Heartfulness in everyday life

Whether you’re in school, or work; around family, friends, peers, or colleagues, life can be stressful and overwhelming. In our busy lives, days seem to flow away in a stream of blurry images and we wonder what happened to us and where time went. Immersed in the affairs of life, we forget to actually live it. Without even realizing we begin to see life as something to just go on with, something mundane and boring, dull and static. We start equating happiness with achievements and start running after this illusion. We want to get the highest grades, best education, most sought after internships, a lucrative job by 25, a house by 30; but what we forget is to get a life. We forget to learn the actual meaning of joy and thus fail to recognize it even when we come across it. In actuality, life is so much more than this. It is time that we learn to shed this burden of illusion and look for joy. Real happiness is born out of acceptance. And you know where it lives? It lives in the moment. Heartfulness meditation is a simple and modern approach to meditation; one that suits to anyone leading a normal, busy life. You don’t need a roomful of paraphernalia or an Über-flexible body capable of rolling into a pretzel. You can do it whenever and wherever, for your own peace of mind, a tranquil and balanced life. The concept at the base of heartfulness is consciousness of the here and now. It teaches you to live in the moment, with the full awareness of your heart. It teaches you to live and experience every day with acceptance and thankfulness. In this journey, you remove from your consciousness every negative feeling, all worries and fears, and look for that place inside that is untouched and filled with lightness. That is where you need to be. Since times immemorial, meditation has been used – in various forms – to heal the mind. The basic aim is to achieve a heightened awareness, an acceptance, and calmness. The foundation of heartfulness meditation was laid in the 1800s by a boy named Ram Chandra (Lalaji). He discovered that he could heighten his awareness by finding and concentrating on a point of light and purity within, and in this state he could even affect those near him. He was succeeded by Babuji, and later by Kamlesh Patel, famously called Daaji, who is now the global guide of the Heartfulness Meditation and the author of “The Heartfulness Way”. Why meditate, you might ask. To answer this, I ask you to consider a scenario: suppose you return from the gym, all sweaty and smelly. Your mum greets you and you move to hug her. She loves you but she might not be too keen to hug you at that time. So what you should do is go straight to the bathroom and take a shower. Get rid of the gunk and sweat and then come out and now hug her to your heart’s content. This symbolizes an important aspect of our daily life. Every day when you go out, you meet people, you interact with them in various ways, and you get involved in various circumstances. As a result of all this, knowingly or unknowingly, you take up some impressions and bring them back home with you. They might be good, but they might also be bad. You had a bad day at school or work, your car broke down, you missed the bus, or you messed up an important assignment, you may come home with a bad mood and that can and will affect your interactions with those at home. That can set off a ripple effect. To avoid this mess, wake up in the morning, and take just 20-25 minutes to sit with yourself. Empty your mind and search for that inner calm. After your day out when you come home, go straight to your room and do this again for just 10 minutes. This is called ‘cleaning’. Try to shed the negative vibes that you might have been collecting all day and then go sit with your family. You won’t be successful the very first time. It might get frustrating, might even seem ridiculous to some hard skeptics. But remember, like anything else, this needs practice. You get credit for trying. Though, if you wish to go further, you can always take guidance from heartfulness trainers. Lately, spiritual practices like meditation have been increasingly recognized for their benefits to mental health. Today the world is revolving around technology. Where on one hand it has been the best friend to mankind, it has also left no stone unturned in distracting the youth. 24/7 access to social media plays with their ability to focus on what’s important. Meditating regularly helps in relieving stress, which in turn will improve your concentration, your memory, quality of sleep, your immune system, and your mood. Happy and focused, you’ll perform better in academics and sports alike. Meditation has been shown to improve test grades and general performance of high schoolers. Many scientific studies report the experiences of patients of clinical depression and anxiety who have benefitted by including meditation in life. Depression and aggression in adolescents - often linked to delinquency - is also being looked at from a new perspective. In this regard, an American psychiatrist Murrey Bowen had suggested that a poor sense of self or low self-awareness is significant in developing aggressive behaviors. Mystic practices like meditation help in a process that he called, ‘differentiation of self’. This developmental process entails a differentiation of emotional and intellectual functioning of the self. This helps the individual in mediating internal and external aggressive behaviors. Greater differentiation of self, works to cultivate greater understanding of oneself, control on reactions, and emotional maturity. Meditation in the young years creates the foundation for a more focused, resilient, and self-aware adult. A healthy relationship with oneself is essential for healthy interactions with others. Thus meditation will make you a more socially adept person later in life. So go find a place with fresh air and light and meditate. Learn to listen to your heart and focus on the moment. Let go of all the anxiety, all the negatives for only then can joy fill you up. When Antoine de Saint Exupery said, “It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove”, he was really onto something. REFERENCES: http: //www. mindframe-media. info/for-media/reporting-suicide/facts-and-stats Australian Bureau of Statistics. Causes of Death, Australia. 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