Loneliness

Loneliness cannot be fought directly. This is one of the fundamentals: you cannot fight with loneliness directly, with the fear of isolation directly. The reason is that all these things do not exist; they are simply absences of something, just as darkness is the absence of light.
Now what do you do when you want the room not to be dark? You don't do anything directly with darkness -- or do you? You cannot push it out. So just bring in light and you will not find darkness at all, because it was the absence of light, simply the absence of light -- not something material, with its own being, not something that exists. But simply because light was not there, you got a false feeling of the existence of darkness.
You can go on fighting with this darkness your whole life and you will not succeed, but just a small candle is enough to dispel it. You have to work for the light because it is positive, existential; it exists on it own. And once light comes, anything that was its absence automatically disappears.
Loneliness is similar to darkness.
You don't know your aloneness. You have not experienced your aloneness and its beauty, its tremendous power, its strength.
Loneliness is absence.
Because you don't know your aloneness, there is fear. You feel lonely so you want to cling to something, to somebody, to some relationship, just to keep the illusion that you are not lonely. But you know you are -- hence the pain. On the one hand you are clinging to something which is not for real, which is just a temporary arrangement -- a relationship, a friendship.
And while you are in the relationship you can create a little illusion to forget your loneliness. But this is the problem: although you can forget for a moment your loneliness, just the next moment you suddenly become aware that the relationship or the friendship is nothing permanent. Yesterday you did not know this man or this woman, you were strangers. Today you are friends -- who knows about tomorrow? Tomorrow you may be strangers again -- hence the pain.
You pretend to feel good to yourself: how wonderful is the relationship, how wonderful is the man or the woman. But behind the illusion -- and the illusion is so thin that you can see behind it -- there is pain in the heart, because the heart knows perfectly well that tomorrow things may not be the same... and they are not the same.
Your whole life's experience supports that things go on changing. Nothing remains stable; you cannot cling to anything in a changing world. You wanted to make your friendship something permanent but your wanting is against the law of change, and that law is not going to make exceptions. It simply goes on doing its own thing. It will change -- everything.
Perhaps in the long run you will understand one day that it was good that it did not listen to you, that existence did not bother about you and just went on doing whatever it wanted to do... not according to your desire.
It may take a little time for you to understand. You want this friend to be your friend forever, but tomorrow she turns into an enemy. Or simply -- "You get lost!" and she is no longer with you. Somebody else fills the gap who is a far superior being. Then suddenly you realize it was good that the other one got lost; otherwise you would have been stuck with her. But still the lesson never goes so deep that you stop asking for permanence.
You will start asking for permanence with this girl or woman , with this man: now this should not change. You have not really learned the lesson that change is simply the very fabric of life. You have to understand it and go with it. Don't create illusions; they are not going to help. And everybody is creating illusions of different kinds.
Society has tried to make arrangements so you can forget loneliness. Arranged marriages are just an effort so that you know your wife is with you. All religions resist divorce for the simple reason that if divorce is allowed then the basic purpose marriage was invented for is destroyed. The basic purpose was to give you a companion, a lifelong companion.
But even though a wife will be with you or a husband will be with you for your whole life, that does not mean that love remains the same. In fact, rather than giving you a companion, they give you a burden to carry. You were lonely, already in trouble, and now you have to carry another person who is lonely. And in this life there is no hope, because once love disappears you both are lonely, and both have to tolerate each other. Now it is not a question of being enchanted by each other; at the most you can patiently tolerate each other. Your loneliness has not been changed by the social strategy of marriage.

It is difficult for an intelligent person not to doubt. You may have millions of people following a certain belief system, but still you cannot be certain that they are with you, that you are not lonely.
God was a device, but all devices have failed. It was a device... when nothing is there, at least God is with you. He is always everywhere with you. In the dark night of the soul, he is with you -- don't be worried.
It was good for a childish humanity to be deceived by this concept, but you cannot be deceived by this concept. This God who is always everywhere -- you don't see him, you can't talk to him, you can't touch him. You don't have any evidence for his existence -- except your desire that he should be there. But your desire is not a proof of anything.
God is only a desire of the childish mind.
Man has come of age, and God has become meaningless. The hypothesis has lost its grip.
What I am trying to say is that every effort that has been directed towards avoiding loneliness has failed, and will fail, because it is against the fundamentals of life. What is needed is not something in which you can forget your loneliness. What is needed is that you become aware of your aloneness, which is a reality. And it is so beautiful to experience it, to feel it, because it is your freedom from the crowd, from the other. It is your freedom from the fear of being lonely.
Just the word "lonely" immediately reminds you that it is like a wound: something is needed to fill it. There is a gap and it hurts: something needs to be filled in. The very word "aloneness" does not have the same sense of a wound, of a gap which has to be filled. Aloneness simply means completeness. You are whole; there is no need of anybody else to complete you.
So try to find your innermost center, where you are always alone, have always been alone. In life, in death -- wherever you are you will be alone. But it is so full -- it is not empty, it is so full and so complete and so overflowing with all the juices of life, with all the beauties and benedictions of existence, that once you have tasted aloneness the pain in the heart will disappear. Instead, a new rhythm of tremendous sweetness, peace, joy, bliss, will be there.
It does not mean that a man who is centered in his aloneness, complete in himself, cannot make friends -- in fact only he can make friends, because now it is no longer a need, it is just sharing. He has so much; he can share.
Friendship can be of two types. One is a friendship in which you are a beggar -- you need something from the other to help your loneliness -- and the other is also a beggar; he wants the same from you. And naturally two beggars cannot help each other. Soon they will see that their begging from a beggar has doubled or multiplied the need. Instead of one beggar, now there are two. And if, unfortunately, they have children, then there are a whole company of beggars who are asking -- and nobody has anything to give.
So everybody is frustrated and angry, and everybody feels he is being cheated, deceived. And in fact nobody is cheating and nobody is deceiving, because what have you got?
The other kind of friendship, the other kind of love, has a totally different quality. It is not of need, it is out of having so much that you want to share. A new kind of joy has come into your being -- that of sharing, which you were not ever aware of before. You have always been begging.
When you share, there is no question of clinging. You flow with existence, you flow with life's change, because it doesn't matter with whom you share. It can be the same person tomorrow -- the same person for your whole life -- or it can be different persons. It is not a contract, it is not a marriage; it is simply out of your fullness that you want to give. So whosoever happens to be near you, you give it. And giving is such a joy.
Begging is such a misery. Even if you get something through begging, you will remain miserable. It hurts. It hurts your pride, it hurts your integrity. But sharing makes you more centered, more integrated, more proud, but not more egoistic -- more proud that existence has been compassionate to you. It is not ego; it is a totally different phenomenon... a recognition that existence has allowed you something for which millions of people are trying, but at the wrong door. You happen to be at the right door.
You are proud of your blissfulness and all that existence has given to you. Fear disappears, darkness disappears, the pain disappears, the desire for the other disappears.
You can love a person, and if the person loves somebody else there will not be any jealousy, because you loved out of so much joy. It was not a clinging. You were not holding the other person in prison. You were not worried that the other person may slip out of your hands, that somebody else may start having a love affair...
When you are sharing your joy, you don't create a prison for anybody. You simply give. You don't even expect gratitude or thankfulness because you are not giving to get anything, not even gratitude. You are giving because you are so full you have to give.
So if anybody is thankful, you are thankful to the person who has accepted your love, who has accepted your gift. He has unburdened you, he allowed you to shower on him. And the more you share, the more you give, the more you have. So it does not make you a miser, it does not create a new fear that "I may lose it." In fact the more you lose it, the more fresh waters are flowing in from springs you have not been aware of before.
So I will not tell you to do anything about your loneliness.
Look for your aloneness.
Forget loneliness, forget darkness, forget pain. These are just the absence of aloneness. The experience of aloneness will dispel them instantly. And the method is the same: just watch your mind, be aware. Become more and more conscious, so finally you are only conscious of yourself. That is the point where you become aware of aloneness.
You will be surprised that different religions have given different names to the ultimate state of realization. The three religions born outside of India don't have any name for it because they never went far in the search for oneself. They remained childish, immature, clinging to a God, clinging to prayer, clinging to a savior. You can see what I mean: they are always dependent -- somebody else is to save them. They are not mature. Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- they are not mature at all and perhaps that is the reason they have influenced the greatest majority in the world, because most of the people in the world are immature. They have a certain affinity.
But the three religions in India have three names for this ultimate state. And I remembered this because of the word aloneness. Jainism has chosen kaivalya, aloneness, as the ultimate state of being. Just as Buddhism chose nirvana, no-selfness, and Hinduism chose moksha, freedom, Jainism chose absolute aloneness. All three words are beautiful. They are three different aspects of the same reality. You can call it liberation, freedom; you can call it aloneness; you can call it selflessness, nothingness -- just different indicators towards that ultimate experience for which no name is sufficient.
But always look to see if anything that you are facing as a problem is a negative thing or a positive thing. If it is a negative thing then don't fight with it; don't bother about it at all. Just look for the positive of it, and you will be at the right door.
Most of the people in the world miss because they start fighting directly with the negative door.
There is no door; there is only darkness, there is only absence. And the more they fight, the more they find failure, the more they become dejected, pessimistic ... and ultimately they start finding that life has no meaning, that it is simply torture. But their mistake is they entered from the wrong door.
So before you face a problem, just look at the problem: is it an absence of something? And all your problems are the absence of something. And once you have found what they are the absence of, then go after the positive. And the moment you find the positive, the light -- the darkness is finished.

The Practice of Consciousness

The practice of consciousness can be performed by making efforts to be aware of ourselves in any and all situations. If we set out conscientiously to be aware of ourselves continually throughout the day, we first discover that we cannot do it. We get distracted constantly and, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we spend our day more distracted than aware. This general distraction may be seen as a sort of pinpoint awareness; we are aware of one thing and then a different thing and so on, but rarely do we experience ourselves as existing simultaneously with the object of our attention. This realization of the difficulty in attaining any degree of increased awareness is a first fruit of efforts to increase consciousness.
So, in fact, the practice of awareness at once produces results. The chief difficulty, perhaps, is accepting what we observe and starting with that, not trying to force observations to fit pre-conceived ideas of what we might or should experience. It seems paradoxical, or even disheartening, to attain some result such as the observation 'my mind wanders' rather than something like 'I feel a peace pervading my being', but it is essential to build with clear, simple observations that suggest practical next steps rather than hope-filled dead-ends.
If we observe that our mind wanders and that this causes us to forget about trying to be aware of ourselves in our surroundings, we can make experiments specifically on this condition and see what diminishes it, and what aggravates it. Here too it is important to keep things simple and practical. We may find, for example, that we don't do well with the music blaring or the TV on, while we have better luck when walking down Main Street or weeding the garden. We may not do so well when lying in bed or drinking beer in the easy chair but better sitting in a hard chair or in an unaccustomed position. Or vice-versa. There is no end to the small experiments we can make and, in time, these experiments may produce a nucleus of tools we can use to keep our mind from wandering the way it did when we first set out to control awareness.
But perhaps it is not a wandering mind we face when trying to increase our awareness but something else, say strong dissatisfaction with our life, our job, our mate. These too are practical, useful observations. As in the example of a wandering mind, creative experimentation can lead to a collection of practical techniques to help in profiting by this. But first, the feeling itself must be addressed. It hardly serves our goal to become more aware if we simply find ways to suppress feelings which appear to be obstacles. It is necessary to evaluate the feeling, to pursue it with the awareness of ourselves pursuing it. That awareness of ourselves keeps this pursuit from becoming just another distraction and even makes it a part of our general effort to increase awareness. That is, there is no restriction as to what we may try to include in the range of our awareness: feelings, thoughts, muscular tensions, sunlight, wind, a ticking clock, are all fair game.
If, for example, our attempts to increase awareness seem to suffer due to an unpleasant situation existing with our spouse, we can examine our feelings about this, ask ourselves what is the difficulty, why is this difficult, always trying to recognize clear, simple answers that imply obvious next questions and ultimately suggest concrete actions. But we must observe ourselves while we do this, we ourselves must be another object of our awareness, so we watch our thoughts and feelings interacting, perhaps feeding each other to become more and more angry or more and more sad. The simple act of continued awareness can do much toward clarifying turbulent waters and lead to practical decisions on how to deal with the conditions that seem to prohibit awareness. And, most important, we begin to see ourselves as something quite different from what we had imagined ourselves to be.
Consider what an exact knowledge of psychology might lend to such self-examinations.
It is as a result of such efforts that we may begin to recognize some of the obstacles to consciousness pointed out in the psychological ideas of the fourth way. At some point, we begin to connect the strange-sounding set of ideas to our personal experience, and it helps us immeasurably to be able to organize our perceptions by these ideas. We begin to realize that people have been here before, have known where we are and how to grow from this point. In addition, we begin to acquire a common language in which we can discuss this inner world with others in a similar situation.
While the practice of consciousness is a personal pursuit it should not be an isolating one. On the contrary, the increase of personal awareness of ourselves in our surroundings increasingly comes to include others—the friends, relatives, acquaintances, and strangers we are with in moments of greater awareness. And, if we are lucky enough to have friends engaged in the same pursuit of greater awareness, the sharing of observations can become an invaluable source of new ideas for experiments, and such gatherings in themselves are supportive environments to practice awareness.
Finally, the pursuit of personal consciousness leads us out of ourselves and through the back door, so to speak, through ourselves and out into life. Now we can give our friends and our world the attention they deserve—but only after having mastered our own attention to some extent. If the mind does not wander, how much better we attend to another's words and their meaning. If the turbulent emotions of intimate contact clarify to a purity of thinking and feeling, so much finer is a moment with a loved one. If the noise of preconceptions stills, so much richer is the acquaintance with a stranger. In this way, awareness itself becomes an encouragement to us to find ways to increase it.

Two views : Scientific one

Argument of the day: On atheism

1.Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem: "Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates that it is impossible for the Bible to be both true and complete."Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem applies to any consistent formal system which:Is sufficiently expressive that it can model ordinary arithmetic Has a decision procedure for determining whether a given string is an axiom within the formal system (i.e. is "recursive")Gödel showed that in any such system S, it is possible to formulate an expression which says "This statement is unprovable in S".If such a statement were provable in S, then S would be inconsistent. Hence any such system must either be incomplete or inconsistent. If a formal system is incomplete, then there exist statements within the system which can never be proven to be valid or invalid ('true' or 'false') within the system.Essentially, Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem revolves around getting formal systems to formulate a variation on the "Liar Paradox". The classic Liar Paradox sentence in ordinary English is "This sentence is false."Note that if a proposition is undecidable, the formal system cannot even deduce that it is undecidable. (This is Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem, which is rather tricky to prove.)The logic used in theological discussions is rarely well defined, so claims that Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates that it is impossible to prove (or disprove) the existence of God are worthless in isolation.One can trivially define a formal system in which it is possible to prove the existence of God, simply by having the existence of God stated as an axiom. (This is unlikely to be viewed by atheists as a convincing proof, however.)It may be possible to succeed in producing a formal system built on axioms that both atheists and theists agree with. It may then be possible to show that Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem holds for that system. However, that would still not demonstrate that it is impossible to prove that God exists within the system. Furthermore, it certainly wouldn't tell us anything about whether it is possible to prove the existence of God generally.Note also that all of these hypothetical formal systems tell us nothing about the actual existence of God; the formal systems are just abstractions.Another frequent claim is that Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates that a religious text (the Bible, the Book of Mormon or whatever) cannot be both consistent and universally applicable. Religious texts are not formal systems, so such claims are nonsense.

2.Occam's Razor: wot is it actually?"People keep talking about Occam's Razor. What is it?"

William of Occam formulated a principle which has become known as Occam's Razor. In its original form, it said "Do not multiply entities unnecessarily." That is, if you can explain something without supposing the existence of some entity, then do so.Nowadays when people refer to Occam's Razor, they often express it more generally, for example as "Take the simplest solution".The relevance to atheism is that we can look at two possible explanations for what we see around us:There is an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there, which came into being as a result of natural processes. There is an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there, and there is also a God who created the universe. Clearly this God must be of non-zero complexity.Given that both explanations fit the facts, Occam's Razor might suggest that we should take the simpler of the two -- solution number one. Unfortunately, some argue that there is a third even more simple solution:There isn't an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there. We just imagine that there is.This third option leads us logically towards solipsism, which many people find unacceptable....

Thnx.

Have a Nice Day :)

Destiny… Defined in a NanosecondBy Dave Shields

It’s amazing to think back on key moments in our lives and consider how they altered our future. It’s enlightening when we can see those moments in the lives of others. Maybe that’s one of the things that rivets us to the Tour de France, and to sports in general.
Dave Zabriskie invested incredible preparation into Saturday’s stage one time trial. Anybody could plainly see that two seconds redefined his world. In less time than it takes to draw a full breath, he changed from another young hopeful into a name we’ll never forget. Would this moment have happened if Lance Armstrong’s foot had been more securely clipped to his pedal in the start house? If Zabriskie had fallen short by even a single second it would have still been a great performance, but not nearly as many people would have cared, and Dave wouldn’t have learned what it feels like to wear yellow.
I got to sit down in the home where Zabriskie grew up the day after the biggest race of his life. His mother, Sheree Hamok, related talking to him by phone while he waited for his competiton to finish. “Did I do good?” he asked. “Yeah, you did real good, Dave.” She’d talked with her son as he waited near the finish line, worrying that Armstrong might relegate him to second place.
We all know what happened. The kid from Salt Lake City who grew up wanting to be a Super Hero had just turned himself into one. Through relentless effort he’d blurred the border between dream and reality. Even his widest grin couldn’t contain the joy, and aren’t we fortunate for it. I practically drowned in the emotion.
Two days after my visit to Zabriskie’s home I watched the Team Time Trial while doing an interview on KNBR in San Francisco, Dave’s current off-season home. His performance was clearly a big part of the reason CSC was surprising everybody on this stage. His team set the best times all the way along course, despite being a heavy underdog to Discovery.
Then, only 1200 meters from the finish line, another of those epic moments occurred; only this time it was the bad sort. Zabriskie slammed into the pavement. He skittered along the blacktop, still attached to his bicycle, narrowly avoided by his teammates. Could he yet comprehend that catastrophe had stolen his dream. The radio hosts, men who admitted having little interest in cycling when our interview began, were riveted. The race had delivered more than they ever expected.
Dave quickly got onto a new bicycle, but by now reality must have been hitting hard. I spoke to his mother not long after she heard from him. They were both devastated. She, because she wanted to hold her boy in her arms. He, because such incredible possibilities had disappeared so suddenly.
Zabriskie must have dreamed of winning the Tour de France from time to time, but his mom says his primary commitment has always been to supporting Ivan Basso, his team leader. Now, despite bruised ribs, a stitched elbow, several patches of road rash, and a tremendous mental jolt, Dave’s focus must turn entirely to that objective. He’s going to have to overcome a lot to accomplish it.
I, for one, will be watching closely. Given that Dave has a history of performing at every level, of reaching every objective, of overcoming every obstacle, I’m looking forward to a special performance. For those of you aren’t convinced yet, we’re all about to see how this kid responds to adversity. I think he’s about to prove that he’s the real deal. I can’t wait to tune in, and then hang on tight!

......but you seem to be against the institution of marriage

Question: Marriage is a necessary part of any organized society, but you seem to be against the institution of marriage. What do you say? Please also explain the problem of sex. Why has it become, next to war, the most urgent problem of our day?

Ans: To ask a question is easy, but the difficulty is to look very carefully into the problem itself, which contains the answer. To understand this problem, we must see its enormous implications. That is difficult; and if you don't follow very closely, you may not be able to understand. Let us investigate the problem, not the answer, because the answer is in the problem, not away from it. The more I understand the problem, the clearer I see the answer. If you merely look for an answer, you will not find one, because you will be seeking an answer away from the problem. Let us look at marriage, but not theoretically or as an ideal, which is rather absurd; don't let us idealize marriage, let us look at it as it is, for then we can do something about it. If you make it rosy, then you can't act; but if you look at it and see it exactly as it is, then perhaps you will be able to act.
Now, what actually takes place? When one is young, the biological, sexual urge is very strong, and in order to set a limit to it you have the institution called marriage. There is the biological urge on both sides, so you marry and have children. You tie yourself to a man or to a woman for the rest of your life, and in doing so you have a permanent source of pleasure, a guaranteed security, with the result that you begin to disintegrate; you live in a cycle of habit, and habit is disintegration. To understand this biological, this sexual urge, requires a great deal of intelligence, but we are not educated to be intelligent. We merely get on with a man or a woman with whom we have to live. I marry at 20 or 25, and I have to live for the rest of my life with a woman whom I have not known. I have-not known a thing about her, and yet you ask me to live with her for the rest of my life. Do you call that marriage?
As I grow and observe, I find her to be completely different from me, her interests are different from mine; she is interested in clubs, I am interested in being very serious, or vice versa. And yet we have children - that is the most extraordinary thing. So, i have established a relationship the significance of which I do not know, I have neither discovered it nor understood it.
It is only for the very, very few who love that the married relationship has significance, and then it is unbreakable, then it is not mere habit or convenience, nor is it based on biological, sexual need. In that love which is unconditional the identities are fused, and in such a relationship there is a remedy, there is hope. But for most of us, the married relationship is not fused. To fuse the separate identities, u have to know yourself, and she has to know herself. That means to love. But there is no love - which is am obvious fact. Love is fresh, new, not mere gratification, not mere habit. It is unconditional. You don't treat your husband or wife that way, do you? You live in your isolation, and she lives in her isolation, and you have established your habits of assured sexual pleasure. What happens to a man who has an assured income? Surely, he deteriorates. Have you not noticed it? Watch a man who has an assured income and you will soon see how rapidly his mind is withering away. He may have a big position, a reputation for cunning, but the full joy of life is gone out of him.
Similarly, you have a marriage in which you have a permanent source of pleasure, a habit without understanding, without love, and you are forced to live in that state. I am not saying what you should do; but look at the problem first. Do you think that is right? It does not mean that you must throw off your wife and pursue somebody else. What does this relationship mean? Surely, to love is to be in communion with somebody; but are you in communion with your wife, except physically? Do you know her, except physically? Does she know you? Are you not both isolated, each pursuing his or her own interests, ambitions and needs, each seeking from the other gratification, economic or psychological security? Such a relationship is not a relationship at all: it is a mutually self-enclosing process of psychological, biological and economic necessity, and the obvious result is conflict, misery, nagging, possessive fear, jealousy, and so on. Do you think such a relationship is productive of anything except ugly babies and an ugly civilization? Therefore, the important thing is to see the whole process, not as something ugly, but as an actual fact which is taking place under your very nose; and realizing that, what are you going to do? You cannot just leave it at that; but because you do not want to look into it, you take to drink, to politics, to a lady around the corner, to anything that takes you away from the house and from that nagging wife or husband - and you think you have solved the problem.
That is your life, is it not? Therefore, you have to do something about it, which means you have to face it, and that means, if necessary, breaking up; because, when a father and mother are constantly nagging and quarrelling with each other, do you think that has not an effect on the children?
So, marriage as a habit, as a cultivation of habitual pleasure, is a deteriorating factor, because there is no love in habit. Love is not habitual; love is something joyous, creative, new. Therefore, habit is the contrary of love; but you are caught in habit, and naturally your habitual relationship with another is dead. So, we come back again to the fundamental issue, which is that the reformation of society depends on you, not on legislation. Legislation can only make for further habit or conformity. Therefore, you as a responsible individual in relationship have to do something, you have to act, and you can act only when there is an awakening of your mind and heart. But generally u dont prefer .. you don't want to take the responsibility for transformation, for change; you don't want to face the upheaval of finding out how to live rightly. And so the problem continues, you quarrel and carry on, and finally you die; and when you die somebody weeps, not for the other fellow, but for his or her own loneliness. You carry on unchanged and you think you are human beings capable of legislation, of occupying high positions, talking about God, finding a way to stop wars, and so on. None of these things mean anything, because you have not solved any of the fundamental issues.
Then, the other part of the problem is sex, and why sex has become so important. Why has this urge taken such a hold on you? Have you ever thought it out? You have not thought it out, because you have just indulged; you have not searched out why there is this problem. Sirs, why is there this problem? And what happens when you deal with it by suppressing it completely - you know, the ideal of Brahmacharya, and so on? What happens? It is still there. You resent anybody who talks about a woman, and you think that you can succeed in completely suppressing the sexual urge in yourself and solve your problem that way; but you are haunted by it. It is like living in a house and putting all your ugly things in one room; but they are still there. So, discipline is not going to solve this problem - discipline being sublimation, suppression, substitution - , because you have tried it, and that is not the way out. So, what is the way out? The way out is to understand the problem, and to understand is not to condemn or justify. Let us look at it, then, in that way.
Why has sex become so important a problem in your life? Is not the sexual act, the feeling, a way of self-forgetfulness? Do you understand what I mean? In that act there is complete fusion; at that moment there is complete cessation of all conflict, you feel supremely happy because you no longer feel the need as a separate entity and you are not consumed with fear. That is, for a moment there is an ending of self-consciousness, and you feel the clarity of self-forgetfulness, the joy of self abnegation. So, sex has become important because in every other direction you are living a life of conflict, of self-aggrandizement and frustration. Sirs, look at your lives, political, social, religious: you are striving to become something. Politically, you want to be somebody, powerful, to have position, prestige. Don't look at somebody else, don't look at the ministers. If you were given all that, you would do the same thing. So, politically, you are striving to become somebody, you are expanding yourself, are you not? Therefore, you are creating conflict, there is no denial, there is no abnegation of the `me'. On the contrary, there is accentuation of the `me'. The same process goes on in your relationship with things, which is ownership of property, and again in the religion that you follow. There is no meaning in what you are doing, in your religious practices. You just believe, you cling to labels, words. If you observe, you will see that there too there is no freedom from the consciousness of the `me' as the centre. Though your religion says, `Forget yourself', your very process is the assertion of yourself, you are still the important entity. You may read the Gita or the Bible, but you are still the minister, you are still the exploiter, sucking the people and building temples.
So, in every field, in every activity, you are indulging and emphasizing yourself, your importance, your prestige, your security. Therefore, there is only one source of self-forgetfulness, which is sex, and that is why the woman or the man becomes all-important to you, and why you must possess. So, you build a society which enforces that possession, guarantees you that possession; and naturally sex becomes the all-important problem when everywhere else the self is the important thing. And do you think, Sirs, that one can live in that state without contradiction, without misery, without frustration? But when there is honestly and sincerely no self-emphasis, whether in religion or in social activity, then sex has very little meaning. It is because you are afraid to be as nothing, politically, socially, religiously, that sex becomes a problem; but if in all these things you allowed yourself to diminish, to be the less, you would see that sex becomes no problem at all.
There is chastity only when there is love. When there is love, the problem of sex ceases; and without love, to pursue the ideal of Brahmacharya is an absurdity, because the ideal is unreal. The real is that which you are; and if you don't understand your own mind, the workings of your own mind, you will not understand sex, because sex is a thing of the mind. The problem is not simple. It needs, not mere habit-forming practices, but tremendous thought and enquiry into your relationship with people, with property and with ideas. Sir, it means you have to undergo strenuous searching of your heart and mind, thereby bringing a transformation within yourself. Love is chaste; and when there is love, and not the mere idea of chastity created by the mind, then sex has lost its problem and has quite a different meaning: taken from j.krishnamurthy speech on marriage n compiled by me ..Nandu

Meditation

Meditation
“So, could we start with saying I do not know what meditation is?”

“And waking towards dawn, meditation was the splendour of light for the otherness was there, in an unfamiliar room. Again it was an imminent and urgent peace, not the peace of politicians or of the priests nor of the contented; it was too vast to be contained in space and time, to be formulated by thought or feeling.…meditation was the very essence of life.”
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“Now, let us see if we can together feel the importance of meditation, and also perceive the beauty, the implications, the subtleties of it. To begin with, that word ‘meditation’ has a very special significance to you, has it not? You immediately think of sitting in a certain posture, breathing in a certain way, forcing the mind to concentrate on something, and so on. But to me that is not meditation at all. To me meditation is entirely different; and if you and I are to share this inquiry into what is meditation, you will obviously have to put aside your prejudices, your conditioned thinking about meditation. That is true, I think, whether we discuss politics, or a particular system of economics, or our relationship with each other. …If you are given to a particular form of so-called meditation, and the other is not, there can obviously be no sharing. You must let go of your prejudices and experiences, and he must also let go of his, so that both of you can look into the problem and find out together what is meditation.”
“The flowering of meditation is goodness, and the generosity of the heart is the beginning of meditation.”“You cannot meditate if you are ambitious – you may play with the idea of meditation. You your mind is authority-ridden, bound by tradition, accepting, following, you will never know what it is to meditate on this extraordinary beauty.”“You have to find out what meditation is. It is a most extraordinary thing to know what meditation is – not how to meditate, not the system, not the practice, but the content of meditation. To be in the meditative mood and to go into that meditation requires a very generous mind, a mind that has no border, a mind that is not caught in the process of time. A mind that has not committed itself to anything, to any activity, to any thought, to any dogma, to any family, to a name – it is only such a mind that can be generous; and it is only such a mind that can begin to understand the depth, the beauty and the extraordinary loveliness of meditation.”
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‘Meditation is a movement in and of the unknown … it is that energy that though-matter cannot touch. Thought is perversion for it is the product of yesterday … Everything put together by thought is within the area of noise, and thought can in no way make itself still … thought itself must be still for silence to be. Silence is always now as thought is not. Thought, always being old, cannot possibly enter into that silence which is always new. The new becomes the old when thought touches it … Love can only be when thought is still. This stillness can in no way be manufactured by thought … this stillness can never be touched by thought. Thought is always old, but love is not … the flowering of goodness is not in the soil of thought’

How to meditate - what is it?
But the older people do not know either. They sit in a corner, close their eyes and concentrate, like school boys trying to concentrate on a book. That is not meditation. Meditation is something extraordinary, if you know how to do it. I am going to talk a little about it. First of all, sit very quietly; do not force yourself to sit quietly, but sit or lie down quietly without force of any kind. Do you understand? Then watch your thinking. Watch what you are thinking about. You find you are thinking about your shoes, your saris, what you are going to say, the bird outside to which you listen; follow such thoughts and enquire why each thought arises. Do not try to change your thinking. See why certain thoughts arise in your mind so that you begin to understand the meaning of every thought and feeling without any enforcement. And when a thought arises, do not condemn it, do not say it is right, it is wrong, it is good, it is bad. Just watch it, so that you begin to have a perception, a consciousness which is active in seeing every kind of thought, every kind of feeling. You will know every hidden secret thought, every hidden motive, every feeling, without distortion, without saying it is right, wrong, good or bad. When you look, when you go into thought very very deeply, your mind becomes extraordinarily subtle, alive. No part of the mind is asleep. The mind is completely awake. That is merely the foundation. Then your mind is very quiet. Your whole being becomes very still. Then go through that stillness, deeper, further – that whole process is meditation. Meditation is not to sit in a corner repeating a lot of words; or to think of a picture and go into some wild, ecstatic imaginings. To understand the whole process of your thinking and feeling is to be free from all thought, to be free from all feeling so that your mind, your whole being becomes very quite. And that is also part of life and with that quietness, you can look at the tree, you can look at people, you can look at the sky and the stars. That is the beauty of life.
So we are asking now: what is the movement of meditation? First of all we must understand the importance of the senses. Most of us react, or act according to the urges, demands and the insistence of our senses. And those senses never act as a whole but only as a part – right? Please understand this. If you don’t mind enquiring into this a little more for yourself, talking over together, but all our senses never function, move, operate as a whole, holistically. If you observe yourself and watch your senses you will see that one or the other of the senses becomes dominant. One or the other of the senses takes a greater part in observation in our daily living, so there is always imbalance in our senses – right? May we go on from there?Now is it possible – this is part of meditation, what we are doing now – is it possible for the senses to operate as a whole; to look at the movement of the sea, the bright waters, the eternally restless waters, to watch those waters completely, with all your senses? Or a tree, or a person, or a bird in flight, a sheet of water, the setting sun, or the rising moon, to observe it, look at it with all your senses fully awakened. … if you observe this, if you observe this operation of the whole senses acting you will find there is no centre from which the senses are moving. Are you trying this as we are talking together? To look at your girl, or your husband, or your wife or the tree, or the house, with all the highly active sensitive senses. Then in that there is no limitation. You try it. You do it and you will find out for yourself. That is the first thing to understand: the place of the senses. Because most of us operate on partial or particular senses. We never move or live with all our senses fully awakened, flowering. Because as most of us live, operate and think partially, so one of our enquiries into this is for the senses to function fully and realize the importance and the illusion that senses create – are you following all this? And to give the senses their right place, which means not suppressing them, not controlling them, not running away from them but to give the proper place to the senses. This is important because in meditation, if you want to go into it very deeply, unless one is aware of the senses, they create different forms of neurosis, different forms of illusions, they dominate our emotions and so on and so on. So that is the first thing to realize: if when the senses are fully awakened, flowering then the body becomes extraordinarily quiet. Have you noticed all this? Or am I talking to myself? Because most of us force our bodies to sit still, not fidget, not to move about and so on – you know. Whereas if all the senses are functioning healthily and normally, vitally then the body relaxes and becomes very, very quiet, if you do it. Do it as we are talking.

Happiness

1 .Think ahead to ur life as u would like to it be and how u would like it to be remembered by those closest to u :
a. What accomplishment would they mention?
b. What personal strengths would they enumerate?
In short what is ur legacy?
Note: Not an occasion to be modes or in flip neither is the occasion to in fantasy.
n Hopes and Dreams have a way of not coming true unless we do sth to make happen.
n Look back over what u have written and ask urself if I u have plan that will bring that legacy that is realistic and within ur power. And more to the point ,are u enacting –plan in ur present life.
n Good work “ is not a faucet we can turn on when we eventually are moved to do so .rather ,it is the result of life time of developing appropriate talents and habits, which include a moral sense.
…..I would never have times unless I made the time.
…..He was a good worker .He did is job well, not bcoz he love it but it was the right thing to do .

2. Have a Gud Day:
a. what might we actually do to have a good day
two steps:
· first u need to determine what makes a good day for u .Here u need to be gud observer for ur own days ,the good ones as well as the not-so-good ones,to see if you can identify the relevant features.
· Second assuming that you can identify these ,how can you change ur fture days to maximisethe enabling factors and minimize those that detract. Eg,Go straight to concrete activities ,if u can determine,eg,that a good day is one during which u talked to ur mother on the phone or excercised or wrote in ur journal,then there is very practical lesson to be learned.Have a more days in which you do these things and fewer days in which u don’t –doh.
Way To –DO: Get a note book pr a pad of paper or create excel sheet and keep track what u do during a day ,some journal on an hour-to-hour basis,whereas others prefer to parse their day in terms of it dominant activities.Regardless,write down an over all ratings.

10 .it was one of the best day in ur life.
9. it was outstanding day.
8 it was excellent day
7 it was very good day.
6. it was good day.
5 it was average or typical day.
4 it was sub-par day
3. it was bad day
2 it was terrible day
1. it was one of the worst day of ur life.

3. Savoring:
Don’t stack up ur pleasures and try to experience them simultaneously. Have them one at a time and relish in its own right.

4.Happiness:
Eudemonia: being true to ones inner self according to this view,true happiness entails identifying ones virtues, cultivating them and living in accordance with them.utilising eudemonic emphasis is the premise that people should develop what is best within themselves and use these skills and talents in the service of greater goods –including in particular the welfare of other people or human-kind writ large. ”Be all that u can be” and “ make difference”
--- Those who pursue eudemonic goals and activities are more satisfied than who pursue pleasure.
--- Another possible route to happiness is the pursuit of Victory-winning at whatever matters to us.
By Nandu

Self-help Freedom Philosophy

"All men seek one goal: success or happiness. The only way to achieve true success is to express yourself completely in service to society. First, have a definite, clear, practical ideal--a goal, an objective. Second have the necessary means to achieve your ends--wisdom, money, material and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end."—Aristotle

Happiness is living in a state of freely choosing to create and exchange rational values needed for yourself and others. Being on the path to beneficial and long-lasting happiness does not mean you cannot be happy here and now while on the journey towards more happiness.

Objective happiness is not and can never be a final destination that ends, but is found as a never-ending experience while traveling the road of better learning and living. The awareness and reminder of your love of life and discovery of your life's purpose will help to keep you on your path. When you find yourself off the path, simply get back on, or create another way to your destination.

Never give up. Whatever you expect, you get. Use the tools to blaze a trail and create your own road map. Your definition of happiness will guide you to the best direction. The best path of happiness is by achieving your rational self-interest through the free creation and exchange of your values with others.

THE MAP : - Through Axiomatic Analysis

Primary Objective - Primary Effect:

HAPPINESS


Primary Values - Primary Causes:

Creative Work / Hobbies ------------------------ Producing & exchanging values.

Time/Space - Energy/Matter ----------------------- Quality, productive & efficient.

Liberty ----------------------- Self-control (responsibility) & self-interest (freedom).

Love -------------------------------- Romance, friendship, intellectual & self-esteem.

Supreme Value - Supreme Cause:

Existence ------------- Your consciousness and your physical & mental health

3. The Directions

- Through Axiomatic Analysis and Personal Introspection -

What is the value of happiness?

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence."—Aristotle

The creation and exchange of value is the root of all happiness. The love of earned value is the root of all the 'Happy' who have created more value than they have consumed or those who are learning to earn more values. The love of unearned value is the root of all the 'Unhappy' who have consumed more value than they have created or those who are learning to possess more unearned values.

The lovers of unearned value envy those who have earned values and cannot exist without them. As individuals, we choose how we will obtain values. At any time, the 'Happy' may choose unhappiness, and the 'Unhappy' may choose happiness.

"Happiness is a state of noncontradictory joy--a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of producer."--Ayn Rand

What is needed to obtain values?

"A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom."--F.A. Hayek

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom."--Albert Einstein

The only moral use of deception and force is used as a last resort to defend against a harmful and/or unjust attack or threat to one's self or property. You own your life. Others do not have a claim over your life, and you do not have a claim over the life of others.

A product of your life and liberty is your property. Property is the fruit of your labor--the product of your time, energy and talents--that part of nature from which you have used to create values for yourself and tradable to others through voluntary mutual consent

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe...."
--Frederick Douglass

What is the nature of knowledge and reality?

"If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning."--Carl Rogers

New and complex knowledge is integrated, built, and expanded through old and simple knowledge. Knowledge is contextual. Reality is relational. Reality is all of existence that exists.

One's perception of reality is changed only by our relationships to it because of our new knowledge, experiences, and/or beliefs. Energy/matter and time/space are relative to the perceiver. Everything that exists is composed of matter and energy that cannot be createdor destroyed, which always has and always will exist in one form or another.

Objective reality exists independently inter-dependent with one's mind. The facts of reality, which are relevant to you, can be known through your reasoning and feeling capacities, enhanced by the achievement of your needs for survival, desire for advancement, and production of values through creative thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

"We learn by doing."—Aristotle

What is the cause of action? "Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts, and everything will be well. There is nothing more potent than thought. Deed follows word and word follows thought. The word is the result of a mighty thought, and where the thought is mighty and pure the result is always mighty and pure."--Mohandas K. Gandhi

People may respond to events, circumstances, or situations differently. One's automatic emotional response is determined by one's previously set thoughts and values. A thought may be chosen or unchosen, conscious or unconscious. The words and advice of others may be freely taken when that advice has been integrated into one's own knowledge and understood to be valuable.

To act on the advice from others without regard to outcome, avoids the responsibility of independent judgment and freethinking decisions needed to prosper and be happy. Without independent thought, you will become as an automaton. To follow a follower, you are guided nowhere. To be guided by a definite purpose of your choosing, success will follow you. However, if you are going to be a follower, only follow those leaders who have demonstrated success.

To become what you desire, you must respond wisely to what is happening, which requires rational, independent, and creative thought. Since we cannot control all events, circumstances, and situations or know what the emotions of others and ourselves will be, we can learn to experience them in ways that promote better analysis of thought and well-directed actions.

Only one's actions can be judged as moral or immoral. Actions produce emotions that are personal, private, and valid parts of an individual. When emotions are felt and honestly accepted without fear or guilt, the reasoning mind can help to better know one's deepest values. Pleasure is a sign of acting in harmony with one's values and pain is a sign of acting out of harmony with one's values.

To act solely on one's emotions will likely cause undesired results and never has to be acted upon. Emotions are not the primary cause of thoughts, but are the effect of one's value judgments that will spark and fuel secondary thoughts and feelings. To act in a waythat produces desired results, one's thoughts and beliefs must be chosen toward that end. Your thoughts and beliefs that are purposely mixed with good feelings will produce a desired result.

After one's thoughts and beliefs have changed, one's actions will change. Choose your thoughts wisely. Whatever one consistently thinks about, one eventually acts upon. You will become whatever you consistently think about.

"Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does man harvest the sweet and bitter fruits of his own husbandry."--James Allen

PERCEIVE and trust your senses of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste while at the same time accepting your initial thoughts, beliefs, and emotions for what they are. This is the identification of values needed for survival and desires for your enjoyment and enhancement of life.

UNDERSTAND and integrate your perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, desires, experiences, concepts, principles, and values. Put that understanding into context in relation to you through a non-contradictory manner. Reality cannot contradict itself. If any perceived data contradicts another, one or more of the data may be misunderstood, lacking or false.

Reject beliefs that do not serve you and choose beliefs that do serve your purpose. Find all relevant facts by using honesty, logic, and reason. New and better opportunities will then reveal themselves to you through your consciously chosen or accepted beliefs.

THINK and FEEL what that perceived data is telling you within your context and relation to it. You will have either a need or desire that is unfulfilled or will be reflecting on the achievement of your desires. If a desire is being unfulfilled, determine whether it would be good for you or bad for you if you were to obtain it.

Visualize it. Watch it with curiosity. Meditate on it. (See it, listen to it, smell it, touch it, taste it, chew it, swallow it, digest it, etc.) Then ask yourself how it makes you feel. Whether the emotion is good, bad, or neutral, just observe, accept, and feel it.

Accepting an emotion is simply being aware of it and does not necessarily mean one has to agree with it. Let whatever happens be all right. Accept what is. If you repress or fight the emotion, it will gain strength and control you. If you fully accept and feel the emotion, you give yourself the power to overcome it.

A good feeling is the integration of values with one's thoughts or actions and a bad feeling is the disintegration of values with one's thoughts or actions. Whatever you consciously or subconsciously expect (believe), you will get. Feel deeply and honestly in order to think clearly and logically to identify and understand your desires and life's purpose.

Write them down. A desire left in the mind may remain an unrealized dream and forgotten, but when written down becomes a goal to be acted upon, achieved and remembered. Turn your dreams into reality by thinking and feeling about what you desire.

"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."
--Albert Einstein

If you have a worthy desire that is not currently in the process of fulfillment, you may have not gone outward far enough for answers into the unknown but knowable territory. You cannot see the forest for the trees (concern with irrelevant details). Whatever you expect, you will get. One way to fix this imbalance is to look up and focus your time, energy, and talents toward the fulfillment of your own desires with the possible help from others.

Gather the courage to take advantage of opportunities and risk following your dreams. This will give you an outer perspective and inner satisfaction that will inspire balanced thoughts and feelings, which will lead you to your goal.

If you have not found a worthy desire, you may have not gone inward far enough for answers into the unknown but knowable territory. You cannot see the tree for the forest (unconcern for relevant details). Whatever you expect, you will get. One way to fix this imbalance is to look around and focus your time, energy, and talents toward the fulfillment of the desires of others who may need your help.

Take advantage of opportunities to find out what you really desire to do. This will give you an inner perspective and outer satisfaction that will inspire balanced thoughts and feelings, which will lead you to your purpose.

"Only those who risk going too far can possibly know how far one can go."--T.S. Eliot

PLAN steps of action within your purpose to create the map and achieve your goal. Write them down. Start with the desired goal, and logically work backwards to where you are now to see what needs to be done, step-by-step. If you cannot see or think of the plan fully and completely, simply move in the general direction towards your goal and expect to reach it. When you are moving in the right direction with expectation, you will be able to see the steps needed to reach your goal.

Without a consciously planned map, you will be at the total mercy of events and circumstances out of your control. Within your total control is your plan. Even though you did not cause events and circumstances out of your control, you will have to deal with them rationally and act towards your goal. Become a flexible person and create your own circumstances!

"Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action."
--Benjamin Disraeli

ACT toward your goal with a determined and persistent focus on each planned step while being aware of the full context and relationship of your purpose. With every act, there is an opportunity to learn from each outcome, both good and bad. If your actions are not leading you toward your goal, you may have not understood, or may be lacking some relevant facts.

Rid yourself of actions that waste your time, energy, and talents, while at the same time receiving the proper rest and time for reflection. Once reaching the next step of action, you will see with more clarity, think more soundly, and feel more in touch with your purpose, goals, and expectations. Become dedicated and maintain the habit of doing what needs to done.

Keep movement in your feet, a good word readily on the tip of your tongue, the achievement of your goals on the top of your head, and your life's purpose on the bottom of your heart. Then you will find success, prosperity, and happiness all along the way.

"To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed."--Bernard Edmond

The 'Secret' Formula

- Through Personal Experience -

What is the 'secret' formula to happiness?

"To achieve happiness, we should make certain that we are never without an important goal."--Earl Nightingale

Since, what we have imagined in the past has determined what is happening now; what we imagine today will determine what will happen tomorrow. Therefore, if we want to Have a better future, we must Be and Do the things that must be done in a better way Now; learn from our past Now; imagine our future Now; and experience our best-imagined lives NOW!

Freely Choose to Make a Decision to Move into Action Now!

· Know what you really desire, why you really desire it, and when you really desire it.

· Write down your desire in present tense, being positive, and grateful; Read > 3 times daily.

· Mix with intense positive feelings and emotions. May include deadlines. (See Example)

· Use all your five senses when clearly imagining your goal's accomplishment.

· Keep those good feelings with expectation, gratitude, and no doubts as long as possible.

· Touch your written goal throughout the day, everyday, to reflect on that good feeling.

Do this until you continuously Think about; ask yourself How to; and decide what best Action(s) to take to achieve your goal. Then ACT. You have now become Self-Motivated!

Desire + (Emotion ÷ Reason) × (Imagination - Doubt) + (Gratitude ÷ Persistence) + (Expectation × Action) =
Happiness

May you live a long, healthy, successful, liberty-filled, prosperous, and happy life. Thank You!

The Relationship Between Motivation and Talent

Hydrogen and oxygen are distinctly different elements, but sometimes they combine to form water. Something similar is true for motivation and talent.

Motivation is the desire to do something. Talent is what you do well naturally. They can exist independently, but when they combine, they create something special. They create motivated talents.

People often are naturally good at something (talented), but it just doesn't turn them on. For example, Heather is good with numbers, but she doesn'tt go out of her way to find tasks calling for that talent. Most people have such talents. But then there are those talents that we really enjoy using. These are the motivated talents, and this is where the magic is.

We use motivated talents every chance we get. Most of the time we doesn't even think about it. For example, Larry has a motivated talent for conversation, and he naturally engages both friends and strangers in dialog. He doesn't consciously determine to do so; it just happens. It's natural and unforced. He enjoys it, and he is good at it. That is the hallmark of a motivated talent.

Motivated talents tend to be irrepressible. They find expression. In fact, if you've ever tried to stifle a motivated talent (either yours or someone else's) it probably felt like you were trying to hold two dozen ping pong balls under water at the same time. Motivated talents pop out, even if no one else is asking for them. And doesn't that make sense? After all, it's what we do well AND enjoy.

Well then, wouldn't the ideal job be one where you can use your motivated talents daily and get paid for it? Absolutely! But more on that later.

What are your motivated talents? Shouldn't your boss know? You can let him/her know by giving them a copy of you own career assessment.

Get a job you love and never work a day in your life.

A dream? how to keep yourself on track always to fulfil it

We all have dreams and try to achieve our goals and there are many like us who either don’t have the necessary motivation or have lost it. Many of us then start blaming our fate/destiny for not being able to realize our dreams and fail to realize that it is we who are to be blamed for not being motivated enough. Read on and find how to motivate yourself.

In the daily rut and pressures of life, we have forgotten how to keep ourselves always going with batteries charged. With so many things to do and achieve in life, we have lost the art of motivating ourselves.

What is motivation?
Motivation is a temporal and dynamic state that should not be confused with personality or emotion. Motivation is having the desire and willingness to do something. A motivated person can be reaching for a long-term goal such as becoming a professional writer or a more short-term goal like learning how to spell a particular word.

Types of Motivation:

a. Internal Motivation:
Internal Motivation occurs when people are internally motivated to do something because it either brings them pleasure, they think it is important, or they feel that what they are learning is morally significant. People with immense internal motivation get the required mental strength to achieve and reach towards their goals.

b. External Motivation:
External Motivation comes into play when an external factor or stimulus leads the person to be motivated. E.g. when a student is compelled to do something or act a certain way because of factors external to him or her (like money or good grades).

I am merely making an attempt to bring out some of the tips and tricks that I use to keep myself motivated. I would like to share with all of you these simple tips and tricks to that has kept me going with my batteries charged over the years.

How to motivate yourself

1. Write down your goals and always keep thinking about it
The first step is to start with writing your goals with positive words. If you ever feel miserably down or think that you cannot achieve something, then pick up that piece of paper and read it all over again. When reading your goal statement, visualize nearing that goal. Visual that you have achieved your goal and feel the achievement in your body in the form of goose bumps... and get yourself back on track.

2. Be aware of what you are doing
Always remember that it's you who has planned your goal and it's you who will achieve it. Always keep this in mind. If you don't take measures to achieve it then you will never try. Always keep reminding yourself that by achieving your goals you will make a difference to yourself, your family and society in general. So the key point is that be aware of the actions that you take and analyze always if your actions help you near towards your goals.

3. Always remain positive
It is very important to always remain positive. Turbulences are part of our lives and to remain positive during that time is very important. Imagine yourself sitting in an airplane... and suddenly due to the forces of wind your plane faces turbulences... does your plane nosedive or tries its best to remain stable and keep flying ahead? The same applies to you. The life is filled with problems and every person has his/her share of it. It is upto us how we fight back. So always remember to remain positive during the most darkest phase of your life.

4. Have friends who will push you up
Once a wise man said that "Let me know who your friends are and I will know a lot about you". Always be around friends who will cheer you up and pep you up. A lot of our motivation comes from friends and family who are aware about your dreams and goals. Some of your friends might just be interested in your goal and keep giving you pointers and leads of how to get near your goal. My goal was to start this site and help the community in general to advance their careers and after several rounds of discussion with my friends and family they started sending in their ideas of the next article that I should write or the next improvement that I should do on the site. So my suggestion is that involve some of your most close friends with your goals and you will be surprised how they can make a difference.

5. Read promotional stories
There is nothing like reading promotional stories of real people who have achieved the impossible despite their financial conditions, handicaps, etc. I find sudden stream of motivation flowing through my blood whenever I read stories of real people who have achieved the impossible. I try to associate myself and my situation with them and that helps me to make that extra bit of effort towards my journey to reach my goal.

6. Always carry a motivational quote with you
There are many available across the Internet and you can read them all, but I would recommend that have one quote which suits your situation and charges you a lot. Print it on a piece of paper and laminate it. The final laminated output should be that of the size of a credit card so that you can read it in bus/car/train or anywhere you feel the need to read it. You should make it a point to read it in the morning, afternoon and before you retire to bed. You should also read it when you feel that you are running low on your motivation.

7. Stop Procrastination
Procrastination is the single biggest enemy of motivation. If you keep postponing your tasks and achievables for a later day you will never have a sense of achievement. And, if you don't have that sense of achievement you will never feel that you have accomplished anything. A sense of lack of accomplishment will result in low self-esteem and at this stage you will wish to go into your shell and do nothing worthwhile. Always plan your tasks and try your best to achieve it. This tunes your system to achieve more. Further, after every worthwhile.