ennar’s blog

 Possiblity  with  Divine Grace

Ramana Maharishi mentions that God’s ways are inscrutable. In the prescence of the Sun,which is ever shining, some buds blossom,not all. The fault however does not lie with the Sun,though it is true that the bud cannot blossom by itself, it requires the sunlight to do it. Grace is thus recognised as a key ingredient for deliverance.

Faith and unconditional surrender helps us to receive Divine Grace. Whether it is meditation, prayer, introspection or self-enquiry, the route used would depend on a person’s temperament and inclination.

Psychiatrist Scott Peck who wrote ‘The Road Less Travelled’ reveals an interesting perspective to the aspect of Grace and healing. He points out that much as one examines,the workings of Grace cannot be ascribed to a set pattern. Try as we might to obtain Grace, it may elude us, yet it might find us when least expected. He talks of neurotic patients who, on an average, are easier to treat than those who suffer social behaviour disorders. Surprisingly, he also reports of cases of complete turnaround amongst psychosis patients, while those suffering from the milder forms of neurosis have made insignificant progress,despite prolonged treatment.

The element helping the revival process has been identified as the “will to grow” akin to earnestness and faith demonstrated by a spiritual aspirant. This concept again has an element of mystery shrouding it as evidence is rather inconclusive on the dominant role of parental nurturing and love.

Scott ascribes a lead position to the role played by Divine Grace, which in some cases operates throughout a person’s life. The remarkable survival stories of Jewish prisoners of war in concentration camps substanciates this. The assertion of Jesus Christ that “many are called,but few are chosen” can also be interpreted as “All of us are called by and to Grace, but few of us chosen to listen to the call.”

Grace transports one from the platform of understanding of Truth to its full realisation. Speaking of the unpredictability of Grace, Jesus is reported to have told Nicodemis, a believer in Christ as the true Messiah, amongst the Pharisees, a sect of non-believers, “just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it will go next, so it is with the Spirit. We do not know on whom He will next bestow this life from Heaven.” Suffice to say that we are vastly limited from the dimension of our minds to find answers to the ways and workings of the omnipotent force.

Ramana Maharishi said that to try and understand the nature of Self-realisation with the mind is presumptuous. Dependent as the intellect is on the light of the self, it is incapable of understanding the magnificence of the entire manifestation,of which it is but a limited part. It is like trying to measure the sunlight at it’s source by the standard of the light given by a candle.

Instead of limiting oneself to the intellect, the wise one opts for a path of devotion or inner reflection, conscious of a higher power. The door of Grace unfolds when the mind bows in wonder,reverence and gratitude to the power of the divine. 

A young boy left his house in search of truth. He met many people; he became richer in his awareness of his ignorance. Since people went to forests to meditate, he too went to a thick forest.He did not know how to meditate. So he screamed at the forest to give him knowledge. For years his only mantra was screaming at the forest to give him knowledge. He belived that if you are commited, existence will help you.

One day, a monk came to him. He asked : “what do you want,my son ? “I want to know what the meaning of life is,” he replied. “Go to the town. The first three persons that you meet will give you the meaning of life,” replied the monk.

The boy went to the town. The first man he met was doing carpentry work. The next man he met was doing sheet metal work. The third man he met was making strings. Disappointed, he sat on the bank of a river. Suddenly, he heard the sweet strains of violin music. Something mysterious touched him. He suddenly got the answer he was looking for and he started dancing.

The carpenter was preparing the wood for the violin. The sheet metal worker was preparing metal for the strings meant for the violin. Life has everything ; all you need is to be able to connect the dots. You need to work out new combinations. And for that you need creative perception.

Life has all the ingredients. Be creative. Don’t let yourself feel victimised. You might think that what is easy is beautiful, that what is easy is joy. You are a victim of such illusions. Difficulty has such a joy. Discovery has such a joy. Seeking out has such a joy.

You have to change the notion that difficulty is pain. In exercise, there is difficulty but also joy. In sports,there is difficulty but there is joy. In your relationships,when there is difficulty,treat it as joy, just reprogramme your mind.

In prayer you don’t have to do anything ; just be available to God’s grace.Prayer is a deep readiness to receive God’s flow. It is passive alertness. Go deep and you discover your original mind… it is deep passiveness.

F  A  I  T  H  —  Quotes to ponder on

• God gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for everything He wants us to do.
• God comes at last when we think he is farthest off.
• Some things have to be belived to be seen.
• The word spirtuality dosen’t necessarily mean religion ; it means whatever it is that helps you feel connected to something that is larger than yourself.
• I am one of those who would sink with faith than swim without it.
• Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.
• You can do very little with faith ,but you can do nothing without it.
• Faith is like electricity, you can’t see it, but you can see the light.
• All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment vital and worth living. Don’t let it slip away unused.

IPL  Stands  For  Infinite  Possibilities  League

This Indian Premier League Season 2, cricket lovers got their hearts’ fill of the glory of T20 cricket.The joy of cricket remained undiminished. And, yet all the revitting drama of the sport could not obscure the irony of the final few days of the IPL’s second season. the finalists were a surprise. And the winner was best known till then only as one of the two worst teams in the last season’s IPL.

Here,then, were two teams that seemed to live the Bible’s line : “…. the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong… nor yet favour the men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” How did two teams–reputedly losing teams–led by two retired cricketers,get covered in glory ? How did the turn-around happen ?

Adam Gilchrist had reportedly written on a piece of paper that his team,the Deccan Chargers,would win the final by six wickets, which it eventually did. Gilchrist said he had a strong hunch. He had invoked the power within to come to his and his team’s aid.

Writer William Ward once said :”The optimist lives on the peninsula of infinite possibilites ; the pessimist is stranded on an island of prepetual indecision.” Savants tell us that the peninsuls is in the depths of our being,while the island is on the top of our mind. They are also aware of the music of our existence playing on that peninsula. It is a music that resonates with the universal abilities within each of us, telling us that we all play in our own IPL.,the Infinite Possibilites League. It is a music that led a hearing impaired and visually challenged Helen Keller to inspire others like her, a Mohandas to be a mahatma and a Barack Obama to make the journey all the way to the White House as US president.

What does it take to play and win in the Infinite Possibilites League ?    The three magic words : Recognise, Visualise, Realise. Recognise the limitations being enforced on us by our conditioning and labels,that our external reality is constantly reinforcing the limitations. Recognise also that there exists within us inteligence and energy that draws from an infinite source.

To visualise our goal is to focus on it. When we see that a goal is a reflection of our purpose on Earth. We move into communion with it. In stillness and silence the past drops away, with its labels and negativity, and the present shines forth. The music plays clear on the peninsula. That is what Gilchrist heard and knew that it was possible to emerge triumphant.

The third strategy is to realise our vision. Writing down our goal is the first step ; we are making a self fulfilling prophecy. The action then flows, taking us with it. Before that tough semi-final,which the Daredevils were expected to win easily, Gilchrist listened to his own self, recorded what he heard and brought to life the recording. The impossible became possible.

In her Oscar acceptance speech in 1984, Shirley Maclaine said,” Films and life are like clay, waiting for us to mould it. And when you trust your own insides and that becomes achievement,it’s a kind of principle that seems to me is at work with everyone. God bless that principle. God bless that potential that we all have for making anything possible if we think we deserve it. I deserve this.

Gilly certainly did.

• It is not true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.
  
• Don’t change direction, and you may end up where you’re heading.
  
• You move totally away  from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.
  
• Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
  
• Deep down in me I knew it was a lie, and ‘HE’ knew it. You can’t pray a lie — I found that out.
  
• Money can’t buy friends but it can get you a better class of enemy.
  
• Love is misunderstood to be an emotion, actually, it is a state of awareness.
  
• Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
  
• You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working ; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.

QUOTES    ON   RESULTS

• The results you achieve will be in direct proportion to the effort you apply.
• The person who sends out positive thoughts activates the world around him positively and draws back to himself positive results.
• Offering the fruit of action to GOD,the karmayogi attains everlasting peace in the shape of God realisation, whereas he who works with a selfish motive,being attached to the fruit of action through desire,gets tied down.
• You will not get anything out of selfish action,because you are organically related to the whole organism of the creation of the world. This is a fact that you forget when you individually take initiatives and when you expect the fruit  to follow from your individually motivated action.
• That fruit does not always follow,because the means and ends have some connection. You cannot adopt one kind of means and expect another kind of end. The means - in the ordinary case of people - is a selfish motivation, but the end that you expect has to be sanctioned by the structure of the whole.

Why do we get bored ? What is the solution to boredom ?

Boredom is a state of mind.In that state, nothing appeals to us,nothing excites us,and nothing interests us. Boredom is not something that hits us from the outside.It’s nothing external.It is not like day and night or like the seasons that are inevitable. Boredom is in the mind,though it might be related to prescence or abscence of people,events or material elements that are outside the person.

Most often ,people get bored when they are weighed down by tasks that they don’t like,or don’t want to do.If that’s the case,one way of avoiding  boredom  is to learn to say ‘No’ whenever possible. For example,if you have to go shopping or attend a wedding - that you know will bore you - with family members or friends, you have the choice to say ‘no’. Sometimes you may have no choice, and will have to tag along,or will have to suffer the company of people whom you may not like. In such cases,one has no choice,but to grin and bear it,although you still have the option of engaging in some form of thinking ,daydreaming,introspection or analysis, which can go on inside your head,even as you are physically present at that place.

The most common reason for boredom is when one does not have anything worthwhile to do. Take up a hobby,call up old friends or relatives,start writing a journal,learn a new art like drawing,painting or music,remember all the things you wanted to do due to a genuine lack of time.Also,boredom is often the starting point for inspirational ideas and many discoveries and inventions have happened when people who are responsible for these had nothing to do,and were in a state of extreme boredom.

Make your boredom a rejoicing,a time to think,plan,introspect and come out with brilliant workable ideas,reconnect with others and with yourself. Instead of fretting and fuming,and generally making yourself and those around you miserable,with your continous lamenting.

Boredom  or constantly feeling bored can mean two things:  1)you do not know yourself.You don’t know what you like,what you dislike,what makes you tick and what irritates you.For if you really know yourself, you would also know why you are bored and would also know what would get you our of this boredom.So if you are bored and don’t know why, maybe it is time for some deep introspection and meditation,in an effort to know yourself. 2) the other reason,many of us complain of being bored, and this is especially true of children, is an attention seeking measure. we hope that those to whom we complain will drop everything and pamper and mollycoddle us, will give us more of their time, and will attend to us.

Like everything, boredom too has its benefits. If you use the time effectively and creatively. Otherwise, you can keep complaining that you are bored, and waste the one and only life that God has given you, in a bored mundane fashion. Feeling bored is also a choice - no one is stopping you from going ahead and doing all those things that could make your life interesting or exciting,except yourself.

Where & how do we search GOD ?

Remember that God is within you,but you don’t see HIM because the one place you will never look is inside yourself.You will search everywhere,but never within yourself.Paradoxically you lose sight of because He is in you.

Now look at what God has given us.Our intelligence,buddhi,is a precious gift.Yet are we loving and greatful enough to God who has given us all these ? Do we have even a little of the gratitude a dog has towrds it’s master ? NO ! That is why Dattatreya considers the dog as one of his gurus.Dattatreya draws four lessons from his dog.

• A dog dosen’t count it’s misfortunes or grieves over them.
• A dog dosen’t live in the past.It dosen’t make long-term plans either
• A dog dosen’t live in the future.
• It lives instinctively,from moment to moment.

A dog’s life is one unbroken straight line marked by love,devotion and gratitude to the one who sustains it.Devotion  is its defining property.

Can we,like the dog,be always grateful to our creator and sustainer ?Can we give up being miserable about our past misfortunes and mistakes ?These are disciplines we impose on ourselves.

When we reach this stage we will have achieved a mental state that looks with equal ease at happiness and sorrow,at misery and luxury ; in short,we will have seen God in ourselves. This is the essence of the sanskrit saying : Tat Tvam Asi,You are That. That is,you are the object of your search.

Why do you say we should learn to enjoy adversity ?

When something is inevitable,when it’s occurance cannot be prevented,it is better to go along with it rather than resist it.The word “enjoy” here means,”make the best out of” something. Let me illustrate with an example :-

A person is walking along a mountain ridge.He stubles and falls.As he tumbles down the cliff,he sees the branch of a tree projecting from the cliff face.He catches hold of that branch.As he is hanging there pricariously,he sees his guru standing on the top of the mountain.He asks the guru what he should do?There is no way the guru can help him phisically.Instead,he tells him,”The left side of the valley below you is dry and thorny.The right side is lush and green.Look to the right and try to fall there.Now that the fall is inevitable,and you may be plunging to your death,enjoy the scenery during your last leap.”

Your assesment of any situation should be realistic.You must muster all your resources in protecting your interests.Understand the strenghts and weaknesses of your adversary and be prepared to put up the stiffest resistance you can.At the same time, if you find yourself over-powered,try to work out the best bargain. In corporate parlance,for example,try your best to fend off a hostile takeover bid against your company. But if you see that it is unavoidable,try to get the best terms of a takeover.

At least some kinds of enjoyment involves a willingness to suffer some unpleasantness. You go for an Ayurvedic or any other kind of massage.Massage is good for health.Sometimes the masseurs use foot massage,using their body weight to apply different degrees of pressure on your body.It might be uncomfortable or even painful, but later,you feel refreshed and rejuvenated. You are bearing the unpleasantness in anticipation of the joy. 

Mental Exercises for  young people

Why are young people quick to feel angry ?        Generally,we find a youngster who is disturbed is also angry.He is angry with life.He has the passion to achieve,but lacks direction.He is frustrated at others success.He wonders what is missing in him.In such a state,he finds his energy being drained.In his angry state,he is not able to enjoy life.

When one is youthful one has the energy but less maturity ; and when one is old one has the maturity and experience,but lack youthful energy.To be able to have both youthful energy and maturity,is a challenge,faced by the young people of today.          To make this happen one needs a healthy attitude. Attitude creates altitude.

What should be one’s attitude ?    Apply the  ABC  technique :  A  is for attitude, open and explorative ; B  is for having a belief which is powerful and not limiting and C  is to bring in caring energy in whatever we do.

There are two aspects to youth, thw physical and the psychological. Physically,a person can be young,but psychologically,if he is not open with a positive belief and without a caring energy,he is old. This distinction is a must for one’s growth.

What should be the vision of the youth ?           The vision of the youth should be to be an outer winner and an inner winner. Being an outer winner gives you success and being an inner winner gives you satisfaction. To bring in success and satisfaction in your life is the greatest challenge. To get what you like is being an outer winner.One should have the freedom to choose what he likes.

The desire to reach a goal is your freedom.Achieving this goal is being an outer winner.You should know how to maximise performance,You should know how to be a team player,you should have negotiating skills and you should know how to delegate and be a leader. You should be a leader and a follower. You should walk your talk and talk your walk.

Talk to yourself and say that you will be an outer and inner winner. Talk to yourself and say that you are always going to be young,mentally.

Actions are an expression of one’s thoughts and thoughts are an expression of one’s belief system.To change one’s actions,it is necessary to change one’s thoughts and to change one’s thoughts,one must change one’s belief.The course of one’s actions is belief.If you have a limiting belief,then your life will be limiting ; If you have a poweful belief,then your life will be powerful.

All successful people achieved success because the consistently held a positive belief,which is not a mere thought but something more than a thought.

How else can one change one’s belief system ?          Belief is nothing but a sense of certainity.It can be a negative certainity or a positive certainity ; either way it is a sense of certainity. If it is a negative belief,create a doubt in that certainity and then you will find you have destroyed the sense of negative certainity.

If a person saysthat he cannot be successful since he is not a graduate,then he believes that only graduates can be successful. Create a doubt by giving an example that Bill Gates is not a graduate but is still successful. In this way you break his cerainity by creating a doubt.            Every great achievement initially appeared impossible.

Whenever a negative belief comes,kick it off like you kick a ball towards the goal. When you get a negative belief,see it like a ball and push it off to the goal. Your goal should be  —  being both successful and satisfied. Keep this thought always and do not allow the opponents to shake you.

this is an email forward…….  A Father’s letter to his Son.

Dear Son,I want you to prepare yourself to live in an uncertain world the way I show you. Understand the following as early as possible.

Life is precious.And equally fragile.So every day is a gift.                    Get up early once in a while just to watch the sun rise. Stare at it intently and burn it in your memory. Be aware of every passing second. Look around you. There’s a thin stalk of plant finding its place under the sun in a crevice on the wall near the pavement.

Appreciate mother’s cooking. Praise it to heavens…. make it a habbit to eat together as a family. No, make it a rule. Fall in love with books. Words will transport you to worlds far away. It will also keep you informed and prepared.

Follow your heart. The mind can waver but the heart seldom does. Respect your conscience. It’s like a post-it note from God.

When you grow up, seek a job you love. As you enter the world of careers and cocktails, you will get sucked into a vortex called rat race. Don’t be overwhelmed. We’re all human. But have the courage to step out of it. Nothing will be lost. Some illusions will shatter. Good riddance.

Money. It’s important.But it has it’s place. Don’t make the mistake of putting it right on top.

Find your love. Hold it dearly. Be a good husband.A patient father.Give your children space to make their mistakes.But hold them when they fall.

Speak up when you have to.Whether we like it or not, we’re living in a democracy. Sure it has its pitfalls.But don’t forget the positives too.The real fight in a democracy is between remembering and forgetting. Go and vote. It’s your chance to give shape to the kind of society you want to live in.

Be alert. But try not to live in a state of fear. If you were to get caught in a situation similar to what happened in mumbai on 26/11 and should we lose you, then you will have left us with enough memories for the remaining years. That will only happen if you start living every day like it is the last day of your life. Don’t have regrets. They defeat the very purpose of life.