Get more out of life with deep silence

Silence is a valuable constituent of the game of life; silence is the key that has the potential to open doors; it can free you of confusion. Silence empowers you think things through and come up with solutions because it is only in silence you can listen well. You can listen to the deepest wisdom of your soul.

In the absence of silence you tend to get overtaken by the mind and the body, and emotions. The clutter prevents you from listening to your psyche and soul. To listen to your psyche, your soul, your Divinity, you need to establish a strong relationship with silence; without it we might remain unaware of many things. When we live on the surface, the noise is overpowering.

It may be interesting to carry out a small experiment with your life. Go some place where there is plenty of silence and quiet. Sit in silence and observe yourself. You will find that in that silence you are beginning to get to know yourself. People go to the Himalayas and the caves to find a silent, secluded place free of distractions. The ambience of quiet engenders the exercise of looking within.

The life we have designed and created; the life most of us live, is an outer life. The outside is a very beautiful world; we have created it with our consciousness. However, the inner world is even better, more powerful, stronger, greater and bigger. Whatever exists in the universe outside also exists inside you. The whole universe, and maybe more, exists inside you. With our limited mental, vital and physical capacities we are able to become a little bit aware of the outer world, but by bringing alive our inner world we can know much more. We wish for possible happiness and success; its the inner world that has the capacity to open many more possibilities for you.

Right now you are enjoying travelling. This is a possibility. You take decisions on the basis of the possibility of a peaceful, joyful, harmonious, healthy, mindful and clear life, without any kind of insecurity or fear, pain, sufferings, worries. That is the desire, the aspiration every one of us nurtures. If we are searching for those possibilities in the outer world it is not possible, because the outer world has different kinds of possibilities also. It can give every comfort you ask for, but with every comfort, there comes some discomfort too. With any outer joy, pain will also be there. With any outer happiness, unhappiness would come too. Anything that comes from the outer world comes with its opposite in tow.

Take some time off every day to be silent, even if for five or 10 minutes Feel it, experience it, and observe it. That is the moment when you are with you, when you available to yourself. When you are in silence you are living in the present, which we dont do very often.

Silence does not mean absence of speech. Silence is an inner state. Something will automatically change in your state, in your nature, and silence will establish itself. Even if you are in a catastrophe, no one can destroy your silence; no one can take the inner quiet away from you. Once silence starts helping you, helping your evolution, then you can enjoy the beauty of life.

Silence is a state of consciousness. Silence is not an effort. If you are making an effort to be silent you are making more noise. Silence is an effortless effort. It will be born spontaneously with your understanding. Silence is the birthplace of your soul.

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Airplane route to god

Indic scriptures describe paths we can safely follow to experience increasing happiness and escape suffering. For example, by serving others, we can purify our hearts and expand our awareness and feel God’s love flowing through us to others. By chanting, we can open our hearts and commune with God.

Paramhansa Yogananda would say that the “airplane route to God” is meditation. Meditation is a wonderful short cut to inner spiritual progress. Yogananda defined meditation very simply, as “concentration on God or one of His qualities”. The qualities of God include different aspects of the happiness that we long for – love, joy, peace, calmness, wisdom and power.

The challenge, in meditation, is to concentrate the mind so that we can offer ourselves to God without distraction and perceive His blissful qualities and absorb them with our whole being.

How can we bring more mental focus into our meditation? The key is to train the mind gradually in the habit of concentrating. Each of the meditation techniques devised by India’s sages has a special point of concentration. For example, many meditation techniques include the practice of “watching the breath” until the mind becomes calm and one-pointed.

Other practices focus on holding attention calmly at the point between the eyebrows, the brain centre of concentration and spiritual perception; or keeping attention on the inner sounds heard in meditation.

If we can feel devotion to God, it will help us tremendously in our efforts to concentrate, because the mind tends to follow the heart. We can also visualise a saint such as Yogananda or other great enlightened masters who will guide our efforts to commune with God. Prayer and chanting can also give a focus for our feelings and attention.

The first few minutes of each meditation are especially important, as they set the tone for the rest of our practice. We need to develop the habit of starting with deep concentration. It’s helpful to go into your meditation room with the expectation that you’ll dive deeply within. It’s also important to establish a kind of psychic barrier that says, “When I come here, I don’t bring cares or worries, or projects. Those things I leave outside the door!”

We can improve our ability to concentrate by practising focused awareness in daily life. Train yourself to do one thing at a time, with deep attention. It’s good to vary your practice of formal meditation techniques. For example, you could give some time to prayer, chanting and visualising the image of your guru, or a saint. These practices inspire devotion and will give you a “target” for your concentration.

Finally, there comes a time in meditation when we need to let go of all techniques, relax deeply, and feel God’s presence. Many people leave their meditation without doing this. But real depth of meditation demands that we go beyond outer practices, and simply be in the presence of God. Try to become absorbed in inner silence, in the vibration of His love. Then try to increase the intensity of that feeling and expand it. Feel that you are expanding that feeling farther and farther, beyond all limitations of your body and personality.


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The Legend of the Starfish

A vacationing businessman was walking along a beach when he saw a young boy.
Along the shore were many starfish that had been washed up by the tide and were sure to die before the tide returned. The boy was walked slowly along the shore and occasionally reached down and tossed the beached starfish back into the ocean. The businessman, hoping to teach the boy a little lesson in common sense, walked up to the boy and said, "I have been watching what you are doing, son.

You have a good heart, and I know you mean well, but do you realize how many beaches there are around here and how many starfish are dying on every beach every day. Surely such an industrious and kind hearted boy such as yourself could find something better to do with your time. Do you really think that what you are doing is going to make a difference?" The boy looked up at the man, and then he looked down at a starfish by his feet. He picked up the starfish, and as he gently tossed it back into the ocean, he said,

"It makes a difference to that one."

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Rich Or Poor - How Rich Are You?

One day a rich father took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose to show him how poor people can be. They spent a day and a night on the farm of a very poor family.

When they got back from their trip the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

"Very good Dad!"

"Did you see how poor people can be?" the father asked.

"Yeah!"

"And what did you learn?"

The son answered, "I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden, they have a creek that has no end.We have imported
lamps in the garden, they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have a whole horizon."

When the little boy was finishing, his father was speechless.

His son added, "Thanks Dad for showing me how rich they are!"

Author Unknown


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Isn't it true that it all depends on the way you look at things? If you have love, friends, family, health, good humor and a positive attitude toward life, you've got everything!

You can't buy any of these things. You can have all the material possessions you can imagine, provisions for the future, etc., but if you are poor of spirit, you have nothing!


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The Stone Soup

There are many variations on the story of stone soup, but they all involve a traveler coming into a town beset by famine. The inhabitants try to discourage the traveler from staying, fearing he wants them to give him food. They tell him in no uncertain terms that there's no food anywhere to be found. The traveler explains that he doesn't need any food and that, in fact, he was planning to make a soup to share with all of them.

The villagers watch suspiciously as he builds a fire and fills a cauldron with water. With great ceremony, he pulls a stone from a bag, dropping the stone into the pot of water. He sniffs the brew extravagantly and exclaims how delicious stone soup is. As the villagers begin to show interest, he mentions how good the soup would be with just a little cabbage in it. A villager brings out a cabbage to share. This episode repeats itself until the soup has cabbage, carrots, onions, and beets-indeed, a substantial soup that feeds everyone in the village.


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This story addresses the human tendency to hoard in times of deprivation. When resources are scarce, we pull back and put all of our energy into self-preservation. We isolate ourselves and shut out others. As the story of stone soup reveals, in doing so, we often deprive ourselves and everyone else of a feast.

This metaphor plays out beyond the realm of food. We hoard ideas, love, and energy, thinking we will be richer if we keep to them to ourselves, when in truth we make the world, and ourselves, poorer whenever we greedily stockpile our reserves. The traveler was able to see that the villagers were holding back, and he had the genius to draw them out and inspire them to give, thus creating a spread that none of them could have created alone.

Are you like one of the villagers, holding back? If you come forward and share your gifts, you will inspire others to do the same. The reward is a banquet that can nourish many.


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Who you are MAKES A DIFFERENCE -- THE BLUE RIBBON

A teacher in New York decided to honor each of her seniors in high school by telling them the difference they each made.

She called each student to the front of the class, one at a time. First she told each of them how they had made a difference to her and the class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold letters which read, "Who I Am Makes a Difference."

Afterwards the teacher decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community. She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this acknowledgment ceremony. Then they were to follow up on the results, see who honored whom and report back to the class in about a week.

One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon and put it on his shirt. Then he gave him two extra ribbons and said, "We're doing a class project on recognition, and we'd like you to go out, find somebody to honor, give them a blue ribbon, then give them the extra blue ribbon so they can acknowledge a third person to keep this acknowledgment ceremony going. Then please report back to me and tell me what happened."

Later that day the junior executive went in to see his boss, who had been noted, by the way, as being kind of a grouchy fellow. He sat his boss down and he told him that he deeply admired him for being a creative genius. The boss seemed very surprised. The junior executive asked him if he would accept the gift of the blue ribbon and would he give him permission to put it on him. His surprised boss said, "Well, sure." The junior executive took the blue ribbon and placed it right on his boss's jacket above his heart. As he gave him the last extra ribbon, he said, "Would you do me a favor? Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honoring somebody else? The young boy who first gave me the ribbons is doing a project in school and we want to keep this recognition ceremony going and find out how it affects people."

That night the boss came home to his 14-year-old son and sat him down. He said, "The most incredible thing happened to me today. I was in my office and one of the junior executives came in and told me he admired me and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine. He thinks I'm a creative genius. Then he put this blue ribbon that says 'Who I Am Makes A Difference'" on my jacket above my heart. He gave me an extra ribbon and asked me to find somebody else to honor. As I was driving home tonight, I started thinking about whom I would honor with this ribbon and I thought about you. I want to honor you.

My days are really hectic and when I come home I don't pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good enough grades in school and for your bedroom being a mess, but somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that you do make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life. You're a great kid and I love you!"

The startled boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn't stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father and said through his tears, "I have been contemplating suicide, Dad, because I didn't think you loved me. Now I know you care."

The boss went back to work a changed man. He was no longer a grouch but made sure to let all his employees know that they made a difference. The junior executive helped several other young people with career planning and never forgot to let them know that they made a difference in his life. The young boy and his classmates learned a valuable lesson.


Who you are DOES make a difference.


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A loving relationship

With consciousness we have created very beautiful concepts, and one of them is the idea of relationships.

Whatever we create, whatever we discover is to make life more comfortable, beautiful, peaceful and happy. We invest our mental, spiritual and psychic energies in building relationships.

The first relationship has to be with you. You must have a very clear relationship with yourself, knowing why you feel the way you do, why you think in a particular way and so on. The first step is to be aware of your own self.

Second, why do we want a relationship? Is it for happiness, for security? If that is so, the best source of what we call happiness and security is the Divine. So establish a relationship with the Divine. What is Divinity? Divinity is present everywhere, also in those you consider close to you. And having a close relationship with your psyche can give you everything you need.

In daily life, how do you find divinity in your spouse or companion, for instance? Be sincere and faithful. The key is to give without expectation. These things are possible if your understanding is healthy, if your consciousness is full of light and brightness.

How are relationships established? Even hunger can create relationships: you enter into relationships with food, don’t you? Grow with relationships, and at the same time remember that all possibilities are inside, they are not coming from the outside, what you are looking for outside you is inside you.

Your body is like a television set. It displays visuals all the time. So when you display negative things, it is in your hands to change the channel.

When we do meditation we are feeding the soul, and when you feel the hunger of your soul then constant meditation begins, and it becomes effortless. When your stomach is empty, all you think of is food, all your being is looking for food, but when you are full you don’t think about food at all.

The food for the soul is the Divine. Right now we are making an effort to remember the Divine, but when we start feeling the hunger, we will not have to make any effort; it will come naturally.

Aurobindo gives this concept of Divine life: he didn’t say that life is an illusion, that we have to run away from life, or go to the Himalayas. He just said that life is beautiful, and the future of life is life divine, sooner or later, when the psychic hunger starts. And life divine means that here, in this world, with these situations we have to awaken to the hunger of our being, listen and find that hunger. When we do that we will start seeing the Divine everywhere. Then there will be no ego.

Relationships sour primarily due to ego. Use your ego. But do not allow your ego to use you. It is a tool, if you know how to use it, it will build you and give you many wonderful things.

If the ego is using you, you will see ego everywhere. Only ego sees ego. Ego is without substance: a lack of knowledge, a lack of light. Hate is too much love. You never hate someone you don’t know. We call it hate but hate has also substance of love there. It is too much connection.

Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You