Explore the path of spiritual living (2 of 2)

We try to protect ourselves from fear through the influences of worldly life…by acquiring more money and more power. But spiritually we can insulate ourselves from fear, only if we have trust.

We were secure in our mother’s womb. At term when we were pushed out into the world, it was as though we were facing death. We experienced tremendous fear.

After being born, is it death or birth that marks our lives?

Trust that when one door closes, another door opens. Such trust insulates us from fear. The spiritual way of seeing is, if there is an impression or a negative impression of fear in the mind, one has to de-identify with it. This detachment or de-identification is the insulation that i am talking of. In yoga, it is called atma smaranam, self-remembrance.

What happens when we insulate ourselves from negative impressions?

Worldly influences do not touch us. Instead, we would be in touch with higher vibrations and open ourselves for higher influences. The higher centres in us are constantly communicating something profound to us, but we close ourselves to them. It is like a cup turned upside down. No amount of rainwater can fill the cup. The moment we are available for higher vibrations, we attract nobler aspects of life. Lower states attract lower aspects of life while the higher states attract higher aspects of life. This is the law of attraction.

Why is devotion necessary?

Devotion activates our higher centres. Devotion purifies our emotions. Devotion allows the finer vibrations to flow into our lives. With devotion, your third eye or intuitive eye opens, and you would see many meaningful coincidences occurring in your life. You will see the mysterious hand of God blessing you. – The Times of India

Two-hour interactive sessions and modules of meditation will be conducted by trained teachers every Sunday. Contact: Noida: 9312939812, 9810472906. Dabri-Palam road: 9868503034. For details visit: www.prasannatrust.org

A way to deal with frozen feelings (1 of 2)

Good morning friends.  Did we ever grow up? Well, yes and no! A part of us did and some parts of us didn’t. Let’s find out how that happens. 

Every child experiences all that happens around him with total awareness. In the first seven years the child’s brain is like a sponge, taking in all sensory inputs and building his idea of his surroundings. As long as the environment is safe, the child learns with incredible speed. However, when the environment is scary or stressful, the child unlearns past learning just as rapidly.

In the early years of every child’s life, whenever there is shock, violence, fear or pain, these intense emotions are imprinted deeply into memory. Whenever the same activity or situation is repeated, the nervous system and body subconsciously re-experience the memory of that trauma. This creates a blind spot in the child’s neurological process and he literally goes blind to any alternative except knee-jerk, repetitive reactions.

As an example, if a toddler is happily playing with a puppy and gets accidentally scratched or bitten he might forget the incident consciously but never be able to like being around dogs and may not know the reason why. All compulsive behaviors begin this way and continue into adulthood, until we are willing to make another choice.

For instance, when a child is learning the alphabets, say ABC, if there is stress around him like people shouting or judgments like, ‘You’ll never do it right’, or constant comparisons, this activity gets fused together with other sensory inputs like hearing and seeing and one package of memory is formed. From then on whenever he attempts to learn ABC or write he subconsciously remembers past events and feelings and the same stress comes on line. This interferes with his ability to do it well. Over time, the child may even avoid trying to read or write because he believes it is stressful and undoable.

Mind set: Of thank you and sorry (1 of 3)

Good morning friends.  In our daily life, we don’t know what will happen.  But when something good or bad happened, we surely know what to reply on that.  A thank you and a sorry, that is the perfect word to be told for the comfort of one.  When someone did something good to you, it’s a music to the ears when you hear the word thank you.  And when you done bad to someone, the bad feeling of that person will all be gone when he hears a sorry of that person. 

Thank you and sorry are perhaps the first words we learn. And they stay with us right through our lives as yardsticks of our civility.

But when was the last time we said “thank you” or “sorry” without meaning to simply offload our burden of obligation or guilt? Indeed, these words no longer express what they are supposed to. Instead, they are used flippantly, thrown around without care, often reduced to an easy way of getting off the hook and evading meaningful action.

They may well be the most used words in times of political correctness. But they are clearly the most abused as well. The emotions of gratitude and apology are vital to the chain of human reciprocity. But in stripping them of sincerity, we also seem to be closing the doors on their benefits for us.

In almost all religious traditions, gratitude is a manifestation of virtuous character. “Gratitude, as it were, is the moral memory of mankind,” wrote sociologist Georg Simmel. Scottish philosopher Thomas Brown defined gratitude as “that delightful emotion of love to him who has conferred kindness on us, the very feeling of which is itself no small part of the benefit conferred”. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”

The quality of being thankful implies the disposition to turn goodwill into action and the inclination to return kindness. A “thank you” denotes the attitude of positive acceptance, a determination to employ the kindness or blessing imaginatively and inventively.

Create a vision for life (1)

Good morning friends.  in each of everyone’s life,  we are the one who create our own vision.  We should let our children know the importance of having a vision in life.  We should explain everything with them so that they will understand very well and for that they will be aware that while they are still young, they should create their own vision. 

If you feel the human part of the world around you, your experience will be a cacophony of voices, thoughts and emotions, all an outpouring of confusions of many different levels and states.

When we are subjugated by a wrong perception of reality around us, the pain and suffering that we create for ourselves, the people around us and for all other life forms is unfortunate.

With all the conveniences and facilities we have because of science and technology, the individual and humanity as a whole have still remained in absolute confusion. If you are sensitive to the thoughts and emotions of people around you, you will see they are an absolute mess. There is no clarity, neither will nor vision. Most people live their lives without even knowing what it is that they really want for themselves. Or, even if they know what they want in their lives, they neither have the will nor the vision to create it. Most of the time, they are just settling for whatever is easy, whatever is within their reach. If we go by the experience of our past or if we trust our logical mind to decide what is possible and what is not, what is and is not attainable, then we will always go for mediocre things.

We are always trying to create our life based on the current reality around us. But whatever may be the situation we are in at this moment is not the point. Where we want to go to tomorrow need not be connected to where we are right now. What we want as the highest in life need not have anything to do with our present situation. The Times of India

 

The Ultimate Self-Help Principles

The breakout principle fit in all the health benefits of the stress-reducing “relaxation response,” which measures the cardiovascular and respiratory responses to meditation.  At the same time, it opens up the door to creative breakthroughs, spiritual insights, greater productivity and more.

 

The first stage of the breakout process begins with a hard mental or physical struggle.  It may be concentrated problems analysis, demanding physical training or an involuntary event such as an assault on your emotional well-being.

 

The next stage involves “pulling the trigger.”  The same mind-body device operates in every breakout trigger:  you must first cut completely your previous train of thoughts and emotions.  The critical distraction of prior mental patterns will enable you to shift your focus into new and more productive directions.  This event has been described as a “letting go,” or “backing off” or “releasing” your mind from the hard-work mode.  A wide variety of activities and thought patterns can act as a trigger, including walking, jogging, sewing, meditating or sitting in a beautiful setting.

 

The third stage in the process is the actual breakout, coupled with a “peak” experience.  The breakout is always accompanied by a greater sense of well-being and relaxation and often leads to peak creative experiences.

 

The cycle finishes with your returning to a “new-normal” state—including an ongoing state of improved performance and mind-body patterns. Those who have enjoyed a breakout must always re-enter the world of struggle and stress.  But now they are in a stronger position to rise to greater achievements or generate more deep ideas and insights. – Herbert Benson, M.D., and William Proctor

It’s a Good Thing – 2

By the next day, her opinion of herself had taken a 180-degree turn.  She realized she was a person who needed to constantly prove herself to be strong and capable, and saw that this was partly the result of an image instilled and accept that she was a proficient person and ease off the internal pressure.  This realization, was life-changing.

 

Not every spontaneous emotional event is quite so clear-cut, however.  Difficult and stressful breakthroughs occur most often when the release involves long-help feelings of sadness, grief, confusion, or another strong emotion that a person has carried unconsciously throughout his or her life.

 

Whenever something happens to us as a kid, our body is involved.  This is particularly true of trauma.  The body comes to the defense of the whole being.  In defending it, the body does thins to stop the pain from being fully experienced.

 

Emotional pain is overwhelming for small children, because they don’t have the resources to deal with it.  So the body shuts it off; if it didn’t, the body would die from emotional pain.  But then the body keeps doing the physical protection even long after the situation has ended.

 

Painful experiences can range from small acute ones to increase, chronic problems.  Still, the mechanism at play is unclear:  we really don’t understand the body-memory thing.

ref: yogajournal

Ways to Lift Your Spirits – 1

Good morning friends.  Here’s a story whose message I like:  A pet store delivery truck was making its rounds.  At every traffic light the driver would stop, leap out of the truck with a two-by-four and bang on the side of the vehicle.  The curious driver of a car behind the truck called out.  “What are you doing?”  The truck driver replied. “Well, I’ve got two tons of canaries inside this one-ton truck, so I have to keep half of them in the air at all times!”

Most people can relate to that truck driver.  Overloaded, stressed, frantic, yet weary-and headed for emotional burnout unless things change.  But you know what?  They can.  The answer is learning how to lighten up, and here are three stps you can take to make that happen.

Read your Soul.  Many of us overlook the need for rest-not for out bodies but for our souls, which is a much deeper kind of relaxation.  Spiritual fatigue is the result of trying to live without God.  The resentment and guilt.  Neither sleep, nor working out, nor a day off from work will rid you of these draining emotions.  Such fatigue requires a spiritual recharging.  The Bible says, “He energizes those who get tired.”  Only God can restore your soul.

Give Up Control.  People get over loaded because they try to control the uncontrollable.  The greater your need to micromanage things, the more stressed you’re going to be.  Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you.”  Jesus was talking about a wooden frame that joins two cattle in their task.  Every farmer knows the purpose of a yoke is to lighten the load by sharing it between two animals.  When you yoke up with God.  He lightens your load by sharing it with you.  By the way, God’s back is stronger than yours!