Humility

Never lose your grounding. Whatever your status in life, keep your feet on the ground and plea of mercy with eyes and heart towards heaven.

Actually, we ourselves get so led away by the illusory aspects of this world that we lose sight of our priorities, our values and our humility. This kind of slumber is dangerous. This lack of awareness can cause us abject spiritual

Poverty and grief in times to come. Awakening can be very, very difficult because we would have paid a very high price for the years we lay inert, thoughtless and careless.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Read Full Post »

Journey

If you lose sight of the winds, your journey on water can be turbulent. If you lose sight of the flow of a river, your journey can be rocky! And if you lose sight of your spirituality, you can become a rudderless ship with no guide.

The soul is the guide to your physical being. It is the voice in the wilderness. It is the chirping of the birds, the music in the valleys, the echo in the mountains.

Close your eyes and your mind and the world disappears for you to hear these sounds of your inner being.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.comSpeakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Read Full Post »

Challenges

You are not responsible for the versions of you that exist in other people’s minds. This post has been circulating for eons! Yet, we do get affected, don’t we?

The first thing is, we expect people to speak and act in a certain way and when they don’t, there is hurt. Their opinion of you matters! That it should not, is another matter.

Often, we could hear shocking statements and heavy criticism about us and we don’t plead guilty at all! We really don’t know from whence they came! The hurt becomes more intense! Reason? Because the thought is, “how can they ever think this about me?” True? (Ultimately, we are all looking for love and kindness.)

Ok. But they DO think that way. It is something within THEM that needs to answer this. THAT is the important point. It could be the inability to understand you. It could be a fickleness of their own minds which prefer to listen to some vicious opinions of you from others and choose to believe them because they WANT to.

You know, I have noticed that if you already have a problem with someone, you will believe anything negative said about them just because it endorses what you already feel. You might also get a vicarious pleasure from hurting vulnerable souls! BUT! Surprise! You are actually acceding to your own pollution of mind and it may have nothing to do with that person.

So, at the end of the day, each one has to be strong and uncaring of what opinion others hold about us.

We all live with our own challenges, our disappointments, our struggle to better ourselves each day. No one wants others who never think of correcting themselves, to opine about you. And it should be like water off a duck’s back. Tagging people is a spiritual taboo.

I am this vast universe, not somebody ANYBODY can slot into a box. And that means each one IS that vast expanse. However much you succeed in maligning others, that much is the pollution YOU have accumulated and YOU need to cleanse.

Buddha was spat at but never lost his calm for a second. Christ was nailed to the Cross. Human avatar will have these challenges because this world is both light and dark. You can’t escape darkness but you can accept it and then proceed towards the light.

Look at the brighter side and darkness will not affect you. Look at the stories of everyone and understand that some people have chosen the path of darkness and then, expect only darkness to be thrown at you. It is natural! Traditionally, it hurts only when this is done by the people you love. But it is ok. Love also needs no expectations of a return. Because love is the path of light. It would be foolish to get sucked into darkness.

Love and light are the two blessings we all need in our lives.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.comSpeakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Read Full Post »

Spiritual Realm

Absolute, untainted truth is almost always unacceptable to the average human mind. It is like wearing sunglasses to protect your eyes against the sun. Stark reality is like the blazing sun .

This is why we find sugar coated living bearable and even motivating. The fear of discovering who we really are rules our lives. We don’t want to go there. There is an unconscious denial to turn inwards.

Our comfort levels lie in overt, sometimes superficial gregariousness, almost to divert our minds from our intrinsic nature and our inability to isolate ourselves to find ourselves. For, meditation is nothing but that. To eliminate the thought that works as a veil between the divine and you. In other words, thoughts become an impediment because they immediately combine with senses and pollute the mind which, actually, needs to be purified to make headway into the spiritual realm.

All our lives, we exist like this, until the end of our lives.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Read Full Post »

Connectivity

One of the greatest maladies of our existence today is the superficiality with which we deal with people. Relationships have become “contacts”. External image has become prime! We have classes and professionals in all aspects of external grooming and image building. And a great source of income, too! Because only that is accepted in society and work places.

“Family “spirit is gradually dying out. More families are at feud than ever before. And more “friends” are being cultivated. It is a classic case of giving your best to friends and becoming intolerant of family members.

Have we thought why? It is a jumbled up mess: of self-seeking, avarice, ambition, popularity and very little ethics. Also of distances. If Manipulations and hypocrisy work, why would anyone be foolish enough to practice virtue?

Today, we just WANT and WANT and WANT: contacts we can use, money, power. everything! And to hell with anything that smacks of old values!

Do we remember how sacred the vedic marriage rituals were? The depth of the core of living? Or the code of respect? Nope! We are losing it all.

I understand that lifestyle dictates values. But ethics dictates your spiritual journey.  The latter however, mostly loses to self-aggrandizement.

Controlling and more controls spell power, whether of wealth or people. Or anything else….

We are so busy pointing out the weaknesses of others that we forget, that however successful you are, you need to be a good human. Also, that it is

wiser to look at yourself as you are and work on your dark spots than feel happy pointing at others. This will not light up your darkness anyway.

Qualities like compassion need time to understand connectivity. We are so divided today that connectivity is not up for discussion. 

Praise be for spiritual teachers who are trying to reverse these trends through imparting the right knowledge. And hope there will be practitioners instead of critics.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Read Full Post »

Transition

Life is not to be lived by overthinking everything. Everything is meant to be. Your decisions are also made so as to experience something important, a lesson for life.

So, to regret, feel guilty, are all the products of an ignorant mind. Ostensibly, we take ”good” decisions and we feel luck is with us. What we don’t know is that THAT good luck was merely the pleasant experience ordained for us. It was due and we experienced happiness that goes with it.

Similarly, what we call bad luck is also ordained through our own earlier actions, which we don’t want to pay the price for and therefore, end up with suffering.

If we can accept the moment and what it brings us, and learn to flow with it, we are through. What we are busy doing is living either in the past or agonizing about the future, neither of which are within our grasp. In other words, we have left the flow of our life.

A hard task then, is to get back into the flow, and extremely important. How we achieve it will mark a huge transition in our lives. But first, the quest is to reach that platform.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.comSpeakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Read Full Post »

Liberation

All our effort should be directed to silencing our minds. Easier said than done when it refuses to stop chattering and, in fact, keeps reminding us of episodes long forgotten. We don’t need to put our hands into the fire to burn. The mind does it for us.

As Swami Sarvapriyanand ji says, we are supposed to be masters of our mind. But, actually, we are slaves twice over, not only of our mind but our senses as well.

How can we ever even think of liberation from the ego mind ? Every minute, we make a determined effort and the next minute, we lapse into our old ways ! Even when we make resolutions to clean up our mind, the next minute we break our own resolve. Why ? What stops us ? I would imagine, our dual mind, which is ruled by our senses and ego and hence, severely inflicted by likes and dislikes and prejudices.

When it concerns prejudice, it is like a disease which has no discrimating power . It does not exclude any relationship, however sacrosanct.

Here is when one puts a question mark on the “educated” minds who feel superior for maybe having studied abroad , had ample exposure, and now making a brilliant career but… without the basic plan for a clear at heart and mind. We do have a very long way to go before the right understanding dawns . In a limited span of the few years we have, now is the place to start.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Read Full Post »

Path of Spiritual

I see people trapped in their self images created by personal wealth, the power that it brings and the sycophants that gather around. Attractive though completely illusional trappings ! And until people actually extricate themselves from the “ I am great” illusion, they have a long way to go in taking the path of spiritual thought.

There is a constant chatter about “ self made” kings , so much drudgery and challenges before success … and so many accolades ! But what is important is, what kind of humans do they develop into ? Remembering our roots in another space and knowing the world is transient should be triggers for enjoying the success as good deeds from other lives which gives a credit balance to enjoy worldly trappings. But at the end of the day, they ARE traps if we don’t secure our virtuosity for the future.

Someone steeped in wrong doings goes to the temple twice a day. When asked why, he laughs and says that he goes to wash off his sins to sin more. Do we see any merit here ? Or is it just deep ignorance ? Ultimately, there could be a late realisation of being on the wrong path in many ways. But a lifetime is wasted. The opportunity has eluded us.

To keep our hearts and minds scrupulously clean is the only way to go. And then, enjoying the success that is ours, is commendable ! And god ordained, as everything is.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Read Full Post »

Opportunity

Today, we are so involved in what we think is our real life that we don’t have time for “frills”. The same frills , if they are loving people and tools for personal evolution, will become very important later in life. When we are young, we don’t have the bandwidth to understand this.

When realisation does dawn, many of the loving people around us who we regret not valuing , have passed on . And the ones we thought were ours, have moved on. What is left is regret !

At any stage in life, the vision must always have a broader perspective to carry the “valuables” in our lives with us, despite being busy in our own little world. And I don’t mean material riches. Because life is a vast experience , provided we have a thirst for understanding its  validity and impact on our journey. There is always a purpose . Nothing is meaningless.

But we fail to understand it. The opportunity to heal our darker spaces are manifold but we are blindfolded. Only fear makes us limited. Otherwise, we are luminous, unlimited beings.  But who is to explain this to anyone until the right realisation triggers change ?

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Read Full Post »

Spiritual path

The most difficult exercise on the spiritual path is being indifferent to people’s words and actions.
You can see their intention , to hurt, to throw barbs for various reasons , to insult , to put you down , to wound you in which ever way they can …. Quick reactions are so normal , though they should not be.
The other day, I was asking my almost eight year old grandson, “ do you become a donkey if someone says you are one?” He laughed sheepishly but he understood. These kids are very mature .
So, the long and short of it is, let all such speech and action fall off your energy body because internalising these meaningless negativities is just not desirable for the self.
So, when we speak of “Sama bhaav a”, or balance or neutrality, it also implies a certain indifference to these episodes and such people around you.
Please notice , I said AROUND you. Never let these get INSIDE of you . Buddha spoke of suffering. The body will be diseased, will die and bodily suffering therefore, is a reality.
But why would we suffer due to our own ignorance, our own choices to feel the negativities of others in OUR system?

We can flinch from just venomous words. We could also flinch from waves of envy and hate exuding from people. But , having been exhausted by such reactions, when the immunity enters us , we are able to look at , to observe that everything is powerless unless WE give it the power through our attention. Suddenly, we can smile at all of that and we find we are free !
Ignore with calmness , knowing that we are incapable of getting affected and rise in our vibrations to leave the space of such low vibrations.
Sounds like a eureka moment, doesn’t it ? But… far from it ! It takes a lot of courage and energy to leave that space because, in leaving that space, we leave many people behind as well.
Surekha Kothari
http://www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com
surekhakothari.wordpress.com
Speakingtree Blog: http://www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Read Full Post »