Posted by: dhirendra08 on: July 3, 2009
Good morning friends. I’d like to share you what I have just read about the yoga beyond religion. It’s a good article. I’m sure you will learn something to it.
I follow all the Islamic tenets in the right interpretation and spirit and so, I can say that there is no such thing as yoga being haram (disallowed) in Islam. Rather, I have found that Islamic yoga is a reality. It is possible to employ the skills of yoga to worship Allah better and to be a better Muslim.
Issuing fatwa declaring yoga anti-Islamic by some Malaysian and Indonesian ulema is nothing but misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the fact that yoga and namaz are almost identical. Having practiced yoga during my school days, I found that it can easily be integrated with the Islamic life; in fact the two assist one another. Not only is there no conflict, but Islam and yoga together make a mutually beneficial holistic synergy.
Both are agreed that, while the body is important as a vehicle on the way to spiritual realization and salvation, the human being’s primary identity is not with the body but with the eternal spirit. Maintaining a healthy and fit body is a requirement in Islam, which teaches a Muslim that his or her body is a gift from Allah.Yoga happens to be one of the most potential common grounds between Hindus and Muslims.
The purposes of yoga and Tariqat-e-Naqshbandi (Sufi lifestyle) are apparently similar since both aim at achieving mystical union with the ultimate reality namely Brahma or Allah. Islamic mysticism is undoubtedly impacted by the uncanny Vedic and Buddhist influences desiring to achieve mystical union with the Supreme Being or as one may also call nirvana or fana (a term used by the Sufis).
The Indian Muslims’ love affair with yoga is a complex thing, born of many factors. There’s the general disenchantment with strict, orthodox Islam of the myopic clerics and the accompanying pull to alternative forms of spirituality. -The Times of India
Posted by: dhirendra08 on: June 30, 2009
If you look at how full of life and joyful you were when you were five years of age and how alive and joyful you are today, has the level gone up or gone down? For most people, it has gone down. It need not be so. With age, physical agility may go down but the level of joy and sense of being alive need not go down. If your level of joy and aliveness is going down, it is as if you are committing suicide in instalments. This happens because you only focus on certain aspects of life, but without including every aspect, you cannot live a full life.The Times of India
Unfortunately, most of the time, belief systems are passing off as spirituality. The moment you believe something, if you believe “this is it”, you are bringing a certain degree of rigidity into the very life process that you are. This is not spirituality.
The spiritual process is always a quest, a seeking; that is why when you say, “I’m on a spiritual path,” you say “I’m a seeker.” When you say “I’m religious,” you say “I’m a believer.” There is a significant difference, because believing means you have assumed something that you do not know; seeking means you have realised that you do not know, which brings an enormous amount of flexibility. Whenever you say, “I do not know something,” you are flexible. Whenever you think, “I know it,” you become rigid. This rigidity is not just in attitude; it percolates into every aspect of your life. This rigidity is also the cause of an enormous amount of suffering in the world.
How human beings are, that is how the society will be. So, creating human beings who are flexible and willing to look at everything rather than being stuck in their ideas and opinions definitely makes for a different kind of society. And the very energy that such human beings carry will influence everything around them. –
Discourse: Sadhguru
Posted by: dhirendra08 on: June 29, 2009
Good morning friends. Happiness comes within. That’s usually all the belief of many people. I agree to that. Try to study yourself. When you feel happy, everything in the world will be positive. You can thing anything in a right way. Even if negative thoughts are coming to our mind, you can easily divert that to a positive way. But when you are sad or gloomy, everything you want to do will just don’t have a good output even if you are doing the right things.
In every human being, there is an aspiration to become better, more loving and more concerned about one another and the planet. But people are trying to work towards it from the wrong end. People are trying to be loving, they are trying to be good.
When you look at yourself, if you are happy and joyful, naturally you are a very loving, generous, wonderful human being. This is true for everybody. On the other hand, when you are in a state of unhappiness, frustration or any other sense of unpleasantness within yourself, you may be nasty. There is no point trying to be loving, trying to be pleasant to somebody else.
When you are feeling pleasant, you are naturally pleasant to everyone around you. The fundamental thing that human beings have to work towards is to make themselves truly joyful and blissful. Trying to produce good human beings has never really worked. When people are joyful, they are all wonderful human beings. Joy is the best insurance against all evil.
People will always find ways to subvert values, morality and ethics. But when you are very joyful, when you are very pleasant within yourself, you are naturally nice to everyone around you. So, my whole work is to make human beings truly blissful.
Spirituality does not mean going away from life. Spirituality means becoming alive in the fullest possible way so you are not just alive on the surface, you are alive to the core. – The Times of India
Discourse: Sadhguru
Posted by: dhirendra08 on: June 26, 2009
Within this spa renaissance, that draws much of its knowledge from ancient cultures… we can dissolve into a renewed sense of being that reforms us, generating an easy living response…The Times of Indian
The spa environment is essentially rooted in the harmonious orchestration of natural elements that awaken our senses, allowing our bodies to let go of resistance, of strife on every level…
The welcome shift in our perception of what amounts to ‘being beautiful’ continues to evolve as our awareness grows. The integration of more ethnic beauty regimes from different cultures has introduced all of us to a more universal account of what equates to beauty and how we quantify it.
With people being born from parents whose origins may come from opposite sides of the globe we now see extraordinary and exotic human beings with perhaps a mix of Turkish and Scandinavian or African and Indian that break through the conceptual moorings of traditional looks… Ancient principles of wellness are rising to the fore once again, as Ayurvedic wisdom from India or Mayan wellness rituals from South America are studied and brought into a universal experience.
Being seen as beautiful, now stems from a deeper understanding of how being healthy and happy are visible factors in the overall vision of how we appear to others, as well as to ourselves. As our inner perceptions change so does our outer vision. The realisation that beauty is more than skin deep has now developed into an active pursuit of generating an inner harmony that is free from stress, tension and toxicity…
An experience of inner peace and serenity resolves issues of psychological conflict with the inevitable changes that occur through hormonal elements, creating a sense of ‘growing old gracefully’. Qualities of inner peace create space to let go of the past and embrace the present with renewed understanding and poise. A holistic approach can connect to the heart of the seeker also relieving emotional anxiety and therefore uplifting the spirit. –
(The writer, a wellness expert, has authored The Definitive Spa & Body Handbook: Five keys to energy, balance & bliss.)
Posted by: dhirendra08 on: June 17, 2009
Living in this consciousness, one will be more a wanting being rather than a satisfied being.
Does our inner growth impact the collective consciousness?
There is the principle of the ladder. Imagine a ladder in which people are climbing. If one is unwilling to move up, it blocks others. If one helps the other to climb, one is not only helping oneself but also others. If everyone is disciplined, the process becomes smooth. If not, it is because of sleeping consciousness that one does not see the sanity of harmony and order.
If one is not ready to be awake, then one blocks another. If one is willing to grow, it impacts the collective consciousness and in turn it also impacts people around. So it becomes necessary to make the right connection and disconnection.
How important is the role of a Master?
An enlightened Master’s being is awakened to higher levels of consciousness. His ‘presence’ has a rippling effect on others. He can see your blocks clearly and helps you open up. We have four doors to be opened. They are a conscious mind, a subconscious mind, an unconscious mind and a divine mind.
Conscious mind involves thoughts, decisions and discussions. Then the subconscious mind has to be opened. One has to have affinity to one’s Master with a deep feeling of love and oneness. Even in disagreement with a conscious mind, a deep feeling of love opens the other’s door.
The unconscious mind has to be opened through surrender. Surrendering to a Master can be a great opening. Surrendering involves considering the Master’s teaching as one’s breath. Surrender your ego. Then the third door opens.
Finally, the last door has to be opened by the power of grace. When all the three doors are opened, you will be flooded with grace. – The Times of India
Satsang: Swami Sukhabodhananda
Posted by: dhirendra08 on: June 17, 2009
Good morning friends. First of all what is freedom for you? For me, freedom is a self-realization or spiritual self fulfillment that is not incompatible with the existence of natural causes of the will act. If you have your freedom, you can do anything you want. You will feel that you fulfill all the things. How about you, how do you define freedom?
Is freedom a choice or bondage?
People imagine that they are free. If you look at yourself closely, it will become clear to you that you are bound. Most of us lead mechanical lives. Our perceptions, conclusions and beliefs are mechanical, too. So freedom in this scenario is no more than an illusion.
In order to be free, your functioning has to change from the lower states of consciousness to the higher states of consciousness. You are free to evolve, but if you are mechanical, you are not free.
Our inner nature is freedom. In fact, freedom is not the absence of bondage. If freedom is other than bondage, then freedom is bound by its freedom for it is free only in freedom and not in bondage.
Why are we not satisfied with life despite abundance?
Even though existence is in abundance, man is bound by poverty. Generally people are not prosperity consciousness, but are poverty consciousness. People operate from scarcity and not from abundance.
We are not satisfied with life as our level of being attracts a particular kind of life. Your life is like a small wheel and one is connected to bigger or smaller wheels. It is necessary that we disconnect from the smaller wheels of life and connect to the bigger ones. The smaller wheel represents name and fame, money, power… learn to disconnect. We are connected to them through our attitudes. There is a collective consciousness of small wheels and hence we are pulled by this consciousness into an abyss. Even wars are caused by these influences not necessarily by those who want war. – The Times of India
Satsang: Swami Sukhabodhananda
Posted by: dhirendra08 on: June 15, 2009
After merging with the car, and I am moving, every sound it makes becomes eloquent testimony of whether it is happy or not. Rolling into traffic my peripheral vision goes active, to warn me of any vehicle coming alongside, my side mirrors helping in this process. My eyes, never focusing on any given point, flicker from left to right continuously, assessing every vehicle in front and using their weaknesses if they exist, to ease past and keep moving with the least resistance. Memory is working full time about humps, potholes, crossings, both major and minor. The rear-view mirror becomes the eye in the back of my head, to know what is behind me at all times.
With all this happening, I still converse with my boss in the back seat, listen to the lyrics of the song playing on the radio effortlessly. I have goofed up sometimes, but God always took over to save the situation, and by His grace I have never had an accident.
The most spiritual part of this meditative driving is that I always make sure I am not inconveniencing anybody, whether it is a pedestrian, cyclist, two-wheeler or anything else, including animals. Even vehicles hindering my way deliberately or not, I smile and let pass, thus avoiding any loss of concentration. So my awareness of being one with everything around me is heightened by caring.
This is a meditation of oneness, of knowing God’s Oneness in everything animate and inanimate. “God’s Oneness, my companions, is the only law of being. Another name for it is Love. To know it and abide by it is to abide in life. But to abide by any other law is to abide in non-being, or Death.” How true, but can we get everybody to feel the same way? I don’t know. – Stephen Isaac
