It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives. Giving someone all your love is never an assurance that they'll love you back! Don't expect love in return; just wait for it to grow in their heart but if it doesn't, be content it grew in yours. It takes only a minute to get a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone, but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.

It is so important to experience God's mercy and forge a strong relationship with God as our Mother. Knowing that a heart that has been hurt becomes hard, we understand God is the only One who can heal our hearts. Each one should ask him or herself : "What can I do to make my heart softer?" There is such a need of mercy. We have to make our hearts softer and stronger, because a strong heart doesn't experience pain and we know that if we experience sorrow, we cannot serve God.

Self esteem is possible only if I value myself, and that I'm only able to respect someone I value. How is my own value created? - I value myself when I appreciate my own fortune. And for that, my vision has to go inside and not outside. The first step is to think: "Where am I looking? In or out?" Where do I base my own value? - On my fortune, on my experience of God's love, on the way I use my time and energy. I must be aware that if I do not value my time, no one else will. I must do things with excellence so that I'm able to hold my head up right in dignity.

It is said that the mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. At every moment we have the opportunity to choose our company: thoughts which bring oxygen to the spirit or those who bring pain. If I am loyal to myself, I will continually strive to go back to my inner core of positivity. Again and again. I will be patient and loving, and increasingly my mind will reside in this positive inner truth. When I am able to be loving and loyal to myself, I can then help others in this same unconditional manner.

The method to clear the mind of negativity is to fill it with positivity. Whenever we come across waste or negativity in the self because of the situations that we are faced with, we first put in effort to remove it. We do work very hard to do that but most of the times we are not able to do so. We then put in more effort or after a period of time give up trying altogether. The only way to remove negativity is to fill the mind with positivity. Just as fresh water added continuously to dirty water cleanses the water, so also positive thoughts clear the mind of waste and negative thoughts. For this I need to give my mind positive food everyday.

Constant awareness of a positive thought enables me to maintain my own inner positivity. The way to remain stable is to apply a full-stop. When difficult situations come my way, it is very natural to have questions and exclamations in the mind. It becomes very difficult to apply a full-stop and finish the situation in my mind. Because of such waste thoughts I am not able to experience stability in difficult situations. I need to bring out in my mind one or the other positive point about the situation. When I understand the meaning behind the situation, I am able to accept it. This acceptance enables me to be free from waste questions and negative thoughts and I am easily able to apply a full-stop. This is what brings inner stability. (No question- mark.... why me, when, how, who...?)

To make thoughts as pure as the actions is to be truly elevated. There is usually attention on the self not to perform any negative acts. There is also considerable attention not to speak any words that are harmful or negative. But very rarely is there that attention on the thoughts. Because of this a lot of negative thoughts tend to remain in the intellect causing trouble for me. I need to understand the fact that my thoughts form the basis for my words and actions. The more I pay attention to make my thoughts positive, the more it will have a positive impact on my words and actions too.

To be a master is to create positive thoughts under all circumstances. The one who is the master of himself creates the right kind of thoughts according to the circumstance. He is not dependent on situations or people for the right kind of response. Since there is mastery over thoughts, there is also mastery over all words spoken and everything done. When I am able to be a master of myself, I am able to constantly create positive thoughts. I am in touch with the inner resources and I am able to make use of these resources in a timely way. I never get confused or pressurized with outside situations, but am able to be in control in all situations.

To check and change thoughts and feelings constantly is to ensure positive change. The one who has a constant check on his own thoughts is able to bring about a change in them. So thoughts when changed to positive bring about change in words and behaviour too. There is no negative waste, or even ordinary behaviour. There is speciality revealed in every act. When I am constantly aware of the quality of thoughts I am creating at each moment, I can keep a check on them. My thoughts are not just positive, but powerful too. These powerful thoughts create a positive impact and I experience constant success.

To be pure is to become an instrument to spread positivity. The one who is pure and clean inside is the one who reflects his purity through his words and actions. Such a person's thoughts are powerful having a positive impact on the thoughts of others too. There is such clarity inside that others are able to take inspiration from him to do what is right. When I am honest with myself, I become more and more pure and clear inside. This purity reveals the power of truth and I get all the more powerful. I don't allow anything negative to influence me and take away my inner purity. This purity becomes a source of powerful inspiration for everyone around.

As we think so is our world. Inspite of our best efforts if things don't turn out the way we expect them to, there is a tendency to get disheartened and we begin to have negative thoughts. These negative thoughts further create negative situations and we find that things get no better. Instead of beginning to change things and situations that are going wrong, I need to work at the seed, i.e my thoughts. I need to keep my thoughts positive under all circumstances, which will make my actions positive too and I slowly find things changing for the better.

The most important part of you is your mind (not your brain - the brain is the hardware and the mind creates the software). Care for your mind, make friends with it, always feed it healthy food, engage it in positiveactivity, exercise it with knowledge and wisdom. Like a garden returnsfragrance and beauty according to the care invested, so your mind will repay you with thoughts, ideas and visions of great beauty when tended and invested with care. Your mind is not made of matter but it does matter what you give it and what you create with it. Where your mind goes, you go. What your mind creates becomes your destiny.

Mindfulness means developing the habit of stepping back and observing your thoughts, consciously directing your mind inward. Just pay attention and take note. Isolate any destructive words and phrases. It’s especially beneficial when your mind and body are relaxed, then you can simply watch the thoughts floating in and out of your head and quietly replace any that are not contributing to your welfare.

“We are what we think, all that we are arises with our thoughts,” said the Buddha, “with our thoughts, we make the world.” In other words, you are constantly creating your circumstances by the way you think. It’s as if you had a guided missile in your unconscious that relentlessly directs you towards its target, and the target is whatever your thoughts dwell on. Think doom and gloom, and that’s what you’ll get. Focus on happiness and optimism, and they’re already yours. The reason why negative thought energies are so detrimental to our well-being is that they frustrate the universal forces that can create a happy, healthy and successful life. They keep our true potential trapped in a mental prison of our own making.

The word transformation is made of three words – trans means transcend, form means shape, and ation means action. It is the action of transcending in which we change our form. At the deepest level we shape our conscious self according to our sense of identity and self image. We have all been taught to identify with our physical form, and we have learned to see ourselves in negative ways. This is what lies at the root of all personal unhappiness and interpersonal conflict. To see and understand exactly why this is so requires time in meditation and self reflection. But more importantly, the correcting, or transformation of our self identity/image, requires the rediscovery of our true form, our spiritual form, to experience the self as it truly is, as ‘I (truly) Am'!

It hasn't been a good ending for humanity this year.
Lets join and oray for those who have lost everything.
It feels painful to wish New Year When so many are in distress,

but life has to go on.
May God give you all the happiness you need.

With the practice of meditation comes the growing ability to know and do the right thing. Wisdom is the awareness and application of what is true, in the right way, at the right time, tempered and made appropriate by experience. For e.g, while it may be right to speak honestly about our feelings to someone, if we know from experience others sensitivities to our emotions, we may decide to delay our sharing to a moment that feels more appropriate. On the other hand we may sense that for another it is good to confront their actions using questions in order to help them to see and break a pattern which is obviously leading to an unwanted outcome.The inner act of drawing together our experience with the our perception of the others state, with our own awareness of what is right, while seeing the future effects of our actions requires a calm mind, a clear and clean intellect and the confidence to act with conviction. Meditation calms, sharpens and facilitates our ability to integrate these various factors prior to action, not just sitting in quiet corner in some lotus position but eventually, with practice, in a split second, in real life real time situations.

Just as appearances in life are deceiving, so what we see in within ourselves during our meditation can also be deceiving. While we have two eyes to observe the world around us, we have a third eye through which we can see our inner world of beliefs, experiences, memories, traits and tendencies. This is the eye of the intellect which is designed to give us insight (sight inwards). It is a vital aspect of our consciousness which we need in order to understand ourselves and others. This insight alone reminds us we are responsible for everything we think, feel and do, and that we have the power to choose how we experience and respond to life around us. To someone with a victim mindset this one insight represents liberation. As meditation sharpens the focus of our inner eye, a thousand other insights are possible and enlightenment is never far.

The modern myth that if you get your body well then your mind will follow, is fast fading. While the general health and well being of our body will ‘influence' our mental state, it is the quality of our thoughts and feelings which primarily effect our physical well being. This means real relaxation begins within our consciousness. It is helpful to remember that watching the match or the movie is not relaxation but stimulation. They are mental escape activities which will eventually result in the atrophy of our mental strength and an increase in our emotional instablility. A quiet mind, a slow mind, a mind that has positive thoughts created by the self is a relaxed mind. And a relaxed mind leads to a relaxed body. Meditation is not about stopping thoughts, it is more about seeing our own patterns of thinking, correcting our thought process and consciously practicing the creation of right quality of thoughts as we learn to become the masters of our own consciousness.

The simplest definition of meditation is the ‘cultivation of self awareness'. In a media driven age, where information is largely the currency of exchange, most of us spend our lives being aware of everything except ourselves. Even the idea of self awareness can sound pretentious and unnecessary, if not strange. Yet without self awareness we cannot see what we are doing wrong at the levels of our own thoughts and feelings. In fact we cannot even see that it is ourselves and not someone else who creates our thoughts and feelings! When we fall under the illusion that others are responsible for what we feel we condemn ourselves to stressful life as we become dependent on external sources of stimulation and perform our very own award winning performance of The Victim!

Our spiritual well being can be measured by the quality of our inner peace, our ability to create stillness at will and our capacity to radiate love from our heart into the world. Unfortunately it seems we have decamped from our hearts and moved to take up residence in our minds. We have become unendingly busy, creating thoughts filled with worry, anxiety, frequent frustrations and rising levels of anger. Like the layers of an onion these mental and emotional states gradually accumulate and suppress our spiritual heart. Negative mind sets to starve our physical heart and our everyday relationships of the oxygen of love. Busy minds also lead to busy and tired bodies. Perhaps this is why we now see meditation enjoying a rising tide of interest and practice. Meditation is the oldest and most effective way to quieten the mind, release past hurts, be fully present to know the joy of the moment, transform the quality of our thinking and begin the healing of our heart from inside out.