Thank you...

I walked into the Office Yoga Hall 20 minutes late. There were people waiting, just for me, some of them were senior managers! Usually I get worried and anxious when something like this happens. Today, it was different. I was happy and smiling effortlessly! The morning sadhana had firmly fixed me into the present moment. And the guilt of making busy big shots wait on me, wasn't enough to shake anything in me! I had a lesson to learn here, I took my lesson and made the required resolution. And that's about it.

The Kriya started and finished. I saw it happen one more time... the super magic of Sudarshan Kriya!

Now, there were some blissful souls sitting in front of me. I narrated to them them a little story; of a barber and a Pandit ji, and they smiled and giggled like little children! We got up to leave, and one of them came up and hugged me, another few came up and said thank you! Now in office, the smile's are mostly plastic and the thank you's are superficial. This was different... this was amazing!!!

In the restroom, I looked in the mirror... there was a glow on my face! I smiled to myself before a hearty splash of water! And then walked down to my workplace, where some super delicious sandwhiches waited for me. Neha had got up early and got the breakfast and the lunch ready in time!

I realized that I get the hug's and the thank you's, and it is appreciated that... when most people are just busy fixing their own lives, I go out and fix some other lives too. No one realizes, that I can do that... because someone takes care of me, because someone keeps my life beautiful and fragrant, because someone instilled the right values in me, because someone let me do what I wanted to do, because someone taught me how to walk and talk and read and write, because someone taught me how to teach. I feel contented and so full of gratitude for Guruji, for you and for so many people who have shaped me as I am, and who in their own way... are helping me learn and be myself... more and more, more and more!

There is no greater joy in the world, than the joy of being in gratitude and in service.

Jai Gurudev

love & gratitude,

manish

My first course...

It is said that true love is where you come back... and come back one more time... and then never go. I was 18 and my father did not like me sleeping late in the morning, and so I was enrolled into an 'Art of Living' Youth course. 'Art of Living' because he had himself done the course recently, and found it exceptional!

I was not looking forward to it at all, and neither did I look back much at it after it was finished.

A few things stayed with me though. I still fondly remember the monkey process, that kirayedaar story, oh yes... the Dog and the Bone game! :-) I feel so full of gratitude everytime I share the same stories or play the same game with my students. Satnam Singh and Lata Singh were the fabulous teachers!

I went around flaunting the knowledge from the course, and did it impress my friends! It somehow never occured to me to acknowledge the source of my sudden found wisdom though.

It may not have lasted long, but for atleast a couple of weeks I was very aware and very much in the present. It was very interesting to realize that I am opening the door and Hey! I am so aware that I am opening the door! :-)

I failed to realise the value in the practices, and eventually didn't bother doing them. In the next two years, I sat down to meditate exactly once.

small is beautiful

I have written a little memoir of the Hinjewadi Yes!+ in November

Check it out...

http://yespluspunediary.blogspot.com/2009/01/hinjewadi-november.html

a smaller YES!+

We have a YES!+ scheduled in Hinjewadi from 5th November; this time has been particularly interesting... partly because we have failed BIG time! B n D were supposed to be teaching here, but we have hardly managed to get the numbers that are required to make their time worth!

We are going ahead with a smaller course. 

Sohum

Another brilliant one liner...

"Afterall, shit is shit, stirring it doesn’t remove the stink, flushing does. Sohum"

This comes from Abhishek Ratna. I met Abhishek for the first time on an Advance course in Ashram and then we were together for the YES!+ TTC. The above line is from his brilliant post - http://ratnaabhishek.blogspot.com/2008/06/dude-youre-messing-with-my-country-but.html.

Thank you Guruji

Its Guru Poornima!

I have been reading from various emails - Guruji's talks and Q&A's and just reading them has put me in a state of such unshakeable delight! I feel complete!

I am short on words, and full on feelings...thank you dear Guruji! :-) :-)

Acceptance

Now, Philosophy again. :-)
I have been wanting to write this ever since an article appeared in Times of India on Acceptance. I dont remember, who wrote it. Now, if you have not done any Art of Livng course before please dont read further, you will only make a mockery of yourself!

Accept people and situations as they are. What a sutra! It's amazing what acceptane can do to your abilities! Basically, it removes the clouds. What clouds ? The clouds covering your intellect! And you think better and make the right decisions and right things happen to you!
And thats not it, acceptance sets you free! You might think that you know what it means to be free. I thought the same, and I was ridiculously mistaken! I had no idea, what freedom is. It's like a different world that exists on the same planet! And, sooner or later, this lifetime, or another...you have to realize, that the purpose of life is to move to that freedom. to moksha. to nirvana.

Now, if you have not done any Advance course and have not heard Ashtavakra, stop here. Please do.

If you are saying that you accept you mother in law, then that means you at some point of time did not accept her and maybe you still dont. Maybe, at the level of the intellect, you accept her. But, something in you, still doesnt!

Comming back to what triggered this post. The article in The Speaking Tree in TOI.
A fire burns a house. You dont blame the fire, you look to douse it. You question reasons that may have caused the fire, but you dont question the fire. You dont ask "why did the fire burn?". You accept fire, you accept that the nature of fire is to burn. Now imagine, you do not accept fire, and a fire happens, and what do you do "how could she? how dare the fire burn my house? i am gonna take revenge! the fire does not know me! i am gonna teach her a lesson! " And the house burns!

Wake up and realize, dont let the house burn! Accept, and once there is acceptance you will have the ability to take the right action.

It may not be easy, here is a tip for acceptance...
...stop rejecting. :-)

Jai Gurudev!

Why do I volunteer ?

I have been with the Art of Living for seven years; for the first six and a half years I was far from being a volunteer. I met Guruji for the first time, 4 months back and I told him Guruji course vourse to sab acchha hai but I dont believe in the miracle stories that people tell of you. And the irony is that...the last 4 months of my life have been nothing but miracles!

Guruji says, when your mind shifts from an attitude of "What about me ? What about my this ? What about my that ?" to "What can I do for you?"...it brings a certain quality to your conciousness. And you go deeper into your meditation. And then you connect to your SELF. And when you connect to your SELF, you connect to the whole universe. The whole universe is a one big organization and it realigns itself when needed, to make sure that you succeed.

Now, if someone had come and told me this 6 months back, I would have told him or her to shut up and stop the jargon. Doesn't it sound ridiculous ? It is ridiculous. But guess what ? Its true. And I live it every day. And it's not just me, so many people have so many stories to tell of that.

People ask me, working for an IT company and doing the Art of Living...how do you manage time ? I tell them, I dont. Things just fall in place, all the time!

All of us work, why do we work ? more often than not, to make money ? why do we need money ? to pay our bills. We work our ass off the whole day, so that we can pay our electricty bill, house rent, petrol bill, food bill, cell phone bill etc. I mean, I was not born to just go to office, drink coffee, eat, drink, talk, drive back, face the mad traffic, reach home, watch tv, go to sleep? Life is short. When I volunteer, end of the day it feels good to know that I have not spent the whole day working, just to pay my bills. It brings a little meaning to life.

When I get a person to the course, he or she benefits. The fee that they pay, benefits several other people. And in the process, I make a hundered friends. You know, my social circle is not just tinku and bunty.

And this whole process brings about tremendous personal growth!

All the time we do things, where we have something to gain. We work to get money, we perform to get recognition, we want to see someone happy...because seeing them happy makes us happy! When we do things without expecting anything in return, it brings a crazy kind of elation within us. We become stronger. Dinesh bhaiya explained this very beautifully once. He said, if you drop a stone in a glass of water, what happens ? some water splashes out and there are ripples. What happens when you drop the same stone in a sea ? it would hardly create ripples. Similarly, when the prana increases in us, little things cannot shake us, we become very strong.

And thats not it. When I organize a course, I develop people management skills, leadership skills, oratory skills, time management skills...well, its almost an MBA :-)

I am sharing this because I spent six and half years in ignorance. Sitting on a box of wealth and not knowing what lays beneath me. Maybe you should not wait that long.