Yogashiromani Pandit Ravi Shankarji, a well-known spiritual teacher, says that the 'art of living' is to be free from fears and tears. It is a technique to be happy 24 hours of the day by remaining
equanimous.

We keep reacting from morning till night because we have not learnt to accept people and situations as they are. We keep brooding over the past, which does not exist anymore and are anxious of the future, which is not yet born. As a result we let go of the present which is a gift given by the Lord.

There is nothing wrong in drawing lessons from our actions or experiences in the past or in planning, but brooding and anxiety can at best only result in accumulation of a lot of toxins in the body resulting in psychosomatic ailments.

Simple principles such as enlightened consciousness, taking absolute responsibility for one's actions and inactions, accepting people and situations as they are, and not being a foot ball of others' opinion bring a dramatic shift in the way we experience life. Right now 'life' is a misnomer. The Art of Living brings back liveliness into life by making us see the divinity and goodness in others and helps us to become conscious of the way life is to be lived. By heightening the  'awarenes', life becomes very meaningful, interesting and blissful.

The emphasis in The art of Living' is not stress management but stress elimination. One learns to act and not to react. AGY meditators find that more often than not, they are in a meditative state rather than the agitative state. Generally we say that. You have an option - either to Agitate or to Meditate.

The seven effective habits prescribed by Stephen Covey for highly effective executives are:

•  To be pro-active
•  To prioritize things
•  To begin the day with the end in view
•  To adopt a win-win policy
•  To unconditionally understand, love and console others
•  To inculcate synergy or team spirit
•  To meditate

By learning to live moment to moment, the person realizes that love for "what is" is Swarga or Paradise and love for "what is not" is Naraka or Hell.

MEDITATION :

The name of the Meditation is Samadhi, which means 'Equanimous Intellect' - an intellect which will not discriminate. The function of the intellect is always to discriminate. In Samadhi practice,
which is a science of non-doing, there is no concentration, contemplation or counting of beads. It is supremely above caste, creed and religion. The duration is hardly 151020 minutes and the result is wonderful.

When the intellect is given a holiday for 15 minutes, the body and mind derive rest equivalent to four to five hours of sleep and the depth of rest achieved is more than deep sleep. In the process, all psychosomatic diseases such as diabetes, migraine, wheezing, sinusitis, B.R, heart ailments and skin problems are mitigated.

The results are:

•  Clarity in thinking
•  Clarity in feeling
•  Purity in action
•  Improvement in Inter-personal relationship
•  Increase in efficiency and productivity
•  Interesting and meaningful life
•  Good health

The most important pre-requisite for meditation is a mind that is prepared to discover the meaning of 1. The '1' that remains unchanged from childhood to youth to old age and whose nature is pure awareness that is absolute contentment and love, and is free from any sense of limitation. We need patience, perseverance and an attitude devoid of expectation to become a good meditator.