Contentment is Divine

“…….Contentment is what makes you divine…..”- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Walk into a room that is dimly lit, quiet, almost serene, empty space in the center and few places to sit in solitude. The light interplays with the darkness in a beautiful harmony to add to the silence. The few sounds mingle like waves with the total silence to give purpose to the sounds.
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To me life is not a simple uni-color landscape where one attitude or emotion or philosophy will fill the entire life. Opposites are part of every bit of our life. The world is full of all types of people and our mind reflects the world we live in.
In our little world, we all need a place we can go where nothing matters. Past doesn’t bother, future doesn’t matter and there is a peace.
For some it is a physical place – a temple, a church, a park, an empty road, a quiet room in the house. For me, it’s a corner in my mind.
I want great things in my life and I want to achieve those great things.
Yet, i recognize that for great ambition to fulfill it’s place in my mind and in my world, I need a place that is the total opposite of it. A corner in my mind where nothing matters. Where there is total contentment!
Just as ambition cannot survive without contentment, contentment is meaningless without ambition glowing it’s flame in another corner of my mind.
For a few moments of the day, I live in complete acceptance with where, what and who I am. For the rest of the day, I plan, strive and execute actions that take me to a different place, make me a different person and change my surroundings.
In death, may be there will be only one of the two. But in life, they both exist in different parts of my mind.My two children. I love them both!

Can I comprehend the entire universe in front of me?

When I went to Jackson Hole, WY last year in June, I had the good fortune to view the mountain range at the Grand Teton Park. The towering Mount Moran over Jackson Hole, WY. It is a sight to behold. At nearly 13000 ft high, it is one of the highest peaks in contagious states of America. It’s less than half of the largest peak on Mount Everest but it is big still.

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The view made me gasp in awe. It made my mind still and ponder on the grandoise of the sight in front of me.
We humans percieve size through reference points in the surrounding space and distance. How do I know that this laptop is small? Because it sits in a room and on a table larger than it. The laptop is smaller than my body. Hence, I deem it as small. The room, table, my body and several other objects in and around it were my reference points. I judge the size of this object based on all the reference points – visible and invisible. Invisible are the ones in my memory.
I have for years read of mountain peaks and their sizes. Mount Everest is 8,800 something meters high. 29000 something feet high. I have read those numbers before and do read them still.
But, until I saw Mount Moran from the road in front it in Jackson Hole, with the trees, the cars, the houses as my reference points – I had no real understanding of the size of that mountain. When that size become real with all the reference points. It filled me with awe.
Distance is another key reference point here. I was standing in proximity now to the mountain. The mountain was not out of my sight but right in front of me.
The milky way galaxy that we are part of is 100,000 light years in diameter. That is 946052840000000000 kilometers (approximately). There are 18 numbers in that size in kilometers. I can put any other myraid variety of numbers around that size. And I am only just talking one galaxy in what we know is part of some billions of galaxies. A billion has 9 zeroes after 1.
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Those numbers are generally quoted to produce awe. To expand the mind beyond the petty. To understand the breadth of the horizon in which we are part of.
That to me is like looking at the height of Mount Everest on a computer screen. I can simply not comprehend 18 digit number kilometers without reference points. 
 
I can pretend to comprehend. I can try to comprehend. I can imagine. 
 
Yet, it is incomplete. 
 
I have no reference point to comprehend the entire universe. My body was a reference point to comprehend the size of the laptop that I am typing this on. In a way, my body was a reference point to comprehend the size of Mount Moran. 
 
I could stand on a road the view the entire Mount Moran in my eye sight. I was just far enough from it and not too far away from it to be able to view the entire mountain in my eyesight.
 
There is a sweet spot of time, distance and reference points in the space that are necessary for human mind to comprehend the size of any object, person or element in space.
 
And there must be such sweet spot for us to comprehend the entire universe in our eye sight. or Inner Sight.
 
Keep Exploring!
 
 
 
 
 

I meditate…Why?

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I meditate every day. I have been doing it for 11 years.
My fascination with meditation has grown with time. My discovery of it’s depth and what it does to me has increased with every passing day over the last 11 years.
I claim to be no expert in this field but my experiences have sure taught me a great deal.
So, Why do I meditate?
One simple reason – It feels great!
That’s too simple, I agree.
Lot of things feel awesome, so what’s it about Meditation then?
Have you ever lied on the back staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep, thoughts passing through the mind. There in that empty space, thinking about some random event from years past. Thinking about that person who I want to forget. Thinking about what will happen if I do not get promoted this year. Thinking about what I am doing with this life.
I have.
I may safely guess, you have too.
The events that scarred our minds and hearts don’t leave. They make an impression and that impression stays.
Time is a great healer. But time unfortunately has a lot of time.
You and I don’t.
The greatest gift that I have found from my meditation in the the last decade is that meditation is a bigger healer.
The scars as young as 2 years old, as not so young as 7 years old and may be older than that have disappeared from my mind, from my heart and I owe a debt of gratitude to my meditation practice for that.
That is one reason I meditate everyday. There is more to an ocean than the shining pearls on the sandy beach. There is more to my meditation that the healed wounds of a decade.
More some other time.
***P.S – I practice the Sahaj Samadhi Meditation taught by my master Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of the Art of Living Foundation.