7 Billion World Religions

There are now 7 billion people in the world, and thus there are also 7 billion world religions, since each person on Earth has their own way of life, their own perspective, their own ideology, their own ethics, their own understanding.

We may claim that we are part of a particular religion, but the truth is that we see and experience that religion in a completely unique way to every other person. It is simply the ego which wants to keep things together, and just like human beings, even a religion has an ego that needs to be satisfied by asserting its distinct identity.

Yes - we may have some commonalities of understanding and we may think we believe in the same thing, and we may do some daily rituals or prayers which are the same, but that is not what defines a religion. A religion, a country, a nation is defined not by a mere title, but instead by our own perspective of that religion. HOW WE SEE THAT RELIGION THROUGH OUR OWN EYES!

For example, some may think Sikhism is a religion, but some take it to be a spiritual way of life which is compatible with other religions. Perspective changes everything. Therefore, what ultimately binds us together is not our religion, but our humanity.

I repeat: what binds us together is not our religion, but our HUMANITY. The very fact that we are from the same species, developing ourselves as human beings, is enough commonality for us to collect together as one Earth, one world, hand-in-hand, each a brother and a sister to one another. As one world we are stronger, as 'apparently' separate religions we are weaker.

There is nothing wrong with groups of people with common beliefs coming together as a religion - in fact we should encourage it as any togetherness is good - but ultimately as individuals we can never truly be defined by our religion as we are each totally unique individuals with totally different ways of life, different perspectives, ideologies, ethics and understanding to everybody else. It is this very variety and uniqueness in us which gives rise to the entire beauty of life.

It is in the variety of being human, and also in the commonality of being human, that we can learn to flourish as a society, as a world, as a humanity.

So let us see beyond our titles of religion and country, and unite together in our humanity - the rest of the Universe's nations are waiting for us to do so.

Sat Naam.

Osho on Vegetarian Food

Focus, And It Will Grow

Anything we focus on will grow.

Anything we take our focus away from will die.

For example, in order to build up a company, it requires intense focus. The focus itself is enough to make the company succeed. But, as soon as one's eye is off the ball, as soon as we stop focussing on it and are distracted by other things, the company will soon begin to die a slow death.

Another good example is relationships. Relationships which we put time and effort into will succeed, but if a person does not have a work-life balance, then either work will have more focus or life will have more focus (but usually it is work) and one will slowly begin to die. Therefore, balance is required.

I remember when I was working for 3M Health Care, my manager Ammer once told me that if you have lots of projects on the go, the trick is to keep all the plates spinning at the same time. Every plate must spin at the same time, so as soon as one plate is beginning to slow down, it's our job to put a burst of activity into it and keep it spinning. If one plate falls, chances are it will distract us too much, and then the rest of the plates will fall too. This is how people's worlds often come crashing down.

So...focus, and it will grow, and remember to keep all the plates spinning at the same time!

;)

Free Christmas eBook - The Illusion of Power (RRP: £4.99)

To all those who have gone on the NLA FREE 8 Week Course in Self Improvement, I have offered one of my books called The Illusion of Power for free. I'm now extending this free eBook offer to all of you this Christmas as a present from me which you can share with all your loved ones.

"The Illusion of Power eBook contains a set of 168 spiritual realisations, in the form of quotes, written by Jasdeep Hari Bhajan Singh Khalsa through his spiritual journey. Some of the quotes are humorous, some profound, some business related, and some are just very down to earth level-headed advice – but all share one thing in common: they are entirely original."

Download here now, Merry Christmas!

Quote of the Day - Happiness

"If you want to be sad, no one in the world can make you happy. But if you make up your mind to be happy, no one and nothing on earth can take that happiness from you."

Paramhansa Yogananda

Dr Savi Interview with Jasdeep & Onkardeep Singh Khalsa

Interview by Dr Savi Arora.

Purchase Spiritual Poetry: A Disciple's Journey today!

Quote of the Day - Socrates on Life

The unexamined life is not worth living

Socrates

Spiritual Ego

Image originally posted by Spirit Voyage

Jasdeep Hari Bhajan Singh Khalsa Sikh Channel Interview

Quote of the Day - Say What You Feel

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."

Dr. Seuss

3 Types of People in Life

My name's Jasdeep Hari Bhajan Singh Khalsa, and I am as much a humanist as I am a technology enthusiast. By humanism, what I mean is how to live as a human being, and by technology enthusiast, I mean I regret being born in 1988 instead of 2088.

The question of what it means to be human has pervaded the deepest parts of my psyche and my heart ever since I can remember. It's always been something I continually assess in every moment of my life. I just can't stop thinking about this topic: what makes people tick? What makes people from unfortunate circumstances successful, and what makes people from fortunate circumstances unsuccessful? What makes the poor happy with the little they have, and what makes the rich unhappy with the lot they have? It's really in the contradictions that one finds all the keys to the Universe.

It's all a mystery ultimately. I don't have the answers, and yet, that is the best answer. I don't believe that God exists, and yet I am God and God is me. I don't believe the Truth can be spoken of, and yet only in the spoken word can there be truth. By letting go, we find. By giving up God, God comes to us. Ultimately, I have come to a few key conclusions.

There are three types of people: 1. those who are too inactive/lazy. 2. those who are too proactive/action orientated. 3. those who fit into neither of those categories, but just like water adapt to both situations just as well. In Sanskrit, these three types of people are known as tamo, raja and sattva. Tamosic people are too lazy to strive for their goal. Rajistic people want to achieve their goal quickly. Sattvic people understand that they ARE the goal. I'm sorry to say, that neither Tamosic, nor Rajistic people have understood reality.

Reality is like water, since water knows itself, it can adapt to any situation - whether it requires one to be laid back or take a lead - every way is valid. On the other hand, Rajistic people are always the leaders, and they escape their emptiness, low self esteem through activity and being busy. Tamosic people believe they cannot make a difference in the world and are therefore waiting around for things to happen, letting the Rajistic people do all the work. Rajistic people get very annoyed with Tamosic people, because they think laziness is wrong. Equally though the Tamosic people think their activity is wrong because it hides their loneliness, their lack of self worth, and makes them act like they are someone they are not. Sattvic people watch all the drama of the Tamosic people and the Rajistic people and laugh at the absurdity of it all - for in reality - there is no right and wrong.

Rajistic people run all over the world trying to do something, and everyone thinks they are really successful, go-getters, all whilst the Tamosic people sit at home watching telly and eating take out food, and everyone thinks they are lazy, useless. The only way to be is no way. There are times for activity, and there are times for laziness. Each has its time. A Sattvic person recognises their inner nature, conquers their inner loneliness and lack of self worth which drives them to become either leaders or followers, understands the value of activity and non-activity, and understands that in order to understand one must not take anything seriously, especially life. That it's all alright in the end.

Sat Naam.

Quote of the Day - Giving

No one has ever become poor by giving

Anne Frank

Programming Is Orgasmic

This is true for me at least ;). I know this isn't a technology blog, and programming is probably the farthest from Self-Help as one can imagine, however, I needed to share this so instead of starting a new blog on technology, I'm going to bore some of you with my techy speak. Too bad - feel free to unsubscribe at any time ;)

I only just learnt to program in JavaScript, and I can say that I'm on cloud 300 million right now! (cloud computing lol - did you get the geeky joke?). It's the feeling of being able to create exactly what you want on a computer. In order to create on a computer, you have to learn how computers speak - you have to learn THEIR language. Until two days ago, I did not know how elegant JavaScript was as a language. It's like the French of computing languages.

I also feel this very strongly: everybody should learn basic programming. It should be compulsory like Mathematics or English. It's such a core skill since all of our lives are now on computers. We hardly exist offline these days! Programming can also enrich many subject areas like physics, psychology, mathematics, art, business studies, languages - since one needs to know a little about all these areas in order to produce useful programs. The possibilities which open up when one knows how to program are ENDLESS!

I have wanted to learn programming for soooooooo long, and you people who read this blog religiously may remember that my 2011 resolution was to become a decent Python programmer. I also talked about doing, rather than waiting for things to happen. Somehow, it ALWAYS seems to work out that I end up completing everything on my to do list, even if I never look back at the to do list. It's as if, when I write something down, it goes deep into my subconscious and my mind subconsciously begins working on solving and creating the things I wrote down into reality.

Well, I suppose that's only half-true. I'm not a decent Python programmer, but I am (and that feeling of deja-vu swarms over me yet AGAIN whilst writing this) a much better a programmer than I was 1 year ago. In fact, I just started a software company called KhalsaSoft.

The feeling of creating a program that works is absolutely orgasmic! Especially since I have struggled for around 12 years to create one. But to be fair, I only struggled because I never really tried to go on a course to learn programming, nor tried to find a tutor. All I did was buy a few programming books, which I never read. I learnt later on that I'm a visual learner, so at the advent of YouTube, learning anything for me became much easier.

By the way, if you DO want to learn programming I totally recommend The New Boston by Bucky Roberts: http://thenewboston.org/. He's a really down to earth, young and witty programmer who is sure to make you laugh several times as you learn to program step-by-step. This is how I learnt basic JavaScript in just two days (with a little pre-requisite knowledge of computing concepts and no distractions), and also basic Python in around 2 weeks. Also, use this website religiously: http://www.w3schools.com/

If you're a complete newbie to programming follow this sequence of learning programming languages. Once you've got the hang of one, move onto the next:

1. HTML/XHTML - For creating simple web pages
2. CSS - For styling web pages beautifully
3. JavaScript and/or JQuery - For creating advanced interactive web pages
4. Python and/or PHP - For doing more heavy stuff

A final note to connect all of this mumbo jumbo to Self-Help is that the future is only going to become more and more computerised. We almost NEED to know some basic programming, so we can create some basic scripts in Excel, in Word, in a browser: to ultimately simplify and automate our lives, reduce our stress and increase the time we have for actually living a life we want, full of quality, richness and love.

Sat Naam.

Simple Rules of Business

Business in my eyes is pretty simple.

It's all about margins. You have to sell something for more than it costs you to purchase. If you do this, your business will be profitable, and the higher you can sell for than it costs you to purchase, the richer you'll be. However, this requires you to produce quality services and products, as only quality sells for a high price.

I was thinking today of an analogy. As humans we naturally look for good quality in products and services. We ALSO look for good quality in people. If a person doesn't have any good qualities, we naturally will devalue them in our minds. For example, if a person has no integrity, does not keep to their word, we will not trust them. If a person is very dominating, we will devalue them and maybe even resort to secretly swearing at them behind their backs. On the other hand, if a person is sweet, humble, caring, confident, assertive, kind, funny, a good communicator, trustworthy: naturally we will have HUGE value for them and a high opinion of them.

Let's think of another fictitious example. Say we always shop at M&S for our food and their quality is always excellent. Now let's suppose that on just one occasion, ONE OCCASION, we find the food we bought is mouldy. We may never feel like shopping at M&S again because there has been one occasion where they have not lived up to their values. Similarly, with human beings, all it takes is ONE OCCASION where we do not act with high quality, high morals, integrity and in the eyes of the other person we will have no value, no more trust left. All its takes is ONE OCCASION to lose all value.

What do we take from this? We must remember to do the right thing always, and not cut corners. It's easy to cut corners, its difficult to keep up quality. But remember this: quality sells for a high price, has a high margin, and ultimately leads to becoming rich...a bit like in business ;)

Download the free 120 Factors of Spiritual Development report today which lists all the qualities of a human being.

Sat Naam.