The power of WILL

I have heard the importance of strong determination. People in Jainsim practise hard fasts to build up their will power. They do not limit this to only hunger fasts, they pratcise this with so many other things such as giving up the use of a dear thing, habit ,etc. One should not confuse will power with ego. But yes there is a hair line difference between them. I do not know how much these fasts can help a person to lift his/ her will power in the right direction so as to give the desired spiritual uplift. But one thing that seems certain is strong will power does take you close to God. How ?

One day a disciple asked a saint, "could you please tell the secret of finding peace and truth ?". "Dear disciple", saint said, "have you ever played veena ? You must have observed the artists trying hard to tune their veenas. The wire should be tightened to only that extent that generates the melodious sound - neither too harsh nor too mild. Same is the case with a human. You need to have balanced mind and heart to play the of tune of your veena - life".

Today, man's mind outweighs his heart, with man pushing more and more towards materialism. To play the music of life the balance between heart and mind needs to be established. Thus the concept of strong will power ( not ego which is a reflection of mind) comes into picture. Will power reflects the strength of your heart, Thus the more one nurtures his/ her will power, the more he/ she calms and thus comes closer to the truth and the God.

The London Trip

Following my joining in the new company, I am made to travel London on business visa for 2 weeks. 

Trip starts on 23rd May, 2010 when I fly to London by a non-stop kingfisher flight. The journey is told to be of 9 hours. Plane after taking off at 1.30 PM IST lands at 6.10 PM, London time. After getting off,  I call home informing everyone about my safe reach. I move to the underground (metro) terminal 4 station to get an Oyster card (metro card) and take train to Holborn where I have booked a hotel for stay.

After 50 mins I check-in. Hotel Citadines is actually a Apart-hotel - a hotel that has apartments too.

Following morning I decide to take the 11 no bus (a walk) to office. On my way I get to see the beautiful view of St. Paul's Cathedral. This is the most famous cathedral in London and is daily open to tourists from  8.30 AM - 4.00 PM. It hosts various religious ceremonies including marriages of VVIPs.

The whole week I try to see as many places I can as the weekend and the following week are predicted to have bad weather. First is the Tower bridge which is often confused with London bridge. I wait for roughly 2.5 hours to click it in moon-light. But couldn't as weather turns bad.

Next is the Piccadilly circus, the DDLJ one in which Mr. Amrish Puri can be seen doing the famous aao-aao. This place reminds me of the Newyork's Times Square with big neon banners. 'Ripley's Believe it or not' further lifts up the square  

Close to this is the Trafalgar square with big fountain and church.

The London eye, costing around 22 pounds, with a cycle time of 30 mins,  gives an amazing view of London.

The famous houses of parliament and the Big Ben

The week 23-29 thus ends. I spend my weekend with friend Amit and Monday on shopping. The whole week 31-4 June is not much happening. weather is also not good. Amit says, here in London, it rains 10 out of 30 days normally and 20 out of 30 days in rainy season. His wife Ashwini reminds me that I have forgotten the Palace. I visit it on Thursday which comes as a sunny day.

The Buckingham Palace

Yet I am not able to visit the Lords and Greenwich. Let's see whether I would get another chance !

I take my flight back on Friday at 9.00 PM and land here on Saturday 10.00PM IST.

The no mind

This state can be referred by many notions - self awareness, the Samadhi, super consciousness, etc, but in a layman way it refers to the time when you have no thoughts enter in your mind.

Thoughts too can be broadly categorized as macro and micro. Macro thoughts are easy to identify - just close your eyes and you can realize them. However, micro thoughts are at more depth and are not easy to realize. When one goes deep in meditation only then he/ she gets a glimpse of micro thoughts. They are more like feelings and don't have dominant words that could be interpreted as a language.

Once getting into that depth, the very first glimpse of no mind appears. And it is said that in that state only we get the taste of ourselves. What happens next ? What are it's advantages ? I have no idea as I haven't experienced it. But one thing that I know is if ever a question pops up into your mind that - who are you exactly ? what are you doing here ? Is studying, marrying, earning money, reproducing, fulfilling your desires/ dreams, are the only meanings of life ?, then the answer can be found in no mind

Basant panchmi day out

Basant Panchmi was a restricted holiday in our company, and we (me and wife Shweta) decided to take leave. The day started as a usual holiday, getting up by 11, you know a bit late in the morning.

S's dad gets up at 4 am every morning, actually every night. My mom gets up at 6. I would say very early in early morning. My dad wakes up at 7 - early morning. S's mom @ 8 am - morning.

Coming back to the holiday, we had our breakfast. As usual S wanted to stay at home, relax, watch any movie. I forced her to go out and buy a new pair of shoes for her. On the way to malls, we decided to go to Sarojni nagar market. We took the Mehrauli route to reach Delhi. We also had to do lunch. We also decided to visit ISKON temple. But before that lunch. We were eagerly looking through the windows of our i10 for a good restaurant. It was a bit foggy also. We could barely see the Qutub Minar. S asked to take let turn as  she said she remembered a good place there. It was a pointed sharp turn. After taking a right turn from the next red light we were lost. We stooped at a fuel station and quenched the thirst of i10.

After asking so many pan waalas, we finally arrived Greater kailash market. On the entry road itself there is a restuarant ...some punjabi dhaaba. The food was really good.

We then headed towards Iskon temple. It's very close to Nehru place. One should not miss the movie that they show and also the aarti that happens at 6.30 PM. Parking is not a problem at Iskon, but yes the road from Nehru place is a bit conjested.

We spend almost 2 hours at Iskon. It is a beautiful temple. Around 7.30 we headed back towards our sweet home...

Theory of Failures

In this world there are two types of people. One - who do hard work and are at the right place, at the right time and do the right thing and other one who miss on any one of the mentioned things. We can call the combination of "right" things as Luck.

Theory: I say that whenever we encounter a failure the chances of getting a subsequent failure and of getting a big success, increase equally.

So, what we get next depends on what we choose. If we tend take negative energy and thoughts from a failure, we choose another failure. But if we take positive energy and become more desperate for success, we get that.