Contemplation: Resist Not

Contemplation:  Resist Not

Resist Not

Have you ever noticed that resistance leads to persistence? And behind all resistance is self-created fear. The only way to relax and stay relaxed is acceptance. You don't have to agree, or follow, or condone, but acceptance means you begin any interaction with a serenity which invites others to engage with you. And out of engagement comes the satisfaction of creative expression and an enriching relationship. That's relaxation in action!
relax7

Our Thoughts make the World

We are what we think, all that we are arises with our thoughts," said
the Buddha, "with our thoughts, we make the world." In other words, you
are constantly creating your circumstances by the way you think. It's
as if you had a guided missile in your unconscious that relentlessly
directs you towards its target, and the target is whatever your
thoughts dwell on. Think doom and gloom, and that's what you'll get.
Focus on happiness and optimism, and they're already yours. Negative
thought frustrate the universal forces that can create a happy, healthy
and successful life. They keep our true potential trapped in a mental
prison of our own making.

Freedom From The Dependency On The New - cont.

In the market, there always appears the novelty (newness) of the same product wrapped differently. There always seems to be a new soft drink, a new kind of chocolate, but they are really the same products as always. The only thing that changes is the packaging and their image. Some children, whenever they go to the market, want the new kinds of biscuits, pastries, etc. They always want new things that then stay in the fridge.

We encourage this by telling little children that happiness is stimulation, the new is stimulating, and comes from the outside or you get it from the outside. We create an addiction to the new; in this case, to the newness of the packaging. What kind of newness is that!

When, in order to be happy, you need to go shopping, you try to fill yourself with something that isn't you. You try to find wholeness by filling your life with material things. A soul who is spiritually awake knows that they are already complete and they do not need to depend on the purchase of something new regularly for feeling full internally.

The only effort is in remembering and reconnecting with their whole self, their complete self; reconnecting with their inner treasures of spiritual wisdom, virtues and powers.

Soul Sustenance

Overcoming Fears Connected With Negative Past Experiences (cont.)

The work with oneself to see what aspects of your past burden you and coming to terms with those aspects, requires silence, reflection and meditation. When you come to terms with your own past, you can let go of it and be free of it, not be afraid that the past will come back to you. If not, sometimes, it is like a shadow that follows you.

If your house was robbed once, the shadow follows you that, perhaps, you might be robbed again. If they hurt you, you fear it will happen again. Sometimes that experience presents itself in dreams, in the subconscious or in present attitudes. Reliving the past in your mind, you do not fully enjoy the present. You have to accept the pieces of your past so that they do not continue to generate upsets. Accept that you had to live through them and live the present with a constructive vision of the future.

In the above context, it helps to write letters to God about your experiences. The exercise of sharing them with God in writing brings clarity inside you and helps you to bring the spiritual light and might in your life in order not to be burdened by unnecessary experiences, unhappiness or grief.

Have you ever written to God? You could do it at night and tell Him the things that affected you or that you have learned. You can tell Him the things or intimate feelings that other people perhaps wouldn't understand or wouldn't be there to listen to. You could also talk to Him about all that you question, and you do not have an answer to. And the following morning, when you meditate and study a little bit of spiritual knowledge, you often receive answers.

Message for the day

To be clean means to be a success.

Projection: We usually interact with others based on our past experiences with them. Even if there has been a single negative experience with someone, we keep that in our mind and all our responses are based on that experience. We are, then, not able to be fully successful in our relationships.

Solution: In order to succeed in our relationships we need to keep our mind free from the experiences of the past. We can do this when we look at the uniqueness and speciality of each individual that we come into contact with. This practice makes us respect all and be free from the negativity of the past.

Contemplation:Silence

Contemplation:Silence

 

Incredibly beautiful natural pool in Thassos, Giola lagoon, Greece

Silence

We have to develop this hobby and practice going into the depths of silence. Practice this, make it your hobby and see how much you then enjoy it. The tiredness of the soul will then be removed. We will feel that we are able to remain carefree and restful. When the soul is tired it is restless and there is a lot of worry; we think I have to do this, that and so we cannot feel restful. All actually I have to do is to remain peaceful and there will be the feeling that everything will be ok...

Prosperity

The presence of prosperity or lack of it in health, finances and
relationships can offer signs of internal wellness, and clues about
what kind of inner development needs more critical care. Understand the
symbiosis between inner wellness and the different levels of prosperity
in your life. Try some spiritual approaches to expanding your capacity
and your awareness of abundance. Best of all, enjoy taking the reigns
and steering towards total prosperity - in all dimensions.

The Power To Discriminate

Meditation gives me a discriminating eye - an ability to discriminate between truth and falsehood. It does this by helping me maintain a consciousness that helps me rise above competing claims to truth - the different ideologies and opinions, reasons and analyses, justifications and stories related to a situation - which can be so confusing.

The image of discrimination is the jeweler, who, with the help of his eyeglass, sorts out real diamonds from false. Meditation opens my third eye, the eye of pure consciousness. When I look at the world through this eye, truth is not just an intellectual idea, but an experience of the heart. When I think and act in ways that maintain and deepen this experience of truth, I know I am moving in the right direction.

Conversely, I discover that thoughts and behaviours that cloud or hide the experience of truth are coming from falsehood, no matter how much I or others may try to justify them. So, meditation gives me a reliable basis for discriminating the value in different courses of action: will this help me recover my truth, or take me further into falsehood? Will it maintain the flow of love, peace and happiness in my heart, or will it cause a blockage? Previously, I may have been easily swayed by other people's demands and opinions, or by illusory ways of thinking arising from my own negativity.

Like a good lawyer, the intellect is very clever at arguing its case, regardless of where the truth may lie. But, when truth is experienced in and from the heart, there is no arguing with it. Deeply experienced truth clears my mind of irrelevancies created due to possessiveness, greed, desires and ego. As I learn to create pure, positive thoughts, and connect with the divine, it is as though a flow of clear, fragrant water gradually displaces the mud and rubbish in my intellect, enabling me to see reality or truth again.

Soul Sustenance

Overcoming Fears Connected With Negative Past Experiences

Some of our fears arise due to the situations we have lived through; for example, if you are driving a car and you have an accident. Then you take some time to drive again, because the memory of the accident awakens the fear of having another one or reliving the one you had. The person that has never had a car accident gets in the car with confidence, because they do not have that scene recorded, since they haven't lived through it.

There are fears that we carry within us that are not of the present. Something happened to us in the dark and we are now afraid of the dark. Fears in relationships: you opened your heart, you fell in love and, after a time, you experienced pain, you felt hurt, misunderstood, manipulated, deceived or mistreated, and now you no longer open your heart for anything; it is closed off with the shields that you yourself have created.

To overcome this kind of fear due to experiences you have lived through, you have to come to terms with your past and accept it fully. You cannot change your past; lamenting the past doesn't help you; complaining about the past doesn't benefit you. Those shields brought about by fears do not disappear unless you do a deep cleansing. Begin to heal your experience of the past. Part of the past is healed with forgiveness. Without forgiving, you cannot forget.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

Message for the day

To be free from bondage means to be able to fly.

Projection: Sometimes we find that we are not able to progress as much as we should. We also find that we are not able to be light in all circumstances. At such times we might blame the situation and just stop making effort, as we cannot see the real cause for our lack of progress.

Solution: We need to understand that the lack of progress that we are experiencing is not because of the situation itself but because of our own weakness that is like a bondage. When we recognise this fact, we will be able to know the right method to overcome our own weakness so that we will then be able to fly forward.

Contemplation: Remember

Contemplation: Remember

Torres del Paine National Park in Chile

Remember

If peace, warmth or friendship is a little bit less, then just remember this – whatever you put out always comes back to you.

Love

Nothing can be more pure or stimulating than the relationship between
the soul and Supreme Divine Being. They say love is a flower so
delicate that a single touch can bruise it and yet so strong as to face
the biggest storms; this describes the perfect love, as God has for us.
When sustained on faith, it carries us across the most difficult
hurdles of life but dies instantly with the touch of impurity,
negativity, doubt.

Freedom From The Dependency On The New

One of the dependencies that the consumer society promotes is dependency on the new. You have a car but today a new, better one is coming out. You have a mobile but the new one on the market today has more features and yours is now obsolete. The same thing happens to the television, MP3 players, DVD players, etc. Today you have some clothes but tomorrow the fashion will be different. We find the need to fill ourselves with more and more. This way an addiction to the new is generated. We get bored quickly and we need something apparently new and different all the time.

Some people need to buy new clothes all the time because it makes them feel better; they feel the newness, is this normal or is it actually an addiction to the new out of boredom, is it discomfort with oneself and the inner need to impress and please others that sometimes some people seem to possess. It is actually living in the superficiality 'of the pair of jeans or the saree', not in the inner essence of being or soul. It is to use time to distract oneself and not to construct creatively. It's not as if buying new stuff or going shopping is wrong but when it becomes a dependency, when it becomes a source of boosting your self esteem, that's a sign that you are going wrong.

(To be continued tomorrow ...)

Soul Sustenance

The Internal And External Source Of Spiritual Energy

Every day, in the morning, we all need to recharge our spiritual battery, the energy of which has been used the previous day. This is extremely important, otherwise the light of our consciousness becomes dim, thoughts become unfocused and decisions are filled with un-clarity and doubt. This energy is available inside and outside. Inside us we have a spiritual centre, at the center of our consciousness, pure spiritual energy. This is what we are. However access to this energy is now blocked by our attachments, many negative life experiences and many incorrect beliefs and perceptions (way of looking at situations). Outside us we have the Supreme Soul, the source, the Supreme Being or Supreme Spiritual Energy. Both these sources are invisible to our physical eyes but only one second away when we are able to quieten and focus our mind on them. The method of doing this is called meditation, which connects us to both sources of power - that's why meditation is the way to spiritually nourish the soul, the nourishment that the soul longs for immensely. Sit quietly and connect your mind to each source and allow yourself to recharge. 

Message for the day 

To be a master means to use at the right time the powers that we have.

Projection: We do have a lot of powers within us which we can use in different situations. But we sometimes find that we are not always able to order the right power at the right time. So, sometimes in spite of having the power within us, we are not able to use it because it doesn't come to use when we require it.

Solution: We need to practice being the master having control over all our inner powers. The more we practice being the master, the more we will find our powers working perfectly under our order. Then we will be able to use the right power at the right time.

Contemplation: Be Creative

Contemplation: Be Creative 

                                                    Be Creative

Every day is an opportunity to be creative - the canvas is your mind, the brushes and colours are your thoughts and feelings, the panorama is your story, the complete picture is a work of art called, 'my life'. Be careful what you put on the canvas of your mind today - it matters.

Realization

People build their identity around physical achievements, status,
relationships, and other's opinions, which is like grasping a mirage in
the desert - there is no substance or permanence. Rajyoga teaches us
how to understand our original personality as 'souls' and re-emerge our
divinity through the remembrance of One Supreme. No matter how much
others or even God may try to convince me that I am a worthy
individual, until I visualize my own goodness and nurture my
self-respect, I cannot do anything with my life. God loves me no
matter what I may be like and makes me realize my 'self' by loving me
unconditionally.

Negative Control And Domination In Relationships

In a lot many of the different types of relationships we find ourselves in, may they be our personal relationships or at the workplace, we sometimes feel ourselves to be in a position where we feel we are being dominated and controlled negatively by the opposite person. A very common example of the above negative energy, in personal and non-personal relationships, is when someone gets angry with you and manages to make you react and get upset, they manage to dominate you. Over a period of time they start realizing that they possess an invisible and powerful remote control, using which, whenever they want to control you, what they should do is to get angry with you and that way they will achieve the desired control. Their anger becomes a remote control.

When you react you are allowing this control or allowing the other's remote control to work. It is you that chooses to allow yourself to be influenced and dominated. It is important for us to realize that we can choose and take the decision to allow ourselves to be controlled and dominated, or we can choose to express what we feel without being affected by the reaction of the other and still maintaining our love, respect and good wishes for the other.

Let us not allow ourselves to be dominated and influenced by entities external to us which includes objects and people or we will lose energy. Each moment we allow another person's remote control to work successfully or we allow an object to control and dominate our emotional state, we weaken internally. We become like a puppet in the other person's hands. A puppet is never powerful because it does not act on its own but is controlled by someone else. We need to prevent that, if we want to conserve our energy and remain spiritually strong.

Meditation and spiritual knowledge both increase our spiritual strength and also increase our self esteem or self respect over a period of time. Both these increases help us remain in self control and not only disallow the other's remote control to work but also become assertive (not aggressive) and take a stand when required.

Soul Sustenance

The Relationship between Anger and Attachment (cont.)

Attachment is a negative attraction that we succumb to, inside our consciousness, regularly and it gives rise to ego, which in turn is the root cause of all suffering. Suffering, in turn, is experienced at an emotional level through the various different forms of anger. We need to realize this phenomenon very deeply because this happens many a times in each day of our lives inside our consciousness. Then we can see exactly from where our anger arises and we can correct it.

So if we don't want to suffer from anger, the solution is simple - we don’t get attached to anything or anyone, to any expectation, any particular desired result. Sounds difficult at first, but the same solution can be put in a way that would seem easier to achieve, we don’t lose our spiritual identity or individuality in something we are not, in anything or anyone that is physical. That does not mean we shouldn't possess any material objects and not experience joy by using them. It also does not mean we start remaining aloof from people that we love. Nor does it mean we don't have goals and ambitions at the workplace etc. We do. But our relationship with them changes. Our relationship becomes one of detachment and not of attachment. And what is a relationship of detachment? Detachment means that we possess all of them but we are no longer dependent on any of them, for our peace, contentment and happiness.

We choose to be peaceful, content and joyful irrespective of whether they are there with us or not. So when cars get banged into (which can happen at times) and when people close to us are harmed or insulted or they leave or are separated from us due to any other reason (which is also bound to happen) or when jobs are lost (which is inevitable), we don't react angrily and suffer as a result. We have realized everything in life comes and goes; everything is born and comes to an end. We also realize that every process taking place in life is unpredictable and not always controllable, and must end. Things do and will happen. We know this is a reality. Every time we get angry it means we are having an argument with this reality of life.

Message for the day

Where there is courage there is success.

Projection: When we are involved in a task, we sometimes experience setbacks. Such setbacks often make us lose our confidence and we no longer have faith that we will succeed in the task. We then lose all courage to go ahead with the task and lose every chance of achieving what we have to.

Solution: We need to remind ourselves that we achieve success to the extent that we have courage. We need to make effort to maintain our courage even during the most difficult circumstances. Only when we do this will we continue to put in effort, which will bring us success at the right time.

Contemplation: Opportunities

Contemplation: Opportunities

Lunar Rainbow (Moonbow) at Yosemite Falls, USA.

Opportunities are never lost - someone will take the ones you miss!

In order to create good relationships

- With your mind, think about what you have to learn from others.
- With your eyes, look into the good qualities of others.
- With your words, recognize, value and appreciate their
accomplishments.
- With your actions, cooperate and do something for others.

Soul Power Over Role Power (cont.)

Continuing from yesterday's message, the remaining components of soul power are:

The power of good wishes, desires and feelings full of love for others, while coming in contact with them. These type of feelings will bring good wishes in return from the other to you, which will not only empower you, but will also assist your physical role on a subtle level.

The power of complete purity and cleanliness in thoughts, words and actions - A state where one is not under the influence of vices like anger, ego, attachment, greed, hatred, jealousy etc.

The 8 main powers - the power to tolerate, accommodate, face, pack up, discriminate (or discern), judge (or decide), withdraw and co-operate - their implementation on an internal and external level i.e. not only in words and actions, but also on a thought level. Where there is lack of any of the above powers inside me, there will definitely be waste and you will be weakened, which reduces the probability of success of your role.

The power of truth or spiritual wisdom - A state where the self has deeply realized and understood eternal truths of the soul, the Supreme and the Law of Karma and has drawn immense amount of power and experience from that knowledge. The power of physical knowledge would fall under role power, which has been explained earlier.

By focusing on each of the above components of soul power and those explained in yesterday's message, by giving them more weightage and using them along with the components of the role, which were mentioned in the message before that, one can experience the desired success in any role in any sphere of life very easily without much effort.

Soul Sustenance

The Relationship Between Anger And Attachment

Most of us logically understand that all forms of anger are worthlessness emotions, but when we enter into the field of practical actions, we tend to argue that there are some situations where the weapon of anger has to be used and where it is justified or allowable. When someone tries to harm me personally, like giving sorrow to a friend or loved one, send a complaint about my work to the higher ups in the office or simply insult me or bang into my car at the street crossing for that matter, it would seem that our anger is justified, on such occasions. But the basic principle is the same in all these cases. We are, in our own mind, trying to control and change what we cannot change - the past or other people or events.

In all the above cases above we suffer a lot when these things that are close to us are changed or lost. So why does that happen? It is because we keep all these things ‘too’ close to us or in other words we are ‘over attached’ to them. When someone tries to bring me down at the workplace, or in other words tries to harm my position in the office and I suffer because of the same, it is because I identify with my role in the office, I think I am the role. When someone bangs into my car, the emotion of anger emerges inside me, because I identify with the car, I think I am the car! This is the deepest mistake. It is the deepest cause of the negative suffering called anger. We are not aware of this of course, but if we were to take a moment and see what we do in our minds, we would see we emerge the image of our role or our car on the screen of our mind. We have then gone into that image in our mind, and we have lost our spiritual identity or individuality in that image. In effect we have identified completely with the role or the car or are too attached to them. So if the role or the car is harmed in any way, it feels like it is happening to us and, as a result, we become disturbed or angry.

(To be continued tomorrow…) 

Message for the day

To recognise the uniqueness of one's own role is to be free from negativity.

Projection: When we find things going wrong with us, we sometimes wish for a change in our role. We begin to compare ourselves with others or wish for something better in our life, which makes us lose all our enthusiasm. We then make no effort to better our role.

Solution: We need to recognise the importance of our own role. Like an actor who doesn't make effort to change his role but brings perfection to his own role, we, too, need to concentrate on our own role. The recognition of the importance of our own role and the desire to bring excellence to it makes us free from negativity.

Contemplation: Loneliness

Contemplation: Loneliness

Loneliness comes when I forget God is my Supreme Companion.

To Be

You spend most of your life running after things, doing things. You
forget that being comes before doing. Those who remember this secret
make an effort to "be" and discover that when they stop and
observe, life helps and brings whatever is needed. Learning to be is
learning to be at peace. It is our most fundamental nature.

Soul Power Over Role Power (cont.)

Continuing from yesterday's message, the various components of soul power are:

The power of inner silence or the silence of my mind - Silence is a power. The fewer the thoughts in my mind and the more powerful, positive, peaceful and focused they are, the more my mind will contribute to the success of the role on a subtle level. My silence is regularly tested when faced with negative situations or obstacles. The more successful I am in maintaining this stage in such situations, the more is my treasure of silence collected over a period of time and the more positive the influence of this silence will be on my physical role and the success of various tasks connected with the role.

The power of inner and outer carefreeness, happiness and contentment - Happiness not only inside but also giving others an experience of the same through my face, my eyes, my words and actions full of lightness and enthusiasm, etc. while coming in contact with them. Ensuring I am content with myself and others and also others are content with me. Regular periods of discontentment or unhappiness either within me or in my relationships affect the success of my role adversely.

In tomorrow's message, we shall explain the remaining components that make up soul power.

Soul Sustenance

Meditation and World Transformation (Change) - cont.

Yesterday we had explained how one can become a medium of world transformation by sitting in meditation.

To become a world transformer, while performing actions, the following method can be practiced - when dealing with others, continually maintain the internal feelings of being a spiritual rose flower, spreading the fragrance of divine qualities through good vibrations and good wishes. When viewing others, look not at the eyes, but look at the point of light in the centre of the forehead whose original qualities are peace, bliss, love, joy, power, etc., and remember that it is the eternal (beyond life and death, timeless) soul talking to the eternal soul, through the body. Also, while maintaining this type of spiritual vision, sprinkle other souls with the energy vibrations of the same virtues.



Message for the day

Perfection comes to the one who is open to learning.

Projection: When we realise having made a mistake, we usually have negative thoughts about ourselves. This is because we expect the best out of ourselves, i.e., we expect ourselves to be perfect in everything we do. But this expectation prevents us from taking naturally the learning from the situation.

Solution: We need to realise that perfection does not come by thinking about it but by being busy in whatever we are doing. With every action of ours comes a learning and this automatically brings perfection.

Contemplation: Give & Take

Contemplation: Give & Take

 

Festive Mysore Palace

Give & Take

Whatever you give comes back to you. Whatever you take will not stay with you.

Mother

A mother teaches her child with love and patience until the child
learns. Be a mother and teach your mind to have positive thoughts and
to let go of worries. Then when your mind most needs peace, it will
obey you.

Soul Power Over Role Power

Every act that we are involved in throughout the day is made possible or real by two entities - role and soul working in conjunction with each other. Although, it is a spiritual fact that the soul is the master and makes the role function, without the soul the role cannot function; while playing any role in our day-to-day life we tend to forget this fact and our entire focus falls on the role that is to be played, forgetting that by doing that, we bring down the probability of success of that role in our personal or professional life.

Focusing positively on the soul and its components while playing the role fills the role with soul power and focusing on the role and its components while playing the role fills the role with something you could call role power. We need to create a balance between the role and the soul and a balance in using both role and soul power to bring about the success of the role, the role could be of any type.

Even a project that you have to work on in the office which is going to last for a month is an example of a temporary role you have to play. There are many other examples of roles - getting your child's homework done, preparing food for the entire family, doing charity work at the club together, taking part in an extracurricular activity in school or college, etc.

Any such or other role will consist of some or all of these components - various tasks, interaction with people or relationships, mediums like wealth and other objects, time, knowledge of everything connected with the role including the components that make up the role, etc. All these components are physical in nature and make up the role. The power that these components possess makes up what we call role power. Now, what happens is that as soon as we step into the role each day or on a particular day, obviously our aim is to bring about success of the role, but to achieve that, our entire focus falls on using the power of the role, neglecting the immense potential that soul power possesses.

We spend our day and night in streamlining the role components for the well being of the role, not realizing that this purpose could be more easily achieved, if the focus is more on using soul power, obviously without neglecting role power (without which the purpose cannot be achieved).

In tomorrow's message, we shall explain the various components that make up soul power.

Soul Sustenance

Meditation And World Transformation (Change)

As one practices Rajyoga meditation, one can become a spiritual lighthouse for the entire universe, a medium to radiate (spread) the divine qualities and powers that one gains through the link with the Supreme Soul who is the Supreme Spiritual Energy and the ever luminous Being of Light; to all other souls, through the power of thought and pure vibrations. Physical charities are limited by time and space, and can only reach a few people at a time. The subtle (non-physical) charities of qualities can benefit all souls, even those who are physically many miles away. One can even change the five elements of nature and the spiritual atmosphere.

Slowly read over and visualize the following thoughts one by one:

I become aware of myself as a soul........
a point of light sitting on my throne between the eyebrows........
I picture my destination, a land of soft golden-red light........
On the wings of thought I fly there........
leaving the physical world behind........
Strong currents of spiritual light and might are emanating from me in all directions........
I watch from my sweet home the world below........
It is full of millions of tiny star like points of awareness, my brother souls........
I picture a meeting with the Supreme Being, a blissfully radiant (full of light) being overflowing with energy........
Golden rays of complete purity, love and peace are flowing from the seed of the human world tree into me........
And through me, onto the whole world.......
I am a seed of world benefit, the Lighthouse and Mighthouse.........
This flow of positive spiritual energy washes away the tensions and sorrows of all the souls........
I feel these rays charging the atmosphere of the world with happiness, love and spiritual calm........
The elements are being purified and returning to their original pure state........

Remain in this experience for a few minutes. This exercise should be practiced in silence.

(To be continued tomorrow .... ) 

Message for the day

To take a vow means to guarantee transformation

Projection: When we decide to bring about a change in some aspect we sometimes work hard in the beginning with commitment and sincerity and slowly find our enthusiasm lessening. So we give up before we could really bring about any change.

Solution: Just as the one who takes a vow never breaks it, we too need to take the vow to transform. Whatever obstacles come our way, our special attention has to be not to break the vow. Then we will not stop when obstacles come our way.