Hardanger Bridge, Norway
Today
Don't let the distance to be travelled deter you from taking the first step – today
Spread the Fragrance of Virtues
The presence of even one weakness within oneself reveals itself in
words and actions. Behavior is colored with negativity and the inner
specialties remain hidden. So to make effort to be free from the
influence of even this little weakness is to spread the fragrance of
virtues to all. When I pay attention even to the smallest weaknesses I
can take special care not to let it influence my life negatively. I am
able to reach within and be in touch with my specialties. So however
challenging the situations may be, I am only focused on using my
virtues and not my weaknesses.
Forgive To Forget
A key principle to remain light and stable in relationships is - forgive and forget - it's a well-known principle - one that we sometimes find difficult to practice. It can be modified to forgive to forget. Sometimes we spend many years with so much bitterness inside us for a particular person, with an inner violence of wanting to make the other pay (emotions of revenge), the one who has supposedly hurt you. If you don't strike back immediately, you at least want to keep this guilt card in your pocket, to be pulled out at a later date: "Oh yes, well what about the time when you...." We keep this bitterness inside us because we haven't forgiven. It does not resolve the situation; the only thing it does is increase our pain, makes us heavy and does not let us remain in peace. So the key is that if we do not forgive, we cannot forget. When someone has offended or insulted us, the last thing we want to do is to let it go. And yet, if our desire is to have a healthy, lasting relationship, that is exactly what we've got to do.
Sometimes, when it is a question of a broken relationship, it is not only a matter of forgiving the other, but of forgiving yourself for having allowed yourself to enter that experience. It was you that took the step to allow that experience to be entered into. If you hadn't taken that step, you wouldn't have had that experience. You accepted that challenge, that relationship, and what might happen in it - you were aware of the possibilities when you entered in the relationship. So not only do you have to learn to forgive the other, but also to forgive yourself in such situations. Only then will you be able to forget.
Soul Sustenance
Understanding The Mind And Its Functioning
The mind is a faculty of the soul, the main function of which is to produce thoughts. The thoughts we create are energy. In one day we produce an average of thirty to forty thousand thoughts. How much energy does this represent? What do we do with it?
The mind works constantly, even when we are sleeping. We cannot separate ourselves from it, it is our inseparable companion. If you study your mind you will see that, as well as thinking, it imagines, remembers, dreams, associates, desires and even produces your feelings.
If you think about some incident that made you unhappy ten years ago, you will feel that unhappiness again, perhaps even more deeply than before. If you think of something that made you happy, you will also feel that happiness when you repeat the event in your mind.
If you create positive thoughts about yourself, you will feel good and your self-esteem will be strengthened, and if you create negative thoughts, you will feel depressed, with low self-esteem. The mind opens up the way to the self. By creating the right type of thoughts you can open up your inner potential again, and rediscover that as people we are full of positive qualities.
Message for the day
To be an embodiment of power is to be free from effort.
Expression: When we are faced with a difficult situation we usually try to make our mind positive at that time, but we find it very difficult to do so. We then give up making effort thinking that we don't have the power to change our nature. We continue to work with the weakness and strengthen it further.
Experience: In order to win over our weakness we need to become an embodiment of power. For this we need the practice of a long time of being powerful so that we experience the power within. Then the power that we want at that time will emerge naturally. Like a master we'll be able to order our inner powers and be free from the effort of changing negative to positive.