Ashwin's Power

THE JOURNEY TO PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LIFESTYLE BUILDING

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I have a routine I follow every day. Every morning, I do my yoga, breathing exercises and meditation and the entire sequence takes me about an hour and a half.

I’ve been at it for about 6 months now, and I can honestly say that it has been one of the best investment I’ve made yet. Not only for my health, but for the overall defining of my lifestyle. The benefits of yoga, breathing exercises and meditation are already known to most of us. Some of us believe it, some don’t. That’s everyone’s personal choice. But from personal experience I can say that the routine has not only boosted my energy levels, but there is something about the meditation that changes the way you look at life and the world around you. Rather, the world within you.

I will be honest, I don’t know how it happens and I don’t know why. But it has to deal with how my routine has shaped my life. Not many things exist in our lives, that can significantly boost the growth of our spirituality, while at the same time being easy to do and requiring a very small investment of time on our part. This is one of them.

I won’t get into “how to meditate”  because each one of us has our own style of getting into that state, but there are a few things that I have noticed that greatly seem to enhance the length and ease with which I am able to hold that state. That’s what I want to discuss with you.  For me, I can sense that I have entered “state” when my body relaxes completely, and there is this tingling, almost vibrational, feeling that starts travelling throughout my body. One way that I confirm this is by focusing on specific body parts and as I focus, I can literally feel that tingling travel or spread over to that body part. That’s when I know I’m in an enhanced state of awareness, consciousness or simply just “in state”.  For others, it might be something else, but we all have some kind of signal that lets us know that we have reached a heightened awareness.

Once in this state, some people choose to visualize things, some people ask themselves questions, some just try to keep a silent mind and the list goes on. But the problem arises when I sometimes encounter difficulty in being able to hit that state. Some days it just happens within the first five minutes of finishing the breathing exercises and getting into meditation mode, but other times I’d be at the end cycle and nothing happens.

Why was this happening? And how was I going to make "missing state" more infrequent?

Eventually I figured out the reason for my lack of state at times…

Voices in my head!

Cryptic as it sounds, that’s what it really was. A very important part of getting into that meditative state was being able to quite out the chatter in my head, long enough for me to be able to gain a stronghold over the noise and fade it out, or rather, stop it from registering any distractive impression on my mind.

The solution was: Physical exhaustion

Physical exhaustion doesn't imply crazy sweating like a triathlete. Physical exhaustion means having the various body parts well stretched and pushed to a comfortable level of physical Activity prior to the breathing exercises. What this does is it gets each one of your body parts warmed up and the blood circulation increases throughout the body This has tremendous benefits from not only a medical health point of view, but also for our purpose of meditation.

And that’s when I figured out that yoga might in some sense be aimed at this exact goal. To stretch and get the body all set for meditation! In ancient days, they’d do yoga prior to long sessions of meditation. Maybe this is the reason why they did it. The yoga helped in getting the body too tired to think about distracting and random thoughts!

I had learnt some yoga techniques and applying those, before a meditation session , has really boosted my reaching of “state.” Making it easier to achieve and lasting much longer.

I realize that most of us might choose not to do it because it’s “extra” work. First doing the yoga then meditation. But trust me and give it a try. Do it for a week and you will notice changes that you could only attribute to a miracle. Believe it will work and have faith in your actions. You are in for an AMAZING experience and this is going to work wonders for you :D

Like the title says, real self improvement is scary, actually it's very very scary. I say this not to demotivate, i say it because it's true. Small improvements such as developing a new habit, quitting old ones, choosing to optimize your schedule may be easy, and are a simple matter of focusing your will. But real self improvement, the type that shapes your character, your being, your soul, that is a whole different ball game altogether.

I'm talking about self improvement not in its generic convention of usage, but in terms of character development.Things like adopting a new belief system, choosing a new job you love over a more lucrative one that you don't love, doing things you love even if people don't think it's "cool". I'm talking about making paradigm shifting improvements to your life and lifestyle that YOU KNOW will make you happier.

Improvements to your life, like these, go beyond just the personal domain and have an effect on the world around you. Peoples attitudes, reactions and behavior towards you changes. And most often than not, it's this sudden change in the people around you that makes Real self improvement so scary.

Someone once said that no man is an island and that we all are dependent on each other for support. So it's only natural that we'd built a network of support people around us who would provide the benefit of comfort that one gets from social interactions. The social structure is not restricted to comfort but in any case it provides some sort of need fulfillment within our complex psychological desire structure.

Real self improvement is scary because with our "internal change" will also come a change in the "reactions of other people" and when we think about how our social relationship with other people will change, it's usually something we are not very comfortable dealing with. It's the "what will others think of me","they'll call me a wannabee","they'll think I'm a fake","will they think I'm selfish for doing what i love?" These kinds of thoughts arise in our mind and we begin to doubt the effectiveness of the change even before we implement it. Not just that, but by worrying about others reactions, we tend to strengthen our own beliefs of our weaknesses , no matter how farce they are. Whats needed is for us to become more open minded and less judgmental. and I say "us" and not "others" because a lot of the time we project our own thoughts and behaviors on to other people.

That is to say that if we ourselves are the kind of person who judges (negatively, i presume) others for trying to make some "real self improvement" into their life, then we in turn will also be hounded by worries of others thinking of us in that same sense if we were to ever make some " real self improvement" in our livers.For example; you see someone wearing shades in the cinema and think of them as an idiot. The next time you get the sudden urge to try and be "cool" and consider wearing shades into the cinema, you're gonna keep thinking of yourself as an idiot and get uncomfortable. Similarly, if you don't have any judgments about people belching in public , then you wouldn't have any trouble doing it yourself.

So what it really comes down to is that we have to become more open minded towards ourselves and others and then we can truly get over the feeling that real self improvement is scary. When in fact it's actually the most inspirational, motivating and productive thing you could ever do.

Learning to let go, I believe, is a very crucial part of growth and evolution. It's something that not all of us are very comfortable doing, but it is something that inevitably we're all going to have to deal with. One day or the other.

The last few months of my life, haven't been rather kind to me.Within the moment, it hurts and you don't understand why you have to go through it. But when you look back upon it, you realise that it was for the best. You realise how much it helped you grow. They have been so full of changes and new beginnings and endings that letting go of certain aspects of my life no longer bother or hurt me the way they usually would.

The concept of letting go can be used in a variety of contexts. But when broken down, it really has just two forms. One is a a microscopic form and the other is macroscopic.

Things like:
  • Getting irritated or annoyed by someone

    •
  • Getting angry or vengeful

    •
  • Getting upset over something

 are all situations of emotional spikes, moments of sudden emotional bursts. The funny thing about it is that it always feels like the cause is someone else and not us. He pushed me, now I'm pissed. He made fun of me so I'm gonna get back at him (anger/revenge), he's trying to hit on my girl, so now i'm going to show him whose really alpha. Do you get the point? Incidents like these force us to react in unpleasant ways which, more often than not, we end up regretting. They constitute the microscopic domain and are more implusive emotion related.

Letting go in such situations is a tricky game of being in the moment and outside it aswell. What I mean, is that you must be within the present moment to to realize how you're letting small things get the better of you and at the same time, be able to observe and percieve the situation from a larger perspective and realize just how trivial it really is. you've got to understand that it's not that big a deal, so you got pushed or incited by someone, so what? let it go, there really is no reason to go an eye for an eye or get disheartened because it's really not worth your time or energy.


The macroscopic form consists of major life events like:

moving to a new job/ locality/ continent

losing a loved one

Seperation / divorce from a long term partner

Being tricked out of your own company

Losing a great deal of money over some unwise transactions

and the list goes on...

These kinds of situations usually involve deep emotional sentiments and a painful feeling of loss. What you have to realise in these situations is that "nothing in this world is permanent, except change." Change has to happen and WILL happen, regardless of how YOU feel about it. Thats the beauty of life. It helps you grow and evolve into greater and more experienced beings. Whats important in these times is to not lose hope, even if things seem bleek in the future or time seems short.You HAVE to have faith and believe that things WILL GET BETTER. It's the circle of life. Life is really like a wave, it has it's crests and troughs, it's ups and downs, it highs and lows. You gotta not get stuck in that moment of low and gotta start focusing on the HIGH thats about to follow. I don't care how uncertain the future looks. If it hasn't happened yet, that means YOU still have the POWER to make something good out of it. LEARN FROM THE PAST, THATS WHAT ITS FOR!

I know it can be hard, very very hard, dealing with many of the macroscopic incidents, but you have to understand that LIFE GOES ON. You must have faith. Honestly, the one most important thing that life can teach you is HAVING FAITH AND HOPE. It worked with religion didn't it? Most of the world is living off of faith and hope, that things will get better and it provides a great deal of closure and comfort to the soul. This isn't escapism but rather a matter of choosing to acknowledge the bad and IN SPITE OF IT, FOCUSING on the GOOD.Learning to come to term with the downs of life and Letting go of the past for mental peace is something we all need to be able to live happier lives.

What is happiness? When will we actually achieve or attain true happiness? I guess no one really has the answer to these questions and those who have given us answers, have those answers open to interpretation. But we all have a sense of what happiness is like, what that feeling is, what it causes inside of us and how it makes us see the beauty and glory in everything and everyone.

Many of us believe, that real happiness will come into our lives only when we find that one true person whom we love, who loves us back and is our perfect soul mate. I personally used to think along those lines too, that all my life problems, dissatisfaction and unhappiness would be gone, If I managed to find the perfect girl for myself. Let's be honest, So many of us truly believe that if we can find that perfect someone special, then all the happiness in the world would come rushing into our lives and we'll live happily ever after...just like the perfect Disney story.

It's almost everyone's hidden or sometimes displayed, heartfelt desire to have someone special in their life. And I think It's great. It's wonderful actually. It's our innate, natural god given desire, so it's cool for us to be open about it and not hide it.

The Problem

The problem arises when we start thinking that happiness will come to us ONLY when we find that someone 'RIGHT', that happiness will only show itself in all it's splendor when we're in that relationship with them. And THIS is where things start to fall apart.

By thinking in these terms, like this. We end up making our happiness dependent on something outside of our realm of control. Like the weather. You can't control the weather and similarly you can't control when you're going to meet the RIGHT person. Consider this; what are the chances of a Disney style 'happily ever after' happening in real life? 1 in a 1000? considering reality, it's more like 1 in a 1000000 (million). Do you really want to put your happiness on something that has those kinds of odds? Now I'm not saying that perfect couples don't exist. I'm just saying that it's a rare occurrence and instead of waiting on chance for that rarity to occur in your life. You should learn to live for your own happiness.

You can't keep holding yourself back from life and happiness, thinking that happiness will happen only when you find that special someone. Look inside of you...DEEP inside of you and many of you might find that you're holding your happiness hostage consciously or most probably subconsciously. Do you really want something other than yourself , to be in control of your happiness? I don't.

The solution

Is there a solution? I mean, these things are natural and inbuilt. We can't deny our instinctual tendency to expect and look forward to the happiness we foresee in the future, of being with that special someone. I agree. But the key here, is to look forward to the future, but not suffer due to it, in the present. you can't live your life by 'copping out' to the excuse that happiness will come only when you meet 'Prince/princess charming.' Don't be so shallow and naive or rather in many cases LAZY. You can't give in to the belief, that a single event/person is the main source of happiness in your life. Things don't work that way and that's the WONDERFUL part about it!!

You don't Need a reason to be happy. It's all inbuilt. It's the natural order of beings.The innate mode of the soul, the spirit in you,is to be HAPPY. It makes me sad to think that most of the world has been fooled ( read programmed) into thinking that you need a REASON to be HAPPY.

What to do next

My dad used to say that if you love what you're doing, then everything will automatically come to you in abundance and this implies for the right person too, to come into your life. So start actually LIVING your life.
It's like the song by T.I. - live your life. Just live your life and do the things that you know would give you lasting fulfillment. Get a new job, make some music, write a book, dance, travel the world, meet new people( usually the best for a lot of reasons), start gardening, fashion designing...Do anything that makes you happy and have the COURAGE to do it.

Do the things in life that naturally make you happy regardless of what other people say. You don't need approval or anyone's permission to be happy and do what you love. By doing the things that challenge, excite and enlighten you, you satisfy the soul and open yourself up to the universe and everything else, even that special someone will, in their due time, enter into your life. :)
Annoyance:
The most common form of anger, in today’s world, is the kind caused due to annoyance. With our busy and fast paced lives, our level of tolerance is the finest of lines.People today, need everything done NOW and every instruction to be comprehended on the first go. Obviously, these are demanding times for most people and thus anger is bound to rear it's ugly head more than often.
This kind of anger situation is of the subjective nature and varies from people to people and depends a lot on our mental attitude towards life, people and relationships.

Anger surface when:

1) You’re talking to someone and they’re not listening.
2) You tell something or give an instruction and people mess it up or don’t understand it.
3) You or someone makes a mistake at something.

These situations make us angrier based on the amount of times they get repeated. More you get ignored, more your rage builds.


Who are we annoyed with:
In these kinds of cases we don’t usually get angry at people who we fear or respect or hold in high esteem. But usually the victims of our anger are those who we take for granted, look down on or have little value for.

It hurts me the most when I get angry with loved ones and then I regret it later. I’m sure it’s happened to most of the readers out there. What’s happened is that, we usually take our loved ones for granted, that they’ll always be there for us, with us. We end up expecting them to always understand us, agree with us, help us and basically be in sync with us. Which is not always the case. And that leads to anger
Overcoming this kind of anger is about becoming open minded, cheerful and unattached. It requires a bit of a Zen like state of mind where you respect others and hold everyone equally in your heart. Know and realize that people are humans too, especially loved ones and there entitles to their flaws. No one is perfect. Not even you. I believe that the relationship we have with ourselves is the kind of relationship we have with people around us. The outer world is a manifestation of our inner world. So get less angry at yourself and you’ll be less angry with others. Relax and stop being so critical.

There is a story of Buddha that might help understand the nature of anger and emotions.
Buddha was sitting under a tree, meditating, when a stranger comes up to him and begins insulting him, to test his authenticity as a spiritual master. Buddha remains unperturbed by the man and never even flinches. This anger’s the stranger even more and he starts insulting him, even more and louder. The Buddha still remains calm and unfazed. Eventually, the stranger gets tired and once his anger subsides, he asks the master, how he remained calm through all of this? Wasn’t he provoked to insult back? To this the master replied, “Why will I be affected by you’re gift, If I have chosen to not accept it?”

You have a choice and you have the power of free will. Use it and simply refuse to accept anger. :)
What is anger? When you analyze the emotion of anger, for what is really is, you realize that it’s this feeling of injustice, of doing harm to another be it physical, mental or emotional or all three of them, usually. It is one the most basic and raw-est of human emotions, which has been with us since probably the prehistoric times. Rather, its necessity back then was more justified than it is now, in the post caveman days.

We’ve all been angry many times in our lives, it’s nothing new; but those of us who have given in to it, know that that instant of gratification is more expensive than it’s worth to be indulged. I personally, have many times regretted the actions I’ve taken giving in to anger and so it’s worth understanding what causes anger in order to be able to learn how to use it, to our advantage and subdue the beast.

Injustice: Also considered to be in some way resentment. It is when you feel that you deserved something but you didn’t get it. It’s when something “SHOULD” have happened and it doesn’t, at least not the way we wanted it to pan out. When expectations are not meant, is when a person feels an injustice has occurred and anger is a response to this injustice.

1) When you try really hard and work for a reward only to have it taken away from you.
2) When someone else gets your reward (promotion, girl, spot on the team, prize money etc)
3) When you’re denied a chance at something, which you feel, should have been yours.
4) When you’re ignored or told to shut up. That is, not allowed to voice your opinion or express yourself.

The examples above are abounding with causes to become angry and lash out at something, or even worse, someone.

Core Desires: In most of these cases it’s important to remember that usually, we get angry here at the thought of being denied or failing at something or being denied a reward and NOT at the failure itself. It’s like this. If I don’t get the promotion, I’ve been looking forward to. I get angry , not because I didn’t get the rise in post or duties. But it’s because I didn’t get the extra pay hike, social status etc. Now obviously, these conditions vary as per the person’s level of consciousness. Considering the general populace, there are many of us who wouldn’t mind being in the lowest level of company hierarchy but with a pay of the CEO. In this case, promotion doesn’t matter; we’re anyway getting what we want, so no anger arises. So it’s really about knowing what we actually WANT. The core of our desire needs to be deciphered in order to understand the cause of anger.

Another example is when I was selected for my school basketball team. I got to play in only 1 match and only for 5 minutes. I didn’t score even one basket and was benched. I remember I was really angry at that time. In this case, even though I was on the team, my reasons for anger were my lack of ability and achievement in my time on the court. My primary focus, I thought, was to be on the team, but in actuality it was to be popular in school and gain that social status that comes with being the MVP of the team. Knowing that truth now, I would have practiced more on my game, or chosen another avenue for my CORE desires, some other sport or art,that I was naturally good at.

So it’s important to find out the main desire we have and choose a path that’s correct for it’s actualization, rather than the obvious or socially observed path. We go down a road we don’t want to and it’s obvious anger is going to be our partner throughout the journey. It’s really a science of cause and effect. The effect is anger, so it’s only obvious that to stop the effect, you have to stop the cause.
More on anger in part 2 tomorrow.

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