tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78165343819103844722024-03-12T16:33:39.197-07:00Awakening MomentsThese are my experiential thoughts, my moments of truth, which i am expressing with the help of some words... to share with all my loved ones, which is this Whole EXISTENCE...Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816534381910384472.post-2383521787469819332010-05-03T12:20:00.000-07:002010-05-03T12:30:38.004-07:00Releasing is Bliss...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiExkPMfDKq2SGGuAE_F3Hpp4qUGn2NbfK0iFaCBt2m_V7pwcrcV0EZkKpjeW5lfeMHcZn6vmT74OgdjIKoPYRQuTT9yOfcfz7IkHROGUZNsM8HhcpQdIC7TvnbsGDuVJtSgFeaAPqdSag/s1600/Bliss+2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 90px; height: 118px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiExkPMfDKq2SGGuAE_F3Hpp4qUGn2NbfK0iFaCBt2m_V7pwcrcV0EZkKpjeW5lfeMHcZn6vmT74OgdjIKoPYRQuTT9yOfcfz7IkHROGUZNsM8HhcpQdIC7TvnbsGDuVJtSgFeaAPqdSag/s320/Bliss+2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467128334631007410" /></a><br />I had known this fact for long, heard it many times in my life but really understood it now. “Releasing is bliss”…<br /><br />If u watch the functioning of ur own body n mind, they tell u some very deeper lessons of spiritual life.<br />Your body feels bliss whenever it releases the unwanted, which is also a deeper cleansing process… U have ur bladder full, and the moment u take a pee, you feel blissed. Your stomach is full on pressure and the moment u go to the toilet, u feel blissed. Same thing happens, when u do heavy work out in gym, ur body releases all kinds of toxins via sweat n heat and again u feel so blissed out and light. And ofcourse the sexual release gives u the same feeling.<br /><br />Similarly, if you watch ur mind and emotion’s working, the same pattern emerges out. You are full of anger, and the moment you release your anger on the object of anger, you feel light. You are running high on emotions, and the release of a few intense tears, make you feel blissed and light as if u released all ur tensions and agony in that particular moment.<br /><br />So, what is happening here… Our Body Mind is constantly showing us that “Releasing is Bliss”… but still we haven’t really understood this basic law of nature, or should I term it as “Law of life”. coz in life we just do the opposite and hence there is so much of pain, sorrow, turmoil and agony.<br /><br />In life we do the opposite, we hold on to everything possible. It could be in the form of possessing our belongings, our money, our name, fame, assets, holding on to our relationships, our careers, our behaviours… actually just about everything… our grip on everything is so tight, that we feel, if we loose it we loose ourselves, coz somehow we have this ultra wrong notion that “I” exist in all these things, I exist in my name, fame, material possessions, emotional possessions and everything else… we just don’t realise that our false sense of “I” exist, which we call our EGO also, coz we have related ourselves to all “that is not”… and since our grip is so strong… we live in a completely opposite state of “Not Releasing our grips” or “Not letting go” which ofcourse is totally opposite to the “Law of Nature/Law of Life” and hence so much of pain, sorrow and discontent.<br /><br />Can’t we just imagine that if “Releasing is so much bliss for body and mind” won’t releasing be the same and even more blissful, if its of Mind/Body and Soul… We experience this momentary bliss everyday but still don’t get the urge to experience or be in the permanent state of bliss by “Releasing all our notions, conditionings and patterns”…<br /><br />how blissful life is if we just realise this and be in a total let go…<br /><br />“Releasing is such a bliss”…<br /><br />Know it and live it…<br />And be blessed…Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816534381910384472.post-24666612652825066072008-08-19T13:33:00.000-07:002008-08-19T13:35:30.014-07:00The Last MomentWow, what an experience…<br /><br />Have you ever realized/dreamt/thought what would be our last moment like. The more I am experiencing the unknown, the more awestruck I am becoming…<br /><br />There is one moment in everybody’s life when one becomes realized, at least for that very moment. But unfortunately for most of us, that’s our very last moment on this earth, its smaller then even smallest fraction of a second. Yet in that fractional moment, we see our entire life flashing through our eyes. The phenomenon of time doesn’t apply there.<br /><br />I used to often question, why death is so painful for the majority of humans, I found all kinds of reasons this pain like the fear of unknown, attachment with this body, pain of leaving the loved ones behind, unfulfilled tasks etc. but the one most powerful reason, I realized just recently.<br /><br />In that fractional moment, our consciousness is automatically raised to such an extent that we go beyond the boundaries of time. In that last moment, each one of us realize the true purpose of our life, the reason for which we were born, and in that last moment, we also see our entire life flashed through our vision. In that last moment, we realize that we lost it; we realize that we wasted this golden opportunity of merging with the divine. It feels as you wake up from the dream of life and realize that you just forgot the purpose, for which you came. The loss is really intense, and that is why such an enormous pain. The pain is not so much of the unknown, but the pain is so much of the known, of the known fact, the known realization that you lost it, you were just sleeping, all the time engaged in the mundane activities of the dream.<br /><br />Unfortunately, you wake up from the dream at the last moment and then you are entering into the state of death. At that last moment you realize that you didn’t live, the moment you get up from the dream, you straightaway enter into death. You didn’t live, not even for a single day. And now there is no time to live, the game is over. No pain can be greater then the pain of this realization, no loss can be bigger then this loss of unlived life.<br /><br />That is why, all dharma’s keep on telling us to wake up, wake up from this dream, this illusion of Maya, live aware fully and prepare for an awakened death. A death which then no longer be the last moment, it will become an eternal moment, by then the drop would have become the ocean and the seed would have become the tree…<br /><br />Wake up, O my beloved travellers, wake up, you can save yourself from that enormous pain of “The Last Moment”… wake up and convert that “Last moment into an eternal moment”… You don’t have to wait till the last moment, its right here, waiting for you.<br /><br />Bless this existence by your awakening…<br /><br /><br />(love to the god sitting inside you)Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816534381910384472.post-65259539623675163392008-08-03T07:38:00.000-07:002008-08-03T07:42:51.291-07:00Inner source of energy<blockquote><p><br />This world is really an illusion, the more I see it outside the more I witness this illusion. We often think that everybody carries a certain energy and it also gets transferred… so, lets say if you are with a positive guy, a part of his positive flow of energy does gets transferred into you and hence you feel positive, or if you are with a negative person, a part of his negative energy gets transferred into you and hence you start feeling negative. However, this whole phenomenon of energy transfer also appears to be another illusion, because in reality, nothing happens outside, everything is inside you only… the whole brahmand is inside every being.<br /><br />So what happens in reality? Does the energy transfer from one to another happens? Why do we feel influenced in a certain way (positive or negative) with some people? The truth is, the entire store of energy is inside you, you are carrying this endless source of energy (positive, negative, neutral) in you all the time. When you meet a person with positive flow of energy, for that particular moment, he/she creates a context, a space around you which helps you to tap into your own source of energy with positive flow, he didn’t transfer any of his energy in you, but he just created a space, a context. The same happens when you are in the company of a negative person, he creates a context, a space which forces you to open your own source of negative energy.<br /><br />So, when Buddha said, “sangham sharanam gacchami”, he wants you to be with people, who can create a meditative space, meditative context around you, so that you can go to your own inner source of energy and transform it into a divine meditative energy. But remember, end of the day, the vast source of energy is hidden inside you only… stop seeking it in the outside world, that’s an illusion. Go within you and there you will find this hidden jewel. Once you find it, you can just open the flood gates and let it flow towards the divine, soon the connection will be created and the transformation will happen… from human to divine. Living in the same body the human being will transcend into the endless divine… </p></blockquote>Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816534381910384472.post-75005798595565368982008-07-22T06:19:00.000-07:002008-07-22T06:20:56.701-07:00The Traffic of your ThoughtsOne of the greatest distractions on path of inner journey is “the traffic of your thoughts in the mind”. Imagine, if there is lot of traffic on the road, all kinds of vehicles moving here and there, some slow, some fast, and all that honking, it makes your journey such a horrible experience, you are all the time frustrated, you don’t even look around to appreciate the beauty of the rising sun, you can’t even feel the wind coz its so polluted outside, you are forced to roll your windows up, the whole experience becomes a nightmare. Similarly, in your inner journey the traffic of your thoughts make it almost impossible to venture in. You try to close your eyes and do meditation and immediately you start encountering all kind of rubbish thoughts. And the traffic of thoughts becomes so heavy that in frustration you just open your eyes and give up the whole idea of inner journey. This traffic of your thoughts makes your inner journey almost impossible, even walking few steps becomes a very uphill task, an overall demotivating, dejecting experience, so you just drop this whole effort. This thought traffic just sucks all your energy.<br /><br />If you have a real urge to tread the path of inner journey, you must see the origin of your thoughts and you must learn how to really maneuver through them. Have you ever observed that your thought traffic is directly related and proportional to the quantum of your EGO (the non-existent illusionary self). Just observe, if somebody argues with you and insults you real badly, it really hurts your EGO. Basically it’s your illusionary, non existent self which is feeling the hurt and pain. Your whole attention and focus goes in the hurt. And as a law of nature, wherever you put your attention/focus, your energy will start flowing towards that and the object of your focus will grow bigger and bigger. Since, now your focus becomes on hurt and on those insulting words, your ego starts expanding. As your ego starts expanding, parallely the traffic of your thoughts starts growing. You start thinking how to teach the rival a lesson and so on. The same happens if somebody praises you, again it bloats your EGO and in the same proportion your thought traffic starts expanding, you start getting the thoughts like how good you are, how the whole world is praising about you, what a great thing you did and so on.<br /><br />Now if you look from the other side, let’s say you love dancing or swimming or any such activity. As you start dancing, slowly you will come in your flow and in few moments you will just be dancing without even being aware of who is noticing, how are your steps working, are you doing it right or no… you will just become the dance. And at that moment if you notice, your thought traffic is completely gone. You are just dancing. You are not even aware of your surrounding and their various reactions, coz now you are in your real self. Your EGO has ceased to exist for those few moments and hence no thoughts at all.<br /><br />In both the above situations you will notice that size of your EGO (the non-existent illusionary self) and quantum of your thoughts are absolutely proportional.<br /><br />There are many techniques to control your thought traffic and manage your EGO, I’m going to discuss just one of them. Most of the eastern religion and sages believe in the concept of non-duality, that everything is one, that it is our false EGO which creates individuality, which divides I from you and which creates all the phenomenon of duality. So, basically speaking, duality is false, it creates the big illusion. In this world every negative thing can be used positively, like the nuclear energy can be used for generating electricity rather then killing people, similarly the notion of duality can be positively used to control your thoughts and manager your Ego.<br /><br />And you can approach this practice from two sides. From one side you work on your thoughts and from other side you work on your EGO using the concept of duality in a positive way.<br /><br />So, if you are working from the side of your thoughts, whenever overpowering thoughts arises due to any external situation, you just try to create a duality with the thoughts. Just witness your thoughts and feel that you are completely separate from them. Don’t give them any energy. Normally what happens, if a thought comes we acknowledge it and make a reaction, the moment we make a reaction the chain starts. And we make the reaction because we get identified with the thought, we get involved with it. For example, you get a thought that your colleague in office is spreading bad rumors about you, immediately you become identified with this thought and you respond. The moment you respond to your thoughts, you are basically fuelling them, giving them more energy and as you fuel them they start growing. You immediately start thinking how to avoid your colleague’s rumor, or how to teach him a lesson or how to create your clean image etc. By reacting to one thought, you started a chain reaction. So, use the sword of Duality in a positive way. Whenever a thought comes, feel as if you are different from the thought. Just witness the thought as an external phenomenon, don’t get identified with it, don’t react to it, and don’t get engaged with it. Just be aware that you are separate from the thought. This is really using the concept of duality in a positive way for your betterment. This is like using the poison as a medicine.<br /><br />Now, you can approach it form the false EGO side as well. Whenever any incidence happens (and they keep happening all the time) big or small, like if someone insults you and now your EGO is about to feel the pain, immediately, use the medicine/poison of duality. Feel as if you are different from your false EGO. Your false self will try to react, will try to feel the pain and thereby initiating a chain reaction. But you just cut it at its very root. Tell your false EGO that “you are false, you don’t exist, I’m separate from you, at this moment, I don’t want to feel the hurt, go away”… and slowly you will realize that you have started taking the control of the false EGO, it will start getting smaller and smaller and finally gone. The process here is also the same, you are just not getting identified with you false EGO, you are not giving it any energy, you are not starting any reaction. Rather, you are creating a duality, a BIG duality between your real self and your false illusionary self (EGO).<br /><br />Using the technique of duality to feel separated from your false EGO and your thoughts is a real meditative practice, it is your moment to moment sadhana. Because to practice this, you have to be awake every moment. Initially you will encounter many problems. Your false EGO and thoughts are very strong right now, coz you have given them a lot of your energy. You have been feeding them, they have grown stronger and bigger, so the process is going to be a tapasya, you have to be very attentive and dedicated. From now on stop giving the food to your false EGO and your thoughts, rather save your energy to discard them, to create a duality with them. Use all your gained energy in the process to fuel your real SELF, to make it much more stronger. End of the day, it’s all about channelizing your energy and practicing awakefullness. If you are watchful, you can channelise your energy as per your choice and wish, and if you are asleep, it will get channelised to some undesired areas. It is the same energy, its quality is to flow all the time and you have the capacity to control and channelise this great flow of energy and ride on it for your inner journey. Have an exciting and pleasurable journey. Remember “The Journey is the Goal”…<br /><br />Love to the god sitting inside you.Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816534381910384472.post-91436287268113429142008-06-19T22:33:00.000-07:002008-06-19T22:36:10.851-07:00Everything Returns to its sourceIt is the very nature of existence that everything returns to its source. Till things returns to their very source, they also feel attracted towards the source. The child is always connected, attached and attracted towards his mother, there is always a strong bond between the child and the mother, mother is the source of child’s existence in this life and that’s why he shares a very special bond, a strange connectedness with his mother, throughout his life. You can witness the same phenomenon in the rain drops, after journing thru many miles in rivers it finally merges back in its source which is the ocean, it came from the ocean in the beginning and finally it merges back in the ocean.<br /><br />Human life is also the same, we are always attracted towards our source, sometimes knowingly but most of the times unknowingly. We are constantly in a strange search of the unknown. our search sometimes takes the form of external travel, sometimes the form of running after name, fame, money, relations, securities and so on and after acquiring all of this, we still feel a strange kind of emptiness with, a strange kind of feeling of going somewhere else or needing something else. All these are small instances of our “real search” our real need to find our source, our real desire to merge back in the source.<br /><br />In life, our challenges are huge. Most of us spend entire life running after things, which are never able to fill ourselves. So most of us die without even knowing what is our real search, what is it that we really wanted? We just get trapped in the outer world and in the illusion we run after the wrong things, so instead of searching, journing within, we spend our life time searching in the outer world.<br /><br />Fortunate are the ones, who get the blessing and courage to sit back and start looking within to find, what is the real search, what is the real source, what is the real love and what is the real journey. Once you realize this and start your journey, your search within, you go thru some great experiences and each moment a new awakening happens in your being, and slowly you start moving closer to your center, closer to your source. After a great inner travel, a great inner journey, a point comes when you suddenly realize that “it is in the very nature of everything to move back, to merge in the source”, the process is absolutely natural and mystically automatic, but you still have a BIG role to play and the role is quite simple. You can do this entire travel, which is very natural, which will happen eventually on its own, but your role and your choice is, either you can do this travel in the sleeping mode or in your full awareness, if you see, there is a big difference in both the states.<br /><br />Think of this, it is your inherent nature to merge back in your source, death will come and you will be merged back into the source, everyone will be merged back sooner or later nobody will escape this merging, but still you have a choice of leading a fulfilled, awakening life, witnessing the divine and be in the divine love each moment of your life OR keep cribbing about things which you did not get, relations which did not materialize, endless desires which never got fulfilled and the false ego which could never be satisfied. These are the only two ways of completing your journey, god has given you complete power to choose either way, and choice is absolutely yours. The sooner you decide the better it is, coz death will come any moment without warning and you will be merged back into your source, your body will be merged into its own five elements, your mind with all your thoughts will be merged in this very existence from where it came, and your pure consciousness will be merged in the collective consciousness of the whole existence. It is time to make your conscious choice and it is also the time to realize that death is no different from life. You came from death, from that unknown divine source and once your journey is over, you will be merged back to the same death, to the same divine source. Death must be the feeling of coming back home. The rain drop merging with the mother ocean finally. Life and Death is beautifully divine if you live and die in divine love and awareness.<br /><br />Love to all sentient beings...Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816534381910384472.post-87825326716702322482007-12-07T23:05:00.000-08:002007-12-07T23:06:56.549-08:00We are the source, we have been enlightened already…We are the source of all our experiences, everything that we feel we are experience from outside is nothing but our already hidden experiences. The whole existence resides in us, it’s a dilution that we see and experience things outside us, in reality those experiences are already stored in our being, with an external stimuli we start witnessing what is there inside. There is nothing out there which is real, even this computer on which you are reading this message is also not real, this message is hidden inside you already, this external stimuli is just helping you to uncover that already existent experience.<br /><br />Have you ever notices that a similar situation outside will give different experiences to different people witnessing that situation, what is this matter. If the experience is really coming from that external situation then every body involved in that should get the same experience but it rarely happens. The reality is all of us are carrying the whole existence in us, the only difference is one might have uncovered more layers of reality then the other. Let me share with you another dimension of this to make it more clear.<br /><br />We all are made from 5 elements of nature, i.e. earth, wind, space, water and fire. In each one of us the dominance of 1 or 2 elements will be more then the other, for example, in some of us fire will be more dominant, in some others earth or water could be more dominant. Now, if you show a blue colored image to 2 people, the one in whom space is more dominant energy will see images of space in that, and in the other in whom water is the dominant energy will see images of water out of the same blue color. Now the question is both of them are seeing the same blue colored image, so why this difference in perception or imagination. The reason is, that perception or imagination is coming from inside of the person, it is his core dimension which he is experiencing while looking at that image.<br /><br />All the external experiences are completely illusionary, the real experience is happening inside, an experience is nothing but uncovering of an already known experience, which might have been there from past many lives.<br /><br />We all are already enlightened. God has already happened to us, infact we are already gods, we are already the whole of existence, its just that we need to uncover this reality which has gotten curbed under our false ego, under our false view of reality. The moment, we are able to uncover this already existent reality, we will realize that we have been enlightened from the very moment we were born, we were never separated, we have always been one. Duality will cease to exist that very moment. The already happened Nirvana will be experienced again.<br /><br />Love to the god sitting inside you.Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816534381910384472.post-58216802382431123412007-12-07T23:01:00.000-08:002007-12-07T23:05:12.420-08:00Relation and DevotionHumans have been struggling with one thing called Relations from time immemorial… but it seems that most of us haven’t been able to yet understand what Relations are. We spend our life trying to live these relationships without even really understanding that all of these relations are not real. To me relations are very transactional. Any relation between two persons is nothing but a series of transactions, some transactions can be very superior and some might not be that superior but all of the relations are transactions of different nature. And a transaction is one which is dependent on give and take, the moment there is dis-balance in give and take, we see problems in that relation. Look at husband and wives, girl friend and boy friend, mother and child, father and son, brother and sister, any relationship you see… its nothing but a series of transactions. Modern husbands need to spend a loving weekend with a great movie, a great dinner and a great shopping experience (this is called a perfect weekend) with wives and in return wives will take care of household stuff, children, kitchen and ofcouse the sexual needs of the husband. If husbands don’t provide this (Perfect weekend) to the wives, the transactional relationship goes for a toss. Every father has a dream for his son and if the son doesn’t full fill that dream, the entire relation goes for a toss. The whole problem is that we feel ashamed in admitting that all our relations are nothing but series of transactions. A relationship can become pure in true senses, can become god like if there are no give and takes, if there are no expectations, if there is utmost selflessness.<br /><br />Devotion is the purest form of relation, actually its not correct to call devotion as a form of relation because devotion is very god like and relations are very transactional. When you are in devotion, there is no expectation, you do things out of your inner feelings, there is a total trust, there is a total selflessness a total oneness. In devotion, duality doesn’t exist, there is no other, you become one. That is why devotion is god like, that is why with god there is a relation of god and devotee, there is total surrender, total trust, total selflessness. In devotion, god doesn’t expect anything from you and you don’t expect anything from god.<br /><br />Today humanity is suffering coz of false relationship, there is no depth. If you have to live a fulfilled life, you have to uplift all your relationships in devotion. The day you start seeing god in every being around you, that day devotion takes birth in you and then there is no relationship, then you are in devotion with everybody around you, you become one with all. It is a supreme communion between two beings, in this communion transactions don’t exist, there is only love, a supreme devotion.<br /><br />Love to the god sitting inside you.Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816534381910384472.post-413440126451675342007-11-07T09:36:00.000-08:002007-11-07T09:41:05.269-08:00ImpermanenceOne of the greatest teachings of Buddha has been about “Impermanence”, yet we all somehow don’t seem to either understand it or tend to forget it often.<br /><br />We all know and have experienced that life is full of problems and issues, in between those problems we keep on searching for moments of happiness and pleasure. And we spend our entire life running around to find those happy moments in between. But they seem to be far and few amidst this chaotic life.<br /><br />Have you ever sat back and contemplated why life seems to be a bag of problems to most of us. “Problem arises in life, the moment we think or want anything to be permanent”. This journey of desiring permanence starts from our birth, from day one our sub-conscious mind wants to make this birth, this very life permanent, which is not possible, coz everybody dies, whatever is created gets destroyed sometime or the other and the difference is only the dimension of time in between. As a child we want to make sure that our toys will permanently be with us (you seldom shared your toys with any other kid, if you remember), our parents will permanently take care of us, we will get food always etc. etc. As we grow old we enter into relationships thinking that each relation is going to be permanent, just look at your own lives and see how many friends you still have who were your best buddies in your primary school, or in your higher school.<br /><br />Life is a flux a complete transitionary phenomenon… nothing here is permanent. Only dead things are permanent, look at stones, they seems to be more permanent then your lives… however if you see deep down even stones are not permanent coz at some point of time they were part of a burning lava under earth’s crust. But yes they seem to be much more permanent then your ever changing lives. We take birth, each moment we are changing, millions or tissues in our body keeps changing all the time. We are becoming almost a new person each moment. Look at your own thoughts, they keep on changing all the time, their speed is much more then the speed of light. Look at your own desires and likings, they too keep changing. Things which you wished for 5 years back are no longer important for you. Look at your own body, it also keeps changing every moment but you tend to notice it only after a while. Size of your body, shape, color, stamina and even texture keeps on changing. Taste buds in your mouth keep changing. Your eye sight, your physical metabolism, your moods, your emotions… everything in you keeps changing. And if you start noticing things around, like your own selves they too keep changing all the time.<br /><br />One of the biggest illusions of life is “desire for permanence”. Just flash your life’s each year in your mind, try doing it from your school time… can you see everything kept changing and you never realized it… coz you were so involved with all this that you could never see this rule of impermanence… you get involved with everything forgetting the transitionary phenomenon of life and things. And that’s why most of the time you can’t see it, you need external gross experiences to shake you so hard that you start seeing it. You get so involved because you live on hope that it might be possible with your efforts to make things permanent, a permanent house, a permanent source of income, a permanent relation etc. etc. and so the illusion continues…<br /><br />Finally life comes to an end but your desire for permanence doesn’t and then there is no other way but to come back and start it all over again. You cannot go beyond this cycle of life and death until you accept life in its true nature, and the moment you experience it… that very moment, you go beyond all impermanence. That very moment, you go into a permanent reunion with the existence…<br /><br />It’s ironic but that’s the way it is… you get into a permanent reunion with the existence the moment you go beyond the desire of permanence. That’s what Buddha called Nirvana.<br /><br />Love to all sentient beings.Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816534381910384472.post-40732921073235458082007-10-22T05:19:00.000-07:002007-10-22T05:20:45.387-07:00ImmortalityWe live a life of 50 or 70 yrs. but we never realize that we don’t really live it, the way it should be. Have you ever realized that most of the times you are in the state of anxiousness in life, sometimes this anxiousness is at a very gross level but most of the time it is very subtle. We don’t even know that we are living in a constant state of anxiousness… look at some examples, you get up from the bed and suddenly all the day’s work start appearing in your mind, you see the clock and you realize you don’t have sufficient time to relax on bed today, you get ready quickly for your work and drive fast and realize that there is heavy traffic and you might get late… this continues till the time you crash into bed at night… but if you pick up each act, each moment of your active day, it was filled with some anxiousness… have you ever realized what leads to this non-relaxing and ever anxious state. Some inherent fears, yes, at the root level we all have some very subtle fears which we pick up all the times mostly sub-consciously.<br /><br />If you go deeper in your fears and in your anxious state, you will realize that all your fears comes from the fact, that you are mortal, you are impermanent, the moment you get this life, you start going towards your death. As if life the beginning and death is the end. At the sub conscious level this feeling and reality of mortality is engraved on your being and all the time you strive for immortality. You read newspaper and see the news of death, you see TV, again you see death, on the highway you see numerous accidents. You just keep on picking this message, this reality all the time.<br /><br />All your growth in medical science, growth in economy, materialism, securities, relationships, everything is an effort to achieve immortality… since we also know at the deepest level that no matter what, all of us will die, so we try to adopt various means to protect and secure ourselves , just not our physical self but our non-physical self as well. We want to lead a purposeful life, we want to be affiliated with a cause or with an institution which is higher than our individual self. We want to leave some legacies, big monuments around, so that even if physically we die, but at least in “thoughts of the world” we live forever. We write books, build monuments, create businesses, try to become part of a big political movements and do so many things… we don’t even realize that why we are doing all this, and interestingly we keep on doing this throughout our lives, for all of 50-70-100 yrs… even in our sub-conscious mind, we are aware of our mortality and we somehow want to be immortal, no matter if that immortality is of our name, we call this fame.<br /><br />This process is on throughout our lives… we become violent, we kill others in the name of religion, justice and so on… reason is, the moment we become aware of our own mortality, we get violent. Killing the other or being violent with other, make us feel superior and in some senses less mortal, at least in that particular moment. Have you even seen a soldier killing a so called “enemy”. After the murder, he gets the feeling that he has been able to survive, he is more immortal then the other coz he killed the other, have you ever observed, you are sitting in your room and suddenly you see a cockroach. The poor cockroach is not doing anything to you, he can’t actually o any harm to you, but still you get fear, and under that fear you get up and kill the cockroach, you just feel at a very sub-conscious level, a little immortal. Killing the other gives you the feeling of immortality, though very temporarily, but you definitely enjoy that. And the more you get that feeling, the more you enjoy it… this is one of the biggest reasons of all violence. This happens at a very subtle level and coz we don’t really live an aware life, we don’t realize it.<br /><br />Also, normally you are against anybody who is non conformist to your belief, your god, your value system etc. and when this opposition touches its peak, you become physically violent. Here also the genesis is, you want to prove that your god, your ideology is superior then the other, coz if you are able to prove this then again you are leading a purposeful life, and doing great work for your religious organization, your affiliation grows and you get a feeling of immortality beyond the physical self or for the non-physical self.<br /><br />In the true sense, the moment you accept life and death as one, and you accept death at not the end of life, but beginning of sometime more beautiful… you start loosing your affiliations, you start loosing your mad rush, your so called purpose of life. Immediately you become very empty, nothing to do, nothing to think, no goal. And this state is utterly dangerous for your SELF, for your EGO, for your MIND because it is the death of your SELF, EGO, your MIND, and hence the whole drama, the whole illusion starts. Imagine a world, a life, where you don’t have to go anywhere, you have no purpose, you just have to witness every happening around you… the mere thought of this kind of life style will sound utterly boring and useless to your minds. In your unawareness, by way of your social conditioning, you have been taught that death is the end but you don’t want to die, you want to enjoy all illusionary, impermanent riches of life. You just want to forget death and that’s how at your sub-conscious level this whole drama starts. And once you get into this vicious cycle, it’s very hard to break it. Every year, millions of people die in religious, political and economic wars and they feel proud in that, they feel as if their life has been used for a good cause. Their very want for immortality becomes the cause of their death.<br /><br />One who realize and accept both life and death as part of the same process, one who doesn’t crave for any kind of immortality, one who realized the impermanence of every phenomenon… gets librated and gets out of this vicious cycle. For him life is not the start and death is not the end. He becomes immortal in true senses.<br /><br />Love to all sentient beings.Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816534381910384472.post-53895644595773433422007-10-20T14:54:00.000-07:002007-10-20T14:56:11.997-07:00Mystery of DeathToday is a very special day, I have lost count of dates, but I remember its October of 2007. I have come face to face with death that too, death of different natures within last one year. We always believe that death is an event which happens with everybody and every living creature goes through it and it is inevitable… but after my experiences I differ from it… the real death is a very different phenomenon, and only the most fortunate ones get the chance to go thru this… and even if all the living creatures who go thru this, only a few knows actually what has happened. And the one who goes thru this experience and witness this self experience, they never die… Death never happens to them.<br /><br />Of all the living creatures, humans have been the most fascinated about death and I would say the most inquisitive as well. Almost all the religions have talked about death but only a few traditions have actually worked on the event called Death. Buddhist are one of the most pioneering people who worked and experimented so much with death… there is numerous techniques like Bardo et all which Buddhist still experiment… while some one is dying or already dead.<br /><br />I have been to hindu’s cremation ground many a times and have attended cremation of some of my very close loved ones… I have also witnessed my loved ones dying in front of me… almost like in my arms. And I always associated death with the body, like an end of a world, of an independent universe of a human being. But let me tell you, death is much more beyond this… much vaster, much more experiential… and unless it happens to you, you can’t even know what it is like.<br /><br />Most of us have been scared of death by our society, by religion, by our loved ones and most of all by our own desires and ego… but I tell you, it is the most heavenly experience you can ever have, It is so contradictory. People say that one can never experience death coz at that time, most of you go into death in the sleeping or dreaming state. Very few have ever experienced getting into death in a wakeful state.<br /><br />In my experience, death is just not a single phenomenon of end of this body and liberation of the soul. Death actually happens at two levels and that’s why I say, only the most fortunate one will ever know the experience of death in the wakeful state and the most ultra fortunate one will ever experience both the kinds of death.<br /><br />Almost about a year back, it was a cold dark night, I think the month of august/sept of 2006. during mid night, I was lying in my couch and suddenly I observed that my breathing is becoming very fast, very heavy, as if I have ran for hundreds of kms… and when my breathing was at its peak, suddenly it stopped… and stopped completely, not even a slightest movement of air in my lungs. I could feel the emptiness, no movement, silence of my wind pipe and of my lungs… I could also feel the resting of my heart… everything stopped, I actually felt as if the time and space have also stopped… A few feets away I saw from outside the door which opened in the empty space from my balcony, a ray of light coming in with the reflection of all those small particles that we often see in the ray of sunlight, wow the ray was as bright as the first ray of sunlight, but it was really a dark night… slowly I started leaving the body and I starting going towards this bright light. In that movement, I was just floating, a state of complete weightlessness, I went a few feets above my body and got connected with that golden bright light. I saw my body lying there with my closest ones around the body and a strange happiness and peace was even physically visible on my face… I also experienced as if there are a few great masters which are invisibly part of that light, without a shape or a face but I could just feel their blissful presence in that moment, in that light… a few moments up their and slowly I was diverted back to my body and as I went completely in the body, my breathing started once again, but this time with very slow rhythm… I realized that I’m still smiling and looking at that golden light, as if communicating “Hey I have found it, realized it, the source of my origin… come back soon and let me be one with the source again”…<br /><br />That day I realized why we humans are so much in pain. We are in pain almost all the time coz of our attachments, fear, possessions, jealousies, desires, anger and all. But actually we are in pain for an entirely different reason. And that reason is, our inner being, our true core always wants to connect back to the source and it is this longing for connecting and merging with the source which is the cause of all pains… on the periphery we might give any reason for our pain, our ego anything… but it’s the longing to be merged with our source that is causing a constant dis-content, a constant discomfort in all of us. Naming this eternal discontent is not going to help… only a reunion with the source will solve all the human miseries…<br /><br />But apart from this gross body death, it happens at yet another level as well.<br /><br />We come to this life and make some temporary bondings and attachments here… in the process we start living thru these attachments and bondings. We generally call these bondings as our love relations, be it with our spouses, family, friends or any body… eventually we all forget the impermanence of every thing, including our relations, as explained by Buddha as the foremost reason for our sufferings. When we live these relationships, we create a new self image of ours, or shall I say that we create a new SELF, a new entity, a new personality, almost like a new living being. When these relations goes awry, this new SELF of ours starts suffering… some of our relations are more treasured to us then even our gross life… these are the relations which have the power and depth to give us the experience of life and death. The 2nd type of death that I’m referring to is the death of this SELF, whose existence depends upon the existence of these relations. And if these relationships go astray, the self starts getting pained, and this pain if goes beyond its limit, can cause the death of this illusionary self. But even this death can be experienced only if you try to witness this extreme pain of relations without getting too involved with it. The beauty of this death is, it’s not the death of gross body, but in most cases, it is more painful then the gross body death. As I shared earlier, in most of the gross body death cases one enters death in a state of sleep or dream. But in the case of death of this illusionary self, one dies in full awareness (coz otherwise, one would not even know that the illusionary self is dead with this pain)… so that’s why I say, this death is even more subtle and more awakening then the gross body death. Coz it has the power and the potential to shake you, to awaken you and to show you the real truth or atleast the path to TRUTH.<br /><br />Love to all sentient beings…Baba Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05961125741225875874noreply@blogger.com0