Offbeat Spirituality

New Hopes Things to Cope Monday Morning Breathing the Fresh July Air My Whole Week is Set!

12th April is International Day for Street Children Here are some stats from Delhi to highlight how grave this issue is: Our city has 51,000 of them.20% are girls. 70% have their home, but don't want to go back - mostly due to parental issues or family/neighbourhood insecurity. 50.5% are illiterate. 87% earn a living—20% as ragpickers, 15.8% as street vendors,  15% by begging. Over 50% have suffered verbal, physical or sexual abuse. Fewer than 20% have ID cards or birth certificates, and so they miss out on government schemes. Quick ways in which you can help: Volunteer: The most direct method. Join a NGO, Temple, or Gurudwara and ask if they need any help or know any local programs in which you can take part. Give A Moment: Rather than brushing them off to make your way, spend 5 minutes to ask them their names, what they like to do, or their favourite games. Just talk. Initiate Informal Education: If there are any particular street children you see eve...

Positive thinking is overrated. How? Let me give you an example – do you remind your name to yourself every day? “No”, right? Because you are so sure of it. You have been hearing it ever since you remember. You have developed a personality around it, and act according to it. That’s the surely you name has brought into your life. So why not be sure of everything? Every task, situation, relationship – why not have the confidence that you have the power to sought it through? Why not practice spirituality at work and become the most awesome version of yours? Searching ‘ Positive Thinking ’ on Google gives 2,96,00,000 results. More the interpretations, more the confusion over it. Let’s simplify: Positive thinking is the art of believing that everything is perfectly like as it is supposed to be. It doesn’t mean you keep on reminding yourself that. It means, you believe that. It is constant meditation. Being positive means to be in touch with your inner being and taking even the...

I am an easy person. I don’t get into conflicts, raise my voice, or get influenced easily. Over the years, I’ve created plans for self-improvement, and tried spirituality to concentrate on ways that make me calmer. So when this incident happened, within which I became a part of a rumour, and had to hear rubbish allegations, letting go became difficult. It was the situation of double confusion – my spirituality was telling my mind to let it go and move on, but my heart wanted to react – it wanted me to use strong words to reply back to the lady who had put me in a fix. And then I read somewhere – be like water . Absolutely loved the concept of being open – rather than dominating my forcefulness, I tried to let my emotions go wherever there was an opening. I softened my hard edges (accepting that I too can be incorrect was difficult), and tried to become tolerant of others’ opinions. I pictured myself with same qualities as of water – free to flow, allowed myself to...