Contemplation: Kindness

Contemplation: Kindness

Kindness

Great souls take advantage of every moment and every opportunity to give happiness to others through kindness in their thoughts. Such souls are willing to overlook weaknesses and mistakes and have the desire to help everyone reach their highest potential.

Each one of us is born brilliant.

But, a few disappointments here, a few setbacks there
and POOF! Just like that, our brilliance is clouded over.

It's not necessary to be perfect to step into your brilliance.
Striving for excellence in everything you do is enough to release your
brilliance.

Visualise your brilliance and step into it. See, then be.
Inhale, then excel!

Factors That Shape Our Perception (cont.)

There are four main criteria that may influence how our perception of reality is distorted or altered (changed). We have already discussed two criteria. Today we discuss the remaining two:

Associated Memories
We have many associated memories: in fact, all addictions are associated memories. For example, the cigarette addict associates many moments during the day to cigarette smoking (after lunch, while seeing someone else smoking, in the restaurant with friends, coming out of work, etc.). Another example is when we have listened to a song over and over again. If after a few years we hear it again, not only do the words and tune emerge, but also the memories associated with the song. In our relationships, associated memories create barriers when we relate to others, since the memories we associate with certain people and situations means that we nearly always see them in a specific way and do not give them the chance to change and improve. This limited and unchanged vision that we sometimes have of others leads to misunderstandings when communicating.

Assumptions
They are images created in advance in our intellect and which work in a sub conscious way, just like associated memories. By assuming, guessing or imagining, we create a series of assumptions that influence our perception and stop us from recognizing the reality. For example, we hear our name being discussed by a group of people and we think that people are speaking wrongly about us. If we learn to rid ourselves of a whole series of assumptions that affect our communication and relationships, our perception of reality will not be distorted or altered (changed). The best way of eliminating these preconceptions is through open, concise and precise communication in order to clear up any misunderstandings.

Soul Sustenance 

The Three Root Causes Of Anger (Part 3)

We are at war with our self when we fail to make the world do exactly what we want, or we believe we have let our self down. An e.g. of a war with one self is – Suppose you are standing in a queue waiting for your chance to arrive, only to discover an hour later, just when your chance is about to arrive, that the time for the counter to close has come and the counter has closed. You get upset, but with whom? Perhaps the person at the counter at first and may be with the other people in the queue and then with yourself, for not having found out the time of closing of the counter. There are two failures that make you uneasy here. First you failed to ask someone early enough, which would have saved you the hour time loss. Second, you failed to control your emotions of anger. Although you might not externally admit that you failed, inside you know. Because of these two failures, you then start to get angry with yourself. The thought pattern that goes inside your mind: to fail is to lose, to lose is to be sorrowful, to be sorrowful causes me to become angry, as you look for an external cause of your sadness which, in this case, is initially the person at the counter and the other people in the queue (who would have known the time of closing and could have told you). So you demonstrate to others your justified anger towards them. But deep inside you know it is you yourself that has made you sorrowful.

As the anger builds up inside you, again, after a while, you find someone else outside on whom you vent out your anger. You seem to feel better as a result, but it's only temporary. The next time you become angry; interrupt the pattern of your anger by asking yourself two simple questions: Who are you fighting a war with? Answer: Yourself. Who is suffering the most due to the war? Answer: Yourself. And if your anger is directed at yourself for your own supposed failure then just tell yourself, "There is no such thing as failure, only a different result from the one that I expected and results are not going to be exactly as I want, expect or desire. That is a rule of the game of life."

Message for the day 

The one who is free from complaints is the one who becomes complete.

Projection: When things go wrong it is the usual reaction to complain, against situations or others, and to find fault with them. When we are busy complaining we will not be able to make any effort to make any improvement in ourselves.

Solution: Whenever we find ourselves complaining we need to see what we can do to bring about a change instead of just complaining. There would surely be something that we can do. Slowly as we begin to implement each thing that we learn, we find ourselves moving forward towards our own perfection.