Sunday 30 September 2012

Prepare for silence - Strongest tool for success!



One of the true gifts in a busy life is an extended period of silence, a time when we intentionally turn our attention away from the rush of conversations and commitments, images and messages, and lists and obligations, and quietly attune ourselves to an inner space. For some of us, imposed silence has been a punishment in our past; for example, a parent may have admonished, “Close your mouth and go to your room.” The silence we are entering here is a choice. This silence is a chance for discovery, to find out new and different things. The absence of talk is quite different when we are choosing not to speak. Silence is not a lack of communication. There is a subtle language that connects us to one another through the eyes, with a smile, or a gesture. Fluency in this subtle language calls for our ability to observe the small details of life. As we develop our facility with this subtle language, we find that we are less dependent on the mechanical devices that can connect us but that can also make us feel more separate. In moving into an inner space of silence, we are attuning ourselves to the spirit of nature and letting go of the tendency to be critical. Silence provides the opportunity for me to identify the qualities in myself that have the capacity to transform me. In silence I can connect to the highest quality of my lightest, clearest thinking. Action emerges from the seeds of thought. Actions are the fruits of these seeds. What is the soil in which I choose to plant the seeds of my thoughts? Violence or peace? Anger or love? These choices are transformative. The state of awareness I attain in silence connects directly to the quality of my understanding. Understanding “in sound” is a cognitive process, while understanding “in silence” is more subtle, resulting in realizations that emerge from within. These are very different experiences. In silence I discover my innate qualities, the qualities that are intrinsic to who I am. Here in silence I touch my eternal self, and I come to trust this deepest essence. The experience of recognizing my intrinsic and unique qualities increases my own power to receive. In silence I touch my inner strength and experience trust, faith, safety, beauty, worthiness. It is from this base of inner strength that my actions evolve. In silence I can listen to the call of God, the call of nature, the call of others in need. Silence is an inner space of learning. When I do not understand something, I continue to hold on to it. When learning has occurred, I can release it and move on. In silence I discover truth by getting in touch with the true self. Silence increases my capacity to hold the truth within. Silence is an opportunity to rest in the lap of my own greatness. Remember to care for yourself with the special attention you would accord any great soul. Silence is a discipline, not of doing, but of being.

Saturday 29 September 2012

Daily morning mantra for successful happy life


I promise Myself: - To be so strong that nothing can disturb my piece of mind. - To talk health, happiness & prosperity to every person I met. - To make all my friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them. - To look at the sunny side of everything and make my optimism come true. - To think only of the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best. - To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about my own. - To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. - To wear a cheerful expression at all times & give a smile to every living creature I meet. - To give so much time to improving myself that I have no time to criticize others. - To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear & too happy to permit the presence of trouble. - To think well of myself & to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words, but in great deeds. - To live in the faith that the whole world is on my side, so long as I am true to the best that is in me. ~By Christian D Larson, past great Teacher Amongst Larson's great works is "The Optimist's Creed" (For long term effect read and understand this daily in the morning before starting your day)

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Practise Positive Thinking

Many of you might be confused or wondering what exactly do we mean here by Practising positive thinking....Do you know :


“You are what you think!”

This simple but accurate statement indicates that what we say, what we do, and what we feel – all have their origin in the mind.

The energy of the human mind is one of the greatest, but least understood energy resources of the universe. When we understand and harness this energy, we possess the keys to happiness and contentment as well as to improving our relationships and circumstances.

POSITIVE THINKING: MAKE YOUR MIND YOUR BEST FRIEND

How I think about myself and how I use my mind immediately affects my relationship both with myself and others. Trust, love, respect, understanding, and good communication characterize any good relationship. Am I my own good friend and companion?

Thoughts are like seeds. Loving and happy thoughts produce beautiful flowers and nourishing fruits; or thoughts can be spiteful and depressed, producing painful brambles or poisonous weeds. We can master our life by producing those ‘fruits’ which are wholesome, attractive and nourishing, and which give us the most happiness and contentment.

Practise POSITIVE THINKING – THE AIM

The aim of the practising Positive Thinking is to give you an understanding of the nature of thought. You will learn methods for being more constructive at home, at work and in your relationships. Subtopics -

Understanding the energy of thought,
Getting to know the mind,
Taking control of life’s experiences,
Developing self esteem,
Creating one’s own reality and
Making daily living a positive experience.

Borrow only happiness from others : Believe me you will feel blessed!!

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” 

The wisdom of the Golden Rule and its derivatives were a big part of my 
understanding about how one should live one’s life. I also inherited a somewhat dim view of my own worth and a keen sense of my own shortcomings, which meant my worst fear was that criticism and condemnation might be ‘done unto me’. I therefore made special effort to be non-judgmental and forgiving, hoping that would be ‘done unto me’ instead.
       Whenever something was done unto me from which I took sorrow, I added it to my inner landscape of low self esteem, for I believed that sorrow was my lot. “Mea culpa” was my subconscious motto. Yet often my immediate feeling was “I don’t deserve this!” Knowing that “as I sowed, so I would have to reap,” I refrained from deliberately giving anyone sorrow in return. However, I was not above silently blaming and cursing the person I thought responsible and secretly wishing them sorrow.
                  I know that I’m not the only one that does this! How often we button our lips and denounce others in our minds. We accuse and blame through our thoughts while feigning a smile. Or we write the other person off in our ‘book’ and gradually excuse ourselves from keeping their company. We think this doesn’t matter because there’s no ‘hard’ evidence that we’ve actually hurt anyone. We feel justified in our judgment and never consider there may be a price to pay for making it. Most of the time we don’t even realize we’ve made a judgment. Our attitude feels so ‘right’, so correct. When even our close relationships aren’t working very well, we never consider that our own mental attitude has anything to do with it.
              My continuing search for wisdom eventually led me beyond the teachings of the Christian faith, beyond forays into many other religious, philosophical and occult studies and onto a more spiritual path on which I have felt at ease for over 27 years. I have learned (and am still learning) that sorrow is not my fundamental lot, but rather a temporary condition which has a beginning and an end. I am gaining an understanding of myself which includes a positive, wholesome vision of my original nature; an understanding which encourages me to accept my shortcomings without negating my value as an individual. Oddly enough, I’ve found that compassionate acceptance of my shortcomings is the prerequisite to moving beyond them.
            I wasn’t far along this path before I encountered the slogan, “Don’t give sorrow, don’t take sorrow.” “What strange twist of the Golden Rule was this?” I wondered. The second half of this injunction puzzled me because, whilst I could understand that sorrow would come back to me if I dished it out; whilst I could accept the responsibility of refraining from hurting anyone, I could not grasp how it was possible to avoid taking sorrow. As far as I could see, sorrow just comes unbidden as part of life. I couldn’t see any connection between what I was receiving with what I had done unto others. Isn’t taking sorrow just a natural human condition? 
               Gradually, two aspects of spiritual knowledge have helped me make sense of the implications of this slogan. The first is a deep understanding of the great Law of Karma, the essence of which is captured in the Golden Rule. I began to realize that even the movement of my thoughts and feelings are subtle actions and reactions, also subject to the Law of Karma. Gary Zukav, in his groundbreaking book, The Seat of the Soul, explains karma with great clarity:

“Every action, thought, and feeling is motivated by an intention, and that intention is a cause that exists as one with an effect. If we participate in the cause, it is not possible for us not to participate in the effect. In this most profound way, we are held responsible for our every action, thought and feeling, which is to say, for our every intention. We ourselves shall partake of the fruit of our every intention. It is, therefore, wise for us to become aware of the many intentions that inform our experience, to sort out which intentions produce which effects, and to choose our intentions according to the effects that we desire to produce...
              Every cause that has not yet produced its effect is an event that has not yet come to completion. It is an imbalance of energy that is in the process of becoming balanced.”
             Karma works on the principle of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” However, as Zukav describes it, karma is an “impersonal energy dynamic.” 
            “Karma is not a moral dynamic. Morality is a human creation. The Universe does not judge. The law of karma governs the balancing of energy within our system of morality and within those of our neighbors. It serves humanity as an impersonal and Universal teacher of responsibility.”
Because it is an “impersonal energy dynamic”, it is not a simplistic balancing that takes place, as in “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” or “tit for tat”. This is why trying to “settle the score” does not work. Trying to get even in this way creates additional karma, or, in Zukav’s terms, “another imbalance of energy which, in turn, must be balanced.”
           The second aspect of spiritual knowledge that helps me understand “Don’t give sorrow, don’t take sorrow” is the concept of reincarnation, which says that the karmic, energy-balancing dynamic of my journey as an immortal soul continues over time and through numerous lifetimes. This explains why the connection between an effect and its underlying cause is not often apparent to what Zukav calls “the five-sensory” personality or what could be called the ‘body conscious self’. It also means that everything that goes around eventually does come around, without exception. When I realized that nothing can escape the law of karma, I became even more careful to suspend judgment and prevent negative emotions from developing towards anyone, regardless of what they might be doing. Now, however, I maintain this caution, not out of fear of what others might do to me, but of what I am doing to myself. Gradually I am coming to accept that any sorrow coming to me is the effect of an event that I myself once set in motion; that I am partaking of the fruit of some past intention of mine.
            But then, the question still remains, “How can I not take sorrow?”

First let me distinguish between pain and sorrow. That they are not the same is evidenced by our frequent use of the expression ‘pain and sorrow’. Pain is a signal or symptom that tells us something is wrong, that an imbalance is present, and that there is need of healing. It is not the imbalance or the illness itself. In our culture, we are conditioned to avoid pain at all costs. This is because we haven’t understood pain. By making the pain go away, whether through drugs, alcohol, venting our anger, workaholism or other dysfunctional behaviors, we are merely treating the symptoms and not the underlying cause of the pain. We are in fact suppressing the pain. Anything suppressed or denied builds up pressure and 
erupts, usually in some far more serious form, sooner or later. It doesn’t matter whether we are dealing with pain in the body, pain in a relationship, pain between the haves the have-nots, or pain between races or nations. 

Sorrow is my emotional reaction to pain. It is the depression which can accompany chronic illness; the grief which accompanies a loss, whether it be the loss of face or the loss of a friend. It is the fear and mistrust which follow the pain of being deceived, the righteous indignation which flares when one is insulted, the anger that follows the discomfort of being manipulated. 
            Healing begins when I accept the pain. Karma is created when I express the sorrow or other negative emotion that accompanies the pain. 
Acceptance of pain doesn’t mean invoking it. Nor does it mean simply tolerating it or bearing up under it. It means making a connection between the pain and its underlying karmic cause. In order to heal, I must allow myself to feel the pain, the hurt, not to dwell on it, but to acknowledge and understand what it is trying to tell me. I can alleviate the pain by taking the pills, by sharing or confiding in someone who cares for me and whom I can trust, by working through and transforming my emotions through meditation, counseling or other positive means. 
           But if I really want to heal, I cannot deny it, escape from it, or rationalize it away. And I most definitely will not heal if I take sorrow from the pain by heaping blame, shame, judgment, guilt, anger and recriminations upon myself or others because of it. For in doing so I’m adding insult to injury, harboring grudges and resentments, and further depleting my spiritual vitality.
            I can learn to accept pain and heal my karmic imbalances only when I have a strong sense of my worth or value as a human being. At the deepest, innermost level, the way I think about myself, the regard I hold for myself is what determines my spiritual strength and vitality. In order to heal my karmic imbalances I must not only understand the cause and treatment of the imbalance, I must also know how to strengthen myself as a whole being.
           “Wait a second”, you must be thinking. “This is all very well, but, doesn’t the one who hurt me have any responsibility? Do I just become a martyr? Where’s the justice in all this?” 
           The Law of Karma guarantees that we live in a just universe. I must remember that whoever is wounding me is going to get back what he or she is giving out in equal measure—not from me, but from someone, somewhere. Eventually, he or she will unavoidably experience the sorrow that I am now receiving. But does this knowledge make me happier? Does it give me satisfaction? Do I think, “OK you so and so, you’ll get yours one day!” If it does, then it is as if I am wishing upon the person who wounded me the sorrow that I am feeling. We are volleying pain and sorrow back and forth between us like tennis balls. The sorrow that I am wishing on 
them is eventually going to land back in my court. A better course of action is compassion. Let me instead think, “May they never have to suffer what I am going through right now.” Let us, like Jesus did, forgive them—for they know not what they do. This intention stops the volley and the game. 
          A deep understanding of karma can give us a perspective which Zukav calls “non-judgmental justice”. Non-judgmental justice is a perception that allows you to see everything in life, but does not engage your negative emotions. Non-judgmental justice relieves you of the self-appointed job of judge and jury because you know that everything is being seen—nothing escapes the law of karma—and this brings forth understanding and compassion. Non-judgmental justice is the freedom of seeing what you see and experiencing what you experience without responding negatively.
               If I do not either give sorrow or take sorrow, what kind of person will I become? OK, maybe I won’t be judgmental, but will I become insensitive to others? Isn’t it important to empathize with another’s pain, to experience it as my own? There is a saying “By sharing happiness, it doubles; by sharing sorrow, it halves.” Does it follow that if we all shared each other’s sorrows there would be less sorrow in the world? Well, no it doesn’t. Let’s be honest. Feeling another’s pain does more to make me feel alive and involved than it does to alleviate that other’s sorrow.
              Sometimes I take sorrow from what has happened in the past. I remember it, relive it, regret it, remorse over it. You might think this could itself be a way of balancing the energy, but in fact it further depletes it, because I’m not generating anything positive with my energy in the present. Whatever I need to deal with from the past will come up for me sooner or later in the present, so I don’t need to keep going back into the past to recall it. Many faith traditions speak of the dire consequences of looking back. There are far more positive ways to heal. 
               Just as a sick person can change his or her diet and start an exercise program, so also, I can begin to nurture myself with positive thoughts and feelings, and engage in positive, selfless actions. This is a relatively painless way of redressing even long-term karmic imbalances.
                Sometimes I take sorrow from things which are not intended to cause me sorrow. Someone inadvertently does something and I start interpreting the person’s actions and building a case against him or her. Then I ultimately judge/decide the case and render the verdict, “He or she is like this or like that”. Learning to not take sorrow also means learning how to be less sensitive or vulnerable, how to not take things personally. 
             Sensitivity which reflects an irritable or a delicate, easily offended temperament is a sensitivity rooted in dissatisfaction with the self, in low self-esteem. It is this sensitivity which convinces me that I am a victim, which then robs me of self-awareness, transforms my response-ability into reactiveness and renders me powerless. 
                   So how to not take sorrow? Develop a kind and compassionate relationship with yourself, a solid sense of your own value. Heed the messages in your feelings, learn from your pain, accept responsibility for your karma. Forgive others and send them only good wishes and positive vibrations. Let the past be the past, remain compassionate but unaffected by the pain of others, refrain from taking things personally.
                   In every tradition there are memories and visions of a world free from sorrow. Have the faith that it will some day be a reality, and that we can bring it into being all the sooner by stopping the give and take of sorrow. Let us resolve to give and take only happiness.


------Tips to alleviate pain and stop taking sorrow----------

• When something hurtful happens, view the pain as a messenger. Notice your emotional reactions and understand them as something which you caused someone to feel in the past. Love the pain for letting you know, and forgive yourself. Send the person who is hurting you love, forgiveness and pure good wishes. 

• Be proactive. Be the one who stops the sorrow from going any further. Realize the excellent karmic return that you will create for doing so.

• Don’t dwell on the pain, hurtful remarks, et cetera, i.e. watch your thoughts.

• Don’t hold painful feelings inside. Let them out in a safe environment where they won’t harm you or others. For example, go to the seashore and fling rocks into the ocean, hike up a mountain and wail at the moon. Or confide your troubles to someone whom you can trust to not be affected by what you say, to not gossip to others or to use it against you.

• Get some perspective on your problems by looking at them within a larger 
framework of reality. 

• Let the past be the past.

• Shift the energy! Put on some uplifting music and sing or dance.

• Find something that makes you smile or laugh. Spend some quality time with a child.

• Clean out your room, or a cupboard or the basement. Open the windows, let in light and air.

• Create some good karma: Give and take only happiness.

Take your identity lightly: This can lead you to great success

A burdened mind may snatch some fleeting, short-lived moments of pleasure, but it cannot experience true happiness. Remaining always light is the key to happiness. In today’s conditions, the ability to take yourself and everything around you lightly is perhaps the number one capability to cultivate. There is a vital need to develop the inner powers to ‘take it easy’, come what may.

It is widely understood that the state of a person’s mind depends upon his attitude to people and objects present and to the events occurring around him. There is also a well-known saying: “you cannot change events, but you can change your attitude towards them.” Yet when actual situations arise, attitudinal change is difficult because of the mind-set already formed.

Attitude is determined by prides and prejudices, desires and ambitions, priorities and preferences, needs and compulsions. These, in turn, are influenced by habits and addictions, learnings and dependencies, beliefs and outlook, whims and fancies and a host of other factors. Pre-dispositions thus formed produce certain mental pulls and pushes which determine responses and reactions to external situations. That’s why attitudes towards the same event vary from person to person. New paradigms are called for to break the old mind-sets and create inner capabilities that can automatically take care of anything that comes your way.

The first fundamental attitudinal change for remaining ‘light’ always is to make a firm resolve to do so. As you think, so you become. The word ‘light’, in the spiritual sense, also means enlightenment that dispels the inner darkness of ignorance, illusion, doubt and confusion. This enables you to visualise things in their true form. As a result, deception is eliminated. Confidence and clarity change conditions of fear and anxiety into those of joy and happiness. From this follows the second attitudinal change: Consider life as a celebration and not as a struggle or war zone. Greetings and good wishes exchanged at celebrations are always a source of great joy and happiness. Likewise, to become a well-wisher of all is the easiest way to make your life a celebration.

At the root of your attitude lies your belief system. The greatest common basic flaw in today’s belief-system is body-consciousness, i.e. identifying yourself with the mortal body instead of the immortal entity called ‘soul’ that you truly are. This identity-crisis is the mother of all other crises. The eternal you—the soul—is a sentient entity, an imperishable point of light. Your original innate qualities are love, peace, happiness and bliss. As long as you remain established in the state of soul-consciousness and use your body as an instrument, you will remain light because, firstly, your very existence is that of being sentient light and secondly, your thoughts, words and actions will be in conformity with your innate qualities.

As it is made of matter, the body and its sense organs can only give sensual pleasures which are short-lived and dependent upon external factors. Body-consciousness leads to adoption of material values which affect the mind, destroying the pristine purity of your innate qualities and, in fact, of the entire thought-process. As a result, jealousy, hatred, anger and other types of negativity lead to unrighteous thoughts and wrongful actions. Negativity produces waste thoughts and increases the number and speed of your thoughts. This dilutes the quality of thoughts, and consequently, the quality of life. Waste thoughts produce attitudinal maladies like doubts, apprehensions, fear, etc. and take away from all the zest and zeal of life. This results in lethargy and laziness. In this way, negativity weakens the mind and it becomes prone to external influences. 

Self-realisation or soul-consciousness on the other hand brings home the truth that the soul’s original qualities of love, peace, happiness and bliss are all non-material, like the soul itself. Even the negative traits or perversions like ego, anger, hatred, jealousy or the stresses and strains produced by these vices are non-material in nature. Hence, the required corrective action in this respect has essentially to be taken at the level of your basic beliefs. An inner journey is therefore an essential pre-requisite for enjoying a happy external journey through this life and beyond.

Self-realisation enables you to easily let go of the past. Instead of regretting, it enables you to gain valuable experience from past mistakes and increase your powers of tolerance and patience. When one begins to learn from mistakes, the meaning of the saying ‘everything happens for the best’ becomes clear. Mistakes are not repeated. Attention helps avoid tension. Reduction in waste thoughts improves the quality of thoughts. 

Will-power is the aggregate of all your inner powers like tolerance, discrimination, judgement, concentration, and co-operation. The will of a person with a good reservoir of inner powers shall always prevail. Hence, the saying ‘where there is a will, there is way.’ Strong will-power enables you to transform a situation of possible failure into that of success—just as in a game of cricket, a good batsman converts a dangerous looking ball into a four-er or six-er by a mere flick of his bat. Strong will-power not only protects you from adverse outside influences, it empowers you to exert influence on the external environment; much in the same way as rose seed produces fragrant roses even from a heap of foul-smelling rubbish. Zeal and enthusiasm is a natural outcome of success and becomes, in turn, the motive power for further success. Moving from success to success will always keep you in good spirits. This is the formula to remain light and happy under all conditions and circumstances.

How to increase will-power? It is not a physical power to be acquired by any material means. Wasteful and negative thinking have to be eliminated to increase will-power. The dilemma, however, is that they arise when will-power is weakened, whereas it takes strong will-power to destroy them. So, how to go about it? Just as negativity reduces will-power, it is positive thinking that generates it. Inculcation of virtues like humility, contentment, detachment and compassion, a simple life-style, good company, purity of food and becoming a well-wisher of all will help you do that.