We all experience this. You listen to a piece of music or a song for the first time and think that it is the best music you’ve ever heard. You want to listen to it again and you make use of every opportunity to hear it again. You don’t mind spending some money to get a CD or a recording in order to listen to it whenever you want. You enjoy the music a few times, but as it always happens, after a while it becomes just another music. And after you listen to that music a number of times, you don’t want to listen to it anymore, you are bored, you start running away whenever that familiar tune comes up.

Why does this happen? Why does the music become boring? Isn’t that because you don’t flow with the music anymore? When you listen to the music the first time, you listen to it in anticipation, you relish the rhythm, you flow with the music in its highs and lows, you enjoy every single moment in the music. But as you listen to it a number of times, you know what to expect. Instead of flowing with the music, your mind looks towards the bit of tune or note that’s coming up or keeps humming the tune that’s gone by. Your mind keeps going back and forth, and you don’t enjoy the music anymore. It’s not the music that becomes boring, but it’s because you don’t flow with the rhythm when you listen to that old music.

You can try this for yourself. Take a piece of music or a song that you’ve enjoyed listening in the past, but you have played it so many times that it doesn’t interest you anymore. Now, you are going to listen to it again, but before you start playing the song, take a few deep breaths… and consciously intend that you are not going to predict the tune that’s coming up and you’ll just let go of the tune that’s gone by, you will only listen to the music as you are listening to it the first time. You will look for subtle rhythms that you have not experienced when you were listening to it so many times in the past. Now play the music and flow with the music. Do it now, and come back when you are done!

Tell me, did you enjoy the music? I have tried this and no music is boring to me anymore! No matter how many times you listen to a piece of music, no matter what kind of music that is, there’s always something subtle, something new you can pick up every time you listen to it.

Life, you know, is pretty much like that. Sometimes life does become boring. Why do we get bored? Why is it that life sometimes becomes so frustratingly monotonous? When tasks become repetitive, the mind always goes back and forth, it becomes difficult to stay in the present moment. We always compare our present with the past and from that comparison, try to predict the future.  Now, if you look closely, you will find that no two days are alike, no two minutes are alike, no two seconds are alike. However repetitive the task seems to be, there is always something unique each time. When you let go of intentions to compare and make predictions, when you simply watch yourself doing the task and flow with the task, when you live in the present moment, you will find that each moment is unique, each movement beautiful, each experience fresh and new. Then no task is boring, life becomes beautifully rhythmic, life becomes a music! In fact, when you live in ‘present moment awareness’, in that calm state of mind, even random sounds from the environment feels like music. But when the mind is agitated, even the best music feels like disturbing noise. So, it’s all a matter of choice… do you choose music, or noise?

When you see the beauty somewhere, when you fall in love with something, the next impulse that comes in you is to possess it, have it; and, when you have it, it looses all its significance.

— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

When you see a sunset, in that moment of beauty there is a spontaneous, creative joy. When you wish to repeat that experience again, there is no joy in the sunset; you try to receive that same creative happiness but it is not there. Your mind, not expecting, not wanting was capable of receiving, but having received it is greedy for more and it is this greed that blinds. Greed is accumulative and burdens the mind-heart; it is ever gathering, storing up. Thought-feeling is corrupted by greed, by the corroding waves of memory. Only through deep awareness is this engulfing process of the past brought to an end. Greed, like pleasure, is ever singularistic, limiting, and how can thought born of greed comprehend that which is immeasurable!

— J. Krishnamurti, Ojai 6th public talk, 18 June 1944

A true yogi may admire a beautiful horse, for instance; but those who feel a wish to possess the animal become entangled in Sankalpa, ego-instigated desires. He is a yogi who can remain in any material environment without being involved in likes and dislikes.

— Paramahansa Yogananda, God Talks with Arjuna, p. 593.

Have you not experienced in moments of great ecstasy the cessation of time; there is no past, no future but an intense awareness, a timeless present? Having experienced such a state greed begins its activities and re-creates time, recalling, reviving, looking to the future for further experience, rearranging the pattern of time to capture the Timeless. Thus greed, the becoming, holds thought-feeling in the bondage of time.

So be aware of the present, however sorrowful or pleasant; then it will unfold itself as a time process and if thought-feeling can follow its subtle and devious ways and transcend them, then that very extensional awareness is the timeless present. Look only to the present, neither to the past nor to the future, for love is the present, the Timeless.

— J. Krishnamurti, Ojai 4th public talk, 1945

So, the present moment is all that matters. Drop all efforts to recreate a beautiful experience that you’ve had in the past, for what you think is past is only your own account of what actually happened. Any attempt to recreate your imagination will be a failure. Drop all efforts to possess something you admire. When the feeling of possession comes in, the feeling of admiration goes away. When you try to possess or recreate the past, you are craving, you are being a beggar. But when you can really live in present moment awareness, you are the master of your reality, you have more than all you’ve ever wanted.

So then, start living in the present moment, be open, free your mind, know that the present moment is the only reality, what you think as past and future are just constructs of your mind, figments of your imagination.

We are responsible for our conduct, not another; not another can transform us. Each one must discover and experience Reality and in that alone is there joy, serenity and highest wisdom.

— J. Krishnamurti, Ojai 4th public talk, 1945.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.

I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.

Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

Marie Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a physicist and a pioneer in the field of radioactivity. She was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. More information about Marie Curie at Wikipedia.

In his victory speech, Obama said this about Senator John McCain, whom he defeated in the presidential election.

Sen. McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he’s fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.

I congratulate him; I congratulate Gov. Palin for all that they’ve achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation’s promise in the months ahead.

To those who voted against him, Obama said,

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

And this is what John McCain had to say in his concession speech,

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his [Obama's] success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

…

Sen. Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I appreciate this attitude of inclusiveness. Politicians in India have a thing or two to learn from these men. No doubt, Indian politicians are united in their efforts to misuse power and exploit people, but they make an external show of bitter rift in policies and create a huge amount of bitterness between groups of innocent people, divide them in terms of religious, regional and linguistic lines that result in in large scale violence and hatred. I am not saying that politicians in USA are angels, but they at least make an external show of unity once the electoral battle is over. While it’s true that the political set up and the electoral process is different in India and the temptation is great for divisive politics, I sincerely wish that politicians in India (and in all parts of the world) show at least some concern for truth, sincerity and unity.

You never can tell when you do an act
Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
Though the harvest you may not see.
Each kindly act is an acorn dropped
In God’s productive soil;
You may not know, yet the tree shall grow
And shelter the brows that toil.

You never can tell what your thoughts will do
In bringing you hate or love;
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
Are swifter than carrier doves.
They follow the law of the universe—
Each thing must create its kind;
And they speed o’er the track to bring you back
Whatever went out from your mind.

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We may feel jealous of a successful person, but we are never jealous of the success of our own children, even though they are someone other than us. When we see ourselves in the other person, love comes naturally. And where there is love, there is no room for violence, hatred, enmity, or jealousy. Love is a substitute for everything, but there is no substitute for love. And when that love becomes divine, there is no further need to say anything!

— Swami Tejomayananda

Why is somebody glad when their own child is successful but jealous when somebody else experiences success? Isn’t it the feeling of ‘mine’ and ‘other’ that makes the difference? I am happy if ‘my’ child succeeds but jealous when some ‘other’ person is successful. If a child that is born out of you is your own, then we are all children of the same God and belong to one God. We are all born out of the same source, live in the same space, and in the end go back to the same source. Ultimately, we all dissolve into each other. Then where is the question of ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’?

Swami Vivekananda says,

If a beautiful picture belonging to another is burnt, a man does not generally become miserable; but when his own picture is burnt, how miserable he feels! Why? Both were beautiful pictures, perhaps copies of the same original; but in one case very much more misery is felt than in the other. It is because in one case he identifies himself with the picture, and not in the other. This ‘I and mine’ causes the whole misery.

— The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 1, p.101.

‘I’ and ‘mine’ and ‘other’ is the cause of all misery. Drop the feeling of ‘mine’ and ‘other’ and simply enjoy success, appreciate beauty wherever you find it, and you will become the embodiment of success and beauty! ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and ‘other’ is mere illusion. When you drop ‘I and mine’, the whole world becomes yours. Then what remains is the feeling of oneness, pure Love. And when there is Love, where is the room for violence, hatred, enmity, and jealousy?

See also, How to overcome jealousy, hatred, rivalry and ego consciousness?

Never think or speak of that which you do not wish to happen.

The whine, the sting and the sigh—these three must never appear in a single thought or a single word.

You can win ten times as many friends by talking happiness as you can by talking trouble. And the more real friends you have the less trouble you will have.

Speak well of everything good you find and mean it. When you find what you do not like keep quiet. The less you think or speak of what you do not like the more you have of what you do like.

Magnify the good; emphasize that which has worth; and talk only of those things that should live and grow.

When you have something good to say, say it. When you have something ill to say, say something else.

~ Christian D. Larson, Your Forces and How to Use Them.

~ M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth, part II, ch. XXVI.

Man, made in the divine image, has come on earth to play his role intelligently in the cosmic drama of destiny designed by God. This life is not man’s own show; if he becomes personally and emotionally involved in the very complicated cosmic drama, he reaps inevitable suffering for having distorted the divine “plot.”

~ Paramahansa Yogananda in “God Talks with Arjuna”.

We don’t know what caused us to come here on earth, we don’t know where we go in the end, we don’t know how the universe has come into existence. We may or may not believe in God. Yet, somehow all things have perfectly come together to bring us into existence, the chemical reactions, water, the perfect temperature, the perfect gravitational force… somehow, organisms started evolving on this beautiful earth, the sunlight providing life to everything, and the perfect system to assimilate the energies and sustain life, then came the fish and the frog and the monkey and the man.

The System takes care of everything. Our existence as human beings in the universe is tiny. Yet we think that we are the doers of everything. We are anxious to take good care of ourselves (often, at the cost of others). We fight with each other for survival forgetting that in order to survive, the first thing we have to do is to stop fighting with each other. We are just a tiny part of the big plan, our life in the System is for a very very short period, we come and go in a flash. But we entertain our own selfish agendas, petty desires, and behave as if we, with this little bodies, will live forever and even outlive the System! Invariably, the result of such arrogant attitude is suffering and misery for ourselves.

Then what is the way? How to live? The way is to stop identifying ourselves exclusively with this tiny body-mind complex and recognize that we are part of the System. This tiny body-mind will perish, but the System will survive. When we learn to recognize how beautifully the System has brought us into existence and sustains us, how lovingly the System takes care of us like a mother taking care of her baby, when we recognize how harmoniously our lives are interwoven with the life of the System and dissolve our narrow, selfish plans into the big plan and correctly recognize our part in the big plan, life becomes ever so graceful, ever so harmonious, ever so beautiful! Then we are no more separate from the System, we are no more part of the system, we become the System. In fact, we are the System.

The entire universe is one whole; and, when someone drops their holding onto limited boundaries, then what they gain is the entire universe.

~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar