Daily Positive Thoughts: September 14, 2013: Meditation

Daily Positive Thoughts: September 14, 2013: Meditation

Meditation

Though the mind often asks for what is visible or material, its needs are deeper and cannot be met by anything superficial or short term. Meditation leads to a meeting point with all that is true and eternal.

Change

Nature has order, happiness and sorrow each in their own time. Knowing
that all things move in cycles can give hope that what is uncomfortable
now may soon change.

Absorbing Spiritual Light (cont.)

Continuing from yesterday's message, we should not keep the vices bottled up inside us like prisoners. Prisoners are always plotting to escape. If we change them into our friends they can help us. For example, the energy required to be stubborn is almost the same as that required to be determined except that one is positive and the other negative. The soul learns to transfer such energy. Anger becomes tolerance. Greed can be transformed into contentment. Arrogance, or the respect for false identity, can become self-respect. Attachment can be changed into pure love.

The more I inculcate the Supreme Soul or God's virtues, the closer I feel to Him, but if I allow inner disturbances due to any vice, my high stage is grounded. All the power stored up until that moment will leak away. I must recognize that I really do not like being body-conscious. As I wish for higher experiences I choose to live the life of a meditator with purity in thought, word and action. Obstructions come within and without, but through my connection with God I am drawing so much power so as to remain unaffected. This needs soul-consciousness. So in discarding the rubbish of the vices I have gathered over many births, I become my original form and maintain it through my closeness or companionship with God.

Soul Sustenance

Natural Qualities and Acquired Qualities

When we look at ourselves from outside we can only see the surface of what we have become. We can't see or perhaps cannot even imagine the inner core (center), which, like in the example of the coconut, is the only part that really can nourish us and give us energy. The shell (in the case of the coconut) serves as a protection but we certainly can't eat it.

In our case, the core (center) consists of natural or inner qualities such as peace, love, power, truth, happiness and so on. The shell is the ego which consists of features or personality characteristics we have acquired through the journey of our lives such as experiences, abilities, memories, learning, habits and beliefs – in short, all that we are referring to when we say: 'I am so-and-so, from such-and-such family or organization or city'.

While we are limited to these acquired characteristics, our true qualities remain inaccessible. Through deep reflection and meditation we can break the shell and activate our inner qualities from which our values or principles are born.

Message for the day

True contentment brings contentment to others as much as to the self.

Projection: When we have to do something, we usually do it the way we like. We don't bother about others and only see if we are happy about it. So we find that others are not content with us although we are happy with what we are doing.

Solution: Our actions need to be such that they do not cause sorrow to anyone so we need to check our actions and change them. When we do something in the right way others will be content with us as much as we are.