I do like the simplicity of these flavours. I am not a huge fan of using olive oil in Indian cooking and so I stick with using vegetable oil. The chicken stock adds a different twist to the taste of this simple yet nutritious vegetable.

Taken from : Madhur jaffrey’s book Indian Cooking

Serves : 4

Ingredients:
5 tablespoon mustard oil or extra virgin olive oil
2-3 dried, hot red chillies
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1-2 fresh, hot green chillies
900 g (2 lb) kale leaves (see above) cut crosswise into 25 cm (1 inch) wide strips.
300 ml (1 1/4 cups) chicken stock or water
Salt to taste (if salted stock is used, extra salt may not be needed)

Method:
Put the oil in large pot and set over medium-high heat. When hot, put in the red chillies. Stir once or twice. The chillies will darken almost instantly. Put in the garlic. Stir until it turns golden. Put in the green chillies and stir once. Now put in the kale. Stir once or twice. Add the chicken stock or water and bring to boil. Cover, turn heat to low, and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until the kale is tender. Remove the cover, turn the heat up, and boil away all the liquid. There is no need for salt if you are using chicken stock, as a stock cube usually has enough salt for the entire dish, I find.

Your thoughts and emotions, naturally flow into actions.This is why those of us who are going through kundalini, need to be very vigilant of our thoughts and emotions, as they are the harbinger of what your actions are going to be.

Actions are the result of your thoughts. If you are uncertain about what action to take, ask for guidance. Ask for the courage to take right action. Sometimes we feel weak and vulnerable and even though we may know what the right thing to do is, we may shirk from this duty.

Doing what is right, is not easy and it is not for the faint of heart. You will have to bypass your ego, which will find reasons not to do it. You will have to bypass emotions that get heightened to fever pitch. You will have to rise above all of it and choose to do it anyway. This requires god’s help.

Knowing within oneself what the right thing to do, but not yet having the capacity to rise above one’s ego and human conditioning in order to take right action, is a fear that needs conquering. This can often feel uncomfortable, initially.

If you generally lack generosity, then being asked to open your heart enough to help others financially will require courage and faith, that you will be taken care off and the more you give the more you will receive.

If you have relationships in your family life that have gone awry, then you will be asked to forgive and mend those ties. Again this will require you being able to bypass your ego in order to say this needs doing and regardless of the pain, you believe this person has caused, you will need to forgive them. You will be asked to do everything in your power to rectify your feelings towards them, regardless of their feelings towards you.

Kundalini actions are about understanding, that you will be held responsible for yourself. Every action you take, is your responsibility. Blaming others for your behaviour is not a pardonable offence. Actions are what you put out into the world and if you put out anything that will cause another hurt or pain in anyway, you prolong and deepen your own pain and you are held responsible for the pain you cause others.

There is another way to describe this principle, it is ‘what goes around, comes around.

As kundalini rises, one of the most difficult practises you will be asked to develop is discernment. It is the ability to judge well. There might be two extremely similar situations and in one you will have to help and in another you might have to walk away. How does one know when to act and when to withhold action? This is discernment and this only comes from awareness and experience. Once again ask god to help guide your actions and to help you discern, what the right thing to do is, in each situation.

Being alert and being present in each moment of your life, will bring with it the awareness and the guidance and the enlightenment to just, KNOW.

Emotions have the power to overwhelm you and through you, everyone that comes into contact with you. Emotions are so charged with energy that they create very strong currents in the body and you cannot help but let the energy out. Most situations that create this kind of charged energy are negative and mostly the emotions you release are negative.

Negative thoughts create negative emotions, which in turn allow negative actions to take place. This is why the kundalini process is very focused on self introspection. It is your thoughts and emotions that you need to be concerned with, not others. It is ALL, about you healing the negative emotions, within you.

When asked to change unhealthy emotions within yourself, will you? These negative emotions may be anger, hate, dishonesty, irritation, impatience, intolerance and many others. Doing this is not easy and is not a one time deal.

How does one heal the negative emotions within oneself? Well when any situation causes an emotion within you, notice where you feel the emotions. You may feel it in your chest, or in your stomach, you might notice your hands getting sweaty, you might notice your heart racing. Whatever it is and wherever it is, notice it, then ask god to help heal the negative emotions you are experiencing within yourself. There needs to be acknowledgement and then help to heal.

Different situations will occur over and over to test whether you have worked on your emotions and healed them. This a gradual practise, even the same emotions will require healing over and over till they impact you less and less. Until the same situations, and the same behaviour patterns from others, stop affecting you, you are still at the mercy of your emotions and situations.

These tests will occur on days you are well rested, they will happen of days when you are buckling under with exhaustion, they will happen when you are time pressured, they will happen when you least expect it, they will happen with people whose behaviour you have a tendency to dislike.

Emotions are the blueprint of how you are coping with your life situations. When the emotions from a difficult situation, brings you to your knees, know it is time to learn and grow and accept.  Situations are just that, situations. Your reaction to what is, determines whether you see the the situation, as good or bad. No matter how pressurized your emotions become through what you perceive as a negative situation, you are meant to react to it in a neutral way. You need to react to whatever comes with acceptance and NON EMOTION.

The very same situations will occur over and over till you learn to NOT react emotionally to what is occurring. I know it is painful but the saying is practise makes perfect and you will be made to practise, until your emotions can be controlled by you in a non reactive manner.

A good mantra to practise is, ‘I am not my emotions, I am that which observes my emotions.’

There is a great deal of information on the technical aspects of each chakra. Initially you might read as much as possible because you are caught unawares, by your kundalini awakening and it’s experiences. However as you ascend higher and higher on your chakra journey, you will find less and less useful information available to you.

So how does one understand what is required? Well, if you begin your journey with trying to focus on your breath as much as possible and creating quiet spaces in between your thoughts, that which is required to heal mentally, will be apparent to you, through the quiet spaces you have created in your mind.

I believe one of the reasons I was and am able to understand what is required of me at every moment is because I started with quietenning my mind. Quiet mind can also be called the state of ‘thoughtless awareness’.This state allows you to be able to be alert to your thoughts, the moment they are happening and so allows you to heal that which requires healing and also simultaneously have access, through quiet mind, to the guidance provided to you.

When you are asked to change the unhealthy thoughts within yourself, will you? These might be negative repetitive thought patterns. It may be you being constantly critical of yourself and others.They may be thoughts that constantly reinforce issues. For example maybe you always have a habit of saying I never have enough money or the person who owes me money will never pay me back? Or I will never get married or I am always the one who is picked on. Maybe you wish ill or curse someone who has hurt you and you wish them the same pain they have caused you.

These negative thoughts have a constant effect on you, physically, mentally and emotionally. It is all interlinked. All such thoughts are not only unhelpful but what one does not understand is that they have a way of behaving like a boomerang. Throw a boomerang outwards and it always returns back to you! This is how negative thoughts work. What goes out of you returns to you.

So the question we have to ask is, how do we stop and heal these negative thought patterns of behaviour within ourselves? Well once you have established quiet mind, you are now able to be aware of your thoughts,as you have them! Once you get to this stage, you will be able to stay alert and when a negative thought, takes hold, all you have to do is ask god to help heal these negative thoughts, within you. This is a practise that needs to be made into a permanent part of your daily living.

There are three things that have an effect on you and the life you live. Your thoughts, emotions and actions. Negative thoughts, I believe have profound consequences on your health and so on your wellbeing. Your thoughts are magnets and attract what you think to you, so make sure you use them well.

When god is at the center of your life, your life will not be perfect, but you will have the capacity to cope with your life, with a sense of calmness and peace of mind. I would like to talk about kundalini and god and why I believe that this journey really needs to only be undertaken, when you have a developed a deep relationship with god.

Once the kundalini awakens, there will be a lot of challenging situations occurring simultaneously. One of the first is your capacity to face and cope with fear. No matter what  situation you are faced with, knowing god is with you, guiding, protecting and loving you, will feel like a blanket you can wrap yourself within. It is always available to you and is a comfort you will need over and over again on your path.

The entire kundalini path is about learning. Your thoughts, emotions and actions are your guide posts. It is the practise of you self reflecting on yourself and then healing yourself. When negativity engages you, you will need god’s help dispel the negativity. When negative emotions overwhelm you, you will need god’s touch to heal them. When negative actions beckon, you will need god’s firm hand guiding you onto the path of righteousness.

When we are confronted with anything that we find difficult to cope with, we can ask god for his help. Like the strength to bear the things we cannot change, we can ask for his protection, for courage, we can ask for his help to forgive those who have hurt us, we can ask for his help to be in acceptance, for a grateful heart. We can ask and we should ask. Help is only received once the request is made and no sooner.

When you live a life of busyness and have the attitude that says,” I am doing” and “I am working so hard”, your ego is in control of you and your life. God has been sidelined. Why? Because YOU are doing, and you are not leaving space in your life for GOD to do!?

Surrender might appear like weakness. However only those with deep faith and strength in god are able to surrender to his will. When you say God, may your will be done. There is power in that, more than you know.

Faith in god is not blind faith. It is a faith that says you know what is best for me and my life.

No matter what appears in your life, be in acceptance. This applies to whether you are sick, whether you are financially secure, or whether you are facing challenges. God thinks about what is best for you to learn and grow, so no matter what appears in your life, know it needs to be there and god has not left your life but is right beside you. Be in acceptance and allow god to teach you that which you need to learn and help you reach where you need to be.

Devotion to god is about living right by god. When you choose to do the the right thing versus the doing the wrong thing, you live by god’s will. Living right by god is allowing god to live through you. When god resides in your heart, you are well and truly one with god.

Once the kundalini energy is awakened, it knows it’s path. The question is always, are you walking your path? The chakras are there as guideposts for you to work through step by step which slowly leads to the cleansing of you, spiritually. The spiritual life and the physical life you live everyday are inseparable. One cannot ascend unless the two are always understood together. Spiritual laws need to be understood and then practised in your physical life. They have to become one.

The first and most essential tool that you need is quiet mind. You can achieve this as Mr Tolle suggests through focusing on your breathing as much as possible, or through meditation. Either way the point is to establish a state of mind that is able to be quiet. The aim is to always be working to increase the quiet mind you are enjoying. Practising quiet mind consciously for long periods of time, was what lead at least in part to my kundalini awakening.

Once you have this as your basis, you can begin to work on other issues that will come to the surface. Several issues will require your attention. These will move from mental to physical to emotional health, which leads to taking right actions in your life.

Each kundalini journey is partly the same for everyone and partly tailored to you, personally. You will be affected by things I may not be and vice versa, so it will be important for you to work through things that come to the surface for you and you will most certainly find these challenging.

How do you know what you need to work on? That depends on what comes up for you. Do any of these issues come up for you? Fear, irritation, anger, impatience, tiredness, criticism, hatred, vindictiveness, jealousy, money, power, materialism, drugs of different kinds, control issues and on and on. If yes, then those will require a change of behaviour on your part. Quiet mind and god together can and will heal these issues for you.

Quiet mind allows you to be in the present moment and without your awareness in this moment you cannot notice your thoughts, emotions and actions and you cannot work on changing your behavioural patterns to what you are experiencing.

God is always guiding you, however in order to hear his guidance you need to develop quiet mind. This space allows awareness and awareness allows you to see god’s guidance everywhere. You could read something, a friend could say something, you could watch something on tv, you could hear a song. God will use anything and everything to give you your reply. The key is to be aware and present.

Once kundalini has been awakened, you have begun the process of evolving. You could say you are on the kundalini express train, which will make stops and you will see picturesque views, you will go through dark tunnels, and the journey will sometimes exhaust you but the joy comes from knowing one day the destination you have worked towards for years, will arrive!

Noting all the bad publicity constantly in the news, regarding the NHS. I would like to share my experience, with you.

I had an unfortunate and unforeseen accident, whereupon I required the NHS ambulance and emergency hospital services. I want to thank the NHS ambulance and hospital staff in London. They were nothing but kind, compassionate, calm, caring and knowledgeable. They truly care about the work they do and I am greatly indebted to them for all the help they offered me.

It is only when you require their services that you realise how deeply grateful you are to have them there for you. Life is so unpredictable and you sometimes forget how dependent you could be on services and people you don’t otherwise, spend any time thinking about?

I will say there was one part of the experience that wasn’t particularly pleasant, and that has nothing to do with the staff who work there, but is about the waiting times for the ambulance service and to see the staff in the emergency rooms, it was deeply uncomfortable for some patients.

The NHS system is being reshaped and remoulded into something else other than what it was intended to be and we who live in the UK, are aware that we need to support the nhs so that in the years to come it will still be there for those who need it and that it will still be free at the point of use.

We often forget when we listen to the differing news on the NHS that at its core, it is about people. People who have joined a profession to help others, and people who at a certain point in their life, require that help. Over and over that night i encountered people who must have been truly exhausted from the trail of patients and yet they never rushed me and gave me all their attention as if i was the only person they had to see that night!

Money is what is always brought up in relation to the NHS. Healthcare should be about health and should not be about profit. Although I have been noticing that in every area of government, there is now a conscious effort made to see how we can take government agencies and turn them into profit making and cost cutting services rather than about how we can use them for the benefit of its citizens, be it education, health, transport, or any other area of government policy.

Money is required to keep this service going and the people of this country need to decide whether this service is something that is worth holding onto and therefore require that the government budget needs to include monies for this purpose.

Health is a human necessity. The nhs at its core is about helping people who are at their most vulnerable and when ill, we all need help and support. We need to always keep that in mind in any and all discussions about the nhs.

The people who work for this organisation are proud to be part of a service founded to help all regardless of the ability to pay, and we who utilise their services are truly truly grateful.

Have you ever asked yourself why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? This is you seeing yourself as a victim to your life. Everyone has gone through difficult phases in their life, but you defeat yourself if you perceive yourself the victim.

Do you complain? Do you argue and fight every time you don’t get your way? Complaining in one sense shows a lack of gratitude. It also focuses you on negativity rather than on the things that are working in your life. It also indicates a lack of faith because you are forcing things rather than allowing people and circumstances the space to be the way they are until they are ready to be different.

These are all symptoms of seeing yourself as a victim because you are not getting your way. I understand the feelings of helplessness that cause us to behave in this way. However just know it will not change things around for you no matter how many times you engage in this behaviour, in fact it seems to keep things in place longer.

Have you ever forgiven yourself for the mistakes you have made? Do you often feel badgered by the thoughts in your head saying nothing you do is ever perfect enough? Making you feel like you constantly fall short of your own expectations? This is your mind making you feel like the victim to your own life.

You do not always get to choose what life situations come to you, but you are always given complete control over your reactions and your choices. In this we have only ourselves to rely on. So being aware of our reactions to our life circumstances is of vital importance, if we wish to stop seeing ourselves as victims to our lives and start playing an active role.The choices we make will determine future situations we face.

Where do we begin? In each moment there is a choice you exercise, whether that be a choice you like or not or a viable option to you or not, a choice does exist. Let’s say someone has been hurtful and mean to you, you can see yourself as the victim and start gossiping about the person behind their back, or you might be mean and hurtful back to them, or maybe you just replay what happened over and over in your mind. All these are choices from the perspective of you being hurt by someone and therefore being the victim. You take back control when you forgive them, or maybe you see how in the past your actions may have hurt them equally? Forgiving them and yourself is empowering yourself. You are not longer dwelling in hurt and pain and you have freed yourself from victimhood.

Life is a puzzle and when you start laying out the choices in front of yourself it might just make it clear to you that you do actually have more choices available to you, than you think you do. It also helps you to choose to focus on the positive options rather than negative one’s even though negative one’s allow us to wallow in self pity which can be of comfort in stressful times. However this is a deceptive stance to take.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and we are far far stronger than we know.

No need for proof, no need for the courts, the accusation is the judgement. Condemnation is all you need to win support.

When did we forget that an accusation is not proof of guilt? It needs to be proven? In the court of public opinion however just the accusation is sufficient to sully a person’s or a company’s good name.

Do you feel we are living more and more in a society, where individuals and companies are being accused of causing any individual or a small group of people discomfort and they are being pressurized to apologise and renege, instead of the individual either going down the route of the law and courts or having to come to grips with their own discomfort?

Why is every issue today about accusing others for almost everything? I am not saying there are not individuals or companies to blame, I am saying why do we have to blame? Why can’t we move beyond blame and start changing things within ourselves to create the society we want through our actions?

We now are more and more living in fear of someone condemning us of anything, real or made up, and these people with a small band of supporters, through unrelenting social  media put into the limelight their grievances, forcing their views and will onto others.

We never get to ask the question what next? What after the incessant accusations, the public condemnations, the supposed backtracking and apparent superficial change? See I think it feels good to accuse someone publicly, or for the hurt and pain they have caused you. Of course it does! However anyone who has been through hurt and pain knows there is no healing from it, until forgiveness is brought into your life.

I think when you accuse others of anything, regardless of the offence committed, you may  well feel empowered by doing so. However real empowerment comes from having the courage to forgive and thereby taking control of the situation by healing yourself. No amount of hurting another will ever remove the hurt within you.

I want us to live in a fair and just society. However there are grandparents and great grandparents who understood that society is never exactly the way we would all want, but it needs to be accepted for what it is before barriers can be worked through with personal determination and strength of character and not from the injured party, space.

Pointing at all the things that are wrong and looking to sort things out by force brings with it backlash against that which you are looking to improve. Real change always begins with you. No, nothing is ever ideal, but what are you willing to accept responsibility for?

Generations have faced all sorts of adversity and never held anyone to hostage for their suffering, their sacrifices, their discrimination. I am not saying society is fair, it cannot be as the people living in society, us, humans are imperfect. You could choose to live in a perfect dreamworld, or you could choose through your own personal effort to better an imperfect one. You choose.

I am so deeply saddened every time I hear about people committing suicide, especially children. I just keep thinking what can be done to help them see their lives differently? None of us are immune from feelings of sadness or overwhelming pain and suffering but there needs to be even during the darkest times a small part of us that keeps saying just hold on. Hold on, things won’t always be this way or feel this way.

Holding on requires you to see your life not just from your point of view but also understand that you are part of a collective family unit and a social unit and if you are no longer here you leave a void that no one else can replace.

On the other end of the spectrum more and more we hear about facilities where you essentially go to end your life, on your time frame. I am of the belief, we do not choose when we arrive on this earth and we should not choose our time to leave this earth. However god does grant us free will and so we are free to exercise it any way we may wish, however never free from consequence.

What is it that causes us to give up on life? I often hear about people with such high levels of stress and trauma talk about never giving up and yet i hear about young people giving up based on such inconsequential reasons, although not inconsequential to them. So how do we explain to them, as Lise Friedman says, that ‘Life is the messy bits’. When one overcomes the messy bits of life, it builds our character and often through it’s challenges it gives us the strength and courage to keep transcending our lives.

We are here to overcome life’s trials and to know that we need not succumb to them. So how do we overcome? I feel like we naturally want to believe in someone, something with the power to help, guide, love, nurture and support us. What word you use to describe this power is up to you, spirit, consciousness, god, soul, you choose. We all need to rest when troubling times arrive and know that someone has our back, and to me god is that on which i rest.

Resting is fine, however know that we are required to learn and grow in responsibility and awareness. A relationship with god is not a one way street. We cannot always be asking and not be willing to give too! God guides, loves, supports but also requires you to heal, love, forgive, show gratitude, be helpful, kind, generous and accepting.

We can choose to give up or we can choose to stay and evolve into the person that lives the life god placed us here to live and intended for us to live. No one else can do the work you were placed on this earth to do, if you leave it remains undone, so i truly truly hope we all choose to stay.