Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Mortality reminder
We human beings have an advantage over other
creatures on the earth. We can perform our activities consciously rather than
compulsively. This dimension brings forth a sense of freedom in our lives.
However, when we start giving it too much attention, a sense of superiority
over others arises.
This turns out to be a major problem. And the problem is
that people start thinking that they are immortals. The fact that one day every
person must die is lost in the daily din of exercising power over other less
privileged section of society.
When we are reminded continuously that our
time here is limited, we tend to perform our actions meaningfully. We also
start looking at life at a different perspective. It is not only our life but
others too.
In this notion, the concept of mock funeral has been introduced in
South Korea. It has been around for a few years now. Click here to read the full article.
During the mock funeral, the participants
will be made to lay down in the casket and the attendants would place the lid
on it after performing necessary rituals. Some of these programs have been
designed to curb suicide rate in the country.
There is a positive feeling
towards leading a fuller life after the program concludes. The participants
would also be able to handle depression gracefully.
People are reminded about the beautiful things
in life that need to be appreciated. More importantly life won’t be taken for
granted and everyone would strive to achieve something worthwhile in this
precious life.
Detention vs Meditation
It is a norm in the school to put students
under detention when they act disobedient & crazy. Detention is a kind of
punishment to the child in order to get him or her follow the rules applicable
in general to everyone. The child must probably stay after school hours,
perform arduous tasks or just stare at walls.
Robert W.
Coleman Elementary school in Baltimore, however changed its approach. It
partnered with Holistic Life Foundation to adopt the Mindful Moment program.
Here, instead of punishing the children, the program teaches them to wind down
and reflect upon themselves. Click here to see the detailed information about the program and its effectiveness.
The staff of Holistic Life Foundation provide
training to children to cope with their fears, anxiety and any other issues
that may be facing. They conduct the sessions in a separate room called mindful
moment room. Other students are also allowed to go through the training.
The school management has acknowledged the
positive environment this change has created. Children who are getting into
this program have been able to deal with stress effectively and thus act
sensibly.
As an evidence to the success of this
program, detention has reduced. Additionally, another nearby school that has utilized
the Mindful Moment program declared that the number of detainees has gone down
since adoption of this program.
Yes, it has worked wonders
on the school children. But it should not just stop there. Every person in the
world must learn to live peacefully.
Mindfulness...
There are a lot of stuff going on around us.
It is easy to get lost with all the din of outside world. Most of the times we
don’t even remember what actions we were performing just 10 minutes ago! Majority
of us are in such a situation nowadays for many variety of reasons.
It is in this context when one can bring his
or her attention to everything that is happening only at the present moment
becomes very critical. This process is given the name Mindfulness.
This activity enhances the quality of our life. It has its origins in the
Buddhist traditions, basically carved out of Tibetan meditation techniques and
has flavors of Zen and Vipassana.
Jon Kobat-Zinn is one of the pioneers in making mindfulness popular among the western
audience.
He has been actively promoting the use of mindfulness related processes
in schools, hospitals and rehabilitation centers.
Here is what he has to say about mindfulness.
Courtesy: Mindful.org
Got excited about making it part of your
daily life? Of course, there are lot of resources available on the internet on
the topic.
Let us lead a mindful life.
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?
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.
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.
Happy sleeping & waking
up!
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.
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.
Let us only pay attention to constructive
criticism and let not the fear of failure bother us.
Thou Heal Thyself
The current situation in the world is not something that we can be proud
of. Well, there are numerous creatures in existence on this planet and we
humans are one among the diverse earth life forms.
And the cause of worry is
that over 95 % of entire world’s population has one or the other health issues.
It is as though the whole of human race is plagued by diseases. As noted by Science Daily, in 2013 just one in 20 people reported that they had no diseases. This staggering number converts to approximately 4.3 % of
world’s population.
So it implies that the rest
95.7 % suffer from various diseases. And, here is a more astonishing fact –
cause of these diseases appear to remain the same in the past two decades.
The
analysis completed by Global Burden of Disease Study also indicates that few of
the major health disorders continually distressing human beings are mental
depression, low back pain, anaemia, neck pain and hearing impairment.
That
obviously explains the agitation about carrying out experiments to obtain a
cure to these illnesses and a failure to have reached any logical conclusion.
What are causing these problems? Why are we unable to find any reasonable
explanation and accordingly treat the patients with these ailments?
It seems
though that we are not getting anywhere about these questions. However, as
always happens in such situations, hope carries us forward. And in this case,
hope shows us the way in terms of alternative therapies.
The
field of medicine that looks beyond the conventional ways of treating a disease
is getting recognition and following gradually. It is not that surprising,
anyway for the reason that the basic premise in most of these alternative
healing techniques is that healing occurs naturally.
“You heal yourself”.
Thus
people who apply their rational mind towards obtaining a reasonable
justification wouldn’t get one. How can one remove a disease by himself just by
the help of nature? Is there a scientific evidence to it?
Well, allopathy has
evolved to such a state in which there is a justification in terms of chemical
reactions of drugs that will be consumed and resulting healing effects on our
brain and physical body.
In
this context of alternative medicine, an array of such practices claimed to be
derived from principles found in nature that is gaining popularity is
“Naturopathy”. As you can observe from the term, it is strongly associated with
nature. It involves a few techniques such as homeopathy, herbal medicine, water
therapy, dietary counselling, acupuncture and acupressure.
A
naturopath is someone who utilizes these natural therapies and administers them
to patients in order to heal them. One of the core principles that a naturopath
strongly believes is in the innate healing power of nature.
The known fact that
human beings are part of nature along with other life forms becomes an
important factor to be imbibed in one’s mind. It banks on the belief system
that our body has the ability to take care of itself. Of course it might
require help in the process and which is what is getting facilitated through
various techniques.
This process would be a combination of relief resulting
from outside the body and a cure that is an outcome from within the body.
The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) defines
naturopathic medicine as:
"A distinct system of primary health care-an art, science, philosophy, and practice of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of illness. Naturopathic medicine is distinguished by the principles upon which its practice is based. These principles are continually re-examined in the light of scientific advances. The techniques of naturopathic medicine include modern and traditional, scientific, and empirical methods".
Another important ideology of naturopathy is to find the underlying
cause of illness and treat it accordingly. It has always been alleged that
allopathy provides quick relief to the ailment thereby easing the pain or
reducing the symptoms however results in adverse side effects in most cases.
Naturopathic physicians think of symptoms as an external manifestation of a
disturbance in the harmony of energy flows into and out of the body. This
disturbance can be caused by either physical or mental imbalances or even a
combination of both.
So naturopathy tends to go into the depth to understand
the cause and believes that removal of cause will free the patient of disease
without creating any other side effects.
“Prevention is better than cure”, goes the old adage. This is of utmost
importance while practicing naturopathy. It involves looking at the whole
person and not just barely glancing at the disease symptoms.
The lifestyle of
patient is discussed, dietary counselling will be held as part of the therapy
which goes beyond solving the current problem. The person currently being
treated would become far more powerful within his or her environment and avoid
getting into the traps of illnesses lurking to drain the energy in
possession.
Considering
the underlying philosophy, naturopathy seems to have successfully treated
chronic conditions. Patients suffering from these diseases would have lost all
hopes of getting back on track with the conventional therapy.
As a last resort,
they would have come to seek help from naturopathy. And, yes, we hear many
testimonies of alternative therapies healing them completely or at least would
have brought them hope of living a fulfilled life.
Of
course it comes at a price. And here the price one has to pay is in terms of
time & patience. Yes, naturopathy does not administer a magic potion that
if one drinks would immediately be cured of all diseases.
It has its own way of
healing. It consumes lot of time, requires a healthy, open communication between
the patient and doctor. More importantly it demands lot of patience from both
the person being treated and the one who carries out the treatment.
Well,
even though naturopathy is still considered to employ pseudoscientific
practices to obtain a cure for a disease, prevent occurrences of ailments by
analysis of patient’s holistic environment, it is gradually getting attention.
There is also strong resistance from medical professionals that naturopathy is
not only ineffective but also dangerous and unethical. But remember, doing no
harm is one of the pillars on which naturopathy rests. It advocates techniques
that are gentle, non-invasive and announces that human body has the power to
heal itself.
Do
we really have that power? Has nature already bestowed us with this ability
that we have forgotten? Or is this just another fad which will not last long?
Only
time will reveal the truth.
What does it take to get inspired?
Got
bored of your dull daily routine? Fed up of doing the same thing again and
again each day? Lack motivation in attempting something new? Don’t worry. You
are not alone.
Each of us have been engulfed with some constraints that hold
back us in life. At times these situations go to such an extent that we won’t
be able to break away from these shackles. So what is the way out?
Experts
suggest that inspiration is the solution. So what is this magic of inspiration
and what does it take to get inspired?
Well, to put it plainly to get inspired
means to do something special. Remember, “special” is relative and not
absolute.
However when we have to extract meaning out of this abstract topic in life, we
will have to confine the boundaries to that of an individual.
And so for a
particular person, if something “special” results as a process of mind stimulation then that person can be thought to have been inspired.
Is
this just random? Does it happen spontaneously and cannot be exercised or triggered
at our own will? This is quite a contentious topic by itself.
Some believe that
it just happens and that we need to keep an eye and be vigilant to spot and
catch hold of it. Of course there are some others who tend to argue that
inspiration can be systematically brought into our lives.
Do
they work for everyone? Maybe. But you cannot say “yes” or “no” just by looking
at the list. You will have to work through at least a few of them before you
nod your head in agreement.
Well, there maybe something else of course that
works for you to get inspired which is not in that list.
Rather
than contemplating if it would work or not, why don’t you give it a shot? As
the adage goes, “Actions speak louder than words”, let us get into action.
Let
us get inspired. Share with the world what inspires you and how did you realize
that!
Goal of Life?
Life, as we know it, seems to be simple but at the same time exhibits
variety of complications. One may think he is living a satisfactory life filled
with all the riches in world and yet his inner conscience yearning for more.
There is always an internal desire in every human being that keeps driving a
person to achieve something in order to reach a stage of contentment. Every
individual feels he lacks “that” in life which, if existed, could lead him to
perpetual satisfaction. Have you experienced it?
Well, then at least for the moment achieving “that” would mean having
led a life of accomplishment. In layman’s vocabulary, “that” is called a goal.
It is the objective of one’s hard work and aspirations. Perhaps, yes, it is
true that successful people in world have emerged victorious in something that
they cherished in.
But can it be said without any doubt that they have attained
the “goal” in life?
Do you say it depends on the individual? Why not? As separate entities,
all of us are different. We have our own lifestyles, carry disparate dreams,
wish for various stuff in life. And when we obtain what we wish for as a result
of our immense efforts, tough situations that we have endured the satisfaction
that occurs is imminent.
It obviously brings pleasure, happiness and gratification. Does this qualify to be considered as reaching the goal of life?
Maybe yes, if we are to confine ourselves within the context of
individuals. But is life, in the context of universe, just a constitution of
individuals? Is there anything binding the individuals that cannot be
visualized? Is there something to be considered as a “common goal” of the
entire human race?
In this context, Swami Vivekananda says “Pleasure is
not the goal of man, but knowledge.” He opines that pleasure is not everlasting
and suggests that it is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal.
He
extends it even further by attributing such thinking to the physical and mental
distress that world is witnessing. But he also indicates that sooner or later
man will realize the truth.
It is then, he advocates, the person who had been
misled that his attainment of pleasure had fulfilled his goal would become
aware that pleasure is only a milestone in the path but not a goal by itself.
In the same vein, philosopher
Adi Shankaracharya notes in his composition
Bhajagovindam as below:
He goes on to say that a
person may go to the Ganges (revered because of its powers to destroy one’s
sins and purify the person), observe rigorous fasts & ceremonies and donate
money towards charity but yet cannot attain liberation even after a hundred
births if the person does not possess knowledge.
So, it is quite evident that there
is a lot of emphasis on gaining “knowledge”. However the next obvious questions
need to be answered, which are “what is this knowledge that great ones are
talking about?” and “How do we gain this knowledge?”
Join
us in our journey to explore answers to these questions.
Welcoming another new year
As we
step into another new year, there is a lot of stuff going on in the back of our
minds. Of these, some are conscious enough to get converted into resolutions
and some others quite abstract, thus remain hidden beneath the pile of
thoughts.
At a time when we look back at the happenings of an entire year gone
by and introspect, it is important for us to think of the year ahead.
During this exercise, we realize
that while one cycle has culminated, another one has begun its journey.
Inevitably, being part of these, there is an urge from within all of us to
break out from such a routine and be free forever.
Is it possible to gain this
freedom? The answer lies within ourselves.
It
depends on the intensity of desire to destroy the shackles of such bondage. The
more will one puts into this effort, the more success the person would taste.
The
accompanying pain one endures might eat away the current lifestyle but prepares
the same person for a better livelihood in due course of time.
This is the
reason why Benjamin Franklin aptly commented -
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.
Let us
strive to become better in the new year.
From a tiny seed to a mighty tree
We see
a huge tree and wonder about its mighty size. As time passes, the tree would continue
to grow. But for a moment, if we go back in time, we would realize that once
upon a time the tree that has us amazed was just a seed.
A seed, so puny, that
we would not have taken notice of it. And here it is in front of us, after
having grown for all those years.
After a certain time, this tree will
bear seeds of the future. There might be numerous seeds but not all of them
would grow to become huge.
Some of them will just be carried away by the wind
and get destroyed.
Few may become food for insects. Only a portion would
survive the travails of nature to slowly flourish in a conducive environment
with the required nutrition.
That resulting enormous tree will again through
the same cycle. That is the way nature works.
But it does not mean that greatness is only associated with the
tree being mighty. The true greatness is to realize the humble beginnings of
such an enormous entity and respect the rules of nature.
In a similar vein, a
person of great stature will not take pride in his achievements when he has
grown rich or gained power in the society. A true savant would realize that in pride is his fall and instead gets stuck to his roots.
Let us
never forget that however big a tree might be looking right now, at one point
in its life cycle, it was just a minuscule seed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
