Virtues
Sweetness is the taste of all virtues. Patience is the
fortress of all virtues. Cheerfulness is the evidence of
all virtues.
Emerge Specialties
When there are specialties seen in someone, we tend to
admire them and describe them to others too. We really
like those virtues in the other person, but rarely do we
put in real effort to imbibe them in ourselves. Just
describing them does not bring any improvement in us.
Whenever I see some specialty in any one I need to
understand that I like that particular virtue in the
other person because it is subtly working within me too.
When I work on it more consciously, I will be able to
emerge it easily.
Changing My Thought Patterns
Why is it that we can't change the pattern of our
thoughts so easily? Imagine a bird being so comfortable
in its nest that, though perhaps sometimes it stands on
the branch of the tree to inflate its chest and adjust
its feathers, it never wants to fly and does not even
realize it could fly. It never knows the blissful
freedom of flight, never feels the wind through its
wings. It thinks the other birds that are flying around
are unwise or foolish. In much the same way, we never
really leave our nests of old thought patterns. Our
habitual thoughts become our comfort zone and each
repetitive thought pattern is like a twig in the nest,
which makes the nest stronger and our stay in the nest
seemingly comfortable and permanent.
We never experience our true spiritual freedom or flight
or feel the breeze of our inner beautiful nature. Even
the thought, "I am a soul" has to be realized
eventually, so that we can actually experience its
deepest truth. In the world of spirituality, thoughts
are like the map, but they are not the territory nor the
reality of the experience. Thinking - * I am a peaceful
soul or * I am a loveful soul or * I am a powerful soul,
is not being soulconscious, it is only theory or
knowledge, but it is definitely an essential start. Maps
are important and necessary, until we know the way home
to experience. Reaching this final destination of
experience makes it easier for us and empowers us to
transform or change our old thought patterns.
Soul Sustenance
Practical Ways of Changing Old Habits or Beliefs (Part
5)
Exercises of Silence
Exercises of silence help you concentrate your mind and
intellect, and go within yourself to recover the
positive and eternal energies. With the appropriate
concentration of the mind and intellect towards your
constructive inner forces of peace, love and happiness,
you can strengthen yourself. Being strong means staying
positive when faced with negative situations, peaceful
when everything around you is chaotic: in other words,
not being influenced negatively but influencing the
situation with your positivity. When you stay calm in
your inner power of peace, you can transmit this to
others and help them to calm themselves. When you begin
exercises of silence, concentrate primarily on peace.
This is the basis of the practice, as when there is
inner balance and harmony it is easier to build over
these the other values love, happiness, truth and
sincerity. The experience of deep peace calms you,
clarifies you and fills you with energy to think and act
positively and achieve your purpose that you have set
for yourself.
Message for the day
The more we experience peace within the more there will
be positivity in our life.
Expression:
We usually try to change ourselves and our negativities
by working on each of them separately. We might be able
to overcome them also but being connected to the other
weaknesses we find that they reemerge again. Then we
find that the negativity remains in our life influencing
all our thoughts, words and actions.
Experience:
We first need to make a promise to ourselves to maintain
our own inner positivity. Once we do that we also need
to make an attempt to practice relaxing our mind and
remaining calm before we do any important thing. When we
practice in this way we will be able to keep our mind
calm and this calmness will bring contentment through
which there will be positivity in all we do.