Does brand matters?

So'HaM - School of Human Awakening & Manifestation: Compensation

Compensation

For those of us who are salaried, have you ever wondered that the pay check you get at the end of the month is called 'compensation'.

Have you ever thought, who is compensating? For what? What is the damage?

Let us script our musing (not theories and proxy-wisdoem, please) in this space on this pheonmenon of being 'compensated' year after year.

I leave with something that I found my friend having said:

"Man becomes a slave because he is afraid to be alone
So he needs a crowd, a society, an organization
Fear is the basis of all institution
And how can a frightened mind know the truth"

Love

a love story...

i have read this story somewhere and am reproducing it here...

there was this island where all the human feelings lived... feelings like happiness, sadness, vanity, richness etc and also there were elders like knowledge, time etc. due to some reason lets say the island was sinking ,or something similar, the island was to be vacated. all feelings were making elaborate plans to leave the island to some safer place. for some strange reason love decided to stay put for as long as it could. i guess wanted to hold out for as long as possible. when the island almost sunk it called out to various other feeling who were going off in beautiful boats. nobody had any place for love. richness was carrying all the riches, sadness wanted to be left alone. love was left alone.

sitting with a lost and forlorn look love heard a very gentle voice by its side. it was an elder and it volunteered to take love along. when they reached a safe destination the elder just went off with out saying. love went to knowledge, another elder, and asked about the elder who had helped love. it was "time" said knowledge. when asked why time helped love, knowledge, with its deep wisdom said - only time is capable of understanding how valuable love is.

i guess we all remember the time that we spend in love. all of us cherish those moments and remember it through our life.

wish all of you more and more time spent in love... Cheers!!!

Self-acceptance: the key to human awakening

I am one with all things –
In beauty, in ugliness,
For whatsoever is, there I am
Not only in virtue
But in sin too, I am a partner
Not only heaven but hell too is mine
Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu –
It is easy to be their heir
Chenghis, Taimur and Hitler –
They are also within me

I am the whole of mankind
Whatsoever is man’s is mine
Flower and thorns
Darkness and light
Nectar and poison
Both are mine!!!

The Significance Of The Lotus Flower

The Lotus Flower, is a beautiful plant that floats on the surface of water and its beauty is nourished through its roots in the mud. Its roots go deep into the water and draw on the nutrients it finds in the mud at the bottom. It remains beautiful, untouched by the dirt around it. (This is a metaphor for our lives.)

But the Lotus Flower is also significant for a second reason. It is a plant that flowers and seeds at the same time. It beautifully illustrates the profound working of life where the effect is simultaneous with the cause. It signifies the process of cause and effect at work deep within the life of each person.

As we go about our daily lives, in every single moment, we make causes in the things that we think and say and do. The law of cause and effect explains that when we make a cause, the anticipated effect of that cause is stored deep in our lives, and when the right circumstances appear then we experience the effect.

In a nutshell, the law of cause and effect lies in what we think and say and do.

Dignity

To those who hurt me
You never touched me.
To those who gave me the worst
You gave me the best.
I can't stay bitter for life
So I look towards what's right.
I've learned from what burned me
So I won't be that fire.
Because I.Am.A.Leaf.
What blows me lifts me higher.

Andrea See.

Life Potential

The heart is what is important." There is nothing more vulnerable, nothing more corruptible than the human mind; nor is there anything as powerful, steadfast and ennobling.

Everything depends on what is in our hearts. If we decide to ourselves that something is impossible, then, consistent with our minds in thinking so, even something that is possible for us will become impossible. On the other hand, if we have the confidence that we can definitely do something, then we are already one step closer to achieving it in reality.


D. Ikeda

Welcome !!!

I am delighted to see kindred souls joining us to participate and contribute to this forum.

Someone asked me in a workshop the other day, "What is the next stage of human evolution".

I said, "I am not sure if there is a defined stage we are moving towards."

"However, I suspect, there is a certain state that we could be visting often, in this journey. It is a state of transcension of thoughts. A state of being a witness of one's thoughts"

"Which, to me, does not mean being 'thought-less'. Instead, it means moving from being thought-led to leading ones thoughts, consciously."

Yes, my friends, it is about thought-leadership.

So let's imprint this blog with our exceptional moments of thought-leadership.

Love

Indraneel

The Importance of Dialogue

Daisaku Ikeda says:

Dialogue -­ It is the light that eliminates the dark shadows of violence.

Dialogue - It is the sword of peace that cuts the synergetic ties that bind distrust to hatred to war.

Dialogue ­- It is the wings that bring people together and carry us over the walls of confrontation and social disintegration.

To revive and return to the art of dialogue, and to multiply the number of participants in dialogue, is our first task as people of the 21st century.

What is Love?

Love is perhaps the most (ab)used word in the dictionary. Sometimes the most (a)voided and (ab)stained word, perhaps, too.

With some of the recent posts having mentioned this word, I thought it may be a good idea to try and see if I could share some of my realizations from experiments with and experiencing of love, just in case it provides some direction.

I will try to stay away from some of oft-heard profound expressions of love. Lest they are dismissed as "not-meant-for-us" "philosophy".

To me love, at its most basic level of manifestation, is the way to individualization. The energy which brings together the two parts of ourselves - the man & the woman - together to a unified whole.

At another level is dissolves the illusive physical boundaries to include others in ones own existence.

And finally, it is the energy that propels one to a state of absolute bliss as one transcends the physicality and emotionality of love to reach ones abode - a state of conscious awareness.

Intense love leaves no space for shame, guilt, condemnation or any of such fear-led emotions. It is about respecting ones freedom to be and let the other be - or even not to be. It is being released from the pressures to become and expectations of the other to become. It is being rendered to a state of surrendered existence. A state of humble spontaneity. A state of a magical presence, often awe-inspiring for others.

The oft understood implication of love has a lot to do with 'doing' something. Maybe, that's how the journey starts. However, it is being 'total' in the doing including being 'total' with ones inability to be 'total'.

The power of love makes a tiger and a sheep drink from the same pond. It makes co-existence of diverse and disparate entities possible.

Finally, it is about being loose and natural. Being at ease, even with ones dis-ease.

To conclude, let me offer a poem that I had written on my love :

My love is like the Sun

My love is like the Sun
It shines, on all
Making no
Differences

It is nourishing
Life-giving for some
And scorching, burning
For some others

The glare can be blinding
For some who
Experience it
Through its reflection

Those caught
In the paradox
Of the day and night
Are intrigued

By it’s illusory absence
When they move
To the ‘other’ side of
Life

My love is like the Sun
It shines, on all
Born out of the fire
Eternally burning
In my heart

May, 2006, Bangalore

A small little story

There was this man who saw a scorpion floundering around in the water. He decided to save it by stretching out his finger, but the scorpion stung him. The man still tried to get the scorpion out of the water, but the scorpion stung him again.

A man nearby told him to stop trying to save the scorpion that kept stinging him.

But the man said: "It is the nature of the scorpion to sting. It is my nature to love. Why should I give up my nature to love just because it is the nature of the scorpion to sting? He is giving me what he has;I will give him what I have."

Don't give up loving. Don't give up your goodness. Even if people around you sting!

If you can believe in Miracles

If you can believe in your heart that something wonderful is about to happen then you love your life,
If you can believe in your own powers and your own potential and in your own innate goodness and wake every morning with the awe of just being alive,
If you can discover each day the awesome beauty in the world and explore and embrace life in yourself and in everyone you see each day,
If you can reach within to find your own specialness and amaze yourself and those around you,

If you can admit that you are less than perfect and not be afraid to share these imperfections,
If you can let those who love you help you and trust enough to be able to take,
If you can look with hope to the horizon of today and live this day well,
If you can let a little sun out as well as in to create your own rainbows,
If you can believe in Miracles....

The journey-an adventure

The adventure is not in arriving; it's on the way experience...not the expected,it's the surprise. You are not choosing what you shall see in the world, but are giving the world an even chance to see you.

Let us all experience life... be on the journey, till we arrive at our destination.

Love and Conscious Evolution

We all know how it feels when we fall in love. Aint we ?

And then when we want this feeling to be re-created, we want to fall in love, again and again?

Aint we? As if, the trigger to awakening of the love within is outside of us.

To me, falling in love, is a reminder of the fact that I am Love. The substance that I am made of. The proof that it is here (not there). Now (not then). To me, it is about discovering the incessant wel-spring of life, our nourishment - that lies deeply embedded in our being. Or is it The Being, itself.

The fleeting feeling of transcendence, of unity, of surrender and of permanence of our ego brought about by an event of "falling in love" is perhaps an element of the Universal design to remind us that we are love. You are love, I am love and the very existence is Love.

The difference between the traveller (one who is journeying towards evolution) and the indolent seeker (one who is stuck in ones own quagmire of 'maya') is that the events of "falling in love", in case of the former quickly comes as a wake up call to the realization - 'It exists. In me. Uncaused. Unborn. Undying." And in the case of the later it becomes a search, a seeking, an inquiry: "Where is it coming from?", "Who / what is the source?" and "Do I find it in him or Him"? etc. etc.

Either way, their is hope. The traveller reaches sooner. transcending from falling in love to being in Love. The seeker keeps questioning and seeking till realizes that what he / she is seeking is The Sought.

And some of the seekers, may be, again by some Universal design remain stuck and persih.

None the less, if we were to ask ourselves, what is the most significant signt post to Conscious Evolution ... well dont you all feel it is Love?

Love that is silly, stupid and strange? Love that is sacred, mystic and awesome? Love, that is un-caused and eternal?

I have a bias. I am an agnostic. My faith is Love. What about you? Is your God love?Or is Love your God? Or, to be more precise, is Love godliness?

Will all of us evolve?

In my previous post I had spoken about "impending perishment" of some who are refusing to pay heed to what I call as "wake-up call" events in their lives. I have distinguished between these somnambulists and the ones who are, to say the least, listening.

Though deep inside there is a sense of disappointment, I have for quite some time justified perishment of some, believing that, systemically, that is the only way it will allow others, who are more ready, to evolve. Much in line with the classical theory of evolution.

I was pleasantly surprised to note that P D Ouspensky in one of his lectures has also touched upon this seemingly unjust design of evolution, though from a slightly diffrent perspective.

Here it goes:

Why cannot all men develop and become different beings? Why such an injustice?

The answer is very simple. Because they do not want it. Because they do not know about it and will not understand without a long preparation what it means, even if they are told.

The chief idea is that in order to become a different being man must want it very much and for a very long time. A passing desire or a vague desire based on dissatisfaction with external conditions will not create a sufficient impulse.

The evolution of man depends on his understanding of what he may get and what he must give for it.

If man does not want it, or if he does not want it strongly enough, and does not make necessary efforts, he will never develop. So there is no injustice in this. Why should man have what he does not want? If man were forced to become a different being when he is satisfied with what he is, then this would be injustice.

I wish I have more view points on this issue from the readers of this post. Never mind, even if it opposes what my beliefs are and Ouspensky's re-inforcement of the same.

About So'HaM

So'HaM in Sanskrit means, That I Am.

So'HaM has been envisaged as a kind of school, a sanctuary for those who have embarked or are getting ready to embark on their journey of human evolution, consciously.

Pre-human evolution was taken care of by nature. However, in our habitual obsession with our rational intelligence and belief that we can 'do' what 'we' want, we have not only insulated ourselves from the all-pervasive evolutionary dynamics of the Existence, we also seem to have divorced ourselves from the roots of our 'being' in the Nature.

The good news, however, is that, whether we want it or not, are aware of it or not, evolution continues. To me, it clearly distinguishes those who continue to go around in circles, like dogs chasing their tails, oblivious and unconscious of the impending perishment (I feel sad that the numbers are astronomical) from those (few), who in their own ways are perceptive to all the noise around them and are often stopping by to listen to the premordial silence underlying all the chaos of survival.

So'HaM is meant for the later.

I am aware of 'my' egoic needs of making So'HaM happen. The need to 'do' it 'right', by the 'right' time, with the 'right' kind of people. I am conscious of my egoic designs to take charge and control. And in my awareness I see this need-led design mirculously dissolve allowing the existential design to prevail.

Kindred souls from all walks of life and across the globe are gravitating. We are sharing our purpose and passion and supplementing each other. Proposals for adoption of villages are coming forth. And volunteering for funds also seem to be in the offing.

I am just being a spectator - to the bliss and joy of the unfolding as much as to the process of unfolding itself.

I await your inclusion.