The real growth, the only goal...

I've often wondered what drives people to action. The driving force that makes people to perform a gamut of actions in the world ; from the grossest to the most profound. There are many explainations for this from psychology to sociology. The most famous one known to even a rookie in manangement studies is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Although Maslow's theory tried to explain, it fell short to explain comprehensively. Then i turned my gaze to our very own system of yoga, not to be disappointed by the explaination provided.

This article in Huffington post from Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev prompted me to write this post. Yoga considers everything as energy. It's only the manipulation that we can do about it. Even fundamental physics says the same thing. So, fundamentally it's all the same energy manifesting in a zillion different forms. If that is the case, a human being is no different from the law as after all he's a microcasm in the macrocasm called universe. 

Someone who is born and brought up in India would have at least heard of the words 'Kundalini' and 'chakra' if not known anything about them in detail. Kundalini is a very vast concept in itself. To put it succinctly, it is an enormous dormant energy waiting to get awakened. Once it gets awakened, it can do phenomenal things. But if it is mishandled, it can cause a lot of physical and psychological damage. That's why it's aptly compared to a sleeping serpent.

As the above mentioned article clearly describes, chakras are the energy centers in which the energy channels called 'nadis' meet. Though they are in the form of triangle, because they symbolize growth and movement they are called chakras (wheels). When the dormant energy Kundalini begins to arise in the human system,it rises through these chakras. As the energy gets concentrated on a particular chakra, the dominant quality of the person changes accordingly. Even though there are 114 chakras in the human system, the dominant ones are 7 in number.

The seven chakras are : Mooladhara, Swadhisthana, Manipuraka, Anahata, Vishuddhi, Agna, Sahasrar. Depending on their physical locations, we can call them as higher and lower chakras but it no way denotes anything as inferior or superior in their quality. Mooladhara is the very first chakra and is located at the base of the spine. If the enegies are dominant in this chakra, food and sleep will be predominant qualities of life. Swadhisthana is the second chakra & is located just above the genital organs. If the energies become dominant here, the person will be incessant pleasure seeker and pleasure can be seeked in many different ways.

The next chakra is Manipuraka which is located just below the navel. When the energies move here, it pushes the person towards action. And action can be of so many types. When the energy moves towards the next chakra, Anahata which is located in the heart area, it makes the person very creative. The next chakra is Vishuddhi which is located in the throat region. If energies move towards this chakra, the person becomes extremely powerful in many ways. Political power and the likes appear to be pygmies in front of this kind of power.

If the energies move towards Agna, which is located between the eyebrows the person becomes intellectually enlightened. A new kind of peace and semblance dawns upon him. The next chakra, Sahasrar which is at the crown of the head is often described as thousand petalled lotus. The word Sahasrar also implies that its magnitude and significance is very vast; in fact, unlimited. When the energies reach Sahasrar, the person becomes extremely ecstatic.

Any spiritual seeker has to embark this journey from Mooladhara to Sahasrar in his ultimate quest towards self-knowledge. There can be a million ways to reach it. The seeker can choose any way which is appropriate to his nature and temperament. Once the seeker completes his journey, he would have known everything in this universe that is worth knowing.

My Books Review: September '11

     1) Saints and mystics: This book is a brief biography of a few saints and mystics of the world & is published by Ramakrishna Mutt. The saints and mystics that are covered are: Pavhari Baba, Baal Shem Tov, Swami Brahmananda, St. Vincent de Paul, Sri Narayana Guru, St. Teresa of Avila, Kabirdas, Swami Virajananda, Goda Devi, Sri Aurobindo, Gopaler Ma, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Guru Gobind Singh, Akka Mahadevi.
     Though I knew about a few saints in the book, I did not know in detail about the lives like those of Pavhari Baba, St. Teresa or Guru Gobind Singh. It was a good read. 

     2) Many lives, many masters: This book is written by a prominent psychiatrist Dr. Brian Weiss. It starts with a patient with several psychological disorders coming to Dr. Brian for help. In order to cure the patient, the doctor goes for the hypnosis, regression therapy. But after a few sessions, to his amazement the patient in a session instead of going to the early childhood or infancy slips to a past life. The doctor could not believe it because science has not acknowledged the existence of past lives though in some religions the belief exists. But he could not dismiss it as some non-sense because the descriptions given by the patient is so very vivid and accurate and besides the patient had a strict catholic upbringing which doesn’t believe in past life. It was neither hallucination nor delusion because as a trained psychiatrist, he knew the symptoms of those. 

The doctor continues the past life regression therapy and many previous lives of the patient get unfolded. To his surprise, the problems that the patient had began to heal at a very rapid pace than it would in normal type of therapies. This convinced the doctor about the existence of past as well as the future lives. At the end of multiple sessions of therapy, the patient became more than normal, radiating vibrancy. This is a good book in the fields of Para-psychology or ESP.

My Books Review: July '11

1) Rich dad poor dad: Perhaps this is the most influential book ever written about money for a layman. The author of the book is Robert Kiyosaki who bursts out age old myths associated with money. It is a truly revolutionary book which changes the way in which money is seen, the fundamentals of finance and which gives a new philosophy of accruing money and managing it. We have heard the terms intelligence quotient, emotional quotient but this book is about increasing the financial quotient. This is one of the books that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. This book is for all who want to know about money, the intelligent ways of playing with it.

2) Frankenstein: This is an all time classic written by Mary Shelley. I read it because of its huge fame and its timelessness. It is written over two centuries ago and still people remember and recognize it. A zealot in his mad pursuit creates a being without foreseeing the effects and the creature is endowed with superhuman powers. The monster thus created, goes on killing people. It has its own valid points for the killing. Besides the horror, there is a moral dilemma presented in the novel. One more thing that I observed in this novel is that many words that are used in the novel have been deviated from their original meaning long ago and they are no longer used as they were used before. A few words like ‘gay’, ‘intercourse’, ‘molesting’. Intercourse is used to mean socializing or to interact. Gay is used to be lively or active. These words are no longer used in the present as they are used in this novel. 

3) Enlightenment-Life-the-Way-it-is: This book is a compilation of many discourses of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, founder of Isha foundation. Some day I wish to write about this enigmatic yet beautiful person called Sadhguru. Now about the book: The book is a compilation of many questions by seekers and Sadhguru’s answers to them. The book ponders over the too often misunderstood, misquoted phenomenon called enlightenment. As Sadhguru says, none can speak about enlightenment but can speak around it. It also discusses various other things like personality, mind, meditation, love, yoga, role of a guru, inner management and many more things that are quite relevant for the human well being. This book is a delightful read.