Oct 2022

doors were closed shut and nobody was allowed to peep in. A different experience indeed!
Create New Life with Past Life Regression by Ambika Khanna
This workshop kicked off with an overview of how our current lives are inextricably linked to our former lives. Ambika Khanna, the renowned therapist and past life regression facilitator, suggested that some previous occurrences are behind our current habits. She then discussed how regression can help us comprehend how our past lives are influencing our present lives.
We learned how to fully unwind and let go in the first part of the workshop so that we could accept the imagery and information popping up during the regression. This was immediately followed by another significant exercise designed to help us realise that we all possess Extra Sensory Powers (ESP), even though the majority of us don’t acknowledge or even believe in this ability.
As Ambika guided us through an exercise, we were able to explore our subconscious mind and
become more aware of the numerous anxieties and restrictive patterns that controlled our life. As a result, we learnt where our tendencies, fears, and phobias came from. For many of us, it was a trying and emotional event, but it was also eye-opening. During the exercise, few participants even sobbed, but after it was over, we all reflected and noticed the pattern. This insight was a sort of healing that opens the door to a better way of life.
According to Ambika, the subconscious mind holds the answer to resolving relationship problems. Many participants in the workshop looked to their subconscious for answers to their current relationship problems. A number of them claimed that after the regression, they were able to relate to and comprehend the root causes of their current relationship problems, as well as how to resolve them.
Due to Ambika experience of leading at least 2500 workshops throughout her career and the confident and reassuring manner in which she conducts the programme, the workshop was a deeply enriching experience.
We welcome your comments and suggestions on this article. Mail us at [email protected]
ISF Report 51


JOURNEY
Pay attention to life
Stop mulling over the past or projecting into the future and enjoy the present moment, says Shivi Verma
I f one is not ruminating over present. Life danced a merry speeding past me on their bike
the past, one is thinking,
planning, or worrying about the future. For the mind, happiness is just at the next stop, the next corner, the next destination, and no matter how many milestones one covers, that final stop never ever arrives.
The wise, however, have always emphasised the present moment as being the essence of life, and missing out on it means missing out on life itself.
The thing is that people too are looking for the present moment. The feelings of joy, ecstasy, completion, and fulfilment are all highly sought after. We want to be fully present when such a time comes and want it to last forever. Who hasn’t heard of the phrase “I wish time would stop,” especially when lovers are enjoying stolen moments of togetherness, an honour has been conferred, or a group of friends are having a gala time? But since we get to taste them rarely; only when a goal has been achieved, a dream realised, or a wish fulfilled we either dwell in the past or conjure up images of the future.
dance as we flowed paper boats, chased dandelions and butterflies, splashed water by jumping in mud puddles, played peek-a-boo and Chinese whispers, and lived life to the hilt.
It has been observed that time expands when we give something our focussed attention. A pot of milk takes longer to boil, and the time on our mobile moves much slower, when we watch them closely. Which means that attention has the power to change the velocity of time. It can magnify or diminish the influence of any experience which we are having. Children unknowingly do it all the time by focussing on things that delight them, whether it’s making sand castles, following the trail of ants, or getting overjoyed on seeing a flying plane or a hurtling train. By paying attention to life, they make it respond to them zealously.
Keeping this in mind, I often zone in to the present moment while doing my daily chores, and life simply burgeons into being. The mundane becomes extraordinary. The sight of a vegetable vendor pushing his cart, a cow whipping the flies away from its body with its tail, the aroma of freshly fried samosas wafting from a nearby shop, the sound of my heels as they hit the road, or seeing two
immerse me in the chalice of unbridled existence. Looked at without attaching meaning and judgement, this is nothing but life living itself.
Attention is the super power we are all blessed with. But it needs to be handled carefully. The quality of our attention must be devoid of greed, lust, covetousness, anger, or jealousy for life to respond to us positively.
We can use this power to amplify our experience of life, to have the world respond to us with love, friendliness, and warmth, but we mostly use it to run away from pain and unpleasant feelings. While it is good to not be excessively focussed on dysfunctionalities, it is not healthy to ignore or suppress nagging pain. At such times, paying attention to it, to get to the root of the problem and eliminate it for good is the best use of the power of attention. Life is right here, happening in this moment, in all its beauty and splendour, but it’s our attention which makes it worthwhile.
Editor of Life Positive, Shivi Verma is a devotee who found all her answers in loving God passionately.
We welcome your comments and suggestions on this article. Mail us at [email protected]
But the catch is that these coveted
events may or may not happen. So
will life and happiness pass us by
in the absence of these desirable
moments? What about the Now?
As children, we were the happiest
since we were only aware of the young boys with broad smiles
52 LifePositive | OCTOBER 2022




ENVIRONMENT
Fuel of the Future?
Darshan Goswami is optimistic that hydrogen, produced from tap water, could become the forever fuel of the future, generating power for homes, industries, and cars.
A new day is dawning for a revolutionary way to generate electric power from renewable energy sources. Imagine a
future where the electrical power needed to run your computer, TV, and DVD is generated from a small appliance about the size of a dishwasher, located in your home. Envision generating electricity without combustion and producing heat and pure drinking water as by-products. Picture a world powered almost entirely by an infinitely abundant and totally clean fuel. Hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, is that fuel, which
can be produced from tap water to generate power for homes and cars. Imagine being able to drive your car more than 500 miles between fill-ups. The car you drive could become a power station on wheels, producing about 30 to 50 kilowatts of electricity. At work, the parked car in the parking lot could be making money for you by supplying energy to the power grid during peak hours. The same fuel cells in the car parked in your garage could provide power for your home use.
In the new age of hydrogen, each individual
54 LifePositive | OCTOBER 2022


could become the producer as well as the consumer of energy. Automobile, oil, and utility companies are spending billions to make this dream come true.
Renewable Energy Source
Hydrogen is a renewable, versatile, simple, and sustainable domestic energy, and there is no danger of running out of hydrogen because it is the most abundant element in the universe. Hydrogen can be produced through a thermal, electrolytic, or photolytic process from fossil fuels, biomass, or water. Renewable and nuclear systems can produce hydrogen from water, using a thermal or electrolytic process. People can even produce it in their homes with relatively simple apparatuses.
‘Hydrogen Economy’ is the term used to mark the shift from fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas to hydrogen. The vision of a Hydrogen Economy is one of an unlimited source of fuel that would be used to generate energy without releasing carbon and other pollutants into the air.
Hydrogen has the potential to do for the energy revolution what the computer and the Internet have done for the information revolution. Fuel cells are considered the microchip of the hydrogen age, the key to abundant energy from secure, renewable resources. Ultimately, fuel cells supplying homes, businesses, and industries could be linked to a national power grid, allowing surplus power at one location to be transferred to areas experiencing power shortages.
Hydrocarbon Economy
Today, we have a hydrocarbon economy, but the transition toward a Hydrogen Economy has already begun. In the very near future, we will have weaned ourselves from carbon and
we will live in a Hydrogen Economy powered by hydrogen energy from renewable resources. You will have access to hydrogen energy to the same extent that you now have to petroleum, natural gas, and electric power.
Some cities, such as Chicago and Vancouver, already have buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Ford, GM, BMW, Toyota, and Honda have prototype cars powered by hydrogen. The Ford chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., has declared that the fuel cell will “finally end the 100-year reign of the internal-combustion engine.” Such efforts are leading the world towards a Hydrogen Economy.
The present fossil fuel economy has created significant environmental problems worldwide. A Hydrogen Economy promises to eliminate all of the problems created by the fossil fuel economy. The advantages of a Hydrogen Economy include greater fuel efficiency, the elimination of pollution and greenhouse gases caused by fossil fuels, and the elimination of economic dependence on Middle East oil reserves.
Good for Developing Countries
Specifically, a Hydrogen Economy may be even more beneficial to developing countries because it will generate more economic opportunities, reduce poverty, and offer dramatically cleaner renewable resources to bypass at least part of the expense of building a fossil fuel infrastructure.
A Hydrogen Economy could produce total decentralisation of the global energy market controlled by giant oil companies and utilities, and result in the vast redistribution of wealth and power. In a Hydrogen Economy, utility companies will become obsolete.
Environment 55


A World Hydrogen Energy Roadmap must be developed to address hydrogen production, delivery and transportation, storage, conversion, public–private partnerships, research, codes and standards, testing, public education, and end-use products. It must also overcome major challenges in the development of new sensor technology. This effort must include government, industry, universities, and research laboratories.
Government subsidies and tax incentives could be used to encourage putting a Hydrogen Economy on the fast track. The goal of the programme should be to develop technologies to safely produce, store, and transport hydrogen from water, nature’s abundant and virtually free source of hydrogen.
New Energy Revolution
Hydrogen has the potential to do for the energy revolution what the computer and the Internet have done for the information revolution. Global reliance on Middle East oil will come to an end, and international trade balances will be realigned. Fuel cells are a critical technology that will bring a total revolution in the energy sector and change the course of history. President Bush has referred to fuel cells as the “wave of the future” and called for
Darshan Goswami
a “focused effort to bring fuel cells to market.” The ultimate goal is to use the renewable energy of the sun to split water into its basic components of oxygen and hydrogen.
A Hydrogen Economy would open the doors for fundamental changes in our economic, political, and social institutions, similar to the impact of steam power at the beginning of the Industrial Age. The giant oil companies are investing heavily in a hydrogen future to control the design, production, and sales of the devices that produce and consume hydrogen. Fuel companies like Shell, BP, and Texaco are forming hydrogen and fuel cell technology divisions.
A Hydrogen Economy is a bright vision for the future of energy that will revolutionise the world by reducing our reliance on oil from Middle Eastern countries. I envision hydrogen as the power generation fuel of the future that will wean the world away from oil, slow global warming, and lift billions out of poverty. If significant progress is desired, government and private partnerships must be established to concentrate on development efforts. A ‘Manhattan Hydrogen Project’ is needed to ensure that the Hydrogen Economy vision becomes a reality soon.
56 LifePositive | OCTOBER 2022
Darshan Goswami, has more than 40 years of experience in the energy field. He worked as a project manager for Renewable Energy, Micro-grid and Smart Grid projects at the United States Department of Energy (DOE) in Pittsburgh. He is an electrical engineer with a passion and commitment to promote, develop, and deploy renewable energy resources an hydrogen economy.
We welcome your comments and suggestions on this article. Mail us at [email protected]


LETTING GO
The doctrine of detachment
Prof. AVR Rao advises us to live in the world with a sense of non-attachment as taught by the Bhagavad Gita as well as other spiritual disciplines
B eing human beings, it is natural for all of us to seek and have the feeling of belonging. This can broadly take
two ways—connection and attachment. Both of these arise from our desire and need to belong. This desire is universal regardless of the status or position of an individual. If you see people who have attachment issues and prefer loneliness, it is not because they don’t like belonging but because they have poor self-confidence, low self-esteem, or unrealistic desires for a romantic relationship. Some people choose to remain emotionally
disconnected from anyone or anything, maybe because of their past trauma, abuse, or negative encounter. They cannot be open, frank, and honest with anyone, be it a spouse or friend.
We live in cities where people are detached and distracted, and most of them feel isolated, neglected, and alone. Routinely, we pass them on the street and form ideas about their condition but do not recognize their internal pain and suffering. One of the main causes of this loneliness is a lack of meaningful connections.
Letting go 57


Connection and attachment
Human connection may be understood as the association between two individuals with a high quality of interaction between them. It is something that we may feel when someone speaks to our heart regardless of whether it is a stranger, a familiar person, or even a fictional character. Quite often, we can experience this at the very first encounter. When we feel we belong to one another, our lives are stronger, richer, more joyful, meaningful, and fulfilling.
Connection is easier when we share a sense of common ground, interests, pursuits, and values with others who truly care about us. To reap the positive benefits of connection, we need to strive to find people amongst our well-wishers, who can best meet our taste for communication and affection, and also be that person for others. Connection gives you power; attachment sucks the life out of you.
With regard to personal relationships, attachment is an emotional bond while connection is strictly a business conduit. While connection involves no emotions and is maintained to reap a gain, attachment involves bonding and continues even if there is a loss. Examples of connection and attachment are a business transaction and a filial or conjugal relationship respectively.
Strong attachment involves holding on to people or things dearly, as if you cannot live without them or as if your very happiness and existence depend on them. Attachment to your parents, your wife, your husband, and your best friend is commonplace. It takes longer to begin and end. It is a feeling that you develop with years of presence. At first, we develop little attachments to each other, then as time, opportunity, and trust develop, we allow attachments to sink deeper into each other’s
souls. Normally, attachments have mutual benefits.
Attachment comes in various shapes and shades, namely, in three categories: Physical attachment includes an attachment to one’s body, wealth, people, food, pets, and professions. Mental attachment includes emotions, one’s identity and family, religion, status, and power. Spiritual attachment includes God, spiritual leader, beliefs, tradition, culture, and spiritual practices. Since this is a combination of negative and positive features, one has to use the utmost care in balancing, moderating, and using them appropriately or even abandoning some of them.
Loving without attachment
Some people are so afraid of loneliness that they develop attachments in the wrong places to wrong habits and people. They do not try to understand the beauty of another alternative, which is solitude. Well-practised solitude brings assured happiness and contentment, and shields us from the ill effects of loneliness.
It is ideal to develop attachment without expectations because attachments result in breaking the soul if expectations are not met. It is possible to be fully committed to someone or something, without being attached to them. You can avoid being dependent on someone or something without being deeply and emotionally connected. If we want to be in a happy, supportive, loving, and meaningful relationship, it would be much better to love without attachment, not allowing the loved one to control you.
Vicious cycle of attachment
There is a danger in attachment. When we desire objects of the senses, it results in an attachment to them. Lust arises and leads to
58 LifePositive | OCTOBER 2022


anger. Anger leads to delusion, which causes confusion, and it ultimately leads to loss of discrimination. Lack of discrimination makes us lose the ability to choose wisely, resulting in wrong actions and a load of karma, resulting in the continuation of the cycle of births and deaths. The Bhagavad Gita beautifully explains this process and has been widely commented upon. Buddhism and many other religious teachings resonate with this view.
Detachment or non-attachment is a solution. It means not to become enslaved to anything but live like a lotus leaf in the waters of life, without being touched or polluted by it. It is living free from the encumbrances of life and the attractions and distractions it has to offer. This has to be achieved not passively by running away from them but actively by developing self-awareness and equanimity.
Cultivating detachment
Attachment is therefore a fundamental problem, which can be resolved only by cultivating non-attachment through the practice of various disciplines. Here are some suggestions to live a detached life despite living with worldly distractions:
• Abstain from your attachment to your body and bodily cravings like food, clothes, ornaments, and cosmetics.
• Gradually give up attachments to possessions like wealth, positions, status, groups, relatives, and friends.
• Start small, with petty things and habits, and gradually scale up.
• Start with temporary discontinuance from cravings and habits, such as fasting once a week.
• Skip one or two get-togethers or recreational programs once in a way.
• Start observing your thoughts and actions relating to your craving for recognition, influence, dominance, and power. Look for the real motives behind them.
• Change your habits to maintain and enforce perfection and discipline. Stop being a fault- finder with others or even with yourself.
• Reduce your material possessions. Start by giving away things which you never use and which simply occupy your storage space.
The only recommended attachment is attachment to our Creator, God. This equips us to give up our attachment to material desires and live happily. A steadfast attachment to God and detachment from all else is the only panacea for all our trials and tribulations in life. The Bhagavad Gita is a treatise on the various assured methods of attaining a state of attachment to God and detachment from all worldly activities. We need not look elsewhere.
Prof AVR Rao
Prof AVR Rao is a former company executive who has worked with various multi-national companies for over four decades. He holds double masters degree in philosophy and business economics respectively, and is also a teacher and freelance writer.
We welcome your comments and suggestions on this article. Mail us at [email protected]
Letting go 59


SPIRIT
The Spirit, not the letter
The capacity to penetrate to the spirit of the matter instead of staying with the letter of it, is what distinguishes evolution, says Suma Varughese
I have been reading Lust for and working for 13 hours with Sadly, all they could see was the
Life, the beautiful book
based on the life of legendary painter Vincent Van Gogh. It is the lot of most artists and visionaries to be misunderstood and even reviled by their fellow human beings, but even so, the opposition, hostility, and subsequent misery and poverty that Van Gogh was subject to is exceptional.
Particularly dark is the phase that he went through when he decided to sign up as an evangelist (before he discovered his true métier as an artist). He even did a course on the subject with his characteristic passion and sincerity, but ignoring his deep and powerful sermons, two of his examiners rejected him because they felt he was not facile with his speech. It was left to the third to insist on giving him a berth as an evangelist to Borinage, a coal mining region, whose residents worked in inhuman conditions for negligible wages.
Van Gogh boarded with a baker called Denis initially. One day, he was invited to go down with the miners to see the condition they worked in. Witnessing their hardships—which included crawling on their legs to dig coal (so narrow and low were the passages), enduring unbearable heat while breathing in coal dust,
one meal break—affected him so much that he felt that unless he shared their lives and their poverty, he would be a humbug who had no business preaching to them.
Forthwith, he left his comfortable room and bed at the baker’s house and went to stay in an abandoned hut with no window but enough cracks in the wooden wall to let the wind in. He no longer washed off his coal-grimed face because it made him one of them. Retaining the bare minimum, he gave away most of his warm clothes to those who had less. When calamity struck the mine and one of the passages collapsed, trapping and killing 57 coal miners, Van Gogh worked like a maniac looking after the injured, tearing up his own clothes, even his underwear, to form bandages.
He was holding a funeral service in honour of the dead miners when in walked his two examiners to see how he was doing. Horrified at what they felt was his utter degradation, they denounced him and dismissed his services, declaring that they had never been so humiliated by anyone’s conduct as they were by his.
ThusisChristcrucifiedagainand again and again!
dilapidated stable in which he held his services, and Van Gogh’s gaunt, coal-grimed appearance. They were unable to perceive the love he bore the miners nor his supreme selflessness and compassion.
Too many of us are unable to penetrate to the spirit of the thing and get trapped in the letter of it instead, slaves to the external, the superficial, the form.
I remember a beautiful story about a labourer who would do his utmost to attend the evening aarti (devotional ceremony) at a temple. One day, he hastened as usual, but alas, the priest told him he was too late. He let out a heartbroken sigh. The canny priest told him that he would give him the merit of all the aartis he had done for God in exchange for the merit of his sigh. The man joyously agreed. That night, Lord Krishna visited him in his dream. “You made a bad bargain,” he told him. “Your grief-stricken heartfelt sigh was much more valuable than a lifetime of doing aartis for me. Sincere devotion from a pure heart is precious. Outward practices cannot be compared with it.”
The spirit, friends, never the letter.
Suma Varughese is a thinker, writer, and former Editor-in-Chief of Life Positive. She also holds writer’s workshops. Write to her at [email protected].
We welcome your comments and suggestions on this article. Mail us at [email protected]
60 LifePositive | OCTOBER 2022


SHARING
Windbag
Gurjas Kaur’s mother-in-law’s advice to her neighbour changed the latter’s mindset and, consequently, her health issues for the better
M y neighbour Kavita’s mother, whom I address as Maasiji, and my mother- in-law, who is lovingly called Bibi at home, get along very well with each other. Maasiji maintains herself pretty well. She wears a big bindi on her brow, fashionable clothes, and matching accessories. She looks smart despite being nearly seventy years of age. She has one problem though. She is cribbing all the time. She is either angry at someone or irritated, and always has loads to complain
about others.
Gassy maasi
Of late, it was learnt through Bibi that Maasiji was suffering from a gastric problem besides other bodily ailments. She had tried various medicines but did not get any relief. She had been following all types of diet restrictions, but none of them seemed to help. Her gas problem remained as it was. Whenever she had her evening meal, gas would develop in her body. Some of it would get released, and some of it would stay inside and become a cause for bodily aches. And next day, the ordeal would repeat after the evening meal.
Bibi unintentionally remarked once that diseases which do not get cured with medicines or diet restrictions are generally ‘Karam Rog’, i.e., diseases caused due to our karma. On hearing this, Maasiji made a face. As far as
she was concerned, she had not done any bad karma. She had raised six children from her first marriage, and three from the second one, and managed two husbands and their families, all the while busy making ends meet. So, it was a bit perplexing for her to believe that she had gone wrong anywhere karma-wise.
Tit for tat
Once she came over to our house and sat down to chat with Bibi. The topic was our colony’s other neighbour, Mrs. Bela, who had recently become a widow during the COVID pandemic. She was younger than these two women. After becoming a widow, she faced hardships in life and, to run her household, started a small-time in-house business supplying food and snacks
Sharing 61


for parties, etc. Maasiji was cribbing about her, and Bibi was listening intently.
Maasiji had a lot to say. When Mrs. Bela’s husband was alive, she would support him every time, even though he was an angry man who would often pick quarrels regarding trivial matters. Once he had fought with Maasiji’s son-in-law over a petty car-parking issue and was almost on the verge of violence. Maasiji had intervened and, somehow, saved a mishap from happening. However, Bela had not only supported her husband but also called Maasiji names. Thereafter, Bela had refused to even look at Maasiji.
Now COVID had turned the tables on poor Bela. She was a widow in need of business. Just yesterday, she waylaid Maasiji and wished her with a namaste, seeking help in receiving orders for her new-found business. Maasiji avenged herself by not replying to her salutations and walking away with her pointed nose up in the air. Narrating all this, she laughed saying that she had finally got even with Bela.
Silent message
Bibi now knew what the cause of Maasiji’s disease was. And this was the cause of not only her gastric problem but other diseases as well, for which the latter was always on medication.
There are certain diseases which are not due to food, lifestyle, body, or karma. They are due to one’s mindset. Bibi was at the right place at the right time to show her the mirror.
Bibi asked, ‘So, Behanji, you did to Bela what Bela did to you?’
‘Yes, what else!’ Maasiji replied. There was a pause for a few moments, and then Maasiji caught the answer from the ensuing silence.
We should not treat people the way they have treated us but in a way that is right. Maasiji should not have given tit for tat but should have responded by giving good in return for evil.
Positive change
The next time when the oldies met, Maasiji was a changed person. The negative thoughts used to trigger stress inside her and give a lot of mental tension because of which latent morbid matter would stir up and manifest as a disease. The gastric problem was one such manifestation. However, when she changed her thought process, every bit of health advice started proving to be helpful. Simple advice like chewing every bite of her evening meals properly—one bite thirty-two times—did wonders for her gastric problem.
Gurjas Kaur Chahal
Gurjas Kaur Chahal is a voracious reader and a writer by hobby. She enjoys reading the works of renowned authors, children’s books, fables, scriptures and non-fiction. Her other interests are travelling, playing guitar and keeping fit
62 LifePositive | OCTOBER 2022
We welcome your comments and suggestions on this article. Mail us at [email protected]


MUDRAS
Fever Fix
Abhay Kumar Shah recommends three mudras to help bring down your body temperature
A fever is a temporary rise in body temperature, usually caused by an infection.
It’s part of the overall response from the body’s immune system. Generally, fever is considered to be a friend. The raised temperature attacks the bacteria causing the infection in the body.
Symptoms
Body temperatures vary slightly from person to person and at different times of the day. The average temperature has traditionally been defined as 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Centigrade). Depending on the cause of the fever, other fever signs and symptoms may include:
• Sweating
• Chills and shivering
• Headache
• Muscle ache
• Loss of appetite • Irritability
• Dehydration
• General weakness
Causes
Fever or elevated body temperature may be caused by:
• A viral infection
• A bacterial infection
• Heat exhaustion
• Certain inflammatory conditions such as
rheumatoid arthritis, which is inflammation of
the lining of your joints (synovium)
• A cancerous (malignant) tumour
• Some medications, such as drugs used to treat
high blood pressure or seizures
• Some immunisation treatments, such as
diphtheria, tetanus, and COVID vaccines
When your immune system responds to a disease, an area in the brain called the hypothalamus can set your body temperature higher. This prompts complex processes that produce more heat and restrict heat loss. The shivering you might experience is one way that the body produces heat. When you wrap up in a blanket because you feel cold, you are helping your body retain heat.
When the temperature soars above the acceptable limits, it should be treated. Let’s see how we can apply Mudra Science to treat the symptoms and the causes of fever.
Mudras 63


Prithvi Mudra
1. Prithvi Mudra
This mudra balances the temperature of our body. The Agni element and Prithvi element work opposite each other; they are like two sides of a coin.
When we raise the Prithvi tattva, it reduces the Agni, i.e., temperature.
Touch the tips of the ring finger and the thumb to each other. Keep the remaining three fingers comfortably straight. Rest the back of the palms on the thighs.
Practise for 16 to 30 minutes, twice or thrice a day.
2. Apaan Mudra
This is one of the best detoxifying mudras. It eliminates toxins causing harm to our immune system through excretion, urine, sweat, and exhalation.
Touch the tips of the middle and the ring finger to the tip of the thumb. Keep the remaining two fingers comfortably straight. Rest the back of the palms on the thighs.
Practise for 30 minutes, twice or thrice a day.
3. Pooshan Mudra
This miraculous mudra also detoxifies our body. The main benefit of this mudra is that it eliminates the bad bacteria in the gut and helps grow good bacteria.
This is formed differently with each of the hands.
Right hand: Touch the tip of the index finger to the tip of the thumb. Place the tip of the middle finger on the nail of the index finger.
Left hand: Touch the tip of the middle finger to the tip of the thumb. Place the tip of the ring finger on the nail of the middle finger.
Apaan Mudra
Pooshan Mudra
Rest the back of the palms on the thighs. Practise for 30 to 48 minutes, twice a day.
Let me know if these mudras help in reducing your fever.
Abhay Kumar Shah is a mechanical engineer, who has learnt Mudra Shastra from experts and established his own method of using this science correctly, and in the modern context. He can be reached at: [email protected]
We welcome your comments and suggestions on this article. Mail us at [email protected]
64 LifePositive | OCTOBER 2022


BANYAN TREE
TEACHING STORY
THE WIND OF THOUGHTS
Swami Ananda and his disciple Ranga were strolling on the beach by the ocean. It was a cold day, the wind was blowing strongly over the ocean, and it was high tide.
After walking for some time, Swami Ananda stopped, looked at his disciple, and asked, “What does the choppy ocean remind you of?”
“It reminds me of my mind and my rushing and restless thoughts,” answered Ranga.
“Yes, the stormy ocean is like the mind, and the waves are the thoughts.” Swami Ananda explained. “The mind is neutral like the water. It is neither good nor bad. The wind is creating the waves, as desires and fears produce thoughts.”
“I wouldn’t want to be on a boat in the middle of the ocean in a storm like this,” said Ranga.
“You are there all the time within this storm,” responded Swami Ananda. “Most people are on a rudderless boat in the middle of a choppy ocean, even if they do not realise it. The mind of most people is very restless. Thoughts of all kinds come and go incessantly, agitating the mind like the ocean’s waves.”
“Yes,” Ranga interrupted him. “You don’t need to tell me this; I know that. This is the reason I want to learn from you. I want to calm down the waves of my mind.”
Swami Ananda looked at Ranga for a while, smiled, and said, “You don’t calm the ocean by holding the water and not letting it move. What is necessary is to stop the wind. Your thoughts, desires, and fears are like the wind, and you need
to calm them down, and not let them rule your life. You learn to control them by controlling your attention and focus, and then the ocean of your mind will become calm.”
THIS, I KNOW
MAHAAVTAR BABAJI
• If you come to doubt, I’ll give you every reason to doubt. If you come suspicious, I’ll give you every reason to be suspicious. But if you come seeking Love, I’ll show you more love than you’ve ever known.
• Love is the undisturbed balance that binds this universe together.
• The Divine realm extends to the earthly; but the latter, illusory in nature, does not contain the essence of Reality.
• Even a little practice of Dharma will save you from great fear—the colossal sufferings inherent in the repeated cycles of birth and death.
• Wisdom shines from the temple of the pure heart. Wisdom is the crown for the structure of life.
• The best way to understand the state of purity is to look at the children.
• Silence and meditation (mounam and mananam) are the twin aids to peace, power, and prosperity.
• Let the heart, the Inner Man in the heart, guide you, rather than emotion and intellect.
• I love those who love others.
• I am learning the greatest of virtues, pleasing to God above all others—humility.
Banyan Tree
65


INSPIRATION
THE SUMMER DAY
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver
ONE-MINUTE WISDOM
SHAKEN INTO REALISATION
Two friends named Max and Tim met after a long time. “I have a huge house with a pool,” Max boasted while drinking his tea. “I have 30 cars and a garden in front of my house,” Tim said. Soon they started fighting over who was richer. Suddenly, the ground started shaking, and they realised it was an earthquake. Tim quickly hid under the table and pulled Max down with him. Max took his handkerchief and wrapped Tim’s bleeding hand that he hurt while pulling him down. The bamboos and bricks the hotel was made of started falling down. But Max and Tim were safe. They realised that none of their wealth helped them. Friendship and kindness did.
QUOTE
“To learn to speak well, learn well when not to speak.”
JUST FOR LAUGHS
VERY WIT-TEA
Q: How does Moses make his tea? A: Hebrews it.
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LifePositive | OCTOBER 2022