Last night, I was reading this section from the Wayne Dyer book about how to decontaminate your environment from negative energy. Dyer talks about an Eight Point Plan of Decontamination suggested my Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It just occurred to me that it would be interesting to have a study circle on it.
"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone may destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, people may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, it the final analysis, it is all between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway."
There was another quote by William Butler Yeats in the same book which also stuck to my head. It goes as follows:
"At certain moments, always unforeseen, I become happy... I look at the strangers near as if I had known them all my life... everything fills me with affection... It may be an hour before the mood passes, but latterly I seem to understand that I enter upon it the moment I cease to hate."
I cannot agree more!
Friday, January 28, 2005
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Reinforcing positive thoughts
This has been a good streak of connectedness for me! Two significant things to talk about. First, the Wayne Dyer chapter on "Stop Giving energy on things you don't Believe in" inspired me a whole lot! I took home some great ideas from that chapter which I want to kind of summarize.
Spiritual people express their desires freely. They are willing to ask people about what they are seeking for without feeling insecure and defensive. They are confident about themselves and their abilities. They then intend to change in a way which will lead them to what they want in their lives. They strengthen their will without letting doubts creep into their minds. They begin to accept the change passionately. Express desire - Ask people - Intend to change - Be passionate.
Do not spend energy on things you don't want. Thoughts are like money given to you freely. Spend each dollar given to you on things you like, which give you happiness. Usually people use up all their thoughts into things which make them sad and depressed and continue to complain about it. Instead, inculcate positive thoughts that increase your confidence and make you feel good about yourself. The mind is such an amazing creation. You can ask it to precisely do what you want. It can be made to feel happy in the most seemingly depressing situations, and it can also go into the other end, into cascading negative ideas to make you think that life is so bad even in situations that deserve celebration.
The idea is to stop thinking negatively. When you find yourself with a negative thought, STOP right there! Instead of the negative thought, reinforce the positive thought. "Oh my God! my work sucks" can be changed to "I am going to try to enjoy my work more". Each positive thought will reinforce change and make it a reality. This is the way to manifest what you want. When you are at a point when there is no doubt in your mind whatsoever that what you want cannot be stopped from happening, then there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can stop it from happening!
Get rid of your personal history. What has happened is over. Start this day with a clean slate. Start as if God gave you your life at this very moment with all the skills you currently have just without your memory to be able to judge and label situations and people. Take things as they come in life without ever trying to create implications for yourself.
Now to the other significant thing. It is about the Adult Study Circle the day before yesterday. The question was "Swami used to say, 'My Life is My Message'. Lately He has been saying 'Your Life is My Message'. What is your understand of this?". I had initially passed this question because I was busy listening to people and I didn't have much to say when my turn came. (I wanted to make a conscious effort to listen to people rather than think about what to say). But as people spoke, I assimilated some thoughts briefly about my answer, but the way I spoke it out stunned me. It was clearly not me, and there was no doubt about it. It was the Divinity in me that sparked! The next paragraph summarizes what it had to say.
Swami used to say His previous quote perhaps referring to people who were seeking to see the God in Him. Those that were not in His fold yet. But once we have come into His fold after having recognized His Divinity, it is now time to help people recognize the Divinity in You! After all, aren't you and He one? So isn't Our Life is His Message?
So go! Go show your Divinity to all! Act Divine, speak Divine, think Divine. YOUR Life is His Message!
Spiritual people express their desires freely. They are willing to ask people about what they are seeking for without feeling insecure and defensive. They are confident about themselves and their abilities. They then intend to change in a way which will lead them to what they want in their lives. They strengthen their will without letting doubts creep into their minds. They begin to accept the change passionately. Express desire - Ask people - Intend to change - Be passionate.
Do not spend energy on things you don't want. Thoughts are like money given to you freely. Spend each dollar given to you on things you like, which give you happiness. Usually people use up all their thoughts into things which make them sad and depressed and continue to complain about it. Instead, inculcate positive thoughts that increase your confidence and make you feel good about yourself. The mind is such an amazing creation. You can ask it to precisely do what you want. It can be made to feel happy in the most seemingly depressing situations, and it can also go into the other end, into cascading negative ideas to make you think that life is so bad even in situations that deserve celebration.
The idea is to stop thinking negatively. When you find yourself with a negative thought, STOP right there! Instead of the negative thought, reinforce the positive thought. "Oh my God! my work sucks" can be changed to "I am going to try to enjoy my work more". Each positive thought will reinforce change and make it a reality. This is the way to manifest what you want. When you are at a point when there is no doubt in your mind whatsoever that what you want cannot be stopped from happening, then there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can stop it from happening!
Get rid of your personal history. What has happened is over. Start this day with a clean slate. Start as if God gave you your life at this very moment with all the skills you currently have just without your memory to be able to judge and label situations and people. Take things as they come in life without ever trying to create implications for yourself.
Now to the other significant thing. It is about the Adult Study Circle the day before yesterday. The question was "Swami used to say, 'My Life is My Message'. Lately He has been saying 'Your Life is My Message'. What is your understand of this?". I had initially passed this question because I was busy listening to people and I didn't have much to say when my turn came. (I wanted to make a conscious effort to listen to people rather than think about what to say). But as people spoke, I assimilated some thoughts briefly about my answer, but the way I spoke it out stunned me. It was clearly not me, and there was no doubt about it. It was the Divinity in me that sparked! The next paragraph summarizes what it had to say.
Swami used to say His previous quote perhaps referring to people who were seeking to see the God in Him. Those that were not in His fold yet. But once we have come into His fold after having recognized His Divinity, it is now time to help people recognize the Divinity in You! After all, aren't you and He one? So isn't Our Life is His Message?
So go! Go show your Divinity to all! Act Divine, speak Divine, think Divine. YOUR Life is His Message!
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Plugging into Divinity
For the the last couple of weeks have been wonderful for me. It was one of those moments when you feel connected with Divinity and you feel you can achieve anything...
I was just recovering from a phase of struggles at my workplace. Inferiority had got into me and I seemed to have stopped beleiving in myself and my abilities. Everything I did seemed to be going against how I wanted it to be...
But if I look back at those moments now, I can clearly see that it is the mind that plays the games of confidence, triumph when things go "the way you want" and of depression and cascading negative feelings when they don't. Our ever judgemental mind begins to use its prior experience and starts to put things and events together to form new opinions and assumptions even when they are not necessarily true and evident! We plan on the only result we can accept and try to work towards it constantly reminding ourselves about what things can go wrong.
I have lately been trying to convince myself to trust in my own Divinity. The chat I had with Soumya and this book by Wayne Dyer: "There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem" have helped me put things into the right perspective.
The conversation I was able to have on the night of Jan 3 with Darshan amazed me. I had never spoken like that before, but then I know why I could that evening. I remember well that I was not judgemental at all, I spoke right from my heart and most importantly, it was one of those rare moments when I did not bother to think of myself.
Well... it is easier said than done! The last couple of days were boring so to say. I have been having a sore throat threatening into a bad cough and cold. Days have been inactive and gloomy so to say. The movies like "Guru" and Harold & Kumar" I have been watching are definetely a cause. But let's see how I catch up and pull the wire around my hip into that socket of Divinity!
I was just recovering from a phase of struggles at my workplace. Inferiority had got into me and I seemed to have stopped beleiving in myself and my abilities. Everything I did seemed to be going against how I wanted it to be...
But if I look back at those moments now, I can clearly see that it is the mind that plays the games of confidence, triumph when things go "the way you want" and of depression and cascading negative feelings when they don't. Our ever judgemental mind begins to use its prior experience and starts to put things and events together to form new opinions and assumptions even when they are not necessarily true and evident! We plan on the only result we can accept and try to work towards it constantly reminding ourselves about what things can go wrong.
I have lately been trying to convince myself to trust in my own Divinity. The chat I had with Soumya and this book by Wayne Dyer: "There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem" have helped me put things into the right perspective.
The conversation I was able to have on the night of Jan 3 with Darshan amazed me. I had never spoken like that before, but then I know why I could that evening. I remember well that I was not judgemental at all, I spoke right from my heart and most importantly, it was one of those rare moments when I did not bother to think of myself.
Well... it is easier said than done! The last couple of days were boring so to say. I have been having a sore throat threatening into a bad cough and cold. Days have been inactive and gloomy so to say. The movies like "Guru" and Harold & Kumar" I have been watching are definetely a cause. But let's see how I catch up and pull the wire around my hip into that socket of Divinity!
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