25.06.2015 Inspirations The soul flies, the body plods. If you identify with your body, you will feel heavy. If you think you are a soul, you will feel light. Complaining just wrecks the mood and motivation for ourselves and others. So, today, practice the 'No Complaining Rule'. Even if you're having a really bad day, put things into perspective. Look for the silver lining on the cloud. Live in a state of appreciation. Appreciate at least one thing about each person you meet. Appreciate all that life has to offer, whether it's the chance to breathe in the fresh air or watch the sunset during your commute home. Appreciate all the little events you take for granted. Shedding Off The Attachment To A Positive Past (cont.) Excessive attachment to a glorious past is a subtle shade of the negative emotion of ego which colors my present perception of external events and which affects my present actions and responses, as a result of which not only present but my future is also affected. As I hold on to it, my creativity is reduced and I do everything with a limited perspective, not letting myself grow and shape up a glorious present and future. There are some people whose goal is to achieve something so great in their lives so as to ensure they will gain recognition and respect by others in time to come. This is again a subtle shade of attachment and ego. But shedding off this type of attachment is not easy and first requires the realization that this attachment is incorrect and damaging. The next step is sitting in silence and becoming aware of how you lose your identity in a story of past thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes and actions and then disassociating or detaching yourself from that story. You do not need to suppress or deny or fight with this story; otherwise its memory gets stronger and more overpowering. You just need to simply see and realize deeply that your past is just a record of a particular set of actions, which you committed at a particular point of time, it is a series of images of previous events that you witnessed and that you were a part of, all of which have left a record in your memory, and in the memories of others, but they are not what you are. This type of practice of disassociation with spiritual understanding fades the excessive memory of the story in your consciousness over a short period of time and these actions then cease to influence you in any way in the present. Here we are talking about an influence, which we have for long deceived ourselves into believing to be a positive one, but which in reality is not. Soul Sustenance The Power Of Concentrated Thought (cont.) One important component that doesn’t let us remain in the healthy and positive experience of concentrated thought is the many different types of influences we are exposed to in our life. There are two different types of influences – external and internal. These influences can also be called voices. Voices from outside as well as inside speak to us. External influences or voices are of people whom we come in contact with at home, at the workplace, at school or college, at the club, in the media etc. or elsewhere. These people are those whom we either see as equals or look upto. They could be our friends, our parents, our spouse, our teacher, our guru, our doctor, our neighbor, our colleagues, our boss, actors or sportsmen whom we admire, even the daily newsreaders or writers, etc. We have been exposed to these influences right from the time we were born. The influences from all these people are not necessarily on a physical level, they can also be on a subtle level of mental vibrations from others. We interact with all or some of these people and spend time with them and whenever we do that they advise us or give us their opinion on a physical level and we also listen to their voices on a subtle, emotional energy level e.g. we spend a lot many hours in the office. We may not interact with our boss all the time but his personality is constantly influencing everyone in the office on a subtle level, including us. The office environment is shaped largely by the head of the office. In the same way, we may be taking care that we listen only to the positive voices of the media and we do not listen to the negative ones, but the all pervading negative atmosphere that exists everywhere due to everyone being exposed to the news of violence, sorrow and impurity from the media, definitely influences us on a subtle level, even though we might not realize it. As children, we have been listening to the subtle voices of our parents, even when we were taking shape in our mother’s womb. In tomorrow’s message, we shall explain what our different types of internal influences or voices. Message for the day Success comes to the one who absorbs only the good and positive aspects. Projection: The one who has the power to absorb, naturally absorbs only the positive aspects of everything he comes into contact with. So the response too is always positive. Never is there reactions towards difficult situations or people, but there is the natural ability to absorb all that is good and respond positively accordingly. Solution: Once I instill the habit of seeing only the positive aspect in everything, I find myself getting free from negativity. It is like filling in fresh water into a pail of dirty water. When there is a continuous flow of fresh water into even the most dirty water, gradually the water getting purified. So too I find myself getting internally cleansed of all negativity with a continuous flow of positivity.