LEARNING TO LOVE MY SELF and TAME MY OWN MIND IS THE KEY TO HAPPINESS, PEACE and FREEDOM
How to tame your own mind through prayer and meditation and achieve peace of mind, inner joy and freedom.
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This is WEEKEND EDITION of THE DAWNING LIGHT Magazine # 1324
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Today we are featuring our “SPIRITUAL SOUP KITCHEN Section” # 231… Stories about using the challenges and rewards of daily life as your spiritual path
Lovingly written and shared by Chinmayan to inspire you to come within yourself and discover the beauty and refuge of your inner world.
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IN THE SOLITUDE OF THE NIGHT
It is the middle of the night, in the wee hours of the morning, here on Still Mountain.
It is deliciously quiet, except for the sound of light rain falling on the roof of our tiny house. It feels as if everyone else in this high mountain valley is asleep and dreaming, while I alone am making this journey through the night.
I am grateful for the solitude and the opportunity these hours contain for undistracted writing and prayer… so different from our days and all of the demands of daily life.
I count myself as one of the most fortunate men in the universe most of the time because I am finally living a life most suited for maximum spiritual growth and being of service to humanity.
I am grateful for each new day that comes, for the work that needs to be done and for the freedom to choose what to do and when.
MEDITATION IN ACTION DURING THE DAY and INNER MEDITATION and PRAYER AT NIGHT
I now have balance between meditation in action during the daylight hours and meditation, prayer, writing and doing the inner work in solitude during the night.
After a lifetime of meditation, prayer and applying spiritual principles, I have reaped the rich results of all this persistent inner work in many ways.
One is that I do have clear awareness of my thoughts and a certain amount of control over my own mind, which then makes it possible for me to be in the highest states of consciousness, to experience the ineffable bliss of my true Self and have ever deepening inner peace and pure Love.
I am not more special or gifted than any one else, but I have always been determined to use my life experience to heal and evolve spiritually and then to help as many others who are suffering to travel their own spiritual path and become free.
IF I CAN ACHIEVE PEACE OF MIND AND FREEDOM…YOU CAN TOO!
If I can do it and achieve these higher states of being and freedom, I know anyone who really wants it and is willing to do the inner work required can achieve this state which is far better, sweeter and fulfilling than anything available in normal life.
If we are ever to have lasting happiness and peace of mind, we must learn to love ourselves and accept and use the life we have now in the most conscious, best way possible.
Whether our lives are miserable and full of pain and suffering or not depends entirely on how we use our own minds.
THE POWER OF CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSING YOUR THOUGHTS
“The ability to choose your thoughts is the difference between freedom and pain.
One thing for sure is true—
Nothing but your own thoughts can hurt you.
Today will not be any better than your thoughts.
Choose your thoughts wisely…as you can only go as high as your thoughts.”
—Robert Holden
I have met many people who are wealthy and seem to have everything that the normal world says we have to have in order to be happy in terms of worldly success, but who are confused, miserable and unhappy because they lack the essential things that make life meaningful and worth living.
LEARNING TO LOVE AND ACCEPT YOURSELF IS A KEY TO HAPPINESS
Until you learn to have a life long love relationship with your self, in which you respect and accept and appreciate yourself, and forgive yourself when you make mistakes…
and have self confidence so strong and clear that no one or anything outside you can take it from you, your experience of happiness and peace of mind will always be like striking a match that will burn out after a bright flash of light.
It is true, and always worth remembering that attitude determines altitude.
The more positive, loving and conscious your attitude, the more positive, loving and conscious your life experience will be.
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
OUR MINDS CAN BE OUR OWN WORST ENEMY
We are all guilty of being our own worst enemy when we allow our minds to take a critical, negative attitude and choose to believe the terrible things your own mind is constantly telling you about yourself.
Because the dark mind has been in unchallenged control of us for countless lifetimes before this one, we are already pre programmed to accept what our minds tell us about ourselves immediately without question or hesitation.
You will never become free from suffering and being miserable until you recognize what your own mind does and refuse to believe it anymore.
YOUR OWN MIND IS THE BIGGEST LIAR IN THE WORLD
Your own mind is the biggest liar in the world and the slickest, trickiest, most deceptive con artist on the planet.
Its also the most determined and persistent endarkening force which will do it’s work of deluding and disempowering you forever until you realize how it works, how it wrecks you and you take charge and cease believing in or cooperating with it.
For me, the perfect analogy for the mundane ego mind is Gollum , from J.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of The Rings” books. Ever conniving, deceiving and nasty, determined to get his way even when the results can only and always be the cause of being ever more miserable, even when there are brief flashes of feeling happy. Everything he does is the cause for more suffering for himself and everyone around him.
WE ARE ALL AT THE EFFECT OF OUR EGO MINDS ALL OF THE TIME WITHOUT EVER BEING AWARE OF IT.
I remember very clearly when Kalu Rinpoche laid out the principle of our own ego minds being the source of all our suffering when he gave us a three week cycle of teachings of the Foundations. He told us:
“The fundamental truth of the spiritual path is: We are all at the effect of our own ego minds all of the time without being aware of it.
The true purpose of the dharma path is to give us the principles and tools and practices for dissolving the power of our ego mind, to release us from it’s influence entirely so that we awaken to our true Self, our own true nature that is already within each of us. “Enlightenment” happens when the ego mind’s hold is ended and we live free, clear and conscious as our true Self, which is free from all the suffering and disempowerment of the ego mind.”
—Kalu Rinpoche
IGNORANCE OF HOW EGO MIND WORKS IS THE FIRST VIEL THAT KEEPS US A PRISONER
Rinpoche pointed out that the first veil that’s keeps us a prisoner and slave of our own minds is ignorance of what ego mind is and how it works, which keeps us from recognizing our true nature.
Rinpoche would always say “When listening to the Dharma, don’t take it as the truth before reflecting on the principles being taught and applying them to your own life. The Dharma opens the window and shines the light of truth, but it is up to you to reflect on it, understand it and see it for yourself.”
I remember getting very upset and pissed off once I began to see my own ego mind at work, because I suddenly understood why people and the world we create together is so harsh, painful and unloving.
THE HIGHER TRUTHS OF THE DHARMA WILL SET YOU FREE
Once you see life from the point of view of the truth of what is really happening, you can’t unsee it. “The truth will set you free”, as the old saying affirms, but it will shake you up and change your life’s paradigm first.
It makes you highly motivated to become free from the ego mind entirely, which can only be don e through dharma practice.
Until we see these truths, we live in ignorance…and ignorance is not bliss, as the old saying asserts, but the source of all the suffering in us and this world.
FREEDOM FROM BELIEVING THOUGHTS BRINGS FREEDOM AND JOY
“I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that is true for every human being.
Freedom is as simple as that.
I found suffering is optional.
I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always.”
—Byron Katie
Calligraphy by Chinmayan
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LEARN TO MEDITATE and DEVELOP YOUR OWN INNER SANCTUARY OF EVER GROWING AWARENESS, MINDFULNESS, PEACE and JOY!
Stay Tuned for upcoming programs and trainings for our subscribers and supporters of “The Dawning Light”…including our beloved “Sunday Morning Satsang and Meditation Program” which will be available weekly both in person and online.
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“Your greatest service to humanity is to attain your own Self Realization!” Ramana Maharshi
“When God is the center and focus of my life, everything else falls into it’s rightful place.”
—Chinmayan
