Ayurveda Initiative For Global Health

When we do not want anything for ourselves, a unique power awakens within us. We become capable of giving blessings. Only those who are themselves content are capable of giving blessings. If they say, ‘Let your will be done’, it will definitely happen. The blessings of an individual who is content, will manifest. This is the secret behind blessing. Ideally, as we grow older, our contentment should also increase. The more content we are, the more mature we are. There are two kinds of joy: one of receiving and the other of giving. In our childhood we experienced the joy of receiving. If you give anything to children they are always ready to take it. But as we grow older, we experience the Joy in giving. For example, in a home there is a mother or a grandmother; when the grandmother is alone in the house, she does not prepare five different kinds of vegetables and four different sweets for herself. But when children come to the house or guests come, she cooks many different kinds of dishe...

What are the secrets of relationship? How does a relationship develop? First is the attraction. But, if you get what you are attracted to too easily, the charm goes away. However, if it becomes just a little bit difficult to have what you are attracted to, then you develop love for it. What happens when you fall in love? When you love someone, you give yourself to that relationship, and start making demands on that relationship. The moment you start demanding, love diminishes. Then you say, “Oh! I have made a mistake.” Now there is struggle and pain to get out of it. And after you have got out of it, you get into one more, another one, and the story repeats. The golden three The way to make relationships long-lasting is through the right perception, the right observation, and the right expression. Often people say that nobody understands them. Instead, you can say that you have not expressed yourself properly. To express yourself properly, you need proper perception, and that can happe...

Meditation is not an act; it is the art of doing nothing. The rest in meditation is deeper than the deepest sleep that you can ever have. When the mind becomes free from agitation, becomes calm and serene and is at peace, meditation happens. When the mind is engaged in some activity, it gets tired. So any type of concentration, contemplation or any activity in the mind can drain your system. Meditation is that which doesn’t drain you, but just gives you deep rest and we withdraw from all sensory activities like seeing, listening, smelling, tasting. It is almost like sleep, but not exactly sleep. Meditation is not concentration; it is de-concentration, letting go. When can you rest? Rest is possible when you have stopped all activities. When you stop moving around, stop working, talking, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, thinking—then you get rest or sleep. In sleep you are left with only involuntary activities like breathing, heartbeat, food digestion, blood-circulation, etc....

Anything that is natural does not require effort. You bathe in the morning. Do you bathe with a lot of interest? Do you brush your teeth with a lot of interest? No, you don’t. Just because you have to do it, you do it! It’s natural and effortless! Like when you are smiling naturally, that smile is effortless. But if you are asked to smile then that becomes a difficult task. Doing an action that requires effort is aasakti. However, doing work that comes naturally and gives you inner peace is done in nirasakti. If you ask those who prepare food every day, they would be able to prepare it without much effort. However, if the same task is handed to a person who never cooks, he will flip through the pages of a recipe book again and again, to prepare the same food. He will keep tasting the food to check the balance of spices. So wherever effort is applied, the job is done with aasakti, and this leads to feverishness. You being feverish about going to, for example, Mysore is aasakti; and effo...

All around the world, countries have stormy seasons. The tropical countries have their monsoons, and non-tropical countries have their yearly winter storms. The layout of the planet, along with its various climates and weather systems, make it such that there is always a storm happening somewhere on Earth.  The same phenomenon holds true for people. Life is found to be caught up in storms very often, either in some part of the mind or body. You are not yourself when you are in even a small storm. By their very nature, storms take you away from your centre, and you don’t know what to do. All your practices, concepts, ideas, and ideals fall apart during storms. Your devotion, your love, all the beautiful things you cherish in your life simply seem to be missing, or meaningless. These things happen when you are under the influence of a big storm. And even when the storm has subsided, the very memory of it disturbs you even more.  So what do you do when a storm appears overhead? N...