Here for writing

Yesterday started with me feeling sad. Am taking a week long break from teaching yoga, which means I get extra 3-4 hours per day at my disposal. As usual, I started making too many plans, but somewhere, having learnt the lessons from past experiences, I forced myself to slow down with my crazy planning and reminded myself that this is a "BREAK WEEK" , which means I truly do have to take a break, rest, rejuvenate and refresh myself by doing  / not doing things as appropriate. Yesterday morning, I woke up with a head full of ideas and the mindset to actually go all out and execute them all...inspired, excited and thrilled...bright eyed and bushy tailed and what not. The darkened windows mislead me into thinking I was up early, but when I checked the time, it was already 7 am, which meant I don't have the time to actually execute all that I had in mind. Why you ask? Well, my little one, who is now 16 months, will wake up in another 45 mins to 1 hour and once she is up, there...

It so happens that the thoughts circling in my heart gathers a critical mass tumbles out as words. More often than not, the words carry no meaning. Such words are just content to stream out through my fingers into a word document, typed out in a haste, full of spelling mistakes...never to be read again. But at other times, the words twist with another deeper urge within -the urge to share that which is inside me with others. I would be lying if I say that these words are like a window to my soul. They are just a reflection of a temporary state of mind, which may make no sense to me, if I were to revisit it at a later point of time. But right now, these words are my world. The unfiltered expression of all that is going on inside me.  This makes me wonder. Why is it that we feel this need to share a piece of ourselves with others? Why this urge to express oneself?  If we were to just observe for a minute, everyone of us expresses & strives to share our in...

To recap, ( part1 , part 2 and part 3 ) let us quickly revisit what is called as the "Law of Cause and Effect", in Vedanta. The Rishis and Sages -the great subjective scientists, have put forth this law after a deep study of this world and the self. You can click here to hear Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda explain the law in detail (highly recommend this short 7 minute video) 1. There can be no effect without a cause - (Eg., no waves without ocean) 2. The effect is nothing but the cause itself in a different form -(Eg., the waves, bubbles, foams, whirlpools are nothing but the ocean itself) 3. When cause is removed from the effect, nothing remains (Eg., no waves, bubbles, foam etc when there is no ocean) Now, applying this to ourselves, it is evident that this entire universe of names and forms, including this physical human body, is nothing but the effect. The cause of all these names and forms is the One Supreme Truth. It is this One Cause that is manifesting...

We all intuitively know about this oneness . However, our identification with our own body, mind and intellect creates a strong and distinct feeling of “me and everything else that is not me” . And this me is so so so small and tiny that it extends only upto the boundary of our own body. So we identify with this small part of Our whole and struggle through this life, being tossed up and down in the waves of joys and sorrows. However, when we slowly expand our sense of identification with All That Is, then our individual ego disappears and we become our True Self –the glorious infinite and absolute. All this is fine, but it seems very wild to even begin to imagine us as something other than this body. The attachment to the body is so strong that even though we can intellectually and to some extent intuitively understand that we all are one, we cannot but shake off the feeling of I ness and my ness that is associated with the body. The Masters, in all their kindne...

The most difficult thing as a student of Vedanta is that, it asks the us to walk the talk...and the talk itself is so lofty and high that sometimes, it almost makes me whish that I didn't have this knowledge, so that I could have continued living as I was. The one thing that kind of blew my mind when I finally understood and comprehended is the vision of oneness. It is so simple and evident that it made me smack my forehead for missing something so obvious that was right in front of my eyes. Before I write about what is the difficulty in this, let me quickly run through what this oneness is all about. I, with my limited understanding, come to completely believe and live with the conviction that I am this body. I + body gives raise to the feelings of me and mine -My house, my clothes, my father, my children, my husband, my money and so on. Life, as we know it revolves around this "I". It is this "I" that makes us believe that we are separate entitie...

In the last post , we saw what is the meaning of Karma (Karma means action) and what prompts us to act. Now, let us look at the word Yoga. Yoga: Beside the done to death definition of yoga coming from the root word "yuj" and it means union, the term yoga here means the state of complete awareness and mindfulness. The state in which our mind is completely focused on the task at hand, in exclusion to all other thoughts. If we observe our mind, we often find that the thoughts are either from the past memories or about future expectations. Yoga is the state of "being" fully in the present moment. So, if we now look at the term Karma Yoga, it means mindful action. KARMA YOGA = MINDFUL ACTION The role of desire: In the previous post, we saw how desire for a better state of being is the driving force behind all our actions. The key to transforming all our karmas into karma yoga lies in channelizing this desire.  In the case of spiritua...

For the longest time, I was under the impression that the term Karma yoga only means doing social service -maybe sweating it out in a beach clean up, sweeping the temples, cleaning the animals in a shelter and doing physical work for charities and NGOs. And needless to say, I felt that Karma Yoga makes no sense because I didn't have enough time to walk around with a broom stick. Looking back, it kind of feels funny that I have always associated Karma Yoga with sweeping and mopping.  Then came my initial Vedanta classes. When our Acharya used to talk about unselfish action, not working for fruits of action, work for work's sake, working without attachment and so on, I was still left scratching my head -not because of what she was telling, but because of my limited understanding and evolvement. At that time, I was still working in corporate and I often used to wonder, what it meant to work unselfishly? It is not that I was a selfish person anyways, so where am I...

The second of the five niyamas or observances is santosha, which means contentment. Before I reflect on this, let me share a small incident that happened when I was at Chinmaya Voboothi, Kolwan this summer. We were sitting at Guruji's (Swami Tejomayananda's) kutiya after breakfast. Devotees and visitors kept coming to offer their pranams to Guruji. There was this young lady who asked Guruji, "how to be happy in life?" Guruji asked her, "aren't you happy?" and she replied saying that she was frustrated with her work. For the past three years, she has been performing well and has been putting in her best efforts, but her appraisal was not favourable. She felt bad that inspite of her hard work and dedication for three years, she was not promoted. Guruji jokingly said, "For three years you didn't get promotion na, don't worry this time you will get." and fell silent. Obviously the lady wanted something more and we were all...

I was just back home from my one week stay at Chinmaya Vibhooti, Kolwan , when the news of the now infamous and self styled Swami Srihari from Kerala hit the headlines . It was very saddening and disgusting that these so called Swamis and godmen again and again exploit the purity and the piety of the saffron robe for power, position, money and sexual thrills. It is because of men like him that the word "ashram" itself has taken a lewd connotation in today's parlance and Swamis are looked down with sneer and mistrust. In my own case, when I tell people that I am going to stay in an ashram for a week, mostly they raise their concern about my safety -my actual physical safety and my psychological safety..."what if they brainwash you and make you a monk? what if they hypnotize you into one of their mad fanatic followers? What if they make you sign over all that you own for their ashram? what if...what if..." the questions go on and on. Having been clos...