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July 28 - July 29, 2022
Feeling peaceful, happy, and content is not about avoiding challenges in our life, but about how we navigate through these challenges to reach the type of life we want to live.
“Experience is not what happens to a man, it is what a man does with what happens to him.”
We are the authors of our own life stories.
Challenges and difficulties may fall upon us, just as the monsoon rains fall upon our head. We don’t seek them or solicit them. They just come our way. We must choose how to respond.
The secret of life is finding balance:
we must balance the four crucial areas of our life: our personal life, our relationships, our work life, and our social contribution.
“Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, we cannot live without a spiritual life.”
Spirituality, in whatever genuine form of practice, brings purpose to our life and gives us a destination worth going to.
Behind the smiles, everyone is going through personal struggles we know nothing about.
Our egos are such that admitting our sorrows to someone else comes when we are incredibly humble or when we are in considerable pain.
our silent presence can be more powerful than a million empty words.
We must find positivity in the bleakest situations and live by the principle of gratitude.
“The mind is what we use to perceive the world. We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.
“I am not saying these problems don’t exist, but the real problem is that when negativity consumes the mind, not only do we lose the vision to see the beautiful things around us, but also the ability to solve the problems that confront us. We have to train our mind to focus on the positive and feel empowered to deal with the negative.”
Gratitude is not a feeling; it is a state of mind that can be developed, and it allows us to tap into a reservoir of unlimited positive energy. Being grateful happens in two steps. The first is to realize that there is good in the world and that good has fallen upon us. The second is to know that goodness is coming from something other than us,
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
“It’s not the happy people who are grateful; it’s the grateful people who are happy.
We must have a positive state of mind when dealing with problems. Think: is there anything positive about this situation I am in?
Being positive does not mean we neglect the negative. We must constructively deal with negative situations while simultaneously focusing on the positive. •Just like our tongue can be obsessed with something stuck in our teeth, our mind has a default setting to be obsessed about the negative. •Gratitude is a state of being that allows us to see the positive. It comes from realizing that there is good in the world, that some of that good is with us, and that those good things are coming from an external reality. That state of consciousness imbues us with positivity. •Even in times of difficulty
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“When words fail, music speaks.”
Exercise Reflect on the last twenty-four hours and identify three to five people or situations that you are grateful for. The more descriptive you are, the easier it will be to excavate the emotion of gratitude from within you. The daily description should consist of three to five people or things you are grateful for, and once every week, it should contain three to five action points to thank the people you are grateful for.
Learning to detach ourselves from situations that are outside our control is an imperative skill to learn for personal growth.
Many of our problems lie in not understanding our fundamental identity: we are not human beings having spiritual experiences; we are spiritual beings having human experiences.
“People who meditate develop a habit of practicing sincere gratitude, which helps them in all their relationships. It is a ‘relationship-strengthening emotion’ because it requires us to see how we’ve been supported and affirmed by other people.”
We should deal with each other sensitively; our attitude toward life affects how we act in our relationships.
“This happens with all relationships, not just in marriages. If we are not proactive in our relationships, they start to seem dry and become cumbersome. We have to have respect for the other person, which is reflected in how sensitively we treat them.”
When we treat inanimate objects, like buckets or our possessions, with disrespect or insensitivity, we will end up treating people the same.
This whole universe is connected, as are the parts of our life. When we treat things with disrespect, we may start doing the same with the people we love.
We must be sensitive with our words and actions. Being sensitive means to think about how the other person may feel before we say or do something.
How do we practice being sensitive? We must treat even inanimate objects with consideration and respect. If we do not, then the mentality of insensitivity may become a part of our general attitude. •One’s instinct or general attitude does not discriminate between things and people. Treating things badly can affect our attitude negatively, which may percolate into our relationships.
Isn’t this the story of our lives? Our friends and family are doing so many good things, but we neglect them and focus solely on the negatives. Wonderful things are occurring all around us, and within the people we love, but this type of person can only think about how the other forgot the key!
Seeing the best in people can be challenging at times, especially when we are in constant proximity to them. •We can perceive people in the following five ways: 1.See only bad and magnify it. 2.See good and bad, neglect the good and focus on the bad. 3.See good and bad, and be neutral to both. 4.See good and bad, choose to focus on the good and neglect the bad. 5.See the good and magnify it. •The ideal state is the fourth stage, in which one’s relationships flourish. •Reaching the fourth stage takes consistent hard work and practice.
Saying things in anger damages our relationships.
The most widely underestimated quality that can help us improve our relationships is forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness warms the heart and cools the sting. It is a choice that each of us has to make for ourselves to save our relationships and achieve peace of mind.
“How are they suffering? What are they feeling, to say such a thing? Is there some deeper chaos that is occurring in their life for them to say these words to me?” It’s not about supporting the hurtful comments made by others—it is about seeing what they are going through to be making them. This is empathy, an essential component of forgiveness.
When I fail at something—whether it’s an exam or a relationship—I may think that I am a failure. But just because I failed one time or even more than once in my life, does that really make the whole of me a failure? Similarly, just because someone may, on a rare occasion, have failed us, should we treat that person like a failure?
Monk Mindset: •Forgiveness is a deep and often obscure value to understand. •The principles we should know about forgiveness are: •Look beyond the situation: If we are hurt by someone’s words, try to understand why they spoke them. When people act harshly toward us,
most of the time they are suffering too. This is empathy. •Separate the episode from the person: Rather than being affected by the emotion of guilt by saying, “I am wrong,” or anger by saying, “You are wrong,” we should separate the “I” or the “You” and deal with the wrong. •Higher purpose: Can we forgive based on a higher principle? For example, in my story, the husband forgave the wife because he loved her, and they had a duty to their community and son. If chosen, this approach takes support and time and is not something that happens overnight. •Justice: On a personal level, we can forgive
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At work we tend to compare and compete with others, instead of comparing and competing with ourselves.
Open-minded people, on the other hand, grow by developing themselves. They know that nobody is their competition.
They are their own competition. Every day they keep striving to become better versions of themselves, even if the growth is only a tiny fragment. They feel uncomfortable if they remain the same as they were yesterday. The actor Matthew McConaughey spoke about this principle in his 2014 Oscar acceptance speech.”
“We should imbibe this thought pattern of self-competition, rather than feeling insecure about others going ahead. We should be striving to do our very best to realize our dreams about our future selves. Not only will this attitude keep our mind free from envy and insecurity but it will also help us reach our fullest potential, bringing immense success and a deep sense of satisfaction.”
“You do not need to give up everything or make dramatic changes to start living your purpose. Your purpose does not necessarily mean your job either,”
We should understand ourselves to know what is meaningful to us and what we want to devote our time to. This can be done by understanding our purpose, which takes dedication and patience. •Discovering our purpose is exciting, just as opening a gift gives the feeling of anticipation and joy. Reaching our purpose in life is a journey, not an event. •The Japanese have a model called ikigai or a “reason to live,” which is composed of four traits we need to understand: What do we love? What are we good at? What does the world need? What can we be paid for? Sairaj and his family discovered that for
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what motivates people to take action is not the conviction in their heads, but the inspiration of their hearts.
This is because people are touched more by what we do than what we say. We feel inspired by those who live with the right conduct, character, and integrity, or sadachar in Sanskrit. Philosophy without good character is of little or no value.
Good character has the ability to change lives. It has to do with our actions, not our words. •The principles of developing character are: •Vichaar: The life philosophy we follow. We must learn from it. •Aachaar: The action based on that philosophy. We must do it. •Prachaar: The good conduct that is displayed to the world through those actions. We must practice it. •What great men do, common men follow.
On one level, we practice selflessness in helping our family. Our day-to-day sacrifices to maintain our family relations are acts of selflessness. We do not necessarily have to run marathons like Lata Khare to display our devotion to those we love. •Our circle of selflessness should not end with our family. We should help those outside of our immediate care and affection too.
It’s in moments of great grief that we understand what people mean to us,
