Here are a couple things to consider before we get into the details of what our daily regime should entail.

1. Time

When developing a  spiritual practice we must first understand that our practice must run along the axis of time. It must complement time. That means that everything must be done at the correct time or the benefits  of certain practices will be lost.

2. Intention

The intention behind our practice is very important because it sets our spiritual trajectory. It sets how high you will go, or how far you will fall. The ideal intention behind following a spiritual practice should be for God and out of a sense of duty (that it is your responsibility to live correctly – and that by living correctly you have greater opportunities to make other people happy).

Waking up before the sunrise

The first step of your spiritual practice is to wake up before the sunrise. In this way you can be ensured that you will get the maximum energy of the sun throughout your day.

Many saints and yogis can wake up at 3:00am with the purpose of spiritual practice. In many spiritual ashrams around the world, the wake up time is between 3:00-4:00am. However, only those who are quite spiritually advanced can wake up at this time, as it can cause health problems for those who are not. When a person wakes up between 3:00am-4:00am, this person is given the ability to know the deepest spiritual secrets of the universe.

In the temples in India, the first puja (spiritual ritual/practice performed by the priests) of the day begins usually at 3:00am, which they regard as the time that the Gods wake up.

If a person wakes up between 4:00am to 5:00am every morning, they are able to develop strong leadership qualities. They are also blessed with the ability of being joyful, capable, and spiritually advanced. They will be given the strength in life to overcome hardships and being successful, not only in the spiritual world but also in the material world.

If a person wakes up between 5:00am to 6:00am in the morning – they will be given the ability to get, at the very least, what they need to get by and live happily in life. They will be able to avoid great suffering in life and they will avoid great illnesses and diseases. They may not taste great spiritual joys and depth but they will be able to avoid many problems in life.

(Source: Dr. Torsunov)

When a person wakes up later than 6:00am they lose the ability to influence their destiny and faith. They also begin to lack the strength to be happy. Their day runs on autopilot. You just sort of go with the flow, riding the ups and downs of life, without the ability to take much control. For the purpose of this  post I will refer to 6:00am as the appropriate time to wake up. According to the Vedas, 6:00am is the latest a person should wake up if they want to influence their destiny.

Has anyone else noticed that the best time to decide that you want to wake up at 6:00am the following morning is at 6:00pm the night before? In the evening time, it seems like such a great idea to wake up at 6:00am the next day. You can’t think of anything that could be harmful about waking up so early. You can only think about how good it will feel, how much more productive you can be during the day, how waking up before the world does will give you a chance to greet your day in  sweet spiritual silence. You can meditate, pray, practice yoga, prepare a blissful breakfast . Everything about it seems like such a good idea. And then along comes 6:00am and suddenly for the first time you conveniently begin to consider all the “negative” effects of waking up so early. Suddenly 6:00am doesn’t feel like such a good idea anymore. “It’s too early” or  ”I’ll be very tired all day and therefore won’t be able to be that productive after all so I may as well sleep and get some rest and then have a really productive day” or “It’s way too early. What am I even going to do now with all this time?  I don’t have anything to do. I might as well sleep till a more reasonable time to wake up. 6:00am was a silly idea.” or “I couldn’t get into bed early enough last night/had a very restless sleep so it isn’t a good idea to wake up at 6:00am. I’ll definitely get into bed tonight by 9:00am and then tomorrow I will be able to wake up at 6:00am”

Isn’t it funny how our mind works like that? We can be so predictable sometimes. It’s almost like we have to sign a contract to ourselves stating that “I will wake up at 6:00am tomorrow and IT IS GOOD FOR ME” so that even when you wake up and start thinking about why it is a bad idea, you can remind yourself that IT IS GOOD.

There is a lot to say about sleeping at the correct time, and it is something I have not yet mastered.

The Sun and Digestion

Part of what waking up early allows us to have is the maximum  energy of the sun during our day. The energy of the sun can influence many aspects of our day to day physical, mental, hormonal and spiritual functions. When the sun rises it causes a rush of energy in our psyche, compelling us to be active. If a person is sleeping during this time, their sleep transitions from a deep to a superficial sleep. They begin to feel uncomfortable, start tossing and turning, their soul begins to wake up as a new type of energy begins to flow through their body – but of course, out of the force of our conditioning and habits, we can and usually do, choose to stay in bed.

According to Vedic philosophies, the sun emits three types of energy that can influence our psyche and consciousness. The first kind is the energy that causes our skin to burn when we are outside for long on a hot day, and which can cause problems for us such as cancers of the skin.

The second type of sun-energy is a type of energy which enters within our body and stimulates digestion and immunity. This is part of the reason why according to our natural body clocks, we eat our lunch at noon. The sun is at it’s highest, and emits it’s energy rays very powerfully. We are stimulated to eat lunch around noon time, and our digestion is very efficient at this time due to the energy of the sun. It stimulates our appetite and our digestion.

The third type of energy that the sun emits is a the force of joyfulness or optimism. A person can only receive this energy if they are able to wake up at the right time. It is a very subtle form of solar energy.

I am certain that from our own personal experience we can see how much the energy of the sun can affect our mood. Personally, when it is a beautiful day full of sunshine, I feel most inspired and productive, and it somehow becomes harder to do the same things on a dull day. And I have also noticed that if the sun’s energy becomes too strong, and it is just simply TOO hot one afternoon, it can overpower us and make us feel a bit overwhelmed and tired.

There is also much more to say about time and the power of the sun, but I will save that for another blog post.

Taking a shower

It is also important to take a shower in the morning. This helps you wash away the dull energy that accumulates in your consciousness and body as you sleep. For women, a cool shower is advised in the mornings. As I am sure many of you ladies can relate to the fact that washing our hair every day can be a huge hassle, so luckily we don’t have to do that! It is fine to wear one of those (very glamorous) shower caps, but still allow the water to flow from head down. Taking a cool shower can literally wash away many impurities from our material and spiritual (subtle) body.

Morning and Evening Prayer and Meditation

We should try to begin and end our day with prayer. Sometimes we can find it hard to relate to prayer. Or if we do, we often imagine prayer as something we do in the evening before bed. But prayer is very important to do in the morning, at the beginning of the day. You see, prayer in the morning fills us with strength to go through our day properly. It gives us the strength to be happy, to act properly, to fulfill your duties. Prayer at the end of the day can help bring forgiveness for the times that need healing from the day, but does not give you strength to do something good. It can only heal the bad. So prayer in the evening by itself is not enough to create happiness. It

We should try to pray for a 40 minutes in the morning and the evening.

If you don’t believe in God, then you can try to sit in meditation for 40 minutes and wish happiness to all beings. Try to think of everyone you can and wish them happiness. It might not feel genuine at first but keep doing it. Keep on doing it until you start to feel happiness from wanting others to be happy. It will be genuine then.

If prayer is very new to you, maybe my own experience with prayer can help you. I first wish happiness to all people (Which takes a while) and then I ask that I am given the strength to create happiness in my day for all those around me. I ask for the strength to always do the right thing.

May all beings be happy, content and fulfilled.

May all beings be healed and whole.

May all have whatever they want and need.

May all be protected from harm, and free from fear.

May all beings enjoy inner peace and ease.

May all be awakened, liberated and free.

May there be peace in this world, and throughout the entire universe.

(From here)

According to Lama Das, by saying this prayer with sincerity, you will “sleep easily, wake easily, have pleasant dreams, people will love you, celestial beings will love you and protect you; poisons, fire and other external dangers will not harm you, your face will be radiant, and your mind concentrated and serene; and you will die unconfused and be reborn in the happy realms.”

Breakfast

According to the Vedic philosophies, the best time for breakfast is between 6:00-7:00am. The sun has risen and it’s energy is strong, which allows us to digest our first meal of the day with no problems. Naturally our appetite is awakened in the morning time, after our night time sleep where we are deprived of food. There is also another spiritual explanation for our morning hunger. As the sun rises over the horizon, the wind begins to pick up in the surroundings – a fresh morning breeze. They say this movement of the wind is due to the rising of the sun, and the energy it emits, stimulating the wind to start moving. Similarly, the element of “air/wind” is also stimulated within our bodies. It is most active in our stomach area- stimulating our appetite. It has the greatest speed within our intestines, which causes that “sucking” feeling in our stomach that we often consider as hunger, or a feeling of emptiness that should be filled. This force is not just hunger alone though, it is a sign that our psyche has come alive.

It is good to eat foods that will impart upon you good energy for your day. Sweet products are good to eat in the morning, especially for women, because they invoke a sweetness in her nature. The Vedas recommend only eating sweets in the morning though, while you still have sufficient sun energy to digest it properly. It is advised to avoid sweet foods in the evening time. According to Dr. Torsunov, he says that even diabetics can tolerate sweet food products as long as they eat it before 7:00am in the morning.

Dairy products have great power in the morning time as well (milk, yogurt, butter). It is good to drink a glass of milk in the morning and in the evening. Milk is a very powerful drink that builds optimism and joy in those who drink it.  Milk can warm you up (warm milk) or cool you down (cool milk/ buttermilk). You can even add some sweet spices to your milk such as cinnamon. According to the daily regime, milk should be consumed either before 6:00am and after 6:00pm. When consumed in between those times, it can cause problems for susceptible individuals, because they can have a hard time digesting it. It is linked to the energy of the moon, which is calming.  Because of milks calming properties, that’s why many parents give their children warm milk before bed time. Also due to it’s connection with the moon, it digests best under the influence of the moon, which is at night time – which is why it is recommended to drink a glass of milk before you sleep. Women and children are greatly under the influence of the moon, which is why milk digests better in women than in men, however, Dr. Torsunov does mention that by the evening time, milk digests equally well in both men and women.

Fruits are sweet foods of benevolence and should be eaten in the morning.  If you have a busy day ahead of you, nuts are good source of energy at breakfast time.

Yoga

Here you can do your morning yoga practice. This should of course be yoga completed with spiritual intentions, a time to reconnect with your body and bring your spiritual and physical body into alignment before you begin your day. I don’t know much about Yoga to comment on it a great deal. I have practiced yoga in the past, but never seriously enough to understand it’s true impact on our spiritual practice! If you are interested in Yoga, I would imagine the best thing to do is to find a yoga guru in your area, who practices not only the physical act of yoga but the spiritual aspect of yoga too, and learn from them.

Reading spiritual material

I have come to understand that in order for me to consistently better myself, I have to be constantly reminded of my ideals. Even though I have been interested in personal and spiritual development from a young age, it is always so easy to let it slip from the forefront of my mind, and then I forget my focus for life. We must be constantly reminded of our ideals. Even the things you think are a “given” can always be reinforced. For example, something as simple as “being kind” is something I need to be reminded of. It is very easy to degrade, to slip back into comfortable bad habits, but it is very difficult to move forward and develop good tendencies in life. This is why we have to try to rearrange our life so that we are constantly reminded of higher goals. Our higher goals are what will lift us out of murky waters. Our ideals are what will keep us growing. I heard a very valuable quote by Radhanath Swami a few months back that has really stuck with me: “If your ideals are strong, then the tests in your life will only make you stronger.” I understood this as: If you have weak ideals such as that the highest vision you have for yourself and your ideas of self-perfection are weak and full of doubts and confusion, then every test that you have along your path will make you weaker. If your values and ideals are strong in life, then the tests will make you stronger.

For example if you enter marriage believing that “Well, I guess divorce is alright. I hope it doesn’t happen for me, but if it does, no big deal, life goes on, I guess I’ll try find someone new!” then every single argument with your husband will make your marriage weaker, and you won’t even understand why. However if you go into a relationship with strong values and the belief that divorce is not an option at all, then the trials you and your husband face will build strength.

Just to share a funny quote I read once: “My wife Mary and I have been married for forty-seven years and not once have we had an argument serious enough to consider divorce; murder, yes, but divorce, never.” – Jack Benny

Anyway, so how do you surround yourself by your ideals? Well first of all we should try to read something or listen to something or watch something every day of a spiritual nature, that reminds us of our higher aspirations. It could be listening to lectures online, or reading a spiritual book, or going to hear someone speak on important topics (I understand that this does not happen every day though). Secondly we should try to be friends with people who also have similar ideals and lifestyles.

You can also play spiritual music/mantras while you work (if you can) or in your home. This can not only serve as a reminder, it can also purify your surroundings.

 A daily focus

The morning is a time of happiness. If you want to experience true blissfulness, joyfulness and happiness in your day, we must begin our day in the morning – a time of happiness. Our day must take root there.

The majority of our day is allocated for work, studies, fulfillment or our duties and service. This is where we spend the most of our time. Here we have to focus on fulfilling our duties properly, to do our job well, to work hard. We can orient our day so that instead of rushing through our work day – looking forward to getting home to relax, we can try to make the most of our day by reorienting it towards service. We should try to go through our day with the right intention – to serve all those around us, to serve the world, to serve God. We should try to somehow help people in our day, volunteer, engage in charity – at the very least, we should do our job well.

The evening is a time for calming down.  After 6:00pm in the evening, a person should try to move away from work, and try to calm down. We can do this by listening to something pleasant and uplifting, or by creating an atmosphere of happiness and care in your home. You can spend quality time with your children, your husband or wife.

…And don’t forget your evening prayer and getting into bed at a reasonable time so that you can be well rested before your early morning start, and so that you can also have the maximum calming benefits of the energy of the moon.

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This was a very long post, but I think that there was a lot of information to share. Thank you for reading.

Malavika

Benevolence in relationships is centered around three key principles:

Loyalty

The first principle is total loyalty towards your partner. This means loyalty in words, loyalty in action and loyalty in thoughts.

Loyalty in speech means to only discuss the good qualities of your partner. It also means never letting your words convey disloyal intentions about your love towards your partner, for example, not giving false hope to another person outside of your relationship.

Loyalty in action means acting in such a way so that you are there when they need you, that you do things to help them in life, and that you support them in all their endeavors in life. It means being completely faithful; and not getting involved in any kinds of infidelity.

Loyalty in thought means thinking loving and positive thoughts about your partner, to see him all his good qualities, and genuinely wishing happiness for them. Loyalty in thought also means never questioning “did I really make the right decision? Could there be someone better out there for me?” A man can feel when his woman thinks these things, even if she never says it, and your relationship will change because of it.

If a woman can be completely loyal in these three ways, then her husband will be protected from all kinds of harm and there is only room of progress and development. In this way, she can bless her relationship.

The ability to endure

The second principle of benevolence is the ability to endure. The ability to endure means the ultimate commitment to endure all hardships in life together. It means that life will not always be easy, and that the relationship between the two of you will not always be easy, but regardless, you will be there, continuing to do your duties to each other, continuing to preserve your loyalty to each other and continuing to forgive each other. A life of benevolence does not make you exempt from the hardships of life, but rather gives you the strength to endure them.

The ability to forgive

The third principle of benevolence is the ability to forgive. It means to constantly forgive each other for past hurt, so that resentment does not build up. This means having the wisdom to understand that forgiveness is more important than righteousness. It means understanding that when you have not forgiven someone completely, there is no way you can have a normal relationship with them. It also means having the wisdom to understand that not all issues need to dissected – and thus causing pain to everyone involved – but realizing that that some issues can be overcome simply with the power of forgiveness. That is a very difficult thing to do, but it can be done.

The benevolent motivation: Duties and Focused on service

I once heard this quote: “Those who take may eat better, but those who give, sleep better.” The key motivation in a life of benevolence is focusing on service. To give, rather than receive. It means not demanding anything from God, but instead trying to do something for God. And this can be translated to all aspects of life – not believing you “deserve” anything from life, but instead doing something meaningful in life.

A service oriented life stems from fulfilling your responsibilities in life out of a sense of duty, rather than thinking about the details of it (like what you can get out of it, or what it is that you have to do, or how it will make you feel to do it). If you want to start serving your community, the first thing to do is to start doing the jobs you already have to do. Do them well. It could be as simple as being a better wife, or a better friend, or a better daughter, or a better worker. After you slowly switch to a more duty-oriented way of thinking, you will start to find ways to serve bigger groups too.

Don’t worry about yourself. If you can live a truly service-driven life, then you will be taken care of. It will just happen that way. Live a service-driven life with great enthusiasm and joy. You might not enjoy these extra responsibilities very much in the beginning, but keep doing them anyway, after a while they will start to bring joy. Living a service driven life is the only way to attain happiness on a both material and spiritual level.

Here are some small steps to start with:

Start considering your entire street as your home, rather than just your house. Start taking care of it. Mow the lawn. Pick up the litter. Plant flowers. Take care of it.

Feed the birds. Feed the poor.

Wish everybody you meet happiness.

Try to do more for your place of work. Care about your company. See how you can help them do better with the skills you have.

Have a good influence in not only raising your own children but also other children, your child’s friends, and the children of your neighborhood. Care about them. Help them become good people.

Help people.

Help your neighbors.

Share your meals with someone. Bake for friends.

Plant trees, grow plants, take care of an animal.

Volunteer somewhere.

Teach one of your talents/skills to a younger person, or to an entire class!

Share your talents to bring people happiness.

Living and internal life

Benevolent people live an internal life. This means that they don’t seek happiness in what happens around them, because they knows that everything that happens around them is a reflection of what happens in their heart. So they focus on the workings of their heart. Every time we encounter and emotionally charged problem in our life, it serves as an indicator that we are not living an internal life. When we start to live an internal life, difficult times in life become easier to endure and we are also blessed with the ability to find a way out. There is an understanding that the more internal your life becomes, the more happiness you will find in life.

The principle of internal living is to achieve peace with yourself, and a calm harmony with the world.

They have a close relationship with the voice of their conscience. They live righteously, always making sure that their life reflects their morals and values. They are always ready to know the truth, regardless of how difficult it is. They want to change them selves, and practice deep honesty with themselves. If you want to change yourself, you have to be very honest with yourself.

They have a positive outlook on the world. Purity of mind means the ability to see the good in all people.

Talents

Those in benevolence are blessed with wonderful talents that can bring happiness to those around them. They see their talents as a blessing, and they see their development as their duty. But talents in benevolence cannot be exposed at all times. They are only revealed in benevolence. They are only revealed as a blessing. They are only revealed at the right time, at the right place, for the right people. His talents are not used as a claim to fame. They are there to share beauty, to make other people happy. So they don’t need to be available at all times. They are revealed as a blessing, as a gift.

*Benevolent people may achieve fame through their talents, but fame is never their goal, but simply the byproduct of wanting to make people happy.

As a small example, one of my dear friends Abi is a dancer, and I also happen to believe she is a very benevolent and good person with a good heart. When she dances I feel like something very special and holy happens in the room. Her talent brings happiness to the people who watch her. She can transform people and places by expressing her talents, because they are revealed in benevolence, and reflect the goodness of her heart. There is something very magical about that.  Usually I would share a lovely photograph of Abi here but…I’VE REACHED MY IMAGE ALLOWANCE ON WORDPRESS AND I CAN’T POST ANY MORE PHOTOGRAPHS UNTIL I HAVE BOUGHT AN UPGRADE

A benevolent home

To attract the guna of benevolence into your home you can:

Have an alter; a special and sacred space where you keep a few items of spiritual value.

Have fresh flowers. Grow plants.

Have fruits and vegetables.

Don’t keep garbage in your home for long.

To live benevolently, we have to try to get rid of unnecessary things from our home and stop buying unnecessary things. This is one of the reasons why those under the guna of benevolence have money!

Each apartment also has it’s own aroma. If the home is stinky, it indicates a lifestyle of ignorance. If the home has a perfumed aroma, this indicates a lifestyle of passion. A benevolent home is usually has no odor, but has a freshness and lightness about it.

Observing the daily discipline

To live under the guna of benevolence it is important to follow a daily discipline. We can generate the strength to follow the daily regime every day.

This means to wake up early and impart your energy at this time to the search of happiness and spirituality. The middle part of the day is dedicated to fulfilling their duties and living a service-driven life. And finally, the evenings are spent for humble relaxation, and going to sleep early.

It also means eating at the right time. Meditating at the right time. Studying at the right time. Working at the right time. Doing everything at the time it is supposed to be done.

Life is a sweet struggle

Under the influence of benevolence one can start to experience the sweetness of the struggle of life. They find the perfect sweet balance between finally seeing their own short comings and acquiring a taste for serving others. It puts you in a very humble place. And you can find joy there.

Life in benevolence, flows softly and progresses gradually. Life in passion on the other hand, is filled with strong desires and impulses, and it is these very impulses that shackle us to our karma and the karma of others and life starts to feels very turbulent and crazy.

When someone lives in ignorance their understanding of knowledge is thinking “I think this is the way it is, and that’s that!”

When someone lives in passion their understanding of knowledge is “I like this! So I will do that!”

When someone lives in benevolence their understanding of knowledge is “You put in the hard work first and reap the rewards later. At first things may be difficult, and then they will transform into joyfulness.”

It’s important to have the right understanding of what is required of us in life, and in what form. Otherwise happiness becomes an elusive thing of the future.

Karma

Even if you have done bad things in life that has created very serious karma for you to experience now, if you try your very hardest to do the right thing and be a better person now you will be protected by the guna of benevolence, and over time you will gradually begin to burn your karma and change your fate. We can all change our fate, but it comes at a price and it takes a lot of work. But it is very possible! In this case, you will still have to work through karma but it will not come to you as strongly as it would have. It can even be deferred to a later time when you are spiritually strong enough to endure it.

You see, everyone has karma to some degree in life. Even saints can have heavy karma to work through, but because they have chosen to live a life of goodness and higher aspirations and constantly develop themselves, they are rewarded with joy and happiness that gives them the strength to work through any karmic downfalls that they have to go through. Because of this they don’t perceive these things as “suffering”.

When we are motivated by passion then we tend to collect karma, constantly deferring it for another day, because we are too busy enjoying our good karma right now. But eventually that will run out and then comes in the bad karma. That is why when people live under the guna of passion, they experience the rewards and joys of life first, and the hardships later. They have an amazing romantic courtship and a painful marriage. They eat their dessert first and save the main meal for later.

When we are motivated by ignorance we tend to create new karma and accumulate more sources of suffering. We get used to suffering and finding more reasons to suffer. We only degrade, and not get better.

And when we are motivated by benevolence we burn our karma. We free ourselves from karma. We change our destinies and our fate. We change ourselves.

There is a understanding that we must live for today, not for tomorrow. That we must pray today, we must meditate today, we must wish everyone happiness today, we need to be a good person today – and not wait till tomorrow to do these things. The only time that you can secure victory over your karma and destiny is today. The only cause of suffering in old age is from an accumulation of karma.

Non violence

One of the key fundamentals of living under the guna of benevolence is choosing to live a life free of violence. There are several types of violence; violence in action, violence in speech, and violence in thought. We have to try to be soft in all aspects of life; soft in our actions, soft in our words and soft with our thinking. It usually works in reverse order. If we learn to soften our thoughts, we will soften the way we talk, and we can soften the way we behave and interact in this world. You can tell a lot about what influence a person is under by the degree of violence they show through each of these means. Violence in any form always leads to the same thing – the karmic debt- which is that we begin to lose freedom of choice in life. The more violent we are, we will start feeling that we don’t have the ability to choose and make our own decisions in life. They are made for us. And we can’t change them. We can only suffer more because of it. If a person is violent in some way towards another person, then certain karmic boundaries are placed around that person and it is very difficult to break out of them. It will feel like we are trapped inside a giant “bad habit”.

There are structures in our society that try to punish people for acts of violence. That’s what the law and the justice system are there for. But usually, the law can only intervene with violence demonstrated in a physical way from a person. And even then, it doesn’t always catch everybody and demand justice from them. And in the same way through violence in living, justice will still come about, but we will just be punished in a different way.  Life can be arranged in such a way so that our freedom is taken away spiritually.

Sweet speech

When a person speaks in benevolence they tend to speak from the heart and use simple words. It has a soft and sweet nature. People enjoy listenening to them and can feel calmed and soothed by their words and their presence. Their speech is full of substance and knowledge but always simple. They have no hidden aggression, manipulation or self importance behind their words.

Speech in passion is usually filled with difficult words, strong emotions, manipulation, very concerned with form and structure but has little substance.

Speech in ignorance is rude, obnoxious and full of swear words.

The value of life

Some people measure the value of their life by how much money they earned, how beautiful their apartment is, the cars they drives, the places they’ve visited, where they received their education, how famous they are, or their prestigious job etc.

A person in benevolence gauges the value of his life by the amount of people he has helped.

Their life is centered not on themselves, but on those around him. They try to bring goodness and value into the lives of others, and by doing this, it is the only way they can measure the goodness and value of their own life.

Those in benevolence also possess a humble form of respect for themselves. They respect themselves only when they are able to do a good deed. Other feats of society or their lifestyle do not instill a feeling of respect for themselves.

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I hope you can find some value in this! Thank you for reading

malalalalavika

(Inspired by vedic philosophy passed on by Dr. Oleg Torsunov.)

Oh, how I wish I would post in my blog more! Early morning is usually the time I am most inspired to spend time on writing for my blog, but I always (sadly) decide that it would be better for me to channel that energy on studying instead. And so I do. And then by around 7pm I’m too mentally tired to write But anyway, I am so happy to be here tonight!

Today we are going to talk about our spiritual bank account…..

Piety (Definition: 1. The quality of being religious or reverent 2. The quality of being dutiful)

Living a blessed life

Reaping the rewards of past good karma and a lot of piety in your spiritual bank account is like being born with an inheritance from a distant relative you don’t know. You don’t feel much connection with your distant relative (your past lives), but you understand that somehow YOU were chosen, and YOU are blessed with this wonderful blessing of an inheritance. So your parents hand you a cheque and say “here’s the money you inherited, $100,000. This belongs to you!” and its yours. OMGZ0R0US9USJK right? Super exciting.

Do you deserve this gift? Yes, you probably do! Maybe because of your actions in this life, or maybe because of your actions in past lives.

Now that this money is yours, it is your choice what you would like to do with it. You could make a few big investments/purchases, or many small ones? You could give some away? You could go to the casino and gamble it all away. It’s up to you. But just because you are given this money doesn’t mean that it will stay with you forever. You could lose it all too based on your choice of actions.

Some people can be born with blessings in certain areas of life. Perhaps you have noticed it this quality in your own life, or in the lives of people around you. When somehow a person’s life seems “blessed.” For example. a person may be born into a very good, benevolent family. They seem to be “blessed” with good family life. They don’t experience much hardships in this area, whereas another person could struggle greatly in this area of life, finding it very difficult to find happiness in their family life. What’s the deal? Why can it be so easy for some, and difficult for others?

This blessing comes from their spiritual bank account. All blessings do. When you have generated enough savings over time (it can take lifetimes, too), then one day these savings can be spent, and you will receive a blessing.

Winning the lottery

This is precisely what happens when someone wins the lottery. Perhaps over the course of their past lives, these people made big savings of good karma and piousness. And then in this life time, all their spiritual savings are invested as a blessing of great wealth. And they win the lottery.

What happens in you spend all your savings?

This is often what happens with such grandeur blessings in life, like winning the lottery, or healing and recovering from a serious disease. Such great blessings come at a cost, and you can be left with an empty spiritual bank account, because you used up all your resources in one very big investment. When this happens, we begin to fall into degradation, and we become “spoiled”. We have run out of living off of our inheritance of goodness, and now we must live for ourselves again, and life becomes hard. When someone wins a great deal of money or fame, a common complaint from those around them is that the money/fame has changed them, that they have become spoiled. But in reality, if their character has changed, then they have been spoiled due to the status of their spiritual bank balance. Which is probably running really low, and unless they start (or keep) making deposits, then they could soon be bankrupt!

Some examples of things you can spend large savings of piety on:

Healing from a serious illness

Wealth

Fame

Family happiness

Intelligence

If your life is hard

If your life is hard, and you find that you are often faced with tragedies and difficulties, know that it is through these very struggles that you can begin your savings. We must try very hard to act correctly in difficult times We must try very hard to do the right thing. We must think about it, talk to someone who is wiser than us about it. We must walk through the storms, and try to do the right thing. It is a very difficult thing to do, but only by acting dutifully and doing the right thing, can we start building up our balance again.

How to increase your piety

As I mentioned, to increase your piety by yourself you must simply try your very hardest to act nobly, humbly, dutifully and correctly in life. And also try to rid yourself of bad character traits, tendencies and habits. We can also pray.

When we pray, we can pray for the happiness of other people, and we can pray that we are blessed with spiritual development. Praying for these two things in sincerity, overtime will increase your piety.

Our piety can also greatly be increased if we are blessed in life by our elders, and even more so if we receive a blessing from a guru or a a saint person. But of course, there is no way for us to predict or plan for this to happen. Sometimes it just does.

The more good actions we do in life the more good karma we generate. This gets transfered through our current lifetime and also the following ones, and in this way, good actions–good karma can also be a source of blessings in life.

Good karma is usually a result of the good things we have done in our life and lives before. And piousness and “blessedness” is usually a result of the character qualities we have developed due to our good actions.The more goodness we cultivate inwardly, the more piousness we generate. This is a big source of blessings in life.

Spiritual Debts

We have debts too. Debts come in the form of bad karma as a result of “bad” actions we had committed in the past. We have to work through them. Bad karma is anything that makes life difficult. Bad Karma is anything that puts you in a bad mood. Bad Karma is any relationship that is stressful and difficult for you to manage. Bad karma is the source of any suffering in your life right now.

We’ve talked about Karma before here.

Sometimes if we are born with a big inheritance of good karma and piety we can get a bit too comfortable and expect that it will last forever. We may decide that we will just try to avoid our debts for now. That we are too busy enjoying life and all the effortless blessings that our coming our way that we don’t want to spend any time trying to work through difficult issues. When this happens, when our resources eventually do run out, we will be left with no back up because we didn’t take enough time and effort to build up our savings as well.

So no matter how good life is to us, we must always keep paying back our debts. Just as you can use some of your winning lottery on paying back your financial debts, you can also use your blessings in life to help pay back your karmic debts too. And it’s kind of important that you do.

As I mentioned before, just because someone is born with a blessing, doesn’t mean they have to maintain it. For example, just because someone is born into a “good family” doesn’t mean they have to be a good person by default. They can choose stray away. They can start spending their inheritance on other things. In fact, Dr. Torsunov says that if you see a person who has a good family, but has bad friends – it shows that they are in degradation. That they are degrading and becoming spoiled as people. This is because they were born with goodness, but now they choose degradation (As friends are the ones we “choose” in life, and family are what we are “given”). Similarly, if a person is born into a “bad family” but try their very hardest to have good, honest and benevolent people as friends – then it is a sign that they are developing in life. Because even though they are “given” hardships, they have found the strength to choose something higher than that.

You can ask yourself this too. Am I making progress and improvements on the cards I was dealt in this life, or am I taking it for granted and getting worse? In this way, you can tell if you are developing or degrading. If you are spending or saving.

Deposits and withdrawals

So, just like a regular bank account, you can also make withdrawals and deposits into your spiritual bank account. Bad actions and bad habits are withdrawals and good actions and good habits are deposits. And everything comes at a price. Even the subtle things in life. Some make you wealthy, and some make you poor.

For example, if you have a smoking habit, just as a pack of cigarettes cost you 10 euros, they also come at a spiritual cost. A little bit gets taken out of your account. And over time, these withdrawals can accumulate, and you find that slowly your savings of goodness start to leak away. And life becomes difficult.

 And of course you can keep making deposits. If you are running low, or you are going through a storm of bad karma in your life right now, keep making small deposits. Over time it is going to accumulate and in that way you will generate the strength needed to pull yourself out of that s***storm. And if you do everything in a good way, then you may even get a lump sum bonus for making it through.

So I think we have to keep making deposits. We have to keep disciplined. We have to keep trying to do the right thing. We have to Keep doing our duties and being responsible for our life. We have to keep our heart open and try to care about others  more than you care about ourselves.

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Thank you so much for reading and being so patient with me.

Malavika xo

I had to share with you a simple recipe for these chocolate and coconut balls of goodness. I made these today and they were so delicious!

Ingredients:

1 Cup of condensed milk

3 Tablespoons of cocoa (unsweetened)

1 Tablespoon butter

Almonds (or any type of nut you like)

Dessicated Coconut flakes (or any topping of your preference – brown sugar, chocolate spinkles, grinded nuts etc)

Method:

1. Add all the incredients into a pot on medium heat and keep mixing till everything is fluid and gooey (about 10-12 minutes)

2. Place into a bowl and let sit till it reaches room temperature.

3. Place bowl in the fridge for about 1 hour.

4. Take spoonfuls of the mixture, roll them into balls, place your nut of choice inside them

5. Roll the balls into the the coconut flakes (or whichever topping)

Done!

I made the mistake of taking them out of the fridge too early and so the balls were hard to handle because they were so sticky. I think that if you let them chill for longer, you won’t have this problem.

Also, I made sure to make these treats with love and care.  I tried to think about positive intentions and prayers while making these treats, to wish that everyone who ate them will be happy. I think this contributed big time to their taste. It was the magic ingredient.

Let me know if you try this, or have tried it before, and what you think!

Have a wonderful sunday!

malavika

I think that choosing the man that you will marry is one of the biggest decisions to make in your life. And it is a choice that we must usually make early on in life, before we have the true wisdom and experience to make a completely well composed decision. But that’s just the way life is. Our life is full of tests, and each test that you pass gives you the ability to continue building your life in a successful way. “Sometimes you need to pass these tests at a very young age, when you don’t really understand how life will turn out later. And marriage just happens to be that kind of test.” (Dr. Torsunov)

This is why, in the Indian culture there existed the concept of arranged marriages. In this culture, the parents (who are assumed to be wiser, and have more life experience) help their child make the decision of who to marry. They look at many factors of the lives the potential partner for their son/daughter. They systematically look at compatibility on all different levels rather than simple surface chemistry. They look at the background, the values, the family, the karma of the boy/girl’s life, the nature of the boy/girl’s true self, the astrological compatibility etc.Well, this is the old idea behind arranged marriages, it may or may not have changed since then, I am not sure.

So, in our culture today, where we are given the responsibility of finding our own partner for life, we can still try to approach this with the wisdom of the ancestors; who built marriages to last.

So when you first meet a potential “suitor”, according to the Vedas, here are some considerations we should take into account. Under each consideration there are 5 different variations, and according to them, we can see what kind of happiness that a person aspires to, including ourselves.

The first variation is a happiness based on spiritual practices. These people live their life to serve God.

The second is a happiness based on the heart center. These people live their life according to their values of their heart.

The third is a happiness based on power and prestige. These people live their life to attain success and prestige in life.

The fourth is a happiness based on comfort. These people live their life to be comfortable and secure.

The fifth is a happiness based on ignorance. They tend to have an incorrect understanding of happiness, looking for it in all the wrong places. They live their life for entertainment and pleasure.

By the way, I apologize for the use of so many “he’s” (instead of gender neutral language) for both male and female readers.

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1.  The way he talks to his elders

You need to observe carefully how he behaves with those who are older than him. Is he humble and respectful? Does he help them, listen to them? You can also observe the way he interacts with your parents. His attitude towards your parents shows possibility of future growth in your relationship. Is he caring, attentive, humble around them? Or does he regard them as unimportant? The Vedas say that how a girl behaves with her parents give an indicator of how she will behave with her husband. So how does she behave with her parents? Does she listen to them, take care of them, respect them? These are all qualities that would be ideal between a husband and wife too! His ability to respect and be subordinate to his elders show his ability to be humble in life. If he cannot do that, then it will also be very difficult for him to feel genuinely humble in life. Humility is a very important force in life, and plays a key role in making relationships work.

There are 5 types of relationships with the elderly, and each person acts in a certain way according to the type of happiness that they have a taste for.

a) He respects all elders, especially parents and teachers. At this level of understanding, this gives the potential of having very high family happiness with this man.

b) He respects only HIS teachers and parents, but has a neutral attitude to all other elders. With this level of understanding, there is potential to build a relationship based on peace, happiness and progress. However, in a relationship with this man, it may be difficult to develop a common understanding on spiritual issues.

c) On the outside he shows respect for all elders, but he lacts the internal reverence and respect for them. He still believes he is wiser than them. With this level of understanding it shows potential for a love that is based on the desire for power and prestige.

d) He is rude to the senior people in society who have strong reputations in society. On the outside, he is respectful to those that are respected by all, but on the inside, he has many complaints about them, and has a very rude attitude about them. With this level of understanding, there is potential for a love that has a desire for comfort and prosperity.

e) He is rude and dismissive towards all older people, especially the ones that everyone respects. With this level of understanding, there is potential for a love that is based on sexual attraction.

2. The way he interacts with children

The Vedas say that the way a man interacts with children gives and indication of the way that he will interact with his wife. Is he considerate and playful with children? Sometimes men can be shy to play with children (especially other people’s children), but can you see that he at the very least likes to see and be around children? Or is does he get irritated by them all the time? His relationship with those who are younger than him shows his maturity, and his ability to mature over time. The Vedas say that if you did not respect your elders in a past life, then in this life, you will be unable to respect young people.

a) He is compassionate and caring for all children, and also is not afraid to help them learn things and tell them when they are doing something wrong in a loving way. Children seem to like him, respect him, and feel safe under his care. At this level of understanding, there is potential to build a very high level type of love.

b) He is kind and caring towards only the children that depend on him (for example, children within his own family, or his own children) but has a neutral attitude towards other kids. At this level of understanding there is potential to build a love based on the desire for peace, happiness and progress. It would be difficult to develop a spiritual connection however.

c) On the outside he is compassionate towards kids but only superficially and only when it can benefits him. At this level of understanding there is potential to build a love based on the desire for power and prestige.

d) He is blatantly rude to children that disrespect him but outwardly respectful to the young ones that behave well. At this level of understanding there is potential to build a love based on the desire for comfort and prosperity.

e) He is rude and/or dismissive towards all young people. He finds them annoying and silly. At this level of understanding there is potential to build a love based on the desire for sexual attraction.

3. Who are his friends, what do they do, and how does he spend his leisure time?

We also need to observe the surroundings of our future husband. Who are his friends? The quality of friends a person has often indicates the quality of their heart. What are his friendships based on?

Friendships based on:

a) His friendships are based on spiritual, benevolent and self-development aspirations. Amongst friends he likes to discuss his spiritual ideas, ways that they can serve their family, friends and community, and they like to discuss how to become better people.

b) His friendships are based on shared values. As a group of friends, they would never deviate from their set of values and always try to behave in the “right” way according to society. They keep traditions amongst themselves and respect each other, but can all have different goals in life.

c) His friendships are based on politics and shared interests. They have strong opinions on politics and current affairs, what’s hot and what’s not, what’s cool and what’s not, good places to eat good food, good movies and bad movies etc. They usually get together to talk about these things or do what they consider “cool” together.

d) His friendships are usually created at work with his colleagues. They maintain conversation and interaction in a workplace setting, and will sometimes get together for work functions and work parties, but other than that his friends are not really a big part of his life.

e) He meets his friends only for unfavourable or degrading activities, such as taking drugs, getting very drunk, finding women to sleep with etc.

Also take note of how he spends his leisure time. Does he engage in self-development, or does he try to improve his his intellect, or his finances, or his body and appearance, or can he be lazy and not believe he needs to improve anything? Does he spend his leisure time serving, or socializing, or in shady business (read: shady bidnizz)

4. How does he act in a casual setting

Meal time is usually provides quite a relaxed atmosphere for people, and we can observe how people act and what they talk about during such an atmosphere. As a person eats they tend to lose control over language and they tend to talk more freely about what is inside them. Their behaviour in a relaxed setting can indicate their level of understanding of what happiness means to them.

a) He eats blessed food (so he shows gratitude and grace before a meal). He does not over eat, and at the table he tends to be quite reserved, listens to other people, and is focused and present when eating his meal. At this level of understanding there is potential to build a love based on grace.

b) He tries to be very generous, tries not to disturb anyone, speaks quietly, has a moderate appetite, eats “blissful” food. At this level of understanding, this person can develop relationships that lead to harmony at the heart level.

c) He is refined in diet, but cannot tell the difference between food in passion and food in benevolence. He has strong preferences when it comes to food (likes to eat “good” food, but does not understand what exactly is “good food”). At the dinner table he is inclined to discuss and condemn the bad qualities in people, discuss politics, he eats hurriedly and fast, he enjoys eating a formal setting. At this level of understanding, this person can develop relationships based on a desire for power and prestige.

d) He eats a lot of meat, but tries to eat in a refined manor, but ends up eating a lot. He likes to discuss business and the economic situation of the country, and eats for comfort – he eats for pleasure, to enjoy himself. At this level of understanding, it is likely that he can develop a love based on the desire to be comfortable and prosperous.

e) He often drinks a lot of alcohol during his meals, likes to discuss only sports, swears, tells tells dirty jokes and does not mind eating in a dirty environment. At this level of understanding it is likely that he can develop a love based on sexual attraction.

5. How does he act in a business setting

a) If he thinks about his business and work life as a way to help the people around him, to be honest and share knowledge and wisdom. If he incorporates spiritual ideals into his work life and tries to help others achieve them also. If he feels that the goal of all business is ultimately to serve a higher purpose, and to enable others to also serve a higher purpose. If he seeks spiritual balance and integrity in his work life, truly trying help the lives of those around him, then at this level of understanding you can create relationship based on the desire for spiritual progress.

b) If he considers it his responsibility to discuss topics such as: work ethic, values of the business, standards of morality in the public, good behavior in society etc, at this level of understanding, you can create a relationship based on the heart center and values.

c) If he considers it important to discuss politics, the laws of the country, achievement of success, wealth and fame, wealth and prosperity, managing people, time management, policies, expanding to a global business, then at this level of understanding you can build a relationship based on the desire for power and prestige.

d) If he likes to discuss is the business of others, who earns what, who is who, who works in which office etc then at this level of understanding, you can build a relationship based on the desire for money and a comfortable life.

e) If, in a business environment, he mostly condemns the people above him, and despite being in a business environment, still prefers to discuss gossip, sex, sports, movies and celebrities, then at this level of understanding you can build a relationship based on sexual love.

6. How he talks about the future and his motivations for a life together

To understand a person’s true inclinations it is also important to observe his goals and aspirations for the future, and also what he imagines marriage to be. It may be difficult to ask them “Hey, tell me about your true plans for the future”, and not everybody is open to disclose such personal information, so it is better to instead just observe them naturally without judgement, and simply see if what they have planned is compatible with your own nature.

A man’s true nature reflects very strongly in his plans for the future.

a) If he aspires firstly to spiritual progress, and builds his life around his spiritual aspirations. His plans are not necessarily based on the things he wants to acquire in life, or the positions he wants to hold in life, but rather on cultivating a life that allows himself to develop happiness and spirituality, and of course bring that into the life of the people he shares his time with. The plans he does make on decisions to give to charity, to visit sacred places, to engage in various activities to clear his consciousness. In a marriage, he looks for a girl that he can share this journey with. The purpose of their relationship is spiritual in nature. It is focused on God. It is focused on becoming better people, and helping each other become better people. They believe that marriage is a very important thing in life. This is a very high level relationship.

b) This person aspires to a pious life, and plans activities in life to increase their piety. They make plans to improve relationships with their colleagues, they are interested in developing themselves and try to live a happy life. They plan to keep up traditions and values. He has an urge to do something useful in society. He wants to achieve something in life. He looks for a girl with good values who will help him live by these standards. He looks for a girl who also wants to do good things for other people. They aspire to start a family and uphold values and tradition, and try to raise good and happy children.

c) This man enjoys the glory of planning the future of his career ventures. They make plans for prestige and power. They take care of their education, and plan to continue climbing the ladders of society. He plans where he would like to work in 5 years, 10 years, how much money he would like to have by then, what contacts he will have by then, what courses he will take by then. His idea of family happiness comes from a girl who has similar aspirations to make a name for herself in society. He dreams of a high-achieving life with a high achieving woman.

d) This man makes plans for the future, for things like: which apartment to buy, in which area of town, what kind of furniture to have, which car to buy, what kind of working schedule would fit best with his lifestyle. He is not very much into his career or hobbies, but instead prefers to enjoy a stable life, and collect “nice things”. He looks for a wife who will also value the same things. Who would work hard next to him in order to live in a comfortable apartment, drive a comfortable car, go on a comfortable beach holiday every year, and live a comfortable life. They don’t mind living together.

e) He dreams only about entertainment, and “cool things” to do in life, such as extreme sports, where to go on holiday, strange and unusual things to try. In order do these things he needs money, and sometimes can get involved with shady business in order to find the funding. His most important thing in life is to just find a job, any job. For them, who their partner is does not really matter, as long as they share the same interest at that time. So their partners can change quite frequently throughout life.

7. His diet and his daily regime

a) He eats vegetarian, blessed food, and likes to observe fasts for spiritual purposes. He follows a strict diet. He wakes up very early, before sunrise, engages in meditation, spends their day fulfilling their duties and serving the truth. In the evenings he may spend time studying the lives of saint-people, read holy books, and talk and think about God. He goes to bed early and wakes up at around 4am. His home is empty and free. With this man, you can build a relationship based on the attainment of spiritual truth and service to God.

b) He is a blissful person and tries to eat good food. But he does not yet practice cooking food with the love of God in mind. They do not observe many fasts, but restrict themselves moderately in diet. They are interested in the different methods of healthy living. He lives in a clean and blissful environment. He wakes up early (usually around 5am) and goes to bed around 10pm. He likes to spend his free time developing his character.

c) Aspiring to power and prestige, this man loves to eat luxuriously and elegantly. He is very concerned that his diet was healthy. Because of this, he can follow many different diets (Which have nothing to do with spirituality) based on the chemical components of food and not their spiritual value. He goes to bed around 10-11pm and wakes up around 6:00am. In his free time he likes to study the rules and laws of business and success in life, and he likes to watch exciting tv shows. He likes to spend some evenings amongst his elite group of friends, in a luxurious environment, and he loves to celebrate things!

d)  Inspired by the desire for comfort, this man likes to eat foods that have strong flavors (salty, sour, sweet, spicy). He is fond of rich dishes and enjoys all sorts of delicacies. He does not think it is important to follow a daily routine, unless he has to, due to his work schedule etc. He usually goes to bed around 11:00-12:00 and wakes up at 7:00am for work. In his spare time, he likes to watch TV serials and the news.

e) This man has no daily routine or diet. In his free time, he likes to find all kinds of entertainment. He usually has some bad habits.

As always, thank you for reading.

Malavika

What is envy?

First of all, there are different types of envy.

1. Classical envy

The first type of envy is probably what we consider to be envy in the classical sense. This is where see someone who seems to have something that we believe we deserve more. This could be a house, a car, money, fame, good looks, good life opportunities etc. In this case, we just cannot feel happy for them because we feel frustrated that we were not given these opportunities. Perhaps we feel we deserved them more, or that we would do more with it if we were the ones given these things.

2. Judgement of a person:

The second type of envy is more subtle but is still considered a form of envy. This is when you are very judgmental about other people. This is when you can look at a person and think “Oh he is such a bad person, look at all the bad things he has done in his life! How did he manage to turn out this way?” or similar strands of thought. Either way, this person consumes your thoughts. You think about them a lot and put a lot of energy into criticizing them, even if only in your mind.

But your judgement of them actually stems from a deep feeling of jealousy of the fact that they can be more relaxed than you, that they can live life in a slightly easier way than you do, that they don’t bear the weight and requirements of the values you hold in your own life. Because of this you take the things they do personally, and there is a hint of malice behind your judgements.

The karma of  envy

The force of envy has the power of attracting a very heavy type of karma for us in our lives. For example:

1. You will have to go through everything they go through

The first way that the karma of envy works is that your life will arrange itself in such a way that you will have to go through the same ordeal that you judged in another person. It will either be a similar situation or something that brings out in you the exact same character qualities that you judged in the person of your envy. If you judge someone, you will also have to take this exact same test in life. And these tests are very hard to pass. So in this way, it is often the case that you judge someone for something, and then at some point in your life you will be in a position where you will do the exact same thing. Of course you don’t have to do the exact same thing, but life will arrange in such a way that it will be very hard not to. That is the test. If you can react differently, you pass, and if not, you lose, and attract more karma for yourself through your actions. That is the karma of envy and judgement.

For example, if you severely judge a man for leaving his wife, and you often think about what a bad man he is to have done such a thing, then one day you will be placed in a position where you will need to leave your partner in a similar and unforgiving way.

And if you judge his wife, and criticize her for her unloving and fighting behavior that lead to the breakdown of her marriage, then one day you will also start being unloving and fighting with your own husband, and he too, will begin to turn away from you.

This is why it is better not to judge anyone.

2. You take on the karma of their sins

When you envy a person, or when you harshly judge a person, you are signing a contract with God that you are willing to take on all of their bad qualities, karma, and sins. As a result of this your life becomes heavier with their burdens on a spiritual level.

So if you look at someone and think “Oh look at how easy life is for them, all the good opportunities that came their way, they don’t deserve that, I deserve that, I work so hard!” then you will take on all their bad character traits. All their inner darkness that they struggle with, will also be shared with you. The karma that they have laying ahead of them, also becomes your karma. Their bad habits and bad qualities, also becomes yours.

 A similar thing happens if you look at a person and judge them.

There are saintly people who are also envied by the people around them. Dr. Torsunov says that when a saint person comes across a person that they sense envies them they simply say “Thank you!” The person is confused and asks “What are you talking about?” but the saint replies with only “Thank you, my dear.” And the reason the saint is thanking him is that this man is taking away the sins of the saint. Whatever bad karma the saint has in his life, and whatever bad qualities remain in the saint, this envious person takes it from him slowly. So there is nothing to do but to thank them for that.

3. You are deprived of good opportunities in life

Because you have envied and judged someone, you will be busy working through their karma in additional to your own karma. So life will become more difficult for you. And because repaying karma takes a high priority, you will have less time, energy and focus for new good opportunities in your life.

4. It ruins your hopes for life

Lack of new good karma in-flow due to having to dedicate your time to solving past shared karma, begins to grate on your hopes for life. Your hopes and dreams become slowly tainted and you find it hard to generate energy and enthusiasm to overcome all this karma. And all of this, because of envy and judgement. Who would have thought!

Envy is a force that collects dirt from everyone and everywhere. Envy makes the person develop the consciousness of a fly. Unfocused, but not only unfocused, but if you’ve noticed, flies tend to always fly towards garbage. Similarly a person with this consciousness will always fly towards the garbage in life. They can’t explain why they are so attracted to it, but they can’t help it.

What to do when you are the focus of someones envy

Envy can slowly poison the lives of the one that envies and the person who is envied. If you feel that someone envies you or judges you deeply, then you need to try to forgive that person. You need to try to think about them in good ways, and look at the good qualities in that person. If you cannot forgive them for their envy and judgement, then your life will also begin to get tainted. Dr. Torsunov also reminds us that there is no smoke without fire when it comes to envy, and if we are envied there is a strong chance that we are also in some way incorrectly relating to that person. So we need to try to be more sincere, more loving, more kind, more forgiving, and see the good qualities in all people.

Oh no! how can I correct my karma?

What is important to remember is that we create our karma for the future right now, as we work through old karma. By correcting our relationships, and ourselves right now, we can make our future run smoother and lighter. By being envious now, we attract hardships into our lives in the future, that we will have to go through. By choosing to stay away from such degrading thoughts, I believe we can change the course of our fate.

If you feel that you have been guilty of envy and judgement (I know I have) then the best thing to do is to try to pass the tests you have set for yourself, with consciousness and awareness. This means you need to try your hardest to fulfill your dharma in life (your duties and responsibilities in life) well. Serve. Offer. Be there. Be responsible.

Look at your life, do you find yourself in a similar situation that you once judged someone else for? Or do you feel that your life is leading to that point? That just shows that you have been judgmental and envious in the past. Try to correct your situation. Try to pass the test. Try to act differently, try to act in the right way, try to forgive the people that you judged and show compassion for them. When you see how difficult it can be for you to act differently when you are put in their shoes, you will start to develop compassion (if you are aware of what is going on).

I think it is very important in life to forgive people and try not to judge them for who they are. It can hurt us more deeply than we realize.

Thank you for reading <3

Thank you for letting me share these with you,

Malavika

I am sorry that I have not posted here in what seems like a very long time! I am on vacation at the moment and didn’t make the time to sit and write as many blog posts as I would have liked. I do have a little one for you today though! I hope you enjoy it.

I also have a lot of photographs and stories to share with you soon too.

As it is New Year’s Eve I would like to wish you all a blessed 2013! I have always held new year’s very close to my heart, and consider it a very auspicious time filled with so much promise and joy. So, happy new year! May 2013 be filled with joy.

Now, back to today’s post…

One of my goals for 2013 is to begin my journey of purifying and strengthening my consciousness.

To grossly oversimplify, I see it as a two part process; the first part involves removing the badness and the second part is about filling ourselves with goodness. This post is connected to the first part. It is one of the first steps we can take to begin removing the badness from our minds.

Today I want to talk about is a disease of our mind.

Have you ever felt like you were a prisoner of your own thoughts? That you can get sucked into a vacuum of negative thinking, and before you realize it, you have created all kinds of problems for yourself. Our thoughts become bottomless pits that suck us into the darkness. It can start off with a simple “what if” thought, and then it escalates from there. You can have an entire conflict in your mind. You feel all the emotions, you mentally work through all the awful consequences and aftermath. You can even break up with your partner in your mind. And then the following day you try to continue life as normal, but you just can’t. Your consciousness is tainted. You just cannot act and be with this person in a normal way. Everything has changed. Everybody feels it but no body understand it. Your partner has no idea what happened, and you also, do not realize that your uncomfortable and distant relationship with your partner today is because of your thoughts last night.

This disease begins in our way of thinking, it originates in the mind, and if we don’t start to put a stop to it, it will begin to interfere with our lives.

Symptoms

You find it hard to fall asleep because you can’t get away from your thoughts.

You have already imagined your break up, your fears coming to reality, or life after your death.

You have already imagined upcoming potential problems in your relationship (eg. What if he cheats?)

You find it hard to wake up in the morning, even if you had many hours of sleep.

You get offended easily.

You worry about how you are perceived

You hold a very strong negative opinion against someone

You regularly think about whether your boyfriend loves you, or you love your boyfriend.

You feel lost in life.

You have frequent mood swings.

The consequences

This is a disease of our mind. When you have this disease we no longer have any peace of mind. Once we get trapped in our thoughts we get sucked into some deep dark place. It is important to remember that you don’t have to be “depressed” to have this disease. It can happen to all of us, even the happy ones. So it doesn’t depend on sadness, it depends on the strength of our consciousness. When our consciousness is weak we lack the ability to choose our focus. When we lack focus in life we start to pull at threads. We pull and pull, taking apart the patchwork of our mind, making it weaker and weaker. As long as we have this disease, we will not be able to find true happiness as we will not be able to recognize it even if it comes and hits us on the face. We will lack the strength, the reason, and the intelligence.

The reason I write about this today is because I realized I have this disease. At times I felt I was just a prisoner of my own mind, submissive to its every demand. It says “Hey Malavika, think about this now, and feel bad about it!” and I would be like “Sure, just let me just cancel my prior plans and commitments!” It says “Jump” and I say “how high?”

I have done this for so long that this just felt like how it is supposed to be. That I don’t get any say in the matter. That if a negative thought impulse emerges in my mind, then I must oblige. It’s only recently that I started to feel that it was interfering in my life. That some nights it was difficult to sleep even though “everything was fine” in reality. That it would interfere in my relationships with other people, that if they were at the center of my negative thought – then I just simply couldn’t conduct myself normally around them for a while. That most of my problems were imaginary but felt so, very real. That somehow my maximal happiness level in life had been dulled. That for some strange reason, I could never get as happy as I somehow believed I could be.

So I was laying in bed with my aunt one night and she diagnosed me.

After listening to my symptoms she said quite simply “Ah huh, sounds like you have too much time on your hands.”

Well, for me, this is very true. I must have a lot of time on my hands or else I wouldn’t have so much time to create problems for myself, just for fun.

But I do acknowledge that some people are very busy people, but they can still have this problem with thinking. How is that possible? Well, I believe that these people are busy with the wrong things. They are looking for happiness in the wrong places. When we do this, our mind loses its immunity, and it becomes susceptible to this disease.

So my aunt told me she had this very problem but that around 3 years ago, she made the decision to heal herself from it. And she did. Today she says that her life may not be perfect, but she does have peace of mind.

Treatment plan

Stop thinking about things too much by getting busy with your life

My aunt told me that an idle mind is the devils workshop. She said she never let’s those thoughts get into her head. If she feels one is being planted, she quickly gets up and gets busy with her life. For her, she uses these thoughts as a reminder that there is work to be done RIGHT NOW that she is neglecting.

We must fill our lives with meaningful duties and responsibilities that we must hold ourselves accountable to. This will build our strength and sense of responsibility. Let your life be filled with so much joy that you simply do not have the time to sit and think of what could go wrong. You have too much to focus on right now.

Sleep when you are sleepy

My aunt advises against lying in bed for hours trying to fall asleep. What else can you do but think? Instead she suggests reading a book (or any other activities you like to do before you sleep) and then going to sleep when you are tired enough to sleep. If you are living a fulfilling life, working hard every day and fulfilling all of your responsibilities, then you will naturally feel tired at night.

Practice present moment awareness

Wherever you are, just be there. Try to focus on what is happening around you right now. I noticed that I can even slip into my thoughts in the middle of conversations, or routine chores! Instead now when I feel myself doing that I just gently remind myself to bring myself back into the moment. And in this moment, everything is okay. And something needs to be done.

My concern, and perhaps yours too, was….

“But isn’t it bad to ignore problems? Won’t they just build up?”

No, they won’t. Because they are not real problems. We are just creating them ourselves. And we are just so freakishly good at it that we truly believe that they are real and that we are doing a service to ourselves by thinking about it. Wrong!

So I said “But then some problems in our life are real and they do need some consideration. How do you know what is a real problem and what is a imagined one?”

My aunt said “You will know you have a real problem because it will happen right in front of you. Look, if someone slaps you, you have a problem. You need to think about that and react appropriately. But if you are laying in bed thinking about what if someone slaps you one day, that is not a real problem.”

We have to learn to tell the difference.

My experience

Oh my goodness, if you only knew how many problems I have imagined myself into, it would just be a joke! What a relief it is to know that most of my problems in life (perhaps even *gasp* ALL) are imagined.

So I have been trying this for the last week. I found that it isn’t that difficult to stop getting caught in the vacuum as long as you catch the thought early and then distract yourself. What was most noticeable to me was the amount of times I had to make that choice. Now I realize now how much time I spent thinking about complete crapola. How much time and energy I invested in ruining my relationships, my attitude, my beliefs, my hopes and dreams, my life!

I also noticed that in the last week, I wake up much less tired than I did before. I don’t necessarily wake up in a better mood, but I do wake up easier. I think the reason I don’t wake up in a better mood is because I haven’t invested my energy into filling my mind with goodness yet, I had only worked on emptying it of the badness.

Making the commitment to do this has changed a lot already. It does require a bit of mind-policing initially, but I imagine that over time it will begin to feel more natural. After just one week I noticed that it is easier than it was in the beginning to tell myself not to follow a negative train of thought.

As I said, it is easier to do this if you catch the thoughts early on. You have to be able to detect even the slightest traces of these imaginary problems as early as possible. If you catch them early, it doesn’t take much effort to distract yourself. But if you allow yourself to dwell, to stew in them, then it becomes very difficult. I’m very happy with how it is going so far.  I hope you can find some value from this too!

It feels good to know I am not a slave to my mind. It is a freedom, a young, newborn freedom, but freedom none the less. And it is sweet.

Happy new year homies!

Malavika xo

In this blog I will be sharing and promoting the Vedic ideals of womanhood and “the Vedic relationship” which are established in traditional fundamentals and values.

So, loving discipline…

There is a feminine way to do this and a masculine way to do this.

If you are a woman and you try to discipline your husband in a masculine way, you may win the battle but you will lose the war. And if a man tries to use feminine energy to discipline his wife, she will gradually lose respect for him and start seeing him as weak, a push over.

This is the art of learning how to discipline your partner in the right way.

There is only one way to get this right and many ways to get it wrong.

The only way to do this in the right way is to combine your “disciplinary measures” with kindness and love. That means you you only have a right to “teach your partner a lesson” as long as you do it out of love, and not out of anger. It’s very hard to achieve this. If you feel like you cannot continue to feel love and kindness, then the only person you should be trying to teach something to is yourself. Leave him alone.

Here are some of the different combinations:

THE RIGHT WAY!

Discipline + love =Loving discipline

Every “disciplinary measure” should be proportionate and reasonable to the act that was committed. Ideally you should leave your “story” out of it. You should continue to genuinely wish them to be happy, you must continue to carry out your duties to this person.

(Ex. You are a parent and and your neighbor comes to your door to inform you that your child was caught pushing someone over. So you apologize and decide to send your child to time-out as punishment. You are not super emotionally involved, you still love and care for your child and you also have a strong belief that changes can be made. You simply wish to correct this behaviour)

THE WRONG WAYS!

Discipline + Unkindness + no love = Cruelty

(Ex. If you always seems to pick on a certain person all the time, always searching and looking for mistakes in the other person and making sure you are the first to point it out)

Discipline + Anger = Venting of frustrations rather than changing behavior

(Ex. When a parent is tired after a long day at work and their child is driving them crazy, and they decide to punish them for being annoying)

Discipline + over sensitivity = Manipulation

(Ex. Crying hysterically, not telling him what exactly he did wrong, wanting him to “feel the way he made you feel”, giving him ultimatums, telling him to not contact you again when you don’t mean it.)

The woman’s right

The Vedas teach that a woman has the right to distance herself from the relationship in order to “lovingly discipline her husband.” This means that she can simply talk to him less etc to simply bring more distance into the relationship. Women are naturally very “involved” in their relationship, so when they step back, the change is usually noticed by her spouse big time.

But this right does not come cheap. In order for a woman to claim and exercise this right in her relationship she must be, with absolute confidence, fulfilling all her duties as a wife. If she is not a good wife, and then tries to distance herself from the relationship, it will have disastrous effects. There is no way she can have confidence in getting it back when she wants it back. The only way a woman can have this power is if she brings constant love and feminine value into their relationship.

How to bring distance correctly:

You can withdraw from elaborate conversations and from affection BUT…

You must still keep warmth in your heart. You must still think well of your husband.

You must still be kind.

You must still do all your duties.

How to know if you are doing it wrong:

If you try to take distance from your relationship and you notice that it is getting weaker and weaker. If you do it correctly, and if you do it at  the appropriate time, and if you do this only when you can say with absolute confidence that you have been fullfilling all your duties in your relationship – then this should make your relationship come closer together, not weaker.

Or if you notice that your husband becomes happier when you are not around. If a woman leaves her home and her husband for a week and goes to stay somewhere else, how her husband reacts to this time apart can reveal a lot about his affections for his wife, and also reflects on how well she has been performing her duties as a wife. If he doesn’t really like her, if she isn’t a good friend to him, and if she doesn’t really do a good job of being there for him, then he will be happy and relieved when she leaves. He will make many jokes about how nice it is to have freedom. During the week that she is away, he will generate energy (energy that he never seemed to have when they were living together!) to make plans with his friends and carry them through in order to have fun. He will get by. He will cook if he can, or order take out if he prefers, but he won’t complain about not having to eat his wife’s food. Even if she is a good cook, if she does not have the ability to love him properly and put that love into all the food she makes for him, then he will not really miss the food when it is gone. He will welcome change. When she returns, he will be refreshed from having some time to himself, and a little disappointed that it has come to an end.

However, if she has been a good wife, if she has been there for him, become a good friend for him, supported him, loved him, and took care of him, when she leaves he will miss her. He will be waiting for her to return. He will not enjoy the food that she has not cooked, even though it tastes fine, he will miss her secret ingredient. He will keep her in his mind. He feels lonely without her beside him. He misses her needing him for things, even the simple things, like picking up the groceries for dinner etc. He’s a big boy so he will get by, he still has the ability to have fun and be happy without her and he will make such plans, but the fact that he misses her is very obvious. When she returns he will be very happy and relieved – finally things can go back to normal.

The man’s right

The man has the right to do what he decides to do.

But this right does not come cheap either. In order to claim this right the man has to have a clear conscience. He should know he is not doing anything that would hurt or bring suffering to his family. If his conscience is clear and strong, the vedas teach that the husband has the right to make decisions for himself and also for his family.

As always, I will not be writing a lot about a man’s duties or rights in a relationship due to the fact that I am not a man, so I am not the right person to write about that! Oleg Torsunov teaches that it is called “self” development not “other people” development. So we should try to only develop ourselves and not other people.

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As always, thank you for reading.

Malavika

Today’s post is about the upward and downward cycles of human nature. It is a cycle we repeat many times during our lives, and also during our day-to-day interactions with projects and relationships. During the climb up we tend to feel motivated and inspired, we then reach a brief plateau before we begin our downward descent. I can literally look through this list and identify which stage I am on in an area of my life and see what is coming up for me soon! And then not only am I prepared but I am also aware of what is happening at each stage and how each stage feeds the next one.

THE UPWARD SPIRAL

1.Knowledge

Stage one begins as the last stage of your previous cycle ends. Stage one begins with the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom. It begins with us learning from out past experiences, or from being given more knowledge (perhaps from a teacher/guru). With this new knowledge we begin to plan our next moves differently. We have hope that life will be different for us, now that we know better. In this stage we begin to feel joy and empowerment. We feel empowered that now we know better. This knowledge frees us from our own prison. We feel love and appreciation for life as it is, knowing that we have the power to change it.

2. Passion

With this new knowledge comes passion. After a period of emptiness we finally feel ourselves filling up with passion. This passion enables us to care about something, to care about someone, to care about our lives.

3. Enthusiasm and inspiration

After letting the passion build up for a little while we are given inspiration to take action. In this phase we get good ideas, we take initiative, we make an effort. We feel enthusiastic; we can do things without being asked, and it feels close to effortless!

4. Positive expectations and belief

When we take such initiative towards the positive development of our lives, we will naturally begin to adopt positive expectations and beliefs about it’s outcome. In this stage, we truly believe that everything is going to turn out well.

5. Optimism

When you sustain positive expectation for a period of time, you cultivate optimism. We start to see the state of our life in an optimistic light. The positive expectation is no longer confined to our “new project”, but now overflows into our beliefs about our life and our future.

6. Hopefulness

In regards to the gray areas of life (and there will always be some), we feel a genuine sense of hopefulness. Genuine hopefulness means that we have a gentle inner request that the things that our out of our grasp may just turn out well. We begin to build our goals for the future, and we build them out of optimism and not fear.

7. Contentment

All of these steps bring us to the plateau of our upward spiral. For a period of time we feel complete contentedness for the way our life is unfolding. Everything seems to be stable. The “climb” seems to come to a pause, and we are given time to enjoy the work, both inner and outer, that we have done.

THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL

8. Boredom

The beginning of our descent is initiated with boredom. We start to get tired of our period of contentment. We start to feel slightly unsatisfied – we feel like we would like to make even more changes, but we start to feel that we lack the energy to do that, since we spent so much of it on our climb. So we settle for being bored. Everything is good in life, but we are bored.

9. Pessimism

Our boredom provides the perfect environment for the growth of pessimism. We lack the energy to make changes, and due to the uncreative nature of boredom (“I’m bored today AND I don’t know what I want to do”) our positive expectations begin to diminish. Suddenly, what  once  brought feelings of harmony and contentment, begin to project into the future and the view is bleak. We gradually lose hope and confidence in the future. This is the beginning of our negative thinking.

10. Frustration/ irritation/ impatience

Lack of hope and confidence in the future builds on our frustration. We start to get irritated with the state of our life, the state of our relationships, our circumstances. Through the lens of irritation we get very impatient. We start to feel that things are no longer happening as we had planned. We feel trapped.

11. Overwhelmed

Then comes the period of being overwhelmed. Our frustrations build up and we become overwhelmed with what life is showing us. We become overwhelmed with the lack of options and possibilities, we become overwhelmed with our deteriorating relationships and circumstances in life, we become overwhelmed by our negative thinking and pessimism.

12. Disappointment

And then comes disappointment. The culmination of our vague and unrealistic expectations not being met. We are still emotionally attached and emotionally charged so we tend to feel disappointment deeply. This phase is characterized by a strong sense of disappointment towards the people close to us, to the way our life is unfolding. We feel that we are often let down in life.

13. Doubt

Our disappointment towards things attracts doubt. They come hand in hand. When we are excessively disappointed in something we also attract feelings of doubt in it too. For example, if you are a woman and find yourself very disappointed in the behaviour of your spouse, it won’t take long before you start to doubt them, and doubt the relationship. Doubt means uncertainty of your current situation. Doubt means uncertainty about what steps to take.  Doubt means a lot of unanswered questions.

14. Worry

And then we start to worry. Initially doubt can be expressed in quite a detached manner. We simply become doubtful, but not necessarily concerned. In stage 14 of the downward spiral, we begin to feel very concerned. We worry about our stability in life, our security. We worry about other peoples actions towards us. We worry about lies, bad news, the worst case scenarios.

15. Blame

Our psyche is simply unable to cope with excessive amounts of worry. It springs to action. The first line of defense to protect you against powerlessness is blame. In this stage we blame everything in life for our misfortune and unhappiness. We blame friends, partners, children, work, school, the house etc. All our thoughts become rooted in the phrase “He/She/You/They/It should have…”

And deep inside we start to blame ourselves a little bit too but we keep that part hidden so that we don’t have to face our demons.

16. Discouragement

When we get in the habit of blaming and complaining about things, we attract the counter force from life – discouragement. In this stage you will speak to people who will criticism and discourage your progress. You will encounter situations and ultimatums in life that will discourage you. This is life’s response to our complaining and blaming. People do not like to be blamed for things and this is how they will retaliate – by discouraging you. You may not have even specifically blamed that specific person, but a persons rational mind can detect blame emanating from a person, whether it was directed at them or not. And they will respond.

17. Anger

When we become discouraged by life and by people we begin to get angry. We become defensive. Anger can be directed outwardly through violence and violence of action and speech. Or Anger can be directed internally through violence of thoughts and resentment.

18. Revenge

From our anger comes our need to get revenge. We plan our next steps to make sure that those around us be punished for discouraging us. This can be done in a very subtle way, but it is still the same thing. It is still the concept of revenge. We plan to teach people a lesson in some way. We try to set things up so that we can say “I told you so” or to somehow put is in a more beneficial position, while making something else below us.

(**When we hear the word “Revenge” we usually think of extreme acts of cruelty that we cannot imagine ourselves doing. But revenge can have a subtle form – it can be as simple as withdrawing love from your relationships in order to make them feel it.**)

19. Hatred/rage

When we engage in subtle acts of revenge we develop hatred within our hearts. We engage in revenge-tactics with the hope of teaching someone a lesson, yet somehow we cultivate hatred within us. Revenge cannot be carried out with kindness or love, only out of cruelty. Acts that are carried out out of cruelty will eventually build the feeling of hatred in you. In this stage you just cannot think of any good qualities of people/things that you have directed your hatred at.

20. Jealousy

Our of hatred breeds jealousy. We start to get increasingly envious about things in life. People think envy means noticing the good in another person and coveting it for yourself, but another form of envy also lies in noticing the bad in another person (post on this coming soon). In this phase we become very aware of the bad qualities of the people closest to us.

21. Insecurity/guilt/ unworthiness

After all these highly charged negative emotions we begin to fall into insecurity. We feel guilty for the way we have been behaving. And if not behaving – we feel very guilty for the way we have been thinking. Either way, we feel guilt. We feel such immense guilt that we also feel unworthy. We become insecure about our good qualities – because for all this time you have been showing only our negative qualities and not taking the time to cultivate the positive ones. So we start to believe in our negative qualities and feel helpless to cultivate good ones. We feel guilty about that. We feel unworthy.

22. Fear/grief/ depression/ Powerlessness/ victim

The final stage of the downward cycle is when you hit the bottom. Here you experience depression. You feel powerless and feel that you have been the victim of life. That everything bad happened to you. The good times feel far away, and you do not have the energy to make your way towards them.

This is the end of the downward spiral.

So what happens next? How a person naturally comes out of depression

You begin your upward spiral. And the first step is knowledge. The only way to get out of your stage 22 depression is to receive knowledge about how to live in a better way. This may come from your spiritual guru, a good friend or loved one, spending time around happy people, perhaps from something you read, or perhaps from simply reflecting on your actions and life. Either way you can only come out of depression when you are given the correct knowledge of how to be happy. When you understand that you had been looking for happiness in the wrong places. When you understand what changes must be made in order to move forward. This is the way forward!

Thank you for reading today

malavika xo