Conscious Living

When we don't know how to honour time, we most often end up compromising our time for the benefit of others. Learn how to honour your time so that you can benefit from all of your time.

Doctors are asking people who have recovered from COVID to eat more proteins. That’s good. But, is that the right advice? Is there any problem in doctors prescribing a protein rich diet for people who have just recovered from COVID?

Never work for happiness or for comfort. You are never going to have it. Always work happily. If you are not happy with your work, change it, or else, you will waste away your life trying to get happiness out of your work.

We all want freedom. The more we believe we have it, the more we want of it. Because, freedom cannot be had. It can only be. When we want freedom, we go all out to get it. When you don’t understand something, you create a notion about it. You believe, this is freedom. And when you get your notional feeling of freedom, you want more of it. And when you have it, you are not content with it. You want others to have it too. You begin to impose your notion of freedom unto others.

Our country is a special one. Even before time was invented, we kept track of events by way of observing constellations in the sky. And that is how, even to this day, when the particular constellation arrives, we know, thousands of years ago, God arrived as man on earth as Bhagawan Rama, Krishna, Anjaneya, Bhagawan Narasimha and the events that transpired which set an example of righteous living. By reading the constellations, we have etched in Akasha, the death of Holika. Every festival celebrated in our country has its history etched in constellations that decorate the vast space. Let us not forget the reason behind our festivals. We are Bharatiyas. We mustn’t forget our traditions. We are known by our traditions, values and our culture which is our identity.

How would it be, if you needn’t have to pay for your basic necessities such as food, shelter and clothing? How would it be if your life only depended on your skills, your abilities, and your time? We are all caught in this web of consumerism that, unless we keep consuming, we will not be able to survive in this society. Why are we living in this misery where we have only practiced hoarding money in the form of houses, lands, and businesses and the cost we have to pay for acquiring such definitions of security is with our own freedom.

Once you realise your self worth, your worry less and you look for possible opportunities to use these skills and trade your skill for resources. It’s your everyday task. Your are just like a bird searching for food. When you realise your worth, you can help others. There is mutual benefit. You apply your skills and the other person may share their produce or pay you for your service.

Life on earth is co-existential. We live together. If we did not listen to the sounds of birds chirping in the morning, if we did not communicate with people around us, and if we did not connect with life around us, then, we cannot call ourselves healthy. We cut countless trees which protected our soil, water and air and was home to countless species of life. And instead, we plant tender sapling instead which need the care of soil, water and air to grow and protection from being feed for cattle! We have no moral right to decide where birds will nest, where animals will live and how trees must grow. It is time we put ourselves at the bottom of the triangle, and our only role, is to support all life forms so that we, along with other life forms, live in harmony. This is the real wellbeing.

We all have an inner voice, or the gut feel, the instinct that always prompts when we have to do something and alerts us, when we are in distress. It even alerts us when something is not in our highest good. Has listening to your inner voice led you to experience the best thing that has ever happened to you! Let us know after listening to this story.

How will it be if money was not the only mode of transaction. How would it be if we barter our services to something that will directly or indirectly benefit our life. This is a dream that I had many years ago. I was thinking, when would that day come when we will not only charge money for our services! Instead, we will also look at barter as a means of transaction. Today, we’re happy and extremely grateful and satisfied the way it unfolded.

The most common reasons for fear or anger in a conversation doesn’t arise from what is spoken. A lot depends on how words are spoken and what emotions we use to communicate. When we lose ourselves to our emotions, we run a risk of influencing our words with fiery emotions. That can cause our intentions to be misdirected and our emotions displaced. We lose the outcome altogether.

Recently, my son and I were walking by a vacant site in which an engineering machine company was digging a bore well. My son, who had never seen this machine until then asked what it was… and this analogy of the difference between self worth and self importance struck to my imagination.

If you wish to succeed in life, you have to find the shortest way, and that is to follow principles that have been laid out, that already exist. There is no point in reinventing the wheel. In ancient India, people recorded their evidences of successes and shared them freely with anyone who needed them. Take a look at our Puranas. There are immense resource of evidences that can guide you to your personal success.

My daughter had recently earned an invitation from a prestigious visual arts Association. As a gesture of appreciation, I wanted to gift her an iPad so that she can continue her hobby. While I was waiting for the device to be billed, I watched young boys, just out of their teens, may be, enquiring options to trade-in their iPhone 11 for the latest iPhone 12.

I stepped back from my judgments and then a thought came gliding in… What for has God sent me here? I know there is something for me to learn from this experience. A beautiful voice spoke from within… A real devotee sees God everywhere. Instantly, there was light everywhere. There was joy everywhere. My eyes filled with tears of joy.

Does emotional pain of your son, daughter, spouse, friend, parents or siblings affect you? A client called me a few months ago and said that she was having a brotherly affection towards a doctor who treated her. He too reciprocated in the same brotherly fashion. However, a few months later, he began to demand more time and attention from her. He was behaving like a baby. For her, it was like a string around her neck. She felt strangulated by his demand for attention. Do your relationships also have similar tags?

when you follow a schedule, you are respected for it. People make their schedules around yours. No one tries to disturb you. On the contrary, if you did not have a schedule, you are taken for granted. No one takes you seriously.

Karma means consequence. Every thought, every word spoken and every action taken has a consequence. This consequence is what you are living now. Consequence is nether good nor bad. It simply is the result of your thought, word and deed. Imagine a quiver full of arrows. The arrows that are in the quiver are the future. The arrow that is struck on the bow is the present. And the arrows that have already been fired and are travelling towards the target is your past.

Karma is the greatest teacher. It helps us realise many truths of life. Let me share one such story which helps us learn some necessary truths about healing. A lady of Chinese origin came to my office with excruciating fissure pain. I performed her Nadi Pariksha and suggested a medicated oil. She used it for 2 days and called me saying that 80% of her fissure had healed. However, she mentioned that before coming to me, she had visited an 85 years old ayurvedic physician and his medicines had no effect on her. So, she had called him after getting relief. The old physician, upon listening to her question of why she hadn’t prescribed this specific medicine said that he had not remembered to prescribe this medicine to her. It was not his fault. It was her karma which was burning that had prevented the physician from remembering the name of this specific medicine.

Whether you are at home, office, with friends, wherever, never let your anticipation turn to expectation. To anticipate an appreciation, a kind word, an understanding by someone, of your situation, that something good will happen is ok. It doesn’t bother you if that thing you anticipated doesn’t happen. When you anticipate that something nice will happen and it doesn’t, you are not upset. However, when you expect something good to happen, you stop everything you are doing waiting for that good thing to happen. And, If it doesn’t, all hell breaks loose. So, keep your anticipations alive and expectations at bay. Anticipation doesn’t take your happiness away from you. We all anticipate that tomorrow will be better than today, right! Let us continue to live in that anticipation.