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Author: Ashwita

What is God?

What is God?

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I’ve been on a few religious and spiritual forums lately, and it is very interesting to observe the concepts of God that people carry in their minds. Some people are even afraid of hell!

People seem to believe that there is a God somewhere, who’s looking at us and deciding whether what we are doing is right or wrong, and whether we should be punished or forgiven. Some have lost faith because ‘God’ did not help them, and claim they don’t believe in God anymore, silently hoping in their heart somewhere that ‘God’ feels ashamed at losing a devotee and starts answering their prayers.

This, I believe, is one biggest disadvantage of religion. All religions. They humanised God. And man, with that gigantic ego of his, will obviously be more than pleased to be told that God is someone who looks and thinks just like him, only in a more ideal fashion. If that is the concept of God for you, God does not exist.

There are others who believe God can be seen. I, for instance, know people who have seen Lord Shiva, Ma Kali, and other God appear before them. These people believe they have seen God, and they are blessed. But these are not Gods! These are just superior spirits, who can help us when we pray to them. If you start praying to Mahatma Gandhi today with all your devotion, it is only a matter of time before his spirit will come before you and give you advice. I repeat that these are not Gods. They are spirits. Vibrations. Deities.

For all those who believe that God looks like man, lets do a reality check here. Look at the ocean. Or the sky. And try to feel your significance. Do you realise just how small a spec you are, on earth, leave alone the universe? And do you think God could be someone like you?? Or maybe you think that God is like you, only much much bigger, like maybe thousands of feet tall. Please, gimme a break! Religious leaders projected God as human so that men with poor imagination will have someone to respect and fear, but preachers took it a bit too seriously. God is not human!

So what is God? When you breathe, your lungs fill with life, and pass it on to the rest of your body – that is God. The vibration in each atom of your body, is God. The vibration in each atom, in every single object on earth, is God. That is why we are all one. The whole universe is nothing but a combination of mass and energy. It was nothing but energy initially (and it is said this energy vibrated in ‘Om’, which is why the sound has such power even today), and it started culminating into matter with the big bang. Since then, the universe is evolving. That universe is God. God, is evolving.

God does not watch, God does not punish – because God is not separate. You are God. You are the doer. And the universe follows the ‘Every action has an equal and opposite reaction’ rule, so everything you do, comes back to you. You throw a ball up, it comes down. You do something good, something good happens to you. You do something bad, something bad happens to you. So it really isn’t punishment – it is just a return of your actions. Everything you do comes back, and if you don’t like the outcome, you say that you are being punished.

If you truly want to get in touch with the God that you are, meditate. Religious books will only take you so far, and you will have to walk on your own beyond a point. So why not start right away?

Evolution: How evolved are you?

Evolution: How evolved are you?

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Where do you stand?

I came across an interesting site which brought back a previous stream of thought. The site seemed to echo almost exactly what I think. It said that 5 billion years ago, earth was just a mass of heat, with conditions that could not foster life. But life happened. 2 billion years ago, there was no species which could think on its own – but then man appeared. And now, in their words “We see no hope for man, We cannot conceive of a species after him, We think man is here to stay” But it will come.

Yes, it will. At one time, dinosaurs ruled the world. Now, man does. Tomorrow, some other species will.

Man has to evolve. But those who consider this phenomena often forget that evolution has two parts – one part of a species evolves into something else, while the others continue to exist in a state similar to what they’ve been for hundreds of years. And so I gather, a few humans will evolve.

The differences, somehow, I am already beginning to see. There is a rift in mankind – and not a political, religious, or social one. It is a rift of intellect. Of spirituality. There are many who are still animal-like in nature – they exist to fulfill material needs – food, shelter, procreation. Some go overboard in pursuing these, and others get addicted to elements which will help them forget their needs. This man loves going out of his own control.

Then there is another type – the ones who explore. They are moving beyond intelligence, beyond their 5 senses, into the unknown. Many already have powers which others cannot fathom. Others are moving in that direction. They are evolving because they did not stop learning when they entered adulthood. Or maybe simply because they were chosen to evolve. This is a mass that will turn the world around simply by willing it to.

I don’t know whether the ones who aren’t evolving, can choose to start evolving. All I know, is that I see a difference, and it seems to be growing with time. A marked split will probably not happen in our lifetime, but much later.

If the new species traced their family tree, will you be in it?

Running After Something?

Running After Something?

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What are you running after?

I tell my students that Reiki takes you further in the direction which you want to head, and that other aspects of life may or may not see any changes. But I think that this is a concept that can be applied to life itself. The aspects in which you want to progress, go ahead. The others stay stunted.

A lot of people want money. Those who are truly dedicated, end up with half a dozen houses and enough money to last an equal number of generations. There are others who are dedicated to their work, who master their fields to great extents with time. Different people want different things, and most of them achieve them in the long run.

But the question is, what happens when they achieve it?
We don’t realise that there is always a hidden reason behind our great desire to reach these pinacles.

Those who want money, are insecure. Particularly in a country like India, survival is an instinct hammered into our psyche since childhood. Everyone here just wants to horde money for the rainy day, and that attitude sometimes overwhelms all our senses and leaves us with only one goal – to earn a lot of money.

Those who totally immerse themselves in their work and forget the rest of the world are in fact running away from themselves. They just cannot stand being alone – because they cannot stand themselves. A lack of self-love is the cause.

Therefore, when they actually reach the pinnacles and achieve their goals, they are truly at a loss. We all run after things to fulfill gaps in our personalities, but the strange thing is, the possession of those things does not fill those gaps!

What truly makes you whole is detachment, faith, love. Love yourself first – no, it is not selfish – when you love yourself, you treat others better because it is not in your interest to mistreat others. Have faith in your destiny that everything does work out for your best in the end. And be detached! I’d like to quote The Geeta over here – What belongs to you today, Belonged to someone else yesterday, And will be someone else’s Tomorrow.

Earn money, be the best at your job, indulge yourself, yes, do all of these. But not out of an internal compulsion. Not because you don’t know what else to do! Choose to be the person you are, and welcome any change – in yourself, and in your plans.

But first, ask yourself What am I running after?

Sex and Meditation

Sex and Meditation

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Love cannot be deep without meditation

The last day of my recent trip to Tiruvannamalai, Jacqueline discussed tantra, sex and spirituality. I must mention before I begin that I’m mostly just quoting what I understood from the satsang that day, but I felt the need to share the information, so here it is.

Tantra is always thought of in relation with sex, and often looked down upon by most other ‘spiritual’ people. Ofcourse, anyone who knows anything about Tantra knows that sex is merely a small fraction of it, and it encompasses so much more. But looking at it from the aspect of physical desires, tantra isn’t about encouraging the ‘evils’ at all – far from it! The sanskrit word for desires based on greed or other vices would be ‘vasana’. Tantra isn’t about vasanas at all, it is about transcending them, so that the actions associated with those vasanas become meditation, not a fulfilment of the cravings of the mind. So in this regard, Tantra is really about taking the ‘sex’ out of sex!

When I first heard that Osho said there are hundreds of meditations, it confused me. As I know it, there is really only one meditation – witnessing. But I now realise how all these meditations – the dancing meditations, the walking meditations, make sense. Meditation isn’t a ‘doing’, its not something you sit down to do, and get done with, in 15-20 minutes to then get on with the rest of your day. Meditation is a state of being, remaining in awareness all the time, throughout all activities.

So if remaining in meditation is really your goal, you want to be doing it all the time. What better way than to practice it in small bits, like walking, or dancing, for example? You gently get used to it, and then go on to do it all the time in ‘real’ life.

While it is not too tough to remain in meditation in calm and serene moments, I’ve observed that my awareness goes straight out the window when I find myself in an intense situation, either a happy or a difficult one. So any extremely happy or sad situation is really just a test of your meditation – could you meditate through this event? For most people, sex is one of the most intense things they experience. Can you maintain your awareness throughout it, and not get carried away?

She read out a piece by Osho, in which he said that the temples of Khajuraho were not an education or encouragement for perverted activities, but a way of transcending them. Ofcourse there is no way I can verify this information, but it just feels right when I hear it. He talks of how a student wasn’t allowed to enter the temple initially. One had to meditate – yes, meditate – on the sculptures outside the temple, one sculpture at a time, until all they saw in the sculpture was art, and nothing else. There was no excitement, no sexuality left in that sculpture anymore, just art, just meditation. It took a student about 6 months to go around the temple and when he or she finished, he was finally allowed inside, into an empty space – because once you transcend the most intense excitements of life, nothing else is left, just bliss.

Now I can see why Osho’s teachings were taken out of context, because people could easily interpret this as oh well, then we just do what we want until it stops exciting us. That is not how it works, not in my understanding. This is the FINAL test! Tantra is no tantra without meditation and one has to be very proficient in meditation before one attempts a tantrik relationship. As I understand it, a tantrik relationship also involves deep commitment and plenty of meditations together, using the combined energies to heal and lift both people up together.

Marriage: Should your parents decide?

Marriage: Should your parents decide?

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In an age where identity and independence are given foremost importance, those who want to go the traditional way, i.e. let their parents choose their life partner, find themselves in a dilemma. Is this the best thing to do? Several questions come up, because after all, this is a decision that will affect the rest of your life, potentially many decades.

The first question you should be asking yourself is whether you should be getting married, at all. If you find a good enough reason to do so, we come to the question of how we’d be able to take the right decision.

It would be wise to look at a few parameters first – Would you say that you are a good judge of people? Do you frequently find that friends turned out to be quite different from what you first imagined them to be? How about your parents? Would you say that they are a good judge of people? Have they been able to offer you sound advice regarding your friends, and been right? A fair analysis of these questions would give you a good idea of who has a better capability to assess people – and this is important, because people are on their best behaviour when seeking out their life partner.

Now if you’re good at assessing people, no problem, right? Go ahead and make your choice. But if you would rather let your parents take the lead, here are a few more pointers to keep in mind.

If your parents were to choose a partner for you, what is of foremost importance is whether they truly understand you. Or do they have a stereotyped image of you in mind, labeling you based on a few incidents from your past? If a person does not understand you as a person, how would they know who you would be compatible with?

Also, no matter who is choosing a partner for you, everyone is eventually just looking for one type of person – the sort of partner THEY would want for themselves. Very rarely does anyone have your needs in mind, and this is because we all have an image of the perfect partner drawn up in our minds based on our own needs, and we apply this standard to everyone. So, it is important to find out what qualities your parents prioritise in a person, and whether those are the same things you seek.

Many times, parents are more worried about the financial status, the history of the family, the security, etc, than the actual compatibility of the couple. This could be disastrous, even more so if the family is using it’s financial or social status to hide the internal dynamics of their family.

Ultimately, no matter who you choose, there will be a few surprises and a few disappointments. Marriage is more about giving, than receiving and this is a bond one must enter with that attitude. As a man, you would need to take extra care that your new wife is able to adjust to the new environment. She is often in shock because things turn out be drastically different from the way her family does it. As a woman, you need to be aware that things will be different, and just because they are different, does not mean that they are wrong. A new addition to the family changes old family equations and everyone needs time to readjust.

Marriage: Is it Important?

Marriage: Is it Important?

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Frequently, a young man or woman will walk in for therapy, and when I ask them what it is they want, they quip that they want help because they are unable to get married. And when I ask them why, the answers are varied, sometimes even non-existent.

While on the one hand today’s generation is raised to be independent and individualistic, they are also largely raised to seek happiness outside of themselves. Add to this years of conditioning through movies that there is ‘the one’ waiting for you just as desperately as you are waiting for him/her, and it is a dangerous combination.

If you cannot be happy when single, it is highly unlikely that you will be happy when in a relationship. Granted – a new relationship has the potential to bring untold ‘highs’, leaving you reeling and starry eyed. But when the magic fades, you are left to cope with the same miseries that plagued you before the relationship. Many studies show that the high today lasts for about 2 years, before people are back to the level of happiness they were at, before marriage.

A marriage has the highest chances for success if it is entered by two individuals who have a desire to share, to give, instead of expectations, and a desire to receive. And even then, it is still a chance, because people change. What may be perfect for you today, may not be perfect for you twenty years down the line.

So, is marriage worth it? The answer varies widely. For a person who seeks happiness in a relationship, it would be worth it for a couple of years, following which the situation might be quite different. For an independent person who just isn’t ready for a relationship, it might bring them years of misery. And for yet another person, it might be a life changing opportunity, meeting a person who they can embrace in totality, and who embraces them for who they are, helping each other lift up to greater levels of awareness and bliss.

It is a personal choice which is bound to bring difficult times if not thought through carefully, or blissful times if entered into as one would enter a temple – head bowed and hands joined.

Eating your way to Death?

Eating your way to Death?

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I recently came across a question ‘Should I eat to live or live to eat?’ in a forum. Interesting! It reminded me of a discussion with a few friends, who felt that good food was the most satisfying thing on earth.

We always hear about people smoking too much, drinking too much, etc. Eating too much, however, rarely seems to be a vice. People look at such people with pity. The fat people themselves, meanwhile, convince themselves that it is hereditary. Their parents are fat, their siblings are fat, and they are fat too. It doesn’t ever occur to them that all these people have the same eating habits too, which is why they are all of the same shape.

I have nothing against overweight people. Most of the times, they are really sweet, jovial people. What I’m trying to point out here is, overeating IS a vice. It is done to please the senses, and in that respect, is equivalent to smoking, drinking, or having sex. None of these things are bad in moderation. But too much – becomes an addiction and eats up your life.

Did you know that being overweight increases your chances of dying? There is an overwhelming evidence that for each 10% increase of weight (above normal), mortality increases by 20%. (from The Life Extension Foundation Guide to Better Health by Dr Harry J. Johnson) This means, that if you are 60kg today instead of your average 50kg, you are 40% more likely to die as compared to your 50kg counterpart.

I know people who would scoff at the idea of fasting. Others who fast are looked down upon as religious fools. Fasting is not good if done too often, but if you think that you can’t survive a single day without any food at all, you need to do a rethink. It isn’t about dieting, it isn’t about a religion, nor is it about cleansing your body. It is about self-control.

It gives you better control over your body. It teaches you to resist temptation. It teaches you to focus your mind – because you’ll eventually have to take your mind off food, so you stop feeling hungry. And then, it teaches you sympathy for people who rarely get to eat.

Eat to live. To survive. If you fill all the parts of a car with petrol, you might end up burning it. What do you think you do to your body when you fill it up with too much fuel – food?

Chuck that Role Model

Chuck that Role Model

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I was recently asked to fill a ‘Know Me’ questionnaire at office, to be pinned up on the notice-board. One of the fields was ‘Role Model’. Not a very unusual one, but it got me thinking.

Why do we need a role model? To me, having a role model is nothing but a weakness – you restrict yourself by wanting to be like someone else.

When a friend of mine was asked why he wasn’t following his very successful parents’ footsteps by joining their business, he said, ‘I am walking in their footsteps. Just like them, I’m starting from scratch and carving my own career!’

What we need to learn from icons is their approach to life, problems, and ability to remain calm in apparently disastrous situations. We need to follow the direction in which they walked, not the path they took.

It is often said that there is no set formula for success. I disagree. A study of successes will reveal the same common factors – perseverance, working smart, not necessarily hard, dedication and focus. An age old proverb sums this up very well – “The man who wakes up one morning to find himself famous has not been asleep”

Tej Parkhiji says ‘Sabki Geeta alag hai’, implying that everyone has different lessons to learn. In the same vein, everyone striving towards success, faces different problems and requires different approaches to deal with them. Problems can be solved effectively only if you analyze and solve the situation yourself, and not when you try to find out how your role model solved it – his situation might have been different.

Chuck your role model – choose to truly follow his/ her footsteps, by being your own person, and being your own role model. Because, I’m sure that they didn’t try to follow anyone’s footsteps!

Thank God For Your Enemies

Thank God For Your Enemies

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A reiki student recently asked me ‘So after I learn Reiki, I will never fall sick and never have problems, right?’ I tried to suppress a smile as I told him that on the contrary, he might have more complex problems!

We regard problems like something external, an irritant or a hinderance that shouldn’t be there but somehow is, and must be removed ASAP. We couldn’t be more wrong. A problem is given to you, to help you learn a lesson the best way – hands on, and grow into a better human being. If you choose to turn around and face your problems instead of running away from them, you will gain a lot, and also learn lessons more easily.

Problems are like quicksand – the more you struggle, the deeper you get. What you need to do instead, is keep your cool, realise that this problem is a gift and not a punishment, and start working towards solving it.

Enemies are people we whole-heartedly despise, because they cause us problems and make our lives miserable. Lets take another look at it. I believe that your enemies do more for you, than your friends. These are people who do bad to you, and face negative consequences for them later on. All this for what? So that you learn more lessons, and grow faster!

The next time someone causes you problems, thank them for making your life miserable. For, it is these people who will help you take your life to the heights you only dream of today.

Are Your Priorities Right?

Are Your Priorities Right?

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I came across a very interesting short story named ‘The Undomestic Goddess’, yesterday. It is the story of a very successful, top lawyer, who runs away from her life when she realises that she made a huge mistake. She takes up a job as a housekeeper in a small village, thinking that she’d go back the moment things were set right. Instead, she learns an entire new way of life – where the stress is absent and the weekends are free.

She later realises that she had been framed. She goes back and reclaims her dignity, but finally returns to her $500 per week housekeeper job, as opposed to the $500 per hour she was earning before.

It is a realisation that comes to a very select, lucky few. A lot of people I know, spend their youth toiling away day and night, oblivious to the meaning of fun, love and joy. Today, enjoyment means smoking a cigarette, downing half a dozen pegs, and letting ones hair down and partying. I genuinely pity people who have to knock themselves out of their senses so that they can pretend to themselves that they are enjoying.

We all celebrate Independence day here in India, but we are all still slaves. We are still so financially insecure, that we just want more and more money. Irrespective of what it costs us. A lot of people I know, are going to wake up one day, realise that they have nothing but money left with them anymore.

Ask yourself this question. If you died tomorrow, or even this very instant, would you regret it? If your answer is not a definite NO, you have some rethinking to do.

The Bhagwad Geeta says that youth is the time one should spend earning. Not just money, but relationships, love, respect and experience – of LIVING life. If all your money was lost today, would you have any other riches left?