The Invitation

April 10, 2009 17:45 by rajendra.sharma

The Invitation

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer 

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living

I want to know what you ache for

And if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

 

It doesn’t interest me how old you are

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,

for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

 

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon

I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow

If you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have been shriveled and closed

From fear of further pain

 

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,

without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

 

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,

If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes

without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

 

It does not interest me if the story you are telling me is true

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself,

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul,

if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

 

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty, every day,

and if you can source your own life from its presence.

 

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,

And still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon ‘Yes!’.

 

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have,

I want to know if you can get up, after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone

And do what needs to be done to feed the children.

 

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here

I want to know if you stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back

 

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied

I want to know what sustains you, from the inside when all else falls away

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself

And if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

                    

Be the first to rate this post

  • Currently 0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

From Scarcity to Consciousness of Abundance

October 19, 2008 14:20 by rajendra.sharma

 

-- By Rajendra Sharma 

Most of the human beings, irrespective of the wealth they have accumulated, suffer from Scarcity Consciousness. 

One has to observe and watch, what kind of concepts, thoughts, emotions, patterns, experiences fill up our consciousness. The concept that we have accepted as true and identified with it, starts creating/defining our reality with its limitations. 

Once we get used to a pattern, then we hardly question it, or try to change it. It becomes a way of life. It does not matter whether we are comfortable or uncomfortable with the pattern. We become comfortable in discomfort. 

These concepts form, what is normally called as mind blocks, through which we function. Out of the numerous concepts defining our limitation, let us concentrate on concepts which give us our identity as somebody who is deprived. 

The Scarcity Consciousness is not an isolated happening in few individuals. Common feelings experienced by individuals having scarcity consciousness are that of being insufficient, empty, not satisfied, in-secure, fearful, unfulfilled, feeling inferior etc.  

It has to be noted that the super rich could also be having scarcity consciousness, and a person in a small hut with few belongings could have consciousness of abundance. 

The only way for transformation is Self Discovery. When we observe nature, one observes harmony, abundance, celebration, a smooth flow going on. But the moment we see the human being, who is also part of nature, we see a poor guy who is struggling. The feeling of richness or abundance or contentment is something alien to him.  

We call earthquakes, storms or floods, as something disruptive. This may just be our definition. It could be a natural way of cleaning up or detoxification or recycling. 

The human being is not aware of is his own awareness. He is leading a mechanical life. His reactions to events happening are more or less conditioned according to his past knowledge and experiences. He is manipulated by the media, politicians, gurus, parents, teachers etc. In this state of sleep, he lives in his own world of age old concepts which have become a prison for him. 

The Human mind lives in duality. That means he may be desiring two opposite things at the same time. He may be wanting one thing and deep down wishing against it. His mind is not integrated. He does not have a single ‘I’. 

His ‘I’ changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings and moods and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always as one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person, not the one he was a moment ago. 

Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation says ‘I’. And in each case it seems to be taken for granted that this ‘I’ belongs to the Whole, to the whole man, and is expressed by this Whole. In fact there is no foundation whatever for this assumption. 

Man’s every desire and thought appears and live quite separately and independently of the Whole. Man has no individual ‘I’. There are, instead hundreds and thousands of separate small ‘I’s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact or on the contrary hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. 

Each minute, each moment Man is saying or thinking ‘I’ .  Each time his ‘I’ is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man’s name is a legion.  

This explains, why people so often make decisions and so seldom carry them out. One ‘I’ or a group of ‘I’s decide to get up in the morning. But getting up is the business of another ‘I’ who completely disagrees with the decision and sometimes may even know nothing about it. 

A small accidental ‘I’ may promise something to another person at a certain moment simply out of vanity, or for amusement. Then it disappears, but the man, that is, the whole combination of other ‘I’s who are quite innocent of this, may have to pay for it for all their life.  

It is easy to see, why human beings are always in a state of stress, hotchpotch, disintegrated, moving in four directions, one desire contradicting the other etc. Somewhere deep down there is no integrity, harmony and peace. 

To start with we will have to examine our consciousness and see the mess in totality.  

Lets pick up one aspect, regarding wealth, we can say that we are always for it, all our desires have a common goal and that is to have immense wealth and all the objects that wealth can buy. But it is not that simple. Deep down, we are against wealth. As explained above, Human mind is a complex. It is not that mind has complexes, the whole mind itself is a complex. 

Warren Buffet, the guru of Stock Market investment says “There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult”.  

Deep down we have accepted concepts against wealth which generate blockages against smooth flow of wealth in our lives. We have to consider wealth as a form of energy which gives life its momentum.

Lets see few of the blockages we have against wealth. 

1)     Money is the root of all evil on this earth.
2)     Money spoils relationships.
3)     More money, more problems.
4)     Easy comes, easy goes.
5)     Only few can become rich.
6)     No Pain, no Gain.
7)     It is better to have peace of mind, than have money.
8)     Money can buy bed, but not sleep.
9)     It does not grow on trees.
10)  Money only comes with hard work and struggle.
11)  First deserve, then desire.
12)  Inner wealth is superior to outer wealth.
13)  Pursuit of outer wealth is one of the primary obstacles to spiritual growth.
14)  Money is important, but not that important in my life. 

These concepts never ever make wealth energy to flow smoothly in your life. If someday, you unexpectedly become wealthy, then you may even feel guilty, or as something unnatural has happened to you.  

The feeling of being inferior dominates our lives, always in state of being in-secure, insufficient. These feelings make our Consciousness poor, not the lack of wealth  

We are not proposing that you become greedy or selfish and make wealth creation the sole purpose of your existence. 

The pseudo spiritual propaganda has given a bad name to wealth. Because of it the mind is split. The Human being strives for wealth, but deep down he feels that he is wasting his time. He dreams of sitting in a hut on a mountain and meditating and searching for the inner wealth. He is neither here not there. 

This mind block of pseudo spiritualism should be removed immediately. True Spiritualism is never against outer wealth. It is against the selfish, Ego Centric self, because of which the human being starts accumulating, stealing, cheating, corrupting, hoarding money.  

The selfish Ego centric person uses money as a tool for his own selfish motives. But money gets a bad name and the Ego centric person goes Scot free. 

It does not matter whether the Ego-Centric person is accumulating Outer or Inner Wealth, both are the movements of Greed. He will always have the feeling of being unfulfilled. Just putting a label of being spiritual cannot transform the Consciousness of Scarcity to the consciousness of Abundance. 

Following things are necessary for the transformation from Scarcity to the Consciousness of Abundance.. 

1)     Removal of all mental blocks regarding Wealth.
2)     Tune yourself with the vibration/energy/frequency of wealth.
3)     Remove all self defeating patterns of thought.
4)     Start the process of Self Discovery.
5)     Search for your true Self which is the source of abundance.
6)     Express Gratitude to the Universe, and live with awareness.
7)     Start Giving.
8)     Search for your unique hidden talent or potential, nurture it and express it.
9)     Always attempt for Win-Win Situations.   
10)  Establish patterns of Success and repeat it.
11)  Remove unhealthy emotions of jealousy, greed, in-security, fear, and guilt.
12)  Placing of thought triggers of abundance around yourself. 

Abundance and Joy are intrinsic attributes of our true nature. Lets get in tune with it.


Be the first to rate this post

  • Currently 0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Is this Progress ?

October 12, 2008 16:36 by rajendra.sharma

 by Rajendra Sharma 

Humanity has made tremendous progress in the field of Science, Medicine, technology and other related fields. We can reach far off places in hours, instead of months. New inventions, break through in new technologies has taken the present civilization to new pinnacles, as never seen before. 

Development in the field of Medicine is a boon for both Urban and Rural Population. We say we have excellent hospitals in big cities, having state of the art technology.  Is progress having more hospitals or less hospitals ?  Have we made progress in being healthy. 

We have made tremendous progress in the art of Warfare, bringing humanity to the verge of extinction.  

Technological growth in the field of communication is immense and benefited mankind. Do we have time or inclination to talk to our family members or friends or we are too busy chatting with strangers. 

Have we made progress in being kind, more loving, more generous, more thoughtful, sensitive. Are we filled with gratitude for what has been given to us. 

By traveling faster, we save time. What do we do with the time that was saved by traveling fast ? 

New sectors opening up for younger generation, was supposed to give them more options to pursue their careers. But looks like more options has become a source of more confusion. There is hardly any progress in having clarity of vision. 

Most of the technological and Scientific progress is to cover up the shortcomings of the human being. At the Individual level, we have progressed by expanding & accumulating. More money, more cars, more branches of business, second and third home on a hill station, luxurious living, membership in prestigious clubs, children studying in international schools etc. Again we assume that we have made progress.  

All this is growing horizontally, where we keep on expanding ourselves. Nothing wrong in living a comfortable life. But it is not balanced with vertical growth, the inner growth of the Being.  

There are two lines on which man’s development proceeds, the line of knowledge and the line of Being. In balanced development the line of knowledge and line of Being develop simultaneously, parallel to and helping one another. If it is not balanced then development comes to a standstill.  

It is considered important that man may possess great knowledge, for example he may be an able Scientist, make discoveries, advance science and at the same time he may be, a petty, egoistic, mean, envious, vain, fearful, in-secure, naïve and absent minded man. In other words, a low level of Being.  

If Knowledge gets too far ahead of Being, it becomes theoretical and abstract and inapplicable to life, or actually harmful, because instead of serving life and helping people to become better to struggle with the difficulties they meet, it begins to complicate man’s life, bring new difficulties into it, new troubles and calamities which were not there before. 

The reason for this is that knowledge which is not in accordance with Being cannot be large enough for, or sufficiently suited, to man’s real needs. It will always be a knowledge of one thing along with ignorance of another thing; a knowledge of the detail without the knowledge of the Whole; a knowledge of the form without the knowledge of the Essence. 

Such Preponderance of knowledge over Being is observed in present day culture. The Value of Being is completely forgotten. At a given level of Being, the level of Knowledge is limited and finite. Within the limits of a given Being, the quality of knowledge cannot be changed. A change in the nature of knowledge is possible with a change in the nature of Being. 

If man wants to have real knowledge, or make real progress, he must first think of waking up, that is to develop his Being. 

Integrity in thinking, talking and action are signs of developed Being. If a man of knowledge thinks one thing, says another, and does something else then his Being is not developed. He will create chaos with his knowledge. A Person who knows himself, his true nature, free of  fear,  greed and in-security has a developed Being. 

It is necessary to understand the relation of Knowledge and Being to ‘Understanding’. 

“Knowledge is one thing, Understanding is another thing”. 

Knowledge in itself does not give understanding. Nor is understanding increased with the increase in knowledge. Knowledge gained from Experience also does not result into Understanding. Because what one experiences in life is defined by his own concepts, his own interpretation, positive or negative attitude, opinion, greed, fear etc and hence knowledge from experiences get distorted leading to distorted understanding. Every experience is brought to the level on which the person is. 

Understanding grows with the growth of Being. Normally people do not distinguish between understanding and knowledge. They think greater understanding depends upon greater knowledge. A person who observes himself knows for certain that at different periods of his life, he has understood one and the same idea, in totally different ways. He realizes at the same time, that his knowledge has not changed, and that he knew as much about a given subject before as he knows now. What then has changed – His Being. And once Being changes – understanding must also change. 

Real progress of Human Being, is progressing, both Horizontally and Vertically, thus realizing his true potential.


Be the first to rate this post

  • Currently 0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5