13 Habits of an Awakened Individual

13 Habits of an Awakened Individual

                    Let these 13 practices help lead you down the path of awakened enlightenment.

1. Always be alert and present. Meditation is key to listening and reflecting on one’s life.

2. Always be stepping outside of your comfort zone. Apathy towards what should be done is a black hole.

3. Get rid of the negative people in your life; those who discourage learning, reflection, and meditation. These people will only make you lose your kindness and compassion.

4. Suffering stems from wanting to satisfy ourselves. Enlightenment ascends from our actions helping others. Replace selfish thoughts with concern for all others.

5. When someone tries to bring you down or spread rumors about you, recognize that it is a cry for help. Wish for that person to overcome their troubles and applaud them for their positive traits; treat them only with kindness.

6. When put on the spot for our flaws and imperfections, do not resort to anger or become defensive. Listen and reflect on what they have to say.

7. When someone we love and care for treat you with resentment and hate, recognize these acts as a sickness that has invaded their mind. Only give them more love and affection.

8. Even after achieving great fame, success, and wealth, do not be arrogant. The anomaly of existence, as amazing as it is, has no substance. Cast away what pride you have that stems from fame.

9. If you find yourself angry at the world often, while at the same time overpowering and conquering others, the anger will never subside. Reflect inward and try to tame these wild thoughts.

10. The mind can delude that which is truly real. From the beginning, our minds are void of any essence that is inherently real. Understand that truth is beyond the conceptions we have known and are beyond the knower. Rid yourself of the belief in inherent existence.

11. Hostile words and language that are used in anger will cause others pain by disturbing their minds, and those who strive to be enlightened will find their practice deteriorate. Rid yourself of abusive and hurtful language.

12. Examine mistakes, delusions, and faults you may possess and then try to expel them completely. Without making any effort to do so, one may become a spiritual materialist.

13. Be constantly present and aware that what you are feeling, thinking, and how you are acting will affect others. Try to be mindful of everything happening in your mind, and try to live in such a way that will help others.

 

Signs You’re Experiencing Spiritual Maturity

       5 Signs You’re Experiencing Spiritual Maturity

      In our society we have a very two dimensional understanding of maturity. Most people define it as an accumulation of experiences that come through the process of aging. But this isn’t really true.

      The truth is that maturity has very little to do with our external experiences, and everything to do with our inner processing of the world. Yes, you might have experienced a lot of challenges and hardships in life, but if you weren’t present and aware of what was happening and the way in which it could help you to learn and grow, all of your experiences simply turned into moments where you unconsciously and emotionally reacted, not maturing at all.

     While we have no control over aging, we do play a part in our ability to mature. Maturity is something that comes with conscious intent; something that evolves as we become more aware. It isn’t how “knowledgeable” or “smart” we are either, as knowledge is a product of past fears, mental patterns, memories, reactions and illusory concepts of the self.

     Instead, true maturity is the state of being internally free enough to respond consciously, to be responsible enough to see the end result our thoughts, feelings and actions and how they will affect ourselves, others and the world at large.

                                                             1. Maturity is Courageous

                                                                Maturity involves inner freedom and freedom is the result of having courage – the courage to think differently and behave differently.
In a society that considers “maturity” as the pursuit of careers, spouses, mortgages, children and materialism, it takes immense courage to truly be mature and to pursue a path with heart, reconnecting with our authentic selves.
                                            
                                                                  2. Maturity is Honest

                                                                Many people avoid the truth of who they really are by piling on beliefs, labels and roles in their lives and clinging to them. However, the mature person, in their lifelong pursuit of self-discovery comes to see all the ways in which they deceive themselves into a false sense of being.
Common examples of spiritual immaturity involve avoiding the shadow elements of human nature, believing that we have transcended our “lower selves” and are in touch with our “higher selves” (as if our “lower selves” aren’t as equally part of our wholeness), and confusing the fearful voices of our core wounds with our intuition.

                                                                  3. Maturity is Loving

                                                                Most people’s idea of love is to love only to receive love. “I need you to love me so I can love you back” is not a very mature way of loving. To be mature means that you can love someone unconditionally, even if they don’t love you back because your own self-love is more than enough.
The spiritually mature person loves because the state of love expands their limited sense of self and reconnects them with the divine. They don’t just love to be reassured that they are lovable by another.
And if the other person is mature enough to love back the same way, the love becomes even more powerful.
You’ll often come across people that hold love as the highest possible spiritual form, which it is. But to experience that love you must first have attained the personal freedom and responsibility that is necessary to unconditionally love.

                                                               4. Maturity is Forgiving

                                                              Resenting other people is addictive. It gives us a false sense of power by believing that we are protecting ourselves from getting hurt again, and we are on the “moral high ground.” It tricks us into a unhealthy sense of self-importance; “I’ll never forgive you. What you did to ME was UNFORGIVABLE.” It is yet another way in which our misery and self-pity makes us happy.
True forgiveness, on the other hand, involves taking responsibility for ourselves and making the decision to no longer attempt to justify or attach ourselves to feelings of hatred and anger. We are aware enough to know how damaging such heavy feelings are to us and the quality of our lives.

                                                               5. Maturity is Accepting

                                                              Maturity involves knowing what you can change and accepting that which you can’t. A person who lives in a constant state of conflict with the world is one who is enslaved to their own internal reactions. They are not free to respond.

I am often confronted by people who ask me how I can be so at peace with the state of affairs in the world; the injustice, the chaos, the inequality that saddens them to the point of depression or feeling like their sensitive natures don’t belong to this world.

This is closely tied with the forgiveness I mentioned above. I’m not OK with the injustice of the world, but I don’t resist it either. I’m aware enough to realize that change can never, and has never, come from an external system, but from an individual internal decision. To be able to help the collective maturity evolve I must first be able to accept and acknowledge the mess that we are in without resisting it and running away into my self-righteous ideals, without judging it and condemning others so as to make them defensive and lose receptivity to my message.

You can’t cure the turmoil of the world when you’re acting from a place of inner turmoil. The acceptance of yourself and acceptance of others is like learning how to flow in a stream without ending up like another solid pebble at the bottom of the river.


The awakening of maturity is the beginning of the process of inner blossoming; it is the beginning of the journey toward the fulfillment of your own potential. Coming to truly know that potential means knowing that you require equal part sun as you do soil in order to be grounded, but to dance in the wind as well

Why we put Tilak on the forehead?

                                      Why we put Tilak on the forehead?

             Without the worship of Sri Ganesh no work in Sanatan Dharma should begin. Likewise, no religious work should begin without a Tilak on the forehead.

Tilak is a mark of auspiciousness. It is put on the forehead with sandal paste, sacred ashes or kumkum (red tumeric). The devotees of Siva apply sacred ashes (Bhasma) on the forehead, the devotees of Vishnu apply sandal paste (Chandan), and the worshippers of Devi or Shakti apply Kumkum, a red tumeric powder.

The scriptures say: "A forehead without a Tilak, a woman without a husband, a Mantra the meaning of which is not known while doing Japa (recitation), the head that does not bend before holy personages, a heart without mercy, a house without a well, a village without a temple, a country without a river, a society without a leader, wealth that is not given away in charity, a preceptor without a disciple, a country without justice, a king without an able minister, a woman not obedient to her husband, a well without water, a flower without smell, a soul devoid of holiness, a field without rains, an intellect without clearness, a disciple who does not consider his preceptor as a form of God, a body devoid of health, a custom (Achar) without purity, austerity devoid of fellow-feeling, speech in which truth is not the basis, a country without good people, work without wages, Sannyasa without renunciation, legs that have not performed pilgrimages, determination unaided by Viveka or discrimination, a knife which is blunt, a cow that does not give milk, a spear without a point- all these are worthy of condemnation. They exist for name’s sake only."

From this you can imagine the importance of Tilak or the sacred mark. Tilak is applied at the Ajna Chakra, the space between the two eyebrows. It has a very cooling effect. Application of sandal paste has great medicinal value, apart from the spiritual influence. Application of sandal paste will nullify the heating effect when you concentrate and meditate at the Bhrumadhya.

Tilak indicates the point at which the spiritual eye opens. Lord Siva has a third eye at the Brumadhya. When he opens the third eye, the three worlds are destroyed.

So also, when the third eye of the Jiva is opened, the three kinds of afflictions - Adhyatmika, Adhidaivika and Adhibhautika- are burnt to ashes. The three Karmas- Sanchita, Prarabdha and Agami,- and also all the sins committed in the countless previous births, are burnt. When you apply the Tilak, you mentally imagine: "I am the one non-dual Brahman free from all duality. May my eye of intuition open soon." You should remember this every time you apply a Tilak.

There are various methods of applying Tilak. Saivas apply three horizontal lines with the sacred ashes. The vaishnavas apply three vertical lines (Tripundra) on the forehead. When they apply Tilak, they say: "O Lord, protect me from the evil effects of the Trigunatmika Maya which has Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas as its binding cords."

Some Vaishnavas apply only one vertical line. Only the method of application differs, but the significance is the same in both the Vaishnavas and the Saivas. The Tilak is used in various ways for different reasons. Without the Tilak, Sandhya, Pooja, Deva Darshan,Tarpan and other religious activities should not be performed.

There are thirteen places on the human body where Tilak can be placed. However, it is only on the forehead that it is noble. The head is the summit of the body with the brain being the axis of the entire body.

According to Hindu Astrology, Mesh Rasi or the House of Aries is on the forehead. The Lord of Mesh is Mars and His colour is Red.This is why Red Chandan and Sindoor is placed as Tilak on the forehead.

The fingers used for applying Tilak are as follows: At the base of the little finger is Mecury,at the base of the ring-finger is Sun,at the base of the middle finger is Saturn,at the base of the index finger is Jupiter and at the base of the thumb is Venus.

Perfect peace is experienced at Sunrise, Saturn is the protector of lifespan, Jupiter represents immortality and Venus represents health. Tilak applied with the ring-finger and the thumb is very beneficial.

In addition to this, the Sun represents firmness, brilliance, honour, respect and faith. These are the blessings achieved by applying Tilak with the ring-finger. Venus gives lifeforce, health,is the creator of new life, the bestower of gentility and politeness. This is achieved by applying Tilak with the thumb.

Women should use the ring-finger for applying Bindie with unbroken rice grains. Men should also use unbroken rice grains(Akshat)mixed in red chandan and apply the Tilak with the thumb.

The unbroken rice grains symbolises steadfastness and firmness of the brain and is also a symbol of peace. It is reffered to as Deva Dhanya- grains of the Gods.

Yoga for a Broken Heart

                                                     Yoga for a Broken Heart

          I have spent the past two years using yoga alongside therapy to heal my emotional wounds. Suffering from pelvic pain, my asana practice revealed to me that my physical pain was a manifestation of my emotional pain. Once I released that, my pain subsided and I was able to cancel an impending surgery. I have seen numerous times in my practice and in my teaching that pain in the heart and the body can be helped or healed through yoga. Through my healing journey, my teaching has evolved to a more heart-centered approach; one that focuses on the connection between the mind, body, and heart and the belief that they are constantly striving toward wholeness. Here are a few of the techniques that I've used in my own life and teaching. 

                                          1. Use affirmations with Sun Salutations.

                  Bathe your body in the truth of who you are.  Each inhale say “I am”, each exhale say the affirmation (silently or aloud). Do one Sun Salutation per affirmation below. 

 Imagine!!

Red light at the base of the pelvis and say the words I AM SAFE 

Orange at low abdomen, I AM CONFIDENT 

Yellow at upper abdomen, I AM POWERFUL 

Bright green at heart center, I AM LOVING 

Pale blue at base of throat, I AM TRUTHFUL 

Deep blue between eyebrows, I AM WISE 

Violet above the head, I AM WHOLE

 White in the space slightly higher above the head, I AM FREE 

Soak in the effects of washing your body and mind in truth 

                                                          2. Talk to Your Pain 

                   When you feel physical pain, silently ask the pain what it is trying to tell you. Give it a chance to speak – tell it you're listening. Sometimes it helps to practice asana, journal, draw, or go for a walk during this process. 

                                     3. Ground the feet down and open the heart up 

                 Use standing and balance poses to help you feel grounded and present. Practice chest openers to help you keep your heart open. Interlace your fingers at your back, hug your shoulder blades and elbows together, reach the knuckles toward the floor, and lift the sternum and side ribs up. Do this as often as possible to help you keep your heart open to life and joy. 

                                                         4. Keep your heart soft 

                     Pain can cause you to close up. To help you stay open, place your right middle finger on your heart center and gently and slowly massage. In that spot, imagine a beautiful ray of light breaking through the clouds. Choose a quality of love that resonates for you, and imagine that quality shining brightly. Any time you need to remember this place of love and peace deep within you, put the right middle finger there gently.

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Reasons Your Company Should Start a Meditation Program

                             Reasons Your Company Should Start a Meditation Program

      "Please begin meditation" are the sounds that people are hearing at meditation centers in Boston, Chennai, Paris, and even Chile! These aren't just the sounds of people just meditating, but meditating on the heart.

        Meditation is an practice that focuses on the heart through the help of yogic transmission. The meditation system was formulated around universal love for others, and the essence that we are spiritual beings, and getting to the enlightened level is what we are looking for.

     Practitioners of Meditation have put through a simple process of learning to relax, and then meditate on divine light in the heart. Entrepreneurs such as Chirag Kulkarni, co-founder of Insightfully have spoken highly of the practice, calling it the "number one reason for success in business, health, and relationships".

     An popular meditation practice called Mindfulness, which is a Buddhist practice that espouses inner strength, balance, and compassion to create a harmonious and effective state of existence has taken effect in major companies such as Google and Apple, where thousands of individuals are trying to use it to improve their focus, efficiency, and productivity.
 
   Meditation practices are extremely successful, but why should you care if you are the CEO?
 here is why your company should start a meditation program at work.

1. Build company culture

         What is the number one reason why employees are retained at companies? Is it because of pay?
No, in fact, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the value of corporate culture is being one of the important aspects of why retention rates at some of the larger firms is going down. The single easiest way to build company culture is by creating initiatives that will inspire your employees to come to work, and learn.


2. Invest in your employees' growth

        How many businesses keep track of metrics such as week over week growth, or revenue growth? Most of the companies I speak with on a daily basis do.
But what fuels company growth? As Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square puts it, "a company is simply a company, the people are what execute the vision and drive it forward." This becomes blatantly obvious while looking at business metrics; human fuel growth!

3. Cut back on expenses

            Can meditation cut back on your company's expenses? It sure can, and here is how.
One of the main expenses that affect your businesses bottom line is human capital, which can include everything from the cost of maintaining employee healthcare costs, to employee productivity.
For example at Alumnify, we understand that even 2 hours of unproductive time spent by employee's means less work being done, which means lost opportunities and even revenue. That is a major expense for us, and anything we can do to avoid it is crucial.
Similarly, the more engaged and focused you can keep your employees, the more success you will have.
Meditation has helped millions in practical aspects of improving their lives, and building organizations that result in massive successes both personally and financially.

Guide to connecting you with your highest self

               Guide to connecting you with your highest self

    

     I personally believe that connecting to your higher self is actually more about allowing you to live in a state of peace and harmony within yourself – which will then naturally allow you to offer more to the world.

    

       I believe that connecting with the most wise, liberated, loving portion tha t already exists within you is not about becoming better – because there is really no thing that must be ‘improved’ within you. It is simply a matter of returning to who you have always been, and releasing all those things that never had anything to do with you in the first place.

                                         

       Essentially, connecting with your ‘higher self’ is simply you remembering who you are. It is you returning to a state of flow, and exiting a state of resistance. You do not have to try to be a good, caring, genuine person. You are those things already. You just have to release the blocks that have been built up in your emotional/mental/energetic bodies that prevent you from being who you are.

           

      These following steps are the easiest, quickest ways I’ve found to return you back to your center, back to your knowing, back to who you truly are and always have been –your highest self. These steps may seem overly simplistic, but give them a try and see how magical they really are! 

   1. Acknowledge Where You Are In This Moment

     The first thing I invite you to do when you want to move closer to being your highest self, is to simply make peace with where you currently are. Sit for a moment in silence and just allow yourself to arrive in this moment. Remove any expectation, even if it is just for a moment, and be. Feel the peace that comes with this allowing. Even if you only do this, and forget the rest of the steps, you have already shifted your state and raised your vibration. You have already made a step towards your highest self just by stopping the resistance to where you are. Pretty cool hey?

  

   2. Send Yourself Love & Compassion

        The second step is to love yourself in this moment. This is most likely what I like to call a “pattern interrupt” for you. For most, when we feel ourselves not living up to our potential, not acting or thinking or speaking in alignment with our highest good, our knee jerk reaction is to beat ourselves up. You are most likely used to berating and abusing yourself. This self-punishment will never get you to a place where you are aligned with your highest good. The reason? It lowers your vibration too much! When you are shaming, blaming and guilting yourself you are re-creating the exact environment that took you out of alignment with your highest self in the first place. By consciously choosing to love yourself where you are at in this moment you take another step up the vibrational scale, bringing yourself one step closer to your highest self.

   3. Send Your Behaviour/Thought Pattern Love & Compassion

        The third step is to send love and compassion to your ‘negative’ behaviour/thought/belief. Like with step two, you are most likely in a habit of hating your negative behaviours – getting upset with yourself that you constantly run to food to numb your emotions, hating that you speak badly about people, judging your actions. If you can instead send love and compassion to your negative behaviour, you may notice that it is actually there with a positive intention. You may discover that your over eating is simply there to help you deal with your negative emotions in a way that makes you feel like you have some power and control. Perhaps this over eating is a protection mechanism that is helping you so that you don’t just drown in an emotion you don’t know how to deal with in this moment. By bringing your negative patterns into the light of love, you will see them for what they really are – and in that you will have the power to start transforming them into self-loving patterns.

  

   4. Tell Yourself What You Would Tell Your Best Friend Right Now

       Next, speak to yourself the way you would speak to your most beloved friend if they came to you feeling or acting the way you are currently acting. There is a good chance you are not going to tell them that they are dumb, stupid, selfish and awful or any of the other harsh things you most likely tell yourself.  Meet yourself with understanding and compassion. Meet yourself with the words you wish someone would say to you as you are feeling the way you are feeling. Meet yourself with this love and see how it automatically lifts you.

  5. Choose An Activity That Makes You Feel Good

         Finally, choose an activity that you know lifts your energy – lifts your vibration. Ask yourself “what would someone who loved themselves do right now?” and then do that! Understand that your highest self is the self that fully, totally and completely loves and accepts you and everyone else. So by engaging in something that aligns with what you would do if you loved yourself, you are aligning yourself with the behaviour that reflects your highest good. Your highest self. Choosing to act from a place of love, rather than a place of fear in this moment IS you living as your highest self.

Remember, your highest self is already fully formed and fully active within you. You may just need to remember how to connect with this portion of yourself. Take some time to consider how little beating yourself up does for you, and to consider that acting in a loving and compassionate way towards yourself –especially when you are at your worst –may be the exact thing you need to do to connect you with your highest good.

    Pleasure and pain, happiness and grief, friendliness and enmity are temporary experiences!!

      Bhagvad Gita Chapter 2.14 God Krishna says, "O Kontey, the interaction of sense and sense objects give the heat, cold, pleasure and pain. These sensual feelings are temporary, appearing and disappearing; therefore you tolerate them."

      Pleasure and pain, happiness and grief, friendliness and enmity, desire and fatuation, these are experiences of our sensory organs. Because our sensory organs eyes, ear, nose, skin, tongue, and mind are constantly in the receptive mode, it keeps getting these feelings. When you hear good words it pleases your sense but when you hear abusive words then it creates agony. Similarly when you eat a tasty food it pleases our tastebuds but, when we eat bitter food then it creates unpleasant feeling. But, these feelings are not permanent, it keeps changing.

     God Krishna says that one should never consider any of the sensory agonies as permanent and act based on these temporary feelings. Wise people learn to master the skills for ignoring these mental disturbances. Favorable and unfavorable circumstances are just a cyclic wheeling of nature like too much heat or too much cold; both can make a tree lifeless.