How To Grow Better Relationships

Observing the self is the key to improving connections with others. I can refocus my energy on uplifting my own vibrations rather than trying to change others. Simply changing my vision makes the biggest shift in energy levels. Looking at reactions and understanding the laws of karma is healthy & healing. A life long journey back to peace. Meditation gives me quality space to observe myself in a new way.

Transcript

Om Shanti and welcome again to Soul to Soul.

My name is Rose from the Brahma Kumbharas in Glasgow and the title tonight is How to Grow Better Relationships.

So I was thinking when we do meditation there must be something that we feel we get in a benefit from meditation.

Maybe many things.

We want to find out about being peaceful and calm and making our life experience more valuable and a very very important thing.

In fact quite often in Raja Yoga meditation we say relationship is everything because in life we get carried away by all the things that happen outside and we get distressed etc but we have relationship with everything.

You have relationship with your next-door neighbors,

With the man in the little shop,

With your everything,

With your health,

With your diet,

With the people you know,

With your family,

Friends,

Everything is a relationship.

Relationship is how you feel about everything,

How respectful you are about everything,

How you appreciate everything,

How much gratitude you have about things and so we're going to look at starting with thoughts of to become a detached observer and the first and only thing really in all these relationships is to observe myself because we're so busy observing other people thinking about what they said,

Thinking about how they talked to me,

Thinking about all the different things that are happening and maybe even in meditation thinking how can I make this different,

How can I change them but in fact I have to learn how to know myself and the way to know myself is through meditation.

But focusing also on myself as to what my different reactions are throughout a day in different circumstances and to understand that every single thing in life grows,

It grows whatever way it's going to grow,

If it's negative it will grow more and more negative,

If it's positive it will grow more and more positive.

So it's so easy we have habits of seeing people's weaknesses,

Thinking we can change them,

Gossiping etc etc and being upset the way someone may be talking to me or the way they're always very arrogant with me or disrespectful to me but there's a few rules if we could begin to just really really think about however someone is with me we take it personally but there's a very good chance that that's the way they are with everyone else and it's not anything to do with me really that's just the way they interact and if I can think like that I can stop being concerned or upset or even thinking what can I do to make this different?

Because I cannot make anyone else different but I can change my vision and then maybe I could even question myself as to if I've been reacting to the way they've been with me if they've been disrespectful or arrogant,

Perceived all certain things about that person's behaviour and then how did that make me react?

So what kind of thoughts will they have about my behaviour towards them?

So when I start to think like this this it's actually very healthy it's very thought-provoking and it's very truthful and we may think oh they don't even understand me but then I can think but do I understand myself?

Do I really understand myself?

So if I observe the self in all the various situation and see what my vision is and truly look what were my thoughts towards that personality?

Were my thoughts respectful inside?

I maybe never said a word but what were my thoughts?

Did I say oh here we go again oh gosh I'm not listening to this or could I try and understand that this is where they're coming from and if this is where they're coming from that's where they're at and I found it difficult to get to know where I'm at it's only by self observation that I could know that and if someone isn't doing anything like this how can they possibly know where they're at?

So what I can become as I can become helpful with my thoughts and my understanding of interaction and my vibration I can even maybe even be encouraging,

Helpful because wherever I see others it will grow.

So if I start the practice of beginning to understand and see in a more healthy way for everyone involved this will create an energy pattern in me which will become helpful for that's one person I was seeing but I could have that same understanding and develop that for every interaction especially unpleasant interactions and not take it personally but think I can actually help.

So don't make a mountain out of a mole hill is a very good way to look at it.

So we're going to have our journey back into peace because we're letting go negativity and to go on that journey is not like a breeze it's not just hop,

Skip and jump it's a process of all the different days and minutes and seconds and interactions that come into my life it's not that I become Mr.

Good for five minutes but it's that I know I'm not great and that I have to do something about the way I would like to be.

So to start to build a really powerful case for being as good as I would actually like to be and I can only be that through understanding I can't just be it through thinking it sounds quite clever or oh yeah maybe that would look nice or oh maybe someone would like me if I do that so that's all old-fashioned stuff that doesn't work because I have to be true and usually we want to be right and to be seen as this whatever so watch out for wanting to be me me me but try to see the self the peaceful soul and to see the best and the specialities in others and a good way of course for that is through meditation that you are the soul in the center of the forehead and to remember the divine being this gives us the power the strength which brings back our original power of peace peace is where it all comes from there's disturbance and there's peacefulness and we've developed a lot of disturbance and as we start to put peace back in where there was disturbance I then come back to a more balanced character which I would call me I'm not grabbing for glory I'm not grabbing for being right I'm not taking all the greatness and I'm so clever or anything like that because it isn't true and if it does at some point become a bit more true than it is today it would be because I looked at how I interact with others and with nature and with everything around me and because I sincerely and I'm talking about all of us sitting here want to be a more real person and I can see them when I start looking and I can only do this when I see myself I can't do it if I'm just looking at other people and even seeing how great they are but I have to see how I feel about how great they are I'm a bit upset about how great they are I'm a bit upset because I think they pretend to be great but they're not really great and so it then makes me judge but I'm not in a position to be judging I'm still judging myself so can I see every interaction as an opportunity to learn about energy and stop myself from struggling and interfering to practice being an detached observer what does that mean again what does that mean when I feel disrespected how can I use that to learn about myself what can I influence can I change others no whenever possible look for a balance a way to come into harmony and to cooperate watch out for wasting your energy and time in trying to understand lies if people tell me a lie and I struggle to figure out what it is because I can't understand a lie because it's false information it's gonna be quite stressing someone tells you a lie and you try to solve the problem but it's not even true so learn how to discern what is true and what is false because for every one of us it's a journey and meditation is a space with no distraction to observe my thoughts and feelings in greater depth and choose a fresh path think I'm not going there now I've done that it has nothing there's nothing comes from it I'm not going to go there it's a brick wall there there's there's nothing there so to observe my thoughts feelings and greater depths and choose that fresh path from the amazing perspective that I am a peaceful so I harass myself you see allow well I think that I allow others to harass me but I it's not them it's me that allow this to happen that I get harassed by the behavior of others I mean why should we get harassed by the behavior of others if I'm harassed by the behavior of others it means I'm judging them in the wrong way and usually I've spent many years giving advice sometimes for hours sometimes days sometimes weeks and they never do it so it was like so what came of that what was the point of all of that because people are themselves and they might like to vocalize what it is that isn't right but they're resistant to being told what to do about what they perceive to be not right because everyone feels they actually inside know what they should do or what they're willing to do so in meditation it's a pick a space for me to observe my thoughts and feelings and greater depths that I'm a peaceful soul so to be a well-wisher will take me into a new bright hopeful better way of thinking brighter energy it'll give me a new take on myself and my world around me and it will help me to value things around me tough gratitude appreciate appreciate people more and more for where they're at because it is good to know and to see because we shouldn't hide we shouldn't hide anything not even you've got a big cough you shouldn't be hiding it if you've got a cough you've got a cough and so it's like let us be who we are as true and as truthful and as clear to myself as I possibly can be if I'm that detached observer and I look at myself and see that which I would like to make better then I can do that with the help of being peaceful and taking the help of the divine and so I think we'll have a couple of questions yeah it seems like I would need a lot of strength to be constantly helpful with my thoughts and vibrations I would love to be like that but it seems like actually when I think about it that seems like quite a high aim or is it easier than I think it's easier than you think because I had the first experience of that but it was very very new at doing this and it was because I'd harbored a lot of dislike for us all for many years and although we smiled and all the rest of it there was definitely a very big attitude there which was never never going away no matter how physically you tried to make it go away with nice thoughts and kindness and brightness and appreciation and all that it just would never go away and that was doing all this what you would have thought were the right things and sitting in meditation one day I realized that the answer was me I was doing all the things physically when I would see somebody that person but inside me I still had all the old feelings of them dislike and until I saw that and it just about blew my mind I thought oh my goodness oh my goodness and what I don't know what we might have been coming from the other side but that was nothing to do with me the problem was just as bad coming back to me but what I felt was that I had been doing this over a long period of time and putting on a false face every time I met that person a false face and taking all the boxes of good behavior definitely ticked all the boxes and gave all the gifts smiled all the smiles and clapped my hands and gave appreciation and really was as nice and I thought that would have done it but it didn't do it and see when I realized that I thought oh my goodness so that happened very very quickly and from that minute I felt even as I was I was actually given meditation and there was a group of people in front of me when I realized that but my whole persona changed I smiled I laughed I was so happy and from that minute that relationship changed changed the next and I knew from I knew that the next time I saw that person they would be ordinary and normal with me by that I mean there would be none of that barrier and that's true it was changed and it's changed to this day it's just because I was now giving respect from my mind not trying to do it physically does that answer that so it's easy really easy but unless I observe myself and see that I am the culprit here I'm shanty is there anything else but it sounds like honesty is something actually really beautiful in a way I think quite often we talk about it something it requires so much courage but it sounds like the bonuses yeah are so huge yeah yeah it's very inspiring yeah huge you said not to grab for glory yeah so that's kind of answered it but if I don't grab for physical glory or kind of status in any way shape or form how do I get that feeling of purpose growth celebration you know feeling worthwhile yeah you shouldn't have to grab for it because if that's your that's your job maybe that's maybe your role in life and if that's your role and you're playing your role then you'll begin whatever glory goes with that and if you play that role badly doesn't matter much you try and grab for it to be a bit better it will be better but if you're playing your role well you'll get whatever glory comes with it does that make sense but if I go me me me push push push shove shove shove look at me look at me look at me I can't add to my glory because that's not the right vibration or the right attitude so I can't get anything through doing that just maybe even momentary pushing and shoving if that makes sense so we have a minute stillness okay so sitting peacefully and quietly focusing on the center of the forehead remembering that I am the soul the beautiful living eternal energy of peace and that the only thing I can ever be as myself I cannot be anyone else and the wonder of the self is so satisfactory to get to know the self is the greatest wonder of all to get the self to know the self for everything no matter what the ups the downs the ins the outs the mistakes and the wonder of having the integrity to want to change the mistakes within myself is a very dignified form of royal behavior I am a soul I'm a valuable life energy and I can be very very valuable to others around me you