Crystallization of teachings of a Spiritual traveler: An Insight from RajaYoga Meditation.

Crystallization of teachings of a Spiritual traveler:

An Insight from RajaYoga Meditation.

-An Interview taken by Dr. Nitin Arora

28^th July, Manama, Bahrain: Spirituality is a way advocated by all, practiced by few and misunderstood by most. On this auspicious occasion of Eid, I had conducted an interview in the domain of Spirituality for the benefit of my readers. We are fortunate to have with us Sister(Sr.)

Sr. Ansuya
Director, Bahrain Meditation Centre

Ansuya, a meditation teacher and Director of Bahrain Meditation Centre. Bahrain Meditation Centre is located in Um Al Hassam in Bahrain,the centre is a non profit organisation which provides seminars, lectures and experiential workshops in meditation, positive values, stress free living and self management. The Centre supports individuals in recognizing their own
inherent qualities and abilities and in bringing out their inner most potential. Working at all levels of the society the centre continues to inspire change and motivation to individuals and organizations.All sessions and activities are free of cost as a service to humanity, the centre runs on voluntary donations. Today we will discuss with her the vision and the journey of meditation, the motivations to be on this journey, the barriers and many more relevant questions. I am sure the interview will generate many incredible insights and experiential clues for seekers to implement and move forward or start spiritual journey.

Arora: What is meditation?

B.K. Ansuya: By far the deepest and most direct route to relaxation is meditation. It is no accident that for over two thousand years almost every ‘wisdom path’ has featured meditation as the core practice to achieve everything from relaxation to inner peace to mystical states of enlightenment.

The purpose of helping you to learn to meditate is not to turn you into a mystic but to introduce you to the practice of meditation as a way to the deepest form of relaxation – the relaxation of spirit. The most profound calm and serenity lie at the core of our own being; we have simply lost awareness of its presence. Spirit is what we are, sometimes referred to as soul, ruh, chi and atma. We each radiate energy in the form of spiritual light. That light emanates from the core of our being, and is entirely invisible. The quality of our thoughts and feelings will be according to the quality of that light. The atmosphere in a room is the result of the collective radiance of those in a room, a building, a community and even a nation – what we sometimes call vibrations.

Meditation is the deepest and most effective way to ‘let go’ of the attachments, fears and sorrows, which distort our energy and heal the spiritual wounds of the past. Meditation is the easiest way to see and transcend old patterns of behavior, gain a true insight into eternal truths, and dissolve the blocks that have stopped us from experiencing our inner peace. Meditation helps us to master our senses, maintain our focus of inner attention and therefore remain undisturbed by external events. However, practice and perseverance is required! Then we can truly begin living as human beings and not human doing.

The point of Consciousness

Arora: Why do you need meditation? Please describe the process of Rajyoga meditation and why this specific name was chosen for this meditation?

Ansuya: From the moment you are born, your attention is directed outwards. Firstly towards your own body, as you learn how to see and touch, how to move your arms and legs. Your attention is drawn outside yourself as you learn about your family relationships. You begin to walk and talk, and your attention is drawn to the world around you as you learn how it all works and how you fit in.

Meditation reverses the direction of your focus from outwards to inwards. You turn your focus away from the world around you, back to yourself. Sometimes meditation is described as taking an inner journey. As you journey within, you discover more about yourself. You find answers to the age-old question, "Who am I?"

You begin to understand that you are more than your physical and social identity. Although these physical and social aspects are part of your life, they are not the keys to understanding who you are. In fact, thinking of yourself as only a physical body makes you value yourself according to all the external aspects, such as physical appearance, age, gender, role, position and social grouping. All these physical aspects are constantly changing, and can leave you feeling unsettled and unhappy, if that’s all you think you are.

During meditation, you start to understand that your value lies in who you are on the inside - a unique human being. Meditation is the method to link deeply to this inner identity, where your true qualities exist in abundance - peace, love, truth, happiness, freedom and contentment.

In meditation, you will sense the difference between the physical you and the non-physical you. The body is an instrument for you, the soul. When you start meditating, you gently concentrate on the soul and experience your true qualities. This empowers your daily life.

The true self is the soul. You are a soul and you have a body.
The soul is subtle energy. The soul is spiritual energy, entirely different from your physical body (the form in which you dwell). You the soul are not black or white, young or old, healthy or unwell, male or female. You, the soul, are the life force in your body.

Everything about who you are is recorded in the soul; all your memories, thoughts and feelings. All the things that are intangible are recorded within the soul, such as beliefs and attitudes, hopes and dreams, memories and habits, personality traits. 

The soul is amazing - it has the ability to store everything about you, everything that makes you who you are. In the soul is contained a record of everything you’ve seen and spoken, everything you’ve done, and every thought you’ve created from the very beginning of your life.



Raja Yoga meditation redefines the self as a soul and enables a direct connection and relationship with the Supreme Source of purest energy and highest consciousness. Raja Yoga can be translated as ‘supreme union’, or as ‘highest connection’. Every soul has a right to experience this ultimate relationship. Raja Yoga meditation helps you to be a self sovereign i.e being a master over yourself.

Arora: Can you explain the connection of meditation with religion?

B.K. Ansuya: You do not need to belong to a religion to meditate. Meditation can be practiced by anyone of any religion and also by those who do not belong to any religion. Everyone can benefit from meditation.

Arora: Does Rajyoga focus a lot on the third eye? Could you tell our readers on the importance of third eye?

B.K. Ansuya: In Rajayoga meditation third eye is nothing but eye of enlightenment, the eye of knowledge with which you can perceive spiritual reality and there is clarity in everything I think and do.

Arora: What are the barriers to meditation?

B.K. Ansuya:  Past habits and the negative traits that have been tamed for a long period of time are the real hindrances. But with power of positivity one can overcome these barriers and move forward.

Arora: What is the minimum age of doing meditation?

B.K. Ansuya: Anyone can practice meditation irrespective of age.

Arora: What is human mind and why it is labeled as flickering entity? What is the importance of heart?

B.K. Ansuya: Every soul has three separate faculties, which are inherent in all human beings irrespective of place of birth. Just as electrical energy produces warmth, sound or light depending on the device through which it passes, similarly, the energy of consciousness functions through three different but closely connected faculties, referred to respectively by the terms mind, intellect, and personality.

The Mind: With the power of the mind, one imagines, thinks and forms ideas. Thoughts are created in the mind. The thought process is the basis of all emotions, desires and sensations. It is through the minds that, in an instant, thoughts reach anywhere, a memory can be relived and the feeling of happiness or sadness is experienced. The metaphysical mind should not be confused with the heart, the physical organ that maintains blood circulation.

The Intellect: Thoughts are processed and interpreted by the intellect. This is the faculty, which understands. The capacity to understand is perhaps the single most crucial ability of the soul. Clear understanding of anything is possible when the intellect becomes broad, deep and farsighted through the regular study of spiritual knowledge and the disciplined practice of meditation. The intellect also reasons, memorizes, discriminates and makes decisions. The non–physical intellect should not be confused with the physical brain, which is the physical focus of the nervous system. The brain is the soul’s control panel; it provides the facilities for the soul’s expression.

The Subconscious mind: Any action once performed leaves an impression on the soul. Habits, temperaments and tendencies are all embedded in the soul (as images, feelings, sounds, trains of thought, etc.) as a result of every action performed. The most fundamental feature of every soul, its personality, is determined by such stored impressions. These impressions, formed in the past, are the reservoir, which we draw upon, often sub–consciously, as our source of thoughts and actions in the present.

Arora: What is the importance of Out of Body experiences (OBEs) in support of realizing soul consciousness?

B.K. Ansuya: It has been observed that some people have OBEs. In Rajayoga meditation one practices the awareness of the inner being, so the experience of being a spiritual being and experiencing the core values of the self is a very natural and one does not need to have a OBE for that. 

Arora: What is the significance of chakras.?

B.K. Ansuya:Rajyogameditation is the practice of inner awareness and connection with Higher source, those who excel in this practice are the true Yogis who have the power of mind over matter and for them naturally all the chakras are open and there is no conscious effort nor identity of chakras involved.

Arora: What is the meaning of Om Shanti?

B.K. Ansuya:The full greeting is “OM Shanti”. OM means I’m a Soul, the spiritual being and Shanti means Peace. OM Shanti means I’m soul and embodiment of peace. Soul’s true nature is peace.

Arora: What kind of seekers finds difficulties in following your instructions?

B.K. Ansuya: The true difficulty is not in understanding but in practice. Practice and practice and practice, Awareness and awareness and awareness is the answer.

Arora: Would you give some message to our readers who have potential to be seekers but have yet not started their journey to discover their real self.

B.K. Ansuya: The path of Rajyoga is an interesting path to experience truth and I encourage everyone to try this journey of meditation to bring true peace, happiness and love in life.

Key Insights from Crystallization happening in Trading of Packaging Solutions for the Petrochemical Industry

Mr. Mohammed Jheir,
Jheir Trade Services Co.

Bahrain, 19^th June 2014: Crystallization is a tedious process of formation of solid crystals. In trading context, crystallization indicates process of keeping customers intact in today’s competitive customer driven business. This interview will look for essential insights in trading business from the perspective of Mr. Mohammed Jheir, Owner, Jheir Trade Services Co.(www.jheirco.com). The Co.is a family business and is into trading and consultancy services & plastic packaging solutions for the petrochemical industry.

Arora: What one major change you have witnessed that has shaped your specific trading services (packaging products for petrochemical Industry)?

Jheir: Shipment volume Size and plastic bag thickness. Bulk shipments, is when product is loaded directly in container using container liners, and loads of around 20 tons. 10 -20 years ago the world was not ready with infra-structure needed to load / unload bulk shipments, today it’s possible. On other hand, plastic bags thickness is being reduced to as low as 100 microns, and the bags are maintaining strength this was result of new polymers developments, This trend of increasing strength and size is what crystallized trend in our trading services is.

Arora: How do you explain on having successfully formed a ‘heart connection with customers’ ?

Jheir: Heart connection is the core! Nowadays on internet you can find any product, check price, buy it online from anywhere, and most critical, you may find alternatives and choices. But it’s only a good relationship with client will that differentiate a company from other. You have to prove that you really care about your client’s business growth. We had supported our clients by suggesting them alternative solutions even cheaper ones with fewer returns to us. This is honesty and real care. If this alternative solution helps them without compromising the quality, they will be happier and will remain connected with us for long. Some traders will not act like we act.

In trading business if you can demonstrate real honesty and care then even the trade barriers will not affect your business. Pricing will not be the only comparison factors in getting the order. Further, the client will always come back to you for not only for our core business but also for seeking recommendation for its other problems too. Repeat customers may not have heart connection with us. They just like our services. We have handful of customers, 10-15 only. If you lose one customer, you lose a big chunk of our client base. Good relationship is and will remain the core of our trading business.

Arora: What do you see as organizational strength that helps achieving an immortal status (self-sustaining for long) ?

Jheir: The customer can call me anytime 24x7 and even on public holidays. All my employees know that if customer calls them and if they don’t reply they know that they are in trouble. It’s common sense. We are not selling rocket science. If we don’t respond to them urgently, someone else will do. And this strength of ours is real only if it comes from our customer side.

Arora: How do you define your business lifeline? Do you see it even going to zero?

Jheir: Packaging industry will never die. But our business may stop if we deliver bad services. This is why we are diversifying into manufacturing some of our traded solutions and adding more products to our core portfolio. New competitors are inevitable who may reduce our margins and profit. This can happen.  

Arora: Is there a space for innovation in your company?

Jheir: Innovation in our business comes in our consultancy business but not in trading. It is not easy to change our product specifications or values, because customers use our product on their machines that are not easy to change setting frequently. Our manufacturing project, which is going to start very soon, will be manufacturing innovative products that satisfy our clients’ specific needs. And we will be the first one to do it in GCC.

Arora:  What are your organizational ‘possessed predictable-intelligence’?

Jheir: The network !

When the customers know that you are doing you level best to sell, deliver for them good quality products, they will trust you and then will cooperate and support you when you have a problem, which is normal with the size of business we do where chances of mistakes is there.  8 out of 10 mistakes could be resolved with good will cooperation between customer and supplier.  

Arora: What is that ‘unpredictable intelligence’ that you are eager to capture?

Jheir: Finance. With the team and knowledge I have, and can add when and if needed, in company I can execute any task. The progress and expansions however requires financing, which should be planned in way not to affect the ongoing business.  Banks do not finance unless you develop credit history, which leaves us the choice of financers.

Arora: Is your ‘possessed predictable intelligence’ sufficient enough to capture the ‘unpredictable a

Jheir: With Possessed intelligence I can continue as is. But this increases the risk of zero level on long run. With the financial crisis hitting the world regularly customers are becoming more price sensitive, and with the world trade organizations the market is becoming wide open to new competitors to our local markets.  If we do not diversify and expand into new projects, our profit margins will be reduced gradually to reach zero level.

Arora: What frightens your Organization the most?

Jheir: Our business is coming from one sector and has few customers only. If an earthquake (God forbid) hits jubail the main petrochemical zone in region, or Saudi Arabia stops oil manufacturing, or if war happens in region, our business becomes zero same day. We are therefore diversifying to avoid this fear factor that is embedded due to the nature of our business.

Arora: How does chaos look like in your work / Industry?

Jheir: I don’t have unmanaged chaos in my normal business. We sell high quality products, so customer returns and product damages are covered even by insurance or by a win-win resolution to problems.

The real chaos is force majeure that is causes beyond our control like war, political unrest, and other similar reasons where solution is out of our reach.   

Arora: What action is majorly taken after the completion of production if the complaints w.r.t. quality of product is received from the clients?

Jheir:  Hamdullah, so far we have not faced even one problem like you asked. In the first place, we make sure that we select good suppliers for our solutions and products and we strictly adhere to product qualifying process. Our employees conduct quality check visit at our global suppliers location to avoid the future problems. Not everything coming from China is of low quality. They also make high quality products. We just want to ensure that we are always standing next to our customers at the time of their disaster. If my product (whose worth is say 10000 riyals) fails the extent of damage to my customer could go to 2 million riyals or more. So if any problem happens, we first make sure we resolve the problem and provide alternative solutions to the customer so they continue their business. Other issues like returning the defective products, etc. could be done later. First solve the problem of client. Product insurance covers most of such situation else I simply can’t afford to have a problem of this scale that might arise due to product failure.

Arora:  What does harmony mean for you in your work and personal life? What you do to maintain it?

Jheir: Personal Life v/s Business. Till I am 50, I consider myself I am still in a building process where 80% of my time is allocated to business and 20% allocated to personal life. Later on,  this time allocation will start switching in favor of personal life where more time is allocated to my personal hobbies, family as business will take care of my expenses and lifestyle. Chaos is a part of professional harmony. I have been working now for 27 years, 13 of them as self-employed, I still a beginner in many aspects and avenues of business.

Other harmony is among my business team. My employees are like my family this is no cliché, One day, when my coffee boy told me that he had his first baby boy, I hugged him and we cried together of joy. Employees have to know that it is their company. I am sure that if I am away from the company for weeks, the company will run the same way as it is. I don’t interfere in their work. They take their own expert decisions. When they are stuck at some point / situation, they come to me and I take the necessary hard decisions. This coordination between employees and my decision makes professional harmony possible.

At time of chaos, and I really have a tough time, I do three things. First, I fix my relation with God by way of doing prayers and doing charity. Second, I do lot of sports to release the tensions. Third, I entertain myself, by listening to music and or watching movies alone. I listen to hard rock music like Deep purple or Scorpion. It gives me a good memory of my old college time and makes me feel good and fresh. When the music is loud in home they know it’s a sign that I have hard time, they get away from me. Even my wife! This helps me to forget about the problem and then I relax and start thinking about the solutions for the problem. Every problem has a solution and by keeping away from that checkmate type of mindset is what is needed to get back to my harmony state.

Arora: How your harmony can influence your employees, clients and personal life?

Jheir: My mood affects my employees’ performance and all the office atmosphere. The way I dress for example of Thursday it is casual, and good mood, everyone is affected and happy. When I am in really bad mood, my employees approach and try to be helpful and give suggestions this Harmony between myself and the employees in company is because we are very close. My employees feel happy and at home when they share their personal details with me. A way to identify successful companies is how they manage problem, chaos, bad moods, etc. If employees can step forward and handle the blame or they just roll the blame to others. My employees feel the pain more than me when they lose an order. I am proud of it. And this kind of feeling of employee is more precious to me which indicates their bonding with the company. This strong bonding will ensure that harmony will be restored any time it is lost.

Arora: What technical skills young business undergraduate / postgraduate business students should develop to be successfully recruited in your trading business?

Jheir: for the manufacturing project I need Industrial engineers, mechanical engineers etc. For my trading I need more of business management staff. After all, today’s technologies & software knowledge is as essential, such as MS office, reporting skills, presentation skills that are essential for communication among their own team and others.

Arora: What soft skills young business undergraduate / postgraduate students should develop to be successfully recruited in your trading business?

Jheir: Ethical and Behavioral skills. The candidate should know when to admit mistakes, and when to step forward in case other party did the mistake, customers are humans and do make mistakes, by time the customers will realize that it was not arrogance at all.

List of previous published articles

1. Arora, N (2014). Key Insights from Crystallization happening in Psychiatry Services. An Interview with Dr. Abdul Kareem Mustafa, Consultant Psychiatrist, Ibn Al Nafees Hospital, Bahrain (Interview Date: 16^th June 2014)

2. Arora, N. (2014) Key Insights from Crystallization happening in Advisory Services. An Interview with Mr. Adnan Fareed, Senior Financial Consultant, Talal Abu Ghazaleh Organization, Bahrain. (Interview Date: 10^th June 2014)

3. Arora, N (2014); Crystallization of SpaceTime: An exploratory Mystical insights for Business. The Proposed model.