Rich man wasn't rich till...

A rich man was not rich till he knew a poor man!
A poor man was not poor till he knew a rich man!

My human nature had programmed me to measure my success or competence only with respect to others. Now, this was a problem. This race with the next guy has no end. Nowadays an ad is regular on channels, where a couple is depressed coz their neighbour has a bigger car. Since there will always be the possibility of the neighbour having a bigger car or villa or pay package or smarter kid, coz there is no limit in such matters. Things are worse if I live in a metro or a posh colony.
A woods man was not unhappy till he met a farmer. The farmer was cool till he met the town people. The townpeople felt inferior when they visited the city and so on. There is simply no end.
As long as I evalauted my possesion in a relative manner, I was doomed to inherent inferiority and depression.

The secret is 'Satisfaction'. Satisfaction is not Lethargy or defeatism. It is the greatest virtue that keeps the noise out of the mind. It keeps the mind focussed, aware, efficient and a lot more productive. It makes me uncover and utilize my true inherent potential. The inherent potential of a mind is without limits and simply miraculous, once utilized. However, since I had lived the same way, had the same goals, and pretty much did mostly the same things as my predecessors and theirs and theirs, I had no awareness of this huge power of all powers.
Now that the awareness of awareness is downing, I judge my possesions and material success by the fulfilment of short, medium amd long term needs of me and my family. Anything extra is a surplus. Relieved of the pressure of wants (dangerous, unsatiable and endless) and needs ( lesser and satiable), now I can explore myself and I am happy with what I uncover. Every day more jewels come out of the treasure.
Living with satisfaction has not only made me calm, happier, focussed and more effective, but it has improved all aspects of my life including the career also, which I previously considered the measure of my success.
Satisfaction is also the very first as well as the critical step to Self Discovery and Final Liberation.
Again, the Satisfaction won't take birth in our mind tonight itself.
Just sow the seed and see the wonder. Just ask urself, whether I really need another dress, bigger car etc. No harm or bad thing if I spend over my needs. Dangerous only if I live by what others have.
So, dear friend, If Our needs are fulfilled and we have a bit more, hey we are the rich people! Enjoy!

Rhythm of Life

We do not know about it. We are not sure about it. We can't see/ smell/ touch/taste it. None of the finest scientific instruments including those who can see the atom to those who can see billions of kilometers far away fail to sense it. Surprisingly, we, every single one of us, claim to keep its account always. What is it?
It it Time!
We claim to measur Time, though we can't detect the existence of even a single second of it.
Every calendar, clock, wristwatch, cellphone, computer, TV, dvd upto the microwave seem to be keeping track of Time.
Time is many things to many people.
For a scientist Time is an equation or variable.
For an idle man Time is 'Spare'.
For somebody having a difficult experience Time is an enemy. They call it the 'Bad' Time.
For an aging wrestler, sportsman, beautiful, Time is the most Cruel truth of life.
For a man in his last few years, Time was the most precious treasure, emptied carelessly.
Time is the most fundamental law of the existence of the universe as well as the Life.
What we percieve and name as Time is nothing but the most obvious yet unnoticed fact of the cyclic nature inbuilt in each atom, each phenomenon of the universe. Time is the Solemn Statement of God himself, stating the non existence of any begining or any end. Only cycles seem to exist wherever I see.We first observed this law as well as  the Time itself with the sunrises and sunsets and invented Day, Then hours and minutes. We watched seasons and invented Year. We watched Moon phases and counted months. Our calendars count the days and watches the minutes. Our watches do not measure the time, not at all. They only keep count of the cyclic mechanism, whether springloaded, pendulum, sunlight, sandfall, peizo or atomic. The clocks then compare their cycles with a cycle of nature, ie day and year and fragment it into seconds and beyond.
The cycles of universe are visible all around. Seed to sapling to plant to tree to fruit to seed. Life and death and rebirth. water river to cloud to river.
In all these cycles is the rhythm of Universe. Tao lies in understanding the ways of the universe and being in harmony with them.
So, let us shed our conditioned belief in parmanence of things whether, health, beauty, power or property. God and soul are the only entities beyond the cycles, only the ignorance hides the knowledge.

Flesh is born and flesh dies, while the soul continues in its journey. From the day of the birth itself, the countdiwn begins. some cells of our body die every day. Every day the body is dying a bit and we the igonrant kids are piling up possession for this dying body. We also forget that the care of the soul and its destination.
In the rhythm of life is the truth of the cycles of body and the journey of the soul through these cycles to its destiny, its home, to the source and the end of all seen and all unseen.
The awareness of the eternal journey and the final destination and a little bit of less association with the dying body and its adornations, its temporary and dying glory as well as the temporary and dying possession will orient the navigation of the soul. The awareness will initiate the gradual transformation of thoughts. Thoughts change desposition and that changes the whole life.
Instead of a daily 'Fight or Flight' routine, life can become a vacation.
Just taking the permanent as permanent and transient as transient will beautify the life.
It all will happen gradually and invisibly.
The path of Spiritualism is actually the path of awareness, Awareness of the universe and of the self, till they both become one. The awareness may start like the tiny sparks of the gloworm in the dark night of ignorance but grdually it grows to the all compassing light where truth is as clear and beautiful as the full moon in the night. That is the destination of the soul, to which the 'Guru' points and the soul walks on the path with ever increasing bliss.
The journey of the awareness also begins with the doubt. Doubts raise question, questions get answers, more questions and more answers till the answers become knowledge, knowledge becomes wisdom, wisdom becomes  nature of the self and soon the Enlightenment.
So, let us not be discouraged or disheartened with our doubts and contradictions. Even Buddha had a lot of them through his own journey.
Where there is great doubt there will be great knowledge, where there is no doubt, there will be no knowledge. Accept your doubts as a friend, as the precursors of knowledge and as the begining. When the soul becomes ready, the guidance also comes in form of a Guru as the Zen says.

With the knowledge of the cycles of body and the permanence of soul, begins the journey of awareness.

Welcome to the journey!

People against my happiness!

I was unhappy. I was dissatisfied and disillusioned. Sometimes depressed also. Life was so full of pressure, stress and anxiety. I felt betrayed by some and let down by most. The people in my circle, my family, my friends and colleagues were making my life difficult and unhappy by disagreeing, arguing and conflicting with me, which kept troubling my mind again and again. The loneliness in my mind due to lack of affection from them was the root of my sorrow. All my pain, misery, suffering and sorrow was due to somebody or other in my circle. It was a wonder they did not make me step off the ledge.

Then one day I started noticing that my colleagues, friends and family, they all were unhappy too. They also had their spells of depression and sorrow. Slowly I found that I could not find a happy or carefree person anywhere. The world was completely full of sorrow.
Finally, one day I found the person who was behind my own sorrrow. It was me.
My own mind was the factory of my pain. My mind was never letting me at peace. It would dive into the wounds of my past and and also draw the most horrific and pessimistic pictures of my future. It would keep reminding of my own weaknesses and poor luck as well as the success and good fortune of others. It also knew of all my fears, nightmares, insecurities, worries and it would nnt let me forget any of them, even for a day.
But then I also found the person who could make me happy.
It also was me.
I could keep myself happy if I could keep my mind engaged in something. I learnt to never let the mind be at its own, by indulging in something or other. Any hobby, any indulgence especially being with family, talking to a friend or reading, watching, listening to something good was great for keeping the devil of my mind in chains. So begun the training of the mighty mammoth of the mind. The Next steps was the positive thinking i.e. a believe in a better tomorrow. It made the live livable.
Slowly i also learnt the secret magic of forgiving. By forgiving one and all, whoever had caused even the smallest pain in my mind, I found my mind Unfettered and my heart Unburdened.
It was after going further on my search of happiness that I found the final key. It was Faith, the Faith in destiny. I saw every action of mine was hardly my own but in fact my contribution to the simulatneity of thousands of factors in one point of time and space. Everything and person was connected to everything and everyone else. Every event was a flowering of many seeds of past and seeding of many events of the future. And I, I was one of the factors in the great scheme of things called Destiny. No event was a sole result of my own action, yet I my words and actions were influencing everything else. It was then I found my faith in destiny. When I swept off the illusion of control and the ignorance of myself as the doer from my mind, a lot of things were also broomed off. Some of these were,
past repentences and hundreds of scenarios in mind "what if i had done/not done this" as well as future worries and multiple scenarios of failing this or that way in future.
I found out that the Past had already happened, the future hasn't yet arrived, and the present is the only present that could have happened. If today I am here and like this, it is because, I could have been nowhere else and nothing else. If things happened so, this was because they could have happened no other way.
When I was relieved of all my cupboard full of guilts and fears, not only I was Happy and peaceful, I was much more efficient and successfull also. Similar to a horse,  a less burdened mind runs faster and goes further too.
I also dropped the importance and greatness I previously attached with myself and accepted myself as a human like everyone else and gradually Life was wonderful.

I could see how successfully we could create our own personal hell as well as  heaven here in this world itself.
So, I could turn my hell into heaven, and sorrow into joy when I found the person who could give my joy and that person was Me.

Six Billion Universes

Six billions universes exist beside my own! My universe was built for me partly by my conditioning and rest by myself. With every step I took, with every thing I encountered, I was immediately told- right ot wrong. Even if i do not count the carry overs of my past lives, ever since I have opened my eyes I have been listening good and bad, right and wrong from people, rituals and customs, schools,books, tv, peer groups, colleagues etc. The programming was reinforced again and again till i became the conditioning and it became me . It was in this process most of my opinions were built up in the same process for me and foundations for the rest were laid. Such was a universe created for me with a proper colour for every one mostly based upon his nationality, caste, religion, state, financial status, occupation upon which i fixed the same tags of good, bad, right, wrong, inferior and superior etc.
What was unique was that inside my universe existing in my mind ,every action, thought or word of mine was correct and good and the other was wrong and bad if he disagreed.
So in my own universe,
1. A wise man mostly agreed with me and the one who mostly disagreed was a fool.
2. My generation was mostly correct and the other generation in my life was mostly misguided.
3. In case of a conflict- My desicions or actions were as per the situation, state of mind, and sometimes as a reaction to the other, while the other one's motives were mostly mischievous.
4. If I was poor the rich were evil otherwise if I was rich the poor were lazy and thieves.
5. My religion, my sect and my own version of my faith was the one true faith and all others were false.
6. I was wiser than my colleagues, my family members, my neighbours and almost everyone else.
7. My success was my own and my failures were by my Bad luck.
8. Our times were a lot better. The people were virtuous, caring, honourable. The life was better. Even the seasons were better. Surprisingly the times did not feel so nice then.

The list goes on and on. In short in my own universe I was always right by my own opinions and justifications.
Well, surprisingly, the other six billion people in my universe had also their own universes inside thier  minds and they were always right in theirs.

The differences between all the people who all are individually correct and justified are the main reason we have been fighting for thousands of years on countless issues ranging from Nationalities,Religions, Races, some act done in the ancient past to other major issues like the inch of disputed territory between me and my neighbour, or the choice of words in a domestic argument or the actual motive behind some action as compared to that conceived by others.
How could everyone be right! It was not possible.
And then I saw the One True Universe. The One Universe in which the Six Billion of us were niether Right or Wrong, Good or bad, Wise or Foolish. In the True universe we are only Human. We humans, whether Young or old, Poor or rich, Black or white, Hindu or muslim, this caste or that, Women or men, we all yearn and strive for the same wants- A living better than the next, some respect, Love, Acceptance by others, Appreciation, a long and healthy life and only the best for our family. Also, although we do not count them we all actually need Love, Peace and Happiness. Our nightmares are also the same- poverty, insecurity, getting behind in the rat race, worries of the future and pains of the past etc.
We all have the same weaknesses, feelings and Emotions also.
In the thousands of different faces, when I look in the eyes I find only a human almost identical to me. I also find it easier to understand the other, connect with the other, find a mutually acceptable solutions to all our problems and in short, get along with almost everyone. This True universe is a lot happier place than my own personal universe. The rules in The true universe are also awfully simple, such as- Love and be loved, Give freely and recieve, Respect and be respected, Extend your hand and watch as a hand extends and clasps your hand. Extend your arms and you find yourself being hugged. Truly Amazing!

When I had my eyes closed I saw only good and bad people, when I opened my eyes I found only friends and will-be-friends.

This is my discovery of The One True Universe where everyone is a human, as unique, as special and as blessed as I am.

By the way, I am Yourself.

Key of your Inner Peace lies at your neighbor's!

It may be very hard to believe but actually my neighbor plays a great role in my happiness. While the presence of a friendly but an economically or otherwise inferior can make me feel good about myself, a richer neighbor can increase my stress and dissatisfaction. The envy distaste in the latter case increase upto the level where we start wishing his downfall and this thought makes us happy. It is the most common phenomenon and in short it can be summarized as “people living in a neighborhood inferior to them are happier to those in a superior neighborhood”. Reason is simple. Evolution, whether physiological or psychological hasn't yet removed the primitive notion of insecurity of the being and it still lies always submerged within my conscious and the subconscious. Even a child gets insecure when his mother holds or even appreciates another child. Sometimes even a younger brother or sister can raise this insecurity. In short, inside we feel very insecure. The fact is that even in the today's developed and urban world most of our reactions are guided by the 'Fight or Flight' mechanism inside our mind, which sees every person as a threat or a prey (to put it crudely) and every event either as an opportunity or a danger. What a fearful live we live 24/7. Perhaps that's why we feel most safe and relaxed inside our own home. This insecurity makes itself the biggest of our enemies by changing our perspective of the whole universe. We construct a world inside our mind, where actions and words of persons and the persons themselves are either 'Good' or 'Bad', with ourselves being good all the time and others non-aligning to our views being bad. Funny that each of us feel himself a person better than the other, who also feel the same. Due to this same reason, soothsayers, palmists, astrologist, tantriks etc impress any client immensely by telling each of them that, “You are getting results much lesser than your efforts deserve.” or “You do more for others than others do for you.” or “You do not get respect or gratitude that you deserve.” It is just a psychological trick utilizing my insecurity. Similarly most of advertisements of cosmetic and health products, apparels, child care, financial products and even mobiles and automobiles aim at magnifying our insecurity. The salesman does the same by telling us that “this is the last piece” or “This is already sold” or “This i have kept specially for you”. Even the fear of losing out forces us to buy unimportant products at higher prices after they are sold at 'Flat Discounts' (mostly after raising the price) etc. Our choices of apparel, jewelery, vehicle, equipments and even investment is guided by what others are doing.

As would have been clear by now that besides making the life stressful and sometimes miserable, our insecurity prohibits us seriously from becoming ourselves and realize the full potential each of us carry within.

Now to make the the lift stressful, calm , relaxed and happy, the first step can be accepting and forgiving others. However bizarre it might seem, each of us is guided by the same objectives such as increasing possession of wealth and property, getting recognition, having financial security, having a better package/house/car than the other etc and each of us leaves under the same fears such as losing wealth etc and the other guy having a better package/house/car etc. Inside we are very little different from others in the same age profile. So let us drop the notion of good or bad or better etc and accept ourselves as whatever we are and the other as whatever they seem to be. Then we start forgiving them for what they seem to have said or done as they are also human. This forgiving exercise includes family members, neighbors, colleagues, people in our circle and our leaders etc. One by one all of the people we have any small grudge inside against need to be forgiven in our mind. We need to visualize ourselves shaking hands and hugging them and actually also need to do so. Once this is completed we feel a lot lighter, happier, and peaceful than we would have felt ever. By regularly forgiving others it is us who gain most in all terms.

Forgive, because this is the only key to happiness and peace!

Forgive all, for your own sake!

God not only wanted us to be good but actually he wanted us, his children, to be happy, when he told us to Love our neighbor!

Peace to you!