Category: Coaching

Spiritual, life, personal coaching

Brotherhood of the Spirit—My Contemplation

In Part-1 of this series, I talked about the confusions and internal conflicts that arise, if the guru-disciple relationship is not seen in proper, higher perspective. In this part, I will discuss my own confusions, and how my teacher Siddhar Thirumoolar clarified my doubts using my wordly relationships as examples. […]

Brotherhood of the Spirit—Introduction

In this two-part series, I will discuss the confusions, questions and doubts that arose in my guru-disciple relationship with Siddhar Thirumoolar and Mahavatar Babaji, and their subsequent resolution, in hopes that it will help you resolve your own confusions and internal conflicts when it comes to your relationship with your teacher. Hopefully, this will trigger a contemplation within you to figure out, if your own relationship to your teacher is based whether on equality, mutual love and respect, or on fear, clinging and sycophantic behavior. None of the latter three leave room for mutual love and respect. […]

9 Mistakes to Avoid on Your Way to Enlightenment

In the article, On gurUs and Disciples, I described the true characteristics of a guru and a disciple. In this article, I will discuss some of the most important mistakes made by spiritual aspirants. Instead of being disciples they become devotees. There are gurus who are genuine and probably are enlightened. There are also con-men (and con-women) posing to have been enlightened and building their financial empires. I hope that by reading this some devotees become real disciples. Why did I choose the number 9? I didn’t. It just happened to come out that way, when I finished writing this...

Simple Techniques for Busy People to Help Access Inner Peace and Joy

Most of us are incessantly bombarded with random thoughts. We end up connecting these random thoughts to create a story. We create an identity for ourselves based on these stories. We don’t even realize that we derive our identity from these stories. The stories could be coming from feelings of dejection, rejection, defeat, fear or those of elation, happiness, victory and courage. Still they are thoughts. Some we label as good and others as bad. We do not realize that our true identity is not, “I am happy, I am sad, I am courageous, I am lonely.” We identify ourselves...

Human Animal and Oneness with the Universe

Merriam-Webster Online defines Human as “a bipedal primate mammal (Homo sapiens)“—a large monkey, if you will—a part of the animal world. Why are we so gung ho about being a human anyway? I hear some of you saying, “It is because we can think logically and animals cannot!” Yes, animals cannot think logically, they have instinctual thoughts. If they are hungry they eat grass, plants or hunt and eat other animals. But, that’s it! Once they are done eating, and are sated they are done! They don’t go around killing indiscriminately to make a business out of it. At least,...

Fear

You must be the change you want to see in the world. —Mahatma Gandhi There are self-help books and articles that talk about courage and how to live courageously, but very few of them really talk about the significant role fear plays in our daily lives. There is more fear in us than courage. If we want to live courageously, then we must first clear fear and make room for new energies to come in. We are like a house full of clutter. If we want to bring in more valuable items to beautify our house, we must first clear...

Yoga Nidra or Yogic Rest

In this article, I present a technique for yOga nidra (See sanskrit transliteration scheme) which not only produces great relaxation, but also gives other benefits discussed later in the article. Originally, a technique was taught to me during my kriyA yOga initiations. During my practice, the technique discussed in this article evolved from within, as a modification of the original technique. The technique discussed here is only one of many techniques, just like there there are many meditation “techniques.” The goal is not the technique itself, but entering the state of tUriya (discussed below). Even though the technique itself is...

Health, Productivity and The Power of Presence

(See sanskrit transliteration scheme) In The Power of Presence, I discussed the essence of staying present in the Now. In that I discussed, how being bound to the past, and jumping to the future and back to the past were causing us to loose the beauty of the present moment and how it was draining our vital energy. I also briefly discussed how staying present, improved my day-to-day work and productivity and overall physical and mental health. In this article, I will elaborate more on how I achieved this and give some of the examples of my own improvements in...

Breathing and Visualization Techniques for Self-Healing

In yOga (see sanskrit transliteration scheme), prANAyAma (control of life-force through breath) is an important and ancient conglomeration of techniques to promote physical, mental and spiritual well-being. In this article, I will discuss simple breathing and visualization techniques, I often use to heal myself of minor ailments like headaches and pains or when I am stressed from dealing with day-to-day issues. Learning and becoming comfortable with these techniques beforehand is better, so you can use them right away when you are in need. CAUTION: This breathing technique or any other technique is not a substitute for proper medical care. This,...

Detachment Versus Indifference

One of the main ingredients of spiritual practices is to be detached from the objective world. What is detachment really? How is that different from indifference or apathy ? A couple of years ago in my Babaji’s kriyA yOga (See sanskrit transliteration scheme) initiation class, we were doing an exercise on the identifying of emotions and becoming detached from them. Exercise was that the teacher would say a word and we would write the feelings that come to us on a piece of paper and label them appropriately as anger, happiness, joy, detachment, etc. The word was money. I wrote...

Surrender

Have you ever noticed yourself getting annoyed by loud screaming of children playing around you? Have you ever got startled by the sudden flare up of a car alarm and got annoyed when it continued to blow? Have you ever gotten scared of the prospect of failure in the projects you are working on? May be that you are searching for a job and you are not getting any leads and that is frustrating you? You might say that these feelings were caused by noisy children, loud sudden noise, the tight job market and so on. You may have noticed...