Aum Shanti and welcome to Soul to Soul.
This is Rose from Brahma Kumaris.
And we're going to talk about,
Is your presence welcoming?
So it's a very beautiful way to think actually.
It's when you meet someone or even you know them and you like them,
That's one thing,
But there's other times when we maybe don't feel quite like that,
But can we look and see,
Could I make my attitude welcoming and accept and think how to be kinder and more loving?
Or if something comes along or people come along that I'm not happy with,
Do I pretend to be welcoming and actually inside,
I'm rejecting them,
I'm not really listening,
I turn away with my heart and I obstruct anything that comes from them.
So what would be the healthiest of these two things?
Do you accommodate all that comes your way with dignity?
So whether it's good or whether it's not so good.
Are you like the vast ocean which can accommodate anything?
So we teach ourselves to be able to accept because there is,
And it's in our own interest to have a good attitude.
And when we look at tolerance,
True tolerance is to be flexible and accommodate differences.
Now remember everyone is different and unique.
And we can never change that,
Everyone will always be different and always be unique.
So when something unexpected happens,
How easy do I find it?
How easy do I find unexpected events?
Does it put me into a flurry?
Does it make me all worried and anxious?
Or am I able to calmly and smoothly move through the unexpected?
So what thoughts could I have to help to keep your heart open and accepting?
With spiritual vision I remember that I can choose how to respond.
And what we're hearing a lot when we practice meditation is how softness and sweetness.
These energies are very powerful,
They're not weak.
And to tell ourselves that I am flexible.
Actually if I'm flexible in my thinking it makes me flexible in my body as well.
It's not just to do with physical exercise,
It's to do with the way I think.
And if I have a hard,
Harsh way of thinking,
Then I become brittle and I'm easily broken.
That's quite daunting I would think.
Brutal and easily broken.
I don't want to be like that.
Hard cold force and having the law,
It should be like this,
It should be like that,
One day will make me crack.
I'll lose it,
I'll lose my temper,
I'll get angry.
I'll hurt myself but I'll also hurt others and I'll damage relationships.
So the law of life is love and I need to be true to myself and I need to choose how I am going to play this game of life.
What am I going to do?
How am I going to do it?
So I have so much opportunity to choose my attitudes and how I'm going to be because these things will bring me happiness and good relationships.
And the other ways,
The harsh ways,
Will make me very unhappy.
And life and being nice to other people isn't about pleasing everyone,
No.
If I'm nice to people I'm actually pleasing myself.
They might not be being nice to me even but I'm going to please myself and be nice.
When I understand the power of spiritual soul conscious love,
This happens when I do meditation.
Meditation makes it easy.
It helps me.
Meditation helps me not to retaliate but to choose my responses.
So it's a win-win situation really.
I should aim to be able to teach myself to pause,
Press the button,
To stop,
Not to go there when I feel that I'm going to go into the more harsh way.
So give yourself time to understand yourself and others because nobody chooses to be annoying or whatever.
It's just perhaps the way they feel at that moment in time and that's their attitude.
They haven't chosen to be like that and I can even practice how to shower others with flowers.
But this means to have the practice of seeing nice things in other people.
And the thing is we can see nice things but we don't tell them.
To shower them with flowers is to see the nice thing and to tell them and to keep telling them until they accept.
You are very kind.
No I'm not.
Yes you are.
You're a very kind person.
Oh I don't think I'm kind.
Because at that moment they're possibly not feeling kind and they're maybe being quite unkind to you.
But you can tell them that they're very kind.
They're one of the kindest people you've ever met.
Because inside this isn't telling a lie because inside they are kind.
We all have all the good qualities inside.
And when I do meditation it develops wisdom.
Sometimes it's time to turn around and walk away and you think well I've done my best.
I can't do any more here.
So it's not that you just put up with everything.
There is times when you might put a full stop and walk away.
But do it graciously and with a good vibration with kind thoughts and even kind words.
And then you'll have actually won the war.
Be interested in your inner workings.
I'm not going to say nasty things or I'm not going to get pulled into things that are unpleasant.
I'm going to stay pleasant.
I'm going to stay welcoming and kind.
And when we start to look at silence,
The power of silence,
We talk about this a lot because when I practice silence that's when I can regain my strength.
Because we may want to be kind and loving but we need strength to support these thoughts.
It's just the same as whoever is being unkind to us.
They don't really mean sometimes to be unkind but they don't have the strength to be anything else.
And so I need the strength to be welcoming and accept and love.
And the more I spend time in silence,
Which is really important,
Look at meditation and look at what happens to me when I have silence time.
It will help you stay recharged.
It will help you to feel you have more to give.
You have the strength to give.
Soul awareness and connecting with the source reminds me that I have an unlimited resource.
Unlimited resource.
I can feel vast.
I have huge energy.
I have vast power and understanding.
And I can accommodate whatever it is that's in front of me at that moment.
It can help me to understand that whoever's not being particularly helpful and pleasant perhaps doesn't really mean to be like that but they don't have the power to be anything different.
It can help you to remain open to the millions of differences in life because we're all different.
Are you at ease on your own?
Or do you welcome yourself with love every day?
So we have to teach ourselves this actually.
I don't think it's easy to just wake up and say,
I feel such love for myself.
I think you have to get the habit of thinking of something nice about yourself first thing when you wake up.
And of course a good way to do this is to be practicing meditation.
And we can see that we're a peaceful soul,
That we're a loving soul,
That we're kindly,
That our intentions are good intentions.
Your beautiful welcoming vibration of acceptance and true soul brotherly love will touch hearts.
And so really we have to do this first of all for ourselves.
Teach ourselves.
It's all about teaching ourselves and teaching ourselves the best energy within ourselves that I want to bring out into the world,
Into a relationship.
Why be grumpy when I can be smiling?
And again true tolerance is to be flexible and accommodate differences.
And what thoughts help to keep your heart open and accepting.
And to remember I can choose how I wish to respond to any situation.
If I practice meditation and build up my spiritual power through silence then I can begin to understand myself.
And this maybe won't always be easy for myself.
If it isn't easy for myself how can I get upset with others who maybe are not doing so much silence?
It wouldn't seem right.
So I don't want to have a hard way of thinking which makes me brittle.
And I don't want something which is cold and forceful that will hurt me one day because the law of life is love.
So I need to be true to myself.
I need to be able to see that there are areas where I could choose my energy better.
And if I learn how to choose my energy better then I'm learning how to play the game.
The game of life and living,
Interacting in the world.
And I don't have to do all this to try and please everyone.
It isn't about this.
Again everyone's different.
And I'll find that maybe I get quite a surprise no matter how nice I am I won't get much of a good response.
But this isn't about looking for praise or a good response but to understand the power of spiritual soul conscious love.
So what we're talking about today is to realize this power that we can easily have within ourselves of welcoming people that come in connection with us.
Because we know ourselves how it is if we meet people who are very abrupt and as if they look straight through us and never even see that we're there.
We can get upset about this for a long time.
It gives us loads of ways thoughts so if I do this to others I'm allowing them to have loads of ways thoughts to feel hurt by my company.
So to be interested in the way you work inside and how silence time will help us to stay recharged and how soul awareness and connecting with the source will remind me that I have an unlimited resource and I'll do my best to remind myself to welcome myself every day with love when I first wake up.
And something nice that I'm kind or I'm loving or I'm sincere hearted and I really want to do my best.
Something,
Anything.
Because your beautiful and welcoming vibration of acceptance and true brotherly love will touch hearts.
Om Shanti.
If I'm nice to people I'm pleasing myself.
That's good.
Because it flips it on its head we think that we're trying to please others by being nice but actually I choose my vibration and I'm pleasing myself and of course I would want to be kind,
Loving,
Sweet.
So that's a nice way to make it seem really easy.
Yeah.
And you're saying silence is the key.
Yeah.
Silence is the key because if we go into spiritual silence,
Even if you go into physical silence it's better than no silence.
But if I can go into silence in my mind which I can practice I've shut the door to all the waste thoughts and worries and concerns.
I've shut the door to the physical at that point even it's only for two minutes,
Half a minute and during that time I'm accumulating energy because I'm not wasting it on worry or concern or I'm looking at silence.
Silence regenerates my energy.
It is so simple but however.
Yeah it sounds very optimistic.
It's like just opening lots of new possibilities and shutting all the pessimism for a while just even practicing it.
Just not going there.
For a short time.
For a short time.
I was thinking about this habit of looking for danger all the time and you know the media is really good at prompting us to get into this habit more and more and more.
The amount of fear that's generated so we're constantly looking for danger in small ways and big ways and then we get in this habit of defending and attacking.
So could you say something about that?
Yeah I suppose in a way you have to be practical too but at the same time you have to use discrimination.
Does it really involve you this particular aspect or is it gossipy stuff or is it stuff that isn't actually pertaining to you at that moment?
Teach ourselves not to go there unless obviously it's important danger if your house is on fire or something that you need to look at then you need to look at but teach yourself a lot of the time.
In fact this is why meditation,
Because it's difficult to steer away from that which is happening outside and that's why meditation gives me enough power over and over every time I do meditation that energy is accumulated and never lost and with that power of silence I begin to discriminate that this is nothing to do with me I don't need to go there it's better I just stay calm.
Teach myself to stay calm.
Calm is a nice thing it also reassures people around you,
People around you feel safe if you're calm.
Yeah it seems simple but I think it means a lot in today's world if you can be a calming presence people do really appreciate that it's like a relief isn't it because there's so much agitation.
Yeah yeah.
You said sometimes you do have to just say enough is enough and walk away but you qualified that it was do it graciously with kind thoughts and kind words that's really beautiful so you're maintaining your dignity and even the dignity of the other person no matter how badly how your views behaved yeah yeah but sometimes it's like it's just going to go on and on and on and on if someone's on a roll and they're going to keep on and on and on and sometimes you have to smile so sweetly and move away yeah and try and not take that disturbance with you that they've been creating not take it personally.
And I love the thought again back to this theme that we often touch on of the importance of first thing in the morning like what are my initial thoughts do I welcome the day do I welcome myself to the day do I make an effort to inject some brightness and freshness at the seat of the day that's lovely not always easy if it's dark cold and you're feeling a bit unwell but could you say something about that what kind of thoughts can you have if you don't really know it's not easy because you can maybe not have slept all night and if the alarm goes and your first thought is oh my goodness however if you talk to yourself before you go to sleep funnily enough that will come bouncing in to support you in the morning and if you can tell yourself over and over that you're going to say something nice first thing in the morning somehow that will prompt you into saying at least something even saying well come on it's you've got meditation in a minute or two you're going to practice being a peaceful soul so let's get move on and watch the clock and get ready and get down for meditation just natural you know and if you feel really not so great you can say you can do it you know come on you're fine you're okay thank you so we're going to have a couple of minutes of meditation teaching ourselves to be peaceful gives us power and strength to live our lives in a more gracious way in an easier way it encourages us to accommodate as is take on board easily not to be upset by whatever comes in front to find solutions for awkward situations to keep our hearts open and accepting and I can choose my thoughts I can choose to have some sweetness in my thoughts and to be more gentle with people around me because we're all going through times that can be very difficult and we're learning and we should be an example of what we're learning and silence time will help us to be feeling more energized and feel that I can do this I do have more to give and to understand that everyone out of the billions of people around us in the planet every one of us is individual and different and that the wonder of life is in the difference because we all have something unique to contribute to this incredible world of billions and billions of souls and this beautiful thoughtful and welcoming vibrations of accepting souls for who they are and where they are can touch the hearts of everyone.
Om Shanti
