The Spiritual Aspect of Healthcare Silence, happiness, love and blessings are important aspects. Happiness leads to good health. It is only you who can give this medicine to yourself. Some bring illness to themselves through anger, greed, unfulfilled desires, expectations, suppression of feelings and relationships not based on true love. Look in your heart, you will know where your illness comes from. There are three ingredients for a long and healthy life: live with attention but without worry; use time in a worthwhile way; keep your thoughts pure, positive and filled with strength. Humility Humility grows a little more each time we step away from our own feelings and opinions and genuinely listen to the experience of another human being. Humility is dedication to the extent that no acknowledgement is sought for the self. Only when we have learned to value others no more no less that we value ourselves can we be said to be truly humble. Cooking And Eating With A Spiritual Touch (cont.) Having prepared food with attention (which we have explained over the last two days), the Brahma Kumaris' practice is then to offer the freshly-prepared meal to the Supreme Soul. We call it offering bhog (or commonly calledprasad) to the Supreme Father. As a part of this practice, positive energy or vibrations of love, bliss and peace taken from the Supreme via meditation for 5-10 minutes, is given to the food prepared, by keeping a small portion of the food in a clean vessel kept aside for this purpose only, on a table in front of you. This practice can be followed every day for one main meal at least, or more, depending on how much time you have at hand. It is good to do this exercise in a special corner in the house or even a separate small room kept aside for the purpose of meditation or basically a place where the atmosphere is spiritually empowering as compared to the rest of the house. Charging the food with positive spiritual energy and expressing gratitude to the Supreme in this way serves to increase the spiritual quality of the food and deepen the individual's personal relationship with the Supreme, while also creating a powerful, shared divine experience. On a very practical level, it will also help the body to prepare itself to receive and digest food. Of course, the last step is to eat, and this, too, is best done in a peaceful, unhurried and harmonious state of mind and environment: we are what we eat and also how we eat. It's good to avoid eating along with the television or newspaper. Eating with the family in a positive setting is a good practice. But talking excessively and sharing negative information at that time with each other should be avoided. Talking quite less, talking very slowly, softly and sweetly and talking about positive and constructive aspects of life, with the rest of the family members, should be the norm for meal eating time. Whether you are a new, aspiring or trained cook, we hope that the information in this and the last two days' messages, with its emphasis on the soul as well as the body, will bring an added dimension to your kitchen and dining table. Cooking, and eating, should be a joyful and significant experience. So cook and enjoy! Soul Sustenance Playing My Part As A Hero Actor (Part 1) While just as beings we reside in the soul world, as human beings we play our many roles through many physical bodies in this beautiful world drama on this amazing, colorful and round stage called planet Earth. Each day is filled with multi-million scenes in different locations on this very big stage. Some scenes are directly related to us, some indirectly and a lot many aren’t related at all. Each scene that we are directly involved is an opportunity to not only play our role in the best possible way but also as a result shape the role in the most appropriate way possible. Therefore, we are all hero actors who by playing our roles as well as possible, create the script of our own life i.e. create our own destiny. And do remember doing this has a positive influence on others’ scripts also, which rebounds back to us and in return helps us in our making our scripts better. While we have been given a role to live the entire birth right from childhood to old age, we possess the power, the remote control to dictate and control as to how exactly we will live the day, the year and each year of our present birth, our present role. Each day offers us multiple options as to not only how we act but also how we respond to the world around us and our script or destiny gets shaped up according to the options we make. Our destiny is decided not by what happens to us or around us, but by (i) how we act (sometimes the actions are responses to external events and sometimes they are not) and (ii) how we respond to a million events and circumstances which we encounter as we make this complete journey of life. (To be continued tomorrow…) Message for the day To be happy is to let go through the mind and not just through words. Expression: Things do not always happen as expected. At such times, the one who is able to let go of expectations from the situation is able to forget it. Such a person will not speak about the situation again and again and describe it to everyone. Nor will there be the need to say, "I let go". Once the situation is accepted as it is, there will not be even a single thought of it. Experience: When I accept things as they are, I will be able to learn and be richer with every new experience. I will not be mentally troubled by what happened, but will be able to maintain my own inner happiness. I will thus be able to keep my mind clear for whatever is coming up in the future. So I will find freedom from waste and constant progress with the resources that I have.