Brahma Kumaris

04.12.15 Plant Seeds No matter what comes your way, keep planting good, right seeds for your ‘tomorrows’. To admire is to imbibe their qualities. It is easy to admire someone. But, when I admire I also need to understand what makes the person so great. What are the qualities that he has in his life, or what qualities he has developed during the journey of his life. I need to make an effort to imbibe these qualities. Today I will think of one person whom I admire and see what I can learn from his life. I will then focus on imbibing at least one quality from him, into my own life. This will be the real tribute I pay to the person whom I admire. Love And Suffering (Part 3) When there is too much pain we cannot lean back into our true power and experience our energy of love. Only the power of pure love, unconditional love or love of God, can help us to get rid of the suppressed pain inside the subconscious. When you live through a situation that causes pain in you, you have to love yourself, stabilize yourself and enter into silence. Observe that pain without being afraid of it. Observe it to let go of it and understand what it is that it brings about in you. The answer, generally, is connected with others: * He/she doesn't love me anymore and that's why I feel pain, * Things are not like they were before, * The company of this loved one doesn't give me the benefits it was giving me before. If a person loved you and now has stopped loving you, does that make you feel pain? Or is it your own expectation and your desire for that person to keep on valuing you or loving you like before that trap you in pain? Is it that you don't accept change? The truth is, we bring on suffering ourselves. If you don't want to make yourself suffer, starting from now you do not have to bear any more suffering. Nobody can wound you or can cause you pain, except if you allow it. So how do you allow it? By being a vacuum that sucks in everything of the other, the good and the bad, and you suffer. It is expectations from our loved one that make us vulnerable to the experience of suffering. Soul Sustenance Is It Necessary To Renounce (Leave) Society To Experience A Spiritual Lifestyle ? A good meditator is one who has a mental link or union with the internal self and the Supreme Soul or God who is the source of all goodness. This, along with an understanding of the laws of action or the laws of karma, which govern the behavior of souls, means that one does not have to renounce or leave society in order to achieve enlightenment. Rather, the soul filled with spiritual illumination faces society directly with understanding and the generosity to serve it and to elevate (improve) it. The soul becomes elevated not by the renunciation of responsibilities or worldly duties but by a renunciation of the negativity that exists within the role being played by it in society. A good meditator does not try to escape social obligations (duties) but rather purifies those duties by becoming filled with light, love, peace and happiness. The stage of self-awareness and God-communication injects a subtle richness into one's life-patterns. There are those who believe that the elevated state is beyond society and its duties. They find a quiet spot in the jungle or an ashram and contemplate (think about) deeper things. There are others who are stuck in the quicksand of their problems, and believe that those who leave society and take up a spiritual lifestyle are saints. However, holiness and virtue are qualities attained in one's life situations, not in running away from them. The elevated state is not merely a matter of elevated thoughts (which can be experienced in a sanyas), but elevated actions also, for the benefit of the self and the world. We are what we do and not so much what we imagine ourselves to be. Message for the day Become the one who is special by seeing only specialities. Checking: Throughout the day, among all the people you meet check if you are seeing any negative quality in them. Also check if you are seeing specialities in others or not. Practice: Each day tell yourself, "I am special and I only see the specailaties in myself and others." Then practice seeing only the good qualities in others and you will become good too.