Mirrors in Consciousness

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ― Rumi When we are attracted to people, or we hate people we seldom think they are our unclaimed parts of our psyche we project onto others. This causes an obsession with the other…a hate or love which is so strong that it can somehow take over every aspect of our life. When we get entangled in this obsession we can either be open to transformation, or fall into the depths of despair or delusion. Love has been misused and misrepresented in the world and we don’t understand the concept at the higher consciousness level. That love can be divine and push us onto higher consciousness is seldom experienced, understood or even considered. Through unconditional love we get a glimpse of the divine within. That we can get a glimpse of this in our ordinary consciousness can push us to transcend the mundane and taste the drunken bliss is a possibility we encounter each time we intensely love or hate somebody. Turn the intensity of the emotion inward, reclaim the energy that you have disowned and suppressed. Perhaps lifetimes of seeking and searching have brought you back to the point where you move towards reclaiming that lost part of you, which you mistakenly projected onto another. Mistakenly projected yes…the other is but your own window your mirror to yourself, the part of you that is eternal and that is self realisation or victory over your own self. Sadly we experience love as selfish outer conquests. Ego based love is all about controlling and pursuing and making the other to fit in with the idea of what we projected originally. Sadly this was the delusion and the illusion we created in our own mind so it shatters when the other cannot fit in or adjust to what our original image held. This part of our psyche that Carl Jung refers to as the Shadow Self, the Anima or Animus, is our projection on to others. If we watch and allow our emotions to grow and intensely express and let it out instead of suppressing we can experience its transformative power. Allow this projection to open up the suppressed energy and emotion, and acknowledge this emotion. When we feel guilty that we are angry or fight the emotion we cause more resistance and conflict with the hidden parts of our psyche which fights back for recognition. This part as you open up or reveal layer by layer is very transformative,but it can also shake the ground on which you stand and even cause an earthquake in your life. The more you resist the more it will fight back. In ways you cannot fathom it will try to break you…Physically emotionally mentally till you are ready to face and allow its expression..this disowned part of you this emotion,that’s hidden somewhere in myriad unheard stories, unshed tears, unexpressed love, anger and a whole range of other emotions only a human can experience, but has denied or not allowed themselves. When we start peeling these deep emotions and stories we bring out from the recesses not only what we thought were dark emotions or desires but also creativity and great talents which were suppressed by our need to conform. Society and upbringing kept us limited and confined within rules and regulations and lifetimes of conditioning. Now we have to drop these to reach own authentic selves. As we move through layers of darkness and emotion we finally see a glimpse of hope and that’s when we see only unconditional love and the oneness with both enemy and lover. Everyone appears the same we are able to see beyond the other's layers too..These layers I have added the other has too. As I remove my layers I see the true you too. The beauty of your soul shines through the muck you have gathered. My only plea is please drop your layers so you can see me too, that we are one and there s no enemy, no duality no separation. We are the same Essence enveloped in layers of Ego...guilt,shame,Judgement, Prejudice, anger, hatred,fear and so many other labels.

Unity Breath Meditation

This is a meditation from the book Living in the heart by Drunvalo Melchizedek. I have been practising this meditation for the last 2 months.It has helped in all kinds of situations. Dropping the mind, not analysing things and just sending out love to all. Things just begin to fall in place with no efforts.

The Unity Breath

Sri Yukteshwar went directly to the point, as I will now. He told me that in India no one would even consider approaching the divine without a certain state of mind and heart, and he gave me very specific instructions on exactly how to consciously connect to the divine and finally with God. Here is what he told me."You can be anywhere, but for me, I use an altar with a single candle to focus my mentalattention. I feel and know the presence of my teachers,and we all begin to breathe together, as one.
"Unify with the Divine Mother
"Let your attention shift to a place on Earth that you feel is the most
beautiful place in the world. It could be anywhere
—a mountain scene with trees, lakes and rivers; or an arid, sandy desert with almost no life —whatever
you perceive as beautiful. See as much detail as you can."For example, if your place is a mountain scene, see the mountains and the white, billowing clouds. See and sense the forest and the trees moving with the wind. See the animals—the deer and elk, little rabbits and squirrels. Look down and see the clear water of the rivers. Begin to feel love for this place and for all of nature. Continue to grow into this space of love with nature until your heart is beating with the warmth of your love.
"When the time feels right, send your love to the center of the Earth using your intention so that Mother Earth can directly feel the love you have for her. You can place your love into a small sphere to contain it and send it to the Mother if you wish, but it is your intention that is so important. Then wait, as a child. Wait until Mother Earth sends her love back to you and you can feel it. You are her child, and I know she loves you."As your Mother's love enters your body, open completely, allowing this love to move anywhere throughout your body. Let it enter all of your cells. Let it move throughout your lightbody. Let it move wherever it wishes to move. Feel this beautiful love your Mother has surrounded you with and
remain in this union with Mother Earth until it feels complete."
Unify with the Divine Father
"At the right moment, which only you can know, without breaking the love union with your Mother, look to your Father, to your Heavenly Father: Look to the rest of creation beyond the Earth. Place your attention on a night sky. See the Milky Way as it meanders across the heavens. Watch the planets and the Moon swirl around you and the Earth. Feel the Sun hidden beneath the Earth. Realize the incredible depth of space."Feel the love you have for the Father, for the Divine Father is the spirit
of all of creation, except the Divine Mother. And when this love becomes so
great that it just can't stay inside you any longer, let it move into the heavens
with your intention. Again, you can send your love into the heavens inside a small sphere, if you wish."Sri Yukteswar says to place your love in a small sphere and with
your intention send it into the heavens. He says to send it to the unity consciousness grid around the Earth. If you don't know whatthis grid is, then don't worry, just do as most of the indigenous peoples of the world do: send your love to the Sun. Like the grids, the Sun is connected to all the other suns or stars and eventually to all life everywhere. Some people, such as the Hopi of the Southwest of
the United States, send their love to the Great Central Sun, which is another concept that not everyone has but that is equally valid. Choose one—which one doesn't matter. The intent is for your love to reach all life everywhere.
Sri Yukteswar continued:
"Once your love has been sent into the heavens to the Divine Father, again you wait; you wait for the Father to send his love back to you. And of course, he will always do so. You are his child forever, and the Divine Father will always, always love you. And just like with the Mother's love, when you feel the love of the Divine Father enter your being, let it move anywhere it wants to. It is your Father's love,
and it is pure."
The Holy Trinity Is Alive
"At this moment something that rarely happens is manifesting: the Holy Trinity is alive on Earth. The Divine Mother and the Divine Father are joined with you in pure love and you, the Divine Child, complete the triangle."
According to Sri Yukteswar, it is only in this particular state of consciousness that God can be known directly And so the final step in this meditation is to become aware of the presence of God—all around you and within you.For this part of the meditation, Sri Yukteswar originally gave me a very complex way of being aware of God, but after speaking with many elders of various tribes around the world, I feel we can simplify the way to reach this final state of consciousness. It really is simple: Once you are in the Holy Trinity, you can achieve this experience by
simply opening your heart to the presence of God. For some reason that only God knows, in the Holy Trinity state the presence of God is easily perceivable.Sri Yukteswar gave me the name of this meditation: the Unity Breath. God is always everywhere, but humans do not always perceive God. The Unity Breath meditation takes you directly, consciously into God's presence. For some this state of consciousness is all that is necessary to complete all cycles created by life, or in another way of saying it, it is the doorway to approach all the sacred ceremonies of life, such as our birth into this world, sacred marriage and even death. According to the Native Americans, even the ceremonies of planting and harvesting crops require this particular connection to Great Spirit for the crops to grow and be healthy. The natural way is to cocreate with God, or Great Spirit, to assist in the cycles of nature to bring balance to life. According to the Bible we are the keepers of the Garden (or nature) as described in the story of Adam and Eve, and in this modem time we still are, but we have forgotten our purpose. Without this inner connection with
God we are separate and lost, hence this meditation of Sri Yukteswar is the opening to remember God and to enter and remember the sacred space of the heart.

On Children-Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Energy Healing and the Chakras

I can tell you that anything that happens in the physical body will happen in the pattern of the energy fields first

The body is a self-healing organism, so it's really about clearing things out of the way so the body can heal itself

-Barbara Brennan

There are so many healing modalities and each has its share of devoted followers who swear by them. The healing techniques with their origin in the East mostly follow similiar basic principles. There is an initiation or an attunement by a master or guru and you are taught a set of techniques.They can all be clubbed under Energy Healing though they may have other names..Reiki,Pranic Healing,Theta Healing and so on. I always want solutions and I am ready to try any method if it gives results. I found too many good masters and teachers not open about healing techniques other than their own. If they were to just open up their horizons and limited concepts they would see the common ground they share. I like to simplify things back them up with research or undergo it experentially and not follow any one discipline to the T. As it is alternative healing is looked at very dubiously and by dividing into so many kinds we seem to be losing more credibility.
I have come to the realisation that energy or prana is in abundance and we cannot patent or copyright it under any name. We were born perfect and as babies we could tap into this abundant energy.As we were conditioned by our parents( and they before us) and society we lost this ability till our chakras were either blocked or under functioning. To unlearn and be like that child would be our true healing. To dance like a child, laugh without inhibitions, be in nature and connect with its vastness would be the most natural things to do yet so rare in these stressed times. That is why we need a healer. The healer is only a channel for that universal energy, they have no special powers..You also have that within you..you just need to remove the clutter within..simplify and be like a child.
Many healers themselves fall ill undergo operations for conditions they heal. Why would this happen you wonder. This is because they are not able to transmute the diseased energy they are healing in people. Most of the time we think we are doing the healing and function from our egos.. This does not allow the universal energy to come in and we actually use our own energies and feel depleted. To surrender to the vast sea of energy,to be a hollow flute and produce music in the hands of the great musician..is the key.
All of us can learn to be aware of this energy if we are aware. A small example of this would be ..if u tap a depressed person on his shoulders he may not respond..whereas if he s joy ful he will feel your presence even as you approach him from behind. His aura is contracted in the former case and expanded in the latter case. To sense the flow of energy we have to be sensitized to the subtle sensations. In meditation and yoga awareness is taught and this opens up your perception of the subtle sensations. As you grow more sensitized to this you feel the heat, prickly , creepy or rushing sensations of energy engulfing you or coursing through your body. If you learn a healing discipline it helps to feel the aura and the energy flowing through your hands. We have to learn this as we have lost the ability to be aware of our own bodies and the the wonders it can work. Observing a child is enough to get us back to the original state. Most children under 5 are in high energy states.
Just like the sufis whirl, children do it too...we stop them from doing this. This helps them to correct energetic imbalances and connect to the source. Watch dogs, how they shake themselves sometimes. They just re-adjust their aura. Yet we do not know why we feel tired in the company of some people..and energised by someone else s presence. If you observe subtle changes in your energy levels you will be amazed at how we are influenced by the energy around us, the energy of our thoughts and the food we eat. That is the reason why the in India so much stress is put on kind of food..High energy and low energy foods and there is no emphasis on vitamins,carbs etc. This is because the realisation was at a subtle energetic level and not at the physical level. As the energy body affects the physical...it would be essential to pay more attention to our energy levels.
A simple exercise to protect your aura if you are in the presence of energy draining people is to imagine a cocoon of light ( any colour) around you. also rub your hands together..feel the heat and energy between your palms..till you can feel a ball of energy..now smooth it over your body as if your filling your aura so that there are no leaks or breaks through which energy can escape.

Recommended reading : Hands of Light - Barbara Brennan

On Pain - Kahlil Gibran

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

Why do we need to Forgive ?

When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.

-Catherine Ponder

Forgiveness is an essential for moving ahead on any path. Forgive not because you have been told so but for being liberated from your self created prison of hatred.

In many of the sessions I have conducted I see Forgiveness and Healing closely intertwined.When we die we carry only our emotional energies and knowledge we gathered... the material possessions, titles we leave behind..We take with us grudges, resentment, hatred and revengeful attitudes alongwith the positive energies like love,compassion,gratitude etc. The energies we carry in our subconscious mind attract the same drama and similiar players. The drama continues endlessly till one or the other party consciously breaks the pattern. To let go is not noble but a clever thing to do, if you want to break the pattern. This does not mean you keep quiet and resent silently. Letting go and forgiving means to forgive from within.When it no more has any negative residue you have truly forgiven and let it go.

While doing PlR sessions in case of relationship issues..usually the pattern is carried over from other life times where the reverse was true..the victim was the abuser and vice versa. Normally when the victim sees this truth and polar opposite lifetime..they instantly feel remorse and forgive quite easily. So subconsciously the guilt was allowing them to play out the victim role in this life in reaction to the past pattern. Till we know why we have chosen to be the victim we cannot break such a pattern. If we can see this experentially it is very simple. Otherwise we have to believe in karma and take responsibility for whatever we are facing. If we know whatever we face is a part of our own doing we can forgive.

The links that we create through hatred are far stronger than love. Perhaps this is why our world is filled with so much violence and suffering. We are all playing subconscious patterns of guilt,revenge,victimhood and abuse. Here everyone is suffering including the abuser because of an unconscious agreement. He also does not know why he is playing the role.
If we only made bonds of love..the world would reflect that. The world around us is a reflection of what we create in our minds with anger, revenge and resentment from lifetime to lifetime. As this cycle goes on, it becomes more mindless as we do not know where it began.
If one party releases,the bond snaps..and releases both even if the other has not shifted his consciousness. Even by forgiving in our own minds with full awareness we can release the bond. We do not always need to ask for foriveness in person. Maybe this is why Catholics have the ritual of confession before a priest. If it is done with feeling and true emotion it works to erase the pattern.
At a soul level no one is making us do things or suffer. We are responsible and we chose to undergo this. We are spirits here to learn lessons. The more patterns you break and the more you see them disappear the more you are convinced this is an interactive matrix and responds to your emotions,feelings and thoughts. Before you do it, it looks so tough, once you have done it, and the pattern disappears you wonder what stopped you from doing it sooner. The bubble bursts and you see its illusionary nature. The toughest lessons are usually karmic so look deeper at those difficult relationships around you and ask yourself who do I still need to forgive ?

Deja Vu and visiting places of former lifetimes

Deja vu is an authentic experience, but it is only a fragment of a far greater phenomenon -- reincarnation

-Osho



How many times have we visited a new place and felt we have been there before..the strong deja vu feeling. Usually we dismiss this feeling. Somewhere in 2002-03, on one of my official visits to Rajasthan I had this strange feeling which I dismissed. It took me almost 6-7 years to make the connection and fit in the missing pieces.

We were on a management audit assignment to a factory in Chittor, Rajasthan. I always loved visiting the historical forts and museums. I had already visited the well preserved Jaipur palaces and museums by then. Chittor is famous for the Victory fort and Rani Padmini's palace. If I knew what was left of Rani Padmini s palace I would have given it a miss. It was a bare set of walls and a building....stripped of all its past glory unlike the Jaipur and Jodhpur palaces. Such a place would hardly evoke any strong emotion. Infact we were quite disappointed to see this place.

Somehow as I walked into what remained of the palace, I was gripped by strong feelings of sadness and a deep connectedness. It was a very low feeling and there was no logical reason for it. It was desolate and empty, maybe very few people visited this place. I ignored and dismissed this feeling as we all normally do. The driver led us to the back of the palace and showed us some water body and some vacant space. He said the famous Jauhar ( group suicide in times of war) was performed at this site. I thought maybe the eery, low feeling might be connected to that and just wanted to get away from the place. I never thought of this incident till much later in 2009 while undergoing a PLR session I saw my life in Rajasthan in the 1300s.
The session was more kinaesthetic ( feelings, sensations and emotions) than visual.
The feelings and emotions were undeniably alien so was the personality I assumed. I was a Rajasthani woman in my thirties..dressed in a ghagra and I was taken to a scene where i was jumping into the fire committing Jauhar. I said i had to sacrifice to protect my family honour, a concept I have personally never identified with in this life. I said this with a strange conviction and with no fear at all. In this life in sharp contrast I have been afraid of fire and getting burned always. I have a birth mark on the inner part of my left foot that resembles a scar left by acid.
In the past life I could feel the burning sensation on my left foot only..as if my soul left the body as soon as the body started burning.I could recall a Muslim invasion and that we were defeated in battle and so the women had taken this extreme step to escape further torture and humiliation.

I later researched on the historical facts

Battle with Sultan Alauddin Khilji in 1303 AD.
Sultan Alauddin Khilji – the ruler of Delhi - was so seduced by the beauty of Queen Rani Padmini, whose face he only had a glimpse of through the reflection in a mirror, that he chose to attack Chittorgarh. It was a battle that the Rajputs knew they had no chance of winning given the overwhelming force of Sultan Khilji’s army. In anticipation of the loss, Rani Padmini, along with all the other women of the fort, committed jauhar. 30,000 women are said to have committed jauhar at this time – the largest mass suicide in history. With nothing left to come back to, all the men in the fort donned saffron robes and marched into battle with Sultan Khilji to face certain death. In total, 50,000 people are said to have lost their lives in this battle. I also found that the jauhar was committed in the underground cellars of the palace and not on the outside like the driver had told us.

While Sultan Khilji was successful in conquering Chittaurgarh, he did not get what he really came for – i.e. Rani Padmini. Following Sultan Kilji’s death,Chittaurgarh was regained by the Rajputs.


Jauhar-The term is extended to describe the occasional practice of mass suicide carried out in medieval times by Rajput women and men. Mass self-immolation by women was called Jauhar. This was usually done before or at the same time their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons rode out in a charge to meet their attackers and certain death- wikipedia

The building that stands today is a reconstruction this could explain my initial disappointment to see the place.
Perhaps, I was one of the 30,000 women who jumped into the fire that day. The soul visits places it has been connected to in past lives,to retrieve that part of its energies it lost there..Was my soul trying to heal a wound almost 700 years old ?

Of Spirits and loved ones from the other side

The physical basis of all psychic belief is that the soul is a complete duplicate of the body, resembling it in the smallest particular, although constructed in some far more tenuous material. In ordinary conditions these two bodies are intermingled so that the identity of the finer one is entirely obscured. At death, however, and under certain conditions in the course of life, the two divide and can be seen separately.

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Vital Message, 1919

While growing up I have heard my share of stories of hauntings. The usual fare carried down from grandmother to grandchildren. There were tales of girls trying to contact spirits through the ouija board and being terrorised by some spirit who refused to go. All this kept me away from even letting the possibility of doing something like this,even enter my head.Then there was Hollywood with its horror movies just adding to the fears.
Through a series of events that unfolded in 2007,my fears turned to curiosity,then to being open and finally belief that we continue to exist in a separate dimension a vibration away. When I was working in UK,there was a Spiritualist church down the street where we lived. I passed by this single storeyed structure everyday..and always thought it was something spooky and to do with Satanic worship. These preconceived notions came from my Christian upbringing, where things can have only two explanations..either its God or the Devil s work. Who decides which work is which.There s no space to question or reason. Its either in the Book (Bible) or you ignore it and its Satan's work. So I had this same attitude of just looking away from this place, till I happened to read a book by the famous British medium Tony Stockwell. Tony was a psychic since he was a small boy and his mother never disbelieved him. This helped him hone his skills and now he is a very popular medium. His book just dispelled a lot of doubts and fears I was harbouring. So the next thing, I did was to muster enough courage to go to this church one cold winter evening.
I was in for a pleasant surprise as the whole place was alive with cheerful and loving countenances and hardly spooky. They welcomed me and it looked like I had landed at some family gathering. When I introduced myself and said I was Indian..they surprised me all the more by saying what can we tell you about spirituality, you come from India the land of spirituality. I had to just act as if I knew what they meant, I had no clue what they were talking about.
There was a stage and an audience of around 50-60 people...all white faces..I was the odd brown face...not that anyone made me feel left out. This public gathering happened twice weekly and they had a guest medium give messages to the loved ones of people who had passed away. I was just curious and had no expectation of receiving any messages that day..The medium was a thorough gentleman the typical Brit..around 60 years..He seemed to be an experienced medium. He started with a message..

I can hear and see an elderly gentleman with grey hair and seated on an easy reclining chair..old fashioned with his hands behind his head. He tells me this is his favourite position, but it looks like a rather uncomfortable position to me

... It sure reminded me of a loved one, long since dead..I wasnt aware of the protocol and I was also skeptic and doubtful so I just waited for him to give more clues..oops I d missed it ..I was supposed to lift my hand..as the message was not taken he just went on with other messages. Strangely I felt a knawing sense of guilt with each message being taken by someone or the other for not putting my hand up. The whole evening went on and he have maybe 30 odd messages. All of them were taken by someone in the audience. He gave them such touching messages..most of them were cases of young deaths..in accidents and fatal diseases. I was visibly shaken and emotional as this has happened without any expectation. My grandfather had died in 1988 almost 20 years back. The description had matched him so well and I had let it go cause i was testing and waiting for more clues.
After the session I went backstage and met the medium and told him how sorry I was and that it was for me. He said this old man was trying hard to get across and was sending you so much love..maybe you can come again to get a message.
I went back twice to get no messages. The 4th time I went I was lucky..I sat in the front row so I should not get overlooked,as if spirit is restricted by any of this.
The guest medium was a lady this time...very soft spoken almost like a fairy tale grandmother with a shock of white hair. She hardly looked the part and I was not expecting much anyway. She started with a few messages , she had a different way of operating..she would choose the area in the audience where the loved one was seated ..Somehow this was not always very easy as she went off mark sometimes with the positioning. So when she chose an old man sitting 3 rows behind me but diagonally opposite..i was pretty disinterested with what she asked him...she said i can see this milk selling depot. The man had no clue and was racking his brains as his expressions showed to get at anything remotely connected to this. He was sorry he said I dont remember anything like this...

In my grandparents time when i was little boy we had a horse carriage deliver milk in bottles..

thats about all he could remember. So I thought poor lady is off the mark. Then she said something that almost instantly made me stand up with my hand raised as if I had been pushed out of my seat..this time I didnt want to lose my chance..so many spirits must be whispering in her ears she will just move on to the next message..What she said was something to the effect of...

I can see a white building,single storeyed where they have a primitive way of selling milk. People go with containers to buy milk. This looks like a third world country

. And that was enough..I had this flash of memory back to the early eighties..Calcutta, India where I grew up, queing up with my grandfather to buy milk at a Mother diary depot with a steel container. Not sure if spirit had helped me make that connection. This time I did not waste the chance. She started..

I have a lady here..she's about 70 she s saying she had 4 children and was a happy woman . She sang while she worked.. She had a problem with her throat or chest when she died..the medium was indicating her throat and chest region

...

I sprang up and started saying thats my grandmother..

She admonished me for revealing too much. They like coming up with all the details..and do not want you to interfere. I kept quiet and sat down..very excited. A few more details she gave and then she said something so beautiful I was deeply touched. She said..

Your grandmother wants to tell you she loves you a lot and is beside you..and now i can see her touch your right cheek..

Oh that was so close and I could feel nothing, nothing at all..But the way it all happened that day I didnt have a single skeptical thought. My doubts were erased for all time to come. Indeed there s more to life than what we know or perceive and I did not need any further proof. There was so much love and compassion all around and energy..it could not be Devil's or Satan's work at least. Maybe there is a relevant scientific explanation and it is not some magic or trickery..maybe we are not equipped to measure this phenomenon. Just like any theory that takes time to be proved..it is just a matter of time ..waiting to be discovered by science.
Later I went on to read more books by others and the common experiences these mediums shared only went on to strengthen my ideas. It is a great thing that the West is so open and always researches the paranormal so that we can read and clear so many doubts and drop being superstitious.
However, a client of mine recently mentioned something which set me thinking..that India was where all this began. She mentioned how the Theosophical society and Madame Blavatsky started its work in India and how performing seances was very common in her ancestral home in Calcutta and how her granfather wrote a book on the Afterlife in Bengali, almost a 100 years back detailing what a medium should do to call a spirit and all such details of conducting a seance. This practise she said the British took back with them. I have heard how during the Raj bored officers wives would entertain themselves with seances and the occult.
Ok , now I had heard most of this and studied it in my History textbook but never co-related the two. So this is what the man at the spirituality church seemed to be telling me how there was no need to introduce me to this concept as I was an Indian.. Far from the truth, as usual being a modern indian who just aped the west..I knew nothing of all this till recently. Yet again, one more part of our culture repackaged and taught to us.
I came to Bombay after that and found channeling to be quite popular among a certain kind of South Bombay elite. That is a different story as this is more like channeling great masters and spirit guides,unlike what i saw in UK. Also would like to add a fact that till the late 1940s this kind of activity was illegal in the UK and was conducted in underground circles as it was considered blasphemous. Not sure what we look at this as..I think we just choose to ignore it as we do with so much of our culture,we have given up to the west to improve upon whilst we sit back and adopt all their Capitalistic, materialistic ways. Change is inevitable, so I am not complaining..we indeed come full circle the snake biting its own tail.

Why are we judgemental ?

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you-Matthew 7:1”

Haven't we all been judgemental at several points in our life.Circumstances make the man.There was a time I stayed away from certain people because they never satisfied my idea of moral conduct. I have come a long way and realised morals are a part of our own personal conditioning. Not everybody has your idea of morality. What is morality to me is prudishness to the other. Through the ages, moral codes change dramatically..there's no constant. It is just something few people have agreed to believe and adhere to for a certain period of time.

As we grow spiritually we realise this truth that we are all essentially the same and just playing parts in this grand illusion, this drama.My sessions and the subjects have been a good teacher. I ve gained a lot from them too as they may have from me.

A sure sign of spiritual evolution is not having the need to judge the other by our narrow standards. What we judge in others is a part of us most of the time..but we cannot see it in ourselves..Usually the mirror is distorted and quite magnified so we dont realise it.

I have seen varied past lives both others and mine..It is quite a comedy that the saint in this life could be the prostitute in the other..What we classify as morality is not what spirit or the soul values. Spirit or the soul values love, sacrifice, compassion and such qualities. I have seen myself as an Egyptian, a Buddhist a Hindu and so on...It would be such a blessing if everyone had the insight to see this. We would not have had so much violence in the world. Too many lives have been lost for religion. What we hold on to dearly in one life we lose, and what we judge we become.
Seeing a few past lives has opened my eyes and I cannot judge others on the basis of religion or morals even if I wanted to.I always sat on this moral high horse because of the numerous religious lives I had.I still have a lot to work on.
Realising that it was only a conditioning I carried from several past lives took me time. Similiarly we have so many samskaras we carry from this and past lives. When we live in awareness we know what we are doing is coming from our own thinking or from that of our parents or society or the subconscious.
We live in an unconscious society where we are always in a doped out state. We carry on in a rut, dulling our senses with work or TV. Most of what we do is reactive or conditioned. We hardly live and enjoy the moment..there's always a sense of urgency, a next goal, a next promotion, a new conquest. In this doing we lost Being. So its hardly a surprise to not know where our prime motivators are coming from.
How many of us are still living someone else s unfulfilled dream ? Parents condition children to continue what they were conditioned to do..some make the children do what they could not...an endless, mindless cycle. Also with the kind of crazy world we have created we dont think for a second ..Wait, stop why am i doing this at all..
Do I want this ? Do I mean what I am saying or am I just reacting to something like an addiction,a habit. Its like an endless program. Its a looping program..when can we cut the pattern. Till we understand where its coming from there's no respite.

When you give this a serious thought and consciously undertake this awareness exercise..you will drop unnecessary conditioning you have gathered at least from this life.
Past life ones embedded in your subconscious may be tougher to uproot as the roots are in your subconscious. Persistence pays..A simple meditation of watching the breath in awareness can always keep you in the moment ..that way you dont create unecessary karma by reacting unconsciously..you act in awareness. Meditation is not blanking out and doing nothing..its serious business..being in total present moment awareness. Just watch your thoughts, be a witness to your breath and watch your bodily sensations and your emotions.
Its tough at the start as we've learnt to space out and detach from our bodies through the day to fight boredom at work, a nagging wife, a tyrant boss. That is why being in the body in complete awareness is seriously hard work at the start. As you deprogram and relearn you realise this is your true state of being to be connected body,mind and soul. In this state there is no way you can do anything wrong. Your heart and head is in alignment and there is no conflict. Sadly in our left brained world we value intellect to emotion and do away with it in our schools. Creativity is suppressed and we promote mediocrity. We learn to obey rather than differ. We are almost like mass produced clones.

Forced morals are ways of keeping individuals from thinking for themselves. This kind of a thinking has made us judgemental,prejudicial and repressed.

In recent years more and more young people are getting disillusioned with their empty lives. The bubble has burst for them and they want to get out and do something more than just living selfishly. So many people come to me to explore their life purpose. They know there is more to life than satisfying their narrow material goals.

In this new thinking there is an acceptance of people who are different from themselves,as they understand everyone has a different path to follow. We can only share what we experienced on our path,we cannot force our way on others. Every one has a unique path..the beauty is that we are all heading home along different ways. Life is an experience and we have to play the part well, to do that,you need to know your part. If we were meant to be clones..why would we have such myriad experiences. So live life in each moment in full awareness without judging the other. He has his path, his obstacles his circumstances. You do yourself the greatest service by continuing your way doing your part best.

Khalil Gibran's been a favourite from school days.. thanks to a dear friend who introduced me to his collected works. So simple yet profound.














On Marriage
by Khalil Gibran

You were born together,
and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when the white wings
of death scatter your days.

Aye, you shall be together even in the
silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together.
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress
grow not in each other's shadow.