When other people bother you

First and foremost, get in touch with yourself. What do you think of yourself? Not what your mom told you, not what your teachers told you, not what your spouse thinks of you! What do you think? Do you think you’re fab? Do you constantly criticize yourself in your mind? It’s very important to take time to do this. It’s the single most important thing that decides your happiness.
Know that you are the centre of your Universe. You could be moved closer or far from any person or place in your life but never from yourself. So stop running and asking other people to love you and fix your feeling of emptiness.
No one can love you enough to replace the void of lack of self love. Your subconscious will reject them and you will create unnecessary complications in any such relationship. “When I know I’m not worthy of love, why is this person loving me? Let me inspect this more closely and look for the catch.”
Sure enough you’ll create it and find it, and say to yourself, “I knew it was too good to be true!”
This is only the good relationships, God knows what you’ll find in the other not so great ones!
So start with yourself. Discover your worth in your own eyes. When people criticize you and it bothers you, it’s only because somewhere inside you don’t think you’re good enough.
Start with knowing you are enough. With this body, this face, this weight, this education, this job or no job, you are enough. You’re here on this beautiful journey of life and you want to make the best of it. Promise yourself to try to get out of your own way. Relax and be easy on yourself. Slowly change your language with yourself, only encouraging and loving words, no bashing. As you do this, you will see your inner child come out of hiding and start blooming. You will laugh more, forgive more, let yourself and others of the hook more. Sunshine will please you more, so will the moonlight.
As you notice the beauty within you, you will notice it around you too. You will love others with their flaws, with no will to change them. Everything is forever evolving in the Universe, the Universe itself is evolving. Which means that everything and everyone is always changing, and are perfect where they are now on their path.
You won’t feel bad when you see negative people. You’ll just accept them as they are. It’s not your job to show them the right way. There is no right or wrong way. When you move merrily along you path trusting the Universe, you will notice that you interact with more and more people who are on the same path. Give your attention to them and to all things that please you, disregard what ever doesn’t.
Whenever you are faced with circumstances that seem to take away your peace, just ask yourself first, “Am I ok within? Am I accepting and loving myself?”
You might be surprised at the correlation every time. It may take some time, but when you are in touch with your inner self, the only thing that will matter to you is what you think. And that is great because that is the only thing you can control!

The Happiness Habit

It is our nature to be curious, to wonder beyond what we require for our daily living. That’s what differentiates us from our fellow beasts on the planet.

If you ever observe the animals, they look quite contented. They eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are sleepy. They follow their instincts quite simply. They aren’t contemplating, “Should I do this or that?”, “Why did I select this? Maybe I would’ve been better off with that. Is this a mistake?”, or, “I wonder what the other lion is thinking of me. I bet he’s judging me. Maybe if I walk this way or do this…. that should show him how great I am!” Only we humans do that.

On the upside, we do get to control what we think. Our happiness or unhappiness truly depends on only one thing, it is our thoughts. We believe our unhappiness comes from the situation, conditions or people in our lives, but think about it. It is actually only our thoughts about the situation, conditions or people. To test what I’m suggesting here, take something that makes you unhappy. Is there any person on the planet for whom this wouldn’t be as bad as it is for you? There are people on the streets, or with terminal illnesses, living in so much pain, they would trade places with you any day. In their given situation, your problem wouldn’t be a problem at all. So that makes the cause of unhappiness relative, not absolute.

It is not the condition in your life that’s causing unhappiness; it is your thoughts about it. Before you reject my point, consider this. We have built walls around us to protect ourselves from getting hurt and we have been doing this all our lives, so it isn’t easy to accept that it was only our thoughts that caused us pain and not the outside world!

The good news is that if you do accept it, it can be the most liberating thing in the world. It gives the control of your life back in your hands. All you have to do is change your thoughts. Sounds easy enough, but how can we change our thoughts? When one negative thought comes, thousands come trailing behind it. Also when we try to think positively, it doesn’t last very long. This is because it is a habit we took years to form. We learnt it from our parents, our teachers and everyone around us. We will have to unlearn the negative thoughts habit.

Just like you would learn any new language, sports or skill, give it some time. When you learn a racquet game for example, you may not be able to hit the ball at all, leave alone make a score. So for the first few days, you practice hitting the ball. Within a few weeks you pick up the game and you feel exhilarated whenever you score. With more and more practice you become a pro at it. Then you no longer need to think of hitting the ball, it becomes automatic.

What happens when you try to change your thoughts? It works for a few minutes and then it fails. You give up. Treat it like a new sport. It’s a skill you need to practice. Don’t give up when you fall. Get up and give it another shot. Each time the getting back up will be quicker.

Just like you need a coach and some sports equipment for a sport, you will need tools for changing your thoughts. Pick up good books, talk to people who are ahead of you on the same path and ask for help when you need it. Set a target if it helps. Say, “I’m going to give this six months. I’m not giving up before that.”

If it doesn’t work, at the end of six months, you maybe where you are today. But if it works, you will be living the happiest version of your life. Isn’t that what we do everything for, to be happy!

My relationship with God

As a child, God was someone I prayed to for things I wanted and for protection from things I feared. Also, I was taught that it was my duty to pray to him since he provided for me, you know, he could get upset and take it all back!

As I grew up, when I went to temples and churches, I covered my head and whispered prayers, trying to fit in everything that needed to be fixed. As time passed, and sometimes things didn’t go so well, I would get upset with God. You can say I had a love hate relationship with him.

Then, something happened- a search began! Who is God? Who am I? What am I doing here anyways? I began to question everything. As the saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Teachers came in many forms, a loving aunt who introduced me to the Law of Attraction, a simple Guru who taught me meditation! One book after the other of new age spirituality, even Discovery science on TV with Journey through a wormhole. For me to believe, science and spirituality had to validate each other somehow. I even read Physics books on Time and Quantum Physics.

Well, the search  is still on, but where I stand today, God is a friend. God is my admirer, and I am his. We adore each other! He dotes on me and sends me signs of his affection in every moment. There are birds, flowers, trees, squirrels, clouds, rainbows, rain…. so many things that were always there but went unnoticed and unappreciated by me. Not anymore. There were situations I perceived as negative, not anymore.

There is nothing outside of God. If there was, who would have made it? And with what? I have begun to see him in everything, including myself. Once you start seeing him in everything and everything in him, your life fills with so much joy! God is in the fun things too! No longer do I think of his presence only when I put on a serious face in a religious place. He laughs with me and cracks a good joke too! He is in everything I choose to be or do, yes, in the late night partying too! Who do you think created all of that?

I meditate, I pray, I follow the rituals, read the books, knowing that I’m doing it because I want to, not to please God. He is always pleased, he loves us unconditionally. So as long as I’m happy in what I’m doing or being, he’s happy too! That’s my God, my friend, my everything!

The miracle that we are

We think of ourselves as a single living being, taking our own selves for granted.
Each cell of the billions of cells in our bodies is living and dying separately, functioning without our interference.
Each one living for a moment, but passing on it’s memory and function to the new one before dying! Yet, unaware of the millions of miracles in our own body, we criticize our looks, our health, our weight!
We run around being fascinated by other people, other objects, looking for attention. As if the attention and love of the divine running through us is nothing! As if the miracle that we are is nothing!

Message from God

Message from God:
How much I cheer to see you be yourself. How happy it makes me to see you love yourself, after all I created you.
I wonder why you wonder what others think of you, is it not enough that I created you?
Could you be anything less than a perfect divine being? No man could duplicate a single cell in your body, I smile at their attempts.
Millions of miracles working automatically in your body, and you look at the others and feel they look better?
One day you will sit here with me and we will look at your life and laugh at how precious you were and how little you thought of yourself!
Until then, I will enjoy everything you do and keep loving and supporting you. My love, my child, is always unconditional.