The Art of Living - Summit NJ

When you consider the past as free will, then you have regret. When you consider the future as destiny, you will do nothing about it. Wisdom is seeing the past as destiny and future as free will.

Deep inner contentment is the key to spread blessings around🥰🍀

When you are content and not bombarded with your own needs, you gain the ability to bless.

Think from heart, decide from head. Clarity matters. Meditation brings clarity and skills to our actions.

The head worries and the heart feels. They cannot function at the same time. When your feelings dominate, worry dissolves.
If you worry a lot, your feelings are dead and you are stuck in the head. Worrying makes your mind and heart inert and dull.

Feelings are like flowers, they come up, they blossom and they die. When feelings are expressed, you feel relieved. When you are angry, you express your anger and the next moment you are alright. Or when you are upset, you cry and you get over it.

Feelings last for a short time and they drop, but worry eats you up for a longer period of time. Feelings make you spontaneous. Children feel! So, they are spontaneous. Adults put brakes on their feelings and start worrying.

Worrying about anything obstructs action, while feelings propel action. Worrying about negative feelings is a blessing because it puts the brakes on those feelings, preventing you from acting on them. Worrying takes away your energy. You cannot think clearly when you worry. Offering your worries is prayer and prayer moves you in feelings!

Through meditation, find happiness within. Through service, spread happiness outside.

Everything that you do in your life directs you towards one thing - finding Inner Happiness!

https://wisdom.srisriravishankar.org/everyone-has-a-role-to-play-when-the-world-is-in-turmoil/?fbclid=IwAR0VxUYhNaIYYLE4dsgrOPAmhF0zic9kK9pprIQxhxOwkCkxUsFvlfb-CT4

Everyone has a role to play when the world is in turmoil Our existence is not in isolation with the rest of the world. While this idea sounds spiritual, it is very pertinent to social and global situations that we see every now and then. When a house is …

Subtle science of Breath

-breath

https://youtu.be/odGMmoyJPwg

Secret Gita Knowledge That Will Change Your Life & After Life! | Gurudev In this video Gurudev reveals a powerful secret that has been closely guarded in the Vedic tradition! The Bhagavad Gita holds this secret but most have misin...

Cleanliness and happiness are both a practice. If something is dirty, we don’t say it will clean itself up. We have to make an effort to clean it. Similarly, we have to practice being happy.

Being free is like being a kid again. A baby is free but it is weak, but an enlightened one is free with strength. A baby is free with dependence; enlightenment is freedom with utter independence.

-anxiety -strength

Anger and aggression are not signs of heroism. They are signs of weakness.

People celebrate once in a year. But for those who know love, every moment is a cause for celebration, where you are there for the other & where “you” are not there at all. When you can celebrate silence, only then can you celebrate love!

There are three kinds of love. The love that comes out of charm, that which comes out of comfort and divine love. The love that comes out of charm does not last long. It comes out of unfamiliarity or attraction. In this, you lose the attraction fast, and boredom sets in. This love may diminish and bring along with it a fear, uncertainty, insecurity and sadness.

The love that comes out of comfort and familiarity grows, but it has no thrill, no enthusiasm, joy, or fire to it. For example, you are more comfortable with an old friend who is a familiar person rather than with a new person. Divine love supersedes both the above. It has an ever present newness. The closer you go, more charm and depth come to it. There is never boredom and it keeps everyone on their toes.

Worldly love can be like an ocean, yet an ocean has a bottom. Divine love is like the sky which is limitless. From the bottom of the ocean, soar into the vast sky. Ancient love transcends all these relationships and is inclusive of all the relationships. Let love be. Don’t give it a name. When you give it a name, it becomes a relationship, and relationships restrict love.

A relationship should be treated as a dessert, not as a main course. If your life is aimed at some goal, if there is some goal in your life, some aim in your life, then you move in the direction and relationship will move along. If all your focus is just on your relationship, it will not work. And it doesn’t work. You can’t have a dessert for your main course.

Have a goal in life, have an aim to do some service. Sharing and serving would enhance your ability to love, your ability to accept. And if you have that as a goal and both together move in that direction, there will be no problem.

Service is an essential ingredient for a successful relationship. And if the relationship comes from the space of giving rather than need, it is a good relationship.

You can’t take credit for your own devotion. You can’t say, ‘I am so devoted’. If you are devoted, it is a blessing. Devotion gives you immense happiness, deep love and siddhis. Siddhi means what you think starts to happen and what you want happens. If you bless somebody, and what they want happens; all this happens through the state of your being. In the yoga sutras, Rishi Patanjali said, “Devotion towards the Divine brings the perfection of samadhi. It makes your meditation serene and takes you to the perfected state.”

So, just pray that this stays with you forever. Let nothing else spoil it. Devotion is like a diamond; don’t trade it for mud. It is the small things, little desires where we lose devotion, like not getting what we want, say a job or a relationship. You lose your job, and your devotion suffers. If somebody blames you, then your devotion is gone. If your work does not happen, then your devotion is gone. So we are losing our devotion over nothing.

See, if you are a medical professional, you give medicine to people, and most of the time, it works, but sometimes it does not work. Similarly, many things happen in your life, and some things don’t happen. But, at least hold onto the devotion. Sometimes it appears to have gone or is going away; then also, you can’t do anything about it. Then just relax and pray for it. If you are devoted, feel grateful for being devoted, then the devotion grows every moment.

Nothing is more empowering than knowledge. Anything you have knowledge of becomes easier to handle. The one who knows how to fly a plane cruises through the strongest turbulence with confidence, while there are those who get goosebumps even with the seat-belt fastened! This holds true in every sphere of life. Life becomes easy and manageable the moment you acquire some knowledge about it.
True happiness and success come when you are established in wisdom. This requires some effort and preparation. First of all, you must have the burning desire to know. Second, you need to have a clear and open mind and a prejudice-free intellect. It’s only then you can observe that everything is changing. This is called Viveka (discrimination). The moment you see that people, things, situations, and events are changing, the focus shifts to the unchanging reference point -- the witness who is observing the change. This seer is the source of all intuitive knowledge.
The third quality that makes you eligible for accessing true knowledge is dispassion or vairagya. This means unhooking the mind from cravings and aversions and accepting the moment as it is. When the mind is feverish for many things at the same time, it gets scattered. With the practice of vairagya, the mind becomes aware and ready to tune into the open-source of wisdom, available to all.

Expand your vision about yourself, about life, and about this universe. This universe has been there for at least 19 billion years, and it is a part of billions of galaxies. One amongst those billion galaxies is our Milky Way. In the Milky Way, we have our solar system, which is the size of a dot in the Milky Way, and in that, there is our planet Earth, and in that there is you! One would have to take a lens to see you, and by the time they get to see you, you’re already gone.

What is your life in comparison to the creation? In this multiverse, planet Earth is so insignificant, and you are even more insignificant. Another factor is time. Billions of people have walked this planet. There are seven billion people on this planet today, and many are being born every day and many are dying. Then what is your life? It’s like a blink of the eye, and you’re already gone! When you see your life from this bigger context, you realize that all this is nothing!

You live for 80 years on this planet called Earth. Out of that, 35 years you spend sleeping, 10 years you spend in the bathroom, 10 years you spend eating, 25 years you spend working. The waking period in your life is so small. In that little time, what is the point of saying, ‘Me, me, me?’ It is nothing! When you see life from a bigger context all the worries disappear and a new dimension opens up.

There are three states of consciousness – waking, dreaming and sleeping. When waking state ends and dreaming state begins; when dreaming state ends and sleeping state begins, and when sleeping state ends and waking state begins - at these junction points, something fantastic happens. What is that? You get a glimpse of that which is beyond the three.

Mind can experience only these three, but when it stops, you somewhere experience a state, which is neither waking nor dreaming, nor sleeping. And that is so Divine. That is the basis of all Creation. A glimpse of that state is what is called Yoga. It removes all fears, giving a bigger dimension to life. You think that life is your body, your mind, etc; No! There is much more to life than this. This experience, i.e., transcending the thoughts and emotions and going to another level of stillness, that is called Sandhya Vandan; meaning ‘adoring that inner state’.

Ten people were going from one village to another. On the way they had to cross a river. After crossing they wanted to be sure all were there. Each one started counting but counted only nine. They were very distraught and began to cry for the loss of the tenth.

A wise man came along and asked them "Oh my dear friends, why are you crying?"

"We were ten but now we are only nine," they replied.

The wise man saw they were ten, so he asked them to count. Each counted nine but left out himself. Then the wise man made them stand and count, and he said to the last person, "You are the tenth!"

And they all rejoiced for having regained the tenth.

Similarly the five senses and the four inner faculties (mind, intellect, memory, ego) all lament when they lose sight of the Self. Then the Master comes and shows you that You are the tenth! Count, but never stop until you find the tenth. The joy is in finding the Ever Present.

With the knowledge of the Self inside everything is truly joyful.

If you know that your pain is just momentary, you don’t mind the pain.
You go to a doctor and he gives you a prick. You don’t mind the pain. You are doing exercise with dumbbells and it pains. You enjoy that pain.

Why you don’t like suffering is because in suffering you feel, “Oh! This is death.’ You associate death with suffering. That is why there is fear. Just simple pain doesn’t give you suffering. You willingly undergo many pains.

Suffering has a purpose, which is to connect you to your self. Suffering indicates that you got too involved and carried away by all the relative and transient things around you. That is what suffering is all about.
Once you understand that suffering is transient, your eyes get lifted to something that is eternal. That is when real joy dawns in life.

All those who are grown up physically, but want to be a child again, or think you are one, just go for it! Don't worry about what others think about you. If the world calls you crazy, let them say, but you be happy. Be in the present and be natural.
What is most important in the world is innocence along with intelligence. The innocence of an ignorant person has no value. Similarly the crookedness of an intelligent person has no value. What is most valuable is innocence and intelligence. Innocence and intelligence should go together.

Know that you are not alone, and there is a universal power that loves you, and is with you. When you remember that you are being loved very dearly, fear vanishes. All your troubles begin because you don’t believe you are being loved very dearly. That is where the whole problem starts, and you start behaving in ways that pushes everybody away. You create misery for yourself, because you doubt yourself. Am I good enough? Am I being loved? Does God love me or not? Do people love me or not? These sort of doubts.

Just take it for granted that you are loved and liked. Even if you think you are a clown, you are loved and enjoyed. People like you however you are.

Just move on, don’t sit and spend too much time worrying about yourself, examining yourself, and re-examining. Just take up a commitment and do what you need to do, and take deep rest with dispassion.

Know that you are the light. Dispel ignorance wherever you go, create harmony where there is conflict and let your presence bring abundance to those who are living in lack.

If you have to compare, you should compare with yourself: how you were yesterday, day before, two years back – that’s healthy. Compare with yourself. See you’ve moved. You will always find you are moving when you compare with yourself, okay? Comparing with others, not about your personality, but with respect to work, is okay. If someone has done better, then you feel inspired to do better than them. It’s okay. You don’t have to keep your eyes shut. You know if you see somebody has done better than you in business, you put your target so you do better than them. This is okay to do, that’s what you should do. Comparison should inspire you, not put you down. First of all accept you don’t know who you are, you have no idea who you are. You’re not self- realized, remember this! If you have that feeling, “Oh, I’m so bad, I’m like this, I’m like…” you have no idea who you are. You have infinite potential inside you. You can do ten times better than anybody else, better than what you’re doing right now, hmm?

When someone is harsh to you, it is ok to be hurt but then you should also know how to rise above that. Nobody can take away your self–respect. If it pinches you then that is due to ego or your foolishness. Knowledge can help us come out of that feeling of hurt.