Kind & Brave Heart

Could you be brave enough to be kind and gentle? Generous and selfless? Sharing good vibrations with the world? Does this sound like a fairy tale? How can this be possible? Every time you meditate or take a moment to turn within, you regain the power of silence. This is what will assist you to uncover more and more wonderful wisdom about how your energy works. Without silence, our true self loses strength, and our qualities of selfless kindness shut down.

Transcript

I'm Shanti and welcome to Soul to Soul.

This is Rose from Inner Space in Glasgow and we're going to talk about,

It's an unusual topic this evening but it's very very uplifting if we really think about the words to have a kind and brave heart.

Could you be brave enough to be kind and gentle?

Who wouldn't think it would take courage,

Would we?

To be generous and selfless and to be sharing good vibrations with the world.

And does it sound a bit unusual this?

So how is it possible?

Because every time you meditate or take a moment to look inside you regain your power of silence.

And it's your power of silence,

It sounds so simple,

But it's your power of silence that gives you back your power.

You can have all sorts of talents,

You can be such a nice person,

You can be a kind person,

A virtuous person,

An energetic person,

Anything that appears very wonderful.

But to hold those energies in position you need strength.

This is the simplistic way that Raja Yoga looks at things.

So I could be the kindest person on earth but be exhausted.

I could have so many talents but be quite daunted at times.

So when I do meditation and I practice inner stillness and silence I regain my power.

And that power enables me to smile and be kind and be all the things that I'm good at.

Without the strength of the power of silence I don't have the energy to be as good as I could be or as good as I am.

So this power of silence will assist you to uncover more and more wisdom about how your energy works.

You'll begin to see the things that daunted you suddenly you seem to be able to do.

I talk from experience here.

Without silence our true self loses strength and our qualities of selfless kindness etc.

Shut down.

It's not that they're not there but it's very difficult to hold up.

And our hearts build up defenses because I can't handle something and then we disguise upset feelings we feel inside.

So that makes us even lose more energy as we disguise feelings and try to use force to be the things that we're good at.

And the more I use force and the more upset I get inside and the more it won't really quite work the way it used to work.

And the more concerned I become and the more I try even harder to be what I know I used to be.

It's interesting isn't it?

It's really interesting.

So we can put on a false face in order to help us to deal with things that are coming to us from the world.

So when we get the habit of doing this putting on the false face and using a bit of force this creates more and more distance between our true kind heart and day to day living experiences.

So if we really look inside which is what meditation encourages us to do you will see you have those incredible beautiful qualities inside.

You have definitely got a kind heart,

A generous heart.

You like to be friendly with people and helpful to people and you like to make things go well.

You like to find solutions to whatever's happening around.

Help other people if they feel upset.

But when you lose your power then you're not so capable of these things.

You will force it but it's taken all your energy.

So we put on a false face in order to help us to deal with what's happening.

And negativity builds up from a locked heart.

It means our heart has become locked from the sweet kind lovely person we are.

Locked because there's no energy coming.

And this can lie dormant for years so we seem to feel we're getting away with it through a bit of force and a bit of pretense.

And we can feel unhappy and uncomfortable.

I don't know why.

And when we look out into the world today we're very much needed.

This kind heart is very much needed because for many people it's a very grey and robotic world.

And once you look and see there's not a big opportunity for really kindly sweet interaction.

Quite often people don't know what you're on about because they haven't the energy for that.

So in order to bring forward your kind heart you need to be very brave.

It takes courage because it's unusual.

And most of us have learned how to keep our hearts closed.

Just be what people want you to be.

Don't be anything different.

And we can feel that there's danger of criticism and gossip in a harsh world.

And when we come to our friends and family when those relationships can be emotionally clumsy.

Why are they emotionally clumsy?

Because we know them.

And that familiarity means that they're not happy with me saying something that seems quite different.

And so I have to be quite brave to be the atlantis to a friend.

Be the change actually.

There's a famous person who says be the change you want to see.

So you have to be brave and be the change.

Sometimes you can just put the toe in and do it quite delicately until they get used to the change.

So being open hearted seems to require tremendous courage.

And it's courage which comes only when we realise that no one can hurt us.

No one can hurt us because when you're dealing in this way with your energy it's a high energy.

And it's a high energy.

No one can actually hurt a high energy.

It's when my energy goes down and becomes low that I can get despondent and hurt.

And we hurt ourselves with our own thoughts and emotions.

We hurt ourselves.

I need to have faith in this courage and this lovely open hearted energy that I'm capable of.

If I find someone I can trust,

Where I feel I'm in a safe and benevolent space,

Then I'm very fortunate.

So if people find you and if people feel they trust you and they're in a safe place with someone who's benevolent,

Then they are very fortunate indeed.

It's really nice actually.

So little by little practice opening your heart to those you think have hurt you.

That's the tricky bit.

And realise how much of the hurt was through our thinking process.

That I teach myself not to be kind through a clouded low energy way of thinking.

With some silence and a few spiritual insights I can rebuild trust in my brave and kind heart.

Lovely isn't it?

Sounds beautiful.

And if my heart's closed,

A closed heart needs to be opened.

And when you do,

You will have begun the healing process on yourself.

Because there is a rule of energy here.

Before we can be kind to others,

We need to understand how to truly be kind to ourselves.

So to just have a look and appreciate all the unique and amazing qualities and virtues that are part of you.

We really do need to start taking stock and seeing that it is true that you're courageous and kind and generous and helpful.

That you really want to help others.

You want to trust others,

You want them to trust you.

So for that,

This process of meditation is really,

Really necessary.

When I look inside,

I practice stillness.

The moment I practice stillness I've closed the door to all the chaos,

Even for a second.

And having closed the door to the chaos for a second,

There's space for my energy to become boosted and strengthen my original peace.

And I can,

That energy will never disappear.

I can take it with me and I'll go back into the chaos,

But I've gone back in with a bit more energy.

And so when we're saying you will have begun to heal yourself,

The healing is reinstating your power,

Your energy,

Your silence,

Your peace.

This is what it is to reinstate and heal yourself.

So to see and appreciate all the unique qualities and virtues that are part of you.

It's in silence I can begin to see really,

I don't have bad feelings for someone or I don't wish to have bad feelings.

I want to see the kindness in myself.

I want to see my generous nature.

I want to see that I'm helpful.

I want to see that I'm friendly and kind.

And actually,

When you start to look at your journey,

You'll see that you were brave and strong and helpful.

You had courage because we've reached here.

So to see and to appreciate all the unique qualities and the virtues that are part of you.

So meditation and silence,

Time helps us to build an ability to have more slow,

Considered and kind self-talk.

Talk to myself.

Really talk to myself.

See who I want to be,

See who I am.

And start to put it into practice.

And in that stillness and with these kindly thoughts for the self.

Most definitely this can happen.

If I'm very critical with myself,

I need to have an honest look at why am I like that?

Possibly because I've been daunted by things or hurt or I've become unsure of the power of my own energy.

I have to reinstate all of that again.

So being kind has a great impact on the world that affects the world because there's not a lot of the power,

Strength of inner stillness out there.

You know,

You know that.

Just a smile.

Or a kind word.

To be sincere,

This can really make someone's day.

So on we go to be brave and kind.

We have to find opportunity for sweet,

Sweet interaction with others.

Having had that sweet interaction with ourselves.

And that's fresh in our minds,

The fact that you're like that,

So others must also be like that inside.

But many hearts will be closed,

But a kind heart will open many hearts.

They will trust and soften and turn towards you.

So it does take us to be a little bit brave.

It takes us to be brave to see ourselves in that light and feel we want to be sharing that with others,

With the world.

Om Shanti.

It's such a beautiful vision to be able to enable others to trust again and soften,

To become softer because we can all see and feel how hard the world is.

It is really hard.

And this word sweet is so seldom used and can seem quite out of place in today's world.

So you said finding opportunity after you've had sweet interaction with yourself,

Finding opportunity to put even just a little sweetness in.

So how do you begin or continue that sweet interaction with the self?

What kind of inner dialogue would you be having?

I think if we're all very honest,

We'll see that we've become hard inside,

Inflexible,

Hard and not trusting.

And instantly we put up barriers in most situations.

It's a rare situation when we feel at ease with someone and there's not so many barriers go up.

But mostly we have a barrier ready to defend what they're going to say or how they want to listen to what I'm going to say or and try to use a bit of force to put forward what my opinion is,

Because that's become the custom and the system of life.

And so words in that case like kind and sweet and trust go out the window.

So I need to look at it for myself,

Almost like under a microscope and see how I get tense and I get concerned.

And that tension and that concern,

It builds up into what we now call stress.

And this is not good for us,

Either emotionally or for our health,

Our bodily health or relationships,

Because you can hear it in the voice,

You can see it in the posture,

On the face,

On the expression.

And so I myself have to make a decision to do my best to remove that from me.

When I remove that from me,

It can be felt to be sincere.

And that way,

In a very easy way,

I can change my relationships with others.

They will feel that they're not really having to put out barriers to me and I accept what they say and where they're at.

I don't try and change other people.

I change myself and understand other people,

Because they're but for fortune would be me.

OK,

Thank you.

You mentioned how fortunate if you could be in the company of someone who you felt that trust with.

Is it possible to have something like that in meditation?

Obviously,

You can have it with yourself.

But I've also heard you talking in the past about connecting with the source or with the divine.

Is that the kind of trusting where you completely relax and see your own tensions more clearly?

Well,

It's again back to strength.

If I'm not looking at any of this,

I'll have lost masses of my own inner strength.

And the only way I can get back my inner strength is to connect with someone who has masses and masses and masses of inner strength.

Who's like an ocean of peace,

Which is why meditation and looking at peace can start to give me the sort of quick fix,

If you like.

I can fill up more quickly if I keep remembering that one and remember why I'm doing this.

And the fact that I can honestly say I know that I have become very defensive.

I have lost my power.

I would like to have that power back again.

That's all I have to do is focus on the self and the energy of the self and the energy tells its story.

People can feel that energy is different.

They can start to trust.

If they start to trust someone who has got more peace and strength coming from the inner strength.

Then they themselves start to bring strength into themselves.

It's good to share words and to share friendship and things,

But even without that,

You can feel the difference through the energy and the power of peace.

There was a part where you were talking about observing the critical self and how it's connected with feeling unsure of the power of your own energy.

This is back to power again.

When I feel very unsure of my own energy and I become really critical of the self,

How would I get myself just a bit stabilised again?

What would be a good way to do that?

It always comes back to my meditation.

First of all,

If I take this on board,

Even a touch,

If I'm not taking it on board,

Then it doesn't matter what I do,

I'm not going to believe any of it.

I need to have experience of this.

I need to feel that I know someone who does this or I've met someone or I've read something or something about it has touched me.

I want to go deeper for my own sake and definitely without very much to do,

If we know our own nature and we know that we get annoyed,

We know we get upset,

We know we wish we hadn't said that,

We know we could have done it differently.

But the thing is,

We don't know how.

No matter how we try,

We're still going to get annoyed with someone,

We're still going to get upset with someone because we don't have the peace to keep a hold on ourselves and start to manage our emotions.

And that only comes from the inner strength of the power of peace.

You can then manage the whole system,

Energy system of the self.

I'm shanti.

I do some meditation,

A few minutes.

Okay.

Sitting peacefully and focusing on the centre of the forehead.

As yoga tells us I am the point of light.

I'm the soul and the centre of the forehead.

I'm a being of peace.

My natural nature is peace.

And so I'm learning to go back,

To fill myself with my natural energy which has been lost through my journey.

And my peace has turned into disturbance,

Worry,

Concern,

Apprehension.

So now,

Let me see myself as I really am a peaceful,

Loving,

Kind,

Thoughtful energy.

I begin to understand myself and then I can understand others.

And this can stop my critical nature.

Because I've understood the journey that I the self have been on.

I've understood how it feels to have lost my peace.

And I've understood the experience of beginning the process of bringing back my peace.

And the empowerment of my own energy through stillness.

It brings back my capacity for love and friendship and life.

Om Shanti.

Reviews

This is so beautiful. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling of late. I will listen to this talk many times in the future to help guide me when I am drifting away from my source.

🙏🏼

This is gentle and sweet and very powerful
Thank you