Step out of your comfort zone
Being comfortable is great, right? But how many
opportunities are you letting slip by because
you don't want to feel uncomfortable? A little
step outside your comfort zone is all it takes
to grow and improve, to reach a higher and
better level. Get past your fears and feelings
of awkwardness and take that little step.
Marrying Spiritual Practices With Actions
Spiritual practices and life are interconnected;
so are my thoughts and actions. It is not
possible to separate them. The immediate
influence of any spiritual practice like
meditation is on the quality of my thoughts. The
quality of my thoughts is then reflected in my
dayto- day actions. As the quality of my actions
improves, it starts influencing my thoughts
positively and the quality of my spiritual
practice also starts improving. When I
really understand this, it becomes clear that
the right way to live is to marry both these
sides within my life - meditation and practical
life, marry the process of improving the quality
of my thoughts with my actions, because both are
interconnected with each other. Actions
performed by being too action conscious, in a
wrong, non-spiritual consciousness, have led to
a monotonous and meaningless existence, an
existence without permanent peace, love and joy,
causing feelings of discontentment and an
emptiness in many hearts. On the other hand,
religious or meditation practices, which were
done with the aim of bringing peace and
happiness in our personal life as well as in
relationships, but were performed in seclusion
(by detaching or becoming aloof from society),
did not achieve the desired objectives and was
unable to influence life positively. This caused
spirituality to become disconnected from
reality. I want my consciousness to become such
that I can experience the richness of a life of
actions, interactions and relationships of the
world, but adorned (decorated) with the jewels
of the energy and spiritual power that only
meditation can provide.
Put into Practice
When we hear something new and worthwhile from
someone, we naturally get the feeling to bring
that into our practical life. But it is then
soon forgotten and doesn't become part of our
life. It remains theory in our mind, and after
sometime we are not inspired by it anymore. We
either don't have courage or discouraged with
our past experiences. We can bring something we
know into practice, only when we are able to
experience it at some point. For this we need to
make a plan to actually find a space for what we
know to come into practice. When we start even
mechanically, that particular point brings
experience in our lives. Then we are naturally
further experiment with it.
Soul Sustenance
The Five Primary Qualities (cont.)
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 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. 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 ….)
Message for the day
To be healthy internally is to make the best use
of all treasures.
Projection:
A healthy intellect acts like a mother, always
showing the right path. When internally one is
strong, there is the natural ability to treat
the mind with love and guide it towards the
right direction. Such a healthy state of mind
naturally enables the recognition and the proper
utilisation of everything available.
Solution:
Once I have learnt the art of guiding my mind in
the right direction with love, I then never
experience the difficulty of having to bring
back the mind to the right thinking. Because the
mind is totally under control in a very easy and
natural way and I don't have to control it or
force it to think or not to think in a
particular way.