Be Silent: Listen to yourself

In the silence, become aware of yourself. Be aware of your body as full of health and energy. Visualise peace, tranquillity, prosperity and fulfilment. Be silent. Be aware of your breathing, the beating of your heart. Once you are aware of your body in silence, in peace and tranquillity, then you begin to notice immediately, the destructive effects of stress. You become aware of the first, imperceptible symptoms: the tightening of the jaw, the clenching of muscles in your throat and abdomen, the speeding of the heartbeat. Once you become aware, you can consciously decelerate. Be completely aware of the shift of feelings from moment to moment. Knowing exactly how you feel can help you make better emotional decisions.

The Auspicious Field

Auspiciousness or a feeling of wellbeing is created in a space or a field by treating it as sacred.

What happens to a space that is sacred is transformation.

When you consider yourself as sacred, you will treat yourself well. You will wear clean, good smelling clothes. Maybe ironed and starched, mended if torn, but clean and fresh. You will smile at yourself, encourage yourself. Just as you put on clean fresh clothes, you will also clean up the mental space or field around you. Sweep out all ill will, anger, fear and anxiety. Let there be the fragrance of incense, divinity of prayer and mantra, the smiles of loved ones, laughter and joy, the smell and taste of good plain, food. It is as important to clean the field around you as it is to have a bath. Sweep out the sad baggage of the past. Take into that field only what is bright and elevating, fine and happy.

The space around you, your house, your office needs the same kind of careful attention. When a space is sacred, it magnetizes wonderful people and attracts beautiful events into it.

All the words spoken in that space should be sweet and loving. When harsh words or events happen, do not allow them to take root like evil weeds. Sweep them away and find gentleness and kindness that grows beneath.

All religions sanctify space by holy water, prayer, dress and conduct. Hindus draw sacred symbols on the earth with rice flour or chalk (kolam) and a particular space can be set apart for the gods and prayer.

A sacred space is defined by the rules of conduct laid down for those who enter, as in a court room, a church, a temple, or the parliament. Very few misbehave in such places, they are rarely able to cast away the weight of laws and customs built up over centuries around them. Some religions lay down rules of cleanliness and dress to enter sacred places, including a purificatory bath. A person who maintains such dignity and decorum in such a place, may be totally different in a bar or when at a party.

The analogy of a television monitor would describe this phenomenon better. Depending on which button you press, you get a different image. So too depending on the place, a different person emerges. Some places access the Highest and Noblest Self while others access the Beast, the Meanest.

This is true about people in different interactions. Some people create a field, which accesses the best in us, while others access the worst. If you learn the secret of positive fields, you can improve your Happiness Quotient. You can also get the best out of others. ‘Don’t push the wrong buttons,’ we say. What we mean is, don’t access his negative field. Love and Reverence in enhancing the positive Field

Elevate everyday experiences to the level of sacredness.

When work is done with such love, it fills the body and mind with bliss and transforms any place into a sacred space. As Kalil Gibran writes in The Prophet, ‘What is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth from the strings of your heart, as though your Beloved were to wear it.’

This reverence or shraddha is due to all, because of the divine spark that dwells in all men—whether he is a legend or a leper. Sometimes it is obvious. The Divine spark is the silent flame of consciousness that reaches out to you from a flowering creeper or a healthy pet. Sometimes this life force has lost its vitality and is dimmed by dirt, lethargy and lack of care. Clean the glass of your lamp. Make the light shine through. Decide to approach all events, people, and things with affection, shraddha.

The LANGAR made at GURUDWARA is so tasty; no one wastes a single grain, because it is made with shraddha. Mother makes food for his son who has come after a long period of stay from home. The food is so tasty that he does not stop eating as he is hungry from many lives, because the food is made by mother is with shraddha that his son has come after a long period.

Tools for creating a Positive Field

An ancient Indian prayer says: ‘Let all beings be happy.’ Not just friends and family, but all men, not just men but the wider world of all beings. When the great musician Tansen sang, it is said that deer wandered into the palace to listen. Decades ago, the great scientist J C Bose wrote about the response of plants to kindness.

Learning to create a positive field is an important part of the climate of wellbeing. The positive field is created by tools and behaviours that may be verbal, tonal and non-verbal.

• A common prayer or mantra.

• A mental process which draws a magic circle around all those who are participating.

• A common exercise, a common company song, common goals.

• A handshake, a friendly look, an encouraging word.

• Thinking, believing and acting in a positive manner.

• Laughter, commonly shared jokes.

• Meditation, practiced regularly, helps develop the capacity to be analytical, positive and

  disciplined, and eliminate negative fields.

• Affirmations, the most important constituent of the positive field. It is a verbal, tonal or non-verbal act of appreciation. A compliment can be a verbal hug. A verbal hug can replace a thousand words. There is a Sanskrit verse which roughly translated means: ‘Don’t say harsh or hurting words. If you have to say something unpleasant, do it as kindly as possible, while genuinely appreciating the good qualities of the person and the relationship.’ The great Tamil Poet, Thiruvalluvar has expressed it succinctly, when he says, ‘Why say harsh words, when kind words are available. Who would eat bitter, unripe fruit when sweet ripe fruits are at hand?’

However, the energy field around a person is most affected by positive, soul-level motives or ‘sankalpa’. If the gut-level motives are positive, the mere lack of skill in verbal, tonal and non–verbal

The Secret Power of Emotional Fields

Around every person there is a field of emotional energy. Some people always look and feel radiant and everything in their life flourishes and grows. They have a positive energy field around them. Some people, on the other hand, always feel and look morose and tense, everything in their life seems to fade and die. They have a negative energy field around them.

The positive field is created by positive emotions and the negative field draws sustenance from negative emotions.