Contemplation: January 18, 2020: Weathering Storms
Weathering Storms
Storms don’t leave a mark on the ocean. Although situations may
arise, when I hold a consciousness as vast as the ocean they leave no mark on me. When I immerse myself in the ocean of peace and love everyday through meditation I grow my inner capacity to weather storms. They come but they no longer drown me. Today let me sit in silence and experience an inner ocean of peace.
arise, when I hold a consciousness as vast as the ocean they leave no mark on me. When I immerse myself in the ocean of peace and love everyday through meditation I grow my inner capacity to weather storms. They come but they no longer drown me. Today let me sit in silence and experience an inner ocean of peace.
Forgive and Forget
The method to bring about change is forgiveness. Forgiveness means to have good wishes, cooperation, love, respect and faith. This becomes like a blessing for the one who needs to bring about change. Words spoken will then be powerful and easy. This will naturally bring faith in the other person in order to bring about natural transformation. When we give only correction we forget to forgive. But when we first forgive we are able to remain cool and easy. We are also able to forget the intensity of the mistake. So when we forgive and forget in this way, our forgiveness itself becomes a correction for the other person.
Understanding The Mechanism Of The Virtue Of Peace (Part 1)
Each and every human soul's original trait or characteristic is peace. Before each soul comes down on the earth to take its first physical body, the soul is in a state of complete peace, residing in the soul world. In the soul world, the two faculties of the soul - the mind and intellect are complete inactive or dormant and the third faculty, the sanskara or spiritual personality is only that of eternal peace and purity and no other virtue like happiness, love or knowledge. The mind is completely silent, not creating a single thought or emotion or feeling nor possessing an attitude. The intellect which possesses the power to discriminate right thoughts, words or actions from the wrong ones does not exercise its power because there are no thoughts, words or actions in the soul world, so there is nothing there to discriminate. The sanskaras (as mentioned above) are also inactive to a certain extent - there are no thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes, words or actions to be created or processed, which would be based on the sanskaras or personality.
When the soul first takes a physical body on the world stage, it creates thoughts and feelings which are few in number and they are only positive and its words and actions are also limited and completely positive. Its discrimination power is active and completely accurate and its sanskaras or personality come into an active mode (sanskaras other than peace also become active) but only for a positive purpose to create positive thoughts, words or actions. As a result of this, the soul experiences immense peace, but the extent of the peace is lesser than that of in the soul world, where it is completely still and experiences dead silence or peace. It is never peaceless though at this stage. As the soul starts coming into the process of birth and rebirth, it starts losing its energy slowly; its mind, intellect and sanskaras start functioning negatively or incorrectly, it begins to succumb to the vices, leading to the creation of thoughts, words and actions, which are not only large in number but they are mostly waste or negative in nature. As a result, the soul gradually begins to lose its peace, which it experienced in the soul world (eternal peace) and at the start of its journey on the physical world and starts becoming peaceless.
Tomorrow we shall explain how we can return to our original state of peace.
Soul Sustenance
Is It Possible To Manipulate The Law Of Karma?
Human laws can be adjusted, manipulated and even ignored by some, but no one can do the same with the Law of Karma. On the physical level, there is no time interval between an action and its reaction. If I throw an object in the air, it falls back immediately with the same force. With the Law of Karma, however, there can be a delay between the action and its result or fruit. The seeds of certain actions (negative or positive) bring immediate fruit. Others can take years or even many births to bear fruit. If I eat too much ice-cream, I will see the result or karmic effect of the negative karma of greed within a space of ten-fifteen minutes in the form of a headache or after two days in the form of a cold and flu. This is an e.g. in which we realize the working of the Law of Karma, we realize clearly the cause and its effect, but on a subtle level, when we see the effects of actions, we do not realize that the cause may have actually been in a previous life. There is a total connection between the cause and the effect.
When we analyze a natural calamity such as a major earthquake that uproots buildings and trees, overturns vehicles and kills thousands of people. The physical cause may be tectonic activity associated with faults inside the earth’s surface but at the same time, we realize that such a calamity could have its roots in a process initiated by human beings a few hours, days or months ago – an e.g. being testing of nuclear weapons. On a personal level, I can say that there is nothing which happens to me for which I am not responsible. Whether I remember what I did to make it happen or not, whether I realize it or choose to ignore it, I am ultimately responsible.
Human laws can be adjusted, manipulated and even ignored by some, but no one can do the same with the Law of Karma. On the physical level, there is no time interval between an action and its reaction. If I throw an object in the air, it falls back immediately with the same force. With the Law of Karma, however, there can be a delay between the action and its result or fruit. The seeds of certain actions (negative or positive) bring immediate fruit. Others can take years or even many births to bear fruit. If I eat too much ice-cream, I will see the result or karmic effect of the negative karma of greed within a space of ten-fifteen minutes in the form of a headache or after two days in the form of a cold and flu. This is an e.g. in which we realize the working of the Law of Karma, we realize clearly the cause and its effect, but on a subtle level, when we see the effects of actions, we do not realize that the cause may have actually been in a previous life. There is a total connection between the cause and the effect.
When we analyze a natural calamity such as a major earthquake that uproots buildings and trees, overturns vehicles and kills thousands of people. The physical cause may be tectonic activity associated with faults inside the earth’s surface but at the same time, we realize that such a calamity could have its roots in a process initiated by human beings a few hours, days or months ago – an e.g. being testing of nuclear weapons. On a personal level, I can say that there is nothing which happens to me for which I am not responsible. Whether I remember what I did to make it happen or not, whether I realize it or choose to ignore it, I am ultimately responsible.
Message for the day
When there is love for others, they automatically become cooperative.
Expression: When you are involved in any task with others, ask yourself if you are able to give and get the cooperation from them. If you are not able to, check the reason for not getting their cooperation.
Experience: In any task that involve others, see that you begin the task with good feelings for each and everyone involved in the task. Have the faith that the task is for common benefit and everyone is going to learn something from it and is going to contribute to it. Then you'll find others cooperating with you.
In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris