Punjab & Sind bank dedicates it's 13 pages calender of 2026 on 350 th Martyrdom day of Shri Guru Tegh Bhadurji
Punjab & Sind bank dedicates it's 13 pages calender of 2026 on 350 th Martyrdom day of Shri Guru Tegh Bhadurji who gave his life for the safety of Kashmiri pandits.. each page has the annotations of the facts of the event...
Entering Your Expansive Awareness: by Jayaram V: You may have a form, but the sense of “I am” in you has no form, no shape, no limits. You have consciousness, but it is mixed up with many thoughts, feelings, emotions, desires, attachments, and so on. What happens if you silence them all and become still? You can achieve this by focusing on your breath, repeating a mantra, or observing your thoughts without getting involved in them. What remains? What is it? What can you call it?
It is pure consciousness or your expansive awareness of the state of being. It is pure because it is without all that you accumulated in your mind over the years as thoughts, desires, etc. It is what you learned from life, from your interaction with others, from your observation and experience. It is what you can call your memorial mind (manus). From that consciousness, your individuality, egoism, or feeling of separation arises. They both reinforce each other and prevent you from finding the pure Self in you. Only in meditation do you have a chance to reach that pure Self or the feeling of “I am” without all the accumulations you gather from life and the world, experiencing a state of clarity and peace.
Let us call that sense of pure ‘I am’ the person in the body. It is your state of being, in contrast to your state of having or being this and that, which limits you and confines to a specific identity, name and form. Now, focus on yourself as this pure awareness, the being without definition but pure awareness. If you meditate and enter a deeper state of silence, you will realize that this I am can be extended to as far as your awareness goes. It can be limitless and infinite as the universe. While your body is firmly seated somewhere, this pure awareness does not have any limits, form, or shape.
You can extend it into the space around you as far as your eyes, ears, and thoughts can go, feeling the freedom and expansiveness of this realization.
The illusion that you are limited to your body makes you think that you are limited. If you overcome that attachment, much of the noise in your mind disappears. Indeed, it is difficult to sustain that feeling because every experience in your life will try to pull you back into your habitual mode of thinking, the feeling, and the conviction that you are an individual, different and separate from others.
When you use your speech, mind, intelligence, knowledge, and awareness, or when you interact with others, desire something, depend upon something, or focus on something, you become a limited person, a person with a name and form, and a person who has to fend for himself. You become small. You become an atom in the vastness of creation. It is Anavatvam, the feeling of being small, separate, and distinct. It is the altered self or the not-self that puts you in conflict with the world around you and confines you to the boundaries of your mind and body. It arises due to delusion and is reinforced by desires. Overcoming this attachment is a journey towards self-discovery, inspiring and motivating you to reach your true potential.
V.Jayaram: According to Bhagavadgita, nothing happens without God’s intervention or his will. That led me to wonder whether we have any freedom or free will at all, and if he decides everything, why should we suffer from karma? Then, as I started working on the verses, it dawned on me that the divine will is not distinct or separate from the individual will. To think that individual will is separate from that of the Lord or that you are different from him is the delusion, or Maya, to which all humans are subject. It was probably why Lord Krishna spoke in the first person on and off while speaking about Brahman in the second person at other times. Once we accept this fundamental premise, everything taught in this scripture falls into place. God is not different or separate from you. He is working through all his manifestations individually, collectively, and universally. All their actions arise from him and because of him. Call him by whatever name - he is the Lord of all and the Self in all (sarva bhutatma), and the right way to worship him is by surrendering our egos, desires, and delusions and living and acting as if he is responsible for all our actions. By this consecration, the devotee must set himself free from himself and all consequences. (So LIC pensioners are forced to collect crores and spend at SC who are not at fault, if they deliver bad judgment so that all to suffer enormously till death is Delusion/Maya only)
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Entering Your Expansive Awareness: by Jayaram V: You may have a form, but the sense of “I am” in you has no form, no shape, no limits. You have consciousness, but it is mixed up with many thoughts, feelings, emotions, desires, attachments, and so on. What happens if you silence them all and become still? You can achieve this by focusing on your breath, repeating a mantra, or observing your thoughts without getting involved in them. What remains? What is it? What can you call it?
It is pure consciousness or your expansive awareness of the state of being. It is pure because it is without all that you accumulated in your mind over the years as thoughts, desires, etc. It is what you learned from life, from your interaction with others, from your observation and experience. It is what you can call your memorial mind (manus). From that consciousness, your individuality, egoism, or feeling of separation arises. They both reinforce each other and prevent you from finding the pure Self in you. Only in meditation do you have a chance to reach that pure Self or the feeling of “I am” without all the accumulations you gather from life and the world, experiencing a state of clarity and peace.
Let us call that sense of pure ‘I am’ the person in the body. It is your state of being, in contrast to your state of having or being this and that, which limits you and confines to a specific identity, name and form. Now, focus on yourself as this pure awareness, the being without definition but pure awareness. If you meditate and enter a deeper state of silence, you will realize that this I am can be extended to as far as your awareness goes. It can be limitless and infinite as the universe. While your body is firmly seated somewhere, this pure awareness does not have any limits, form, or shape.
You can extend it into the space around you as far as your eyes, ears, and thoughts can go, feeling the freedom and expansiveness of this realization.
The illusion that you are limited to your body makes you think that you are limited. If you overcome that attachment, much of the noise in your mind disappears. Indeed, it is difficult to sustain that feeling because every experience in your life will try to pull you back into your habitual mode of thinking, the feeling, and the conviction that you are an individual, different and separate from others.
When you use your speech, mind, intelligence, knowledge, and awareness, or when you interact with others, desire something, depend upon something, or focus on something, you become a limited person, a person with a name and form, and a person who has to fend for himself. You become small. You become an atom in the vastness of creation. It is Anavatvam, the feeling of being small, separate, and distinct. It is the altered self or the not-self that puts you in conflict with the world around you and confines you to the boundaries of your mind and body. It arises due to delusion and is reinforced by desires. Overcoming this attachment is a journey towards self-discovery, inspiring and motivating you to reach your true potential.
V.Jayaram: According to Bhagavadgita, nothing happens without God’s intervention or his will. That led me to wonder whether we have any freedom or free will at all, and if he decides everything, why should we suffer from karma? Then, as I started working on the verses, it dawned on me that the divine will is not distinct or separate from the individual will. To think that individual will is separate from that of the Lord or that you are different from him is the delusion, or Maya, to which all humans are subject. It was probably why Lord Krishna spoke in the first person on and off while speaking about Brahman in the second person at other times. Once we accept this fundamental premise, everything taught in this scripture falls into place. God is not different or separate from you. He is working through all his manifestations individually, collectively, and universally. All their actions arise from him and because of him. Call him by whatever name - he is the Lord of all and the Self in all (sarva bhutatma), and the right way to worship him is by surrendering our egos, desires, and delusions and living and acting as if he is responsible for all our actions. By this consecration, the devotee must set himself free from himself and all consequences. (So LIC pensioners are forced to collect crores and spend at SC who are not at fault, if they deliver bad judgment so that all to suffer enormously till death is Delusion/Maya only)
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