Contemplation: May 08, 2019: That Gift Called 'Faith'

Contemplation: May 08, 2019: That Gift Called 'Faith'

That Gift Called 'Faith'

When I am continuously being battered by the storms of life, and my very spirit is ebbing away, then all I need to do is hang onto that gift called 'Faith', that one support which will weather the storms. Faith does not depend on a clever head, only belief: belief in the self and the strength that lies within. Faith is the seed of victory and the foundation of making the impossible possible.

True love

True love is free from expectations. When you discover the love within
you, you can continue to give. Whether the other person gives or not,
true love enables you to give unselfishly. Let today be the day for
discovering and giving others the love within you. Make sure you do at
least one act that shows your love towards anyone around you. Feel the
love flowing from within to the ones around you.

Fulfilling Desires By Changing Your Belief System (cont.)

We have been holding a lot of incorrect beliefs as to what can lead us to back to our eternal and original state (these states were discussed in yesterday's message) and many of our actions are based on these beliefs. We have mentioned a few examples of incorrect beliefs below. There are many more, which you could reflect on.

Lust and attachment increases love in a relationship.

Anger is necessary for success in relationships and is important for getting work done and gaining respect. It provides a mental upsurge of energy.

Greed attracts physical prosperity and brings happiness.

Ego is power; a person with no ego is generally timid or submissive.

Worry prepares us for the worst, worrying for someone close is expressing our love for them.

Being emotional and crying for our loved ones in bad times, is expressing love for them. Being emotional and crying in good times is expressing and experiencing joy. 

Gossiping increases social bonding and gives one an experience of joy.

Jealousy inspires us to do better and achieve more.

The Supreme Teacher changes our belief system and not only makes us aware of these incorrect beliefs but reconditions us by incorporating correct beliefs inside us so that we start performing karmas or actions based on them and start progressing towards our eternal and original state.

Soul Sustenance

Discover Your Inner Mentor (Guide) – A Meditation

If you can become your own mentor (guide), a mentor that you would always have liked to have, then you will experience life as an exciting adventure. What would happen if you had someone in your life that walked with you each step of your way, loved you unconditionally and supported you without putting conditions, even when you were wrong? What would happen if you felt absolutely safe, secure, cared for and loved? Would you be more willing to accept the challenges that life brings forth in front of you? Would you take on your life with greater responsibility and confidence?

Your internal mentor is a part of you and is always present, always kind, always loves you, is always there for you. If you still haven't met it, take a moment to guide yourself through this meditation exercise:

1. Relax your body and allow yourself to be fully present, here, reading these words, listening to the sounds around you, feeling what you feel. Read slowly!

2. Now send love to each part of your body: your feet, your lungs, your back, your face, your eyes, your nose, until you feel the love from your feet to your head.

3. Now send love to each thought that appears on the screen of your mind, visualize how your energy is concentrated at the inner part of the centre of your forehead. See the screen of your mind, and try to make each thought that you generate full of the energy of love that is slowly invading you. The energy of love is present in each thought that appears in your mind.
Love what you yourself create: each thought.

4. By practicing the above exercise, you emerge sanskars inside yourself of giving unconditional love and support to your own self. This is a way to awaken your inner mentor. As you practice spending time with yourself in this way, you will start to see that your insecurity and your fears begin to disappear and new possibilities open up in front of you. 

Message for the day

To appreciate variety is to harmonize.

Expression: When there is recognition that each human being is unique with his own unique set of capabilities, there is the ability to respect him for what he is. Then all attempts are made to harmonize with him instead of trying to make him just like oneself. So energy is channelized in the right direction and one becomes an inspiration for others too.

Experience: To appreciate variety means to see the beauty and specialities of each and every individual. It means to appreciate the natural positive qualities in everyone and learn to blend my own qualities with theirs. This gives me the satisfaction of the beauty of relationships, because there are no expectations and no disappointments.



In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: May 07, 2019: Life's Curveballs

Contemplation: May 07, 2019: Life's Curveballs

Clayton Kershaw’s devastating curveballs

Life's Curveballs

When life throws you a curve ball, are you ready for the unexpected?

Take a deep breath and adapt to the new reality.  Be brave enough to think on your feet and rethink your strategy.

Catch the ball, drop it; or find a way to get over, under or around it!  Keep your momentum to keep pace with life's curveballs.

Victory

We normally attribute success to the resources available, or the help
of the people around. But in spite of our best efforts, we sometimes
find ourselves failing. We then tend to blame it on luck or on some
negative situation. Our victory is not so much based on what we have,
but it is more based on what we do with what we have. When we believe
that we can win, we will be able to use all the available resources to
ensure our victory. And so we will also be able to get the best help
from the people around us too.

Fulfilling Desires By Changing Your Belief  System

One most important characteristic that differentiates the Supreme Soul from human souls is that the Supreme Soul is the only entity that exists in this World Drama that is completely desire-less and remains that way eternally. If we were to make a list of desires that human beings have, we would name a lot many and various different types of desires. Whatever karma or action any soul performs at different points in the World Drama, whether positive or even negative, pure or even impure, they are all performed to fulfill these different types of desires. But when seen from a spiritual perspective, whatever the external form of the desire may be, the internal desire is always very simple - to go back to its eternal (or inert) state of peace or original state of peace, love, joy and power. The eternal or inert state of each soul is the state in which it exists before it begins its journey of birth and rebirth, when it resides in the soul world and the original state of each soul is the state in which it exists when it has just begun its journey of birth and rebirth i.e. at the beginning of the birth-rebirth cycle. Even negative karmas based on the personality traits of anger, greed, ego, lust, etc. may externally seem to be filled with violence or impurity, but internally, each time any soul performs such karmas, all it desires is a return to its eternal and original state (we shall explain this in tomorrow's message). But it does not realize how these karmas take the soul away and not close to these states.

This is where the role of the Supreme Soul comes in. The Supreme Soul is completely desire-less and possesses the capability, knowledge and power to fulfill these desires of the soul. Being the Supreme Teacher, He guides and teaches us what are the right karmas or actions that can help us fulfill our desires and take us closer to our eternal and original state and which actions, take us away from it. Also He is the only one who can teach us how to connect with Him so that these desires are fulfilled, because he is the Ocean of all the qualities that exist inside us in our eternal and original state and connecting with Him fills us with these qualities. The connection and the right actions, both, are vital for our progress.

(To be continued tomorrow...)

Soul Sustenance

Going Beyond False Identifications

The more I identify with the physical factors of my life, the more I become a prisoner to my destiny or the various up and downs of my life. E.g. if my self-respect is attached to my beautiful new car, how will I feel about myself when the car becomes old and its beauty and shine reduce? Or if I my car is stolen or gets immensely damaged in a road accident? Then, I shall find myself in an identity crisis. The same will be true if my business or job is everything to me. If one day, I am in a good financial state and I enjoy a very respectable and dominant position, and the next day I find myself in a dispute in my profession and I suddenly lose all of that, and nobody wants to know me, I will feel as if I have lost my soul and have almost died. The problem is sometimes so great that people do, literally, lose their desire to live. It happens, too, in relationships, when your partner leaves you either due to a separation, a divorce or even death - a partner in whom you have invested all your love and emotions. Or if my identity is tied to my back balance or property, and suddenly I am broke.

All of these are actually false identifications, and the crazy part of living this way is that I can never be satisfied, even if I succeed in maintaining my false identity. These kind of false identifications do not keep me placed stably on my seat of self-respect and either bring about an inferiority complex or a superiority complex - both of which are false, so both bring insecurity. Even while I am externally successful, having my identity based on that success means I am a slave to them. I've handed over my self-esteem to them. I become addicted to it. 

Message for the day

The method to stay in constant enthusiasm and to keep others enthusiastic is to see specialties in others.

Projection: Many times while I am sincerely working towards my task, I find myself losing my enthusiasm. I also might find people not very happy with me or my work. I do make an attempt to understand their feelings but fail to do so Such negative responses further reduce my enthusiasm.

Solution: I need to develop the art of looking at specialties in people. The more I am able to see their positive qualities, the more I am able to relate to them with that specialty. This encourages the other person further to use that specialty. This will naturally keep me constantly enthusiastic.


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: May 06, 2019: Overcome Overwhelm

Contemplation: May 06, 2019: Overcome Overwhelm

Bruce Irons is an American regularfoot professional surfer from Hanalei, Kauai

Overcome Overwhelm

When you keep thinking about having too much to do in
too little time, you can end up feeling overwhelmed. 
Overwhelm clouds the mind, drains the energy and, as a result, not much gets done.

When overwhelm happens, remind yourself: I don't have to live in a state of overwhelm.  Overcome overwhelm by rethinking: I have exactly the right amount of time to do what there is to do.

Appreciation

When I appreciate the Higher Power, the truth, myself as well as other
human beings then, in effect I have made the commitment to
transforming my life. Appreciating others, appreciating nature,
appreciating my fortune, the blessings of circumstances, the value in
the lessons of life (especially those that appear to be painful and of
loss) is the result of understanding the secrets of this eternal drama
of life. Appreciate what you see now and that becomes an eternal
moment; disapprove of it and you kill it. Appreciate each second in
this way, and then your life will be filled with unlimited moments of
beauty and love.

The Relationship Between My Conscience And Intellect

To act from a state of truth, it is important to realize the relationship between my intellect and conscience and what role these two play in experiencing this state of truth in my thoughts, words and actions. The quality of my thoughts, words and actions is based on the quality of my intellect and conscience. There are three different stages of the intellect conscience relationship.

* The first stage is one in which my conscience and my intellect, both are so pure and transparent that whatever is right and true is naturally brought into my thoughts, words and actions and nothing negative or impure manages to enter into my thoughts, words and actions. 

* The second stage is one in which my conscience acknowledges that which is the truth, but the intellect does not have the strength to be able to bring the truth into practical. The conscience tells me one thing, but my intellect pulls me elsewhere, and it overpowers me. I do what I know I shouldn't.

* The third stage is one in which my conscience is not clean enough or aware enough to acknowledge the truth so the question of it influencing the intellect to bring the truth into practical does not arise. As a result my intellect, which is not at all backed by the conscience in this state, takes complete control of me. I do what I shouldn't and I am not even aware of it. 

When my intellect overpowers my conscience repeatedly, my conscience loses its influence on my intellect. As a result the conscience keeps weakening until its voice is stifled or silenced. As a result of that, I can then no longer discriminate between truth and falsehood. I will feel that there are no fixed ways of defining right and wrong, that each has their own judgment or definition of truth and falsehood. True spiritual knowledge, which gets stored in the intellect, and the experience of meditation, which purifies the intellect as well as my conscience, both together, make me aware of the definition as well as give me an experience of what is the truth and what is false, what is right and what is wrong. As a result of that, I am able to maintain the first stage of the intellect conscience relationship very easily in my day-to-day actions.

Soul Sustenance

Absorbing Spiritual Light - Part 3

Continuing from yesterday’s message, we should not keep the vices bottled up inside us like prisoners. Prisoners are always plotting to escape. If we change them into our friends they can help us. For example, the energy required to be stubborn is almost the same as that required to be determined except that one is positive and the other negative. The soul learns to transfer such energy. Anger becomes tolerance. Greed can be transformed into contentment. Arrogance, or the respect for false identity, can become self-respect. Attachment can be changed into pure love.

The more I inculcate the Supreme Soul or God’s virtues, the closer I feel to Him, but if I allow inner disturbances due to any vice, my high stage is grounded. All the power stored up until that moment will leak away. I must recognize that I really do not like being body-conscious. As I wish for higher experiences I choose to live the life of a meditator with purity in thought, word and action. Obstructions come within and without, but through my connection with God I am drawing so much power so as to remain unaffected. This needs soul-consciousness. So in discarding the rubbish of the vices I have gathered over many births, I become my original form and maintain it through my closeness or companionship with God.

Message for the day

True detachment gives a chance for others to grow.

Expression: Where there is detachment there is the ability to let go. There is also an equal amount of love, but along with it is the ability to give others an opportunity to be themselves. One's own attitude or expectations don't colour the perception and others get a chance to express themselves easily and naturally.

Experience: When I am detached, I am also loving. I am able to watch with inner happiness all that life brings into each one's lives. Neither do I take over other peoples' lives and feel disappointed when things go wrong, nor do I leave them to their fate. I am able to see their inner capabilities and get each one to become self-reliant.


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: May 05, 2019: Mind the Gap

Contemplation: May 05, 2019: Mind the Gap

Thor’s Well, Oregon, USA

Mind the Gap

The gap between what you say and what you do, between what you promise and what you deliver, is like a drain in the road. The drain is where water escapes, just as your power will seep away if there is a difference between your words and your actions. Ask yourself every day, were your thoughts, words and actions aligned? Ask someone else what they saw in you too. Feedback is the food of all positive change.

Being Aware of Specialties

Normally to be special we believe that we have to get a chance from
the situation. So when the situation is good we are able to use our
own specialties, but when the situation is not so good, we tend to
come back to ordinary or waste. So we are constantly waiting for
opportunities to reveal our own specialty and at other times being
coloured by the negativity or ordinariness of the situation. When we
are aware of our own specialties in a conscious way, we are able to
add quality and beauty to everything that we speak or do. Nothing of
ours is then waste or even ordinary but everything we do becomes
special. We are able to make everything more meaningful and powerful.
We are not caught up with the ordinariness or the negativity of the
situation, but are able to enjoy the moment by colouring it with our
own special quality.

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

Absorbing Spiritual Light - Part 2

How many times do we hear, * Oh, he is always in a bad mood..., * It is my nature to be irritable..., * He will never change... This shows the extent to which the soul's own light has faded and been replaced by the dark curtain of negativity. Therefore it is better that we do not try to deal with each vice and defect individually. As the soul fills itself with the power of spirituality, its overall condition automatically improves.

Another significant point is that there is a deep-rooted awareness within the soul of God and His sanskars, however much it may be covered by dirt and weakness. This is because each soul is the child of God and being his children we inherit his sanskars. These sanskars are present in us when we start playing our part in the physical world, but gradually they fade away as we take more and more births. As these sanskars are brought to the surface of the consciousness, automatically our thoughts and behavior patterns change.

In modern psychology it is stated that we must express all our negative emotions and note suppress them. But the fact is that letting it out leads the soul further into slavery to that emotion. Remembering that thoughts, decisions and actions are formed on the basis of sanskars, which are deepened by repetition, the soul can only cause harm by expressing any defect or vice. On the other hand, the psychological effect of suppressing negative emotions can be quite drastic. Suppression can lead to severe personality problems, even madness or insanity. The right path is that we emerge our positive sanskars with the help of meditation and other self-development techniques and the negative ones automatically vanish away.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

Message for the day

Patience brings easy solutions.

Expression: What one cannot achieve with pressure can be very easily achieved with patience. Patience brings a state of calm inside which helps in finding the answers that already lie within. It gives courage to work on the problem in a cool and relaxed way till the solution is found. It brings creativity even to mundane things.

Experience: When I am able remain patient even in the most challenging situations, I am able to remain calm. I don't let go of my inner peace but am able to be aware of my own inner resources. I am able to retain my inner strength which gives me courage to find the solution for every problem.
In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: May 04, 2019: Resolve Conflict

Contemplation: May 04, 2019: Resolve Conflict

Resolve Conflict

There has probably never been a time where there has been so much fear and conflict across the world, not just across oceans and borders but across the breakfast table. In fact many now prefer conflict to peace, as they become addicted to the actions of anger and aggression, and the adrenaline rush which results. They don't really want conflict to end, in fact, they will say that some conflict is good to get things done and stimulate change. They are not aware that they are killing themselves. All conflict is simply a symptom of attachment to a position. And as we know, this generates fear, and fear, if allowed to stay, eventually kills it's host. All solutions are based on detachment or letting go. But that will be difficult until we can see that all possession is an illusion, that we have nothing to lose and that there are no victories in winning. 

relax7

Introversion

It is extroversion that wastes our energy and makes us feel weak. In a
state of introversion we think less and speak less. We then have the
power to put into action whatever we think and whatever we need to do.

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

Absorbing Spiritual Light - Part 1 

Just as darkness is the absence of light, negativity which manifests as vices and weaknesses inside us is merely the absence of spiritual light. Through the influence of negativity, the sense organs waste away the light. The question of vice, or sin, has been of a lot of importance in religion. No matter how much political or religious control has been imposed, nothing has been able to block the internal wasting away of the "light" of the soul. Light has a source but darkness does not. Darkness is not created by any source but is rather the absence of a source. In the same way, the negative forces do not emerge from the real nature of the self, but are simply symptoms of a lack of spiritual power or light. As spiritual power declines, symptoms of negativity such as anger, greed, ego, attachment, hatred, jealousy and related vices appear. On the other hand, as the soul's power and spiritual light increases through a union (meditation) with the Supreme, the vices automatically disappear. In fact problems are not fundamentally caused by a particular vice, it is a question of the extent of one's power. If I am weak, the sanskars mostly related to vices dominate my experience. If I am strong they do not have a chance to affect me.

The negative forces have often been personified as Ravana, Maya or Satan but in fact there is no such entity. Maya describes a level of consciousness. There is no outside being whom we can blame. The vices are symptoms of individual ignorance and loss of power, which appeared only when our original creative powers subsided as we came into the process of birth and rebirth. When the soul's power fell below the level necessary to control matter and the senses; then the vices emerged inside the soul. The soul was more and more propelled by them through many births, until today when they appear to be a basic part of our real nature.

(To be continued tomorrow …) 

Message for the day

To look closely at one's own behaviour is to bring about a positive change.

Expression: While it is easy to talk about what other people should do to change themselves and their behaviour, it is also important to see what one can do to bring about a change in oneself. When there is the ability to look in this way, effort is put in continuously to change old unwanted patterns of behaviour and replace with more desirable ones.

Experience: When I am able to take a closer look at myself, I am able to see which trait in my personality is getting in the way of my progress. This knowledge helps me accept myself with my shortcomings and yet have the courage to bring about a change easily. So I have the satisfaction of working on myself.

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: May 03, 2019: Respectful Assertiveness

Contemplation: May 03, 2019: Respectful Assertiveness

Respectful Assertiveness

When a conversation becomes heated, can you respond warmly?  When giving your opinion, can you express yourself without anxiety?

Assertiveness is our ability to convey thoughts and feelings in ways that can be clearly heard; whilst maintaining our personal integrity, as well as respect for others.

Compassion

A compassionate person develops an eye for spotting the qualities that
make each person special. Even when others are at their lowest ebb, it
is possible to help them restore their self-belief by keeping a firm,
clear vision of their goodness and specialties. Taking a gently
encouraging approach, I must never give up on anyone.

The Hurting Of The Ego (cont.)

Continuing from yesterday's message, we commonly use the terms - my ego got hurt or I think your ego got hurt. 'You hurt my ego' is nothing but you hurt or harmed the image that I carry of myself (as discussed yesterday) with me each second everyday. Because I carry it with me all the time, I have become attached to it. e.g. If, on a particular day, you reach home late from office and your wife, who is angry with you, accuses of not being a family man and one who doesn't give enough time to her and the children. Your reasons for reaching home late may be genuine or not, your wife may be right or wrong on that particular day. In either case, you carry an image of yourself, all the time, as being a very loving, caring father and husband, who has been responsible for the all-round growth and development of the family in all respects since the family was created. Your wife's words basically pinch that invisible image, as a result of which you feel insulted and hurt and you react angrily, not necessarily in front of your wife, but it could be in front of someone else or even just internally. This phenomenon happens many times, in various different situations with different people throughout the day and every day.

The image that we all carry of our selves is made of various traits or characteristics, obviously the characteristics of each one's self-created image are different. These characteristics of the image may or may not actually exist inside the real self, but whenever someone challenges any of those characteristics or tries to suggest to us that one of those characteristics is not ours or does not exist inside us, we react.

Soul Sustenance

Bringing The Consciousness Back In Shape 

If we try and find the root causes of all forms of stress, we would find that both lazy and wrong thinking lie behind various stressful emotions. No one right from our childhood to when we are grown-ups puts this into our heads that we are each responsible for our own thoughts and feelings. Instead we are taught that others are responsible for what we think and feel. No one teaches us how to think. We are taught what to think in terms of knowledge of the world, but not how to shape our own thoughts and feelings.

In spirituality the self gets the required training to create positive and powerful thoughts, thoughts:

1. which are connected to true spiritual knowledge of the self,
2. which are beneficial to your own spiritual well-being,
3. that inject positive energy in the form of happiness, love and enthusiasm to those around you,
4. which are absolutely necessary in the context in which you find yourself,
5. which use all your subtle energies in an economical way,
6. which ensure that the result of any response you may create does not result in stress.
When no one teaches us that any mental or emotional discomfort comes from within our own consciousness, we also do not ever realize that any negative state of being is unnatural and a sign that our consciousness is out of shape. The above thought training helps us to return our consciousness to its true, natural and original shape. 

Message for the day

To use one value with commitment is to guarantee the use of all values.

Expression: Values are related to each other as if they were members of a great family. For the one who is committed to one value is the one who is able to emerge the other connected values. Such a person is able to add quality to everything he does and speaks.

Experience: When I am able to recognise my own special value and use it with commitment in my daily life, I am able to experience success in all I do. This is because I have the satisfaction of giving my best and of having added quality to everything I do.

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: May 02, 2019: Coolness

Contemplation: May 02, 2019: Coolness

Coolness

Maintaining a state of inner calmness protects me from becoming a slave to my emotions. It also helps me to keep a cool head when I see others becoming heated or angry. Coolness is not to be distant or uncaring; rather it requires that I develop the deeply caring nature of a peacemaker and serve others in the best possible way.

Independence

Think of those people you are giving some kind of help or support.
Check if you are helping in such a way to make them independent or is
your help making them dependent on you. Remind yourself that your aim
in helping is to make people independent and strong in such a way that
they are able to support others too. Remind yourself that your help
should never make people weak.

The Hurting Of The Ego

Almost everyday or every second day we come across a situation when someone says something to us which is not very pleasurable or we chose to perceive it to be so. In either case, we feel insulted and get upset as a result. In some cases we react and display our feelings. In some, we don't. In either case, the result is a depreciation (decrease) in our happiness index. Why does this happen? It's because you have created, attached to and identified with an image of yourself in your mind that does not match with how the other sees or perceives you, as a result of which you believe you have been insulted and you get upset.

As long as people's perception of you matches the image that you have created inside your mind of yourself, you are content with them, but as soon as the opposite happens, even if it is to a very small extent, you become disturbed, because you are attached to that image. The more the attachment, the greater the hurt, the disturbance or reaction. You could examine this phenomenon very closely, taking place inside yourself everyday. This kind of attachment mentioned above is called ego. That's why the phenomenon explained above is called in common language 'the hurting of the ego'.

In tomorrow's message, we shall explain this phenomenon further with an example.

Soul Sustenance

Factors That Bring Us Closer to Success

Given below are some factors that bring us closer to success:

• High self-esteem.
• Constancy.
• Courage and determination.
• Integrity and honesty.
• Self-acceptance and acceptance of others.
• Believing in what you do, regardless of external factors.
• Responsibility.
• Dedication, determination and tranquility.
• Being positive in the face of adversities (negative circumstances).
• Being consistent with your values.
• Precision in decisions and choices.
• Focus.
• Performing all karmas with love and happiness.
• Giving the maximum of yourself in everything you do.
• Creativity.
• Thoughts and actions in tune with each other.
• Appreciation and blessings (good wishes) from others.
• Gratitude toward oneself and others.
 

Message for the day

To have an open mind is to be prepared for mistakes too.

Expression: The one with an open mind is the one who is able to see things for what they are and accept them. He is able to take the lesson from each situation that happens and move forward with confidence. He never lets any situation or even his own mistake discourage him, but he is able to move forward with renewed confidence.

Experience: I am able to learn from my mistakes and be ready for the next learning too when I am able to keep my mind open. Each mistake that happens is also a beautiful teaching when I am willing to learn. With each new situation I find myself growing very beautifully within.

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/