Seven Techniques To Let Go Off The Past

Almost each one of us carries a heavy or subtle burden of negative events and happenings that have taken place in our life sometime in the past, either an immediate past or a far-off one; which reduce our present contentment levels immensely. The negative past could be of any form – you experienced the loss of a close loved one due to a break-up or sudden death; you went through a serious physical illness or a very lean phase of financial loss, you were abused on a mental or physical level; you were not treated properly by a colleague at office and undue advantage was taken of you; you performed an inappropriate action and you repent up till now, even after many years have passed, and many such similar and different types of  incidents.

There are three different types of processes for removing negative past memories from our consciousness:

* Modifying – A negative past event is modified into a positive, beneficial form and then stored in the consciousness.

* Forgetting – Memories of a negative past event are forgotten and do not exist either in our conversations or in our conscious mind or thoughts, but traces of those memories exist in the sub-conscious mind.

* Erasing – No traces of the negative past exist in the consciousness and memories of it are completely removed from the sub-conscious also.

We need to take the help of all the different aspects or techniques of spirituality and not depend on only one or two for these removal processes. In the next two days’ messages, we will explain all these different techniques of spirituality, which if incorporated in our life, help us experience lightness and emotional freedom from the past. All of them have their own unique importance.

Positive Information and Intoxication – The more we listen or read positive and constructive spiritual knowledge, even if it is for 10 minutes daily, and imbibe (absorb) it, the more our negative memories fade into the background. Also the regular input of knowledge lifts our consciousness to a higher level and gives us an experience of intoxication or spiritual bliss, in which the memory of our past sorrows and negative experiences gets dissolved. Even on a physical level, there are lots of people who indulge in some kind of addiction or intoxication only because it temporarily helps them to overcome and forget the negatives in their life.

Karma Realization – Another benefit of spiritual knowledge is that it makes us realize the various shades and details of the Law of Karma and its application in the World Drama, which helps us immensely in letting go of the past and concentrating on our present so that a bright future can be built, irrespective of the quality of the past.

Self and God Realization – One of the most important benefits of meditation, an important aspect of spirituality, is that it makes us realize and experience the spiritual self and the Father of the spiritual self, the Supreme Soul, accurately. This is an experience of liberation, in which there is no room for past repentance’s. Past repentance’s are more a reflection of excessive attachment to the physical or material or attachment to incorrect emotions related to body-consciousness, remembering the damage caused by it to the self and experiencing sorrow due to the same.

Connection and Relation – Also, meditation being a deep connection between me and the Supreme Father, it fills me with immense power and it is also an intense relationship, which fills me with love, happiness and peace. In the experience of these attainments, over a period of time, my past ceases to burden my consciousness.

Correction – Memories inside the soul are like imprints or impressions on the soul. Some impressions are deep, some are not. Negative pastexperiences leave very deep negative impressions or scars on the soul, which sometimes take a lot of time to heal and sometime an entire lifetime can be sent without them getting healed. Negative past experience imprints and negative emotions like anger, hatred, attachment etc. are closely linked. So, correcting the self or incorporating positive sanskars fills the spiritual self with positive impressions. This, over a period of time, nullifies the effect of these negative impressions and as a result, the related negative memories.

Donation – Donation can be simply defined as the distribution of the invisible attainments one has experienced through spiritual self transformation, to others. It helps one receive blessings or positive energy of those whom we donate to and gives life a focused positive purpose, both of which help us immensely in forgetting our past. People who live only for themselves will find it more difficult to forget theirpast as compared to ones who spend a lot of time for others. Giving happiness to others helps us in forgetting our griefs.

Interaction – The more we interact with and remain in the company of positive minded people and have positive conversations with them, we give and receive positive energy and the more our past gets erased from my consciousness. Spirituality teaches us to look inwards and experience introvertness, which we haven’t experienced for a long time. At the same time, spirituality also teaches us to keep a balance between looking inwards and outwards. Composed and balanced extrovertness and healthy, happy relationships with virtuous people help us remain more in a present consciousness, not giving the mind to drift too much into the past.

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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@brahmakumaris.com with – Subscribe – written in the subject.

Internal And External Attachments

Attachment can be on two levels – either internal or external.

Some common examples of external attachments are attachments to:

* people,
* objects,
* your physical body,
* your position or role in your family, society or in your professional field,
* money,
* places,
* physical comfort/comforts,
* the way you look or dress up or carry yourself or your physical personality in general,
* a particular skill/skills,
* a particular interest or hobby like watching movies, online social networking, etc.
* your routine or a certain way of working at home or at the workplace,
* respect from others,
* how people see you or behave with you or what they think of you, etc.

Some common examples of internal attachments are attachments to:

* your ideas,
* your beliefs,
* your opinions or viewpoints,
* your memories,
* a certain way of thinking
* a particular virtue/virtues or specialty/specialties,
* a particular power/powers,
* a particular sanskar/sanskars – either positive or negative, etc.

Whether the attachment is external or internal, the act of attaching is always internal. e.g. if you attach yourself to your job, you will say “my job”. Your job is something external, but you hold on to it inside you – inside your consciousness.

Each time we attach ourselves to anything which is external or internal, we create fears, amongst which the main one is the fear of loss of what I am attached to. The attachment not only gives rise to fear but also brings with it emotions like anger, ego, sadness, jealousy, greed, comparisons, hatred etc. All these emotions have their roots in attachment, which gives rise to insecurity.

Any type of attachment out of the ones mentioned in the last two days’ messages or some other is a sanskar that is so deeply embedded inside us that it seems normal to us. It is just a sanskar but it has immense amount of power and it manages to imprison us completely, but most of the time we do not even realize we are imprisoned. The negative emotional states connected with this kind of attachment create a state of internal mental pressure or an inner emptiness and make us feel absolutely helpless at times. Over a period of many births, we have become so accustomed to these attachments and the various forms of suffering connected with it that we have started believing that these are an integral part of the human personality and human life since the beginning and are, therefore, natural. And so we continue with the sanskar and even keep strengthening it, never ever thinking that it should be removed. We do this with internal stress and unhappiness to the point that even our health gets affected adversely. The natural state of the self is free and not attached in this way to anything. Attachments, whether external or internal, are acquired at different points of time in birth-rebirth cycle and are not natural or there from the beginning. All the things mentioned in the last two days’ messages have existed from the beginning but attachment to them has not. The present suffering indicates to us that these types of attachments are something abnormal or not natural.

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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.

Shedding Off The Attachment To A Positive Past

A very powerful mis-identification (incorrect identification) that each one of us indulges in, to different extents, is identifying with our positive or glorious actions of the past. This identification is so strong that almost every day it comes to the surface of our consciousness when we switch on the movie of this story of these actions on the screen of our minds. By rehearsing this story repeatedly we love experiencing the same emotions and feelings that we felt at that time, emotions that we had enjoyed very much. We not only re-experience that pleasure but we also love to share the pleasure by persuading others to see that movie by broadcasting that movie in front of whoever we come across. This is normally done in the form of words by speaking about our professional or personal achievements, our educational qualifications, our experiences, actions for which we gained recognition, our history, etc., all a thing of the past. But this is not talking about the real self, this is just a story, thus it is a false identification with something we are not. Every time we indulge in this type of identification, we strengthen the incorrect belief that we are talking about our self. We believe the past is us. This is the incorrect identification.

If someone were to ask us to describe ourselves in a few words, instead of talking with humility about our spiritual self, our virtues, powers, strengths, etc., which is the real self, we quickly mention all of the above features of our past, thinking this will give the other an impression of our credibility. Even when we communicate with people over email or some other mediums, we are quick to mention all these things in our signature, etc. believing this is our story and portraying that we are in love with it and other people should identify us with this story as we do and love us for the same. To remember and identify with any memory of action that we created yesterday is to identify with what we do. And we are not what we do.

Excessive attachment to a glorious past is a subtle shade of the negative emotion of ego which colors my present perception of external events and which affects my present actions and responses, as a result of which not only present but my future is also affected.  As I hold on to it, my creativity is reduced and I do everything with a limited perspective, not letting myself grow and shape up a glorious present and future. There are some people whose goal is to achieve something so great in their lives so as to ensure they will gain recognition and respect by others in time to come. This is again a subtle shade of attachment and ego.

But shedding off this type of attachment is not easy and first requires the realization that this attachment is incorrect and damaging. The next step is sitting in silence and becoming aware of how you lose your identity in a story of past thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes and actions and then disassociating or detaching yourself from that story. You do not need to suppress or deny or fight with this story; otherwise its memory gets stronger and more overpowering. You just need to simply see and realize deeply that your past is just a record of a particular set of actions, which you committed at a particular point of time, it is a series of images of previous events that you witnessed and that you were a part of, all of which have left a record in your memory, and in the memories of others, but they are not what you are. This type of practice of disassociation with spiritual understanding fades the excessive memory of the story in your consciousness over a short period of time and these actions then cease to influence you in any way in the present. Here we are talking about an influence, which we have for long deceived ourselves into believing to be a positive one, but which in reality is not.

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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.