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Positive Reflections messages from Awakening consciousness
Feel And Experience The True Meaning Of Unconditional Love
We are all beautiful in qualities and loveful in character as we experience the Earth in the beginning and come down from the soul world to play our roles over here through our physical bodies. Love expresses itself naturally as we begin our journey. Our love is like God's love - very very unconditional, always flowing to each and every soul in the world, without asking for anything in return. Slowly with time as we get older and experience many births on Earth, our love begins to expect instead of accept others. We feel sorrow because we are attached. We feel pain because we always want more. We feel disturbed because the other person is different from us. We feel we own the other person and want to dominate instead of relate to them. What is the true meaning of unconditional love -
1. A love that is limitless, without any boundaries and without any fixed demands.
2. A love that does not see the other's weaknesses and instead loves their qualities.
3. A love that is blissful, strong and with no hidden fears and insecurities.
4. A love that adjusts and moulds according to the other person and is willing to sacrifice.
5. A love that feels God and brings His goodness and big-heartedness in a human relationship.
Stability In Appreciation And Criticism
If appreciation boosts our ego, we are sure to get upset when criticized. Spiritual wisdom teaches us to simply focus on our actions without getting affected by appreciation or criticism.
1. Check your first reaction to any feedback: Do you get fascinated by praise? And do you defend yourself or react back when you are criticized? If so, practice taking a pause the next time to choose a response of stability.
2. Remain humble, with a consciousness of being an instrument of God - emotionally detached yet involved. Go into your field of action understanding that everybody’s opinion is different.
3. Practice remaining untouched by appreciation. The praise is after all their perception, their pure intention and a reflection of their generosity. Thank the other person, surrender the praise to God and be grateful for being used as an instrument in the positive action.
4. Remaining stable in appreciation helps you handle criticism with dignity. A person criticizing you is portraying his perception, mood and personality. Detach from the emotional energy attached to it, judge the feedback and see if you need to do something. Otherwise ignore it completely, let go and remain stable. Respect yourself and them.
Learning To Be At Peace With Time (Part 3) |
Time Does Not Control You, Time Co-operates With You
Often, we feel that either time is chasing us or we are running behind time to catch up with it. We wish to bring time to a standstill or at least slow it down so that we can organize ourselves. There are also moments when each of us will want to temporarily step away from the demands of our roles and responsibilities, to enjoy a few moments of peace. Spending a few minutes to nurture the self is a necessity but many people find it a luxury that they cannot afford or take some time out for. Spirituality makes it possible to shift us from complaining about lack of time to becoming creators of time.
If we begin our day reading or listening to pure and positive information such as spiritual knowledge or gyan for at least 15 minutes, the foundation layer of the mind will have an unshakable setting of peaceful and powerful thoughts. This strengthens our mind and intellect, so our improved efficiency saves us time and keeps us enthusiastic throughout the day. Rajyoga Meditation as taught by the Brahma Kumaris connects us with God to recharge our emotional batteries through the Supreme Spiritual Power House. This means the emotional treasure of different aspects of wisdom and different qualities and powers that we are seeking outside will now be activated and rejuvenated from within us. When every thought, word and action is a product of our spiritual charging and carries the power of wisdom and its understanding in the consciousness as well as the inculcation of qualities and powers, we will experience peace and contentment even while working and meeting targets and deadlines. We will never find ourselves short of time. When we are in charge of our mind, then time will not control us, time will co-operate with us. Such a soul enjoys life at every moment and is at peace with time and the uncertainties that time brings with it in our present day lives. Also, the health, relationships and personal and professional roles of such a soul are benefitted immensely by such an approach of performing actions in a soul conscious and God conscious stage and not in a time conscious stage, leading to overall log-term success.
The Key To Mental Freedom – Spiritual Knowledge
The world is full of many wonders; incredible works of art and architecture, of science and invention, but the greatest of them all by far is the human mind. It is the mind's play that brings about all activity in the human world. The outline of everything people construct is first formed in the mind and then filled in with matter to assume a concrete shape. History, science, culture, trade and commerce, in fact all knowledge and systems of our day-to-day world, are but the projection and fulfillment of thoughts born in the mind. If the mind, by concentrating itself on matter, can bring about such wonders and attain such miraculous physical powers as we have, what can it not attain if it concentrates on itself and on the Supreme!
Disorder and tension on the individual level and as a result on the social level are the result of ignorance of the self and the world around, such that the mind stays without rest. It runs, jumps and churns aimlessly, lashed by waves of feelings and emotions. Like a spider caught in its own web, the individual becomes entangled in nets which are the consequences (results) of this ignorance of the self and the fundamentals of life. When we receive spiritual knowledge from the seed of the tree of humanity, the Supreme Being or God at the present time, we begin an upward journey that takes us through deeper and deeper levels of understanding and experience which create freedom from these nets. This freedom, as a result helps us create a positive future, not only for ourselves but we also take up the responsibility of creating the same for the complete tree of humanity, which is primarily the purpose why God shares this knowledge with us.
5 Affirmations For Experiencing Peace |
1. I am a spiritual star like energy, seated at the center of my forehead ... I experience the beautiful quality of peace and radiate peace to everyone and everything around me ... God, the Ocean of Peace, is with me at every step ... He fills my thoughts and feelings with peace ... I create a peaceful environment ...
2. I am an angel of peace with a beautiful aura full of peaceful vibrations ... I walk and talk with a peaceful attitude ... I look at everyone as peaceful brother souls ... My interactions are full of peaceful energy ... My family, home and workplace carry a peaceful positivity and a goodness which arises from peace ...
3. I am a peaceful being taking care of my physical body always ... Every cell of my body is in a state of peace and free from tension ... I experience good health as a result of that ... I begin and end my day with peaceful affirmations and maintain the peaceful consciousness throughout the day ... I sleep with a peaceful aura around me ...
4. I am a peaceful light ... I see myself just above the eyebrows ... I cook food in the peaceful remembrance of God ... Peace gets radiated through my eyes to everything I eat ... My food becomes filled with peace ... Before I eat food, I remember God for a few seconds ... I eat food peacefully with no negative conversations at that time ...
5. I am a light house of peace for all the souls of the world ... I visualize God in the soul world and the world globe in front of me many times in the day ... I absorb the rays of peace from God and vibrate peace to every soul of every country of the world ... Every soul gets connected to God through my peaceful energy ...
The Five Primary Qualities (Part 3)
The soul has five primary qualities; we could say they are the primary colours of humanity with which we paint the picture of our lives. We have discussed four of the qualities in the last couple of days. The last one is:
Happiness :
Happiness is the natural expression of joy in being alive and interacting with others. Happiness is only possible when I relate to myself and express respectfully what I am and allow others to share in what I am and what I have. I relate to people and nature and experience the fulfillment of human life through relationships.
In the meditation taught by the Brahma Kumaris, we absorb the rays of these five primary qualities from the Supreme Soul by concentrating on his point of divine light form in the incorporeal world (paramdham or shantidham). The absorption and the harmony of these basic qualities (peace, purity, love, knowledge and happiness) lead to the development of many more virtues inside us.
As we become aware of these five primary qualities, we gradually realize that each one of them has many characteristics.
e.g. we understand that love does not mean just a special feeling for one or two people. Spiritual love is far greater; it means respect, tolerance, forgiveness, compassion and flexibility; there is a universal feeling of belonging, an openness of heart, a generosity of spirit that is all-embracing.
The Five Primary Qualities (Part 2)
The soul has five primary qualities; we could say they are the primary colours of humanity with which we paint the picture of our lives. We had discussed peace and purity yesterday. The others are:
Love :
Perhaps the most difficult original quality to achieve because it has become so mixed up with attachment, possessiveness and dependence, deeply ingrained habits that have become accepted as normal. As a result, the human being finds it difficult to realize the true form of pure love, which is unconditional. The quality of love means I care, I share and, in particular, I liberate. True spiritual love never creates that need, or dependence, where others cannot find, or be, themselves.
Knowledge :
To know and to be what I am eternally and truly, and to exist in this consciousness, is what we mean by knowledge. It is not knowing about the soul, peace, love, etc., but rather knowing is to be the soul, to be peace, to be love. This quality of true knowing is expressed through I am, the original awareness of the self that exists beyond the false self of ego.
(To be continued tomorrow ….)
The Five Primary Qualities (Part 1)
The soul has five primary qualities; we could say they are the primary colours of humanity with which we paint the picture of our lives.
They are:
Peace :
This is the original quality of the soul. Peace is serenity, the personal inner state of non-violence. In this state of peace, I harmonize with everything and everyone around me. The word shanti means peace, and it is this thought (or word) we use as the key step in meditation.
Purity :
A state of honesty and cleanliness where I am the same inside and outside, not deceiving either myself, or others. Consequently, there is no room for artificiality. Purity is the state of original truth where no violence is committed against others, nor can violence be committed against me. When the self is in its original purity, others cannot damage or destroy it, even if they try, because there is a natural aura of protection that acts as an invisible barrier. When I achieve this level of purity, it means I respect all things.
(To be continued tomorrow ….)
Overcoming The Habit Of Worry (Part 2) |
In yesterday’s message, we had explained how worry is the wrong use of the positive and constructive capacity of the mind and intellect. On the other hand, imagining possible positive outcomes or results will have a double effect of not only keeping the negative outcomes away from us (even if there is a possibility of them occurring), but will also attract the positive results towards us. But to ensure that both these processes happen, it’s important not to attach possible negative results to the same, even to the minutest extent in your mind and intellect. Otherwise, the probability of positive futures becoming a reality reduces. Worrying is another word for this attachment process.
Worry is a type of mental habit, which arises from the belief that it’s good to worry. This belief gets acquired during our childhood. And then it keeps getting strengthened from our life experiences. We start from this belief. That attracts negative circumstances. As a result, the belief gets strengthened further, because you think that with life full of so many negative circumstances, it’s important to think of negative outcomes beforehand. You don’t realize that these negative situations occurred in the first place largely due to this belief. When we are faced with a negative situation, again we worry because we hold that belief. Again, it’s the same result. In this way, we are caught in a vicious cycle. How do we come out of this cycle? By changing this belief to – it’s not good to worry. Once we do that, there is no guarantee that negative situations will completely stop arising in our life, because we have performed negative actions in the past (either in this birth or past births), which need to be settled in our present, but the extent of negative situations will be minimized. And even if they do come, they will go away sooner, if we have a worry-free consciousness.
Overcoming The Habit Of Worry (Part 1) |
What is a good definition of worry? Worry is a process of imagining the worst possible outcome or result or future in a particular situation and creating a living and active image of it in your consciousness, and then using the energy of that negative image to flow inside your consciousness so as to completely overpower or weaken your spiritual self and as a result your physical self and to create fear in the self.
When people are asked about this process, a person who is attached to this process and is involved in the process very regularly the whole day in different types of situations, one who is a habitual worrier, responds - But it’s important to worry, it’s good to worry. If we don’t think of different possible negative outcomes, how will we prepare for them? It’s important to realize that the belief, that by worrying, we prepare for the worst in the future is a false one. This belief causes us not to realize the truth that all worry is simply an incorrect and fruitless creation. It is a wrong use of the positive, constructive and imaginative capacity of our mind and intellect which, instead of empowering the mind and intellect, weakens it. Preparing for the future is important and necessary, but very often while doing that, we start worrying, which leaves us, defeated or weakened. There is an extremely fine line between necessary preparation in advance on the one hand and worry on the other. This preparation can be done without creating an excessive number of possible negative outcomes or results in the mind.
(To be continued tomorrow …)
5 Ways Of Making Our Relationships Beautiful (Part 3)
4. We all want our relationships to be strong and permanent, but we have never thought of personality transformation as a medium of achieving that. No relationship can be successful and without problems if anger and ego exist inside people. Changing oneself and removing these two negative personality traits at every step brings people together and hearts close. No matter how much love you may share with the other person, but if at times, your behavior is anger or ego filled, the same love shared does not hold any value then. Many a times, people will gift lots of presents to their loved ones and will go for a holiday or a party or have a meal together or celebrate each others’ birthdays, marriage anniversaries and other important days. But all these are just temporary and will not give permanent happiness to a relationship, if at other times one person has got angry for the other coming home late or has become egoistic, when they did not call. Love means complete trust between two people and where there is trust there will never be accusations and counter accusations. What use is a gift if at other times you do not even talk politely and sweetly, without any doubt and suspicion?
5. Lastly, but most importantly, today most relationships are lacking good quality time spent with each other. Professional targets in the lives of men and women both and varying priorities of two people sometimes is keeping people away from each other. Spending time together and discussing problems of each other and even other family members and then looking to resolve them makes relationships beautiful. So, fix times with each other to be together at meal times and evenings. Also keeping a balance between time given to home and office as well as talking to each other throughout the day and being with your family, keeps relationships going and makes them full of happiness.
5 Ways Of Making Our Relationships Beautiful (Part 2)
2. Along with creating affirmations for the self, a very important virtue which makes relationships stronger and more beautiful is respect for others. Why is it that nowadays either deep respect in relationships is lacking or even if its present, it is not constant? Why have people become so egoistic and even a small negative circumstance can make all the respect shared between two people to be forgotten. Today, you see two people respecting each other immensely and after a year or two, they don’t see eye to eye. What is it that is not working in relationships? Giving respect to others, others’ sanskars (habits), others’ interests, others’ opinions, others’ lifestyles, others’ ways of working and not only thinking about oneself will make relationships lovely and they will work longer. Remember the one who respects oneself or has good and positive self-respect, is the one who respects others more. A first step to a good relationship is a positive self affirmation every morning – I am special and unique in this world and so is the other. I respect myself and respect the other. I give the other space to be themselves. That is true respect.
3. A beautiful characteristic of each soul in this world is love and relationships for every human being is a medium of give and take of love. Sometimes some people’s love is conditional and based on selfish desires. As long as their desires are fulfilled, they are full of love for the other. The moment the other person is unable to fulfill their desires, they can become revengeful and bitter. This is false love. So, becoming full of true and unconditional love is the key to long-term and positive relationships. This kind of sharing of love will resolve differences with others and keep you united and strongly connected always.
(To be continued …)
5 Ways Of Making Our Relationships Beautiful (Part 1)
We are all living in a close knit world where relationships are an important medium of life which connects all of us closely. Today, sadly but truly, relationships are no longer as deep and meaningful as they used to be earlier. We are commonly hearing of early divorces and sudden breakups in friendships and so many other types of relationships at the workplace or with loved ones in the family and outside family. Where are we heading? Why are relationships so weak today? Even if they exist, the happiness that they radiate is less. People are lesser content with each other than before and there is anger, ego, jealousy, possessiveness and insecurity surrounding relationships much more than before. There are also people who do not disclose their relationship problems with others but are silently suffering. Let’s look at a few basic methods to make our relationships stronger and based on the correct foundation of constant peace, love and joy –
1. Give a few minutes everyday to filling yourself with peace, love and joy through beautiful affirmations. Reaffirming to yourself regularly about your nature full of peace, love and joy will strengthen that nature further. The more your sanskars (habits) are full of these three qualities, the more your thoughts, words and actions will be full of these qualities. As a result, your relationships will also become a reflection of these qualities. The most important cause of relationships collapsing is inner emptiness and inability to share these qualities with the other person. Expectations are the seed of most problems in all relationships and all expectations exist because the qualities of peace, love and joy are not present adequately inside people.
(To be continued …)
Give Blessings, Receive Blessings
Blessings are positive energy vibrations which we share with each other and they create goodness in relationships. God shares some beautiful methods of exchanging blessings with each other. Let's understand some of them -
1. Whenever we come in contact with another soul, the first thought that comes to our mind is of a past interaction with them, or of some work we have with them, or sometimes we look at them based on something we know about them or have heard from someone about them or of some weakness of theirs. Instead let us have a thought first of their specialty or their goodness, which we have seen in them at some point of time. This radiates blessings to them.
2. When we interact with someone, radiate to the other person a pure and positive feeling that you are a very special and beautiful soul and also keep a good wish for the person in your mind that you will find happiness and success in everything you do. Both good feelings and good wishes are form of blessings that fill spiritual love in interactions and bring back blessings from others.
3. Also, when meeting others, see others as God's children, whom God loves a lot and keep your vision subtly at their spiritual form or the soul, a being of pure spiritual light at the center of their forehead. The more this spiritual vision becomes your habit, the more your positive energy will radiate to the other person and in return, the other person will send back positivity and goodness.
4. A sign of a good natured soul is to give something to everyone they meet. Depending on what the soul is lacking in or what they need in that particular scene of life, give them peace or joy or love or power through your eyes, face, words and actions. These are beautiful blessings.
5. Lastly, give support to everyone and co-operate enthusiastically with everyone. Today, souls in the world need our positive energy and we also benefit from their positive energy which they radiate to us. This is an important way of giving and receiving blessings.