Miracles : Are you a Witness or a Doer

Being on the path, when miracles touch our everyday lives, it is easy to fall into the trap that something special is happening to me, around me... What does one with awareness realize then.. Is there any pitfall around the whole happening?

When miracles happen to you : Are you the Doer or the Witness :)

Is the goal a Siddhi or something more... 

Stories are perhaps a great way to bring about the essence of a teaching in a somewhat light, sometimes serious, sometimes humorous undertone.. :) 

Sharing a Zen story by Osho.  

"When powers start happening in your spiritual growth, the greatest courage is needed not to show them.

It is said of a disciple of Rinzai, a Zen Master, that some other religious Master’s disciple was talking to him and the other Master’s disciple said,

‘Our Master is a man of miracles. He can do anything he wants. I have seen many miracles he has been doing, I have witnessed them myself.
What is the great thing about your Master? What miracles can he do?’
And the disciple of Rinzai said, ‘The greatest miracle that my Master can do is not to do miracles.’

Meditate on it. ‘The greatest miracle my Master can do is not to do miracles.’ When miraculous powers start happening, only the weaklings will do them. The stronger one will not do them — because he knows that now this is another trap. Again the world is trying to pull him back.

This is the last trap. If you can avoid psychic energies, silently, witnessing, if you can pass them by without being entangled by them, without being imprisoned by them, only then do you arrive home. It is a great ensnarement."

Each Experience Completes

Life and its Experiences... We label experiences as Good or Bad.. Nevertheless they are just Karmic events unfolding themselves with someone as the Nimitta. The Essence is to take the Lesson perhaps and Move On... 

Even the slightest awareness about what happens around us gives us a glimpse of this reality... The most beautiful or the seemingly worst experiences in life lead us to a state of nothingness... A Vaccum !! 

As Gurudev has put so beautifully :  

"Each experience completes. Completion means leading to void or nothing. In the progression of life, you will leave behind every experience saying, "This is nothing." Anything that is completed loses its importance. That is to say it leads you to void - this is nothing. 

A sign of intelligence is how soon you arrive at this understanding. Examine everything in life and say "This is nothing" and what remains after all that, is Love, and that is everything. When "This is nothing" does not come out of knowledge, it comes out of misery.

 Either through knowledge or through misery, you come to the point of "This is nothing, this is nothing". The choice is yours. If you got this, it is really NOTHING, If you didn't get this, never mind - this is nothing. (laughter)

 -Sri Sri

Want Blessings?

I remember : I was new to Art of Living and had gone to the Ashram.. perhaps the second visit..
And by chance (we all know there are no chances) caught myself face to face with Gurudev on VishalakshiMantap steps with almost noone around....

Completely zapped : The only words that stumbled frm my lips were "Guruji Blessings"
Gurudev replied.. "Blessings Blessings..."

An instant regret of having opened my mouth followed... Coz it seemed meaningless..  :) I have never asked him for Blessings after that... We all know they just flow...

Sharing a Talk by Sri Sri on Blessings..


"Everybody asks for blessings. Usually people say, “Guruji, please give me blessings”. Even if someone doesn’t want anything, they need blessings! Whichever Guru you go to, the only words which come out are, “Give me blessings”. And these are mere words tumbling out of your mouth. But how do we obtain blessings? We have not learnt this.

There is no dearth of blessings. You get more blessings than necessary. There is sunlight, a burning blaze of bright light all 12 hours of the day, but your doors and windows are tightly shut. Then,how is it possible for light to enter? If the sun’s light has to reach you, you cannot sit in a dark room and keep chanting on a microphone, “I want sunlight, I want sunlight!” This will not bring the sunlight in. You have to open the doors and windows, so that light may enter on its own.

When you ask for blessings, you should have an honest and clean mind. When you have a truthful mind, that mind becomes capable of receiving and absorbing blessings. When does the mind become truthful? When there is nothing to hide, no dirt in the mind and the mind is open. Blessings should only be asked with an open mind.

If somebody asks, “How are you?”, you answer saying “I am fine”. You,in reality, will not be fine at that point in time. In spite of that, you say, “I am fine, doing very well and on top of the world” and you are boiling inside! When you communicate without hiding anything inside you, with an open and innocent mind, only from this level will you acquire the capability of receiving blessings.

Now, why are we not honest in this way? That is because we are not communicating with ourselves. We are not living with the real truth in us. We are under the illusion that we may get something in this world of objects. The most common comment that people make often is that politicians are not honest. Why are not many politicians honest? That is because their mind is only outward bound. They are always calculating and keeping watch of how much and what they can loot. If they want to loot people then it is not possible to be honest. Why? This is because they are dependent on somebody else. 

If you have to depend on somebody, then depend only on the divine power. The powerful God is the strength of the powerless.

It is not that we always obtain whatever we wish. Many a times, our desires will not be fulfilled. There are many times when we regret our desires and wonder why we ever wished for them. Isn’t it? You desire something and then you regret as to why you desired it. We live under the illusion that we will live happily when we obtain all objects of our desire. You should keep observing your desires. Only then you will know whether you will really derive happiness from your desire or if
you will land in more trouble because of the desires.

It is said that, “Daivadheenam Jagat Sarvam, Mantradheenam tu
daivatam” which means that the whole creation is under the control of Gods and the Gods are under the spell of mantras. All that you are seeing in this gross world is just a reflection arising from the subtle world. The one who works in the subtle world is known as Devatha or God. Surrender to the Gods in the subtle plane. This is known as “Ishwara Pranidhaana”. God does not mean that you simply visit a temple and break the coconut and come back after offering a prayer.

There is one honest corner in our consciousness. Just go and sit there. The moment you sit in that silent, honest corner of your consciousness, that very moment, you are tapping divine energy. “All the forms in the world reside in my consciousness,” this experience will gradually begin to happen to you. You will realise that you are not only the body. You are that consciousness which is very vast and spread everywhere, on all sides. It is necessary to realise that you are not just the body. “

Who am I? This body is only a small window, that is all. I am really the Sun. When the Sun enters the window, does the window itself become the Sun? No. Sun only enters through the window. Moonlight is entering in, but the Moon is very far away. In the same way, I am far away from the body. In spite of being far away, I am still in the body”. This feeling should arise in you again and again. For that you need honesty. This requires practice.

Then, even if you don’t need, blessings will always be showered on you!"

- Sri Sri 

Salad Bar - Corn Crunch in the Munch !!

I love corn and this is a simple salad recipe I have made very often and usually when we have guests over. Simple, Filling, Tasty and Crunchy. 

 

Corn and Veggie Salad

 

Ingredients

2 cups boiled sweet corn kernels (makai ke dane)

1/4 cup chopped capsicum

1/4 cup chopped  onions/spring onions

1/4 cup chopped beetroot

1/2 cup tomato cubes

To Be Mixed Into A Dressing

1 tbsp lime juice

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp sugar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper (kalimirch) to taste

Method 

·         Combine the sweet corn, onions, capsicum, beetroot and tomatoes in a deep bowl and mix well.

·         Pour the dressing over the salad, toss well and refrigerate for at least an hour.

·         Serve chilled.

Looking forward to sharing some more of my experiments with food and would like to hear from you all on simple and different Salad/Soup and other healthy recipes !! Do Share in Comments ..

Sri Sri on the Bhagavad Gita

Terrorists are cowards. Whenever terror has struck in any part of the world, we have heard people say it is an act of cowardice. A coward runs away from action but harbours all negative feelings and does it surreptitiously.
This is exactly what happened to Arjuna. Arjuna was angry, upset, sad and wanted to run away. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna said not to be a coward. So, it is an antidote to terrorism. Lord Krishna said bravery is the way - face the war when it is inevitable and do your duty.
A terrorist is stuck in his identity - he hides it, has no rationale and inflicts pain. Whereas Bhagavad Gita helps one to transcend one’s identity, encourages reason and infuses wisdom. In this sense, it could be called the antidote to terrorism.

The duty of a policeman, a soldier or a king is to be impartial for the sake of the nation, whether it is their mentors or relatives. Terrorists are never impartial.
A soldier is brave and a terrorist is a coward. A soldier is protecting and preventing violence and a terrorist is inflicting pain and suffering. The Bhagavad Gita is the scripture of bravery in both realms of physical and metaphysical.

Terrorism is deeply steeped in hatred. An act without hatred is what Bhagavad Gita propounds. The Bhagavad Gita epitomizes the correct action - of righteousness, of upliftment of spirit and an action or duty that ought to be performed even in the most compelling situation.
In the last 5149 years of the existence of the Bhagavad Gita, there is no evidence of someone becoming a terrorist after reading it. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi wrote commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita and it was an inspiration for his non-violent movement. The Bhagavad Gita is a unique scripture which caters to the entire range of human evolution, comprising every level of this vast existence.

Bhagavad Gita stands for poise and equanimity and for performing one’s designated duty. Lord Krishna does not encourage everyone to take the weapons and fight but a soldier cannot sell bananas in the market. He has to take his weapon to bring security to his people.
If Bhagavad Gita is a terrorist scripture then all military academies in the world are nothing but terrorist organizations. Doesn’t this sound strange? Would the courts ban Lenin, Marx and Mao Tso-Tung, who to stay in power inflicted terror on millions?
A terrorist or a coward hides and inflicts pain on others whereas a soldier sacrifices his own life to bring security and peace to people. They both may take the gun but their intentions are poles apart.
Bhagavad Gita encourages reasoning and dialogue while terrorists are blind to any reasoning and are closed to any form of dialogue.
Interestingly, in any military training all over the world, the soldiers are asked to see the enemies as dangerous objects which need to be eliminated. The psychology behind indoctrination of such an idea is that when they think the enemy is a human being the soldiers are unable to raise their arms. There are many such survival tactics where the army men are desensitized.
A similar situation happened to Arjuna.
Lord Krishna went step by step to deal with Arjuna’s emotions, ego, mindsets and concepts. He finally touched on the nature of his spiritual being; revealing him the highest knowledge and making him realize his eternal nature. This brought him enormous strength and then propelled him to perform his worldly duties. A doctor cannot be taken as a dacoit just because he opens up the stomach of the patient.
Lord Krishna says, ‘no sin begets him whose intellect is unattached and free from cravings and aversions, even if he kills the whole world.’
Now, the condition of an intellect free from cravings and aversions itself counters terrorism. Terrorism is done when the intellect is deeply attached and is hateful. The metaphors and the high standards of humanism exhibited in the Bhagavad Gita are unparalleled.
Jesus had said, ‘I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.’
In the Quran, there are many verses which talk about striking terror in the hearts of the infidels and cutting off their fingers. By these standards if you still call Bhagavad Gita a terrorist scripture then you have to precede such statements by Bible and Quran.
The fact is that it is not the scriptures that inflict terrorism; it is the mis-interpretation of an ignorant and stressed mind which justifies their actions quoting scriptures.

This article is to cater to the common man. This piece was written in December 2011, in the midst of a Russian court case against the Bhagavad Gita. The case ended with the Russian court rejecting the ban.

Source
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sri-sri-ravi-shankar/the-bhagavad-gita_b_1178149.html