Contemplation: March 20, 2020: Serving Others

Contemplation: March 20, 2020: Serving Others

Serving Others

The secret of finding deep fulfilment lies in serving others. The boss who looks after his staff and customers as he would his own family is a successful boss and a happy human being.

To leave weaknesses is to decorate with virtues. 

True decoration is to decorate ourselves with virtues. For example, happiness and peace brings decoration to my face. In order to be decorated, I need to leave attachment to weaknesses. When I am able to give up weaknesses, my virtues too are uncontaminated. In order to give up weaknesses, I need not give too much importance to them. Instead, I need to focus on working on my strengths. Today I will decorate myself with one virtue. I will start with happiness. When anything happens to take away my happiness, I will remind myself that I cannot spoil my decoration. I will do all that I can to make happiness a natural part of my life.

Success In Your Stride (Part 3)

When told for the first time, we all think that isn’t it a little natural to be a little snobbish when coming into contact with people who are connected to us in our roles of success and also sometimes some of us, in the wave of success, think it’s fashionable to order around people, either our family associates or people who come in contact with us at the workplace or in the spiritual service of humanity or for that matter any sphere of action. But do remember, the moment we try and control people, we will stop influencing them and our ability to bring about changes in them is left ineffective. And a successful person without the ability to influence people’s opinions and bring the same in the favour of a common cause is like a ship without a rudder, which is used to steer a ship or change its direction i.e. he cannot steer or change people as per the demands of the role of success and make it even more successful. Also, many people leave their inherent goodness after having achieved something. Often, we see many people, after having become successful, snapping at others or talking rudely, taking for granted the others’ good behavior and also seeing them as inferior. Success seems to bring for them, on the surface, the negative personality characteristics which were not a part of their natures before becoming successful. So, for them, success is temporary because a sweet natured individual, after having tasted success, can truly be called successful.

Also, success for some, takes them away from the Supreme, while for some a relationship with the Supreme is strengthened because he has blessed them directly or indirectly with the gift of success – that belief is strong. There are many examples of successful people who became better people after becoming successful. How do we remain egoless after success? Love for God is the deepest and purest love in which surrendering the ego becomes very easy. It is said commonly at the Brahma Kumaris – the return of the love and success that God showers on us is to turn or transform ourselves. So keeping praising the Sweet Lord in success and remain seated on the throne of pure pride or self-esteem and he will adorn your life with the jewels of more and more success, admiration, praise, respect, love and good wishes from each one.

Soul Sustenance

Understanding And Overcoming Ego (Part 2)

To conquer ego, humility and honesty are required. We need the courage to look into the self honestly and acknowledge that the characteristics of I know and I control exist and have to be removed, if there is to be truth and happiness inside. We need to remember the original - I am e.g. 

I am a child of the Supreme Soul, similar to him in qualities and powers, I am the soul which is seated on the Supreme Being’s (God’s) heart throne, 
I am a knowledgeful soul, 
I am a blissful soul who gifts everyone with the treasure of happiness etc. 

Through meditation and remembering the true - I am (shared above), the pollution of the selfish ego is gradually replaced by the remembrance and the experience of the pure self: the I that is not attached to anything, or anyone, but is completely whole within itself. The expression of this pure entity is not selfish but selfless and the person begins to share with others, everything that he/she possesses – knowledge, specialties, talents, virtues etc. where necessary, facilitating the awakening of the true potential of others, just like sunlight. Light is a great facilitator. It steps in, awakens and then moves on. An ego less person acts, interacts and expresses themselves in this way. 

Message for the day

Mercy means to give courage. 

Expression: The one who is merciful is able to give courage to the ones who are weak, because of the ability to look at the positive qualities in them. The weak ones are never made weaker with negative and discouraging talk, but are encouraged to discover and use the strengths that are hidden within. So real mercy will give the courage to the other person to change too. 

Experience: When I have mercy on others, I will never lose hope on anyone, but will continue to have good wishes for everyone. Whatever the kind of person, even with the most negative situation, I will find my stock of good wishes to always be full. So I am able to be free from the expectation from the others to bring about a change immediately. 


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: March 19, 2020: Six Ways to Overcome Procrastination

Contemplation: March 19, 2020: Six Ways to Overcome Procrastination

Six Ways to Overcome Procrastination

Procrastination is not only the thief of time, it is the creator of subtle inner tension. You know you are cheating yourself. There are three secrets to overcoming procrastination. One, don't wait till you feel like doing it - the feeling will come only when you start doing it. Two, list all the things you have to do and then prioritize the list. Three, create a vision of the result and be motivated by the vision of the outcome, not the thought of the process. And the options to those ideas? One - ask for help. Two - completely forget about it, you don't have to do anything! Three - if there is anything you can learn from the process then see it is action learning. Six ways to overcome procrastination ... but you may have other ideas.

Conflict Resolution

Conflicts are like icebergs. What you see or understand is only a portion of what's really happening.

So, take time to explore your iceberg of conflict.
Look below the words and actions that fueled the conflict.

Uncover your emotions, unrealistic expectations, preconceived preconceptions and everything else that lies beneath the surface.

Sort out what's going on inside before you sort things out externally to resolve the conflict.

Success In Your Stride (Part 2)

Success stories across the world are measured for their worth not just by what was achieved in a particular life sphere but also by how the people excelling in their field took success in their stride or how much did they dedicate the success to the Higher Power with the wisest intellect and the one responsible for bringing them the success directly or indirectly. We commonly say Thank God in our thought prayers to him. This has been done since hundreds of years, but do we ever be an embodiment of that i.e. do we really, in our interactions with others and in our sacred space of our mind be completely sweet and humble in living our success. Our success should be filled with the fragrance of God’s love and a dignified and humble feeling of servant-ship dedicated to the Supreme. Only then, will we be called completely successful.

There was once a beautiful daughter of a farmer in a far off land, who won the hand in marriage of the richest prince of that particular time. She started ruling the kingdom with the newly crowned king with much pride and confidence. There was no one in the kingdom who did not look up to her. She controlled the treasure of the kingdom, which included not only gold and silver but also many far off lands. From a simple village girl, she had the whole kingdom at her feet with people around her giving her the respect and adulation (praise), reserved for the highest of the highest. All was good, until slowly over a period of time, she starting becoming arrogant and her relationship with the successful king and the people of the kingdom starting suffering. She forgot that this sudden change in her fortune was a gift of her noble actions that she had performed in her past births and also to maintain the rich fortune that she had earned, she had to continue her noble actions i.e. she had to remain egoless and sweet because that is the first sign of nobility. Also, she forgot that a humble leader, before ruling people had to rule their hearts, which is the sign of a true leader. When that happened, people of the kingdom starting distancing themselves away from the queen and she starting being seen in a poor light and she lost all that she had earned. So success can come crashing down in a few moments or days if not carried well and maintained by remaining noble and humble.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

Soul Sustenance

Understanding And Overcoming Ego (Part 1)

Identification with the ego and the external self creates a false identity and extremes of feeling inferior, or superior, depending on the circumstances and people. It brings with it the thought of I am, which is based on gender, religion, nationality, achievement or talent, creating an attachment to the self, which always compares and competes with others. This insecurity leads a person into forcing others to act and think in the same way as them. An egoistic person, rather than recognizing that everyone is unique with a unique personality and has a right to express his/her respective personality, sees difference in personalities as a threat to himself/herself. 

Where there is such ego, only yes people (who have the same opinion as yours) are allowed to come close: anyone with a difference of opinion is rejected. With ego, the original uniqueness of the self is denied, unrecognized and buried deep in the layers of wrong identity. This is why, these days, there is such an identity crisis - humanity has lost its soul, or rather, sold its soul to external traditions and attractions. 

With ego, then: is the idea of I know best and consequently the misunderstood duty and right to control and manipulate others, in their best interests (supposedly)! This results in the spoiling of the creativity and uniqueness of others. 

(To be continued tomorrow…) 

Message for the day

The one with humility is the one who can be creative.

Expression: Creativity comes to the extent that the intellect is humble. Such an intellect is able to create something new. Because humility is a form of love, it brings the enthusiasm for creativity and the ability to bring newness in everything that is done. 

Experience: Humility gives me an experience of being a master, of being powerful. This power comes from the experience of being a constant learner, because I have no ego of what I already have. This mastery makes me creative, making me bring newness in every thing I do. 


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: March 18, 2020: Cool and Peaceful

Contemplation: March 18, 2020: Cool and Peaceful

Cool and Peaceful

Become a goddess of coolness and make all your physical senses cool and peaceful. Those who are masters of the self cannot be deceived by any of their physical senses. A goddess of coolness can never get angry. Some say that they don't have anger, but that they do have to have a little bossiness. However, even bossiness is a trace of anger. So, you are gods and goddesses of coolness, therefore traits of anger or bossiness cannot emerge even in your dreams.

The Light of Positivity

As the days get shorter and colder, even the best of us can get a little down.

With a positive attitude, embrace the weather and keep your spirits high.

Don't let the external affect the internal state of mind.

If you find any negative gloomy thoughts coming your way, replace them with positive thoughts. Think positive thoughts and keep the light of positivity with you.

Success In Your Stride (Part 1)

Reaching milestones or arriving at significant turning points in life bring with them loads of praise and respect from different segments of people whom we are connected with. Life does not remain the same as a fresh flavor of a pride based on what we have achieved is added to life. If spiritually defined, a pride based on soul-consciousness can be defined as becoming an embodiment of the qualities, powers and skills of the soul, which are non-physical capabilities and are given a physical face by karmas, which involve words, actions and relationships. This pride is called self-esteem in spirituality. On the other hand, a pride based on the physical body consciousness, which is called ego in spirituality, can be defined as attaching yourself to the role and forgetting the non-physical aspect completely, forgetting that the qualities and the talents which are responsible for success are not mine per se (exactly), but are a gift of my past actions, which were inspired by the remembrance of the Supreme.

We might argue that the skills are mine and are the only cause behind the success story of my life, but we do forget that all benevolent (kind) actions performed by us over many previous births, which are the reason why we are gifted with specialties today (as a fruit of those actions), were directly or indirectly related to the remembrance of God and performing pure actions or punya karmas in the name of God, both of which were an absolutely common part of our lives just about 100-150 years ago. Do you know that all of us, even the most advanced personalities amongst us presently, remembered God everyday for quite some time till a few hundred years ago in different physical costumes, not only in the form of prayers but also thanking him many times each day for everything he gave us. It’s only after the advancement of science and technology that we starting remaining away from the Supreme and instead of taking success in our stride as a God-given gift, we starting taking it as only my destiny, with no role of God to play in the same. That’s when self-esteem starting changing to ego.

(To be continued tomorrow …)

Soul Sustenance

The Consciousness Switchover (Part 2) 

Given below are few simple methods which help us in the process of rising above action or role consciousness and make the task of switching of consciousness to a spiritual one, easy. 

1. Every hour, stop for a few seconds and note down in a small diary, which you carry with yourself through the day, to what extent, in the hour that has just gone by; you have maintained the light and detached awareness of yourself as a soul, a being of peaceful and blissful light, situated at the centre of the forehead, playing its part through the physical body costume and the physical role costume and seeing others the same way. If you haven’t had any awareness, that’s fine: the light reminder will help you remain attentive for the next one hour period. This will over a period of time become an easy, natural and enjoyable exercise, which is very relaxing. 

2. Every 2-3 hours, stop whatever you are doing for a 3-4 minutes and turn your attention within, creating an awareness and feeling of the soul, but a very deep one. Remind yourself of your spiritual relationship or your relationship on a soul level with the Father of the soul, the Supreme Being or God. Experience the relationship. At centres of the Brahma Kumaris and even at their homes and workplaces, the members of the Brahma Kumaris around the world, follow this exercise. Where it’s feasible, music is played at these times to make the break effective and soothing. This exercise is called traffic control, because the peace experienced in this exercise helps you become aware of the traffic of your thoughts and slow it down, reducing the risk of accidents that are caused due to internal mental clashes as well as clashes with the variety sanskaras or personality traits of people whom you come in contact with. 

3. Every time you eat or drink something i.e. you nourish the body, along with that sustain the soul with spiritual thoughts, above the mundane or ordinary. These spiritual thoughts could be based on something positive that you have read in the morning at the start of the day. 

Message for the day

Victory is guaranteed to the ones who are constantly loving.

Expression: The ones who are loving are able to involve others in everything they do with their love. So whatever the task maybe, they find it to be very easy and are able to accomplish the biggest task with ease. Also each task done by them is with love and so everything is done with lightness and so victory is guaranteed. 

Experience: When I am loving and do everything with love, I constantly experience lightness, based on the blessings from others. I am carefree as there is no heaviness of the task to be performed. Love transforms labour into entertainment. My internal lightness enables me to do the biggest task with great ease, involving everyone with love. 


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: March 17, 2020: Non-violence

Contemplation: March 17, 2020: Non-violence

Non-violence

Non-violence is a very deep philosophy. Not only does it require me to harm no one physically, but also to avoid harming anyone's self-respect. Such an ethic requires tremendous awareness and sensitvity. When I have learned to be gentle with myself, I can be the same with others.

To have the light of knowledge is to have the ability to finish darkness. 

When I have the light of knowledge about something i need to be able to put it into practice. Knowledge then helps me to finish negativity. If knowledge is not finishing my negativity, I need to check whether I understand things accurately. Knowledge also means that I need to understand if I have the power to transform too. So, I do all that it takes to bring about transformation. Today I will take up something that I am bothered with and work on it. I will see what point of knowledge I need to use to make it possible to change that negative into positive. I will bring out all those points of understanding and practice, which will help me to overcome that negativity. This will help me get the courage and also give me the determination to do the needful.

Overcoming The Subtle Desire For Revenge

Ask yourself very honestly how many times in your life did you feel joy, even a slight trace of it, when something negative happened with someone who had harmed you or hurt you or insulted you in any way in the past – either in the immediate or distant (far-away) past. When this kind of joy, which is an impure form of joy, is seen inside you, even if it is at your extremely subtle thought level (if not in your words or actions), you need to remember that this is nothing but a feeling of subtle revenge, even if physically you haven’t got back at any point of time at the person who has harmed you, when he did so. It may not sound very nice, but this kind of joy is enjoying the pain of others and is obviously an extremely low grade form of joy. Sometimes, as a way of justifying our joyful revenge, we call it justice.

The driving energy or fuel behind this kind of revenge is hatred or anger. It is a feeling of:  I really enjoyed it when what they had done to me came to them - I was so happy to see them suffer for what they had done, this is their punishment … tit for tat. It is a type of joy that only increases our accounts of negative karmas with the other person, which as a result, increases our sorrow, instead of decreasing it, although it may give us an impression for a while that it is decreasing our sorrow. This kind of joy will only cause the radiation of a negative form of energy to the other person, which will not only give pain to the other person, but will also cause the radiation of the negative energy of hatred from the other person to us that will never bring us long term joy. Imagine someone meeting with an accident on the road and in a lot of pain and instead of helping that person immediately we smile at that person happy with what has happened to him or her. What energy will such a person send us in return? This example is on a physical level, but the same principle applies on a subtle level. So the next time something like this happens in our life, we need to remind ourselves only if we don’t have the slightest trace of joy inside us that we can safely say that we are free from any desire for revenge, even though it may be very subtle.

Soul Sustenance

The Consciousness Switchover (Part 1) 

While we have explained in many of our past messages what body consciousness or attachment to physicality is and how it leads to a creation of lot many different types and shades of vices or weaknesses which tend to creep into our sanskaras, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, words, actions, etc. as a result of which we lose access to our pure, positive inherent nature; another process of subtle attachment to physicality that we get drawn into regularly, which leads to the same result, but on a more subtle level, is karma or action consciousness where there is no over consciousness of the physical body but one gets so engrossed in the role one is playing that one becomes role conscious and experiences bondage and burden and mental freedom is lost. As a result our inner comfort and contentment levels drop, others tend to become discontent with us and we become discontent with them, our relationships suffer, the efficiency in our actions drop, even our physical body is affected and we don’t know the reason for the same. 

Most of us will experience body consciousness once in a while but we experience karma consciousness every day, something which we don’t perceive as negative but it gives a negative result because it is a subtle form of body consciousness, which can accumulate inside us over a period of time and cross the boundaries of subtlety and take a gross form. What is a simple solution for the same? A consciousness switchover from role or karma consciousness to soul consciousness at different points in the day and then returning to playing the part of karmawith a revised consciousness. The role remains the same and is to be played, the soul cannot exist without it, but the consciousness is changed. 

In tomorrow’s message, we will mention a few very simple methods which help us in doing that. 

Message for the day

To be a judge of the self means to be free from judging others.

Expression: The one who becomes the judge of the self and not that of others, is free from criticizing others unnecessarily. Such a person also does not plead his own case by giving excuses and proving himself right. So he is able to bring about a positive change in himself and others are able to take inspiration from the change that he brings in his own life. 

Experience: When I am free from giving excuses and reasons for things going wrong, specially to myself, I am able to experience progress in my life. For everything that happens, instead of blaming others I am able to take some new learning and use it for my own self-progress. I am able to remain light because I have no expectations from others, but am able to bring about a change in them through my actions. 

In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: March 16, 2020: Create Silence

Contemplation: March 16, 2020: Create Silence

Create Silence

Learn to create silence in your mind and peace will flourish in your heart. Don't

 overthink and the answer will present itself to you.

To have the light of knowledge is to have the ability to finish darkness. 

When I have the light of knowledge about something i need to be able to put it into practice. Knowledge then helps me to finish negativity. If knowledge is not finishing my negativity, I need to check whether I understand things accurately. Knowledge also means that I need to understand if I have the power to transform too. So, I do all that it takes to bring about transformation. Today I will take up something that I am bothered with and work on it. I will see what point of knowledge I need to use to make it possible to change that negative into positive. I will bring out all those points of understanding and practice, which will help me to overcome that negativity. This will help me get the courage and also give me the determination to do the needful.

The Creations Of The Mind

Scientists have learned a lot about our physical functioning, but most admit that what actually keeps a human being alive is a mystery not completely solved. Rising above being just a product of chemical and electrical activity in the brain, as believed by many of us, spirituality orients me and trains me to come close to my real self, my spiritual self. Before I was a stranger to my own self, unaware of what is going inside my consciousness and distant from my own self.  The first step in coming close to myself is that I learn to use the energy of my mind in the most effective way possible. For this, I decide to find a place where, each day, I can sit for a few minutes without interruptions, in order to focus on the self and explore the inner world of the creations of the mind – my thoughts,  feelings, attitudes and emotions.

There has been a lot of conflicting views in the world about what the mind is and how it works. In the teachings of meditation by the Brahma Kumaris, the mind, which gives rise to my thoughts, feelings, attitudes and emotions, is seen as a faculty of the soul, not the body. It is rather like the difference between a television set and the movies seen on that set. The movies originate in the minds of the directors, not in the television set itself. The television set is just a medium for displaying the movies. So it is with all these four creations (thoughts, feelings, attitudes and emotions). These originate in the non-physical consciousness and not in the physical brain. The brain is just a processor of them and the body is a medium via which all four are displayed or brought onto expressions, physical gestures, words and actions. When I realize this, and really understand this difference, it very empowering. I am then able touse the power of discrimination to make choices between thoughts, feelings, attitudes and emotions that are useful and empowering for myself and others, and those that bring me down. 

Soul Sustenance

Loving The One (Part 3)

Dedicating love to the One whom we have many a times disrespected out of ignorance, not to take away the fact that we have loved Him also, but true love for this sweetest and nicest One in the universe is recognizing Him with the eyes of spiritual wisdom, who He is and what are His virtues and how He uplifts mankind from the claws of impurity and wrong beliefs which continue to bring human instincts to the lowest levels, as we see today in society, where lust and other negative illnesses in the human psyche have brought it down tremendously, which man had not even dreamt of, just 100-150 years ago, all under the garb of advancement and modernity. So let us just stop for a minute and reflect on all the qualities of purity that the world possessed a few thousand years behind, on the world time line, which was the world that the God had made with His own hands, which we spoiled due to our self created beliefs and attachment to physicality. The world lost its sanctity (purity) and that was the time when we had disheartened God and broken our promise to Him, made to Him in our prayers and other forms of worship, to take care of what He had created and not to let it destroy our inner selves, which it did. They say, God is above sorrow and joy but God isn’t unemotional either. He watched the decline in a mode of detachment and He was above it, but at the same time He wasn’t liking it happen. The same world children, who had loved Him and left Him in the soul world, which is above the physical world of 5 elements, when they stayed with Him there, had abused that spirit of love and fallen down. 

So, if we were to realize this deeply, we would say – Yes! Today I will give the return to the Spiritual Father of Humanity, the Highest One; I will make myself so pure, as He would like me to be. This would be dedicating my true love to someone who has lived by His word of helping us every time even though we did not keep our word to Him that we would remain the purest and the most virtuous beings and keep His creation – the world in the same light. 

Message for the day

The power of stability enables to cross over all obstacles. 

Expression: The one who is stable is not influenced by one's own old habits and tendencies to react, but is able to think and act properly under all circumstances. The power of stability brings forth the best decisions in the most difficult times, brings solutions and helps in lessening the impact of the obstacle itself. 

Experience: When I am stable on the seat of a master, I am able to be free from the influence of my own old habits, those that are of weakness. Instead I am able to transform old habits into new ones, making them into those of power. Learning to be stable in the most difficult situations, enables me to cross over all obstacles very easily. 


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: March 15, 2020: Moving Mountains

Contemplation: March 15, 2020: Moving Mountains

Moving Mountains

The faith that can move mountains needs three ingredients to work: belief in yourself, belief in others, and the ability to draw on your inner strength.

The one who is wise is free from careless or negative talk about others. 

When someone is talking about another person's shortcomings, I need to question why I am listening: is this information of any use to me, or can I do anything about the situation? If not, then I need to remind myself that there is no use in listening to such talk. Instead, I need to make an attempt to look at the positive qualities of the person in question, and think about how I can help everyone focus on these instead.

Situation-Proofing Yourself (Part 3)

Situation-proofing is the art which can be defined as: Keeping your consciousness free from the questions marks and the exclamation marks or surprising marks mentioned in yesterday’s message, over a lengthy period of time. This is an empowered or powerful consciousness with little room for the negative or waste thought patterns. Such a positive consciousness carrying person then has a positive attitude. A positive attitude then influences our perception of problems and makes it positive and that finally leads to positive or correct words and actions which are required to solve the problem at hand and become free from the influence of the problem.

Thus, in short, our thoughts are the foundation of our perception. Negative perceptions stand on the foundation of thoughts of negativity which are filled with questions and exclamations (or surprises) created sometimes over a complete life time and positive perceptions stand on the foundation of thoughts of positivity over a long period of time. It’s not just about that particular moment of time or creating positive thoughts at the time, when you are in trouble and faced with a difficult situation. It’s a complete life period or a practice of many years or atleast a few months. The mind does not become empowered overnight. Its many different situations, achieving victory many times in keeping the mind positive in all those situations which transforms and keeps the perception positive in circumstances that one is going to be faced with in the future. Thoughts of positivity are like clean water poured in the vessel of the mind which is used to creating thoughts of negativity which are like unclean water which the vessel is always filled with. A large volume of clean water or thoughts of positivity is required to be poured into the vessel so that the unclean water is completely replaced by the clear water of positive thoughts. So, pour positive and beautiful thoughts into your mind everyday for a few minutes through spiritual gyan or knowledge and slowly over a period of time the question marks and exclamation marks in situations which confuse you and cloud your positive perception capabilities will be removed and you will remain situation-proofed. 

Soul Sustenance

Loving the One (Part 2)

Remembering God whom we respectfully call the One, because He is unique in the sense that He is the only spiritual energy in the entire Universe who has never experienced lust or anger or ego or hatred. God is faithful to the eternal laws of humanity which state that soul consciousness is the right karma and body consciousness is the opposite; soul consciousness will give and attract joy and body consciousness will give and attract sorrow. 

There have been instances in history when God was mistakenly called omnipresent or present in every molecule (whether pure or impure), although He is a permanent resident of the soul world. This was ridiculing Him in a sense. Also, sometimes God’s status and qualities were given to humans, like the worship of deities, whom we started calling gods and goddesses and founders of religions like Christ and Buddha were worshipped as if they were God, although they all were pure and divine human beings and not the One i.e. God. If that wasn’t enough, some people called lust as the eternal component of the world drama and also went to the extent of saying that lust was God’s creation, which even gave birth to many shastras and essays on lust in India a few hundred years after the time of Christ, although lust did not exist in the pure world, which existed hundreds of years prior to Christ, which God had created. These shastras were given undue importance, instead of being banished (discarded) from society which God would have desired, since they sowed the seeds of sin in the minds of humans and were the cause of the moral degeneration of society. Even deities, who were God’s creation of the past, were shown mistakenly as lustful in some temples of India, which was an indirect insult of God, the purest and the most innocent One, the Supreme Father of humanity. God was also called by us, mistakenly, as the One who gives sorrow as well as happiness, forgetting that it was our own actions which brought us both of them. The worst insult for God was by those people of scientific temper who gave God the status of a man created concept and his fantasy, saying God is an imagination and not a reality. So, God was a detached spectator to these insults, never taking them to His heart, but on the other hand He showered sweet mercy on each one of us through His blessings and sweet vision of love, all that time. 

(To be continued tomorrow …) 

Message for the day

To transform the self means to receive blessings.

Expression: The one who brings about transformation in the self learning from all situations, attains victory constantly. He will naturally be able to take the learning from all situations and move on in spite of negative situations. He is also successful in his relationship with others, as he knows to mould himself. 

Experience: When I am able to bring about transformation in myself according to time, without just expecting others to change, I am able to get the love and good wishes of all. Because of the ability to mould myself, my thoughts too would be easy and light. 


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/

Contemplation: March 14, 2020: Identify Yourself

Contemplation: March 14, 2020: Identify Yourself

Identify Yourself

So who are you? Or what are you? Are you what you do - as defined by your job title? Are you where you come from, as defined by your nationality? If you were born in a stable does that make you a horse? Are you what people call you - as defined by your name? Are you what you believe - as defined by what you call your faith? If none of these things are what you are, what are you? Who are you? There's nothing left. So what shall we call you? Nothing? No thing is better. But then what? Awareness? Consciousness? Soul? Spirit? Or are these just more labels? But can you go beyond the label and just be yourself? Self. Individual. Aware. Conscious. Free. Self. That's what you are. Try telling that to passport control!
relax7

Humility

Humility is the sign of greatness. To the extent that you are great, you are accordingly humble because you are constantly full. Just as a fully-laden tree would be bowing down, so, humility does service, and those who remain humble receive respect from everyone. No one gives respect to those who have arrogance; they run away from such a person. Wherever those who are humble go and whatever they do, they will always give happiness. Everyone will experience happiness from them.

Situation-Proofing Yourself (Part 2)

A life without situations is like trying to live a life in an imaginary world, cut off from reality. There are two categories of people. One will make the situation smaller by waking up their positive perceptions. The other will make the situation bigger than what it is by waking up their negative perceptions. The negative perceptions are the first reasons for making an easy situation seemingly difficult or a difficult situation into a very difficult one. The negative perceptions stand on four pillars, the four questions - How? Why? When? What? Just remember the last time you were faced with a difficult situation, it was always one of these four questions or more than one on which your perceptions stood. If it’s all four, then the negative perceptions become the strongest and stand the tallest. And of course the other two exclamations or surprises – the If! and the But!These raise the negative perceptions even higher and before you know the situation takes alarming proportions, by a negative perception personality. On the other hand, a person who is a positive perception personality will rise above these questions and not create these two exclamations. This is situation-proofing. A situation is there but I have situation-proofed myself i.e. I go beyond the influence of the situation by keeping these questions and exclamations away and not give the negative perceptions an overwhelming form.

As we all know, the energy of our consciousness (or smriti in Hindi) flows into our attitudes (or vriti in Hindi) and shapes them, the energy of our attitudes flows into our perceptions or the way we look at real-life situations (drishti or drishtikon in Hindi) and shapes them and finally the energy of our perceptions flows into our words and actions (or kriti in Hindi) and shapes them. This is the subtle role play that takes place in our mind and this is the process that is required to be completely understood before understanding how situation-proofing works, which we shall explain in tomorrow’s message.

Soul Sustenance

Loving The One (Part 1) 

Discovering the love hidden within every spiritual being for the One who has performed thousands of favours for us from the time we experienced a life devoid of love and happiness goes beyond prayers and hymns, devotional songs, chanting of mantras, reading of scriptures and idol worship. Instead of asking for love, peace and happiness from Him, always called by the male gender, whom we have called out to in many phases of the life and death, birth and rebirth cyclic story, in which we lost our way many times, we need to know a method of connecting with Him in such a way so as to empower our inner selves completely to bring about changes inside us that would fill us with what we were searching. There will always be love for this One since He brings with Him thousands of love filled surprises which the soul does not even believe it can expect from God, but He being the One with the most number of enchanting and pure treasures, will always be remembered as the highest One whom the world looks up to in times of trouble. 

If we look back at our present birth, we will remember thousands of times when God has hugged us and taken us beyond sorrowful circumstances and trying problems. We have thanked God so many times that remembering the same brings us into tears and we realize that we owe a lot to this One who goes out of his way to forget his remaining children for that one moment, which we feel is our own personal moment with Him, as we continue to fall in love with His continuous favours that he showers on us and we promise Him again and again to be faithful to Him by sharing all that He brings into our life, with those children of Him who search for Him and are sometimes disheartened when they feel lonely or disappointed, when things are not as pleasurable as they desire. So let us celebrate our long lasting loving relationship with not only thousands of loveful gratitudes but also by giving humane inspirations to His loving children so that they unite with this One, the amazing One. 

(To be continued tomorrow …) 

Message for the day

The biggest treasure of all is the treasure of experience. 

Expression: The one who has the treasure of experience is able to bring benefit to others. He is clear in thinking and accurate in judgement. So he is naturally able to give directions or corrections based on his own experiences and is also successful in it. Also there is equality in what he talks and does. 

Experience: To be an embodiment of experience means to learn from everything that happens. So when I am able to become an embodiment of experience, I am able to feel mastery over every situation that comes my way. The power of my experience enables me to move lightly through all situations. 


In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris

https://astudypoint.blogspot.com/