Anmol’s Back, Blog Got Hacked, Attachments Cracked
Mastery of Meditation Gets Hacked – Life Lessons Learned
I joined the herds this summer on their seasonal migration to the Jersey shore. We headed to beautiful Long Beach Island for our annual family vacation and just recently returned from there. In most cases, I would probably not be a big proponent of herd mentality, but I must say, that in this case joining the masses to lounge out on the beach and enjoy the great blue Atlantic was indeed a fine idea. Unfortunately, I returned to find that AnmolMehta.Com had been badly hacked during my time away, which certainly put a damper on my post vacation mood!
Essentially, a spam site hacked Mastery of Meditation & Yoga and inserted into my website thousands and thousands of links to their spam site. For the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) savvy techies, you know that this means big trouble with Emperor Google. Without going into too many details, essentially AnmolMehta.Com got heavily penalized by the Emperor for these links, and fell off the map as far as search results go. I have since cleaned up the mess, closed the security hole and petitioned the Emperor to be readmitted into the empire . I believe as of a few days ago my penalties have been removed, SO I AM BACK BABY !!
Life Lessons Learned:
Of course, as you all know, to me all challenges, difficulties, upsets, etc are opportunities to learn about our attachments and grow, so here are the lessons I learned from this disaster.
1. As fellow bloggers know, building a successful blog is no easy task. Mastery of Meditation & Yoga is now a year and a half old and it has taken a great deal of hard work to create, so having it badly damaged by the hackers was a good chance for me to measure my attachment to it. So I observed my feelings carefully and was glad to see that although I was a little bummed, I did not need to get a prescription for anti-depressants .
Life Lesson Number One: ALWAYS practice observing your feelings and thoughts when there is a scenario that upsets you. It is a golden opportunity to really measure your spiritual progress and learn about the ways of the ego (See Test to Determine Your Spiritual Growth for more on this topic).
2. Next I observed my feelings towards the hackers who had so casually hacked and spammed my blog and potentially ruined over a year of hard work. This was a chance to practice forgiveness, instead of extending conflict and ill-will.
Life Lesson Number Two: Forgive, Forgive, Forgive (See The Time I Met God – Good News & Bad News for more on this topic).
3. There is a famous saying in Urdu which translates roughly to, “Only the courageous who ride into battle, have a chance to fall off the horse, not the timid,” and if you fall off… well get back on again and rejoin the fight. All great things, including enlightenment, require abiding passion, and the heart to keep trying, despite failures and disappointments.
Life Lesson Number Three: For enlightenment or other great achievements be prepared to work hard and keep at it. Don’t give up on the first, or tenth, sign of trouble. (See No Shortcuts to Enlightenment for more on this topic).
Needless to say, I am about 1000 emails behind and have a mountain of comments and questions to address, but am happy to be back and glad to be once again sharing with all of you my passion for Yoga & Meditation. Welcome to all the new readers and thank you all for your support during this challenging phase.
Hi Hacker Forums,
Thanks for the useful tips. I need to be more diligent with my backups and upgrades for sure :-P.
Cheers,
Anmol
Most all hacks are from people not upgrading their software.
If you don’t make a ton of changes, just backup your template one time, then create or download a script to email you a database dumb every couple days.
Hi Loribeth,
Yes you can do BOF while lying down, as it’s done in many different positions with conjunction with the exercises. You can try it sitting cross legged, which most students prefer, but if lying down works for you that’s fine.
My nightly meditation is also done lying down, and it has worked fine for me as well.
Cheers,
Anmol
Thanks everyone for the warm welcome back. Yes La Vonne as you can see I am way behind :-D…
Chris,
Yes lesson learned my friend :-D.
Cheers Everyone,
Anmol
Life lesson 4: Always install WordPress patches promptly? ;)
Hi Anmol
welcome back nice to know youll had a lovely vacation;
Claude
I have done BREATH OF FIRE for about 3 years now…however, I have always meditated lying down on my back with my knees supported by a pillow…my question is about doing the BREATH OF FIRE while lying down…what is your opinion of doing it this way. As far as I know I have not had any problems and I when I meditate while lying down doing the BREATH OF FIRE or not…I never fall asleep…so that’s a good thing…what do you think?
Thank you very much,
loribeth
Hey Anmol,
Great to have you back! Congratulations on your awareness of the adversity that faced you, and learning and growing from it. Thank you for sharing the experience with us.
Adversity will always arise in our lives, we cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we react to what happens. Within every adversity, there is an opportunity to learn and grow. I’ve learned to be very thankful of the adversities thrown my way, because I know I will come out a better person.
Hi Anmol, I’m so glad to see you on my e-mail. I was beginning to wonder why I hadn’t seen any articles from you in a while. I’m just so glad you and your family had a delightful vacation at the beach and I am sorry you got hacked. You do not need to reply to this as you are already so behind! Just wanted to wish you well, La Vonne.