I have organized my articles into the following three main areas:
Practical Spirituality: Remaining spiritual during the course of any given day. This is a huge challenge since we lose our spiritual orientation while going through the daily grind. To be able to retain the essence of our spiritual selves despite the ups and downs on a normal day would be a huge achievement.
Happiness and Spirituality: The primary Indian spiritual text, Bhagwad Gita says that happiness cannot be attained without peace of mind. And, peace of mind is not sustained without spiritual skills to maintain it. People are instinctively spiritual and sometimes acquire spiritual traits without any outside help. Nonetheless, it helps to grasp the connection between spirituality and the resulting happiness. This page lists articles that touch upon this topic.
Science & Spirituality: Thoughts on the intersection of science and spirituality. Spiritual texts have covered grounds that science has not yet tread. The examples that I repeat here to make this point are yoga and meditation. There is a clear potential for spiritual knowledge to compliment science and encourage it to explore areas that it has not yet conceived.
Provocative thoughts: These are thoughts that aim to provoke and push a person into thinking about being spiritual.
Ancient Indian Epics: Ancient Indian texts contain deep wisdom because they deal with timeless subjects such as spirituality and human mind. Through deep meditation and other techniques, masters of those time were able to come up with gifts to humanity, like yoga and meditation. They were able to study human mind in a way modern science still struggles to. By going back to their writings, we have an opportunity to learn directly from them.
Actions: Spiritual progress is not possible without action. These actions are spiritually more productive when they are deliberate and focused on spiritual advance. Such deliberate action best combines self-awareness, a mind trained in meditation, and a sense of purpose. The articles here are related to these themes.
Meditation: Meditation is required if anyone wants to change the “normal” state of the mind to make it peaceful. Without mediation, the mind is not grounded in peace within. Instead, it becomes jumpy and grows fatigued. A favourite analogy of mine is to treat the events outside us as waves. A jumpy mind is like a paper boat being thrown around by the waves of daily events. A mind that is at peace is like a rock against which the same waves crash and retreat. The mind is thus a frenemy. Control it with meditation and it is the best of friends. An uncontrolled mind is the worst enemy a person could have.
Research shows that meditation can help rewire the mind in ways that are helpful. Changing the underlying wiring that drives our thinking is not easy. People can continue to act in ways that harm themselves despite understanding the risks involved. This is where meditation can be of help. By brining peace and pause to the mind, meditation gives us space to lead more fulfilling and happy lives.
Knowledge: Knowledge is one of the three paths of spiritual advance (the other two being action and worship). Spiritual knowledge can get quite deep and is often not intuitive. Yet, when most people come across it, they are instinctively drawn to it. The underlying truth within this knowledge strongly attracts us. Even when knowledge is not the primary path a person takes to advance spiritually, it can complement and reinforce the progress made through other means.
Yoga: This is so much more than physical exercises. Not many people know that it aims to make our minds completely at peace within.
Yogic Breathing or Pranayam: Disciplined control over one’s breathing is an indispensable part of yoga. It is also a hidden weapon we have that can help bring the mind to heel and help people transcend daily problems to live a life of peace and happiness. For example, a person loses control over his breath a split second before getting angry. The reverse is also true: retaining strong control over one’s breath (using yoga’s principles) is the secret to moving from a life of emotional roller-coaster to peace and happiness.