The Alphabet of Change

Awareness - First, become aware of what you need to change in yourself. What is preventing you from attaining contentment? What habits are blocking the way to realizing your full potential?

Belief - Many people think that a change in their personalities is extremely difficult. But in fact it is a reality that lies within your power. It might be useful to ask yourself questions such as "What has held me back from change in the past?" and "What are the stages by which I can bring change about?"
Commitment - Motivation is the key to commitment. We need to want to change, rather than feel it is a duty to ourselves. Try writing down a list of commitments in the form of statements beginning with "I will". They should come directly out of, and be connected with, your overall vision.
Discipline - We cannot change unless we are able to maintain a steady course over time. Think of each sign as a major landmark passed. Even if we find ourselves slipping into old habits, that achievement of even a little bit of change cannot be taken away.

Stress Management

Most of us have learned to believe some stress is both natural and necessary. One of the most powerful illusions (false beliefs) which keeps us locked in a stressful lifestyle is the idea that our stress is caused by circumstances, events and other people. As long as you think this way you will always be in self-created pain. Some people have been in pain for so long they cannot imagine being pain free, and real relaxation is a dim and distant memory. So they justify their pain as a natural part of living and then feel that others are a cause of this pain. This is dangerous. To listen to the messenger of pain means seeing and acknowledging our stress as our own creation. It is the result of how we respond to the uncontrollables in life i.e. circumstances, events and other people. No one else creates our responses.
If you can see and accept that you create your own stress according to how you are responding, you will then see that there is something you need to unlearn as well as learn. The old response needs to be unlearned, and a new positive response needs to be learned. The regular practice of meditation enables you to do that and become free from stress.

The Senses in Balance

Our five senses are windows, which open out to the world through which energy flows in two directions. The senses receive impressions and information from the world, and at the same time transmit our personalities to others. Our eyes receive a constant stream of visual messages, but we may also use the eyes to show how we feel. Through our ears we hear the sounds of life; while by "lending an ear" to others we give comfort to them. Touch allows us to experience texture; but can also transmit love and assurance. Our senses are not merely instruments, but deep-rooted aspects of the self or the soul.
Eastern thinking brilliantly shows the senses of the body (eyes, ears, nose, tongue and hands) as a chariot. The self or the soul is the charioteer (controller of the chariot); the five senses are the five horses. The self keeps the senses harmoniously (peacefully) working together, controlling their tendency to go out of control.

Positive Consciousness

The habitual way in which you use the house you live in and its contents are all affected if you use them in a positive consciousness (mental state). The result is purification while interacting with the physical object, so that when the object is in use, it fulfills its function accurately, and it has also undergone a permanent change. This can happen when you are cleaning the house, cleaning any object in the house or preparing objects for a particular purpose. If such actions are done in a positive consciousness then the physical object will have such a vibration of peace and purity that no harm can be done with it and whatever action it is used to perform will be successful. Any other soul who comes into interaction with those objects will also feel the affect of their pure vibrations.

If we perform each action with the physical body in a positive consciousness, then the physical body gets purified and we can become free of illnesses.

In our relationships it is the same principle. First there needs to be that detachment in relations. Secondly, when there is a positive consciousness, I will find that my interactions have a purifying affect on all that I relate to and I can bring benefit to everyone I meet. 

In this way a positive mental state enables all actions to be successful, whether at work or at home.

Meditation

Meditation is the process in which a meditator emerges the consciousness of being an incorporeal (non-physical) soul, or a point of spiritual energy, located between the two eyebrows with an identity separate from the physical body and connects with the Supreme Soul, who is also incorporeal (non-physical) or a point of spiritual energy but an ocean of the seven qualities - peace, bliss, love, joy, purity, knowledge, and power. By performing this practice in the early morning hours, the time which is called "Brahmamurta" or "Amrit Vela" (Sweet Nectar Time), over a period the meditator absorbs these qualities in himself, which he uses to perform his daily actions successfully.

Positive Thinking

The sun is a suitable image for positive thinking. The visualization described below uses a sunlit landscape as a comparison for the four levels of thoughts we create (positive, necessary, waste and negative). It can be used to increase your percentage of positive thoughts everyday.
1. Visualize a beautiful valley with a lake, forested foothills and high mountains rising up into the clouds. This is the landscape of your mind.

2. Your position in this landscape and the form in which you are displayed depends on the quality of your thoughts. Are you a fish swimming in the muddy depths of the lake (negative thoughts)? Are you a frog jumping back and forth from the shore to the lake (wasteful thoughts)? A human, wandering into the forest to gather food and build a shelter (necessary thoughts)? Or the sun, which sustains (nourishes) all life on earth (positive thoughts)?

Values And Purpose

Our actions sometimes are not according to our life’s purpose when we lack the proper connecting value or we are unable to express it correctly. These values help us in bringing our purpose into action. They bring purpose into life. Values are the fuel. In any situation where these values are awakened they will decide my course of action and are the basis of all important choices and decisions. Reinforcement of these values means that you can operate successfully in any situation. If your identified purpose is what you are meant to be doing, then your values are the back-up to do it.

How will we know which values are important to connect to our purpose? We don't need to make an attempt to create our values. They are already there. We just have to detect them by looking inwards and then use them to fulfill our purpose.

Visualization

The most powerful energy in the universe is the energy of the mind. Everything we create, from the simplest of objects, to the most complex philosophies, are formed in the human mind. The images and thoughts, which you create at each moment, directly influence your emotional and physical well-being. Imagine yourself eating a lemon and you will begin to salivate (produce saliva in the mouth), picture yourself fall from a cliff edge and you will generate the feeling of falling along with tremendous anxiety (worry), possibly terror.
The key to relaxation lies in what you do with your mind. Like an inner television screen or an artist's blank canvas, your mind is ready to display any idea or image, which you choose. While meditation tends to have one point of mental focus (an idea, a point of knowledge or mantra), creative visualization is the purposeful use of the mind to create positive images as a result of which we experience relaxation. This is the underlying principle behind the Rajyoga Meditation taught by the Brahma Kumaris.

Meditation And Health

Given below is a simple meditation commentary which can be used to heal the physical body. Think slowly and visualize side by side each positive thought given below before moving on:

I sit quietly and turn inwards........
I visualize a pinpoint of light, a sparkling star, the source of pure energy that I am........
located in the center of my forehead........
In this awareness, white rays of the divine light of purity from me extend into my entire physical body in the form of a laser beam........
These vibrations of purity soothe, heal and energize my physical system........
The impurities, toxins and illnesses in the body are being washed away and thrown out from the extremities (corners) of the body........
The body starts experiencing its original inner beauty........
It returns to a state of harmony (peace), to a state of good health......

Understanding The Quality Of Love

It is often said that you cannot truly love others until you are able to love yourself. But what does this mean? Does loving ourselves mean constantly saying to myself “I love myself”? Does loving the self mean giving our self lots of presents? Does loving our self mean we become self obsessed? Fortunately, the answer is no to all of the above. Loving our self is comprised of knowing, understanding and nourishing the self. We need to know someone before we can express an appropriate love for him or her. And so it is with our self. We need to know our self as we truly are, a spiritual being. When we realise we have been asleep and under the wrong belief that we are only physical, almost immediately we see that it is this wrong belief that has filled our thoughts and feelings with many forms of suffering which we have given to ourselves. This understanding of our self allows us to change our consciousness and to give our love for the self its first form, which is self-acceptance. We can accept where we are now without regret. Self-forgiveness is also a form of love for the self, which is forgetting, and letting go of all the things we thought and did in the past, which are causing any suffering to our self in the present. Self-acceptance and self-forgiveness are acts of love towards ourselves. Love for the self also takes the form of care for the self and nourishing the self by spending time in meditation and spiritual study. Not all day, but for some time within each day. Only when we have learned to love our self in these ways, will we be able make love visible for others in our day-to-day relationships.

Self Realization

Most of us are taught to believe we are our physical forms, and so we identify with our body or the labels we give to our bodies such as nationality, race, gender, profession etc. This wrong sense of self is what creates emotions of fear, anger and sadness in life. From a spiritual point of view these 'unnatural' emotions are always the result of ego (identifying oneself wrongly), which then blocks access to our true original nature, which is peaceful, loving and joyful.
If we identify ourselves correctly (as souls), we are spiritually empowered (strengthened) and then we are not affected by the obstacles (barriers) that come our way – we are able to use our spiritual power to accept and move on. We are able to remain stable in the middle of negative situations. In effect we are using our inner strength, which is only released and used when we know who and what we are, and then using that strength in the right way, in the right place at the right time.

Concentration

With some meditation techniques, people are given ideas or mantras, which they often simply repeat. They do not penetrate the mind and do not bring any sense of meaning. People bounce these ideas around like a ball in their mind and, from the mind, the ball of thought is bounced to the mouth. Sound patterns are repeated, but nothing has really been understood. The result of this is that there is very little power generated from within to bring about change in behaviour, or personality. Thus, everything continues in the same way. In these cases, people are not focused on spirituality. As a result, after a while, such people find meditation boring, they fall asleep, or think that by repeating words, either verbally or mentally, they are doing meditation. However, the right type of concentration is not brought about simply by repeating sounds or ideas.

Natural concentration is when the mind can hold a thought for a long time, when thoughts are under our own control.
Without concentration the mind goes here, there and everywhere, jumping like a monkey from branch to branch, idea to idea. When there is a natural concentration, we can control our mind and there is peace. This one-pointed concentration on a thought, holding it for as long as we like, gradually collects strength in the mind and in the self.

A strong mind is a mind that is peaceful, stable, satisfied and can remain in
the deeper meaning of a thought. There is no waste caused by over-thinking,
or the high speed of thought. These are the two greatest diseases of the mind
these days, which is why there is so much stress and mental breakdown.

Positive Reflections For The Day

On the path of Raja Yoga meditation there is a saying, "See, but don't see! Hear, but don't hear!" which means to remain aware of all realities, including the negative, but not to focus on them. We get caught up in the negative because we react and the reactions are expressed in the form of judgements, accusations, criticism, or labelling. As soon as we judge or criticise, we put everything into convenient boxes and, just as convenience foods are not always so healthy, such conveniences at the mental and attitudinal level are a great danger, because we mentally seal (close) the fate (destiny) of the person or situation: they are like this and so must be treated accordingly. Unfortunately, this is often done in an unconscious way, which is why Raja Yoga meditation is used to bring such attitudes and behaviours to the surface, conscious awareness.


When our vision and attitude remain judgemental or critical, they do so because there is no input of positivity from the self to encourage or allow a positive change.


There cannot be a positive output when there is a negative input.


We often work in this way, wanting others to be better in some way, but, instead of helping them, or having faith in them and seeing their good qualities, we hinder (obstruct) them by concentrating on their past, their weaknesses and their mistakes. Our focus is completely negative, but still we expect them to change for the better!



When our awareness is more detached, rather than focusing on what is wrong, we look at how we can put something right by contributing a positive feeling, or attitude. This anonymous (not known to anyone) contribution is a generous act, which offers a solution, instead of the usual complaints by critical and judgemental people.