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Positive Reflections messages from Awakening consciousness
Viewing Situations Positively (Part 1)
If you look at the world around you and judge people based on how they respond to different situations, you will realize and know that there are some people who will look at situations from a negative view point very easily. A view point literally means – viewing from a point a particular scene in your life. Obviously the point of view as we say is different for each person i.e. the point from where someone views a particular scene is different for each person. It’s like a painting on a wall. I can see the same painting by standing at different points and I will see the same painting differently. That is what we mean by perception or the angle of viewing or the point of view. Sometimes one painting of life or scene in life will be seen by ten different people from ten different positions of the mind and they will see it differently or in other words they will react differently. And because we look from different viewpoints or have different perceptions, life for some is like a joyride and for some it can be a roller coaster ride i.e. a ride with ups and downs where you are shaken up and down very often. In other words you become unstable emotionally.
When looking at situations, choose the most positive mind position to look at them from. That is the secret key to having a mind space which you own, in which the experience of virtues like happiness, contentment and power exist and express themselves freely. How to choose the best mental position to look at a scene of life or in other words how to have the most positive perception for a situation? This depends on your personality, which the good thing is, can be changed. Meditation is the most beautiful technique of connecting yourself internally using the power of visualization to the sweet personality of God and absorbing His virtues. This brings the virtues inside your mind space in the form of good quality thoughts and on the basis of that creating positive perceptions or positive view points when looking at situations.
(To be continued tomorrow …)
The Four Pillars Of A Spiritual Lifestyle - Achieving A Balance
A balanced and fulfilling spiritual life is like a table. It stands on four legs and if one leg is shorter than the others then both balance and equilibrium will be difficult. The four legs or pillars of a spiritual life are given below in the form of four subjects. If any of the subjects is not a part of our lives or is a part of our life, but not to as great an extent as the others, then the overall balance of our spiritual life will be affected adversely (negatively).
1. Daily spiritual study (knowledge or gyan)
Daily spiritual study provides the right quality of nourishment for our mind and intellect, the two important energies of the soul.
2. Daily meditation (spiritual yoga)
Daily meditation provides the means to explore, discover and reconnect with oneself and with God.
3. The inculcation and development of virtues (dharna)
Giving some time each day to the conscious development of our character (virtue) helps to eliminate any negative sanskars or personality characteristics (vices) arid improves our ability to build positive and harmonious relationships. The quality of our relationships is a mirror reflection of our dharna.
4. The service of others (seva)
A life purpose based on some kind of service is the foundation of personal growth through the practice of giving. Finding appropriate ways to use our increasing spiritual power and understanding (through the three subjects mentioned above) for the benefit of others is the most satisfying way to use our energy today. It also ensures happiness for the present as well as for the future through accumulation of positive energy in the form of blessings of those who are served.
3 Steps For Creating A Positive Present And Future (Part 2)
Perform Good Actions At Every Step
Spiritual wisdom teaches us the art of performing beautiful actions full of peace, love and joy in every sphere of our life. We all know that we all carry a baggage of negative actions of our past which is merged in our consciousness in the form of negative sanskars, which were created in the soul, when the negative actions were performed. These negative sanskars radiate negative vibrations to the different people we interact with, nature and also the food we eat and the water we drink. When we consume such things, interact with objects filled with this energy and come into contact with people who experience this negative energy from us, we create negative circumstances in our life. So, in order to reduce this effect, we need to ensure that we perform only positive actions, speak good and kind words and create peaceful and loveful thoughts always. This is because this will create a positive and sweet vibration in our consciousness and radiate the same goodness filled energy to everything and everyone we interact with, leading to the creation of beautiful and beneficial scenes of life.
Sometimes the effect of one negative action of the past can be so powerful that it can minimize the effect of many positive and good actions of the present. So, we need to be careful that we perform only positive actions in the present and no negative actions at all. Then, slowly our positive actions will start minimizing the influence of the negative actions of the past on us. Sometimes we may feel that this task is very difficult. But the spiritual path teaches us how to perform all actions in soul consciousness and God consciousness which fill the soul with deeper and more permanent qualities and powers, which make our actions very powerful and fill them with the potential to minimize the effect of the negative past actions of this birth and the previous births. Also, God guides us in this process at every step, making it easier than we may think and feel.
(To be continued …)
5 Benefits Of Sleeping Early And Waking Up Early
1. Experiencing Mental Freshness And Inner Power – An important aspect of spirituality is sleeping early and waking up early. It is not the number of hours of sleep only, which makes you feel fresh, but also when you sleep and when you wake up that gives your mind an elevated feeling of lightness and energy. This is also a law of nature, which modern human beings are breaking nowadays and not only feeling a low mood the entire day, but also becoming irritable and tired easily because of that.
2. Connecting With God Easily In Meditation – Sleeping early after packing up your thoughts, words and actions of the day empowers the mind and fills the mind with silence and stability. Such a person wakes up in the morning in the early hours and begins the day with God’s remembrance full of determination and lightness and receives God’s spiritual light and might in its consciousness.
3. Experiencing The Pure Vibrations Of The Early Morning – In the morning before sunrise, human beings are in their purest consciousness and there are beautiful vibrations everywhere. Also, nature is very fresh and full of peace and purity. At such a time, as we wake up early after a good night’s sleep, we experience the silence around us and also absorb the purity of the environment around us and feel elevated.
4. Experiencing Good Physical Health And Brain Strength – It is commonly seen that people who follow the habit of sleeping early and waking up early and sleep for the right amount of time, experience better physical health and better functioning of all physical body systems. Also, they show better brain health and a more active state of mind, which functions and co-ordinates positively with the brain, creating more success in life through the physical body, in different spheres of life.
5. Sleeping Without Dreams And In A Higher Consciousness – A very important aspect of spirituality is how peaceful are your thoughts and how good is your sleep quality, without any dreams, which is called peaceful sleep. Sleeping late disturbs the mind and body clock and the soul’s well-being also gets affected negatively, because of which there are more dreams in sleep and negative and waste thoughts are very common in the day.
Make 6 Types Of Contentment A Part Of Your Life
Am I Content With Myself - Being content with myself, my sanskars, my thoughts, words and actions and also how I feel is very important for progressing in life. Also, we need to realize that those who are always content with themselves, radiate positive energy and attract positive circumstances in their life.
Am I Content With Others - While playing my roles, responsibilities and relationships, we come in contact with different people, who have different sanskars. I need to check at every moment that am I content with each and everyone or is there someone I do not tend to like? Making each and every relationship beautiful gives me strength and makes me lighter.
Are Others Content With Me - While contentment with others is extremely important, we also need to check whether others are content with me. The more beautiful and perfect I am in my sanskars and the more I think nice and positive for others, the more others come close to me and I get their certificate of contentment.
Am I Content With God - Spirituality teaches us to make a beautiful relationship with God, without which our lives are incomplete and without fulfillment. As a Spiritual Father God gives us sustenance, as a Spiritual Teacher God shares wisdom with us and as a Spiritual Guru He teaches us how to connect to Him. While receiving these attainments from Him, I need to check if am I content with Him at every step.
Is God Content With Me - God fills us with various qualities and powers and makes us beautiful souls. When I always follow God's instructions and don't disobey Him ever, I get His certificate of contentment and become filled with His love and blessings.
Am I Content With My Life - We are the creators of all our life situations based on our actions of this birth and our previous births. This makes me content with my life and I accept every situation and create a positive future for myself by performing beautiful and positive actions in the present.
Making Concentration Your Nature
We all know how valuable, concentration is. Whether it is studies, a project at office or household work, we want to quiet the mind and concentrate on what we do. But often, we give in to emotional or sensory distractions. Our mind starts wandering and thoughts become scattered. Cultivating the ability to focus our thoughts in whatever direction we want, is crucial for success.
1. You know the endless rewards of concentration. But have you been at a meeting and your attention strays from the discussion to your family, to bills to be paid, or to your weekend plans? Have you experienced total concentration at times and a total lapse of concentration at other times?
2. Concentration needs our mind to create an energy of stillness and power. Nurturing the mind with 15 minutes of pure, positive information in the morning and thinking right during the day improves concentration. Distractions, overthinking or turbulent thoughts create disturbed energy.
3. Before beginning a task, keep distractions away, take a minute’s silence to answer any unresolved questions in the mind. Set a timeline and create one high-energy thought about the activity you are about to begin. No other thought will disturb you and you create a silent, still, concentrated mind.
4. Concentration needs to be a habit, a way of living. It is your mind and it obeys your instructions. You just need to master the art of instructing it. Remind yourself - I concentrate well to complete every task effortlessly and well in time. My mind is my instrument, it obeys my instructions.
#IAM
At Peace With Time - The Key To Relaxed Living (Part 4)
You choose whether, each morning, you want to get up and begin with watching television, reading the newspaper over a cup of tea, or you want to get up and meditate, listen to peaceful music, read a couple of pages of spiritual knowledge that inspire you and you begin the day with enthusiasm and by visualizing it positively: today will be a marvelous day, I shall enjoy it … yes!! Such meditative and spiritual practice will give you a feel of time being elastic. In such a consciousness, a minute will seem eternal i.e. time can seem to come to a standstill (if I am surrounded by a positive set of circumstances which are spiritually uplifting) or can seem an instant, i.e. I get a feeling of time passing very fast (if in a negative set of circumstances). Thus, I learn to be a creator of time; living in time without being a slave to it. True freedom lies in being content now. You can be content in the present moment by resolving the inner dialogue that generates stress and conflict in you. When you are content, enjoying yourself and having a good time, you don't realize how time passes. This means that, if we lived in a state of constant happiness, we wouldn't realize how time passes. Time would be at our service. We would be the rulers and controllers of time and not the other way round.
At Peace With Time - The Key To Relaxed Living (Part 3)
To live at peace with time is to live it with peace, trust and determination. It is different to living it out of conflict and forcing things. In order to live true freedom of being, we have to make friends with time and stop living stressed in time. We have to trust. Trust that you will arrive on time, that you will do it on time and, if not, that a particular problem will be solved. Don't let time be a stress factor. When we live stressed because of time, we lose the best of life. We stop living what is essential and important, and we get lost in the details: I have to go here, I have to finish this, I have to call up someone, and endless amounts of I have tos that consume our mental energy and make us get lost in the details of the trivial (ordinary). As well, in hurrying, we lose quality. You can do everything, but without losing what is essential; do it with love, with care, with interest, with enthusiasm, with motivation and with focus. That way every small action that you take will have a greater impact, will be more fulfilling and will bear a more positive fruit.
(To be continued tomorrow …)
At Peace With Time - The Key To Relaxed Living (Part 2)
Not only is your strength reduced by the way that you live the past and project onto the future, but also how you live in this moment. When, for example, you oppose the present and have resistances, these consume your energy and cause you stress. If you accept the present you can flow flexibly without wasting your energy. Accepting does not mean submitting yourself or feeling a victim of what is happening now. From acceptance, you confront and transform. If we learn to live the dimensions of time in a healthy way we will keep up our vitality, we will heal the past and we will feel at peace with it. Accepting the present and trusting in the future helps us to be well.
Accepting the present means stopping comparing yourself with others; you want what the other has, their money, their talents, their beauty, their personality, their achievements, their virtues, etc. So, instead of being grateful for what you have and accepting yourself as you are, you try to have and be like the other. In this way, you are never satisfied. The dissatisfaction causes you a constant unhappiness that reduces your vitality. When you feel happy and satisfied your energy flows more easily. The most important thing that you should do in this moment is to feel content. Next, what is the most important thing? To be content. Therefore, the priority, and what is essential, is that whatever happens in the moment, the most important thing is to be content. So, tell your mind - Oh, mind, be quiet and don't think so much. Oh, mind, kindly trust that everything is and will be fine. Give your mind the basic instructions and the key thoughts with which to be content. Don't let your own mind create the thoughts that trap you. It is we ourselves who create our emotional cages.
(To be continued tomorrow …)
At Peace With Time - The Key To Relaxed Living (Part 1)
To live in freedom you have to live at peace (harmony) with time; live the dimension of time as a creator of time and not a slave of time; live without being either a prisoner or victim of time. To live at peace with time is to live in harmony with nature, beginning with your inner nature. When you plant a sapling today, you cannot accelerate the process so that the next day you have a tree. When it is summer, you cannot make the earth revolve around the sun quicker or slower for winter to arrive before or later. Everything has its rhythm in nature. We have distanced ourselves from the natural rhythm and our accelerated mind exercises pressure, creates stress and causes anxiety. We plan the future, we are stuck in the past and the present escapes us.
Many worries have to do with how we live time: the past, the present and the future. Worrying about what might happen (future), when the moment has not yet come for it to happen, takes away from us the necessary energy to deal with it when it finally arrives. Living in memories drains our energy; the past already happened and no longer exists, except in our memory. We feed memories, not realizing that emerging the memory in our mind distracts us from the present and weakens us. It is like being a plug that connects to a socket with no current passing through. We lose our energy. We want to relive an experience that already happened, and in the end we feel disappointed, feeling a mental and emotional waste.
(To be continued tomorrow …)
I Am Peace (Part 3)
Meditation for mental peace is something we commonly hear nowadays and it is something which is being practiced by thousands of families and professionals nowadays. It is helping them bring peace and calm in their minds as well as in their relationships. Some people do not realize the importance of looking inwards for maintaining peace and also the importance of methods like meditation for achieving that. But remember, a few minutes given to looking after the self everyday will make you powerful to face the growing number of situations which come at you from people in your family and at office. Meditation is not running away from society but is an easy technique of mastering the thought patterns of the mind and keeping them under control. To meditate is to create thoughts related to the self like – Who am I, What is my role in this world, What is my original stage when I came to play my part in the world, Do I perform positive actions throughout the day, Am I being of peace and love always, Do I come into contact with everyone with a positive consciousness, Do I satisfy God with my daily routine, Do I remain stable irrespective of what happens around me, Do I remain pure and peaceful in my interactions with others, etc.
These type of thoughts which are mentioned above and giving answers to the questions asked by the mind is a way of making the mind busy. This is the most basic type of meditation. Of course, as you go ahead with your meditation practice, you have to go from thoughts to pure experience. In pure experience, thoughts stop and the self just exists in a stage full of peace and no longer needs the support of thoughts but can stand on its own feet. The feet are a pure loveful connection with the Supreme or God which gives the self the beauty of experience. Experience means to just be peace and not necessarily create thoughts related to peace.
I Am Peace (Part 2)
Peace inside is often reflected to the outside. Very often homes and offices which are more orderly, normally have people living and working inside them who are more peaceful. A less orderly place to stay and work in, increases our thought activity. People who are confused easily in difficult situations tend to also ignore their surroundings and prefer living in less orderly environments. So, inner peace and outer peace are connected with each other. Keeping both, the mind and the surroundings full of calmness by using subtle methods for the mind and physical methods for the surroundings makes you stronger inside. It also increases your ability to keep your thought activity to a minimum. This is required very regularly when there are different types of situations and while coming into contact with people of different personalities. Very often a big group of people in an office can be challenging to work with and can make people even have thoughts of leaving such a group of people permanently. This happens when they are not able to cope with different people and their demands. A calm mind, some say in an 8 hour work day at the office, with demanding deadlines and different people with their different ways of working and opinions, is next to impossible. At the same time, for some, who have learnt to remain at ease in situations or who have learnt the habit of thinking less irrespective of whatever happens around them prefer working in groups. They find it easy to be a part of a group. On the other hand, some lose hope and cannot bear the pressure of that and prefer living alone and with a few people.
A good leader will be good at managing people well and also good at managing the self and remaining stable in difficult situations, which are the main cause of negative thoughts. The positive thought activity of a good leader and his peaceful nature directly influences the quality of mind activity of the people whom the leader leads and makes them peaceful.
(To be continued tomorrow …)
I Am Peace (Part 1)
An important feature of lives of successful people is a mind which remains free of questions and always remains solution based. Very often, problems of the world shake up the mind and make you confused, leading to negative results in life’s situations and also harming relationships with people. Ideally, people around us remain content with us when our mind is relaxed and free from any mental disturbances. A very important habit that we should choose to make a part of our personality is the ability to give a brake to our thoughts of fear and anxiety. We need to do this in any type of situation and instead create thoughts of determination and surety of success so that even negative situations bring about positive results. Thoughts increase when negative situations come close to us and have an impact on our minds. So, in such situations, first of all it is important to realize, that any such situation has a hidden benefit inside it. We cannot see this benefit and also being sure that the hidden benefit will be visible very soon, is the method of remaining peaceful and calm. That means a mind with few thoughts and free of questions.
Do you know the original state of the soul, when it stayed in the soul world, was completely thoughtless? As it came down in the world and took one birth one after the other, the number of thoughts inside it started increasing. At the same time, the different types of negative situations surrounding it also increased slowly, showing how a mind without peace attracted peacelessness on an external level. The confusion in the world today is nothing but a reflection of the nature of human minds which are extremely peaceless. This is to the extent that even a 6-7 hours night of sleep is difficult for some to experience at times.
(To be continued tomorrow …)
3 Steps For Creating A Positive Present And Future (Part 3)
Clear The Negative Actions Of The Past
A very important step of spirituality by which we create a positive present and future is cleaning the soul of its past sins or negative actions, which are a barrier in the present in our lives and prevent us from creating a positive present and future. Meditation is a dialogue, union and vibrational connection with God or the Supreme Being based on a deep relationship with Him. In this connection we absorb God’s vibrations as a beautiful current of spiritual energy inside us. This current is like a medicine for the soul which cleans the effects of sins of the past and gives the soul a beautiful vibration and fills it with positive purity and strength. When it begins to radiate these beautiful vibrations of purity and strength it starts attracting beautiful circumstances and scenes in life and its destiny changes in a short period of time.
What are the things we need to take care of while making this connection? Firstly, we need to have the wisdom of who God is and what is His and our spiritual identity. After that we need to inculcate the habit of making this connection for a few minutes daily in the divine way. This is because if we don’t practice the connection with the divine technique, our sins will not get cleared and we will not get purer and become free from the influence of these sins on us and on the quality of our life. We also need to create a divine atmosphere in our home for the practice of meditation in the form of good and clean eating and other living habits and also create a small meditation space at home, where we meditate everyday. The meditation should be done with open eyes so that there is alertness and also by doing this you are able to visualize the soul, the Supreme Soul and the soul world clearly with your inner eye. Lastly, you can practice the meditation in 4 ways – either in silence or with a meditation musical tune played in the background. We have shared what thoughts to create and what to visualize in meditation in our earlier messages. You can also use a guided Brahma Kumaris commentary or a spiritual song for meditation and experience the words you hear to have a beautiful spiritual experience.
3 Steps For Creating A Positive Present And Future (Part 1)
We live a life full of uncertainties and sometimes negative scenes come in our life which can reduce our enthusiasm and make us weaker mentally and emotionally. We all desire to live life without obstacles and full of positive scenes in the present and the future and even think about creating such a life but we are not always successful. Let us see in this message how to achieve this to the maximum extent possible by 3 spiritual steps –
Keep A Positive Consciousness Always
Spirituality teaches us how to create positive thoughts everyday in the middle of our busy schedules and tight deadlines. As a spiritual learner, we learn how to take little steps in our mind in the form of positive thoughts. Every positive thought or step helps us experience a positive consciousness. Also, every positive thought creates a powerful vibration which radiates outwards to the Universe and the Universe reflects back to us positive scenes in the different spheres of our life like our health, relationships, professional work, family activities and financial progress. Any negative thought reduces the success of this process.
So, we should take care that we tune our mind to divine positivity every morning by connecting with the Supreme Being or God and His love filled sustenance, wisdom and blessings. A good habit is to wake up about 30 minutes earlier than normal everyday and give this spiritual feeling to the morning and carry its essence in our mind in the day. Also, after you finish your day’s actions in the evening, you can reconnect again for a few minutes by reviving this morning experience deeply in an inner vibration of stillness, when there is no important home or office activity to disturb you. The next morning you continue the same spiritual experience with greater determination and enthusiasm. This is the morning-night-morning cycle of spirituality which can fill your mind and your aura with positivity and reduce your negative and unnecessary thoughts and as a result create a positive present and future, because of the positivity you radiate.
(To be continued …)