Are you asking me why you should meditate? Let me ask you, why should you sleep? Why should you study? Why do you want entertainment? Why do you want to be healthy? One can live anyway, have you thought about it? Why do you want to be happy? You can exist anyway, being happy or unhappy.
Meditation is food for the soul, it nurtures the core of your existence. Meditation has multiple benefits. It keeps you physically fit and healthy, mentally focussed and sane. Intellectually, it brings such sharpness, keenness of attention, awareness and observation. Emotionally, you feel lighter, softer and purer. You are able to let go of all the past garbage. It creates positive vibrations around you, influencing your behaviour with others, and others behaviour with you. Meditation gives the deepest rest in the shortest time.
It does not matter which technique you follow. When you get into the space of stillness, the state of stillness, and space of nothingness, you’ve got it. It can come to you through any technique. Sahaj Samadhi is the best one because you can do it anytime, anywhere.
Talk less, and smile more. When you find some friction coming your way and you can feel it, just be aware of what you are doing. And don’t forget to meditate. When you meditate, you emit positive vibes around you. We convey more through our vibes than through our words.
Similarly, refugees should be screened, and provided with some sort of orientation or training. This is because they come from a space where there has been only violence and mistrust. Often, they are victims of rage, anger and inhuman treatment. We need to remove such psychological impressions and traumas from their minds. Unless they are given training to uplift their spirits, and unless they are educated in etiquacy and behaviour, there will be a disaster in society. They would only express or contribute what they have in their psyche, which is their trauma and violence. Simply providing food and shelter is not sufficient at all!
We need to cater to the emotional scars, spiritual poverty and intellectual misconceptions of the refugees. Provide them proper understanding to remove their emotional scars through techniques and teachings that could make them feel fresh, alive, and take a new look at life; not see society from their past impressions. Unless we do this, it is going to be a disastrous situation that could create more problems.
People living in a civilised society are not used to this sort of behaviour; they are used to peaceful conditions of co-existence, human values of etiquacy. Hence, there will be a mismatch that will result in problems of violence in society. We need to attend to them.
In South Africa, we have seen it happen after the apartheid regime. There was so much hatred amongst the communities, a strong feeling of vengeance. Violence had escalated so much, whether in prison or outside. I am really proud to say that The Art of Living is one of the very few organisations that had people from all communities - Caucasians, Asians, native Africans, and Indians - everyone came together. They worked in prisons, and the change that it has brought about in just seven days of the course being taught in prisons, is still a testimony on how spirituality can change the scenario. How it can remove the root cause of violence from the human psyche, integrate individuals back into society, and bring harmony in society as well as within the individual. (BBC even made a documentary on this transformation.)
In Europe, you may have to look into this; along with bread, butter, and shelter, we will need to counsel the refugees, and give them techniques to remove those violent impressions. It is not their fault. It is unfortunate that there is violence in many societies in the world.
This rule exists in some countries and it has some advantages. There are some countries where such restrictions are levied on some streets. Before implementing it in Bangalore, we must make sure that the Metro works well across the city.
It has been over ten years and construction work is still going on. When the Metro is completed, and people have an alternate mode of travel, then it may be practical to bring such a rule in Bangalore.
Just see how many hours it takes to go from one place to another. It must have taken some of you more than two hours just to reach here. It must be a challenge for the people of Bangalore to spend four hours every day to go back and forth for work! This is why it is important to develop smaller cities with good infrastructure like roads and transport.
Let them mock, make fun, so what? It will not change anything. Truth is never afraid of mockery. When the wind blows, dust comes, but the solid rock remains unmoved.
