Daily Positive Thoughts: October 15, 2016: Just to give

Daily Positive Thoughts: October 15, 2016: Just to give

 

Just to give

With habits, never give in or we lose our dignity. With the self, never give up or we lose our destiny. With others never give your worst or you will never develop your best. The saying, "What we give is what we receive". The lesson: Just to give.

The Invisible Impressions That Shape Me

While the mind and intellect are two faculties of the soul which play their role on the surface of our consciousness; at a deeper level, hidden beneath these two faculties, there lies a third faculty commonly called the sanskaras. The sanskaras is not only a store house of personality traits, as we commonly know it to be, but a store house of millions and millions of impressions or imprints. Such a large number of impressions are created by millions of experiences that I go through my sense organs not only in this life but in all my lifetimes. Everything that I hear, see, touch, taste, etc. I process or analyze or summarize in my own unique way; basically I give the experiences a unique form depending on my personality, before this form gets stored in the form of impressions inside me. I even process my subtle experiences, which are in the form of thoughts and feelings.

This process of experiencing and processing takes place during each and every second of my life including the time I sleep, when my mind may not be experiencing a lot but it is busy processing the physical and subtle experiences of the day that has gone by and storing the processed information in the form of impressions. From this, one can get an idea of the magnitude of the database of impressions stored within me, the being. These imprints which are unique to me, make up my sanskaras, and shape up my unique personality in acyclic process. My personality shapes what type of impressions are created out of my experiences and the impressions in turn shape my personality, my thoughts, words and actions e.g. if I constantly keep the company of people who gossip, a large number of respective impressions based on the experience of gossiping keep getting stored inside me, which in turn influence my personality, the personality characteristic gets stronger and over a period of time I do not find anything wrong with it and indulge in it more and more. As a result more such impressions get stored. Thus it is a cyclic process.

The bigger Picture

Often when we react, it's as if we grab 'a tiny scrap of life' and fill it with our own meaning. 

The meaning we project is usually based on our past experiences, and it may not still apply. 

We then miss the opportunity to understand the other and experience something new.

Before reacting, consider the bigger picture. 

Understand that there are many layers and dimensions that make up each moment. And then respond meaningfully.

Message for the day

To have self-respect is to get respect from all. 
Expression: Anything that is full will remain stable. When I am in my stage of self-respect, I will be humble. I then need not ask for or demand respect. I will become worthy of receiving respect. People will then automatically give good wishes and respect. 

Experience: Today I will take one point that acts like a practice of self-respect. I will take a simple thought reminding of it from time to time. A thought like "I have the right to success" or "I am special and unique" or any other thought of practice helps. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris