You and I

"I do my thing and you do yours. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful. If not, it can't be helped. " - Frederick Perls.

Changing a relation status

Relations sometimes are like a car and a journey. Sometimes sweet, fun.. sometimes hurtful and bitter.

Recently I was speaking to someone and she mentioned how X's careless and uncaring attitude affected her. I had also earlier been troubled by it - in fact extremely troubled by it. I used to feel sad how they behaved as a family and how each member moved in a different direction. I used to wonder how the child will grow up to be. I had never witnessed a motherly tenderness and care in X. Somehow, I had not seen a family or mother daughter duo, this impersonal and uncaring. The firsts are always lessons, right? I too used to go out of my way to care for that person. But later on I realized that the person is incapable of caring for others. It's just not there in her sense. It's not like she tries to neglect people, she doesn't know to care; doesn't know to be there for a friend in need; She remains in her own world or in a world of turmoil (which is self created and she doesn't understand). My efforts to help her, have gone waste. Now, in an effort to save myself, I have distanced myself from X. I cannot bear to see the irresponsible behaviour always. It makes me angry.

I want to avoid thinking of X as every thought seems upsetting. But, what I realized is, over that year or more, I have distanced myself quite a bit. The way the family works, no longer affects me that much. I hardly pay attention to them. I do not go overboard to do anything and I do not expect anything from them. They may feel that I am a horrible person or whatever. But, this is an attempt to keep myself sane. Sometimes I feel I should be more compassionate. People in trouble need compassion. But, somehow I can't be that compassionate. I have accepted it.

So, our relation has changed gears from 5th to 1. We meet rarely. We're cordial. I want to keep it this way. Our values, aspirations, etc are so wide apart and I cannot relate to such people. But, I need to reduce my negativity to X. I will definitely try to do that because everyone is different. X is made out that way and makes no effort to change. (Who am I to even ask her to change?)
So, I should learn to accept that she is good enough for herself - may not be for me. We're all good enough for ourselves. If someone doesn't accept us, we can inspect and if some change is needed we can try or we could remain the same. The choice is ours. I cannot enforce my ideas and my idea of living on someone. That, I should not do. Since this is the first time I am having such a relation maybe I was in for a shock and unprepared. The more such people I meet, the more prepared I am. For now, I want to remove any ill feelings towards X and continue a cordial relations. Going forward we should learn to be cordial even to our so called enemies. Lesson to learn.

The axis

Echart Tolle said, "don't give your 100% to external situations. Keep some within. Observe your inner body when you perform actions".
I kind of understood that. I create an imaginary axis at my center and feel that I should be there.
Any situation I see how I am feeling. I have become more conscious.
I can understand that i am perturbed sometimes but calm other times.
There is un-necessary anxiety sometimes. Some leftover emotion are causing it.
Some people freak me. I become anxious, fake and cold with some people. I want to flee.
I have just been observing this and I can sense that when I am centered, conscious of my axis.. I feel better. There is a certain harmony.

I want to stay in that space for long. Maybe that will lead to an elevated consciousness.

Also, my teacher said "When your personality is changing, your axis is unstable". When we are undergoing huge changes, there is a lot of jerk. We behave abnormally, we may do a lot of silly things or unpleasant things. We should accept all of it. Every couple of months now, I am experiencing it. I go into turmoil. I feel hopeless.. and then I recover... and it has usually been stronger, more practical and wiser.

Cause of chronic disease and ability of the body to heal itself

For some reason, disease and its root case and alternate medicine is on my mind.
I am reading a book called "A wise heart" and it talks about buddhist psychology in treating diseases.
I have no idea why some diseases occur, but if it's my mind that is causing it, I want to get rid of it.
Also, I have personally decided no more treatments for me. If something goes wrong, I will live with it and die peacefully. I will accept pain. I will not let these terrific modern medicine which has not been tested affect the balance and harmony. The journey will anyway continue in a new body and probably it's a better idea to shed a body which has lost its immunity to disease.

From: http://blog.ishafoundation.org/lifestyle/health-fitness/chronic-disease-cause/
Also watch the foll to understand how science cannot measure everything. It relies so much on physical properties whereas the mind has a huge role to play. Science looks at matter and symptoms and Spirituality looks at the energy, the root cause, the imbalance that could have caused the disease, etc. I am now a huge believer of the power of the body to heal itself. I am living proof that with a healthy mental attitude, good health is never a distant goal. We cannot deal with certain chronic ailments but many modern day ailments can definitely be treated by taming the mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlCV0V9-yDE
Questioner: Sadhguru, you mentioned in previous discourses that 70% of all illnesses are mind-created. If that is so, what would be the emotional and thought pattern behind it, and how to correct that?
Sadhguru:You sound like a disciple of Freud. Only recently, certain letters became public that showed how hollow this man was who is seen as the father of modern psychoanalysis. This is not the way to approach it.
To give you a simple analogy – suppose your right hand was acting funny, beating you up, strangling and torturing you every day – would this not be sickness? For sure it would be. That is exactly what your mind is doing. It is acting funny, hurting you, poking you, making you cry, making you suffer – is this not sickness? But too many people are with you – you can form an army of sick people. When there is an army in front of you, sick or otherwise, there is no point in arguing with them – just bow down to them and keep going. That is what most enlightened beings have done – they just closed their eyes and sat.

Ancient societies always saw disease as something wrong. But modern societies are treating disease as normal, because there is a whole industry that thrives on it.

Sickness can manifest in many ways in the physical body. Every thought, every reverberation on the level of the mind changes your chemistry. Let’s say you think about tigers, one kind of chemical change will happen. If you think about flowers, another kind of chemical change will happen. Depending on the type of thoughts you create, you may produce a lousy, poisonous soup.
If you are soaked in this poisonous soup on a daily basis, how can you be well? Today, we only have limited control about what we eat, what we drink, what we breathe – all that is somewhat poisoned. The world is trying to poison you in some way, but if you are not only on industrial help but on self-help, depending upon how hard you strive, you will succeed. You know, “self-help is the best help.”
Ancient societies always saw disease as something wrong – a human being should not be in any state of illness. But modern societies are treating disease as normal, because there is a whole industry that thrives on it. One of the largest industries on the planet is pharmaceuticals, which means there is too much lousy soup. Every day, you have to add something to it to make it nice. If you are willing, we can make this into a wonderful soup, without external chemicals. Once your chemistry is in a fantastic state, to be blissful will be natural. That way, 70% of the ailments could vanish from the planet. For the remaining 30%, there are many external influences, which are not always in your control. But what you are doing from within can be 100% in your control.
If you are constantly creating a nasty chemistry within you, how is life within you supposed to understand you are seeking wellbeing? It will assume you like ailments and will give them to you. Some people may have a robust system that will take a lot of beating – some people will fall at the very first assault. But if you are poisoning your system from within through the thoughts and emotions that you generate, sooner or later, it will get you.

The soul...

Every day you should sit quietly and affirm, with deep conviction: "No birth, no death, no caste have I; father, mother, have I none. Blessed Spirit, I am He. I am the Infinite Happiness." If you again and again repeat these thoughts, day and night, you will eventually realize what you really are: an immortal soul.

Doing what you love and not creating karma

When you do more of what you love, you're totally IN the moment, in the activity. Your mind does not wander. It does not bother to check facebook or complain about your neighbour. It doesn't create "psychological time" as per Eckhart Tolle. Eckhart Tolle says, there is no time.. there is only psychological time, created by the mind. So, you don't create new memories/ conditioning/ preferences and dislikes during the time when you do something passionately. So you do not create new karma.  We can also feel that we never feel drained when we do things we love. We always have the energy to do it and the activity also generates energy for us.

We all spend a majority of our time at work. So it's important that you be present fully at your work. If your work is such that you feel distracted mostly, you need to think. So, no matter what you earn, if you're in a job that created psychological time, it's time to quit. It may not be possible for everyone to take this step as we all have family commitments and we need the month end paycheck. But if we have the courage to do some introspection and try to find a way out, we will be rewarded. Else, if we can train the mind to look at our current jobs as more than jobs, in a joyful way and focus on the job, we are still good. At the end of life, you carry forward your karmas to the next birth, not the wealth that you have accumulated. Right?

On hindsight I think this is life's mechanism to move you from something you were not destined to do, to guide you to the things you should be doing, which are suitable for your svadharma. When you do things that you like, the voice in the head goes silent. You feel peaceful. You can sense a harmony. There may be other things in the day that you "need" to do, which you may not really like to do, which can cause imbalance, but that's still ok. If a majority of the time you work in harmony, you're doing good and slowly you can also find ways to make the rest of the day harmonious.

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Bhagavan Ramana : Effortless and choiceless awareness is our real nature. If we can attain it or
be in that state, it is all right. But one cannot reach it without effort, the effort of deliberate meditation. All the age-long vasanas carry the mind outward and turn it to external objects. All such thoughts have to be given up and the mind turned inward. For that, effort is necessary for most people. Of course everybody, every book says, “Summa iru” i.e., “Be quiet or still”. But it is not easy. That is why all this effort is necessary. Even if we find one who has at once achieved the mauna or Supreme state indicated by “Summa iru”, you may take it that the effort necessary has already been finished in a previous life. So that, effortless and choiceless awareness is reached only after deliberate meditation. That meditation can take any form which appeals to you best. See what helps you to keep away all other thoughts and adopt that method for your meditation.
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Following is Sadhguru's thoughts on karma yoga.
Karma yoga has unfortunately been described as service, but it is not so. It is a way of undoing the impressions that you have gathered. If you can joyfully involve yourself in any activity, that is karma yoga. If you do it with great effort, only karma will come, no yoga will happen!

Generally it is through various activities that you perform that you get entangled and enmeshed with life. But if the activity becomes a process of liberation instead of entanglement, it is karma yoga. Whether it is work or walking on the street or talking to someone, the nature of the activity is not important. When you do something only because it is needed, where it does not mean anything to you but you are capable of involving yourself as if that is your life, it transforms you and action becomes liberating.

The power of stillness in curing diseases

The human body has potential to cure its own ailments provided you know about your body. I don’t discuss religion, so don’t be afraid of me. No matter from which religious background you come from, I want to give you something which you need in your daily life. All the great bibles of the world say one and the same thing—be still, be still. For a few minutes in the morning and the evening, every human being should learn to be still. Why, because you will meet God? No, that’s not necessary. You will be healthy. For your mental health it’s important for you to understand quietness, stillness. During that time, those muscles which do not get rest even in sleep get rested. The voluntary system you can control. You can exercise and develop all of your gross muscles, but you don’t have control over your involuntary system, the subtle set of muscles. For that you should learn to compose yourself, you should learn to be quiet, you should learn to be still, you should learn to breathe in a serene way. Scientists have realized that 70-80% of all diseases are psychosomatic diseases. They originate in the mind and are reflected in the body. These diseases are created by our bad thinking, negative thinking, passive thinking, not having control over our emotional life, not organizing our behavior, not understanding how to behave in the external world which is actually a very simple thing. Therefore, it’s important for a human being, modern woman and man, to relax, to learn how to give rest to that part of the system which we normally do not know how to relax. Only 25% of the diseases come from the outside, are infectious or hereditary diseases. It means 75% of the diseases are not cured by so-called medicines. 

From: http://www.swamij.com/swami-rama-the-mind.htm