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Thursday 19 December 2013

THE “HOW” OF EATING

The first thing about food is that the state of our mind when we eat is much more important than what we eat. Food will affect you differently if you eat joyously, happily, or if you eat when you are filled with sadness and worry. If you are eating in a worried state, then even the best food will have a poisonous effect. And if you are eating with joy then it is possible that sometimes even poison may not be able to have its total effect on you. It is very possible. So what state of mind you eat in is important. 

We live in worry for twenty-four hours a day. It is a miracle how the food we eat gets digested, how existence manages it in spite of us! We have no wish to digest it. It is absolutely a miracle how it gets digested. And how we remain alive! This is also a miracle! Our state of mind should be graceful and blissful.

But in our houses the dining table is in the most gloomy state. The wife waits the whole day for her husband to come home to eat and all the emotional sickness she has gathered in twenty-four hours comes out just when the husband is eating. She does not know that she is doing the work of an enemy. She does not know that she is serving poison on her husband's plate.


The husband is also afraid and worried after the whole day's work - he somehow dumps the food into his stomach and leaves. He has no idea that the act which he has finished so quickly and has run away from should have been a prayerful one. It was not an act which should have been done in a hurry. It Should have been done in the same way as someone entering a temple, or as someone kneeling to pray, or as someone sitting to play his veena, or as somebody singing a song for the beloved.

The act is even more important: he is giving food to his body. It should be done in a state of tremendous blissfulness. It should be a loving and prayerful act.

The more happily and joyously and the more relaxed and without worry a person can take his meal, the more his food starts becoming the right food.

A violent diet does not only mean that a man eats non-vegetarian food. It is also a violent diet when a man eats with anger. Both of these things are violent. While eating in anger, in suffering, in worry, man is also eating violently. He does not realize at all that just as he is violent when eating the flesh of something else, so when his own flesh burns up inside due to anger and worry, violence is present there too. Then the food which he is eating cannot be non-violent.

The other part of right food is that you should eat in a very peaceful, a very joyful state. If you are not in such a state, then it is better to wait until you are and not to eat for a while. When the mind is absolutely ready, only then should one take his meals. For how long will the mind not be ready? If you are aware enough to wait then at the most it can remain hungry for only one day - but we have never bothered to listen to it.

We have made eating food a completely mechanical process. One has to put food into the body and then leave the dining table. It is no longer a psychological process, that is dangerous.

On the body level, the right food should be healthy, non-stimulating and non-violent; on the psychological level the mind should be in a blissful state, graceful and joyous; and on the level of the soul there should be a feeling of gratefulness, of thankfulness. These three things make food the right food.

We are eating food, we are drinking water, we are breathing - we should have a sense of gratefulness about all this. Towards the whole life, towards the whole world, towards the whole universe, towards the whole nature, towards the divine, there should be a feeling of gratefulness - " I have received one more day to live. Once more I have received food to eat. For one more day I am seeing the sun, seeing the flowers blossoming. I am again alive today."

This feeling, this feeling of gratitude, should be there in all aspects of life - and very particularly with diet. Only then can one's diet becomes the right diet.

Source: The Inner Journey - by Osho

Tuesday 26 November 2013

INCREASE YOUR VALUE!!!


In the new economy you now find yourself in, you will be compensated not by how hard you work but by how much value you add to the world around you. Think about it. If you are currently being paid twenty dollars an hour, this money is being given to you not simply because you showed up at your desk for those sixty minutes but because you have added twenty dollars’ worth of perceived value during those sixty minutes. So, the monetary reward you receive is determined not by how long you work but by how much value you add.

This is why a brain surgeon is paid so much more than a McDonald’s employee. Is the brain surgeon a better person? Not necessarily. Is the brain surgeon smarter? Who knows? But one thing is certain: the brain surgeon has accumulated far more specialized knowledge and specific know – how than the McDonald’s employee.

There are far fewer people who can do what the brain surgeon does and, as a result, the brain surgeon is perceived as far more valuable to the marketplace. This is why the brain surgeon is paid over ten times more than the person who flips burgers. Money simply becomes a symbol for how much value each person has added to the world at large.

So to be paid more money in your work, you must add more value to the world. And the best way to begin adding value to the world is to start becoming a more valuable person. Acquire skills no one else has. Read books no one else is reading. Think thoughts no one else is thinking. Or, to put it another way, you cannot have all that you want if you remain the person you are. To get more from life, you need to be more in life.

Source: From one of the best-sellers, authored by Robin Sharma 

Monday 19 August 2013

WHY DO WE FAST?

Most devout Indians fast regularly or on special occasions like festivals. On such days they do not eat at all, eat once or make do with fruits or a special diet of simple food.

Fasting in Sanskrit is called upavaasaUpa means "near" + vaasa means "to stay". Upavaasa therefore means staying near (the Lord), meaning the attainment of close mental proximity with the Lord. Then what has upavaasa to do with food?

A lot of our time and energy is spent in procuring food items, preparing, cooking, eating and digesting food. Certain food types make our minds dull and agitated. Hence on certain days man decides to save time and conserve his energy by eating either simple, light food or totally abstaining from eating so that his mind becomes alert and pure. The mind, otherwise pre-occupied by the thought of food, now entertains noble thoughts and stays with the Lord.

Since it is a self-imposed form of discipline it is usually adhered to with joy also every system needs a break and an overhaul to work at its best. Rest and a change of diet during fasting is very good for the digestive system and the entire body.

The more you indulge the senses, the more they make their demands. Fasting helps us to cultivate control over our senses, sublimate our desires and guide our minds to be poised and at peace. 

Fasting should not make us weak, irritable or create an urge to indulge later. This happens when there is no noble goal behind fasting.

The Bhagavad-Gita urges us to eat appropriately - neither too less nor too much - yukta-aahaara and to eat simple, pure and healthy food (a saatvik diet) even when not fasting.

Tuesday 6 August 2013

THE METABOLISM OF TIME.


One of Einstein’s brilliant contributions to modern physics was his intuition that linear time, along with everything happening in it, is superficial. Time seems to flow and move; clocks tick off their seconds, minutes and hours; aeons of history unfold and disappear. But ultimately, Einstein held, this vast activity is all relative, meaning that it has no absolute value.

Einstein displaced linear time with something much more fluid – time that can contract and expand, slow down or speed up. He often compared this to subjective time, for he noted that spending a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour, while spending an hour with a beautiful girl seems like a minute. What he meant by this is that time depends on the situation of the observer. To borrow from Einstein’s example, if two men are sitting with the same beautiful girl, the time might drag for one, because the girl is his sister, while it flies for the other if he is in love with her. This means that each of us has personal control over sense of time.

Consider all the subjective qualities we attach to time. We say things like:
  v I don’t have time for that.
  v Time’s up.
  v Your time’s running out.
  v How the time flies.
  v Time hangs heavy.
  v I love you so much, time stands still.

These statements do not say anything about time measured by the clock. The clock doesn’t lie about how much linear time has elapsed “out there.” But subjective time, the kind that exists only “in here,” is a different matter. All the above statements reflect a state of self. Whenever you take an attitude toward time, you are really saying something about yourself. Time, in the subjective sense, is a mirror.

Let’s take a simple example, ask someone to make an omelet. A skillful cook can accomplish the task in about two minutes. Now alter the situation slightly by saying, “Make an omelet, but you only have two minutes to do it.” This will often make even the accomplished cook feel tense and harried. Time pressure causes stress hormones to be released into the body, which in turn elevates heartbeat. If the person struggles against this reaction, his situation only gets worse. Now his heart has to put up with time pressure and frustration. When heart patient are given demanding tasks under a deadline, a significant number grow so agitated that their heart muscles actually suffer ischemic or “silent” heart attacks (“silent” in this case means that damage is occurring but without any sensation of pain).

Some people are much more sensitive to time pressure than others. A nervous cook can get so rattled by the two-minute deadline that he drops the egg, burns himself, and can’t accomplish a task at which he excels when time is not a consideration. Another cook will blossom under the challenge and finish the omelet even quicker than before. One feels time pressure as a threat, the other as a challenge. One feels thrown out of control, the other feels impelled to test his sense of the control and improve upon it.

All of us, however, feel the pressure of a serious, threatening deadline over which we have no control—death itself. If you believe that you have been allotted certain span of time for your existence, the deadline of death will exert the same kind of stress as that felt by the nervous cook rushing to finish his omelet and botching the job. How much better not to feel any time pressure, to blossom fully despite the fact that death exists. The attitude that life is a blossoming, not a race, can be achieved. But to do that, you can’t believe that time is running out.

Source: From one of the best-sellers, authored by Dr. Deepak Chopra.

Saturday 27 July 2013

JEALOUSY IS BORN OUT OF COMPARISON

                       
“Jealousy is born out of comparison”. And we have been taught to compare, we have been conditioned to compare, always compare. Somebody else has a better house, somebody else has a more beautiful body, somebody else has more money, somebody else has a more charismatic personality. Compare, go on comparing yourself with everybody else you pass by, and great jealousy will be the outcome; it is the by-product of the conditioning for comparison.

Otherwise, if you drop comparing, jealousy disappears. Then you simply know you are you, and you are nobody else, and there is no need. It is good that you don’t compare yourself with trees, otherwise you will start feeling very jealous: why are you not green? It is better that you don’t compare with birds, with rivers, with mountains; otherwise you will suffer. You only compare with human beings, because you have been conditioned to compare only with human beings; you don’t compare with peacocks and with parrots. Otherwise, your jealousy would be more and more: you would be so burdened by jealousy that you would not be able to live at all. 

Comparison is a very foolosh attitude, because each person is unique and incomparable. Once this understanding settles in you, jealousy disappears. Each is unique and incomparable. You are just yourself: nobody has ever been like you, and nobody will ever be like you. And you need not be like anybody else, either. Everybody seems to be so happy - except yourself. You are continuously comparing. And the same is the case with the others, they are comparing too. Maybe they think the grass in your lawn is greener — it always looks greener from the distance... Everybody is jealous of everyone else. And out of jealousy we create such hell, and out of jealousy we become very mean. If everyone is in misery, it feels good; if everyone is losing; it feels good. If everyone is happy and succeding, it tastes very bitter.

But why does the idea of the other enter in your head in the first place? because you have not allowed your own juices to flow; you have not allowed your own blissfulness to grow, you have not allowed your own being to bloom. Hence you feel empty inside, and you look at everybody outside because only the outside can be seen.

Source: The Book of Wisdom.

Saturday 20 July 2013

WHY DO WE LIGHT A LAMP?


In almost every Indian home a lamp is lit daily before the altar of the Lord. In some houses it is lit at dawn, in some, twice a day – at dawn and dusk – and in a few it is maintained continuously - Akhanda Deepa. 

All auspicious functions commence with the lighting of the lamp, which is often maintained right through the occasion. Light symbolizes knowledge, and darkness - ignorance. The Lord is the "Knowledge Principle" who is the source, the enlivener and the illuminator of all knowledge. Hence light is worshiped as the Lord himself.

Knowledge removes ignorance just as light removes darkness. Also knowledge is a lasting inner wealth by which all outer achievement can be accomplished. Hence we light the lamp to bow down to knowledge as the greatest of all forms of wealth.

Why not light a bulb or tube light? That too would remove darkness. But the traditional oil lamp has a further spiritual significance. The oil or ghee in the lamp symbolizes our vaasanasor negative tendencies and the wick, the ego. When lit by spiritual knowledge, the vaasanas get slowly exhausted and the ego too finally perishes. The flame of a lamp always burns upwards. Similarly we should acquire such knowledge as to take us towards higher ideals.

Saturday 13 July 2013

2 FROGS STORY: THE POWER OF WORDS

Great reference video from film Taare zameen par : 
                                                                                                                     A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story teaches two lessons:

1. There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day.

2. A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them.

Be careful of what you say. Speak life to those who cross your path. The power of words... it is sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can go such a long way. Anyone can speak words that tend to rob another of the spirit to continue in difficult times. Special is the individual who will take the time to encourage another.

Monday 8 July 2013

WHY DO WE DO NAMASTE?


Akshay Kumar best dialogue ever :
Namastey London Movie : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-95XN5szWK0

Indians greet each other with namaste. The two palms are placed together in front of the chest and the head bows whilst saying the word namaste. This greeting is for all - people younger than us, of our own age, those older than friends, even strangers and us.

There are five forms of formal traditional greeting enjoined in the shaastras of which namaskaram is one. This is understood as prostration but it actually refers to paying homage as we do today when we greet each other with a namaste.

Namaste could be just a casual or formal greeting, a cultural convention or an act of worship. However there is much more to it than meets the eye. In Sanskrit namah + te = namaste. It means - I bow to you - my greetings, salutations or prostration to you. Namaha can also be literally interpreted as "na ma" (not mine). It has a spiritual significance of negating or reducing one’s ego in the presence of another.

The real meeting between people is the meeting of their minds. When we greet another, we do so with namaste, which means, "may our minds meet," indicated by the folded palms placed before the chest. The bowing down of the head is a gracious form of extending friendship in love and humility.

The spiritual meaning is even deeper. The life force, the divinity, the Self or the Lord in me is the same in all. Recognizing this oneness with the meeting of the palms, we salute with head bowed the Divinity in the person we meet. That is why sometimes, we close our eyes as we do namaste to a revered person or the Lord – as if to look within. The gesture is often accompanied by words like "Ram Ram,” "Jai Shri Krishna", "Om Shanti" etc - indicating the recognition of this divinity.

When we know this significance, our greeting does not remain just a superficial gesture or word but paves the way for a deeper communion with another in an atmosphere of love and respect.

Friday 5 July 2013

THE UNIVERSE





Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest:
Radius: 6,371 km
Age: 4.54 billion years
Distance from Sun: 149,600,000 km
Mass: 5.972E24 kg
Population: 6.974 billion (2011) World Bank


The Sun's power (about 386 billion billion megaWatts) is produced by nuclear fusion reactions. Each second about 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen are converted to about 695,000,000 tons of helium and 5,000,000 tons of energy in the form of gamma rays.
                                                           





Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky. It is more than 1000 light years away.

Tuesday 25 June 2013

JUST FOR LAUGH :D




Baap: Beta is bar exam main tujhe 90% lane hai, kuch bhi kar..
Beta: Nahi Bapu, 100% launga…!
Baap: Kyon Mazak kar raha hai..?
Beta: Shuru kisne kiya..?!!

Santa: I have swallowed a key.
Doctor: When?
Santa: 3 months back!
Doctor: What were u doing till now?
Santa: I was using duplicate key, now I have lost it too.

When I fall I need ur hand 2 hold me,
When I win I need ur hand 2 pat me,
When I lose I need ur hand 2 console me,
In short…. YE HAATH MUJHE DE DE, THAKUR!

A modern employer is one who is looking for men between the ages of 25 and 30 with 40 years of experience.

Teacher: What’s the difference between Egyptian Mummies and Indian mummies?
Pinku: Children fear Egyptian Mummies but Fathers fear Indian mummies.

Teacher: In which period did the Mughals rule?
Pappu: I’m not sure but I think it was last week in the period before lunch!

Teacher: What’s Ford?
Santa: Gaddi.
Teacher: What’s Oxford?
Santa: So simple, Bail Gaddi.
  
While walking in the highlands Ram fell down.
Shyam: R u ok?
Ram: Yeah!
Shyam: Did u break anything?              
Ram: No, there’s nothing down here.
                      
                       
                        Dancing Accidents (Extremely Funny Video :D)

Wednesday 12 June 2013

PUT THE GLASS DOWN


A professor began his class by holding up a glass with some water in it. He held it up for all to see & asked the students.

“How much do you think this glass weighs?”
’50gms!’ ….. ’100gms!’ …..’125gms’ …the students answered.

“I really don’t know unless I weigh it,” said the professor, “but, my question is: What would happen if I held it up like this for a few minutes?”
‘Nothing’… the students said.

‘Ok what would happen if I held it up like this for an hour?’ the professor asked.
‘Your arm would begin to ache’ said one of the student.

“You’re right, now what would happen if I held it for a day?”
“Your arm could go numb, you might have severe muscle stress & paralysis & have to go to hospital for sure!”… ventured another student & all the students laughed.

“Very good. But during all this, did the weight of the glass change?” asked the professor.
‘No’… was the answer.

“Then what caused the arm ache & the muscle stress?” The students were puzzled.

“What should I do now to come out of pain?” asked professor again.
“Put the glass down!” said one of the students… “Exactly!” said the professor.

_________________________________________________________________

Life’s problems are something like this. Hold it for a few minutes in your head & they seem OK.

Think of them for a long time & they begin to ache. 

Hold it even longer & they begin to paralyze you. You will not be able to do anything.

It’s important to think of the challenges or problems in your life,
But EVEN MORE IMPORTANT is to ‘PUT THEM DOWN’ at the end of every day before You go to sleep.

That way, you are not stressed, you wake up every day fresh & strong & can handle any issue, any challenge that comes your way!
So, Remember friends to

*** PUT THE GLASS DOWN TODAY! ***

Wednesday 29 May 2013

INTERESTING FACTS



·        Scientists say the higher your I.Q. The more you  dream.


·        You use 200 muscles to take one step.

      ·        Your skeleton keeps renewing itself every ten years which means that every ten years you get a new skeleton.
      
     ·        The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve zinc. It doesn't destroy the stomach because the stomach walls constantly renews itself.

      ·        The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the      Encyclopedia Britannica.

      ·        It takes the food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.

      ·        Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil. 

      ·        The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body.

      ·        Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born.

·        During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools.
      ·        If your saliva cannot dissolve or mix with food, you will not be able to taste that food (try tasting something after drying off your tongue)

·        Your eyes remain the same size after birth but your nose and ears never stop growing.

·        The colder the room you sleep, the higher the chances are that you would get a nightmare.


·        Humans are the only species that produce emotional tears

      ·        Your thumb is the same length of your nose.
 At this very moment I know well you are putting this last fact to the test...

...now remove your thumb from your nose and pass this on to the  friends you think might be interested in comparing their thumbs to their noses as well. :)

Source: Reader's Digest Books of Facts