The world around you is your own reflection

It was told by Dinesh Dada few years back when he came to Chandigarh. I guess I understood that there only but realized this recently. Often when everything seems out of Control, we start blaming the situations & people and in the process ignore the most important factor Ourselves. Then often it feels if I would be given another chance I would have done things in a better way. But let me tell you even after getting the fresh start we'll end up in the almost similar scenario untill we have shifted something inside also. If the problem is inside and you apply the solution outside, then its not going to help. You might get a temporary relief cause of change but thats not going to be a permanent solution.

Also you must have observed that when you are around Guruji, or people like Bawa or Dinesh, you feel that you are someone else when you are around them. It happens cause you become their reflection. And its happening all the time with us also. Everything happening around you is created by you. And only you can fix those things if something doesn't seems alright. And it doesn't mean you only work inside, you should work outside also. Its just to remember in case you end up in similar problems again & again.

Well Its been a long time since my last post. I'll do my best to be more frequent than this.

Finally A meeting with the master

Today after 3 years, 8 months and 18 days since my first Long Kriya. I was invited by my beloved Master to Ganga Kutir. And I got some fifteen minutes to spend with him. The most fulfilling moments of my life. I was wishing for time to stop. We talked a lot and this time he told me to go and take up the job. So I am leaving from Ashram to Jhansi today. Then from there I'll leave for Noida next day from there. I also got a hug from him and he was saying 'jab bhi holidays ho to ashram aa jaya karna'. Feels like something is waiting for me there. A new thing is coming my way. And I feel really excited to enter this new world.....

Being Intense but not becoming Extremist

It means you should be doing Everything with Intensity rather than becoming an extremist. When you become an extremist your whole focus shifts onto one thing only and you aren't even bothered about anything else and eventually miss out on so many other things you could have done simultaneously. While if you do things with high intensity then you can do so much in the same time. See our master don't tell us do 12hrs of meditation, instead he tells us to do 20mins of intense breathing. I always used to do things to the extreme and so missed a lot which I would have done otherwise. So not a good idea doing things being an extremist.

Sa + ee + va = Seva

Well in simple terms its 'main hi hoon'. That is its me alone or there is no one but me. Having this attitude while seva you won't get tired. And that's the reason why Guruji never gets tired inspite of working all day and night. Often people do even seva for someone. As we were taught in 8th or 9th standard, work is a scalar quantity not a vector one. So thats exactly what we should do, not directing it to some people. Otherwise work gets the priority based on the person who have given the work. And you will start giving 100% to some and less than that for some and some you won't even feel like doing based on the person. Cause your its me alone attitude is lost. Taking care of this you can be much more efficient and it will be easy to give your 100% in everything you do.

Something about Sahaj

In my last navaratre, Bharat bhaiya in his usual softly spoken manner gave its description as, 'It is the course in which you are given a mantra with which you can achieve the deepest meditative state you have got ever in any of your lifetime so far.' And that single sentence made all those six thousand people do the course for first time or repeat again. And here is what Rajshree Patel told in one day Sahaj Session,'

So what was your instruction for the Kriya in your Part-1 course, 45 days without a break right? And what was the instruction for the Sahaj??? Twice everyday. Thats it. Any time limit? 45 days, 40 days No... So what do you think should be more important? And so how many times you are supposed to be doing your Sahaj?? Everyday Twice, Once or not at all???? You have no idea what is given to you..

When I was asked to commit, in my head I said, 'no way, with my schedule doing it twice everyday is impossible. But I'll do it once every day for sure.' I very well justified myself. I don't know when I started to skip it saying ti myself anyways I am doing my Kriya, Padma Sdhana etc everyday. 

Although I never dropped it completely But this session was an eye opener for me. Since that day I have started doing my Sahaj Twice every single day. Now if you haven't done this course yet or if have done already then in either case you know what you should be doing. Right?

TRY THIS OUT

New High School Exit Exam, you only need 4 correct to pass.      High School Exit Exam.....!! (Passing requires 4 correct answers)  1) How long did the Hundred Years' War last? 2) Which country makes  Panama  hats?  3) From which animal do we get cat gut?     4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?  5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?  6) The  Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?  7) What was King George VI's first name?  8) What color is a purple finch?  9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?  10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?     Remember, you need 4 correct answers to pass.  Check your answers below ....       ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ  1) How long did the Hundred Years War last? 116 years    2) Which country makes  Panama  hats?  Ecuador      3) From which animal do we get cat gut? Sheep and Horses 4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? November      5) What is a camel's hair brush made of? Squirrel fur     6) The  Canary Islands  in the Pacific are named after what animal? Dogs    7) What was King George VI's first name? Albert      8) What color is a purple finch ? Crimson  9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?  New Zealand  10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane? Orange (of course)  What do you mean, you failed? Me, too.  (And if you try to tell me you passed, you LIED!)  Pass this on to some brilliant friends, so they may feel useless too.

Thanks to my niece Tarini for sending this one in :)


(cOPIED FRM vIKRAM hAZRA'S bLOG)

Satsang 2

There are some ways to make satsang more powerfull:

First is if you know the meaning of the chants used in the bhajans. eg. if every one is told about the meaning of the om namah shivay or narayana hari om, you can observer those kind of vibration while singing.

Second is if you know the 'prasanga' (story before the bhajan) of the bhajan. Say the story I wrote in my first post, http://whosinhere.blogspot.com/2010/07/who-is-in-here.html, just remembering that 'prasanga' will make the bhajan much more powerful.

Last is if you can figure out which energy is dawning in the surrounding & then doing its 'stuti' with that particular bhajan at that time, it increase the whole energy of surrounding to a new level. And practicing more and more satsang etc is not going to help in making that possible. The only key for feeling that energy is Hollow & Emptiness. Guruji once said, 'tumahre hollow aur empty mein aisi kya kami rah gayi ki tum is vatavaran mein vidyaman shakti ko nahi pehchaan sakte.' And you know there is this one person who have got a 100% Hit ratio for it And her name is Bhanu Di. She always figure out the exact bhajan everytime. Like during astavakra gita time, during one satsang Vikram Hazra caught that bhajan 'chandrashekharay namah om' and told Dr. Mani to sing it & Dr. Mani said, 'Not here, mostly we sing that bhajan after rudra pujas only.' There was a pause & from the ladies side on other hand of yagnashala Bhanu di started singing the same bhajan (I guess who were there must have remembered that).

In the end you should be able to sing, being from all these knowledge as well. Sometimes to be able to sing without caring about all this also.

So Tonight when you go to sleep pray that if you deserve this knowledge then let it come and at the same time do not let me stuck in it.

The Purpose of Satsang

The whole purpose of any Satsang is to receive the flow of divinity. If you have attended any Satsang in Guruji's physical presence, Then you will be able to relate better. It starts with om chanting. Then a Ganesh Bhajan generally. Then Guruji goes into meditation. And After some time you feel a horizontal upliftment happening. Its because all different minds are settling down & their is only one common thing in all the minds. After that a vertical upliftment happens & gradually you will see all the small mind starts to dissolve & big mind dawns. And that's the point, Guruji opens his eyes & most often saying Hmmmm... and at that very moment singer stops singing without even finishing the word they have started to spoke (That also depends on who is singing) & then divinity flows through Guruji in form of some very relevent knowledge to you (In fact to all of us together). Some days, Guruji just does not speak at all, cause Silence is the best mode of communication & in those Satsangs, you can feel the divinity around at its peak. People just come to feel that relief one gets at the end of the satsang because of experiencing that divinity.

So Satsang is not about singing skills or performance. The whole thing is to make everyone involve in the satsang & then everything just follows. But sometimes when people get to lead you know what all they do, they forget all these things and forget about the others over there. So very important bhajans should be simple, so that every one can follow. For satsang Guruji says 'bhajan gao, or bhajan ke beichmen ankhen band karke batho or observe karo ki kya ho raha ha!!'  And those who did that became superb singers (I guess need not to be named here). Also satsang should be call & response based. i.e. when one who is leading is singing, others don't & once he stops then others should sing. Why to do that? So that not just people close to him but everyone else can also listen to the person who is leading. If you have seen Ramnik Bhaiya leading then you can see him taking care of all this superbly. And More will follow in next post.... 

Marvellous Evening Yesterday

Yesterday was the peace meditation in the ashram. And this is how it began. First all the Ashramaids together who knew did Guru Puja with their separate kits. As soon as it got over, the satsang started with grace coming to ashram in form of raining. From nowhere clouds came, do some showering over us & then disappeared again into the vast sky. Since I was out in Gaushala till that time, I could see two full rainbows in the sky out of which one had its initiation point in ashram lake (as the light of rainbow was visible over the lake with trees next to it in background, I wish I had a camera with me. Anyways Then me and Rajeev ran for the meditation. Satsang was still on. Yagnashala was packed. Then we had the peace meditation. After that Swami Paramtej (Some knows him as Pankaj Bhaiya) was in full form. And Here's some of the points which I remember:
There are 9 factors responsible for the negativity in the society. I don't remember their sanskrit terms but they were:
1. Physical illness: that people are not physicallly fit to act.
2. Mental illness: i.e. people are not mentally fit to act.
3. Doubts: on the capabilities, techniques, Master, Kriya whether they are working or not.
4. Doing wrong Knowingly: Due to some or the other factors many people are busy doing the things they know that are wrong.
5. Laziness: This is the biggest factor. Say theres some of our events & people just don't wake up untill they get 10 sms. Some wait untill someone comes physically to take them. And surprisingly some even don't wake after that also.
6. Caught up in the sense & sense objects: Once you are in this category, you are just carried away.
7. Experince is not lasting longer.
8. No experience at all.
9. Hallucination where you are stuck in your own concepts & imagination.
He said Stars & planets are completely against us till september. The only solution is one pointed focus. Heres what you can do: If teacher then Teach more & more courses, if can sing then arrange 2-3 satsangs a week, if having a Celebrating Silence then read one knowledge sheet in every satsang and get together, if can bless then go out and give blessings atleast 2-3 hrs a week. Its high time people are in great need of satva, If you are a blesser go out & bless. Time to make sure people you know around are doing their sadhana. Start having bigger gathering more frequently without needing Guruji's physical presence (I guess we all know that he is anyways everywhere) by conducting MahaKriya, etc.
And as the first step if you really think you can do something then reg yourself @ http://www.truevoiceofindia.blogspot.com/

After that he told that all the blessers have to make sure that no one gets out of this hall without getting blessings and then we were all in action feeling the absolute bliss around......

Transparent Relationship With Master

It was pretty surprising to first listen to it. So you must have heard Guruji saying, 'Choice is yours, Blessings are mine.' Well technically if he is saying that it means he is not sure that you will be able to follow what he says. Hard but True. Now during past two months in ashram I got to meet Guruji like almost every alternate day in darshan line, got to see him everyday in satsang, late night waiting for him when he's going to his residence from his Kutir, few times one on one meet & out of that we had four times some conversation happening. Many a time I didn't even tell our buddies about it. Anyways, Now truly speaking I have no idea what to do with my coming few months when I will be free. So I made a certain list of things among which I will be choosing one. One day I read an article on Bau's Blog about how to ask question, you can also read it at http://bawandinesh.name/asking-questions-and-making-wishes-i/. Truly I made like list of 10 things that I could do. So one day I said to myself, I am going to ask today only & get  over with it and he will have to give me the answer. As I was about to speak he spoke first, 'how are you? Happy???' And till I replied he was like far enough away for me to say anything else. Then I was sent out by his bodyguards. I thought may be I wasn't prepared. So next darshan line I was like ok no options telling till you ask, I don't care about anyones opinion anymore, I'll do whatever you say. So I asked him, 'What do I do now?' And he very clearly told me, 'Ashram me ruko or seva karo.' I was showing everyone, 'Wow, Guruji told me stay in ashram directly.'  Deep down things were a bit different. I was in shock, this option was just not in my mind, for moment next few days I was like futureless. I've no idea about what I'll be doing now on.

Long back, During one of the Navaratre, there were a husband & wife were fighting. So Vikram Hazra thought if they kept on fighting then I'll have to do their work also. So he started to convince them to be together. After some time he went for some work having their fight in mind & he fell off from the whole stairs & got hurt his leg badly. When he came back that couple was like hugging and all. Now Guruji is in silence. Suddenly Bhanu Didi is coming from front & instead of showing compassion, She's telling, 'You must be thinking negative about someone.'

Some Other day someone got hurt & he told Guruji. You know what he replied, he said, 'koi karma aise kiye honge, ab palat kar wapas aa rahe hain to bhugto.' Can you think of an answer like that from Guruji. Wheres that karuna ki murti now?

You must have you ask some question. He give some apple & just goes away. That time you are like wow but later you realize that he didn't answer your question. And you just don't know what happened there. Of course 'Choice is yours, Blessings are mine' can also mean that anyways he have to take care of everything so whatever choice you make really don't matter.

But The important question here is are you ready to have that direct relation with your master? Can you give him that space that he can tell you freely whatever you are supposed to be doing? If yes then you know deep down it will be THE most fulfilling life....

What is more important?

A Mulla Nasruddin story:

Once Mulla fell in love with a beautiful girl. He started sending 10 amazing love letters to her everyday. He kept doing this for like 3 months untill when she opened one of those letters for the first time. She read & found it was beautiful. She read few more & they were all unique & special. So she called him in the evening to some park. Mulla got very excited & he got there an hour before. That girl came on time and asked him, how could you possibly love me so much that you use to send 10 letters everyday? Mulla said, Oh! I just use to send best 10 out of 25 that I use to wrote everyday. Here are the ones that I never sent. And he started to read the first. It was amazing. Then he read the second, it was also superb. Then he read the third. As soon as it got over girl slapped him & said, 'Hello! I am here in front of you and you are still stuck to your Love letters.'

And that sit, in the very similar fashion, the purpose of everything is to reach master. Once you are there then the means, path, they are just immaterial. But surprisingly people loose their focus over the master & get into all this and start sharing all this & even with the master himself many times.

Guru Mandal

Its said that Guru don't need an organisation but where ever he goes, things around him get organised leading to the formation of the organisation. Guru Mandal is the basic structure around the Guru. So although your focus should be guru, many a times you get stuck in this Guru Mandal. Now it consist of three things where you may get stuck & loose your focus. 

First is the organiastion. Like say in corporate people starts thinking about their increment & upgradation in designation & so on. Similarly here also people get suck with their posts. I am a volunteer, teacher, Senior teacher, Guruji's Secretary, HOD, Director,  this & that. In the meanwhile focus on master is lost.

Second are the people around him. Now you can either be in love or hatred with them, in both cases you have lost focus over your master. Say some person around him behaves rude to you, then even when your master is there & you see that person again, you are like why Guruji let people like him near by, something need to be done to him, & so on. In the meanwhile your focus is lost again.

Finally is the Knowledge around him where people can get stuck in. This you must have seen that people are busy in their own head made concepts. You need to be free from that also. Or you will be busy in presenting yourself & will be focusing on yourself instead of the master.

This Guru Mandal is around but you need to make sure that you're not stuck in it & you remain focussed.

Who is in here???

I wasn't getting some brilliant ideas for the name of my blog where I can put the stuff I'm learning here in the living paradise. Then Vikram Hazra (those who don't know, he's one of the most amazing senior Art of Living teachers & a superb singer & Guitar player and he take regular sessions for us these days) told us a beautiful story. There was this Rishi Meditating on the bank of a river. A lady came there & asks her to take care of her small child so that she can go for bath a little further. Closing his eyes Rishi nodded yes. That lady went & Rishi went into his meditation again. After some time he sees that the kid is dead. Now from one angle, its just some matter left and the consciousness is transfered to some place. But he thought that Yogi's are supposed to be responsible so he dropped his body & got into that kids body to keep is word. That lady came there, bowed to yogi, took her son & went. But from that day onwards kid never spoke a word. He just kept silent. He try everything possible including going to temple & stuff like that. Actually that Rishi was a Mauni (the one who never speaks). Anyways, then one day a young boy came to her nearby village. So she took her son to that village to see that so called intelligent boy as the last hope. That person coming to village was no-one but Adi Sankaracharya. So Adi Sankaracharya asked that kid,'Who are You?' And then that kid replied with the song,
Mano budhya ahankaar chittah ni naham
Na 'ch shotra jeeveh na 'ch ghraan netrey
Na 'chavyo m bhumi r na tejo na vaayu
Chid-a-anand roopah shivoham shivoham
You can listen to this song. Its one of the most beautiful songs I ever heard. Thus made me think who is actually in this body. And thus I thought to begin my blog with this name only and finally I found just this one as available. I'll be putting all that I'm learning here in the Art of Living's Bangalore ashram....