Manifestation and more

Manifestation, Visualization, Affirmations - these words have been doing the rounds in my conversations with many friends and family. For some reason, this topic has been more acute the last few months.

I have read The Secret, the Alchemist, Louis Hay's books, Monk Who Sold the Ferrari, The Courage to be disliked - among many others which talk of the effect of our inner most thoughts on our Talk and then our actions and hence our life/life choices. And its quality.

Closer home, the effect of our innermost throughts is mentioned by almost all Gurus though they tend to phrase it more as to how to tame the monkey mind, reduce our thoughts (99 percent of our thoughts are repetitive in nature) as the starting point of all change. And how Meditation, Yoga Kriyas and Pranayamas can help with over-thinking and calm a person down, develop focus and discpline among other things.

There are true believers as are sceptics. While I believe having goals, lesser thoughts, being in the present helps; I often wonder - can Visualization really work, is this all that is needed? I have read examples of elite Olympic athletes doing this and I have tried a few techniques like projecting my future as a movie (NLP) but never could really do it fully focused. My mind does tend to wander. So I fall in between - both a sceptic and a believer. And I am also what I term a Karma Yogi, someone who relentlessly needs to do things (not necessarily a good thing). I believe Love is doing things for others, small or big. So, yes, I can't sit quiet for long.

And if Manifestation was the only tool needed, we wouldn't need places of learning(schools) or worship, is what I think. All we would need is the technique to maifest. Not to mention how Olympic athletes first practice like crazy and then do these mental exercises.

Anyways, as I was ruminating over this, I remembered a story I had heard in a discourse many decades ago. A devotee goes to the temple every day and prays  - God, let me win a lottery ticket. This goes on for sometime and one day in a fit of anger, the devotee shouts at the idol/God, why aren't you listening to me, why am I not winning a lottery, how long must I suffer? The devotee then hears a voice - atleast buy the lottery ticket. The devotee is stunned at frst, then ashamed as he realizes how unfair he has been. He wipes his tears, begs for forgiveness and decides to work hard instead. He grabs oppurtunites however small there are that come his way and slowly experiences incremental improvements. And in a few years time, he becomes wealthy and successful. His faith in God remained stead-fast helping him navigate his life with values.

Amma often says Manthrathinale Manga kakyadu - only prayers will not bring mangoes, you need to sow the mango seed, water it - take care of it, so it flowers and bears fruits - implying do your prayers and the hard work as well.

There is also the concept of Purva Karma that I believe in - results of previous actions either in this birth or previous births that I am not aware of.  I have often wondered how this fits in with the theory of manifestation.

Anyways, I got some answers on one of the podcasts today that made sense to me.

Purva Karma gives us the options/opportunities - not everyone gets the same options.

What we choose of these options - is our freewill 

And the quality of these choices defines our future. eg. IIT vs a small town college leading to different job avenues after college, IIT needs more hard work definitely which is dependant on free will.

Meditation/Spirituality lets us become more aware of our choices and hence improves their quality, so we deal with the situations in a better way. 

Manifestation gives a good general goal to work towards, no doubt but without hard work, patience and perseverance, it is not achievable. Meditation gives the wisdom to recognise opportunities that comes one's way, look for incremental steps to success (instead of overnight success) and the perseverance & patience to reach the goal and also to sustain it.  And Purva Karma decides the results - success or failure.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar sums it up articulately when He says - How tall you are is not decided by you, but how much you weigh depends on you & your effort. So we have both - destiny and the willingness to work or put in the efforts. 

The results though are not in our hands - sometimes they are better than we expect, sometimess lesser, sometimes equal and sometimes none at all.