Bath and Enlightenment ! ! !

Well this is a massage to all the people who do not cherish to take their everyday bath seriously (includes me too…). It goes this way:

Everyday early in the morning a Zen Master asked his disciples: how many of you have bathed this morning? Almost every body raise their hands dutifully. Next question: how many of you are aware you bathed when you did?
Not a single hand was raised.
Bathing is an act. Bathing with complete awareness that you are bathing is different. Today, all of you must have bathed (hopefully) and all of you were aware of what you were doing when you did that?
When you brushed your teeth how many of you were aware that you were brushing your teeth? When you were aware of the hot water on your body? Were you aware that your body was just getting ready after the bath, and your life was getting rejuvenated after the bath? How many of you were aware of all these things were happened?

A small Zen story:
A king went to a master, and asked: ‘Master how can I become enlightened? Tell me all the practices you do. What did you do to be come one? Pleas teach me’
The master says: ‘Oh! I eat when I eat; I sleep when I sleep that is all I do’.
The king could not understand. The master explained: ‘when I eat, I do not do anything else when I sleep I only sleep I do not do anything else’
But what we do? Recall how you eat. You will remember that you were watching TV or reading a magazine when you were eating. If you were calm, sitting quietly and eating your wife would have been there to report some problems in the house.
So in one way or another, when you eat, your mind does everything else but focus on the food and eating. You do every thing except eating.

We treat food with such scant respect. It is just a form of garbage bag. It withholds its energy unless you become aware of what you eat. If you treat your food with respect and are aware of what you eat when you eat, wellness results.
This is true even when you sleep! When you sleep you do everything else except sleeping. Because, only when have your nightmare and fear strokes. You then have disturbed sleep. When you are dead tired ….you sleep 100%.
Catch yourself in the act. Become aware. That will set your inner transformation in motion.
Ok …if does not make any sense to you….its fantastic….but it is certainly a great idea to take a bath …since it keeps people around you HAPPY and GAY ! ! !.

Quote of the week....

I have learned that you shouldn't speak unless you can improve on the silence....

JUDO

JUDO

Meaning: JU- gentle or soft, DO- Way; gentle or soft way.

The first DOJO (place to practice) was in the grounds of the Eisho-ji Temple in Tokyo comprised just of nine members in 1886. It was started by JIGORO KANO.
About the sport: Judo, a martial art in which judoka, or judo players, use movements, balance and leverage to gain advantage over each other. Seems heavy to understand, let me make it simple…
Judo has three main aspects
1.Throwing and grappling techniques.
2.Chocks - or strangulation techniques in which we actually cut off the blood and air supply to opponents mind.( I have done it…I m not kiddin)
3.Bone locks - extremely pain full, dangerous, since it takes no time to brake bone joints.
Listening this, one will think how judo is ‘gentle way’. Believe meit is the sport to enjoy our sweat or… others perhaps some times… well this sport is a byproduct of master sport ‘JUJUTSU’ which is even dangerous for…. both the players.

And yes… it different from other martial arts because in judo you can not kick or punch a person, so do not confuse it with Karate or Kung Fu or Kickboxing or Sumo wrestling…please.
I will put up some more interesting facts and literature about JUDO….

Martial arts and Spirituality

This article may seem as superficial thing but there is a lot of similarity between the two.
Before going ahead with what ever I have written I would like to declare that I am not master in either of the two. I have practiced martial arts for around 5-6yrs now. And I was introduced to spirituality by ART of LIVING. I was amazed to find that there was lot in common. I have tried to put together masters of both the field. At one end it H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shanker and other end is Bruce Lee (Ref: ‘TAO OF JEET KUNE DO’).
The things which I found common were:-
1. YIN and YANG / opposite values are complementary.
In fight when opponent is of aggressive nature the smart martial artist will fight with calm mind and depends on his simple tools like timing of the strike and limited movements. Smart fighter will gain control over aggressive fighter’s attitude. It stands true in judo where we use opponent’s energy and motion to throw him. And to my surprise it works.
‘Soft can control hard, u can brake a wooden boards, some bricks, but try braking sponge’ - Bruce Lee.
2. Present moment is inevitable.
When we are in fight we need to be so much there because even a blink of an eye is important. A trained fighter’s (international players) time their movements according to opponents ‘blink timing’ i.e. they actually calculate that what is the intensity of the opponents eye blinks, so that they can plan an attack accordingly.
Give full respect the opponent.
In JUDO when we start to practice or fight we bow down and formally ask for play and when we finish we formally do the same. And when we enter the birth place of judo in Japan it welcomes you with a saying
‘IN SPRIT UNITED, IN SKILL OPPOSED’. – Eisho-ji Temple, world’s first judo DOJO, 1886, Tokyo.
If we are little aware of the story of Ramayana we will find that both Rama and Ravana had respect for their opponents (listen Guruji’s Holi tape).
3.Greatest fight is within.
I learnt this from both the sides that until and unless you don’t defeat the person inside you u can not win on the mat. I think spirituality is the thing which introduces to person inside me and martial arts helped me over come it many times. Both parties showed my new potential, which was otherwise unused.
‘If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still be like mirror. Respond like an echo’. – Bruce Lee.

KISS OF the DRAGON ! !

‘When u do good …some thin good happens to you’.
Recently some thing happened, which is keeping me in dilemma. Tell me how I react to this situation.....
Recently I was standing below my office and discussing some thing with my office friend. A car (Ford Endevor) stopped, a lady and a child got off that car an walked in to a store. Now, the driver had kept the car running, he hadn’t put down the engine. This provoked me to tell him to please turn off the engine as it was wasting fuel. The driver started arguing with me….as usual I started to explain to him hazards of air pollution. As I was arguing I said ‘ Jyada petrol hai to idhar de doo, mari bike me lagega…petrol free main ata hai kya?’ suddenly, from no were a ‘Hijra’ (Eunuch) came and kissed me…..i was like blank!!! it was so embracing situation….(I will not discuss what happened next…)

Heloo all,

This wil be my first post for my blog.