What is prayer?

Enter the words define prayer in Google, and lo, you get the dictionary definition of prayer! Well, it says, 

a solemn request for help addressed to God 

And yes, conventionally that’s what we understand as the meaning of prayer. If we have problems in our life, we turn towards God, pour our woes and ask that the problems be resolved.

Let us look into it more deeply and ask ourselves the question Is this right? 

The answer would be Maybe, yes. During trying circumstances, it is appropriate to look upon something that is beyond our reach hoping that we gain mental succor. 

However, is it not stupid to routinely get into this mode for every silly problem that we come across? 

If the so-called God must take care of each and every difficulty that we face, then what is the significance of our “own” life? 

It is in this essence, the English saying goes “Self-help is the best help” .

Sadhguru clarifies that true prayer is not an act but being prayerful is a quality.  He says that prayer, when understood in its real sense, is a means to open our lives to new possibilities. 

However, he also warns that people may succumb to hallucinatory fantasy. People start making up stuff, it is not real. He indicates that when the real experience of being prayerful occurs, a dialogue develops between the one who is praying and the divine that is omnipresent. When that state is reached, he says, the experience brings great joy.  

Watch this video in which Sadhguru explains this phenomenon of being truly prayerful. He narrates a beautiful story in laymen terms to drive home the point that prayer cannot be acted and rather should be a quality in our life.

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How do you eat?

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Are your sleep habits indicating anything?

All of us spend our day in different activities and go to sleep in the night to get a well-deserved physical rest. During the night, the body gets sufficient time to replenish the energies, our batteries get charged so to say. 

Depending on the nature of work that we are engaged in our daily lives, we would need different number of hours of sleep. The body knows it very well. When it cannot go on further without the required duration of rest it resists to cooperate with the physical or mental activity and shuts the system down. 

Well, while it is true that it automatically takes care of providing us the required energy to continue our work the next day, is there anything to take away from the sleeping pattern that we possess?

Here is an infographic that depicts what might be going on based on the way you sleep.

Click here to see the entire article which provides detailed information about each of the categories. Suggestions are also available based on the pattern that you identify yourself with.   

Happy sleeping & waking up!

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Fear Of Unknown?

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Fear of Failure

Humans have the innate ability to ask questions, seek and explore the unknown. However, with civilizations advancing, this natural instinct to gain an in depth understanding about something unknown seems to be diminishing. 

The society in which we perform our daily activities plays a major role in defining how we operate our lives. To know the unknown, to cross uncharted territories, to seek an answer to the mind-boggling question, one may have to go outside the boundaries set aside by the society. 

One may have to try out different things, experiment stuff that may not become successful in the very first attempt. History shows us incidents where such people were ostracized and made fun of for being part of the failure. Thus, one of the reasons for people not to question the status quo is the fear of failure.

It goes without saying that fear incites other negative emotions such as anger, frustration, disappointment, shame, confusion. Consequences of a backlash by people from all walks of life including closest family members deter one’s pursuance of their instinct.  

Click here to know the signs of fear of failure. 

Now that we acknowledge that fear of failure is something that is not good for us, we need to identify ways to overcome the fear. 

What methods that we can adopt when faced with situations where we stare at failure and more importantly dread the fear of failure. 

One simple thing to keep in mind is to be aware of the fact that not everything is in our control. 

And at the same time, there are some aspects that are very much in our control. It would only do good if we focus on those details that are within our reach. 

We also need to strengthen our mind to selectively listen to others criticism. 

This link helps you to look at some of the TED videos that address this topic. 

Let us only pay attention to constructive criticism and let not the fear of failure bother us.

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Focus and Determination - Alexander Graham Bell

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Affirmations to enhance your life – What and How

The human body and mind, undoubtedly, is quite enigmatic. There have been tremendous advancements in the last few centuries in medical science. But the complexity of body and working of the mind has been eluding the doctors. Neurologists are continuing to perform studies & research in order to gain a thorough understanding of the nature of these complex entities.

Psychologists have been looking at the different mental states and trying to identify if there can be any conclusions made based on their observation. There is more focus on human mind and how it behaves within a given environment. 

The medical community, by and large agrees to the concept of human mind being split into two – conscious and subconscious. In the recent past, with many doctors vouching for hidden powers of subconscious mind, research on this area is gathering sufficient attention. 

It is rather intriguing to know particularly the nature of subconscious mind and its latent powers. Affirmations is one of them.

Affirmations are nothing but statements in your familiar language said repeatedly with supreme confidence. 

There have been numerous real-life situations recorded wherein people have got the benefit of this tool.

The mechanism of affirmation is coupled with that of subconscious mind. It is said that the subconscious mind doesn’t know what is wrong and what is right. It does not care about what is real and what is dream. 

It just accepts what is being told as reality. So, affirmation helps in programming the subconscious mind to make it believe the uttered words. 

Affirmations can be simple sentences. Click here to get a glimpse of a few affirmations that you can start using in your daily life.  As you apply it into practice, you can observe that the affirmations will only work if subconscious fully accepts what is being impressed upon it. And as noted earlier, it doesn’t know to differentiate – good or bad, right or wrong, beneficial or harmful. 

So, we need to be extremely careful while framing the affirmation. We must be sure that there are no conflicts within the affirmations that we use as well as they create a positive effect into our surroundings.   

The infographic here provides an overview of how you can create your own affirmations that will work for you. 

To get best results, speak out the statement(s) aloud a few times each day. Also start visualizing the affirmation from the bottom of your heart. 

  

Monitor the changes that happen in your life after you start religiously practicing the affirmations. If you sense there is less or, worse, negative impact then relook at your affirmation. 

You may have to refer to a dictionary and replace the words that you have used in the current statement. Bring in the positive vibes, work on the tense, reword the sentence and apply it again. With dedication, you will be able to master this wonderful tool to enrich your life.  

What are the affirmations that you find useful? What are your observations about creating good & working affirmations?

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Origin of thoughts & their significance - Where do they come from?

An interesting question. Though there is no definitive answer available, each one of us have our own answer anyway! 

However numerous arguments have been and are being made by exponents from different backgrounds. Philosophers, scientists, doctors, yoga instructors are enthusiastically involved in making their case. Currently there is no specific theory that is widely accepted. 

One reasoning quotes quantum physics. It suggests that as everything in the world is considered to be made up of energy or vibrations, even thoughts are variants of energy. 

It goes on to say that there is no fundamental difference between people’s thoughts. 

Sparkles of energy will be produced based on our sensory interaction with external world in combination with the memory that we possess. Memory can be related to our past experiences. When we consciously pay attention, the thought gains energy. Otherwise the thought will be feeble and dies down. It is the energy that one exudes would be picked by another.

This element is elaborated further by intellectuals and they declare that thoughts are just a function of memory and experiences. They announce that there is no such thing as our thought. All thoughts come from outside – from external environment that we are in. According to them there is no originality in anyone’s thoughts.  

The doctors also have been exploring this. They are of the opinion that neural processes facilitate emergence of thoughts. However, the medical science doesn’t know for sure currently how thoughts emerge from neuron activity. 

They only rely on indirect evidence to support the argument that brain is the organ where thoughts get formed. Click here to read a neuroscientist’s viewpoint on the subject. 

Having heard different perspectives of origin of thoughts, it is clear we do not have a conclusive answer as to where do they come from. However, we have to admit that we lose massive amount of energy because we are continuously paying attention to our thoughts; we can say that weare losing energy through our thoughts.  

If we are able to conserve this energy, we can channelize the energy properly and thereby make us feel energetic. This is what “yoga” is according to Patanjali’s yoga sutras. 

According to Patanjali, to perform yoga is to reduce the number of thoughts to zero so that energy, which is otherwise wasted, can be utilized in the right manner and transition into Self-Realization.

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Panpsychism, the philosophy of mind?

Consciousness is considered to be the foundation of universe. It is thought to be omnipresent, in whatever we encounter including us. 

Contrary to belief that it is a subjective experience that only human beings possess, intellectuals are now debating that consciousness is all pervasive.

When we are discussing topics such as consciousness there is no concurrence in terms of what we know so far. Especially when the argument turns into something that beats our common sense. 

But philosophers and academicians across the world think that even scientists like Albert Einstein make suggestions regarding their research that counters common sense. So, we should learn to be more open rather than drawing conclusions based on our intuition.

A philosophy professor, Mr. David Chalmers indicated the hard problem of consciousness a few years ago demonstrating that there was no solution to the origin of consciousness. There have been two major perspectives to answer this question – materialism and dualism.

Materialism believes consciousness is derived entirely from physical matter however dualism suggests that consciousness and physical matter are two distinct entities. None of these is a feasible explanation though. 

It is at this juncture Panpsychism offers another explanation. It holds that consciousness is a fundamental feature of physical matter. 

This viewpoint makes a case that every particle that exists has a form of consciousness however puny it may be. The argument goes further to indicate that when many such small forms come together, complex structures get created.

Does it mean that inanimate objects too possess consciousness? Well, panpsychism would imply that. Anything that you can think of – stones, cars, forks, tables, yes, everything has consciousness. There is a lot of interest on this way of seeing things. 

Universities have made serious attempts to offer panpsychism, the philosophy of mind, as one of the areas being researched. There have been books written now. So, it is gathering sufficient interest. Click here to know more about on this doctrine.

But does panpsychism provide reasonable explanation for all questions? No, there are still questions to be answered. One of the biggest questions is known as “Combination problem”. It asks exactly how do small pieces of consciousness gel together to form more sophisticated piece of consciousness? Even though for sake of argument if we consider that specks of consciousness do exist in all objects, there is no plausible justification that they would consolidate.

Having said all these, there is still a long way to go to reach any conclusion as such. Any doctrine is yet to reach that stage which has solution to all the problems that mankind can fathom. 

It is in this context philosopher John Perry says, 

"If you think about consciousness long enough, you either become a panpsychist or you go into administration.”

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Mark of Great Quality

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Quit Talking; Begin Doing

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The Man who asked the Big Questions

Stephen William Hawking born in 1942 is best remembered as a cosmologist who didn’t fear to ask the big question and persevere to seek the answer despite his physical limitations. 

Some of his questions are something that I’m sure you would also have thought at some point in your life, like - “Where did the universe come from?”. But the difference is that most of us would just stop there after asking the question.

Even though he was restricted to his wheelchair most of his life due to his illness, he was spirited to explore and pursue his research on a variety of topics related to the universe. In fact, he is considered to be a leader in this generation of researchers in this area. 

He went on to explore properties of gravity and black holes. Mankind is still searching for answers and plausible explanations on an array of topics in relation to these.

Given his physical condition, what an amazingly adventurous person he was – he celebrated one of his birthdays by going up in a hot-air balloon; he took part in a zero gravity flight to experience weightlessness!

And to constant questions from curious people, he would always say “I want to show that people need not be limited by physical handicaps as long as they are not disabled in spirit”. An excellent message for all of us to ponder upon. May his soul rest in peace.

Click here to read a detailed obituary.

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Spirituality Wheel

The way human mind operates is quite astonishing. There has been tremendous advancement in the studies of human body and mind and naturally with exploration mankind has understood lot many things about what constitutes our body. 

However, with respect to the most complicated part of human body – brain, there is a still long way to go. 

Whether mind can be considered associated only with the brain itself is a question which is debated at different forums.

You would have noticed in your day to day activities that your mind certainly has lot of amazing powers. For instance, just by looking at an event published in the newspaper, your mind calculates lot of stuff at enormous speed and arrives at options, possibilities, conclusions. 

Possibly it is not being conscious enough but next time you perform any mundane activity just pay little more attention. You will really be surprised at what your mind is capable of. In whatever means it performs, the argument is that there is a basic stereotype of a person’s trait that the mind follows.

In an attempt to map a person’s character to a certain attitude there is a ‘wheel’ created that is called a spirituality wheel. It seems that it determines your most dominant trait! It is a quick assessment with 7 questions and doesn’t take long. So why not give it a try?

Click here to know your dominant trait according to the spirituality wheel.

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Hidden Power

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