________________
The automatic and mechanical aspects of living cease to rule us when we activate our faculty of observation and self-inquiry. We take time to notice the universal law of cause and effect and how it is functioning as a precise computer in our lives. There is a real connection between the vibration we send out and the pain or pleasure we receive. When we radiate loving-kindness, joy, and friendliness, that multiplies and comes back to us. Violent thoughts are as real as the tangible world. They, too, return to us. When anger, jealousy, or unfulfilled ambitions goad us, the one whom we damage first is our own self. This is equally true of harsh, slanderous, or critical speech. It works like a matchstick; before it ignites something else, it burns its own mouth.
Through the practice of self-respect, we recognize that our peace is the most precious thing in the world. Before hating, judging, or treating anyone as an inferior, we check ourselves. Before buying or using any product, we ask, “By my action, am I causing any living being to pay a price in pain? Directly or indirectly, am I causing a life to be lost?”
We take the help of meditation to know and remember what we really are. In our natural state, our soul is nothing but love, energy, peace, and bliss. Gradually we glide to a peak of realization and joy, exclaiming, "I am life! I am a living conscious energy! I feel my life force moving in all my limbs and awakening all my cells with awareness!”
At the heart of the experience of self-reverence, we realize that the same energy which is pulsating in us is also vibrating in all living beings. When this
10
