Effort To Manipulate The Law Of Action (Karma)

Human laws can be adjusted, manipulated and even ignored by some, but no one can do the same with the Law of Karma. On the physical level, there is no time interval between an action and its reaction. If I throw an object in the air, it falls back immediately with the same force. With the Law of Karma, however, there can be a delay between the action and its result or fruit. The seeds of certain actions (negative or positive) bring immediate fruit. Others can take years or even many births to bear fruit. If I eat too much ice-cream, I will see the result or karmic effect of the negative karma of greed within a space of ten-fifteen minutes in the form of a headache or after two days in the form of a cold and flu. This is an e.g. in which we realize the working of the Law of Karma, we realize clearly the cause and its effect, but on a subtle level, when we see the effects of actions, we do not realize that the cause may have actually been in a previous life. There is a total connection between the cause and the effect.

When we analyze a natural calamity such as a major earthquake that uproots buildings and trees, overturns vehicles and kills thousands of people. The physical cause may be tectonic activity associated with faults inside the earth’s surface but at the same time, we realize that such a calamity could have its roots in a process initiated by human beings a few hours, days or months ago – an e.g. being testing of nuclear weapons. On a personal level, I can say that there is nothing which happens to me for which I am not responsible. Whether I remember what I did to make it happen or not, whether I realize it or choose to ignore it, I am ultimately responsible.

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Positive Reflections For The Day are messages sent by the Brahma Kumaris. If you are not receiving Positive Reflections already and would like to receive it daily, from the Brahma Kumaris, please send an email to the email address awakeningwithbks@bkmail.org with – Subscribe – written in the subject.

Meditation For Personality Transformation

At the heart of every human being or soul there is a spiritual energy, pure, of peace, love, truth and happiness without dependence. Being aware and experiencing this energy provides you with the inner strength necessary for change. Meditation is the method of access in order to allow that energy to come to the surface of your consciousness and in your mind in order to color your thoughts and feelings. In a way very similar to that of a volcano whose melted lava, hot, flows from the centre of the Earth to the surface, we, on meditating, can create volcanoes of power (which emerge in our conscious minds) required for personality transformation.

You can do an exercise, a meditation whereby you choose a habit or sanskar that you don’t want, and you will replace it with a characteristic that you would like to incorporate, like a thread, into the cloth of your personality. For example, replace impatience with patience.

Decide on a habit that you want to change e.g. impatience. We will focus this meditation on changing impatience. You can apply it to other habits also:

I relax and prepare to look inwards…
I am aware of the unwanted habit of becoming impatient…
As I sit in meditation, I relax my body.
I become the observer of my own thoughts and feelings…
Realizing my true identity as soul – a subtle point of light situated at the center of my forehead, just above my eyebrows, I remember my real nature is one of calmness, peace and power…
I focus on the power of peace, inviting it in and welcoming it into my thoughts and feelings from deep within…. enjoying the calm contentment which it brings…
On the screen of my mind, I begin to visualize patience…
I see myself in a situation where I normally become impatient…
I now see myself as being completely full with the virtue of patience…
I shape my feelings around the idea and image of patience…. unhurried and relaxed… calm and watchful…
If necessary, I can wait… forever…. with patience
I am free of the desire for certain outcomes…
I see how I respond with patience…
I see the effect of my patience in others within the situation…
I now know how I will speak with patience, walk with patience and act patiently in the real life situations…
I maintain this peace, which generates serenity and patience in me…

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Positive Reflections For The Day are messages sent by the Brahma Kumaris. If you are not receiving Positive Reflections already and would like to receive it daily, from the Brahma Kumaris, please send an email to the email address awakeningwithbks@bkmail.org with – Subscribe – written in the subject.

The Rules of Attraction

If we are alert to opportunities that will satisfy our most serious vision (ambition) in life, it is surprising how often these opportunities will tend to come themselves in front of us. These are the rules of attraction – the most mysterious ways by which on one side your need and on the other, its fulfillment are drawn together.

Create your vision (ambition). Identify your goals, objectives and tasks.

Make yourself a magnet. This means having faith that you will get the suitable opportunities to fulfill your vision and recognize the signs they are giving you – which may not be direct. Look out for such signs with patience, and act on them when they come.

In order to fulfill our vision, we must not become too attached to our targets. This is not a sign of weak-mindedness or a lack of commitment: rather it is a sign of wisdom. By letting go (becoming detached) of our goals or objectives, we become more relaxed in our attitude toward them. The journey is no longer tiring and stressful, because we don’t have to struggle, life’s circumstances will present us with the right opportunities.

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Positive Reflections For The Day are messages sent by the Brahma Kumaris. If you are not receiving Positive Reflections already and would like to receive it daily, from the Brahma Kumaris, please send an email to the email address awakeningwithbks@bkmail.org with – Subscribe – written in the subject.

Analyzing Success And Failure

You feel positive and joyful when you realize that you are successful. However, when failure comes to you, you feel defeated. The definition of success and failure varies from one person to another and according to the stage of life that you are in. It is important to have success and failure well defined for yourself, because, based on your definition, you feel greater or lesser inner well-being, happiness and wholeness. There are also different levels of success and of failure. For example, for some the greatest success is to be happy and radiant, whatever happens inside or outside. If one manages to keep happy in the face of failure, for them it is a success. Because to be happy means that I am connected with my essential worth or inner self, my being is awake and alive. Failure does not reduce my vitality, my contentment levels. The greater or fewer external achievements do not reduce the quality of the inner being or of being happy. The important thing is that you believe your own definition of success and failure. Some ideas can be shared that can act as guidelines, but, in the end, each person has to create their own guidelines, definitions and factors leading to success and failure. Basing ourselves on these guidelines and beliefs, we evaluate our successes and failures. You can reflect on what true success and failure mean for you and, according to those meanings, center your attention on the values and efforts that lead you to achieve your objectives.

For many, society has conditioned us to look for success through the path of our career, achievements, profits, praise, financial wealth etc. That way, we have learned a narrow view of success. Running in search of this kind of success and pursuing it, we come to exhaust ourselves, get burnt out and depressed. In order to achieve these successes we have stopped caring for the inner being (the soul) and relationships. That has meant and means stress, pain, anxiety, family break ups, personal and relational disintegration’s, the destruction of the environment and planetary and climatic imbalances. As a consequence, we feel empty. Although we achieve the applause, the income and other successes, the soul is malnourished and has the sensation that it is lacking something. Reaching fame, financial wealth, the power of a visible position, and reaching it with a broken soul, broken up family and a sick body, causes depression which explains why, in our recent history, famous people have ended up committing suicide.

If we want to redirect our personal and collective lives toward true well-being and wholeness, we have to re-evaluate and redefine our beliefs and factors that lead to success and failure. Before asking yourself what success and failure mean for you, it is important to be clear what context you want success in. Depending on the context, the dimension and the meaning of success and failure will be different. For example, in the work context, a failure will be different to that in the family context. In the personal context or in life in general, the way of perceiving success or failure varies.

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Positive Reflections For The Day are messages sent by the Brahma Kumaris. If you are not receiving Positive Reflections already and would like to receive it daily, from the Brahma Kumaris, please send an email to the email address awakeningwithbks@bkmail.org with – Subscribe – written in the subject.

Thoughts As Energy

Just as the physical atmosphere is the result of climatic conditions and air quality, there is a subtle (non-physical) atmosphere which cannot be seen, heard or measured but can be experienced and influenced by the mind and analyzed by the intellect. It is variously described as the prevailing mood, the vibration and so on. What is the cause of this non-physical atmosphere, these vibrations?

Thought has been proven to be a powerful yet non-physical energy, which can influence other souls and matter. Thoughts, emotions, desires and moods generate a field around the soul, just like an electric field, can be called positive, negative or neutral, depending on the quality of its effect on other souls and on matter. When a large number of souls are all experiencing positive thoughts, feelings and emotions, then the atmosphere becomes charged with positivity. When they are experiencing negative emotions, the opposite happens.

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Positive Reflections For The Day are messages sent by the Brahma Kumaris. If you are not receiving Positive Reflections already and would like to receive it daily, from the Brahma Kumaris, please send an email to the email address awakeningwithbks@bkmail.org with – Subscribe – written in the subject.

Warm Regards,
Awakening With Brahma Kumaris

Meditation To Experience Being An Impartial Observer

Experience the following thoughts one after the other:

I sit in a relaxed position, letting all tensions dissolve… I relax my shoulders and neck and breathe deeply several times… Now I focus all my attention inside and observe what is happening in mind… I observe, and look carefully…

I see myself in different situations; I can identify the things that affect me most, the dependencies on things and people, the various circumstances in which I see myself involved… I observe how these external factors influence me and change my state of mind. I lack trust in some people, but with others I can express myself freely. There are many influences in my life… There are the influences of these external factors… I separate myself from them and observe my inner qualities; I begin to feel that peace, strength and love are part of my original self… They are so strong that they cannot be influenced by the changing external factors…

I create positive thoughts about myself… I am a being independent of external influences, and in my inner self there are many qualities. I feel them… I enjoy being myself in my original peaceful state…

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Positive Reflections For The Day are messages sent by the Brahma Kumaris. If you are not receiving Positive Reflections already and would like to receive it daily, from the Brahma Kumaris, please send an email to the email address awakeningwithbks@bkmail.org with – Subscribe – written in the subject.

Maintaining Your Self Esteem In Relationships

When a person is in love with another human, the marvelous thing about being in love is that it is a totally positive projection. There is a person who projects on to you all that is positive: you are marvelous, you are unique, you are indispensable, you are a treasure. That positive projection generates a euphoric state, of bliss, of wellbeing, whereby you are flying. You feel loved, cared for, needed and valued. That positive projection lasts for a time until, with the dependencies and expectations, the negative projection begins. “You should have called me, you should have told me, you should have come at this time, you should be more like this, you should be less like that, you should have done this or that.”

With these expectations, demands and dependencies, that positive projection and flying state disappear. The other has started interfering in your personal space and the harmony that was there previously is lost. One needs to learn to have a positive vision of oneself. You are marvelous, you are unique; don’t depend on them telling you so. This does not mean you need to feed your ego, but that you need to make the most positive emerge from within you. Resort to all your creative, positive, spiritual capacity, so that you do not depend on others having to project positive things onto you in order to feel good. On feeling good in an independent and autonomous way, you will be able to share with others peace, love and positivism. You won’t be in the state of a victim but will be true rulers and controllers of your own life with solid self-esteem.

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Positive Reflections For The Day are messages sent by the Brahma Kumaris. If you are not receiving Positive Reflections already and would like to receive it daily, from the Brahma Kumaris, please send an email to the email address awakeningwithbks@bkmail.org with – Subscribe – written in the subject.

Universal Concepts About God

There are some universally accepted characteristics of God:

* He is the creator and the one who sustains and takes care of the entire world population.
* He is the Highest of Highest.
* He is the Supreme Father.
* He is non-physical.
* He is omnipotent (one with unlimited power).
* He is a living being.
* He is all-loving and possesses complete knowledge.
* He is unchangeable.
* He is one and He is light.
* He is perfect in values and morals.
* He is absolutely just.
* He is the Supreme Benefactor (the one who brings benefit to everyone).
* He is the savior of souls.
* He is the purifier.
* He is mysterious in His ways.

Even in those religions that believe in and worship many Gods, there is one God who stands above the others. Then there are other faiths who believe God to be one single Supreme Being. Traditions, sacred texts, monuments, sayings and rituals all over the world, point to the existence of and belief in one knowledgeful, all-powerful and merciful being or soul. That being is universally called out to and recognized as the remover of sorrow, the giver of happiness and the savior of the ‘sinful’.

Just as a candle flame emerges from a point source and assumes an oval form, mystics and saints throughout the passage of time have had visions of God as a point of self-luminous light with an oval aura.

Most religions have images, idols or memorials, having one name or the other to represent God as light or as an oval shape.

Throughout India there are statues of an oval-shaped image. They are called Shivalingas, and are thought to represent the Creator Himself. The names of the temples of Shiva confirm this: Somnath, the Lord of Nectar; Vishwanath, The Lord of the Universe; Mukteshwara, the Lord of Liberation, etc..

In the Old Testament of the Bible, it is mentioned that Moses had a vision of light as a “burning” bush in the desert. Jesus also referred to God as light. In some Christian ceremonies, during the ceremonies, an ostensorio is held up. The ostensorio is a golden ball with many rays radiating from it. Perhaps this is a symbolic representation of God.

Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism called Him Ek Omkar, Nirakar, the one non-physical (bodiless) being or soul.

According to Islamic legend, when Adam left paradise he came to a low hill upon which he saw a shining white oval stone. Around this stone he circled seven times praising God. He then built the Kaaba. By the time of Abraham it needed to be rebuilt as a temple to honour the one God. The town of Mecca grew around this spot. This oval stone, later called Sang-e-aswad and now blackened by the kisses of millions of sinners, so they say, is the only object of worship in the whole of Islam.

The Zoroastrians worship God as fire (Indian Zoroastrians are called Parsis).

The ancient Egyptians worshiped the sun as God.

A Buddhist sect in Japan focuses the mind on a small oval shape. They call it Karni, the Peace-giver.

The Jews have the Menorah (a candlestick or holder for many candles together) which when lit is a memory of the form of God as light.

It seems therefore that human beings, without realizing, have all been worshipping and trying to discover the same God. There is only one God and His form is light. If union between the soul and the Supreme Soul is to take place, it can only be possible if there is knowledge and experience of that form.

On the basis of our (soul and the Supreme Soul) similarities of form and place of residence, I learn from God of my own original sanskars of peace, purity, love, knowledge, power and bliss. As I tune my thoughts to Him, His influence fills these original qualities in me. He is the perfect and infinite fountain, indeed the ocean, of these qualities. His superiority lies in the depth, clarity and continuity of His divine sanskars. Whilst human souls fluctuate between peace and peacelessness; love and hatred; knowledge and ignorance; sorrow and joy, God is ever constant and above and beyond these fluctuations.

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Positive Reflections For The Day are messages sent by the Brahma Kumaris. If you are not receiving Positive Reflections already and would like to receive it daily, from the Brahma Kumaris, please send an email to the email address awakeningwithbks@bkmail.org with – Subscribe – written in the subject.

Self Empowerment

Our internal strengths create the foundation on which we make our decisions in life, how we relate to others and how we understand ourselves. For most people their strengths are understood but never made very conscious. They lie below the surface and are not openly talked about. Bringing them into our conscious understanding improves our process of self-empowerment.

To realize and review your strengths, sit comfortably in a pleasant atmosphere and answer silently the following questions:
A. Look back into the past and remember the times when you experienced your greatest successes. List the unique talents or strengths, which you made use of at those times.
B. List the specific features, which you admire in yourself.
C. If you were to take the opinion of your family, friends and colleagues, what strengths would they say that you have?
D. List your most valuable assets.
E. Now examine your answers and summarize. What are your main strengths?

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Positive Reflections For The Day are messages sent by the Brahma Kumaris. If you are not receiving Positive Reflections already and would like to receive it daily, from the Brahma Kumaris, please send an email to the email address awakeningwithbks@bkmail.org with – Subscribe – written in the subject.

Love And Suffering

There are two things that touch or move us in life: pain and pleasure. Both create addiction. We feel pain in the body, and sometimes it is even emotional. But suffering arises in the mind. The suffering in the mind arises from thinking negatively towards the self, towards others, looking at them with a vision or attitude that causes grief, sorrow and suffering. Both extremes, pain and pleasure, can create addiction. On creating addiction it can start to form part of someone’s identity. Later if one tries to stop the addiction of pain or suffering, it can almost feel like a threat towards the self, and towards one’s own identity as one perceives it, because suffering is identified with. It is too hard to see oneself as no longer suffering.

An e.g. in this regard is that of a mother, with three children, who was undergoing a meditation course at one of the Brahma Kumaris centers. Her daughter had learned to meditate and became very happy and joyful. Seeing her happiness the mother came to learn to meditate. With a few sessions she felt much more at peace and had very good experiences, but all of a sudden she decide to stop the meditation practice and leave the course because she was starting experiencing a positive detachment, which she perceived as negative. Now, she was no longer feeling afraid of what might happen to her children. The meditation was awakening in her a love free from fears, but it brought on in her an inner clash of beliefs between the old and new beliefs. Her old belief was that to love someone is to suffer about them or create pain related to them.

We have the inner belief that love, worry, fear and suffering go together. It is difficult to transform (change) fear until we eliminate that belief. You are love and you need to share that love. Life is a sharing of love, it is loving the body, loving oneself, loving others, loving God, loving nature, loving work. That energy of love in the end purifies us and helps us to go forward. But while the belief exists that love has to be linked to fear and suffering, we will be blocked and will put a brake to the flow of pure love. In the name of love, we worry, we suffer and we are afraid. Instead of helping from a place of freedom in love, we help out of worry and fear, and in doing so we stifle, control, depend, and the other person feels their inner freedom restricted. We do not let them be.

If we review our personal life and see the moments when we have experienced most pain in our lives, we realize that it is with the people we have most loved, and that have most loved us that we have suffered most. We experience pain in a relationship of love, where there is possession, control, submission and dependence. Other times the pain is caused by a loss that generates an inner emptiness. That person filled me, they gave me wholeness, they were the reason for my existence and now they have either left me or they have gone. In the second case, we wouldn’t say that they “have died”, but rather that they have gone to another level of existence i.e. the soul has taken a new physical costume.

When there is too much pain we cannot lean back into our true power and experience our energy of love. Only the power of pure love, unconditional love or love of God, can help us to get rid of the suppressed pain inside the subconscious. When you live through a situation that causes pain in you, you have to love yourself, stabilize yourself and enter into silence. Observe that pain without being afraid of it. Observe it to let go of it and understand what it is that it brings about in you.

The answer, generally, is connected with others: * He/she doesn’t love me anymore and that’s why I feel pain, * Things are not like they were before, * The company of this loved one doesn’t give me the benefits it was giving me before.

If a person loved you and now has stopped loving you, does that make you feel pain? Or is it your own expectation and your desire for that person to keep on valuing you or loving you like before that trap you in pain? Is it that you don’t accept change? The truth is, we bring on suffering ourselves. If you don’t want to make yourself suffer, starting from now you do not have to bear any more suffering. Nobody can wound you or can cause you pain, except if you allow it. So how do you allow it? By being a vacuum that sucks in everything of the other, the good and the bad, and you suffer. It is expectations from our loved one that make us vulnerable to the experience of suffering.

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Positive Reflections For The Day are messages sent by the Brahma Kumaris. If you are not receiving Positive Reflections already and would like to receive it daily, from the Brahma Kumaris, please send an email to the email address awakeningwithbks@bkmail.org with – Subscribe – written in the subject.