What is love?

In love we shall find God,

In love we shall attain peace,

In love is hidden our salvation,

In love is hidden salvations for others.

 

Love means to give and never ask,

Love means to give freedom and never tie,

Love means to receive whatever comes your way,

Without a grouse, complaint or a sigh.

 

Love means to endure, even if you think you can’t take it anymore,

Love means doing things for others which you never did before,

Love means giving respect for their ideas, beliefs and unique thoughts of mind,

Knowing that one day they will converge with yours.

 

All roads lead to one destination,

That is the abode of God,

No matter where, when we met and how,

All that matters is we have met at last with a purpose in mind,

 

Our love is true and must meet every test of time,

We both must hold hands together and must attempt the climb,

The next step of transformation and ascent,

To prove to ourselves that we have met with the wish of our Maker.

 

In these moments of utmost happiness and joy,

Let us not forget and enter the stupor,

Or else the purpose of our meeting will be lost.

So arise, arise, arise and arise and you shall climb.

 

Till you see the Light of the creator in you,

And re-awaken the Glory and Honour that was once yours,

So that the world will see you and

Through your grand work for the Divine

 

Will be reminded to others that

Do not be in a state of quiescent,

Know that the Light of God is present  everywhere,

In you, me and everyone.

 

Know that in God you shall find full rest and peace,

In God lies all the answers to all the queries of the fleeting world,

One cannot ever rest well unless he rests in God through his soul,

So rest your mind and body in God alone!

The power of endurance

The last many weeks have been hard and tiring for me, full of changes and new developments because of some hard decisions that I took at the domestic front. During this time while busy with work, I have been thinking at the back of my mind about the power of endurance and also how to increase it. As each day progressed, I taught myself over and over again that something good will eventually emerge out of all this although the going got tougher. Based on this bright thought, I let myself lose and allowed myself to take on whatever experiences that I had to undergo to prove to myself, ‘if you endure, you will procure’. I reminded myself  repeatedly that God has some definite and nice plans for me and before that actually manifests in physical terms, I should endure this phase of alteration and ambiguity.

Literally, endure means to tolerate or undergo,  to suffer patiently. It is the power to put up with something. In brief, my dear, endurance is the staying power. And now that the brief period of my test is over I write my next post on the power of endurance for you. Had I not endured, the new  positive developments that have taken place after the silent storms would not have taken place at all. And these are the realizations which have emerged within me during all these days and today evening I present them to you as my next post. I am sure you will benefit from this sooner or later in your professional as well as personal life as no one has ever succeeded in true sense without the grind of life. During the grinding, one must endure as it is only through grinding, during testing times that we cultivate and develop the special quality of endurance.So child,

 

Do not be meek, be dauntless. And do not be intimidated by people at all. They may do what they wish, we hold on to our principles and convictions. Right?

 

Each day brings new challenges. Each day is different from the other. Each day is a test of one’s abilities and sometimes even patience. Each day is a call to prove something. Each day we face a demanding task or situation.. Live up

to that. If we endure, the power of endurance develops and increases by each trying time. It is only through the demanding situations that we develop this power and not by avoiding people or skipping situations.

 

See the brighter side of the dark cloud. Tell yourself that there is always  a brighter side to every difficult situation. Know that after storm comes peace, after night day.

 

It takes some time for the forces in nature to re-align. During difficult climate, we need much effort and skill to understand the reasons causing the stumbling blocks or problems. Try to understand that. It takes time to re-align forces and thereby to bring about positive developments. Changing life situations means changing the negative forces to positive. It does take time for the negative forces to diminish and positive forces to increase, till then endure. There is a constant play of the flux of these two forces in the universe. Once the delicate balance is again restored, things sort out and we smooth over the problems. During such times take the best and leave the rest.

 

“Endurance is patience concentrated.”  Thomas Carlyle

 

The importance of Yoga in our daily life

(This article on Yoga is of elementary level and for beginners.  See the footer where you can visit other posts of advanced nature)

Yoga strictly speaking means union with God. The mind through the gradual process of purification and refinement becomes absorbed and unites with the omnipresent Spirit and is then guided by it in all the activities and endeavours of the practitioner.

 Broadly speaking, minds are of two types-worldly and unworldly. Most minds are worldly and materialistic in nature but through the regular practice of yoga in daily life, the chakras or spinal centres of energy are cleansed and purified and the mind is enlightened and illuminated. The dormant spiritual energy is awakened and god realization takes place. Higher levels of consciousness and understanding can be reached through this ancient science of god realization. The evolution of the soul accompanies shift in understanding and  quality of actions are refined and so become superior. The life of the sadhak or aspirant becomes useful to the society.

 The word Yoga needs to be approached in a holistic manner, I feel. It encompasses many aspects like discipline of the mind and body, purification and widening of the mind, a restful mind, acquiring new skills and abilities, higher levels of energy, subtler understanding, achieving great heights in personal and professional work, setting better and higher goals in life and in this way adding a valuable contribution to the wealth and capital of the world in terms of knowledge and services to mankind.

Dear child, so far we have discussed spirituality in the previous posts and as we go along, we are going to delve in a different aspect of yoga today- that of personal grooming and development. Mahavatar Babaji and Nityananda Swami have expressed their wish to us that we all must aspire and develop to our highest potential through yoga and make a wholesome contribution towards our society to make it a purposeful and worthwhile place to live in. The more we develop ourselves, the more we are capable of perceiving the working of God  in our daily life and in this way we are able to serve God.

 Did you know that we can either be constructive or destructive in our tendencies at a set given point of time? By being constructive here means that we should make a continuous attempt and effort in increasing the quality and value of our life and get better in our overall personality too. We must aspire to progress bit by bit everyday to develop our mind, intellect and senses to unfold the unused and undeveloped divine qualities lying within us. But the question is how do we do it?

 There are many courses, programmes or education programmes available on improving the quality of our life, personality development, grooming, management programmes in our cities to improve productivity, be successful, make profits and gain new insights in gaining access to our hidden potential of the sub-conscious mind etc. But as I understand they do not show very high success rates because in my opinion personality development should not be superficial. If these programmes only touch and hardly scratch the surface of our psyche, the end results are not satisfactory. The mind of the person involved should change and the person should experience a positive transformation within. The deeper levels and realms of the aspirant should be contacted and he should re-orient his life into upward climb in every sense. The first noticeable change should be in the area of his daily work. A new thought should bring a change in the manner the person works and the end result must be more constructive, productive and must show improvement in terms of quality and quantity.

It is desirable that the educational programme of development should also have practical application by telling the aspirant ‘how’ to do it through solo and group activities. And only then the quality of performance, tasks and productivity can be expected to be outstanding after attending the programme.

 Dear, can you think  and tell me now as to why a fresher in an organization who is so full of promises and brimming over with creative energy and potential becomes de-motivated in 2 years? Surely something must be missing or lacking somewhere, something goes wrong and the performance of the worker or correspondingly for that matter even a  spiritual seeker declines slowly and he loses  sight of his vision?

 I have looked around and also searched my answers from my own experiences and found out that some of the reasons for non performance or under performance in material and  spiritual fields also are-

• A sluggish mind. Make the mind sharp, quick and witty by doing mental exercises. 
• Lack of motivation within. Motivate yourself by getting inspired by great men, being positive in life and generating hope and aspirations. 
• Lack of competence. Keep improvising your existing skills and knowledge and acquire new interests, abilities and talents. 
• Jealousy. It is a destructive feeling and beware of it. Instead think and feel good for others, wish well for all. Do not harbour inferiority complex. 
• Failure to recognize opportunities. Opportunities come in disguise, grab them. Be daunting, fearless and take on challenges. God loves bravehearts. Learn while you move up. Look at the best 10% performers in your field and learn from them by observation and also through the process of asking ‘why’ and ‘how’. Do not feel shy to admit that you don’t know a particular task or thing. 
• Reluctance to work hard, put in extra time and effort. We achieve nothing in life if we do not burn the night oil. While others play and wander and lose sight of their vision, Mandira, my child you please stay focussed in your life. Do not splurge your precious time and money in unproductive ways foolishly. 
• Unwilling to accept new ideas, new concepts and thoughts so essential for our progress and growth. Keep the doors of your mind always open as even a small thought by God’s will can change one’s whole life. Do not miss that. 
• Unwilling to learn from past mistakes. Mistakes are great masters and teachers. There are lessons to acquire from them. 
• Not setting goals for achieving material and spiritual success. Nothing great and worthwhile can be achieved without asking yourself what do you want and then setting up those goals for our selves. Make a journal or maintain a diary in which you can write your goals. Once they are achieved, mark them and write new ones. 
• Not practising Yoga in daily life. We all need a few minutes to de-stress and re- connect with our inner peace after performing our duties and work everyday to replenish our energies. The quality and standard of our work is escalated  by receiving God’s thoughts and  power by daily God thoughts and meditating upon Thee. God is the infinite sea of energy, power, talents and gifts, ideas and inventions as well as creativity. A quiet and calm mind performs better and produces applauding results. One excels in this way. Peace and tranquillity are a great source of right thinking which makes us do right actions. Right actions produce right results. Right results or effects makes our life worth living and meaningful.

        (Also read related post on practical application of Yoga- How to live today and How to increase your capacity to do work?  Food and breath control,   How to increase the power of your will? Kundalini Shakti-I, Kundalini Shakti-II and Kundalini Shakti-III to lead a yogic life style)