Follow Your Heart

By on April 29, 2016   /   My personal journey  

Do you follow your mind or your heart?

Before I turned 40, I was mostly following my mind as this was the way I was trained in school and by society. By the time I reached my late 20’s, I hit a snag in my life. Materially, I had everything I could possibly ask for in the outer world but in the inner world, I was in total shambles. I was lost in life lacking the source of inspirations and purpose. My body was aching so badly that I carried a constant irritation and non-fulfilment. The depression of success became my guest in my inner space!

It was only when I started the path of yoga which taught me how to listen to my heart again. It was my heart that led me to seek my true Self. I discovered that the heart never lies, but the untamed mind is the cunning one. Through authentic listening to my heart, my seeking led me to meet my Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji). He created a big cognitive shift in me and gave me the courage and inspiration to follow my heart. He made me realise that fulfilment was the only thing I was truly seeking in my life.

In April 2009, I decided to leave my marketing profession at the peak of my career because I had to honour what my heart was yearning – not for material existence but to get back to my original state of Ananda (bliss). For the last seven years, I discovered my passion which is to enrich with world about the science of living enlightenment and the science of Yoga and healing. Without a binding corporate job, I was able to explore and experiment so many new things in life like starting up my own business, volunteering for children programs and discovering the space of a child, writing a blog site sharing my experiences with yoga and healing in laymen terms, conducting healing workshops for various modern ailments like insomnia and anxiety, enjoying more quality time with my son, most of all – doing what I like which is deepening my spiritual knowledge and practice. All these wouldn’t be possible when I was having a marketing career. Honeslty, at this current life stage, because of my courage to follow my heart, I am able to experience so much fulfilment, freedom and joy. There is no tension nor irritation but only pure inspirations and an inexhaustible energy to manifest a new reality as I want.

How did I make the shift?

One fundamental question everyone needs to ask themselves is – ‘At the end of my life, is my mind going to judge whether I am a success or failure, or is my heart going to judge whether I am a success or failure?’

The truth is only your heart is going to judge, your mind loses its power on you at your deathbed. When you are doing the final calculation of your life, your heart is going to be the judge, not your mind. If your mind is the judge, all the rich fellows should have a complete and satisfying death, because as far as the mind is concerned, the material things such as money, status, enjoyment, beauty and everything – it was a great life. All the people who are rich, who asked for all these material things: good husband, amazing kids, wonderful house, and good friends and family, should be having a very fulfilling death, a very satisfying end. But that is not happening because fulfilment is what that matters.

Swamiji says:“Fundamentally it is your heart which is going to be the judge of whether your life is satisfied, complete, or if you have wasted your life. The heart is the one which is going to tell whether you are fulfilled or not. The mind is just a prostitute as it will just play any side it wants. One small reason is enough for the mind to completely tumble you, make you lose the very basis of your life.”

Why do you think people commit suicide?

Swamiji explained that this is because when the mind tumbles you, it makes you imbalanced, you do some things impulsively which you can never repair after that. Suicide is always the decision of the mind, never of the heart. People say ‘Oh, his heart is broken, so he committed suicide’. No. His mind is broken, hence he committed suicide. It is never the heart. Whenever you have a dilemma between the mind and the heart, always choose the heart, because even if you are a failure as per the mind’s cognition, the heart is the one who is going to make the judgment at the end of your life.

In essence, follow your heart because it is the heart which is going to lead you to the ultimate fulfilment of your life. Namaste. 😀

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Are you sleeping in the waking state?

By on April 1, 2016   /   Health  

After expounding on imagination in the last article, let us move to the 4th modification of the mind – SLEEP. Patanjali gives a deeper insight into sleep in the next Yoga Sutra. The first thing we need to do is to expand our understanding about sleep, not in the narrowed way as we experience as a layman, but from the level of consciousness. If you are able to grasp this knowledge and apply in your daily life, the whole quality of your life will be transformed.

Here’s the 10th verse of Yoga Sutra “The subtle state where thoughts are not visualised is sleep or nidra”. Patanjali is not referring only to the normal sleep we experience at night, he is also talking about two other sleeps that we are not aware. The word ‘Nidra’ means disconnect.

As human beings, we all go through 3 kinds of sleep: 1) sleep which we experience during waking state, 2) the sleep which we experience during dream state, 3) sleep which we experience during deep sleep state. We go through 3 types of sleep – waking-sleep, dream-sleep and deep-sleep.

First of all, you need to know that you experience sleep during waking state. Many times you would have experienced this in your life – you are there but you are not there! Your body may be moving and doing things but you are asleep. For example, you would have started the car and driven to office for 30 mins, but only when you park your car at office and get out, you will suddenly remember that you have driven for half an hour. But you don’t remember the details how you get there, it means you were sleeping even when you were awake. I have experienced it a few times during Guru puja, a Vedic ritual to offer gratitude to my Guru, I actually forgot if I had done certain steps due to absent-mindedness.

The truth is the entire humanity is sleepwalking because we go through part of our waking state sleeping till we are enlightened. Paramahamsa Nithyananda, a living enlightened master (fondly known as Swamiji) cautions that not being available in the state in which we are, is what he calls as sleep. He says that if we can just be available in the waking state, there is no problem which can’t be solved. The key is – we need to be available there because all problems are created when we are not available and we end up messing up the whole thing. This happens when the reflection of consciousness is not there. Due to absentmindedness, people miss many things in life such as relationships, decisions and life itself. When we are absentminded in the outer activities, we may lose the things like success, fame and wealth. But if we are absentminded during inner planning, inner visualization, we will miss the links in our life, the flow which is happening inside us will be missing. That’s the worst thing that can happen to any Being! It means a kind of sleep is happening in the thought flow which does not allow us to keep the passion alive. The sleep which we experience during the thought- flow or action-flow is what leads us to anguish, we suffer due to missing too many things of the inner world. Absentmindedness in the outer world is responsible for the planning not becoming a reality. You need to know that absentmindedness in the inner world is responsible for all indecisions, addiction and the inability to keep the intensity alive in your life. The addiction here means any action performed repeatedly without awareness, it does not just confine to visible dangerous addictions such as alcohol, smoking or drugs.

How to come out of this nidra – the disconnection with life?

Whenever the nidra or waking-sleep happens, remember and bring awareness. You can try this technique. For the next 10 days, whenever you eat, be aware of how you feel in the stomach, how you feel with the whole process of digestion and cleaning. You can clearly understand what makes you feel uncomfortable and what makes you feel relaxed. Suddenly your body will tell you the right quantity, right quality and you will be able to create a diet base on that awareness. Next, be aware of your breathing, the natural breathing cycle and your breathing pattern. How your thoughts which are triggered by anger or desire affect your breathing? How your breathing elongates when you are relaxed? Start to become aware of your body, feel that you are alive inside this body, your hands and legs and your face – the different parts of your body. This technique will bring you back to awareness in waking state.

In essence, sleep in waking state is due to a discontinuity of reflection of consciousness. The waking-sleep state not only stops you from manifesting your reality but also makes you forget about the very purpose in your life which is seeking. A state of low existence which everyone needs to get out. Namaste. 😀

Note : From 108 Truths of Yoga of Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda

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Judging Life is Violence

By on March 10, 2016   /   Health  

Do you know that the more judgments you carry about life, the more you will suffer with unnecessary violence and anger?

We are always so quick to pass judgment on a particular person based on one experience or even on a particular race based on one person. The judgment you pass about a particular race, the judgments you pass about a religion, the judgment you pass about a state, the prejudices and biases you carry, are all related to this wrong knowledge – we use the past experience to judge the present situation.

Here starts the problem because not only do we throw the emotions of anger or violence on others, we start internalising them which make us suffer with unnecessary emotions. For example, you read some news about a country’s President and you say “This guy is destroying the citizens of that country! So you start to carry a strong anger against him. But you won’t be able to directly interfere in his life as you have neither the right nor power to do it. So you are just sitting with that anger and later, if you hear some misfortune has happened in that President, you are happy because your anger is fulfilled, your violence is fulfilled. This is called excess anger or unnecessary anger which is in no way directly related to your life. It is just a judgment you are carrying about life.

In the 8th Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, he tells us not to carry strong words or judgments about life based on our narrow logic from the past conditioning. All these things are based on wrong knowledge. He says “Interpreting based on past incompletions leads to misconception or wrong understanding.” We never have compassion towards the present moment, we are always violent with the present moment, that is why we kill the present with the past. We destroy the present moment with the incompletions carried forward from our past. Be very clear – abusing the present moment with the incompletions from the past is hell.

All our fears, greed, worries, whatever we think of as misfortune in life, whatever we think of as our identity, can be sorted out with this one understanding. Eternity presents itself to you in the present moment, you can touch Eternity only by touching the present moment. You can’t directly touch the past nor future, the present moment is the only way you can directly connect with Eternity. However, if you are constantly torturing it with your past, you are creating incompletion, misconception and wrong understanding. All the suffering is just with this one problem – carrying the past into the present, leading to wrong understanding. You go on interpreting life based on the past and creating problems for yourself. This is how wrong understanding leads to wrong decisions which leads to suffering.

In any situation, if you are open, fresh and alive, without the past conditioning and words, you can handle the situation directly, you can live and experience that situation completely. But when you carry a preconceived idea about the situation. You never directly face that situation, you jump to a certain conclusion and start taking actions based on that. See how many time you create a whole problem in your imagination and are ready to attack with all the weapons and arguments. One important truth is we think in a generalised way i.e. the mind always carries the incompletions from one situation from one experience and extends it to all people, all situations and all experiences. Each situation is different, but your mind always generalizes.

My Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) gives this ONE amazing key, he said ‘Have compassion towards the present moment’. If you look towards the present moment with a little sympathy and compassion, it will completely open a new door, you will have a new understanding about life. When you don’t have compassion towards the present moment, you always judge this moment with your past experience. This is a powerful key to unlock all your suffering from the past and see every moment as new!

In essence, stop judging life based on your past, have a little compassion towards the present moment so that you can allow yourself to fully experience life and eventually touch Eternity. Namaste 😀

  • Source – 108 truths from the Yoga of Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda
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