Living the Actual Moment

Here is a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh that describes clearly, and in simple words, what it means to live in the present, in the actual moment.

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future; live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.”

These words speak about patience, inner peace, attention, concentration and self-discipline. This is the way to live more consciously and more fully, and to find joy in whatever you do.

Acting in this way takes out boredom and drudgery from of every act, because you are fully focused on it. Also, when you are fully focused on what you are doing, you do fewer mistakes, and have more chances of success.

Living in the moment eliminates unnecessary thoughts and worries, and brings you self-mastery and inner peace.

Focusing on what you are doing at the moment, and living solely in this moment, as if what you are doing is the most important thing in the world, is a meditation that you can always practice, at any time and place.

Refer: http://www.successconsciousness.com/

When One Door Closes Another Door Opens

“When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

- Alexander Graham Bell -

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one, which has been opened for us.”

- Helen Keller -

These two quotes are so true! Read them again, they both say:

When one door closes another door opens.

People are too often attached to the past, to what they are familiar with, and therefore miss opportunities that stand right in front of them. Doors may close, but there are always unlimited numbers of doors – new opportunities. The world is full of opportunities, if we could only see them. The Infinite Power is infinite, and so the possibilities are without number.

Not every plan works out, there are losses and failures, there are problems in relationships, loss of money or job, sometimes unpleasant things happen. We don’t always have control over these happenings, but we can exercise control over our attention and attitude. When one of these things happens and we focus our attention on the loss – the closed door, we see only a closed door with the resultant frustration and unhappiness, but if we could only move our sight and attention away from the closed door, we might be surprised to discover a row of open new doors.

It might not be so easy to move our eyes elsewhere due various reasons, such as attachment to the old and familiar, and fear of the new and the unknown.

Many find it difficult to stop their stream of controlled thoughts, and consequently their mind keep focusing on the loss, failure, and frustration – the door that has closed. Will these thoughts help in anything, except of creating suffering and preventing any change and improvement?

You might agree with what is being said here, but how can you free yourself past attachments and see new opportunities? How can you bring yourself to realize, see look and enter the new doors that open for you?

This might need some effort on your part:

• You will need to be more aware of your thoughts.

• Desire to free yourself from thoughts that keep you stuck in one place.

• Develop some degree of self-discipline.

• Develop some concentration ability and control over your mind.

• Take advantage of the power of affirmations and visualization.

• Some degree of inner peace is also required, since inner peace helps you reject unwanted, negative thoughts, and become more open-minded, positive and happy. When you experience inner peace, it would be easier for you to detach yourself from the past, keep an open mind, and therefore see more clearly the new doors that open for you.

Don’t forget, when one door closes another one opens.

Message For the Day

To be special means to have a gift for everyone we meet.

Projection:

Usually we are ready to give physical gifts to people but when it comes to being a giver in the form of understanding or love, we cannot always be a giver. We usually begin to expect from others.

Solution:

We need to make sure that we have a gift for everyone we meet; it could even be a smile or a kind word. When our focus is on what we have to give, we will be free from expectations from others. This will make us truly special.

Message For the Day

Knowledge and faith bring the ability to be positive.

Projection:

Whenever things don't happen according to what we expect we begin to look at everything negatively. We are caught up with the negativity to such an extent that we are not able to find anything that might be positive in it.

Solution:

We need to understand and develop the faith that behind everything seemingly negative there is something positive. It is up to us whether we want to see positive in negative or negative in positive and be influenced accordingly.

Message For the Day

To recognize the uniqueness of one's own role is to be free from negativity.

Projection:

When we find things going wrong with us, we sometimes wish for a change in our role. We begin to compare ourselves with others or wish for something better in our life, which makes us lose all our enthusiasm. We then make no effort to better our role.

Solution:

We need to recognize the importance of our own role. Like an actor who doesn't make effort to change his role but brings perfection to his own role, we, too, need to concentrate on our own role. The recognition of the importance of our own role and the desire to bring excellence to it makes us free from negativity.

Message For the Day

Where there is courage there is success.

Projection:

When we are involved in a task, we sometimes experience setbacks. Such setbacks often make us lose our confidence and we no longer have faith that we will succeed in the task. We then lose all courage to go ahead with the task and lose every chance of achieving what we have to.

Solution:

We need to remind ourselves that we achieve success to the extent that we have courage. We need to make effort to maintain our courage even during the most difficult circumstances. Only when we do this will we continue to put in effort, which will bring us success at the right time.

Message for the DAY

Detachment adds quality to each and every action.

Expression:

When we are detached, we will not be bound by the action itself, but will perform the action in a detached way. This means that we perform the action, yet we are not dependent on the fruits of the action. This automatically increases its quality. Then we would be free and uninfluenced by the bondage of the action.

Experience:

In any situation where we find ourselves doing a lot yet with a feeling of not attaining anything, we should ask ourselves if we are attached to the task at hand. The more we are attached, the quantity of work that we put in increases at the cost of the quality. When we are detached we are able to give our best in all that we do.

Winners & Losers

Message For the Day

To be clean means to be a success.

Projection:

We usually interact with others based on our past experiences with them. Even if there has been a single negative experience with someone, we keep that in our mind and all our responses are based on that experience. We are, then, not able to be fully successful in our relationships.

Solution:

In order to succeed in our relationships we need to keep our mind free from the experiences of the past. We can do this when we look at the uniqueness and speciality of each individual that we come into contact with. This practice makes us respect all and be free from the negativity of the past.

Message for the DAY

To be open to change means to experience constant progress.

Projection:

We usually judge the situation according to our past experiences and we don't want to change our responses to the situation. Because we have succeeded once we feel that the particular response will bring us constant success.

Solution:

We need to learn from our past experiences but also need to take care to be open to whatever new learning the situations may have to offer to us. When we keep learning from every new situation that comes our way we will be able to experience constant progress.

Message for the DAY

To have love for the self means to finish the weaknesses within.


Projection:

When we make a mistake we usually think about it a lot and continue to feel guilty. The continued thought about the mistake magnifies it and we think it is difficult to change or overcome that weakness.

Solution:

Like a mother who accommodates the mistakes of the child, yet has the best wishes for the child to be free from them, we, too, need to deal with ourselves with love in order to finish the weakness that is working within us. We need to recognize and work with some speciality that is within us, which will help us overcome the weakness.

Message For the Day

Real progress can be experienced when we are faced with obstacles.


Projection

When faced with obstacles in our path, we usually tend to have negative feelings. We either experience fear or irritation and we don't enjoy the work anymore, our total focus being on the result. We only wait for the outcome not really bothered about enjoying the effort that we need to put in.

Solution

When we are encountered with a difficult situation, instead of seeing it as an obstacle, we need to see it as an opportunity to evaluate ourselves and see where we stand. We can then use this understanding to bring improvement in ourselves. When we constantly work on ourselves in this way, we will never stop when faced with obstacles, but will experience constant progress in our life.

Message For the Day

The one who is free from desire is the one who is able to maintain positivity.

Expression

When we put forth our ideas to others we expect them to listen to us. Our idea changes to desire and when it is not accepted we then tend to become irritated. And along with it comes jealousy or dislike for the others and we find ourselves caught up in negativity.

Experience

We need to make sure that we share our ideas with others but at the same time we need to keep ourselves free from any selfish motive. When we put forth our idea in a detached way, we too will be open to learning and we will be able to accept any criticism or rejection that comes our way. Thus we will be free from negativity.

Message For the Day

The method to finish negative is to transform it and make it positive.

Projection

When someone says something that we find negative we normally tend to speak about it to others. Having recognized that it is negative, instead of finishing it we usually talk about it. Without realizing that we are only increasing negativity by talking about it we spread it to others. Naturally instead of finishing, it only increases all the more.

Solution

When we find someone with negativity, we need to make effort to look at something positive in that person. We need to recognise the fact that each one is special and has some or the other positive quality. When we make effort to look at the positive in the other person we will be able to finish the negativity in our mind first and will be able to inspire the others to finish it too.

Message For the Day

Real positivity is being positive even in negative situations.

Projection

It seems very difficult, if not impossible, to maintain positive thoughts when we are faced with a negative situation. Even with a strong intention to be positive, challenges come in the form of relationships, physical illness, difficult circumstances etc and we find ourselves weakening .

Solution

A long time of practice of maintaining inner self-respect is what will help us in a difficult situation. To maintain self-respect means to understand and appreciate our own uniqueness. With this practice of self-respect we will not be dependent on the external situation but will find the strength within.

Message for the day

The one with the vision of perfection constantly experiences progress.

Projection

Many times, as we are moving ahead in the path of our life, we find ourselves stagnating. There seems to be no progress at all in any aspect of our life. We try to bring about a few changes that work for sometime. But after sometime we find ourselves dissatisfied and we stop trying.

Solution

We need to have the vision of perfection constantly in front of our eyes. We need to ask ourselves what is it that we expect out of ourselves, to be a source of joy to others, to keep learning.... it could be anything that inspires us to constantly move ahead while appreciating all that life brings.