I'm Shanti and good evening and welcome soul to soul.
And a very lovely topic we're going to talk about to be curious about yourself and this is Rose here from Inner Space in Glasgow.
If we want to have a healthy way of thinking,
Healthy way of thinking gives us a healthy body and so we make our mind healthy and for that we need to have self-awareness and self-awareness is the key to developing a healthy mind.
And so being curious about who you are and how you think is a good starting place.
So every day when you wake up practice asking yourself the question who am I?
Then the way to find this out actually is to meditate.
To meditate is to reflect on something that you want to know about and then you'll be very well on the way to discovering deep truths and new ways of seeing life.
So it's a funny one because it's when we see ourselves that we can see things around us and it makes more and more sense.
So sometimes we can look back and examine our past beliefs and our actions and this is a source of information about our habits.
Like I used to get so worried and I used to get distressed etc etc.
I was very stubborn or whatever but don't try,
Don't dwell on those things and try not to interrogate yourself too harshly just observe.
And then this gives me understanding.
Understanding is the key.
So move myself away from thinking that I'm a body and contemplate on I am a soul.
Because if I do that I'll close the door to all my worries and everything.
They'll still be there but I'll close the door for a time.
And to all my things I would like to change I'll not be dwelling too much.
So if I contemplate that I am a soul this can completely change how we look back at our past story and the pain that might be attached to events and people in my past and in my present can become softened and can ease.
And then we'll view things,
We'll see things so much differently,
We can view things with a natural sense of love and a detachment.
Just not quite so harsh.
If I'm not harsher myself I won't feel I'm so harsh on others.
And you'll feel that feeling of mercy for yourself and you'll feel your past mistakes and understand them and think oh well I didn't know that and I didn't know that and I didn't see that's how it was.
And so you'll feel okay about a lot of things.
Whereas in body consciousness they're just habits and you have very little real conscious choice.
You're caught in your habit.
Habit's a very very powerful thing so that's why I try to come away from the body consciousness when I'm sitting in meditation and think I'm a soul.
And then I can begin to understand that I didn't know that so therefore I can't be too harsh on myself.
So I didn't have a real choice so let's me now think about peace.
And it's good to allow myself to be open to surprises also because there may be things about the self that you've never even seen clearly and no one's there.
So be prepared for some new discoveries and it's also good simply to sit in amazement of yourself.
And when you look at through the eyes that you're a soul then you could experience a feeling of your own wonder.
You're a soul,
You're the energy,
You're the life.
So this is the time to be super curious.
And if you admit that you need to learn about yourself then you've taken a huge step of humility and courage.
It's quite something to think well maybe I could learn.
So even though you may feel very enthusiastic be gentle with the self because you are the most important person in your life.
Are you truly interested in yourself?
It's good if you're interested in yourself because otherwise how can we expect others to be interested in us?
It's a good one actually because others are not even interested in their selves.
So what would make them so interested in me?
So treasure your life,
Love yourself.
There's a huge power in love actually and love comes from this power of peace.
The power of peace comes from meditation.
Meditation comes from keeping myself free from worry and tension and knowing a lot of truths about myself.
This can help me to be loving.
Loving means to understand,
To be kind,
To be helpful.
All the different beautiful qualities comes from loving the self,
Cooperative with the self etc.
Be curious and enjoy the wonder of being you because we can't be anyone else.
We may be impressed when we see others.
We may think they're a shining example which is quite good but we cannot be anyone else.
I can only be myself and who can make me myself?
I have to discover myself for myself.
So to take time and stillness and silence and also when I do this,
This power and this energy goes out into the world and touches the hearts,
The souls of other human beings who are also perhaps looking for their true self and for peace.
And so we add to a vibration of healing the world.
Every time I think in a peaceful way,
My vibration joins the vibration of so many others who are also looking to find the true self and who wish to feel the energies of the true self.
Peace and love and happiness,
These are my birthright.
And when we look back and examine our past actions,
This is information which just tells me where I was at.
But then if I practice looking at myself in peace,
I move on from where I was at and I start to see energy patterns I did not know existed.
So be gentle and see yourself as the most important person in your life and consider yourself to be the energy in the center of the forehead,
The soul,
And you'll experience a feeling of wonder,
Power,
Happiness.
But we need to create this by believing it and practicing.
And the more you learn about yourself,
The more you'll take a huge leap in your energy.
You'll feel more courageous and you'll feel more humility and to be interested in yourself and never mind if anyone else is interested because remember,
Very few people are actually interested in themselves.
So I can't keep hoping they'll start saying nice things and encouraging me and this is actually my task,
To encourage myself,
To appreciate myself,
To practice giving courage and strength to myself.
Who else can do this?
Can anyone really get inside my head and give me courage and strength?
So let me contemplate that I am a soul and when I look back and see this will completely change how I see my past story and the pain that was attached to sadness and happenings and people that I feel maybe I lost or that hurt me or that I hurt,
It will change the way I'm seeing this because I did not know how it worked at that point of time.
And then I can view things with a more natural sense of love and appreciation and feel okay with myself.
It's not giving myself a hard time.
So loads and loads of our sorrow and tension and concern and trying to please others and angry others annoyed at the self and will get softer and softer and just to think that they were all habits.
Now I can learn new habits,
Habits that bring back the energies within myself that belong to me.
To be interested in the self,
To be curious,
It sounds like you need quite a lot of motivation to do that.
Sounds like quite an active thing almost like when you're a child you're curious about everything and then it sort of dissipates and you become less curious and inquisitive.
So how would I motivate myself to have that initial curiosity to make time,
To set aside time or is it just a constant awareness that I develop of looking in?
It's tricky,
We're all different,
All human beings are different but I think when it's your time it's your time.
It's a journey that we go along and like everything else in our journey things changed and we've reached another time of change and then when it was our change in the past even if we didn't like it had changed and so we just had to get on with it and I think that this is like a spiritual awakening but it's a spiritual awakening for everyone on the planet and each one at their time will awaken and we may awaken just a touch,
We may awaken with great tremendous feelings of going to do something,
We may think oh yeah but however it is whatever we do will be different and it will be change and it will take us forward and change.
So that's what I say be gentle with the self,
Don't give the self a hard time but to be gentle with the self is to give yourself all the good things,
The good energies,
The peace,
The calm,
The happiness,
The lightness,
The determination,
The courage,
The strength.
And being interested in the self it could seem quite odd when I observe the self and I seem like such an ordinary nothing,
Outstanding personality then why would I be interested in myself?
Because underneath whatever is ordinary there's an extraordinary energy called the soul and for many many,
A long time,
It depends how much you've been listening to all of this,
You had all these qualities and you weren't so ordinary,
You're in fact quite extraordinary and you use these qualities but gradually because fashions in the world change and we get pulled and we get worried and we get so much stress and burden increases that our focus goes on to those energies and we forget the wonder of that extraordinary being.
Okay.
It's just making me think of something you said before which is you know you like to do things that you enjoy,
Everybody likes to do things they enjoy,
You go back to things that give you a feeling that I did that well so it's like learning to enjoy being myself if I'm not enjoying being me then I won't go back again and again and be interested in me it's almost like I'll be trying to run away from myself all the time.
Well because we thought the self was the worried word and responsible person,
Responsible for crying and seeing the pressures and carrying the pressures around with us and so that's why it became such a big firm habit but I think if we sit in meditation and start to really think is this could it possible that I could be smiling and light-hearted and friendly and kind and not just like this person and not feel threatened by this and threatened by that and take on yet another burden if I understand this even a little I think well it's worth a try I think I'll just keep trying this meditation and going into stillness and having a look to see what kind of person I really am and I'm sure if you look and even if you look into your past although you had worries,
Problems,
Responsibilities you will definitely then be able to see how your heart was touched at times,
How you were kind,
How you were thoughtful,
How you went out of your way to be helpful,
How you did everything to be understanding,
How something big and worrisome came and you had the courage to think what can I do here and to start to go with it and try and make something come out of it that was worthwhile you'll definitely see that's in you because it is part of your energy patterns these are all part of you the soul but we just take it as ordinary we never really acknowledge that at this moment in time even with the burdens and the worries all these wondrous energies are in us and we've been using them but we've been kind of taking them for granted if you think they're ordinary and not really putting that value on the fact that this is what I've actually accomplished.
Body consciousness you spoke about that is that what an awareness that I'm just a bunch of cells and does that take me away from myself what is body consciousness and how do I start to remove it?
Well body consciousness is that we forgot that we were the energy in the center of the forehead and when we forget that we look at everything through the eyes of being physical and every single thing I mean you know this we know this that we look at as physical doesn't last nothing physical lasts even the physical bodies don't last they go away at some point and relationships they don't stay the way they were they may start off bright eyed and bushy tailed but in a very short time they're not quite the same and so body consciousness is that's all I can think of oh how now oh what can I do how can I make this work oh my goodness oh for goodness sake oh this person has run away or this person has died this person's sick oh my goodness I don't feel well that's all you would think about whereas in soul consciousness I think well here we go yeah I feel more calm yeah I feel better I am a soul I'm energy I'm the energy that runs this body I'm actually the engine if you like and I have all my memories all the memories are in the soul memories are not in the body they're in the soul it is a whole new world it's like that thing with the flying carpet it's a whole new world and finally when I'm curious looking at myself now into this whole new world what are some of the wonderful things I might find if I'm feeling a bit nervous about the process because I think I'm not sure if I want to look in there might be a bit grubby what are the wonderful things I may find all you can find are lovely things in yourself and even if you see things that were habits that you think who then we can change those habits we couldn't change them before and also friends that you would make you'll see them differently you'll start to really see the good things in them and if you have spiritual friends who are also doing this it's a feeling a huge feeling of belonging everything's okay the other thing we do is we focus on the one above the divine we feel that that one kind of them knows the whole story and knows that I'm okay okay so what we'll do is we'll have a minute of meditation so focusing on that beautiful energy of the soul in the center of the forehead we do our best keep our eyes open and rational meditation I'm a being of light my journey has been recorded on the energy of the soul so when I look outside there's nothing actually recorded there but what is recorded is my thoughts my energy patterns my experiences are recorded on I the soul I'm a beautiful eternal living energy of light and I'm living in this body in the center of the forehead I am the life the life energy in this body I am a soul my journey is recorded and I the soul so I can read my story when I sit in meditation I can read the truth of who I am and I can see very clearly how I would like to change some energy patterns before that kind of changing was not available to I the soul because I was body conscious if I'm body conscious I cannot change the energy patterns recorded on the soul I am a point of living peaceful loving beautiful energy I am so um shanty
