Daily Positive Thoughts: February 24, 2017: Banish Ego

Daily Positive Thoughts: February 24, 2017: Banish Ego

Banish Ego

Ego is not just having a big head. Ego is present every time you feel any kind of fear, or hear yourself saying "That's mine". The truth tells us that nothing is 'mine' or 'yours', we are all trustees, and fear is only present where there is the voice of attachment. Detach from everything, and you will banish ego, fear will be no more, and only then can true love return.

At Peace with Time – The Key To Relaxed Living (Part 1)

To live in freedom you have to live at peace (harmony) with time; live the dimension of time as a creator of time and not a slave of time; live without being either a prisoner or victim of time. To live at peace with time is to live in harmony with nature, beginning with your inner nature. When you plant a sapling today, you cannot accelerate the process so that the next day you have a tree. When it is summer, you cannot make the earth revolve around the sun quicker or slower for winter to arrive before or later. Everything has its rhythm in nature. We have distanced ourselves from the natural rhythm and our accelerated mind exercises pressure, creates stress and causes anxiety. We plan the future, we are stuck in the past and the present escapes us.

Many worries have to do with how we live time: the past, the present and the future. Worrying about what might happen (future), when the moment has not yet come for it to happen, takes away from us the necessary energy to deal with it when it finally arrives. Living in memories drains our energy; the past already happened and no longer exists, except in our memory. We feed memories, not realizing that emerging the memory in our mind distracts us from the present and weakens us. It is like being a plug that connects to a socket with no current passing through. We lose our energy. We want to relive an experience that already happened, and in the end we feel disappointed, feeling a mental and emotional waste.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

To give regard to all is to have control. 

I usually want to control people and want regard from all. In the process I show my authority to those around me and try to get things done. Yet I find that when I do this I am not able to have any control others or their behaviour. The best way to get things done is by giving regard to all. When I have true regard for them, I am also able to receive regard from them. It is this regard that will make others understand and behave according to my needs.

Message for the day

The more I sow seeds of effort, the more I reap the fruits of result.

Thought to Ponder: When I go on putting in effort in the right direction, I will keep gaining qualities. I will be able to keep drawing the best from everything around and also keep receiving cooperation from people. If, in between anything or anyone hinders this, effort needed to be put in at that time will be not so much because I am continuing to put in my efforts anyway.

Point to Practice: Today I will put in efforts towards my aim, without worrying about the results. I will at least do 3 things that can take me towards my aim. This will ensure that I have a practice of continuous inputs. For, I know the result will come anyway, at its own time. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: February 23, 2017: Simplicity

Daily Positive Thoughts: February 23, 2017: Simplicity

Trulli, Italy

Simplicity

Complications seem to be an inevitable by-product of modern living. Simplicity gives birth to inspirations. Keeping my own mind calm and clear is the easiest method to sort out messy situations. Maintaining a balance of living simply yet comfortably, and only using what I really need of the earth's resources, I will always have abundance in my life.

Love And Suffering (Part 3)

When there is too much pain we cannot lean back into our true power and experience our energy of love. Only the power of pure love, unconditional love or love of God, can help us to get rid of the suppressed pain inside the subconscious. When you live through a situation that causes pain in you, you have to love yourself, stabilize yourself and enter into silence. Observe that pain without being afraid of it. Observe it to let go of it and understand what it is that it brings about in you.

The answer, generally, is connected with others: He/she doesn't love me anymore and that's why I feel pain, Things are not like they were before, The company of this loved one doesn't give me the benefits it was giving me before.

If a person loved you and now has stopped loving you, does that make you feel pain? Or is it your own expectation and your desire for that person to keep on valuing you or loving you like before that trap you in pain? Is it that you don't accept change? The truth is, we bring on suffering ourselves. If you don't want to make yourself suffer, starting from now you do not have to bear any more suffering. Nobody can wound you or can cause you pain, except if you allow it. So how do you allow it? By being a vacuum that sucks in everything of the other, the good and the bad, and you suffer. It is expectations from our loved one that make us vulnerable to the experience of suffering.

To have hope in the hopeless is real service. 

When we see someone behaving very negatively, we tend to react negatively too. We think and speak about his negative qualities and further increase his negativity in our minds. This creates a negative environment which doesn't allow him to change for the better. When I come across someone who is using his negative qualities, I need to make special effort to give him that positive environment where he can get encouraged to use his positive qualities. Only then can I do the special service of bringing about a positive change in him. 

Message for the day

Great actions make life worthwhile.

Thought to Ponder: To make actions great, I need to pay special attention to what I am doing on a daily basis. I don't have to do anything great or spectacular. Instead, my attention should not be more on what I do. Instead, it should be on how I do it. Adding quality to everything I do makes my actions special. Then I can really enjoy what life brings my way.

Point to Practice: Today I will remember my specialties before I start any work. I will make sure I will add that specialty into what I do. Even the way I sit or walk or see or talk can make a difference when I make my actions special using my specialty. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: February 22, 2017: Compassionate Soul

Daily Positive Thoughts: February 22, 2017: Compassionate Soul

Compassionate Soul

You are a soul who does not over-think, over-speak, or over-act- because you understand.

Love And Suffering (Part 2)

We have the inner belief that love, worry, fear and suffering go together. It is difficult to transform (change) fear until we eliminate that belief. You are love and you need to share that love. Life is a sharing of love, it is loving the body, loving oneself, loving others, loving God, loving nature, loving work. That energy of love in the end purifies us and helps us to go forward. But while the belief exists that love has to be linked to fear and suffering, we will be blocked and will put a brake to the flow of pure love. In the name of love, we worry, we suffer and we are afraid. Instead of helping from a place of freedom in love, we help out of worry and fear, and in doing so we stifle, control, depend, and the other person feels their inner freedom restricted. We do not let them be.

If we review our personal life and see the moments when we have experienced most pain in our lives, we realize that it is with the people we have most loved, and that have most loved us that we have suffered most. We experience pain in a relationship of love, where there is possession, control, submission and dependence. Other times the pain is caused by a loss that generates an inner emptiness. That person filled me, they gave me wholeness, they were the reason for my existence and now they have either left me or they have gone. In the second case, we wouldn't say that they have died, but rather that they have gone to another level of existence i.e.  the soul has taken a new physical costume.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

To admire or to praise is to imbibe those virtues too. 

When I notice someone's specialities, I begin to admire them and describe them to others too. I really like those virtues in the other person, but rarely do I make effort to imbibe them in myself too. I need to understand that I like these particular virtues in the other person because they are subtly working within me too. When I work on them more consciously, I will be able to emerge them easily. 

Message for the day

To be free from desires is to be free from the burden of problems. 

Thought to Ponder:  When I chase my shadow, there is sorrow, but when I face the sun, I find my shadow following me. Unreasonable desires are like the shadow which I am trying to catch. What I need to do is, have a clear aim and work towards it. That is like facing the sun. I find more attainments when I am connected with my efforts.

Point to Practice: Today I will check my desires and ask myself if I am doing anything to earn them. I will then see what I really want, make a clear plan to achieve it and follow this plan in order to get to it. This will enable me to be connected with my efforts and the fruit of my efforts would surely come, bringing along with it a lot of other qualities in me.

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: February 21, 2017: Love Has Many Faces

Daily Positive Thoughts: February 21, 2017: Love Has Many Faces

An artist's representation in 1899 of Angkor Thom located in present-day Cambodia, during its heyday in 12th century CE. It was established in the late twelfth century by King Jayavarman VII and was the last and most enduring capital city of the Khmer empire.

Love Has Many Faces

Love can never be exclusive. The sun does not choose to shine on some flowers in the garden and not others. Loves is inclusive and has many faces - caring, listening, sharing from the heart, just accepting someone for what they are right now, are all acts of love, as long as you seek nothing in return. It all starts with acceptance of yourself - you're just fine as you are right now, warts and all. It's not that you will stay that way for ever - but you might, if you don't accept. The secret key to the greatest door called love is acceptance. First yourself, then others (especially the ones you currently resist) and eventually ...all

Love And Suffering (Part 1)

There are two things that touch or move us in life: pain and pleasure. Both create addiction. We feel pain in the body, and sometimes it is even emotional. But suffering arises in the mind. The suffering in the mind arises from thinking negatively towards the self, towards others, looking at them with a vision or attitude that causes grief, sorrow and suffering. Both extremes, pain and pleasure, can create addiction. On creating addiction it can start to form part of someone's identity. Later if one tries to stop the addiction of pain or suffering, it can almost feel like a threat towards the self, and towards one's own identity as one perceives it, because suffering is identified with. It is too hard to see oneself as no longer suffering.

An e.g. in this regard is that of a mother, with three children, who was undergoing a meditation course at one of the Brahma Kumaris centers. Her daughter had learned to meditate and became very happy and joyful. Seeing her happiness the mother came to learn to meditate. With a few sessions she felt much more at peace and had very good experiences, but all of a sudden she decide to stop the meditation practice and leave the course because she was starting experiencing a positive detachment, which she perceived as negative. Now, she was no longer feeling afraid of what might happen to her children. The meditation was awakening in her a love free from fears, but it brought on in her an inner clash of beliefs between the old and new beliefs. Her old belief was that to love someone is to suffer about them or create pain related to them.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

Using your qualities

With the sheer pace of life, plus the habit of looking outside of ourselves for approval and validation, it's easy to forget that we all have unlimited qualities within us. Here's a simple exercise to kick-start the process of recognizing and using your qualities.

On your morning commute, take a couple of minutes to ask yourself: What personal quality would make a difference to my day, today?

Pick one or two qualities that will be relevant, eg. efficient, empathetic, energetic.... Think about why it resonates with you. Identify how and when this quality can be best used today. Finally, truly feel and believe that you have the capacity to be this.

Message for the day

Remove the darkness of the mind and the world around will be illuminated. 

Thought to Ponder: If I am seeing negativity, it is an indication that there is something negative in my own mind. I need to work on that which is in me, rather than trying to change others. Self-checking helps me become better and better and I start noticing that I am able to see more and more of the positive that is around me.

Point to Practice: Today I will check what aspect in me is making me see in others/situations. I will work on changing this. However, it is also important to do this checking and changing with a feeling of self-respect and not being caught up with guilt or negativity for the self.

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: February 20, 2017: Celebration

Chiang mai festival of lights, Thailand

Celebration

Every day is a celebration because instead of waiting for happy endings, we open our eyes to the wonder of life, to see the humour and magic in each moment. Delighted in the way things turn out, amazed at the beauty of it all.

Taking Time Off From Busy Lifestyles (Part 3)

To rise above the monotonous and busy existence explained in the last two days’ messages, we all require a regular dosage of newness to keep our hearts and minds fresh. How can we define newness? It is a change of thoughts, feelings, words, actions, circumstances – when all or some of these deviate from the normal or are new, they give us an experience of joy. On a physical level we go on a holiday or meet our loved ones to achieve the purpose mentioned above. We then get back to our daily routine of thoughts and actions, with more freshness, which makes the routine more interesting.

On a spiritual level, to become silent, to be still in the ocean of hectic, noisy action is a choice many people are now making. When this is achieved, this stillness acts on the mind like oxygen, giving the breath to both understand and enrich life. Of course, action is a necessity, an expression of ourselves through time, relationships and the roles we play. However, if we do not sometimes stop and take a breath of silence, then the mind begins to suffocate, thoughts speed like bullet trains and the brain feels as if it is in a pressure cooker. Emotions erupt like volcanoes, eyes become dizzy with mountains of information and the head feels like a rollercoaster. This is stress. The mind needs to come up for air, to leave the jungle of pressure, deadlines and speed and slow down and find the point of silence within. Also a daily dose of new and different spiritual knowledge at the start of the day does the work of newness and helps us rise above the monotony. Newness in our thoughts then flows into our feelings, beliefs, attitudes, personalities, perceptions, actions, interactions, relationships, etc. bringing newness in all of them and removing the stagnancy of the regular routine. Also feeding spiritual knowledge to the mind benefits silence or meditation immensely, because meditation, which is not just a process of reducing the mind to a nil stage but the creation of positive, constructive thoughts to take the mind to a positive experience of peace and bliss, can then become an interesting, new and creative exercise each time one practices it. Spiritual knowledge is the foundation of good meditation or silence.

What happens when you think of a situation as a 'problem'?

Tension, worry, disappointment, frustration are most likely to arise.

What happens if you were to think of the same situation as a 'challenge'? Now what happens if you think of it as an 'opportunity', or even a 'gift'?

Think differently and, all of a sudden, your perspective changes completely. As your perspective changes, not only does it create a different type of feeling and experience, it also affects how you handle the situation. Try it!

Message for the day

Patience brings solutions to problems.

Thought to Ponder: When I am patient, in the face of challenges, I find time heals most of the problems. Even for those which I have to work on, patience helps me be cool and collected and helps me easily find solutions, without becoming panicky or upset. Patience also helps me to understand what I need to work on and what I need to leave for time to heal or correct.

Point to Practice: Today I will calm my mind before attempting to find solutions. I will look with detachment at a problem, knowing well the solution has to come. I will not consider it as my problem, but just as 'a problem' that has to be worked on. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Daily Positive Thoughts: February 19, 2017: Procrastination

Daily Positive Thoughts: February 19, 2017: Procrastination

Procrastination

The less I think about doing something and the faster I just get on with it, the fewer problems I cause myself. Good planning is always helpful, but time spent fretting and procrastinating is a major drain on my energy.

Taking Time Off From Busy Lifestyles (Part 2)

Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest cause of obstacles of our lives. It interrupts our own life story, interrupts our ability to have a dream and create something beautiful, because we're too busy on our cell phones, one of the favourite pastimes of our current lifestyle.

We’ve talked of being busy for so long that we’ve forgotten that being busy was never our aim. We are not on this earth to be busy. We are here to build relationships, experience life to the fullest, create things, think positive, help others or experience joy. Our reasons for being will all be different but if you reflect deeply, you will realize and also feel that none of us feel we are here simply to be busy. But our lifestyles have lead us to think being busy is good, no matter what we’re busy with. Sadly the business world continues to train us this way as employees are expected to put in 8-10 hours of work a day even though on some days they might have only 2 or 4 hours of productive things to do.

God's plan for enlarging and creating His beautiful heaven on earth, creating a new world order of peace, love and happiness of the future is so simple - one person telling another about God, the Savior and the Liberator i.e. giving the Supreme’s message of joyful, loveful and spiritual soul-conscious existence to each one. Yet we're busy and full of excuses. Just remember, someone's eternal destiny is at stake, that someone who is to receive the message from you. The joy you'll have when you see that person in a liberated and joyful state not only here but in that world of happiness being created will far exceed any discomfort you felt in sharing the message with him by taking out time from your busy existence.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

Are you aware of how influential you are? 

Realize the influence you have on everyone you come into contact with, and then check whether it's positive or negative.

Recognize how you influence. Not just your words and actions but also your intentions and motivations.

Influence others, but not to make people do what you want. Influence positively and you'll bring out the best in yourself and in others.

Message for the day

To recharge body and soul is to be immune to disease.

 
Thought to Ponder: Body gets recharged with good diet, exercise and rest. With these three, we can become immune to disease. For the mind too, we need good food (positive thoughts), exercise (practicing with channelizing thoughts in a positive direction) and rest (peace of mind). When I have these, my mind and soul gets charged and I remain strong. So, I don't succumb to the negativity of the situation. 

Point to Practice: Today I will read something positive (food). I will remind myself of this at least 5 times (exercise) and I will spend at least a few minutes in peace (rest). This will induce a practice of a positive life style. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris