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Soul Sustenance 08-10-2012
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Shedding Off The Attachment To A Positive Past (Part 2)
Excessive attachment to a glorious past is a subtle shade of the negative emotion
of ego which colors my present perception of external events and which affects my
present actions and responses, as a result of which not only present but my future
is also affected. As I hold on to it, my creativity is reduced and I do
everything with a limited perspective, not letting myself grow and shape up a glorious
present and future. There are some people whose goal is to achieve something so
great in their lives so as to ensure they will gain recognition and respect by others
in time to come. This is again a subtle shade of attachment and ego.
But shedding off this type of attachment is not easy and first requires the realization
that this attachment is incorrect and damaging. The next step is sitting in silence
and becoming aware of how you lose your identity in a story of past thoughts, feelings,
emotions, attitudes and actions and then disassociating or detaching yourself from
that story. You do not need to suppress or deny or fight with this story; otherwise
its memory gets stronger and more overpowering. You just need to simply
see and realize deeply that your past is just a record of a particular set of actions,
which you committed at a particular point of time, it is a series of images of previous
events that you witnessed and that you were a part of, all of which have left a
record in your memory, and in the memories of others, but they are not what you
are. This type of practice of disassociation with spiritual understanding fades
the excessive memory of the story in your consciousness over a short period of time
and these actions then cease to influence you in any way in the present. Here we
are talking about an influence, which we have for long deceived ourselves into believing
to be a positive one, but which in reality is not.
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Message for the day 08-10-2012
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True detachment is to be a master of all things that we use.
Expression: Detachment is usually mistaken as being away from things because
usually while using the facilities available we tend to get dependent on them. Such
dependency is troublesome and so we sometimes give up using these facilities thinking
that this is detachment which helps us to be free from their control.
Experience: The solution lies in mentally detaching ourselves from the facilities
we are using. That means we use them but we are not dependent on them. For this
we need to remind ourselves that we are the creator and whatever facilities are
available to us are the creation. This enables us to develop mastery and control
over everything.
In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris