Deeper Secrets Of Habits

People usually question me as to how the energy can be awakened by merely changing the understanding. You see, in your day-to-day life if you are trained to feel tired at a particular time, then you will feel tired when that exact moment arrives. You will feel tired even if you have not worked the whole day!

For example, let us say you usually get depressed at around 9:30 am every morning thinking that you have to go to office. Then, you can see that even on Sundays when you don't need to go to office, you will be in a low mood. You will be depressed. Suddenly you will tell yourself, 'Oh it is Sunday today. I don't have to go to office, relax.' But even then, the low mood will not pass. You would still remain in a low mood.

Your mental setup is directly related to your kundalini awakening. So when you use the shakti

to change whatever you can change, to change your understanding, you awaken tremendous energy in you.

Patanjali says beautifully that even if you fight with a single habit, any habit, it will release tremendous energy in you. Habit is both energy used unnecessarily and in the wrong direction. When you break a habit, even a simple habit like having a cup of coffee in the morning, you release tremendous energy in your system. That is why in our tradition, we had practices like fasting or keeping vigil throughout the night. It was to break our habits and create a new energy flow.

You may ask, what does habit mean? Living in a mechanical way, without bringing your awareness to this moment is what is called habit. Your whole life consists of only two parts: one is habit, and the other is meditation. Anything that you do without awareness is a habit. Anything, any action that you do with awareness is meditation.

Even driving is a habit! You may be surprised to hear this. You may wonder how driving can be a habit. Just observe yourself when you drive to your office. You start your car, drive for half an hour to office and only when you reach your office and park your car, you remember that you had been driving! You would have taken at least two to three hundred decisions, like taking right turn, left turn, stopping at the signal, honking etc. But only when you reach the office will you remember that you had been driving.

Your driving has become a habit. Whichever part of your life is not meditation is a habit. That means, till this moment, almost our entire life was a habit - just a habit going on and on!

Just bring in awareness into your habits. Bringing awareness is trying to change whatever you can, shakti (energy). Expressing the energy to change whatever you can is what I call the first technique,

first method. Try to change even simple things if you can change them. Change continuously. This is the first part of enlightenment, the first technique of living enlightenment.

The second technique is to accept whatever cannot be changed.

Now the big question arises, 'Where is the line, Swamiji? What can I change and what can I not change?'

First let me define what acceptance is. Then this question will be answered automatically.