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MEDIATION IS FOR YOU

This is true. Most of the time we think about money, power or sex. We may give our thoughts different names – but finally it boils down to one of these three things. Here sex is not just sex, but indulgence of any kind.

If you are working at the office, you are ultimately doing it for money, for power.

If you are taking a holiday, your thoughts are focused on indulgence.

Just consider: what do you think about all the time?

It is sure to be one of these three things!

How often do you reflect on truth, on beauty, on goodness?

What is the need? you may think. Does my life depend on truth or beauty? My life depends on how much money I can make, how much power I can acquire!

But thoughts have the power to alter your life. When you reflect on something constantly, it can alter not only your state of mind, but also your state of life. When you constantly think about beauty, your life becomes more beautiful.

Be aware of what thoughts enter and leave your mind. Right now your mind is a 'free-for-all zone'. Any thought is free to enter, fight with other thoughts to occupy maximum space, stay as long as it pleases, and leave whenever it feels like. You have no control over the thoughts that are enter your mind and influence your life.

Just watch your thoughts.

Watch what is happening within you when certain thoughts enter.

You will notice that whenever thoughts related to anger, lust or greed enter your mind, they create a certain discomfort in your system. Whenever your ego is awakened, you feel uncomfortable. See what thoughts make you feel joyful and peaceful. Retain those thoughts and throw out the rest!

Become the watchman of your mind. Become aware of the flow of thoughts. See how deeply you identify yourself with your thoughts! You will find that your thoughts arise from your deepest unconscious mind. If you can alter the thoughts in your unconscious mind, you can alter the flow of your conscious life!

Try this: if you want to transform some aspect of your conscious life – for example, if you want to get rid of your anger or your prejudice – simply give instructions to your mind to make the change, just before you go to sleep.

You will be amazed to see, with repeated instructions to the unconscious, your conscious life too changes in the same direction!

Step 3 : Work on your emotions

Your emotions create your world.

Whether you believe it or not, whether you accept it or not – you are God!

You create your world out of your own feelings and emotions.

Be very clear: whatever is the state of your consciousness, your life will have the same quality.

When your feelings are clear and positive, the whole world becomes a beautiful place. Existence showers blessings upon you. When you are full of love, you will see love everywhere. When you are filled with hatred, you will receive only hatred.

This is not a moral story. This is the Truth. We are unable to perceive this because of our limited understanding. We begin to MEDIATION IS FOR YOU

search for reasons. The truth is, each of us is 100% responsible for the quality of our lives. When you begin to work on your emotions, you will see for yourself how true this is!

We don't realize how deeply our emotions influence us. In fact, we may think that all our actions are controlled by our mind, that we are using our intelligence to make decisions – but the truth is, most of your life is a result of your emotions.

There are three steps to work with your emotions:

1. Recognize your strongest emotions

What is it that moves you?

Which emotions control your actions?

Does your life revolve around hostility, aggression, and anger?

Are you frequently depressed for no reason?

Is it more important for you to love, or fight?

Be honest with yourself!

You must first acknowledge your emotions – otherwise how are you going to transform them?

Very often, people who live in a hostile environment develop a strong affinity for the negative emotions. They need it; it is a survival technique for them. They get all their energy from their negative emotions.

Research has proved that in the times of war, the crime and suicide rate in society goes down drastically. Because people have an open platform to express their negative emotions, they need not commit their crimes privately!

Even Hitler has said, If you want to make a country powerful, create enemies! The enemies need not even be real; they can even be imaginary enemies. As long as people are in a hostile situation, they feel strong. When they are rebelling, they feel powerful. All our energy gets very easily channeled into negativity.

Even depression is nothing but anger turned upon oneself. When you express the emotion, it is anger. When you repress it, it becomes depression. But both are the same negative energy.

When we focus on our negative emotions, when we nurture our sense of separateness, when we create an experience of 'me versus them', the ego feels very powerful. That's why many of us enjoy situations where we can be in a fighting position.

The positive, softer emotions always make us vulnerable. Love, joy, compassion – these are very fragile states of mind. When we experience these emotions, the boundary between ourselves and the world becomes weaker. The ego feels less powerful. That's why we all are afraid of these emotions. In a deeply unconscious way, we are afraid of love – because in love we have to surrender the ego.

But spirituality is nothing but the process of losing one's ego. If you are afraid even to love, because it makes you feel vulnerable – how will you move inward into meditation?

2. Focus on your positive emotions

What is your normal day like? Just think.

Throughout the day, you are flooded with different emotions. When you wake up, you are feeling joyful – or at least normal. Then your wife comes in with your coffee, and while putting it down on the table she spills some of it – and immediately, you are angry.

After a good breakfast, you are back in a good mood. Then you

get caught in traffic on the way to work – and you are ready to kill someone! At the office you have a project that's not going well – again, you experience stress. And so on.

Every minute, you are being bombarded by emotions. You are living your life on a rollercoaster of emotions. How long can you cope?

Fortunately, all our emotional experiences are not bad. For most of us, there will be some moments during the day when we are silent, joyful and meditative.

It could be a simple, everyday thing.

Sipping a cup of tea in your garden.

Taking a shower.

Listening to music.

Playing with your children.

There are moments like this in each day, for each of us. But how many of us focus on these moments?

When someone asks us, How did your day go? we only remember the traffic, the spilt coffee, the incomplete project.

For a change, why not focus on the positive experiences, the positive feelings in each day?

Try this experiment.

For 24 hours, continuously recollect ONLY the good things that happened that day. Be grateful for even little things: that it wasn't raining when you had to leave for work, that the marigolds in the garden are in bloom. Be thankful to your housemaid for not taking the day off. See, these are the things we forget! On the day

when the maid doesn't turn up, we never forget her – but when she does come, do we notice? Do we remember to thank her in our minds?

So when I say remember every positive thing, actually do it. Do it with complete sincerity. Just for 24 hours! You will see how your life feels transformed. Once you have tasted the joy of staying with positive feelings, you would never allow yourself to fall into depression again.

This exercise is not for fun. It is a survival technique! When you throw stones at life, life is going to throw stones back at you. If you greet life with flowers, you will get flowers in return. Later, you will receive a meditation technique that focuses on welcoming life with gratitude.

You may ask me, what happens to all the negative emotions you experience during the day? Even if you focus on remembering the positive feelings, the negative emotions are still there in your system! And they are accumulating all the time.

Through meditation, you can dissolve the old blockages in your system – but you have to be careful that new blocks don't develop. Every moment, you are facing new circumstances. For example, there are people who are going to make you angry, again and again. What are you going to do with all that excess energy circulating in your system?

Learn to transform the negative energy that is created into positive energy.

Remember, energy is neutral. Anger is neither good nor bad. Sexuality is neither good nor bad. These are just forms of energy. MEDIATION IS FOR YOU

It is up to you to use them creatively or destructively. Just as a knife can turn destructive in the hands of a child, but can be a life-giving instrument in the hands of a surgeon, you can use the same energy to produce radically different results.

If you learn to channelise your energy correctly, you can replace anger with creativity; turn your energy towards art, towards music, towards sports.

Learn to paint. Take up a sport. Cultivate a hobby. Go dancing! These are all pathways for energy, just as anger is!

The only difference is, these are creative pathways. Redirect your life, give your ordinary life a creative dimension. In this way, all your destructive energy is transformed into creative energy, with positive results.

When you start focusing on your positive emotions, you will find that your life automatically changes for the better. When you feel love, you give love, and you receive love. It is a beautiful cycle. Unless you have experienced this, it is impossible to believe. But it actually happens.

And don't think you have to be born with this attitude. Don't say, Oh, that man is so lucky, he is always walking around with a smile on his face. I'm the only one who is under so much stress!

A positive attitude is something that is cultivated. When you become filled with joy, misery will be afraid of you! Anger cannot touch you. Only when you cultivate a state of bliss inside can you make any progress in meditation.

Transform your life with love, laughter and gratitude.

Turn life into a celebration.

Only then can life become meditation.

TOWARDS MEDITATIVE LIVING

People ask me, 'What is tapas (penance)? Is tapas essential in meditation?'

What I am telling you is nothing but tapas!

Working on your body, your thoughts, your emotions – what is it if not tapas?

Tapas does not mean going up into the mountains and undertaking all kinds of spiritual practices, and performing all kinds of rituals!

Tapas does not mean going without food or clothes or living in a dark cave or torturing the body in any way. When you deprive your body in any way, there is always the danger of focusing more on the deprivation than on meditation. If I make you go without food even for twenty-four hours, you may stop eating food, but you will start meditating on food because of the hunger! You will be able to think of nothing but food. Real fasting does not mean meditating about the food that you haven't eaten, it means forgetting about food altogether. But not many people can see this difference. That's why the path of deprivation is not for everyone.

Of course, these are all different routes, just different ways of handling the body. Some meditators take the path of disciplining the body through austerities. But it is not necessary that everyone should follow that path.

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