
Strengthen Your Willpower
Willpower is what keeps you on track. Willpower is what
stops you from giving in to temptations. So, strengthen your
willpower, not by removing the temptations but by facing
them and choosing not to give in! The next time you find
yourself lacking in willpower, refocus on your aim and why
you want to achieve it. Remind yourself: I am in control of
my choices. I am in charge of my behaviour. I am the master
of my life.
The Art Of Tolerance (cont.)
In the Ramayana, Mahavir Hanuman has been portrayed
as carrying a great mountain in his hand as if it were a
ball. It does not matter if the problem, obstacle or storm
seems like a great mountain: one need to turn something that
appears as big as a mountain into a small toy, and overcome
it as if it were a game. Making something big very light
makes you also feel light. Don't turn a small stone into a
mountain; turn the mountain into a ball. To take the
expansion to its essence is tolerance. Expanding obstacles
and problems in your mind or speaking of them to others
means to create mountains. Don't go into expansion: put
a full stop and turn over the page of life and that way you
will advance. A tolerant person is always capable of
taking expansion, problems and obstacles to their essence
with knowledge, meditation and silence. When you choose
the longest road, doing so consumes more and ends up by
exhausting your time and energy. Expansion is the longest
road and the essence is to take a shortcut. Both work in
order to get to the other side, but those who take a
shortcut are able to save their time and energy, they do not
get discouraged. They constantly enjoy themselves and
overcome everything with a smile. That is being tolerant.
When you have developed the power of tolerance, you do
things with pleasure. We are not referring to the physical
pleasures but rather to living a life with pleasure in your
heart, and that way you will be able to transform any
situation or task from confusion into pleasure.
(To be continued tomorrow ...)
Soul Sustenance
Uprooting the Emotion of Worry from the Consciousness (Part
2)
In yesterday’s message, we had explained how worry is the
wrong use of the imaginative 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, 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 bid goodbye sooner, if we
have a worry-free consciousness.
Message for the day
Cleanliness means no waste within.
Expression:
To be totally clean means there is not a trace of negativity
or waste within. Even in the most complicated situations
there is clarity within. The mind is clear and clean so
there is clarity in words and actions also. Every decision
is taken with a clear mind and so whatever is done is
naturally accurate.
Experience:
When there is cleanliness in the heart, I am able to win the
love of those around me and also of God. I find that I
become a mirror for the others and they are able to see
their own perfection through me. I also find that I am able
to save a lot of time as I am able to see things for what
they are and because there is clarity in my thoughts.
Inner Positivity
There is usually attention on the self not to perform any
negative acts. There is also considerable attention not to
speak any words that are harmful or negative. But very
rarely is there that attention on the thoughts. Because of
this a lot of negative thoughts tend to remain in the
intellect causing trouble for me. I need to understand the
fact that my thoughts form the basis for my words and
actions. The more I pay attention to make my thoughts
positive, the more it will have a positive impact on my
words and actions too. Constant awareness of a positive
thought enables me to maintain my own inner positivity.