Start Early The best time to awaken both body and spirit is in the early morning. We are fresh, in solitude, and the vibrations of the world are at their calmest. It is not surprising that you will find all experienced meditators and yogis up with the dawn, inviting the sun of spirit to shine into the heart of their soul. The first half hour of conscious awareness will be the foundation of your day. Make an early start. Meditate, set the switch of your consciousness and calibrate your energy for the day. You'll be surprised the difference it makes. Tolerance Those with the power of tolerance will be content and will make others content too. When there is tolerance, there is also continuous improvement. This in turn brings satisfaction for the self and also enables us to become a source of support for those around too. This will make them content with themselves and with us too. Let us take a thought to make it a point to learn at least one thing from all the suggestions that we get throughout a given day. When we keep this in mind we will be able to tolerate even negative comments very easily and we will find ourselves improving. Role Induced Stress (cont.) It's not at all wrong to treat what we do seriously, but it's a mistake to believe what we do is extremely extremely important and we are extremely busy people living an extremely busy lifestyle. This kind of consciousness makes us over-serious. A very common sign of this is carrying a lot of thoughts of one role into the other. E.g. Aarti, a young mother, switches roles from a software executive in the corporate sector, a role which she plays in the entire day, to a parent and wife in the evening. If she is over thinking about her day-role while playing her evening-role, it is a sign she is over-identifying with her day role and there is a lack of detachment. As a result she starts becoming over-serious and suffers from 'role induced stress' as a result. There is a deep connection between seriousness and fear. E.g. In this case of Aarti, as a result of attachment to her role, there are lots of fears that she carries regarding her role of software executive - fear of loss of position; loss of love, respect and reputation - either in her company or in general in society, not succeeding, not getting promoted etc. because of which she is over-serious and she carries the role in her head almost all the time, even when she sleeps. That is why so called 'extremely busy' people sometimes complain of sleep problems. This can happen with us, with any role we play. This kind of stress, just like in the case of the actor (explained yesterday) is generally made up sorrow, anger and fear - one of these three different negative emotions from time to time or more than one at the same time - phases of dejection or feeling low or a lack of enthusiasm or a general disinterest in life events; phases of frustration and experiencing a lack of control of events and people, due to which there are frequent outbursts of anger and phases of immense worry regarding the future, all of which affect our mind, our physical body, relationships and even success of our role; although it is our role itself (our over-identification with it) which is the root cause of this emotional turmoil inside us. So instead of benefiting our role, our over-concern for it starts affecting it adversely. Soul Sustenance Accessing Spiritual Power In the inner depths of the soul there is pure, spiritual power of peace, love, wisdom and un-conditional joy. This power provides us with the inner strength needed to change. But how do we access this power? Meditation is the method – it allows this power to come to the surface of our consciousness and into our minds and influence our thoughts, feelings and personality. In the same way as lava flows from the inner depths of the Earth to the surface through a volcano, we can also create volcanoes of spiritual power when we meditate. Note, though, that we want to use our power in a positive way: we are not seeking the kind of power that is physical in nature and may cause damage, we are seeking spiritual power. When we get access to our own personal source of the power of peace, love and happiness, we essentially become free of any dependency on external sources for feelings of the same. When we generate our own feelings of love and self-respect, we stop being dependent on others and our addiction to their acceptance and approval reduces and finally disappears. When we generate our own feelings of contentment and joy within ourselves, we become free from the need for substances, places or physical experiences in order to be happy. Using this inner power in the right way allows us to uproot or remove completely the old negative habits within our personality. Any unwanted habit can be changed and the scars of all the negative habits, which have developed within the soul over a long period of time, during the journey of birth and rebirth, can be healed in a short time span. Message for the day The ones who are constantly happy are truly fortunate. Projection: Whatever the kind of situations needed to be faced, whoever the people and the different kind of personalities they come into contact with, the ones who are fortunate constantly enjoy. They also continue to take benefit and bring benefit to others too. Their fortune lies in their ability to perceive the positive aspect in everything and take benefit accordingly. Solution: When I am able to be happy under all circumstances, I am able to make the best use of whatever I have with me. I then find myself full of all resources. I don't think of what I don't have but I am aware of and make the best use of what I have. So I find myself to be always lucky. I constantly move forward.