Dear Akhand Gyan readers! We are glad to bring to you a bagful of online surprises this year. Acceding to your requests, Akhand Gyan is launching its first online issue. Now, you can recharge yourself online with 2 complete issues of Akhand Gyan. So, plug in to the links below and feel the boost!
Hmm… what is the difference? Aha! There is a BIG difference.
This silent T teaches us the hidden aspect of listening, which carries with it the formula for rightly understanding what the other person is saying. The three teachings of this silent ‘T’ are:
1. T is for TALKING: Put your TALKING on silent mode when the other person is talking. First hear him fully. This is the first lesson taught by the silent ‘T’ of the word ‘lisTen’.
Many people think that in order to communicate it is essential to say something. But, remember that listening is communication in itself. The contribution of speaking and listening while communicating can be depicted by the pie chart shown below: 
When we listen to others we develop a silent bond with them and communicate to them that we care about what they are telling us. However, a study shows that about 85% of the time when someone tells something to somebody, it takes less than one minute on average before that somebody cuts in with something else. This inability or, rather say, impatience of not letting the other person speak is one of the main reasons for divorce of couples. We are ever excited to barge in and sing our own song without giving chance to other. This loophole is active in case of children and parents as well. For instance, at the dinner table your child may be talking about some incident at his school. However, instead of focusing on what he's saying, you may just be too preoccupied with announcing the set of instructions to him to eat his food properly. In marketing sector as well, it is detrimental. One cannot make a sale or provide top-quality customer service simply by singing praises of his product unless he pays heed to what the customer needs.
Just imagine! This is the situation when God has given us two ears to listen and ‘only’ one mouth to speak. Even then we are unable to listen and put a pause on our talking. In fact, of all the animal species (even dogs), we humans listen the least. However, it is good to be an active listener first. And, if you think that you can listen and talk at the same time, then it’s not truly possible. It is extremely difficult to receive information and simultaneously send it out from your mouth.
To grasp the full difference between Hearing & Listening, and, to understand the teaching of the silent ‘T’, refer to the January and February2010 issues of English Akhand Gyan.
Report: It surely demands your concern too!
Humanity was once again hit by a ruthless calamity that claimed thousands of lives in a blink. The state of Karnataka witnessed one of the worst ever flood situations in the last 100 years. Torrential rains left a trail of death and destruction in 15 districts of Karnataka damaging over 1,467 villages and two lakh houses. What followed were the echoes of painful wails and cries that resounded from the countless shattered hearts who became the unfortunate victims of the disastrous calamity. No figures can perhaps express the intensity of pain and grief, those tears and shrieks... These can only be realised and empathised by warm and caring hearts!
...Thus, was launched a caravan which carried with it a steadfast zeal to heal the shattered lives and soulful understanding to soothe their broken hearts. The preachers and volunteers of DJJS’ Bangalore branch initiated a drive – ‘North Karnataka Flood Relief Supply Programme.’
Under the aegis of His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj Ji – founder & head, Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan, a team of initiated and dedicated volunteers was formed to dispense relief services at such an hour of peril without delay. Trucks loaded with relief materials (medicines, soaps, utensils, bed spreads, blankets, clothes, mineral water, tarpaline sheets (to construct temporary huts), mats, pulses, jaggery, jowar, wheat, rice, and other food items were sent to the affected areas. The volunteers not only offered the relief materials humbly to the victims but also lend ears to their mournful voices and consoled them through motivational counseling.
It exemplified an overwhelming participation by not only helping the shattered to receive the relief aid but also soothing their broken hearts with the holy words of His Holiness’ divine message of Brahm Gyan. Undoubtedly, it was a saga of a true, selfless, and a dedicated humanitarian act!
BUT, dear friends, that’s not the end. The efforts need to go on... and it undoubtedly seeks your participation as well. Wake up friends! It’s not their suffering alone! It’s humanity which is crying and is demanding your help for support. So, first awaken your dormant self through Self Realisation (Brahm Gyan). Because, only then you would be able to truly feel their wounds and listen to their painful cries... and then, you would not remain as just a mute spectator but would step ahead as a resolute soldier and a caring human being!
If you wish to donate, pls send a demand draft or cheque (Account Payee) in the name of 'Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan- Account Relief Fund' to Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan (Head-office: Plot No. 3, Pkt. OCF, behind Pushpanjali Enclave, Parvana Road, Pitampura Ext., Delhi- 110034, INDIA).
Do you feel you hold some responsibility towards serving the poor and needy?
Do you think Spirituality has any role to play in Social Service?
Does charity mean offering food and clothes or donating money to the poor?
Divine Light: We really appreciate ur noble feelings, ur pain for the state of the society & definitely agree to what u say! But, do you think that such help alone wud bring colors to their lives? Wud this really change the dismal state of the society??
Divine Light: What will happen if a seed is thrown into fire?
Mr A:It will burn! Destroyed forever! Will never sprout!
Divine Light: 100% correct! So, cud u deduce from this the hidden benefit from spirituality?
Mr. A: Not really!
Divine Light: Exactly the same is the fate of the Karmic seeds of our (the needy's) past deeds, due to which one actually has to bear such misery & poverty। They (bad karmas) meet their end when exposed to the fire of Divine Knowledge! Hence, the clutches of tortures and miseries are let open! Making the person free forever! …That's why, we said– a Permanent solution!
Mr. A: Oh! I m enriched after this eye-opening chat! Thanks! U r right in saying that one should not restrict to just 'something'; rather, serve in totality, by keeping spirituality at the base!… Now, for me to march ahead towards this completeness… I request u to please let me know how??
Divine Light: U r most welcome to any of our branches any time! They r open for one & all… Always!
(Mail us at akhandgyan@gmail.com
to seek the address of the branch nearest to ur place, if you are interested in learning the true art of social-service.)
Decide your priorities well. Planning is essential. Manage time creatively. Be determined and disciplined to focus your time around your priorities. By using the faculty of discrimination, make sure that the most meaningful things in your life should not be sacrificed to those that are least meaningful. 
Take a comprehensive look at every dimension of your life, be it a personal, social, or spiritual development goal. Here, proper prioritization is absolutely essential. This necessarily calls for giving up living life in compartments. Develop a firm understanding that whatever you do forms one indivisible whole. Your conduct and behaviour at home affects the way you act at your work place. Your treatment of people at the work place affects the way you will treat your family members. It is utterly absurd to presume that efficient time management is focussing at the workplace and discarding it at closing hours. Consider it as an all-encompassing system in which all dimensions of life are impacted to make life more fulfilling and balanced. 
Make sure that you expend your time on activities, which have a lasting value. Activities, which yield real and lasting results, should take the major slice of your time. It is these activities that influence the quality of your life. It is not quantity in terms of number of years but quality in terms of time spent in value-addition, i.e. life lived well, which counts and leaves a lasting impression. Quality of life depends on time spent in ‘high-impact’ activities. Time spent in superfluous and frivolous activities is sheer wastage of time.Cultivate ‘deathbed mentality’:
A highly potent weapon, which all serious time management seekers should arm themselves with, is cultivating a ‘deathbed mentality.’ It is a very practical way of looking at life. This mentality reminds you again and again that today could be your last day; so you should savour it to the fullest. It teaches you to live life as if it was your last day. It enables one to live every moment to the maximum. This ‘deathbed mentality’ serves as the biggest question of one’s life’s purpose. So, this question has the power to change your life in the direction that benefits you the most. It protects you from the destructive habit of procrastination. It energises your days and creates a rush of zest and zeal to all that you do. You start focusing on meaningful things that you have been putting off. You learn to stop squandering time on petty pursuits. Thus, this mentality saves you from getting bogged down into a quagmire of crisis and chaos.
Acquire and employ the most-effective tool, and mastering time naturally comes to you:
In one’s personal odyssey, one can learn to master time by employing the tools of dedication, determination, and discrimination; yet this art of personal government, i.e. self-improvement, is best learnt and imbibed if the secret of knowing and realising the true self within is revealed to you. And, it is possible through imparting of Divine Knowledge by a genuine preceptor capable of putting you through the transcendental experience of DIVINITY.
Upon such trans-dichotomous experiences, one enters the realm of understanding that he is not merely a human being having a spiritual experience but a spiritual being having a human experience. Through the light of Divine Knowledge, one acquires a new realisation that he is not just in the world but the world is in him. On being tuned to his inner voice, his life is naturally attributed with the skill of time management and its efficient utilisation, and is thus tracked on the roads of perfection & success.
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Do you feel you fit well somewhere in the above reel?
YES! But, I don’t want it to be my life-reel. How do I change the picture of my life from this stressful state to a stress-free one?
Simple! Punch the bunch of problems!
But how?
Ok, first you tell why do you come under stress?
Everything around me– my job, family… all, at some or the other time, become the cause of stress and tensions! I go mad running from here and there, each time solving this and that… How can one carry out so many tasks, that too in a limited time? After all, a human being is not a machine that you can make him work all 24-hours!
So, you mean to say that you are compressed as well as stretched!
Compressed & Stretched?
Yeah, like this…
Doesn’t this resemble your problem?
See what happens…
When load is applied on a spring, it becomes either stretched or compressed. However, the spring has an internal tendency to regain its de-stressed state. The restoring force in the spring helps it in doing that.
F = - k x
where,
x - The distance and direction in which the spring is deformed
F - The magnitude and direction of the restoring force the spring exerts
k - The spring constant or force constant of the spring.
Likewise, when a load is exerted upon us, we too get deformed. We become physically exhausted and psychologically stressed. As a result, we feel irritated and restless. And, as per our internal tendency, each one of us direly tries to regain the stress-free state. But, to regain the much-aspired de-stressed state, we need to procure the restoring force, i.e. an impetus equivalent to the massive load of stress and tensions. However, our inner batteries, being already discharged in meeting out the plethora of tasks, fail to charge us with the required potential. Hence, at times, we give up. Because, we are not able to gather the required impetus (the restoring force) within us to kick back the bagful of loads.
Dear Friend, we hope your problem is solved now.
Absolutely YES!
Statistics say that nearly 70 million people all over the globe are facing the music of eating disorders. 1 in 5 females are suffering from such disordered eating. What more, around 24 millions of Americans are fighting tooth and nail with this problem!
So, you can see it’s just an unchecked eating approach or undisciplined practice! It’s indeed an epidemic, which has swept away the present day bustling and faddish society. Symptoms are quite apparent– Acidity! Gastroenteritis! Frequent cramps! Upset stomach! Dyspepsia! Obesity!
Really, if Shakespeare had to write a novel in the present era, he would have posed a different gridlock situation: ‘What to eat, what not to eat?’ Also, ‘When to eat, when not to eat?’
Is there a key to this behavioural lock? …Indeed there is!
Spiritual Pill for Eating Disorders
Patient: Swami ji, why eating disorder? Obesity?...
Swami: Dear, only two bases are there– ‘Lack of self-control’ and ‘Unstable intellect’! Lord Krishna says– “Those who are deluded and cling to sensual pleasures have misled intellect. They lack: ‘Vyasayatmika buddhi’. They are not established in the self with concentrated fixity.” (Gita- 2/44)
Patient: But Swami ji, I can’t help. I unconsciously get pulled to the yummy foodstuffs; get deluded by personal and social conditionings.
Swami: That’s exactly the symptom of two above-mentioned spiritual ailments.
Patient: Any cure?
Swami: Sure! ‘Yogastha kuru karmani sang tyaktva’ (Gita 2/48)– Being fixed in Yoga and having abandoned all attachments, do thy actions.
Patient: What’s Yoga?
Swami: It’s the divine union of lower self to the higher one!
Patient: How to accomplish this union?
Swami: For union, foremost condition is to have face-to-face encounter between the ‘self’ of both order: lower and higher. Let your lower self commune with your higher self through meditation (based on Brahm Gyan).
Patient: Come on, Swami ji! Just a petty eating disorder and such an outsized pill– Brahm Gyan! Perception of higher Self! Are you kidding?
Swami: That’s another delusion! Eating disorder is not a petty one। The rasa/raga of taste is the most difficult roadblock to crossover. The Lord says– ‘Rasa varjam rasoayasya param drishtva nivartaty,’ meaning by, ‘rasa’ ceases only when Supreme (Higher Self) is seen or perceived. And, on perceiving the Higher Self, once you get tuned to it– you are bestowed with higher intellect and stronger Will-power to say ‘No!’ for whatever and whenever required.
During the silent hours of Brahm Gyan’ meditation, one attains a perfect state of absorption & thoughtlessness similar to that of deep sleep. At this point, the activity of Pineal Gland gets stimulated manifold. The gland then secrets various feel-good hormones like melatonin serotonin, cortisol, etc. These hormones, in turn, energize & vitalize us thoroughly to bestow healthy body, peaceful mind & awakened soul. Thus,
Brahm Gyan’ meditation =
(Self-discipline + Right perception + Wisdom + Courage + Discrimination) Youth.
Here is a beautiful quote from our books of wisdom – the Vedas for all our young brothers & sisters:
Yuvaaku Shachinaam.
Yuvaaku Sumatinaam.
Jo apni indriyon va mann ka sangathan kare,
wahi yuva hai!
