There are many ways to reach the same goal. How beautifully this was taught by all great teachers! Even after noting this for a thousand times it is not as easy to follow it. Every time I judge someone isn't it the same as accepting them with conditions? With spiritual growth acceptance of all comes by itself. There is a beautiful poem that says, "If you can accept everyone as your own you will find God!".

#spiritual

I had a nice dream today. I am writing about it. Unlike normally I remember my dreams and am mostly conscious that I am dreaming. I can choose to wake myself up from that dream. I hear the sounds around me even in my sleep and am aware that certain sounds are not the creation of my dream. Most of us would not have noticed that dreams that occur in a peaceful place with no sounds around us! Characters in such dreams do not speak. My dreams are mostly mute. Characters happen to communicate through thoughts but that is occasional, often they are not in sync. Today I saw divine Mother Sarda in my dream. And the first thought was that I want to serve her in some way, to please her in some way, and I sat near her feet. It was this thought that made me peaceful. I did not desire anything. I was happy to wait there. A sense of completeness and being at peace, accepting all.. was there. And I was aware that it is a dream. The emotions were very strong, I had to wake up.  Now I was thinking how I may continue to stay in that peaceful state? Answers were coming to me.

First visual was about serving my parents. Next I saw some friends. I thought about an orphanage we had visited sometime back. I tried going back to sleep and fall into that state again. I could not. It was about four o’clock and my sleep was over. I still tried - it was greed in my mind. As I tried falling asleep some random thought would start a new dream but I would wake up myself every ten minutes and try to fall asleep thinking about the joyful dream. I did not have success and finally I woke up at five o’clock.

There is something related to this topic that I may write here. I have the demerit of getting jealous. I still find difficulty in controlling this emotion. I had devised a remedy for it. When I felt jealous of a person I would deliberately force myself to do a good act to the person. It did not change things completely but it did prevent me from brooding over that person. Another observation I made is that i would get jealous of someone when I resent some action of theirs. Presently I have a different perspective. I understand that the permanent solution for me is to accept people around me as they are. All paths lead to the the same goal. Everyone wants to be happy and to give happiness to others. It is foolish to judge people. We cannot help anyone. We may only serve and in doing so we are helping only ourselves. We all have demerits but teachers say we are all essentially divine. Sometimes due to ignorance and limited knowledge we overlook this beautiful understanding. We can always choose to help each other progress on our individual journey.

Thank you for reading this, if you have a comment you are welcome to write it. Your views are most welcome.

#dreams #emotion #emotions #friends #ignorance #knowledge #mother #paths #peace #perspective #sarda #spiritual #teachers

I was listening to ”Meditation: Falling Awake” on ABC Radio National’s The Spirit of Things. I found it informative. I found it voicing the same opinion what i hear on the Guided Meditation recording by Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama, Mysore each morning. It is this- Meditation is not necessarily bliss. And this has been said by some other spiritual teachers too. I remember when I was a kid it was much easier and blissful to meditate. I would lose body consciousness in ten minutes. I did not persevere in my practice. I went on and off. Now I am working and live far away from home. I have taken it up again. It takes about one hour to get to that same state it used to take me only ten minutes. And it takes an effort to stay sitting now. The rule I broke was perseverance. I was not sincere. But no spiritual effort is ever wasted. The experience of peace, state of being without desires and love for all draws me back to it. It is very essential to be sincere and persevering in all our endeavours. It is noted that after the initial blissful experience we get in meditation- it decreases. But we must not lose heart. If we do not get discouraged and do not stop the practice we will gain deeper understanding of ourselves. I wish that you may never lose heart and practise sincerely.

Thank you for reading this, if you have a comment you are welcome to write it. I would be happy to read your comment.

#bliss #effort #endeavours #meditation #peace #perseverance #practice #spiritual