The Daily Happiness Project's Podcast: Recent Episodes
The Daily Happiness Project
This channel is to share reflections and contemplations through meditations and questions or meditations on questions. These are aimed only to experience daily happiness by eroding the habits of creating or stirring unhappiness in our lives. Although recorded and aimed for happiness in a work/office/corporate setting, the content of this channel can benefit anyone. This Project is the home and vehicle to share meditations in the form of guided reflections to help us recognize the happiness that we long for. The approach of wisdom and insight is incorporated to help us "see" things for ourselves so deeply and clearly that the innate intelligence within us is kindled and helps us walk the path of happiness. Support the Channel on Patreon - https://linktr.ee/thedailyhappinessproject
This contemplation explores the recipe of unhappiness with the first ingredient being "wanting what is not here" and "trying to get rid of what is here" based on our preferences! We are constantly fighting what is happening and trying to manipulate it into conforming to a romantic idea of how people/situations/things should be.
And the second ingredient is the projection of happiness/peace in the future leaves us miserable in the now. Somewhere in the future, there is happiness - long-lasting happiness - is what we romanticize but never verify the truth behind it.
Here we explore this mechanism and recognize the agency of pulling back the happiness projected into the future and infusing it into the Present.
Do we go through our days on auto-pilot? Reaching the end of the day or the week or month only to realize that nothing productive happened the whole time?
An intentional act i.e. doing what we WANT to do is profound. Whatever is important to our lives is almost always OPTIONAL in the moment. Prioritizing our health is optional - exercising is optional, healthy eating is optional - until we fall sick!
Unmindful living leads to projecting what we WANT to do in the future. This contemplation is about making intentional living a default setting in our lives.
What if we adopted the attitude that the world is not our enemy? There is no one out there to "get me"?
Would we drop our guards (conscious and unconscious) and live a freer life?
This contemplation is about exploring this question in different ways and finding a way that resonates with each one of us. The goal is to invoke the insight that we are all in this together.
We experience our bodies in two ways: externally (thru visual perceptions) and internally (as sensations). Both these ways serve a special purpose in our lives. Visual perception is a clear, crisp rendering of the specifics of our and other bodies while Sensation is a fuzzy, pulsating experience of only OUR body!
We have lost touch with most of the 'internal experience' of our bodies except for loud ones like pain, cold, heat, etc. Gut feeling, intuition, whether to choose/eat/buy something or not is more or less lost.
This contemplation guides us thru different ways we communicate with nature and other people!
Being around happy people always makes us happy. If we were to reflect on the causes of feeling this happiness, we will be surprised to find nothing that we can pinpoint - that is because there is no reason to be happy around these happy people.
The converse is also true i.e. being around people who talk negative and are complaining leaves us with that negative energy.
This is a reflection on our experience of ourselves and what we bring to the table when it comes to other people hanging out with us - is it a happy result or a complaining result?
What is the definition of Communication?
How do we know if the intended communication has happened or not?
Communication relates to happiness and harmony in our relationships and ends up dictating the quality of our lives. It involves sharing what you want to share in a precise way. In order to do that, we need to know exactly what we want to share otherwise there is dissonance.
It involves telling a story with vivid imagery, humor, and examples to help get the point across!
This Body Scan meditation guides us into exploring our bodies as an actual experience of what our bodies feel like from the inside. Most of the time we superimpose what our bodies look like onto what it actually feels like. This meditation discriminates between the visual and actual (feeling level) and relieves the straitjacket of our bodies.
We cannot outthink our way out of pain or discomfort; there is only so much thinking can do for us. This contemplation is a great tool to withdraw from thinking and embody ourselves and explore this body as an experience!
This meditation will provide deep relaxation and can also lead to insight into something profound!
Meditation is just a description of what is happening. What will happen is of the future and is a figment of our imagination.
This insight brings intelligence to our pursuit of happiness and the constant mental striving that leaves us exhausted and frustrated.
- What if we are open to the possibility that we already have what we are looking for?
- What if there is a chance that we already have what we think we will get in the future?
This is a conversation about exploring this possibility thru different angles and weighing it through the lens of our experience.
We suffer the most in our relationships and especially in close relationships where there is love. Respect, however, is the foundation of relationships than love.
It begins by respecting ourselves: treating our bodies, and minds with respect: feeding ourselves healthy foods, and speaking nourishing words to ourselves. To know what respect looks like, sounds like, and feels like for ourselves. To take our flaws and mistakes into our stride!
That way we can adopt the same attitude towards others!
Doing has two facets to it - physical doing and mental doing. What tires and drains us is the mental doing which leads to procrastination or stress and anxiety. Inaction is a type of mental action leading to lethargy!
Flow state is the state where physical action happens effortlessly while the mind is at rest and at peace! Once we see this place of non-doing as the background of all physical actions, we can find peace while exerting efforts.
Mental action is only a tool to be used!
Despite coming from different cultures and geographies, we all have learned to underplay and suppress our feelings. We overemphasize logic and rationality instead.
We are feeling creatures: the quality and texture of our lives are dictated by how we feel. The rational and logical approach only takes us so far: if we feel a sense of lack, we feel incomplete despite having everything that anyone could dream of.
This contemplation is taking us back to our primal way of feeling our lives! Dethroning logic and rationality and emphasizing our feelings and bringing sensitivity to our lives.
Despite coming from different cultures and geographies, we all have learned to underplay and suppress our feelings. We overemphasize logic and rationality instead.
We are feeling creatures: the quality and texture of our lives are dictated by how we feel. The rational and logical approach only takes us so far: if we feel a sense of lack, we feel incomplete despite having everything that anyone could dream of.
This contemplation is taking us back to our primal way of feeling our lives! Dethroning logic and rationality and emphasizing our feelings and bringing sensitivity to our lives.
What if we paused everything we know and just be?
In a session like this, there are no decisions, choices, todos, judgments, or problem-solving needed. There is no need for any prior knowledge.
This contemplation is about being in the Now without any reference to the past - just the current experience (of perceptions, thoughts, and sensations).
The current experience does not have anything right or wrong about it, it is just what it is! It is a light and sound show!
We play different roles in life and often mistake our identity for the role we are playing. Often these "roles" come with their own limitations, connotations, dos and don'ts, and expectations. These end up straining our relationships and leave us disappointed when the role ends!
If we don't limit ourselves, we can live fuller life.
If we do need a role to play, that role can be one of a friend: a role that lets us feel free and other people feel free as well. All other roles are a straightjacket of behavior and expectations. Friendship is a special relationship that can coexist with all other relationships - a mother can be a friend, and a spouse can be a friend.
This contemplation is to invoke the spirit of friendship in us and to jettison the identification of roles.
We speak of time as past, present, and future. But from an experiential point of view, what is Time? How do we experience it?
Can we experience time without memory?
Can we experience time without the perception of the clock?
Or is it just a well-disguised illusion that we believe in without any experiential evidence?
What if this whole experience is just a giant Now? What if, despite all the experiences, we have never changed?
This contemplation is a call to explore something so fundamental to our experience that we have never investigated and yet is running our lives in ways that we may not want.
The Heart craves to be loved and more importantly, to love!
What interferes with this fundamental need and desire of the heart is the Mind. The Mind wants a reason for saying Sorry, expecting a Sorry, and holding a grudge - these are all valid from the point of view of the Mind.
But the Heart only wants love - reasons are not necessary. This is a dialog from the Heart to the Heart.
There will be a dozen or hundreds of reasons to NOT practice Love in our life (and they might be "valid" reasons as well) but can we find one reason to do so?
Is there an end to our tasks? Will there ever be an end?
We postpone our happiness as if our tasks will end sometime in the future and we can relax. However, our tasks only keep increasing. This "postponement of the peace mechanism" can be studied and understood. Only thru understanding can we get out and recognize the peace and happiness in our daily lives.
These tasks are a distraction from the peace and happiness that is accessible in the present but we postpone it and project it in the future. This contemplation is an attempt to provoke this understanding.
We have two ways of experiencing our bodies: the external experience through visual perception and through the internal experience of our body viz. thru sensations.
The truer experience of our body and one that matters is the internal experience of our body. We experience pain and pleasure as an internal experience of our bodies.
Even though our internal experience is what matters to us, we accentuate our external experience of our bodies. Not only that we overlay our external experience of bodies on our internal experience.
This experience of our bodies is something we have never investigated and needs to be inquired into.
Our culture has taught us to be future-oriented i.e. looking into the future all the time! This creates tension in our bodies and minds which is what suffering and unhappiness feel like.
What we are seeking and looking forward to is relief from this tension. We resort to different avenues for this relief. When we do experience this relief, we feel peace. But very soon we create another tension and the cycle repeats.
What if we recognize this tendency of creating tension and unhappiness?
What if we understand that the peace that we look for in the relief is present without any tension Now?
This contemplation is an investigation into this mechanism!
This is a contemplation on the recognition of our desire to lead a fuller life and how we postpone this desire due to inertia to do something that our hearts truly desire. The contemplation starts with a question and we zoom into its relevance in our lives.
The mechanism by which we postpone living a healthier, more engaged, fuller life by having conflicting desires or the lack or recognition that most of our life has passed us in dreaming about living a better life!
This is a call to action!
We believe the content of our thoughts without investigating the truth of it.
The replay of an event is NOT the event. The map is not the territory.
We suffer the content of our thoughts because of the belief that whatever we think is "real" in a way. We don't see how low-resolution this thought is compared to the actual event. We replay the event and go through it repeatedly OR imagine and scare ourselves!
All it takes is zooming into our thoughts and verifying for ourselves!
We seek ease in our bodies/minds/lives. Yet we create unease by creating conflicts in our minds in the form of resistance to what is happening. Saying Yes and meaning Yes and No is a quick-fire way to reduce the bulk of suffering in our lives. Ease is the harmony in our inner experience - not how hard we are working physically. Physical effort is cheap, mental suffering is quite expensive!
Negotiating after a Yes, and regretting after a No creates tension and misery in our lives.
Clarity and Courage are important for finding and inviting Ease in our lives. We might exert a lot of effort physically but be peaceful in our minds.
As we grow up, we learn to ignore or suppress our feelings - protecting our feelings is a great defense mechanism to avoid pain.
These feelings surface involuntarily in quiet places in the form of restlessness or boredom. Most of these feelings have pain associated with them and a corresponding coping or avoiding strategy.
Sitting down in sessions like these allows for these feelings to come up to the surface and dissipate in the field of awareness - not that we go looking for them!
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Many times we are stuck; we know that we should move forward but we feel debilitated. The heart wants to fly but the mind is caged by beliefs and the body is paralyzed by fear.
We need to practice courage in our life; attempting impossible things every day to build the muscle of courage. This skill translates into other areas of our lives.
At the core of this paralysis is just an apparent overpowering but we can rise up to the occasion by overcoming it with the courage!
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This is an exploration of how to cultivate happiness in our everyday life. We need to facilitate this exploration with efficient use of our time: finding the right teachers and books that resonate with our hearts and take us to happiness right away.
Feeding our body and mind nourishing food helps in making sure we have enough energy physically and fewer distractions mentally.
It takes a lot of courage and clarity to remove things that don't serve our goal of happiness and add things that do!
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Our actions are based on how we define things around us. We look for things based on we define them. These definitions are passed on to us and accepted by us without scrutiny. Problems happen when our definitions conflict within our hearts! The best way is to scrutinize the definitions!
This is an invitation to explore how we define some key words in life: success, work, relationships, and meditation. Based on our definitions, we will have proportionate actions which will lead to congruent results.
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Thoughts originate as either single, disconnected thoughts or as a string of thoughts. The latter almost always takes us to a dark place! The best way to dismantle the string of thoughts is to understand its mechanism.
Firstly, this way of thinking is a set pattern that needs to be seen as dangerous for our emotional health
Secondly, to look into our past and reconcile, reframe, recontextualize our traumas!
Thirdly, to not lean into the first thought that lures us into this abyss of emotions.
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #truth #wisdom #awakening #intention #clarity #peace #truth #wisdom #relaxation #stressfree #peace #depth #humanexperience #freedom #thoughts
When you stand in front of a mirror: which one do you think are you? Which one do you feel are you? (Not intellectually but experientially)
We go thru our day feeling our body more than perceiving it. We feel body-image issues only when we overlay our experience of the body (i.e. how we feel it) with an image of what we think it should be like. This creates judgment of ourselves based on something that is not our most accurate experience. We can do something if we don't like how we feel our body!
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We start off with a complete letting go of our concerns of our body or mind - as if we are on a paid vacation with no obligations. This helps us get into an exploration of what it means to be happy. Not the momentary happiness that leads into disappointment or frustration but the happiness that is longer lasting.
Anger is the same to all of us, sadness too but somehow happiness has a personal definition. Maybe peace is a better word; less controversial. Eventually, we are looking for the same!
Happiness is being OK with what we have and what we don't have. The projection of what is missing in the future (with the promise of bringing rest and peace) is the cause of unhappiness!
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #truth #wisdom #awakening #intention #clarity #peace #truth #wisdom #relaxation #stressfree #peace #depth #humanexperience #freedom
What does it feel like when you do what you want to do?
What does it feel like when you are where you want to be?
Deliberate attendance is being present at places for doing things that you want to! We feel stuck in doing things we don't want to; that just creates an automatic checking out from the situation or holding back because of lack of "wanting".
This contemplation nudges us to revisit what we want to and see what we don't and nudge ourselves into either wanting it or changing it!
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Human experience is comprised of external (sense perceptions), internal (thoughts/feelings/sensations) and a deeper (intuition) realm.
We are lost in our internal realm (thinking or feeling) most of the time, being completely oblivious to the depth of other realms. A full human experience requires equal participation in all these realms - individually and simultaneously (at times). This participation is voluntarily - not coming out of pain or force.
Being fully aware is what elevates our lives!
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #truth #wisdom #awakening #intention #clarity #peace #truth #wisdom #relaxation #stressfree #fear #desire #peace #depth #humanexperience
This is a recording from a group meditation where the focus of contemplation was self-love!
This contemplation is an invitation to see things clearly - whatever is needed to embrace ourselves and fall in love with ourselves. This is not a question of "if" but "when." Self-love is that love that you cannot fall out of love.
Instead of finding flaws and being critical about ourselves, we can fully embrace the way we are "a masterpiece and a work in progress at the same time!"
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #truth #wisdom #awakening #intention #clarity #peace #truth #wisdom #relaxation #stressfree #fear #desire #peace #freedom #selflove #selfcare
Every moment, we have freedom to choose love and health in our lives.
Our choices dictate the quality of our lives. We can't have peace in our lives if we choose activities of anxiety and fear no matter how much we expect peace to be the result. Same is true about health.
We believe most of our thoughts despite them being untrue many times. That belief comes from freedom: we are always free to not believe and let intelligence, courage, and love guide us! Every moment we can exercise freedom!
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We all want to get better at life; not get better at meditation per se. Getting better at life is finding peace and happiness in daily life.
What stops us from recognizing this peace are our fears and desires - not the fears/desires of actual survival - but the fears and desires of being incomplete and wanting to complete ourselves by finding what is missing and guarding what is there.
We have gone thru so much life and are still complete and total :) What if these fears/desires are just illusory?
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #truth #wisdom #awakening #intention #clarity #peace #truth #wisdom #relaxation #stressfree #fear #desire #peace
Being an artist is an exchange of feelings with other people -that makes all of us artists; as we are constantly engaging with the world around us. We can engage with the world consciously and mindfully - by adding love, care and attention - like an artist. This attitude gives us an option to take whatever we are going thru (good and bad) and make it a work of art and engage with the world.
Anyone can adopt this attitude - not just "traditional" artists! We are all artists in our professions!
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'Abundance' and 'Lack' are, seemingly, opposites but when you look at them experientially, one can notice that "lack" is an imaginary state based on something that does not exist. One cannot have a meaningful conversation about something that does not exist! Abundance is about what exists: acknowledging and feeling it and is about the attitude and not specifics.
One cannot counter the feeling of lack but if we see the "lack" for what it is, viz. imaginary, the feeling falls away automatically!
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We start off with letting go of the body and mind without controlling any aspect of that experience. Any thoughts or feelings are viewed as clouds passing by in the sky of our mind.
This is not a manipulation of our experience but an experiential observation of how thoughts, images, feelings, ideas appear out of nowhere, are experienced, and then disappear just like clouds do in the sky.
The analogy of the sky and clouds is deliberately used to invoke how our current experience is!
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Imagine sitting on a beach: carefree about everything in the world! An attitude that everything is just right. With this attitude, we are free to just be - without any regard for the state of our body or mind. This attitude emphasizes the freedom - to just be. No striving to be something or someone else or do anything in particular. We are just free! Once we become used to this self-recognized freedom, we recognize that this freedom is always available to us: Freedom that no one can give to us!
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Being alone and isolated is sneakily dangerous for us. Being social creatures, we need exposure to human gatherings - at a subliminal level. We spend a lot of time alone despite having friends, family, and communities. We are programmed to think more and more about ourselves!
Being around like-minded people gives us joy! Being around like-minded, truth seekers is nourishment for the soul!
Whether introverts or extroverts, if we give ourselves fully to gatherings, they can nourish us!
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #I #truth #spacetime #wisdom #awakening #intention #clarity #celebration #peace #fulfillment #relief #connection #sharing #community #gathering #truth
Happy New Year!
Every beginning of the Year feels like an opportunity to live a more meaningful life - new year, new resolutions! There is something magical about this blank canvas.
We are naturally open to steering our life toward more freedom and clarity. But somewhere along the line, our old habits catch up with us, and fatigue, lack of sleep and energy, and old attitudes jade us into our old grooves.
This meditation is an invitation to explore the reasons and clarity behind wanting to change.
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The contemplation is about stepping back from whatever is going on to recognize the distance (and time) between an event and us. This is essential to not be overwhelmed with what is going on and also help with dealing with it or find a solution to it.
Stepping back helps us see the distance between us and the problem.
Stepping back helps us realize the choice to react or respond.
Stepping back helps us see the full picture of what could be happening.
Stepping back helps us see multiple options.
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #I #truth #spacetime #wisdom #awakening #intention #clarity #selfinquiry #problemsolving #stressrelief #creativity #leadership #calm
We contemplate the voice in the head usually narrating mundane events, judging mistakes, and criticizing other people. It is one of the biggest misery creators in our lives: bitterness, judgments, self-hate, or just white noise.
The reason it creates this misery is that we believe what is being said.
What if we stopped believing it?
What if we 'saw' that what is being said is not true?
What if we recognized that this is just a habit - not an identity?
What if we took power from this voice?
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This is a guided body-scanning meditation where we consciously relax different parts of the body that are typically hotspots for stress and tightness.
In the process of relaxing, meditation guides us thru the mechanism of tightness and how the body remembers the tightness from a situation long after the mind has forgotten about it.
This is an attempt to become familiar with the naturally relaxed state of the body so that any infiltration of stress can be easily relaxed upon noticing!
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This is an open-ended exploration of a movie I watched where the title of this meditation comes from.
"Am I open to considering how magnificent I would be?"
Anything that involves others - working, gathering, having fun - is more physical work. But intentional gatherings can really uplift us in spirit.
There is no particular message in this meditation except an open-ended exploration that may resonate with some of the hearts.
Not all journeys need a destination!
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #I #truth #spacetime #wisdom #awakening #intention #clarity #celebration #peace #fulfillment #relief #connection #sharing #love
Relationships are the cornerstone of our human experience that can help us celebrate life or make us suffer! Romantic love, parental love, friendships.
This exploration is about uncovering this importance in an experiential way and shed away the veneer of misunderstandings that might be growing in our relationships and emphasizing the love that connects us.
Going beyond personality, words, expectations, and hurts and focusing on love and the deeper parts of each other.
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #I #truth #spacetime #wisdom #awakening #intention #clarity #celebration #peace #fulfillment #relief #connection #sharing #love
This meditation is about uncovering some of the truths ranging from recognizing a deep desire of our hearts to celebrate, to sharing and belonging - as some kind of food for our hearts!
This propels us toward being more intentional in our celebrations and our gatherings which results in fostering a community based on giving and sharing and in the process nourishing our hearts and mind with a little more peace!
It is a reminder to bring us back to the original essence viz. sharing and connection!
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #I #truth #spacetime #wisdom #awakening #intention #clarity #celebration #peace #fulfillment #relief #connection #sharing
We misunderstand ourselves to be our work, capabilities, expertise OR our lack of capabitlities and expertise. This becomes a source of a lot of unhappiness in our lives where we suffer superiority or inferiority complexes of various degrees.
We were complete when we were born and skills got added to us based on our life experiences. They are not inherent to us - they are just a function of being alive long or working on something longer.
This recognition can bring a lot of clarity and peace.
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This is an experiential exploration of how to let go. Most of the times, we know that holding onto people/situations/things is not healthy for us. Yet we continue doing it. Mainly because we don't know "how".
To stop any bad habit ("holding on" is a habit more than an identity), we need to see its uselessness in our lives. This is the only way our brains can look for something else.
Then we have to create a pause (time and space) between the trigger and the response - pause of intelligence! This pause is a habit - just like holding on is a habit - and can be inculcated to protect ourselves from being hurt by holding on.
There is never a good time or a good reason to hold on to things!
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Happiness is looking for us just like we are looking for happiness! This is a guided, experiential recognition of how we are being pulled toward people, situations, and things out of the pull of happiness.
But we, out of our habit, tend to think that happiness is in the achievement of things - and we start one journey after another!
Being pulled toward something is out of happiness, it is sustained by happiness and what it ends up in is also happiness. It is the cause, journey, and effect!
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New meditations are uploaded every Monday and Thursday!
This is a very direct pointing to finding a home for Happiness in our hearts. This question might take one to a very uncomfortable place but it is designed to get clarity on our approach to our spiritual search.
The prerequisite for seeking is openness and the room to accommodate what we seek - this meditation gets to the heart of this openness.
It is a call to Courage - to see, acknowledge, and let go of our beliefs to make room for Happiness! This Courage is the courage of love, not violence!
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New meditations are uploaded every Monday and Thursday!
Seeing something 'clearly' is the key to clarity! Just like we believed in Santa Claus and then we saw something or understood the un-Truth of Santa Claus.
The same principle applies to our limiting beliefs viz. to see something clearly. This process can be expedited by asking the question "Is this true?" This = whatever we believe in that interferes with our happiness and peace.
If there is any shred of hesitation or doubt, we have found a crack! It is only a matter of time before it starts crumbling!
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New meditations are uploaded every Monday and Thursday!
Truth is something that is true without being affected by space, time, or any particular person. This is the widest definition of Truth; any narrower definition makes that Truth very fragile. When we hear something that is True, it touches our hearts - it is self-evident.
Being at Peace and Being Happy - means the same to everyone, every time.
"I" is the same through Space and Time - we have always been I. All thoughts, perceptions, and sensations appear and disappear, the "I" remains the Same.
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry #I #truth #spacetime #wisdom #awakening
Our cultural conditioning compels us to label and categorize things constantly. This interferes with our innate desire to truly experience things. In the process, we mistake the labeling and the category as the experience! But our hearts long for something more; something that the mind does not see any point in doing.
This sitting is an invitation to be ok with not knowing everything. Following the heart even if the mind does not understand why.
Not all questions need answers!
Not all actions need reasons!
Not all experiences need categories or labels!
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This contemplation is about how flexible and nimble our minds become when we start inquiring into different aspects of our experience.
Normally, we are closed and rigid and we are not even aware of it. We check out from most of what we experience because of various reasons in a very sneaky way.
This makes us very rigid in our own opinions and assumptions. Meditations, like these, that explore the nature of experience, help us in becoming nimble by not adhering to anything from the past!
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This contemplation is about coming Home - a place without any geographical location! The place that we long for when things are not going right. This place is always with us or we are always in this place. Once we become aware of being Here, we are There!
This is a simple guided contemplation exploring the meaning of Home and how we keep running helter-skelter to find peace and happiness.
We struggle and strive to go to destinations where our real goal is always the journey! The road to the Destination is the goal. The peace is the road; the road is the peace!
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This contemplation starts and ends with us becoming aware of our own Presence. It explores how easy it is to become aware of something or someone but very sneaky to be aware of ourselves.
Using the analogy of a camera, we explore how when we close our eyes, the sensorial experience is greatly diminished and how easily we can become aware of ourselves.
Once we become familiar with our own Presence, it shines amidst all chaos - we just have to let it shine!
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This contemplation goes to the heart of how we experience life. Most of the time, our experience is overlaid by a commentary of thinking.
This habit of superimposing thinking over experience needs to be seen clearly. Once we see this clearly, we can decide whether we want to continue doing it or not.
One of the biggest downsides is that we never get to experience something fully - we experience part of it and then we venture into thinking.
The image of something is NOT the real thing!
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #bodyscan #relaxation #sleep #love #care #selfcare #lettinggo #letgo #beauty #trueart #art #trueexperience
The experience of physical pain and sickness is considered distasteful and we will try to fix it ASAP. We don't listen to what our bodies say when we fall sick or are in pain.
All pain is our body crying out for help, in its own language. All sickness is our body crying out for rest, in its own language. This language is often missed and the cues are often ignored. Only when it becomes loud viz. pain or sickness, do we feel it!
What if we heard these cries from our bodies? What if we listened?
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In this contemplation, we use the analogy of going to sleep as a tool to understand the "art" of letting go. When we are about to go to sleep, we abandon all past regrets and future worries and embrace the peace of sleep. In this exploration, we invoke the same carefree attitude toward things we hold onto and abandon them lovingly.
This might trigger a deep physical relaxation as holding onto various events and memories create tightness and release stress from our body.
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #bodyscan #relaxation #sleep #love #care #selfcare #lettinggo #letgo
In this contemplation, we explore the meaning and experience of feeling truly 'free' in our everyday lives. Once we go past the known and familiar meanings of freedom, we dive deep into the feeling of being "stuck" in our situations.
Experientially, we unfold this familiar feeling of being stuck and expand our perspective. Being free is inherent to our human experience.
We do feel free and safe at home and experience being carefree very often. We just need to extend that to our work as well!
This contemplation gets into to-do lists and the busyness of getting things done. Many times, at the expense of feeling anxious.
We see how "things to be done" are endless and the more you do, the more you have to do.
Instead, we explore the possibility of replacing "tasks" with intentional guides of feelings, grace, abundance, and love.
We don't stop doing tasks, we just shift the focus from "doing" to "feeling and being" and inviting intentionality into our lives.
This contemplation starts with how we address ourselves, viz. "I," and explores the different journeys in time, space, emotions, thoughts, physical appearance, and even geographical locations and how they have affected this "I" (or not).
The simple, intimately familiar "I-ness" is kept at the center of this profound exploration. We even explore the difficult and the happy times traversed over the years, yet this "I" feels the same to us!
In this process, we discover an experiential insight into how nothing has affected this "I" and "maybe" nothing can! How will this insight change the way we live our lives?
happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #selfinquiry
This contemplation encourages us to emphasize learning more about ourselves. We, constantly, pay attention to something or the other but hardly to ourselves. Today, we explore how we can study ourselves in order to learn and know more about ourselves. To understand how we carry our physical body, our minds, and emotions - what are they saying to us?
This is a goal-less study aimed at learning rather than reaching a definitive!
This contemplation explores the role of 'Serendipity' in our lives - as a felt reality. Being Open, Being Present, and the absence of preconceived ideas of how things/people/situations should be are preconditions to inviting Serendipity into our lives. Once invited, the perfume of serendipity can be celebrated.
Instead of directing our attention to looking for what is familiar, this exploration encourages us to let the attention run free and find what it may find.
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In this contemplation, we explore the impact that Meditation brings about in our lives viz. harmony in our inner and outer lives.
The imagery used (to evoke the feeling) in this contemplation is about standing on a beach on a weather-perfect day and feeling the embrace of the open space and water and exploring how that openness feels. Using this imagery we explore what harmony would feel like if we were completely open to what is happening.
New meditations are uploaded every Monday and Thursday!
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This is an experiential exploration of the question "What would it look like (and feel like) if we were fully open to our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions?" In the process, we explore the different ways we resist our experience (viz. thoughts, feelings, perceptions) and how that resistance itself is the "suffering"! This is explored using some analogies or thought experiments.
Being 'totally open' to the experience gives us a feeling of what happiness looks and feels like. This is the default state of our experience AND the resistance is the generation of the suffering!
This recognition can help us reduce the resistance and suffering on a daily basis and let happiness marinate our infuse our lives.
This contemplation is about our inherent tendency to dismiss the present and get lured into the drama of the past and the future. The present, almost always, is uneventful and deemed as boring.
Although our minds seek drama (in actions), our hearts crave peace. But as the mind dismisses the present as "boring," it never stands a chance to be revealed as the peace that our hearts are craving.
This peace is the real source of Love and Creativity!#happiness #meditation #reflection #contemplation #clarity #insight #relaxation #guidedmeditation #quote #love #creativity #peace
This is a contemplation of the speech that we use to communicate.
The origin of the words is a deeper part of us and the words are heard and received by deeper parts of others as well - this is explored in a very experiential way.
The reason words can cause deeper wounds than physical hurt is because of the deeper connection. But it can also, uplift others and be used to spread love and kindness.
This contemplation is a call to use words mindfully and infused with love, care, and attention.
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This contemplation is about discriminating between what is real vs. what is not.
The images in our minds - of people and situations - that we constantly talk to and navigate through are not real people or situations. They are an image of the past that we believe, in that moment, to be real. Most of the time, the events being replayed in our minds, inevitably, lead to anger, disappointment, and sadness.
Similarly, we imagine, out of habit, frightful things in the future and believe it to be certain and end up feeling anxious and stressed.
This unconscious habit of believing our imaginations leads to a major source of unhappiness in our lives.
Imagination can be used (as it is one of the most powerful tools endowed to us) for creative, celebratory, and planning purposes if used consciously.
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This meditation is an exploration of Now as an experience! It is emphasized by an investigation of the Past which cannot be experienced other than in memories and concepts; so is the Future. However, only Now can be experienced without a shadow of a doubt!
This conviction cannot be given by any scientist or anyone else - this can only be discovered for oneself.
The contemplation juxtaposes our tendency to "do" something about what has happened or will happen which are both conceptual - ultimately squandering the Now. Recognizing this can bring in a union of mind, body, and attention in the here and now and experience as an aliveness!
This contemplation is an experiential practice of becoming familiar with the felt sense of the body. We often visualize our bodies as individual parts and merge the felt sense with the visual sense.
Today, we separate both the senses and spend time exploring the felt sense of the body - which can be used as a tool to come back from the imaginary past and the future to the reality of Now.
Along the way, we also learn to relax and acclimate to that state of the body!
This is a very unique way of exploring the experience - coming from the teachings of Rupert Spira and Francis Lucille - where we reinterpret the experience of our body in light of facts and not images of our body. Sometimes, it might feel that the exploration is headed in a non-logical direction but soon one will realize that not everything needs to be logical all the time.
Our body is constantly supported by space - around and within. This contemplation is just recognizing this and exploring different aspects of this observation.
This contemplation is an experiential inquiry into our own Being - amidst our experience of the World.
It starts with a contemplation of the physical body and dives straight into what it is to be Ourself! This pointing is emphasized throughout the contemplation using everyday, multi-sensory experiences, and one can experience the Shift from doing a certain activity and yet becoming and being aware of their own Presence.
All one needs is a trigger (at the initial stages) to make the shift!
This contemplation is a Recognition, Gratitude, and Blessing, Coming home Meditation.
Recognition of being supported and loved by the space (internal and external), the earth, and the breath.
Gratitude toward receiving this unconditional love.
Blessing the abode we dwell with the attention and care it deserves.
This is us wanting to come home where the home supports us and wants to be supported as well.
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This contemplation explores the "definition" of Meditation.
Starting with common complaints while practicing meditation, we contemplate the implied definition in those complaints leading us to get clarity on what Meditation is NOT.
Thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and sensations are not a problem in meditation. The more we wrestle with any of them, the more it bothers us.
Instead, we come up with an experiential definition of Meditation captured by the imagery of sitting on the banks of the river watching the flow of water without preference for any particular section of the flow, without judging or categorizing the flow or isolating any contents of the flow - where we continue to watch the flow of thoughts, perceptions, sensations, and emotions without judging, negotiating, wrestling with any of them.
This contemplation is about letting everything be as it is - the sounds, the thoughts, the sensations, and the emotions - without negotiating with them, engaging with them, or wanting to change them.
This reveals an experiential understanding of what Rupert Spira means when he says, "Ifyou let the world be as it is, it will let you be as you are!" In this understanding, it is also revealed that "I" am far bigger than anything else and that "I" remain untouched and unaffected by whatever is being heard, seen, thought of, or sensed.
This contemplation starts with familiarizing with the silence that happens suddenly when we sit down after a busy day of "doing". In order for this silence to settle down, it needs to be given space and time - and not filled up with the activity of "thinking".
Once this pre-requisite is accomplished and then facilitated with the relaxation of the tension in different parts of the body, effortlessness is experienced. This effortlessness, once experienced in a sitting, can be taken into our open-eyed daily experience
This contemplation is about True Silence - a kind of silence that embraces all sounds but does not add to any noise. No internal monologue or dialog, no interpretation of what is happening, no categorization or judgment of "happenings" into good/bad, right/wrong.
This kind of Silence nourishes and heals us; excessive thinking interferes with deep rest.
This contemplation is an invitation to see this clearly.
This contemplation explores the two facets of human experience - external (actions and relationships with others) and internal (thoughts and feelings within oneself).
Lack of congruence between inner and outer facets/realms leads to many internal conflicts. In order to become congruent, one needs clarity to see what is happening without being overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions and then the courage to accept what is happening and act on it.
Congruence is the easiest way to happiness and peace where internal and external are no longer in conflict with each other.
This contemplation is about "Being Open" without consideration for "what" we are being open to. This leaves us in a very vulnerable, yet, beautiful state.
Becoming intimately familiar with this experience of being 'truly open' is essential! When, due to habit, we end up becoming close again, this familiar feeling of expansion, and spaciousness will overshadow the closedness and create room for openness.
Openness in the body, in thinking, and in feeling - these put us in the way of serendipity!
This meditation begins with the idea of effortlessness (no action) and walks thru how effortlessness is how life operates whereas "our idea" of effort, causes us to suffer.
Doing "something" in order to achieve something is what we have been taught but it does not work in all walks of life - it is experientially unfolded in this contemplation.
Long pauses are an invitation for the meditator to explore the point being covered.
This meditation begins with a provocative question "Whose life are you living?" This question is an invitation to explore and not to reach an answer. In order to facilitate this exploration, the question is broken down into its parts and the meaning of individual parts is explored. The aim is to become more intentional, thoughtful, and mindful about our actions, thoughts, and intentions that are exercised in living our lives.
This meditation is about being silent - verbally and mentally.
It starts with observing the mental activity after the verbal silence. And explores the different forms of resistance to this silence and the knee-jerk reaction to fill it up with some or the other activity.
This is an invitation to be with this observation of the resistance without any judgment and the necessity to fix something. It is about seeing it clearly enough for the resistance to dissolve.
This contemplation is about the overemphasis on thinking and underplaying feelings. In a culture where we are outthinking our way out of feeling, we neglect how we feel and lose connection with ourselves.
This contemplation is an attempt to bring a balance between thinking and feeling - use thinking to express what we feel.
This reflection starts from the author, Deepak Ramola's question "Who do you speak to when you talk to yourself?"
We explore the precursor to this question viz. "How do you speak to when you talk to yourself?" because that is where the crux of our suffering lies.
This is an organic unfolding triggered by Deepak's question - leading us toward self-love.
This guided contemplation is about exploring the openness and how it is obscured through our cultural upbringing where unhappiness is a "default state".
It starts with a quote from Naval Ravikant "Desire is the contract we make with ourselves to be unhappy until it is fulfilled."
"No" is the default setting in our everyday life - the thread of unhappiness. "Yes" happens in pockets interspersed in this fabric of unhappiness.
This meditation starts with a quote by Ajahn Brahm - "What's done is finished" from his book - Bear Awareness: Questions and Answers on Taming Your Wild Mind.
We explore what it means - experientially - to stay away from the regrets and blames of the past and to resist running into the future without forcing our minds.
The only way this can happen is by seeing clearly the nature of the past and future.