Self Manage There is a huge hole in the heart of all our educations. It is where the skills and abilities of self-management should be. No one teaches us how to manage our thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviour, so we find it hard to manage the four Rs – relationships, roles, responsibilities and resources. So let’s get started. Consciously choose the quality of your thoughts today – accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and clean up the waste. Everything, which means everything in your life, begins with your thoughts. A Free and Open Mind A free mind is a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing. Most people spend much of their time looking for reasons to be offended. An open mind is never offended because it is free of any attachments. It is never the self that is offended but always the illusion that the self has of itself that is affected by insult! If you can really understand this, deeply grasp it's truth, live it each day, then pain will be no more. Next time you 'feel' offended look closely within yourself at yourself and ask yourself what was offended? If you remain aware you will see that it was only an image of yourself which you had become attached to, and that image did not resonate with the image contained in the insult. If you weren't attached, if you didn't identify with the wrong image of yourself then there would be no offence taken. You would then remain free and therefore happy. Shedding Off The Attachment To A Positive Past A very powerful mis-identification (incorrect identification) that each one of us indulges in, to different extents, is identifying with our positive or glorious actions of the past. This identification is so strong that almost every day it comes to the surface of our consciousness when we switch on the movie of this story of these actions on the screen of our minds. By rehearsing this story repeatedly we love experiencing the same emotions and feelings that we felt at that time, emotions that we had enjoyed very much. We not only re-experience that pleasure but we also love to share the pleasure by persuading others to see that movie by broadcasting that movie in front of whoever we come across. This is normally done in the form of words by speaking about our professional or personal achievements, our educational qualifications, our experiences, actions for which we gained recognition, our history, etc., all a thing of the past. But this is not talking about the real self, this is just a story, thus it is a false identification with something we are not. Every time we indulge in this type of identification, we strengthen the incorrect belief that we are talking about our self. We believe the past is us. This is the incorrect identification. If someone were to ask us to describe ourselves in a few words, instead of talking with humility about our spiritual self, our virtues, powers, strengths, etc., which is the real self, we quickly mention all of the above features of our past, thinking this will give the other an impression of our credibility. Even when we communicate with people over email or some other mediums, we are quick to mention all these things in our signature, etc. believing this is our story and portraying that we are in love with it and other people should identify us with this story as we do and love us for the same. To remember and identify with any memory of action that we created yesterday is to identify with what we do. And we are not what we do. (To be continued tomorrow ...) Soul Sustenance The Power Of Concentrated Thought The thoughts that we create are of different nature, different intensity and their quantity also varies from time to time during a particular day as well as night and also depending on what action we are performing at that particular moment of time or not performing any action at all. They possess immense potential or power, both positive and negative. They can either liberate (or empower) us or limit (weaken) us. This depends on what we think and how much we think. The mind tends to jump from one place to another. Many of our thoughts filled with doubts, dejection, fears, insecurity, irritation, worry, comparisons which give rise to emotions like jealousy or inferiority / superiority complexes, desires, un-enthusiasm, etc. are useless thoughts and weaken us. They defocus us and cloud our inner clarity. Sometimes we keep repeating certain type of thoughts inside our mind, we keep going round in circles. Most of the time, these repetitive thoughts are negative or waste in nature related to the emotions mentioned above. Sometimes the repetitive thoughts can be necessary or positive also. Even necessary and positive thoughts, when repeated again and again, turn into the superfluous (excess) or waste. So it’s important to think in a higher, concentrated way – think less and think powerful; such thoughts have a lot of clarity, focus and spiritual force that help us to put them into practice more successfully. A single thought or a series of thoughts can block the capacity to feel content and awakened spiritually and make us sorrowful. On the other hand, a single thought or a series of positive thoughts can be the key to open the door that allows us to access, enjoy and experience the richness of our inner self. But it has to be a pure, strong, clear and concentrated thought or thoughts. (To be continued tomorrow …) 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.