Daily Living Archives - Desika Nadadur

Free Will According to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

I have been contemplating about the concept of free will for a while. I looked back into my life, into all that happened and all that I accomplished. When I contemplated on things that just happened it felt like I had no control over them. However, when I looked at things that I felt I accomplished—at least felt that way at the time of their accomplishment—initially, I felt I had done them out of my own will—free will. […]

Ascension / Creation and Manifestation / Daily Living / Enlightenment / Healing / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Ways to Overcome Limiting Thought Patterns

We end up living a life that we constantly think of and dream of. We will realize this fact, if we take a few moments from our busy lives to look back and contemplate on what happened so far and what was our mental state during those times. Though this may come as a shock or make us feel uncomfortable, once we realize that so far we have been limited by our own thoughts and imaginings, […]

Creation and Manifestation / Daily Living / Enlightenment / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Two Paths to Effortless Spiritual and Material Life

Based on our chosen model of creation we can define two approaches to spirituality and life–(1) A Bottom-Up approach and (2) A Top-Down approach. The names, “top-down” and “bottom-up” are chosen based on the frequency or vibratory levels discussed in our model and they have nothing to do with their colloquial usage. Both approaches take you to the same state of witness consciousness, but it is very necessary that you understand them, so that you don’t get confused and conflicted. […]

Ascension / Balance / Creation and Manifestation / Daily Living / Enlightenment / Healing / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Doing By Being

How can you do by being? What does it mean by being? Being sounds like just sit and do nothing. Is it being lazy? What is it? Doing by being is the most helpful in any creative endeavor. “Creation” by definition means “to make or bring to existence something new; something unprecedented.” But, fears arise, because mind can only cope with things that already known. When encountered with something new, it goes into a panic mode. In some people it is more stifling than in others. […]

Balance / Creation and Manifestation / Daily Living / Enlightenment / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

A Surefire Recipe for Successful Manifestation of Your Wishes and Desires

This is another installment of articles written in the series Creation and Manifestation. In this article, I discuss what helps you to make your wishes and dreams come alive. You may be wondering why I am advocating manifestation of desires, as opposed to dropping all of them on your way to enlightenment which is the traditional view. That is a topic by itself to be covered in a separate article. For now, trust me that it is better to manifest your desires and experience the results to bring wisdom into your life to create an Expanded Sense of Self (ESS), than trying to drop them which may cause more inner conflict. [â€¦]

Daily Living / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized

Inspirational Prof. Randy Pausch's Childhood Dreams Lecture

Today, I thought that I would share the following video. This is a greatly inspiring talk by Prof. Randy Pausch on Achieving One’s Childhood Dreams. He is dying of cancer and probably has a few months or so to live. He has a wife and three young children. But, when you see him you don’t know that he has cancer, since he is so enthusiastic about life. He is more enthusiastic about life than any of the healthy people I know. I hadn’t heard of him or of this talk until yesterday, when I watched Oprah Show with my wife...

Balance / Coaching / Daily Living / Healing / Health / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Simple Techniques for Busy People to Help Access Inner Peace and Joy

Most of us are incessantly bombarded with random thoughts. We end up connecting these random thoughts to create a story. We create an identity for ourselves based on these stories. We don’t even realize that we derive our identity from these stories. The stories could be coming from feelings of dejection, rejection, defeat, fear or those of elation, happiness, victory and courage. Still they are thoughts. Some we label as good and others as bad. We do not realize that our true identity is not, “I am happy, I am sad, I am courageous, I am lonely.” We identify ourselves...

Coaching / Daily Living / Healing / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Fear

You must be the change you want to see in the world. —Mahatma Gandhi There are self-help books and articles that talk about courage and how to live courageously, but very few of them really talk about the significant role fear plays in our daily lives. There is more fear in us than courage. If we want to live courageously, then we must first clear fear and make room for new energies to come in. We are like a house full of clutter. If we want to bring in more valuable items to beautify our house, we must first clear...

Coaching / Daily Living / Healing / Health / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Breathing and Visualization Techniques for Self-Healing

In yOga (see sanskrit transliteration scheme), prANAyAma (control of life-force through breath) is an important and ancient conglomeration of techniques to promote physical, mental and spiritual well-being. In this article, I will discuss simple breathing and visualization techniques, I often use to heal myself of minor ailments like headaches and pains or when I am stressed from dealing with day-to-day issues. Learning and becoming comfortable with these techniques beforehand is better, so you can use them right away when you are in need. CAUTION: This breathing technique or any other technique is not a substitute for proper medical care. This,...

Daily Living / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Uncategorized

How I Failed to Give Up Coffee

I am sure that there are articles written about how to give up coffee, but I am going to talk about how I failed to give up coffee. 🙂 My son just loved the title—he should, since he suggested it. 🙂 As you may know, I am from Southern India where drinking coffee, several times a day, is the norm. While growing up there, all our family members drank two or more cups of coffee, the size of Starbuck’s Grande. When we visited friends or relatives they would offer coffee as well, and out of courtesy we had to drink....

Balance / Coaching / Daily Living / Leadership / Management / Personal Development / Productivity / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Detachment Versus Indifference

One of the main ingredients of spiritual practices is to be detached from the objective world. What is detachment really? How is that different from indifference or apathy ? A couple of years ago in my Babaji’s kriyA yOga (See sanskrit transliteration scheme) initiation class, we were doing an exercise on the identifying of emotions and becoming detached from them. Exercise was that the teacher would say a word and we would write the feelings that come to us on a piece of paper and label them appropriately as anger, happiness, joy, detachment, etc. The word was money. I wrote...

Category: Daily Living