The Final Freedom

You wait at the gates of heaven,

and you have walked a long distance,

You can see where you started

and you can see all that you have accumulated

At the gates of heaven, you are asked to be free.

You ask how do i do that? How do i become free?

You are told “Become who you were before you started this journey”

And you realize, to do that, you need to become zero

You drop everything that you carried for so long

Seems you are doing it but realize its happening to you

And in that instance awakening happens,

You go back to who you were before you chose the journey

You enter the gates,

thankful that you got back home

Seems like the end of journey

Little did you know what lies ahead

Ignorant you become once again.

A voice says “So rest for a while in the nothingness”

As you might want to take the journey again.

When you get bored of nothingness.

May be starting from being a rock again, or a drop in ocean or a bird or anything under and beyond the sun

May be a lunatic, may be a saint, may be a victim, may be a simple man or may be a deadly saint

You will choose again to entertain yourself by entering this fascinating world of experience

Craving for only one thing an experience.

Any experience will do, but i need an experience you say

So you choose a new experience every day.

In the morning you are born and in the night you die.

A life time gets over and you start the next with a cry.

Another experience and another day and another life.

No matter who you become, the memory of who you are will be taken away

Till the pathless path will enable the remembrance…

of who you originally were?

You begin to wake up.

When you ask the question “Who am I?”

And you are fully awake when You know and living the answer.

And it takes as long as it takes…

You can’t rush the process

You are exactly where you should be.

Notice the perfection of where you are.

And you will gain “A Glimpse of Freedom”

First step to “Final Freedom”

Filed under: Freedom, Messages from masters , final freedom

Unleashing Being – Fantasy of divine

On an idle sunday, the divine mused. And thought let me fantasize. And so it did.

The divine with eyes closed, began to create…something that went on to become a reality in one of the universe he had created.

Here’s his fantasy.

——–

Once upon a time, there lived a queen.

A queen, a ruler and yet another special soul.

One day she returned to her palace to take a break from all the people she had to meet. And all the formal, false pleasantries she had to exchange. She was feeling very heavy. With all that she was doing, thinking, feeling and wearing. So she decided to pause. She went to her special part of the palace. An empty room. Her favorite  place to be herself.

She stepped up to the mirror.

And suddenly realized what all is she wearing

Felt, am looking good but this weight is not bearable anymore.

Think, am wearing too much

So first she took out all that she felt bad about

Which made up her evening gown,

Her gown was laced with her stories of miseries, of abuse, of unjustice, of hurt

It was very difficult to just let it slide,

As she was wearing it for a long time.

Every time she wore this gown, it would ensure some sympothy, some love, some attention coming her way

It was very difficult to let that go, as she thought this will stop even the trickles of love coming her way

Very reluctantly she let go of that

She felt lighter and at ease. For the first time she felt like singing her heart out.

What a release it was. First painful and then turning joyful.

She danced naked across her room. feeling the ecstasy and the freedom.

And she danced and she sang.

As wildly and as passionately and as fully as she could.

Finally she was free. And then she was tired and sat in front of the mirror.

And while dancing she realised there was something more she was wearing.

Her precious diamond necklace…

each diamond was precious.

Some diamonds were gifted by her parents, some by her brothers and sisters,

Some diamonds had come from teachers and some from kind neighbors.

And some diamonds, she didn’t know where they had come from. And yet they were there.

She had made this diamond necklace painstakingly, through out her life.

And adorned it with pearls of wisdom from the masters she met on the way

and the self-help books she had read. And from the tapes on developing confidence she listened to.

The necklace was made up of her beliefs of right and the wrong, the shoulds and should nots, doing and non doing, good and evil, the sacred and the profane, the light and darkness…etcetra, etcetra, etcetra…;-)

As she started to remove it, she felt she need not.

Its just a necklace which she could keep on

as the weight of the gown had already dropped.

When suddenly she realized where she is going, she discovered, she doesn’t need that as well

So she unhooked the beautiful necklace which always adorned her neck and was close to heart,

And slllluuur, it fell,

She could fully feel the necklace sliding down, the cold heavy necklace touching her breasts, her stomach and her yoni

Falling down and carrying everything, she held stored in her body.

And as the necklace fell. There was a beautiful silence. She was lill more lighter.

A kind of silence, she had never heard before.

And that was gone too…

She began to feel lighter…a feeling she never felt before

The nakedness began to feel exciting…little did she know that the real revealation is yet to come.

As her body revealed and glistened in the mirror she witnessed the extra-ordinary

For the first time, she discovered that the light is not reflection of light from her body,

It is emanating from deep within her body….

Lill surprised she looked closely in the mirror

And was exhilerated to find the light coming out through the pores of her skin

As she glimpsed the light, she wanted to connect to the source

And was wondering what does she need to do for the fullness of the light to emerge,

And in the moment, she discovered her body was made up of all the good she was holding onto that she believed she had.

She was now confronted with a difficult choice

To transcend the body and embrace the light within or to stop here at the sacred nakedness of the moment.

There came a voice that said…it is your choice, choose the body or choose your naked being lying dormant deep within for centuries

Once a queen, happy and at ease with all that she wore to look good and acceptable,

now was the moment of truth…

She pondered, i can stop here as the weight of the good and bad is dropped

After a brief pause, she said let me take a step and see what lies within

So finally she chose to let go of the body…

And the miraculous unfolded

Suddenly everything went silent,

a long pause.

And at the end of the pause, there started a huge celebration

A celebration of a rare phenomena in the universe

The whole universe was singing and dancing. And the music and dance reached a peak.

And why is should not celebrate. At least, someone after a long time was waking up to her light within

And the celebration was needed. And it amazing

As she was busy enjoying and witnessing the celebrative universe.

The ultimate was being revealed

the only thing she saw in the mirror was pure light,

pure being.

A being that expanded and pervaded everything and every being.

Finally she was realized she was awakened

A goddess was born

—–

With eyes closed. The divine smiled. What a wonderful fantasy. Thinking he should create more often. And went on to have his evening tea with friends and family.

Filed under: Freedom, Poems, Tantra , being, final freedom, Poems, rajmargtantra, tantra fables

9 Questions to begin with while reinventing your career…

Few questions that could be helpful on the journey of re-inventing your career. There are two parts to the process.

Before answering the questions.

Answer a fundamental one.

Are you single faceted or multi-faceted?

If you are single faceted, the principles of career designing are different than that of a multi-faceted person. The world is divided in these two. Most success stories that we compare ourselves with and feel bad about are of people who are single faceted. There journey is simpler than the person with multiple skills.

The whole career reinvention has only two steps. Yes only two steps. We make it complicated unnecessarily. Sharing from experience he he he.

Part 1. Discovering what you love. (if you are multi-faceted, you will take a long time to discover the final “what you love”. Don’t hesitate to still explore. Because you might find the final “what you love” after you have engaged and explored with some loves. Its a a journey. Ask me. From a Copy-writer to entrepreneur to NLP therapist to Executive Coach & OD consultant. The key is honoring and doing your best with whatever that you have discovered about “What you love”

Part 2. Building what you love.

1. What am i seeking from a new career or profession?

2. Are you looking for a new job or really looking for doing something new? Many a times people confuse the two.

3. Decode the word passion for yourself. What does it mean to be passionate? When last you felt passionate? What was it about exactly?

4. Where are you looking for inspiration? Can you look at some more places?

5. What about you really, really works? (Don’t waste time on fixing yourself, now nothing can be done. Accept where you are. Start where you are?)

6. Have i ever felt i wish i could do….? If yes, go back to that and explore more. Don’t focus on why you can’t do. Focus on how will you feel if you could really do it.

7. Distinquish between ideal work and work process. And see if you like both. For eg. you want to become an artist, but you don’t know what to do when you are finished with your painting?

8. Describe your ideal work day as if you have no conditions. And then clarify, clarify, clarify. Clarity is the key. Most people fail here and go back to the mundane. If possible design two days. One while you are busy with work. Another when you are not so busy with work

9. Most fundamental question. What do i crave to contribute? What am i willing to be used up by?

P.S. Some of the insights come from Enlight Model of Career Development developed and designed by Mr. Sanjeev Bhamre. My mentor and my teacher while I worked with him for Maverick Achievers Foundation, . Working with him has helped me balance my head part. He heads L & D at TCS. For a indepth understanding, buy his book The Five Great Myths Of Career Building : And How Successful Careerists Debunk Them lill technical…but useful.

Filed under: Career Coaching, Life Skills , Career Coaching, Career Reinvention, Executive Coaching, Rethinking Career

In some relationships, Love is the last step

edited version reposting again…thanks to Deepti Rupani for her voluntary editing…

What you are about to read is what one of my friends calls “Ruthless Dissection of the Relationship Dynamic”…sometimes little difficult but true”

No matter where you are in this world, you will see that all relationships begin somewhere. Some start with extensive wooing, some on instant attraction felt by both, some start of as friendships and then converge into a serious relationship. In India, some are initiated by your parents and your relatives who are deeply committed to see you married.

And then they all go through 4 phases…Well!! Not all. Some jump out of the ride in between as well. Very few reach the last step.

Phase 1: Uninformed Optimism:

During this phase, you and your partner are in a dream world. For e.g.…”Hey you like Thai food…you know what, even I love Thai”, or “You like movies? What r u saying? Even I like movies”. And so on and so forth. You begin to fall head over heels in love as you come to know every little thing about your partner. During this phase, both take great care about how they look, how they speak to each other, to present the best side. Every day you discover something new. It comes uninformed and worst part is, it is all positive. And there you go, building the visions of eternal togetherness, promising the moon and what not. This phase is time bound. From few weeks to few months it can last.

Phase 2: Uninformed Pessimism:

This is a very interesting phase. This phase typically starts when you are beginning to settle in your relationship (read beginning of taking each other for granted). You are no longer worried about putting on a show or showing the best side. For guys, some old interest recalls and takes you in like an old possessive lover who missed you when you were busy with her. For example the love for Cricket, Football, Mindless TV & Action games on PS 2. And either the guy or girl begins to witness a shift. In India it begins with a phrase “Tumhe lagata nahin ke tum kuch bhool rahe ho/badal rahe ho/chupa rahe ho? etc” (Means…Dear don’t you think you are forgetting something/or changing/ or hiding something). Mostly this question gets a retaliatory response, no matter who asks; often confirming your belief that whatever you thought about your partner is true. This phase starts with small disapprovals and can extend up to night-long fights to weeks of no talking to each other. A funny book says “It all depends on your conflict management style”. In simple words, either you fight like cats and dogs or you fight wearing gloves like US & Russia during cold war time.

Once this happens, depending on the company each keeps, the guy either spends more time with friends and gal wants to “share” what she is going through with all her old friend or deeply “sulk in private”.

This phase again is time bound. But unlike the first phase, this lasts for some months or some years. Some get off the ride during this phase.

Phase 3:  Expanded Tolerance (in simple words both learn to Tolerate each other)

I see many marriages or old relationships stuck at this phase. Mostly the most unfortunate excuse of staying together during this phase is things like children, monetary security, society, old parents, siblings etc.

This is the most difficult period for both. Sometimes my heart goes out to them. You can see the bitterness in their eyes and in their being. Not only for their partner.. but sometimes for their own selves and sometime for life as well.

During this phase, communication hits the bottom. Every time the partner does something that you don’t approve of. You just stay calm. The resentment is growing. The suppression of anger is growing.

Unlike the second phase, this phase can expand from months to years and at times decades as well. During this phase, the life in the relationship and the partner is slowly dying a painful death each moment. Many give up during this stage and find their joy somewhere else.

Phase 4: Unconditional Love

After last 8 years of experience of countless relationship coaching sessions, I am beginning to reach a conclusion. Very few reach this stage. Where one day suddenly, you discover that you are willing to accept the other person, the way he/she is. With no need for any desired change in the other. You discover, you are in love and you love. And all this because you “choose to love” (for no reason) and not because he/she is doing or being something that you want them to do or be. You discover compassion. And in this moment, you begin to love yourself as well. In due course of time, the other begins to sense a change and begins to fall in love. (I don’t know how…but I have witnessed it countless times). You discover the joys of valley and the passions of peaks. When this flowering happens, bells ring. They both get bitten by love. But this time the quality of what they feel is very unconditional. They just love.

The world around begins to notice this love. And then the divine joke happens. Other couples see this and want to have it.. Completely unaware of the journey. And then they slip and their first step starts.

The beauty of this step is unlike all above phases. This phase in not time bound. When it begins it ends only when one of them leaves the game of life in this lifetime. Whenever, I witness this, I am inspired that there are few who are willing to and committed to finally discovering the love which always resides in their heart.

P.S : And it doesn’t mean good or bad, if you jump out of the ride. It just means you are jumping out of the ride. And it doesn’t mean you can’t love. Just know that you are choosing to jump and other person is just an excuse.

Because at stage 4 you discover, it was all about you.   The other was incidental.

Filed under: Developing Intimacy, Relationship Lessons , Relationships, Stages of relationship

Forgiving someone-an act of ignorance or i might say arrogance

Something which was inspired when i was responding to a friend’s update about forgiving

I could be wrong…but this is my perspective.

To forgive someone is the biggest act of arrogance. Why ? Because you are standing in a place that you were right and someone else was wrong. As if you are going to give something to someone who doesnt deserve it. It means there is a problem in the divine order. Because if you truely connect to the whole plan. You discover that when we stand in the place of forgiving someone, our ego has gripped us fully.

In that moment, it is reflecting the image of yourself as a poor victim who is excercising his power to get back.

If you wish to see the other side.

Just make a list of all the contribution the other person has made in your life by doing the act which you are holding against him/her.

It is a courageous act to count the hidden blessings. It takes getting out of the clutches of ego mind thriving on being a victim.

If you can do it, it means you are able to see through both sides.

If you can list down the contribution with complete honesty…two things happen. You are filled up with gratitude. And you transcend the game of being a victim and poor me. There is no one to forgive. You can see the divine plan unfolding. Lessons planted carefully for you to learn from. Can say it as have experienced it as usual he he he

P. s. not for the weak hearted. Because this means loosing out on something on which you might have created the whole story. Loosing out on something that always successfully fetches us sympathy. It means letting go of “our big story”. And then for a while life becomes empty. It seems we have been lill stupid for a long time. He he he. Happened with me for sure Dont know about you

Filed under: Conflicts, Forgiveness , Forgiveness

The eternal game

The game is on. Since eons of years. The game of the journey from unawareness to awareness. When we are aware…we are free. We are light. And we are fully present. And when we are unaware…we are in bondage of our desires, our dreams, our unfulfilled expectations. Completely unaware that we have what we need. If we needed anything other than that we have we would already have it.

When one discovers that, he becomes aware of what he has and begins to appreciate that.

This awareness is the beginning of true abundance.

What is it that you already have and you are unaware of? When everyday you shift your focus on what you have. Shifts begin to happen. You receive more. You experience and rejoice the new reception. And then the abundance just unfolds. The energy gets aligned to enough and more.

Such is the way and path of abundance.

Filed under: Abundance , Abundance, Awareness

Silent Night

silent and smiling,
deeply intriguing

when i talk to her,
she just refuses to respond,

she is all accepting
and all forgiving,

just loving being
and being loving,

never knew how beautiful is she
this beautiful silent night

Filed under: Poems , Inspiration, Night, Poems

Magic

just watching,

breathing,

watching the clamour

feel like picking up popcorn

and watching the movies of mind,

mind,

a theater where thoughts perform,

you are watching,

some you get inspired by,

some you get impacted by,

the drama unfolds,

sometimes u can watch the drama,

sometimes u can’t

as you become the drama.

The agreements have to be honored,

karmas to be healed.

Dont know,

whether its for real,

or all this is just my feel.

and there i stop,

watching my breath,

watching my mind,

watching myself watching again.

and like thundering bolt,

it strikes me again,

am alive yet.

Like magic,

life is living

choosing me

for a brief moment,

yet again.

Filed under: Poems , Inspiration, Magic, Poems

Before approaching “who am i?”, first discover who all are inside

 

As a metaphysics teacher, i often am asked to speak about the question “Who am I?”. Especially by those who are in a kind of hurry to attain Nirvana or Enlightenment. Someone asked me few days back the same question in a chat conversation. So here is my perspective…

One of the biggest disillusionment one has to surface and go beyond is that we have one self. 

We mostly believe we are one person inside with some set characteristics. We have this one mental self image of ourselves. Often we are taking our day to day action using that person as a reference point. 

To my surprise i discovered, that’s what tricks us. We are not one person inside we are many. In olden times this was misrepresented by Multiple Personality Disorder. However, if you carefully observe you will find that you have different personalities that emerge in different situations. 

Just because we haven’t acknowledged this, we get hassled with ourselves with certain behavior or habit. There is one persona which is dominant and keeps every other one in check. But sometimes when situation arises one of the “sleeping selves” (thats the only term i could think of ) wakes up and shows itself. After the moment gets over it goes back to sleep. And then comes back the dominant persona. And it just hates the action you just took or is very surprised what happened and how come you reacted in a particular way. Sometimes its this sleeping self which perpetuates particular self destructive habits like procrastination, uncontrolled urge to eat, insomnia and many other behaviors that we wish to heal but it just remains the same.

Just to make it simple, lets say many a times we get confused by some of our own behavior. For example, one day a friend of mine called an said ” I just made a fool of myself. I yelled at my boss and colleagues. I don’t know what took over me. Normally am a very sane guy and would also discourage people from expressing themselves inappropriately. I am just too shocked and surprised by my behavior.” 

And he was occupied with that for many weeks. When one day we met and we explored what exactly happend, in a trance state he could wake up the sleeping self willfully. When we began to explore that part of his self, we both were surprised by the discovery. That self spoke like a different yet complete person by itself. And it also revealed why it showed up. And the intent was really very pure. When he woke up from trance and listened to his sharing, my friend was aghast. Was lill afraid to discover this side of himself as thats what he used to hate in his father. We both were just left speechless by the experience and the realization that how little do we know about our other side.

And just to set the perspective right, whats most needed on the journey to self realization is the first step of “integration”. Which is nothing but surfacing and discovering these hidden selves and integrating them with unconditional acceptance and love. 

Often the biggest block to many seekers is when they get confronted with these sides, they begin to either hide it or suppress it or at the most pretend not to have it. When this happens what happens to their being and their conversation is very stunning. Suddenly their words loose the meaning. The power of their being gets shadowed and people near them begin to sense superficiality in their behavior.

All this happens due to innocent unawareness. But our fear of being perceived in X or Y way takes over and we once again get disconnected from our own genuine and powerful being.

What worked and still works for me is not being afraid of whatever shows up inside. And granting the otherside unconditional acceptance and healing.

You might find the work of Carl Jung on Photosynthesis and Integration very interesting in these areas. So next time you get surprised with your self, just know that a part of you just woke up. Before it sleeps again heal it and then put it to rest. My experience is it doesn’t show up again if it is fully integrated and healed.

Also please share if you have surfaced or dealt with it in any other ways that it got healed which could be helpful for all of us.

Filed under: Integration Approach Therapy, Relationship Lessons , Integration Apporach, Who am i?

Chapter 3 from my upcoming book “Clarity”

On request of my friends am posting a chapter from my upcoming book “Clarity”. This is Chapter 3 excerpt. Thanks to michelline, narendra and many others who from time to time keeps asking me the status of the book. One request…please suggest a suitable title that you think could be apt for this. Also your comments and suggestions are welcome. Feel free to forward

 –

Mind is not a thing, its a live process. We don’t have a mind but we are minding. Thoughts come and thoughts go. Due to insufficiency to capture the essence of mind in language, Mind has always been perceived or explained as an apparatus that we have. (we will talk about this in another chapter, for the purpose of simplicity i will use mind as a thing in this conversation)

 

The beauty of mind is that we can’t consciously use it unless we see it as a an independent process distinct from our witness consciousness. And because we mostly have to depend on mind identified identity to do our day to day functions, mind keeps on using us rather that we using it. (its neither minds fault nor its your fault, thats how it is and thats how we are designed)

 

The mind is cyclical in nature and hence we go through pain and pleasure when we begin to live life from mind identified space. Which results into a constant search for a particular experience. We all begin to search for experience where we will be more calm, more peaceful, more happy and more satisfied than the current experience. 

 

The experience that we all seek for is not something that we need to be worried about because in the cyclical nature of mind, the game of god and bad experience keeps showing up. After the good experience, the bad follows and after the bad, the good follows. And hence if you drop the search for this experience, this experience shows up(not because you meditated long enough or whatever, its thanks to the cyclical nature of mind), we experience it and it goes. And once it has gone the search starts again. The trouble of entire human race is it wants to retain this experience for longer and duration. Its like you wanting the time of night to expand beyond 8 hours. 

 

An enlightened minding is a process that facilitates the process of witnessing. Pure not-judgemental witnessing. Acceptance is a part of mind process. Whatever the witnesser within you is watching, your mind keeps reacting or interpreting and hence we move away from witnessing and we get engaged with the mind. And we can’t stop mind from doing that. And for this very reason the poor mind is hated across all spiritual traditions as if mind has some personal agenda against the guys pursuing peace and happiness. Thats the way mind is. Like a small child which is busy in a play completely oblivious to what it is causing. Remember mind is just doing its job. And it does it well when you just grant it being.

 

Now lets see how is that possible.

 

The only thing that is possible is to quietly observe the plays of mind and how it sometimes shadows the witness consciousness and how it sometimes allows the witness consciousness. Thats the only freedom of action we have.

 

The witness consciousness is just is. Witness consciousness is just something that we have, its that quiet space that many of us have experienced when everything inside just goes silent suddenly. It happens when you are seeing a vast expanse of water, or enthralled by nature or just when you feel beautiful cool breeze gushing across your body and many such times. 

 

We cant will it or we cant ask for it as we already have it. Imagine a bulb of light which is lit up. And then imagine a veil falling on the bulb. The density of the cloth or the material of the veil will determine how much of the light can pass through and emanate beyond the veil. All of us are at the core these pure light emanating bulbs, covered with the veil of different densities. The thicker the veil, the lesser light emanated.

 

Now look at people around you and you will find, they are in a polar opposite range. From calm and peaceful to ever agitated and unhappy. Now picture this, the real calm and peaceful beings have thinner veil and hence more of light of their being is seen. And the more agitated and anxious one is just means that their veil is thicker. 

 

The veil is made up of or result of our everyday minding process. The more minding we engage in, the thicker the veil becomes. However, at the core the intensity of the bulb remains the same.

 

As i regress my clients in different past lives and they begin to collapse their traumas and heal places where mind had stuck its energy in polarity, i often find they becoming more and more peaceful and calmer. More genuinely able to accept their life situation. And the most amazing thing i sense is that the life situation which so far they were resisting or accepting from the place of resignation, suddenly they are able to experience it with from the space of pure acceptance.

 

Also i have discovered that (am assuming, i could be completely wrong), it seems that from the time a soul chooses to show up in human life. It is born with a thick veil and as he moves through lifetimes after lifetimes the veil gets thinner. When the veil is thicker, there is more minding happening and hence the experience of life is more polluted, where mind perceives only whats missing and misses attention on what it has. As we move through experiences without resisting and just purely witnessing, they veil gets thinner and we experience more love and light and a different sense of calm.

 

And if you observe the evolution of human collective consciousness in last few years, you will observe that as a human race as our awareness grows and the collective veil gets thinner we can more easily drop our judgements and connect to each other. 

 

In the recent years, i have witnessed a quantum leap when it comes to watching the world. I sense that the entire humanity is engaged in the process of thinning the veil and revealing more love and light for each other.

 

And the process that i have seen most contributing to this collective effort is more and more people accessing witness consciousness.

 

Its the same process Buddha and many other enlightened masters have recommended for ages.

 

Witness consciousness process

 

Close your eyes and slowly take your awareness on your breathing. And then give your mind the freedom to think and create any thoughts that it wants to create. Give your mind space and time to think whatever it wishes to think. 

 

As you follow these steps one of the following will happen.

 

a. Your mindspace will get filled with lot of thoughts and feeling.

 

If this is happening just be at ease and keep giving mind the permission and freedom to think whatever it wishes to think. In few moment like the fog clears up, your mind space will begin to become empty. And now no matter how hard you try it will keep becoming empty. Do not be afraid of this emptiness. Just be there. Enjoy the silence and emptiness.

 

Remember you cant do anything with this emptiness. You can just experience it and allow it being.

 

b. To your surprise as you give your mind freedom to think, your mind will suddenly go quiet.

 

You might be surprised to find this empty silent space within. Just keep being there and witness what happens. If at all after brief gaps some thoughts show up in your consciousness just allow it to be their and they will go.

 

If you practice it, do let me know what shows up for you.

 

to be continued….

Filed under: Everyday wisdom, Meditation , Freedom, Meditation