Self-growth

Why is it that you decide life appeals to you? Your attitude influences how you feel. Do you wish to do something different than you do now? Making different life choices may prompt new self- growth.  People who work in business sometimes say they would prefer to do work where they didn't deal with customers.  What new choices would you like to make to transform your life for the better? Remind yourself that positive change begins with you.

Extend consciousness

"The idea that there is a connection between this life and the events of both our previous existence and our future existence, follows from the Buddhist understanding of the natural law of cause and effect." -The Tibetan Book of the Dead (xv)

If we were to believe in some level of continuity of consciousness, this would extend our ability to understand our existence in relation to the universe.  We would also grasp a sense of real and prolonged consequences from our own actions, in terms of our own lives, the lives of people around us and the environment.  What we did yesterday would then be understood to impact today as well as tomorrow.  What we experienced in previous lives would then help to explain where we are now and how we think.  Although certain levels of sensory perception depend on the functioning physical body, the question that remains is what kind of underlying essence could affect awareness after death and how we could retain knowledge of past experiences?

Do as I say not as I do

Awaken yourself to the unlimited ways you can learn about your spiritual self.  In our respective cultures, we're often taught how to live in terms of how to obtain things, how to have and to do all those things we're led to believe we should be.  These are the things were conditioned to think we need to be believed, acknowledged and accepted.  But what does it really mean to learn to be grounded in who you are?  Should you listen to people who ask you to act as they say, not as they do?

Having and doing are the crux of traditional education when feelings, emotions and inner growth are what make us human.  These are the elements of our identity we're empowered to learn about while alone in the real world.  'Being' is the spiritual side, the inner movement to get-to-know oneself. How would you describe elements of your natural essence? There is far more to you than your overt actions. 

If you don't feel you learn enough, or learn 'the right way', then you may feel undervalued.  You may feel people don't know the real you.  It's up to each of us to reach out and explore or interests in order to discover what grounds our identity and connects us with the Divine.  Your spirit is serene, non-competitive, insightful and invisible.  To be aware of your inner Spirit is to recognize how you shift thoughts and feelings, how you seek balance and harmony as you also seek to overcome challenges and meet expectations.  Emotional education is a lifelong process.  Prepare yourself to experience a new freedom by exploring connections of a spiritual nature.  Be willing to explore how emotions influence your behavior and who you were born to be.

Nurture seeds

Some people wait in vain for their lives to start.  For them, its like waiting for a bus that never comes.  Success, as they dream it, is not something that can simply appear.    Now, other people think they'll stumble on success like a discarded newspaper that someone used and left for someone else to benefit from.  This sort of success wouldn't last.  It wouldn't really be yours. You would borrow it.  True success requires effort and vision and doesn't simply happen by chance.

Powerful ideas for success must grow from a seed to be nurtured into workable conditions.  As you develop personal skills, experience and wisdom, these tools can't be taken from you.  They will always be yours so you can use them to enrich your life and the lives of others.  Your will to move forward is what shapes the process of developing your success.  Concentrate on what is unique about your own learning process. What could other people learn from your life? 

When you have both the desire and the will to succeed, you will discover sources of lasting contentment.  The will to be content with your pursuit  must be more than a wish.  Intense, inner drive must move you.  Obtaining tangible things will not ensure you create inner joy.  It has been said that once you tap into your sources of inner joy, once you clarify your inner vision and build on it, then, other things that contribute to your sense of personal success will simply appear.

Choices come from within

I read about a man who was told be doctors his cancer was incurable and he would certainly die.  Yet, by the power of his thoughts, by the sheer will of his inner core, he healed himself without medical treatment.  He lived dozens of years after that in increasingly better health.  This and similar stories demonstrate the fervent desire to heal oneself can lead to self-healing.  The incredible power of loving and believing in oneself is connected to Forces beyond us.

Now, if you dwell on poverty and sources of misery, would it not be logical that these particular circumstances would await you or be reinforced by your own thoughts?  To focus on misfortune, to repeat stories of pain ad suffering would surely bring on continued misfortune. It is never too late to break the cycle.

Rather than wallow and repeat what discomfort you may have experienced, speak instead of how you plan to think and live differently than before.  Write about how you will establish limits for just treatment and set standards for your own self-respect.  Recognize that your state of mind is connected spiritually to people all aound you.    Each person is somehow touched by the development of your inner strength. The value you create for yourself in life also enriches others.

You are never alone.  Your choices carry an incredible responsibility for people you don't even know.  You act in relation to everyone you consider to be human, learning and growing much like yourself.  Believe it or not, you set an example for others and your choices have consequences.  What you choose to pursue, abandon or ignore all affect your growth and how you inspire or otherwise affect others.

Although many human beings live in constant anticipation of a coming happiness linked to love, they often limit themselves to their imagined concept of love among life partners.  Human beings seldom realize that learning to love and understand themselves may be the greatest love of all.