The Four Principles of Spirituality

 

1. Whomsoever you encounter is the right one

This means that no one comes into our life by chance. Everyone who is around us, anyone with whom we interact, represents something, whether to teach us something or to help us improve a current situation.

2. Whatever happened is the only thing that could have happened

Nothing, absolutely nothing of that which we experienced could have been any other way. Not even in the least important detail. There is no “If only I had done that differently…, then it would have been different…”. No. What happened is the only thing that could have taken place and must have taken place for us to learn our lesson in order to move forward. Every single situation in life which we encounter is absolutely perfect, even when it defies our understanding and our ego.

Do You Believe in Yourself?

   You are giving in your 101% towards something you really want to achieve or fighting for something so bad that every vein in your body is dedicated towards it and then…BHAM! Suddenly this moment amidst the blues where you suddenly feel like giving up on it. The thoughts in your head are going against  your will striving for it. “I can’t do this anymore!” …. “This is not what I really want!”…. “ Am I really giving my 101% ?”…. “ I wanna give up!”…. “ God! Why me?'”…. “Why do I have to do this?”….

    Don’t let any of this get to you, it could break you! Believe in yourself! That’s what you will always…always do, right!?!? Despite what others tell you. But what matters the most is your belief system, based on your thoughts, experiences, circumstances and character, that will always help you trust your instinct or intuition or gut feeling, whatever term you prefer using. It is your inner self what makes your outer self! It is what you say to yourself that becomes. We are humans, we are bound to doubt during our rough phases in life, but that doesn’t mean we think of giving up on ourselves just because of this one rough phase. Guess what, God did not say your life is going to be smooth and easy or be the way we want it to be. “We all are perfectly imperfect!” It is the challenges and the tough times that make our lives so much more interesting.

Reveal The Person You Really Are

    You are out there at a social gathering or a get-together and your having a really nice time interacting with the new people you’ve just met, indulging in some great conversations and after a while they ask, “So, what do you do?”

Your answer to this simple question reveals an incredible amount about your personal sense of identity.

When faced with the question, “What do you do?” most people automatically respond by talking about their 9 to 5 occupation. The problem with this response is that it immediately defines you in terms of your job and places you in a pigeon hole that is often filled with stereo types associated with your profession. Is that who you really are?

Let me give you an example, Jessica is a marketing executive who is working at an MNC. However, her real passion in life is painting. When she is not working, she spends most of her time painting. For a long time, whenever someone asked “So Jessica, what do you do?”, Jessica’s response was, “Oh, I’m a marketing executive.” The person she was speaking to then asked about what it was like working as a marketing executive. And before she realized, she was talking about her boring mundane job.

The Turtles

A turtle family decided to go on a picnic. the turtles, being naturally slow about things, took seven years to prepare for their outing. Finally the turtle family left home looking for a suitable place. During the second year of their journey they found a place ideal for them at last!   For about six months they cleaned the area, unpacked the picnic basket, and completed the arrangements. Then they discovered they had forgotten the salt. A picnic without salt would be a disaster, they all agreed.  After a lengthy discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the salt from home. Although he was the fastest of the slow moving turtles, the little turtle whined, cried, and wobbled in his shell. He agreed to go on one condition: that no one would eat until he returned. The family consented and the little turtle left.

Law of the Garbage Truck

I recently stumbled over this really interesting story in one of my emails. It surprisingly changed my whole perspective and made my realize something. I Hope it does the same to You.

   One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport.

We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches. The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us.

My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean he was really friendly.

Don’t Be Too Hard On Yourself

   It is easy to spend much of your day beating up on yourself for past mistakes. We analyze that relationship that failed and relentlessly review all the things that we did wrong, or we look at that business decision that cost us so much and dwell on the things we could have done right. It is not going to get you any better. Once and for all stop being so hard on yourself. You are a human being and human beings have been designed to make mistakes. As long as you don’t keep making the same mistakes again and have a good judgment on letting your past serve you, you will be on the right track. Accept them and move on.

Many times we try to change ourselves by wanting to develop certain qualities and character that we see in others.

Lighten Your Baggage

  Once upon a time a big monk and a little monk were traveling together. They came to the bank of a river and found the bridge was damaged. They had to wade across the river. There was a pretty lady who was stuck at the damaged bridge and couldn't cross the river. The big monk offered to carry her across the river on his back. The lady accepted.  The little monk was shocked by the move of the big monk. "How can big brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?" thought the little monk. But he kept quiet. The big monk carried the lady across the river and the small monk followed unhappily. When they crossed the river, the big monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her.                                                                  

All along the way for several miles, the little monk was very unhappy with the act of the big monk. He was making up all kinds of accusations about big monk in his head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet. And the big monk had no inclination to explain his situation. 

Give Time, Time

We all have heard this famous quote,”Time is the best healer.”

I want to emphasize on it’s importance.

It happens to all of us, when we are going through difficult and negative situations  in our lives, we want it to get over soon…really soon. But after it is over and done with, those memories still remain fresh in our minds to some extent and we are often reminded of those situations which only makes us feel terrible and we go into our negative zones again. Like I mentioned in the previous article,”Don’t dwell on your past”, it will only hold you back from pursuing any of your current or future events. Learn from it so you don’t make the same mistakes again and you keep moving forward.

It is only a matter of time that our (negative) past events fade away from our minds. For some, it may take a month, maybe longer,

Always Honor Your Past

Every second you dwell on your past, you steal from your future. Every minute you spend focusing on your problems, you take away from finding your solutions. And thinking about all those things that you wish never happened to you is actually blocking all the things you want to happen from entering into your life. It makes no sense to worry about past events or mistakes unless you want to experience them for a second time. Instead, use the lessons you have learned from your past to rise to a whole new level of awareness and enlightenment. In other words, your past experiences are one of your best teachers. Be Grateful that you went through those tough times as those event have made you the person you are today.

Finding Your Life's Purpose

 “Your time is limited; don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

In essence, nearly all people work towards an ultimate goal towards being happy in life. With such a simple and beautiful thought that can help you achieve your dreams and ambitions, why is it that being happy is still a farfetched idea for some of us?

Often we convince ourselves that life will be better after we have graduated from college, or sincerely dedicated ourselves to a job that we truly enjoy, or get married and so on – the cycle can be endless. In doing so, not only are you escaping from the beauty of the small moments life has to offer, but you are delaying your happiness – from experiencing blissful happiness right now AND even in the future!

Sit back. Close your eyes. Breathe. Think again.