“How deserving do I feel?”
Do I know what my personal values and attitudes are?
Do I feel deserving of a good life?
I know intellectually that I deserve the best but, do I believe this when I'm living my life? Do I sometimes have negative thoughts? Do I react to the thought triggers from the past that want to play themselves out? (In Sanskrit we call this process Samskara.) It’s tricky but what we have to do is change the thought patterns that are not good for us.
When I don’t feel that “I” deserve the best, it’s most likely the chatterbox in the head, the Egoic mind that is giving the wrong information. If the chatter in mind is thinking negatively then we need to change them. We can become so familiar with these thoughts that we start to believe them and act on them.
The good news is that the negative thoughts can all be reversed. With our daily meditation practise the ego mind becomes less of a chatterbox because the nervous system begins to normalize itself and we throw off the negative thoughts through stress release. Our deserving power becomes stronger and we begin to trust and love ourselves for who we really are deep inside.
The following piece was written by Jeff Kober in his thought for the day on "Inner Voices May 28th".
Deepak Chopra gives a great explanation about Samskara’s.
When they tried to understand how the mind traps itself, the ancient Indian sages devised the key concept of samskara (from two Sanskrit word roots that mean "to flow together"). A samskara is a groove in the mind that makes thoughts flow in the same direction. Buddhist psychology makes sophisticated use of the concept by speaking of samskaras as imprints in the mind that have a life of their own. Your personal samskaras, built up from memories of the past, force you to react in the same limited way over and over, robbing you of free choice (i.e., choosing as if for the first time). - from The Book of Secrets.
Jeff Kober writes -
Negative thoughts, negative behaviours, negative self-talk--all are the product of the stresses that we have stored throughout the course of our lifetime. The samskaras. They are grooves of feelings, thinking and choices, ruts that can be difficult to climb out of. Meditation daily melts away these stresses and the ruts become progressively less deep until finally, they are no longer there at all. But even then, the old habits of thought can still be there. We must, in fact, teach ourselves new habits. Embrace new thoughts. Thoughts of why it's okay to let go of the old, let go of blame of self and others, and why it's okay to love--ourselves and others.
Words from our beloved Guru Deva, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati
You deserve the best.
Never feel unworthy or
not justified in having the best.
I tell you, this is your heritage;
but, you have to accept it.
You have to expect it;
you have to claim it.
To do so is not demanding too much.
Swami Brahmananda Saraswati is the teacher we honour as the representative of the Holy Tradition, that lineage of men and women who have carried the wisdom of the Vedas down through the ages, and to us. It is from this holy man, whom we know as Guru Deva, that we have this meditation we practice.
Lastly a quote from Louise Hay- “Learn to love yourself and trust the Divine intelligence within you. The Universe will bring you what you need if you simply allow it.”
"I Love You"
It’s easy to say these three words “I Love you”, but what do they mean?
Listen and read from four expert Teachers on “Love”.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi –
"Love opens all doors, no matter how closed they may be, no matter how rusty from lack of use. Your work is to bring unity and harmony, to open all doors which have been closed for a long time. Have patience and tolerance. Open your heart all the time."
Helen Fisher - Anthropologist, expert on love
https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_studies_the_brain_in_love
Thom Knoles - known in India as Maharishi Vyasananda Saraswati
What is Love from the Vedic Worldview.
https://www.facebook.com/VedicMeditation/posts/10151503527112206
Thich Nhat Hanh – What is True Love?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8IMoN_9TyA
"I close my eyes in order to see."
"I close my eyes in order to see."
Keep Meditating, keep looking inside for all you need to know.
"Today I will close my eyes in meditation to look deeply into my Being and into my Heart. I will remind myself that I create everything in my world that brings Abundance, Joy and Happiness in everything I do."
May 2018 bring you all Love, Joy and Happiness.
Celebrate your Life
The truth is, everything that has evolved up to this moment including all the ups and downs in life, has been structured in my own consciousness.
How do I know this? I can’t blame anyone, I can’t say it was because of this or that or "if only I had done things differently." My teacher Tim Brown used to say “Everything is well and wisely set in place.” My response was “but how can that be, I would not have chosen the difficult things in life to happen.” He would just repeat these words over and over. Today I know differently -what I perceive, what I attract, what I think about, everything, is all structured in my consciousness.
If I focus on the unhappy times I can get stuck in feeling there is nothing to celebrate, but when I think of all the amazing, wonderful things that have happened I can only feel gratitude.
Life is about evolving and expanding and loving everthing about it. Taking responsibility for my own evolution and my own state of consciousness. Every day in meditation I arrive at my inner quiet place, to rest in the most evolved part of myself, Being.
Then, after meditation I come to my fine level of feeling/intuition to listen and watch for the cues that take me in the direction of where I need to be. I keep moving forward with what I know and understand to be purposeful and fulfilling.
Today I will celebrate my life. I will learn from the past, I will seek guidance from God/the Universe and take direction and purpose into the future. Look inside myself for the answers and make life a celebration.
Riding the waves of Happiness
Riding the waves of Happiness!
There is one thing we can be sure of besides change and that is, I am the only one who can make me Happy. I am responsible for the way I think, feel and act and that means I am also responsible for my Happiness. I am the experiencer of my world and therefore I alone have the power to change any negative or unhappy thoughts.
Nobody else knows what I am feeling, thinking or perceiving in my world and when I accept this fact only then can I take responsibility and stop blaming others for my unhappiness and suffering.
I may feel anger, frustration, resentment and so on, it’s natural, but when my reactions and behaviours cause me to suffer then it’s up to me and only me to recognise these thought patterns and to change them. The mind is always looking for greater happiness, so don't get stuck in the poor me's, ask for help and Nature will always support you to change old behaviours and patterns. The intellect will be corrected creating new pathways and transmitters in the brain and body.
Happiness can mean many things e.g. love, contentedness, bliss, gratitude, not suffering, good health and wellbeing, living a frictionless life, creativity, abundance, clearer thinking. Becoming a giver and not a taker, surrendering preferences and becoming the best version of myself.
Here are some tips on ways to live a happier, more balanced and integrated lifestyle.
- Twice daily Meditation - Meditation Transcends the Mind to greater happiness to experience Being in it’s most rested, blissful state.
- Eat well - Use food as your medicine for good health and wellbeing.
- Sleep – if we sleep too much it creates dullness and fatigue. When we don’t sleep enough it creates dullness and fatigue. In Ayurveda, it is recommend going to bed at 10pm and rising before 6am.
- Recreation – The body should be given the rest it needs, to experience the best while in activity. We don’t go to the extreme of feeling exhaustion from overworking, playing hard or having too many late nights - nor do we want to go in the opposite direction to be completely inactive. Recreation should be done in proportion, not too little and not too much.
Today if I catch myself blaming other for my unhappiness I will take responsibility for my own emotions and feeling and come back to self- referral of what my thoughts and behaviours are about.
Until next time...
Love & Jai Guru Deva
Here is a link to the latest podcast by Thom Knoles on Unconditional Happiness. https://soundcloud.com/thom-knoles/unconditional-happiness
"Relation-Ships"
Dear Meditators
Over a lifetime we encounter many different kinds of relationships. With families, friends, acquaintances, work colleagues etc. Each relationship has many layers according to how much attention and time we give them and how many connections we make with those relationships. Some of the relationships are the loving kind, the intimate kind, the kind that are long lasting and some short lasting, the kind you talk to about the weather with and don’t give much information away about yourself.
Then there is the angry, destructive relationship’s, the kind that leave you with a lot of stress in the nervous system. The kind we may hang on to because of the experiences we have had or the connections that still bind us to the past. These emotions and feelings can keep us stuck in the past and stuck somewhere within those relationship layers of stress. As my teacher Thom Knoles says we are on the “Relation- Ship”. Sometimes they are rocky and stormy, other times they are smooth sailing.
When negative emotions and feelings from relationships come to the surface we have a choice to either ignore them and put them away for another time or to cut through the layers of the emotions to understand ourselves and the other person better. We can always choose to make a start by placing our attention on the relationship and by not ignoring the truth.
If a relationship is meant to evolve and not end then it can go in many different directions but it must evolve in "Love" and not in suffering to survive. Love is surrendering our preferences so that we have shared experiences. We set ourselves and the other person free of suffering in order to come back to Love and Unity again and again.
Every day in our meditation we have an opportunity to go within. To allow change to begin. To improve and change our reactions and behaviours within our relationships, to make them stronger and more loving. We can choose to let go of the need to continue with the suffering. Take a break from the chatter of the mind and allow the peace and quiet to come in. Within every layer of a relationship and at the heart and basis of everything we do is LOVE. Love yourself first and this will be at the very core of your essence – Being.
See every opportunity to turn energy coming from us into Love. When we choose Love consciously it multiplies and grows, we feel energized by it.
Until next time... Be the radiating light of Love for all the world to see.
Learning from our Mistakes
Learning from our Mistakes
If you can learn from your mistakes, then you have already transformed the garbage into a flower, for your own joy, for the joy of your ancestors, for the joy of the future generations, and also for the joy of the person who was the victim of your ignorance and your lack of skilfulness. Very often we have done that out of our un-skilfulness, not because we wanted to harm that person, or we wanted to destroy the person, or because we wanted him or her to suffer. We were unskilful, that is all. I always like to think of our behaviour in terms of it being more or less skilful, rather than in terms of good and evil. If you are skilful, you can avoid making yourself suffer, and making the other person suffer. If there is something you want to tell the other person, then yes, you have to tell it. But there are other ways to say it that would not make the other person suffer, and yourself suffer also. So, the problem is not whether to tell or not to tell what you have in your heart, the problem is how to tell it so that suffering will not be there. That is why this is a matter of art, and of our practice also.
-Thich Nat Hanh
We all make mistakes, it doesn’t feel good, but it can be the very thing that helps us grow and to change. We don’t have to overthink things or fill our heads with stories of - he said she said. Once we acknowledge our mistake and take responsibility for them, our thought patterns change, we become more self-aware.
Mistakes can be our best Teachers and so are the people around us when we're faced with handling conflicts and difficult situations. It’s not easy to admit when we are wrong, but these are the moments to change our thinking and not to ignore them. When someone presses my buttons and I react, I open myself up to suffering. How I react in these situations is of great importance to my learning and personal growth.
It’s easier to blame the other person and to be self-righteous rather than admitting I am wrong. Sometimes it’s easier not to speak and to let the other person have their own way, but then I may suffer in silence - this can cause resentment, anger and health problems. Sometimes we just let off steam, then think about it later. We are always "wiser in hindsight", it's a good saying and another opportunity to learn from our mistakes.
When I calm down after a confrontation I can asked myself - what just happened, why am I still suffering? The answers will become clearer. Either I have made a mistake or the other person may have been reporting on their own state of consciousness and it wasn’t really about me anyway. Communication, compassion and understanding with ourselves and with the other person at these times will strengthen relationships and bring insight into your own personal growth.
The importance of managing our own behaviour and learning from our mistakes is paramount to raising our consciousness. Our twice daily meditation releases the stress in order to make space inside so that we can recognise and learn from our mistakes and deal with whatever situations that come up. When we create peace and harmony within ourselves everything flows easily, we feel happy and contented.
Until next time...
Liz
Listen to your inner voice
The intuitive inner voice that Wayne Dyer speaks about comes from our Inner Being, Pure Consciousness, he calls it "Our Soul." As Meditators we have direct access to our inner voice when we meditate and in the present moment. When calmness grows inside our inner voice becomes clearer and we follow charm.
One quarter of the year has past already, it's a good time to review and reflect on these words of wisdom.
A few questions to get us started -
What burning desires do I have in my Soul right now?
Is there something that I have always wanted to do but something or someone is holding me back? Trust that you can achieve anything when you make up your mind. Nature will start offering you ways of achieving whatever you desire.
What have I Mastered in my life so far?
An example from my list last year - I went white water rafting down the Ganges River in India, now that was a big and wonderful achievement. Fear didn't hold me back but some years ago I could not even put my face in the water to swim. To overcome my fears I had swimming lessons and now I can put my whole body under water and enjoy it.
Do I have regrets?
We don't want to come to the end of our lives and say "I didn't do what I wanted to do because of ........., or I am still angry with that person or situation that happened many years ago. We can't change the past and it is such a waste of time holding onto old regrets. What we can change is our thinking about those situation or people and move on. Not easy but it is so worthwhile.
Nature offers us many wonderful opportunities. Remember what we put our attention on grows. Let go of fears, regrets, anger and doubts. Choose fearlessness over fear and self-love over self-destruction.
Love everything about yourself, the good as well as the things you do not like. Love everything and love everybody.
Life is too short "Don't die with your music still inside you."
Love & Jai Guru Deva
Liz
Living without Fear
We have all experienced Fear. The ego mind wants to keep us safe, to survive and to protect us from danger. The ego voice tells us what we should do or not do out of Fear of death. Usually when it involves the emotions and feelings of Fear it can and usually is false. FEAR is - False Evidence Appearing Real.
Fear is a negative emotion that shows up in many different forms ie anxiety, claustrophobia, fear of death, anxiety about what might or might not happen. Fear of not having enough work or enough money, fear of failure in relationships, fear of travelling etc. Whatever the fear thought patterns are about they can feel very real and are very debilitating.
When the stress hormones Adrenalin and Cortisol release into the body, the brain is looking for answers and how it should respond. The fear hormons bubble up as anxiety and the flight fight response. These emotions and feelings happen very quickly. The more we feel them the bigger the fear and anxiety symptoms grow and take hold.
There is a place for fear that can work to our advantage - if we have to fight off a predator or speak in front of a large audience. But if fear is manifesting itself and it is not for those reasons then we can respond in an inappropriate way. The reality of what is happening at that time does not match our response.
The emotional feelings of fear are very real in the body. The mind imagines the thing has already happened and we can create the future from these anxious thoughts. The mind will then justify to itself and persuade us into thinking that it was right to feel fearful in the first place.
How do we change the fearful and anxious thoughts? Meditation is one of the big resources that can alleviate Fear. Keeping up a daily practise gives us a higher Consciousness state and it is through meditation that the intellect changes the thought patterns and transmitters in the nervous system.
By realising what the fear is about and where it comes from then we are in a very different headspace. The higher state of consciousness, the mind and body will be able to adapt and respond differently. The three R's - Recognise the Fear, Realise the triggers, then ask yourself "is this the same situation or is it different?" The Response to fear can be changed quickly by adjusting the thought patterns. It takes practise and courage and is so worthwhile.
The Serenity Prayer is a great comforter at fearful and anxious times.
"God grant me the Serenity to Accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can and the Wisdom to know the difference."
It has been some time since I sent the link to the audio by Thom Knoles (Vedic Master and my Teacher) on Life Without Fear: Cultivating Personal Invincibility. It is worth sharing again and will be a great resource for you to have in the future.
Enjoy listening to the Audio on Sound cloud here.
Until next time.....
Rewrite the software of the mind
Dear Meditators
Hope you have had a great start to the year.
A few quotes and thoughts to share this month.
“To change the printout of the body, you must learn to rewrite the software of the mind”.
When the stress hormones Adrenalin and Cortisol race through the body, we call this the fight or flight response, when we sense danger or could also prepare us when meeting challenges of a positive nature. The mind and brain scan the body to work out how it will respond and the body then prints it out through the nervous system and our senses.
When you adapt well you stay focused, energetic, and alert. In emergency situations, stress can save your life, i.e. giving extra strength when an accident is about to happen.
Stress is what keeps you on your toes during a presentation at work, sharpens your concentration when you’re attempting a challenge like speaking in front of an audience, going for a job interview or drives you to study for an exam when you'd rather be watching TV.
When were in a constant state of anxiety from negative stress our health begins to suffer, sleeping can become difficult, heart rate and blood pressure is effected, the immune system starts to break down and the body starts to print out all types of health problems.
The effects of chronic stress – The body does not distinguish the difference between the physical and the psychological when there is a threat to be dealt with.
If I laugh together with someone, that joy is reflected in my nervous system. If I watch a violent movie, the impression of that violence is recorded in my brain. Whatever I put my attention on becomes part of me. Remember how important it is to choose activities that nourish us.
“Our attention is like fertilizer – whatever we put it on grows”. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Of all the brain changing experiences in life, research shows that none is more powerful in a good way than those minutes spent in the morning and evening meditating, quietly settling down and transcending thought. After Meditation, we feel rested and refreshed. Experiencing the most pivotal moments in life becomes a natural everyday occurrence.
Just a reminder, as always, I am available for a chat over the phone or book in for a Mentoring session with me or book in for a free checking and refresher session. Also, this year I am running Exploring the Veda course for all Vedic Meditators see below for details and our yearly Rounding Retreat will be held at Bolitho House in Canyonleigh, Southern Highlands in May.
Until next time
Jai Guru Deva
