The Buddha

HI folks !


How have you been these last few weeks?!

Well, I'm sure!


Today, I want to tell you about The Buddha.


Many of you would have heard of him.

To many, who grew up studying about him in school, he was 4 marks if you knew his 4 Noble Truths, another 4 if you could tell his 8-Fold Path correctly and 5 marks if you wrote a paragraph on him.

Lets see what we can do about these marks !


He was born a prince called Siddhartha in North India about 2550 years ago.

He led a peaceful life, married, had a child and then came across certain realities of life which were inescapable,whatever your wealth, standing or beliefs.

He had a scientist's questioning mind, so he set out to find the answers.

He studied and practiced all the eight types of Meditations prevalant then and did learn a lot, but realized that the mystery still remained, that he had not gone to the root of the problem.

He still had questions-

Why was man born again and again?

Why was there illness? Suffering?

And Death?

And birth again?

Could this cycle be stopped?

If so, How?


He sat down with the determination of getting up only after finding the answers, which had to be true for all the people all over the world for all times to come.

Luckily for us, he did.

His moment of Enlightenment was the moment he got all the answers, realized the truth of this universe, its functioning and the way to get out of the cycle of birth and death.

He became the Buddha at the age of 29 and spent the next 45 years teaching the technique to people, holding back nothing.

He found that there were certain things which were unchanging, and dealt with them methodically, calling them The Four Noble Truths.


Why Noble?

When does a Truth become Noble?

A truth is a truth when it is universal, irrespective of time, place and people.

When you watch it without reacting to it, it becomes Noble.

Because by learning to do so, it is you eventually become noble.


The First Noble Truth is that There is Suffering.

Sure there is joy and happiness and hope and anger and fear,but the prominent aspect impacting our life is sorrow, or suffering.

Even in enjoyment, there is a fear and sadness that this is not going to last.

Having accepted this fact, he proceeded to find more.

Does suffering just happen ?

Do we invite it?

Why does it come ?


To put it simply, we suffer because Unwanted things happen to us and Those that we wish for, do not.

This is the Second Noble Truth.

Every effect has a cause, and when the cause is removed, the effect is removed too.

Similarly, When the cause of suffering is eradicated, so is suffering.

This is the third Noble Truth.



The Fourth Noble Truth gives us the path to eradicate the root cause.

The Eight-Fold Path.


Simple and effective!

The efficacy in the Buddha's technique lies in its practise of working on one's own mind without depending on any external ritual.

It does not matter whether you believe in past or future lives, it starts working immediately on this current one, teaching you how to remove the causes of your suffering.

The peace that you get out of your own efforts, the lessons that you learn are beyond words.

Which is why, the technique that I follow has 9 days out of the 10 spent in total silence.

It's awesome!

I will tell you about it the next time.

Have a good day-

Qs on Freewill and Regression

Hi folks!

I'm replying right away because I'm going off for a while.

Vinayak has sent a beautiful story, thank you!

Let's take Ranjana's questions one by one.

FREE WILL-

This is as true as Karma, actually, the other side of the same coin.

Supposing you fell down and found yourself in a gorge.

Your own Karma is what put you there in the first place.

The effect of not looking where you were going!

Whatever you do now, or NOT do, will be the result of Free Will.

You can get up and climb out with or without difficulty, shout for help, sit and curse your stars, curse your parents or boyfriend or husband for not teaching you rock - climbing, for wishing you ill,- the list can be endless.

This gorge can be a bad marriage, an abusive relationship, a career going nowhere, an unequal friendship or whatever.

True, it came to you because you had sown the seeds in the past, sometimes very far back, but what are you doing about it NOW?

If you are behaving like a marty, you are strengthening the pattern of previous lifetimes.

It means you are reneging on the pre-birth decision you made of learning to be strong and standing upto violence or unfair and unequal relationships.

After this life is over and you see your preview, you will regret not having taken a stand.

For all you know, your abuser may also be put off because he/she too has fallen in his/her progress, due to your mousy behaviour.

Exercise your Free-Will.

As the Masters stress, we are here to learn, not suffer, and just because you find yourself in poverty from birth, or a bad marriage, there is no Karmic compulsion on you to remain so.

If you have not got that course or job, work harder with focus and try again.

Or, change track and take up something else.

Things STAYING wrong is not the result of your karma, but of your own free will.

If free- will is not exercised correctly, to learn the lessons we have chosen to, a whole lifetime is wasted not just for the one person, but others too who are closely involved.

So step back and review your life. And act!

Now for the second question.

It does happen that sometimes a person does not regress to past lives even under a trained therapist.

The reasons can be many.

However ready a person may think himself or herself to be, there may be a lurking fear about the efficacy of the whole thing, about becoming helpless 'while under the spell', about seeing things which our awake mind would never accept as being true, the fear of seeing oneself in pain or dying or dead, and so on.

There are fears of the conscious mind and talking to the therapist and sorting your doubts would clear the path for many.

Regression is a state of focussed concentration and there is no need to fear it.

Make sure you go to a properly trained therapist.

Another reason could be that there have been a number of traumatic experiences in some of the past lives and the person is not equipped enough to deal with what comes up during regression.

These mental blocks are self-created to protect the individual from further hurt and once the person is strong and positive enough, the doors will open without delay.

A third reason could be that there is no need to know, that your'e doing fine even without going back to find out or check.

You are on the correct path and there is no great urgency to see this movie!

Our own, individual spirit guides are always around us and they know what is best for us much more than we do.

Trust them, trust yourself and relax !

Messages from Masters

Hi folks!

My computer and internet connection have been dying and coming to life many times these last couple of weeks!

Just like us !

Vinayak has mentioned a book and I am going to look for it.

You can too, and let me know.

Today, I'm going to pass on some messages which came from the Masters.

I will keep them short, but think over each, slowly.

Digest them.

Our lives are not the result of random actions and events.

Lifetimes are wisely and carefully scripted to enhance our learning and evolution.

We choose our circumstances and establish a plan for our lives before we are even conceived.

We are not accidently or coincidentally born into our families.

We choose our parents, who usually are souls with whom we have interacted in previous lifetimes.

Adoptive parents are chosen as well as biological ones.

There are reasons for everything and no coincidences exist on the path of destiny.

Karma is about learning, not about punishment.

The parents and others with whom we interact also possess free will.

They can love and help us or hate and harm us.

Their choice is NOT your karma.

They are also learning.

A hard life is not a punishment but an opportunity.

We are here to learn, not to suffer.

More learning can occur when ther are many obstacles than when there are few or none.

A life filled with difficult relationships, obstacles and losses, presents the most opportunities for the soul's growth.

You may have chosen the more difficult life so that you could accalerate your spiritual progress.

Understand the nature of Real Self, which is immortal. This will help you keep things in the proper perspective.

Never give your power to anyone else.

In this three dimensional world, we learn through relationships, not things.

So try not to be attached.

Love yourself.

Understand the nature and influence of repeating patterns.

Without understanding, patterns tend to repeat, unnecessarily damaging the relationship.

Detach yourself from your fears and negative emotions.

Anger is a defence of the ego against the fear of being humiliated or embarassed.

It is dissolved by understanding and love.

You are not obligated to be treated inhumanely.

There is NO karmic responsibility that is met by being a target for abusive behaviour of others, family or not.

Never accept any idea before bouncing it off your intuitive wisdom.

Does it encourage love, kindness, peaceand unity?

Or does it encourage separateness, division, hate, self-centredness and violence?

You are here to learn, to grow wise, to become God-like.

What you learn here, you take with you when you die.

Being analytical is completely compatible with being openminded.

So enjoy, folks! I'm off on a 10 day retreat and will meet you after coming back!

So long-

Past Life Regression.

Hi Folks!

Vinayak has mentioned 'Messages from Masters' and Ranjana wants to know about Past Life Regression!

Its great to have my subject sorted out for me!

Are you aware of this wonderful technique?

Regression is going back, plain and simple.

Past Life Regression is going back into your own past lives.

Simple, but not at all plain, believe me!

To begin at the beginning, well, WHY?!

Why go back into past lives even if there are any?

You've finished with them anyway, and going through this one is bad enough, isnt it?!

Of course there is a reason.

Dr. Newton, who is to India what Dr.Brian Weiss is to America where Past Life Regression Therapy is concerned, puts it across beautifully.

He says, open a novel at a random page and start reading .

Would you be able to make sense of the characters?

Of their behaviour, their anger or hatred or fear or wimpiness?

Or put on the TV and start to watch a soap from the current episode.

Will you understand it?

You will most probably criticise the wrong character and sympathise with the villain!

To make sense, you would have to go back to the earlier episode.

And the one before,and so on until you have actually come to the first one and understood the characters and their dynamics.

And that is exactly what our current life is.

A page from a book, an episode from a looooooooooooong playing serial,

and we dont make sense of it more times than we care to admit even to ourselves.

So, back to our topic. What does Past Life Regression do?

It takes us to that particular past life of ours, whose unfinished business is creating all sorts of problems for us in this life.

The process is quite simple.

A trained therapist relaxes you with instructions, to enter a state of focussed concentration.

Your conscious mind is completely aware of what is going on, you choose what to speak and what to hold back and even while being in touch with your subconscious mind, you can still comment on it.

You follow the Therapist's instructions, enter a previous lifetime and watch it like a movie from the safe distance of this lifetime.

The therapist sees nothing.

He/she only asks questions like -

'What's happening?'

'What are you feeling?'

'Can you recognise anyone from this lifetime?',

'Describe the scene' etc.

He/she then takes you to your moment of death in that lifetime and sitting comfortably in a chair, alive and amazed and curious, when you see yourself dying, your fear of death is gone.

You may choose to see your moment of death and realize that its no big deal, really.

So should one experience this just to go through that moment again?

No!

There's so much more thats so exciting and illuminating.

You can definitely get rid of your fears and phobias.

When the spirit leaves the body, if the moment has been painful or frightening, the effects follow in the next life or lives.

For example, if you have died in a landslide or a fire or drowned, you will have an unexplained fear of closed spaces, fire and water respectively.

In some, these are manageable, in others, quite crippling.

One may lose out on many aspects of living life to the fullest if one does not get rid of them, and going into that past life and observing the cause and getting rid of it by saying 'Ohh ! but that was then, Im in a new lifetime now, there's nothing to worry', and going off swimming or trekking is so much better than taking pills and going through life feeling inadequate.

Another important aspect in which PLR helps a 100% is in relationships.

We do many, many things unconsciously and repeatedly, like choosing particular types of friends or spouses, careers, hobbies, almost everything is an extention of and shaped by what has happened' before'.

Once you see those lifetimes when you have been with the other person and what happened then, your individual reactions and consequences, everything is crystal clear.

Each lifetime is a stage of learning and with this irrefutable proof of what went wrong earlier, you can take precise steps to rectify the issue without wasting energy or this lifetime.

Most of us tend to take birth in groups and the composition and relation will change according to our requirement.

A husband or wife in one lifetime may choose to become siblings or a parent or a boss/colleague in the next, based on what each has chosen to learn in the next lifetime.

Past Life Regression clarifies all these things.

It's like a mid-course correction ensuring you progress on the correct path.

Besides, you need not have a fear, phobia, relationship problem or a health problem to undergo this great personalised movie!

Go for the fun of it.

Enjoy it.

You will still learn something and it is a great tool to check whether your life is going in the right direction.

A kind of mid-course correction.

Dr. Newton gets invited to 30 countries for his workshops but you can find someone close to you who is TRAINED and QUALIFIED.

In the next post, maybe I will tell you some of the messages and wisdom that I have collected from books on this subject.

Dr. Newton's website-www.liferesearchacademy.com

Bye for now _

Patterns of Behaviour

HI folks-

I can't believe this?!

None of you have had a single 'different experience'?

Does that make me normal, not so normal, abnormal, paranormal or just far from normal?!

Thank you Vinayak for your compliment!

I still only know only enough to send and receive mails and write this blog!

My level of intelligence is pretty hilarious, though.

I told someone the other day that I'm doing a computer course, and impressed, when he asked me which language, said English!

Which was why one Raju wanted to know which language I was going to write this blog in!

Hmm, wait till we meet, I'll tell you.

There is 'a bolt from the blue' wanting to know where Vispi's books would be available.

I will give you their website, you can find out from them and let everyone know too.

Ask your brother to help.

Actually, I'd like all of you to go through Vispi' newsletter regularly.

Good for the soul.

It's direct communication from the other side!

The site is vrrpspirituallearning.com/

Today,I want to tell you about the patterns we make in our choices and behaviour.

Have you at any time, noticed as to how certain situations or types of people keep repeating in your life?

Lets take a few examples -

You study very hard but are a nervous wreck before the exam.

You never get what you think is your due.

You do all the hard work and someone else invariably flicks the credit.

Your friends-all different sets, are actually quite similar.

They dont take you seriously enough/ bully you/you cant depend on them and so on.

You seem to choose a particular type of girlfriend or boyfriend, husband or wife.

You took all the verbal or physical abuse that came to you as a child quietly because you were scared and 'they' were big and strong.

You do the same now because you are so used to it.

Patterns become evident to us by the time we are in our mid-twenties, if not earlier.

They have to do with the choices we have consciously made before taking birth.

In the Astral plane when we have a look at the life just finished, we see where and why we went wrong in our behaviour.

At times we have been nasty, or stingy,or cheated, looted or killed.

Let's say we have been very cruel to someone, harrassed unnecessarily.

To make amends, we choose to become the other party this time.

So we are born with our temper intact, but in a poor household or where everyone is a bully and there is no safe outlet for our anger.

Slowly we learn that it is a corrosive sentiment, that it harms and that we have to control it.

We do not flare when baited, curse when others dont do as we wish and remain calm when provoked.

If we actually, over a period of time succeed in doing this, we break our pattern and are freed of it forever.

Similarly, we may be in an abusive, or a kind of relationship which is going nowhere.

The behaviour in such a situation becomes a pattern of anger, denial, hatred.

It serves no purpose, other than strengthing the negative pattern for many more lifetimes to come.

In a negative sort of way we may enjoy the situation and the poor-me pattern too, but it pulls us down badly.

So basically, all the negative patterns are meant to be broken.

Identifying ones own is the first and the major step.

Do you remember the earlier blog on Energy stealing?

Another read will help in this exercise too.

And the way out is to acknowledge and accept ourselves as we are and then meditate.

All patterns and energy stealing has its root in low self-esteem, in fear of the unknown.

Once these are started to be taken care of with meditation, the graph begins to go up.

For the times when we are in the physical form, as well as in the Spiritual one.

Bye for now.