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Driving
Growth
By
Bebe
Butler
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Growth
happens when we bring newness into our thinking. It happens when we
contemplate things that are unlimited, beautiful, eternal and nourishing.
The opposite of growth is stagnation, and that literally means you
are just thinking the same thoughts day in and day out. About 7o%
of our inner conversation is negative self talk. What’s worse
is that it’s the same old conversation which is of course why
we’re staying in the same old place.
So what does it take to move into newness? Simply the habit of beautiful
thinking. This is what meditation is. Once we begin to form this habit,
we fall in love with it because it is like a massage for the soul.
It then changes from a habit to a hobby. And it’s not rocket
science. It’s simply planting new perceptions of oneself each
day:
“I am a peaceful soul, and I come from the land of peace.”
“I move with love and maintain the awareness that we are a brotherhood
of souls.”
“I am an eternal actor in an eternal drama.”
There is an endless menu of pure thoughts to dwell on, but there is
a trick. If we make it joyful, if we get into the feelings of the
thoughts and use our imagination to visualize ourselves as that radiant
light, then we are going to savor the process. It then becomes an
art form rather than self help grunt work.
Once this habit of pure thinking becomes stronger, there is a powerful
momentum that propels us towards growth. We are run by our habits
so it’s wise to create habits that drive us into pure landscapes
and not roads of broken glass.
One of the hurdles we often encounter on our quest for spiritual growth
is tiredness. We don’t see changes quickly or we just go through
a dry spell and get tempted to fall onto the couch of the old ways.
But there is one realization that keeps inspiring me to leap off that
couch and that is the understanding of karma.
Karma is a deep philosophy and could take pages to explore. In a nutshell,
it is the belief that our actions and the thoughts that propel those
actions create our life story, our drama. That means no one else writes
our story. Our thought energy goes out into the world and returns
to us through the day to day seemingly random situations of our lives.
That rude cashier or the control freak that haunts us at work is not
the source of our sorrow. They are instruments to return an energy
that we have put out. Karma frees us from blaming and puts the power
back in our hands. Someone who sees themselves as a victim can never
grow. Just try an experiment. Focus on acting kindly to the world
for a month and see what happens to your life situations. It is amazing
to observe how our karmas manifest and to look down and see that the
pen has been in our hands all along.
Once we understand karma, there is a huge incentive to change. That
inspiration becomes a catalyst for growth and a way to sustain the
art of beautiful thinking.
Bebe Butler has studied raja yoga meditation with the Brahma Kumaris
for almost 10 years, and has taught meditation classes at the
Mind’s Eye (813-935-0736) Museum in Tampa for seven years.
She works as a creative arts specialsist with the City of Tampa’s
Creative Arts Theater.
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