Saturation Point

 All these years, having been in denial and argued and vented, finally, truth has dawned! Everything happens for a reason. Everything was meant to be. We thought we were taking the decisions but, was it so? Really? Were our reactions valid then?

Actually, what is meant to stay, stays. And what is meant to get over, just gets over. WE reach a saturation point in a lot of the cases. And in some, the choice is not ours.

And yet, all our lives, we fight and stress, and refuse to let go to move forward. We forget that karma is at work constantly. Our debts call out . Also our credits are interspersed with those debts we must pay. When we experience the joy of good karma, we forget easily. What remains and sustains is the unpleasant memories.

As the wise have wisely said, cut thoughts. Cut memories. They are the source of all the attachment and egos at play in our lives. And when there are no thoughts, it is automatic surrender to a higher power. This is the ultimate in our journey, isn’t it?

Surekha Kothari

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/

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

Experience

Life is a cycle. You live, you experience, you learn, you trust the process. Again, you experience, learn not to trust too much. Then you experience and experience, some good, some bad, some ugly.

Now, you unlearn some of what you have learnt, go into new learnings discarding the older ones.

And then again you learn that maybe the older ones were, in fact, better learnings. And you start trusting all over again.

Does it sound familiar? Like a yoyo or a roller coaster. Up and down, side to side. And we suffer from a dizziness that lasts until our breath leaves us. And we never experience a balanced state!

Life is great fun!

Surekha Kothari

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/

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

Experience

 There is a balanced way to look at everything in life. There are always people who love you and those who care with a motive. As we grow older, we get to experience genuineness or the act. But sometimes your trusting nature blinds you to reality.  And sometimes people change also. And sometimes, we change as well.

We need to accept it all. All the characters have been around you and there is also a reason why they fall away. Whatever the reasons, keep calm and balanced, right your wrongs and accept as inevitable what cannot be changed.

Surekha Kothari

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Evaluation

 How can anyone else but the person concerned evaluate the impact of personal experiences? The emotional impact, maybe a shock element or a feeling of being let down, expectations unfulfilled … anything. We should know we are all different. But we still judge apples and oranges together, knowing their characteristics to be different from each other.

So, we can evaluate only ourselves. Actually, we are capable of judging only by our standards, many of which may not apply to the people you are attempting to evaluate.

The moment you want to remark about another, stop! Think instead of why they disturb you enough to talk about them. It’s not them. It is you. If we don’t want to know their story, we can respectfully leave them alone to continue their journey. There are enough and more challenges in it, more than we ever will know.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Depths of People

 

Egos and misunderstandings are the reason for a lot of grief and distancing. We can talk about it, point fingers at people, blame them ad nauseum. But the fact remains that ultimately, we will have to soul search ourselves.

When we don’t know the depths of people (which we seldom do), our superficiality takes over and energies start to lack in compatibility. Heart connections are becoming rare, with the advent of everything “artificial” and “instant”, making it next to impossible to have the leisure to explore the depths of anything.

Entirely our loss! For, those of us who have experienced such leisure will find it difficult to let the brain take over the heart. And we ARE finding it difficult.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Peace

 

Serenity lives in the lap of nature. Peace flourishes when we are surrounded by nature. Once the soul experiences this, it does not want to enter into spaces where the energy has the slightest bit of impurity of even the tiniest thought or feeling that can depress.

Human nature cannot resist conflict. It gravitates towards it. Each seeker therefore has to seek isolation, at least partial, in order to listen to the inner voices. And what better a space than in the midst of nature where the soul feels integrated with its natural environment!

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Confidence

 

I guess many of us have had the experience of our friendliness being misinterpreted as “over familiarity”. It stops you in your tracks for a minute! And you begin to wonder where that came from! Very often after that, you start closing yourself up to new entrants in your life because you don’t want to be misunderstood yet again.

But honestly! Aren’t we blocking our natural flow in the bargain? At the end of the day, it is our intentions which are important, aren’t they? If these are ok, I guess we are ok as well, and we don’t really need to become guilt ridden at every reaction of people to us, people who probably are insecure and or uncomfortable in their own skin.

I find that our biggest bug bear can be social relationships. We find it so difficult to honestly say,” this is the way I am. Take it or leave it”. Learning from experiences is one thing and criticizing yourself unnecessarily for what you need not, is another. And this confidence makes a huge difference. For then, you are steady in one place. People will go around you and those who want to stop because they know your worth, will stop, just as you will do the same for others. It is that simple! We need to know who we are.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Relationships

 

A line once again caught my attention. “Those who feel lonely with age, have not strengthened their relationships when they were younger”. I have this habit of tearing apart every saying in terms of, not words but actual experiences. And I find many sayings a little on the superficial side.

I have seen karma at work. For some, it is heavy. Relationships are all karmic. If your lot is in learning through being isolated, that’s what your lot will be. Despite being loving and caring, relationships will mostly go wrong. No one to blame! It is just what it is. Sometimes, building relationships can be like pulling teeth. You can get more misunderstood than understood! No answers come forth despite one hundred “why’s. It is just meant to be so.

People will counsel you left, right and centre, that you don’t have “the art” of sustaining relationships. Maybe, everyone is not need based. Maybe, love runs deeper than superficial demonstrations to make others feel good so that they may like you….

The one sustaining relationship I have discovered, is with myself. Until I have that, I will feel a void, a loneliness and try to make others complete me. A futile exercise! No one can complete anyone else.

So, let’s try and isolate, if required, to become our own friends. That will work like a miracle has happened! You have to experience that state. But you have to reach it first.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Faith

 

When you reach a dead end in your mind, just leave everything to the Almighty! Knots will be removed with time. Faith is imperative! Whatever happens in our lives is chosen by us. So, to grumble and resist seems childish. Yes, we HAVE chalked out our agenda based on what we need to learn. But we don’t want some of what happens. We think we deserve better. When understanding dawns, we actually realize that we can move on to the better only once we have learnt from what happens and thus, change our energies to invite better things and better people in our lives. Let us not misunderstand this though and get happy. We need to reinvent ourselves each time we fall in our standards of ethics and morality, in failing to keep a spiritual awareness around us. And more… We can cram one book and give our exams. Or, we can refer to many books, understand the topic in-depth and then appear in the exams. There are no guesses as to which is better and progressive in its outcome. Life is like that. sometimes, a child handles life better because there is very quick recovery from any kind of so called adverse experience. The child does not hold on. And that is what we need to do. Adults reach dead ends either when there is ego activation or when there is a closure.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

A Pinch of Wisdom

 

To get even a pinch of wisdom, we go through a lot of struggle. Of experiencing desire, cravings, anger, envy etc. and then finally, the acceptance that some things are not in our hands. This is one pinch of wisdom but the struggle may be a very long one. We all live on hope. And while there is hope, we often fail to see things as they are.

Hope is not a bad thing. However, an acceptance of the current reality makes life easier, even if it is unpalatable. And change can happen too. Anytime!

The whole world prays since there is a basic realization that only that X factor called God can help. That is the bottom line after realization dawns.

The pinch of wisdom! Surrender!

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Goodness

 

The deeper you go into yourself, the more you can understand your motives for your actions. An analysis can really shock you. Because you can see the stark truth. The mind has so many layers that we ourselves cannot fathom the deviousness of our actions which appear to arise out of “ goodness”. We fool ourselves many a time.

The moment there is a tendency to adhere to mere appearances, there develops a cleverness in the mind. Anything that comes from the heart will be real. But the heart is not used much. The brain largely has an upper hand .

We stand revealed to astute people who can decipher the reasons for the overt expressions of bonhomie. Perhaps, if we knew that, we would be careful and perhaps, even reform.

We are not meant to use virtues as tools, to be used sometimes and with some people only. Yes, wisdom does teach us boundaries so that goodness cannot be taken advantage of. At what personal cost is goodness , is a matter of debate .

However, goodness is certainly a matter of personal evaluation. No certificates required other than your own. Because you know the how and why of everything that transpires within your awareness. More than anyone can know about anyone else.

Unfortunately, our personal happiness depends on belonging to people , not to ourselves. This is the main cause of our compromising what we might actually believe in but cannot actualise in our life. Our needs for human contact determine our ability to balance our virtue with the demands of the external world.

If we work on ourselves continuously, at some point, the balance begins to get easier to achieve. But, it is undoubtedly hard work , to learn what does not work and relearn to become wiser with every experience.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Perspectives

 Studying Vedanta over a period of time changes your perspectives big time.

Above all, it brings a realization of all negativity as a drama conjured up by our ego and mind and hence, the suffering.

The ignorance in us is the most insufferable actually because, the day the light of knowledge dawns, it removes the ignorance and our blindness.

This is the same mind that, misleading us today, can show us the right parh also. Of course, our effort is prime! Cleaning the mind vessel daily is mandatory. It gives us the opportunity to start over, slowly and steadily. It needs a constant reminder unfortunately, of where it should lead us. And we must rein it in every day.

Cleaning the mind naturally means cleaning our thoughts. All clouds appear in the mind with attachment. Detaching and letting go, which seems as intense an experience as when we may die, must be done in this lifetime. Otherwise, we may never move forward towards spiritual goals. Our attachments will always pull us back.

Time flies and life will snuff out before we know it! We need to make use of it, starting yesterday.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Quote of the day

 

Transition

Life is not to be lived by overthinking everything. Everything is meant to be. Your decisions are also made so as to experience something important, a lesson for life.

So, to regret, feel guilty, are all the products of an ignorant mind. Ostensibly, we take ”good” decisions and we feel luck is with us. What we don’t know is that THAT good luck was merely the pleasant experience ordained for us. It was due and we experienced happiness that goes with it.

Similarly, what we call bad luck is also ordained through our own earlier actions, which we don’t want to pay the price for and therefore, end up with suffering.

If we can accept the moment and what it brings us, and learn to flow with it, we are through. What we are busy doing is living either in the past or agonizing about the future, neither of which are within our grasp. In other words, we have left the flow of our life.

A hard task then, is to get back into the flow, and extremely important. How we achieve it will mark a huge transition in our lives. But first, the quest is to reach that platform.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Quote of the day

 

Experience

I know this from experience. When there is darkness within us, the light from the outside is blinding and reflects back into itself instead of entering the dark space. Sometimes, darkness is extremely opaque. The same thing happens in relationships. When there is selfishness in someone, goodness from another is that blinding light which returns to itself because it cannot penetrate the darkness of selfishness sponsored by an ego. This is probably why good people get more misunderstood than others, more maligned than others. And good people are vulnerable because they are good and they are compassionate … and they are caring! People feed on their goodness because they don’t have too much of their own. And this is how good people get debilitated if they are lacking in spiritual courage and unable to remain established within their own light. You can be good but conserve enough energy for yourself first. Life is a play of light and dark and each one of us needs our own light to illuminate our dark spaces. We all have these spaces until we dispel them. First, we become aware that we have them, then we create a desire to dispel them and then act to dispel them by letting the light superimpose on the darkness. I marvel that we often cannot or don’t want to identify our own darkness but are so quick to assess and speak of those spaces in others. We can continue doing this till doomsday without any visible improvement in us. All the cleansers must be used by you on you and for you. That is the mantra, and this is the reality, whether accepted or not. Surekha Kothari www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com surekhakothari.wordpress.com Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Frequency

Tuning into the frequency where we connect with God’s grace is the start of miracles! You start experiencing freedom from your lower self. Your worldly desires, your ego driven thoughts and actions, your wrong belief systems, your fear… all that and more. Surrendering to that supreme consciousness is not to be taken lightly. We can disbelieve anything that doesn’t suit us. But not this. Because here, you are the only loser. And you will understand this, not from mere words, but your own personal experience, if and when that happens. So, meditate and try and make it happen for yourself. Surekha Kothari www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com surekhakothari.wordpress.com Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari

Quote of the day

 

Bonds and Relationships

 A passive smoker is considered as good as a smoker, with all the ill effects. Similarly, a passive abuser can be as lethal as an active one. We put up with a lot of subtle abuse in the name of bonds and relationships. There are thin lines between behavioural patterns and to discern subtle abuse may not be an easy task. In families, there are such abusers who might be wearing masks of seniority or may, out of some silent anger about some old issues , still be burning enough to be the cause of abuse.

It may be known to a few that the tendency to abuse , itself  stems from within. No Blame can be attributed to anyone externally.  It may be coming from A completely unidentifiable source like a past life. So, Let it suffice that, whatever we are going through is our own agenda and others should not be included in the experience. 

Any tendency to abuse also starts from old memories where someone may have abused us. So, this urge to retaliate might come from within now , and which was kept silent earlier.

So, there are layers and layers to an action which may be completely misguided action because we focus only on an immediate pleasure , through, say, gaming , instead of the future of people and animals. Treading carefully is the thing to do. Not to forget that there are links and chains everywhere . And disconnection is possible only if the mind wills so.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Quote of the day