My Read: Karmayogi, A biography of E. Sreedharan

• The Bhagvad Gita had always been his inspiration.

The Story of Sreedharan

• Sreedharan revealed his magic mantras at their behest: be honest in your private and public life in such a way that you don't need to try hard to convince anybody; stand firm and do not cede an inch while discharging your duties with conviction; polish your professional skills and do not let it g out of date; keep your integrity so you hold in esteem even the most downtrodden in the society in your plans; be moral; follow habits that rejuvenate both your body and mind.
•  Religion, for Sreedharn, is being in the thick of action without concerning oneself with personal gains; it is about finding out what is best for the common good and submitting oneself to its fulfillment with great responsibility and excellence.
• Yoga Vasishta Ramayan quote framed in his office:

Karyam karomi, Na kinchit aham karomi

(I perform the deed. But I am not the one who does it.)

• His call to action for the new generation is another quote from the Gita:

Gyanam, Param Balam

Nahi Jnanena Sadrusham

Pavitram iha Vidhyate

Notes on Raja Yoga

   Raja Yoga is one of the way to realize and experience consciouness through meditation and psychic control. Meditation is an important part of Raja Yoga.

10 Steps to meditation by Swami Ashokananda

1. Be regular to meditation
2. Have fixed time for meditation
3. Try to have fixed place for meditation
4. Watch the thoughts and they will calm down and eventually fade away
5. Be careful of bad company
6. Asceticism - step by step discipline in life
7. Cast-off all identities before sitting for meditation - only I & God
8. Yearning for God
9. Have bhava throughout the day
10. Holy company

Source:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj5_lNQdJPw&t=3s
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9uBaJEKgOw

Soul Reflections

Soul Reflections

1

• The spirit within needs to be nurtured. No amount of worldly glory or power or wealth is going to make one radiate. When we do not remember that we are a soul, then the purpose of our life becomes only to earn wealth, fame, and power.

• Everything we do in the outer world - look after our body, create relationships, achieve and earn, starts with a thought. The soul creates the thoughts and should be nurtured daily to achieve everything in the outer world.

• If we don't nurture and instead consume information which weakens the soul then we are dis -empowering our self.

• When our wrong thoughts csn influence people, animals and plants around us, then how much would be the influence on our own mind and body.

2

• You are the books you read, the movies you watch, the music you listen to, the people you spend time with, the conversations you engage in. Choose wisely what you feed your mind with.

• The food we eat creates our physical health. Our emotional health is the emotions we create in response to every situation and is based on the thoughts we create in that situation. The thoughts we create is based on the information we consume.

• If our morning begins with reading and watching news of violence, terror, corruption, accident, theft, then we start the day with consuming negative information. This information is the food for our mind which will create our thoughts and emotional health.

• When something happens in society, media shows it to us. When millions of people read or watch that news, it now becomes a part of their thought process and the probability of the same things happenig in society increases.

3

• Too much information of the outer world influences our personality and our inner world of emotions becomes like the outer world. We create aggression and pain, which we radiate and we become responsible for the condition of the outer world

• When we protect our self from negative information and take a diet of positive information daily, we keep our mind clean. The positive vibrations we radiate influence and create a change in the world. We have a choice, either we become like the world or we can change the world.

• Media, social media, family and friends will have all types of information to share. We need to choose a healthy emotional diet. If happiness, emotional and physical health and beautiful relationships are the priority then we will consume only pure information.

• Any message of negative humour, criticism or bias is unhealthy for the mind. Let us delete from our mobiles and computers without reading. Once read can't be deleted from our mind.

4

• You may believe that you are responsible for what you do but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think.

• What we speak, how we behave and work is a result of all the thoughts that we have created over a period of time. The energy created inside comes out in the form of behaviour. Once created within we do not have the power to change it outside. The power is to change inside.

• Our thoughts are like the seed and our behaviour is a tree. The quality of the tree and the fruit is not in our control it is based on the quality of the seed. Our power lies in choosing the right seed.

• Information is the raw material for thoughts. To choose the right quality of our thoughts we need to choose carefully the quality of the information we read, listen and watch.

5

• We take care of the body by exercising but if we are emotionally stressed, we will not send the right vibrations for physical health. To nurture the sole let’s take in half an hour of pure information which we can listen or watch even while exercising.

• Like we charge our mobiles in the morning, if we charge the soul in the morning with positive information and meditation, then we can remain powerful the entire day. But we need to take care that we do not fill our self with too much negative information during the day.

• After information, the second stage is our thoughts. We need to choose which thoughts to delete, which to encourage and which to store. We need to always remember that we are incharge of our thoughts.

• When we are not able to stop our creation of negative thoughts, we should immediately read or listen to something positive which will help to change our thoughts.

6

• When we start creating negative thoughts it may continue for a few minutes or even an hour. We need to be aware of it and replace the thought. The longer it goes on it will deplete emotional and physical health and the relationship.

• Creating critical thoughts of others, taking about them to people, has become normal. We believe we are thinking and talking about the truth. But when we are thinking about weaknesses of others we are depleting our self.

• If we are not able to replace the negative thought immediately then we need to read or listen to a positive message. We should always carry spiritual reading material; it's an emotional first aid kit.

• The spiritual message we read might give us the solution to the problem on our mind. Even if it does not give the solution, it will strengthen the soul. The empowered soul will be able to replace its negative thought with understanding.

7

• On some islands the tribal do not cut down a tree, they surround the tree and curse it for hours and hours every day. Within in a few weeks, the tree dries up.

• The thoughts we create are vibrations which have a deep influence on the animals, birds and plants around us. If plants can die with our negative vibrations then what would be the impact of the same vibration on our own self throughout the day.

• Frequent bouts of stress, anxiety, irritation, anger or fear are negative vibrations we radiate to our self. Over a period of time our happiness, peace, purity and power begins to deplete.

• Every thought we create first influences our self, we start feeling the same as the quality of thought. Second it radiates to our body and impacts our health. Third it radiates to people and affects our relationship and fourth it vibrates into the environment. Pure and positive thoughts create happiness, health, harmony and heaven.

8

• Keep imagining yourself glowing with light, this is the way you become light. Everything is in the thought and intention. The world is made out of thoughts. It is only about the power of thought. Believe something and slowly you will become that.
  
  
• If we consistently create the same thought about who we want to be or what we want to do, gradually that thought will create a new groove on the soul and our sanskar will change.
  
  
• We need to be aware that we create only the right thought with conviction. We should not create any thoughts of doubt or fear about whether we will be able to achieve. If we create doubts then we do not allow the groove of the new sanskar to get created.
  
  
• When saints and elders give us blessings, they create powerful pure thoughts for us. When we believe their blessings work, we do not create any doubt. The faith we have is a positive thought and this allows us to make their blessing a reality.

9

• Whatever may be the issue or the problem in our life, whether it is our sanskar, health, relationship or work, we need to first focus on our thoughts about the problem. The vibration we radiate to the problem can either aggravate the problem or diminish it.
  
  
• Whether it is an issue of the mind, body, people or work, if we create thoughts of anxiety, hurt, fear or doubt, these vibrations will increase the problem. If we create thoughts of faith, healing and success, our pure vibrations start resolving the problem.
  
  
• Our every thought and word about our self, others or about the issues in our life, should be a blessing. A blessing is a powerful energy which affirms the success before it has happened. We should create only those thoughts which we want should become a reality and radiate that vibration, so that it can manifest.