College Life

I still remember the last day of my college,and I was wondering that why every one is so upset and is crying.I recall same was the scenario when I was about to leave School.I always wondered why people get so emotional & Cry while leaving their schools and college.In this world of telecommunications & internet access I thought that it would be very easy to contact people who are at great geographical distances.

But today when years have passed,I see there are just a few of them I am in contact with.Not because I am not connected,but B’coz I have given other things more priority. And now I can say I miss my college and school life a lot.I miss those carefree days when everything around was so truthful,so calm and every thing seem to be so easy.To acheive something was equivalent to dream about something.

Care of elders,warmth of friends and the way I looked at world,I really miss all those moments.I get reminded of all those forgotten faces of my childhood.Just a faded glimpse of their identity remains in my mind.

But all those thoughts bring a smile to my face.Those Blurred images gives me joy,when thought about.

I didn’t realized their worth then,but I am happy that i didn’t.Coz they are now precious to me.

Love between Child and Mother

“A mother is someone who dreams great dreams for you, but then she lets you chase the dreams you have for yourself and loves you just the same.” A mother’s love and nurturing even directly impacts the biological development of the child’s brain and central nervous system. In effect, mother and child are “hard-wired” for mutual love. The brain is like a template designed to await molding by its early environment. One researcher even wrote that hugs and kisses during the early critical periods assist in making neurons grow and connect properly with other neurons.

Throughout childhood, warm human love and touch There is also heart-to-heart, quite literally, between mother and child. Heart muscle cells not only contract, but also communicate with one another. Isolating one cell from the heart in a petri dish causes it to lose its rhythm and begin to fibrillate until it dies. Putting two cells in proximity to one another causes them to synchronize and beat in unison. There is an unseen and as yet unmeasured communication between living cells. The beating of the mother’s heart and her breathing pattern coordinate in a critical way with the infant’s internal rhythms. This is part of what is known as a synchronizing hormonal flow that occurs between mother and child (directly from breast milk and also from loving contact and even from proximity and thought) that help to regulate vital rhythms in the child. Mothers instinctively place their babies to their left breast, keeping their two hearts close. The mother’s developed heart actually stimulates the newborn heart activating a dialogue between the two hearts and minds. Mother and child are more appropriately considered as one, rather than two separate entities as they bond while the child is being held and nursed.generate an internal release of addicting and pleasurable opiates. Even teenagers (who may act as if they don’t need the parents at all) must receive ongoing neural synchrony – love – from the parents. The brain and heart appear literally designed for love, with happiness and even health depending on it.

The pituitary hormone, oxytocin, is present during all loving acts but most especially at birth where it serves to stimulate uterine contractions, and during nursing for the milk ejection reflex. It, along with the nursing hormone, prolactin, help create that intense feeling of love shared by mother and child. Endorphins are physiological chemicals that are also released in both the mother and child during loving contact. They create a feel-good high for both and thus play a critical role in encouraging affection and dependency.

When bonding fails, it is theorized that the absence of these pleasure chemicals can leave a void, making such children especially susceptible to drugs that can also release such pleasure chemicals. The stress hormone cortisol is also released when touch and love are lacking. Sensory deprivation in mother-absent children – a form of stress that stimulates the release of cortisol – can increase susceptibility to abnormalities such as depression, violence, substance abuse, and even impaired immune response.

What God wants ???

Yesterday, I came across a dream… I and God were walking together on a long path… Discussed different matters… There were many things which we had discussed, but I did not remember all of these… I want to share those which I remember now…

I had many questions regarding my life, many problems to tell. I gave him many reasons that I deserve more than I had… I asked why he was doing everything to me… Why he chose me to deal with all difficulties… Why I always found myself in some problem… He was walking like tranquil waves in a sea when I was grousing him. It seemed like he was not even pondering over it. I was getting into insurrection. In the end I asked him what he wants.

I thought he was waiting for these words… Suddenly he started laughing with some tears in his eyes. He said he was very grateful to hear this… From the time he has created this world, he had not heard these words from anyone… Everyone just asked me what he wants…

But today I will tell you what I want… I have created this world. I have created these machines like u and all… I have given all the powers to my best and most powerful machine Human, to decide the actions and run the world. You have the most powerful brain which you have not used fully till date. What I got from you? You have always betrayed me. You have always tried to desecrate the laws of nature. You have destroyed many of my machines (Animals & Birds) and eliminate their existence. How can I trust you? How can I give you the freedom and things what you want? Today everyone thinks that he has all problems and he is in most problematic situation. No one thinks about my grief when I put my best machine in problem and try to destroy them…

What else should I tell about you… You are so selfish… I made the world; you made my world… you created my different entities. This god did not fulfill my needs so I will pray other one. You divided me into pieces and expected the things should go better for you… you deserve where you are.

I was mum when he was telling the things. Then he said my son why are you so silent. Do not get tense. This is my world I will have to handle all these problems; I am not complaining about these things. You asked me a very unusual question, I am not habitual of this. I just told you so that you can tell others the same and I don’t have to become harsh on you all.

“From now onwards, may be you have to face problems at different vicissitudes of life, whenever you find yourself in some problem, once think about me that I would be in bigger problem than you, because of which I have to put you in difficult circumstances but not in impossible situation.”

Soft skills define effective management

The era of hard skills is over. Now, in this highly competitive professional world, employers crave for managers with critical soft skills that are key to effective performance across all job categories. Acknowledging the importance of soft skills, some refer them as 'life skills' and researchers even call them the 'hard stuff' of management.

The transferable quality is the key differentiator between hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are domain specific and cannot be transferred, but soft skills are transferable skills which are necessary for every domain. While technical skills are necessary to impress in job interviews and to get a job, soft skills are essential to retain it. Here is our take on some of the most important business skills a person should have in professional life.

1. Interpersonal Skills

A man's success largely depends on his relationships and interactions with others. A modern day manager does not solely rely upon his position or power. It is the manager's personal power base that makes his work easy and efficient. This skill makes him to get along with others very well. It demands respect for the views and sentiments of others. This is one of the key human relations skills necessary for success at all organizational levels.

2. Communication Skills

Many feel that communication forms the corner stone of soft skills. Proper verbal and written communication is an unavoidable aspect for management. Management being the process of getting things done through others, effective communication is essential. The technological advancements should be aptly used to reach out to people to disseminate information faster. The traditional chain of command is not strictly followed in today's organizational communication process as people skip levels in the chain of command to directly get to people they need. The biggest challenge here is to keep the personal touch while using the modern techniques of communication even when the nonverbal component is missing.

3. Team Work

A team includes people of different age groups, gender, qualification, status, skills and only a coordinated effort of all can bring in success. In another scenario, those with whom you cooperate are also those with whom you compete. Agreeableness and co-operation are the key factors here. The aspect of diversity should be seen beyond demographical characteristics because in an organization you will have to coordinate with engineers, human resource managers, marketers, and will have to deal with every other functional area.

4. Professional Ethics

India has been listening to series of stories where professional ethics have been drastically deteriorated. The modern day work culture demands high level of ethical behaviors. Employers do not wish to hire unethical people and teach them ethics. They prefer people who already possess those great qualities of ethical behaviors. As each employ is a part of the organization, the employer expects them to contribute their share to the successful functioning of the organization. It is high time that we promote employees who do the right things.

5. Time and Stress Management

To maintain your work schedule and pace of functionality, you should have a proper time management system. Prioritizing the work and scheduling your time accordingly will help you achieve this. Important works should be taken first and allotted more time. Calmness of mind brings an excellent working condition. The physical, mental and emotional stress associated with your job should be reduced by finding proper methods of relaxation to your body and mind.

Soft skills such as self-awareness, analytical thinking, willingness to change, agility, flexibility, creativity, diplomacy, and problem-solving skills are essential for professional success. Soft skills are obviously not a replacement for hard or technical skills, but they are as essential as hard skills for organizational and personal success. 

5 Ways that make your job search smarter

If you're having trouble finding a job, maybe it's time to refresh and restart your search strategy. Job hunting can be very stressful if you don't strike into the right resources and networks. Achieving your career goals requires an organized strategy and disciplined approach, and if you don't follow it, you can lose your time in finding the job that's right for you. Simply sitting around and just applying to listings are not going to bring you your desired job anymore. Then how will you make sure that your job search is smart enough to cut it for you? Below are five ways that will give you the answer. 

1. Try to identify the target companies, not the positions

If you dream of working in a specific industry, don't wait for an opportunity to come on your way. Go ahead and identify a list of 5-10 target companies from the industry you are interested. After that approach them for an informational interview so that you can get to know about the employees at the company. If you can impress them, chances are there that they might recommend your name to an opening. Don't always hanker after the positions. Once you get in to your desired industry, you'll surely come across growth opportunities. 

2. Build your network and reach out to them

Believe it or not, research shows that more than 60 percent of all jobs are found through networking. Networking is just about starting conversations with people you meet probably in the library, the gym or anywhere you go. It's an opportunity to talk with other professionals in a comfortable setting and thereby, drive your job search forward. Everyone you know or meet in any situation can be an opportunity to grow your network. If you have networks, reach out to them with a simple e-mail or a phone call. 

3. Become active online

If you are looking for a job but still not stepping out of your comfort zone, it's better for you to be more active as there is no room for being passive in job search today. Social media platforms are the most useful tools to brand yourself as an expert professional. So create account in social media sites like LinkedIn if you don't have any and become active. You can also create a professional portfolio website in order to showcase your experience and accomplishments to potential employers. 

4. Market yourself and sell your unique value point

Employers generally look for employees who have something unique in them. Find out what is the special trait that makes you unique from the rest of the crowd. While marketing yourself, always make your "unique value proposition" an integral part of your self-marketing plan. Whether you in a face-to-face interview or you are making your CV, always try to communicate your value and highlight how your skills can solve prospective employers' problems. 

5. Strap up your creativity

Few years back smart job applicants used coloured papers to print their resumes in order to attract the employer's attention. But time has changed now. What employers look for today are those potential employees who know how to present things in a much more creative and attractive manner. You must go with the changing time and try new ways of presenting yourself. You can produce project portfolios or video resumes and showcase your candidacy in a much more creative and stronger way than others.

An Interview of Ravishankar ji Maharaj

Q: What is it that I should do in the future?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Whatever you did in the past which was not to be done, don’t do it in future as well.

Do something that brings a smile on your face and that of others.

Q: What is my existence?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: The same question you would have to ask yourself again and again. Until you don’t get the answer, don’t leave the question. We will keep pushing you to get the answer. It’s a very precious question!

Q: When I do something good, even then my parents sometimes don’t let me do that. How to go ahead in such a situation?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Take this as an opportunity to bring out that skillfulness in you. It is like if cloth has been tangled in a bush, you need certain skill to gradually remove it from there. You don’t run, but patiently deal with them with your skill. Have such a skillful conversation that they get agree to whatever right you say.

Q: What is spirituality?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Being able to feel a connection with everybody is spirituality. The skill to feel connected with everybody and to know the Truth is spirituality.

Like this flower is matter. But from a scientific perspective, this flower is made up of molecules, the molecules are further made up of atoms, atoms of sub atomic particles and those further are made up of only wave function. In quantum physics, they say this is only the wave function. Similarly, to understand the Source and Base of the whole world is spirituality. Intuitively knowing the DNA of the flower is spirituality.

Q: Is education all about passing examination and getting good marks. Is it not about something more?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: What do you think?

(The person replies) I think it is because of our parents’ attitude that we think so.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, but you should also study. Any way, you have to flow with the system. Though, examination is not the only thing. If you fail also, then never mind. That doesn’t mean you should take some stupid steps. That is no good. At the same time, you should attend to your exams. Education is very important.

Q: When can I be like the Divine?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You are already now.

Q: What is the most important thing in a student’s life?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: A career is important, and along with that the development of the overall personality is very important. Both go hand in hand. Some are only into career, and some are only into personality development and no career. Lacking in any one, you won’t feel that satisfaction. So, take both along

Qualification as well as personality development. And qualification not only for certification but for gaining knowledge, and then that lightness of heart and smile that comes from the depth of your heart should be there, and a multi talented personality. Most of all, you have to come across as a nice person.

Nice doesn’t mean being goody goody, but being strong. Of course, your soft words have effect, but be strong at the same time. That is what happens in the DSN (program). It makes you so strong and unshakable from within.

Q: What should be one’s main motive in a student’s life?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: The main motive is in life. But students are time bound. Main motive in life should be to see a better nation, a better world. When you have love for your nation, achievement also happens.

Q: I feel sad and sometimes outraged looking at the corruption around. When will we have a Divine society to live in? What should be done?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: When people like you will collectively move ahead, then definitely it will happen. But if corruption goes on increasing like this only, then forget about that, it will not happen in 2060 as well. There is no end to it. That is why, only now is the time. There is corruption in bureaucracy, there is corruption in media, there is corruption in the entertainment industry, and only a wave of spirituality can cure this.

You know some of our children wanted a license for a factory, and they refused to pay any bribe. They said that they follow spirituality, and they are not going to pay any bribe. They confidently agreed to come back ten, 30, 50 times if needed, but they got the license the very next morning. If people of the society will be on the right path, then officers will automatically start following you. If society is corrupt, the officers are also corrupt, then that becomes an accepted norm. When you make your mind strong, when you take this conviction to be not corrupt, people also change.

Q: How to have focus while studying?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Do at least something. Sometimes a little pain is also good. Like if you cannot walk, but when you participate in a marathon, you put in your 100 percent. Isn’t it? Like if you are thrown in an ocean, until you don’t find the shore, you continue swimming. Would you leave in between even if you are tired? So, even if you don’t feel like doing, it is boring, take it as a challenge, “I will somehow finish this subject”. Even if you don’t know swimming, you get to learn that in water.

Q: (A boy discussed some personal problem) I find it difficult to have that sense of belongingness with everybody. What do I do?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Having a sense of belongingness doesn’t mean to flow emotionally. Use your intelligence. Do only that what you can do. What you cannot do, nobody will expect that from you also.

Q: How to change the system? Sometimes I feel very outraged and I don’t get to understand how to stand up against that. Please guide.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, you are right. That is why we all have to work together. We can achieve a lot when we do something together. When you know, there are so many people with you, you get that confidence. Come up with your ideas. Float your ideas. Those who have interest in spirituality, those who have human values should run the country. When some mean people get into power,then it creates problem for the whole nation. We will have to choose the right people. There should be an independent agency. The agency where they can check any corruption, an agency that is independent of the government so that it can also check corruption at the government level as well. The path is long, and you will all have to work for it. The path is long, lots to do, and I am confident that you people can do it. Then nobody will be able to practice corruption.

Q: I was once told that Yogis do not meet with the God, have you ever met with God?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: First tell me, who is God according to you? Somebody sitting up in the heaven! No! God is that from which nothing can escape. When the mind is totally relaxed, it merges in the Divine, it relaxes in the Divine. The whole point is to relax the mind in that soothing consciousness. When the wave is on the surface, it is a wave. But when it identifies itself with the depth of the ocean, it becomes the ocean.

God is love and it is inside each one of us.

Q: How does one experience that blissful divinity with in?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Meditation, Seva/Service and Satsang.

Q: Is it ok to ask God helping us in exams, to get us through the examination? Does it happen?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Whatever you need to wish, you can do that, and it gets fulfilled. God is a very lively and loving consciousness. That is why, desires get fulfilled.

Q: Do the ones who have died, feel something? Is there anything after death?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, it happens for some time. At least the effect of worldly memories remain up to one year, and then it fades away slowly in next two – three years.

Q: Does everybody need a Guru?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Do you need an answer? If yes, then yes. If some people do not feel the need, then also it is alright. When you ask a question, and somebody gives an answer, the one who gives you the answer anyway plays the role of the Guru. You need medicine, and you go to a doctor. The one, who gives you medicine, becomes a doctor. Similarly who gives the answer, you accept him as your Guru.

Q: Why do I feel de-motivated sometimes?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Because you are into so much of television and newspaper reading. So, you need such company which motivates you. In wrong company, one feels de-motivated. You should take it as a challenge – I won’t be de-motivated come what may.

Q: What is the difference between spirit and the Universal consciousness or God?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Like an atom is inside the molecule, one that is subtle than the spirit is God. The connection is even more subtle than that between a molecule and atom. According to ancient science, if you bisect one hair vertically into 100 parts, and you take one out of those, you further bisect in 100 parts and then take one out of those. And even repeating the same process, what you get is a molecule. Even much, much smaller than that is an atom. Even subtler than that is ego and that which is more subtle than that also is the mahatattva/grand element. The one whose ego has been totally dissolved, he is called Mahatama.

A Speech by Ravishankar ji

The youth of India have inherited this great country. I want the youth to take responsibility for the society. We want a corruption-free society. The second goal is that we need an intoxication-free society, otherwise we can never progress. Youth are the only hope. It’s very necessary that you (the youth) take this step right away!

Focus on studies, work and knowledge, and leave the rest to the Divine. I am so happy to see such an enthusiastic youth group coming from this part of the world. You should know, we have The Art of Living throughout the world today. You go to the South Pole, tip of Argentina, and you will find The Art of Living. You go towards the North Pole, you will find The Art of Living there. You have a family which is spread across the whole globe, and each one of you is a very important member of the family. We have such a big family, and we have a responsibility too, to work for a happy and celebrative society, a society which is free from violence, and a society which is spiritually uplifted. I want each one of you to multiply 100 times, reach out to schools and colleges and make life a celebration.

And be assured that your needs will be taken care of. You do for the Society what Society needs, and leave the rest on me. You will see, your needs will naturally start getting fulfilled. Whatever you wish, will happen.