Tratak induces the state of single-mindedness by first stilling and harmonizing the breath, and then by providing a fixed source of sensory input at which one gazes.
The pineal, located in the center of the brain between the two hemispheres, is the only gland in the human body that is receptive to light. For this reason, it has been called the third eye in traditional spiritual literature. It is this gland that converts the energy of light into the electromagnetic frequencies used to govern the operation of the entire glandular system. The pineal literally feeds on light, and denied proper input normally atrophies by the age of sixteen.
If you wish to see the Almighty, turn inwards for He is to be found in the depths of your heart
To meditate in the right way a positive attitude is required; equally important is the physical posture. It is nearly impossible in a normal situation, to sleep in shirshasana, the head-stand posture. But it is pretty easy to doze off while lying down or even while sitting. Thus, when the body is in a comfortable position, sleep comes naturally. But in the standing position it is quite difficult to fall asleep. For meditation the right posture is a definite pre-requisite. If the spine is not erect but curved, the gravitational pull of the earth has a greater effect on the body – you feel like relaxing and there is an inclination to lie down.
Khajuraho Temples are particularly known for their erotic sculptures that undoubtedly fan the flames of physical desires of an individual. Khajuraho Temples are an excellent example of outstanding human creativity in the form of sculptures.
The temples of Khajuraho are India’s unique gift to the world. They express love in its most unique form. Khajuraho Temples are the most graphic, erotic and sensuous Indian sculptures, the world has ever known. They are famous for their erotic carvings. Khajuraho Temples are standing testimonials of the glorious past of India.
No ceremonies were involved, no prayers were done. No special chanting was done. And even the Master who had given me this permission to wear the ochre color was not present physically.
I am really, really surprised that how come I do not know which is my Enlightenment day and you know which is my Enlightenment day! I never, ever had this inkling in my mind that someone will one day talk about the day when I got enlightened and it will be an honorable, celebrative day!
We need to undergo catharsis to remove all the repressions, all the emotional clouds, all the useless chattering that goes on in the mind. When we achieve this state, we’ll be able to relax totally. Meditation is the quietening of the mind. The power to heal comes from meditation. Meditation gives right knowledge and the right training to handle life.
This technique should be done on an empty stomach or at least three hours after eating. Sit comfortably in any meditative posture. Sit erect. Breathe normally for about five minutes. Once composed, you can begin. In Kapalbhati more attention is to be given on forceful exhalation while the inhalation remains passive.
'Daughter of the Mountain,' Parvati Devi is the primary personification of Shakti Herself. Her consort is Shiva; Her children are Ganesh and Skanda, but in fact she is the mother of all gods and goddesses, of all humanity and of creation itself. Being Shakti's 'base form,' Parvati manifests her wrath as Durga and Kali; and her benevolence as Lakshmi and Saraswati. She is every other goddess as well; when we worship any goddess, or for that matter even any god, we ultimately worship her.
Parvati and shiva’s marriage is a happy and full of blissful companionship.
WE ALL NEED TO RECOGNIZE WE ARE THE ENERGY THAT
DRIVES THE MOTOR, WE ARE NOT THE MOTOR. WE ARE THE
ENERGY THAT FEEDS THE MIND, WE ARE NOT THE MIND. WE
ARE THE ENERGY THAT FEEDS THE THOUGHTS, WE ARE NOT
THE THOUGHTS. WE TAKE A RIDE ON THE CAROUSEL OF
LIFE, BUT WE MUST REMEMBER NOT TO GO ROUND SO FAST
OR IT WILL MAKE US SICK AND DIZZY
people need to understand who they are and the reason why they exist else they will get more and more lost…
We know about the mind and its hunger. We count the titillations and the material achievements, but what about the one who is a silent witness to all the flimsiness, the wanderings of the mind, the ego trips and the physical sensations? We never ever wonder about the one who is the master of the body, the senses, the mind and the intellect.
Who are you?
What are you?
Where are you?
seek… find… discover… THE REAL YOU
Understand that sex can never fulfil your mind - love can. Love should be the foundation of marriage
Desire for sex is natural. It is neither right to fight your body and mind, nor should you feel depressed about the sex urge. Nature has created this body and its glandular systems. These glands start functioning around teenage and they release chemicals called hormones. In the brain, the hypothalamus and the pituitary control the functioning of these glands. The male hormone testosterone is produced by the testes and the female hormones progesterone and estrogen are produced by the ovaries.
The first
precept in Buddhism is usually
translated as:
I undertake the precept to refrain from taking life
In Buddhism, the views on vegetarianism vary from school to school. In the schools of the Theravada and Vajrayana, the act of eating meat is not always prohibited; the Mahayana school generally recommends a vegetarian diet. This is based on the firm insistence by the Buddha in certain Mahayana sutras, that his followers should not eat meat or fish. Interestingly, the accepted legend of the Buddha’s death says that he died after accepting tainted meat (pork infected with Trichinosis) from his hosts while travelling.
Your destiny is nothing but the sum total of your past actions. The past is gone but you have this moment in your hand. Every action you do now shapes your future.
Upanishadic wisdom says that every action will bear a fruit which is of two types: one part is the happiness or pain experienced right there, in that moment; the second part remains hidden and gets added to the bank of other past karmas – it becomes a part of our ’sanchit karma’ i.e. the accumulated karmas of innumerable past lives. We are not new on this earth, we have been born here many times, and in each life we made a home, had a family, had some kind of livelihood and had friends and enemies. We were never idle even in the past births – we were doing something (good or bad) and every action that we did is
Karma is the law of moral causation. The theory of Karma is a fundamental doctrine in Buddhism. This belief was prevalent in India before the advent of the Buddha. Nevertheless, it was the Buddha who explained and formulated this doctrine in the complete form in which we have it today
Karma includes all that comes under the phrase “thought, word & deed”
Do visit this ancient city of death and liberation, but with a tender heart and an awakened mind!
Banaras, considered as the most holy place of pilgrimage for Hindus is also renowned for its rich tapestry of music, arts, crafts and education. This is the place where divine unification happened between shehnai and its maestro – Ustad Bismillah Khan, who immerses the world in the melody & rhythm of Shehnai. Ustad and Banaras are like soul and body. Bismillah Khan had profound emotional attachment to the soil of Benaras. Once when he was offered all amenities and even citizenship during a concert in Europe , he refused all of that and instead asked his admirer ‘can you get me ‘Gangaji’, the river which flows near my home in Banaras?’.
The combination of material elements which make up this physical body must dissolve sooner or later, but within this combination there is something finer, less destructible-the causal body, which will outlast this gross body.
Life offers us innumerable opportunities. We cannot complain that we lack them. We are placed just where we can advance most quickly. We may not believe it. We may think that some one else has a better chance than we have; but the all-wise One knows what is best suited for each one; and if we have true longing and love for the ideal, we shall take the material placed in our hand and out of it mould a beautiful life.
The same atoms and molecules of air, the breath that Jesus breathed, Moses breathed, Buddha breathed, that same breath is flowing
into you... right now!
In the beginning, we are told, “was the word”, but behind the word is an even greater power: the breath
God can hug us and embrace us and give us those uplifting great moments and provide us all that shakti and power to do whatever we want to do.
When does God become visible to us? When we can see God with our eyes, when we can hear his voice, and when we can relate to God; when God can hug us, embrace us, give us those uplifting great moments and provide us all shakti and power to do whatever we want to do.
At fifty, it was 'Hari Om Tat Sat', no more sexual activity. After that time, husband and wife had no more physical contact and lived like brother and sister, guru and disciple, friend and friend.
The best way to be established in brahmacharya and to be divine is to have the tantric attitude of passionless-ness, reverence and worshipfulness. In an act without passion there must be mastery over the yogic kriyas, kumbhaka, uddiyana, vajroli, etc. Without this, brahmacharya is self-deception.
The cause of our problems is not the mis-alignment of the building, rather we are attracted to a particular building because it resonates our own mis-alignment!
Authentic feng shui is based on Taoist principles, the root of which is learning to “Go with the Flow”.
I always believe that it is much better to have a variety of religions, a variety of philosophies, rather than one single religion or philosophy. This is necessary because of the different mental dispositions of each human being. Each religion has certain unique ideas or techniques, and learning about them can only enrich one’s own faith
His efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to Sino-Tibetan conflict were thwarted by Bejing’s ruthless policy in Eastern Tibet, which ignited a popular uprising and resistance. This resistance movement spread to other parts of the country. On 10 March 1959 the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, exploded with the largest demonstration in Tibetan history, calling on China to leave Tibet and reaffirming Tibet’s independence. The Tibetan National Uprising was brutally crushed by the Chinese army. His Holiness escaped to India where he was given political asylum. Some 80,000 Tibetan refugees followed His Holiness into exile. Today, there are more than 120,000 Tibetan
The teacher is trying to teach all the children so that slowly
they understand and learn the alphabet. Similarly,
when it comes to religion, you start from somewhere.
So for someone the journey begins from a temple,
for others from a mosque and for yet others from a church
I read the story of a man who was looking for a guru. He saw an ascetic sitting under a tree and went close to him. “Can you tell me who is the best guru
"Light and darkness can never exist together.
where there is light, there can be no darkness - and where there is darkness,
there can be no light and your mind is darkness personfied! that is why it is said you must free yourself of your mind."
Alhat Ed Din was a very famous sheikh who lived in Crimea. He had several disciples. One night, when he was sitting by a pond, a sufi named Shams Tabreez passed by. Seeing Alhat Ed Din, he wondered what he was doing sitting next to the pond at night. So he went near him and asked, “Mister, what are you doing? Who are you?” The man replied, “I am Sheikh Alhat Ed Din and I am meditating on the shadow of the moon in this water.”
Shams Tabreez asked, “Do you have a boil on your neck that you are finding it difficult to look up at the moon? The real moon is visible in the sky and you are looking for the shadow in the pond!” Alhat Ed Din raised his head – and what did he see? – the radiant face of Shams Tabreez in the moonlight. Automatically his head bowed in reverence.
She is a sufi when she speaks on Sufism;
a rishi when she speaks on the upanishads and the Geeta; a Shankrachraya; a Buddha; a Zen Master; a poetess; a singer.
Gurumaa is all of these and yet, she is none of these!
Mesmerizing persona, piercing eyes, a crystal clear mind, the wisdom of the ages and a beautiful demeanour – such is the personality of Anandmurti Gurumaa. Defying definition, pragmatic, realistic, of liberal views, she is open-minded like the sky and intense like space. Gurumaa had a wonderful childhood – when other children were learning nursery rhymes, she was listening to the philosophy of Vedanta. While other children dreamt of dolls and cars, she was learning the art of awakening from dreams. A bubbly spirited teenager, she was not seen with girls of her age but with yogis and gurus. Meditating and lovingly serving spiritual masters
My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came to this earth, 'I' was the same. As a little girl, 'I' was the same. I grew to womanhood but still 'I' was the same. When the family I was born to arranged this body's marriage, 'I' was the same. Even afterwards, though the dance of creation changes around me in the hall of eternity, 'I' shall be the same.
India is a country which is fortunate to have witnessed her daughters rise to be great mystics. A person strives to learn the intricacies of religion, practices it diligently and then after many years may reach the zenith of spirituality. But there are some individuals who are born with all the prerequisites, a great mind and a high level of consciousness.
O Allah! if I worship you for fear of hell
Burn me in hell
If I worship you in hope of paradise
Exclude me from paradise
But if I worship you for your own sake
Grudge me not your everlasting beauty
When asked by Sheikh Hasan-al-Basri how she discovered the secret, she responded: “You know of the how, but I know of the how-less.”
Lalleshwari was a great poet-saint of Kashmir. Her life is shrouded in mystery, miracle and legend - and much of what we know of her is through the oral tradition. 'Lalla Vakyani' (1920) by Sir George Abraham Grierson and Lionel D. Barnett Litt. D., is the only scholarly work on the subject to date. The earliest recorded mention of Lalleshwari is in 'Asrar-ul-Abrar' by Baba Dawud Mishtaki written in 1654. Sanskrit documents dated earlier do not mention her at all, neither is there any mention of her in Kalhan's Rajtaringini, or in any other chronicle till 1746 - may be because these were records of political events and not of social history.
Some leave their home, some the hermitage but the restless mind knows no rest so watch your breath, day and night and stay where you are.
A German Catholic mystic On March 5, 1926, the first Friday of Lent, the first stigmata or sacred wounds of Christ appeared slightly above her heart. She kept it secret, confident it would be healed. This wound is believed to represent the spot where Longinus speared Jesus Christ while on the cross.
one of the most fascinating modern day catholic mystic and stigmatic – was born on April 8th 1898 in Northern Bavaria, Germany
Yoga Nidra releases all types of tensions- muscular, emotional and mental tensions.
Every human being is endowed with great potentialities but one need to have awareness and training to explore this inner treasure. Yoga Nidra is the way to turn inwards and bring consciousness to the constant flow of life happening within and rise higher within and without. It is the scientific way to eliminate the root cause of all negativities like stress related disorders, ailments like hypertension, depression, asthma, digestive disorders, etc which drain our life energy.
Yoga Nidra is an ancient tantric method, which can open new capacities of the mind. Stress, frustrations, insomnia, and psychosomatic diseases which have become part of modern man’s life, are being caused by our unstable mind. Unknowingly, we hurt ourselves
Parvati insisted to Lord Shiva to tell her the secret of His immortality. So, Lord Shiva embarked upon finding a place where no living being could reach and that only Parvati hears and stumbled upon a huge cave.
The trek from Pahalgam to Amarnath Cave is on an ancient route. It takes four days to cover this 45-kilometre route which can at times be hazardous, if not intimidating. But when you know that you are in the lap of the captivating Himalayas and that thousands, perhaps millions of people, have walked on this path for centuries, and are still doing the same, it gives you an inner strength to move on. On this path have walked great saints like Shankaracharya, Swami Vivekananda and Swami Ramtirtha. On this path have walked the old and young, and will continue to do so for centuries to come.
There is an air of timelessness about the place. Everything here is so old and so new – the path, the journey, the hills, the glaciers, the cave, and the lingam. This is the place where legends are as old as the hills around you.
