Rajan Shankara: Everything Is Your Fault
(Global Heart | Rajan Shankara) Everything Is Your Fault – Changing your life with responsibility, leadership, and meditation.
Everything Is Your Fault
Well, not everything can possibly be your fault. The starving, jobless, ill, and the insane people of the world are not your fault. Cardi B is not your fault and neither is the latest reality TV show….but everything else is. Everything that goes on inside your mind and your reactions to life itself is made up of your decisions. The world outside you is not in your control, but the internal response to that world is and to consciously choose is your greatest power in life. In between stimulus and response is a moment in which we can either act with wisdom or emotion. It is our response to a stimulus that shows what we’re made of. It shows our character, our personality, and most importantly it shows what we do when given the opportunity to act. Choose wisely.
Here’s a philosophical bit of information: There’s nothing inherently good, bad, right, or wrong about what goes on around us—things are just the way they are and nothing in life has or will ever inform you, “I am this or that.” The fallen pot of boiling water, the broken glass all over the floor, your car running out of gas, and even your cheating spouse will never declare and decide how it should make you feel. Yet, throughout our entire life there is one decider who remains, who is always present and accounted for, and who is always available to judge the situation. That judge is you. We apply our own qualifiers to every situation. That means we add qualities and structure-building concepts around whatever happens to us. Something is going to make you feel this or that emotion, and it never ends because that is how our mind attempts to stay sane. The mind only understands concrete structure in order to categorize and catalogue life events. It’s when the abstract, the unknown, and the unexplored anomaly of life happens that we get lost, confused, depressed, anxiety-ridden, and hopeless.
Having control over our own judgments in life is a power and skill that we are born with but never nurture enough to utilize its full capacity. We get true sanity when we start taking responsibility for situations, people, and things that involve us. With responsibility, we can take ownership, with ownership we can fix and repair a broken situation or prevent anything from breaking in the first place. Try, for once in your life, to take the burden of living on yourself and explore the possibility of relieving others of their pain as we relieve our own.
The ability to relieve pain is the greatest skill anyone can have. Not only must we solve our own problems but once accomplished, we can then become responsible for the pain that others endure on a daily basis. This is the nature of relationships–work or personal–and it is extremely valuable in an ever-expanding global society. To share, support, give back, and withhold our own need for gratification eventually makes us the effective and powerful person we were born to be.
My Life and Mind in Words
My work is an expression of my life and I still don’t understand how it all happens to work day to day. Looking back I’m amazed to be alive, healthy, free, and simple. I wasn’t always headed down a good path. In fact, most of my youth was spent hurting others, making money from selling drugs, and having the mentality of a no-good loser thug that wanted to make others afraid at the very sight of me. I was a misguided youth that appeared untrainable. A lost soul with little hope.
Of course, my life started out normal like most do but over time my outlook changed drastically, taking me from normal youth to criminally active. Thank God I was given a second chance. With that second chance, I went from being a teenager owning his own business to a robed monk living a life of selfless service in the jungles of Hawaii. Now, somehow, I’m a civilian again and trying to help others. It’s my hope that I can be a good example of what a man ought to be and to teach others about their own innate peace, their own ability to take responsibility for their thoughts and actions, and to live the glorious life they were meant to have—so long as they realize that everything is their fault.
My mission revolves around helping others in their search for becoming effective and powerful people. A person undaunted by anomaly, unchanged by circumstances, constantly aware and in charge of any given situation. Becoming the best version of yourself, mastering the mind and understanding relationships, revolve around consistency and unwavering resolve to move forward no matter what. We live as coddled humans in a world of constant technological change, and it’s natural to seek pleasure and comfort. However, I’ve found that most things that change our lives for the better are hard, unpleasant, and uncomfortable. For ultimate transformation we need friction. Friction creates heat and enough heat can melt steel. And so it is with our character, our personality, and our mindset. Once we understand that changing our nature requires the heat of experience in order to alter our state we can then begin to treat what goes on in our life with respect as if something sacred is happening as if every pain and suffering is our greatest teacher.
***
In his first published work for the public, former monk, Rajan Shankara, offers the reader a dynamic how-to for becoming a powerful adult. Everything Is Your Fault combines Rajan’s personal journey from drug-selling thug to Hindu Yogi with thought-provoking aphorisms and teachings that show the reader their own opportunity for spiritual growth.
Rajan Shankara left the world at 19 years old to become a monk and study his mind, find out what meaning and purpose was, and if meditation could take him to higher states of consciousness. Having lived as a monk for 12 years, he is now back in society as a world-yogi to teach others how to control their mind, body, and emotions.
Rajan was trained for 7 years in monastery landscaping, construction, electrics, carpentry, office work, and vehicle maintenance. During this period of his life, 2007-2014, Rajan went through exhausting measures of self-development, and the deep study and practice of Raja Yoga.
He spent another 5 years in the monastery office learning clerical skills, travel management and coordination, team leadership, editing, writing, and publishing – and being a part of the Hinduism Today international magazine team of senior monks and managing 16 pages.
From 2014-2018, Rajan began advanced yogi training and studied under the most senior monks in the monastery. He became a mentor to several hundred people around the world, and helped restore balance in their lives. This was a period of intense inner training in order to master meditation, and intense outer training to master fitness and diet, and the mind by studying history, psychology, military leadership, theology, philosophy, and the priestly arts of Hindu Agamic ritual.
After 12 enlightening years, Rajan Shankara left the monastery with his guru’s blessings. Rajan’s wish was to teach others what he has learned about the mind, meditation, ego, and soul. He is currently a meditation guide, award-winning writer, author of four books, self-development mentor, fitness and health expert, and business owner in California. Connect with Rajan via his website, www.rajanshankara.com, on Facebook, and Twitter @Rajan_Shankara.
Source: Global Heart
You may also like:
