Where does the average seeker find stability in spiritual growth? Is there a 'how to' manual of integration into daily life? Many a spiritual seeker is becoming aware that he is more than his physical body.

There is a deep craving to understand what is their calling. The revival of ancient wisdom is growing and that growth is having an effect on the way we perceive spirituality.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Contentment is within reach for a person who is compassionate and loving. The greedy, however, remain unsatisfied as they are constantly looking for bigger and better ways to fulfil their desires. At which point will they be satisfied - when they get a bigger house, a better car, higher designation?

To overcome this vicious circle, we need to replace lower thoughts with noble ones. A greedy person pays no attention to the quality of his words and deeds. Always fixing his gaze on the future, trying to figure out how to do this or that, he will spend his whole life planning, calculating, and dreaming. Unable to be in the present and enjoy what is right in front of him, he cannot relish even his food, because while he is eating lunch he is planning his supper.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

A regular at religious discourses, I've often found followers of one guru or faith criticising other gurus, teachers and devotees, because they think that their own philosophy is far superior. They tend to assess the learnedness or otherwise of a teacher according to the number of disciples and ashrams.

If those who profess to be spiritual seekers behave in this manner, what can we expect from lesser mortals? Why is it so difficult for us to respect the right of others to follow any teaching or teacher of their choice? No one who claims loyalty to any faith that advocates compassion, tolerance and understanding can afford to ignore these tenets.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

No religion in this world preaches violence; yet down the ages horrible killings have taken place in the name of religion. Why? There is no simple answer to this question. Perception definitely has a role in this.

The fault somehow always seems to lie with the other religion. Could it be that we perceive other ideologies with bias or ignorance? Perhaps this explanation would have made sense in the dark ages when distance made communication very difficult. Today, it's different - there is free flow of information. There is a great deal of intermingling and intercourse between individuals and communities across the world. Outwardly there appears to be no reason for any acrimony to exist on the basis of one's faith, yet not only does irascibility exist, it is getting to be more pronounced.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

The hill-stream gurgled along impatiently. The old Kondh tribal sat by the stream, both feet dipped into its cold waters. The blue smoke from the homemade pipe he was smoking merged with the blue haze slowly descending from the Niyamgiri hill. Soon he was playing a wistful tune on a slender flute. The music drew me to him and we started talking.

He told me how he lost his wife a year ago. "The tiger dragged her away while she was in the forest. I was so unhappy I wanted to die and leave Dharani Ma (Earth Mother). Then deep inside I knew I can't, unless forced, leave this enchanting world even for a day.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Detachment is not renunciation. It is a re-orientation of attitudes and lifestyles. It is a creative endeavour that involves a shift in consciousness. Free-flowing consciousness helps us reach a state of creative calm.

According to Sri Aurobindo , when one withdraws from the turmoil of outer life, the evolving consciousness becomes centred and observant like a detached witness or sakshi . The witness state, sakshi bhav , is a continual disassociation from worldly desires and sense-identification. It is a state of neutrality that goes beyond body and mind to communicate with the spirit.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Most people see money as the starting point of exchange, a means to acquiring goods and services. To be able to access more and more of goods and services, we strive to acquire more and more money, working extra hours.

What we often tend to forget is that money comes at a real price. Money is not the first point of exchange in this world: it is an intermediate point. You earn money for a good life, and, ironically, even as you are struggling to earn money, you are exchanging your good life for it.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

He was a small, thin boy with a mole on his face. But what he told our seventh standard class many years ago still bothers me. The moral science teacher had given us homework. We had been asked to pen an essay on ‘happiness'. We all thought it was easy. But when we started writing it, we realised our limitations.

Some of us wrote about the happy moments surrounding birthdays; some spoke of the emotional highs on getting a first in class; others remembered kites and whoops of joy. But the small, thin boy saw nothing in the events that excited us. Nothing at all. He was uninterested.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Success can be external or internal. Externally, it is the measure of a job well done and the accompanying recognition from society. Internally, it is a feeling of achievement, satisfaction and fullness which comes on the completion of a task or the fulfilment of a desire. What is a true measure of success, the outer accolades or the inner joy and peace?

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

"The park bench was deserted

as I sat down to read,

Beneath the long, straggly branches

of an old willow tree."

"Disillusioned by life with good reason to frown,

For the world was intent

on dragging me down."

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Worry causes fear, anxiety, tension and stress. These emotions deplete energy and weaken the immune system. Worriers become sick and this is manifested in poor health, because of all the problems that are eating into their vitals.

And worry is certainly not the same as constructive thinking; if it were, we would have found solutions to most of our problems.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

The funny thing about life is that there usually isn't much to laugh about!

"I'm not very happy most of the time," quipped Woody Allen. "The rest of the time I'm not happy at all."

On television, the joke is on someone else, so we laugh. Someone else's slip-up, struggles, loss of face, sleepless nights. In real life, however, the joke is usually on us. Maybe comedies bring us relief from our own frustrations and failures by drawing our attention to the fictional disasters of others. Or is it that we get to view a reflection of ourselves in those characters on the screen and so present a disguised opportunity to see the humorous angle of what happens to all of us; a form of catharsis; a chance to unwind and ease the tension of our troubled minds?

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Why do sad people attract sad incidences in life? Why do happy people attract happy situations in life?

Depending on what state of being we are, we attract situations. We have to focus on heightening our state of being rather than changing situations in life. If our state of being is low, then the external situation, even though sacred, will be pulled down to our level of being. For example, a poor man in a palace will make the palace into a gutter.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Why are friends so special? Byron, while dedicating the fourth canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage to his friend, John Hobhouse, wrote: "To one whom I have known long, and accompanied far, whom I have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusted in peril - to a friend often tried and never found wanting."

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

The danger of getting drawn into competition is that one will stoop low somewhere along the line to get the better of a rival, be it in business or when seeking a promotion.

When pitted against petty people , you begin to think that you have to act at their level. You eventually adopt the world's ways and get cast in its mould. Your determination to live up to your principles does not ensure that you will do so. People take to shortcuts believing that the path of goodness is strewn with pitfalls.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Dear Children,

I like being with children and talking to them and, even more, playing with them. For the moment I forget that I am terribly old and it is very long ago since I was a child.

But when I sit down to write, I cannot forget my age and the distance that separates you from me. Old people have a habit of delivering sermons and good advice to the young.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Once a messenger walking past a tree heard a voice say: "Will you accept seven jars full of gold?" The messenger looked around, but could see no one. The offer was too good to refuse, so he cried aloud: "Yes, I shall accept the seven jars." At once the voice replied: "Go home, I have carried the jars to your house."

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

There are some people who do little, but make others do a lot. Brahman, the pure Consciousness, too, is actionless - but in Its presence, everything else works.

Observe an infant. It does little other than kick about, cry and laugh but it spurs everybody into willing action. The mere presence of an infant brings joy. What makes a baby so lovable, a source of joy for all?

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Bhakti is founded in a spirit of universal fellowship and poetry is one more expression of this same fellowship. The verses of Mirabai, Tulsidas, Kabir, Ravidas and Tukaram are quoted frequently by people from all strata of life. Their poetry expresses concern about life: its difficulties, the loneliness, hypocrisy and pain. The bhakti poets seek God's help to sustain them on this difficult journey. So even today, through their poetry, the bhakti saints continue to influence our daily lives.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

A flower, a thing of beauty, brings joy - but not forever. Soon, it withers and dies. Its transience helps us to understand the value we attach to flowers. Their ephemeral qualities, their fragility and vulnerability, make flowers precious. Flowers are transient like life itself.

In all creation, change is eternal. This and their sensory qualities, particularly colour and scent, have made flowers popular as a universally loved symbol of greeting and felicitation. Whether traditionally worn in the hair of women, in the cap of a Himachali farmer or in the buttonhole of a gentleman's tuxedo, flowers are the ultimate in personal adornment, their freshness, unsullied purity and natural perfection enhance the celebratory spirit of the wearer.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Freedom is understood as the absence of physical and mental boundaries or restrictions. Physical freedom is when you enjoy freedom of movement. Mental freedom is when you are free to choose and make your own decisions.

Both of the above freedoms are external. True freedom, however, is internal. In the external freedom, although we seem to make our own choices, in reality, the decision-making apparatus, the mind, has itself been formed through many layers of societal influences in the form of ego.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)