Thoughts for Days

Introversion
The ability to enjoy one's own company is one of the greatest gifts life has to offer. Learning to turn my thoughts away from all my responsibilities at the day's end and take my mind into a state of peace and benevolence enables me to carry greater and greater loads without feeling the burden. When my inner landscape is full of beautiful thoughts, everything I do is a pleasure. Gently, I calm down chaotic situations and offer solace to troubled minds.

Create Love
If I learn to create love in my heart and silently share it with everyone I meet, love will grace every corner of my life.

Depth of Humility
Humility means to understand the self and through that to understand others as well. Humility is the attitude where a person is not attached to his or her opinion and feelings. Humility is the most natural expression of truth. It helps in better understanding of truth. Humility is the basis for maintaining self-respect. Humility does not mean bowing down and being subservient to others. Humility allows you to see benefit in everything. Developing humility brings a lot of comfort and ease into your life.

Self-confidence
Self-confidence is to know your way around yourself so instinctively that you always have a strength to draw on. Somewhere inside, from the stillness, you always find something that can meet your need. 

Think Simply
With so many choices and decisions, so many demands from people and events, in our modern fast changing world, it's a real challenge to 'keep it simple'. Making it simple means making things easy and clear. The magic wand to wave over your life is 'planning and prioritising'. Make plans, long and short term and then prioritise. Then practise taking one thing at a time, so you can have one thought at a time, with some space before you have to have your next thought. But don't get attached to your plans or priorities. Be flexible (easy) and yet focused (clear) and in this way you can teach yourself to think simply and act simply. One thought at a time. At your own pace. In your own space. A simple life is a contented life.

Original Peace
It is not necessary to search for peace. It is within. Your original state is one of peace. Learn to be in charge of yourself and maintain your peace: centre your awareness on your spiritual form - a tiny star-like point of light, seated in the middle of your forehead. Really experience the difference between You the Sparkling Star, and your body, the physical vehicle. Learn to detach yourself from the vehicle. Even a few moments of this practice, if done regularly, will return you to your natural state of peace. And your actions will be filled with love - for the self and others.

A Lotus Life
The lotus is a symbol of purity. Its roots are in the mud, but the flower remains above dirty water. Live a lotus life. Be in the world, but unaffected by impurities.

The Quality of Mercy
A person with the quality of mercy works on such a subtle level that the support given never demeans or implies weakness in the other person.

Free From Subtle Aspects Of Anger
How can I free myself from subtle aspects of anger? I have to keep the aim of making each and every day – every moment – victorious. I must think, 'this day, these hours and minutes, will not come again. I can’t lose another second on this; my immediate attention is needed!' If I am still thinking about something I don’t need to be thinking about, it means I am still wasting time and energy. 

Happy Hormones
We all know and remember a smiley person – someone whose heart seems to radiate through their teeth. And when they do, notice how it’s almost impossible not to smile back…unless you are feeling very, very grumpy! So if you don’t feel a smile coming on – why not do it anyway. Not only does it transform your inner chemical production and create ‘happy hormones’, but when people are on the end of your smile, they smile back (well most do). And if you really don’t genuinely feel like smiling at life, the universe and everybody – fake it until you make it!

Calming The Mind
Don't give your mind permission to get disturbed. A disturbed mind is easily influenced. This will cost you your peace. Learn to maintain your peace by freeing yourself from attachments. Competing or comparing yourself with others will not allow you to focus inwards. An inner focus allows you to keep your eye on your higher self. Remember your original nature. It allows you to forge a link with the Divine. Then it becomes easy to recognise useless thoughts and replace them with a spiritual perspective. A calm mind is not just peaceful, it is focused, self-directing and Divine. 

Trust Yourself
In any relationship trust is the first thing to leave and the last to return. And if you recognise that the most important relationship is with yourself, then perhaps it's time to start some trust building close to home. Make and keep a promise or a commitment to yourself, however small - in fact, start very small! Make one and keep one today, and then notice the surge of inner power as a result. See how much more you like yourself as a result. Trust is being built. 

Forgiveness Brings Me Closer To Others
Why is it hard to forgive others? Usually because we believe that they are 90% to blame for the problem, that I am not as bad as they are. So I start to carry the load of other people's actions. If my ego is too hurt, I will have the sense of correction, of justice: 'I know I am right', 'That is not fair'. But if I start to forgive from the heart, sincerely, then this kind of feeling and attitude begins to dissolve. I remain humble and this forgiveness will bring me closer to others. Then I do not carry regrets or anger, I just let go and remain light.

Seeds Of Hope
The world is your garden from which you remove weeds of doubt and replace them with seeds of hope.

Transform Obstacles
Is life an obstacle course? Sometimes it may feel like it. If you join the military you will be sent around an obstacle course of increasing degrees of difficulty. Why? To increase your strength and stamina and expand your creative capacity under strain. So it is on the course called 'life' - you can choose to perceive people, situations or events as obstacles, or you can choose to use these things to strengthen and expand your capacity to be creative and to find ways round, under, over. The choice lies in your perception. Obstacles are never ever 'out there', they are always in our own minds.

Lightness
Move through life with lightness, touching the hearts of others without leaving a mark. 

Power
Empower others by filling your own heart with courage, your thoughts with determination and your eyes with destiny.

Miss Everything
You can only be in one place at any moment in time. If you feel you are missing out on something then you are. But it's not the party, or being with another person that you're missing, it's your own life. As long as you are thinking of where you could be, you are marking yourself absent from where you are now. Which means you are nowhere. Many people spend their entire life in 'nowhere'. Not a wise choice!

Real Renunciation
On the path mapped out by the true spiritual philosophers and pioneers, there is great emphasis placed on the idea and need for renunciation. It is seen as the way to enlightenment, and freedom from the attachments which we misuse as sources of limited happiness and contentment. Renunciation does not mean giving everything away, shaving our heads, saying farewell to family and friends and finding a Himalayan mountain top. It means seeing our attachments and dependencies, our weaknesses and our evasions, and consciously giving them up. There is no sense of loss. The material necessities still come to us, paradoxically more will come. And when we renounce our own weaknesses and dependencies there is always a strength and a new freedom to be found hiding underneath. Renunciation is a pathway to a simpler life and a highway to spiritual freedom - one of spirit's deepest yearnings in 'the age of accumulation'. 

Faith in Others
If there is a need to take responsibility for something, then of course, you should. However, if a situation is not your business, or someone else is in charge, then don't get caught up in it. If you want to help, you can still involve yourself in a more subtle way through faith. Faith in others does a lot of work. It doesn't mean blind faith - observing helplessly while keeping your fingers crossed - it means to remain alert to what's going on, and then to fill another with the strength of your faith to such an extent that they feel able to do whatever needs to be done. This means having faith, but also donating the power of your faith. If the other person is honest and truthful, your faith will work for them. In this way, we can learn to truly help each other.

Gentleness
Non-violence is a very deep philosophy. Not only does it require me to harm no one physically, but also to avoid harming anyone's self respect. Such an ethic requires tremendous awareness and sensitivity. When I have learned to be gentle with myself, I can be the same with others.

Power To Tolerate
You have the power to tolerate anyone and any situation. But tolerance is not just suffering in silence. It means going beyond any personal discomfort you may feel, and giving a gift to whom ever you would tolerate. Give your time, attention, understanding, compassion, care - all are gifts, which paradoxically, you also receive in the process of giving. And, as you do, you will experience your own self esteem and inner strength grow. In this way you can turn tolerance into strength.

Cleanliness
The most important places to keep clean and tidy are my mind and heart. If I allow thoughts to flourish that I wouldn't want to see the light of day, I can never have any real self-respect. By starting each day in quiet reflection and pouring positive, loving thoughts into my mind, I gradually clean out cynicism and unkindness.

Heart Song
Everyone has a song in their heart. Everyone has a reason for being here and a season for making their highest, greatest most auspicious contribution. No one knows what that is or when that is for anyone else. Only our own heart knows what and when it is for us. Your heart wants to sing. Don’t die with your music still within you. There is a reason for everything and a purpose to your life. Too many fail to listen to the song in their heart and therefore fail to find their purpose and their part. What makes your soul sing and your heart dance? Actually you heart is your soul and you are both! Ask this one question of yourself but don’t be in a hurry to answer it. Live in the question for a day, a week, a month. Let it invite your heart to speak to you. And when you are absolutely sure what your heart is saying is true then begin to invoke the changes necessary in your life so that you live in alignment with your song. Be patient with this.

Lucky Day
Forget mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day.

Silence
We have to develop this hobby and practice going into the depths of silence. Practice this, make it your hobby and see how much you then enjoy it. The tiredness of the soul will then be removed. We will feel that we are able to remain carefree and restful. When the soul is tired it is restless and there is a lot of worry; we think I have to do this, that and so we cannot feel restful. All actually I have to do is to remain peaceful and there will be the feeling that everything will be ok...

Surrender Gracefully
We are surrounded by graceful surrender. The geese surrender to the first autumn chills, and think of flying south. The flower surrenders to the night and shuts up shop as the setting sun surrenders to the horizon of another day. A mother surrenders to the needs of her baby, and the child surrenders to the wisdom of the father. These kinds of surrender are sweet and natural. They are graceful movements in a dance to the subtle symphony of life. While we may find moments to surrender to such grace and beauty, if we are not careful, we also tend to allow ourselves to surrender to our appetites, to envy, to greed and then to self centred lifestyles in which we serve only ourselves. No grace there - only the disgrace of self-inflicted slavery. Whatever we surrender our minds to, will eventually shape our character and define the quality of our life. Be careful what you surrender your mind to, even if it's only for a day, or an hour.

Dream
Most of us have forgotten how to dream. We have exchanged our creativity for security. The current state of the world is a wake up call that brings us back to our dreams and hopes. This is the time to realise that beyond us there is another, unlimited, energy in action. This energy will surpass our expectations, if only we trust. The more we remember our dream, the more we become alert for the coincidences and synchronicity that will bring us in its direction.

Determination
Determination brings the strength to continue, the steadiness to succeed, and the wisdom to slip past difficulties undisturbed.

Perfect Patience
Infinite patience achieves instant results! How can this be true? It is - but you'll need to meditate on it to see it! When you do, and you can see it, you will have walked through the gates of paradox and rediscovered truth. Repeat after me...infinite patience achieves instant results.

The Power Of Self Transformation
Those who have the power of transformation are loved by everyone. They have the power to mould themselves. They never say: Why were my ideas, my plans not accepted when they were so good? They bring about transformation in themselves and are then loved by everyone and become a number one victorious soul.

Embrace Change
When you are aware and accept that everything around you is constantly changing, and that you have no control over 99.99% of it, you are able to embrace change like a close friend! Change is a like a river, constantly flowing and moving things around. The river of life is constantly bringing you ideas, people, situations - each one is an opportunity to be enriched or to enrich others, and to learn. Change is the play of the universe as it entertains us in the biggest light and sound show of all time. Why not sit back and enjoy the show?

Free From Expectations
To be peaceful is to be free from expectations and to want nothing from anyone. Take the initiative and be generous. Lead the way and do something. This is the secret to being content in all circumstances.

Never Forget Your Loving Image
May you be an embodiment of love who transforms any fearsome volcanic form with your cool form of love. At every moment, with every soul, in every situation, never leave aside or forget your loving image, your face of love, your loving interaction and your relationships and connections of love. Create a world of love with your vision, attitude and actions of love.

Transform Obstacles
Is life an obstacle course? Sometimes it may feel like it. If you join the military you will be sent around an obstacle course of increasing degrees of difficulty. Why? To increase your strength and stamina and expand your creative capacity under strain. So it is on the course called 'life' - you can choose to perceive people, situations or events as obstacles, or you can choose to use these things to strengthen and expand your capacity to be creative and to find ways round, under, over. The choice lies in your perception. Obstacles are never ever 'out there', they are always in our own minds.

Healing
I gently return to equilibrium, nurtured by a well spring of love. I, the soul, am washed and soothed by the quiet energies of stillness. Embracing the vastness of my inner landscape, I understand the cycles of growth and decay. Today I will fix something broken, or find a new use for it.

Teaching with Love and Patience
A mother teaches her child with love and patience until the child learns. Be a mother and teach your mind to have positive thoughts and to let go of worries. Then when your mind needs peace, it will obey you.

Remind Yourself
If you know a little of yourself, you will have realized that you are more than meets your eyes in the mirror in the morning. What you see is not what you are. You see the form not the content, the body not the soul, the matter not the mind. In quiet and profound moments, we innately know that is true. But we forget. The world tells us and wants us to believe that we are what we see - and we take the easy way out. We believe. That's why the awakening of spirit and the flowering of our spirituality (nothing to do with religion) means we have to keep reminding ourselves, a hundred times a day, I am a soul - not a body, I am an eternal spirit - not a perishable piece of meat. I am quality, not quantity. I am. Otherwise, freedom is not possible. And if we are not free, in the deepest space inside our own being, we cannot be truly happy. 

Gifts Of Virtues
More valuable than the things we give to each other are the gifts of virtues we pass on quietly to others through our selfless and noble actions. These gifts are truly precious because they are imperishable and they multiply the more we share them.

Compassion
A compassionate person develops an eye for spotting the qualities that make each person special. Even when others are at their lowest ebb, it is possible to help them restore their self-belief by keeping a firm, clear vision of their goodness and specialties. Taking a gently encouraging approach, I must never give up on anyone.

Angels
An angel is a guest for he cleans up behind him. Where there has been misunderstanding he returns to clarify; where there has been hatred he offers love. He is never without gifts and always without burden. 

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.

Perceive Positively
True self-awareness, plus the ability to choose our perceptions of life, the universe and everything, is the basis of free will. Every situation and scene in front of us has so many possibilities in terms of how we perceive and interpret. If someone is 10% selfish and 90% generous what should we focus on, what should we perceive first within them? Most of us are now well trained to perceive and focus on the negative, the selfishness in others, and to follow it quickly with accusation and judgement. We forget that what we perceive is what we empower within another and, more importantly what we perceive is what we empower within ourselves in that moment. And what we choose to see is usually what we get. So how important is it that we choose to perceive only the best, the highest, the greatest in another, even if it's only a half a percent? Bosses and parents - take note!! Don't forget - your perception is your reality. Your perception is what you project. And what you project is what comes back! 

Offer Up
Free yourself from forcing, expecting or wanting someone to receive what you think they should take - it could be your idea, opinion, or an opportunity you think they should accept - you can't make anyone take anything - your own experience probably confirms this. Offer humbly. Offer gently. Offer as if you are a master, and then let go, and retire like a shy child. When you can dance the dance between being master and child, you'll be surprised how much more others will accept what you have to say, and how much more they appreciate your offerings.

The Law of Karma
Spirituality teaches me to see my responsibility and what causes I am setting in motion by my thoughts, words and actions. I just have to fulfill my responsibilities and the rights will automatically follow, because they are the effect. This may not happen immediately, but it is inevitable. The law of cause and effect, action and reaction, the law of karma is an integral part of spirituality. It gives us a basis on which to make right choices and create a beautiful future for ourselves and the world around us. 

Wise Soul
A wise soul opens the window to the future by closing the doors to the past.

Start Early
The best time to awaken both body and spirit is in the early morning. We are fresh, in solitude, and the vibrations of the world are at their calmest. It is not surprising that you will find all experienced meditators and yogis up with the dawn, inviting the sun of spirit to shine into the heart of their soul. The first half hour of conscious awareness will be the foundation of your day. Make an early start. Meditate, set the switch of your consciousness and calibrate your energy for the day. You'll be surprised the difference it makes.

Lasting Fragrance
Tread lightly upon this earth, seeing, understanding but never imposing. Thoughtful, independent, be gracious in victory and defeat. Free of possessiveness, so ease of mind sweetens relationships. Like the scent of a rose the untroubled spirit imparts a lasting fragrance.

Talking to the self
When you talk to yourself in your mind, which self do you address? And how? Usually people do not talk to their divinity, but to the most superficial aspects of their everyday personality. And often its a stream of fears, complaints and mindless repetition of old things. If we talked that way to another human being, we would have to apologize. Learning to talk properly to the self is a spiritual endeavor. Thoughts from the past and worries about the future do not create good conversation. Instead learn to talk to your mind as if it were a child. Talk to it with love. If you just force a child to sit down, he won't. A good mother knows how to prompt her child into doing what she wants. Be a good mother to your mind, teach it good, positive thoughts so that when you tell it to sit quietly, it will. Love your mind. Stay happy.

Banish Worry
Worry is otherwise known as 'fantasised catastrophising' where we create an image of the future and use it to frighten ourselves! Be aware that you are doing it, then stop doing it, otherwise the image will become a self fulfilling prophesy. Imagine only the brightest future, and so it will be. Besides there is nothing to worry about... unless you are under the illusion that your well-being and security are dependent on material things. If they are, then you will have many ways in which you can create worry. Possible loss, damage, separation, uncertainty are but a few. Look, you're killing yourself with worry, all because of the misuse of your imagination. Don't do it. 

 True Love
Love is a powerful force. It can take us to great heights and leave us feeling light and airy. Yet it has been the most abused and misused force. Many degraded things pass for love. True love is based on understanding, mutual trust and respect and not simply on transient emotions. Love is being in balance, that is, in harmony with the self, God and each other. Love dwells in the soul. We must allow this love to flow out and around us. Without love, all of life's treasures are locked away from our vision and experiences, for indeed 'love is the key.'

Comparison with Others
Comparing yourself with others will leave you vulnerable on three counts: you'll either feel inferior, superior or impressed. All three of these states are dangerous because they all disregard the underlying principle of our true connection with each other - mutual love and regard, based on independently generated self-esteem. To protect yourself from this vulnerability, make sure that your attention remains turned within, towards the spiritual experience of pure pride. Staying centred in your elevated self-respect will help you remain undisturbed by others around you. Keep asking yourself, "Who am I?" "How would my spiritual personality respond to this event or person?" this will help to centre you further, and allow you to enjoy the successful efforts of others.

Live Purposefully
If you don't live life on purpose you live life by accident. Why do some days feel like a motorway pile up? It's because you haven't sorted out your purpose yet. The highest purpose is always giving, or serving others, without wanting anything in return. This is why relaxation is always impossible if we are always 'on the take'. There is an overall purpose for your life, and each of the many scenes which fill your day are opportunities to serve your purpose. Take time to think deeply, listen to your intuition, and with patience, the reason why you are here, and what you uniquely have to give, will occur to you. Then you can live your life 'on purpose'.

Big Heart
Do not become discouraged in the face of adversity. Understand that the bigger the heart, the bigger the obstacles it is asked to accommodate.

Hear No Evil
Don't engage yourself in thinking about others because of jealousy. If anyone tells you wrong things about others, then hear but don't hear. Don't speak about such things and spoil the hearts of others. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, think no evil.

Giving
With habits, never give in or we lose our dignity. With the self, never give up or we lose our destiny. With others, never give your worst, or you will never develop your best. The saying, "what we give is what we receive". The lesson: Just to give.

Spiritual Awareness
Spiritual awareness (soul-consciousness) is cultivated through deliberate practice and only those who have understood the need for this kind of true, inner, self-respect will make the effort. Difficulties will arise to test your resolve for self-upliftment - physical illness, relationships, memories of the past, and so on. Yet with patience and introspection, you will come to see how these very tests are the means to strengthen your spiritual identity.

Fresh Start
If through some error yesterday was lost in grief, don't lose today by keeping it in your memory.

Original Qualities
To be controlled by anger is to repress the soul's original qualities of tolerance and love.

Patience
Patience teaches you not to push, but rather to wait and appreciate the game of life, knowing that nothing remains the same and everything will change at some point.

Accounts Payable
If we recognize that all inner and outer effects or results in our lives have causes which can be found within ourselves, then we understand karma or the law of sowing and reaping. If we are aware that we have just awoken to this law, and that we are consciously live with this law in our awareness we will also be aware that we were asleep to this law before - perhaps for a long time, possibly many births. It is therefore highly likely we tried to break the law. What we did not know was we cannot break this law. We cannot take anything without having to pay it back at some future stage. We may receive but we may not take - there is a difference. If we have taken then we must payback. Any form of pain or discomfort - mental, emotional or physical - means it is payback time. The universal debt collector has come to knock on our door. Accounts are being settled. If you can regard all pain, from a bump on the head to an emotional crisis, as the settling of a debt, you will be using the oldest wisdom to respond to life in the most enlightened way. The destination, once all accounts are settled, and all debts paid, is true peace and real freedom. Peace of mind and freedom from all pain.

Listen In
Only when we find the quietness in our own minds can we begin to hear our inner teacher, so that we may receive some in-tuition. Only when we are ready to recognize and value the wisdom that we carry at the core of our being will we turn our attention inwards and 'listen in'. But it's been a long time since we truly listened, so a little practice and patience will be needed. Sit down, be quiet and listen in at some point today and you might be surprised at what you hear. Then do it again tomorrow. All you need to do is remember that you are the listener and not the noise.

Simplicity and Royalty
There's great beauty in simplicity. It's not plainness, however it is plain in the sense that words and actions are enacted with great royalty, full awareness and with so much significance. Simplicity takes us away from artificialities, it simply accepts and in that acceptance shows us grace and humility in every circumstance.

Smile And Say "Hello"
In life you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say "hello".

 Be Content
Wherever I am is wherever I am meant to be, whatever I am doing is whatever I am meant to be doing and whatever everyone else is doing is exactly what they are meant to be doing - this is contentment. If you do want to change where you are, or what you are doing, the first thing is to be content with wherever you are and whatever you are doing right now! Paradoxically that's what attracts opportunities and invitations to be somewhere else! Why? Because you are a living magnet, and contentment is one of your most attractive qualities. And the law of attraction says that according to your dominant thoughts so you will attract the people and circumstances into your life. Being content right now attracts the best possible future.

 Unity
Unity is harmony within and amongst people. It is built with a shared vision for the good of all and a common goal. Unity is appreciating the value of each person and their unique contribution. When there is willingness to accommodate others, unity blossoms.

Take Time
Take time to laugh, it is the music of the soul. Take time to think, it is the source of power. Take time to read, it is the fountain of wisdom. Take time to love and be loved, it is a God-given privilege. Take time to work, it is the price of success.

 Anger
Anger is a condition in which the tongue works faster than the mind.

Kindness
Great souls take advantage of every moment and every opportunity to give happiness to others through kindness in their thoughts; such souls are willing to overlook weaknesses and mistakes and have the desire to help everyone reach their potential.

Inspiration
Let me aim to inspire through my behavior, and take inspiration from others by making their virtues my own.

Noticing Goodness
Even if I don't mean to be critical, I often unconsciously home in on others' weaknesses and mistakes, The more I develop the habit of noticing goodness and only holding onto the good in others and situations, the more my own sense of well-being will rise. When I continually think: "He/she is wrong", I create a barrier that prevents me from reaching my own goodness.

Responsibility
The world is a stage and we are all actors. Each actor plays a unique part and is responsible for their own actions. Responsibility means doing the right thing no matter how big or small the task may be. Each one of us has a special role to play in the making the world a better place.

Close to Perfection
When nothing attractive attracts you, even in your thoughts, you can then be said to be close to perfection.

Forgiveness Will Bring Me Closer To Others
Why is it hard to forgive others? Usually because we believe that they are 90% to blame for the problem, that I am not as bad as they are. So I start to carry the load of other people's actions. If my ego is too hurt, I will have the sense of correction, of justice: 'I know I am right', 'That is not fair'. But if I start to forgive from the heart, sincerely, then this kind of feeling and attitude begins to dissolve. I remain humble and this forgiveness will bring me closer to others. Then I do not carry regrets or anger, I just let go and remain light.