When I Am Not Happy, I Do Not Know the Truth

 Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodha is a phrase that I am very drawn to, lately. It means yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind. 

We, keep on seeking something, something to relieve our suffering and something to give us pleasure. However, in this constant endeavour, we miss out on the essence of ourselves. Our essence itself is joy, love, peace, and fulfilment. Hence, we are never satisfied- can not be satisfied because no experience can match up to this experience of our core or essence on a consistent basis. 

Hum Rahe Ya Na Rahe Kal

Kal Yaad Aayenge Yeh Pal

Pal Yeh Hain Pyaar Ke Pal

Chal Aa Mere Sang Chal

Chal Soche Kya

Chhoti Si Hai Zindagi

Kal Mil Jaaye To

Hogi Khushnaseebi ~

These lyrics strings a chord in my heart but then at the same time, it is great teaching. Moments come and go, nothing lasts. However, something that is always available to me is my own self. It is like a flower that is always in bloom. It is beautiful, colorful, and fragrant. That is the quality of myself, that I carry around. 

One more concept that I have understood and believe to be true is that when I am not happy, I do not know the truth. When I feel a negative emotion, I am far away from experiencing my own self and perceiving the truth. 

They say truth can be bitter. But, I don't believe that. One cannot know the truth with limited awareness. In fact, one cannot know everything, always. We are limited by time and space. 

But in reality, as per the post-Einstein understanding, all moments exist at once. There is past, present, and future, in fact, we are moving through them, but they exist together at the same time. Our subconscious and unconscious minds move through them in ways and speeds that we do not understand logically or consciously. The whole world is working on a conscious level, which is limited to rationality. Many times, we work even without rationality. However, rationality is also limited. 

States of pleasure dramatically alter our state of mind, however coming out of it, may bring sense of wastefulness. This is because, what we could experience independent of the material world, we have experienced being dependent on it. However, pleasure may allow us to think or feel on a much higher level than what  our rationality or the regular states of mind may allow. 

So, consciousness, rationality, and the way we feel are all connected and go together. 

When we go higher in one of them, we go higher in others as well. However, rationality is different from science. Science is limited but actual experiments. However, rationality can deduce without having to do physical experiments. 

The forms of yoga- are karma (action), bhakti (devotion), raja (discipline ), and jnana (knowledge). All these paths have a different share of rationality and emotion. 

Sat - chit- ananda = existence- consciousness- bliss

This phrase on its own explains why one cannot have a negative emotion when one is aware of the truth. The state of awareness is directly proportional to the way we feel. 

So, no path is better or worse, all meet at the same end and meet one another, eventually. Hence, everything turns out good in the end. This is not because it turns out good in the end (as per our current understanding of good). Rather it is that we ultimately reach complete awareness in the end. Bodhisattvas or sages come back again and again to uplift humanity because of their compassion. We are one family and those who have reached are waiting for us with patience and compassion. They want us to experience the bliss that they do constantly. It is said that Shiva was the first yogi who came to do this. 

Vibration precedes manifestation. It means that nothing comes into existence before it vibrates. It has been proved by science that matter is a wave as well as a particle. According to Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev,  even the bubble chamber experiment proves that subatomic particles appear and disappear multiple times in a very short period of time. It proves what Buddha said as per Sadguru. He said that he realized that between the time of opening and closing of his eyes (a blink of an eye), he appeared and disappeared a million times. 

All this I have not experienced. However, I know one thing for sure. There is a lot to feel, understand, know, and experience. I also know that heaven or hell is basically our state of mind. It is not called a state of mind for nothing. I believe that awareness and emotion are intimately linked and cannot state be delinked. A rising of one raises another. 💛

Lean In, Dear Women

'Lean In; Women, Work, and the will to lead.' is an internationally bestselling book by Sheryl Sandberg  (Chief Operating Officer of Facebook). I thank my teacher, friend, and mentor Jyoti Pradeep ma'am for lending it to me. 😇

The book hits the nail on the head regarding the lower status of women and their disempowerment. I am proud that being a successful leader herself, she has used her position for the empowerment of women throughout her life as well as through the book. The book is thoroughly researched, excellently written, easy to read and I am sure will touch every reader's heart.

In my opinion, every human must read this book and it is as imperative as it is to know the Law. I say this because, it is essential for everyone to become aware of the facts of the current so-called 'modern' society, polity, and economy. Only an aware individual would function in life always considering the 'woman question and be gender-sensitive. 

I was compelled to note down some quotes from the book. All of these are from the last chapter titled-'Working Together Toward Equality'. 

Following are some of my favorite quotes from the book.:-

1. "Equal opportunity is not equal unless everyone receives the encouragement that makes seizing those opportunities possible. Only then can both men and women achieve their full potential ".

2. "Women who want to take two weeks off ... or two days off... or two years ...or twenty years deserve everyone's full support".

3. " Because the vast majority of leaders are men, it is not possible to generalize from any one example. But the dearth of female leaders causes one woman to be viewed as representative of her entire generation ".

4. "In the 1970s, this phenomenon was common enough that the term "queen bee" was used to describe a woman who flourished in a leadership role, especially in male-dominated industries, and who used her position to keep other female "worker bees" down. For some, it was simple self-preservation. For others, it reflected their coming of age in a society that believed men were superior to women ". 

5. " Women's negative views of female coworkers are often seen as an objective assessment- more credible than the views of men"

6. " Society has long undervalued the contributions of those who work without salary ".

7. "Mothers who work outside the home should regard mothers who work inside the home as real workers. And mothers who work inside the home should be equally respectful of those choosing another option ".

8. "Expectations will not be set by gender but by personal passion, talents and interests ". 

9. "...These policies can have severe consequences; families with no access to paid family leave often go into debt and call fall into poverty. Part-time jobs with fluctuating schedules offer little chance to plan and often stop short of the forty-hour week that provides basic benefits ". 

10. " We must raise both the ceiling and the floor ". 

11. " More female leadership will lead to fairer treatment for all women. Shared experience forms the basis of empathy and, in turn, can spark the institutional changes we need ". 

12. " If we push hard now, this next wave can be the last wave. In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders ".  

13. 'When Gloria Steinem marched in the streets to fight for the opportunities that so many of us now take for granted, she quoted Susan B. Anthony, who marched in the streets before her and concluded, " Our job is not to make young women grateful. It is to make them ungrateful so they keep going ".'   

 

14. " I believe women can lead more in the workplace. I believe men can contribute more in the home. And I believe that this will create a better world, where half our institutions are run by women and half our homes are run by men ".