manikaran. kullu, Himachal Pradesh.
Are you Happy?Every living creature wants to be happy. Whether it is money, power or sex, you seek it for the sake of happiness. Some people even seem to enjoy misery because it gives them happiness!To be happy, you seek something. But despite getting it, you are not happy. A schoolboy thinks that if he goes to college, he will be more independent, free and, therefore, happy. When you ask a college student whether he is happy, he feels that if he gets a job, he will be happy. Talk to somebody who is settled in his job or business, and you may find that he is waiting to get a perfect soul mate to be happy. Then what? When he gets a soul mate, he now wants a child, to be happy. Ask those who have children, if they are happy. They respond that how can they relax until the children have grown up and have had a good education and are successfully settled on their own? Ask those who are retired if they are happy? They long for the days when they were younger.
All of one's life is spent in preparing to be happy someday in the future. It's like making your bed all night, but having no time to sleep in it. How many minutes, hours and days of your life have you spent being happy from within? Those are the only moments you have really lived life. Those were perhaps the days when you were a small kid, completely blissful and happy or a few moments when you were surfing, swimming or sailing or on a mountain top, living in the present and enjoying it.
There are two ways of looking at life. One is thinking: "I'll be happy after achieving a certain objective." The second is saying: "I am happy come what may!" Which one do you want to live by? Life is 80% joy and 20% misery. But you hold on to the 20% and make it 200%! It is not a conscious act, it just happens. Living in the moment with joy, alertness, awareness and compassion is enlightenment. Being like a child is enlightenment. It is being free from within, feeling at home with everybody, without barriers.
Don't judge and don't worry about what others think of you. Whatever they think, it is not permanent. Your own opinion about things and people keeps changing all the time. So why worry about what others think about you? Worrying takes a toll on the body, mind, intellect and alertness. It is like an obstruction that takes you far away from yourself. It brings fear, and fear is nothing but the lack of love. It is an intense sense of isolation.
Relaxing through meditation and breathing exercises can handle this. When one is relaxed, one realizes that they are loved, and connected to everybody, and are a part of the whole universe. This will liberate you and the mind will completely shift. You will then find so much harmony around.
To find harmony, it is not as if you have to physically seek it by sitting somewhere for years. Whenever you are in love, your mind is in the present, you feel joyous. At some level, to some degree, everybody is meditating without being aware of it. There are moments when your body, mind and breath are all in harmony. That's when you achieve yoga.
Om Namah Shivay
Q: Why does the divine answer and reward some while prayers of others go unanswered?Guruji : Well, I don’t know why some prayers get answered and some are not. I have no idea. Perhaps it is good for you. Perhaps you may change your mind about what you want. People go to shopping, this often happens at least in India, and ask shopkeeper, “Can I come later and exchange it if I don’t like it”. They go home and don’t like it and get it exchanged next day. Most unreliable thing you have is your own mind because you don’t know what it likes and when it doesn’t like that. That is why bringing mind to its source is so important. Its centeredness is the most important thing in spiritual evolution. Understanding what is transient and what is permanent, what brings you permanent joy and what causes temporary convenience and long term misery, what causes temporary discomfort and permanent joy, and what causes long term discomfort. That is what is called viveka, sense of discretion, wisdom – knowing this from that.
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Q: When to use what, is the real wisdom. And how do you gain that wisdom?
Guruji : The answer is meditation, meditation and meditation.
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In life, events do happen. Either you move through them with a smile, or you grumble, be tense and complain all the time. This is the choice or freewill that you have
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A violence-free society. Disease-free body. Confusion-free mind. Inhibition-free intellect. Trauma-free memory and a sorrow-free soul. This is the birthright of everybody.
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God is alive in the world, and has been putting up with all the ongoing conflicts throughout the ages. If God can put up with all the conflicts, you can too. The moment you agree to be with the conflict, the conflict disappears.
Om Namah Shivay
Golden Rules for Protecting Your BonesOsteoporosis is a disease that damages the bones, weakens them and makes them brittle and breakable. There is a significant decrease in bone density, and this causes the bone to weaken and increases the risk of fractures.
Our bones are always building and breaking down bone tissue, when the balance between building and breaking is changed, then the bone density goes down. With age, this problem has a horrible way of increasing in occurrence.
Before you are 10 Golden Rules for the treatment and prevention of decreasing bone density:
1. Yes, you guessed it - Physical activity.
Physical activity, besides being the best thing you can do for yourselves, helps the bones become denser by putting pressure on them, which may prevent the disease to begin with. We recommend using weights.
2. Increase your calcium intake - Good sources: Green leaves, soy, sardines, broccoli and nuts. Regular bovine milk isn't that good a source of calcium because of its low absorption rate.
3. Increase your omega 3 intake - These fatty acids can be found in flax seeds of fish: Salmon, cod, and halibut - and are essential to keeping your bones strong.
4. Reduce caffeine and alcohol intake - Sorry, but coffee and alcohol 'release' calcium from the bones and damage the hormonal balance in the body important to keep them strong.
5. Reduce red meat - Seems like we're taking all the fun out of lunch, but eating red meat actually reduces the absorption of calcium in the body.
6. No smoking - Cigarette smoke damages bone density.
7. Eat nuts and almonds - These contain magnesium which is essential to the process of absorbing calcium.
8. Get at least 15 minutes of sun exposure a day - Exposing your skin to the sun a few minutes a day is the best way of getting your vitamin D, which function as a sort of glue and helps keep the bone density up.
9. Eat sunflower seeds - Contain zinc, a key mineral for maintaining strong bones.
10. Make sure you're not lacking in these elements, and take according to professional opinion: Boron, Silicone, vitamin C, vitamin D, calcium, magnesium, vitamin B12, vitamin B6 and folic acid.
Om Namah Shivay
Don't Try To Be ExtraordinarySome time ago I heard a motivational speaker urging young people to never be ordinary; “Strive to be extraordinary!“ he exhorted them. I know he meant well, but I did wonder about this, especially as we find more and more young people making their way through life with a befuddled mix of feeling special, entitled yet frustrated and struggling with issues of self-esteem.
It reminds me of a teaching story about how God plays a joke on every newborn, whispering, `You are the special one!' But the joke quickly wears thin when, as adult, the once newborn starts running up against several billion others on this planet who all assume that they are `the special one'.
Striving to be extraordinary naturally involves competition and comparison, winning and losing. But when one doesn't win there is that awful term applied loser if not by others, then by oneself. Working with young people I find many applying this word to anyone less than the best while living in dread of it being applied to them! Let's look into the preciousness of ordinariness too.
Chinese sage Lao Tzu in the fifth century, after years of careful observation, compiled a set of ideas about effective leadership. The Tao Te Ching, which best translates as The Book of How Things Unfold, is addressed to wise leaders, or those that hope to be so, an influential teaching relevant even today; even more so today.
The Tao is a puzzling term, since “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.“ Though translated variously as The Path, The Single Principle it cannot be adequately understood or explained through the rational, discursive mind. Yet it embodies the universal principle that permeates every action and every phenomenon.
In recent times, it spawned many volumes titled the Tao of this, that or the other; some good, some bad. One of the best is John Heider's The Tao of Leadership. While Lao Tzu wrote mainly for China's political leaders, Heider transforms it into a more suitable offering for all people who are seeking to understand how best to lead; primarily by being conscious and paying attention, trusting the natural unfolding process, imposing less, inspiring others to become good leaders.
Through each of the 81 short chapters, we are constantly reminded in different ways that staying aware of what is happening and how things happen, one can respond appropriately, staying clear of trouble, and being both vital and effective. He urges us to remember: “...you too are a natural process. Being aware of how things happen includes being aware of yourself. Your life unfolds according to the same principle that governs every other unfolding...“ And then comes perhaps the most beautiful under standing of ordinariness and extraordinariness one can have: Being like everything else means that you are ordinary. But, consciously knowing that you are like everything else, is extraordinary, too. And knowing how that universality works and having the sense to act accordingly is the source of your power, your endurance, and your excellence.
William Martin in The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents says don't ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Instead, help them to find the wonders and marvels of an ordinary life the joy of really tasting tomatoes, apples and pears; the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand; how to cry when pets and people die.
Make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.
Om Namah Shivay
Self-RespectTo have self-respect is to be able to recognize and express one's own specialities. The one who does this also uses every situation as an opportunity to use others' specialities too. Such a person is not caught up with the negative aspects in others, but is able to encourage and inspire them to use their specialities. When I have self-respect I have naturally respect for others too. I am able to understand others and their behaviour and act accordingly. I provide an environment for others' growth. I have no complaints, as I know I can fill in within them what is missing. To have self-respect is to be powerful and make others powerful too.
Physical Benefits Of Positive Thinking
* You feel more relaxed physically.
* You feel more active with more energy.
* Your breathing improves, being slower and deeper.
* Your immunological system is strengthened and your digestive system improves.
* The nervous system is strengthened.
* Your mind is balanced and in harmony and your health improves.
* Your energy flows better and you feel more active.
Om Namah Shivay
