Regain your childhood- Osho

1. Regain your childhood, have the eyes of a child:

 I say to you that if you can be a child again you will start growing in a new way. For the first time you will be really alive again. And the moment you have the eyes of a child, the senses of a child -- young, vibrating with life -- the whole of life vibrates with you.

Remember, it is your vibration that needs transformation. The world is already always vibrating in ecstasy; only you are not tuned. The problem is not with the world, it is with you: you are not tuned to it. The world is dancing, always celebrating, every moment it is in a festivity. The festival goes on from eternity to eternity, only you are not tuned to it. You have fallen apart from it, and you are very serious, very knowing, very mature. You are closed. 

Throw this enclosure! Move again into the current of life. When the storm comes, the trees will be dancing, you also dance. When the night comes and everything is dark, you also be dark. And in the morning when the sun rises, let it rise in you also. Be childlike and enjoying, not thinking of the past. 

2. A child never thinks of the past. 

Really, he has no past to think about. A child is not worried about the future; he has no time consciousness. He lives totally unworried. He moves in the moment; he never carries any hangover. If he is angry then he is angry and in his anger he will say to his mother, "I hate you." And this is not just words, this is a reality. Really, in that moment he is in total hate. The next moment he will come out of it and he will be laughing and he will give a kiss to his mother and he will say, "I love you." There is no contradiction. These are two different moments. He was total hate and now he is total love. He moves just like a river goes on moving, zigzag. But wherever he is -- wherever the river is -- he is total, flowing. 

For these days be like a child -- total. If you hate, hate; if you love, love; if you are angry, then be angry; and if you are festive, then be festive and dance. Do not carry anything over from the past. Remain true to the moment; do not hanker for the future. For these eight days drop out of time. Drop out of time!

 A child lives in eternity; there is no time for him. He is not even aware of it. These eight days will be real meditation if you drop out of time. Live the moment and be true to it.

3. Be playful: 

Be playful. It will be difficult, because you are so much structured. You have an armor around you and it is so difficult to loosen it, to relax it. You cannot dance, you cannot sing, you cannot just jump, you cannot just scream and laugh and smile. Even if you want to laugh you first want something there to be laughed at. You cannot simply laugh. There must be some cause: only then can you laugh. There must be some cause: only then can you cry and weep.

Be absolutely playful for eight days. You have nothing to lose. If you do not gain anything, you will not lose anything either. What can you lose in being playful? But I say to you: you will never be the same again.

My insistence on being playful is because of this: I want you to go back to the very point from where you stopped growing. There has been a point in your childhood when you stopped growing and when you started being false. You may have been angry, a small child in a tantrum, angry, and your father or your mother said, "Don't be angry! This is not good!" You were natural but a division was created and a choice was there for you. If you were to remain natural then you would not have got the love of your parents.

I want to throw you back to the point where you started being 'good' as against being natural. Be playful so your childhood is regained. 

4. I say do not be serious: 

Because the more serious you are, the more time conscious you are.
Put aside knowledge, put aside seriousness; It will be difficult because you will have to put aside your masks, your faces; you will have to put aside your personality. But remember, the essence can assert itself only when your personality is not there, because your personality has become an imprisonment. Put it aside. It will be painful, but it is worth it because you are going to be reborn out of it. And no rebirth is possible without pain. If you are really determined to be reborn, then take the risk.

Source: http://oshoworld.com/meditation/meditations.asp?news_id=bornagain

CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI

It is not good to think too much about your meditation practice. Just do it and keep on doing it until you have the firm conviction that nothing that appears in the mind has anything to do with the real you. If you pay attention to thoughts and feelings while you meditate and try to use them to evaluate how well or how badly you are meditating, you will never reach the ultimate silence. Instead you will just get bogged down in mental concepts.

Some people are distracting their minds in so many different ways: for example, trying to make distinctions between things like turiya [the fourth state] and turiyatita [that which is beyond the fourth].

Reality is very simple: instead of trying to explain it or 
label it, just be it by giving up all identification with the body and the mind. This is the ultimate jnana. If you follow this path you need not get involved in any mental or philosophical complexities.

People are practicing all kinds of sadhanas to reach the Self. 
Some of these methods are hindrances to jnana. Meditation can be another form of bondage if it starts from the assumption that the body and the mind are real. If this idea is not dropped, meditation will merely enhance it.

- Living by the Words of Bhagavan

More

Sri Annamalai Swami Says

Annamalai Swami Quotes on Self Inquiry Meditation

http://realizedone.com/annamalai-swami/

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF YOGA

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF YOGA VIS-A-VIS THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VEDANTA

Here, a very interesting and subtle distinction has to be drawn between the definition of the objects according to the psychology of Yoga and Samkhya, and according to the psychology of a well-known philosophy called the Vedanta. The whole point or crux of the matter is in the interpretation of the meaning of the words. 'subject' and 'object'. The beholder is the subject, and that which is seen or beheld is the object. The definitions of subject and object in the Yoga psychology differ from the corresponding definitions in the metaphysical system of the Vedanta, though ultimately, they land themselves upon a common point of interest. Because, as we proceed further with the aphorisms of Patanjali, we find that he goes on stressing the point, again and again, that the bondage of the individual is in the identification of consciousness with the objects, and liberation lies in the isolation of consciousness from the objects. This is something peculiar that we note in the system of Patanjali, which is based on the classical Samkhya. The whole endeavour in this system of Yoga particularly is towards the achievement of an isolation of the spirit, called the Purusha, from matter, called Prakriti. The philosophy of Samkhya, upon which is based the Yoga of Patanjali, conceives of the existence of spirit and matter as two distinct elements. Spirit and matter are sometimes regarded as even eternal in themselves, independently existing in their own right, with no vital connection between the two. As per this view, consciousness and the object can never be united, because, consciousness is pure subject, and the object is just the opposite of it.

The bondage of consciousness is the object of our study. What is this bondage? According to Yoga psychology, bondage is the illusory assumption, or imagination rather, on the part of spirit or consciousness, that it has the characteristics of the object, of Prakriti or matter or something which is just the opposite of itself. All movements in nature belong to Prakriti, and not to Purusha. We may call it evolution, we may call it externality, we may call it name and form. These are but different nomenclatures that we may adopt in the defining of a thing that is sensed or even thought by the mind. These constitute the whole world panorama, or, in modern philosophical language, we may say matter-stuff. This matter-stuff is the area of operation of Prakriti. And this matter-stuff is different from consciousness. Somehow, in an unintelligible manner, Prakriti and Purusha come together. There is a juxtaposition of matter and consciousness. This juxtaposition is the source of perception, and everything follows from it. How does this union of the object with the subject that is consciousness take place? This is explained by an example in the Samkhya philosophy, the example of the crystal and the flower. A pure crystal has no colour of its own, but when a coloured object such as a red flower is brought near this pure crystal; it gets reflected in the crystal, and it can be so reflected that the whole crystal may appear red. When that happens, we may not even know that there is a crystal at all. The crystalhood of the crystal has ceased for the time being, and it appears like a red object. This is on account of the absorption of the colour of the flower by the crystal which is; in itself, in its pristine purity, colourless. Now, is there a real connection between the crystal and the flower? There is absolutely no connection. The colour has not affected the crystal in any manner. The crystal has not become impure, even a little bit, by the appearance of the colour within itself. It can regain its appearance of purity also the moment the flower is taken away from the crystal. The crystal never was contaminated or affected or infected in any manner. But, when the reflection takes place, it appears as if the subject has ceased to exist for the time being; there is only the redness, the flower. Such is the situation of world-perception, says Samkhya. In the above instance, the bondage of the crystal is nothing but the false imagination that it is the flower. It never became the flower. It never really acquired even the colour of the flower. Because of the reflection, it imagines that it has become the flower. What is freedom for the crystal? The crystal regains its freedom when it is again separated from the flower. Then it assumes its pristine purity of colourless transparency and establishes its consciousness in its own self, not allowing it to project itself externally in the form of the imagination that it is something other than itself, in this case, the object flower. So, what is Yoga? It is the isolation of consciousness from matter, the subject from the object.

In the metaphysics of the Vedanta, the same phenomenon is explained in a slightly different manner. The Vedanta accepts this analysis of the Samkhya as perfectly right, but affirms that the individual is only an assumed form of consciousness, and not the real essence thereof. While it is true that there is a necessity to differentiate the externality that has crept into the subjectivity of consciousness, the object can never become the subject. This is the opening sentence in Sankara's great commentary on the Brahma Sutras. The subject can never become the object; the object can never become the subject. Sankara starts saying this at the very commencement of this commentary on the Brahma Sutras. Yet, there is an insistence in the Vedanta philosophy that the subject is the same as the object ultimately, and in their union lies the freedom of the soul. This assertion is made from a different angle of vision altogether, from a different perspective of the very same circumstance or situation. While the subject can never become the object, and therefore, they have to be separated – in this, the Yoga is right, and Vedanta also accepts this – there is something else, in addition, for Vedanta to say. And that additional assertion is this, namely, that the subject is basically the same as the object. It is not essentially different. This similarity between the subject and the object, or the essentiality of both in their core, is the reason why there is such an attraction between the two. The infinite is present in the subjects, and it is the very same infinite that appears in all the objects of the world. So, the infinite calls the infinite, as it were, when one pulls the other.

Thus, whatever be the philosophical or metaphysical background of Yoga or Vedanta, both the systems of philosophy agree that the mind has to be controlled, for a reason which is obvious to every person. The mind is the externalised activity of consciousness, the empirical movement of the individual, the spatio-temporal involvement of individuality. This is a great sorrow for everyone, for everything, for consciousness proper which is the stuff of all things. Now, how to withdraw the mind from the objects, or rather, how to educate the mind so that it may understand its true relationship with things outside? There is a famous saying in the Yoga-Vasishtha, which is an instruction given by the great sage Vasishtha to his student Rama: "Dvau krumuu chitta nasasya, yoga jnanam cha Raghav." The sage says: "There are two ways of controlling the mind. Either sever its connection with all things, or establish a connection of it with everything". These are the two ways by which one can control the mind. It is easy to understand something about the benefits that would follow from the withdrawal of the mind from all things. But, it is not so easy to know the advantage of connecting the mind to everything. The result, however is the same in either case.

There is an anecdote about Acharya Sankara which is relevant here. It is said that Acharya Sankara was in his Kutir, and the door was bolted from within. One of his disciples came and knocked. "Who is that?" asked the Master. "I" was the answer. "Oh I! Either reduce it to zero or expand it to infinity!" retorted the Master from within. This 'I' in every individual should either be reduced to zero or expanded to infinity. Either way it is good.

Yoga as a Universal Science
by Swami Krishnananda

http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/univ/univ_06.html

Kirtan Kriya

An easy, low cost, side effect-free way to boost your brain power and help you be healthier and more spiritually attuned as you age would have a major impact on your quality of life and happiness. It would also reduce some of the staggering health care costs seen today.

Recently The Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation (ARPF), of which I'm the founding president and medical director, presented a summary of our innovative yoga meditation research at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Boston.

For the past 12 years, the ARPF has organized, helped design, and fund innovative research on a simple 12-minute singing yoga meditation called Kirtan Kriya (KK). This work has specifically focused on reducing risk factors for Alzheimer's disease and the enhancement of total brain fitness.

Our studies utilized recognized methods to measure aspects of brain health and specialized scans such as SPECT and fMRI, as well as sophisticated memory and blood tests, to determine the results of our studies.

I'd like to divide the outcome of our research into three categories: mind, body, and spirit, all of which optimize brain and body aging.

A. Mind: Here are the ways practicing KK improves your mind and brain power.

1. Improved Memory: People with memory loss improved on important memory tests. In our study of stressed caregivers, the KK practitioners had a better memory after KK meditation training.

2. Reduced Stress: Studies show cognitive decline caused by both acute and chronic stress secondary to the hormone cortisol's brain cell-killing effect in the memory center of your brain, the hippocampus. Meditation reduces stress
and lowers cortisol levels and, as seen above, can help reverse memory loss.

3. Enhanced Brain Blood Flow (also called cerebral blood flow or CBF): Patients with cognitive decline and stressed caregivers had increased CBF in critically important areas of their brain, including those well known to influence attention, concentration, focus, memory (hippocampus), depression, trauma and resiliency. Moreover, the first area that goes down in function when a person loses their memory increases with the practice of KK.

4. Increased Healthy Brain Size: Compared to beginners, long-term meditators have a larger and healthier looking brain.

5. Improved Brain Chemistry: It is well known that people who have a decrease in brain energy and function have a reduction in certain brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. Hence, the development of drugs that tried to increase these transmitters. Unfortunately, they are not very effective. KK, however, can help increase neurotransmitters in a more natural way and improve communication between brain cells, thus enhancing brain and memory function.

B. Body: Here are the ways KK improves your body all the way down to the level of your genes and DNA.

6. Increased telomerase: Telomerase is the enzyme that controls the length of your telomeres, the cap of your DNA. Longer telomeres equal better health. Shorter telomeres equal Alzheimer's disease and accelerated aging and a shortened life. An increase of 44 percent in telomerase was shown in our study on highly stressed caregivers doing KK for 12 minutes a day for eight weeks. This is the largest increase in telomerase ever seen.

7. Decrease in bad genes: 39 stressed caregivers utilizing KK for 12 weeks had what is known as down regulation of inflammatory genes, which signifies a reduction in the activity of the genes that cause inflammation. This is important because inflammation is a hallmark of many illnesses, including Alzheimer's.

8. Improvement of good genes including those that boost your immune system.

9. Improved Sleep: Sleep is critically important for optimal brain and body health. Disrupted sleep is a risk factor for Alzheimer's. KK can help improve sleep.

C. Spirit: You have a spirit that impacts your health and well-being. KK touches your spirit in a positive way. Here is how:

10. Less depression: 65 percent of subjects showed improvement on Depression Scales. Depression may be a risk factor for cognitive decline.

11. Clarity of Purpose: Meditators discover clarity of purpose and other aspects of psychological well-being such as acceptance, personal growth, and positive relationships. This has been shown to improve overall health and lower Alzheimer's risk.

12. Spiritual Well-Being: Practicing KK creates peace of mind and spiritual well-being, which is something we all can use more of in today's incredibly hectic and fast paced world.

As I've shared in this blog, studies on Kirtan Kriya meditation, a simple 12-minute singing memory yoga meditation, reveal many positive health benefits for your mind, body, and spirit, including a profound anti-aging effect all the way down to the level of your DNA.

To discover how to do it, simply go here. In the meantime I wish you all health, happiness, and a soaring spirit.

Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dharma-singh-khalsa-md/meditation-alzheimers_b_3625181.html