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Patience
Patience is a virtue and a power too. Patience tells us that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and that we get over there one step at a time. Patience teaches us not to rush. Knowing that there is a reason and a season for everything, it enables us to smile at the challenges, realizing that there is an answer to every problem. And, even though we cannot see it, yet there is awareness that within every crisis lies an opportunity.
You will continue to progress when you finish carelessness.
Check if you are satisfied with the progress you are making and see if you could do anything to improve it. Also check if your own carelessness is preventing you from moving forward quickly. Take a thought of an aim that you have to fulfill within a certain period of time. Each day strengthen remind yourself of it and tell yourself that you only have to work towards this aim, whether others are doing it or not. When you look at others you tend to become slack too. So finish carelessness and continue to move forward.
The Spiritual Director and the Actor
Spirituality adds great depth and value to Shakespeare's famous words - 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.' Through spirituality, I realize and experience myself as a soul, separate from the body, playing a part on the stage of the world through my physical body costume. The difference between the actor and the role is clearly understood. An added dimension then, to this consciousness is that God or the Supreme Being is the Spiritual Director of the play we are enacting.
The Director - God looks at the entire drama and every actor's part from a broader perspective. His vision is not just limited to the present but stretches from the past (past not limited to this birth) to the future (future not limited to this birth) of each one's part. I learn from the Director how to play my own part with accuracy, now as well as his training helps me for the future. Like any good actor, I need to have a lot of respect, appreciation, loyalty and love for the Director and immense faith in him. The Director is like a mentor or guide for an actor, to whom he surrenders completely. He knows that by doing that, his act will be of the highest quality. If he doesn't do that and he performs his act his own way, his act will suffer and he will experience pain. As a result he will not be as successful as one who is willing to listen and learn from the Director. If I keep a little distance between me and my role, so I don't lose sight of the Spiritual Director's instructions and the way the play is moving, my part will be much easier to perform, better appreciated by all, and I will be extremely successful. Positive appreciation for a performance for an actor's performance by the spectators is of great value to any actor, sometimes even more important than commercial success. So surrendering to the soul's Director and having a strong relationship of mutual trust with him is particularly helpful at this time, when there is a lot of confusion on the stage of the Earth with billions of actors crowded here and our acts not exactly of the highest quality. So I, the spiritual actor need someone at this time who can tell me about mistakes committed by my in my past acts and improve my act of the present which will result in a positive present as well as future. Spirituality introduces me to that someone.
Soul Sustenance
Understanding the Quality of Peace
Inner peace is inner power. But before you start walking the path of relaxation and meditation to create a life, which is free from anger, and based on peaceful living, it is important to clear some misunderstandings we hold in our mind about mental peace.
1. Peace means nothing is happening; it's a state of inaction.
Fact: By practicing meditation for a few minutes everyday, very soon you can experience a stage in which you are physically active yet mentally peaceful, when the mind is active but nothing negative happens inside it. Nothing and no one can irritate or upset you, irrespective of what they say or do.
2. Living a peaceful life is being submissive (bowing down) or defensive.
Fact: Inner peace is not submissiveness or defensiveness. The power of peace that you acquire through the practice of meditation makes you assertive and confident. Emotions like anger and fear show in our behaviour in the form of aggression and defensiveness respectively and make you emotionally weak. Peace is strength.
3. To remain in an inner peace experience, you have to disconnect yourself from the world.
Fact: For a long time you have used the world to stimulate (energize) yourself mentally and emotionally. If at the beginning of your meditation practice, you suddenly disconnect yourself from the world you will experience an increase in your attractions towards it. Thus, initially it is wiser to include only short spells of meditation in your daily routine, otherwise the meditation practice can do more harm than benefit.
(To be continued tomorrow….)
Message for the day
To spread the light of happiness is to become a spiritual lighthouse.
Expression: When we are in situations where there is negativity around or there seems to be no source of happiness, we too naturally tend to feel low and negative. We are totally under the influence of the situation and we can't seem to overcome the feeling at that time. Nothing actually inspires us to make effort to come out of such a feeling.
Experience: We need to remind ourselves that we are a lighthouse, a source of light to all those around us. This thought will give us the inspiration to remain stable and strong even when we are amidst chaos or difficult situations. We will be able to spread our light across and show everyone the right direction by becoming an inspiration to those around us.
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