Smile More...

This is a great artical I found this morning and I figured someone else might
enjoy it too.

Article:

The basis of science is trust in mathematics. If you do not trust
mathematics, science cannot move an inch. Similarly, business cannot
move if the industry has no trust in customers and customers in their
creditors. And human value is about trusting the good nature that we
all are endowed with, that we all are born with. I feel that success
is really measured by the smiles a person has on his face. I wont call
someone successful if one is so tense, worried, disappointed, dejected
and miserable. Who would want such a success?

There is a latest scientific discovery that a baby smiles 400 times a
day and adolescent smiles only 17 times a day. But an adult does not smile
at all. What is it that takes away this natural gift of humanity  smile,
friendliness, compassion, broad-mindedness, scientific temper  we need to
ponder on that. If you ask a kid how many friends he has in the class,
he will count on the fingers  3, 4 or 5 in a classroom of 40-50 kids.
The kids are unable to be friendly with all the 40-50 of their class
when they come out of the school how do you expect them to be friendly
with the world. We have somehow failed to nurture the basic human
values.

Half the health is spent in gaining wealth and half of this  
wealth we spend to gain back the health. I do not think that is a good
economics. We do not need to cultivate human values. What really
obstructs human values is stress and tension. If a person is tense,
then his perception, observation and expression suffer. And you have
only two ways to get rid of tension either lessen your workload or
increase the energy level. In todays world, it is not possible to
lessen the workload it will keep on growing day by day. The
alternative is to increase our energy. Here I usually suggest that we
can take a look at different sources of energy. The food is our first
source of energy  proper food and right amount of food, neither too
much, nor too little. Second is proper sleep. Third, that is the most
important source of energy, is breath, which we have ignored or
forgotten about. You know 90 percent of impurities in the system go
out through the breath. With every breath we exhale, we are throwing
out carbon dioxide, toxins are going out of the system and blood is
getting purified. Breath is such an important source of energy but we
have not done much to learn and study about our breath. The breath is
the link between body and mind. For every emotion there is a
corresponding rhythm in the breath. You would have noticed that when
one is depressed, unhappy, anxious or tense, the breath moves and
flows differently. Notice how we breathe when we are tense when we are
angry we breathe differently.

I took up this aspect and we went to different areas around the world,
including prisons. About 100,000  prisoners did this breathing exercise,
for five days, a couple of hours each day. They had tremendous experiences.
Afterwards they said that if they had taken this before, their lives would
have been different perhaps they would not have been there. You know,
in the spur of the moment when the emotions arise, the person acts and
commits a crime and he does not know why he did it. By the time he
comes to his senses he has already committed the crime. This mind,
which oscillates between the past and the future anger about the past
and anxiety about the future continuously, creates so many toxins in
the body. Breath is the key to eliminate these toxins, these
impressions, and harmonise the emotions.

Neither in school nor at
home, have we ever heard or learned any thing about how to manage our
emotions. The ancient Vedas, yogic system, yoga and also, Koreans with
tai chi, have used these techniques. They have formulated breathing
exercises that release your tension and improve your alertness and
awareness. So I feel it is very important that we teach our children
and our people as to how they should handle their negative feelings
and their emotions. If a child is educated a little bit about
Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism  all different spiritual
and religious traditions  he will grow up thinking very favourably,
with a broad mind and a sense of belongingness for everybody. We can
be creative and productive, and at the same time not lose the human,
the humanness that we are all born with. Just material things or
comfort alone do not really make a person comfortable. He may have a
good bed to sleep on, but is unable to sleep due to insomnia or worry.
He needs to get a broad understanding about himself and his
priorities. A clarity in the mind makes things much easier -
understanding his basic emotions like love, his interaction with
people around him, knowing about his own ego or what his own intellect
or mind is saying to him and introspection, will give him a few
minutes of relaxation which is very vital.

So, what is most important is introspection about ones own life and how to
improve the quality of life  this intention itself will open many doors
for a person, to feel better about himself. Develop a sense of caring
for each other and smile more.

~Sri Sri