To become
totally engrossed in yourself is a shortcut to utter misery.
Our minds
are like gardens in that both are places where weeds flourish. If
people were as vigilant at removing mental weeds as my mother is at
removing physical ones, the world would be transformed.
The road
to hell is paved with unexamined, negative thought patterns.
Most
humans on Earth choose to act like puppets by letting their belief
systems pull their strings and push their buttons. When you get sick
of puppetry, however, you can always cut the strings. Of course it is
a bit of a shock to become real, but eventually you right yourself and
then you can enjoy the show as a spectator. It's more fun from that
perspective.
The people
around us are like Christmas presents in that adults often get so
absorbed by the packaging that they fail to open the gift. Little
kids, however, know that the really good stuff is inside the box and
they dispense pretty quickly with the wrapping.
When two
people marry for the first time, most of them secretly believe that
they will be able to change the other, but this is immensely
unlikely ever to happen.
Whenever
you get really angry or upset with anybody or anything, you are giving
your personal power away to that person or event. The more agitated
you become, the more power you are transferring.
I suspect
that each of the Myers/Briggs personality types is predisposed to
certain spiritual practices. I am a strong INTF (introverted,
intuitive, feeling, judging) and this is one reason why I find
meditation so meaningful. Extroverts may find it less rewarding.
Many
people in relationships are so afraid of being alone that they put up
with a lot of crap.
The more
"bad" qualities that you share with another, the more you
will dislike him or her. OR The qualities that you feel uncomfortable
with inside of yourself, you are certain to HATE when you encounter
them in another.
The best
gifts come to us wrapped in fear, anger, anxiety, sorrow etc. However,
we often freak out and throw the gift away before it is opened because
we don't want to take the time and energy to unwrap it. This is what
psychiatrists call denial.
Any change
in your external life or circumstances indicates a shift in your inner
consciousness or belief system. The biggies here are when we begin and
end a relationship, change jobs or employers, move to different homes
or cities, create or heal disease, etc. The larger the change in your
external life, the larger the internal shift.
Naturally,
Souls have a better grasp on the "study of the soul" than
psychologists do. One reason why I encourage people to take the Myers
Briggs test is because it indicates the sixteen major ways people
experience life. The four psychological preferences are
introverted/extroverted, intuitive/sensing, thinking/feeling and
judging/perceiving. Your Soul chose your personality type very
carefully to maximize its learning opportunities in this incarnation.
An understanding of the different personality types also helps you to
get along better with others.
Our
subconscious minds contain many sub-personalities. For example, if you
are trying to lose weight, usually there is one sub-personality that
uses weight to protect itself from the world and another
sub-personality that wants to lose weight and to enjoy a higher level
of self-esteem. Basically, the strongest sub-personality prevails.
When people go on diets, the sub-personality that wants to lose weight
has taken control, but usually weight returns after the diet because
the scared sub-personality is stronger from the years of past
programming. You can contact and work with your sub-personalities
during meditation.
Human
beings are rarely happy because on the one hand we are afraid to live,
and on the other hand we are afraid to die.
If guilt
inspires you to clean up your act, then cling on to it by all means.
But if it does not motivate you to change, then it has become a guest
that has outstayed its welcome in your heart. KICK IT OUT!
The
thoughts that you plant in your mind are seeds. However, if you don't
sort these plants out as they sprout, your mind will become a chaotic
jungle where dark things flourish. Since you can't control a jungle
without a great deal of effort, it tends to control you.
Often we
get upset and angry because something in the present triggers a mental
recollection of an unpleasant event from the past. Whenever this
happens, you need to release the underlying past event from your
energy field through forgiveness.
We inherit
our basic beliefs from our parents as well as our genes. If we do not
examine these beliefs, however, we will pass them on to our children.
Often the
people who hurt us the most don't mean to. Usually, they are just
unconsciously acting out their family's belief system, which has
wounded them much more than they have hurt you.
An
addiction, like any other form of attachment, always leads to
suffering.
Don't take
it personally when people lash out at you. When animals are afraid,
they snap at people. When the people around us lash out at us, they
usually are coming from a place of fear.
You can
either react to events or you can observe them. However, the more you
observe them, the more detached you become from them.
Many
people in our society identify themselves with their job or their
money or their family. But if something happens to the job or the
money or the family, who are you then? Surely this is what the Book
of Job is all about.
A lot of
self-help techniques merely whitewash the veneer of the personality,
but the old self is still there and the veneer runs awfully thin at
times.
When you
don't even enjoy the things that you are addicted to, you know that
you are truly hooked.
Lurking
behind the facade of anyone who appears to be a real bastard or bitch
is a little kid screaming in agony.
U S West
did a large survey on how people learn. What they found is that
roughly one quarter of all people learn best through self-study -
reading and practicing on their own. Another quarter prefer to learn
through watching and listening - using visual imagery and audio
stimulation to pick up major concepts. Another quarter learn best
through partnering with another in one-on-one lessons or interacting
personally with experts. Another quarter prefer to learn in group
environments - in group settings, teams and classes. These concepts
are important because often when we interact with people who have a
different learning style, we have a hard time communicating our ideas
to them and sometimes we even believe that the other person is stupid
when they actually are bright.
