The Most Important Thing You Should Do

A scholar was travelling across the Ganges, the most famous river in India. As his boatman rowed him on the river, the pundit was bored. He was quite proud of his learning, and looked down upon the illiterate boatman. Just for curiosity's sake, he asked the boatman,

"Brother, have you studied the scriptures?"
"No, Sir" Replied the poor boatman.
"Oh, 1/4 of your life is wasted."

Some time passed. The pundit wanted to show off his knowledge. He asked,
"Have you studied Sanskrit?" Sanskrit was the language of the scholars.
"Oh No Sir" Replied the boat man, feeling embarassed now.
" Too bad. half of your life is gone in vain "

After some time, he asked again, perhaps knowing well the answer:
"Do you know about the six systems of Hindu philosophy?"
"No Sir, how could I?" Replied the now red faced boat man.
"Then three quarters of your life is wasted" Said the pundit.

The pundit sat back gloating.

Suddenly, the wind started blowing heavily. Black clouds thundered in the sky and the river was heaving, throwing the boat up and down.

As they clung on to their crazily bobbing boat, the boat man asked,

"Punditji, do you know swimming?"
"No, brother" replied the panic stricken scholar.
"Well then, I am afraid your entire life is wasted!" said the boat man as he left the boat and plunged into the river.

The pundit met his unceremonious end in that storm.

We plan and do many things in life. We set up career goals, indulge in pleasures, try to achieve social status...

But when a crisis strikes, none of these things can help us.

Only a well composed and disciplined mind can help us steer our way out of life's tough situations.

Therefore the most important thing we should do is to master ourselves with meditation and other spiritual practices

Why We Continue Undesirable Behavior And What To Do About It

You may know atleast one person who has a damaging habit. He/she knows about it, and still continues to indulge, even though it is eating their life away. It may be alcohol, drugs, sex addiction or more milder but still harmful forms like workaholism, shopaholism, etc.

Many of us continue various forms of undesirable behaviour-unhealthy eating, not listening to one's partner, idling away time, not exercising, etc. We all know this habit of ours is not good, but we still continue the same foolish behaviour.

What could be the reason for not stopping unwanted habits?

Recently I saw ads against smoking, issued in public interest by the Indian Govt. They contained vivid images like squeezing a sponge (resembling the smoker's lungs) and a dark, slimy liquid oozed out of it. Another ad showed closeups of the sad, anxious face of a little girl as she watched her tobacco addict father coughed. These ads were scary and did the job, they showed the logical conclusion without softening it.

So facing the stark reality is an effective way to stop undesirable behaviour.

Often people know the consequences and still continue. Why is this?
This is because they are distracted and cannot visualise clearly. Our exclusive attention must be focussed on the consequences and then imagine them happening to us. When we hear about bad things happening to others, it is always them. its happening to somebody else, not me. Much like Yudhishthira said in the Mahabharata, "the greatest wonder in life is that people see others dying all around them, and yet they never think that they are also going to die one day."

Eliminating our unwanted traits and acquiring fulfilling ones gives us lasting joy in life, a sense of mastery over our destiny. But the trigger for that change is fear. Fear of the consequences. And that fear will arise only when we can imagine the same consequences for ourselves.

Another reason people try to avoid thinking about the consequences is that it makes them squirm, The discomfort we feel when we visualize the unpleasant consequences of our bad habits makes us avoid thinking about them.

This is where meditation practices like Vipassana can really help. Meditation encourages us to sit through the discomforting experience. Normally we try to divert our attention with TV, movies, alcohol, food, socialising etc. But the issue still remains. In meditation, we have the breath to hold on to when the discomfort arises.

And when you can sit through the discomfort without running away, believe me, you will fell much closer to a more fulfilling state of being!

So the three keys to effective personal transformation (which is nothing but discarding unwanted habits and acquiring good ones) are:

• Get into a relaxed state of concentration (meditation recommended)
• Take just one habit at a time
• Visualise the consequences of your habit and imagine them happening to yourself

Now if you can't think of enough consequences, just google:

An Inspiring Speech in Dark Times

I'm Not a Joke - Vulnerable Yet Strong

Should You Seek Liberation? Why?

As life races along to its inevitable end, I am confounded by doubts and thoughts. Why do we live? What are we doing here? What is the purpose of life? What is mind? If the purpose of life is liberation through enlightenment, what happens when one becomes liberated? How do we recognize a liberated being? Do we need to know the answer to every doubt before being liberated?

A google search threw up these results:
Why+should+we+strive+for+liberation+from+birth
My religion says human beings are the only species capable of realizing the truth about existence. This seems obvious, as only humans can think. Animals cannot. Even though they display affection and sparks of intelligence, they cannot contemplate on the meaning of life. They are too caught up in the pleasures and pains of bodily existence.

The problem is that even to think effectively and arrive at a solution, we need a focused mind. Developing a focused mind must be our first priority.

• What happens when one becomes liberated?

Liberation is the extinction of all desires. So if somebody manages to eliminate all of his desires, they would be liberated. However, desires are the cause of birth. In other words, we get a body because we have desires. This means if there are no desires, the body will cease to exist. Means we will die, but will continue to exist as Consciousness.

Does this alarm you? It will scare most people that Liberation will cause death, but it need not be. Eliminating all of the desires is not an easy task, and will take quite a lot of time, if at all it is possible in one birth. And by the time you do manage to do that, you would have expanded your consciousness so much that birth and death become child's play.

Some liberated people chose to keep a few desires so that they will continue to live till natural death happens.

• Do we need to know the answer to every doubt before being liberated?

Liberation means the person has no reason for seeking desires. You have found the true source of happiness and contentment that is within yourself and you no longer need external experiences for happiness.
You don't need to know all the answers to be happy. To be happy all that you need to do are:

• Be active
• Be alert
• SMILE

Note: This is an ongoing post. I am trying to collect all that I have learned about the purpose of human life and put them down. So it is incomplete.