Positive Thinking for all

But is mental peace and happiness the only goal of meditating? Spiritual guru, Nandini Sen, sheds light on the benefits of meditation. “I feel meditation helps one just in being more in the present moment, because only in this moment can one do something. The basic idea is to relax in that very moment.

All anger, anxiety and negative thoughts are carried forward until you don’t let go. Meditation simply gives the mind a holiday,” she says. The moment you include a goal to meditation, its purpose is lost.

“A goal is always set for the future,” says Nandini, “but meditation is about the present moment.” Meditation deals with forgetting everything for that moment and concentrating on knowing one’s inner self. This way, one tends to ignore the problem and concentrates on meditating, thus, dissolving the problem altogether.

Can meditation and chanting be considered the means of escapism from the materialistic lives people live? “Not unless one chants 24/7,” says model turned actress Aditi Govritkar. Juggling between her house, kids and work, she at times finds it difficult to take time off for meditation. “I try and chant at least 10 minutes daily to decrease my stress levels. This helps me feel more calm and at peace.”

Event organiser, Sharmilla Khanna agrees. “Of course, one cannot escape from the real world with meditation. I do everything that I’m entitled and responsible to do. I don’t escape from anything, not even my problems. Instead, meditation has helped me face my problems with a clear mind, heart and soul.”  - The Times of India

Good  morning friends.  For me, it always feel good to meditate.  In the way, I can rejuvinate.  You can try to meditate also and you will feel good.

“Happiness in life comes not by manipulating what you want to achieve but by paying attention to something seemingly totally unconnected with it,” said the great philosopher Swami Vivekananda.

For thousands of years, the wise of many of the world’s cultures have offered this as the key to happiness — meditation. It is said that meditation creates a state of metabolic restfulness far deeper than that of sleep.

Scientific studies prove that meditation results in a better flow of blood to the brain, which helps relax the muscles and decreases the stress hormones. This rest leads to a quick rejuvenation of one’s mind and body, leaving them healed from the effects of fatigue, stress and tension.

So profound are the benefits of chanting that people from different walks of life have taken to chanting and meditation to get away from the stress of their high demanding jobs and lifestyles. Everybody from Priya Dutt, Vinod Khanna, Kitu Gidwani, Sheetal Malhar, Riya Sen, Dia Mirza and Rhea Pillai are reaping the benefits of meditation and also propagating it.

Television actress Munisha Khatwani says, “I chant the Maha Mrityunjaya Jaap to break free from all the karmic ties. It frees me from all negative karma and has also helped improve my health, finances and personal life to a great extent. The more I chant, the more I am at peace.”

In essence though, a commercial Endeavour supposedly aims to preserve the integrity of the wealth-creating power of individuals and businesses in a reasonable, sustainable and balanced manner with the distributive or equity aspect of this balance creating value.

This is intended to improve the quality of life of those in its circle of influence – employees, suppliers, financers, dealers and customers – as well as of those outside it. Essentially, maintaining this balance is the purpose of profit. And so, when wealth is co-created and shared by all segments of communities through a continuous process of meaningful engagement, there is greater common benefit.

Over time, people with genuine intentions and enlightened businesses came to believe in the idea of co-creation and perfected a more formal practice to deliver this integrity through processes, governance mechanisms and values driving the business models. They have set some commendable examples of even personal sacrifice and leadership that inspire and enable others to make the act of giving a constant, personal aspiration and institutional self-expression through daily transactions and interactions.

These hold real possibilities to increase the numbers of those convinced that there is no easy escape from a certain ‘totality of commitment’ irrespective of how much one really gives away. It is said that when Jesus declined the hospitality of a rich man – who offered to Jesus and his followers luxury and wealth – the man was disappointed.

Later, the rich man was hurt on knowing that Jesus more willingly accepted two coins from a poor old woman on his way to town. When he was asked why, Jesus is said to have replied: “But that is all she had” ! – The Times of India

The writer is vice-president, group corporate sustainability, Tata Council for Community Initiatives. The views expressed are his own.

Good morning friends.  Goodwill hunting VS compassion.  How’s this?  I’m sure many of you will ask what is good in it.  How much is enough when it comes to giving to those in need? The question crops up regardless of whether it pertains to personal charity or corporate philanthropy. 

Should an amount be set aside as a percentage of one’s income or profits? Besides the budget, the other question is: How does one determine if a person or project is a good investment in terms of its potential to provide maximum benefit to the target receiver as well as ensure ripple effects? The third question: Should the giver make known the fact that he is giving?

To an individual giver, the question might not be as important as it might be to a corporation that seeks to make an endowment or invest in something for purely charitable reasons, but is also wondering if all the goodwill so generated ought not to be used to its advantage.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna addresses Arjuna thus: “O conqueror of wealth!” Among other things, Krishna says that something given with attention and respect is considered as good; and when you do it for gain or returns, or give grudgingly, then such action is inferior. In a world of ‘conquerors of wealth’ , admittedly a lot is happening that arises out of a personal desire to help the needy and businesses have more recently come to formally accept such practice . There are many efficient mechanisms for giving today.

However, there is something missing. In all of this, what is forgotten is that the need to generate the money is first legitimized so that those who have the money or means could then distribute some of it. This acquires a broader mantle and is described variously as corporate social responsibility and stakeholder engagement.

Meditation is a non-doing entity where you are simply a seer, witness, you are an observer of the mind’s happenings. To watch is our true nature. It is a natural, non-doing state. No effort is required to watch. We all have full potential to look within directly as we all are blessed with the ‘Third Eye’.

Meditation is mind management. It is not forcing the mind to be quiet. It is to find the quiet that is there already. We are children of bliss. We suffer from stress and strain because we gave all the powers to the mind and made it our master. Not only that, we consider ourselves nothing but the mind.

Mind is matter. It has no power of its own. It is useful in the external world but in the spiritual, internal world, it has to be overcome. Otherwise we will be the victims of mental and physical diseases. Meditation is seeing the mind as a witness, a neutral energy. It is not interfering with the intricacies and doings of mind. Just be a seer, be a witness. We just stay in our own source, in our true nature: All-bliss.

We are happy when the mind is cheerful. We are depressed when the mind is gloomy. We are at the mercy of the mind that waxes and wanes. We consider ourselves nothing but mind. It is blasphemy to consider ourselves as victims of an unforeseen incident when the unending Bliss is flowing within all of us. Meditation is mind management. Meditation is homecoming. – The Times of India

Good morning friends.  When we are afflicted with a disease like malaria, we don’t treat each symptom like fever, pain and shivering, one by one. We just treat the disease and the symptoms automatically vanish. So deal directly with the mind and symptoms like stress and strain will disappear. Vishvas meditation is mind management.

There is no attempt, however, to control the mind; the idea is to go beyond it. The mind is compared to a monkey drunk with the wine of desire, stung by the scorpion of jealousy and possessed with the demon of pride. Lust, greed, jealousy, anger, ego, tensions, reactions, grudges, depression, stress and strain are, however, the symptoms and not the disease.

The common misconception is that meditation is concentration of mind and various techniques are taught to achieve this. Meditation has got no technique. There are techniques for concentration. Concentration is a mental exercise between the mind and the object of attention. But meditation is neither a mental exercise nor a practice. Meditation is a direct and natural process beyond the mind itself. Meditation is not concentration; it is the mother of concentration.

Remember, concentration is where one tries to control thoughts, where thoughts get dissolved naturally, enhancing your powers of concentration, memory, will, right thinking and fitness.

When your thought current is interrupted – which means that all thoughts are fixed on one object – it is concentration. But when the flow is uninterrupted, that is meditation. This is when the thought is not fixed on any one object, rather we just remain a non-doer and directly watch thoughts as a neutral energy without any judgment, analyses, participation, visualization, imagination, contemplation, suppression, repression, condemnation or concentration.

Good morning friends.  People can talk via power of thoughts.  Yes it can be. Concentration will be needed. 

Telepathy is no longer a myth, for researchers from the University of Southampton have shown that people can communication with each other through the power of thought alone .

Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI) can be used for capturing brain signals and translating them into commands that allow humans to control devices like computers, robots, rehabilitation technology, and virtual reality environments just by thinking about various actions.

Dr. Christopher James, from the University’s Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, took the experiment a step further in the current study. The researchers aimed to expand the current limits of this technology, and show that brain-to-brain (B2B) communication is possible.

“Whilst BCI is no longer a new thing and person to person communication via the nervous system was shown previously in work by Professor Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading, here we show, for the first time, true brain to brain interfacing. We have yet to grasp the full implications of this but there are various scenarios where B2B could be of benefit such as helping people with severe debilitating muscle wasting diseases, or with the so-called ‘locked-in’ syndrome, to communicate and it also has applications for gaming,” said James.

In his experiment, one person used BCI to transmit thoughts, translated as a series of binary digits, over the Internet to another person whose computer receives the digits and transmits them to the second user’s brain through flashing an LED lamp.

While attached to an EEG amplifier, the first person would generate and transmit a series of binary digits, imagining moving their left arm for zero and their right arm for one.

The second person was also attached to an EEG amplifier and their PC would pick up the stream of binary digits and flash an LED lamp at two different frequencies, one for zero and the other one for one.

Although the pattern of the flashing LEDS is too subtle to be picked by the second person, but it is picked up by electrodes measuring the visual cortex of the recipient. The encoded information is then extracted from the brain activity of the second user and the PC can decipher whether a zero or a one was transmitted.  -The Times of India

If I simply follow my emotions there is conflict so you have to learn to detach yourself. Both processes happen together. You allow your emotions to flourish; you observe them, but at the same time, you learn to control them. You come to know when it is the right time for action and then let that energy manifest itself.

Then this manifestation will be positive and creative, rather than haphazard. You wait for the right time; you follow that desire through – so there will be no conflict. There should be no conflict in the mind because where there is conflict, there is a breakdown of natural tendencies. Then you are not a yogi, you are not a tantric. You are a bhogi.

Do men and women have different spiritual roles or attributes?

Tantra believes the feminine energy is much more refined and is of a higher quality than the masculine energy. In tantra, the female principle has the position of guru, and the male principle has the position of disciple. Because of a woman’s ability to flow without any kind of intellectual barrier, which binds one to the gross material level, women have greater ability than men; they have this immense intuitive ability.

Picking up the vibratory field is more predominant in the female principle, because it is a psychically active and not a passive energy. Male energy is passive and it seems that male energy tends towards tunnel vision. Men only see straight, whereas feminine energy has a broad vision. Women are able to perceive things that the male energy generally cannot perceive. This is the theory of the tantras. -The Times of India

The Bihar School of Yoga, Munger

How will you control that?

For that the process of sadhana is explained in tantra meditation, dealing with the mind – pratyahara, dharana, laya yoga, mantra, yantra and mandala. Mantra means expansion of consciousness and liberation of energy. Mantra is liberation – a power through which one can liberate the mind. And yantra is the vehicle of liberation. Yantra meditation expands awareness that merges into the ocean of consciousness. Mandala is movement of the mind.

According to yoga and tantra, within the mind lie many dimensions of experience that are happening in the form of sound or vibration, some known, and others unknown. The experiences of the whole universe, the cosmos, exist within the mind. We have to explode that experience, and for that purpose there is mandala meditation.

What are initiations?

It is awakening of Shakti. The practice of asana is an initiation for the body. Initiation happens on many levels of our personality. Pranayama is initiation of the pranas . The yamas and niyamas are initiation into the positive aspect of life. The only difference between tantra and yoga is that yoga is more outgoing; it deals more with the world, with the body, mind, personality, emotions, actions and environment, whereas tantra is more of a meditative nature.

You have to have desires in order to have a progressive mind. You require desire because, for the evolution of consciousness, conflict is necessary. We must accept desires. If I desire to give you a slap, I should give you a slap, but at the same time I should think of the repercussions it can have, either positive or negative. You will hit me back and that is a negative repercussion.