zentocoach

Gita: Being Fulfilled

Disconnected from outside, attention on the third eye, breath balanced

Senses, mind and intellect in control 5.27

Freedom from body mind attachment as the only goal,

Free from fear anger greed, the Wise one is already liberated 5.28

The Wise one knows Me, Lord of all Worlds, Lord of all sacrifices

And with that knowing attains fulfillment 5.29

I acknowledge this picture from the Internet, Shiva’s Third Eye.

What’s Third Eye and why has Krishna referred to it?

The Vedic mind body energy depiction talks about a virtual energy network within us. A similar concept exists in Traditional Chinese Medicine and probably in such ancient cultures as Egypt, America etc. Our body has a network of energy pathways, called nadis in Sanskrit, and centers where they meet, called chakras. There are six chakras, starting from the root chakra at the perineum point where trunk meets thighs and ending at the point midway between eye brows, the Third eye chakra. The gateway after the final third eye chakra is the crown center, atop the head, where the feminine kundalini Shakti energy meets the super conscious Shiva.

The Third Eye chakra, called Ajna chakra or Will energy center, is the master center of all mind body energy. It is linked to the Pituitary gland, the master gland. Like the Pituitary controls all other glands, Ajna controls the remaining chakras. This is named the Ajna or Will, based on the a belief that when one acts with one’s attention focused on this chakra, action will lead to desired outcome.

Ajna is also the center of our ego, both positive and negative. Moving beyond Ajna, leads to conquering of ego, and enlightenment where Shakti meets Shiva. When as Krishna says one’s attention is on Ajna, one can conquer ego, moving to liberation from desires. Liberation from desires leads to liberation from all bondage and attachment, which is liberation and fulfillment.

The Third Eye is the center of Self Awareness. A simple meditation that is very effective follows.

Sit comfortably on a chair or cross-legged on the floor, if need be with a cushion to support one’s seat, and with spine erect. Keep your feet planted on the ground , if on a chair. Keep hands loose on your lap, with first three fingers touching forming a circle. Close your eyes and keep your attention on the Third Eye, the point at the middle of eye brows.

Inhale deeply, visualizing that you’re drawing energy into your body. Next, hold your breath for as long as you are comfortable, visualizing that energy spreading through your body. Next, exhale all the stored breath, visualizing that you are expanding into the Universe. Finally, hold after exhalation, again as long as you’re comfortable, visualizing that now you’re now one with the Universe.

Keep repeating this cycle for as long as you can, to your own rhythm of comfort, without counting seconds for inhalation, holding, exhalation and holding., all the while with attention on Ajna.

This is the most powerful of all pranayama or Yoga breath control but rarely taught. The first ten verses of Vigyana Bhairava Tantra, instructions to Parvati about reaching Him teach this breathing process. Read Osho ‘The Book of Secrets’ or Bihar School of Yoga ‘Ascent’, to learn more about these verses and the most powerful dharana techniques ever taught.

If you have doubts on how to , mail me. Like the Ajna is the King of Chakras, this technique is the King of meditation techniques, combining asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana and dhyana.

It helps you to know That and be One with That.

Coaching, Energy, Gita, Hindu Scriptures, inner energy, mind body spirit, Patanjali Yoga, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Yoga

Bihar School of Yoga, Gita, Osho, Third Eye, Vigyana Bhairava Tantra, Yoga

September 4, 2012

Gita: Desire to Anger

Pleasures of the senses end in pain as they begin and end

The Wise does not enjoy them. 5.22

One who while alive before liberation from the body

Controls desire and anger is the Yogi, a joyful person 5.23

The Yogi who is joyful within, lives within and focuses within

Is joyful in the Brahman and becomes the Supreme Truth, Brahman 5.24

The Wise having overcome all ignorance and doubts, controlling senses

Serving others, live in the bliss of the Supreme Truth, Brahman 5.25

Those who are free from desire and anger, controlled in thoughts,

Self aware, are always in the bliss of the Supreme Truth, Brahman 5.26

I acknowledge this lovely depiction of Shiva from the Net.

Moving towards what we like and moving away from what we don’t is not merely based on instinct, but also ingrained in our DNA. Bruce Lipton in his Biology of Beliefs says that in his experiments as a Cellular microbiologist this behavior is clearly visible with cells. In a Petri dish, cells and parts of cells move towards nutrients and away from toxins.

What’s the big deal, you may ask, i knew this all along. The big deal is that Krishna says we need to move away from this DNA if we are to be Self Aware.

Desire is a product of our human physical sheath, the gross body. Each breath, the energy of prana, keeps us alive with the desire to be alive. When the energy within has no longer that desire to live, the prana that leaves does not return. Lief and death are that simple.

Fulfillment of desire creates more desire. It does not create permanent fulfillment or content. The happiness we experience upon fulfillment of a desire is temporary. This is why Buddha classifies desire as the cause of all suffering. In addition, fulfillment of desires creates pride and ego.

Non fulfillment of desires creates anger at being thwarted of our birth right. Greed, fear, pride, ego, anger and all such emotions overlap each other on the foundation of desire. The temporary pleasure of fulfillment invariably leads to pain with the realization that this fulfillment does not continue. Human greed is limitless and is the source of all pain. Ramana Maharishi says: this universe is limitless and can provide for the needs of all, but even this universe cannot provide for the wants for the single person.

Needs are limited. Wants are unlimited. Wants arise from human greed. I do not know of any animal that suffers from greed. No animal hoards food, covering or shelter like humans do.

These verses are about the need to separate our wants from needs.

Why have i used Shiva to make a point? Of all the deities in the Hindu pantheon, Shiva moves desire less. He is the ultimate yogi. His desires, fears, anger are all in the present moment, expressed and released. The word Shiva means auspiciousness and bliss. Shiva’s bliss is uncreated. It’s the anahata ananada, sat chit ananda, which has no source, no destination and no path. It’s not even an experience. It just is.

I often meet people, especially in the corporate space, who are obsessed with making money. We need this to help our children and their children, they say. They are ready to make this planet uninhabitable for their grand children ecologically in order to create wealth for them. Do they realize that moments after they are gone, even a loving wife may not remember them. Shankara says hauntingly in his Bhaja Govindam, ‘ When the breath leaves the body, even your wife is disgusted with your body. What are you thinking, you moron!’

A senior finance executive lost his job and was escorted out of his office by corporate security a week after he confided in me that his short term goal was to make twenty million dollars. He was nearly jailed. A few months later, he was back in the game to make his millions.

When will they ever learn!

Coaching, Gita, Hindu Scriptures, inner energy, mind body spirit, Religion & Spirituality, Uncategorized

Adi Shankara, Krishna, Shiva

August 24, 2012

Leadership, mind body spirit, Religion & Spirituality, Uncategorized

Long Live Anna Hazare! Down with Corruption!

The Jasmine revolution is in India! The new square for revolution is Jantar Mantar in New Delhi!

A couple on moths ago, and it seems so long now, when Mubarak was holding fast against his detractors, i had lunch with two guests from UK. One was an Egyptian Professor, who was campaigning against Mubarak. I asked him innocently what he had against Mubarak.

The elderly, experienced and respected Egyptian Professor, now living in UK, explained to me how Mubarak and his family had looted the wealth of his nation. He said they must have stolen at least $ 40 billion.

I laughed. I told him how one insignificant politician, who was for a while the Telecom Minister, is now being accused of looting much more than that. The aptly named ‘King’ Raja, had not then been arrested. I told him that Mubarak would be a pauper among the political princes of India who had spirited away the nation’s wealth into Swiss Banks. The British in their 300 years of rule came now here close to what our Congress and BJP leaders managed in a mere 60 years.

I asked him: In Egypt you can replace a dictatorship with democracy, and you hope it’ll work. What do we with the democracy we have? Where do we go from here? Where can we go from here?

I had no answer. The emotional Professor had no answer. He merely asked, ‘if what you say is true, we have no hope.

Corruption in India had the power to silence any right thinking mind!

But, now we have Anna Hazare. And, I have some hope. India has some hope.

For the first time after Gandhi, one man has ignited our consciousness again. By laying his life at the altar of the common man’s cause, Anna Hazare has rekindled hope in millions like me, who have become skeptical non-believers in democracy.For the time, many believe we can uproot corruption in India.

From what has been the refuge of the scoundrels and the corrupt, we can redeem democracy into the supreme spiritual governance that Lincoln extolled as the government of the people, for the people, by the people, that shall not perish from the Earth.

Anna Hazare, I salute you humbly! Jai Ho, Anna Hazare!

Anna Hazare, Corruption in India, Jai Ho, Jantar Mantar, Jasmine Revolution

April 8, 2011

Bardo Thodol, death and rebirth, inner energy, mind body spirit, The Beatles Revolver, The Tibetan Book of the Dead

How to be alive at death?

Turn off your mind, relax
and float down stream
It is not dying
It is not dying

Sang the Beatles, inspired by the Bardo Thodol or the The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Every religion has it base in death and the question of death and rebirth. It’s man’s, or woman’s, anguish about the unknowability of death, and its mystery, its suddenness and of course, its inevitability, which raised questions about the greater mystery of death and rebirth.

After all, if you remove the issue of the death and rebirth from theology, what is left?

Religions that flourished in the plains of the Sindhu (Indus to the anglicized) and Ganga (Ganges to the anglicized), believed that what perished at death was merely the body mind system. They believed that an inner energy stayed behind, leaving the spirit or inner energy of the mind body spirit system to continue eternally.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, ‘It (this inner energy) moves from body to body the same way you move from one garment to another. It is imperishable. Fire cannot burn it. Water cannot wet it. Wind cannot dry it. No weapon can destroy it.’

Buddha does not explicitly talk about this inner energy as the soul or spirit, but allows the possibility of rebirth, which is the subject of the The Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Beatles’ number in Revolver.

Judaism accepts the concept of rebirth. So does Jesus, though the Church seems equivocal on this issue.

Why is this belief relevant?

If we believe that life continues as inner energy after death we don’t live only once. We live again and gain. We may not remember always what happened before, but if we believe, then there is no pressure to compress so many things into this one life.

We can lead our lives without stress. After all, we can continue where we left off!

If this sounds silly, how silly is it to accumulate wealth that you cannot carry with you into the grave? Or name, fame, power or relationships? What use is it to strive so hard, sacrificing so much, for something that is so temporary? Does this make sense?

Those who think it makes sense, stand on one side. Those who don’t, relax on the other!

Or play the game
existence to the end
Of the beginning

Tomorrow Never Knows: The Beatles

Death, inner energy, mind body spirit, Spirituality, Uncategorized

March 14, 2011

6 Comments

Tao 9:Counter Intuition

Tao 9: Counter Intuition

If you fill your bowl to the brim, it will surely spill. If you keep sharpening you knife, it will become blunt. 9.1

A learned scholar from the West, a Professor, sought out a Zen Master from a remote province in Japan to advise him on inner energy. When the Professor arrived at the Zen Monastery, the Zen Master was in meditation. The Professor was led to a waiting room, where he paced impatiently.

As soon as the Zen Master arrived, the Professor introduced himself at length. He talked about all the work he had done and where he had published. The Zen Master listened politely. While listening he started pouring tea from the pot into the cup in front of the Professor.

As the Professor kept talking, the Zen Master continued to pour. Soon the cup overflowed. Professor was agitated. He shouted, ‘Can’t you see the cup is full and it can’t hold anymore?’

The Zen Master smiled, ‘So is your mind, Professor!’

Still your mind and empty it of thoughts. Only then it reveals your inner energy!

Pursuing wealth and safety hardens your mind and heart. Needing others attention makes you their prisoner. 9.2

Why do we gather wealth, name and fame? Do they add any value to our inner energy? we think that material possessions make us look good in front of others. We feel good if others feel good about us. Why?

Because we have no good feeling about ourselves. This in turn saps our inner energy.

If we have self-esteem, why would we seek someone else’s attention and respect? We need all that only when we have no esteem and respect for ourselves.

Forget about others. Do what makes you happy. Indulge in your passion. Enhance your inner energy.

what you have to do. Do what is right. Do not worry about outcome. Step back. Relax and let go. You’ll be in peace. 9.3

The process defines the outcome. Constantly worrying about how the dish will turn out, will not help you cook a better meal. Nor will it make you a better cook.

When you cook without thinking, yet following the process you know well, you need not worry about the result. It will be good.

The journey matters. If the journey is joyful, the result too will be.

Let life lead you. Follow your heart and be joyful. All will be right.

inner energy, Religion & Spirituality, Tao, Uncategorized, Zen

Buddhist scripture, inner energy, Japan, Religion and Spirituality, Tao, Zen Master

March 12, 2011

5 Comments

Chakras, who are they?

Chakras have been in fashion for a while now. Every energy healer of any denomination talks glibly about chakras and how to energize them. They wave their hands over you as you lie on a couch like magicians about to produce a rabbit out of your belly.

The trick is the same.

Some of what these guys talk about and do is quite dangerous. I followed the advice of a New Age Californian author a couple of decades to ago on chakra energizing. I ended almost losing an eye! I later learnt that people have lost their minds doing this stuff.

I am posting this piece to educate as well as warn.

Indian and Chinese spiritual schools, of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen and Tao, as well as traditional medical systems that arose from these spiritual schools, believed that the human mind body spirit system is energy. This is why Hinduism and Buddhism consider life as eternal. This inner energy within continues even after the physical mind body perishes at death. This in turn leads to concepts of karma, rebirth etc.

The inner energy within us, the inner energy that sustains us, is an integral part of the energy of the Universe, the Cosmic energy. Hindu philosophy of the Vedas believed that this inner energy lies dormant in our perineum. When dormant, it works on instinctive reactions related to survival and security needs.

This inner energy, called kundalini energy, can be awakened through techniques of yoga and tantra. The purpose is to make us self-aware. When this kundalini energy at the root or muladhara chakra center rises to the top of the head, the crown chakra center, we become fully Self-aware. We become aware that we are nothing but cosmic energy.

The path of the kundalini energy from the root energy center to the crown energy center is through a virtual energy pathway along the spine, passing through 5 other inner energy centers. all called chakra. Chakra refers to an active inner energy center, circular and spinning like a wheel.

Most Western literature i have read on this subject are superficial and often dangerous. People have lost their health and even mind following New Age techniques purported to awaken the kundalini energy. After my bad experience following some of these techniques, i decided to learn from the scriptures directly.

Awakening the kundalini energy has practical benefits. We become intuitive. We become compassionate. We become coaches and healers. There are safe methods and unsafe shortcuts.

I shall outline some safe methods on this journey of mind body spirit in future posts.

Healing, inner energy, Mind, Tantra, Uncategorized

Chakra, energy center, inner energy, kundalini energy, mind body spirit, New Age

March 11, 2011

32 Comments

Why should you blog?

Because…..

I have blogged for a month now. So, what?

My blog stats show that in about a month i have had about a 1000 viewers, with an average viewership now of close to fifty a day. is that good, bad or ugly? Does it matter?

I guess it does, as it should to anyone who wants to write a blog. Why write if no one wants to read us? We are not quite Van Gogh.

I started blogging as part of a course requirement when i signed in for a coaching program with ICA. I had been thinking of blogging for a few years now, with nothing to show for it. So, i should thank ICA for kick starting me, or as they in coaching terms moving me from ‘trying’ to ‘commitment’. I opened an account with WordPress.

I am also a pretender writer. I ghost wrote 30 0dd books for a non profit. My first ‘real’ book with my name as an author will be published in about 3 months, once the Publisher gets the design and stuff done. I decided that after my graduation requirements of the blog would be complete, i would use the stuff for future books that the Publisher wanted me to write.

This was how started. Even if no one read my blog, it wouldn’t matter. But, things changed. Even my first blog had about 10 viewers. Within a week i had over a hundred. The blog assumed a life of its own.

It was then i attended a Lethia Owens teleseminar that ICA organized. I learnt how to leverage my blog through social marketing channels like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and others. Soon, my Blog was in Twitter and my tweets were in my blog and both were in Facebook and Linked In. I found i liked seeing my name in print.

Whoever says she or he doesn’t like her or his name in print on or offline, is a liar or dead!

What now?

i have fulfilled my grad requirements. I am building material for books. I have some regular viewers and a few compliments. So far, no abuses or insults.

My dream once was to build a community where people could share problems that they face in their daily lives, with others offering whatever best they could to inspire self induced solutions. This would be coaching at its best. This is why i named my blog zentocoach.

I do hope that happens. i hope that what i write prompt others to write in . They can challenge what i say. They can agree with their own variations. Some can post their concerns and problems. Others can suggest ways as a coach would to inspire one’s own solutions.

I hope people will write in. I hope we all shall help one another. I am sure this will happen.

So, please write in. If you wish to, subscribe. Once you start , you will probably start blogging yourself.

that’s the idea of zentocoach.

I acknowledge the great clip i found on the Net.

Blog, Coaching, Uncategorized, writing

blog, coach, Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Networking, Twitter, Wordpress, Zen

March 6, 2011

Write and be ….what? Happy!

Stephen King didn’t perhaps need any training to start writing his short stories.

Stephen King was perhaps born with a pen in his hand. But, most of us do need some basic training to write for others.

It’s not that one needs any qualifications to write. Any one who can talk can also write, once they learn how to write the alphabets of a language. I am not a native English speaker. For the first fifteen years of my life, i had hardly spoken a few sentences in English. English became my medium of education only in college.

I loved to read from early childhood. Somewhere along the way i started reading in English, though i was not comfortable speaking the language. All that changed when i discovered the joy of writing, in English. It changed even more when i took a distance course in Creative Writing. I ghost wrote over 30 books. My first book, under my name, will be out this summer.I started this blog a month ago. In another post, i shall explain why.

It struck me this morning as i walked my neighborhood park that perhaps i can inspire others to write. If I can write, publish and blog, why not anyone else. Writing gives me a freedom and joy that many other activities do not. I do not need to write to live, but writing makes my life more value added.

I jotted down the basics of what i had learnt from the time i started writing seriously. You may call them techniques and tools. They form 5 section, each with about 3 posts, 15 in all. I shall be happy to share them with you, one every 15 days, on this blog. Each post will carry with it an assignment that you can file in as a comment to that post. It is that simple.

I may not comment as an expert on each piece, but other readers of this blog can do that. Ultimately, your readers are your judges.

Pretty soon you can start your own blog. You may even start earning through your writing. You don’t have to spend a penny. Go with that dream of wealth and fame!

All you need to do is to subscribe to this blog. Somewhere in the top right corner of this blog is a widget that you can activate to subscribe. Once i have 100 subscribers, which i guess is not much, i shall start posting from the fifteenth day. It’s a deal.

Let’s start!

Education, Life, Tool, Uncategorized, writing

blog, Creative writing, education, fame, Stephen King, Training, wealth, Writing

March 2, 2011

Tao 8: Like Water

I acknowledge this beautiful picture of River Ganga from the Net.

Tao says in verse 8:

1. The energy of Cosmos is that of water.

This energy nourishes without being asked.

It seeks low places others avoid.

Its path is Tao.

Water flows seeking its own level. It does not try to climb mountains.

It nourishes all that it flows through. It does not favor one or another.

Water is life. It cleanses, rejuvenates, revives and sparkles.

2. Be like water.

Live close to the ground, as low as possible.

Think and act simply and honestly.

When opposed, be fair and generous.

Do not control others.

Work with passion.

be mindful in all that you do.

If you are wise, build low and live low. Higher you go, more risky it is. It is not Nature.

If you are wise, do not judge others. Think of others as you do yourself. Be fair. Be compassionate.

When someone resists, move away. Let them have their way.

Do not seek power. let it come to you.

Do what you do without worrying about outcome. Do it if you love doing it. The journey determines the destination.

Be in the Present. Past is history. Future is illusion. NOW is real.

3. However good you are

Be humble and give way

World will give way to you

That is the Way of Tao.

Strength lies in humility. Aggression destroys. It destroys you and others. If you have convictions, so do others. Respect them and they will respect you.

Level 5 Leadership is about Leading by Tao. The Wise Leader does not care for himself. He cares for others.

Leadership, Life, Management, Tao, Uncategorized

Jim Collins, Level 5 Leadership, nature, Tao

February 28, 2011

Dare to Imagine!

If there is one piece of music, one piece of anything to read, listen to or watch if i am stranded forever in an island, this would be it.

John Lennon, in this song, is Buddha incarnate.

After what he has said, there remains nothing more to be said.

Imagine a world without hell or heaven, he says. Imagine a world without religions. Imagine a brotherhood of man. Imagine a world of peace. You may think it’s difficult, but you can.

You can, because that’s our nature. That’s the way we came into this world. We came without a religion telling us what to do and what not to, what is right is right and what’s wrong. It said if we do what it said was wrong we shall burn or fry in hell. If we do what it told us to do, we shall live happily ever after in heaven.

Some religions tell us it’s fine to eliminate the rest of the world if it doesn’t believe us. We can kill others if they are not reared in our religion. How fantastic is that? Others try to gloss over this giving intellectual interpretations that do nothing to dispute the original assertion.

Each religion contradicts the other. There is little meeting point. So, we wage wars. We bomb one another. We destroy buildings where people work. We kill people. We torture nature. Why don’t we instead destroy these religions?

The purpose of man, and woman, is to nurture, not to destroy. Religions as we understand them and practice them teach us the opposite. They teach us intolerance. They condition us into submission. They control our minds to destroy one another.

Each religion says, no, that’s not what we do. We believe in a supreme power. The problem is not with us but with others who do not believe in our supreme power. We have no quarrel once you do.

We confuse spirituality and humanity with religion. Religions are commercial institutions. Their purpose is to control people. It is possible that founders who propounded some of the truths based on which others built these religions did believe in humanity and spirituality. But, those who preach these religions today for money and power don’t.

Please do imagine a world without religion! Not as a dream, but reality!

Life, Religious, Spirituality, Uncategorized

Beatles, Imagine: John Lennon, johnlennon, religion, Spirituality

February 27, 2011

Tao 7: Service

Let me acknowledge this sketch from Esquire on the Net.

Tao says in verse 7:

1. Nature exists for you and I.

Heaven and Earth nurture us, not themselves.

They endure eternally in service of others.

Being of service to others, they become others and live in others.

The universe, nature, gives everything without even asking. There is no limit to what It gives. Nature is unselfish. It is selfless.

We may not understand all the laws of Nature. So, we ask and cry, why is Nature so cruel. Nature is not cruel. Nature stays detached. It does not differentiate between good and bad, rich and poor, right and wrong. Nature does not judge.

There is no heaven or hell. We create heaven and hell in our image. We make our lives and others’ lives heaven and hell upon Earth.

2. The Wise One lives to serve others.

The Wise One lives for you and i, not for himself or herself.

In sacrificing everything, the Wise One gains everything.

That is the path of Tao.

The Wise One, The Sage, lives the path of Nature. He or She is Tao.

The Wise One stays detached from all things around him/er. Is that so, is what she asks , when something happens around us and we rush to seek solace.

The Wise One needs nothing; no shelter, no clothing, no food and no relationships. The Wise One has all that Nature gives, which is bountiful.

How do we apply this in daily life?

The more we seek for ourselves, the more we desire. Greed has no end. Companies have to keep growing for them to survive. Do they have to?

When we seek to serve others first instead of ourselves, we receive all that we desire for others. This is the Law of T ao.

Following the Law of Tao, we gain wealth, name and fame.

Fame, Spirituality, Tao, Uncategorized, Wealth

nature, Tao, wealth, Wellness

February 22, 2011

Steering into the Skid

There will be an answer, let it be, sing the Beatles.

I adore the Beatles. I’ve always wondered how to fit in a Beatles clip in my blog. It’s now or never.

The Beatles were ahead of their times. The word ‘let’ is probably the most powerful word in our lexicon. We hate to use it. Using it means we are letting go off our control.

Not that i ever drove in snow, but the instruction i read that stuck to my mind forever is that when you are in a skid, steer into the skid. Don’t resist , but let go. That lesson, life saving as it is in driving, is life saving in daily life as well.

Everyday, we swing from one extreme to another. We love being in the roller coaster ride of joy and sorrow. When pain drives us mad, we jump into pleasure and when pleasure palls we seek pain.

How stupid, you may ask? Who in his or her right senses would seek pain? Who, indeed?

Why would anyone want t climb the Himalayas? Why would anyone want to swim the English Channel in freezing winter? Why would anyone want to sail alone across the oceans. Hundreds, if not thousands, do. They say they do it, because it’s there. So what?

We have a low tolerance for peace. We are uncomfortable when things happen smoothly. We always look for the second shoe to fall. When things go right far too long, we wonder what mischief nature is up to? That’s not her style, we think.

The Tao says time and again to let go. Zen says to flow with life. Do not resist says Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita.

There is an intelligence that brought us into this world. This intelligence will take care of us if we let it.It will bring us wealth, name and fame, if we let go.

Do we have the patience and the wisdom?

Fame, Tao, Uncategorized, Wealth, Zen

Beatles, Bhagavadgita, Himalayas, Krishna, Tao, Zen

February 19, 2011

Tao 6: The Void

1. Tao is the Void.

Yet, it is the void from which everything comes forth.

It’s the spirit of all creation, You, I, the World and the Universe, and all that is material.

Respect that Mother, the Yin.

Buddha called it the Void, Sunya. Shankara, who came 1300 years later called it Completeness, Purna. Tao calls it Void.

Scientists say Big Bang created the Universe. What created the Big Bang? Who created the Big Bang?

Buddha says: The Universe always existed. It exists Now. It will exist forever.

Scientists say that Black Holes devour matter. Every thing disappears into a Black Hole. Black Holes signify destruction.

In the Hindu Trinity, Brahma creates, Vishnu maintains and Shiva destroys. Shiva, they say, destroys to create. He is the Rejuvenator.

Scientists talk about worm holes. They talk about a multiverse. One can disappear from one universe and reappear through a wormhole in another universe in the multiverse.

How Cool!

Shiva knew about earlier!

2. You too are the Mother. The Yin is in You.

Be still and you will be aware.

The Void is no longer a Void, but the energy of all Being.

Be still said Ramana Maharishi, and look within. Examine who you are. Ask where you came from. Where do your thoughts come from? Where do you go when you are dead?

Enquire within, he said. You will be aware.

You are the energy. You are the energy of all beings. You are the energy of the Universe. You just don’t know.

When you know, you will not feel the power. The energy humbles you.

One who knows does not speak.

Move into that inexhaustible Yin, the Mother of all energies. Universe will shower on you name , fame and wealth.

Fame, Life, Tao, universe, Wealth

Big Bang, Black hole, Poorna, Relativity, Shiva

February 16, 2011

5 Comments

Please Forgive Me! I’m Sorry! Thank You!I Love You!

A discussion in an ICA class with Leon, as always, led me and several others to Ho’oponopono.

What, Ho what, you may as well ask?

A Hawaiian healing system, Ho’oponopono, pronounced Ho Opono Pono, rests on the belief of surrender to a super power. When we surrender to this super power, God, Allah, Shiva, or whatever name we wish to give that power, we link to that power. Automatically, we also link to each other.

Ho’oponopono believes that we are not waves separated from one another, but the ocean.

Once we believe in this fundamental principle, which is in fact the common thread in all Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, and perhaps in other religions and cultures too, we take responsibility for every one else on this planet, for everything else in this universe.

So, what’s new?

What is new is the way Ho’oponopono applies this belief to our daily lives. Its modern-day practitioner Dr Hew Len healed an entire hospital full of criminally insane, cured them and closed the facility down. Joe Vitale, one of the participants in The Secret project, wrote Zero Limits along with Dr. Hew Len describing this amazing practice.

Dr. Hew, based on principles taught to him by a master practitioner of Ho’oponopono, gives a 5 step solution to all our problems.

1. Look into yourself for the cause of the problems you find in the outer world. One may see it as someone else’s problem or one’s own. Either way, take responsibility for all problems that come to you. Look in for memories connected to the problem.

2. Say to yourself, to your Divine Self, ‘I Love You’.

3. Say ‘Please Forgive Me’

4. Say ‘I am Sorry’

5. Say ‘Thank You’.

Repeat as often as needed for closure.

The biggest issue most of us will have is in recognizing problems external to us as having been created by us. Our first response would be fear. How can we take the world on our shoulders? What will happen to our shoulders? Nothing really. You’ll lose your painful memories of guilt, depression, anger, sorrow and such like.

You have nothing to lose but your negativity. Just try Ho’oponopono.

Please do listen to the music in the clip. It’s outstanding.

Energy, Mind, News, Uncategorized

Healing, Ho'oponopono, Joe Vitale, Law of Attraction, The Secret, Zero Limits

February 14, 2011

5 Comments

Tao 5: Who Cares!

Says the Tao:

1. Nature doesn’t care. Nature is carefree.

Nature does not try to be good or bad. What happens, happens.

The wise one does not support or oppose one or the other.

People often ask why nature is cruel. Thousands of people die in a tsunami or an earthquake. We can rave and rant, grieve and blame. Would that matter?

You are driving a big truck. You run over an anthill. Thousands of ants die. Would you even know? If you did, would you care?

In the scheme of the universe, we are no more important than ants or even smaller creatures. Nature does not play favorites. We do. So, we suffer.

2. The Tao is infinite. It is eternal. It is inexhaustible.

The more one takes, the more it gives. It does not hoard or hold back.

The Tao does not speak. It acts.

The wise one who knows does not speak. One who speaks does not know.

The more we talk, the more we think of ourselves. In silence, we go within. We think of others. Silence is truth. Words are lies.

Do we need to talk to act? Can we do what we need to in silence? Would that make a difference? Would that help in our doing more things right? Contemplate!

One of the oldest Veda scriptural saying is:

You are infinite. The universe is infinite. From infinity arose infinity. When infinity leaves infinity, infinity still remains.

Whatever one wants to call it, the law of potentiality, the law of attraction or whatever, the truth is that the universe gives without questioning why. You need not even ask. Just don’t refuse!

We are part of a hologram. We are a chip of the hologram of the universe. We are the same energy. What the universe can do, we too can.

Watch the Dalai Lama laughing. You may not understand a word of what he says. Does it matter?

When the universe smiles, do we need to question and analyze?

Become the Tao. Wealth and fame will follow you.

Fame, Spirituality, Tao, Wealth

Dalai Lama, fame, Hologram, nature, Tao, universe, Veda, wealth

February 10, 2011

Tao 4: Without Beginning or End

1. Tao is neither full nor empty.

Being full makes us conceited. Being empty makes us ignorant.

What matters is not how much we know, but what we know.

Does any one really care about what we know? If what we know helps someone, that person cares. If we promote ourselves for our own sake, who cares?

Marketing gurus talk about focusing on the client. But most promotions and advertisements talk about the product or service, and not the customer. How does a product sell without the customer?

2. Tao is not about excelling. Tao is not about comparison. Tao is about harmony.

Avoid being one extreme or another. Avoid greed as well as fear.

Nothing needs to be hated or obsessed about.

Tao is not this or that. It is One.

Our entire life is about comparison. From childhood, from school, we are ranked. The first three get medals. The rest become invisible. Is there a better way to reduce self-esteem?

Do we really need all that we want? How much can we really eat? How many rooms can we sleep in? How many dresses or shoes can a woman wear at one time? Do we buy things for ourselves or to prove to others what we have?

3. No one created Tao. Nothing came before Tao. Tao was always present.

Tao is eternal. Tao is without beginning or end.

Tao is the way of life. Life has always been.

Life came before God. If not, how did God exist?

Who created God? Before man did God exist?

If there are so many Gods, one for each religion and culture, who is the real God?

Will the true God please stand up?

Philosophy, Tao, Uncategorized

advertising, Fear, God, Greed, guru, life, marketing, religion, Religion and Spirituality, Tao, Taoism

February 9, 2011

Tao 3: Balance

1. Good men are valuable but if too esteemed cause envy, so beware

Possessions are essential, but if too valuable get stolen, so beware

2. By keeping the mind still, satisfied with what one needs

Comparison dissolves, envy retreats, wisdom dawns

3. Renouncing the results of action , acting without goals

Doing gets focused and restores harmony and peace

These verses can be interpreted in many ways and have been. One noted Western scholar says that Lao Tse advised the rulers to keep his citizens ignorant and their bellies full. Quite rational!

These verses resonate with those of the Bhagavad Gita.

Krishna says: Act, as you must. You cannot stay in action. But, do not focus on results. You have no control.

We have NO control. We only believe we do. When things go right, we are ready to take responsibility. When things go wrong we apportion blame.

Is anyone so confident of even the next breath?

When one’s next breath is not in one’s control, when no one is sure how long one will live, where is the question of certainty of being sure of the result of what we do?

Yes, we can intend. We should intend well for all. We should act in line with our intent. Let no one be so arrogant to assume that all that one intends will happen.

To be content and to be without comparison with another, is to be happy.

That is Tao.

Spirituality, Tao, Uncategorized

Bhagavad Gita, Blame, envy, Krishna, Laozi, Philosophy, Responsibility, Tao, Tao Te Ching, Veda

February 4, 2011

7 Comments

How to Awaken your Body Mind Spirit?

I tried getting a video clip to suit this piece. I gave up after a lengthy search. Whatever i found on the net to fit this piece was not suitable.

In a recent ICA coaching teleclass, we talked about Energization. Some said exercise gives them energy. Some felt tired after exercise. Some felt energized, or was it inspired, after reading some inspiration material or hearing some music or seeing someone do something spectacular.

What energizes the body may not always energize the mind or the spirit or the other way around. True energization happens when the mind, body and spirit get energized together. Our spirit raises, our mind excites and our body gets ready for action. Those in sports or any competitive field would recognize this mind body spirit coordination to be essential to flow with it, for being in the zone and to win.

Yoga and Tantra lay out a cafeteria of techniques to raise our energy. The concept of chakras, energy centers in our body, a Tantra concept is an extraordinarily powerful one. Unfortunately, this concept and its associated techniques have been misused with dangerous results. Despite having been grounded in the traditional methods, i foolishly attempted techniques described by a Californian New Age author to raise my ‘kundalini’ with disastrous results. I nearly lost my eyes. Later, i discovered others who had lost their minds!

Sir John Woodroffe‘s ‘The Serpent Power’ , published a hundred years ago, remains one of the authentic translations of the original Sanskrit texts, to understand the concept of the energy centers and energy meridians in one’s body. These meridians and centers are the connectors of mind, body and spirit. Chinese systems of ‘chi’ parallel this concept.

These energy centers control our emotional states as well. Meditating upon the energy centers unblock our negative emotional states and release the passage of energy. Yoga, through the physical postures called asanas and breath control techniques called pranayama, attempts the same. Over several posts in future i shall describe some of these techniques, sanitized for safety and yet powerful enough for daily practice.

Let me describe a very simple, yet powerful, technique to start your day on the right note. This has Sufi origins.

When we are asleep, we move into a state called the causal body. When we are awake, we are in our gross body state. In between, when we drop off to sleep or when we are about to wake, we transition through our subtle body state. Our energy centers are most active at this state as they lie on this plane connecting all three body states.

As you are about to get up, but not still out of bed, go through these simple steps.You are in your subtle body state.

With your eyes closed, touch yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, slowly, moving from head to soles and then reversing from soles to head. Congratulate yourself, admire yourself for having such a wonderful body, and mind and intellect and spirit, (irrespective of whether you believe you have or not). Offer gratitude to the universe for having given you such a magnificent gift.

Do this sincerely. Take your time. use either hand or both. Even if you no hair on your head, admire your bald pate. So with every other body part. Do not discount yourself on any score. You are the perfect 10.

God, or the Supreme Power, is not a lathe operator producing 7 billion mass products of humans. He is an artist who creates each one with care, love, compassion and pride. Who are we to judge what He created in His wisdom? Admire, congratulate and thank.

Do this over 20 minutes at least. Repeat till you are convinced of your unique value, daily and day after day. You can also do it just before you go to sleep.

Try this for 21 days and see for yourself the difference.

If you like, set yourself an intent, say weight loss or whatever, before you do this.

If you have any questions, do mail me.

February 3, 2011

13 Comments

Dare to Bare!

What is truth?

Is truth absolute or is it relative? is life black & white or is it a myriad shade of grays.

The Tao says in all black there is white, and in all white there is black. In all truth, there are lies and in all lies, lie some truths.

Buddha says that everything is relative, including truth. In his various teachings, he provides a few conditions: 1. Is it really true? 2. Is it kind to others? 3. Is it needed? 4. Is it for common good?

The Rotary has adopted this as its 4 Way Test with a few modifications.

The Hindu scriptures talk of a universal truth that is eternal and immutable. Everything else is maya or illusion, because everything material changes in time and space. Only energy is constant. Therefore, the ultimate and only truth is the intelligent energy of Cosmos.

What about the daily reality of problems, aches, pains and excitements? Aren’t they real, you may ask. What about my stomach pain? If i consider it an illusion, will it go away? Well, it may or it may not, but we don’t live in the truth of a stomach pain all the time. We do things that lead to the stomach pain. This leads to an entirely different discussion of karma, of cause and consequences.

Buddha spoke of impermanence or aniccha, as the way to look at life. Everything in this world, he said, is impermanent and that too shall change. What we call change management is a Buddhist doctrine. I remember enduring intense pain as i sat through a 10 day Vipassana course for the first few days and suddenly as if miraculously the pain vanished. Then, i realized the power of impermanence.

We call list honesty and integrity as our prime virtues. Sometimes, we swear to die for them. Whose honesty and whose integrity are we defending? If my honesty, my truth and my integrity differ from my neighbor, is it right for me to kill him or for him to kill me? Isn’t that what we see in many parts of the world everyday?

What gives us the right to impose our truths on someone else? One culture bans eating of pigs. Another reveres cows. Another demolishes everything that moves. So, what is right? What is true?

Nothing is.

Quantum Physics has stood classical Physics on its head on this issue. There is no certainty from the QP standpoint. Everything that happens in this universe, happens as a probability, not certainty. All laws of classical Physics have exceptions. When we say exception prove the rule, we recognize that there is no rule to start with.

We now know through QP that sub atomic particles behave totally in a random way. What amazes scientists is that sub atomic particles put on a show that is different to each observer. Over a thousand years ago, a Hindu philosopher Shankara said: The seer defines what he sees.

Truth lies in the eyes of the beholder. So does fraud. Nothing is inherently right or wrong. Once we accept this , most of our conflicts will cease.

Below is a clip from ‘What the bleep do we know?’, a documentary put together by Quantum Physicists. One can love it and one can hate it, bit no one can ignore its message. There are a number of clips on Youtube or you can buy the video at your friendly neighborhood retailer.

Energy, Spirituality, Uncategorized

Buddha, Buddhism, Classical physics, Gautama Buddha, Physics, Quantum mechanics, Quantum Physics, Subatomic particle, what the bleep do we know

February 3, 2011

Tao 2: Contrast

Says the Tao on Contrast:

1. Why do we contrast? Why do we compare? Why the negative and positive? Why the duality?

Beauty of the beautiful leads to ugliness of the not so beautiful. Skill of the skillful leads to the incompetence of the not so skillful.

To the master, would this matter?

Nature is not dual. All is One. One is All. I am the Cosmos. The Cosmos is I.

2. When we see one exist, we see the other absent. Height denotes the absence of shortness. Difficulty denotes the absence of ease. Before means someone is behind. Musical notes show that harmony follows difference.

Would death lead to life? Would being first lead to being last? Would peace lead to war?

Differentiation leads to difference.

Conditioning leads to differentiation. Conditioning is human. Nature does not dictate.

3. The master does not differentiate. He does not compare. He does not tell you what to do.

To him, death and life are same. To him, success and failure are same. To him, praise and calumny are the same.

In everything good, there is something not so good. Nothing is ever bad all the time and all through. There is always good in bad. That is Tao.

The master speaks in silence. His silence is more powerful than anyone’s words.

4. Nature creates without claiming ownership. What grows, grows on its own. What grows, dies. It grows again. The energy is unceasing and eternal. Creator does not claim he creates.

The master does not dictate. He waits. He allows things to happen. He flows with what happens.

The wise coach flows with what happens. He is mindful of his presence. His presence guides the other.

Tao does not coach. Tao lets the path open. We travel as it opens. When the journey seems right, its destination is always right.

Spirituality, Tao, Uncategorized

Alternative, Coaching, Conditioning, Duality, Health, Mindful, Religion and Spirituality, Tao, Tao Lin, Taoism, Taos New Mexico

January 31, 2011

A frozen Blackberry and a fruit coach

Well, if this doesn’t cheer up your day nothing ever will, even if you are American and hate Brit humor.

The guy behind the counter is a fruit coach, specializing in digital fruits. I guess that is the best way to describe him. given the proliferating niches in coaching arena.

I had this dream last night.

I dreamed that i was coaching someone in my teleclass. It was a woman who had coached me in a previous class and i guess i wasn’t particularly co-operative as a client. Now, it was her opportunity.

‘What seems to be the problem today, Julie?’ i ventured in the manner of bespoke coaches.

‘Nothing really. Nothing you can me help with anyway.’ she said, much in the way of my wife.

I couldn’t give up in front of twenty people glued to their headphones, listening in with vicarious enjoyment, hoping that i would soon trip. No way.

‘Let’s not give up so easily’ , i rushed on before she walked out on me, ‘let’s see, what was your first feeling as you woke up this morning?’

‘Don’t even remind me. I wanted to kill that damn dog.’ she growled.

‘What dog, why? You seem like a dog lover.’ i ventured.

‘What do you know of me, anyway?’ she growled again, ‘It’s my neighbor’s dog. It’s been barking the whole night for the last few nights. I haven’t slept a wink.’

I thought of telling her about the dog that didn’t bark leading Sherlock Holmes to the killer in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles‘, but thought better of it. Given her mood not the best time to talk about crimes and killers.

‘Is it a he dog or a she dog?’ i enquired tentatively.

‘Does it matter?’ she was shrill now, ‘I have been without sleep for days and you ask me this. How would that help?’

How would I know? I was told to listen and ask powerful questions, and that is what i was doing.

‘Ok, How about this?’, I asked, ‘How would killing the dog help? They may put you in jail and the guy may buy another dog.’

‘Yes, I agree’ she said for once, ‘guys actually, two guys living together. Earn a lot, bought this trophy dog and probably don’t have time to feed it.’

‘Ok, listen’ i offered inspired, ‘let us look at it this way. Are you looking for an external solution or an internal one?’

‘What do you mean internal solution?’ her voice rose again, ‘you think i am hallucinating?’

‘Oh,no, no, not at all’ i was highly re-conciliatory, ‘let us look at external ones then. What would you want to do other than killing the dog. Can’t you do something neighborly?’

‘Well’ she said, ‘i don’t dislike dogs. Perhaps i can feed it once a day. But, then it may not be hunger. May be they are feeding it too much. May be it’s lovesick. How would i know? I am not a dog whisperer!’ But she seemed to be thinking now, not all that hostile. This coaching thing is good, bro.

Nor was i to be honest. ‘I know, but once you get to know the dog you would get to know right?’ i was talking a chance, but what the heck, life is not worth living without taking risks, even it was in dream coaching.

‘Ok, you seem to be OK, you know’ Julie said, ‘never thought of befriending the dog. May give me something to do. You know i get so lonely.’

Well, coming from her that was high praise and i preened. I stopped just in time. Ye Gods, i don’t want to get into this I am lonely bit, i said to myself, be careful buddy.

‘Yeah’ i tried to sound bright, ‘ these guys, your neighbors, may be really cool guys. Getting to know the dog is getting to know the owner right. That would make you much less lonely.’

‘Didn’t you hear me?’ her voice rose again, ‘they are a couple. What will i do with them? Perhaps getting to know a guy like you better may make me feel less lonely?’

I woke up instantly. When you are in serious danger in a dream, you instantly wake up. That’s why no one has been mauled by a lion in a dream.

I was perspiring. That was a near escape. I guess Julie had not read the ICF Ethics manual carefully, about relating to a Coach.The morning seemed so bright now!

Need to check with ICA whether this would count for my coaching hours.

Coaching, Uncategorized

Coaching, Dog, Fruit, Hound of the Baskervilles, Pets, Recreation, Sherlock Holmes, United States

January 29, 2011

Zen2Coaching from Tao 1.0: The Journey

My acknowledgment to Lao Tzu and the internet site for the logo. The interpretation and application to Coaching is mine. For whatever is incorrect, I am responsible.

Chapter 1 of Tao, The Journey, says:

1.1 The Tao of Coaching is the journey without a destination. It is the first step of a thousand miles, endless and joyous. It is a process, not an end. It is being, not action.

Do not make a schedule and a timetable, nor a list of do and don’t.

Wherever the journey takes you, as long as you enjoy the journey, the destination will be right for you.

1.2 There is no start and no end. It is an ongoing creation. You are not the creator. You are a witness.

Be aware as it creates itself. Being leads to doing. You merely watch.

Watch and listen. There is no need to act. Creation creates itself.

1.3 There is no outcome. Whatever happens is the result. If one approaches with a goal in mind, it will be a fruitless journey.

Obsession with destination takes the joy out of the journey. Just be, watch, listen and enjoy. Why bear the burden of your baggage when the train carries the load?

Unload your judgment.

1.4 As we travel, scenes change. Simple becomes complex and complexity resolves into simplicity. Such is the wonder of Tao.

In the beginning the mountain is the mountain, the river is the river. In the middle, the mountain is no longer the mountain nor the river the river. In the end, the mountain becomes the mountain and the river become the river.

Relax and be one with the path of Tao.

Spirituality, Tao, Uncategorized, Zen

Coaching, Lao Tzu, Laozi, Religion and Spirituality, River, Tao, Tao Te Ching, Taoism, Texts

January 26, 2011

10 Comments

Coaching a dog!

Shangu is a mongrel who adopted us a few years ago.

We had lost our pets one after another and my wife did not want to keep any more pets and suffer their loss. Then Shangu turned up at our gate as a little pup. A year later, his step sister joined him. One day, a car ran over her hind leg. My wife took her to the local vet, who put her on a splint. Neighbors found this pup with a splint endearing. Soon, Shangu and his step sister, who my wife named Mangu, owned the street we live in.

Shangu and Mangu love their freedom. However many times we put a collar on them, they manage to remove them and bury them where we cannot find hem again. They come into our house and go out as they please. If we close the gates, they find a way to jump over the wall. On occasion, when we return late at night, we find them inside at the door step patiently waiting for us, and a late night snack.

They know their meal times. Beyond that they decide what they do.

Coaching a dog is different from training a dog. By coaching a dog, one allows the dog to do what it wants, while gently guiding it through motivation. They do learn, but it requires patience. In contrast, training a dog can be brutal. We have seen trainers abusing dogs and found it abhorrent. Such trainers should be behind bars.

Coaching a dog is not that different from coaching a human being. The only difference is that a human being talks. I do not see it as a beneficial difference. Coaches who work with clients who have sensory disabilities may empathize with what i say.

In any coaching situation, the coach must observe client responses carefully. In telephonic coaching , one is limited to vocal communication. If it through Skype or another VOIP, one may be able add limited visuals. Even in such limited sensory communication situations, we can learn more about the client response through tonal and pitch variations. We can also learn from silence and what the client does not say.

In the absence of a coach observing very keenly how a client responds and refining the coaching response to lead the client forward to the client’s stated intentions, the interaction stops at knowledge transfer. One says something and the other says some thing else. Whatever each says may be meaningful, but not additive. The conversation runs on parallel paths.

Observant and responsive coaching adds exponential value to the coach client interaction. The client can leap over blocks of limiting and undermining beliefs if they become aware of how debilitating they are.

People who love animals do not judge them. They accept their seemingly wayward behavior as natural. We know that we do not own Shangu and Mangu. Yes, we do feed them, but that does not give us a right to tell them what to do. Can we help them to be a little more sensitive to human needs? Can we guide them not to chase people on cycles? Perhaps. We try and over time we succeed.

Can we use this understanding with humans? perhaps!

Coaching, Mind, Uncategorized

Alternative, Business, Clients, Coaching, Dog, Health, Pet, Skype

January 22, 2011

Bhagavad Gita: Not cut, wet, burnt or dried

Weapons cut It not Fire burns It not

Water wets it not

Wind dries It not

It cannot be cut, burnt, moistened or dried

It is everlasting, stable, firm

Eternal and universal

Krishna mentioned in the earlier verse that the passage from life to death is akin to changing one’s clothes. The clothes in this case are the mind body and the entity that changes the clothes is the everlasting energy underlying the mind body. He implies that this transition from life to death should not evoke the fear it does in us, since very little actually changes; at least very little of anything that matters.

In this verse, Krishna goes further. He explains graphically how that energy within us, that energy which continues even after the mind body perishes, cannot be destroyed by any of the elements that make up the mind body system.

Earth, in this case a weapon of steel that comes out of the earth, water, fire and wind have no effect on the energy that is the source of these elements. That which has been created cannot affect the creator. It is significant that Krishna does not mention the fifth element akasa, which is commonly translated as ‘ether’ or space as one of the created elements that cannot affect the energy of the spirit.

Is the fifth element, therefore, the ultimate energy of the universe, which is indestructible, everlasting, stable and firm?

In the chakra energy system in which kundalini is the inner energy residing in the mind body system, the journey is for kundalini to emerge from its seat in the muladhara chakra and travel through five other chakras to reach and merge with its ultimate destination of the universal energy in the sahasrara. In a sense, this is also a journey of our life as we evolve.

In Tantra, the muladhara chakra is considered to be of the earth element, swadishthana of water, manipuraka of fire, anahata of air and vishuddhi of ether. If one were to superimpose Krishna’s verse on the chakra system, the sahasrara chakra ought to represent akasa, the ultimate energy.

Are there several layers of energy corresponding to the three upper chakras?

While explaining samadhi, the ultimate state of mind body spirit congruence in Yoga, some of our scriptures talk about not one but several states of samadhi. In fact, some talk about infinite states of samadhi, as one gateway leading into another. To me this concept is in line with Quantum Physics and the concept of Singularity.

Singularity exists in theory, and has not been experienced; so too perhaps samadhi. No one who has experienced this state has emerged to tell us of their experience. Those who have claimed to have experienced this state and talked about it perhaps cannot be believed!

Coaching, Gita, Hindu Scriptures, inner energy, mind body spirit, Patanjali Yoga, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Tantra, Uncategorized, Yoga

Bhagavadgita, Chakra, inner energy, Krishna, mind body spirit, Tantra, Yoga

September 11, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: New Clothes for Old

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net

As one changes new clothes for old

Self casts off old bodies

Entering new

Metaphor, simile or analogy, what a comparison! This is what the Bhagavad Gita memorable.

Krishna explains the process of death so simply and so eloquently. All that happens is that we cast of this body and assume another. Why is it so painful?

When he was nearing the end of his life with cancer, doctors kept asking Bhagvan Ramana to consume pain killers to cope with what they knew would the terrible pain he would be going through. Ramana simply said: This body itself is not mine. It does not affect me. How can any pain to this body that is not mine affect me?

There have been very few in living memory such as Ramana. Ramana’s detachment and disengagement is the ultimate Fourth State of Awareness, Turiya or Samadhi, that Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita terms as surrender or renunciation. When one has the ability to disengage from the finite and mortal form of mind and body, fully connected with the energy space within and without, this body is no more than a covering that comes off, perhaps to be replaced.

Is this realisation difficult?

I don’t think so. All of us do know that we have a finite life. Yet, we do not wish to go and let go. We surround ourselves with multiple desires and needs. We need children, and when we have children we need grandchildren. When we have grand children we seek their children.

One house or one car or one of anything is never enough. We need more. The greed never ends. Millionaires and billionaires live with the mindset of poverty living in insecurity, where as the truly homeless renunciate is free. What an irony?

In Bhaja Govindam, Shankara says:

Body limp and head hairless

Face weak and mouth toothless

Old man needing a stick to move

Still unquenched with desires

I am yet to see someone saying he or she is ready to go. Even at deathbed there are desires and fears that makes one want to cling on to one’s breath as if it is in our control. This is what Yudhishtra talks about as the ultimate irony in one’s life in the Yaksha Prasna incident in Mahabharata, when questioned by the God of Death and Justice Yama: I see people seeing other people dying every day. Yet, they want to live on.

Buddha demonstrated this truth to Gotami when she sought his help to bring her dead child back to life: Bring me just a spoonful of mustard seeds from a home that has never experienced death.

It is not about bravery or courage. It is about sheer awareness. Death is about changing clothes. Be happy you will soon wear new clothes!

Buddhism, Coaching, Death, Gita, Hindu Scriptures, inner energy, mind body spirit, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Uncategorized

Adi Shankara, Arjuna, Bhagavadgita, Buddha, Death, Krishna, Mahabharata, Ramana Maharshi, Turiya

August 14, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Who destroys?

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net.

He who is eternal, indestructible, uncreated, and limitless

Who does he cause to kill

Who can he kill?

In the commentary I have of Shankara on Gita, translated by Alladi Mahadeva Sastri first in 1897, over 6 pages are devoted to explanation of this seemingly simple verse.

Shankara in his comment on the previous verse refers to the Self as devoid any transformation, as one that stays as is, with no creation or destruction or growth or any modification. Self is the state of being. This means it is devoid of action.

In a sense, in my own interpretation, this is the concept of the inactive, potential energy filled Purusha in Sankhya Yoga theory. In my mind’s eye, this is how I view Shiva, the silent and potent energy. Purusha has the active principle of Prakriti inbuilt in it, and in Shiva the active half is of Shakti, as the duality. However, in Krishna’s singularity concept of Self as the ultimate Brahman, that duality becomes the singular inactive and yet all powerful That, one that is eternal and uncreated, and still That which creates and what eventually dies as well.

In the absence of any action how can that entity kill or cause to kill?

I can understand the statement that it cannot kill as it is inactive. However, if that entity causes other creations, which in turn die, why cannot they cause others to die?

This then raises the question of what death is.

Is death an end or is it a beginning? If as if our scriptures say existence is a continuum, which Krishna elaborates on later, death is not an end. It may not be a beginning, yet a gateway to another existence. What then would killing achieve?

Does destroying the mind body, which in any case will destruct on its own at some point, equal killing? Shankara says it is about the mental makeup, the intent. If that killing is with the understanding of the continuance of the energy despite the destruction of the mind body, there is no intent to destroy, therefore no intent to kill.

You may ask if this is specious logic. I don’t know. It is the response of the doer. If the doer has renounced all intent to destroy and yet carries out the act of destruction as a process, would it be different?

Look at nature. Thousands are killed in earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. Would there be a point to be proved in labelling nature as a murderer? If you drive over an anthill and kill a few thousand ants, would you be a murderer in the ant world? When countries battle and millions are killed, why is called war and not murder?

If individuals are killed, it is murder, punishable. If millions are killed it is war, and heroes are rewarded. Is that logic any better? Societal rules are formed looking at death as an end, something that can be prevented. Krishna advises us to look at it differently.

What kind of society will we become if we did? Would we become saints or monsters?

Later verses clarify this point.

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Adi Shankara, Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, Mahabharata, mind body spirit, Shakti, Shiva

August 7, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Eternal Energy

I acknowledge this graphic of the pole star from the Net.

Never born never dying

Neither being nor ceasing to be

Unborn, forever, constant and primal

It is not killed when the body is

This verse is about ‘That’ the Self, the Atman, a microcosm of the macrocosmic Brahman.

In simple terms this Self is changeless. It is forever.

The mind body goes through six modes of modifications, similar to Shakespeare’s seven stages in As you like It.

These are: birth, existence, growth, change, decay, perish, each denoting a stage of life called bhava vikara. One can understand

five of these six if one accepts an entity that is forever, not being born, and therefore not dying, not growing, not changing, and not decaying.

Not existing?

What is it that does not exist? What does Krishna mean?

Here, existence is related to a time space boundary. Something that exists here and now for a certain period in a certain space.

The Atman or the Brahman that never was and never will be, and yet is forever, does not fit this definition of existence.

These modifications or transformations are part of the Annamaya Kosha sheath, the gross physical body that is created,

nurtured, grows, decays, and perishes. Not so with the Self.

What Krishna once again points out to Arjuna is that when the mind body perishes, dies or killed, nothing much happens.

There is something that continues. That something is the energy of Atman merging with the Brahman.

This is now proven by science through the beautiful equation E=MC2. All that happens at death is that

physical matter is converted to indestructible energy.

I have used the terms Atman and Brahman interchangeably, and purists will be horrified. Yet, if asked to explain they

will find it difficult to explain. Yes, Atman is the energy that resides within the mind body, whereas Brahman is the

absolute energy field of the universe. Yes, there is a quantitative difference. Is there a qualitative difference? is there a

qualitative difference between a holographic whole and a holographic piece? If there wouldn’t the whole purpose of a

hologram be lost?

Energy is absolute, in whatever form it exists. In a sense it has no existence, since it is the fibre of all existence.

This entire verse is about energy, that we are all energy, we are immortal and we are of infinite potential.

What a difference it would make if each of us internalises this truth Krishna articulates.

Instead, scholars quibble about whether Krishna encourages evil doers and terrorists by declaring that nothing dies when it

is killed.

Krishna rises above social mores and rules when he talks about the law of conservation of energy 5000 thousand odd years ago.

Nothing that is matter can live beyond a certain time and space. Beyond that it becomes energy, which is forever.

We are forever.

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July 31, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Slayer or Slain

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net.

Whoever views him as the killer

Who ever views him as the killed

Both are wrong, he neither slays nor is slain

Moving forward from the last verse, where he said that whereas the Self is eternal, its manifested mind body forms have an end in that form, urging Arjuna to fight, Krishna now provides more substance to remove Arjuna’s disinclination to kill.

Krishna’s injunction to Arjuna to fight is not an open invitation to all to indulge in wanton killing. It is an advice to one who is a warrior in the middle of the battle field having resolved to end injustice through fighting. Krishna’s advice needs to be viewed in the context of the responsibility of the person and intent. A soldier’s duty is to fight, and as needed to kill. There can be no pacifist soldier. There cannot be as well as soldier who kills selectively based on his choice. he obeys the system and its rules, the code of conduct, the dharma. So would the police and other similar professions act.

On the other hand, the code of conduct, dharma, of the medical profession and others associated with it is to heal. There can be no intent to kill in such a profession, under whatever provocation. In the case of a warrior, what drives him is the desire to end what is perceived as evil. In the case of a doctor the motivation is to save lives. These activities need to be viewed in the context what Krishna refers to later as the disengaged state of mind while performing actions. There should be no obsession with the outcome while performing these actions. One must act according to one’s dharma and intent based on that dharma. That is all. The rest is not the responsibility of the doer.

Having said that the mind body has an end, Krishna anticipates Arjuna’s query as to why he should be the cause of that end for some mind body. Even if that person has to die, why should i cause his death, Arjuna may ask.

In answer to that anticipated query, Krishna says: That which causes you to act, the eternal Self, of which you are a microcosm, neither kills nor is killed. Self, like nature, is neutral. It does not have an intent. When nature destroys thousands in an earthquake or tsunami, no purpose would be served in blaming nature. What happens, happens. Such is the nature of Self; it merely IS.

Krishna tells Arjuna that he surrender to the Self within him. It is not he who is acting, but the Self, when he is acting in dharma. The results of the action do not impact him. This verse has tremendous implications in terms of karma. Actions done without engagement and desire, in the line of dharma, do not face karmic consequences.

Reflect on this.

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July 26, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Energy

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net

Self is eternal, indestructible, unknowable

Its manifested bodies have an end

Fight therefore, Arjuna

Krishna makes a clear distinction between the real and unreal, manifest and unmanifest, and transient and permanent in this verse. This verse in a way encapsulates all that Krishna said before and says later.

Krishna distinguishes between Self and self. Self is real; self is transient. Self is the spirit and the energy that is forever, whereas self is the mind body that perishes with the last breath we take. Self, as Krishna says, is eternal. What does eternal mean? Nitya, the Sanskrit word used here is usually translated as eternal or always. When something is considered eternal, it does not have an end. Does it then have a beginning? When something cannot be destroyed, was it ever created? Anything that is created has an end point by the law of nature. All matter perishes.

When manifested bodies, the mind bodies that you and I occupy come to an end, what then happens?

Even science has an answer to it today! Matter converts to energy when it comes to an end. Energy has no end. Energy is eternal and indestructible. The opening verse of the Upanishads, the first verse of Isa Vasya Upanishad, says all that exists is energy. The mind body has an end as matter. When that end comes it converts into energy and becomes eternal. It may or may not return as matter, and even if it does the cycle back into energy will continue. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

Krishna says that this energy is unknowable. One may say that one feels energy or feels energetic, when the energy is manifested in the mind body, or any other matter in one form or another. The underlying energy itself is not perceived by the senses. As a result is is not interpreted by the mind. What the mind does not cognise is not knowable. In one sense, we never know what energy form the mind body will take when it comes to an end is unknown. All talks about reincarnation is hypothetical. When the energy itself is unknown, how can one predict the material form it may take again?

Finally, Krishna says to Arjuna to fight on.

This verse is the answer to Arjuna’s dilemma of whether he should fight and kill his kinsmen, thereby incurring sins, or fight regardless as his dharma as a kshatriya. Krishna here does not address either part of the dilemma. He does not talk about kshatriya code of conduct or about whether following that will attracts sin. He cuts the root of those arguments by questioning Arjuna about what he is destroying by killing his kinsmen. He says simply that when the manifested bodies come to perishable end, the matter converts into something eternal. So, nothing gets destroyed!

This is also one of the most controversial verses of the Gita from a societal perspective. What Krishna says is the natural law, which all animals obey and act upon. Human societal laws are artificial, designed to create an organised, civilised society. Where do these two laws, the natural and the societal meet, if at all?

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July 19, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: What is Real

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net.

The Real is imperishable

Pervades all, and inexhaustible

That none can destroy

Krishna talked about the difference between Real and unreal in the last verse. He said the unreal does not exist, the real alone exists. Shankara and Vedanta call the unreal maya or roughly translated illusion. There is no real equivalence to the Sanskrit term and concept maya in any other language. Maya is about that which exists in the gross body state or sthula sareera state, sometimes even at higher levels of mind body states such as sukshma sareera and karana sareera, the subtle and causal states, but does not exist at highest level of nirvana sareera, the disengaged Fourth State of awareness. Perhaps at another time I can go into details of sareera and kosha states as related to mind body and how to move to the mind body less Fourth State.

In the movie ‘Beautiful Mind’, the scientist Nash gets hit by a stone thrown by his friend Charles, who is fed up with Nash’s talk about the real and unreal, and maya. Nash bleeds and Charles sneers, ‘This too is maya , eh?’

This is a brilliant example how confusing the concept of maya is. It is not the reality of the physicality of the event, but its permanence in time and space. A reader commented on my last blog about how difficult this concept of real and unreal is to master. Yes, it is, as long as it is a concept. Maya can only be understood as experiential reality through awareness practices such as yoga nidra. The unreal does not mean it does not exist, only that it is not permanent. What is permanent is unseen, as it is beyond time space, and therefore beyond mind to perceive. When we learn to disengage from the daily sensory experiences, what seems real in the Awake state of jagrat, the answer to Who Am I that Bhagvan Ramana spoke about can be realised.

The movement out of the clutches of maya, which too is a creation of nature as Prakriti, is through the process of moving into higher states of awareness, step by step dropping the body first and the mind. It is possible and can be learnt, but not taught!

Another scene from “Beautiful Mind’:

Alicia : You want to know what’s real? This…

[putting her hand on Nash’s heart and his hand on her face]

Alicia: … this is real.

Feelings are more real than physical actions. We move from the physical gross body state of annamaya kosha to higher states of the emotional state of manonmaya kosha and the subtle thought state of vigyanamaya kosha. They too, unfortunately are temporary, as all of us discover in love and life.

Krishna says here that Real is imperishable, inexhaustible and indestructible. He returns to this theme several times. In Hindu Upanishads, the Real is called ‘That’, ‘Isa’, ‘Ekam’, ‘Purnam’, ‘Sat’, ‘Brahman’ and such other words. I prefer the simplicity of ‘That’, in Sanskrit simply ‘Tat’. It is unknowable, unseeable and unreachable. This is why it is called ‘infinite, the state that can never be reached. Those well versed in mathematics can understand this better as the asymptotic state, like in a hyperbolic parabola, where the two arms of the curve tend to but never meet the axes.

The Real is real, but never reachable!

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July 12, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Real & Unreal

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net

The unreal has no existence

The real has no non existence

This is what the Wise see as the Truth 2.16

This seemingly complex verse is the essence of Shankara’s concept of maya, illusion, of the unreal being perceived by the senses as real. Krishna here explains what is real sat and what is real asat.

Anything that is transient is asat, unreal and is maya, illusion. Anything that is constant is sat and real.

All that we perceive through our senses are transient. They exist within a time and space frame. Heat and cold or pain and pleasure or success and failure are perceived with specific reference to a time and place. They are caused by certain actions of either nature or us and last as long as the triggers of action are present. They then cease. They are seemingly real within that time and space frame, but cease to be of relevance beyond. This is what Buddha referred to as anicchha.

Shankara in his commentary on this verse talks about a clay pot. When we look at the pot what do we see? We see the vessel. The vessel, however, is made of clay, yet we hardly see the clay. The vessel contains air if empty and water if full. We do not see them either. We merely see the vessel, the superficial content.

The pot did not exist before it was made. It ceases to exist when in breaks. In both cases it reverts to its clay nature. So, the pot itself is transient, and unreal. In the same way, the clay is also unreal because it is not even perceived. Through this logic, all manifested creations of this world, which perish after a period of time and space, are unreal.

So, what is real in any of these cases?

The objects perceived and experienced are unreal. They are illusory in the sense they perish or change or disappear. For instance, our own body mind system is unreal, as it is programmed to perish at the end of a life time. All it takes is the exhalation not followed by an inhalation. It can happen any time, any place, any age. The entire concept of life and its experiences are unreal from this perspective, while seemingly real to the objects, which we are while breathing.

Is there something within this unreal transient object that never changes, never perishes and therefore real?

Ramana Maharishi used his Self Inquiry technique of Who Am I to seek the same realisation.

Contemplate on this before we go to the next verse.

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Adi Shankara, Bhagavadgita, Hindu Scriptures, Mahabharata, Ramana Maharshi

July 5, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Wise Man

I acknowledge this image of Kanchi Paramacharya from the Net

The wise man unaffected by senses, to whom

Pleasure and pain are same

He is fit to be immortal 2.15

Krishna follows from the last verse, in which he talked about the impermanence of sensory inputs. These are interpreted by our mind, the manas or sensory coordinator, along with ahankara or conditioned ego, and then stored in chitti or memory base. They convert neutral sensory inputs into feeling of hot and cold, pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, like and dislike and such other judgmental mind maps. All these are relative. The same experience may give one joy and another sadness. Feeling of pain depends on one’s threshold of pain. These feelings are also transient. They change with time and space.

In this verse, Krishna says that one who recognises the impermanence of such sensory perceptions interpreted as feelings and is therefore unaffected by them is a wise man. He says further that such a person is ready to be liberated into the immortal state of energy singularity.

I have met many who are well versed in yoga, meditation, scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. Unlike me they can quote this verse in its original Sanskrit. All it takes is a small trigger to spin them off into blind anger. They cannot tolerate dissent. They cannot tolerate others not bowing down to them in surrender. Yet, they masquerade as wise men. Avoid them like the plague.

A wise man is unaffected and disengaged by what goes on around him, or her. In my own experience I have come across only two people who fit Krishna’s description: Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi and the Paramacharya Chandrashekarendra Saraswati of Kanchi, both long since in energy state. It is not that they did not experience heat and cold, or pain through their senses. They disengaged from these inputs. They practised to perfection pratyahara, the fifth state of controlling senses in Ashtanga Yoga and elevated it to the ultimate eight state of disengagement or Samadhi. In his final stages of ravaging cancer when doctors wanted to administer morphine to deaden his pain, Ramana said: this body itself is not mine. How can I experience its pain?

As a child and later as a teenager I had visited the Paramacharya several times. The compassionate disengagement of this man, a saint if ever there was one, always reduced me to tears, such was his energy.

Zen talks about Buddha and No Buddha states . Even the Buddha goes through them. The trick is to stay in a No Mind state, the mindless state of not judging what is perceived. Every one of us can be a Buddha and a Son of God. We need to be mindless to be wise.

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July 1, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Mindfulness

bhagavad gita

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net.

Senses cause heat and cold, pleasure and pain

They come and go, impermanent

Endure them bravely

Our Vedic scriptures talk about four functions of the mind. These are manas, ahankara, chitti and buddhi. Manas is the sensory gateway. It collects the inputs from all our senses, the visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory, and converts all of them into thoughts and emotions that other parts of the mind can grasp. Ahankara is our ego, that interprets these sensory inputs based on our conditioning, the “I” ness. This creates individual mind maps, which differ from person to person as perspectives, though the observed reality may be identical. Ahankara is responsible for all conflicts as well as creativity.

Chitti puts all these mind maps into a memory base, partly easily accessible flash memory residing in our conscious mind, but mostly deeply stored memory, especially painful traumatic ones. These memories of chitti interact with the conditioning ahankara and the sensing manas to change the context of the content, especially the emotional tones. Finally, there is buddhi, the superior intelligence, which applies some meta logic to the stored conditioned mind map perception leading us to behaviour and action. Much depends on the ahankara in the way we interpret what we sense, and the buddhi, which applies a larger intelligent framework of awareness to these mind maps in defining the way we behave.

The Brihadharanyaka Upanishad says, ‘ we are what our thoughts are!’ Our thoughts are not individual elements. They are a stream of our consciousness passing through every one of the four parts of our mind.

Relating to th Western neurological model of the brain, I would relate manas to the hypothalamus, which processes sensory information, chitti to the hippocampus, which stores processed information, ahankara to the frontal cortex and buddhi to the prefrontal cortex. This can be and should be challenged, as I am no neurological expert.

What Krishna says here is this. It is our ego that creates the mind maps of pain and pleasure, heat and cold, success and failure, good and bad, through the conditioning that converts neutral observations into judgmental and emotional memories. He says these mere perceptions and change. This statement is related to Buddha’s observation of ‘anicchha’ or impermanence to everything related to our lives, and Shankara’s philosophy of maya. All reality is neutral. Nothing is good or bad, pleasure or pain. What happens ‘IS’. It is the mind that plays games on us. This is the state of mindfulness in which sensory impressions dominate.

We need to disengage with the knowledge that all this is a temporary illusion of the mind. Krishna explains how in the following verses.

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June 13, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Matter to Energy

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net.

This entity in this body passes through childhood to youth to old age

Then onto another body, which dos not disquiet the wise

The word ‘entity’ in the translation is my creation. In the verse in Sanskrit, Krishna uses no word to describe this movement from childhood to youth to old age and then at death to another body. Shankara uses the word Self in his commentary. Following the Upanishads, I would use the word That or more simply energy.

You can use any word you wish to describe the imperishable within that perishable body mind: Self, That or energy. It is the body mind that perishes at the end of a life time. It takes its own time, sometimes, sometimes not. Krishna here says with reference to Arjuna that the mind body passes through these stages of childhood, youth and old age. We can add more as Shakespeare did, with the seven stages in life. All that is created, those which are animate, grow. They grow in body, mind , skills and in several other aspects. With this growth ambitions grow.

We see many who after producing children, would like to see those children married. When their children marry, they would like to see them produce children. Then, they would like to see those grand children marry and produce. This desire is the survival instinct dominant in all of us. The question is, how long do we think this cycle can go on?

We know that some stage every body that is born and that grows, also dies. The mind body leaves with the last breath. Brain waves stop. Heart stops. The body left alone rots. Simply put, the mind body has reached its predetermined end and leaves. Something remains though! What is that something?

Krishna moves into that inquiry in the following verses.

Here he says: ‘That’ moves on to another body. According to Quantum Physics, matter and energy are convertible as Einstein postulated. Matter just does not perish. It becomes energy. So it is with our body mind. It becomes energy. That energy becomes matter again in another mind body.

Does this verse of Krishna prove reincarnation? I do not think so. I believe that when our mind body converts to energy at death, we become one with the universal energy. A part of that universal energy, a holographic part, becomes the driving energy of another mind body. Is it possible to identify where in that unlimited universal energy our tiny fractional energy is stored and track it down to another mind body?

In other verses in the Gita, Krishna does address this issue. Even those do not confirm reincarnation of one departing energy returning in entirety as another embodied entity.

For now, use this verse to console yourself and others that death is not the end of life, it is merely a gateway to another life, perhaps more fulfilling.

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June 9, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Science Meets Spirit

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net.

Never did I not exist, nor you, nor all these kings

None of us will ever cease to exist 2.12

These words of Krishna need to be pondered day after day throughout one’s life. Even then, we may not embed the consciousness of these words within us.

What does Krishna mean? This is an epigram of a few selected words, which can be amplified to several books to be read over a life time.

Shankara’s commentary says: Never did I cease to exist. On the other hand, I always existed through bodily births and deaths in multiple life times. Same is true of you and all these rulers of men. We shall never cease to exist. We shall continue to exist even after this body perishes, as the Self, the Atman, the imperishable energy in the past, present and future.

It is the body, and if one wishes to add the mind as part of the body, the mind body that perishes as a material object, when we die. All material objects that are created will eventually perish. There is no exception. Matter perishes.

Here Krishna says no. He says it is an illusion that the matter, that is you and I, perishes. He affirms we live on, that we never cease to exist. What does he mean?

Krishna was ahead of Einstein by several thousand years. He says here that nothing gets destroyed. A corollary to this would be that nothing gets created either. Is it all a cosmic illusion of the same stuff getting recycled? Isn’t that what Einstein says? Isn’t this what is the basis of all Quantum Science?

How often do we go behind and beyond the statements we learnt in elementary school such as Energy can neither be created nor destroyed? The same would be true of matter as well, as Krishna says. If matter converts into energy through the immortalised formula E=mC2, is it not true that energy can produce matter?

What happens as human population increases? What then decreases to allow this to happen, if the total energy is constant? Is it constant within the time and space constraints of this tiny Earth of ours, or is it a constant across this universe or even several universes?

The more we think about this, the more we move out of our own time space constraints. We are an insignificant piece, time space constrained as a material body, programmed to perish within a time frame. We are also the ultimate, a piece of the universal hologram, which is time space independent, and is forever, morphing but never increasing or decreasing.

We are the destructible matter. We are the imperishable energy. We can choose what we wish to be!

Reflect on this. This is where science meets spirit, thanks to Krishna

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June 1, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Grief Coaching

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net.

The Lord said:

You grieve for those not deserving grief, with words of wisdom

The wise do not grieve for the living or the dead

Grief counseling and coaching is a fashionable and lucrative niche. Advanced courses are run to train people in grief coaching. Before one rushes to enroll in one, a few minutes with Krishna may be useful, saving both money and time, and proving more effective.

Krishna follows this statement with a detailed account of the imperishable Self. For a moment, let us focus merely on this verse.

Grief, as an emotion, arises with any loss. It may be a material loss of wealth and assets, It may be one of loss of status and reputation, it may be of even knowledge, and it may be one of life, a threat to one’s own or the loss of a loved one. In the varna system (termed caste now) of Krishna’s days, before the onset of Kali Yuga, different varnas valued their dharma, life purpose, in different ways. As a result, punishment for transgression of dharma was based on what would make the person shameful based on his values of dharma. Let me explain.

A brahmin, generally a scholar or priest, valued his knowledge and reputation. Generally, loss of wealth, power or even life, would not faze a brahmin. Punishment to a brahmin was, therefore, to disrepute him or challenge his knowledge. Life would not be worth living for a brahmin after this, at least in Krishna’s days. This is reflected in the lives of Parashurama and Drona, both brahmins, who became warriors when they were insulted.

To a kshatriya, what mattered most was power, status and control, to retain which he will fight unto death. Punishment to a kshatriya would be to demean him through loss of status, which is what Parashurama and Drona meted out in revenge. A vaishya valued only wealth, and to him the only punishment of meaning would be monetary. In the case of a shudra, whose occupation was physical, the relevant punishment was physical.

This understanding of what loss meant to different groups of people also helped to understand how the emotion of grief through loss could be mitigated. Each one has to regain the sense of confidence by overcoming the loss. While this is relatively simpler in cases of material losses such as that of reputation, power, wealth and physical, sense of loss after losing someone one is attached to is deeper and more subtle. This requires an understanding of where the sense of loss is coming from.

If I lose a loved one, the loss is far greater than physical and tangible; it emotional. Oftentimes other emotional states of guilt and regret add on to that of grief, based on the feeling of ‘could I have prevented the loss somehow’. Kubler Ross outlines the five stage of grieving process as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This is a time based process, requiring venting and gradual awareness of the inevitable. What if the awareness of the inevitable can be internalized to start with to accelerate the end outcome of acceptance?

This is the process that all spiritual masters of all faiths have followed. I can write a book on these processes. In this blog I would make two references. The first is to Mahabharata, where in the chapter on ‘yaksha prasna’, Yamaraja asks Yudhishtra as to what is the strangest behavior he finds in humans. Yudhishtra says: we see people dying around all the time and know the inevitability of death, and yet all of us want to live for ever. The other is to Buddha, who when the young mother came to him with her dead child pleading to revive him, said: do bring me by night fall a spoonful of mustard seeds from a house that has never experienced death.

Arjuna laments the cruelty he would cause by killing his foes, who were once his elders, teachers, relatives and friends. Arjuna is overcome with grief. Krishna now coaches him on the inevitability of death. Whether at his hands or otherwise they would all die sometime. Every living being has to die. What is there to grieve, Krishna asks. One must remember the context of the battle field here. Krishna is not talking about wantonly causing death, but in the context of one being aware that death is a high probability outcome.

There are complexities of guilt and regret that ride on grief. We shall explore them elsewhere.

In the next verses, Krishna moves on deeper.

Bhagavad Gita: Coach Begins

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Krishna said:

Where are these unworthy thoughts arising from Arjuna

Of disgrace and being unworthy of the heavens?

Don’t be a coward, son of Pritha, it does not suit you

Get up, let go this weakness of heart, tormentor of foes

Arjuna said:

How can I send my arrows against Bhishma and Drona

Who I worship, destroyer of Madhu and other enemies?

I would rather beg than kill my teachers who I honor

If I do kill them my rewards will be tainted in blood

I am in a dilemma, fight or not to, who will win over who

I do not wish to live after killing my kinsmen

I feel helpless, my mind is in turmoil

Tell me what to do as your pupil?

I cannot see what will help overcome my grief

Even if I power, wealth and control over all the worlds?

Sanjaya Said:

Saying this to Krishna Arjuna said

I will not fight and lapsed into silence

Krishna , the coach of coaches, enters the scene here. The word ‘coach’ came from the word referring to a horse-drawn vehicle. So, it is quite appropriate that Krishna, as the charioteer of Arjuna, becomes his coach as well. In a sense, Krishna is more the acharya than the coach. While the two words are almost synonymous, an acharya in the Hindu tradition carries a greater responsibility and therefore, respect.

These verses are the beginning of the second chapter of Bhagavad Gita, which is called Sankhya Yoga. In this blog I use the original commentary of Adi Shankara translated by Alladi Mahadeva Sastry, first published in 1897. The explanation by Shankara on Sankhya philosophy is somewhat at odds with what I read in Wikipedia and other sources that rely upon foreign authors for explanation. Contrary to the explanation I find in these sources that Sankhya is a dualist philosophy and is similar to Yoga, Shankara says the opposite. Shankara says that Sankhya is about the non dual Self and its wisdom, Gnana, as different from Yoga, which is to do with action and differentiates between the duality of the doer and the Self, I am no expert, and any day I would go by Shankara.

This chapter, though called Sankhya Yoga, has nothing to do with the Ashtanga Yoga concepts of Patanjali. I could not find any good explanation as to why the chapters end with the term Yoga and also why they are classified as Karma, Bhakti and Gnana Yoga sections, each with six chapters. When I do find convincing answers shall write about them. However, this chapter is all about Krishna’s explanation about the Self, in line with Shankara’s definition of Sankhya.

In a sense, starting from this chapter, the rest of the Bhagavad Gita verses are about discovery of this Self, as taught by Krishna, God Incarnate to Arjuna, the quintessential superman. Arjuna’s dilemma that paralyzed him in the first chapter continues. He is unsure as to what to do, whether to fight as his natural dharma enjoins him to do, or to leave the battlefield based on his interpretation of universal dharma of ahimsa, non violence. As the coach, Krishna starts challenging his assumptions. This is how the coaching begins.

In all coaching situations, the client comes into play with a dilemma of sorts, posed as a disempowering problem. Each one of us has been through similar situations before. When we are in a problem state, as Einstein says, we cannot find a solution to that problem at the same level of consciousness in which the problem arose. We need to move higher to an empowered state. This is where the coach comes.

This is where Krishna comes in.

May 17, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Dharma Dilemma

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As the family is destroyed dharma is destroyed

As dharma dies anarchy ensues

With anarchy women become immoral

With immoral women societal divisions mingle

Mingled society leads us sinner to hell

Their ancestors fall into hell deprived of offerings

Evils of sinners causing mingling of society

Destroy the dharmic fibre of society

Arjuna’s lament rises to an emotional feverish pitch. He starts lamenting in previous verses about the sin he is about to commit by killing his kinsmen. This he fears is not worth the status of acquiring supremacy of all three worlds, let alone the earth. In this verse he raises the bar by outlining consequences far more severe.

These four verses from the first chapter of Bhagavad Gita, a few before and a few after, introduce us to the concepts of dharma and karma, as they were practiced perhaps a few thousand years ago. Arjuna sees his kinsmen and elders arrayed in front in battle. The greatest warrior of all in his days, he knows that he will destroy many of them. The thought of his own destruction does not even occur to him. Compassion arising out of the consequences of what he may do consumes him. He lays down arms and turns to Krishna for counsel.

Dharma loosely defined is a moral code of societal conduct. There are various levels of dharma and dharmic conduct for individuals, families, tribes, societies, nations, the world and the universe. Dharmic conduct, in the form of yama and niyama, the first two limbs of Ashtanga Yoga, is the foundation of the yoga union of mind, body and energy. It is the foundation as well as the pillar of society.

Arjuna starts with destruction of dharma through the destruction of families he is associated with. He establishes various effects, which in turn cause other effects, till he finally completes the circle by looping back to destruction of dharma. The concept of karma is intertwined with dharma. Karma is cause and effect, consequences of our thought, speech and action. Anything that we do in violation of dharma attracts a negative karma. It is that simple.

There is a new science of epigenetics, which addresses how our behavior in this life affects our own genes and in turn of our progeny. Bruce Lipton through his Biology of Beliefs and Sharon Moalem through Inheritance explain this science well. To my mind this is a vindication of the karma theory and also the concept of reincarnation, in another sense. Reincarnation is not about being reborn in another body, but as Krishna says in another part of Bhagavad Gita recreating our intents and thoughts in another body form. Epigenetics provides proof of this.

It is interesting to note the role of women and caste in Arjuna’s verses. He makes the woman responsible for upholding the honor of society. Many interpretations are possible, but these need to be inline with time and space context. The same is true about caste mixing that Arjuna fears will lead to disaster. Here too one can view this not as a justification for the caste system as is practiced today or even in Arjuna’s days, which limited the potential of people like Karna and Ekalavya in Mahabharata, but in broader context of what perception of dharma is.

What strikes me here is how the common reality of what happens around one is interpreted in specific context of one’s own mind map. It is not that Arjuna did not destroy warriors before, many kinsmen. He fought against the Kauravas when he was in exile to support Uttara in the form of a transsexual with no qualms. What had changed?

The interpretation of dharma and karma by Arjuna is highly situational based on his conditioning.

It is possible to write an entire book on these verses, both for and against Arjuna’s views. As we move to Krishna’s counsel later we shall be viewing these issues from a different perspective, one of the universal dharma from the creator.

Coaching, Energy, Gita, Hindu Scriptures, inner energy, mind body spirit, Patanjali Yoga, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Yoga

Arjuna, Bhagavadgita, Krishna, Mahabharata, Yoga

May 11, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: Despondent Warrior

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Says Arjuna,

Krishna,

Seeing my people ready to battle

My body goes limp and my mouth dry

I shiver with hairs standing on end

My bow Gandiva is slipping my skin burning

I cannot stand my head spins

Arjuna is the greatest warrior of his times, and the role model of a compassionate human. His courage had never been questioned. He had no fear of death. Yet, he was in the middle of the battle field where Krishna had taken the chariot and expressing his despondent state of mind.

In the Mahabharata, Krishna is asked by both the Pandavas and Kauravas to help. In fact, Duryodhana and Arjuna both reach him at the same time and Duryodhana requests first. Apart from Krishna’s own stature as a great warrior and strategist, his yadava army was feared. Krishna offers Duryodhana an options: choose me unarmed not engaged in warfare as a charioteer to you, or my mighty army. Duryodhana gleefully chooses Krishna’s army. Arjuna, hugely relieved, accepts Krishna gratefully as his charioteer. Hence, Krishna’s name as Partha Sarathy, charioteer of Partha, Arjuna’s name as son of Pritha, which was his mother Kunti’s maiden name.

As friend, guide, mentor and charioteer, Krishna is the greatest influence in establishing righteousness in the epic Mahabharata. At Arjuna’s request Krishna drives the chariot to the middle of the battle field, with both armies arraigned and ready for battle on either side. Looking at his kinsmen on the opposing side as the enemy, Arjuna breaks down. His primary enemies are his cousins, the hundred Kauravas led by Duryodhana. Many of his Kaurava cousins has no rancor against the Pandavas. They had to fight at their eldest brother’s command. There was Bhishma, son of Ganga, who was the grandsire of the Pandavas and Kauravas, the warrior who took the vow of celibacy to enable his father to marry his lover. There was Dronacharya, the teacher who taught both Kauravas and Pandavas. There was many others who were related to Arjuna as uncles and cousins. There were many who were close friends who had to align with Duryodhana for political reasons. There is also Karna, his own brother separated at birth, aiding Duryodhana and not in the battle ground for the first ten days though at this stage Arjuna is bot aware of this fact.

Arjuna looks at all these people and breaks down. His mind whirls. His body shivers. His famed bow Gandiva, created by Brahma and gifted to him by God Varuna slips from his wet and weak fingers. He turns to Krishna seeking solace.

Don’t we all face such situations at various times in our lives? Don’t we all get caught in activities our heart is not in, our mind cannot accept, and yet circumstances force us to get into? It is easy on after thought to say one should not have or done something different, but our past conditioning of holding family honor and status create such powerful emotions in us that the thoughts of right and wrong in an ecological sense disappear. What remains embedded in the mind at that time is merely the right and wrong as perceived by one’s ego to preserve what one thinks of as one’s identity.

Even if you are not Arjuna, a prince born to luxury, almost all of us are born into comforts of security, safety and emotional nurturing. Maslow calls these three the first three needs. Right at birth we are at the Fourth level of Maslow’s need hierarchy seeking esteem needs born out of ego. What matters at this stage is proving ourselves better than others, especially those close to us. What arises is envy through comparison, which in turn breeds anger and hatred. The final war of Mahabharata was caused by envy and ego needs on both sides.

Suddenly, the sight of his family members on the other side as enemies makes Arjuna realize the folly of what is going to happen. His response at this stage is still unconscious. He is yet to voice his conscious thoughts. This is the point where Bhagavad Gita begins.

Coaching, Gita, Hindu Scriptures, inner energy, mind body spirit, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Yoga

Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, Mahabharata, Religion & Spirituality, Yoga

April 26, 2015

Bhagavad Gita: 100 to 5

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Dhritarashtra said:

Sanjaya,

Assembled together in this sacred plains of Kurukshetra

What did my sons and Pandu’s do as they ready to battle?

This is the opening verse of what is probably the most sacred of all Hindu scriptures, considered the Word of God. In 700 verses developed over 18 chapters, this scripture is a dialogue between man and God. It forms part of the largest epic poem ever written, the Mahabharata, comprising over 100,000 verses in 18 chapters. The central character in both, as well as in another major Hindu epic, Bhagavatam, is Krishna, incarnation of Vishnu, the Sustainer in the Hindu holy Trinity.

Why does this piece of work, recited in Sanskrit perhaps 5000 years ago, still invoke an inspired following of readers, who claim to apply it in the daily work and life? Why do I, as a coach and trainer, quote innumerable times words of Krishna’s advice to Arjuna, as if the counseling comes from me?

The story of Mahabharata is complex. In its 100,000 verses, it has thousands of short detours, and tens of thousands of characters, each of whom leaves a foot print on the reader’s minds. Vyasa, its author, whose name merely means Editor, was perhaps not one person, especially considering that a person with the same name compiled the 4 Vedas, the foundation of Hindu philosophy. Anyone who reads the Mahabharata cannot but admire the editing skills of the author, opening up thousands of stories within a story, with tens of thousands of characters, effortlessly bringing them all back to closure.

Bhagavad Gita, in contrast is straight forward. It is a dialogue between Arjuna, the greatest of all warriors, and Krishna, his buddy, guide, teacher and God. Its message is simple, something we will come to in later pages. Bhagavad Gita appears at the almost the end of the epic Mahabharata, jut before a calamitous 18 day war that annihilates a large part of the then Indian warrior and princely population, including the ruling princes of the Kaurava family.

The Kauravas and the Pandavas are cousins, born to two princes. There are a 100 Kaurava princes, whose father Dhritarashtra was born blind to a widowed mother. There are 5 Pandavas born to an accursed prince Pandu through two of his wives with divine intervention and origin. As has been said often, even today, neither Hollywood nor Bollywood can create such story of salacity, deceit, intrigue and humor, and yet elevating the reader to heights of devotion. We all believe what we are taught to believe!

The Kauravas and Pandavas are arraigned in battle at Kurukshetra, with a vast army estimated at 4 million soldiers in addition to horses and elephants, in 18 divisions, 11 with Kauravas and 7 with Pandavas. of these, about 3 million perished. It was the mother of all battles. Dhritarashtra, the blind king, is far away in Hastinapura, their capital, about a 100 miles away. His advisor and charioteer Sanjaya has been gifted divine tele sight to see and communicate to his King the happenings on the battlefield at Kurukshetra, even as they are in their capital Hastinapura. The first verse is the King’s impatient query to his seeing eye as to what is happening in the battlefield.

Mahabharata is considered by many a metaphor with its key in the verses of Bhagavad Gita. The metaphor is the constant battle between good and evil. Its theme is that good will eventually win, at perhaps a huge cost, as long as its principals stay in the path of righteousness. King Dhritarashtra is blinded, in addition to his physical blindness, by his obsessive love for his son Duryodhana, representing evil in the epic. Good and evil are closely related as first cousins! They fight all the time! So, what is new?

The theme of Bhagavad Gita according to some is surrender. According to me it is action and a clear need to define what one is acting towards. Surrender in Gita arises in a different context that we shall discuss later. It is the action theme in Gita that holds the reader in thrall. Krishna is forever focused, Arjuna forever dithering. The greatest of archers, who could shoot a tiny object down looking only at its reflection in water, could not focus when confronted with emotional issues. The message of Gita is as well how the amygdala in the hypothalamus region short circuits our cognition. Gita is as well Emotional Intelligence 101.

My writing on the Gita is not another commentary on what is already a most commented upon scripture. It is about what I have learnt from the Bhagavad Gita and what may be possibly be of value to a fellow professional. This material is not for scholars; they should go to the original Sanskrit verses, since every commentary I have read on the Bhagavad Gita, and I have read many, are colored by the viewpoint of the author. Here, I make no pretensions about conveying the message if the Bhagavad Gita as Vyasa intended. I have no clue. I interpret the verses, both the Sanskrit and the English, in my idiom. My source is the Adi Sankara commentary on the Gita, translated by Alladi Mahadeva Sastry over a 100 years ago.

If I am making a mistake, let me at least follow the footsteps of the greatest of all Hindu teachers, Sankaracharya!

Coaching, Gita, Hindu Scriptures, inner energy, Leadership, Meditation, mind body spirit, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Yoga

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April 18, 2015

Dissolution of Mind: Vigyana Bhairava Tantra

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In this last 112 th dharana and 138th Verse of Vigyana Bhairava Tantra, Shiva says

Mind, awareness, energy and Self

When all merge and dissolve

Shiva manifests

When we study about koshas or sheaths and sareeras or bodies in Hindu scriptural writings, some of the energy bodies associated with the mind body stricture are: anna maya kosha or the gross physical body; prana maya kosha or the breath energy body; manonmaya kosha or emotional energy body; vigyana maya kosha or the super intelligent energy body; and finally ananda maya kosha or the realized energy body. In some contexts, there are more such bodies and sheaths as well.

Body mind is the lowest level of awareness. Mind itself has multiple attributes of conditioned ego, memory, senses and higher intelligence. At the higher intelligence of buddhi level, we can glimpse awareness of our true non dual Self. Prana, breath energy, both in tantra and yoga is the vehicle that sustains this mind body, and when managed appropriately leads us to the non dual state of awareness.

When the multiple dualities of these attributes of mind and body merge and dissolve into atman, the infinite Self, we truly become aware. At each level of body, mind, prana energy, emotional energy, and thought energy we need to create the awareness that their functions are creations of the Self. While the Self itself is unchanging, the energy of maya causes changes in perception to allow us to cope with worldly realities. Maya has a genuine function. Without maya we cannot exist. However, we can become aware that we are affected by maya and keep checking with awareness how we interact with the world and disengage constantly.

The disengagement is needed because nothing in this world is permanent. We all perish. Every single thing around us changes and eventually perishes. So, why get engaged?

Ramana Maharishi’s Self Inquiry is the path to non duality. Constantly keep inquiring as to where thought, emotions and actions arise from. If it is the senses, what is behind the senses? If then the mind what then behind the mind? If energy behind the mind, what is that energy? What operates that energy? There is no answer to this from another person. Your answer needs to come from within you. Your answer will jot be the same even as that of your guru. Your atman is a holographic piece of the eternal Brahman, and yet different from all other creations of the same Brahman. This is the source of the duality and also its answer and solution.

I am closing my commentaries on Vigyana Bhairava Tantra with this last dharana. It is a very limited offering, often incomplete. The sources I refer to, from Osho, to Joo and Satyasanagananda Saraswati, have been sources of great knowledge. Errors in transmission are mine alone. The purpose of this commentary is to demystify Shiva. The tools he offers in Vigyana Bhairava Tantra allow us to glimpse his wisdom. I bow down to his divine wisdom.

The graphic of Krishna with Shiva to close is deliberate. They are not different. They are the same consciousness. Shiva consciousness is Krishna consciousness. Those who treat them as separate entities fall into the intellectual trap of duality. They need to evolve into non dual advaithic awareness and consciousness.

Coaching, Gita, Hindu Scriptures, inner energy, mind body spirit, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Tantra, Uncategorized, Yoga

Bhagavadgita, Bihar School of Yoga, Krishna, Osho, Ramana Maharshi, Shiva, Tantra, Vigyana Bhairava Tantra, Yoga

April 10, 2015

Knower of Knowledge: Vigyana Bhairava Tantra

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In this 137 verse and 111 dharana of Vigyana Bhairava Tantra, Shiva says,

Knowledge reveals through the Knower

Knowledge and Knower are together

Contemplate and move to Shiva space

In the 14th chapter of Bhagavad Gita, Krishna explains to Arjuna the concept on non duality in a very similar context. The chapter is called the Yoga of Kshetra and Kshetragna, the Union of Mind Body and Consciousness. When the mind body becomes aware of its underlying consciousness, the Sat Chit Ananda, it becomes one with that consciousness and all duality disappears.

Adi Shankara’s Atma Shatakam is about this verse. At the age of eight, when Shankara set out as a sanyasi from Kaladi in Kerala traveling north, he came to the Narmada river in spate. Wishing to cross the river, he set his kamandalu, the water pot at the edge of the river and prayed to the river goddess to allow him to cross. The river emptied herself in Shankara’s kamandalu to allow the child to cross. At the far end of the river, Sage Govinda Pada watched this scene in amazement. As the child Shankara approached him, Govinda Pada asked him, ‘Child. who are you?’ In Atma Shatakam or Nirvana Shatakam, as it is also called, Shankara negates his connection with his mind and body and announces himself to be Shiva, Sat Chit Ananda.

In a poignant fourth verse of these six verse Shankara says,

I am not related to sins or merit, pain or pleasure

I am not related to sacred chants or pilgrimage, the scriptures or sacrifices,

I am not the object of enjoyment, process of enjoying, or the person who enjoys

I am the Conscious Blissful form of Shiva

Substitute enjoyment with the word knowledge and Krishna appears in place of Shiva. By negating that he is the object of knowledge, the process of knowing and the person who knows, Shankara elevates himself to a level where these three combine. Knowledge, the object and process, merge with the subject of knower. there is no duality between the one who knows and what is known.

Ordinarily, this makes little sense. So what? What if I am the knower and also the knowledge. Think and you will know the difference.

Everything that is to be known is within you, not outside. This is today proven scientifically. Our mind has the code of all the languages of the world. It has the memory of everything that has happened since the inception of the world. This knowledge is within the knower, and yet the knower does not know! It is not so what, but so how or show how!

Go inwards to know all that exists outwards, said our sages. To be able to do that, we need to do this. Remove all conditioning of the past that create judgment and ego in us, which produce mind maps creating the separation between the knower and knowledge. To sustain this, disengage from all that happens within and without. Just be the witness or the observer. By disengaging from what happens outside, we also disengage from dualities of good and evil, right and wrong, fair and unfair, pain and pleasure etc. The non dual state is the ultimate reality of Sat Chit Ananda, state of Shiva.

Coaching, Gita, Hindu Scriptures, inner energy, Meditation, mind body spirit, Patanjali Yoga, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Tantra, Uncategorized, Yoga

Adi Shankara, Bhagavadgita, Krishna, Meditation, Shiva, Tantra, Vigyana Bhairava Tantra

April 3, 2015

Withdrawal from Senses: Vigyana Bhairava Tantra

I acknowledge this graphic from the Net.

In this 136th verse and 110 dharana of Vigyana Bhairava Tantra, Shiva says:

All sensory gates are sources of pain and pleasure

Withdrawing from the senses and their inputs

Move into Shiva space

Most commentaries on this verse say it is about the fifth stage of yoga called pratyahara, withdrawal from senses. True, it is. Question is about how to achieve this stage? Why is it the first stage of internal Yoga? Why does it follow Pranayama, the fourth and last stage of external yoga? Unless one goes into these details, even a regular practitioner of yoga will not sustain this state.

Let us start with the simple practice of shutting down our senses. Let us say we are in a zero gravity space, suspended, eyes blindfolded, ears plugged, suspended without any part of the body touching anything, with nothing to smell or taste. Theoretically, we are in total withdrawal of sensory perceptions. What next?

Try this, and you will find even without any external inputs to your sensory organs, your mind can recreate audio and video tapes from your head. Every meditator, however much a beginner, knows this. So, pratyahara is not about shutting down the senses in terms of perception of external inputs alone. That is important, but not enough. How does one still the mind? That is the million dollar question.

Some wise men advise nothingness or sunya meditation. There is no such thing. It is maya, illusion. As long as we are in body mind, thoughts arise, and mind moves. Stillness of mind is not about having no thoughts. It is about being disengaged from thoughts. Let there be thoughts. Witness them without being drawn into them. Be the observer, not the actor. Do not enter the drama. Watch, witness and leave. Let go.

If one practices this, the fifth state of pratyahara can automatically lead into the eight state of samadhi with no intervening states of dharana and dhyana. One will pass through these, but with ease, and sometimes not knowing.

In advanced meditation classes I conduct, I deliberate;y keep putting the lights on and off. The mere click of switches and the light coming on and off disturb some people, even experienced mediators proud of their skills. When they complain, I ask them innocently whether yoga and meditation is supposed to make them blind, deaf and dumb? if you truly meditate, nothing happening outside or inside should disturb you. This is not something that you need to train yourself to do as the last stage. From today, you can become aware of hat is happening around you and within you, and decide that you will have nothing to do with them in terms getting engaged in.

You may still act, and yet, you do not need to get into the drama. Following Krishna’s advice in Bhagavad Gita, you can surrender the outcome to him, and focus only on the action. Difficult, yes; Impossible, no. If you attained a 10 day Vipassana program, you can learn this. If you learn yoga nidra, you can practice this.

March 27, 2015