Daily Positive Thoughts: July 13, 2014: Virtues

Daily Positive Thoughts: July 13, 2014: Virtues

Virtues

Sweetness is the taste of all virtues. Patience is the fortress of all virtues. Cheerfulness is the evidence of all virtues.

Emerge Specialties

When there are specialties seen in someone, we tend to admire them and
describe them to others too. We really like those virtues in the other
person, but rarely do we put in real effort to imbibe them in
ourselves. Just describing them does not bring any improvement in us.
Whenever I see some specialty in any one I need to understand that I
like that particular virtue in the other person because it is subtly
working within me too. When I work on it more consciously, I will be
able to emerge it easily.

Changing My Thought Patterns

Why is it that we can't change the pattern of our thoughts so easily? Imagine a bird being so comfortable in its nest that, though perhaps sometimes it stands on the branch of the tree to inflate its chest and adjust its feathers, it never wants to fly and does not even realize it could fly. It never knows the blissful freedom of flight, never feels the wind through its wings. It thinks the other birds that are flying around are unwise or foolish. In much the same way, we never really leave our nests of old thought patterns. Our habitual thoughts become our comfort zone and each repetitive thought pattern is like a twig in the nest, which makes the nest stronger and our stay in the nest seemingly comfortable and permanent. We never experience our true spiritual freedom or flight or feel the breeze of our inner beautiful nature. Even the thought, "I am a soul" has to be realized eventually, so that we can actually experience its deepest truth.

In the world of spirituality, thoughts are like the map, but they are not the territory nor the reality of the experience. Thinking - * I am a peaceful soul or * I am a loveful soul or * I am a powerful soul, is not being soul-conscious, it is only theory or knowledge, but it is definitely an essential start. Maps are important and necessary, until we know the way home to experience. Reaching this final destination of experience makes it easier for us and empowers us to transform or change our old thought patterns.

Soul Sustenance

Practical Ways of Changing Old Habits or Beliefs (Part 5)

Exercises of Silence

Exercises of silence help you concentrate your mind and intellect, and go within yourself to recover the positive and eternal energies. With the appropriate concentration of the mind and intellect towards your constructive inner forces of peace, love and happiness, you can strengthen yourself. Being strong means staying positive when faced with negative situations, peaceful when everything around you is chaotic: in other words, not being influenced negatively but influencing the situation with your positivity. When you stay calm in your inner power of peace, you can transmit this to others and help them to calm themselves. When you begin exercises of silence, concentrate primarily on peace. This is the basis of the practice, as when there is inner balance and harmony it is easier to build over these the other values love, happiness, truth and sincerity. The experience of deep peace calms you, clarifies you and fills you with energy to think and act positively and achieve your purpose that you have set for yourself.

Message for the day

The more we experience peace within the more there will be positivity in our life.

Expression: We usually try to change ourselves and our negativities by working on each of them separately. We might be able to overcome them also but being connected to the other weaknesses we find that they reemerge again. Then we find that the negativity remains in our life influencing all our thoughts, words and actions.

Experience: We first need to make a promise to ourselves to maintain our own inner positivity. Once we do that we also need to make an attempt to practice relaxing our mind and remaining calm before we do any important thing. When we practice in this way we will be able to keep our mind calm and this calmness will bring contentment through which there will be positivity in all we do.
In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris