Source: Spirit Science And Metaphysics

Happiness is an aspiration that all of us share. We’ve all seen people who are always happy – even amidst agonizing life trials. I’m not saying happy people don’t feel grief, sorrow or sadness; they just don’t let it overtake their life. The following are 21 things happy people make a habit of doing:

1. Appreciate Life

Be thankful that you woke up alive each morning. Develop a childlike sense of wonder towards life. Focus on the beauty of every living thing. Make the most of each day. Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

2. Choose Friends Wisely

Surround yourself with happy, positive people who share your values and goals. Friends that have the same ethics as you will encourage you to achieve your dreams. They help you to feel good about yourself. They are there to lend a helping hand when needed.

3. Be Considerate

Accept others for who they are as well as where they are in life. Respect them for who they are. Touch them with a kind and generous spirit. Help when you are able, without trying to change the other person. Try to brighten the day of everyone you come into contact with.

4. Learn Continuously

Keep up to date with the latest news regarding your career and hobbies. Try new and daring things that has sparked your interest – such as dancing, skiing, surfing or sky-diving.

5. Creative Problem Solving

Don’t wallow in self-pity. As soon as you face a challenge get busy finding a solution. Don’t let the set backs affect your mood, instead see each new obstacle you face as an opportunity to make a positive change. Learn to trust your gut instincts – it’s almost always right.

6. Do What They Love

Some statistics show that 80% of people dislike their jobs! No wonder there’s so many unhappy people running around. We spend a great deal of our life working. Choose a career that you enjoy – the extra money of a job you detest isn’t worth it. Make time to enjoy your hobbies and pursue special interests.

7. Enjoy Life

Take the time to see the beauty around you. There’s more to life than work. Take time to smell the roses, watch a sunset or sunrise with a loved one, take a walk along the seashore, hike in the woods etc. Learn to live in the present moment and cherish it. Don’t live in the past or the future.

8. Laugh

Don’t take yourself – or life to seriously. You can find humor in just about any situation. Laugh at yourself – no one’s perfect. When appropriate laugh and make light of the circumstances. (Naturally there are times that you should be serious as it would be improper to laugh.)

9. Forgive

Holding a grudge will hurt no one but you. Forgive others for your own peace of mind. When you make a mistake – own up to it – learn from it – and FORGIVE yourself.

10. Gratitude

Develop an attitude of gratitude. Count your blessings; All of them – even the things that seem trivial. Be grateful for your home, your work and most importantly your family and friends. Take the time to tell them that you are happy they are in your life.

11. Invest in Relationships

Always make sure your loved ones know you love them even in times of conflict. Nurture and grow your relationships with your family and friends by making the time to spend with them. Don’t break your promises to them. Be supportive.

12. Keep Their Word

Honesty is the best policy. Every action and decision you make should be based on honesty. Be honest with yourself and with your loved ones.

13. Meditate

Meditation gives your very active brain a rest. When it’s rested you will have more energy and function at a higher level. Types of meditation include yoga, hypnosis, relaxation tapes, affirmations, visualization or just sitting in complete silence. Find something you enjoy and make the time to practice daily.

14. Mind Their Own Business

Concentrate on creating your life the way you want it. Take care of you and your family. Don’t get overly concerned with what other people are doing or saying. Don’t get caught up with gossip or name calling. Don’t judge. Everyone has a right to live their own life the way they want to – including you.

15. Optimism

See the glass as half full. Find the positive side of any given situation. It’s there – even though it may be hard to find. Know that everything happens for a reason, even though you may never know what the reason is. Steer clear of negative thoughts. If a negative thought creeps in – replace it with a positive thought.

16. Love Unconditionally

Accept others for who they are. You don’t put limitations on your love. Even though you may not always like the actions of your loved ones – you continue to love them.

17. Persistence

Never give up. Face each new challenge with the attitude that it will bring you one step closer to your goal. You will never fail, as long as you never give up. Focus on what you want, learn the required skills, make a plan to succeed and take action. We are always happiest while pursuing something of value to us.

18. Be Proactive

Accept what can not be changed. Happy people don’t waste energy on circumstances beyond their control. Accept your limitations as a human being. Determine how you can take control by creating the outcome you desire – rather than waiting to respond.

19. Self Care

Take care of your mind, body and health. Get regular medical check ups. Eat healthy and work out. Get plenty of rest. Drink lots of water. Exercise your mind by continually energizing it with interesting and exciting challenges.

20. Self Confidence

Don’t try to be someone that you’re not. After all no one likes a phony. Determine who you are in the inside – your own personal likes and dislikes. Be confident in who you are. Do the best you can and don’t second guess yourself.

21. Take Responsibility

Happy people know and understand that they are 100% responsible for their life. They take responsibility for their moods, attitude, thoughts, feelings, actions and words. They are the first to admit when they’ve made a mistake.

Begin today by taking responsibility for your happiness. Work on developing these habits as you own. The more you incorporate the above habits into your daily lifestyle – the happier you will be.

Most of all: BE TRUE TO YOURSELF.

Source: Spirit Science And Metaphysics

As written by Mariana Caplan, Ph.D. It is a jungle out there, and it is no less true about spiritual life than any other aspect of life. Do we really think that just because someone has been meditating for five years, or doing 10 years of yoga practice, that they will be any less neurotic than the next person? At best, perhaps they will be a little bit more aware of it. A little bit.

It is for this reason that I spent the last 15 years of my life researching and writing books on cultivating discernment on the spiritual path in all the gritty areas–power, sex, enlightenment, gurus, scandals, psychology, neurosis — as well as earnest, but just plain confused and unconscious, motivations on the path. My partner (author and teacher Marc Gafni) and I are developing a new series of books, courses and practices to bring further clarification to these issues.

Several years ago, I spent a summer living and working in South Africa. Upon my arrival I was instantly confronted by the visceral reality that I was in the country with the highest murder rate in the world, where rape was common and more than half the population was HIV-positive — men and women, gays and straights alike.

As I have come to know hundreds of spiritual teachers and thousands of spiritual practitioners through my work and travels, I have been struck by the way in which our spiritual views, perspectives and experiences become similarly “infected” by “conceptual contaminants” — comprising a confused and immature relationship to complex spiritual principles can seem as invisible and insidious as a sexually transmitted disease.
The following 10 categorizations are not intended to be definitive but are offered as a tool for becoming aware of some of the most common spiritually transmitted diseases.

1. Fast-Food Spirituality: Mix spirituality with a culture that celebrates speed, multitasking and instant gratification and the result is likely to be fast-food spirituality. Fast-food spirituality is a product of the common and understandable fantasy that relief from the suffering of our human condition can be quick and easy. One thing is clear, however: spiritual transformation cannot be had in a quick fix.

2. Faux Spirituality: Faux spirituality is the tendency to talk, dress and act as we imagine a spiritual person would. It is a kind of imitation spirituality that mimics spiritual realization in the way that leopard-skin fabric imitates the genuine skin of a leopard.

3. Confused Motivations: Although our desire to grow is genuine and pure, it often gets mixed with lesser motivations, including the wish to be loved, the desire to belong, the need to fill our internal emptiness, the belief that the spiritual path will remove our suffering and spiritual ambition, the wish to be special, to be better than, to be “the one.”

4. Identifying with Spiritual Experiences: In this disease, the ego identifies with our spiritual experience and takes it as its own, and we begin to believe that we are embodying insights that have arisen within us at certain times. In most cases, it does not last indefinitely, although it tends to endure for longer periods of time in those who believe themselves to be enlightened and/or who function as spiritual teachers.

5. The Spiritualized Ego: This disease occurs when the very structure of the egoic personality becomes deeply embedded with spiritual concepts and ideas. The result is an egoic structure that is “bullet-proof.” When the ego becomes spiritualized, we are invulnerable to help, new input, or constructive feedback. We become impenetrable human beings and are stunted in our spiritual growth, all in the name of spirituality.

6. Mass Production of Spiritual Teachers: There are a number of current trendy spiritual traditions that produce people who believe themselves to be at a level of spiritual enlightenment, or mastery, that is far beyond their actual level. This disease functions like a spiritual conveyor belt: put on this glow, get that insight, and — bam! — you’re enlightened and ready to enlighten others in similar fashion. The problem is not that such teachers instruct but that they represent themselves as having achieved spiritual mastery.

7. Spiritual Pride: Spiritual pride arises when the practitioner, through years of labored effort, has actually attained a certain level of wisdom and uses that attainment to justify shutting down to further experience. A feeling of “spiritual superiority” is another symptom of this spiritually transmitted disease. It manifests as a subtle feeling that “I am better, more wise and above others because I am spiritual.”

8. Group Mind: Also described as groupthink, cultic mentality or ashram disease, group mind is an insidious virus that contains many elements of traditional co-dependence. A spiritual group makes subtle and unconscious agreements regarding the correct ways to think, talk, dress, and act. Individuals and groups infected with “group mind” reject individuals, attitudes, and circumstances that do not conform to the often unwritten rules of the group.

9. The Chosen-People Complex: The chosen people complex is not limited to Jews. It is the belief that “Our group is more spiritually evolved, powerful, enlightened and, simply put, better than any other group.” There is an important distinction between the recognition that one has found the right path, teacher or community for themselves, and having found The One.

10. The Deadly Virus: “I Have Arrived”: This disease is so potent that it has the capacity to be terminal and deadly to our spiritual evolution. This is the belief that “I have arrived” at the final goal of the spiritual path. Our spiritual progress ends at the point where this belief becomes crystallized in our psyche, for the moment we begin to believe that we have reached the end of the path, further growth ceases.

“The essence of love is perception,” according to the teachings of Marc Gafni, “Therefore the essence of self love is self perception. You can only fall in love with someone you can see clearly–including yourself. To love is to have eyes to see. It is only when you see yourself clearly that you can begin to love yourself.”

It is in the spirit of Marc’s teaching that I believe that a critical part of learning discernment on the spiritual path is discovering the pervasive illnesses of ego and self-deception that are in all of us. That is when we need a sense of humor and the support of real spiritual friends. As we face our obstacles to spiritual growth, there are times when it is easy to fall into a sense of despair and self-diminishment and lose our confidence on the path. We must keep the faith, in ourselves and in others, in order to really make a difference in this world.

 

By: Barbara-Lynn Freed / Source: Waking Times

1. The Benefits of Personal Responsibility

Accepting responsibility for your life can be profoundly transformational, as it enables you to live consciously and be in charge of everything that happens to you. The keys to this enlightened way of life are through self-examination with a commitment to change. When you take responsibility for all your decisions, mistakes and life situations, you generate freedom from the cycle of blaming others for your problems and becoming a victim.

By harnessing self-awareness, clear perception of who you are and conscious choice, you become empowered to change the course of your life. In this way you can understand your weaknesses, build on your strengths, and make necessary improvements to your character.

By taking full responsibility for all of your actions and non-actions, and by owning all of your personal issues, you will empower yourself and move towards creating a fruitful life.

2. Trusting Your Inner Authority

Cultivating self-knowledge, self-understanding and self-acceptance are critical to developing your Inner Authority. When we trust our inner knowing and act accordingly, we begin to align with our Spirit and embrace spiritual growth.

However, this simple action is sometimes difficult to grasp, for as children we are socialized to look outside ourselves for answers. Parents, teachers and advertisements give our lives direction by enticing us to disconnect from our inner guidance.

So how do we find our way home?

Because we are each unique in our needs, what is true for one person may not be true for another. By paying attention to your gut feelings, instincts and what your body is suggesting it wants, the process of uncovering who you are will begin. As you practice and discover what you need and want, you will develop more confidence, wisdom, and harmony in your life.

When we take the time to slow down and contemplate our priorities, we nourish, support and encourage our true nature to shine. By fostering life-decisions with our Inner Authority, we open ourselves to living consciously, creating our own future and cultivating lasting relationships. We also begin to grow spiritually by aligning with the Divine spark within.

3. Authentic Vulnerability

Most people associate vulnerability with the disadvantage of being defenseless, fragile, weak, and susceptible to emotional pain and suffering. However, this is a misconception, as Authentic or True Vulnerability is really a source of our greatest spiritual strength, integrity and wisdom.

When we have the willingness to step out of our comfort zone to accept challenges, walk toward new experiences, or take risks, we begin to allow vulnerability to enter our lives, and in turn, discover our mental, emotional and spiritual strengths and limitations, while allowing personal growth and life enrichment to occur.

By working with our Heart’s Intelligence and accepting our human frailties, we can begin to see that Authentic Vulnerability can open our eyes to new perceptions of life’s circumstances. For True Vulnerability inherently commands respect, elicits compassion, connects us with the Divine, disarms others and creates a state of Beingess where deeply rooted healing can take place for us and all our relationships.

As we progress along our spiritual path, we begin to honor our inner wisdom more consistently, and our ego gives way to true spiritual presence and compassion. Here, where open acceptance and self-responsibility are the norm, our awakened spirit can bathe in the state of Authentic Vulnerability and be an open book for all to see.

4. How to Cultivate Unconditional Love and Forgiveness

We are all familiar with Personal Love as a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection we have toward people, pets, or treasured items in our lives. Often used as a term of endearment, we usually see personal love as an intense, emotional attachment or attraction to those we care about. With personal love we can lapse into our lower emotions and hold grudges against others, or concentrate on suffering. In doing so we hinder the effectiveness of our love in relationships, as well as, our own wellbeing.

However, if we allow ourselves to focus on Divine or Unconditional Love, we can learn to look at our glass of life, as being half full, instead of being half empty. In this way we can learn to transform our lower emotions of anger, jealousy, envy and greed into something positive. Pure, Unconditional Love, works without expectation, or attachment to the outcome, and asks for nothing in return. It’s radiant light can resist and overcome every other energy it encounters, for it is the binding force of the universe.

So how do we bridge the gap between Personal Love and Unconditional Love? The first step in this mighty process is learning how to love and accept yourself for who you are.

The second step is to expect love in your life, in all your relationships, and with everyone else you encounter. Here we must remember the Universal Law that says energy follows thought. If we think it, it will happen! Finding goodness in others will help you achieve your own goals, by attracting the same to you. The third step is to work for the highest good of all, by surrendering all your expectations to Spirit (or your favorite Divine Deity).

Obviously, you will need to do an enormous amount of inner work to find true, Unconditional Love in your life. However, an exercise I have found most valuable in shifting my vibration and consciousness is to silently or verbally chant Divine Love for five minutes to an indefinite amount of time. You will be amazed at how quickly your mood shifts to one of peace, and the outcome of any situation becomes favorable to all concerned. When we have Love in our heart, life becomes a joy to behold!

The act of Forgiveness helps us to develop and nourish Love in our lives. Releasing blame and judgment of others is imperative to succeed, for Forgiveness is a spiritual initiative grounded in the humility of accepting that we don’t always need to be right.

When we use our emotions or intellect as a rational explanation to forgive, we fail to see the very essence of what we are trying to achieve. Forgiveness, being born from the heart, and not from the head, can teach us that we are all reflections of each other. In this way, we use the spiritual energy of Love to assess our relationships by looking for similarities in people, rather than differences.

5. Developing True Compassion

True Compassion develops after we have mastered the art of Forgiveness and learned to Love others unconditionally, for Compassion is an action of the transpersonal self. In this state of Beingness, we do not get entangled in the drama and emotions of the present challenge. Rather, we open our hearts to the people and situations at hand, without emotional attachment to pity, sorrow or suffering. Anything less, would be either sympathy or empathy.

By sympathizing (being in emotional agreement), or empathizing (feeling another’s emotions or pain), we become part of the problem, instead of part of the solution. For feeling another’s suffering, does not relieve their suffering. Only in a detached state can we truly hold space for that person to heal, or change their life. Practicing true compassion for another often means simply being present with them in silence.

Like Forgiveness, however, we must first find Compassion for ourselves, before we can truly feel Compassion for others. I learned this from a Tibetan Lama many years ago during a family crisis, where helping out, would have left me devastated emotionally, mentally and psychically. Rimpoche advised me that in this situation, I needed to have Compassion for myself, and that like a good warrior I needed to know when to advance and when to retreat. By following his guidance, I was able to release my feelings of guilt for abandoning my family in a time of need, and later, give them Compassion from afar.