Category: life

“At the end of the sorrowful night
Truth appears and smilingly says,
“Beloved, fear no more.”

– Sri Chinmoy

The material advances of the world do not seem to have reduced the amount of fear that exists in our mind. When we fear we weaken ourselves and make it impossible to enjoy life as it is supposed to be enjoyed. To consciously enjoy life we need to throw away fear and retain optimism and a positive attitude to the world. To live without fear is quite possible.

Self Belief.

When we fear we consciously weaken ourselves. If we think of ourselves as an ant, then we will inevitably fear being trampled on. It is important to maintain faith in ourselves and a sense of self belief. This is not the pride of self aggrandisement, but belief in our inner self. If we maintain belief in our inner divinity, then we will not fear the world.

Don’t Judge Others

When we judge and condemn others, we ironically open ourselves upto being judged ourselves. When we pick up on the faults of others, we unconsciously strengthen these very same faults in ourself. Often we start criticising others to assert an unconscious sense of superiority over others; we do this partly out of fear. But, judging others is not a solution to fear; we only make it stronger.

Don’t Focus on Your Weakness / Sin.

If we focus on our ‘sins’ and weaknesses, we start to cherish a guilty conscience. This magnifies our weaknesses and problems, this will only create an attitude of fear. Instead we need to forget unpleasant experiences; it is sufficient to resolve to avoid repeating mistakes. We need to move on and think about the good things we are going to do. When we focus on the negative things we have done we become fearful of their consequences.

Continue reading “Living Without Fear”

There are few greater sources of frustration and unhappiness than the feeling that your journey to happiness is being delayed by the demands and opinions of others. What makes it worse is that these demands often come from from the people close to you – parents, siblings and friends. So how can you navigate this web of demands and still follow your dreams? We offer a few observations on the matter:

Remember that other people’s opinions very often stem from their own insecurities. If you have the inner inspiration to do something new or to drop an old destructive habit, this can easily be seen by other people as a challenge to their way of thinking. Explain politely but firmly that what they are doing might be perfectly fine for them, but not for you.

Beware of people telling you you have to be realistic. Often their ‘realism’ is defined by the experiences they have had – we generaly tend to move in tight circles of where negative thoughts are confirmed by negative experiences and positive thoughts are confirmed by positive experiences – in many ways our thoughts really do shape the world we see. So if you are planning to take a step into the unknown, bear in mind other people might have built a whole life on ‘playing it safe’ and that is all they know. Often it is best not to get into direct confrontation, but instead ‘humour’ them by saying things like ‘you are just trying this option out for a little while’ whilst at the same time quietly and firmly going about your own thing. Continue reading “Are other people holding you back from fulfilling your dreams?”

In our recent post – Who Am I? We looked at the idea of transcending the ego.

However, as a reader pointed out – is it not better to understand the ego from a peaceful perspective rather than abolishing the ego?

I would suggest that to transcend the ego completely is a very lofty goal; and in practice very difficult. It is one thing to say ‘I will transcend all concept of ego’, but, to do it is a completely different matter.

In the beginning we need to be wise and deal with our present limitations. We should not expect to transcend our ego with a few meditations; it is like thinking about doing a master’s course whilst we are still in primary school. To graduate with a Master’s degree we need to go through all the levels of schooling before we can even begin to start our Master’s course. It is the same with spirituality. Just thinking of the idea of Nirvana doesn’t really help, because it is so far from our present stage of evolution. What we can do is to gradually change our nature. We can gradually become less selfish, materialistic and inward looking. We can consider the needs of others and try to expand our consciousness. If we can develop humility, simplicity and selflessness, then slowly we will transform our nature. Rather than trying to completely transcend the ego; we make the ego less selfish. This is an effective way to make progress. When we work on our ego, there will come a point in the future, when we can make the leap to transcending the ego.

Dealing With Conflicts in Relationships

A strong ego can often cause conflicts in relationships. In this guest post at Pick The Brain,– How To Deal with Conflicts in Relationships I looked at a few strategies to improve our relationships with others.

How to Reduce the Ego – Another post looking at how to reduce the ego.

Picture courtesy of Australian World Harmony Run 2008

Who Am I?

There was a great Spiritual Teacher called Sri Ramana Maharshi. When he was 16 years old, he became mortified at the prospect of dying. The whole concept of death filled him with dread and misgiving. This led him to question the nature of life, and the self which could be paralysed with fear. Ramana Maharshi began meditating for several hours a day – enabling him to overcome the fear of death.

His quest for self discovery was so profound he left his home village and travelled to the mountain of Arunachala in the South of India. For several years Ramana Maharshi, maintained only the weakest connection with the world, spending his time rapt in meditation. Later in his life people were drawn to this very simple sage; feeling in his presence an aura of peace. He spoke very little – preferring to teach in silence. However, when he did speak he taught a very simple path of self inquiry. Ramana Maharshi directed people to ask themselves this question – Who Am I? He said if we could only discover who we really are, all our problems would be solved.

Where Did Your Thought Come From?

If you have a thought – Who is it that thinks that particular thought? Sometimes we have positive thoughts – “I am great” “I am better than everyone else” At other times we have the opposite frame of mind and we are overcome with insecurities; we feel useless and guilty. The mind is volatile – sometimes we feel we are the best, over times we feel wholly inadequate. But, which is true? The answer is that these neither of these thoughts are a reflection of who we really are. These thoughts and feelings are transitory and do not reflect our true nature. The fact that thoughts come and go show that there must be something deeper; something that can decide to hold onto thoughts or reject them. It is this inner self at the root of thoughts we need to find. Continue reading “Who Am I?”

Another month flies by. These are some of our articles from the past 4 weeks.

• Things I have learnt from Meditation
• Slow down Fast
• Life lessons you can learn from children
• Avoiding Misunderstanding
• Keeping Many projects going at Once
• Happiness from the Inside out
• How To Avoid becoming a grumpy old man
• Exploring the essence of human goodness

Related

• Best of April
• Best of February

Photo by Pavitrata Taylor, Sri Chinmoy Centre galleries

Goodness is something that abides within each one of us, surfacing again and again in the most ordinary actions. Yet it is not some abstract counterpart to evil, but a quality that can be cultivated and increased to great benefit in our lives. In our brief exploration of the quality goodness, we seek to find out where this quality comes from, as well as distinguish what it is not.

Goodness is often in small things

“Goodness speaks in a whisper, evil shouts”

Tibetan proverb

The reason who so many newspapers carry predominantly negative news is that its dramatic nature jumps out at us more than the millions of little kindnesses being performed day in, day out all over the world. Goodness does not seek to create drama or bring attention to itself, it just seeks to offer what it has to make the world a better place. Many acts of goodness have a sense of being in the present moment, doing the small things right here and now rather than waiting an eternity to do something huge.
Continue reading “Exploring the essence of human goodness”

In the UK, there is a TV series ‘Grumpy Old Men’ I think it is supposed to be a comedy programme, where middle aged men rant and complain about everything from the price of petrol to the overbearing popularity of American Idol. In a way their complaints are mildly amusing, but, it did get me thinking – Is that how I want to be in 20-30 years – always complaining and being grumpy? Often we see people who, in their early life, have a sympathetic, hopeful and positive mind. But, 30 years later, those positive qualities have slowly been eroded and replaced with a propensity towards being grumpy, miserable and negative. How can we ensure that we avoid the ‘grumpy old man’ syndrome and remain positive throughout our advancing years?

Don’t Get Stuck in a Rut

When we get stuck in a rut, life seems listless and boring. When there is no newness in life we have more time to observe the failings of others, ourselves and the world. If we are always complaining about the same things in life, try to do something different. Unfortunately, it is possible to develop a subtle enjoyment of being negative. The mind gets a certain misplaced pleasure by being grumpy and complaining. But, this kind of happiness is extremely limited. Look for ways to observe life in a new way; remain dynamic and don’t leave yourself time to become overwhelmed with negativity. If necessary, force yourself to try a completely new skill or activity. – Ten Tips to get out of a rut

Don’t Get Exasperated Over Things You Have No Control.

If the price of oil increases, there is not much you can do about it. Just because you incessantly complain about the price of oil, Saudi Arabia is not going to start producing an extra 10 million barrels a day. If you get upset things like this, you will invariably make yourself miserable. To some extent, we have to be accepting of external things beyond our control. For example, Governments always have and always will do things which are popular; we can’t expect this to change. But, what we can do is change our attitude. Rather than getting worked up by these things, we can develop a greater sense of detachment. Don’t allow your life to be dominated by complaints on the outside world.

Have Perspective of Young Child

We never refer to ‘grumpy young children’. True, a child may may have a temporary bad mood; but, they will soon shake it off. To a child the world is simple and a place of wonder. Life is not complicated but something to enjoy. A child does not spend his time criticising things, he just plays and enjoys life. The problem is that we feel that because we are sophisticated adults we must be much better. But, how is it progress if we move from a positive attitude to a miserable attitude? It doesn’t matter how old we are; what matters is our inner attitude. If we can feel we have a childlike heart it will help considerably in avoiding grumpiness. Even observing the simple smile of a child will help put a smile on our face. – Life Lessons we can learn from children

Leave Criticism To Others

Criticism and grumpiness are intricately linked. If we spend all our time criticising and gossiping about others, we will develop a negative mindset. The problem is that in this world it is easy to find things to criticise. The truth is we could spend all day judging and criticising other people and we would not have even made a start. The world is not going to change just because we sit in a pub criticising others. What happens is that as we criticise the world, it gives us a subconscious feeling of superiority and this motivates us to spend more time criticising. However, if we want real happiness, we have to take a positive attitude; looking for good things to encourage – making a positive contribution. The world does not need more grumpy old men. There are always going to be plenty of people to complain about the level of taxes; what we need is positive people who will help make a difference.

Continue reading “How to Avoid Becoming a Grumpy Old Man”

It’s rather amazing that as children we perpetually look forward to the time when we grow up and can do anything we want, but then once we grow up and become laden with responsibilities, we wistfully look back to those carefree childhood days! Certainly we ‘miss’ out on some things as we make the transition to adulthood; by looking at how children see the world, we can certainly learn (or relearn) some things to introduce in our own lives….

Living in the moment

… The world began this morning,
God-dreamt and full of birds…

– Patrick Kavanagh

As we grow older, our thoughts become increasingly focused on either the past or the future instead of the now; we seem to pick up the art of nursing grievances about things that happened and worrying about things that may never happen. But for a child, everything is unfolding in real time before his eyes; he has not yet learnt the art of being consumed by past or future. I remember a very interesting experience about a year ago when I was playing badminton with some young friends of mine. The four year old youngest brother wanted his older brother to give him the badminton racket, and the older brother pushed him away, whereupon he promptly say down and started to cry. However, out of the corner of his eye he spotted a spare shuttlecock lying around – the tears soon dried up, and in no time he was totally absorbed in his new plaything. I was totally amazed at how quickly his focus had switched from crying to playing with the toy; if that happened between adults we’d be still feeling aggrieved about it days later! Continue reading “Life lessons you can learn from children”

This post is based on a traditional Zen Story.

There was a Zen Master who used to invite his disciples to his house in order to meditate. The meditation was very soulful but unfortunately the Master owned a cat who used to come in and disturb the meditation. Therefore, before each meditation, the Master would tie up the cat to his bed; this would enable the master and his disciples to meditate in peace downstairs. After the Master’s passing, his students still used to come to the house to meditate and tie up the cat to the bed.

Now one seeker had to travel to another country and he didn’t return for another 5 years time. When he returned he was shocked to see that there were many more people coming to the Master’s house. However, they didn’t come to meditate, they only came to tie up cats to the bed. Even in such a short time the real purpose of the Master’s house had been forgotten. The seekers were concentrating only on the trivial ritual of tying up a cat to the bed; they had forgotten the essential part of coming to his house which was meditation.

This story is a humorous exaggeration of how we can forget the essence of things and concentrate on unimportant external actions.

It also shows how habit can be a limiting factor; just because we have always tied up a cat to the bed, we continue to do it. Because everyone else does it and we have been doing it for a long time we think it must be the right thing to do. But, of course, it would be much better to find the cat a better home and enable greater dedication to meditation.

Continue reading “Tying the Cat to the Bed and Missing The Essential”