Let everyone enrich our lives.

Our lives totally revolve around relationships with people and other living beings around us. Some relationships are beautiful, some are good, while others are difficult.

I'm sure we all agree that the most beautiful relationships are the most enriching. They fill us with love, joy, happiness and make life worth living. It is through these relationships that we learn sharing, caring and companionship. It is here that we hold cherished memories. It is here that we see a balance in give and take; and a level of understanding that can never be broken.
We've all experienced the magic of such a relationship with our soul mate, or parent, or sibling, or friend. The magic of mutual nourishment for the soul. We learn and in turn teach.

Some relationships are good. "We just get along," We know and appreciate the other person, but tolerate their eccentricities too. We know where to draw the line. We probably pick up a few good attributes from them too.

But it is the most difficult relationships that we think, we could have done without. They are "toxic"; they are stressful; they drain us emotionally; they cause a lot of negativity within us; they give rise to anger and frustration. And so on.
Why are some relationships difficult? Probably because some people are difficult. They may be unreasonable, narrow minded, jealous, dominating, self-centered or just anything that might disturb our balance. For some reason we are bound to this person. Call it karma, if you may. But the saddest thing about this is, that the most difficult people are the ones who need more love, more care and more understanding. We find it difficult to express love to a person who causes a lot of stress. And why would we care? Caring for a person who has nothing to offer in return other than more trouble?? No way! How can we be more understanding? We don't want to be.

But for a change, let us remove the "I" from such a relationship. Here is a person who has trouble with not just you, but with everybody he / she comes across. This person is used to being rejected every where. He has nobody. And he / she doesn't know why. He thinks that the whole world is against him.

Let such a person enrich your life. Learn how to deal with him. The key lies in detaching yourself from reacting to him. Look at him as a person who needs love. Learn to tolerate. Learn to love. Unconditionally. Look through the superficial. Communicate to his soul. Instead of feeling drained, you will feel nourished.

Let everyone enrich your life.

Goal For The Week

Reclaim the joy of waking every morning full of energy and exhilaration.
-Robin Sharma

A few months back, every morning, as the alarm would go off and it was time to wake up, I would just hate the day! "I just wish I could catch a few more winks of sleep.... but I have to get up... work beckons... oh, is there no end to this??" I would force myself out of bed (did I have any choice?) and brush my teeth sleepily... and continue being sleepy till I have my morning cuppa. I loved the sleepy feeling... if only I could curl back into comfort! And Monday mornings!! How I wished there were no Mondays at all!

But all this has changed. Now I wake up every morning full of positivity and enthusiasm. This is because I decided that I wanted to change. It is a conscious choice. Either you can continue being grumpy and sleepy every morning; or you can tell yourself that you are really glad to wake up to another beautiful day. A beautiful day full of opportunities that makes life worth living.

There is a simple sequence that leads us to the joy of waking up: finish your work before late evening, relax a little and sleep peacefully. Having a good night's rest leads to a joyful morning. Having late dinner, or watching T.V till late night (especially, the News :-) ) can affect the sleep pattern. If you are tossing and turning all night, you will feel drained by morning. If you sleep well, you will wake up with energy and positivity. Well, we all know this. So why are we not doing anything about it?

Tell yourself every night that you will wake up with joy tomorrow. Look forward to the endless things that you could do tomorrow. Feel blessed about feeling healthy. A week of sickness and bed can make us miss even the things that we really don't seem to like... the traffic jams on our way to work, for instance. Every day is a blessing.

This week, wake up with joy, energy, enthusiasm and all positivity.

Why do we give?

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

-         Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most of us have been charitable atleast sometimes; we have been helpful sometimes; we have been understanding sometimes; we have been caring sometimes. Why do we care, really?

Is it that we care about others because it makes us feel good? Is it that we look forward to "thankfulness" from others? Is it that we love to play God once in a while? Are we all totally selfless? Dont we expect nothing in return? Would we help someone a second time if he / she grumbles instead of giving you a grateful smile in return?

These are questions we must ask ourselves before we start feeling good about "giving". Practice selfless love. Expect nothing in return. Help someone and never look back in expectation. "Surrender the Fruit of All Action."

Week 5

It has been a month since we started this thread on Weekly Goals. Time flies by so quickly.... This week, let us take time to review the weekly goals of the last four weeks. Let us take time to see if everything went exactly the way we planned. I am sure there were days when one or more goals were not taken care of. Let this week be a "recap" week. Let us try and follow all the four goals of the last few weeks all through this week, without any misses.
 

Connect with Nature

All forms of nature are God’s way of revealing Himself to us. This is why we are at total peace when we are in the midst of nature.

v     Watch the crashing of waves against a shore…

v     Taste the rain….

v     Relish the trees….

v     Fly with the clouds….

v     Talk to the stars….

v     Lose yourself in the eyes of an innocent baby….

v     Prostrate before the great Sun…

v     Admire the Moon….

v     Drench in a water fall…

v     Breathe with the wind…

v     Listen to the river…

v     Bow before the mountains…

And feel the greatness of God and His creations. His greatness is beyond measure. Worship Him. Listen to Him. Look up to Him. Love Him. With Reverence. With Humility.

Week 4

This week let us evaluate our day just before we fall asleep every night. Recollect everything that happened from the moment you woke till that very minute of recollection.

The human brain is so complex and amazing; It can do wonders but "recollecting what happened today??" Sometimes we can't even remember what we had for breakfast :-)

As you recollect the day's happenings, try to pick out those instances where you behaved really well.......(like handling a stressful situation with all calmness), and give yourself a little imaginary star :-) One star for each instance of good behavior.

Now, evaluate the ones where you could have done better. Maybe you shouldn't have spanked your little one, or maybe you shouldn't have reacted rudely to a colleague who was getting on your nerves..For every bad behavior cancel one of your imaginary star that you had earned for good behavior.

After this, if you still have stars remaining, thats really good. If you dont, never mind, you'll do better tomorrow. But do revisit the negative instances and work on them. Think of ways on improving on them. 

Eternal Souls

The Lord said, "There was never a time when Me or you or any of these Kings here did not exist. And all of us shall exist in the future too.
Just as the embodied soul experiences childhood, adulthood and oldage, so will it acquire another body after death."

Week 3

The Pulley

by George Herbert

When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, Let us (said He) pour on him all we can: Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span. So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure: When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that alone of all His treasure Rest in the bottom lay. For if I should (said He) Bestow this jewel also on my creature, He would adore My gifts instead of Me, And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature: So both should losers be. Yet let him keep the rest, But keep them with repining restlessness: Let him be rich and weary, that, at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss him to My breast.

George Herbert rightly points out the restlessness of man. God has given us plenty. Yet we are so restless. We have endless "wants" though He has given us everything we "need".

This week let us just take 5 minutes every morning to thank Him for everything that He has bestowed on us. Read More on Thankfulness here...

Week 2

After a whole week of daily meditation, the goal for this week is to finish all our work early every evening and give ourselves time to relax before going to sleep.

Stress and Facial Expressions

I was going through a lot of stress all through last week and was feeling totally drained. My stress had become more of a problem than the problem itself! I had a severe headache for most of the day along with other aches and pains. So, at one point I decided to replace "problem" with "opportunity".

Week 1:

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."
- Lao Tzu

When there is an awakening within, that there is so much more to life than merely "living" it in a materialistic manner, our spiritual journey begins...

Introduction to "Weekly Goals"

The objective of this new series is to help pick up new positive habits and leave out negative ones. Every Monday, I will be posting a "goal for the week" that just talks about a single idea that we would like to cultivate as a step towards being better human beings and as a step towards moving on to higher planes of spirituality.

I am thankful

Everyday we are lost in our day to day activities, and we get lost in a whirlpool of stress and negativity, some of which arise from us, and the rest are contributed by people we come across. Stress and negativity are highly contagious - they are like poison injected into the blood. People who are always calm and at peace with themselves and the world, people who are "seasoned" to be calm always are immune to it. But for the rest of us, it drains us physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually....

Let us not play God

Anything that is naturally available decomposes easily. Many things that are artificially created are a disaster to nature.

Birth after birth, our soul takes on many different bodies. According to the Vedas, our soul takes on more than 84,00,000 bodies from different species before finally being awarded this Human Body.

An incident and the lesson I learnt

I had once visited a temple, with my family, in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. We stayed there for three days and experienced total peace except for one incident that I cannot forget.

Meditation with eyes open

Many of us tend to fall asleep when we close our eyes and meditate for longer than 15 minutes. We close our eyes, have a relaxed posture, breathe slowly, focus only on our breathing….and slowly…very slowly…fall asleep!

Every morsel is a gift from God

This morning, I sat for breakfast with a bowl of Macaroni, with the idea of being “mindful” while eating. As I stuffed my first spoonful into my mouth, this thought crossed my mind – “Every morsel is a gift from God.”

Seeing good in others

When we think about a cuckoo bird, I bet the first thing that comes to mind is it's beautiful song, and spring. Most of us dont think about how it looks (black, like a crow). Or about how it never builds it's own nest but cheats the crow into hatching it's egg!

Life would be more beautiful indeed if we see good in each person that we come across in our life and ignore the things that we consider "bad".

We all fear for our lives…

In India, most small chicken shops sell live chickens by the kg. Chickens are kept in small rectangular cages and fed grains etc. till it’s their turn to go. The chickens just sit there and go peck, peck, peck, cluck, cluck, cluck. They eat and socialize with their cage-mates in their own way. Only until the shopkeeper suddenly opens the door of the cage to grab one…

Being Sensitive

The other day, I was at the hospital with my dad who was ill. As we sat there and waited for our turn, my dad was browsing through the newspaper. Left with nothing to do and no one to talk to, I decided that I could browse the Net for a while, on my mobile. And then, a thought struck me - why should I "do" something all the time? Why cant I just sit? I looked around and saw that most of them who were also waiting and who had nothing to "do" were also "doing something."

Time is the best healer.

We have all heard this saying. The same was uttered by the Supreme Lord many many years ago: "O son of Kunti, happiness and distress are like the cycle of summer and winter seasons. They are temporary and we must tolerate them without being disturbed."

The Charioteer

Krishna's role as Arjuna's charioteer is very significant. He was Arjuna's guide even before the battle began. When Arjuna was in a state of confusion, and stress, he turned to Krishna for help; and Krishna gave him more than he asked for.

Why should I blog about Bhagavad Gita?

Bhagavad Gita or "The Song of the Lord" is the song sung by Shri. Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. It has eighteen chapters, each one dealing with God's concept of creation, life, evolution and destruction. The Gita is the science of life. It is the solution to all problems faced by humanity.