Inner Serenity – Understanding the flow of life.

Life on this planet is hard.  Bringing about mental serenity is not easy.  People take recourse to religion and meditative approaches to overcome the difficulties and find peace.  These things can surely help but cannot go very far. 

The reason why religious practices can help only to a limited extent is that, even though the person is well meaning, his ego takes over at some point to use the religion to its own end and so the causes for mental disturbance continue to operate.  That is how if you criticize a person’s religion, he or she gets very disturbed, even after many years of practice.  If the ego is not involved, there can be no disturbance.  As long as the ego is in charge, there can be no depth to the mental serenity brought about.   Self-deception is inevitable.   Deeper understanding of oneself is needed to usher in a stable peace of mind.

 So, the question is: Can anything help at all towards bringing about inner serenity without overtly or covertly feeding the ego in the process?  This is an interesting challenge for those who understand the limitations of conventional practices of religion and meditation.  They move into an investigative process that can be called Athma Vichara or Soul Search.  Such an approach begins an inward journey of understanding how the mind brings about its own trap – the prison it builds around itself and sustains the ego.  Obviously, understanding the prison is necessary for a movement towards freedom to take place.  As of now, only a small percentage of human beings recognize this matter of inner evolution as a precursor to stable mental serenity.  Even though of being a small minority, they are already aiding the process of planetary transformation towards collective harmony and wholesome life on this planet.  If you feel drawn to this matter, you will also be able, in your own unique way, to bring about mental serenity for you and so augment the planetary transformation in the process.  You may contact me at [email protected] for mutual discussions.  My website will be of interest to you.

About Gopaltc

The Author: T.C. Gopalakrishnan was born in Madras (now Chennai), India, in 1941. He received his doctoral degree in Coastal Engineering from the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA in 1978; served on the research and teaching faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, the North Carolina State University and the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Kuwait. Aside from his professional involvements, he was interested in the philosophic issues of life for the last forty years or so. This led him to the messages of Ramana Maharishi, Lao Tzu, J Krishnamurthy, UG Krishnamurthy, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Eckhart Tolle, Marcus Aurelius and similar Masters. His book entitled “In Quest of the Deeper Self” is the outcome of his reflections on those and his wish to share the outcome with others.

Gopalakrishnan is a member of the International Association for Near Death Studies, Durham, NC, USA. He presented a paper at the 2011 conference of the Association on the theme "The Spiritual Content of Near Death Experiences". Functions as a freelance counselor for mental relaxation.  Lives in Kodaikanal, a hill town in south India, with his family.  Now he and his wife are both retired and currently involved in developing a fruit farm at a village 20 km from their residence. 

Blog: http://nde-thedeeperself.blogspot.com