Your Golden Cage

Honor reduces the freedom. Your fame, honor and virtue can limit your freedom. Nobody expects a good person to make a mistake. So the better person you are, the higher the expectations people have of you. It is then that you lose your freedom. Your virtues and good actions are like a golden cage. You are trapped by your own good actions, for everyone expects more from a good person. Nobody expects anything from a bad person. Most of the people are stuck in this cage of prestige and honor. They can not smile. They are constantly worried about keeping up their prestige and their honor. It becomes more important than their own life. Just being good or doing good to keep the prestige and honor is worthless. Prestige and honor can bring more misery in life than poverty. Many desire fame, but little do they know that they are looking for a cage. It is an art to be dignified, and yet not be suffocated by it. Only the wise would know this. For the wise one it is natural to be in honor, and he has no concerns even if it falls apart. Despite having fame or prestige, he will live as though he has none. A wise person can handle any fame without feeling suffocated, for he is crazy too! By doing good in the society one gains prestige, then enjoying the prestige and honor, one loses their freedom. - Sri Sri || Jai Guru Dev ||

Sutras

Life becomes a game! The first step to fun is relaxation. What tires you is anxiety and ambition for tomorrow. The anger and hatred of yesterday are also clogging our mind. In the same way feverishness pulls down our enthusiasm. In deep relaxation, you will find everything funny. Life becomes a game! Conflict and Resolution Conflict is always emotional. Resolution is intellectual. Emotional conflict can’t be dealt with emotions. Similarly an intellectual argument cannot be dealt with the intellect. The emotional side of it has to be considered. If you observe carefully there is a stream of emotions behind an intellectual argument. Life is a fine balance between the emotions and the intellect. When to use what, is the real wisdom. And how do you gain that wisdom? The answer is meditation, meditation and meditation. Self Realization The desire to have self realization - This is the highest desire, the only one worth pursuing. Whether you acknowledge this or not, everyone has come to this planet with this desire. If you have recognized this it’s very good. Trust Trust in yourself. Have faith in your choice of actions and the path you would be following. If you don’t trust yourself, how can you trust the Master? It is enough to have faith in your self. A Master or a Guru does not remove the doubt, but He creates more doubt. The more you burn in the fire of doubt, the stronger you come out to be. Truth is never afraid of doubt, and truth can never hide. Atheists It is difficult to see God as formless and it is difficult to see God as form. The formless is so abstract and God in a form appears to be too limited. So some people prefer to be atheists. But atheism is not a reality, it is just a matter of convenience. Jai Gurudev

Drop your Self Image

"How do you make everyone happy?" Guruji : "Become me." "How do we become you?" What stands between you and me is your self image. Your self image restricts you from being me. Self image whether good or bad causes misery. When you think good about yourself in a very subtle manner you think bad about others. Then anger, jealousy, hatred - everything follows. When you think bad about yourself you feel low and again you start getting angry and you hate everyone else. If you think good about yourself you are in trouble and when you think bad about yourself you are in greater trouble. So drop your self image. Jai Gurudev

Te Rational Mind

We Usually Do Only That Which Is Purposeful, Useful, And Rational. Everything You See, You See Through The rational mind. But an intuition, a discovery, new knowledge goes beyond the rational mind. Truth is beyond the rational mind. The rational mind is like a railroad track that is fixed in grooves. A plane has no tracks. It can fly anywhere. A balloon can float anywhere. Some people step out of the rational mind in order to rebel against society. They want to break social law but for the ego's sake. They do it out of anger, hatred, rebelliousness, and wanting attention. This is not stepping out of the rational mind (though they think it is). We step out of the rational mind when we do something that has no purpose. Accepting that, as an act, makes it a game. Life becomes lighter. If you are stuck with only rational acts, life becomes a burden. Suppose you play a game without a thought to winning or losing, just act irrationally. Making an act without any purpose attached to it - it is freedom - like a dance. So just step out of the rational mind and you will find a greater freedom, an unfathomable depth, and you will come face to face with reality. Reality transcends logic and the rational mind. Until you transcend the rational mind you will not get access to creativity and the infinite. But if you do an irrational act in order to find freedom, then it already has a purpose and a meaning. It is no longer irrational. This knowledge sheet has already spoiled it's own possibility. Break the barrier of the rational mind and then find freedom for yourself. - Sri Sri || Jai Guru Dev ||

Usefullness Of Fear

Nature has put an amount of inbuilt fear in all living beings. This fear makes life defend itself, protect itself. Like salt in the food, a little bit of fear is essential for people to be righteous. Fear of hurting someone makes you more conscious. Fear of failure makes you more keen and dynamic. Fear moves you from carelessness to taking care. Fear moves you from being insensitive to being sensitive. Fear moves you from dullness to alertness. Total lack of fear may lead to destructive tendencies - a distorted ego knows no fear. Neither does the expanded consciousness! Whereas the ego dismisses the fear and moves in a disruptive manner, the wise one acknowledges the fear and takes refuge in the Divine. When you are in love, when you are surrendered, there is no fear. Ego, too, knows no fear. But there is a difference, like that of heaven and earth, between these two types of fearless states. Fear makes you righteous; fear brings you close to surrender; fear keeps you on the path; keeps you from being destructive. Peace and law are maintained on the planet because of fear. A new-born child knows no fear - it totally relies on its mother. Whether a child, a kitten or a bird, when they start becoming independent they experience fear which makes them go running back to their mothers. This is inbuilt by nature to sustain life. So, the purpose of fear is to bring you back to the source!! - Sri Sri || Jai Guru Dev ||

What Enhances Your Beauty

WHAT ENHANCES YOUR BEAUTY? When your mind is ,not complaining. ..responsible. ...courageous. ...confident ....and hollow and empty, you are inexplicably beautiful. A person who cannot correct or act has no right to complain. And when a person can correct or act, he will never complain. Complaining is a sign of weakness. Complaining is the nature of utter ignorance where one does not know the Self. Complaint takes away the Beauty that is inborn in you. And it shows up more on the one who is on this path. Worldly mind is a complaining mind; Divine mind is a dancing mind. Just complaining without indicating the solution is irresponsibility. When the solutions are not workable, finding alternative solutions is Courage. For external beauty, you put on things; for real Beauty, you have to drop all the things. For external beauty you have to have Make-up; for your real Beauty you only have to realise that you are MADE-UP! Jai Gurudev.

FAITH AND REASON

Reason is reeling in the known. Faith is moving in the unknown. Reason is repetition. Faith is exploration. Reason is routine. Faith is adventure. They are completely opposite, yet an integral part of life. Not having faith itself is misery; faith gives instant comfort. While reasoning keeps you sane and grounded, no miracle can happen without faith. Faith takes you beyond limitations. In faith you can transcend the laws of nature but it needs to be pure. Faith is beyond reason, yet you need to have faith in your own reasoning! (A sentence to be pondered on.) Faith and reason cannot exist without each other. Every reason is based on some faith. Whenever reason or faith breaks, confusion and chaos prevails which is often a step for growth. There are two types of faith. Faith out of fear, greed and insecurity; and faith born out of love like the faith between the mother and the child, the Master and disciple. Whereas the faith out of love cannot be broken, faith out of fear and greed is shaky. An atheist bases himself on reason, and a believer on faith. A believer uses God as an insurance policy! He thinks he is special. In the eyes of God there is no "mine" and "others"; all are the same. An atheist rationalizes to keep his eyes shut to reality. Death shakes them both! When someone close dies, an atheist eyes are opened, and a believer's faith cracks. Only a Yogi - a wise one - remains unshaken. For that person has transcended both reason and faith. You need a balance between faith and reason. - Sri Sri || Jai Guru Dev ||