LIFE MUDRAS

Buddha once told one of his disciples - Too much of everything is never enough. You cannot label anyone as good or bad because the virtues and vices are equally embedded in every person. Depending on how the virtues are nurtured and demonstrated, a person is perceived as good or bad. Of course there is a limit to which one can develop the virtues. Once the limit is crossed, all virtues become bad. Vices are anyways bad, excessive or not. Anything in excess is bad. If we eat too much, we get a stomach ache and other digestive problems. Too much of sleep makes us lazy and too much of money steals our peace. The irony is despite knowing this fact, we want more and more. Life is a delicate balance of so many combinations—between freedom and responsibility, between living in the moment and planning for future, between indulgence and self-restraint, between love and hate, between wealth and poverty, between full and empty, between attachment and renunciation, and there might be so many more ...

Leaning towards happiness is our very nature. But does that mean you won’t experience sorrow. In fact, sorrow is an important part of your life's journey and also a catalyst for everlasting happiness. As a matter of fact only when you experience sorrow you will appreciate and value happiness. When you live life sorrow is bound to occur. The more you live, the more you will love, and the more deeply you live and love, the greater will be the rewards, but also you will have a fair share of sorrows. As these sorrows come they will eventually go too. An example you lose a good friend it is remarkably intense at that time, the memories will fade over the years and translate into a learning experience, one day you might even laugh about it. On the other hand if you have lost your child, it will remain a part of you for as long as you are alive. The pain cannot be reasoned in any way nor can it be masked. However, does the sorrow mean you are not allowed to feel happiness? In fact if you...

People become victims of their circumstances and life challenges all the time.  When life gets tough or depressing, most will adopt a negative perspective and think to themselves about how unfair life is: how they should have been born into better circumstances with more money; or how they should have been given better opportunities; or how things should have happened differently.  Well, the truth of the matter is that life is going to happen anyways – sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.  The one thing that you will always have 100% control over is your response to these events.  When you adopt a positive attitude and always look for the good in any given circumstance – how could you not move forward…... Remember - in order to best handle the challenges that you are facing in your life, you will need to be updated to your latest version.  What does that mean?  It means, if you never spend time on yourself growing mentally, physically, and ...

How a mix of acceptance, humility, and strength powers the transformation.  They also aren’t aware of how common this is in history, how many figures took seemingly terrible situations – a prison sentence, an exile, a bear market or depression, military conscription, even being sent to a concentration camp – and through their attitude and approach, turned those circumstances into fuel for their unique greatness. Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that became the national anthem of the United States while trapped on a ship during a prisoner exchange in the War of 1812.  Viktor Frank - l refined his psychologies of meaning and suffering during his ordeal in three Nazi concentration camps. Not that these opportunities always come in such serious situations.  The author Ian Fleming was on bed rest and, per doctors’ orders, forbidden from using a typewriter.  They were worried he’d exert himself by writing another Bond novel.  So he created Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by h...

If a rose smells better than cabbage, It doesn't mean the rose can make a better stew. Don't try to compare yourself to others.  You also have your own strength, look for it and build on it.  All animals that exist, were in Noah's ark. A snail is one of those animals. If God could wait long enough for snails to enter Noah's ark; His door of grace won't close till you reach your expected position in life. Never look down on yourself, keep looking up.  Remember that Broken crayons still color.   "YOU are PRECIOUS".

A long long time ago, my husband, our two sons and I had gone out for an ice-cream treat. It was sometime when I was always thinking of curbing unnecessary expenditure. As a selfless person, who was too much in love with her family to deny them of any pleasure, I always chose to sacrifice my own excesses. And it didn’t even feel like a sacrifice ever, because I was a woman of very few needs/ wants/ desires... So, when my husband asked each one of us to choose our favorite flavor of ice-cream, I responded as usual, “I won’t have any.” The boys enjoyed one round and ordered another; my response remained the same, “I don’t want any.” I was happy in my family’s happiness. I was happy that my not indulging in pleasure was perhaps ensuring some more goodies in the future for my dear ones. . But my husband looked at me and said, “Please don’t do this to yourself and to us. I want a happy wife; not a sacrificial lamb. I have seen that too much sacrifice eventually leads to bitterne...

Love - the tingling sensation and the jittery feeling when someone special comes in person or in your thoughts. I am talking about that deep down, life changing, earth shaking, always-and-forever kind of love—the stuff of poetry and legend. Many people are skeptical, and for good reason. Today’s culture isn’t very fertile ground for romance.  With social media, text messaging and online dating, we’ve revolutionized communication but we’ve lost the art of relationships. There are very few success stories. Most of the time it seems like there are very few people having real, face-to-face conversations anymore. But I believe and I know that - True love is Real, Deep, Unconditional & Everlasting. The reason it is so rare is because it is so misunderstood. Most people’s idea of TRUE LOVE looks something like this: Mr. or Mrs. Right is waiting out there somewhere, THE ONE they are destined to be with. And that special someone is looking for them too, and it’s only a matter of...

I am not saying that relationships are bad and that you should avoid getting in them.  In fact, getting into meaningful relationships is one of the most important and significant things that can happen to a person throughout their lifetime. Finding a person that genuinely connects with you and the entirety of who you are can be unmatched by anything else that happens to you throughout your lifetime. But sadly most of the times in life this does not happen. Fairy tales are not always real. Even in the most beautiful relationships there are discords, misjudgements, fights etc. but how soon we get out of these and how much efforts we apply to resolve the differences makes all the difference. Life itself is not beautiful it is all about how beautiful we want it to be. Don't get me wrong.......

You are special, and there is no need to want to be special. You are special, you are unique—existence never creates anything less than that.  Everyone is unique, utterly unique. There has been no person like you before, and there will never be a person like you again. Consciousness has taken this form for the first time and the last time, so there is no need to try to become special: you already are. If you are trying to be special, you will become ordinary. Your very effort is rooted in misunderstanding. It will create confusion because when you try to become special, you have taken one thing for grated—that you are not special.  You have become ordinary already. You have missed the point

We all have a higher Self within; we were born with it. Sometimes we get a fleeting glimpse of the Self when we spontaneously act out of unconditional love. Recall a sudden wave of empathy engulfing you at the sight of a man shivering in the cold that prompted you to give him clothes; picking up a wounded animal on the road; the deep sense of fulfilment on rescuing someone in trouble. These arouse an incredible flow of energy and feelings within. Momentarily, you rise from an ordinary state of being to an extraordinary one. The shift is spontaneous, unintentional and instinctive. You forget who you are: your status, position, your miseries; you act without assigning reason and logic. Neither do you expect reward or recognition in return. These are moments when your higher Self takes over. The Self is a vast storehouse of positive energy that propels us to extend ourselves unconditionally. We drop our masks: our ego-self, the finite, entrenched in inhibitions, doubts...