You have a choice to change your life

But we human beings have a choice in every aspect of life which means you can change your life the way you really want to live but that is possible only under two conditions. Having knowledge about the self & having awareness about the truth.

The knowledge about the self sometimes varies tangentially from self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is just the belief systems that you hold and the awareness about the truth. In fact whatever we believe is nothing but a lie accepted by our justification. If it’s a truth we don’t need to call it as belief. We can simply call it as truth. In the name of belief or faith, it’s nothing but a lie that we have created for our own comfort and accepted as a truth a concept that is created to satisfy our mind. But this truth is not just about god. The real truth about creation is that no other species other than humans has got a choice to enjoy the life they want to live. No other creatures live their life with less than their actual potential. For example, a tree, a crow, a snake, an eagle will never say that they will try to grow little more than what they have achieved. But we human always tend to say that we must have lived a better life or we must have achieved little more than what we possess. We fail to realize that this ‘achieve more’ is not a possibility in nature since nature has already given us the fullest and the best. You can change your life the way you want to live.

Then what is the meaning when I say you can change your life? It is the choice that you have to experience the experience that you are longing in life. For animals this is not possible as they live with nature. For humans it’s not about the good or bad experience, it’s about the experience that you like or the experience that you don’t like. This fact has to accepted and understood clearly if you really want to have a good experience. There is no such thing called preference or likes and dislikes for animals. A crow never prefers a fried chicken to a rotten rat. But you have a choice. We are not working towards a good or bad experience, rather we are longing for an experience that we like or we don’t like. Vedas insist that all that you like doesn’t need to be good for you. To see the real change, it’s not how much knowledge you possess, but how much knowledge you put into action to bring the change that matters. The first knowledge is observing your choices and analysing it with your self-effort whether your choices are towards god or bad, or likes and dislikes. Every single minute you need to do this. Put your observation in the following 4 areas.

Food: Make sure to consume food which is good for you. Never have food in excess even though it’s your favourite. Vedas say you should know the limitations and avoid overindulgence when it comes to food.

Exercise and body posture: Thirty minutes of regular exercise for life time is of huge benefit instead of three hours of exercise for a short period and not exercising for a long time. Anyone who does not exercise will not have the energy to focus on their activities and anyone who is exercising for a long time will end up draining their energy and will be unable to focus on their work. Similarly every movement that is performed by your body is also very important. For example, observe the way you sit, the way you stand, the way you drive and the way you walk etc., to see if it causes any bad effect on you. Sometimes you tend to sit in a way you are used to, like sitting cross-legged which will have a direct negative impact on your L-1 & L-2, sometimes you tend keep your elbows on the table when you work which directly impacts the strength of the shoulder and affects your neck. So rather than focusing on what not to do, just come to a choice and be conscious about any physical action that is performed and see if it’s good for you.

Companionship with people: This is the highest thing that one needs to understand, animals don’t need companions to live. They just need their survival factors like food, shelter & climate. But we humans need companions. See if you are spending time with good companion or a bad companion? Not with a companion you like or dislike. How to find who is a good companion? One who is giving you the confidence to achieve your vision or one who is influencing you to live a life with a vision is a good companion. No matter how many years you know him, one who is not facilitating you to focus on your vision or supporting your vision is undoubtedly a bad companion.

And there is one more secret to have a successful relationship which I want everyone to repeat to themselves till it get registered in their soul, not in the mind till the last moment of their breath. Ask yourself whether you spending time with the people that you love or the people who love you. What is the difference? Ask yourself whom will you contact when you have lost all hope in life? Now this is the simple formula. The people that you love to call when you are happy are the people you love. People that you want to call when you are not happy are the ones who love you. I am not saying you should not spend time with people you love, but what is important is spending time with the people those who love you. This will give you an unbelievable emotional strength which can never be explained, can only be experienced. Be very conscious about the people with whom you talk. Remember that you have a choice to keep yourself away and gently isolate yourself from bad company.

Committing to wrong practice: Many people have commitments but they don’t see any progress in life. Having commitment to a wrong practice is like standing on one leg, or breathing 1000 times for getting enlightened or not taking food for 3 days to get spiritual power etc. Before you practice anything first ask yourself whether you are doing the right thing. Wrong commitments will lead to a great disaster. This is easy to identify and once you identify it, your mind by nature will avoid it.

It is easy to acquire the right knowledge in the present world but still there is no real change in any aspect of human growth like health, prosperity or even peace on spiritual side. Why? Because we actually don’t have any problem in acquiring the right knowledge but the commitment to practice it is lacking. So whatever you practice, follow it, fix a timeframe. If you start an exercise, do it for at least next 3 months. If you keep shifting the goal post it is never going to give any results. How much ever best your strategies or ideas remain, finally it all boils down to one thing, your commitment to follow for a consistent period of time.

If these four things are practiced in real life, no one can stop the changes or progress that you want to see in your life. I want to conclude by saying one simple thing which I always insist my students. Many people read about successful people and try to imitate or practice what they do. But they fail to understand that it is not about practicing the right thing that successful people have done but stop doing the wrong thing which is paving the path to failure is important.

So I want everyone to understand that rather than focusing your time on knowing what to do, the first step towards a great life is taking the first step. And the first step is not doing what to do or how to do but having clarity about what not to do. Find close people who have been a failure in life in spite of their best talent, money, family etc. Understand what they have done in their life and stop doing such things to avoid failure in your life. And you will be shocked to know that 87% of human who are not able to lead a life they want to live are not due to lack of education, experience or money but due to lack of health.

This is where the awareness about the truth or knowledge about the self is very essential to see the changes you want in life. That is the reason why Buddha, Krishna, prophets like Muhammad, Jesus everybody insisted that all the fundamental teachings will go for waste if you fail to understand this one teaching. And that is ‘Life is a one-time gift. To gift yourself a good life, gift yourself a good health.’

Atmayogi Shri Aasaanji

Aham Brahmasmi !