Quote of the Day - Worry

Chintah Nah Kar

"Do Not Worry"

Jasdeep Hari Bhajan Singh Khalsa

The Mentally, Emotionally and Spiritually Balanced Woman

Article By Ek Ong Kaar Kaur Khalsa from http://www.spiritvoyage.com/blog/index.php/the-mentally-emotionally-and-spiritually-balanced-woman/

In my meditation lately, I have been reflecting on the extraordinary changes that have happened in the social life of women during the last hundred years. The gains that have been made, and the road still to travel.

It was 1920 when women received the right to vote in the United States. The word birth control wasn't part of our everyday vocabulary until the 1930's. The events of the 20th century have been a continual expansion of those horizons. Decade after decade, women have gained more access to health care, to education, to career opportunities and to political power.

Within my own life, I can see the incredible difference between what has been available to me and what was available to my mother and grandmothers. I am a single, college-educated woman with my own home. By the grace of the Divine, I earn a reasonable living doing something I love and enjoy. All of this would have been more difficult to achieve if I had been born 20 years earlier. Women in my time experience privileges that women for thousands of years have never been able to access. Even now, in large portions of the world, many millions are still denied those freedoms.

Yet sometimes it is easy to forget that even the most privileged woman today carries within her the psychological scars of generations past. The scars that come from centuries of women being considered less than human. While I enjoy economic mobility, education, and legal protections that my ancestors did not have, this does not necessarily translate to having a better emotional, mental or spiritual life. Creating a society that allows women to come out of poverty and dependence is just the first step. When it comes to a woman claiming her full humanity, there are even more steps to take.

There is a great teaching in Kundalini Yoga that when you work on yourself and face your inner-negativity and problems, you liberate seven generations before you and seven generations ahead of you. Why is this true? Because the burden we carry in our subconscious minds comes from the last seven generations. Survival patterns, personality imbalances, belief systems - whatever blocks us from experiencing our pure selves doesn't start with us. It started seven generations ago. Whatever happened to our great-great-great-great-great-grand parents; whatever traumas they had to endure; whatever coping mechanisms they created; all of that got passed down and refined from one generation to another until it landed in our own subconscious.

When you think about it, it becomes rather daunting. What a person faces in his or her sadhana, the darkness and the shadows, is the psychological burden of hundreds of years of human history. No wonder it can be such hard work. Think about all the wars that have been waged. The times of famine. The rape of women. All the destructive acts that humans have committed against each other. Think about how you are the result of those people who somehow managed to survive all of it. Whatever unresolved pain, whatever defenses they created to survive, live inside of you. The difference is that when you practice Kundalini Yoga, you have the chance to cut through all of it and clear it out of your genetic line.

That is what we do when we develop a steady practice of Kundalini Yoga. That is what we fight every day on the battlefield of the subconscious mind. Can we break through all of those blocks, and experience our pure, authentic truth? Or are we condemning ourselves and our children to repeating the patterns of the past? On a collective level, that fight is, to me, the battle for the future of the human race.

In the last couple generations, we have begun to see what it looks like for women to live with economic dignity and self-determination. But we are still pioneers when it comes to women and men being raised with mental, emotional and spiritual balance. I know this is the work of the future. While I can enjoy economic privileges that did not exist in the past, it doesn't mean that I or the sisters of my generation escaped other types of abuse and oppression. The work ahead is to create a world where the physical and psychological attacks against women that can happen in the family and at other levels of society become as outdated as denying women access to education.

After spending the last 20 years engaged in my own battle with the subconscious, I wish I could say, "Yes. All of those things are healed now and I am just fine." But that is not the truth. The truth is that me and the shadows in my mind have come to an understanding of sorts. I know ultimately I can't get rid of them. Those experiences exist for a reason. But I also know that if I work with my mind consciously, I have many more choices about what to do when the shadows come along and try to take over. I have given up on the idea that mental, emotional and spiritual balance means being fine all the time. Rather, I have come to embrace a definition that being mentally, emotionally and spiritually balanced means being fine some days. And having an amazing set of tools to use when the darkness in myself, which is also the darkness of the last seven generations, decides to visit.

If I can give the future a chance to fight through a little less darkness in their own subconscious than I inherited in mine, then I will consider that a life well lived.

With Divine Light,

Ek Ong Kaar Kaur

Modern Politics and Mahabharat

After having read a lot of the Bhagavad Gita and seen the whole of Mahabharat, this post will act as my summary, which I shall also try to relate to modern politics, government and society. Sorry its not in a very readable format, but my guess is that only those who really want to know will read it anyway:

• The downfall of a society is marked by four signs: corruption within politics, the mistreating of women, people bringing children into the world who are not looked after with proper attention, and the overwork and underpay (hunger) of a society
1. When corruption comes within politics, the entire country is destroyed and war is the result. Every politician and citizen should put their country before themselves and actively contribute to the welfare of their country. In modern times, most people are selfish and only look after their own needs and never consider their contribution to their country
2. Women are the heart and blood of any society, and their protection and welfare should be the most important focus of any government. Any person who dishonours a woman has dishonoured the entire of womankind and will be destroyed by God
3. A parent's duty is to bring up children with good values and respect for others. Parents which do not have the time to bring up their children have committed a great sin by bringing a child into a world which does not care about them. Also a parent should never give their children their ambitions, but allow the child to find their own path in life, otherwise it results in anger and self-destruction
4. Anger arises within a society which is over-worked and hungry, and where the poor are over taxed and the rich not taxed enough. A society should be well fed, and people should only be taxed according to what they can afford
• Gambling can have a hold over a human being and destroy his intelligence. A lot of banking and stock market trading is like legalised gambling which ultimately leads to the destruction of society. Banking is not a horse which can be tamed by rules, it must be totally reinvented to bring the welfare of society into its core purpose instead of money.
• Truth, devotion, humility and forgiveness are the highest human ideals which should be practised at every stage of life. Truth means never speaking a lie and having integrity at every level of life. Devotion means having a focus of love, whether a project, God or a Guru. Humility means treating one's own parents, elders and teachers with respect. Forgiveness means to forgive yourself and the mistakes and wrongs others have done to you
• Even the most righteous person can fall under temptation of six things which completely destroy a human's intelligence and the ability to think with clarity:
• (1) greed (gambling or running after wealth)
• (2) lust (uncontrolled sexual activity)
• (3, 4) anger and jealousy (towards yourself or others who have insulted you)
• (5) attachment (to assets, friends, family, partners) and
• (6) ego (always thinking about yourself before society, or caring too much about what people think of you)
• Our mind, desires and senses should always be kept under our own control through:
• (1) knowledge (gyan) - by understanding that the aim of life is learning to conquer these desires, that we are inherently abundant even without anything, life is about learning to remain steady through both sorrow and happiness and continue doing one's duty in spite of it so any thought or desire which is wrong or harmful should be discarded just like a conspiring employee is fired
• (2) action (karam) - by practising self-restraint, meditation and selfless service
• Action is better than no action - and all action should be selflessly done without desiring the reward or worrying about the outcome, but rather focussing on doing your duty in the present moment to the best of your ability
• Two atomic bombs should never be used as they could destroy the whole world [Correction 06/03/2012]

Looking For More Money, Health, Love?

In this world it's easy to start to think that one is poor, lacking or does not have enough of something.

We feel unsuccessful in our lives, and success seems far away.

This is partly because we are thinking incorrectly about our life.

Instead of thinking we lack something we should start to understand that OUR LIFE HAS EVERYTHING IN IT THAT IT NEEDS. So there is no need to desire something more. It is this desire for more or better that creates a block in us receiving more or better. The irony is, that if we give up the desire for more, we start to receive more. The more we want or demand more, the less we receive.

So instead of thinking that our life lacks something, let us start to repeat the mantra "I am an abundance of love, health and wealth". Constantly repeat this mantra, believe it, embody it as the truth, that YOU ARE THE SOURCE OF EVERYTHING. Then that what you want, you have to learn to be the source of it.

For example, if you want to be wealthy, you have to imagine that you are already wealthy and start to give away some of your money. Even if you only have a little money left, give it away to somebody even less fortunate than you are. Donate. Help others out who are in financial difficulty. Start to live like you are wealthy and that you do not lack money. This is the secret to wealth and prosperity.

Similarly, the secret to happiness is to become the source of it. The secret to health is to become the source of it. This change in mind-set should be complemented with practical changes in lifestyle. A change in mind-set is nothing without action in the real world. So act like you are love, health, wealth and happiness and these are the things will start to show up in your life. The mantra can be modified to fit your particular situation.

Sat Naam.

Quote of the Day - Being Enough

"If you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it"

Cool Runnings

Quote of the Day - Happiness

"The time you waste in logic, reason, argument, fantasies, all that—that’s a waste of happiness"

Yogi Bhajan

Free Is The New Paid

These days, everything good is free.

For example, I recently switched to using Linux Ubuntu - a FREE Operating System: http://www.ubuntu.com/ which I found to be extremely user friendly, secure and a darn sight faster than Windows. So not only is it free, its actually better than Windows!

Ubuntu also included free 5GB of online backup space for all my files. The word processor is LibreOffice, which is free and compatible with Microsoft Office. And if there are some Windows applications I absolutely need to use (not that I have needed to so far as there are equally good free alternatives), I can always install Wine, which is also FREE, or simulate a virtual environment through VirtualBox. Nowadays fonts, clip-art, high-quality images which I use in documents are all free too. Heck, even this blog is free. So, what more could I possibly ask for? So, it's time to throw away Microsoft Windows, as well as a lot of other programs or services that we pay for!

I'd like to say a quote: free is the new paid.

Free things now have just as much quality as things we would normally pay for. So all our standards and expectations are now MUCH much higher than they used to be. This is having some interesting knock-on effects. For businesses, offering free material, free goods, free products, free services, free give-aways has become essential, but these free things must also be the BEST or they will be rejected. The exception to this is if a product is of such higher calibre or under some legal patent that it could no way be made available for free or replicated, for example an Apple iPhone or a Dyson.

Actually, this is an important point. Apple iPhone's software rival is Google Android, which is free software and (arguably) Google Android is better than iPhone's software, however, iPhone's hardware (the phone itself) is (arguably) better than the hardware of most phones which ship with Android. In other words, although the digital world has become free and high quality, we still have to pay for quality in the physical world.

Otherwise, even Pfizer offer free samples of their drugs, Microsoft offer free trials of their software, Banks offer 0% interest on loans and credit cards, Google offer Search and Gmail (to name a few), and even Facebook & Twitter is completely free to join, use and abuse.

So free stuff is used to either:

1. rope people into buying the actual product or additional add-ons, or
2. the actual product is free and monetized in other ways e.g. advertising

This leaves only a few essential things left to buy and pay for in the physical world:

• food (sustenance)
• government taxation/rates (duty to the country)
• house utilities bills/rent/mortgage (shelter)
• mobile/telephone/TV/internet services (communications)
• vehicle insurance/running costs (travel)

Living in the modern world is therefore not as expensive as it used to be, as the most essential services (a lot of which are digital) we pay for are increasingly becoming free, and businesses which try to find out how to make stuff we pay for today free, will be very successful in this modern age of business.

Why Do Action? Lord Krishna Explains [Video]

Love Yourself

People begin to feel depressed, sad, down when they forget to love themselves. And loving yourself is the easiest thing, and doesn't cost a dime either. Try this:

Bow down fully with your forehead on the ground, as if your body is in complete submission. Stay in this position for a few minutes and keep the palms of your hands open - facing upwards - to create the effect of letting go.

After a few minutes of doing this. Come into cross-legged position or kneeling on both legs - put both your hands on your heart. Close your eyes. Repeat the mantra "I love myself, I love myself, I love myself". Keep repeating and feeling your heart. See how everything changes after a few moments. Let your heart expand, flood with love.

So if you ever feel down, know that you should take some time out to love yourself and dwell in that state of love. The more you do this, the more love you will have to share with the world, the more your relationships will work, the less selfish you'll become.

Sat Naam.

Anand Sahib Brings Joy

The Anand Sahib, written by the third Sikh Guru, Guru Amar Das Ji, brings a peace, stillness and joy even if a person is in a lot of emotional or physical turmoil.

It seems strange and unintuitive at first that just 40 stanzas of poetry and song could totally transform a human being's state of mind, however, this is the reason why the Anand Sahib was formulated. Its a formula for joy. Happiness and sorrow are both temporary. Happiness is born and eventually dies. Sorrow is born and eventually dies. Buy joy is our very nature of our being, our soul.

Only a person who constantly lives as their being-self rather than their physical-self, can know how to access the being within the human being.

A human being is not a body, a human being is a being which consists of electromagnetic energy which is constantly in flux, in a vortex of sub-energies called Chakras. The human being is the total sum of these seven vortexes of energy, also known as the aura and arc line. The arc line is the membrane of the aura, which protects it from intrusion.

The Anand Sahib strengthens the arc line, expands the aura, and balances the seven Chakras and it also turns the mind inwards to focus on the being rather than all the external distractions and attachments of life. So the Anand Sahib is a solution for the mind and the being.

Don't believe me? Listen to it for yourself:

• http://www.sikher.com/wiki/sikh-scriptures/nitnem/anand-sahib

God Is Your Best Friend?

Nowadays people are very confused about the entire concept of God. Some think God does not exist and all there is is nothingness, some think God does exist but is unreachable to ever truly know, and some think God does exist and is with us always.

Whatever your belief about God may be, the truth is that God is both a concept in our minds and also a reality.

Whatever we think God is, that is how God appears to us. If we think God is Jesus Christ, God appears to us as Jesus. If we think God is Lord Ganesh, the elephant God, then God appears to us as Ganesh. If we think God is Krishna, God appears to us as Krishna. If we think God is nothing, God appears to us as nothing. If we think God does not exist at all, God will not appear to us, as He does not want to disrespect our belief systems. It is up to us to discover him.

Therefore, in order to see God, feel God, talk to God, experience God, we must first give up our concept about Him. And I use the word "Him" not to suggest God is male or female, but just for convenience. Everything we think we know about God could be false, so we have to give it up first. It may not be false, but nevertheless we must give it up in order to be sure that all falsity has been dropped.

After we have given up our concept about God, which is usually tied to a particular religious tradition, then we must explore God in a new fresh way: innocently like a child. Just like on Earth we have friends that we love innocently, similarly God should become another one of our friends that we love innocently. We should be able to feel God's prescene, hear God's words, negotiate with God, ask him for advice, give him advice, and know that God is always there as our friend: all the normal things people do with ordinary friends, why should our relationship to God be any different? You never go begging to a friend, so why go begging to God?

Friends are different to family, because although we know family is always there too, family is sometimes there out of compulsion because one is related by blood. With friends however, friends have chosen to be with each other, to love each other. Choosing love makes it more truthful, more intense, more real, more innocent, more beautiful. Similarly, we have to choose God to be our friend, be open to him, take his advice now and again, shout at him sometimes, be playful with him. And even if we are angry with him because of the affairs of the world and even if we reject him, still he will not reject us, he will always be there when we are ready to be friends again with him. He is sweet and innocent. He is 50% of our being, the other 50% is out own personality and ego.

Every other relationship in this world is temporary, but a relationship to our Source, our God within is permanent and lasts even when we pass over into the other world. If we can aim to see God within all people, and love that God within all people, then this is the ultimate state of 'being in the world yet beyond it'. Read this hymn from the Guru Granth Sahib:

Aasaa, Fifth Mehl: The mortal revels in joy, in the vigor of youth; but without the Name, he mingles with dust. ||1|| He may wear ear-rings and fine clothes, and have a comfortable bed, and his mind may be so proud. ||1||Pause|| He may have elephants to ride, and golden umbrellas over his head; but without devotional worship to the Lord, he is buried beneath the dirt. ||2|| He may enjoy many women, of exquisite beauty; but without the sublime essence of the Lord, all tastes are tasteless. ||3|| Deluded by Maya, the mortal is led into sin and corruption. Nanak seeks the Sanctuary of God, the All-powerful, Compassionate Lord. ||4||4||55||

Guru Granth Sahib - Page 385

Let us remember death always, let us befriend God who is 50% of us, and let us befriend ourselves.

Sat Naam.

All of Life's Answers [Video]

In this episode of the Mahabharat, Yudhishtar, the eldest of the Pandava brothers, gives an answer to all life's questions to a Yaksha, which is a nature-spirit that resides over the lake of water they come to drink from. Watch and be amazed...

Human Tendencies and Evolution of Being

Humans do not realise things usually until its too late.

Humans have a tendency to forget, to delay, to put things off.

Humans have an ego, an identity, an individuality which must be protected.

Each quality of a human being has a positive and negative outcome.

For example, the outcome of talking bluntly is that some people may not like receiving blunt advice, it hurts their ego, instead they would prefer moving at their own pace. But often if people are left to their own devices, they may not face themselves at all – due to the tendencies of human nature – to forget, to delay, to put things off.

A trade-off is therefore required.

The trade-off is to mix opposites together, to form a new mix of 'being'. Instead of talking bluntly, it can be mixed with its opposite, talking lovingly and sweetly. This forms a new type of being – a person who can talk bluntly to get through to others and tell them where they are going wrong, and at the same time, when the ego has been brought to its limit, the advice can be tempered with sweetness to massage the ego back to health, to respect the ego, to respect the individual.

Wherever possible, opposite forms of being should be mixed to create a third, more effective type with all of the positives, whilst minimising the negatives. It is these types of being which should be passed down to the next generation for further refinement., just like in genetic engineering. Overtime, with each generation of more and more effective ways of being, the human race shall be greatly enriched, happier and effective. In fact, the human race will totally transform beyond our wildest dreams into something so beautiful that it shall be the envy of the Universe.

My vision is to contribute whatever I can to bring about this new human race, this new human being. I am not alone however in my quest and nor the first to embark upon it, all the ancient sages, saints and enlightened beings have contributed to this body of work throughout time – it is the most ancient science, the first science.

My work is simply to restate the eternal teachings and shine a modern light on them to make them applicable to everyday life, understandable and actionable. To summarise the teachings which work and the ones which do not because they were bound by time and space, and have therefore expired. In other words, I am reframing the eternal teachings for the modern world.

The human heart is the most sought after commodity in the Universe, because its inherent potential to feel and experience the energy of love, is more powerful than any civilisation which has ever occurred before us. The human heart is an anomaly born out of total chaos with the potential for total harmony.

The Sikh way of life is an integral part of the formula to human harmony. The Sikh Scriptures, known as the Shabad Guru, the Shri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, contains within its pages the music which awakens the complete potential of the human heart. No other religion before Sikhism has come up with such an effective formula for the modern world to awaken the human heart, all whilst living an ordinary human life. Sikhism is the missing piece of the puzzle for achieving world peace and a blueprint to a lifestyle which develops one's being and remains eternal in its teachings.

By Jasdeep Hari Bhajan Singh Khalsa - 09/01/2012

Quote of the Day - Love

In the face of love, all arguments fall

By Guru's Grace -  JHBSK - 18/01/2012

Plea To The Guru

Oh Lord, in this Dark Age of the Kaliyuga, all morality has declined,
And with it I feel the separation from my Source.
I see that people have forgotten their values, their history, their traditions,
I see that people are in doubt about life and the spiritual realms, about the path of the Guru.
I hope that I may be your instrument to bring the pure light back to the world,
I hope that may you give me your grace so I can play my part.
I now see both the hope and the despair of this human race,
Some are in the brightest day and others in the darkest night of the Soul.
I see people have too much jealousy, anger, pride, sexual desire and attachment,
In spite of the luxuries of the modern world, people are not free,
They believe freedom is in rejecting everything and forgetting one's origin,
But rather it is in remembering our great ancestors and teachers, to whom we owe our lives,
Freedom is in realising what you naturally love to do, in building on your strengths and in getting rid of your weaknesses,
Freedom is in singing the praises of the Guru and God, in asking for their blessings,
Freedom is in choosing to sacrifice one's life for another, for defending a principle,
Freedom is in loving the world, sharing, and being its hope and support.
Only I have faults, the Guru is perfect.
By Guru's Grace, I have written this for the future.

Jasdeep Hari Bhajan Singh Khalsa - 30/01/2012

Science, Spirituality, and the Brain [Video]

Quote of the Day - Life

Enjoy life! You only live once, unless you're Hindu

Jasdeep Hari Bhajan Singh Khalsa

Preventing Alzheimers with Kirtan Kriya [Video]

By Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D.


Full Article: http://www.sikhnet.com/news/alzheimers-prevention-camp-grows

Download Kirtan Kriya