dangers...

If we look deep within, we are currently nothing but hurts, fears, anger and such other which surface at the drop of the hat.The triggers maybe different but our underlying dissatisfaction, discontent and sense of melancholy are residually intrinsic. With this content within us, we are a source of individual and collective danger for those around us.

We share with the world what we have, we cannot share anything else. As unhappy people, we share unhappiness. each of us is harbouring a reservoir of pain within ' we call its' manifests through different names. It is our trauma and pain which architecturing our lives and creating our universes.

This pain has been elaborately managed over ages. It is slowly but surely acquiring unmanageable proportions in what I perceive to be an aspect of grace. It is when something becomes unmanageable that we are forced to look within.

Management is stress, it is not a free life....Relief from various stresses is teh need of the hour , not mere management of it. Management is bandaging, handling...

It is cosmetic and palliative...

The pain within us has to express itself - the platforms of expression may differ; if today it is the terror attack, tomorrow it maybe a epidemic outbreak...

Each of us has to address the pain within...and resolve it, not merely manage it..

this is the way forward for humanity.....

thought is the creator

terrorism is riding on the back of misguided religious and spiritual interpretation and wreaking havoc..Please let us also not fall into the trap..

The Gita defines ACTIOn as against mind created conditioned activity..we cannot selectively use it indiscriminately..we need action and not activity and action emerges in visions beyond realms of the mind..instead of us using the mind, the conditioned mind is today using us wherever we may be..

To me, this is the root of all terror...it begins in the mind..we should guard ourselves against the vicious trap we can fall into..becoming the very entities we so much resent..the laws of karma stipulate that we become what we hate or what we fear unconsciously.

Yes , we need to ACT, but action is very different from activity in spiritual realms.

Terrorism is a product of deep rooted positionality processes of the mind..if we carefully observe history, the contents of the mind have never changed..the mahabharat, the ramayan,the bible , the Quran and many other have episodes of brothers fighting each other, terrorizing situations for the masses, abuse of humanity and other aspects time and again...The universe is a multi-media classroom and is repeatedly trying to show us our erroneous ways..we always tackle symptoms and never go to the roots..without intending to create fear, I feel people have an opportunity to rise to the challenges within themselves which are manifesting outside.The universe is a tough, yet compassionate teacher and we can expect the lessons to continue until we learn and grow as humans...

needless to add, my shares are not in a argumentative or confontationalist mode but my life experiences in disaster management and human crises at individual and collective levels have thought me unforgettable lessons..

God bless each of you..take care...

redefining terror

I believe each of us in india and maybe elsewhere today has a challenge - to rise above reactive pettiness or to transcend into relams of real healing and peace creation.

India is a concept , an idea that represents amongst the highest ideals of co-existence and acceptance. I am proud of being born into this idea as conceived by the visionaries of yore. The greater the vision , the greater the challenges in achieving it.But then, challenges should not deter us, weaken us. States of dis-ease require medication, treatment, surgeries and healing. Hurts within humans and teh pain within are the cause of strife outside. Each of us who are able to transcend that hurt within are helping win the war on humanity's collective suffering.

I do not believe for a moment that India has ever been weak.Acceptance demands understanding beyond superficial symptoms asnd India as a collective has demonstrated this.

There are dips and pauses as in any process but the trend in wholly consonant with the highest spiritual ideals as espoused in various wisdom of the world.

I identify with this heritage and see myself as a global citizen. If you take the history of India, we have never been an aggressor. We have embraced even our attackers and inetgerated them into our culture.We have lost battles but won wars.

This can be either of two things - we are too weak or we are mature in our understanding. I feel aligned with the latter.I beleive India and Indians have a destiny to fulfil and the sacrifices we are called on to make in the realization of this destiny would naturally be greater. I see India playing a global role today, something which would evolve into a leadership position it has to take on.The birth pangs are natural.

I connect to my higher vision and see myself as a critical player in its actualization.

While battles are going on, I am relating to the fundamental war within every human - the war on inner strife and conflict..It is easy to behave as every one else and compromise our standards. Genius and Excellence have always come at a price and lessons learnt the hard way.

I know the war will be won.....The terror seeds within each of us would be destroyed and the seeds of genuine peace, not managed peace created..silencing anyone does not transform them - if at all it strengthens them; a rubber ball bounces higher each time it is hit on the ground.Symptomatic repressions are not the need of the hour , sustainable solutions are at the very root.....

The content of the mind has never changed . The Mahabharat and the Bible and the Quran all indicate strife and terror and rift.Its a cosmic opportunity today in realms of grace to declutch ourselves from the tyranny of the mind; management processes are rendered impotent.

This is the only solution for humanity..........and it starts and ends within each of us...We are either weapons of breakthrough or breakdown...we are at cosmic crossroads....

platitudes and performance...

I have been following various debates on television as also the thread of thoughts on various blogs.I have had the occasion to serve as the civilian area commander representing the NGO space during the communal riots as also during the blasts. I was mainly working in the Dharavi Behrampada area.I have also been on the spot during various natural disasters at various locations across india.

i beg to differ from the tirade against politicians; i believe we as citizens cannot escape from our apathy and indifference to events beyond our individual peripheries.If we do not help douse the fire at our neighbours, our house will soon catch fire.For me, politicians are not a black box, they are an intrinsic part of a corrupt and non-integral society. We are getting the politicians and leaders we deserve, they are mere reflections and emergences from ourselves.

I have seen corporate leaders and so called intelligentsia from really close quarters and they are no different.While in the thick of operations at Dharavi, I have been pulled out for a cocktail launch of an NGO formed by some prominent citizens which thankfully does not exist today.I have seen the political establishment used by businessmen for narrow objectives of protecting their own establishments. Their presence at various citizen's chapters was just to expand their networks for fulfilment of personal agendas.Like our politicians these people never exposed themselves to line of fire - they came in hordes for photo-ops later.More efforts of the volunteers on the field went towards provision of safe water for our distinguished visitors.

Who are we fooling? is this rhetoric any different from those of our politicians? I hold no brief for the politicians but would like to re-iterate that they are mere scape goats for an epidemic situation in society.Individually and collectively, we have become immune and indifferent.For me, we are really no different from the militant we are fighting.Under a different set of circumstances he may have been an efficient general manager of the very hotel he chose to destroy.

Please spare us the "holier than thou" platitudes.Even today, we are incapable of feeling for those who perished - it is hogwash; we are only reacting from the fear that has surfaced through events in our doorsteps.For me, we are no different- each time i see a prominent adworld chief being touted as a citizen's representative, I feel like puking for i have had the occasion to see him at extremely close quarters. for me, he is a terrorist in mind- he would not carry a gun in his hands but he spouts venom with his every action and the elaborate masks he wears.Rather than derive our energies from our blame games, let us awaken to the death within each of us where we are indifferent to the needs of our immediate neighbour while we cry hoarse about remote events.

We live in a world of plastic smiles and hollow gestures. We have become incapable of feeling, living in a projection of who we would like to be, far removed from who we are deep down.And the further tragedy is, we are unconscious of it.

We can wake up people who are asleep but what do we do with people who are pretending to be asleep and doing a damn good good job of their performance, cloaking it in platitudes. We are escaping our responsibility and responsibility is not about merely casting a ballot.We have taken so much from this city and this country - how many of us pay heed to feeling gratitude for the same and returning something to it.We abuse its facilities for our own benefit in the same way we use our parents and peers.

Let us look beyond ourselves and strive to be just human.

In the words of a President of a country where a lot of our peers are chosing to spend their lives after acquiring their basic skills here, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country...." Whether we be politicians, business men, media personnel or any other, we can never really give back to our country what it has provided and given us. We are no different from those we blame..They are mirror images of us...let us collectively rise to the challenge..

are we alive?

The recent events in mumbai are media events. And "media" and "performance" are so deeply linked.

Where is all our naturalness gone? Our "unconscious" controls us making us reactive and mechanized beings. We are zombies, robots in action, with our behaviours following predictable patterns. We are in essence no different from the militants. The violence and the hurts within us , if we can only be aware of it, is the venom that is manifesting in the world outside. Different people relate to different concepts and acquire their positionalities. And each believes they are right. For God's sake, let us separate facts from concepts.

It is an unfair and unequal world. Privileges are so varied. Consequently, events such as what has happened have to occur according to various laws of karma and principles of existence.Each one of us is a part creator to it through our lack of integrity and our basic sense of disconnect with our identities just as humans.We are constant "performers" , projecting ourselves far removed from what we actually are and our masks are the burdens we carry day in and day out.

If humans can just "BE" , our outer worlds can be the paradise we wish for deep down.

Yes, it is time for us to awaken within, reach out to the natural fountainheads of healing within and start to live, not merely exist.

The choice to create our universes is with each of us, not in symptomatic external changes.

The crisis of today is an opportunity for us to revisit ourselves and trigger the life force within.

Come let us move from conditioned , suffocative death to a vibrant life....

The Golden Age

The dawn of this new civilization, which we may call the Golden Age, is the single most explosive fact of our life times. We have a destiny to create - A state of consciousness that is oneness with all that is.

- Sri Bhagavan

We celebrate today as Gratitude Day for all the learning and blessing that has crossed our lives.When I look back, the breakthroughs in the movement from perception to fact has been awesome.

Thank You Amma Bhagavan, thank you ,all of creation for this journey in exploration and discovery in realms of consciousness....

what's love got to do with it?

The recent murder of a media executive in Mumbai revolving around an aspiring actress and her boyfriend has drawn tremendous media attention with people pontificating with their own perceptions on it.

Come to think of it, it could be the story of any 3 average , intelligent , ambitious people of the world, each consumed by their need for power, thrills, success and so on.It has nothing to do with love...

When a need consumes the mind, the mind is capable of anything.Fear, anger, possessiveness and so on control and overpower our lives day in and day out.It is rarely morality factors which keep us in check; it is rather the fear of social ostracization.

The average human life is a careful maintenance of these balances.

Each of us , when consumed by our needs is a potential source of danger to the world.When the unconscious controls us, we are capable of anything. As unhappy people , we are only capable of spreading unhappiness.

Awareness is the key, to be able to see ourselves just as the people we are, and not mask ourselves into the people we would like to be.When we wear our masks, after sometime, we fool ourselves into believing that we are the people we would like ourselves to be.

And the burden of our masks become unbearable after sometime and we collapse....

We mask the addressal of our needs as LOVE for our spouses, parents, children etc. If we are able to see it for what it is and our manipulative lifestyles using people unabashedly to achieve our objectives and accept ourselves for what we are, life would be a different ball-game.

Integrity is the key to a good life...a life of awareness , imo , is the highest morality...

Love and joy , emerging as a state of our being is the natural outcome of a life led in a dynamic awareness....

inter-galactic travel...

My cousin gifted me a fish tank with 6 fish yesterday. They travelled by his car in their glass house to their new abode.
i was wondering at their experience. How would it feel to be transported alongwith our house as we are inside, to a distant planet. the uncertainty, the anxiety, the fear and so on....a kind of weird and spooky feeling..
Or , is it that the fish only experience the water around them?
They were restless a while.....now they seem ok....must have been akin to an earth shattering experience!!!!!!!!!!!

examination blues...

It is that time of the year when children and their parents are stressed beyond recognition, tackling examinations.

A few tips to face those situations better :

The very word exam or test brings with it automated associations of stress by the intrinsic nature of it's expression.We associate our entire life with our successes in these snapshots of our performance indices.Nothing can be farther from the truth.Some of the most brilliant minds in the world have been poor or mediocre performers in their statutory examinations; Einstein and Edison immediately come to mind.The academic system, an organized convenience has acquired monstrous hues as a burdensome exercise today.Just changing our perceptions on it can work wonders.Anything that is thrust down or forced upon the other is immediately repelled.The attitude towards academic exercises and exams is the key to our performance.And parents and teachers have a great role to play in making it fun, exciting and games-like, rather than war-like ,sombre and intimidating.

Peak performance is achieved not by quantity rather by quality of effort.Sitting in front of a book all day in no way ensures a better performance.It brings in a dullness and a lethargy which actually diminishes performance.Optimal exercise (kapalbhati is a great exercise to clear mental sluggishness and bring in dynamism) and nutritious food is very important during those preparation days.Time spent in exercise or walks/jogs needs to be looked on as an investment in our performance output rather than as a waste of time.Similarly, care should be taken to avoid tamasik(pungent, very spicy, bitter etc) food as it dulls our mind. Drinking 20 glasses of water is advised for efficient toxic clearances.

Success is more impacted by the state of the person, rather than merely the acquired skills or knowledge. To be in a joyous frame of mind, to pay attention to our overall wellness , to value in gratitude all the things and people ( including computers, books, writers, teachers, publishers, pens, pencils, erasers etc) can go a long way towards achieving success.

Grace energizes and propels our intents and efforts. We should have a clear vision of what we choose to achieve or what we want in our lives, we should put in optimal effort towards it. Integrity in these aspects throw open energies of Grace from the Universe for us.Worshipping one's parents goes a long way towards facilitating an abundance of grace in one's life.One should spend atleast 15 minutes everyday in this exercise.I have seen it works wonders in performance parameters.

Wishes and Blessing for our peers when expressed from deep within us returns to us manifold.Today's world lays a lot of stress on the competitive spirit.Try this contra approach.Each blessing or good wish you send out would come back to you in accordance with the principles of the universe.

Finally, education is a privilege, an opportunity few children and youth , especially in our nation enjoy. Cherish the blessing and spread the light joyously.

-inspirations from Sri Bhagavan

aggression and assertion

Aggression is increasingly gaining ground and wider acceptance as a quality necessary for success. The tour down-under is all about it.
Just made me do a review for myself......
to me, it does bring in a certain animal instinct to the fore. I personally prefer assertion over aggression. Assertion is not arrogant, yet it is dignified and strong in it's presentation. it remaisn stoic and solid as an independent aspect , not provoked by external situations. It does not seek to demean, it does not allow being de-meaned.It makes it's point clearly without any ugliness to the expression.
Aggression is reactive, assertion is pro-active and responsive.
Aggression leads to sudden spurts and drops in energy , assertion leads to a sustenance of creative energies within us.
A river in silent flow from great depths is assertive not aggressive. To me, it is also meditative - an expression in the depths of silence.
Assertion is born in a confidence, a position of strength; aggression more often than not springs from deep insecurities within.
Yes, i like to assert myself; aggression is not my personal style.

Peace and violence....

So much of discussion on this these days, especially after Virginia....

I identify with a school of thought that perceives the outer world to be a reflection of the inner....and all manifestations outside to be a factor of the consciousness level within.....am volunteering at my univercity for an interesting project on May 20.Dr Roger Nelson of The Global Consciousness Project in conjunction with The Club of Budapest and the Goi Foundation would be conducting a study at The Oneness Univercity in South India to measure the impact of a raising of consciousness levels on factors such as peace. The Univercity has already conducted processes with high violence groups in India with some amazing results.

Personally, see a lot of hope in the process which is secular and unconditional.....

Need of the Hour..

Lots of recent happenings are very disconcerting.The Noida episode gets prime billing in this regard.Whoever has done it, it speaks of the depravation of the human mind. It is a sickness that is all pervasive with varied manifests. And it is not about sexual depravation alone. It is about abuse, mental and otherwise.Blatant and subtle, both exist.It is a mind with a demonic thirst.Sometimes, when we observe people, the latent anger is very discernible.And ironically, more often than not, the same people may talk about world peace etc.Healing is required at the micro level for it to manifest at the macro level.

Punishment is a mere deterrent , liberation from the content of the mind is not an exotic concept...it is a need of the hour.

irony...

Today is Vaikunta Ekadashi, a day when traditional Hindus aspire to breathe their last as it is believed to take you directly to heaven....

Ironical that a man condemned for his heinous crimes should be put to death today!!!

Being Oneself...

Integrity is being true to oneself.It requires one to really know oneself and operate from one's real motivations.Why are we really doing what we are doing? Our aspirational perceptions of ourselves often get so internalized that we often think and act as persons we aspire to be.What we are is a far cry from what we would like ourselves to be.Wearing masks for the world at large is one thing whereas deceiving oneself with a projected ideal is an altogether different thing.Thus, a person working with under-privileged sections in a socially relevant scenario , in my opinion is there as a matter of personal choice, not any sacrificial lamb led to slaughter.When we make choices, it comes at a cost and we cannot escape them.The manifest of our lives is a direct parameter of teh choices we make deep down within us.The choices themselves are rarely, if ever in domains of freedom, more often than not emerging from realms of conditionality in our unconscious mind layers.

Integrity is the key to all the doors that are seemingly closed in our lives.To be ourselves is to be true to ourselves...the way to live rather than exist...

mind sets and images...

every human is unique.however, we are quick to associate images in accordance with our own mindsets.Thus, there is the spiritual kind, the NGO kind, the wild kind, so on and so forth...Are not these associations vastly unfounded? Every individual is a rare and unique combo space of attitudes and values and perceptions on various issues and warrants a personal explore in non-judgemental spaces if one has to know them really.How often do we give encounters in our life that opportunity....

centenary of the first satyagraha...

It needed a Munnabhai to get Gandhiji back in contemporary consciousness...Today, the news channels are announcing the 100th anniversary of Gandhiji's famous South African episode which gave birth to "Satyagraha" , one of the most potent and effective tools of resistance and objection expression known to man.

Ironical that this date should coincide with a Sep 11 that has come to haunt many of our memories.

Violence within manifests as violence outside and each of us is a critical link in the creation of the world as we see it.

Maybe we need to remind ourselves more of a man who told us, "Be the change you wish to see in the world".

Date Rapes : an increasing phenomenon...

Navratri is shortly arriving, a widely celebrated festival in recent times.Alcohol and drug abuse have seen a growth too leading to extensive abuses and violations.

A common phenomenon in the last couple of years has been the marked increase of "date rapes" where odourless and colourless additives are added to hard or soft drinks.These chemicals seem to create a cyclonic craving for sex, a passive resistance and leads to unforeseen trauma later.It happens to the most educated and intelligent amongst us and lot of unsuspecting people are caught in subsequent webs of trauma.

It is important for everyone , especially the youth to be aware of this syndrome when they visit pubs and other spots as part of their socializing.one should never turn one's back to one's drink; or visit the rest room leaving a half-used glass behind for a continuation later.Always advisable to visit such events with very close and known friends and yet be on the alert.A lot of date rapes are known to have been perpetuated by close friends and known acquaintances.

To me, more than the physical act of sex, non-consensual sex is a blatant violation that can leave behind so many scars.It is a violation of the fundamental dignity of a person and can lead to a humiliated existence.Anger and resentment can affect future relationships and make one very vulnerable to hurt.I have seen and interacted with people who have been victims of this syndrome.

I would not suggest people to stop enjoying their parties and the like. To each their own in their entertainment and recreation choices; but please be on guard always.

The price one pays for a lack of alertness and awareness can be very high....

corporate...

have been impressed with both of Madhur Bhandarkar's offerings in last few years...first Page 3 and now
Corporate(.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVm2BZ4Hl1c)

..Bringing alive an accepted paradigm of the day, an aspect to which most of us have got immunised, is a great achievement... a reminder perhaps to harsh everyday symptoms of a de-sensitized existence manifesting in all aspects of our lives.

a lot of us may find parallel episodes we have encountered in our daily grinds...every moment is a moment of choices or a lack of them...at the end of the day we need to be integral to ourselves to stay not just alive, but to live well...

daring theme..

It is not often one observes Bollywood directors toy around with controversial plots especially with leading men and women involved in the starcast. kudos to KJ for achieving this with KANK.
An integral presentation..
I wonder what the sequel would be like if there were one..would SRK and RM be able to sustain their "love" or whatever it is , I wonder...Boredom and monotony would tend to set in...like any other situation....yet another "samjhauta" - a compromise, it would seem...
Love is a state of being rather than a sharing of activities or spaces between 2 beings as it is made out to be.When one is in a state of love, one floods spaces that one shares with the same..one would still "like" certain spaces better...
when people are happy they spread happiness; when people are in a state of love they spread the same....imo,it is not person or activity specific... love transcends.... a spiritual state of being....

unconsciousness..an epidemic...

A fire broke out in a house in which a man was fast asleep. They tried to carry him out through the window. No way. They tried to carry him out through the door. No way. He was just too huge and heavy. They were pretty desperate till someone suggested, "Wake him up, then he'll get out by himself."
"Man is unconscious", says Sri Bhagavan. "There is enormous suffering in every individual. Like the rats that eat away the hands of a leper and he is unconscious of the bite having lost all sensations, people are unconscious of the suffering that gnaws at their being."
There are a lot of things going on inside you to which you have never paid attention. For instance you could be helping a person not knowing that you would rather not help if given a choice. If you go a step further you will see ulterior motives in helping him. The aim need not be monetary or physical but a simple craving to project a good image. Many forces are acting behind the scene, of which you are unconscious.
A person who denies that he is suffering is telling a plain lie to himself and to the world. His tail is on fire and he is not accepting it. You do not know yourself.
The first step in the path of enlightenment is to be conscious, to see the prison that holds you. The state itself is a benediction.

- from onenessuniversity.org