Daily Positive Thoughts: July 02, 2016: Gentleness

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 02, 2016: Gentleness

 

 Elephant Tree Arch, Thailand

Gentleness

If trees had souls, the quality most attributable to them would be gentleness. Gentleness is not a lack of strength but a quality which doesn't disturb, doesn't push, yet knows its power and can provide shelter.

8 Powers To Experience Success (Part 2)

Whenever you start the day and you have work to do, remind yourself that I have to use the eight spiritual powers in overcoming situations of various types and experience success. Take for e.g. today I have to meet a group of executives in a company meeting and we have to take a few decisions based on everyone’s feedback. For such a situation, I need to use the power to discriminate the different opinions of people and also the power to judge and reach a final decision based on the different opinions. For this I need a clean intellect and a stable mind and also as mentioned in yesterday’s message the sanskaras of these two powers especially. Also, suddenly my close associate in the office develops a cold war with me i.e. he starts keeping a distance from me. In such a situation, to get him back on good terms with me, I need the power to co-operate and accommodate along with the other powers to a lesser extent. These are examples of two different situations at the workplace.

Then there are situations involved with the body becoming ill at times and the mind feels burdened by that and the smile on the face is replaced by discontentment and indifference for many people when faced with such physical body related problems. In such a situation the primary power required is the power to face and the power to accommodate. The other six powers also reduce when faced with an illness. There are some people who lose their temper or get angry very easily when they are not physically well i.e. their power to tolerate and power to co-operate reduces. Also, some people will find it hard to discriminate right from wrong and judge correctly when are not well, which are two important powers required to be successful in real life situations. And again, because in all illness, negative thoughts can increase, there are people who will find it extremely difficult to get sleep and remain focused i.e. their power to pack up and withdraw gets affected in such a situation.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

Get a Boost

When we're tired, it's all too easy to give in to the tiredness and get cranky. 

Resist the urge; tired and cranky is not a good combination, you're likely to say or do something you regret later.

Here are a few tips to release the tiredness: 
adjust the air-conditioner setting, open the window, 
step outdoors and grab some fresh air, listen to an energizing song or drink water.

Give yourself a boost and get back on track.

Message for the day

To be free from worry means to have the power to change negative into positive. 

Thought to ponder: The ones who are free from worry change that which is bad into something good, because the state of mind is calm. The one with a calm state of mind is able to think creatively and see very clearly even beyond the situation. So there is the ability to transform the seemingly negative situation into something very positive. So there is clear decision-making and quick action. There is also no time wasted. 

Point to practice: When I am free from worry, I constantly remain satisfied for having seen the positive and finding the solutions immediately instead of looking at the problem and worrying over it. This internal silence gives the feeling of power, which naturally enables transformation in a second and only the goodness is absorbed. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 01, 2016: Live Inside Hope

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 01, 2016: Live Inside Hope

Chateau de Langeais, France

Live Inside Hope

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

8 Powers To Experience Success (Part 1)

A very important measuring meter of life which we forget to use in our daily routine is the spiritual power meter which means that in any difficult situation of life, how good I was in using a spiritual power in overcoming that situation. The eight main spiritual powers are the power to tolerate, power to accommodate, power to face, power to pack up, power to discriminate, power to judge, power to withdraw and power to co-operate.

E.g. I am driving my car on a crowded road and all of a sudden my car is banged by another driver from behind leaving a big dent on my car. Very often and a lot of people in such situations, as we see in big cities, will get out of the car and confront the opposite car driver. Then they will demand a few thousand rupees from him. Sometimes, there can be a war of words and even a fight and sometimes when the anger is at its highest, it overflows and results in an injury or even death. Another person in a similar situation, on the other hand, will remain calm and instead of becoming angry, will forgive the other driver and instead of fighting, will quietly drive away. Which power does the first person lack and the other person has because of which the reactions are so different? In this situation, the power to tolerate and the power to accommodate the other person’s actions are the two main powers out of the above mentioned eight powers, which are required. Of course, the other six powers are also required but the two mentioned are required more than the rest. This is an example of a common situation, where anger and ego are the two main negative forces over which these two spiritual powers – the power to tolerate and the power to accommodate have to gain victory. Also, a very important point to note that all four of them - the two powers as well as the two negative forces are sanskaras inside the soul which can be changed i.e. the power can be filled or increased and the negative force can be removed or reduced.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

We are like a Tree

Our branches represent work, family, friends, health, dreams, ambitions.... 

Our life-force pulses through each branch to every single leaf. So, extend your branches in a joyful gesture and celebrate life.

The seed is the essence of who you are; your life-force.
If you feel overwhelmed by it all, concentrate on the seed and you'll be revitalised. When the seed is vibrant and vitalised, the tree, the branches, the leaves, everything will be good.

Message for the day

To sow the seeds of pure feelings constantly is to experience positive fruit. 

Expression: When one's feelings are constantly positive and pure, there is no expectation of the fruit to emerge immediately. Even if others are not able to respond to the positivity or if situations are not according to my expectations, there is still the feeling of giving. So there is this positivity expressed through the vibrations spread around and in every word and action. 

Experience: The more I am able to have pure feelings for those around me, the more is the positivity that emerges from within. Because of having discovered the positivity within, I am able to give unconditionally. So I experience the immediate fruit of what I have given and also accumulate for the future, and continue to enjoy multi fold fruit of what I give. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: June 30, 2016: Developing Good Habits

Daily Positive Thoughts: June 30, 2016: Developing Good Habits

Developing Good Habits

Develop the habit of getting up early and sitting in silence. Read a peaceful thought and reflect on it. Write down some ideas about this thought. Return to silence, allowing these ideas to take root inside you. Share your ideas with a person close to you. This practice will help you accept and cope with conflicts and difficult situations. It will help you stay happy and peaceful for the rest of the day.

Creating Positive Circumstances

Why do we find it so hard to create positive circumstances, a positive future in our life? One reason is we all have the tendency to spend most of our time in the past, reliving and replaying our memories. Look back on your average day and you may find that more than 3/4ths of your time is spent in the past (a lot of times without you realizing it). Not only do we try to relive the past, but we also attempt to change it! We attempt the impossible and, in so doing, we live in very small cycles where tomorrow tends to turn out similar to yesterday, and then we wonder why we do not have the power to change our lives. It feels like we do not have the will-power, we do not have the ability to change the circumstances in our lives, our destiny.

The past cannot be relived; it cannot be changed. The past is like a cupboard of old files.  When you arrive at work every day, do you step into such a cupboard and spend the day there?  The past is a great resource for learning and sometimes, a resource for useful information, but it is not a place to live.  We can build on the old, but we cannot rewrite it. The future is the result of what we think, feel and do today. If today is the same as yesterday (because of constantly thinking about yesterday) then tomorrow will look and feel like yesterday and in this way we feel we are stuck in a web and we get frustrated. We need to let go of the past if we want the future to shape up positively, different from yesterday, which is negative at times! The past is past. Drop it and keep dropping it.

To be peaceful you have to see yourself as a peaceful being. 

It means to think about being peaceful.

It means that you have to be able to be able to describe it in words.

You must be capable of experiencing the feelings you would have if you reached that peaceful state. 

Now believe in it. If you feel it, it's real. Simply work on it and keep it uppermost in your mind. Make it yours and it will become your natural behaviour.

Message for the day

The ones with faith in the self will be able to make their thoughts and actions equal. 

Contemplation: When you have faith in yourself you will be able to have a high aim and you will be able to put into action all the thoughts that you have according to your aim. Your plans will then not be limited to thoughts only. 

Application: With the firm faith that you are special and unique, start putting into practice all the special thoughts that you get without postponing them. Slowly you will find yourself doing all the things that you think you should be doing. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: June 29, 2016: Communication

Daily Positive Thoughts: June 29, 2016: Communication

Communication

In prayer you communicate with God, in meditation God communicates with you.

Cleaning Up The Cupboards Of Your Mind (Part 2)

The first thing that meditation teaches us is to cleanse (clean up) the mind of the useless thoughts that it creates in the present moment. While your mind identifies with these kinds of thoughts and sees them as absolutely normal, it will not be able to concentrate. And if it cannot concentrate, it will not be able to cleanse in depth. Meditation helps you to live through that inner process without pain.

From a space of love, experienced in meditation, you feel secure in order to open up the cupboards of your subconscious mind. Do not open them before commencing (beginning) the practice of meditation, because the accumulated pain can be overwhelming and the loneliness experienced, when you see what you find inside, can terrify you. Because you are alone, with yourself, with your past and with your present and you are alone here, with your inner cupboards and your files. In the silence of contemplative meditation you feel a divine energy accompanying you which helps you overcome this fear of loneliness. You feel embraced by the energy and the presence of unconditional love, which it showers on you - it accepts you as you are, which makes the cleaning up process easier.

The Power To Pack Up      (...continued)

As I progress on my spiritual journey, even thoughts that waste the precious resources of the mind come to be seen as a barrier. Turning a scene over in my mind repeatedly is an example of waste, that will rob me of the mental concentration and emotional stability I need to keep moving forward. Sometimes we do get stuck, like a broken record, in such mental grooves, without realizing what we are doing. 

The power of pack up means I recognize the damage caused by such waste, and put an end to it. As I renew the awareness of myself as a soul, in relationship with the Supreme Soul, the needle of my attention is lifted above the groove, letting me come fully into the present. 

I also learn to be selective in what I choose to remember or forget from the past. This is not dishonest; in fact, it is being honest to my task. Human beings in any case have highly selective memories. We not only see and understand differently, according to our individual interests and agendas, but our attitudes and perception also determine the memories we choose to store. 

Meditation enables me to exercise this option quite deliberately, picking up those scenes from the past that nourish me and help me move forward, and rejecting memories that pollute my mind and slow me down.

Message for the day

When you are always truthful, you'll have nothing to fear. 

Contemplation: True courage comes when there is the power of truth within you. When you are constantly truthful, you will have nothing to fear. In all the challenges you face everyday you will be able to maintain your courage because of your power of truth. 

Application: Make sure your actions are based on truth and when things go wrong, you will still be able to maintain your courage. Keep reminding yourself that you have the power of truth with you and you will be victorious, whatever the challenges that come your way. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: June 28, 2016: Change Skill

Daily Positive Thoughts: June 28, 2016: Change Skill

Change Skill

There is nothing more certain than that the world will continue to change. Accepting and not resisting this, is the first and most important inner skill in this frenetically changing, modern world. Life tests us every day to see how well we have developed this ability. Equally, there is nothing more real than the inner space within each of us that never ever changes. We may change our thoughts, our feelings, even our sense of who we are, but we fail to visit the unchanging centre of our own self. The ability to be in this inner space, where our peace is found, when all around would prefer chaos and crisis, is the deepest spiritual change skill. It is the eye of the storm, it is the oasis in the desert, it is the place where peace is power. Call in today. You'll be surprised how much it can influence and change everything and everyone around you!

Cleaning Up The Cupboards Of Your Mind (Part 1)

When you are capable of relaxing, controlling your thought patterns and concentrating, you can reach deeper and more subtle states of meditation from which you connect with your inner potential for peace and purest love (the positive) and on the other hand, you clean out unnecessary memories (the negative). You reach the spiritual power that allows you to transform habits that are not very healthy and the beliefs that sustain them. Out of love and peace you can purify and clear the turbulent (rough) waters that there are at times in the subconscious.

When you meditate, you review whether there is something that has influenced you and you clean it out, so that only the highest, the most positive, the most beautiful, remains inside you and comes out of you.Meditation and reflection help you to clean out the register that, from the subconscious, brings about inadequate thoughts and uncontrolled emotions. Cleansing (cleaning up) in depth requires a clear purpose, being prepared to let go of the past; cleansing the wounds and pain accumulated in the store of your inner being; facing the present with dignity, with wisdom and visualizing, with confidence and trust, a future full of positivity.  

(To be continued tomorrow …)

The Power to Pack Up 

On the path of meditation, I am a traveler, on a magnificent journey. I have to make some firm choices about I what will take with me on this journey. To pack up means to learn the lessons of the present, then to move on, letting the past be past. It means - not carrying the baggage of the past into my present and future, but traveling lightly from one day to the next, keeping only what is most useful to me. That way, I'll enjoy the journey more, and move faster in the direction of my choice.

I'll also be lighter in my relationships. The power to pack up enables me to fill each exchange I have with others with freshness and newness, instead of allowing influences from past encounters with them to affect my present attitude and behaviour. When I carry emotional or intellectual baggage from the past into my present dealings with an individual, I don't give that person the opportunity to express himself freely: my attitude colors him with the paint of my previous experience. It is important to process the past, and learn from experience, but then finish it, so it does not block my view of how things are today.

Meditation helps me to acquire that discipline of finishing negative and wasteful thoughts i.e. inculcate the power to pack up. As the habit of self-observation develops, it doesn't take long to understand how negative thoughts and feelings literally negate my central aim, of re-emerging my true nature. Negativity drains the battery of the soul faster than anything else does.  

(To be continued tomorrow...)

Message for the day

When there is love for others, they automatically become cooperative. 
Checking: When you are involved in any task with others, ask yourself if you are able to give and get the cooperation from them. If you are not able to, check the reason for not getting their cooperation. 

Practice: In any task that involve others, see that you begin the task with good feelings for each and everyone involved in the task. Have the faith that the task is for common benefit and everyone is going to learn something from it and is going to contribute to it. Then you'll find others cooperating with you. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: June 27, 2016: Friends and Relatives

Daily Positive Thoughts: June 27, 2016: Friends and Relatives

Norway

Friends and Relatives

If my friends and relatives do not choose to accompany me on my spiritual path, why should I chase after them trying to get them to change? They won't listen to me anyway, no matter what I say. A better approach is to focus on my own change process. A river doesn't need to urge people into drinking its water. People are naturally drawn to it, provided its waters are pure, free flowing and sweet. In the same way become so attractive through your spiritual efforts that everyone will want to join you naturally.

The After Effects Of Anger

If realized deeply, it’s alright to conclude that anger destroys. If it doesn't destroy our physical body (that too it manages to do in the long term), it definitely destroys our capacity to be creative. And after all the very purpose of our life – is to be creative. So in short, anger deviates us from reaching our very purpose of life. Anger is never every good for health – mental or physical; never ever positive or empowering and never ever allowable or justified. Many authors of self development books, philosophers, psychologists and experts on the human nature have argued that anger is a natural, biological and psychological response which is an integral part of human sanskara and life. While this can be respected as a point of view, it is not at all true.

From a spiritual perspective, which means a view based on the absolute truth because the word spiritual means that which is the truth, anger is never ever natural or beneficial. While we are all used to getting angry, each one of us to different extents; on a little introspection, we will realize that it drains us out and is counter-productive. Anger is an absolutely unwanted emotion if we want to live a peaceful, contented and blissful life. It totally destroys the ability to create meaningful and deep relationships based on trust and respect and brings the efficiency of our actions, performed at the workplace, at home or anywhere else, down. If we believe in the necessity of anger, we need to stop for a while and reflect deeply and see if we can see how it is a huge obstacle to our own contentment and fulfillment, and how it negatively influences the contentment and fulfillment of those around us.

Eating together builds relationships. 

Life's so busy that it's just too tempting to have a quick bite on the go or at your desk in front of the computer screen.

At home or at work, make time to eat with other people 
(it may not be possible all the time but whenever you can). 

It's a chance to catch up and connect. Make it a 
social occasion - its fun, as well as an effective break. 

And when you are eating alone - enjoy your own company.

Message for the day

Fulfill your promise instead of just keeping it in a file and you'll find progress. 

Checking: In all that you do throughout the day, check to what extent you are able to fulfill the promises that you make to yourself. Also check the reason for not being able to fulfill some promise that you have made recently. 

Practice: Think of that promise that you had made to yourself recently that you had not been able to fulfill and think of the reason why you had made that promise and how important it is for you to fulfill that promise. When you practice in this way you'll find yourself getting enthusiastic to fulfill that promise. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: June 26, 2016: See only Virtues and Specialties

Daily Positive Thoughts: June 26, 2016: See only Virtues and Specialties

See only Virtues and Specialties

An ant is tiny beside an elephant but as soon as an ant enters the ear of an elephant it goes crazy. The elephant’s ears are so big, the elephant itself is so big and yet a tiny ant makes it go wild. In the same way, if I allow the slightest defamation of anyone go through my ears, I lose all my spirituality. I lose all my value because I start interacting with others on the basis of what I have heard about them. Pay attention to this! We have to be very, very selective in what we allow to enter our ears. Let me learn to see only virtues and specialities. Let me not concentrate on anyone’s weaknesses.

Finding The Destiny Maker (Part 3)

Today, there are a large number of people who cry in solitude in times of sorrow and are hurt because they are experiencing loneliness and are not getting what they want, from people close to them. Also their roles in their personal and professional lives are troubling them a lot by repeatedly bringing failure. If success is there, it is extremely short-lived. Also, because the five elements are coming down in their levels of quality, more and more people who have been healthy for most of their life are suddenly becoming unhealthy. Along with that, general suffocation in life where nothing seems interesting or a general mental depression is showing in many people’s lives, even people who have been very successful and content for most part of their lives. And, don’t forget - a very important mental energy giver to people - relationships are becoming fragile and are easily cracking or failing under different types of pressures. So, suddenly fortune or what we call destiny is not favouring most people in the world today. People who can challenge this fact today or those people whose fortune is positive and full of positivity in every way and that too permanently, are very few or close to none. The reversal of fortunes is like a powerful wave that is running over everyone and destroying the happiness of a very large number of people.

Because of this, people are realizing a need for change in their lives and are looking for an improvement in their fortunes. This is because they feel their lives are lacking something, which even they are not sure what that something is, but the fact is that that emptiness can only be filled permanently by a spiritual source which is none other than God. This spiritual source will fill our lives with invisible attainments, those attainments which cannot be destroyed or taken away from us, no matter what happens in our lives, especially when there are difficult situations stopping us and we don’t know what to do, which is increasing more and more. So, let all of us together hold the hand of God, the destiny maker, while He is there with us and fill ourselves with thousands of attainments for the present. At the same time, also purify ourselves through God and make ourselves worthy of going into a world of happiness in the near future, which is being established by God.

Integrity is to make thoughts, words and actions equal. 

We normally have a lot of thoughts for our own progress. We do speak about it to others too. But when I want to put it into practice, I lose the determination. Then I need to question myself if I really want to do it. Integrity and honesty to myself means I am able to translate thoughts into actions, thereby making my thoughts, words and actions equal. Today I will pick one thought which is good for me and bring it into action. I will make a conscious effort to do this. When I make this practice, I will be able to progress steadily. I will also find the quality of my thoughts improving.

Message for the day

To fill the ones who are hopeless with hope is the greatest service. 
Expression: To have faith by seeing the positive qualities even in the most negative person is to fill them with hope. Also to fill hope means to encourage others to move forward in the most negative situation. When this is done they are able to use their potentials for a positive purpose and slowly bring about a change for the better.

Experience: When I am able to see positivity under all circumstances, I am able to have the courage and enthusiasm to make the best out of every situation. This also naturally makes me an inspiration for those around me too and makes me an image of support for those who want to make effort. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris