Owning Own Life!

In the face of every problem or failure, or threat there always are two options,

1. Blame others,
2. Take ownership and think if there is something that can be done for success or improvement or something that could have been done better.

Our objective is to have the best quality of life that we can, and the best future that can be achieved, and for that,

# We can either blame the weather for ill health or dress and live accordingly

# We can either blame others for our interpersonal/family/civil/matrimonial disputes or understand the roots of the issue and act to resolve them.

# We can blame others for our own bad health or introduce good habits to improve it,

# We can blame teachers for lack of knowledge or find the knowledge and learn,

#We can blame our capacity due to lack of time or stamina, or think about how we can do more in less time or with less effort and act accordingly, and further improve.

# We can blame others for lack of employment or select a skill, learn it, and excel to become the best choice for employers,

# We can blame own lack of resouces or explore how to achieve the results with same resources or how to arrange resources in best way.

#We can either blame our looks or work out how to succeed in spite of them or even through them. Rajpal Yadav, Tuntun, etc made their looks their USP and succeded by them.

#We can either look for people to blame, or look for people who overcame such issues and learn from them and get inspired by them.

Also, We live in an age where one can always find out how thousands of people resolve the same problems in the best manners, within minutes online, and learn from them or get assistance from the opposite part of the world. The Internet now also is the "Memory of the world" and there is endless information and opportunities to learn and improve.

Human are the most intelligent species and called Homo Sapiens, ie the intelligent man (species).

Oxford definition of Intelligence is : "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills."  

So, as humans, acquiring knowledge and skills is our basic nature and we should keep practicing it to retain it and also improve it.

A word of caution though , ownership should not become focussed on highlighting own mistakes in past, blaming self , carrying guilt for them externally and condemning self. Not at all!

 Rather, ownership is about accepting self as one is and one was, accept that anyone can make mistakes  and then analysing own mistakes for learning and improvement only.

So, most of the problems can be solved, all roadmaps to success can be drawn and it all starts with taking ownership of one's own life.

Gratitude: A mindful and meaningful way of life

Gratitude as a frame of mind enables us to appreciate all we have, be positive and better adjusted to our lives.

When eating a morsel of rice and dal , one is recalled of the farmer ploughing his field, truck drivers ferrying his harvest, flour Mills, shopkeeper, the cook who prepared the delicious and nutritious delicacy, the house help who is going to clean up after and keep the kitchen running by his contribution and gratitude towards all. Yes they all did for money, but how would we do without their effort. Fair exchange, that's how the world is balanced.

The electricity we get from effort of coal miners, truck drivers, train drivers , power plant workers and so many others, and then we enjoy AC, TV, Internet, and all appliances.

The traffic cop stands all day in extreme heat, cold, rains, smoke to facilitate our faster travel to save our time and energy.

Cops who forgo their festivals and family time so that we have ours, safely.

So many people, who contributed to my car from steel mills, mines, engineers, and workers.

People who developed medicines and made them available to us and take our care which may not be palatable even to ourselves at times.

The people who go door to door and collect garbage for disposal, as they keep our house , colony and city clean, beautiful and healthy.

Gratitude to God , destiny, universe and all beings for everything in our life viz family , a living , lifestyle.

One feels gratitude for so many things,
To God , for being alive, in health and well, much better than many others. Even if he has one eye , he is infinite time more blessed than a blind person. He may have other physical problems but at least not fatal ones, many are illfortuned to have those with very less time on their hands.

Yes, one doesn't have everything but then no one has. Even the people on facebook who seem to have it all, but you dont know their pains and problems so in ignorance of that you needlessly condemen and torture yourself for having lesser than them.

In fact there shall always be 1000 times or more of people who have less than you than people who have more than you. The figure that only 2.5% people come in income tax bracket itself is a tell tale.
So should one be sad that he has less than 1 lac people or with gratitude than he has more than 100 Crores.

Also if one has more than necessities he already has more than sufficient.
https://simplytao.blogspot.com/2023/11/where-is-fire.html

Gratitude for life, health, youth, time, family etc also makes us appreciate the value of  these things we generally take for granted and enjoy them more.

Living with gratitude cultivates a more mature, evolved, understanding of life and a better adjusted personality , a good company with good vibes.

Koans in Zen are riddles that may seem weird. But after mediatating on its meaning after some time one realizes its truth and realizes much about true nature of reality.
While its prohibited to share meaning of a koan as unravelling is a personal evolving experience, as an exception a koan and its meaning is as follows,
" A man climbs a tree to taste its fruit, the branch cracks and now he is hanging towards the valley with a lion there looking up at him and also a cobra coming toward him on the branch. He picks a fruit from the branch he is hanging on , taste it and is shocked to find how tasty it was."

Meaning: In the moment of realization of certainty of close death, in that moment of expanded awareness and concentration one realizes the value of life and all we experience in life.
But then its already too late.

A better way of living: A mindful and meaningful living and a mind frame of gratitude facilitates that greatly.

Where is the fire ?

When our lives or essentials of life are under threat then Stress , anxiety , panic or "do or die" sensations generate within body and mind. This puts brain and body in "Fight or Flight mode".

For a caveman, such scenarios included Being chased by a predator, or a flood, or a wildfire or war with other tribe, which all would naturally happen very few times in his life.

For a contemporary human it's much more complicated, losing a project, closure of business, losing job, losing promotion, failing an exam,  relocation to missing a deadline, or even missing a meeting or even missing a bus...it all generate same amount of Life and Death situaation hormones Epinephrine (Adrenaline)/ Norepinephrine as well as the main stress hormone Cortisol, same amount as in the caveman when being chased by lion. We act as if things are on fire everyday.

Are we really being chased by lion, or in such a threat , when we are telling our mind of such threat level? It's only the thought process that automatically many times overrate the threat level resulting in same response of psychosomatic system of body taking in into a Fight or flight response or rather nowadays keeping in Fight or flight response all day, every day.

Other reasons include lifestyle factors such as poor sleep, bad diet, over indulgence etc, poor support from family, friends, peers etc

To put the above in correct perspective, let's just jot down amd categorize what's Essential to What's a add on in life, broadly as follows, in general,

Essential:

Life

Health

A living to sustain life, health and family

Roof, vehicle, Amenities 

X Amount of money

Crucial:

Family

Friends

Self Esteem

Mental Peace 

Love in Family 

X+Y amount of money

Adjustment

Time for all of above and still time for yourself to sit relax or do what u like doing , some time every day

Meaning of life/Purpose

Desirable:

X+Y+Z money 

Bigger and better house and car

Extras/Luxury:

Still bigger and better House, to still....

Still bigger or better Car, to still...

Fame and Social standing , social recognition

X+Y+Z+Infinity amount of money 

If u have essentials u are surviving,

If u have crucials u have all u need,

If u have desirables then u have more than u need,

If I have extras u have more than u need and still more..

Now If we believe social recognition, praise from peers is essential to survive , then we have more ocassions for Life and death mode life and as we wrongly categorize more and more items of Extras and Desirables as Essentials we live more and more under an imagined sword ( but still as deadly as it can also kill) and also burn ourselves and waste the wonderful things of life ie Life itself, youth, and time !

In other words, let's recount all u have when u wake up in the morning,

Life - Every day many don't wake up in the morning,

A working Body- Many don't have this

Youth- An age to do and enjoy something, many yearn for lost youth

Family- Many don't have 

Love in Family - again many don't have this

A decent lifestyle and a job supporting it- Many many don't have this,

You have time spend with family , friends and doing things u love- many need this 

If u have all this , what exactly is that u don't have, more numbers on papers?

Furthermore,

If ur Friends are ur friends only if u have a certain life style, then they were not your friends to begin with.

If u get sense of self esteem from ur house or ur car , then u vastly undervalue urself.

Realx, worry less and  enjoy ur blessings !

शुभ धनतेरस

Today is Dhanteras or Dhanvantari Trayodashi, when Dhanvantari , the god of health and Giver of Ayurveda appeared during Sagar Manthan (churning of sea) with the gold pot of Amrit!

What this tale actually means let's see.

Sagar manthan: An allegory

Mandar/Meru parvat used as churning stick : Spinal Cord (Merudand)

Vasuki  ,used a churning rope (same snake from Shiv's neck) : Kundalini

Kshirsagar : sea of energy in mooladhar 

Two forces manipulating Vasuki (Kundalini) to and fro on Mandar ie spine Deva and Danava: Inhale and Exhale of breath 

In Kriya Yoga, sadhna is like Samudra Manthan – churning the ocean of the human consciousness. Mount Mandara (churning rod) is the spine in which Sushumna Nadi is located. 

Devas represent the upward flow of prana which reaches the spiritual planes (inhalation). Vasuki, the serpent, is the energy, prana, kundalini. The Asuras is the descending prana flowing downward to matter. “Upon offering the in-breath to the out-breath, out-breath to the in-breath one performs oblations, and true yajna (fire ceremony)” (Bhagavat Gita). 

This friction is the churning, the Sushumna generating heat, light, coolness, and the internal OMkar sounds.

First the negativities ie the Halahal poison comes up from the churn, the ego, the fears, the complexes, the doubts, the deviations.....when one gets through them sitting like a rock,like Buddha did, then the Riddhi (prosperity) & Siddhis come up, u continue  in ur quest, then finally the amrit ie immortality by Moksha is gained, from the manthan ,ie internal churning.

Buddha suffered the same, that night under the Bodhi tree, when the primal complexes in the human (animal) body first came up to scare and tempt him away, he sat through the torture, rock solid and straight, till he realized himself. 

Summary: By controlled Movement of Kundali energy through Breath control Amrita of Moksha can be attained.

Stress

 Stress/Anxiety/Complexes= Unchanneled Energy in a Fatigued brain and unhealthy body !