Self-Indulgent

It takes two, always two, to distort a relationship. And even in this, depending on the nature of the relationship, one may naturally give more and keep giving IN more, perhaps as a parent would.

But often, the more you give, the less you are respected. It is misunderstood as weakness. But let’s put this one question to parents first. However thoughtless your children are, can you stop loving them or readily helping them when they are in need? I don’t know of one parent who would abstain. They are a part of you and for a mother, created from her own flesh and blood.

The same question to the children. One youngster said to me, “well, we did not ask to be born, so, why are we expected to listen to our parents?” “And why can’t we judge our parents too, as we do others? “

The fact is, EACH soul chooses the mother as much as the parents want the child. It is a two-way traffic. Yes, nature has willed the flow of life to be one of parents to children to children becoming parents and so on.

But, the connectivity in the universe inevitably demands some rules to be observed. We cannot walk away from our reciprocal value systems. The love energy makes it possible to fulfil these duties and responsibilities.

Very rarely if at all, in these times, do we see a Shravan kumar carrying his blind parents on his shoulders. Unfortunately, the heretofore unheard abuse of parents in many ways has disconnected families as never before. Family pride is confined to power and status more than unity and support.

Just as friends are becoming extended family because natural families are falling apart, so is AI going to replace the original human intelligence that has gone wrong and become corrupted and self-indulgent, causing severe imbalances.

Is it ok then to say, “well, we are helpless” and that this is a new wave setting in, a synthetic wave which has not risen out of the ocean and cannot merge into the ocean. It is as artificially existent as the robot is today. Who knows if, in time, the human race will become extinct also, like the dinosaurs! And only robots will exist!

And remember, the original thought was at a micro level!

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Silence

When you awaken, you look at your life and many of your reactions with amusement. Each one of us is enveloped in a drama of karma and desires. We judge every experience from the way it appears to us : positive or unpleasant.

If we take away that aspect of our own feelings about the experience, what is left? Yes! Only the experience. And without attaching emotions, it is easy to go through it.

Conditioning makes this clinical observation very difficult. Our attachments with relationships and having been taught our behavioral patterns very early in life, we grow up with realizations of what works and what does not, again depend on how WE feel.

Subjective patterns are there to stay unless we can observe and change them consciously.

What really works ultimately is inner silence. That gives us more clarity and also prevents self-defeating thoughts about how others make us feel. Actually, totally unnecessary but inevitable to mankind most of the time.

The other moot point is that if you are a giver, people get comfortable around you and take what you have to give. But there is no energy exchange and you end up depleting your energies out of love/ attachment or whatever …

Silence is that tool that consolidates your energy levels. It makes you abstain from expending your energies in the name of compulsions prescribed by families and societies in the name of “duty”, whose forces are very difficult to resist by individual energies.

Awareness and consciousness are the basis of living, I am learning. Bringing your subconscious world into the conscious one will help create new patterns of living. And I am not saying this is easy. To break old patterns requires courage to move out of old self-created molds.

But there it is! Take it or leave it!

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Retaliation

 I can never find it in my heart to “understand” why we don’t see that everyone carries their burdens and their grief, sometimes silently and privately. We just see the surface and that too, may have more depth than we know.

The smile hides a million hurts. The “trying to be normal” with those that have hurt you terribly speaks of a grace no one wants to acknowledge.

What we do with our lives is a promise to ourselves. Do we want to elevate it or enslave it? Do we want to feel proud of who we are amidst many challenges, or do we want to fight battles which end up making us the losers? Because we don’t “win” in conflict. We just lose … lose our peace, our grace, our minds and our energies.

Ultimately, how does it matter that someone meant to insult or be rude? The onus is on them for their intentions. Yes, I know it is easy to say this and I have also been there. But you learn over time that dignity and respect are more important than retaliation, despite the fact that your non retaliation can be seen wrongly as weakness, but often, only when the attempt to bait does not work. At least, it does not disrupt your peace. And it is okay. Always prioritize on your peace is the lesson I have learnt.

If someone is on the wrong track, it is foolishness to follow. The larger part of the lesson.

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Impurity of Intentions

There is an unseen force that guides us if we are tuned into it. There is also an observer within us that seldom lets us forget our wrongdoings and our impurity of intentions.

Despite this, we humans continue with our usual ways, in our unaware state. AND face consequences repeatedly.

What more can be said? What other pointers can be given when we ourselves are our worst enemies?

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Divine

If we could remember everything, there would be no past, present and future. An interesting and intriguing proposition!

Some of our saints had graduated to that state. And they continue to be with us and around us to help us.

This universe is so vast and the possibilities so seamless, our limited awareness cannot even imagine the extent!

Even small glimpses are thrilling. If we can only expand this awareness and consciousness to incorporate a desire to unveil these aspects of this wonderful creation!

The Divine within the Divine!  There is nothing before and nothing beyond but existence within this Divine. And merging with it.

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Achievement

It is a fact that sustained relationships have an important ingredient: communication. If there is none or very little, distances grow by leaps and bounds, however well-meaning both sides are. 

More or less, there is one person in the relationship who often communicates less. It could be due to preoccupations or just simple lack of initiative. Or then, some inner issues like sensitivity or inferiority even.

I have learnt that nothing works better than simple, direct and egoless communication.

Everyone struggles with something. But humility goes a long way in ironing out issues which are almost always small ones in the beginning.

This perception of “being better” than someone else is an impediment in relationships. The truth is, in those perspectives, there will always be some who are better off and some who are not. But these are wrong perspectives.

Not riches, not talent, not any worldly achievement can brand anyone as “better”. There are many spiritually rich but low key people who silently live their lives and better themselves every day.

So, where is the weighing scale? And who decides? But if you communicate only will you establish a meeting point, from wherever you are. Your values will determine your success.

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Self-Sacrifice

 Suppressing authentic needs is a huge hole within our wholesomeness. Traditionally, we have been taught that goodness means self-sacrifice, living for others, suppressing our needs to accommodate those of others around us and forgiving everyone who hurt you whether they repent or not. In short, we have made excellent arrangements for our own depletion of energy and destruction of our self-image.

Kindness, in this connection, is NOT what I just described. Everything begins with the self and then extends outwards. It is that part of goodness which ought to start with kindness to the self-first. If your inner self is under the agony of suppression, denial and conflict, how do you even BEGIN to get enough energy to be what society selfishly demands from you?

That inner self, your suffering shadow self of which even you are in partial denial, must be brought into your conscious awareness so that you can heal it and integrate it with your true self. Only then can you become wholesome. And then you can extend yourself outwards and help others find themselves.

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Responsible

 It doesn’t matter how many lives you have lived. Live this one to the best of your ability. Life can be perceived in so many ways! And created in so many ways. We are the creators, never doubt this!

Do you notice how we have an innate ability to change, cloak, mask our emotions in a second? As also the ability to move on from any situation, unless we don’t WANT to!

Have you noticed how in a second, we can become our own friends like no one can, and the next second, our own worst enemy?

How can all this be real if we don’t control our own lives?

And even when our lives are NOT within our control, WE are responsible for this condition as well.

Friends, every finger points only at each of us. We learn, write our own exams, do well or not and face all consequences of our actions.

The moving finger writes… and having writ, moves on! (or not). WE are responsible.

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Self-Respect

 It is rather sad to see people attacking someone’s self-respect repeatedly. Even a strong person can find it very cumbersome and meaningless in the long run.

The “pleasure” so felt is not so pleasurable in the long run because you have just ignited a spark of negativity for yourself. It can carry on if both participate. It can also be watered down with a lack of response from the innocent side.

The way we hold on to our complexes, can only be a longer journey of healing for us. Yet, one sees it all around! And it becomes exhausting at some point.

To heal oneself becomes very difficult if we continue to be affected by others. Therapists, mood elevators, anti-depressants and timidity are not the healing I mean but these are a reality more than self-work. Self-work starts only when blame recedes.

Sure, when people in your life abuse, ridicule, reject, marginalize, these are bitter pills for most.

One has a to find a way out for oneself for that little piece of peace which is not available anywhere but within us. And often we have to slap ourselves to fix back our head straight. Life!!! Keep going!!

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Evident

 Being able to join the karmic dots and understanding patterns as hindsight is often very painful. We see conflicting relationships compounding under egos and increasing distances over a long period of time, coming to a head at the end of our lives. We have evidently not understood and corrected ourselves while there was time.

Life is not a party! The remorse and guilt that overpowers you for ill-treating your people while YOUR going was good, you will realize over time, was a completely misplaced sense of what life was all about.

I have seen people leaving this world with so much remorse and I have seen those left behind living lifelong under the weight of what they COULD have done differently but will never get a chance to anymore towards the person who has gone.

WHY? What is not to understand and not to get on? Why do we judge instead of love? Why do we distance instead of understand and respect everyone’s life journeys, especially their challenges??? Especially when we know WE expect this from others? So much can be salvaged if we learn and change with this one thought.

Can we perhaps slow down, reflect and correct ourselves while there is time???

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Circumstances

 There are many moments in the lives of human beings when there is so much pain it becomes a herculean task to even bear it, let alone find the courage to overcome it. And not always is there a reward at the end of the pain, like when a new mother forgets all the pain when she sees her little baby.

This pain is in return for the pain we may have caused someone in some life. Or we might be facing some circumstances which might be painful, and which just came upon us. But this is not an unsalvageable guillotine.

That’s life. You learn to cherish good times and be patient in adverse times, with an indomitable faith that times will change. Just one thing! Be sure to learn what lessons this adverse time is there to teach. Salvaging those parts of your affected life with wisdom and patience is the only way out to let the pain recede.

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Transformation

There is no value in relationships where little things are constantly misunderstood and have to be sorted regularly.

It needs one experience of watching someone leave this earth, of the grief and remorse, even guilt felt by those around for what could have been , to wonder why we don’t treat relationships better in our lifetime.

There are a few landmark experiences in life which are utterly transformative. Make you accept and deal with life with more awareness and more grit. Above all, with more balance and respect for your soul.

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Belief System

 A fact of life! You cannot unscrew the minds of those who have used ironclad screws to strengthen their wrong belief systems. Or have set you up as a target. Just step away until and if at all, sense dawns on them!

I have realized that learning is so individual and time resistant that there is no point in getting frustrated when you try to steer someone towards the right understanding but they just do not want to go there.

It is strange how people claim to care but on a day to day basis, they are all about themselves. I have stopped getting surprised at these observations in people.

It doesn’t matter as long as you don’t let the injustice of it all plague you.

Relationships fraught with disrespect cannot work.

Life does not stop for anyone and everyone has stories! We are just one among the many, oppressed by our grief and sadness.

Just get out of such emotions. It is not worth it! Let go of what is not in your control. Karma can be a tough call. It takes away but it also returns in different ways.

Continue living life, staying away from the circus and drama of other people.

Be strong. Be smart. And most important, never doubt yourself. Always believe in yourself when your conscience is clear.

Surekha Kothari

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Journey

 It’s funny how life comes a full circle. A crazy, fun loving child to a disillusioned, serious adult! Then, back to being crazy and light again! Thanks to god’s grace and exposure to spiritual learning early in life.

The hysterical laughter at silly things! Mocking life for even trying to invade my wholesomeness! The shadows that chase without any success until they disappear! Words and actions that used to hurt but have lost their power.

For I know we are not here to fall deep into SANSARA but to recognize its meaninglessness. But it is beautiful nevertheless! Just know how to navigate it. We have all the tools for an exciting journey!

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Perspective

 You never walk alone. This feeling of being alone or of loneliness is just a huge lack of awareness. An illusion out of ignorance.

The truth is, I walk with my spirit. I am my own friend, my own genie who walks within me. And that wholesomeness never gives me a lack of anything.

Have you ever tried to work with this perspective? Love yourself first. That fountain is enough for everyone.

The sun gives light to all. It does not diminish if a cloud covers it temporarily. You know it is there.

Similarly, my soul is THERE, in the journey. Like the sun. And like me, all of us are whole and complete. We have to realize the presence of our soul in everything we do.

Soul realization is a shining reality. Filled with joy!

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Truth

There are wheels within wheels everywhere. If you try to look for the starting point of anything today, you are likely to lose your mind! You can never reach the root.

Journalists are busy trying to unravel the truth about the webs of lies around political scenarios, the Bollywood gossips and sensationalizing the private lives of well-known people!

Every day, there are new stories about people, almost as if there are multiple people residing within one person.

How boring and humdrum our own lives must be, to even think of indulging in such discussions!

Although, some of the journalists -turned podcasters do open our eyes to some authentic news, at least on the surface if not in-depth.

Of course, the more people who know you, the more trouble there is for you! Fact!

Yet, the publicity machinery is more active today than ever! Fake / exaggerated / misinterpreted “news” have become common place. The more “infamous”, the more talked about. Others may well be relegated to being “squares”.

What a world!

Surekha Kothari

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www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/

Vibration Energy

Recently, I was amused by a definition of “masks”. It said, sometimes, people smile at you with their eyes behind their backs! A creative way of defining duplicity.

If we are not vigilant, the smile can mislead us big time.

I don’t know why it is so necessary to wear a mask in the first place. Why is there so much to hide? Would it not be better to be more simple and forthright? Evidently not!

I was good enough at math to know 2 and 2 makes four. Today, it may add up to an irrational number!

Today, simple math does not work. There are complicated calculations at work and the brain is overloaded, not to mention the heart and other affected chakras.

All these videos that tell you things under “wisdom” only teach you to fear people and isolate yourselves. If you are constantly being suspicious of who means what, and who is out to “get” you, how do you live a productive life?

If we notice, all of us have a lonely space within us already. And we are complicating our lives by desperately seeking crutches to fill that space. It is of no use! Crutches are, at best, a short term illusion.

The only thing that works is your vibrations with the universal energy. It is protective. It is light to dispel all darkness.

Apart from our karmic pain, we have the pain of integrating our shadow side with our light side.

People who embark on this journey face several challenges, those of the death of the old and beginning of the new. AND isolation! Because people still have the image of the old “you” in their minds to judge and criticize. You can’t win. There is a huge price to pay here so, many just live on the way they know how, as comfortably as possible.

Surekha Kothari

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Frustration

By and large, we humans judge more than love. I guess we are so needy that we want to be around those who give, who anticipate our needs and dedicate their lives to each other. Something most naturally expected from certain close relationships more than others. But what is forgotten is that whatever roles we are given to play inevitably come with challenges, sometimes ones that can take all our strength to endure.

As we are coping with our own grief, disappointments, and frustrations on one side, no one is really concerned but ourselves. And if we let that mask we wear in public, slip, we are in trouble! All kinds of speculation and judgement is thrown at us.

This is the human being of today, that is building artificial intelligence today, to emphasize the need for something external to come through as an aid for us. Who have moved away from everything natural, especially our divine collective consciousness that holds complete knowledge.

The vastness of the soul is only being researched by science now, whereas India knew it eons ago.

Read about Indian, even Egyptian civilizations and we see evidence of the spirituality of humans, the knowledge they possessed and the relationship to righteous living as the hallmark of divine connection. Are we on the wrong path then, or are we on the inevitable path of evolution? Wherever it takes us and to whatever consequences we face in the bargain.

Surekha Kothari

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www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/

Counselling

 

Compassion and Kindness

Sure, go out and help people. That’s what life teaches due to mutual connectivity. But don’t deplete your own energy while doing so. Your energy is meant for your journey. And you require it regularly.

This is what empaths do. Help and move back. Someone who feels the pain of others but does not internalize it. Instead, helps in every which way to alleviate suffering.

Compassion and kindness are off shoots of empathy. Most important is balance though. Remember the principle of always wearing your own oxygen mask first. Keep enough oxygen for yourself.

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Isolation

 That feeling of isolation when you realize no one is really understanding you and your explanations, however genuine, are falling on deaf ears! That you may well be on a different planet speaking in an alien language.

But, please don’t take it as an offence or a slur on you. It is really not. For the most part, today, people’s minds are buzzing so much with their own issues which they are trying hard to conceal or deny, that genuine communication or empathy for that matter, eludes them.

They are thinking west when you are talking east. It would be funny if it were not sad!

It has become the norm to excel in small talk “feel good” talk, as if the sugary words stem straight from a glass of alcohol.

Sometimes, it is better not to have too much awareness or understand too much! It kind of spoils you for superficial fun. Nonsensical interaction which is not designed to make “sense” in any remote way!

Our energies are spent more in beating about the bush than take a straight path.

But, when it concerns a large number of people, I guess, salutary changes in the minority may not be visible unless many begin to adapt.

So here we are, each one of us believing that we are on the right track but the tracks run parallel and so does communication become a casualty because there is no meeting point.

Communicate with yourself instead. Smile at these instances of being a chalk against cheese or cheese against a chalk! It’s all the same ultimately. And anyway, the focus was always YOU.

So, you can find yourself, your reality, your peace within, and stop wondering about anything else.

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Stimulation

As we advance in age, you know what becomes a moot question? That how many years have we tried to come up to other people’s expectations, to get that much craved for pat on the back to feel good and feel a sense of comfortable self-esteem?

And what does it take to come into our own as yet undiscovered space which belongs only to us? Rejected by none other than ourselves in exchange for temporary happiness handed out by others. The crumbs of happiness that actually had such a short life and yet, we never quite understood this and kept craving for many such short lives.

But the day we realize the happiness on reaching and discovering our own space, it appears as the most beautiful garden, the most complete and the most joyful! Coming into our own! Feeling so wholesome that there is no need for any external validation or stimulation to fill any empty spaces within. Because, you see, there ARE none!

Surekha Kothari

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www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/

Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Instability of Behavior

Public behavior has certain norms for a civilized society. Instability of behavior, being civil when you are calm and venting when you are in a bad mood… a lot of this seems to be tolerated today.

Obviously, this demonstrates some emotional confusion, lack of control over your mind and finally, even less on your speech.

So, one day you smile and the next, you are flaying the same person with unkind words! The consequence is a lot of back chat about that person.

I don’t think we even care about how superficial we are and how we don’t think twice before mowing people down with our unsavory language and generally bad behavior.

I guess the current societies encourage such irresponsible behavior inadvertently by not censuring it and not focusing on its desirability vis a vis non desirability. And so it carries on with some.

But for how long? Because at the end of the day, people are intelligent enough to understand the reasons even though they will not admit them openly.

Its pathetic in a way that you can feel good after disrespecting people in public. But the good news is, its solely the problem of that one person.

Like Buddha said, just return to people their own negativity. There is no need to accept it.

If only we studied his teachings!

We are generally showing a downward trend in values. And because we are too morally weak to rise, we pull others down to where we are.

Surekha Kothari

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www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/
Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Courage

One important dimension of courage! Become unpopular but do the right thing. You may not get brownie points from those around you but you WILL, from places that matter.

And the fear of alienation here keeps us away from connecting frequencies with the universe.

Loss therefore, can be described in two ways: one being misled while we are on the physical plane and the other, long term loss from giving in to illusions and failing to connect with what is real.

Surekha Kothari

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www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/
Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Counselling

 

Meditation

We look for something all the time … searching all our lives for that one thing that may end all our troubles and make us peaceful.

But that’s not how it works. There are plenty of cobwebs to clear.

Besides, have we perhaps tried to look for what is actually looking for US? The so far unseen and unfelt vibrations that follow us to improve our thinking, our actions, give us clarity, are the casualty of our lack of awareness and focus on the wrong things.

The pity is, our energies are too dense to feel subtleties! Our tendency is more external oriented and so, very difficult to tune into subtle frequencies.

Some of us would have felt a tiny tremor within us sometime, only to have discarded it on the spot without understanding what it was trying to tell us.

To the meditators, these vibrations might touch sooner than later. New stimulation, new thoughts, new focus can happen with meditation. It changes lives.

Surekha Kothari

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Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari