a day in which we have done our very best, a calm and easy death can only follow a life lived to the fullest without any regrets.

It is natural for trees to bear fruit in the harvest season, and in the same way, old age is a period of ripening. It can be the most valuable time in human life, when we have rich experience, deeply polished character, and a pure and gentle heart. The loss of certain capacities with age is nothing to be ashamed of. Rather, i feel the various infirmities of age should even be seen as badges of honour and worn with pride.

There is a saying that goes, “To a fool, old age is a bitter winter; to a wise man it is a golden time.” Every
thing depends on your own attitude, how you approach life. Do you view old age as a period of decline ending in death, or as a time in which one has the opportunity to attain one’s goals and bring one’s life to a rewarding and satisfying completion? The same period of old age will be dramatically different depending upon your own outlook. I received a letter a few years ago from a woman in Kyoto who was then 67 years old. Her advice was as follows: “We need to banish any expression of defeat from our minds-statements or thoughts such as ‘I can't do it,’ ‘I’m too old,’ ‘There's no point in my trying,’ ‘I am past it,’ or ‘It’s too hard.’ Instead we should be telling ourselves: ‘I won’t give up yet,’ ‘I’m still young,’ ‘I can still do it,’ ‘I have still got plenty of energy.’ Just by changing the way we speak to ourselves and others we can change our pattern of behaviour in a positive direction.”

Research shows that when people
make continuous use of their powers of memory and concentration, these abilities need not fade. An active interest in others, finding new pastimes and making new friends-such positive attitudes have been shown to slow physical and mental decline.

Even though our bodies may age, if we maintain an active, positive attitude, our hearts and minds will remain youthful as long as we live.

To quote the poet Samuel Ullman,
“Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.”

It is vital to always look to the future, to have plans and aspirationssuch an outlook is crucial to making the last years of one’s life rewarding and fulfilling. One woman whose youthful attitude greatly impressed me was the American painter known as “Grandma Moses.” She had produced around fifteen hundred paintings by her death at the age of one hundred and one. Yet she didn’ t even start painting until she was seventy-five. She had never studied painting and was an ordinary farmer's wife until then.

She had faced many difficulties in her life. Five of her ten children died young, and she lost her husband when she was sixty-six. She said that though she had experienced real pain and hardship, she refused to be dragged down by suffering and always looked ahead.

Whatever she encountered, Grandma Moses strove to make each day and each moment shine with her smile. After her surviving children left home and her husband died, she refused to give in to loneliness or step back from life. She took up the challenge of painting, and her last years glowed like a beautiful sunset. She wrote, “I look back on my life like a good day's work. It was done and i feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented. I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it; always has been, always will be.”

There is a great difference between simply living a long life and living a full and rewarding life. What's really important is how much rich texture and color we can add to our lives during our stay here on Earth-however long that stay may be. Quality is the true value, not quantity.