Contemplation: June 15, 2019: Courage

Contemplation: June 15, 2019: Courage

Gladys Roy and Ivan Unger playing tennis on a flying airplane at 1000m altitude. Los Angeles, 1925

Courage

Make courage your companion and you will continue to receive success in every action.

Benefit for others

When there is a balance between easiness and reliability, there will
be benefit for others. When we understand our responsibility we would
understand that what we do effects the lives of others too. So we
will be cautious. Apart from this we will also know to take care of
our own well-being because we would know that others will gain form
our healthy attitude. Let this day be dedicated for removing some
weakness within ourselves that is creating an obstacle for others and
us. When we do this we will not only be helping ourselves but there
will be benefit for others too.

Perfecting The Art Of Detached Involvement In Relationships

Perfecting the art of detachment involvement is a necessity if we are to meditate successfully. But a newcomer to meditation might wonder how can we become detached? Don't we have to run our homes and offices and interact with people even if we are practicing meditation? Then does detachment not mean that we are withdrawing from our relationships and becoming cold?

In almost all spiritual paths right through the passage of time a lot of significance has been given to the practice of detachment. This is simply because one of the deepest habits all souls have developed in the cycle of birth and rebirth is attachment and we don't realize that whatever we become attached to becomes a trap for our consciousness, for the self, which causes the creation of fear inside us.

So then how do we know that we are attached to someone or something? We know that we are attached when we start thinking about someone or something when they are not present with us and when there is no need to think about them. Sometimes realizing and sometimes without us realizing consciously at that time, our mental energy is being drained and we do not have control over our thoughts and feelings. Whenever we become attached to anything, we automatically invite fear to be present, whether it is to people, objects, position, power, money or even an opinion. Any form of attachment means there will be a fear of damage or loss.  Fear then takes many forms like worry, anxiety and stress as it hinders our spiritual growth. Where there is fear, love cannot exist.  Detachment is the foundation if we are to remain positive, fearless and loving towards others while interacting with them.  This is known as detached involvement.

Soul Sustenance

Nurturing My Relationship With Myself

One of the most significant areas of importance in any human’s life is that of relationships. Someone with very good, close, harmonious and loveful relationships with loved ones, friends, colleagues, etc. is normally considered very fortunate or lucky. But of all relationships, the first and most basic one is the one I have with myself. So, how good, close or deep is my relationship with myself? How well do I know myself? Am I my own friend? If I think over the last week or fortnight, how many of my reactions were unexpected or uncontrolled or basically not the right ones? How many reactions left me confused, sad, unenthusiastic, peaceless, depressed, negative in any other way or in short uncomfortable? If there have been several such situations, it is an indication that there are still things deep within me that I do not know.

Normally a friend is someone whose company I enjoy, for whom there is love and from whom there is some benefit. As in any worldly relationship, without knowing a particular person to the core I can never have a deep relationship with that person. As the phrase ‘spiritual knowledge’ implies, it is the knowledge of the spirit or the self. Only by knowing myself completely and having a good relationship with the self, can I channelize my inner potential that I have within myself - just as water from a river, when properly channelized, provides water for various purposes. In any worldly relationship, if enough time and attention is not given to it and it is not nourished, it gets affected negatively. In the same way, though it's obvious that I have to spend a large chunk of each day involved in situations arising from my duties, routine activities, responsibilities and worldly relationships; my relationship with myself should also be given enough time and attention, so that it does not suffer. If I am not careful about that, my worldly life may use up my energy completely and discharge my inner battery. I need to find times in the day when I give time to my relationship with the self and recharge myself. The peace and happiness I long for internally will be obtained by having a good, positive relationship with the self.

Message for the day

The one who has attention on the self is the one who constantly experiences progress.

Expression: Whenever I am faced with a situation, it is very easy to think and talk about others and their mistakes. I hardly have any time to look at and understand myself and my mistakes. I then continue to repeat the same mistakes again and again.

Experience: Whatever the kind of situations I am faced with, I need to remind myself that I am the one who is going to benefit by bringing about a change in myself. So with this thought I need to constantly continue to check myself and bring about a positive change in myself.


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Contemplation: June 14, 2019: Open Heart

Contemplation: June 14, 2019: Open Heart

Open Heart

The heart is like a flower - unless it is open it cannot release its fragrance into the world. The fragrance of the heart is made up of the qualities and virtues of our spirit. Most of us have learned how to keep our heart closed in a world that would trample all over us if we let it. Being open hearted today seems to require tremendous courage. It is a courage which comes only when we realize that no one can hurt us, no matter what they say or do. They may hurt our body, but if we have realized we are spirit, nothing outside can touch us, if we so decide. Little by little, practice opening your heart to those you think have hurt you. Realize it wasn't them that hurt you, it was yourself. And it taught you not to trust and you closed your heart. A closed heart is in need of opening. And when you do, you will have begun to heal yourself.

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Responsibilities

The one who works in coordination with others is the one who can
fulfill responsibilities well. Responsibilities can be fulfilled well
when there is the recognition that each one can contribute something
to the task. It is also essential to create a cooperative rather than
a competitive environment. Then there would be no feeling of
superiority or inferiority in anyone. When we are responsible to
complete some task, we need to involve all the people who can help in
it. When we do this we will find our task finishing faster. Also we
would find that we would get the good wishes of all the people
involved in the task.

The Source Of Our Thoughts

A large percentage of your thoughts are determined by what you perceive through your senses. Everything you see, listen to, smell or feel causes some reaction or other in your mind. See how your senses are connected to your mind. Any negative thing that they pick up or produce will disturb the mechanisms of your mind. If you want to have spiritual peace, then use your eyes, ears and mouth with caution. Other thoughts arise from the impressions that have been recorded in your subconscious (identity, personality and/or character), and they may be positive or negative. The negative ones are often due to deep marks and/or habits caused by past events or experiences, and also everything that is deeply established and settled in your inner self (belief system).

The sight and hearing senses are those used most in human beings, with as much as 80 per cent of the information we receive being processed through these two senses. We should always be on the alert to ensure that nothing negative enters these two doors that might contaminate our mind. We need a guardian to ensure that does not happen. This guardian is our intellect, the part of our conscience that contains the wisdom (knowledge) and capacity to discriminate between right and wrong, beneficial and harmful, truth and falsehood. Observing the mind, we can be aware of the thought patterns that originate in our subconscious. It is important to understand that you are separate from your thoughts. You are not your thoughts, but your thoughts are created by you.  With regular practice of meditation you will be able to choose at any time which thoughts you are going to focus your attention on and which ones you wish to disregard.

Soul Sustenance

The Power Of Thought

Thought has been proven to be a powerful yet non-physical energy, which can influence other souls and also matter. On a limited scale, there are the experiments with ESP (extrasensory perception) and mental telepathy. On a more sensational level, some use the power of thought to such an extent that steel objects can be bent and heavy objects moved without any physical help. In the case of telepathy, communication over thousands of miles is possible in an instant when two souls are tuned to each other's mental wavelength, as if thought-broadcasting and receiving is some sort of subtle (non-physical) radio system. Evil powers also invoke the power of thought, although for impure or egoistic motives and gains. Thought can be regarded as the energy or subtle force which links the soul to physical matter through the soul's connection with the body.

Message for the day

Humility enables one to serve others.

Projection: The one who is humble is the one who is complete and full. So just like a tree which is laden with fruit, bowing down and offering all it has humbly, the one who is full is ready for service. He is available for others to take benefit from whatever resources are there with him. This humility earns respect from others and gives happiness to all.

Solution: When I am able to bow down with the awareness of what I have, I am fully in the stage of my self-respect. The more I am able to bow, the more others also bow down with regard to me and respect my fortune. This enables me to be a giver to those around me and experience contentment constantly.


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Contemplation: June 13, 2019: Change Skill

Contemplation: June 13, 2019: Change Skill

An oasis in the Gobi desert

Change Skill

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

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Tolerance

When there is love, tolerance becomes easy. Love makes us free from expectations, which enables us to accept people as they are. The more
we go within ourselves we are able to discover our own strengths. We
will automatically be a giver in all situations and we can tolerate
very easily. Let us think of one person in whom we are not able to
tolerate some quality. We then need to tell ouselves that just as a
mother accepts her child even with weaknesses, we will accept this
person as he is. When we change our attitude towards that person we
can be tolerant.

Seven Techniques To Let Go Off The Past (cont.)

Correction - Memories inside the soul are like imprints or impressions on the soul. Some impressions are deep, some are not. Negative past experiences leave very deep negative impressions or scars on the soul, which sometimes take a lot of time to heal and sometime an entire lifetime can be sent without them getting healed. Negative past experience imprints and negative emotions like anger, hatred, attachment etc. are closely linked. So, correcting the self or incorporating positive sanskars fills the spiritual self with positive impressions. This, over a period of time, nullifies the effect of these negative impressions and as a result, the related negative memories. 

Donation - Donation can be simply defined as the distribution of the invisible attainments one has experienced through spiritual self transformation, to others. It helps one receive blessings or positive energy of those whom we donate to and gives life a focused positive purpose, both of which help us immensely in forgetting our past. People who live only for themselves will find it more difficult to forget their past as compared to ones who spend a lot of time for others. Giving happiness to others helps us in forgetting our griefs. 

Interaction - The more we interact with and remain in the company of positive minded people and have positive conversations with them, we give and receive positive energy and the more our past gets erased from my consciousness. Spirituality teaches us to look inwards and experience introvertness, which we haven't experienced for a long time. At the same time, spirituality also teaches us to keep a balance between looking inwards and outwards. Composed and balanced extrovertness and healthy, happy relationships with virtuous people help us remain more in a present consciousness, not giving the mind to drift too much into the past.

Soul Sustenance

The Law of Self-Control

The more control we have over ourselves and our lives, the happier and freer we will feel.

We sometimes get angry with other people. Why does this happen? It is probably because they have not met our expectations or we were trying to control them and they have not let us. Sometimes, the simple expectation that a person should behave as we want them to is in itself an attempt to control them. When we try to control another person, which is impossible, we are bound to fail, feel frustrated and stressed.

We are capable of having power over ourselves; we can be more responsible for our thoughts and feelings. We have the capacity to choose how we respond to different situations and people that we come across in our lives. If we do not exercise much control over our thoughts and emotions, we easily fall into the tendency of seeing ourselves as victimized, and we blame others, making them responsible in our own minds for how we feel. When we do this, we are forgetting that we create our own thoughts. When this happens, we are handing over the control of our thoughts to those who influence, criticize, attack or slander us.

If we want to recover the control over our life, we must learn to control our thoughts and feelings and not blame anyone else for them. The more self-control we have over ourselves, the less will we want to control others and our capacity to influence other people positively will be greater.

Message for the day

A single step of courage brings a lot of progress.

Projection: The understanding that one can do a lot and reach great heights, enables one to take courageously a step forward. With each step taken with courage, there is a hundred-fold help received. Also courage means to understand the accurate method of achieving things. When there is this kind of courage, there is a lot of progress in whatever is being done.

Solution: The aim to achieve the best enables me to have the courage to take a step forward in all situations. So I am able to be light yet powerful under all circumstances. Because I also find myself receiving help, I am able to further increase my own courage. There is nothing to stop me, but I continue to experience progress, in both the positive and negative situations of life.


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

Contemplation: June 12, 2019: Talk Lovingly to Yourself

Contemplation: June 12, 2019: Talk Lovingly to Yourself

 

Talk Lovingly to Yourself

Learning to talk properly to the self is a spiritual endeavour. When you make a mistake, do you talk lovingly to yourself in your mind, or do you tell yourself off? One habit recognises your divinity; the other subtly shapes a nature of sorrow.

  

Responsibility

Responsibility is best fulfilled by the one who is detached. When one
is attached to the task that he is responsible for it leads to worry,
doubt and fear. This can have a crippling effect on decision-making
and result in difficult situations. On the other hand, the one who is
detached is the one who is able to see things clearly and so fulfill
all responsibilities with lightness. When we have to take up some new
responsibility we need to tell ourselves that we will do our best in
fulfilling the responsibility. When we become detached from the
result of the task we will find ourselves doing our best because there
are no negative thoughts.

Seven Techniques To Let Go Off The Past (cont.)

Positive Information and Intoxication - The more we listen or read positive and constructive spiritual knowledge, even if it is for 10 minutes daily, and imbibe (absorb) it, the more our negative memories fade into the background. Also the regular input of knowledge lifts our consciousness to a higher level and gives us an experience of intoxication or spiritual bliss, in which the memory of our past sorrows and negative experiences gets dissolved. Even on a physical level, there are lots of people who indulge in some kind of addiction or intoxication only because it temporarily helps them to overcome and forget the negatives in their life.

Karma Realization - Another benefit of spiritual knowledge is that it makes us realize the various shades and details of the Law of Karma and its application in the World Drama, which helps us immensely in letting go of the past and concentrating on our present so that a bright future can be built, irrespective of the quality of the past.

Self and God Realization - One of the most important benefits of meditation, an important aspect of spirituality, is that it makes us realize and experience the spiritual self and the Father of the spiritual self, the Supreme Soul, accurately. This is an experience of liberation, in which there is no room for past repentances. Past repentances are more a reflection of excessive attachment to the physical or material or attachment to incorrect emotions related to body-consciousness, remembering the damage caused by it to the self and experiencing sorrow due to the same.

Connection and Relation - Also, meditation being a deep connection between me and the Supreme Father, it fills me with immense power and it is also an intense relationship, which fills me with love, happiness and peace. In the experience of these attainments, over a period of time, my past ceases to burden my consciousness.

(To be continued tomorrow ...)

 

Soul Sustenance

Inculcating Powers Through Rajyoga Meditation -
The Power To Tolerate (cont.)

Real tolerance is a state in which, firstly, I have to go inside and check how I can contribute positively to a difficult situation. If the difficult situation requires me to mould my own behavior, I have to be open about that and respond accordingly.

Secondly, real tolerance requires understanding and humility in the self and sympathy towards others: realizing that at the deepest level, everyone’s original qualities are love, peace and happiness and everyone wishes to experience these qualities and live with them and that when we behave badly towards one another, it's because we are suffering from a loss of these qualities, a loss which is temporary. That doesn't mean I have to invite another person to continue to insult me, or deliberately expose myself to negative situations. But if I happen to be in a situation where there is continuous insult or assault, understanding will contribute to my power to tolerate and accept it or walk away from it in peace.

Thirdly, real tolerance is that state of contentment, which comes only through the relationship with the Supreme, in which there is no impact from the assaults, other than to cause a response inside me of wanting to give, like the fruit tree (explained earlier). Forgiveness is the healing balm for an intolerant nature. When we move very far away from God, our tolerance level reduces. The nature we express becomes that of wanting, taking, needing, rather than our original nature, which is of giving and forgiving.

Message for the day

 Love for positivity brings progress.

Projection: When I have love for positivity, I will not be able to have negative thoughts for a long time. I will naturally put in effort, both internally and externally to come back to positivity. So this positivity spreads around to others too and serves in creating a positive environment.

Solution: Because of my love for positivity, I begin to enjoy creating and maintaining positive thoughts. When there is experience of positivity within, there is the natural desire to sustain it. Then no negative thoughts or feelings are encouraged. Slowly I find myself being only positive.

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris