10 Mantras for success

These are the 10 mantras for a success in life.

1. Know your idea of success: We can never generalize idea of success. Different people can have different idea of success. A person has to identify what is success for him self, then start working towards that. The vision for success has to be made earliest in life, more early you know your innate capabilities and build your idea of success, the better.
   
2. Know your self: The biggest challenge for any individual is to understand himself. Everybody has a different innate capabilities, intellect, hobbies and vision. We should never follow social stereotypes or get into peer pressure, rather one should be able to draft his own vision. You should be clear what gratifies you.
   
3. Sharpen the saw: The world is changing, everything is subject to change and you will have to change. As Darwinian theory says "The species who can adapt them selves according to changing environment, survive". You need to make sure everyday you are making a steady progress for your goals.
   
4. Hard Work: There is no alternative to hark work, no one can scape it. In the world of cut throat competition hard work will pave your way to success. One has to be sure that hard work is going to give some fruit in future, if somebody is trying to move that wall whole day and says that he did hard work that hard work is worthless.
   
5. Trust your instincts: Every human or animal is endowed with natural instinct. Our instincts or gut feelings are message from God or Nature, they guide us, show us path in darkness. We all have to take difficult decisions in life. At some point or other you will find yourself in dilemma. Instincts or omens show you path, follow them. One should be careful about self induced illusion and fantasy, not mistaking them with instincts.
   
6. Maintain Good health: Everybody knows health is wealth, stay away from unhealthy lifestyle and habits. You will never be able to enjoy life, no matter how much fortune you posses. Stay away from sensual gratification (pleasure drown from senses).
   
7. Interpersonal Skills: Interpersonal skill is ability to deal with people, ability to persuade, ability to say no without making people angry, making friends. Your success will largely depend on interpersonal skill rather than professional skill. Good interpersonal skills and social networking will pave your way to success.
   
8. Think win-win: Alway think win-win while dealing with people. Nobody likes to be in loss. If you want something then be ready to give something equivalent. Your leadership capabilities are another important aspect of your personality.
   
9. Discipline: Everybody can make plan but it is the discipline and persistence which translates dream into reality. It is discipline and self control which differentiates great people from common people.
   
10. Balance your act: Extreme will always make you measurable, rather practice moderation . Learn to balance your work with entertainment, socialization and physical rest. All work and no play makes Jake a dull boy.
    

"Strength is life, weakness is death." -- Swami Vivekananda

Mantra for Meditation and Inner peace

Try this wonderful, religion neutral mantra meditation. People who do not believe in God can treat it as mental conditioning exercise. It is for the people who are looking for inner peace and success in life.

O Lord I seek your grace. I dedicate my life for your service.
Forgive me for all my sins that I have done intentionally or unintentionally (retrospect about sinful events at the same time).
I will stay away from falsehood, violence, stealing and sensual pleasure.
O Lord, help me subside ego and hatred in my heart.
O Lord, cultivate love in my heart.
O Lord, keep me away from disease and laziness.
O Lord, show me path and give me strength to accomplish my goals.
I deserve happiness (repeat many times in mind)
I deserve success (repeat many times in mind)

Note: Chanting mantras should be done in mind and with understanding and feeling their true meaning. Do it before sleeping in night and after taking shower or at time of prayer in morning. Repeat it many times in single session.

Reasons for Stress, Stress management

Let us try to define stress. Stress is psychological response to given physical and social circumstances. This psychological response may manifests itself in physical diseases. It starts with thoughts, thoughts affect mind and mind affects body. Today majority of mankind is under stress. Stress can not be controlled until person is strong in terms of philosophical knowledge. Smoking, Alcohol, Coffee, Energy Drinks are unhealthy options. Various means of entertainment are very temporary solution. Exercise/Sex / Healthy Lifestyle/Yoga/ Meditation/ Medication can do little help but they do not go at the root of the problem.

Let us try to find psychological and philosophical reasons and solutions for stress.

1. Fear: Fear arises due to some insecurity. We can be insecure about anything which we want to preserve like health, life, wealth, relationship, job, various means of pleasure etc. Feeling of fear directly affects our heart beats and kills it consequently. Now we can generalize that origin of fear is attachment to some object that we want to preserve or get. Philosophy can help here. First of all we should leave the illusion of control. The truth is we can not control anything. Government tries to control economy, parents try to control child, businessman tries to control business, boss tries to control subordinates. How successful they are? Do we conclude that we should leave everything at the mercy of chaos or destiny? Existence or non existence of destiny both can not be proven. So the right approach toward life is that we should do our part, we should listen to our inner voice, we should do our duties honestly, according to understanding and consent of our intellect. Then leave everything on chaos or destiny. We can not control events but the response. We can loose everything any time, whole family looses life in a car crash within seconds, so there is nothing to fear. Set your self free from fear and enjoy blissful freedom.
   
2. Overload: Now a days everybody is overloaded. Students, professionals, house makers, businessmen, sports persons, film stars everyone is overloaded. When we are made to do things, more than our mind or body can endure, with or without our consent then we call it overload. Effect of overload is evident from muscle injuries of sports persons and Heart/ Kidny related problems of business professionals. If we want to handle overload then we must draw a line somewhere. This line is going to come with a price tag, it is not free. One who is willing to pay the price will reap the benefits. There will be some fear associated with the line that we are going to draw. Then we have to overcome fear with the rules of handling fear. Again the choice should be made by person according to his understanding of the things. There is always some loss associated with a gain.
   
3. Social conflicts: Let us analyze it, starting with a joke. "I have figured out, what is wrong with my life. It is other people". Human are social animals and there can not be a purely cohesive environment. Here is the solution. We should try to foster compassion inside us for one who is lower than us, with respect to anything like knowledge or wealth or health etc. The person who is underprivileged is most likely to hate a person who is privileged. We should practice friendliness with one who is equal to us. There should be respect for one who is better than us in any way. If a person is better than us, surly that person will have a ego that should be respected. There is another category of people who are always there to do something which is going to make us measurable. We should show indifference to such people and behavior if it is not doing a great harm. Relationships can be harmonized through mutual sacrifice and better understanding.
   
4. Unfulfilled desires: We all have desires. The very existence of life is because of desires of the mind which acts on the matter and manifests itself in various formates. If we do not have desires then why do we live, there has to be some purpose behind living our lives. If desires are not fulfilled they manifest themselves in aggression, frustration and depression. Sometime they become reason of various psychological and physical ailments. Rule number one, we should have rational desires. Rule number two, there should be clear distinction between genuine desires and fantasy. We all fantasize, fantasy is beautiful and source of pleasure. If genuine desires of life are fulfilled we should be contented with that. If by trying all means our genuine desires are not fulfilled still we should be contented with that and leave the things to destiny. Try to find some purpose of living and live the life, as it is a time pass. Be spontaneous about life and be satisfied with what you have. I would like to summarize with the statement that "Try to fulfill your idea of happiness but do not get attached to it, all desires are never fulfilled, they are there to keep us on our toes and make us unhappy, control them."
5. Inner conflict: Inner conflict takes place when there is conflict between multiple personality layers of a person. In simple layman terms, when we have to make decision amidst multiple conflicting self interests. We are all victim of duality of life, we all find ourselves in a situation where we have to choose between two or more options. When we are in such situation we see loss/profit in some format, no matter what decision we make. This inner conflict results in great mental trauma. One should understand the fact that every situation will have equal profit and loss associated with it, so when you are in dilemma just choose any one of the given option without worrying about result. The decision has to be made by the person in context by prioritizing intelligently, moreover one has to be ready for bearing loss for some profit. Some time short term loss results in long term profit. One should not feel guilty later, for the choices he has made today.
   
6. Jealousy: Jealousy does not contribute to stress directly but it destroys inner peace. There is no reason to feel jealous. The absolute truth is that, King or Pawn each one is equally measurable. Everyone actors, sports persons, businessmen, workers, students they are all in situations which are pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. It is the week human mind which things that attainment of a certain scenario will lead him to happiness, but that very scenario will take that person to yet another set of problems. This world called Matrix that is designed that way. An epic on philosophy called movie Matrix, a must watch movie for everyone.
7. Guilt felling: Like jealousy, guilt does not contribute to stress directly, but it destroys inner peace. When we do something or made to do something which is wrong or sinful according to understanding of our intellect, then we get guilt feeling. This is a mental feeling but kills our health insidiously. Right or wrong is not absolute, it is relative and it depends on intellect of a person, for example doing one thing may be right for one person and same thing is considered wrong from another person. One thing is right in one culture and same thing is wrong in some other culture. We should try not to do anything wrong according to understanding of our intellect. If we do something wrong knowingly or unknowingly then we should try to forgive ourselves to get away from guilt feeling.
   

Now I would like to give three general solutions for any type of problem in life:

1. Indifference : It simply means do not bother about the problem and accept the reality. You live life in such a way that gain and loss both become same for you, hence you will have peace of mind.
   
2. Karma Yoga: Try to make things better without bothering about results. It means giving your best, fulfilling your duties and leaving the results on fate.
   
3. Free Will: It means, you decide your goal first then you think of the means. If you have faith that goal can be achieved and you keep pushing the things. That faith is called free will. The goals can be achieved but there is a huge risk involved if your faith was miscalculated by you. You end up pushing so much energy and your efforts fail. But if one has complete faith then anything can be achieved. One more thing, prepare your self for the suffering that will come along.
   

I would summarize by saying that, these are the guidelines, one has to use common sense and tune with his intellect. The earth is crowded by humans and every human want to live with maximum resources, while the resources are limited. Stress is there at macro/global level, stress in the life of individual is macro level stress. It does not mean we have to loose hope, most of the people can get benefited if the guideline are followed. Take a new hobby, nurture a relationship, take on a new venture, try different things in life you will be happier. Life is beautiful and ugly at the same time, try to look at the brighter side of a situation or scenario, you will be happier.


Dark side of stress management:

Do not conclude here, there is another side of the coin. There are times when stress is good, it keeps us on our toes and it makes us smarter and stronger. If stress is not there, no body will stretch himself and everything will stand still. Students will not score well, employees will loose productivity, we will not witness great sporting contests, scientific discoveries etc. The show must go on. The person in context has to manage himself and find out whether stress is creative or destructive. The middle path or the path of moderation is best way out. A person has to analyze his thought patterns properly or take help of psychiatrist or spiritual Guru who can help understand himself better.




"Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon" -- Aristotle

Meditation Techniques

Here is a list of meditation techniques. They have to be done in orders starting from first one.

1. Put thumb of left hand on the left nostril and breath in deep with right nostril. Now put middle finger on right nostril and breath out with left nostril. Repeat it many times. Now we have to do it with right hand. Put thumb of right hand on the right nostril and breath in deep with left nostril. Now put middle finger on left nostril and breath out with right nostril. Repeat it many times.

2. Breath out abruptly many time with full force but do not push too much or some harm can take place. While doing it make sure you are throwing out with lungs not stomach. It has to be done only in morning with empty stomach.

3. Inhale deep inside, hold it and count 6 in mind then exhale, again hold and pause count 6 and again inhale deep inside. Do it many times.

4. Breathe in and out in most natural way. Feel the friction of air in nose while inhaling and exhaling. Don’t think any thing else but focus on breathe. Very soon breathe will become calmer and deeper. This will make you forget everything else. If this exercise is done carefully it will take the individual to Samadhi.

5. Breath deep in and out. Each time you breath feel the oxygen reaching your vital organs one by one. Like feel for sometime that oxygen in going inside heart, it will make heart strong. Similarly one can feel oxygen reaching lever/ Kidney/ legs or anywhere. Repeat this for one organ many times.
6. This is mantra meditation, it has to be done with understanding and feeling true meaning of mantras being chanted in mind. Breath deep in and out. When you are breathing in feel that the happiness is coming inside the body and while breathing out feel that sorrow is going outside the body. Repeat it many times near about for two minutes. Do the same thing for other opposite emotions like love/ hatred, strength/ weakness, health/ disease. It can act as a mental conditioning exercise also.

7. Use 1st and 3rd meditation technique for five minutes to calm down your brain after it, imagine a blue color butterfly in pit of the throat. Image it is flapping wings with each heart beat. Try to feel the synchronization between your heart beat and butterfly flapping wings.

Notes:
1. Sometime they seem boring but you should persist. After few days you will start enjoying.
2. Presence of a good quality meditation instructor who is very experienced makes the process easier and more effective.