Guruji's Knowledge Sheet: The Other Side Of Friendliness

Sri Sri: Secretaries, police, judges, accountants and people in key positions should not be friendly!
The main disadvantages of being friendly are:
1. You come under obligation
2. You lose your freedom
3. You can't have a free and fair perception. Your thoughts and actions may not be impartial
4. Your focus, commitment, creativity and above all your time will be wasted
5. You will pick up bad habits and negative moods easily
It takes a lot of wisdom to be free from the burden of obligation and not be influenced by your friends' opinions and feelings.
In many occasions, it is better to be unfriendly than be friendly. Being unfriendly does not mean being aggressive and inimical. The best secretaries, personal assistants, security personnel, and judges have to be unfriendly.
Those who are aloof and indifferent get centered more quickly than those who are too friendly. A certain degree of aloofness in every relationship will strengthen your personality and connect you to your source. It's very easy to be very aloof or very friendly. But to be friendly and aloof is a Sadhana.
Be an unfriendly friend!!

|| Jai Guru Dev ||


Today it is not the outfit that I would be posting but a pattern that I lurrvvee. 
Husband dear, who is in the business of shawls, has a natural liking/bias for paisleys. Not that I do not like them. I do. But that liking is limited for my shawls, stoles, maybe Kashmiri Saree etc. But when it comes to interiors (and definitely not outfits) - lets say, a bed spread, a curtain, a table mat, napkins, or for that matter the template of my blog or twitter, there is something that I like even better than a paisley. Now I do not know its name. (ANYONE READING THIS AND  KNOWING THE NAME OF THIS PATTERN, PLEASE DO LET ME KNOW THROUGH COMMENT). But maybe it is some Victorian pattern. It looks very ornate. And most of the things in my home are of this pattern. Here are few examples.

My Fuschia bed spread.

Needless to say its "my color" and chosen by me.

The drapes

Even my candles have this pattern

Though, the above candle and stand were a gift from very dear family friend. So thoughtful.

Coming to candles, I must confess that I am soooo fond of candles. In fact, I have dedicated a whole wall to candles. Catch a glimpse below.

Can you see the touches of, "Just me", in the interiors of my home? Every bit in my home has been chosen, planned, designed,  carefully by ME. It has traces of me all over. The three men, I have in my life, proudly let me do my thing, when it comes to shopping for myself, my home or even for them. They actually appreciate my taste. It has never ever happened that they did not like anything that I picked up. 

Guruji's Knowledge Sheet: You Are Privileged

Among all planets in the solar system, the earth is privileged to host life in its many forms, and among all the species, humans are most privileged for they can host the Knowledge. Among all the knowledgeable ones, you are most privileged. .... guess why.

Again and again you remember that you are peace, you are love, you are joy and that you are hosting the Creator. If you don't realize that you are the host, you live like a ghost.

The under-privileged are those who do not realize that they are privileged, and so they also host, but they host all the negativities.

Like the birds returning to their nests, again and again come back to your source; only there can you realize that you host the Creator.

- Sri Sri

|| Jai Guru Dev ||


Here is Outfit of the Day

Dress: Macy's

Bag: Louis Vuitton

Sandals: Crocs

Above location: Hard Rock Cafe Opening

Guruji's Knowledge Sheet: Dreaming the Impossible

Question: Guruji, how can we control daydreams?

Sri Sri: Dream in the night! (laughter)

What is daydreaming? You have a desire but you do not have the faith that you can achieve your desire - that is what you call daydreaming. 

You can control daydreaming by having a strong goal and believing in it.

Like the scientist who wanted to go to the moon and kept dreaming about it - for him it was the goal of his life but for others it was daydreaming.

Either you drop that it will not happen or you believe!

When you do not know yourself, your potentiality, you have no faith and confidence in your dream.

Once you have faith and confidence in your dream, it is no longer a daydream!

|| Jai Guru Dev ||


Outfit Of the day

Anarkali: Bought from some designer from an exhibition

Bag: Gucci

Shawl: Husband's shop

Location: Srinagar- This explains why I am in a suit and not dress or saree. This dress code was set by husband for Srinagar.

Simplicity vs Complexity

Sri Sri: Life is utterly simple and yet most complex. You have to simultaneously attend to both facets of life. When life appears most complex, turn to the simplicity. Simplicity brings peace. When you are peaceful attend to the complexity within you. That will make you more skillful.
If you are only with simplicity, it makes you lazy and dull. Being only with complexity makes you angry and frustrated. The intelligent ones balance them and rejoice in both. If you look only to simplicity, growth is not there. Looking only at the complexity, there is no life at all. All that you need is a skillful balance. If you recognize both simplicity and complexity of life, you will be skillfully peaceful!

Colors are the complexity of life. White is the simplicity. When your heart is pure, your life becomes so colorful.

Vikram: Guruji, you are all white and yet so colorful.

Pramila: Like our knowledge, which is so profound and yet so simple!

|| Jai Guru Dev ||


Guruji asked someone, "What do you do"? She said, "I am a interior decorator". Guruji said, "So am I".


So after seeing me in so many white sarees, here is a more colorful (glamorous) post of saree.

Saree: Limited edition of Satya Paul collection called Fragrance.
Pictures could not do much justice to it. But it has lots of colors- blues, pinks etc.
Satya Paul mostly does georgettes. This is in french chiffon.


Here is a better picture taken from net

LBD

'Music, knowledge and silence are ingredients for development of the consciousness' Excerpts from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s talk at Ganesha Temple, New York There are three essential ingredients for the development of consciousness - Music, knowledge and silence. Knowledge is logical understanding. With a few moments of silence practiced every day, we can shift our awareness. This is called Patrata. Building the capacity of the intellect can happen in a few moments of silence. This is all that is needed. The purpose of music is to lead to a space of silence and the purpose of knowledge is to lead to a space of wonderment. Mindfulness What is happening right now? (Laughter) Sense of mindfulness, yes? I am not saying anything and you are waiting to catch something. Are you aware of this? Instead of catching something, put your attention into the waiting. This is mindfulness. It is meditative awareness. Are you getting what I am saying? What happens when you are mindful? Suddenly a shift starts happening within you. From the scenery, you are going towards the seer. Now you are the seer and the scenery. You are looking at me, trying to understand what I am saying. Take your attention back to yourself. You are sitting.. reading.. Observe your breath. In your mind, understand something. All the time you are saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and having a private dialogue in your mind. It is like having a discourse with yourself. Are you getting what I am saying? The shift from scenery to the seer happens with yoga. It happens with Ujjai breath and meditation. It brings up an ocean of compassion within you. It makes the intellect sharp and attentive. You become more intuitive and aware. You become friendlier and more confident. 3 levels of trust  There are three levels of trust. First, when you have confidence in yourself, you are able to trust people around you. This is the trust in the goodness of people in society. There are so many good people here (laughter). Then, trust in something that is not seen but felt. It is too big to understand, yet cannot be dismissed. Lastly, there is trust in the divinity. Before your trust in God, you need to have trust in the goodness of the world. The world contains more good than what we think of. There are only a few confused, misguided and stressed out people who are involved in all sorts of violence. In general, the world is good. The first law of spirituality We often blame the world and this leads to blaming ourselves. The first law of spirituality is to stop blaming others as well as yourself. Have you taken this first step? Can you do that? Without this, there is no point in going ahead. Stop blaming others and yourself. Then see what happens. Such a burst of energy and enthusiasm come up at once. I don’t mean you should never find fault with yourself. Find mistakes in yourself and correct them. You must acknowledge your weaknesses and move on. This is different from blaming yourself. Have faith in yourself and in the goodness of society. Have faith in the essence of this whole creation. Do you use cell phones? You need a SIM card for a cell phone to work. If you don’t have a SIM card and you are dialing a number, you cannot reach anyone. Similarly, most of our prayers are not getting connected and that is why they are not being answered. My dear, you haven’t put in the SIM card. Now, you have put the SIM card but you are in the basement. Again it doesn’t work! You are not in range in the basement. It cannot pick up the signal. Similarly, you need a battery. You need SIM card, battery and range and only then you can call anyone, anywhere. In this way, our spirit needs to be calm, serene and settled. Knowledge, music and silence are the three things which make life complete. Prayers get answered. Keep singing with emotion. With faith, silence, confidence and knowledge, prayers get heard. Are you all still here? What is this soul? We have heard so much about it, about self-realization. What is soul? What is self? Want to know it? How many here have studied Physics or Chemistry? Everyone here must know a little about Physics. Our body is made up of billions of cells. Each cell in the body has a life. You use body scrub to get rid of dead skin cells. So many cells are born and dying every day. You are not an individual person. This is how the ancient rishis or sages referred to it. You are a walking township. Purusha is a town. The soul lives in the town or the body that moves around. Do you know that in your intestines there are 50,000 bacteria? This body is changing everyday. Yet something is also not changing. To understand this, you should study a beehive. You have seen a beehive? What keeps it there? The queen bee. Once the queen bee is gone, everything disappears. In the same way, your body is made up of billions of atoms. There is a queen bee in your body. Each body is a beehive full of honey. Locate the queen bee within yourself and that is meditation. Billions of atoms are present throughout your body. It is the same in a human body as in an ant or an elephant. The outer size of the body is irrelevant. It is the unknown or atma (self) which is non-changing. It always remains. Nothing can shake you with this knowledge. You will feel at home with everybody. Nothing will disturb you. This is the essence of spirituality.  “That which you cannot express is Love. That which you cannot reject/renounce is Beauty. That which you cannot avoid is the Truth.” ~ Sri Sri Ravishankar

Outfit of the day now.

LBD- Little black Dress and belt- Nordstrom Rack

Shoes- Salvatore Ferragamo

Bag- Gifted by sister.

Watch-Chanel- Same I am wearing in my header image.

Location- Seattle- Some kid's Birthday party and hence a colorful throne and play areas where I could pose.

Titanic

A city without streets, a king without treasure, a merchant without business and a life without a guru are all considered the same. Why the emphasis on guru? Why do you need a guru? 

Life sometimes seems very complicated. There is pleasure, pain, happiness, suffering, generosity, greed, passion and dispassion. When our life is full of such opposing values, our mind sometimes becomes unable to handle these complications and just breaks down. 

It is then that you need wisdom to guide you through troubled times. Guru is that wisdom. You might have noticed you give great advice when you are not involved in a situation but the same is not true when you are in trouble. This is because wisdom dawns when you are out of the mess. Guru is one who is out of the mess. He watches the chaos, amidst the chaos. 

Guru is like a circuit breaker. When you cannot handle life, your guru comes and saves so that you remain sane and balanced. If there is a compelling desire that bothers you, your guru is there to offer solace. You offer all your desires and pain to your guru. Having a guru means being able to relax and smile all the time, walk with confidence, be fearless and have a vision. That is wisdom. 

Guru is a tattva -- an element, a quality inside you. It is not limited to a body or form. Guru comes in your life in spite of your refusing or being rebellious. The guru principle is so vital in life. There is an element of the guru in every human being. That wisdom in each has to be invoked, awakened. When this element is awakened, misery in life disappears. In our consciousness, wisdom comes to life when guru tattva comes to life. When we have no desires of our own, then the guru tattva dawns in our life. Wake up and see that our life is changing every moment and feel grateful for whatever you have received. 

Guru Purnima is to review your growth. This review will give you encouragement. If you think you haven't grown enough on the spiritual path in the past few years, then you have not utilised the knowledge. If you feel you are stuck somewhere, then the realisation that you are stuck is also growth. 

That is why we celebrate Guru Purnima. It is the day when the devotee arises in full gratitude and feels grateful for the great knowledge he has received from the Master. It is time to review how much knowledge you have ingrained in your life and how you are growing in knowledge. This may bring about a realisation for scope of improvement, which in turn will bring humility in you. Be grateful for the way this knowledge has transformed you. Just think how you could have been without this. Gratitude and humility together make bloom a genuine prayer inside you 

On Guru Purnima, remember all gurus of the past. When your life is full, you get a feeling of gratitude then you start with the guru and end up adoring everything in life. On Guru Purnima the devotee wakes up in full gratitude. The devotee becomes like an ocean moving in itself. Guru Purnima is a time to celebrate and rise in devotion and gratitude. 

www.artofliving.org 

This is a dress that I have worn for salsa party, formal evening and here the pictures were shot on Alaska cruise where, one evening the dress code was formal evening dress. The stairs do remind me of Titanic ship.

Dress: Fifth Avenue

Shoes: Metro shoes, Delhi

Watch: Burberry

Young or old

When it comes to sarees, I am a very traditional and austere person but my western wear is very young spirited, delightful and playful. And hence, there is quite a contrast (superficially) in my two personas. One looks very mature, settled, calm (saree) and the other (western wear) looks very youthful, full of life and high spirited. But that is me. That is exactly ME. I can be both in one go. And that is exactly the reason why I can gel very well with all the age groups. I have friends who are 10 years younger to me. Well, I do not have friends who are 10 year elder to me but family (relatives), who are elder to me and I can blend with them easily. It could also be because I am the eldest daughter and youngest daughter in law. So here is a simple outfit post. Also I think that age is just a number. You are as old or young as you think yourself to be. It is all in the mind.

Location: Hawaii.

Guruji's Knowledge Sheet: Austerity Brings Freedom

Austerity is often mistaken to be poverty, self-denial. It is neither.
Austerity comes out of maturity. It is a sign of social health.

Often people who practice austerity are resentful of richness. This is a very pitiable state. Such austerity is not born out of maturity but out of compulsion. The true austerity has tolerance for richness and is never resentful.

In fact, one who is mature will have pity for one who is not austere. Austerity is not against celebration and just vanity is not celebration.

Celebration dawns in the spirit. Only one who is rich in spirit can practice austerity. One may be rich materially but if he is poor in spirit he can neither celebrate nor evolve.

Poverty of spirit is vanity. Austerity brings freedom from the pride of vanity. But taking pride in austerity is again a vanity !

Austerity comes out of abundance, and austerity brings abundance. If you feel a lack in any area of life, immediately start austerity. Austerity not only brings freedom but nurtures sharing and caring.

- Sri Sri

|| Jai Guru Dev ||

Recycle 2

Few posts back, I had written how I do recycle some of my favorite/expensive outfits and give them a newer/trendier look. Here is just another example of it.

Skirt and top: Again about 10 years or so old: Ritu Kumar

It is worn and modeled here by my sister, whom I was visiting in Peoria. We both decided to wear something similar and I had bought these two skirts and tops from Ritu Kumar.

My sister is a trained Dancer and in fact, dancing is her passion. Naturally she had to strike a dancing pose in this ethnic dress.

Now here you see how I converted the skirt and into Anarkali suit and wore it to my trip in Bali. I prefer wearing whites when I am with Guruji. There is no compulsion to do so nor any rule. But Guruji- Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji is always in whites. So I like to wear whites too. It is my favorite color too. Besides, I aspire to be Art Of Living teacher one day. So trying to be already on the path.

Sri Sri: Craving comes from encouraging the thought of pleasure.

The actual experience of pleasure may not be as pleasurable as the memory.

Georgia: That 's why we spend so much time in our minds!

Sri Sri: Whether you encourage a worldly thought or a Divine thought, they both bring you pleasure. Worldly thought leads to indulgence, which brings you down from pleasure to disappointment and dejection. Divine thought takes you up from pleasure to Bliss, Intelligence, and progress in life. Worldly thought brings pleasure only as memory, whereas Divine thought comes as Reality.

Question: What is a Divine thought?

Sri Sri: "I am not the body; I am bliss, satchitananda; I am unbounded space; I am love; I am peace; I am light."

Question: What is a worldly thought?

Sri Sri: It is about money, sex, food, power, status and self-image.

Truth is hidden by the golden veil of the mundane.

Pierce through the glittering sheath and know you are the Sun.

P.S. In the world everybody is after GOLD; some are after GOOD; but only a few are after GOD. Transcend GOLD, transcend the GOOD, and reach GOD.

|| Jai Guru Dev ||

Guru Purnima

Happy Guru Purnima to You

Dhyaana moolam guror murtih;
Pooja moolam guror padam;
Mantra moolam guror vakyam;
Moksha moolam guror kripa

Significance-Guru Purnima

The following is a message from His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on the significance of Guru-Purnima.

“Among the 12-13 full moons in a year the vaishakha full moon is dedicated to Buddha (his birth and enlightenment), jyeshtha full moon to mother earth and the aashadha full moon is dedicated to the memory of masters. This is Guru-Purnima.

It is the day when the disciple wakes up in his fullness and in the wakefulness he can’t be but grateful. This gratitude is not of dwaita (you and me), but of advaita. It is not a river moving from somewhere to somewhere, but is the ocean moving within itself. So, gratefulness on Guru-Purnima symbolizes that fullness.

The purpose of the Guru Purnima celebration is to turn back and review and see in this last one year how much one has progressed in life. For a seeker, Guru Purnima is a day of significance. It is the day to review one’s progress on the spiritual path and renew one’s determination and focus on the goal. As the full moon rises and sets, tears of gratitude arise and repose into the vastness of one’s own self.”


Jai Gurudev!

In Advance course of Art Of Living, we observe Silence. It really helps to connect with oneself, with divine, to make the mind more peaceful. After silence, the mind comes out cleaner, without any clutter or noise, all the turbulence and garbage is emptied. 
Hollow and Empty.
Out of Silence emerge celebration, bliss and joy.

I am wearing another traditional Maheshwari Saree

Location: Bali

The foolish one uses the spiritual power to gain material comfort.
An intelligent one uses the material world to rise high in the spirit.
When you transcend the intellect you allow yourself to be used by the spirit.
One who is awake neither uses anything nor loses anything.
Become intelligent, transcend and wake up.

- Sri Sri

|| Jai Guru Dev ||

In Bali for Art Of Living Course

These are my pictures of my trip to Bali, where I had gone for my Art of Living, International advance course, with Guruji Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji.  

Aggression and assertiveness overshadow intuition.

Often, people who are sensitive tend to become aggressive in order to avoid being hurt.

In this process, they lose sight of the fine intuition.

Fine intuition needs sensitivity; sensitivity is often painful.

In order to avoid pain one becomes aggressive and assertive, and in turn loses one's intuitive ability.

Intuition is close to the truth.

To be truthful, you don't need to be aggressive and assertive!

Often, aggression and assertiveness thrive on the idea of truthfulness.

- Sri Sri

|| Jai Guru Dev ||