Motivation for meditation: Personal experience -Part2

Mind & Meditation: Let us understand two important characteristics of the mind.

1 Mind revolves around the priorities of my life. Mind becomes active when the priorities are attached strongly to my emotions. The emotion can be negatively oriented such as fear, worries etc. or positively oriented such as joy, bliss etc.  If I obesrve my thoughts, they revolve around my priority which has strong emotions to it. Say for example, if I plan to attend an interview for a job that is likely to change my life in a significant way then naturally my interview becomes my strong priority. The priority has an association of positive /negative emotions and naturally the thoughts from the mind are very relevant to the interview.

2. When my priorities change then my thoughts also will change. Frequent changes in my priorities change my thoughts frequently & hence I possess a chaotic mind. A chaotic mind is not productive.

Problem: The problem in today’s fast paced life is that many are not aware of the above two simple characteristics of the mind. Mind is fully associated with the set of priorities and very feebly associated with the individual awareness. Mind has the freedom to move as it likes and goes everywhere & mind is loosely packed. This is primarily due to the fact that we ourselves without our conscious knowledge stay within the boundaries of the mind and take a centre stage inside the mind. Since, we become the part of the mind, we don’t get a clear visibility of the mind. If we have the ability to come out the mind then we can get a better feel of the mind.

SELF direction: Meditation is a process of taking us out from the mind. Meditation is a heightened state of awareness. My awareness takes a centre stage in this heightened state. With this acquired strength of awareness, I now get the ability not only to move away from the mind but get an opportunity to witness the two important characteristics of my mind.

Meditation is not a mind control process. It is simply a mind awareness process. A shift will happen in altering the priorities and hence the alignment of thoughts when I consciously aware of my thoughts as well as my priorities. This is directed by the true SELF within. This SELF is nothing but a pure form of goodness. In a normal state of awareness, the SELF is clouded by mind & ego. In a meditative state, I get an opportunity to wipe out the cloud formation to get connect to the deeper part of me.

Broader outlook of Wellbeing

Source of energy: Look at the planetary system!! Earth floats in the space and it moves along the predefined orbit & rotates along its own axis. All the planets of the solar system follow such highly coordinated movements & rotations displaying a mega orchestra in the space.

Where does the source of energy originate for this mechanics of earth? Earth does not use a power generator to propel its movement. It is simply the very nature of directional movement & alignment that generate the energy for the earth. The wide spectrum of orchestra of the planets happens simply because of the systematic directional movement & geometrical alignment. The direction of movement is so perfectly systematised & perfectly aligned that display the planetary positions.

Basis of wellbeing: Health is not simply about fitness. Health is a balanced state where your body & inner engineering systems such as circulatory, hormonal, metabolism etc work in an optimal state. Wellbeing is more than a healthy state where your mental & emotional states are well balanced. Wellbeing is achieved by allowing my consciousness to work by viewing the wider spectrum of life.

I am an entity of nature. For my wellbeing, all I need to is to mimic the patterns of the earth i.e systematic directional movement & alignment. Exercise is a set of defined movements. It is necessary to satisfy these two boundary conditions irrespective of the form of exercises that one performs. In simple definition, alignment can be equated to the posture of the body. Random movement of the body leads to slipup. So, a systematic predefined movement is a must to enhance my wellbeing.

Download Cosmic Data: The cosmic data can be downloaded upon me when I perfectly aligned to the geometry of the earth. This is similar to the alignment of the TV antenna dish. When the dish is perfectly aligned, all the channels are flashed on the screen like a magic. A small misalignment of the dish instantaneously makes all the channels dead. When I know how to position myself with respective gravity then I get the ability to download the cosmic data which is available for free all the time.

Physiology: For human, the axis for energy generation is his spine. All the electrical communications from the brain to the different centres of the body pass through the spine. The alignment refers to retaining the spine in the neutral vertical position. This is the very basic need for me to get aligned to the bigger orchestra that I mentioned earlier. I practice yoga as my daily rituals. This practice has given me the ability to consciously keep my spine in perfect alignment.

Exercises: I practice yoga for the systematic directional movement. By doing so, I can generate energy within, on will. The best way to do this by practising asana, the so called static postures. In simple words, the spine is subjected to movements in different directions such as forward, backward, left side, right side and twist. One can do any form of exercises but please be ensured that it follows the basis of the wellbeing i.e. the directional movement.

Let your daily exercise regime might be anything. But, it is good to verify whether it follows the two basic needs of the wellbeing. ALIGNMENT & DIRECTIONAL MOVEMENT!!

Change the experience and change the life - Part3

Effectiveness of Action :

I do things in life to upgrade myself. Of those plenty of actions that I perform to enhance myself, what is the way to check the effectiveness of my actions? Here is a formula that I derived to know the effectiveness of my actions. This is deduced purely from my personal experience but worked and tested well to me and my clients.

I use this formula when I want to venture into the new avenues of my life. I recommend this formula to all of my coaching clients too.

Ef   is the effectiveness of my action

R is the regularity of my action ( i.e , how regular in repeating my action on periodic basis)

E is the experience that comes from the external world

G is the grip/direction in life ( i.e , I am going in the right direction of my life)

Personally, my life has been completely redefined by my practice of yoga. I derived the above formula by my own practice of yoga. I am regular in my yoga practice on daily basis(R). My experience from the external world (E) changes dramatically (the type of people I meet, the new experiences from the world etc) . I have a complete sense that I go in the right direction (G) in my life (seldom had this sense a decade before).

Inference: Here is a simple example. Let us assume that I venture into learning tennis. This is my new action now. Down the line, say after three months, if I am not seen in the tennis court then R is out of the equation. This means, I am not regular & hence, tennis is not effective in my life. If I am regular then let us check E , the external experiences. I would have made some friendships with new tennis buddies; I learned some finer techniques of tennis etc then I am effective. If the external experience has not changed then E is out of the equation. Finally, the question is whether this action gives some direction in life. May be I lost weight, my mental state is in a matured state & I am seeing myself upgrading to my higher self. This means, G is in the equation.

A combination of all of the three components is significant to know the effectiveness of my actions. Satisfying one or two of the above components is not good enough. Please feel free to try this equation to the actions that you do in your life and see whether those are effective for you.

For the wellbeing of all!!

Motivation for meditation: Personal experience

Internal automated system:

Do you know what is happening within us as we go for the lovely morning walk? At an outward level, our legs are taking steps, our hands swing freely back & forth, we get connected to the external ambience, feel the sense of nice breeze touching the body, we feel the raise in the body temperature & so on. Simultaneously, there is a whole range of other activities that happen automatically without our conscious effort such as our breathing rate, heart beat rate, metabolic rate, the chemistry of the body, the blood core temperature, the hormonal changes etc. All of these changes occurred as if managed and controlled effortlessly by yet another entity within us but without our conscious effort.

Importantly, when we become aware these internal automatic manifestations then naturally we develop the curiosity to understand this automatic force that governs us. Meditation provides this opportunity to understand this involuntary force that governs us.

Looking within:

Since, we are in close contact with our five sensations, we develop the habit of seeing things and perceiving the life experiences by looking externally. With this approach, given the varying dimensions of the external world, the reference from the external world keeps the life much more complex. Meditation provides an opportunity to look within, watching my internal world, my body, my mind, my emotion & beyond. The approach of taking the reference from the internal world allows me to perceive my external world very differently.

More importantly, looking within provides an opportunity to manage myself which is lot more easier than managing and control the external world around me.

Distance away: On the surface of the earth, earth appears to be flat. Above the earth, the same earth appears to be a sphere. Distancing away provides an opportunity to perceive thing in its true reality. Meditation is a process of distancing me from my own body, mind, emotion & beyond. This now provides an opportunity to perceive all of these components in their true nature.

In short, meditation gives an opportunity to

-          in witnessing the automated power within which is the life force

-          exploration of internal world ( body,mind,emotion & beyond)

-          Perception change by distancing away

Change the experience and change the life - Part2

In my previous blog, I showed you in a mathematical form the correlation between my experience & my life. In this blog, let us focus on my experience itself.

Experience is a combination of actions (A) and the rewards (R) that associated with the actions. A reward is an emotional component which makes me to repeat the action or stop the action. There is a higher likelihood to repeat a particular action when the reward that I get out of my action generates joy & contentment.

Action: Action is comprised of set of three different categories.

Where Aa is the daily auto repeated actions that run on autopilot mode such brushing teeth, taking bath etc

Af  is the forced action from external factors (those actions forced upon me , such as dropping the kids to the school, filling the income tax etc)

Ag is the voluntary action initiated by me that aids in my personal development (such as upgrading my skills, doing my fitness regime etc)

Management of Action: Af is an externally forced component and it is something out of my control and I can’t do anything about it. But, from my personal experience if you know the technique of managing the remaining two categories (Aa & Ag) then the Af actions will ease over a period of time. Then the question is, “how to manage these two categories?”

Apply mindfulness to my Aa actions. All these days, these actions were performed without my conscious awareness. But, I now deliberately apply my awareness to these actions. This simple change gives me an opportunity to understand the way how I have programmed myself. A simple but effective self-understanding process!!

Change is a continuous process and I am no exception to this. I am always undergoing the change whether I like it or not. But, with Ag, I deliberately make my change to move in my positive personal growth path. This is the toughest thing to perform to myself because it is as good as moving away from my comfort zone. This is where R, the reward mechanism (the emotional component) comes into play.

Micro reward:  When I go through my change process using Ag, it is pertinent to look for the small positive progresses generated by the actions that I performed. This alone keeps the momentum to break the crucial transition phase.

In simple terms, mindful actions of Aa and a watchful eye on the micro rewards from Ag actions change the way I feel my experience.

Change the experience and change the life

Who am I? I am simply a construct of all the cumulative experiences of my life.

                where E is my cumulative experiences from n=0 (my birth) until today.

My mind operates within the preview of my life experiences. In other words, if I have not experienced taste of a particular fruit then no matter any amount of descriptions from you won’t change the way I think about that fruit unless I experience the taste myself.

We can also redefine the above equation

 The cumulative experiences are the sum of all the experiences until yesterday plus the experiences of today.

Similarly, I as a person yesterday was sum of all the cumulative experiences until day before yesterday plus the experiences of yesterday.

                                                                                                                         

Change: In other words, I am constantly changing as a person based on my experiences.

I am not the same person as how I was yesterday. The difference is simply E (today), my today’s experiences.

The secret: I can change myself if I make a conscious choice of changing my today’s experiences. So, change my present experience changes my life NOW!!

What you do first thing in the morning?

Your first conscious activity of the day sets the tone for the rest of the day. Your first activity programs your mind and develops the right kind of mind-set for the rest of the day to progress well. When you consciously pick up the right kind of your first activity of the day, over a period of time, say in a month or two, you will develop a new habit.

Technology influence: As per the research, our ability to stay attentive and focussed has diminished drastically in the last two decades. One of the prime reasons is the amount of distractions that we encounter in the form of information overload on day today basis. Many of us have developed the habit of watching whatsApp, Facebook status, emails and other social media as their first activity of the day. What it started as a simple activity few years before has now become your inborn habit. The moment one opens up the mobile, he will be bombarded with millions of information in a short duration of time. Brain tries to process all the information simultaneously but without any productive result. In that short duration itself, we tend to jump from Facebook to email to whatsapp etc.

First activity of the day: If you have seen your first activity as one of the above then it is good to relinquish your mobile at least for an hour when you get from the bed. In the worst case scenario, we sleep with the mobile by the side. This is one such activity that really degrading your ability to focus. It is good to consciously select your first activity of the day that aids in your development. Some of those activities are mind-body practice, reading good wisdoms, morning walking, collecting your role model attributes etc, meditation etc.

Strong base: By starting with your development activity as a first thing in the morning, you will get clarity and proceed the day productively and efficiently. That 15 or 30 minutes which you spent yields ten times equivalent time during the day. So, do not see the duration purely from the perception of time.

So, consciously pick up the right kind of the activity that aids in the development rather than distracting your growth.