pkconsciousness

Beat your Boredom -By Sri Preethaji

Everything is mechanistic.  This is how life feels when we merely survive and are not living. 
Do  you know why? 

Most people are bored to death in their homes.  They  are struggling with meaninglessness in their life sitting at home . Waking up is boring, talking to each other is boring, Spending time with children is boring , cooking is boring , cleaning is boring. .

Everything is mechanistic.  This is how life feels when we merely survive and are not living. 

Do  you know why? 

It is because the Sacred has moved out of our lives.  

How do we define what is sacred? 

A thing becomes sacred when you realise it is irreplaceable. Your partner becomes sacred, when you feel that companionship is irreplaceable. Your children, your parents become sacred when you feel they are not things you can exchange and find a replacement. 

The day you feel your work or career is irreplaceable, you will find fulfilment. Your work too has become sacred. 

Let me ask you- do you feel that way about your career? If you do, then you are among those blessed people who will realise their greater destiny. 

Do you feel that way about your relationships? If you do, then you feel whole within. 

Sacredness arises when you feel a deep sense of Connection, instead of merely engaging in the act like a duty. 

Let me explain this with the simple example of eating with sacredness. 

 Do  you know ancient Indians would only eat when the stomach asked for food not when the tongue asked for it.

 They ate only when they were hungry not when they were tempted -because they ate  to feed their  digestive fire in their bellies. 

After  the first sign of hunger was thrown up by the digestive fire, they check their breath. They  waited for breath to flow through the right nostril before they sat down to eat.

Why? Let me explain it. 

 Do you know that we have more than 70000 Nadis  or pranic veins through which our vital energy flows. Among these - three are prominent - Ida  which carries the lunar current, pingala  which carries the solar current and Sushumna which carries the earth‘s current and which gets transmuted into divine energy as it moves higher .

When  Lunar energy flows through Ida - your breath flows through the left nostril.

When solar energy flows through Pingala breath flows through the right nostril.

These currents keep alternating every hour or less than that in our body.

 When solar energy flows through Pingala and you eat at that time ,food gets digested easily and is obsorbed  well by the body. That is why they checked their breath before eating. 

 Lastly they offered thanks to mother Earth for giving them food and offered a small portion of their food to the ants on earth and began eating .

 Even behind the most mundane ordinary act of eating -there can be deep sacredness. Try eating even one meal a day this way and see it's impact on your health. 

With this sense of the sacred, with this awareness of Connection, All acts of our daily life are no more mechanical chores driven by survival.

In the  act of eating they were connected to their bodies.  

they were connected to their energies.  

they were connected to the earth and to her life forms.

 It is only when you are awakened to the magnificent state of connection you experience the sacredness of life. You are truly living.

(If you want to heal your family, stop focusing on how different you are from them or how superior you are to them.)

Namaste

 For the first time in human history perhaps we are experiencing one global crisis- no nation, no section of society, no geography is an exception to this global crisis. 

 Hitherto when we thought of globalisation, a flat world, a borderless world, we only thought of internet, air travel and communication and commerce.

 Little did we imagine, that a flat earth would also mean a global epidemic, a pandemic. 

 Do you know in this time of global crisis the oneness of human experience is more transparent than ever?

 People in every nation, whether they are Chinese ,American ,Latino ,European and Indian everyone is experiencing the same anxiety over either their own sickness and death or that of their loved ones. Rich and poor alike are experiencing the same anxiety over economic uncertainty.

 The atheist and the theist are experiencing the same confusion of being quarantined in their homes with their loved ones without escape.

 We are one humanity. If only we can move away from our divisive consciousness, and go past all the labels we put on peoples' foreheads because of skin colour ,language, culture, class or caste - we will see we are one. 

 Can we go beyond division and duality to a space of oneness even with family members?

 As you sit across the dining table ,as you go about your daily chores amidst the four walls - Pause for a moment and Centre yourself in the heart and reflect.

Is not your child’s longing for acceptance the same as yours even though you may express it differently?

 Is not your grandmother’s clinging to life the same as your clinging to some position at work? 

The experience of clinging is the same what you are clinging to is different.

 You are judging your in-laws or your partner for their anger or aversion to someone. You think it is unfair.

But pause for a moment come to your heart and meditate. Is  your anger towards someone really different from their anger?

 The experience of anger and aversion is the same - you may shout and use cuss  words- others may hold it in and simmer in it.

 The way you love and wish for the other’s well-being too is the same- only the way you show it is different.

 Meditate on your loved one’s experience of happiness and your own. 

Why you become happy and they became happy could be different-

But the experience of happiness is the same.

 “If you want to heal your family, stop focusing on how different you are from them or how superior you are to them."

 Focus on the oneness of your human experience. 

From that space relate, converse, do things together - you will heal their hearts

MEDITATION 

Please sit still.

Close your eyes. Centre yourself in the heart. 

Feel the divine, who is the Antaryamin in all our hearts in any form or name you choose. 

Ask the divine to help you see that you and the members of your family are one. 

Their experience of life now is just the same as yours. 

May the Divine bless you to accept and celebrate this oneness and togetherness with your family. 

You may now listen to the powerful Ekam mantra and chant along with it. The mantra is -Hamsa Soham Ekam, which at its simplest level means, I am in the divine, the divine is in me, we are one.

Whenever you are ready you may open your eyes

How to celebrate a joyful Ugadi or Gudi Padwa in times like these?

Look at the universe around you. Everything is cyclical. Everything moves in cycles. 

If you looked at the world around you, everything is going through a cyclic movement.- The electrons around the nucleus., The planets around the sun, The galaxy around the center of the universe. 

And the universe itself is collapsing and expanding. 

Even human life goes through cycles of order and disorder.

Human life itself moves in cycles isn’t it? 

Birth and death, 

winning and losing, 

progress and passivity, 

health and ill health. 

Everything is a cyclic movement.

No human being ever truly lives, when they try desperately to cling to one and resisting and deny the other side of the cycle. You only live in fear of the other side of the cycle ever happening. 

Thrill and zest disappears from life. Sacredness disappears.

Birth and death then become more hospital center’s experiences. In a hospital you are born, in a hospital you will die. 

Is this all there is to life?

No. Life is a mystery, an experience where you can’t run from anything. 

And that is the essence of Udadi, or Gudi Padwa isn’t it?

It is a reminder to pause and bring attention to the wholeness of life without denying anything or clinging on to anything- , the bitter, the sweet, the sour, the spicy, the bland and the astringent - all tastes of life experiences to be accepted. 

It is a celebration of life. And think of it - this would be your first Ugadi or Gudi Padwa at home with your loved ones - alone.

You have run too much in life. The Chinese would call this running “yang”. And nature is now saying “be still“. This the Chinese would call “yin” a movement inward. 

Life has now put all of us in the stillness mode. Let us celebrate it. 

This still and beautifully quiet time, can make you realize that you don’t need too much in life to be happy. The most important thing is for you have a beautiful inner state. 

Once again let us remember, staying home can be a sadhana for your evolution, for your family to grow in love- it is also the most significant seva you are doing to save lives. If we Indians, who are more than 1 billion population can contain this epidemic, we will actually be saving the world. 

So stay home and celebrate with each other. 

Meditation 

Shall we move inward for a few minutes and experience the Divine now? 

Sit still.

Please close your eyes.

Feel the divine, who is the Antaryamin in all our hearts in any form or name you choose. 

Ask the divine to help you accept and celebrate this stillness and togetherness with your family, even as you will celebrate movement and rush in the future.

You may now listen to the powerful Ekam mantra and chant along with it. The mantra is -Hamsa Soham Ekam, which at its simplest level means, I am in the divine, the divine is in me, we are one.

Whenever you are ready you may open your eyes. 

Namaste