The Dead-end Up Here

Meta bhavana or loving kindness meditation is ascribed to Buddha. There are many versions of this practice, all leading to awakening within the body mind with pleasant peaceful after effects, sometimes lasting for long and with practice, even longer. You need to make this practice your own for it to work not simply rote repeat of a mantra or prayer although those are essential starting points to let your body mind get curious and follow through. My practice begins with first recalling  loving people, things, events in my life not as a daydream but a body scan practice. More recent the event, easier it is to feel the sensations. One way to do this is when you feel loving towards something like my cat for example, scan your body immidiately and look for points of bliss in your body, heart, stomach, tingling in your limbs and all leading to a peaceful stillness in your head. Try to lock in this memeory and recall it when on the cushion. And make that sensation the object of your ...

Is exercise or quitting smoking good?  This is not just a new wave of wellness paradigm but a change that is sweeping the world. Remember this, very few people wake up without an alarm. That alarm clock is ringing all over the world. You can only put it on snooze for so long. Or you can wake up. A regular meditation practice is the first step in responding to the alarm and waking up. And waking up is not some complicated step, it is letting your true self shine through. I am sure you have come across people who have this ease about them and peace that resonates through. You are witnessing the truth. For some, it comes naturally, for the rest of us we have to do something. That something is not to acquire. You can't get it in a store or read in a book. It is a process of losing a whole lot of stuff. If you carefully look at yourself , you see millions of stories in everything we say or in the ways we act, even in the ways we sit or relax. This all happens because your body mind has...

 It is I child It is I child that suffers Not the lump of flesh n bones Not the hunk of a frame Not the calm presence. It is I child that pines To crawl back home To mother's lap To love and peace. It is I child that's abused By loud world LuringI to fun and frolic, sex and wine Power and fame Wealth and prosperity Words and songs, Oh happiness. It is I child that mimics Images I sees Suave and expert The cool gang . It is I child that cries Feeling inadequate Despondent and morose I must end this pain. It is I child that wants Desperately to run home  But there is no one there Vines of time pervade . Nothing but memories Only the sensations of womb, warm, comfort, love Yet more fantasies. It is I child that dies With each step forward With each breath of stale air With each drink of putrid wine. Save this I child  Before you save the world Build an empire Or find happiness .

Chakras are not just curious energy centres around the body but one way of liberation from the bondage of illusory existence. It is a progressive path from a constricted human existence to revelation of truth. The meanings of chakras are best expressed by the corresponding mantras. Om Bhuh, mantra for the earthly life at mooladhara located in the anal region on the spine. Om Bhuvah, mantra for the basic instinct of procreation, swadhistahana located in the genital areas of the spine. This mantra releases one from lust. On swah, mantra for the self centered body instincts  located at the core region of the spine. Chanting this mantra releases one's selfish instincts. Om mahah, mantra for the heart region of the spine opens up ones heart to all there is in love for all truth. Om Janah, mantra for the throat and neck region of the spine opens the channels of communicating the truth internally and externally. Om tapah, mantra fo...

No matter how much effort you put in, throwing a pebble into a lake will create waves. With the mind, all you can hope to achieve with clear knowledge , is that those waves are not imagined into a tsunami. Mind having imagined tsunamis in the past will again try to do that. Reason , another part of the mind comes to the rescue. When all these forces work together, peace results. Some call it unification of minds . But in my opinion its just nicorette subbing for cigarettes, far less toxic. You have it, you lose it, you have it again, and so goes the waves in the real stillness which never really changes. Another perspective; what is calm waters for a super oil tanker feels like a storm to the little sailboat caught in a the middle of the ocean.

You may have heard of this. There is a philosophical conflict brewing between spiritualists and neuroscientists getting worse each time a new artery is opened explaining yet another channel of explaining why sentient beings do what they do. My understanding of the problem is as follows. Science can explain or extrapolate all the way from big bang to living bodies. There are some gaps such as how do amino acids which can be created from simple hydrocarbons, air, lighting and heat in a flask, somehow make it to proteins and then to single cell orgasims or the self replicating dna's. Even that can be assumed to be just a matter of time before we find the answer. The Hard Problem is how do we go from a body which we have in common with a wide variety of species to something called consciousness? What about consciousness? Isn't it also extrapolated from natural principles? Not quite. Why is there a survival instinct? Electrons are attracted to protons becuase of the charge ...

Teachers often point to the serene simplicity of a new born as a metaphor for Nirvana. A newborn sees no separation, sees the universe as its own extension, doesn't yet know how to delineate snensations; a loud noise or intense hunger both  have the same feeling to a child, that of a general discomfort. And the child cries until it gets the desired result releasing dopamine or the happy chemical. A purturbation subsides back to its ground state or serenity and nirvana. The big question is how and why does it get lost? Why don't we maintain this state all our lives obviating the need for spiritual seeking later in life when dissatisfaction sets in as nothing produces enough or sustained level of happy brain chemicals? The answer lies in the natural buiild of the body that supports life and has an inherent program to sustain the species. Happy chemicals are naturally designed to reward actions of the body towards preservation of the species. Consciousness on the other hand...