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Positive Reflections messages from Awakening consciousness
Meditation – An Easy Technique For Self Transformation (Part 3)
Meditation Is A Requirement For Anyone Of Any Age
Many people believe that meditation should be practiced when you become free from worldly duties at an older age. But meditation is as much required for younger and busier people as much as for older and less busy people. This is because there is greater stress in younger people because they are performing more duties of different types and meditation helps them in managing their thoughts to keep their health, personal relationships and work going fine and completely full of success. Meditation is also very useful for younger people who are studying, because they carry stress related to managing their studies and they need a technique to keep themselves focused and light. And older people sometimes carry stress due to loneliness and inactivity, which they overcome with a fulfilling relationship with God in meditation and it also helps them to remain busy by spending time in self empowerment and self transformation with the help of tools given by spirituality.
Meditation Teaches Us How To Think, Speak And Act Correctly
Unlike what is commonly believed that meditation makes you unworldly, quiet and unrealistic as well as over detached, meditation makes your mindset stronger and you become full of self confidence. This helps you in dealing with people with positivity and with a proactive approach as well as a giving attitude instead of making you defensive and shy. Everything you think about, every word you speak and every action of yours becomes special and a guiding light as well as inspiration for others. People start looking upto you as you love and respect them more and share whatever you experience in meditation with God with others. Meditation fills inside you the qualities and powers required for a correct and more beautiful way of living. Also, correct mannerisms full of divinity make you more polite and you shower goodness on everyone easily and naturally.
Meditation – An Easy Technique For Self Transformation (Part 2)
Meditation Is An Experience Of God’s Closeness
We all know meditation as a concentration exercise and as a method of experiencing positivity in life. But meditation is much more than that. It is an experience of a relationship with God and an experience of His love and closeness. So, the common idea about meditation that it will make you quiet and unworldly is incorrect. This is because when we experience God’s beautiful relationship in our life, we become full of all beautiful emotions like peace, love and joy, which makes us like a fragrant rose flower, which radiates this goodness and these emotions to others. People in our lives of different ages and in different relationships come close to us. They also experience what we share, and our relationships become more fulfilling. We connect to people with positive energy and the power of co-operation increases inside us, making everything we do together interesting and full of success.
Meditation Makes Us Less Hurried But More Efficient
Meditation is often seen by some people as something which reduces your activeness and detaches you from normal ways of efficient working in any sphere of life. But contrary to this common belief, meditation not only improves your way of working but as your thoughts reduce and your mind gets more organized by practicing it, you become less hurried and you are able to do more tasks in lesser time. Also, at the same time you remain peaceful while working and your health and relationships also improve. There are many practical examples of this and many people who practice the meditation technique as taught by the Brahma Kumaris share their experience that their way of handling their home tasks as well as office tasks not only had a calming influence on them and others but people praised them as they succeeded more by doing more work in lesser time as compared to before and their handling of tasks was also better.
(To be continued tomorrow …)
Meditation – An Easy Technique For Self Transformation (Part 1)
We often think and hear from others when we discuss about meditation that practicing it is not so easy and it should be practiced when one becomes old and free from worldly duties. Also, some people feel that meditation makes you quieter and you move away from people in relationships. There are also some people who feel meditation cuts away your worldly time and you will find it difficult to finish all your tasks for the day either at home or in your workplace or in any other activity you give your time to regularly. Let’s see in this message the truth about these limitations which we think meditation will bring in our lives
Meditation Is Easy And Can Be Practiced By Anyone
Meditation as taught by the Brahma Kumaris is a very simple method of self realization in which we don’t use any force to quieten the mind, which can be tiring and also unnatural and it cannot be practiced successfully for too long. Also, such a method of forced stillness cannot be used in the middle of actions when we are busy in the day and thoughts are many in the mind. Instead, in meditation we create a few positive thoughts based on a spiritual realization of different virtues like peace, joy, love, bliss, purity, power and wisdom and qualities and inner strengths like contentment, determination, sweetness, patience, humility, tolerance, detachment, etc. which are based on these virtues. Creating these thoughts is easy and what thoughts to create is taught in the spiritual wisdom of the Brahma Kumaris. When we create these positive thoughts, our state of mind changes and our negative thoughts stop on their own without any effort. This is an easy method for the concentration of the mind, and anyone can practice it easily.
(To be continued tomorrow …)
Balance 5 Types Of Health
Our ability to live well rests predominantly on 5 types of health: physical health, mental health, emotional health, social health and spiritual health. Being inter-connected, each of these dimensions contributes to our quality of life. When we think of health, we mostly pay attention to physical wellness. We are quick to notice if our body is fit or not, agile or not, healthy or not. There is very little emphasis on spiritual, mental, emotional and social health. A satisfying life needs us to nurture all aspects.
1. Spiritual health is the basis for emotional, mental, social and physical healing. Practice meditation to connect to God and fill yourself with His powers. Study spiritual wisdom daily. Create a compass of moral values and principles to live by.
2. For physical health, exercise daily for at least 20 minutes. Follow lifestyle disciplines of right eating, drinking and sleeping habits.
3. Emotional and mental health relies on right thinking, because it is your thoughts which come into words and behaviour, and create your destiny. Think right for people and situations even if they are not right. A clean mind radiates health to your body, whereas wrong thinking manifests into an illness.
4. To improve social health, stop wanting anything from people. Give according to your own capacity, with no expectations. Be a radiator of love, trust, respect, happiness.
The main features of physical flowers are their colour, form and fragrance, by which we judge their beauty. All these characteristics have their own unique importance. Introducing oneself to spirituality is like giving oneself into the hands of the Supreme Spiritual Gardener or God. Like a physical gardener who possesses qualities of patience, tirelessness, love, far-sightedness, faith etc., the Supreme Gardener is an Ocean of these qualities, which he uses to bring us up. As we remain under his sustenance and care, over a period of time, we blossom and are transformed into beautiful spiritual flowers, and our thorns fall away.
1. When we look at ourselves as spiritual flowers, our colour symbolizes spiritual wisdom. Depending on how we imbibe the wisdom shared by the Spiritual Gardener and bring it in our day-to-day lives; in our thoughts, words, actions and relationships; the more beautiful a colour we take.
2. Our spiritual form or consciousness is shaped depending on the quality of our connection or meditation with the Supreme Gardener. The deeper and stronger the connection or meditation, the more beautiful the form we have.
3. Lastly, our fragrance refers to divine qualities like purity, sweetness, humility, tolerance, carefreeness, and many more, which we develop.
Physical flowers with a good colour, form and fragrance, attract everyone around them. Seeing and coming close to them, gives one an experience of joy. The same holds true for spiritual flowers. Roses are considered the best of all flowers, with the best colour, form and fragrance. Spiritual roses are those souls who continuously remain in a spiritual consciousness and spread the fragrance of that consciousness to others. Their thoughts, words and actions get shaped according to this consciousness. They have a deep relationship with God, the Spiritual Gardener and are always eager to ensure that others also experience that relationship and become spiritual roses; which is His deep wish for every soul. They help Him in fulfilling that wish.
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.
Strengthening Your Shield Of Positivity
We are all going through turbulent times and life throws at us arrows of different negative situations again and again. We all carry a shield of positivity, which we use to protect ourselves from these different negative situations. Sometimes our shield is not strong enough and some arrows in the battlefield of life hit us hard and we get emotionally wounded as a result. Let us explore in this message how do we make our shield of positivity stronger -
1. Always keep one positive thought of spiritual wisdom in your consciousness in the entire day. An empty mind weakens our shield of positivity.
2. Keep God's company with you at every step. God is an Ocean of peace, joy, love, bliss, purity, power and truth. These virtues will make your shield of positivity stronger.
3. Apply the full stop when challenged by difficult situations. Don't create a large number of negative and waste thoughts and magnify the situation.
4. Tell yourself worry is a negative energy. By worrying, the negative arrows that life is throwing at you, will take advantage of you and hit you hard.
5. Keep yourself busy when there is a negative situation. The more you do that, the more your soul power will not get wasted and you will remain strong.
6. Emerge the power to face inside you. Remember the battle can only be won when you don't give up. This will attract solutions and take you to safety where the arrows can no longer hit you.
7. Giving is a beautiful art of performing positive and pure actions. By sharing qualities and powers with others, we send our arrows of positivity in the battlefield of life and they will bring the negative arrows down.
8. Practice the art of introversion. Just like the tortoise goes inside its shell, detach yourself from your sense organs and feel your inner being and your shield will protect you well.
Changing Negative Thoughts With Spiritual Power (Part 3)
To create positive sanskaras (habits) of inner strength, we need to first take the foremost step of determination. Determination means a strong promise to the self that I will change my thought patterns from negative to positive. That is the first realization. Then, we need to select one particular sanskara (habits) of weakness that disturbs us and does not let us be powerful. For e.g. if I have the habit of being impatient in difficult situations, then first I need to fill myself with that quality through self-effort. Until I do that, no matter how much I may try to be patient in any situation, because I am lacking the quality at the level of the sanskara (habits) and since the weakness has not been erased completely, it will be difficult for me to be patient. Let’s say on a particular day, I am in the middle of a traffic jam. If I say to myself that all these vehicles on my way should get cleared in the next five minutes, but they take half an hour, will I be able to remain calm in those extra twenty five minutes, which I did not anticipate or expect? So, what I require is patience. If I say to myself in those twenty five minutes that I have to be patient, will I experience that quality? I will not unless that quality is in my sanskara (habits) or part of my personality. So, it is like filling myself with a lot of happiness and then I will experience that quality. I cannot say to myself - I am a very happy person and experience happiness alone. I need to first fill myself with that quality and then happiness will come naturally to me.
So, it’s about being natural and not theoretical alone i.e. I should be an embodiment or a practical form of every quality and power and not just repeat inside my mind that I have that quality or power. This applies to all the different qualities and powers which are required in crossing negative situations or circumstances. Meditation fills us with these qualities and powers very easily. This is because meditation is a beautiful relationship and connection with the Supreme Source of spiritual energy and power – God. God is full of those qualities and powers and never loses them ever, unlike us, who need to fill ourselves when we lose them.
Changing Negative Thoughts With Spiritual Power (Part 2)
A life facing difficult situations requires each one of us to equip ourselves with powers and not only spiritual wisdom. You can read spiritual knowledge telling you how to face difficult situations for many years together and yet not be strong enough to face them when they actually come. Spiritual knowledge shows us the path to becoming powerful. But the actual spiritual power to change one’s own thinking and change the sanskaras (𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘴) which are the source of this thinking will come with strengthening the mind with powerful thoughts and experiences.
There is no substitute for correct thinking when there is a difficult situation in front of you. You think negatively but try to act according to the spiritual knowledge you have read. That will not make you successful in overcoming the situation. Also, your inner habits of creating thoughts of fear, pessimism, hopelessness and impatience will not reduce, although you may temporarily feel positive based on what you have read or learnt. Inner habits are very deep which have been inside the inner spiritual being or soul since many births. Each time we have performed a negative action or created a negative thought, a negative sanskara (𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘴) was created based on that thought, word or action. And that sanskara (𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘴) then caused a similar thought to be created by me and action being committed, again strengthening the sanskara (𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘴). This is the cycle of repetition. And this cycle keeps having a more and more powerful negative influence on us the more times it is repeated. We need to now change these negative cycles into positive ones. How do we that? We will explain that in tomorrow’s message.
(To be continued …)
Changing Negative Thoughts With Spiritual Power (Part 1)
Experiencing a life full of different types of events, which can be negative at times, can be demanding and also make life a difficult journey of ups and downs. There are some people who like life to be full of stability and even a little bit of instability can cause sorrow to them and also unsettle them. Once upon a time, there was a saint in a far off land who taught people the way of living life in a peaceful and positive manner. There were many people who respected him and approached him to learn the way of right thinking and living from him. Once a person approached him and asked him a simple question – Why is it that difficult situations in everyday life seem to disturb us a lot inspite of the fact that we make efforts to think positive and remain untouched by them? Tell us a way by which we can turn our mind to a positive direction in the middle of negativity and instability of life. The saint replied and gave him a very simple answer – You look for solutions to problems outside whereas the solutions lie in your thinking and the change you bring in it over a period time. It’s very easy to say to yourself – do not think negatively but it’s another thing to actually do that and not feel the pressure while you do that. The follower was confused and thought to himself that life without the pressure of negative situations is like a sea without water, next to impossible.
And as we also realize that we are able to withstand and tolerate situations and it’s not only a few people but all of us try to some extent or the other. Of course, there are some of us who fail completely also. But most of us are successful to different extents in feeling joyful and light when negative situations surround us. Also, there are some who may not be very joyful when they face a difficult situation but can nonetheless be stable and content and also free of too many negative thoughts and thoughts of a weak nature.
(To be continued …)
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 karma with 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.
Beginning Your Spiritual Journey With Acceptance (Part 2)
In yesterday’s message, we had explained some facts of spirituality, which if accepted initially, help us restore our personal relationship with the Supreme Father or God and experience Him easily. Given below are some more facts:
4. Accept that God does not reside in the physical world, He is not present everywhere as is the common belief, but He is a very real, individual and unique Being, staying in the incorporeal (non-physical) or soul world, situated beyond the physical world.
5. Accept that God is a loving Parent of the soul who does not give sorrow, pain or punishment to His children but who only wants the best for them — He is a gentle and understanding Father and Mother who not only knows why we loose our true self awareness and, as a result, create sorrow for ourselves; but also helps us regain that awareness.
6. Accept that experiencing God does not require blind devotion. Also accept that it does not take many births of penance to find and establish your connection with the Supreme - only one second, and the right kind of thoughts. The process of creating the right, positive and spiritual thoughts so as to connect with God is called meditation.
Beginning Your Spiritual Journey With Acceptance (Part 1)
Sometimes, in order to get a desired result from a process, we need to let go of our resistance and trust the process initially. In order to restore our personal relationship with the Supreme Father or God, we need to let go of our old beliefs temporarily and trust the path or process of spirituality. Given below are some facts of spirituality, which if accepted initially, will help you experience the Supreme Being easily:
1. Accept that the soul and the Supreme Soul are separate energies with the same form. They are both points of spiritual light, extremely small in size but with immense amount of capabilities, virtues and powers; the Supreme Soul, having more of them than the souls.
2. Accept that we must be proactive in building our relationship with the Supreme (and not depend only on Him) and also be aware, that like any worldly relationship, this one also takes a little time to develop.
3. Accept that the re-establishment of the loving connection with the Supreme requires the letting go of, not the material world of objects and people, but our attachment to them.
In tomorrow’s message, we shall explain some more facts.
Tuning The Mind, Intellect And Personality (Sanskars)
The soul, is made up of three faculties - the mind, intellect and personality (sanskars). In order to tune these to the highest degree of subtlety, precision and efficiency; we need to connect with the Supreme Soul, who is also a soul, just like us, but has a perfect mind and intellect along with perfect sanskars:
Mind - The Supreme Being or God is an embodiment of positivity – negative and waste do not find a place in his mind.
Intellect - He is also the purest living energy in the entire universe – he is the innocent Lord; a being of conscious light, who has never taken a body and thus never experienced the five vices – lust, anger, greed, ego and attachment.
Sanskars - God is the ocean of the basic virtues of the soul and of humanity – peace, love, bliss, joy, power and purity.
By this connection, gradually over a period of time, our mind, intellect and sanskars begin to become like his – mind becomes full of positivity; intellect begins to become pure and is able to take correct decisions so that right karmas are performed and sanskars become full of the virtues mentioned above.