Issue 9 | 13 Jan. 2007

Tips from Sri Sri

How To Be A New, Happy You

Just when it looked as if we are past all the happy new yearrings, comes Sankranti on Jan 15. So if you have missed out on keeping - or making any - new year resolutions, here's another last ditch opportunity to make a fresh start all over again. Incidentally, Sri Sri Ravishankar's signed piece on 25 ways to improve one's life in 2007 published in a national weekly was scintillating stuff that is worth a second - and - third look. If you have missed it, don't worry, Sankranti is as good an excuse as any to re-visit it. It's a fine example of how philosophy, in all its profundity, can make such fun, reading, that's so typical of Sri Sri. Here's a brief recap of Guruji's tips for a "new, happy, you":

1)Review the context of your life: Look at your life in the light of time. It's not even a drop in the ocean. In terms of space, you simply don't exist! Now, just to know this, Awareness dawns in your mind and .you will stop worrying about things like 'this person said this thing to me and that person broke away with me and this happened with that person and I am going to say this." All smallness will simply drop away and you will be able to live every moment of your life.

2)Know Life's impermanence: See the impernance in this life. That is the truth. Tomorrow will pass. Now and a then, a pinch of unpleasantness comes. It makes you aware of your pleasantness. Suppose you never had unpleasant moments in life, you would never have pleasant ones. .In order to keep you alive, nature gives you a little pinch. It makes life more lively. Accept it. Being aware of this impermanent nature of our life, you find that there is something in you that has not changed. 

3)Make your smile cheaper: A research done in England found that a baby smiles 400 times a day, an adolescent 17 times and an adult doesn't smile at all. The more successful one keeps a very stiff face. Is roughness a sign of success? Your smile is so fragile! Just one telephone call is enough to take it away! But what is the big deal about your feelings? Bundle them up and throw them into the ocean! Once you are rid of your 'feelings', you can be happy. Just see why your spirits go down? Because somebody said something stupid to you. And why did they say a stupid thing? Because they had some garbage they needed to throw out and you were there, ready to catch it! And once you have caught it, you hold on to it so passionately! Come on! Wake up! Don't let your smile be snatched away by anybody!

4)Be enthusiastic and praise others: Enthusiasm is the nature of life. We often have a tendency to put cold water on other's enthusiasm. Reverse this tendency. Take every opportunity to praise others and support their enthusiasm. If you put down other's enthusiasm, the same may happen to you. As you sow, so shall you reap. 

5)Make meditation a part of your life: The higher goals in life can only be realized through a few minutes of meditation and introspection. What is meditation? Mind without agitation, mind in the present moment, mind that has no hesitation, no anticipation, mind that has come back home, to the source, mind that becomes "no mind", is meditation. I will give you an example. Have you seen dogs biting bones? You know why they bite bones? Biting wounds their mouth. Its own blood comes out and the dog feels that the bone is very tasty! Poor dog spends the whole time chewing the bone but getting nothing out of it! Any joy you experience in life is from the depth of your self, when you let go all that you hold on to and ssettle down being centered in that space. That is called meditation. 

6)Go to the most beautiful place: To cultivate the habit of listening, you have to "go" to a place where everything is beautiful! Learning something about our breath is very important. The first thing we did when we came to this planet is that we took a deep breath and then we started to cry. The last thing we'll be doing: we'll breathe out and make others cry! In between, the whole life, we are breathing in and out, but, we have learnt very little about our breath! No breath, no life. know breath, know life! 

7)Communicate effectively: If you are faced with someone who knows more than you, be like a child and keep your ears and eyes open for learning. If you are faced with someone who knows less than you, be humble and strive to make them as good as or better than you. 

8)Take time out for yourself: If for the whole day you are engaged in only gathering information, you do not take out time for yourself to think and reflect. A few quiet moments are sources for creativity. Renunciation refills your energy. Creativity cannot happen only just through efforts. Creativity springs up when you are relaxed. You have to renounce all work you have done the whole day, only then can you rest in the night. 

9)Better the world around you: Greater the commitment, easier things are. Smaller commitments suffocate you because you have more capacity, but you are stuck in a small hole! Commitment will always bring comfort in the long run. Make a commitment to make this world a better place to live. 

10)Nourish your emotions: A person without emotions is like without wood without any juice. You need to make your life interesting to make people be with you. This will happen when you nurture yourself with music, prayer and service. 

11)Plan short and long-term goals: You should plan your short and long-term goals. Then, and only then, life gets a channel, a direction to flow. When the mind is totally in the present, the right planning happens. Not only should plan your goals, but plan the means and methods to work towards them. 

Do not make a list of all the things you want to achieve. Select a few things that really matter. Once a teacher brought a glass jar to the class and a bag with some big stones, some small stones and some sand. He asked the students to put all the contents from the bag into the glass jar. Some students put the sand first, then small stones and by then there was no place for the big stones. The teacher later explained that had they put the bigger stones first, then the smaller stones, there was always space around the stones for all the sand in the bag. This example teaches us an important lesson in prioritizing things. If we put things that will give us maximum fulfillment in the long term, smaller things will automatically fall into place. 

12)Prayer is a vital tool: Prayer is a vital tool to improve your life. It also nurtures values like integrity and honesty. Prayer happens in two situations or in a combination of situations. When you feel grateful or when you feel utterly helpless. If you are not grateful and prayerful, you will be miserable. In either case, your prayers will be answered. What you can do, you do. What you cannot do, you pray for.

(To be continued next week)