Encourage every possibility with love and respect

Do you see possibility or impossibility in life?
How often do you shut down a possibility in your life?
Do you keep every possibility available for your child?

The more I work with children, the more I truly embrace the beauty of the space of possibility we can hold for them and ourselves. In life, nothing is impossible really! Life is a huge possibility, every human life is a tremendous possibility waiting to be realised. When we are awakened to our true nature – all knowing, all powerful and eternal Self, we can manifest anything we want in life which not only fulfils us but also do so much good for the entire Universe.

I remembered one important truth shared by my Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) which struck a chord in my being. He said that “A possibility happening inside you is like a new bud, like a tiny plant just sprouting out. It should be treated with a lot of love and respect! Every hope, every faith, every trust, and every little possibility should be kept alive, encouraged, and enriched – that is dharma. In the Vedic Tradition, we have a great heart to encourage every possibility.”

That’s the main reason I am so in love with Vedic tradition because it gives individuals so much freedom and space of possibilities to explore and discover. It is so life-affirming which keeps me constantly in a state of excitement and ecstasy about my possibilities and the people I touch. Can you imagine if we can hold this space of possibilities for the next generation? The whole human civilisation will make a quantum leap into Satya Yuga, the Golden Age of Enlightenment!

Frankly, I have also seen many people losing so many things in life, just because they cannot keep the possibility open! Due to their narrow ideas and wrong cognitions about life, they postpone the decision and seal off the possibility. NO!! Don’t shut down your possibilities, or postpone them, just because you cannot encounter or face certain situations in life. A person who shuts down his/her possibility is an atheist. Atheists are people who do not have the subtle grooves in their brain to grasp the subtle higher truths of life. So they just shut down, saying – Nothing like this exists. Shutting down any possibility, shutting down any hope is atheism.

What causes us to shut down our possibilities?

The biggest culprit is the rigidities of  rules that got inserted into our consciousness by parents, schools, religious organisations and society. With rigid rules, so many possibilities are stopped! You would have observed how rules stifled a child. When you try to give all these silly rules to your child because you think you know the best way, this is the time you shut down the possibility in your child.  He/she feels like a bird with clipped wings. By and by, children respond to life by not even trying because no matter what they do, you will not give them the space and time to explore and make mistake. Nothing wrong in making mistakes in life, it is a part of learning process. When children are not in the space of expansion or being happy, they won’t do it! Unless you give your child a space to make mistakes, you are not making him/her responsible. A possibility can only flower with responsibility. If you want to make a genius out of your child, be very clear you have to make them responsible. Other than the rule of no-violence (ahimsa), no other rules should be solid.

In Swamiji’s Vedic school called Nithyananda Gurukul at Bengaluru Adhneenam, the Gurukul balasanths (child-saints) are given so much space and time to explore and discover their own possibilities. Every child has the freedom to be who they want to be. The space of possibilities is at its peak, it is like a heaven on planet earth for every intelligent being to realise their ultimate possibility.

How can we open up more possibilities?

Swamiji shared that “Keep all hopes alive, even if it is false hope! All hopes lead you to hopelessness, not because they are false hopes, but to lead you to reality. Hope by its very innate intelligence leads you to reality. So keep all the hopes alive. Whenever the possibilities are shut down, hopes are reduced. Everything should be fluid, which a person can bend or alter as per his growing responsibility. Everything should be a flowing guideline, not a rigid rule. Shutting down the possibility is adharma (life-negative). The master keeps even the smallest possibility open. I have happened on planet Earth to open and fill everybody with all hopes; to awaken all the possibilities of you.”

From my own experience, the moment you are connected with a living master, he takes you on a beautiful journey of self-discovery of your higher and higher possibility. I can see what I thought I couldn’t do in the past, everything is becoming a possibility in my life now. As the embodiment of life itself, an enlightened master encourages every possibility in every being as an expression of the Whole.

In essence, let us all encourage every possibility with love and respect in every one in every moment and discard all the rigid man-made rules which bind us. Constantly, keep our hopes alive by taking responsibility to give time, energy and life to experience our highest possibility. Namaste 😀

Take responsibility in relationships

Do you feel suffocated by your parents’ expectations?
Can you differentiate attachment vs. responsibility in relationship?
How do you take responsibility in creating a loving and fulfilling relationship?

Many of us are confused with attachment in relationship instead of having a right understanding about responsibility especially when it comes to relationships with parents. After all, our parents are the first two role models in our lives and they have major influence in our lives. Not only we imbibe their body languages, we also are influenced by their thought patterns. This is further complicated by the societal expectations on parents. This is one relationship every seeker needs to complete with as he or she travels on the path of spirituality because the parental conditioning is the last imprint to leave our bio-memory which shows how deep-rooted the conditioning can be.
Relationship is a profound subject, however, I have been blessed to receive more clarity from the guidance of a living enlightened master, Paramhamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji).

  • Relationship with parents. I remembered Swamiji made it very clear in one discourse in 2009, he said that we are not bound by our parents to live our life the way they want. It is not our duty or responsibility to live their unfulfilled dreams through us. One wrong cognition that many parents carry is they think their child is their extension, so unconsciously they try to force their child to live a life they think is ‘best’ for the child. The truth is the moment we are born, we are independent beings with our own wisdom. We have come to fulfil our own life purpose and possibilities. Our duty to our parents is to give them emotional and moral support whenever they need it, love them and care for them but we don’t give them our life. Many times, we mistake our attachment to them and powerlessness as a duty and responsibility. If you are completely bound by your parent’s way of living and it has become a duty, there is then no possibility for growth and expansion. You will lose the courage to break through and upgrade yourself. Responsibility to your parents is giving them moral support but the highest responsibility to our parents is helping them to become liberated by living enlightenment. The same understanding applies to us when we become new parents, we are there to enjoy our children’s presence and support them so that they can experience their highest possibility.
  • Relationship with partner/spouse. The relationship with your partner is like doing penance (tapas) because it truly requires constantly working on yourself and making yourself settle with that person and making that person accept you as you are. To have a loving fulfilling relationship, there should be no hidden agenda but each person is willing to take responsibility in making the relationship work. By working on ourselves and evolving our space, naturally we will be able to align more and more with each other. xannonce.ch
  • Relationship with teachers. The responsibility to our teachers is keeping the knowledge they have imparted to us alive and making it flourish and benefit humanity. Whatever knowledge we learn from teachers, we ensure the continuity of this knowledge to the next generation of humanity.
  • Relationship with Guru. A Guru-disciple relationship is the most mysterious of all relationships. All the other relationships have happened from the mental and emotional levels. But Guru-disciple relationship operates from the very core of our being. Actually it is not even a relationship, it is a connection between a realized one and the unrealized, the alchemy of merging into oneness. Then the disciples will realize that they were always realized, just that they were not awakened to it. So the only responsibility a disciple has to the Master is to achieve a completion with everything in life and experience oneness (advaita) with Existence.

In essence, we are a free being, we are not bound by anything in relationships. The courage to break free from all expectations and the willingness to take responsibility to stay true to who we truly are is the first step toward becoming integrated, complete and authentic with our being. Namaste: D

Prana: The Vital Life Energy

The topic –Prana is one of my favourite topics because it connects me back to the very energy source, Nature. I am currently reading a book called ‘Siddhas: The Masters of Basics’ written by Pal Pandian which I like to share with my readers.

The first truth we need to know – not only the structure of our human body but also the structure of everything in the universe, both visible and invisible, with form and without form, from the single atom to the entire universe, is all formed by the principle life-shaping energy called Prana.

The Divine Creator creates and sustains all realms of Existence from this primal life force. This matrix of primal patterns builds up our entire Cosmos along with us in it and the connection between us and Prana is inseparable. In this interconnected web of primal energy, the Cosmos, Prana bridges everything external and everything internal together as ONE. So anything even our breath is capable of affecting and altering every other thing.

Here’s a simple test. Place your left index finger on the spot on your wrist just below your right thumb. You can feel your pulse. Now, without removing your index finger, just hold your breath for a few seconds. That very instant, you will feel a change in the pulse pattern. We can feel for ourselves the diminished pulse rate for the moments we hold our breath in check. The influence is apparent and immediate.

Another example is the way how our breathing becomes distorted over time due to unconscious lifestyle. As soon as the natural flow of breath changes, the regular flow of external air within the body is somewhat disturbed and the temperature of the inner parts of our body rises a little. This rise in temperature is capable of destroying millions and millions of microbes within our body. If the condition is not addressed, this may even interrupt some bodily functions and bring diseases.

This small exercise makes you realise that the effect of any restrain we do extends beyond ourselves to all over the Universe causing appropriate results or reactions. The formless Prana repeatedly acquires bodies in this world and this cycle of taking birth goes on until we attain a state that acquires a liking to remain without a body as pure vital force – the silent spirit. This primal Cosmic energy has its own vital significance and pattern. It returns to the source from where it first originates. For one moment, assume that the Prana of the whole universe is retained for a few minutes. All of us would die in a catastrophe. Compared to the immense universe our petty ego is simply nothing. Similarly, compared to our entire body, the countless microbes that inhabit our body are individually nothing. Fundamentally, we are affected by each and every change that takes place in our environment based on the interconnectedness of this energy web.

I remembered my Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) once spoke on the topic ‘Collective Consciousness’, he revealed the first truth ‘All our minds are not individually separate pieces of the universe. They are all one and the same.” We are all totally interlinked, closely networked. If we go a little deeper into this truth, the moment we will understand that we are a part of the collective consciousness, we don’t have individual identity or ego, and we go beyond any idea of pain, suffering, depression and disease. With Prana, we can experience to this egoless state of being. That’s why the yogis perform pranayama as a purification process for the body-mind system before they experience the undifferentiated state of consciousness.

Prana is what connects our formless state with our formed state. Just as the life-principle within us makes use of this energy to structure our body, that very life-principle gets freed from the body by the withdrawal of this energy. It operates involuntarily, similar to the involuntary process of our breathing. Before the formation of different cells in our body, the life force by its own flow first forms a basic structure of invisible channels called Nadis. Depending on this flow, the Nadis assume different names. Sushumna is the central channel which is said to be the Vatha Nadi as it executes the main animating principle. The Pingala Nadi (Pitta Nadi) works the solar principle of giving vitality, growth, metabolism to the embryo. The Ida Nadi (Kapha Nadi) gives enough nourishment to the organs and keeps the body temperature in check. Prana creates and maintains this genetic structure and is in turn maintained by it. The primal Creator in His creation of a human body, using Prana first creates the 3-fold layers before anything else. Prana is based upon which the 3 bio-regulating forces – Vatha, Pitta and Kapha are formed. The tri-doshams (3 doshas) is what determines the constitution of the human body for that entire lifetime. This starts the formation of microcosm – the human body – by determining the looks and design of the 3 life shaping forces of a human.

The next truth – the ancient Siddhas describe Nature as an endless flowing phenomena, always changing and moving. This is Mother Nature’s inherent nature. When this flow of existence experiences a block, it responds by an alarm. We have seen how our insensitive acts hamper the flow of Mother Nature and result in frightening natural calamities. Our bodies are not separate from this river flow of existence and its inherent principle. The ancient masters declare disease and illnesses are a result of our own insensitivity and ill health the undeniable evidence of us persistently turning a deaf ear to what our body intelligence is telling us. The Siddhas call this river flow of natural existence that nurtures life as ‘Vaasi” (living) and the blocks as “Viyadhi” (deviated from own nature).

In essence, Nature which expresses as Prana – vital life energy – responds to those who live as Nature. You can live in Nature only by loving Her. Life is a journey – the journey of a spiritual being going through a human experience. Unfortunately, human beings forgot to identify with the language of the Universe and feel the abundance that Nature so unselfishly shares. Our modern day high-strung lives are crowded with demanding commitments hence making it easy to drop our self-awareness and replace it with an object-oriented mentality which brings stress, fatigue, disorders and chronic conditions. All we need to do is turn our awareness inwards and start listening to the silence, be with our self with great ease. By pure listening to them and to ourselves, we create an environment where they are nurtured and recognized, hence preventing them from being pushed into obscurity by our aggressive misuse. You will soon feel you are part of the grand Universe of life and also inextricably connected to the physical dimensions of life by being in your body. Prana, the energy pervading all over the living Universe is embodied and rooted in physical form and life as it nurtures your body-mind-spirit every moment, your connection with it nurtures it more. Namaste 😀