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

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 26, 2016: Freedom

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 26, 2016: Freedom

12th March 1930: Gandhiji begins the Salt March (Namak Satyagraha) from Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad accompanied by eighty satyagrahis to a coastal village called Dandi, located about 390 kilometers south of the ashram. As one of the most structured revolutionary moments for the Indian independence, Dandi March was a planned protest and a large scale civil revolt against the salt tax laws set by the British Raj in India.

Freedom

Freedom means that no one can stop you from doing what is right or persuade you to do what is wrong.

Awakening The Positivity Within (Part 3)

In yesterday’s message, we have already shared examples of situations which are self-created i.e. created by my own mind, sometimes triggered by an external situation and sometimes there is no external event responsible for the situation. Then there are other situations of the physical body, relationship based situations and situations related to my workplace and home.  All these situations are partly external and partly internal i.e. there is an external event present which is a reality and cannot be overlooked except in many cases when the situation is perceived as a situation but that is just a perception of a person with a negative perception, but in reality the situation does not exist. In all other cases, the situation is present and that is a fact accepted by even a person with a positive perception. Depending on how we perceive the situation, how we react to it and what thoughts we create on seeing it, the situation becomes big or small in our own mind first. But there is another aspect – sometimes some life situations are threatening in nature and can disturb the most powerful of souls – of course the intensity of the fear varies from person to person depending on the perception. A calm mind with a powerful intellect can face all these situations and of course techniques like meditation which are taught by the Brahma Kumaris will help you in doing that.  

Meditation is a process of thought training - just like a cricketer will practice very carefully how he will time each ball that he faces to achieve the desired result of a run or runs scored. In the same way, I learn how to give each thought of mine value and create only positive thoughts for those few minutes of meditation. These positive thoughts are based on spiritual knowledge and are thoughts about the spiritual self and the Supreme Being. These positive thoughts are created very slowly, step by step and carefully. This meditation practice of about a few minutes everyday is our training for actual negative situations, in which we, due to this practice, then remain calm and create only positive thoughts and keep the negative thoughts away which cause disturbances in our mind.

How often do you reply to "How are you?" with "Busy, very busy"?

If being busy is taking over your life, stop! 
Be productive and effective without being 'too' busy.

Avoid taking on too much by learning to say that two-letter word, "no". 

Rather than say "no" to everything, think about what you want to say "yes" to. 

Get clear on your priorities and know your limitations.

Message for the day

The power of cooperation enables the most difficult task to be successfully done. 

Expression: To have the power of cooperation means to have the ability to see and use the specialities of others in any task that is to be done. It is the ability to respect and use the suggestions and ideas of each and everyone which contributes for the success of the task. So the one who is able to use this power is able to be successful in any task that he takes up.

Experience: When I am able to give cooperation and take cooperation from those around me, I never experience fear for any task that has to be done, but am able to be at ease, knowing that everything is possible. I am also able to earn the respect of those around me for having made the best use of their specialities, which further facilitates the success of the task.

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 25, 2016: Stability

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 25, 2016: Stability

Light House in Portugal with a High Wave from a Hurricane

Stability

Amidst the earthquakes of unexpected situations, the hurricanes of unreasonable behaviour, when fortune strikes against me, I will remain unmoved, knowing that finally all will be well.

Awakening The Positivity Within (Part 2)

Do you know that on an average we create a new thought every 2 seconds or even less that? This speed increases very regularly when we panic and are in discomfort or under the negative influence of an external situation. We call it external because the me or Iwhich is internal is not the creator of the situation. Even the physical body is external.Except for situations from my own negative personality characteristics, which are completely the creation of the internal me or I, all other situations are external. Examples of situations in the form of negative personality traits which are completely internal are – on a particular day I feel gloomy or sad without any particular reason or on a particular day I experience thoughts of ego of my own nature or positive qualities or powers which are all internal. Sometimes I experience fear but there is no particular person or object or situation which I fear, it is just a passing phase and I am just frightened for no particular reason or on another occasion I feel I am unsuccessful although everything in my life is going fine. On another day I am worried about falling ill, although I am completely fit and nor have I met someone who is ill or listened to any news regarding poor health, but my worry is completely self-created. These are examples of situations created completely by me.

Then, there are situations from my own personality characteristics which are triggered by outside situations, where something that I read, saw or heard has caused a negative personality characteristic to emerge inside me.Examples of such situations are – my friend has been more successful in his or her academic career and seeing that causes thoughts of jealousy to emerge inside me. In this case, this is my self created situation but it was triggered by another person or external event. He or she did not cause me any harm and did not create the situation but I created the situation only because of my thinking. Another example of such a situation - I fear my boss at office solely because of his position being superior to me. He or she is a very nice person and is extremely polite with me and never tries to dominate me, but I feel dominated because of my thinking. Or another day, I heard a piece of news about how people are dying of heart attacks and this creates thoughts of fear inside me although I don’t suffer from any symptoms like uncontrolled high cholesterol or high blood pressure which could possibly lead to that.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

Do you have the habit of rehashing decisions already made?

If the decision is not working out for you and you're not happy, then see if changing your decision is an option. If it is, then change it.

If you don't have the option to change your decision, then like with anything else, just take the opportunity to make it work for you!

Message for the day

You will be truly successful when you are loving and detached with the ones you come into contact with. 

Expression: With all the people that you come into contact with throughout the day, check if you are able to have a balance between being loving and detached. Detachment doesn't mean to stay away from people, but to be with them and yet be detached.

Experience: Make the practice of seeing only specialities, your own and that of others. This will enable you to maintain your self-respect and you will be able to find yourself both loving and detached.

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 24, 2016: Love

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 24, 2016: Love

Love

Sow seeds of peace by remaining rooted in the awareness of how loved, loveable and loving you are.

Awakening The Positivity Within (Part 1)

Positivity is our nature which we sometimes lose in our busy lifestyles. It is like the necklace which is around our neck, but we don’t realize that and we search for it all around. When we start the day, we need to fill our minds with a positive source of points of information which strengthen our mind and protect it from the negatives which surround us. Very often like the necklace, positivity is lost temporarily and is very easy to find, but the negative influence does not let me think of the ways of becoming positive and regaining it.

There was once a rich trader who always found a reason to become upset because of the smallest of reasons during the day. Every morning he would decide to remain positive during the day and would promise himself that he would not let his mind be influenced by any difficult problem he faced, but as soon as he used to start his trade or business, because of the complicated nature of his work, he would fall prey to one or the other problem either from the work itself, or through the money he handled, or from his work associates or sometimes due to a problem created by his own mind. A mind that easily succumbs to difficulties can be compared to a home where a little problem in the form of a little mouse enters and brings disturbances in the whole house. When the house owner manages to get rid of the mouse and thinks everything is okay, a cat enters and adds her side of troubles and has the house owner go busy in trying to get it out of his premises. The cat is then followed by the dog’s entry and the whole day the house owner spends in this way. The moral of the story is - the one who remains disturbed attracts disturbances, which he keeps trying to send away and this process or mindset of trying to keep problems away and becoming over-involved in doing that, in turn attracts more problems. So, remaining calm when the first problem of the day comes and not becoming over-involved in trying to keep it away is the primary step to keeping problems away for the whole day. Calmness attracts a problem free environment around me and also keeps me content, powerful and peaceful.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

Competition, when used positively can motivate us to grow and learn. 

But we can easily become too focused on beating competitors and get affected by their performance. It can discourage and distract us from focusing on improving our game.

Instead of competing with others, compete with yourself.

In your daily routines, at work, home, in exercise, challenge yourself to better your previous efforts. Raise your own personal bar higher and build on your capabilities. Harness your personal strengths and compete with your own potential.

Message for the day

A powerful stage is like a switch which finishes darkness of negativity in a second. 

Expression: Darkness is dispelled when a light is switched on. Similarly, a powerful stage is also a light switch. When this switch is on, one can put an end to all wasteful darkness and no longer have to labour to stop any wasteful thoughts. By becoming powerful, one can naturally become a donor, as there is nothing waste within. 

Experience: When I am aware of my positive qualities and what I can contribute to others, I am able to be powerful. This naturally enables me to be light and spread the inner light to others. I am never influenced negatively with any kind of waste or negative, but am always able to maintain my own positivity and that of others too. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris