Do YOU Live in the Problem or the Solution?

No matter which language you speak, we all share a common language called, ‘problemian’. It sounds like, “There’s a problems with... I have a major problem... You know what I think the problem is... The problem with you is...”! ‘Problem’ essentially means I am having difficulty (either mentally or physically) with something, someone or some situation, and I don’t know how to make things easier. How quickly we can overcome the problem and find the solution depends on how creative we can be and there are seven approaches to finding a solution: 

1. Rational: The rational approach is best used for those practical ‘on the surface’ issues and situations. It’s a useful approach when we believe there are problems around anything to do with arranging, organizing and co-coordinating. For example how to organize the chairs in a room, how to distribute the tickets fairly, how will guests be served, all require a reasoned, logical and common sense approach. Nothing deeper or more subtle than a rational strategy is usually required. 
2. Casual Analysis: Sometimes we don’t realize that we are only fixing the symptoms but not the cause of the problem. So some problems benefit from analysis prior to solution seeking. For example; I’m feeling stressed, why because there is a growing sense of fear, why because I think she might leave me. On further analysis I might find that the reason why she might leave me is that I always see myself in a negative light and I have low self-esteem. So the solution is to rebuild my self-esteem and thus keep her from leaving me. 
3. Intuition: Intuition is another word of our innate wisdom or our natural ‘knowingness’ of what is true. It’s something we all have at the heart of our consciousness. It’s useful for those difficult relationships and situations which have more subtle, unseen dimensions. Sometimes a doctor sees a patient and without examining the patient, the doctor intuitively feels that the patient is a lot sicker than she appears or the patient feels and could face a health catastrophe and directs patient to undergo some test for unexpected health issue. The test results show hidden health issue, proving intuition to be correct. 
4. Consult the Three Es - Experts, Experience and Extraordinary Thinking: The problem with the plumbing system requires ‘the expert’, the specialist, the trained professional! Our ‘experience’ however often contains the way we tackled something similar in the past and it always pays to consult the memory bank for previous problem solving experiences. ‘Extraordinary thinking’, on the other hand, is imagining what someone wiser, maybe even someone we know would do in a situation like we are facing at the moment. 
5. Envision and Live in the Solution: What do you do when the problem of a conflicted relationship arises? Take a moment to reflect on the state of the relationship. Then create a vision of the outcome you’d like to see where a harmonious connection and exchange is restored. This vision will empower you as to what we need to do to get there.
6. Cultivate a Deeper Self Awareness: Seeing through the perceived problem, identifying its deepest origin, remaining focused with clarity until a creative solution is found require a state of consciousness that is curious and calm. It’s only when we restore our true self-awareness as peaceful and loving beings, that we can access our inner peace, from which comes our inner power. This is the foundation for our capacity to remain calm, stable and able to be creative when things don’t go as planned. 
7. Dissolving the Problem at Source: When we decide there’s a problem we make that decision within our own consciousness. It is simply a perception, an interpretation. That’s not to say that the situation on the ground out there doesn’t exist. A million starving people can be a BIG problem or simply a fact that invites us to respond to do what we can to alleviate the condition/situation. If we can stand back and see without emotion we may generate a greater clarity and the solution for the problem, if not, we will see starvation as a problem that cannot be solved. 

 In reality, there are no problems; they are just the situations, that is how in reality the world is. It is not the way of avoiding the world around us. It is a mindset that frees us from seeing things as wrong or as a problem. Practice to see things as a situation and not as a problem and you will find a solution.

 Adapted from Mike George’s article “Do YOU Live in the Problem or the Solution?” © 2012

Diwali Celebrations 2013

Do YOU Have a Hierarchy of Needs?

Do you have needs? The gospel according to Maslow is known as The Hierarchy of Needs. The idea of needs, and the opinion that we have some, if not many, seems to have become a cornerstone of many schools of psychology and psychotherapy and, well, numerous other therapies. From a spiritual point of view, we are spirit and not form, as such our body may have needs but we do not!

So let us explore the spiritual answer to the oldest question, Who Am I? in light of the Brahma Kumaris’ revelation that we are a spirit and not a form.

The Basic Biological/Physical Needs: Even at the most basic physical level the ‘spiritual perspective’ might cast a little doubt over the veracity of Maslow’s ideas. From the spiritual perspective, when we acquire food/shelter/clothing etc. we are not doing so for ‘me’ but for our body. Our body has need; we must take care of it. Taking care to our body is quite different from desiring something for me!

The Need for Security: All ‘things’ come and go. Material ‘things’, including all forms ‘out there’, come and go. Mental ‘things’ including all thoughts and feelings ‘in here’, come to pass...literally! But the one and only thing that never passes or goes anywhere is the soul! If this is fully ‘realized’ then security and survival cease to be relevant. Our need to be secure arises from the belief that we are a form that we occupy. And forms can be threatened and destroyed but not the soul.

The Need for Belonging and Love: A need for belonging is often confused with the search for a sense of identity. We learn to identify with ‘ideas’ like family, club, profession, nation, religion and race etc. so that we may derive the feeling of belonging. From a spiritual point of view this is a form of insanity! At the very least it is very non-spiritual! It is also what gives rise to the ego or the ‘false self’ or misidentification. And as for love, in summary when we realize love is what we are, then the need to find it, acquire it and keep it falls away, to be replaced by the giving of it in whatever way is appropriate to the situation/scene/circumstances etc. Only then is true love known.

The Need for Esteem: When esteem is believed to be dependent on and defined by achievement, status and reputation we can see how this ‘apparent need’ drives much of human activity in the world today. Esteem essentially means estimation, which means value, which means worth which is always momentary; on status, which can be lost at any moment; and on our reputation, which can be destroyed by a few keystrokes! Once again the spiritual point of view reveals an awareness of real worth as something that is only found deep within the self...itself! It is an awareness of our value that arises only from the act of giving of our self without seeking any return. Arising in parallel to this inner source of worth is the awareness of the impossibility of loss, which is the foundation for the ultimate sense of security; nothing real can ever be lost.

The Need for Self Actualization: From a spiritual point of view the idea of self-actualization means self-realization. In order to crystalize ones true potential one first has to realize who/what one is. Someone who knows they are a spiritual being has no need to grow or fulfill anything. They are intuitively aware that they are already all they can ever be i.e. nothing needs be developed; nothing real can be added to our authentic self. Fulfillment is already a reality i.e they are already endowed with the capacity to be loving, peaceful and creative.

Adapted from Mike George’s article, “Do YOU Have a Hierarchy of Needs?”© 2012

Are YOU Missing Out?

According to almost universally accepted wisdom, at any given moment on our journey through time and space, otherwise known as ‘life’, you are where you are meant to be. Nevertheless, we tend to spend significant amounts of time wanting to be somewhere else. It’s the moment when we accept ‘life’ has just passed us by again! This is also the moment when we start creating and sustaining the habit of thinking we are ‘missing out’ on something. Unfortunately, this habit ensures that we are in the state of absence from both the places; our presence is weak where we are at the moment and absent from where we want to be. 

There are a number of forms that the ‘I’m missing out on something’ thought and feeling can take. 

1. Aspiring to Acquire: It usually begins in childhood when we learn to perceive the lives of others to be better than ours. ‘They’ seem to have more, live more and be more.
2. It’s more fun elsewhere: When we hear stories of how much fun people had last night or last week we start to look for evidence that yet again there is something happening elsewhere and that we are not in the right place at the right time to be part of the fun. 
3. I will miss some special moment with some special people: If there is an attachment to and/or dependency on another, especially to someone whom we consider to be ‘very special’, there can develop a tendency to believe that when we are not with them, we may be missing out on some special experience that can only be had in their presence. 
4. Others may get ahead of me: Our competitive conditioning often takes over and we either drive ourselves onwards to make sure we don’t miss out on the approval and accolades in life. Or we give up, sit back and create an inner fate for ourselves that sounds like, “I am always the one who misses out”, so what’s the point? Often referred to as ‘learned helplessness’, this thinking can paralyze our enthusiasm at any moment and drive us into depression. 
5. Unlimited Possibilities: In an interconnected world, we are constantly tempted to be present anywhere and everywhere at any time of our choosing. As we find it somewhat difficult to be omnipresent; it’s inevitable that we may conclude that we are always missing out on something somewhere all the time! 
6. Something is more likely to happen to them than it is to me: If we allow ourselves to become impressed by other people’s wonderful experiences we may start to believe that nothing wonderful ever seems to happen to me. 
7. The last time I was here I missed something there: The memory of believing that we missed something important in the past ensures we become edgy and nervous in our decision making in the present as we are anxious that it won’t happen again. 

For the person with the ‘missing out’ habit of thinking, their grass is always greener on the other side of that hill! The belief that we are missing out obviously has its roots in the belief that our happiness, fulfillment and self-worth lie somewhere ‘out there’ in a place where we are not present. It’s a sign that we have forgotten how to be content within our self wherever we are. It’s a sign that we have lost our awareness of our innate worth. It’s a sign that we expect some thing or someone in the world to take responsibility for our happiness and make our life fulfilled.

And so we become inwardly skilled at creating many reasons and imaginations to believe and feel we are missing out on something somewhere. And yet we know that in reality we can never be anywhere other than where we are. Imagination is not real, it is speculation; curb it. It only creates anxious discontentment. 

The truth is, you can never miss out on anything ‘real’ as long as you believe things and places are more real where you are right now. 

Learning to be present, learning to be content in the present, knowing for sure that there is nothing ‘out there’ that can give you stable and sustained sense of self-worth and personal contentment, is the only way to free yourself from the gnawing and sometimes extremely subtle anxiety that we should be somewhere else. 

Action: At the end of the day run through the events of the day in your mind and count the number of times you thought you would like to be somewhere else. Plan to focus on being fully present where you will be next. 

 Adapted from Mike George’s article, “Are YOU Missing Out?”© 2010

Are YOU Ready for the Ultimate Makeover?

People spend billions of dollars in pursuit of an improved self-image or makeover; facials, hairstyling, nails, nipping, tucking, liposuction scrapping and exfoliating and so on! It’s an exercise in feel good, in appearance improvement. Nevertheless, for the true makeover to happen, it must come from within; nip those negative thoughts in bud, tuck away those feeling of helplessness, scrape out those layers of habitual neediness and exfoliate those long beliefs and misperceptions. That is, a true makeover is inner makeover in which you scrub your entrenched habits of self-sabotage to purify your soul. Here are seven steps for inner makeover: 

Stop BLAMING and Start CREATING: Stop blaming others for your problems. Start thinking creatively; ask yourself, how I could have responded differently. 

Stop WORRYING and Start LIVING: Some people constitutionally worry about chances of things going wrong, others having low opinion of them or even about things that happened in the past. Stop these worries and work on how you can think, converse and act in a detached manner and start living in present. 

Stop REGRETTING and Start FORGETTING: Thinking that you could/would/should have made a better choice, worked harder, paid more attention, acted with more detachment and responsibility is fictional. Stop it. Start forgetting the past because it happened in the past. Remember the past only to learn from it and to deal with the present in a more detached manner. 

Stop RESISTING and Start ACCEPTING: It’s seems that we are fated to live a life of subconscious resistance; whether it’s someone else’s idea, or their desire, or their opinion, or just ‘them’, we square up against them, even when we cannot justify our behavior. In such moments we are essentially killing our contentment and generating anxiety. So ...stop it! Start accepting everything the way it is. It doesn’t mean agreeing, but stop disagreeing. It doesn’t mean condoning, but stop condemning. As you do, you will start feeling calmer and projecting more positive energy around you; you will start connecting with others in a way that builds and nurtures the relationship. 

Stop TAKING and Start GIVING: Any impatience means we cannot wait to receive. Wanting, having, keeping, holding, grasping, are all forms of taking. It’s not wrong. Notice there is always a tension, an anxiety, perhaps an intense fear, that sits behind each. This is how to make yourself stressed. So ...stop it! Start releasing, offering, sharing, giving and you’ll also notice you naturally start receiving. There will likely be the feeling of a very different energy that comes not from others or from the world, but from your own heart! Wise is the soul who lives to give. Happy is the soul who cares and shares. Clever is the soul who receives, but never takes, in order to give! 

Stop THINKING and Start FEELING: We tend to live based on what’s ‘on’ our mind, consequently, our thoughts create our emotions and images in our mind. When the world around us turns out to be different than our own image of it, our emotion and image in our consciousness are disturbed; we become uneasy. We make this mistake so often that it feels normal. We then become addicted to our emotions and forget how to really choose our feelings within our consciousness about anything that happens outside of our self. Stop living based on what’s on your mind. Start consciously choosing what you feel, by controlling your mind. You will then become the master of your mind. 

Stop DOING and Start BEING: It is tough to stop being a compulsive doer! The imperative is to do more in less time. It is not difficult to become an action-addict, especially when there is the fear of being left behind. We even feel we have to do something in order to relax and do nothing! We believe we have to be seen by others to be always doing something, working on something, creating something. So we chase feelings of importance, fulfillment and worth through action. So... stop it! Stop being an action-addict. Allow the things to happen, to occur, to appear, as they will! Can you just be with others without trying to advise them, find out about them, fix them, make them feel what you think they ‘should’ feel? If you do, you will feel the reality and the power of ‘the being’ that you are. And you will know that that is all you are. And that will be enough! Quite enough! 

Action: Take each step and ask yourself, “Why is it not so easy for me to do this?” Reflect slowly! Try to master each step.

Adapted from Mike George’s article, “Are YOU Ready for the Ultimate Makeover?”© 2013

Are YOU in Conflict with Anyone?

Being in conflict during the course of our lives is inevitable. Depending on the dynamics, these conflicts either blow over or we get stuck in them or they get escalated. Although the basic ingredients of all conflicts remain the same regardless of the issues at stake, the characters involved or the history of the relationship, the real causes are difficult to see and understand due to distracting and binding emotions. Here are five key ‘insights’ about conflict which may help you walk your own path to liberation from all conflicts everywhere and for all time! 

INSIGHT 1 - Your responsibility within your conflict situation is your contribution to the conflict. The Shift from Dissolution to Resolution: The process of responding to any person or situation happens within you. No one can make you feel anything without your permission. Your fear or anger towards others is your creation, not theirs and hence your emotions or your behavior making them the perpetrators. If you detach yourself for a moment from the conflict and think quietly, you will realize that the conflict and therefore your contribution to the conflict begins with your negative perception of others, within your consciousness, not by others and is sustained within your consciousness. This is why a conflict resolution begins with conflict dissolution; one party has to dissolve its contribution to conflict so that the process of resolution can begin. 

INSIGHT 2 - The quality of energy you put into the conflict will be the quality of energy you will get back. 

The Shift from Wanting to Giving: What you give is what you get, and what you get is the return of what you have previously given; the law of ‘you reap what you sow’. When you become aware of this law you become more careful about the quality of energy you give to others, regardless of who they are, or the situation that you share with them. At a subtle level we radiate attitude, and at a gross level we radiate behavior. Either way what ripples out from us will likely return in a similar form. In a conflict situation this begins with giving respect to the other. 

INSIGHT 3 - You cannot make anyone do or be anything because you cannot control another human being. 

The Shift from Control to Influence: In any conflict situation we are essentially disempowering our self and giving our power to the other. We also believe that others are responsible for our happiness which is obviously not true. Similarly, we cannot control others, however, we can influence the others. If we do, it completely changes the dynamics of the relationship. When we do, we have made the shift from control to influence. 

INSIGHT 4 - The resolution of all conflict begins at the mental level when you accept the other as they are. 

The Shift from Resistance to Acceptance: If you ever want to mentally and emotionally disarm another person in a conflict situation simply accept them as they are and their position as it is. It does not mean you ‘agree’; acceptance is not agreement. It doesn’t mean you ‘condone’ what they have said or done. It does mean you can begin to communicate and travel together on the journey towards resolution. Acceptance is not the only step, just the first step in a real relationship. 

INSIGHT 5 - You are mentally attached to an outcome that is not happening in the physical dimension – only detachment can help you. 

The Shift from Attachment to Detachment: In all your conflicts you have an image in your mind of the result that you want – it may be something to do with a situation or a behavior that you want from another. The truth is the conflict is happening because of your attachment to that specific result. The method you are using to create the result is the wrong method, sabotaging the outcome you want. Before we can resolve conflict it’s necessary to dissolve our part of the conflict and that means learning the art of detachment. 

The reality is, human relationships are messy. People including ourselves are unpredictable. Every exchange is different. Many seem difficult. That means the above insights and their application are not rigidly sequential as stated. Resolving conflict is not about clever techniques and neat methods. Once you are familiar with the wisdom that sits behind the insights, once you see the validity of the internal shifts, then the appropriate behaviors will emerge naturally. You will intuitively begin know when to apply each insight, or a combination, and in which particular moments. 

 Adapted from Mike George’s article,“Are YOU in Conflict with Anyone?”© 2013

Have YOU Restored Authentic Happiness to Your Life?

Almost everything we do and pursue is motivated by the search for happiness. Yet we do not know what exactly happiness is or how to experience it. Consequently, it’s been confused with many feelings clouded by false promises and illusions. Happiness is a state of being. But it’s hard to pin down an accurate description of happiness as it is a state that you ‘feel’ and the words that we use for different feelings mean different things to different people. If you are authentically happy, you will likely come up with three predominant feelings - contentment, bliss and joy. 

Authentic CONTENTMENT occurs when, without any attachment, you are able to accept everyone as they are and everything as it is, at all times in all places, at all moments! Authentic contentment occurs naturally when nothing and no one can disturb you; when you no longer ‘desire’ anything or anyone to ‘make you’...happy! 

Authentic happiness includes a BLISS that arises naturally when we are internally free. And we become internally free when we have no attachment, no fear of losing. Watch and listen to the young starlings on a warm summer day as they learn to fly. They are ‘delighting’ in their freedom to fly because they are not attached to fear of falling down while flying. It’s a great metaphor for spirit, for our self. 

Authentic happiness includes a JOY that arises naturally from deep within when you are engaged in the process of bringing your true peaceful and loving nature, your true state, into the world through your thoughts, words and actions. These are the primary forms that we all create when we realize that we ourselves are not a ‘physical form’ but the energy of consciousness itself. 

In real life, our consciousness gets polluted with many toxins, we call beliefs. And we must watch out for them: 

Toxic Belief No 1 - Acquisition makes me happy! We believe that if we acquire certain objects, certain ‘partners’, then we will find happiness. In reality, however, acquisition brings only temporary happiness but pollutes our consciousness by creating an attachment. 

Toxic Belief No. 2 - Achievement makes me happy. This is the belief that has us continuously setting goals for using our time and energy in striving and struggling towards their achievement that delays our happiness until the goal is achieved. 

Toxic Belief No 3 - Excitement equals happiness. Parents pass on the illusion that excitement is happiness when they take us to our first circus or match. They become excited and call it happiness so we believe them. Excitement is what happens when the water boils. The molecules are excited, they are agitated. But happiness is not agitation. Happiness is a state of contentment with a natural flow of joy from our heart into the world. 

Toxic Belief No 4 - Happiness is dependent on others. We all know the moment when we have said, “I was so happy when you said that! You made me so happy.” Does someone else make you happy? It seems that way. We forget that we are ourselves responsible for our own state of happiness. When we make our feelings dependent on what other people, it’s probably one of the hardest toxins to eliminate from our consciousness. 

Toxic Belief No 5 - Happiness is the result of attachment. “That’s mine; this is my house; my car; my money; my partner”. These are moments when we are really saying we need to be attached to things to be happy. But there will be frequent moments of anxiety, tension, worry and even panic as we ‘fear’ losing what we are attached to. 

Toxic Belief No 6 - Happiness is relief from pain or suffering. Perhaps the most common confusion around happiness is when pain is confused with suffering. However pain relief can never be authentic happiness. Authentic happiness is only possible when we are able to accept the physical pain and differentiate it from suffering. Pain is physical but suffering is mental and emotional which is always entirely our own creation. 

Toxic Belief No 7 - Happiness is only possible when there is success. Brilliantly conditioned, we believe that success equals winning. That include winning our survival! So we live in fear of losing, fear of not surviving, which creates many unhappy moments. Then we start to compare our successfulness against others successes, inducing more unhappy moments!Trying to be more successful today than yesterday, more successful than others, is what turns life into an ultra-serious journey, a joyless expedition, a discontented sojourn. 

There are probably many more toxic beliefs contaminating our consciousness and sabotaging our natural state of contentment, our original bliss and our pure joyfulness,. But recognizing them, and realizing how they are inducing feelings of discontent, joylessness and frequent moments of grumpiness is the first step in the purification of our consciousness. The spiritual process of the purification of our consciousness includes the elimination of the toxins that have been absorbed along the way. 

Adapted from Mike George’s article, “Have YOU Restored Authentic Happiness to Your Life?”© 2013

Are YOU a Believer or a Knower?

You took foundation meditation course, attend the weekly murli classes, visited Madhuban, Mount Abu! You were inspired, you felt genuinely changed by the experience. You returned home with an enthusiasm of new YOU! You are more aware of others, less reactive, more patient, more a listener and a less talker. A few days pass, you get into daily routine and you are back to your old self. And again you search for new ways to unleash your inner potential by attending a self-improvement course. So why do we find it so hard to change? 

The Mind is Set by Belief: The answer can probably be encapsulated in the word ‘mindset’. Until our mindset changes, our thoughts and decisions, attitudes and actions, will not change significantly or lastingly. ‘Mindset’ means the beliefs we have assimilated and to which we are subconsciously attached. They shape our perceptions and our interpretations. They are the root cause of our consequent habits of thought and action. 

Until we consciously do something about our programmed belief system nothing much is going to change in our life. But changing our mindset is NOT about casting out the old and assimilating, adopting and affirming a new set of beliefs. It can bring some short term results at a superficial level but the original beliefs are so entrenched in our subconscious that they sustain and nurture our habitual thoughts and behaviors. Thus there is always a ‘dualistic mental struggle’ between believing in the negative and believing in the positive. 

Stop Trying to Change: So stop trying. Only then is it possible to rediscover the truth. Truth is not belief! Beliefs are a product of dualistic thinking as such, the beliefs have opposites, and hence the mental tension in the thinking, “Should I believe or not believe?” So what is truth? What is the truth that lies beyond right and wrong, beyond believing and disbelieving, way beyond faith and doubt, beyond positive and negative? It is consciousness itself.1 Remember your primary responsibility:After a lifetime of conditioning in which we learn to believe it’s ‘the other’ that makes you feel what you feel, and therefore think what you think, and do what you do, it’s not easy to remember ...no it’s not them, it’s me! Take responsibility for your own emotional state. 

The Shift from Belief to Truth: It’s only when we fully ‘realize’ our true state, which is to realize and know your true nature, that all those beliefs, positive or negative, right or wrong, good or bad, become toast! Belief itself becomes redundant. When you are ‘in’ your true state of conscious awareness then the idea (belief) that you need to ‘believe in’ yourself, believe in the project, believe in the product, just sounds a bit silly! 

Here are some examples of how the dualistic tension of beliefs can be dissolved by the singularity of truth i.e. by realizing and living from your true nature. 

The Anger Beliefs: We tend to ‘learn to believe’ it’s OK to be angry at others, at the world, and even towards our self. Parents and managers may have even learned to use the emotion of anger to scare others into compliance. Then, when someone comes along and says anger is not a good idea, not a healthy emotion, they resist this belief and even argue for their anger! So the anger is good versus the anger is bad conversation gets underway! It’s only when the truth of our inner peace is felt and realized to be our natural state of being, a state that is always there, ‘prior to’ our thoughts and beliefs, that the ‘anger OK/not OK’ argument is seen to be futile and irrelevant! Why? Because hidden in the deep inner peace of our being is the awareness that we don’t depend on anyone else for our feelings of peace, happiness, contentment, joy! This realization of complete inner freedom kills one of the deepest beliefs that most of us learn, which is that we are dependent on others, on events, on the world, for what and how we feel! 

The Belief in Loss: Similarly, fear arises from ‘the belief’ that we may lose something or someone in the future. Sadness arises when we ‘believe’ we have lost someone or something in the past. These beliefs and emotions then shape other reactive, defensive behaviors including withdrawal, avoidance and attack. Only when we truly, deeply realize that everything and everyone are simply passing energies that come and go, like wind and rain, sunlight and snowfall, can we be free of fear and sadness. Sometimes these realizations are called spiritual. They ‘happen’ within our consciousness which is within our spirit or soul. 

Action: Initiate three discussions with three people you know well and practice letting g of belief and reaction and experience the feeling of not having to defend your belief. 

Adapted from Mike George’s article “Are YOU a Believer or a Knower?” © 2012

How Difficult are YOUR Conversations?

Conversation is a double-edge sword; both spoken and unspoken words communicate and set the dynamics of a relationship. Some people breeze through any relationship being warm, calm and accepting person and an empathic listener; at the other end of the spectrum, people go off like a box of fireworks in almost every encounter. Most people converse somewhere between the spectrum ends; some even oscillate between the ends of the spectrum from relationship to relationship. 

Generally, there are three factors that underpin a conversation. These are context, history and expectation. Context usually refers to an existing/perceived situation. History usually refers to previous encounter(s) and its associated baggage. Expectation is about our wants of others such as behavior, favor, acceptance, etc. 

So here are eight suggested guidelines to drive hazard-free down the conversation lane: 

1. Remember your primary responsibility:After a lifetime of conditioning in which we learn to believe it’s ‘the other’ that makes you feel what you feel, and therefore think what you think, and do what you do, it’s not easy to remember ...no it’s not them, it’s me! Take responsibility for your own emotional state. 
2. Respect is the secret ingredient: Any previous negative experiences (memories of suffering that you attributed to the other) or any previous negative judgment about the other will not allow you respect the other. A conversation without mutual respect will flounder and animosity may flourish. You won’t be able to affirm their innate worth and goodness as a human being unless your vision of them ascribes value to them. 
3. Resistance only leads to persistence so.. stop it! Once you have accepted that it’s you who is responsible for what you feel it’ll be easier to dissolve your resistance to them, even when you don’t agree with them. Resistance kills our capacity to hear the other clearly and eats away at our ability to understand them. Acceptance does not mean you agree with them but it makes conversation easier. 
4. Listen from your heart as well as your head: Listening from the heart can instantly soften a difficult conversation and remove most of the ... difficulty! Instead of being concerned just with their facts and your feelings, you become equally interested in the feelings of the other. Listening from the heart is a skill that develops a deeper connection with the other that leads to pleasant relationship. 
5. Be like a bendy toy: Entering a conversation with wants and conditions will make the conversation difficult. By being flexible, willing to compromise and acknowledge other’s feelings, you will improve your conversations and relationship with the other. 
6. Avoid presumption and assumption: When you make an assumption or presumption you become ‘closed’ around your own conclusions about their motivation, intention and behavior. Even better is to genuinely care about the other. When you can care for and about the other, you will do a lot of ‘asking’, which in turn will naturally reveal and dissolve your assumptions. 
7. Drop the past and pick up the future: Don’t dwell in the past by continuously going over the past. Ask only once what happened and what, if anything, can we learn. Then ask yourself how do we go forward, how will we deal with the same situation/issue next time. Revisiting the past tends to descend to blame- game and makes conversation difficult. 
8. Never DEXTIFY: When challenged, never Defend, EXplain and jusTIFY. Instead, ask before telling. This helps create space to restore openness in conversation. Remember, the root cause of a difficult conversation always lies within us, not with them. 

 Action: Identify 2 people with whom you tend to have difficult conversations and then practice each of the strategies listed above to improve conversations steadily.

 Adapted from Mike George’s article, “How Difficult are YOUR Conversations?”.© 2013

Shivratri Celebrations

Where IN the World Are YOU?

You wonder how in the world you can sail through life gracefully with generosity and gratitude, without being rocked, shocked or knocked, agitated, resentful or animus towards anyone! 

Realize that you are a soul and that you occupy a form comprised of the same elements as the world is made of - earth wind, water, fire, space (void); realize that you are a temporary dweller in the form you are in. Here are some insights and practices, some meditations and contemplations to correct our relationship with the world: 

1. A Day without Desires: Desire is the most frequent thought we create in our mind: I want destination wedding; a large home; a luxury car; an expensive vacation; private school for children and so on. Our desires keep our consciousness agitated and therefore vulnerable to the world. Desires give us fear of unachievability and thereby delay or thwart our happiness. Practice a day without a desire and if it arises, let it pass and become a master of contentment.
2. The Art of Detached Involvement: Attachment brings fear of loss. Make every interaction, every relationship an opportunity to practice detachment with involvement, that is, be present and empathize for others experiences but do not relate to your own or ‘re-live it’ so as to keep your consciousness cool and enhance your ability to care. 
3. Stillness in Motion: At the heart of consciousness lies an ‘inner space’ that never ever changes. It is the ‘still point’ that gives us stability in the chaos around us and the one that defines us who we are. Viewing our own life and things around us from this ‘still point’ allows us to see the world in transition, flow and thereby helping us become detached. 
4. Observe From Above: If you can rise above the scene in front of you, ‘as if’ you are leaving your body 'down there' in the scene and pull your perspective far enough away, like astronauts on a journey away from the physical world, the insignificance of...everything, becomes apparent. Events and circumstance lose their effect upon you. You may even see and realize that every scene that appears in front of you is just a fleeting image in the larger drama, one small frame in the reel of the movie called life. Your cravings diminish! 
5. Listen to the Silence: Behind all creativity and prior to all creation is silence. The artist begins with a blank canvas...silence. Between the notes of a symphony is nothing but ...silence. Between and behind your thoughts is the power of your being ... your silence. From the silence of the self comes all creation. If you remain busy and occupied with what is happening around you, you will not be able to harness your own power of silence coming from ‘still point’ to be detached or contented. Meditation takes you beyond your surroundings, into this silence. Practice meditation. 
6. Imitate a Seed: Hold the seed of any plant in the palm of your hand and it seems so small and insignificant, so inert and static. And yet the complete blueprint of the future growth of its form, color and fragrance are merged within. It is the perfect metaphor for the 'light of consciousness', for the self that 'I am', that ‘you are’. Real rest and renewal happens when we can bring our consciousness into a seed like state. There is no stimulation. The mind is completely still without thought, the intellect is silent without evaluation or judgment. All the tendencies and traits of your personality have temporarily dissolved back into the light of you, so there are no cravings or impulses towards action. The conscience is still and the memory bank has been temporarily shut down. There is a complete and natural detachment from the material world. 

Action: Analyze to what extent you are affected and dominated by the thought of, and things around you. Next take one of the tools above a day and try to reach still point in the midst of chaos.

Adapted from Mike George’s article, “Where IN the World Are YOU?”.© 2013

Message for the New Year from Dadi Janki

Happy New Year

Om Shanti!

Brahma Baba's Remembrance Day

Brahma Baba's Remembrance Day Special Program

Date: Thursday, January 17, 2013
Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Place: BK Meditation Center, 821 Anacapa Court, Milpitas, CA 95035

Program:

• 6:30pm - 7:30pm Intense Meditation 
• 7:30pm - 8:15pm Brahma baba's life story & Teachings 
• Followed by Brahma Bhojan (Dinner) 

(RSVP Required! Email: rsvp@bksiliconvalley.org)

Brahma Baba's Remembrance Day Special Yog Bhatti

Date: Friday, January 18, 2013
Time: 7:30pm - 8:30pm
Place: BK Meditation Center, 821 Anacapa Court, Milpitas, CA 95035

Happy New Year - 2013

The Immune System of the Soul

When our body is invaded by viruses or bacteria, the immune system, often referred to as antibodies and white blood cells, move to protect the affected parts -- what might be called ‘cellular malfunction’ -- of our body which we tend to call...disease! The ‘immune system of the soul’ has the potential to work in a similar way on the many kinds of dis - ease that occur within our consciousness. The immune system of the soul could be described as aspects or movements of consciousness. These are awareness, realization and transformation. 

One day when you are angry at someone and you become aware and realize that you have created anger in yourself just because you could not control others and that others made you unhappy by not complying with your wishes. What you realize is that you have created a dis – ease within your consciousness. When you cease to control others, your dis - ease would heal, releasing your energy for creative influence that nourishes your soul.

We all know how viruses infect functions of our body or our computer. Similarly, dis - ease within consciousness are caused by the virus of different beliefs. Hence the three phases of the art of healing the soul (self):

Phase 1: Awareness of the feeling of dis - ease within me! This can be anything ranging from the awareness of feeling of uneasiness to feeling of stress, anxiety, anger or rage.

Phase 2: Realization of the cause of dis - ease and the ‘viral belief’ that has infected our consciousness i.e. our self. This is only possible when we look into and through the feeling (the emotion that we feel). This requires quiet contemplation.

Phase 3: Transformation of our state of being takes place within the soul/self through the realization that the truth can overpower and replace the ‘viral belief’ and, in effect, heal consciousness. The dis - ease disappears and the feeling of peace/contentment/caring results.

Here are a few examples of the most common dis - eases of the soul/self (consciousness):

The Dis - Ease of ADDICTION: This is not only a disease that affects body and brain. ADDICTION is also a Dis - Ease of consciousness. The main symptoms to be aware of are DESIRE and CRAVING.

The Dis - Ease of BLINDNESS: There is a Dis - Ease of consciousness that could be called BLINDNESS; blindness of our inner eye, our third eye, our eye of awareness. The main symptom is EMOTION. Notice whenever you become emotional it’s as if you can’t see (perceive) clearly, can’t think clearly and cannot make good quality decisions.

The Dis - Ease of the HEART: There is a Dis - Ease of our heart, not the heart of our body, but the heart of our consciousness i.e. our spiritual heart, the heart of our being. We know this dis - ease as SADNESS. We sometimes refer to it as a feeling of heaviness in the heart. Only the realization of the basic truth that every thing comes to pass, can there be the deep healing of past sadness.

Action: Identify your dis - eases. What is the truth that will eliminate your beliefs and heal your dis - eases? If you acted from that truth what would your behavior/s now look like?

Adapted from Mike George’s article “The Immune System of the Soul” © 2012