Equanimity

When we have to face a heavy karma, all crutches are taken away from us and we are left alone to experience it. No one listens and no one understands at such times. These must be taken as tests. When we go for an exam, who writes the paper with us?

I don’t know why we feel entitled all the time! The universe decides what we deserve and when.

The ego energy is quite useless here. In fact, it causes more suffering by reacting negatively to our experiences. It compounds the issue on hand.

Wise people accept these with grace and equanimity. Others suffer!

Surekha Kothari

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/

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

Impenetrable

All hurts, unhappiness and grief in relationships are there for all humans to be challenged with. Sometimes, the darkness around us is impenetrable! Or so we think at the time we are going through it.

But our survival mode is stronger than we think or know. The craving to live is the need of the soul because each soul has come for a purpose which needs completion. And this has little to do directly with relationships.

There are souls who lose heart and end their lives. There are others who leave the world through tragic accidents. They leave unfulfilled karma behind which will probably follow them in the next life.

There is so much we don’t know! Ironically though, often, we don’t even conform to what we know. There is no end to mental conflicts in such cases.

Somehow, the fragility of life eludes us most of the time. We only feel it when we see death. And this too seldom lasts long. As i said, the craving to live supersedes all and HOPE is what makes us all tick.

Surekha Kothari

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/

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

Self-Inflicted

Sometimes, intense grief can become like a warm blanket under which you want to hide from the world, not wanting to risk the speculation it might bring and the privacy it might challenge. Not everyone wants to shout out their stories aloud to the world. Or be talked about ad nauseum.

Ultimately, it is YOU for yourself, with yourself and more important, BY yourself. And you have to learn to live WITH this person that is you. And work to like what you see in you.

Before you hide under that blanket, though, do realize that everyone is hiding under their own blankets behind their social persona. And why not? Everyone is facing the onslaught of karma and trying to cope as well as possible.

I really want to say again and again. Be kind. Understand people even if you can see they are flawed and not doing the right thing. Realize that you are flawed too and coping in a similar manner.

Where then is the point of conflict? It seems so redundant to point fingers outwards when we are facing similar hassles? It has never made any sense to me to nurse self-inflicted wounds until they become a disease.

Cleanse, let go and observe experiences as karma unfolding. Everything will make sense then. It IS you, all the way. None else! And the other souls around you were meant to be there until their roles got over.

Surekha Kothari

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

www.instagram.com/author_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

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/

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

Self-Inflicted

 As I study more, there are so many eureka moments! Incredible learning.

Why do people suffer? The reasons.

We feel we have made a mistake. We shall not do it again. But we forget and make the same mistakes again and again.

Conclusion: memory does not teach us.

Stored experiences from many lives are tendencies that develop within us and THESE form our lessons for growth. Tendencies more of suffering but also good times.

If we notice the nature of each individual around us, their thought processes, what triggers them, what they can tolerate (or not), we will find that karma from many lives really dictate our lives.

We may therefore be born with these tendencies: caring or cruel, considerate or selfish, gentle or aggressive etc.

It is just the way it is and therefore, no blame is to be heaped.

We are therefore, just different, working with different karmic cycles.

The only way we can find harmony and peace for working out our karma is if we learn to live peacefully and with understanding with one another, accept each other as different in some ways and similar in others. And more important. Live and let live with understanding that we are all in the same boat, except some may be in a row boat, some in a sail boat and some in a luxury liner.

Practice only positive feelings where people are concerned. Conflicts give rise to more undesirable karma. Offer love. Offer peace. Don’t throw pebbles in the flowing water to disturb its flow. Counteract negative feelings and action with positive ones.

This superimposition of the negative with the positive will, in time, remove suffering.

So yes, suffering IS self-inflicted and can be removed only by each of us. Don’t worry about opinions. They don’t matter. Only YOU know who you are and how you can alleviate your own suffering.

Surekha Kothari

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/

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

Determination

 May god give us the strength and the awareness to streamline our lives. And have the courage to lose superficiality within ourselves and the people around us.

It is impossible to sustain relationships between apples and oranges. Why try? 

We must accept that everyone is on different levels, different aspirations and goals. During each life we get opportunities to strive for spiritual goals. Money and power, definitely coming as a reward for good karma, unfortunately become the goal, and gradually the greed for supremacy takes away our awareness towards the means we are employing.

We begin to pile on adverse karma and all the earlier “punya” slowly ends and the new phase of karma begins, depending on future actions.

To build is easier than to sustain. To sustain there is more effort and that effort can become an unethical one.

First, perhaps we need sustained ethical awareness and a determination to, at all costs, tread the righteous path while aspiring to achieve.

Everyone preaches but following the same is a big challenge. Only the human being is suspicious even of God’s plan. Irony at its best.

Surekha Kothari

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

https://www.instagram.com/author_surekhakothari/

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

Realization

 

Ironically, the day you start healing is the day you realize that you really have no control over anything anyone says, thinks, understands (or misunderstands) or acts. You realize that you are constantly pushing yourself or being pushed into corners all the time.

And suddenly, the tipping point happens and you just invert the bag of baggage into a dust bin instead of your mind becoming the dustbin where the unnecessary baggage should have been thrown out long ago.

I guess karma could also be a sudden realization after a lot of struggle. That change could be lifesaving, better, soul saving.

Any realization comes with awareness. When, how and why will depend on our own reflection.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Dharma by Design

 

Quote of the day

 

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

Forgiveness

 Please don’t hate family and don’t practice enmity either. There is a karmic reason for being together. There may be unfinished business from other lives that needs healing. That is why we have been given a chance by the universe to be related by blood. Healing is what we must do, not by distancing but with love and forgiveness.

There is always goodness in everyone. We just fail to connect with it , both in ourselves AND in others. If there was no goodness, we would not be connecting with anyone.

When we put friends above family, we forget that those very friends have issues with their own families. Then why do we find it in our hearts to shun family and make “friends” outside?

Growing up, we had our siblings and cousins as friends. Today, there are distances. Very unfortunate that our egos are more separatist today !

Let us try and rethink our relationships, especially with regard to where we have failed in wisdom. Because where there is love and forgiveness, there is always wisdom.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Blossom of Life

 

Living life on your own terms is great. Only If you don’t become callous as a person. How you live your life is of least concern to strangers because their lives are not connecting with yours in any way.

But you ARE responsible to the family and friends you are connected to. And here, your terms of life must incorporate them. Because this is your karmic group that is there for you as a teacher, friend, even adversary, for you to learn how to navigate life in a balanced way. And to remove the blocks that hinder your higher progress.

If only we could understand this, we would see the blossoming of life around us.

Surekha Kothari

www.BodyMindSoulCentre.com

surekhakothari.wordpress.com

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

Quote of the day

 

Dharma by design

 

Quote of the day

 

Dharma by Design

 

Dharma by Design

 

Quote of the day

 

Dharma by Design