Contemplation: Peace

Contemplation:  Peace

Artist: Soo Cha - Gallery Provence

Peace
Peace consists of pure thoughts, pure feelings and pure wishes. When the energy of thought, word and action is balanced and stable, the individual is at peace with the self, in relationships and the world. To exercise the power of peace look inward in order to look outward with courage, purpose and meaning.

Making Decisions

The key factors which interfere with right/accurate decision-making are
being authoritarian, self-righteous, trying to please others. We should be sincere, do with good intentions and everything will turn out
right. People are willing to forgive if you made a mistake but your
intentions were good. We need to be peaceful and patient with the mind,
not push it and rush it. That does not mean we are slow in making
decisions. We can be peaceful and patient and still make quick, good
decisions.

Reaping The Benefits Of Meditation

Meditation taught by the Brahma Kumaris gives the intellect the power to select those positive sanskaras which lead to the higher emotions, calm and clear thoughts, and the pure desire to enjoy life in such a way that no sorrow is experienced for the self and no sorrow is given to others.

The practitioner of meditation calms the mind and experiences sanskaras which in most people surface only occasionally as they are deeper than the superficial (shallow) memories of worldly experiences. These are the pure and powerful sanskaras relating to the original nature of the soul - peace, purity, power and contentment. Consciousness (the soul) has the same property as light; a powerful force with distinct qualities yet having no gravitational mass. In fact, the only pull or burden on the soul is the result of its own impure thoughts and negative actions.

When the above mentioned original sanskaras are experienced then love and happiness are also experienced automatically. After some regular practice, the practitioner has the intellectual power to consciously emerge these sanskaras into daily life at any time. In a situation which would lead most people to experience negative moods or emotions such as fear, depression, anxiety, boredom, fatigue, hatred or aggression, the practitioner becomes detached and emerges the inner powers of contentment and tranquility (peacefulness). This of course is beneficial not only for the self but also to others.

Soul Sustenance

Becoming Responsible for My Destiny

These are examples of some of the inner questions that emerge in our minds from time to time:

* Why is she rich and successful and I am not? * Why did he behave in that way with me; I've always behaved well with him. * Why does that one have easy success in life and the other, however hard he tries, fails at every step? * Why is he nice natured but is born blind and the other ill natured but has no health problems at all? * Why does she suffer so much? * She is so sweet, but yet everyone disrespects her. * Why did that child die at such a young age? She was so innocent. * Why did I get married to such a person? * Why am I here? * How is that student in my class so intelligent?

There are lot more questions like these that trouble us. In the case of sorrows, it is seen more than the sorrow, it is the question - why this sorrow exists in my life that troubles us. Why? What? How? When? Even so, they all have only one answer: karma.

I don't need to go into minute details of each situation. If I see that nothing can happen without having had a justified cause in my past or in that of others, life becomes much easier to face, with responsibility and the power of courage.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

Message for the day

Real progress can be experienced when we are faced with obstacles.

Projection: When faced with obstacles in our path, we usually tend to have negative feelings. We either experience fear or irritation and we don't enjoy the work anymore, our total focus being on the result. We only wait for the outcome not really bothered about enjoying the effort that we need to put in.

Solution: When we are encountered with a difficult situation, instead of seeing it as an obstacle, we need to see it as an opportunity to evaluate ourselves and see where we stand. We can then use this understanding to bring improvement in ourselves. When we constantly work on ourselves in this way, we will never stop when faced with obstacles, but will experience constant progress in our life.

Contemplation: Opportunity

Contemplation:  Opportunity

 

Opportunity

To welcome an enemy is to take the opportunity to expand my heart.

Live each moment

The theatre of life has its own script. Each instant is unique. Live
each moment as if it were the most important of all. You will enjoy and
feel peace. Discover your spirit and the treasure within. Your spirit is full of peace. Your spirit is peace.

Crossing Negative Circumstances Or Situations (cont.)

In order to have a wider perception and not to drown in any negative situation i.e. not to get affected by it, you can position yourself in a positive way. Instead of losing respect for the self and developing a negative consciousness, if you make your consciousness positive and stabilize yourself in respect towards yourself, in maintaining your positive and powerful self-esteem and a healthy distance (not necessarily physical distance, but rather by not letting the situation absorb you), you will be able to have an eagle's vision. From above, everything looks smaller. It is easier to get over something small. You can. "I am a victorious soul" or "I am a destroyer of obstacles" are examples of positive consciousness.

Whatever happens, it is important to always be aware that you create your thoughts and you allow the situations to have greater or lesser impact inside you, according to how you see them. Learn to create thoughts full of courage, trust and determination. Spirituality and the practice of meditation helps you do just that. Those thoughts, charged with positive energy, will help you to allow each situation to pass; to really overcome it and leave it behind; for it not to remain alive in your thoughts or in your memory.

With the power of a mind that creates thoughts full of good energy, wherever you go, you will create a pleasant atmosphere. Your vibrations will create spaces full of beauty, love, trust and peacefulness; spaces where all those who enter will remove their masks and will connect again with their true self.

Soul Sustenance

The Four Pillars Of A Spiritual Lifestyle - Achieving A Balance

A balanced and fulfilling spiritual life is like a table. It stands on four legs and if one leg is shorter than the others then both balance and equilibrium will be difficult. The four legs or pillars of a spiritual life are given below in the form of four subjects. If any of the subjects is not a part of our lives or is a part of our life, but not to as great an extent as the others, then the overall balance of our spiritual life will be affected adversely (negatively).

1. Daily spiritual study (knowledge or gyan)
Daily spiritual study provides the right quality of nourishment for our mind and intellect, the two important energies of the soul.

2. Daily meditation (spiritual yoga)
Daily meditation provides the means to explore, discover and reconnect with oneself and with God.

3. The inculcation and development of virtues (dharna)
Giving some time each day to the conscious development of our character (virtue) helps to eliminate any negative sanskars or personality characteristics (vices) arid improves our ability to build positive and harmonious relationships. The quality of our relationships is a mirror reflection of our dharna.

4. The service of others (seva)
A life purpose based on some kind of service is the foundation of personal growth through the practice of giving. Finding appropriate ways to use our increasing spiritual power and understanding (through the three subjects mentioned above) for the benefit of others is the most satisfying way to use our energy today. It also ensures happiness for the present as well as for the future through accumulation of positive energy in the form of blessings of those who are served. 

Message for the day

The right kind of support makes people independent.

Projection: When we provide help and support to others, sometimes we find that they become dependent on us. They continue to expect the same kind of support that They had got from us before, when we are not in a position to give. Then our good gesture becomes a bondage or difficulty for me.

Solution: When we are providing help to someone,we need to check the kind of help that we are providing. True help is to provide assistance in such a way that slowly the person learns to rely on his own resources and becomes independent. Then there will be no expectations from us.

Contemplation: Forgiving

Contemplation: Forgiving

Forgiving

See beyond immediate circumstances. Clear the decks of old grievances, become free from outdated thinking. Learn from past experiences and move on by tapping inner sources of self-worth and humility. Valuing honesty and commitment, softly let go and enable others to change. There are new horizons, new growth, and a new lease of life.

An Observer

When I awaken to the power of the mind I can begin to step back from
whatever illness is happening in the body. The more I become the
observer, watching what is happening instead of being caught up in it,
the more free the mind can become. Even when my body is ill, I can
create thoughts and feelings of happiness and peace. These positive
feelings then help the body, so that I have the strength to face the
illness and quite often pain and sickness decrease or may even go away.

Crossing Negative Circumstances Or Situations (cont.)

The challenge lies in knowing what the strategy is to learn to live through negative situations without allowing them to influence our emotional and mental state.

In order to achieve that, in the first place, we should change our interpretation. Instead of interpreting the situation as an obstruction, interference or barrier to our path, we need to change our perception. We can ask ourselves questions like: What has this situation taught me? What does it say to me? Remain detached, observe and listen before reacting immediately. From detachment, observation and listening we can have a more practical and wider perception.

We are the creators of our realities. Reality, in itself, does not create for us stress, pain or unhappiness. It is our way of looking and interpretation of reality that brings about these reactions. Therefore, we have to review how we perceive situations and with what beliefs we interpret and judge them. Reinterpreting the situation, the concrete reality, implies allowing the old perception to die in order to make room for a new vision. Without the old dying, the new cannot be built correctly. Instead of seeing people or situations as obstacles on the path, we can see them as opportunities to practice patience and tolerance, to know how to listen, thank and love. They allow us to widen our capacity to co-operate and enlarge our heart so that we might be more generous.

(To be continued tomorrow ...)

Soul Sustenance

The Filtration Process In The Soul

The mind and its creation i.e. thoughts, in these times, in most people, are controlled by three main factors:
i. their habits or sanskaras
ii. their past experiences, and
iii. information which they are exposed to and which they imbibe.

The intellect is like a filter which has the function of discriminating, of judging the thoughts and deciding which ones to put into practice and which ones not to, basically filtering them.
Presently the filter of the intellect has become weakened, confused and unsure; it has become blocked by many incorrect beliefs, due to which this filtration does not take place properly – as a result many wrong thoughts get converted into actions. A lot of times during the day, thoughts become actions so fast, that the filter of the intellect does not even come into play i.e. thoughts become actions bypassing the filter.

The beliefs that we have today are related to our cultural, physical, social, religious, political identity associated with our age, gender, occupation, wealth, role etc. of our body. Beliefs connected to materialism, to having rather than being, are living based on the perception of the sense organs, and not on the intuition and the wisdom of the spirit. There are beliefs that block you, or brake you, others break you, they bring about fears in you and a limited perception of reality and of yourself. However much you try to generate positive thoughts, if you do not change these beliefs, their influence on the intellect will be so strong that it is almost impossible to maintain a positive state of mind. Even if you experience it, it will be short-lived and temporary.

Message for the day

True treasure is the treasure of contentment.

Projection: We, sometimes, find that we do not always have with us everything we want. When we are faced with this thought again and again, we naturally begin to have negative thoughts. We, then, are not able to appreciate and use what we have. Instead we are left wishing for something else.

Solution: Instead of thinking of what we don't have or need, we need to make effort to use whatever we already have with us. For this, we need to make a conscious effort to check what treasures we have, then, we will be able to use them in a worthwhile way. Then, we will be able to be content whatever the situation may be.

Contemplation: A Solution

Contemplation: A Solution

  

Antarctica

A Solution

Problems are simply challenges waiting for solutions to meet them. The two are partners. Think with resolve that a solution will present itself and it usually will.

  

Trust

Learn to create silence in your mind and peace will flourish in your
soul. You will discover God's language. To be internally silent do
not think too much. Trust yourself. Trust others. Trust life. You will
find it is easier than it seems.

Crossing Negative Circumstances Or Situations

There are periods of life in which it seems to us that there is someone or something who gets in the way of our path. Circumstances, instead of going in our favor, go against us. They are barriers that make it difficult for us to reach our objectives; they are interruptions that prevent us from feeling satisfied; they are situations that seem to reduce our feelings of success.

When we find ourselves with these scenes that appear to block our progress towards the aims and objectives that we have set out for ourselves, we tend to have negative thoughts; we feel anger and rage, or we feel sad and unenthusiastic, as if we don't have the strength to either overcome or transform the situation. Rather it is the situation that overcomes or overpowers us and leaves us exhausted. Some people are not prepared for this to happen and put all their strength into fighting the situation. They do so with feelings of anger, revenge and injustice. Often it becomes a process that wastes their energies and leaves them exhausted, without achieving a true solution.

It is possible to live through situations without them causing such an emotional energy loss. That does not mean that we become cold and insensitive to what happens around us. It is a question of living through situations without drowning into them. If we drown ourselves in them we won't be able to help others or ourselves. We will be lost, like the shipwrecked, at the mercy of the waves, the tides and the winds. We will have lost the control of the steering wheel of our ship - our life.

(To be continued tomorrow ...)

Soul Sustenance

The Soul Journey

A common question asked by many is – “Do we go back to the soul world, the incorporeal world (non-physical world), the home of all souls, when we die?” When we understand and experience ourselves as souls, as un-destroyable, eternal beings, we realize that death is only a physical phenomenon. At the death of the body, the soul enters another physical costume and a new chapter in its journey of life begins. Depending on the soul's karma performed through the body, its new birth is likely to be somewhere in the company of those souls with whom it has been close in previous births. It is quite a paradox that when a soul leaves a body, the relations which it has left, mourn over the loss of their loved one, and the new relations which it gets attached to celebrate with happiness, over an addition of a new-born entrant in their family.

The soul only leaves the home (the soul world) once in a unique, personal journey. This journey of the soul is not linear i.e. a straight line, with a beginning and an end. But, on the other hand, it is cyclic i.e. a circle, with neither a beginning, nor an end – although both leaving the soul world and going back to the soul world happen once each in every cycle. This soul journey can be compared to actors who leave home to go to the theatre to play their parts. They change costumes between scenes - they don't return home at the end of each scene, they return home when the play is finished, only to return the next day to repeat their part in the play. Each birth of the soul that it takes can be compared to a new scene of the play, which consists of many different scenes. 

Message for the day 

To have love for the self means to finish the weaknesses within.

Projection: When we make a mistake we usually think about it a lot and continue to feel guilty. The continued thought about the mistake magnifies it and we think it is difficult to change or overcome that weakness.

Solution: Like a mother who accommodates the mistakes of the child, yet has the best wishes for the child to be free from them, we, too, need to deal with ourselves with love in order to finish the weakness that is working within us. We need to recognise and work with some speciality that is within us, which will help us overcome the weakness.

Contemplation: Humility

Contemplation: Humility

Humility
Humility puts a hand out to nothing extra, but simply takes what's there; whether that is food or clothing or understanding. Sometimes there is a lot available and sometimes only little. It doesn't matter. Even when you understand nothing, there is no worry, for in humility there is the trust that if a person feels themselves to be a child of God, everything will come anyway, at the right time.

What about the self?

Making time for the self can save time for the self. We have to spend
much time earning to support ourselves and caring for other members of
our family. But what about the self? We are busy checking our
children's thoughts, words and actions, what about your own. It is
important to make sure our thoughts, words and actions are what we
would like our loved ones to have. If the foundation is weak, is it
sufficient to fill up the cracks in the walls that continue to appear.
In your dealings with others if there can be deeper communication,
greater accuracy and clarity, then think how much time can be can be
saved. Our thoughts are our closest companions.

Inner Freedom Meditation Experience

Experience the following thoughts one after the other:

I relax...
I release all tensions...
I create a space of silence...
I move towards my inner self, letting my thoughts gradually focus on the experience of peace...
For a few moments I reflect on all the things that affect me, that have a negative influence on me, the people, the situations; everything that stops me from achieving a state of inner freedom...
Around me I visualize a luminous circle (circle of light); there is a great power of silence...
I feel protected inside this circle of subtle spiritual power...
Nothing can take away my positivity, my inner peace, my strength and wisdom...
I can be free to think and feel what I choose. Internally I am free. I am not at the mercy of anyone or any situation...

Soul Sustenance

Experiencing the Stage of Being a Detached Observer

Experience the stage of being a detached observer by gradually creating the following thoughts:

I am aware of the present moment and of time... The whole world is out there... I let go for a moment of what is happening around me... It is as if the world continues to turn, but I have stopped for a few minutes and turned into an observer... Mentally, I take a step back... I look around me as if I were in the inside of a room... the room of my mind... In this place, I can be with myself... at peace... calm... free... Here I do not have pressures, or worries, or fears... Nothing and nobody can influence me... I can think... see things as they really are...

I am sitting like an observer, seeing through two windows... These windows are my eyes... I am not my eyes... I am aware of who is looking through these eyes, a tiny sparkling star like energy, the soul... I am different from everything I am seeing... I perceive that separation between the observer and the observed... I observe the things that surround me without judging, without analyzing... I simply observe, remaining at peace with myself...

I see this world as a stage of a great unlimited theatre play... each human being is an actor, a soul playing their own role via their physical body... I simply observe from my inner room... things come and go... nothing is permanent... I do not need to worry about anything or anybody... I let things be... flow... I am at peace... calmed... I share this vibration of peace with all that surrounds me.

Message for the day

The one who teaches others never makes time his teacher.

Projection: When the situation demands or forces us to change, we can usually bring about a change. But rarely do we find ourselves changing before time and being ready for the situations that are to come. So, we face a lot of difficulty during the time we are facing a problem.

Solution: We need to have the simple aim to keep learning from everything that happens. With this aim we will be able to learn and be ready even before time forces us to change. Then we will be able to give the right direction to others, too, at the right time.

Contemplation: Magic Carpet

Contemplation:  Magic Carpet

Flower carpet is displayed at the Grand Place in Brussels, capital of Belgium, The biennial flower carpet is made up with about 600,000 begonia and dahlia flowers.

Magic Carpet

Thoughts are like a magic carpet, on which the soul rides across eternity. Rest for the spirit (which is what we are) is when we allow only the current of the purest thoughts to flow through our mind - thoughts which carry good wishes and blessings for ourselves and others. This is not so much going with the flow, as being in the flow, and refreshed by the flow. For when we have powerful, positive thoughts for and about others, who experiences them first?

'Tit for Tat'

Often, we get into a 'tit for tat' situation in which we feel bad
about someone else, so they have ill-feeling towards us, which confirms
our opinion about them, and so on... Everyone loses out. We need to see
very clearly the damage this is doing. Illness often comes when we feel
ill-treated or deceived. With strength of mind, we can recover our
peace and have positive feelings even towards those who don't feel
good about us.

The Physical And The Non-Physical

In life many happenings cannot be explained only in material or physical terms. At certain points of crisis (negative) or inspiration (positive), there are deep emotional and spiritual experiences which separate us from the world around. We look inwards at such times; we look into religious or philosophical books, into rituals or symbols, in order to understand these experiences.

We are subject to a continuous commentary on life around us from our own thoughts, feelings and deductions. These faculties of thinking and forming ideas, desiring and deciding (and all the different aspects which constitute our individual personality) are non-physical, yet nevertheless real - we cannot deny their existence. Indeed, anything perceivable to us comes from two sources; that which is detected by the physical senses and that which arises from impressions recorded on these subtle (non-physical) faculties (mentioned above). The things that we can see, taste, hear, smell and feel, as well as the body itself are formed of matter. But the subtle faculties of mind, intellect and personality make up what we call "consciousness".

Soul Sustenance

Meditating With Open Eyes

It is advised to practice meditation with eyes open. When we sit to meditate, if we close our eyes, what we do is that we send a signal to our mind, intellect and our physical body that sleep is close and that signal, in turn, induces sleep. That is the last thing we want to induce inside ourselves, while meditating. Meditation is a way to wake up and stay awake, not only physically, but in terms of being conscious and alert about what is happening internally and externally. It is therefore good to practice with eyes open, so that during your meditation, you can become used to going beyond the physical inputs of what you see, hear, feel and smell and at the same time, remain exposed to these inputs.

By practicing with open or semi-open eyes, it becomes easier to create the accurate state of consciousness while still being faintly aware of our surroundings. This will be essential in day to day activities when we want to stay connected to our inner peace while others around us may not necessarily be very peaceful. It will also help us to move deeply into our peaceful consciousness during conversations which at the same time, require alertness to go into the depth of ideas and concepts.

When we are established in our peaceful, spiritual state (as a result of meditating), it is as if we are keeping our third eye, the eye of our intellect, open, which gives us the ability to see, in actions and interactions, what is true and false, and to make the right decisions without being influenced by others or our own emotions. All the above abilities are required many times during the day. We obviously can’t keep closing our eyes to meditate each time any of these abilities are required.

Message for the day

To be open to change means to experience constant progress.

Projection: We usually judge the situation according to our past experiences and we don't want to change our responses to the situation. Because we have succeeded once we feel that the particular response will bring us constant success.

Solution: We need to learn from our past experiences but also need to take care to be open to whatever new learning the situations may have to offer to us. When we keep learning from every new situation that comes our way we will be able to experience constant progress.