Posted: December 2nd, 2010 | Author: Jai Dev | Filed under: Whole Life Advice | No Comments »
There is an old saying: “You are known by the thoughts you hold, the company you keep, and the food you eat.” To keep your thoughts high you need to let go of bad thoughts, and avoid bad company and bad foods. Sounds too simple to be true, but in fact it is very simple and very true.
So, what are ‘bad’ thoughts, ‘bad’ company and ‘bad’ foods? ‘Bad’ is that which is not conducive to ‘good,’ and ‘good’ is that which is conducive to your well-being, which just so happens to be same as everyone else’s well-being. Some people may argue that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are subjective—that ‘good and bad’ are ‘in the eyes of the beholder.’ This is simply not true.
Fresh air, clean water, and nutritious foods are universally beneficial to everyone’s physical well-being. Similarly, the company of unselfish, noble-minded people, and inspiring, uplifting thoughts are conducive to everyone’s psychological well-being. Conversely, polluted air, dirty water, and foods lacking in nutritious value are detrimental to everyone’s physical health, and the company of mean-spirited, vicious, and cruel people is dangerous to one’s well-being. Holding on to selfish thoughts, grudges, prejudices, and animosities pollutes the mind and makes it both vile and violent.
Maintaining good health and peace of mind is necessary for ‘optimum living,’ just like maintenance and fine tuning are necessary for the optimum performance of any instrument, tool, or piece of machinery. As human beings, we wash our bodies, our clothing, our cars; we brush our teeth everyday, we wash our floors and windows, we remove ‘bugs’ from our computers and dust from the lens of our cameras and TV screens—but how many people ‘wash their minds’ everyday with introspection, deep reflection, and meditation? Many people are brainwashed by the daily propaganda of materialism. Many people are mesmerized by the constant chant of ‘me, my, and mine.’ This needs to be offset by the daily purification and fine tuning of the mind.
Mental purification is not possible if the seat of the mind is ‘dirty.’ The brain (a part of the body) is the seat of the mind. The brain, being a body-part, is composed of the foods eaten. Chemical changes in the brain can induce sensations and thoughts. Thoughts in turn lead to actions.
High thoughts lead to the association of high people. High people are selective about the thoughts they hold, the company they keep, and the foods they eat. They do not engage their minds in shallow thinking, they do not seek solace in the solicitation of the selfish and self-involved, and they do not consume foods which are the product of violence and which produce violent reactions leading to both ill-health and ill-will.
If this blog post sounds ‘out there’ to some of our readers, my humble suggestion is that you perform your own experiments to test the validity, or not, of what I am saying. For example, try the following experiment for 1 month, or even just one week, and judge for yourself whether there is any truth in the adage, “You are known by the thoughts you hold, the company you keep, and the food you eat.” Try this experiment for one week, or better yet, for one month:
1. For 10 minutes after rising and before retiring, sit quietly and empty your mind through meditation. At first, you may only be able to spend the 10 minutes in reflection or introspection (inspecting the inner workings of your mind). That’s okay—this will eventually lead to meditation in which the mind rests in a conscious non-thinking state.
2. Limit the amount of time you spend watching TV or listening to the radio. When you are watching TV, you are in effect inviting the characters portrayed in the TV show (the ‘good, the bad, and the ugly’ characters) into your living room (or bedroom) and you make yourself their audience; you are devoting your mind to listening attentively to what they say, how they say it, how they think, feel, and act. Cut back on the amount of time you spend with this mostly shallow company.
3. Become a vegetarian, and do not consume any alcoholic beverages.
After the experiment is over, judge for yourself whether or not there is any difference in your peace of mind, mental equilibrium, and all-round health. If you discover any change, then you should consider exploring this matter further.
Posted: November 24th, 2010 | Author: Jai Dev | Filed under: Whole Life Advice | No Comments »
High thinking and high energies are married together. If you want to have positive energies, you must have positive thoughts, and vice versa. Once you divorce yourself from good thoughts, your energy level goes down. In essence, you always have the same amount of energy (energy is never destroyed); however, when you have negative thoughts and negative energies, you will be functioning on a lower level. Either you are using your energy to do good things, or you are using it to do bad things—doing nothing is either good or bad, depending on the context.
Contrary to popular thought, people always think before they act. In other words, before you do any action you are always aware that you are doing something—that is, you are conscious when you act, and because you are conscious you are responsible for what you do. Sleep-walkers are not held responsible for their actions because they are not conscious of what they are doing.
Thinking, in this context, simply means being aware that you are acting. Oftentimes we act without due deliberation. Even if we don’t deliberate before taking action, we are still thinking—we are thinking about ourselves! Self-involved thinking is self-destructive. It destroys our peace of mind and our energy level goes down. Sometimes it goes down to our mouth and we say what we shouldn’t say. Sometimes it goes down to our stomach and we eat when we shouldn’t eat. Sometimes it goes lower.
We have to keep our thoughts high and our energies high. We have to have positive thoughts and positive energies. With good thoughts and good energies we will create a good life and we will multiply goodness wherever we go.
Posted: November 15th, 2010 | Author: Jai Dev | Filed under: Whole Life Advice | No Comments »
What is ‘high thinking?’
High thinking means you are always moving faster than your mind. Whenever your mind is under your control, you easily rise to the occasion and meet every challenge with courage. But if you are under the control of your mind, your mind tends to run out of your mouth and your life becomes problematic.
High thinking means to stand on the mountain and have a 360 degree view of everything that is happening all around you. The ‘mountain’ is your own ego, and conquering that mountain is the only mountain you need to climb. High thinking creates a pathway to the top of that mountain, and every step along the way is filled with insights.
High thinking means to be positive-minded in spite of difficult situations. However, high thinking does not mean being naïve or oblivious to the dangers at hand. High thinking clears the mind of images, preconceived notions, and bias—it does not clear the mind of awareness.
High thinking means to live life with total awareness, clarity and sincerity. High thinking means to be conscientious, pure-hearted, earnest, and honest.
High thinking means to honor the real self in everyone; it does not mean to honor the dishonorable. High thinking humanizes, it does not dehumanize. High thinking is encouraging but not enabling.
High thinking is the most natural way to think, and is most conducive to natural, simple living. Likewise, simple living is conducive to high thinking. It is our natural state to be clear, happy, peaceful, and content. To live in our natural state of being, we need to clarify our mind and simplify our life through ‘simple living and high thinking.’
Posted: June 11th, 2010 | Author: Jai Dev | Filed under: Whole Life Advice | No Comments »
The self you are thinking about is not really the Self—it is not the True Self. The self you are thinking about is always changing. What you are experiencing is the mind. When the mind becomes one-pointed through the practice of Yoga, the Self experiences the Self. The ‘experience’ is the one-pointed mind. In other words, the ‘experience’ is the reflection of the Self in the mind which has become ‘atomic,’ i.e., one-pointed. The mind which is not one-pointed presents a distorted image (idea) of the Self. The distortion is removed by removing ego from the mind. ‘Removing ego from the mind’ means to stop thinking about your self.
Absence of all modifications of the mind comes from highest detachment. In the highest state of detachment, one experiences the Pure Self.
Posted: April 27th, 2010 | Author: Jai Dev | Filed under: Whole Life Advice | No Comments »
People can’t be happy because they are in pain (mental, physical, or both).
People are in pain because of self-abuse.
People are self-abusive because they hate themselves.
People hate themselves because they have betrayed themselves (they have betrayed their Higher Nature).
People go against their real nature because they are ignorant of who they really are.
People don’t know their real self because they are busy knowing the nonsense.
People know nothing about their real self because they think they know everything (they think they have it all figured out).
People think they have it figured out because they think in boxes, and boxes fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
People are confused (puzzled) because they think life is a puzzle.
People think life is a puzzle because they are caught up in their images.
People have images because they do not have direct experience.
People do not have direct experience because they are caught up in their ego.
People are caught up in their ego because this is how they have learned to live—they have learned to live by the example of others, and People are caught up in their ego.
Either you can be happy or you can be in your ego.
Posted: April 24th, 2010 | Author: Jai Dev | Filed under: Whole Life Advice | No Comments »
Impression. . . expression. Inhalation. . . exhalation. Inspiration. . . exaltation.
The cycles of existence are beginningless and endless. We have lived before and we will live again. We have died before and we will die again. We have met with success and failure, and then again success and then again failure. We remember and we forget. We are remembered and one day we are forgotten. Everything gained or obtained came from here only. We did not bring anything with us when we came, and we will not take anything with us when we go.
We are here in this world but we are not of it. We are playing a role in a drama, but we are not the role. This world is not what it appears to be. All of this alludes to something not seen, not heard, not tasted, touched, smelled, remembered or imagined. All of this is an illusion, a dramatization, a play, a game, and a sport. There is something beyond all of this. When we discover the allusion in the illusion we are freed from self-delusion. Only then is our confusion removed.
When the mind is purified, clarified with the Wisdom of Consciousness, we get a glimpse into the nature of Ultimate Reality.
Posted: March 26th, 2010 | Author: Jai Dev | Filed under: Whole Life Advice | No Comments »
Birth, Life and Death are a dream. If you are living, you are already ‘living the dream.’ The problem is, most people are living a dream within the dream, and this is the dream of ego and self-delusion.
To awaken from the dream means to get out of our ego. If we are pursuing a dream within the dream, then it is our ego which is in pursuit, and ego pursuits always fail us even when we succeed in them. Why? Because we were not born for the sake of fulfilling our ego-dreams (which can never be fulfilled)—we came here to become ego-free and experience our Essence. That dream (the experience of our Essence) is realized (actualized) when we awaken from the dream of ego.
Posted: March 24th, 2010 | Author: Jai Dev | Filed under: Whole Life Advice | No Comments »
Most people want “something for nothing,” but we can never get something for nothing.
If we are holding onto our ego, then we want something for our ego, and if we want something for our ego we will never get it. Oh, we might get something temporarily—but ego won’t let us be satisfied with it. Contentment will always elude us so long as our ego is in the way.
Once our ego is removed, then we are full—we are complete, which means there is nothing missing. If there is nothing missing then there is no need for ‘something,’ hence, we have no desire to get something for nothing because we already have everything.
Everything is nothing and nothing is everything, but something is a very little part of everything—and something is never enough as long as we think we are missing something. So long as we are in our ego, we think we are missing something. However, in reality, we are not missing anything—we are in reality missing nothing. When we have no ego we have everything, which is nothing; hence, when we have no ego we are not missing anything. When we are not missing anything, we have no desire to get something for nothing.
Posted: March 10th, 2010 | Author: Jai Dev | Filed under: Whole Life Advice | No Comments »
There are good people everywhere in this world. By and large, humanity is intact. Divisions in humanity are brought on by inhumanity only. Inhumanity begins with individuals and spreads like a cancer.
Inhumanity begins when ego asserts. Ego asserts when it is not kept in check. Keeping our ego in check is the most important practice we do. Keeping our ego in check is the most basic mental hygienic practice.
An unhygienic mind is a mind ruled by ego. A mind ruled by ego leads to insanity and inhumanity. Inhumanity is insane. A person who is inhumane is insane, because only an insane person will willfully cause harm to their own self. When we harm ourselves we also harm others. When we harm others, we also harm ourselves.
The only way to stop the hurt is to start the healing. The healing process begins when we recognize our own faults and correct them, right there and then. Our mistakes are founded in faulty decisions, and a faulty decision is a choice made with ego in mind. In other words, when we are thinking about our small self (ego) we make wrong decisions which lead to harmful effects. The harmful effects affect the mind in a negative way, influencing the mind to repeat the wrong action. This powerful cause and effect cycle can only be broken by deliberate positive action.
Generally, a person caught up in negativity is not inclined to do positive actions unless they are inspired to do so by the example of another positive human being. Since positivity is our essential nature (real nature), we are naturally inclined to respond positively to inspiration. Of course, the inspiration should be genuine, and it is genuine only when it is free of ego.
Young children can easily inspire us (to stop taking ourselves so seriously) because they are guileless and mostly free of ego. We are also inspired by our peers whenever they demonstrate the qualities of resilience, forbearance, compassion, courage, simplicity and humility. All of these (and other) qualities are the intrinsic characteristics of our Original Self (pure consciousness, soul, Atman).
Humanity is the expression of Consciousness Itself. This human existence is a Drama, a Sport, a Dance, and a Song. We are here to ‘sing our heart out,’ to move gracefully (to change from what we think we are to what we really are), to play with vim and vigor, with fairness and full attention but without taking ourselves so seriously, because after all, this life is a Drama. We are such good actors and actresses, that even we our selves are convinced the drama is real, when in fact it is not real. The Drama of Life is a real drama only, and beyond the drama is the Ultimate Reality.
When the mind is enlightened with the knowledge of Ultimate Reality it becomes crystal clear and the Self experiences the Supreme Self. In that experience is found the Supreme Happiness and Bliss. The mind that is established in this Supreme Reality is incapable of violence. When the capacity for violence is nil, the pain and suffering that ensue from violence are not known (experienced).
The way to end all violence is to become enlightened and to share the Light of Wisdom with all whom you come in contact.
Posted: March 3rd, 2010 | Author: Jai Dev | Filed under: Whole Life Advice | No Comments »
Resistance training is the way to overcome ego:
Resist the tendency to react. Resist the tendency to be complacent. Resist the tendency to be negative. Resist worry. Resist anxiety. Resist impatience. Resist impulsiveness.
Resistance requires energy. You are ENERGY. You already have what it takes, so take what you’ve got and use it. AWAKE, ARISE, and ‘Keep Moving Forward!’