Keeping Throwing The Light

While speaking to a group on December 16th, Sri Sri shared the importance of Throwing Light on Life:

Keep all other concepts on one side and just look into your own life; what have you learnt in your life?
What are your experiences?

Look at all that you thought as truth that later turned to be not true. What are the experiences which meant something at that time but after sometime meant nothing? Observe how your judgements were all just bubbles on the surface of water; they had no facts, they had no stance. 

You had judgements and you thought that is how it is and later on you thought, ‘oh! It was just my judgement but not the way things really are.’ 

So your vision broadens, sharpens and heightens. That which broadens your vision, sharpens your vision and heightens your vision is ‘Swadhyay’.
Swa means oneself, studying one's own 'Self'. Throwing light on your own ‘self’, examining your own ‘self’, this is essential.

By this introspection you blossom and that inner being is unlocked. Then one begins to understand everything - there is one light, which is within me. Then you find the way and truth dawns and then you recognize that which is in all the Holy Scriptures. Otherwise just by hearing the Holy Scriptures and saying it like a parrot has no value. It has to become alive in our life and for that Swadhyay is essential. 

Throw light on your own mind, on your own intellect, on your own life and the events of your own life, this is very important. You will be amazed by just throwing light on events of your life what happens. How you were, what concepts you had, how limited your thinking was and now how vast it has become. How your behaviours were and how your behaviours have changed. How your sense of belongingness was and how it has changed now.

Read more at What Sri Sri Said Today.

If you are chanting you cannot be depressed.

This lovely dose of insight comes form Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's daily wisdom posted from his December 5, 2011 talk in India. Enjoy!

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

If you are chanting you cannot be depressed.

When you chant ‘Om’ it calms down those centers of emotions and once that is done the depression vanishes. 

So if you are depressed it is because you are so engrossed in the material world. Day and night thinking what about me you get depressed. 

What you should do is, in the morning when you wake up, ask, ‘what service can I do? How best I can be useful to all these people or to the world; to this knowledge or to this organization.' If none of that comes, then how can I be useful to Guruji. At least think that way. 

If your focus is on this direction and you continue you’re chanting and your meditation knowing this life is temporary and everything here vanishes, and chant ‘Om Namaha Shivaya’, you cannot be depressed. 

Depressive negative energy will simply vanish. 

That is why in ancient days people would do Sandhyavandanam three times. 

In the morning you wake up, look at the Sun and think of the beautiful day it is going to bring you and thank the Sun for life and for the planet earth. Our life and planet is dependent on the Sun, so you thank the Sun.

Again in the afternoon you do Sandhyavandanam and again in the evening you thank the Sun for the beautiful day and feel connected to the whole universe.

When you do this, there is no question of getting depressed. When you don’t know that you are connected with the whole universe and you think you are just some small person wanting small little things and you are bickering on your own weaknesses saying, I am weak, I don’t know this and I don’t have that. I sit for meditation and I did Kriya but nothing happens to me. This type of bickering in the mind shows the small mindedness. You have to come out of that. You take responsibility, I will come out of this and I’ll dedicate my life.

All these people who want to commit suicide, I tell them it is such stupidity. You want to commit suicide because you are so bent upon your own pleasure, your own happiness, and your own comfort. You dedicate your life for a greater cause then depression will vanish.

When you say, I am not going to take my life away but I am going to dedicate it for the world, for humanity, for the country then so much happiness comes. 

Come what may I am going to fight.

I think all the depressed people should be made to realize this truth and chanting will elevate them. 

Either you dedicate yourself to the world, to the nation, to culture, to dharma or you dedicate yourself to God, to the Supreme Being, to the sacred knowledge.

That dedication can pull you out of this rut. 

Day Three: Emotional Maturity?

I’ve been contemplating this idea of Emotional Maturity. What is it?

It came up in Sri Sri’s discussion of Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita where Arjuna is basically whining to Krishna about having to fight this battle. He lacks emotional maturity in that moment and it’s up to Krishna to “wake him up.” (Which Krishna does by “poking” at Arjuna’s ego.  --- “Hey, man!” Krishna prods – I loosely quote here, - “Pull yourself together. What will people think of you? A prince behaving like this! Come on.”  And then Krishna takes him to a deeper inquiry of “Who are you? Where are you? What are you?”

Do I have emotional maturity? Do I stay centered and calm even when anger, jealousy, fear, greed, etc., come passing by?  Well….not always…but, more and more!

Chetana gave me an opportunity to practice last night when she woke for the third time (very unusual for our Little Pea who 99.99% of the time sleeps 10-hour shifts). At the third waking I was suddenly without patience and annoyed, “Chetana. Shhhhhh! Quiet! Mommy needs to sleep.”

Did this bring sudden calm & quiet from my sweetie? Of course not. Who would respond calmly & sweetly to an agitated accusation, as it were, of sleep sabatoge. She cried. That made my heart feel heavy – I’ve only once before said something so strongly that she cried.

This was my moment of lacking Emotional Maturity – luckily & with Grace, I saw it right away. Where was my equanimity? Easy to see when you’re angry at a sweety pie who has no idea what is wrong with making noises in the middle of the night and has 0 lack of intention of doing anything “wrong.”

Wake up call for me!

I immediately found myself back at my center – calm and collected.

“Chetana, Sweetie. I’m going to put you back in your bed, Love, so you can sleep.”

And lowering her into her crib, she rolled to her side and gently fell off to sleep.

Emotional Maturity on both our parts!

Day 30-4: An End to Violence

Is it possible to end violence in the world? I ask this question seriously and contemplate it every so often. Is it possible?

I used to say, “no.”

Now, I’m finding “yes.”

1.     Violence comes from stress and mis-education. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Guruji!) gives the example of a terrorist who happened to take an Art of Living Course while in prison in 2001 and discovered that there is heaven on Earth as he dropped his stress through the learning of breathing techniques (pranayama) & meditation & Sudarshan Kriya (the rhythmic breathing technique that is – miraculous! For relieving stress).

The terrorist had been promised heaven only in the afterlife and so with finding heaven now while alive, he announced the end of his terrorist activities and began a life of service to all of humanity – not just his “own” people.

All violence comes from stress in our system. Even if it’s yelling in our car at another driver (who can’t even here us). Or kicking the cabinet when we trip over something on the floor. If we are relaxed, calm and cool, we don’t react with such extreme bursts of anger and aggression.

2.     Violence comes from the glorification of aggression in society. When Sri Sri was a child Mahtma Ghandi was revered for his nonviolence. He says that in school children who lost their temper weren’t thought highly of by the other students. Today, anger and aggression has been linked with prestige. Can you imagine when the time will again arise that a child exhibits centeredness and calm in the face of ridicule or an experience of disappointment, etc.? And other children revere that child.

3.     Violence against women arises because of the identification with the body. If you think you are just the body, then you are addicted to the whims of the body. But we are much subtler than this body. Beyond the body we are the breath and my breath is your breath is the world’s breath. It flows in and out of one being to the next.

And beyond breath even subtler is the mind, intellect, memory and then the ego. And beyond the ego at the most subtle level is the Spirit, the Self. When we experience ourselves at this subtle level – through meditation, Sudarshan Kriya, - then we drop our obsession with the body.

I am inspired by my understanding to reach children and teach them meditation and yogic breathing (pranayama) and their version of the Sudarshan Kriya so that they can manage their anger, anxiety, fears, etc. And so they know themselves on these subtle levels from an early, early age. Oh, what a world this will be!

Awwww, shucks. Here I go again… Jai Gurudev! Victory to Our One World Big Mind! 

Label Me - Free & Clear!

Just saw this in Sri Sri's Q&A session from earlier this week. Right on target with our "Friendliness" conversation.


Question: 
Dearest Guruji, I am extremely shy and rigid because of my very strict upbringing. How can I become more expressive and loving?


Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: 
Okay, you want to really change? You start right away. First of all, you remove this label that you have put on your head, "I am shy and rigid." Who said you are shy and rigid? Come on, you don’t know yourself. Accept it. 


If you think you are shy and rigid, your own thought is making it a reality. You are sowing the seeds - "I am shy. I am rigid." So, the seed you have sown will make you become that. 


Right now, from today, you admit you don’t know your mind. You don’t know yourself. You were shy and rigid in the past, but no longer, not this moment. You must take this step. 


Remove this label that you have put on yourself ‘shy’ and ‘rigid.’ 
Leave it label-less for some time and see what happens.  


From "What Sri Sri Said Today,"August 5, 2011

Day 11: Life @ 100%

Last night I watched Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s talk on the Bhagavad Gita – Chapter 5. The message: Be in action. And be a renunciant – someone who renounces the world. How to do both? Be in the world. Take action and let the mind drop its judgements, attachments to the outcome of the actions. Sure! Sounds easy enough. Then I think, “So, how do I take action in relation to my daughter, yet not be attached to the outcome?” Tricky, tricky. Sri Sri gives this direction – Do everything 100%.  

My self-directed marching orders “Do everything 100%” and see what shakes out.

8:07 AM – Feeding Chetana and thinking about the day’s plans.

ZAP! Being 100% -- feeding Chetana & now watching her movements, her eyes opening and closing half way as she falls to sleep, the limpness coming to her body. So sweet!

9:?? AM – Shavasana at the end of my morning yoga practice and thinking about getting some good rest these next few weeks before the Fall season of business and won’t it be good to…blah blah blah

ZAP! Being 100% - won’t it…and…remember…….

11:02 AM – Carrying things up the stairs. I can fit one more thing in my hands and then up the stairs and then…

ZAP! Being 100% - Carefully carrying just what I have in my hands. Putting it down and then moving on to the next thing…

Wow! Life at 100% is easier – it drops the activity in the mind. And it’s more efficient. I’m getting done what’s in front of me more quickly and accurately.

Check out this awesome book: Life @ 100% (on the YES+ Website and the IPhone App --- I keep it on the coffee table so I can read from it throughout the day & share it with friends and family.

Day 10: Whiz! Bang! Flop…

10:08 AM

Well, that’s how I felt this morning when considering this here blog. “Well…hmmm…yeah….well…hmmm..” Not the Whiz!-Bang!-Wahoo! of just a few days ago. The bounce had gone out of my blim-blam.

Wisdom Moment? Let’s see…

Well, this is commitment jumping up! Who cares how I “feel” about it. I gave my word to myself that I would do one post per day for 30 days. Buzzer hasn’t gone off yet. Still more days to go. For whose benefit do I keep posting. For me! (It’s true.) Keeping my word to myself is oh so invigorating. It lets me experience myself as bigger than the fleeting thoughts and emotions. And it makes me dependable, centered, constant. 

And, it reminds me that the “wow” isn’t in the thing I’m doing, it’s in me. “I’m juicy.” Sri Sri Ravi Shankar uses the example of the dog chewing a bone and enjoying the juiciness of the bone when in fact it’s the bleeding of the dog’s own gums that gives the juice. “You are juicy!” It’s not the thing out there. The joy is from within and we hook it on people, events, situations. Come inside to the joy!