Brahma Kumaris

25.07.15 Steady Light of Hope No matter how dark the situation, let me always hold on to the steady light of hope. As is the aim, so are the qualifications. If I have a high aim, I will imbibe qualities to reach that aim. I may or may not get what I set out to, but I will surely gain a lot of qualities while doing so. On the other hand, having no aim or a low aim, is to be content with whatever I have. I will get nothing new, internally or externally. Even if I get something externally, I will not be enriched personally because of it. Once that situation is over, the benefit is over too. Today I will create an aim in keeping with what I want. One small aim is enough to focus all my energies on it. This will ensure my personal qualities keep improving with every passing situation. Further, I will not be deterred or distracted with anything. Self-Empowerment To strengthen the self we need to realize and review our weaknesses or those aspects of life that are holding us back in some way and/or are causing us some sorrow or discomfort. The next step is to use techniques of meditation to remove these weaknesses. To know your weaknesses, perform the following exercise: A. Remember the negative times in your life, when you experienced failure. What was the common weakness present in your behaviour at those times? B. What are the negative or destructive trends in your behaviour because of which you or others experience pain or sorrow? C. Sometimes certain traits or behaviour of others can arouse a negative response in us. What is that negative response? D. What are you most frightened of? E. Now review your answers and summarize. What are your three main weaknesses? Soul Sustenance Emotional Joy And Emotional Sorrow We commonly become emotional, either in times of sorrow e.g. at being separated from a loved one, at experiencing failure in an external event, on hearing a negative news, etc. or in times of joy e.g. when our child or spouse or even pet performs a warm act, while watching a movie, etc. While we have always believed that it is absolutely normal or natural to become emotional and some of us even believe that it is good to let go of our emotions and crying once in a while makes us lighter and stronger; on a spiritual level, becoming emotional comes under the realm of dependencies and dependencies always weaken us. This is because when we become emotional, instead of influencing our self on our own, we allow something or someone outside our self to influence us. We bring that something or someone or some event outside our self, inside, in front of the eye of our mind, attach our self to it, and lose our self in it i.e. we let the image hijack our internal world in a way, as we become subservient to it. As a result our thoughts, feelings, emotions, words, actions are influenced in a big way by the image. This is a spiritual definition of becoming emotional. Passing on the remote control of my internal world to the outer world in this way is a sign of a not so strong internal self. So what does one do instead? Instead of creating images of external events and people inside our minds and being influenced by them, we still watch these scenes, but instead of losing our self in them and taking from them, we contribute to them by giving them our internal energy, but at the same time make sure that while doing that, we are detached from them and not over-involved emotionally. Internal energy is given in the form of appreciation and love if it’s a positive scene and power, compassion and co-operation if it’s a negative scene, so as to help the scene to be corrected or resurrected. This is influencing instead of being influenced. This is a more empowering experience. In this way we regain the control over our inner world and rise above such emotional dependencies. Message for the day To bring speciality to actions is to make them special. Projection: I am usually looking for something better to do. What I do seems to be monotonous and ordinary and I try to think of something better to do, something that will bring benefit to others too. But I really am not able to easily bring about such a change. Solution: What benefit I bring is not based on what I do, but it is based on the attitude I do it with. So I need to maintain an attitude of bringing benefit to as many as I can, with whatever I do. Then nothing I do will be waste or ordinary.