Daily Positive Thoughts: July 31, 2016: Co-operation

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 31, 2016: Co-operation

Co-operation

Co-operation is perhaps one of the least recognized but most valuable of human virtues. So, for a person to be co-operative means for them to have a quiet eye for what is needed to bring success, and to supply it (and no more) at the right time, in the right place and then to be off. Someone who co-operates, offers their services and then splashes their name on the achievement is not co-operative. It requires invisibility and precision to do and then to go without waiting for results. It also takes a discerning eye to see exactly what is needed, to be removed sufficiently from your own approach to a task and just to contribute one ingredient. Sometimes not even an idea but, however clever you may consider yourself to be, just lend a hand, a support.

Yoga - A Lifestyle (Part 2)

All of us are living beings with a mind and an intellect, which we use to connect to various objects, people and events throughout the day. This is called our mental energy. This mental energy travels extremely fast and can reach another person in much less than a second. Very often we focus our mental energy on the physical body for mental peace and physical fitness through the medium of yog asanas or yogic postures to attain the desired purpose. That for us is a way of letting go of our stresses and negative energies stored in the body. It makes our mind and body healthy. We also focus our mental energies on our breath through the medium of pranayama whereby flawless and smooth breathing is experienced which benefits our physical body immensely and also gives us mental energy.

If you are new at the Brahma Kumaris, and if you are practicing yog asanas and pranayama for their physical and emotional health benefits, from before, you don’t need to stop them. This is because both these are extremely important mediums for this purpose and widely acclaimed and proven successful techniques which have saved many people from the most serious of illnesses and also reduced the intensity of many illnesses. There are lakhs of people all over the world who share their experiences confirming this. But the Brahma Kumaris add another dimension to this physical side of yoga – a spiritual yoga i.e. connecting the mind and intellect to the supreme source of spiritual energy or God, which is also called yoga or connection with a non-physical pure entity - God. So those who have been practicing yog asanas and pranayama, if they desire, can continue to do the same but add the spiritual yoga in their lifestyles. Those who have not been practicing yog asanas and pranayama concentrate only on the spiritual yoga, which not only purifies the soul but also has immense benefits for the physical systems of the body and helps in purifying them. This is because a pure mind means a mind full of the seven qualities of peace, joy, love, bliss, purity, power and knowledge, which in turn influences the main systems of the body and makes them free of illnesses. The mechanism of how the mind affects the different body systems, in further detail, will be explained in tomorrow’s message.

I Can!

If you find it difficult to have effortless attention for long periods of time, 

you need to build up your focus endurance, just as athletes push past their point of exhaustion.

Gradually expand your attention span by working for slightly longer stretches.

Regularly give yourself short attention breaks. Every couple of hours, mix high focus intense activity with less intense activity.

When your attention begins to waver, stop telling yourself that you can't focus. 

Start telling yourself: "I can focus." "I can do a bit more."

Message for the day

To make effort and get the fruit is to ensure real progress. 
Thought to ponder: Sometimes, things come easy and sometimes they don't. When we put in a lot of effort and then get the result of it, there is double benefit. One is of course the result as a positive outcome and the satisfaction is much more because I have earned it. The other is the many trials that I had to make would let me gain many experiences and I end up getting richer with these experiences. 

Point to practice: Today I will take up something I had started with enthusiasm or wanted to start. I will give my thought, time and energy to it and make sure that I make it happen. I will take a thought today not to leave it mid way but see it through till I succeed. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 30, 2016: Empower Others

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 30, 2016: Empower Others

 

Empower Others
Empower others by filling your own heart with courage, your thoughts with determination and your eyes with destiny. 

Yoga - A Lifestyle (Part 1)

All of us are constantly living a life of yoga, which in spiritual terms is called a link or connection between two entities i.e. the one which remembers and the other one which is remembered. Examples of what we have yoga with could be a person or God (calledrajyoga) or your actions (called karma yoga) or spiritual knowledge (called gyan yoga) or bhakti (called bhakti yoga) or your breath (called pranayama) or your physical body (called hath yoga) or even a physical object like a candle flame. So, yoga is life and should not be limited to sitting in a particular posture for a few minutes at a particular time of the day. Basically, remembering anything or anyone is yoga. The word yoga should not be limited to exercise which is a narrow definition of yoga. Focusing on one’s own body is extremely important, but only one aspect of a yogi lifestyle. A complete or comprehensive yogi lifestyle is focusing on pure and constructive sources right through the day including God, because yoga means union or link, a union which will benefit the soul and body positively.

We all live our lives in search of peace, love and happiness and also inner powers which we as spiritual beings are lacking in. So yoga i.e. our mental energy correctly channeled and connected with something positive provides us with that. People also call performing actions as yoga which is called karma yoga, but only performing selfless actions with complete dedication nowadays with the stresses and strains of everyday living can be depleting on a mental energy level unless the karma yoga as it is called is accompanied by a mental union or link with the Supreme while performing the actions, which helps us in remaining unaffected by the stress caused due to being over-busy in those actions. That in the true sense is karma yoga i.e. selfless karmas performed in the remembrance of God. This link between me, the spiritual child and God, the spiritual parent, nourishes me continuously and gives me the strength to perform actions with complete accuracy and get the desired success filled result.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

There's no use crying over spilled milk right? 

But if you don't recognize the importance of the spilled milk, you'll just make the same mistake again.

Leverage the regret to your advantage, by learning from the experience. 

Then harness the lesson learnt by asking yourself: what will I do differently in the future to prevent similar regrets?

Message for the day

To have a powerful intellect is to take the positive and leave out waste. 

Expression: I need to make my intellect powerful like a swan (it only takes jewels and leaves out the pebbles). I need to recognize and accept what is good for me and reject what is not good for me. With practice I find that it becomes a habit to see only that which is good for me. This will make me positive in all my future interactions too.

Experience: Today I will make a conscious effort to find some aspect of my life that is positive. This I need to remember consciously and remind myself from time to time so that I can carry it through the day. This will ensure a touch of positivity to all I do. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 29, 2016: Seeds of Thoughts

Seeds of Thoughts

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.

Limiting Ourselves In Comfort Zones

We are basically unlimited beings. But we limit ourselves in many comfort zones. We have a lot of conditionings which, in reality, are mental.

Some mosquitoes were put in a box and they kept jumping a lot. The box was covered from the top and each time they jumped they hit the top of the box, and when they jumped too close to the right or the left they hit the sides of the box. Slowly, to avoid harming themselves, they learned to jump just under the cover and without reaching the sides of the box. One day all the four sides of the box were opened. The mosquitoes were free, but they kept on jumping as far as the limit they had learned. The physical limits were no longer there. But they had become conditioned mentally. The same thing happens to us. We have to open the sides of the box and take off the top, or we can continue to live inside the box created by our own mind.

Given below are some conditionings under which we work, because of which we do not experience complete freedom.

- Beliefs, acquired since our childhood, which limit us.
- The negative images of low self esteem that we have created of ourselves.
- The damaging thoughts of doubt, which does not let the highway of trust to build up inside ourselves and does not allow the creative energy of positivity to flow from inside us to the outside.
- The fear of failure or not being to able to succeed completely. A lot of times the fear exists due to past experiences of failure or not having succeeded as much as you would have liked.

We need to become aware of what our pattern of thoughts is, which brings us under the negative influence of mental conditionings. When that happens, we will be able to become free of these conditionings. While we do not become aware, we will continue to remain under its influence.

Like a Butterfly

Like a caterpillar crawling from leaf to leaf, 
we get too comfortable with the routine of our lives. 
We forget that we were born to be a butterfly.

All we need to do is let go of our comfort zones, 
build a cocoon of transformation around ourselves and 
dream of our true colours.

Like the butterfly, we too can emerge from the cocoon 
to the warm rays of the sun; unfold and spread our wings, 
and discover our capability for flight.

Message for the day

To receive respect from others comes more with responsibility than as a right. 

Expression: The one who gets respect is the one who becomes worthy of it rather than the one who just expects it. True respect comes from how well a task is done rather than what is done. The more one's speciality is expressed, the more one becomes worthy of respect. 

Experience: When I go on giving my best in whatever is expected of me, I will start receiving respect from those around me. I will then never expect from others but will naturally be able to give respect to all. This further makes me earn their love and regard. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 28, 2016: The Secret of Happiness

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 28, 2016: The Secret of Happiness

The Secret of Happiness

The secret of happiness is to be free of fear. Fear is like a toxin that runs through much of our thinking. It feeds on insecurity, feeling of loss, loneliness, inadequacy and attachment. You are loveable and loving. Accept this as Truth. Appreciate and care for yourself - truly, deeply, intensely, in a way that reflects your real value. Then you will automatically have the same regards for all other living beings and things.

The Journey Of Purpose

All of us, at some point of time, in fact almost right through our life, keep different types of long term or short term goals - personal goals, professional, financial, social, relationship goals; goals related to physical well being and health, spiritual goals etc.  Sometimes we are not even aware ourselves, but we are passing through the journey of life with some purpose or the other at all times, the purpose may be a higher purpose or something connected to our day-to-day living.

Whatever actions we perform then, our aimed at fulfilling this purpose. Also these actions are full of lots of expectations, the expectations of achieving some results. These results which we desire or expect arrive at times and sometimes they don't. If they don't, which is a very common aspect of any such journey of purpose; they generate emotions of worry inside us. Even if the results are achieved, the nature of journey, prior to those results is stressful as compared to a journey which is purpose filled but expectation free, which some might argue is not possible. Worry and stress not only harm the spiritual and emotional self but even our physical body and relationships, making the journey difficult and tiring. It is not incorrect to be action oriented and having some clear objectives in progressing towards our purpose, but we need to be capable of aiming ourselves at our dreams without becoming date conscious and the expectation of them being fulfilled now, or on a specific date, in a particular way or form. If not, we live in a tomorrow consciousness and tend to get upset or discouraged easily and we don't enjoy today. It is not incorrect to be happy when we achieve something, but if our happiness is dependent on our achievements, we will always delay it. Happiness is not later, it is always now. It is commonly said - Happiness is a journey, not a destination.  Here we say – Happiness is not only in reaching your purpose, your destination, but also in the journey of purpose. Also, it’s important to note that a carefree and detached intellect will always attract positive circumstances which serve as bridges in reaching one's purpose, much more, as compared to a worried intellect.

Your Value

A bar of iron costs $5, 

made into horseshoes its worth is $12, 

made into needles its worth is $3500, 

made into balance springs for watches, it’s worth is $300,000. 

Your own value is determined also by what you are able to make of yourself.

Message for the day

To give food for the mind is to nourish it and make it healthy. 
Expression: Just as nourishing food is required for the body, the mind too requires nourishment. Throughout the day, the mind is receiving a lot of things which are not so positive or outright negative. So, it becomes necessary to give the mind something positive. We need to make an effort to look out for this positivity and allow our minds to dwell on it.

Experience: Today I will spend some time with something or someone good. I will either read something which will enhance the quality of my thoughts, or spend time with someone who will enable me to see things in a new light. This will help me maintain my positivity throughout the day. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 27, 2016: Resilience

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 27, 2016: Resilience

Resilience

Resilience is your personal power, your inner strength that allows you to rise above difficult circumstances, and bounce back stronger than before the challenge! With such vitality, nothing can bring you down, or de-stabilize you.

Simple Exercise To Identify Your Hidden Fears

If you want to overcome and overpower fears that exist inside you, you have to first take a look at your feelings and hidden emotions. After realizing your feelings and emotions, you have to know how to manage them and finally correct or overcome them. Given below is a simple exercise that will help you to achieve that.  This exercise will help you identify the conscious and sometimes sub-conscious (very subtle) fears that lie inside you.

Choose an area of your life that you feel is negative and needs some improvement. Now, ask yourself these three questions:

1. What do I really want, what is my aim and objective?
2. What obstacle/obstacles are stopping me from achieving my objectives?
3. What prevents me from dealing with or overcoming that obstacle?

For each fear that comes to you in response to the question no. 3, ask yourself the following questions:

A. What is the worst that can happen, if what I fear occurs?
B. What is the best possible result for me and for others, if I do it even though I feel afraid of doing it?

C. Keeping in front of you the answer to question B and comparing it with the answer to question A will inspire you to overcome the fears that lie inside you.

What Weather!

When it's too hot, we complain, 

too wet, we complain,
too cold, we complain, 

too windy, we complain.

The next time you catch yourself complaining about the weather, stop. 

Remind yourself to enjoy the change. Appreciate the gradations within the heat, cold, wet etc.

When you stop complaining you can then do something to make the situation more bearable. 

For example, if it's too hot, pour yourself a cold drink and then continue with your tasks!

Message for the day

The one with zeal and enthusiasm is constantly tireless. 

Expression: Zeal and enthusiasm brings the willingness to move forward under all circumstances. Never are there are any excuses given, whatever the difficult situations or challenges that one might be faced with. Instead whatever has to be done is done without any tiredness. Also the best is made out of all situations. 

Experience: When I am able to be enthusiastic under all circumstances, I am able to be tireless. This tirelessness gives me the courage to move on and experience constant success. I become aware of my own resources and make the best use of them. So I also experience internal progress, constantly. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris