Journey to Enlightenment Part 01

Author(s): Chitrabhanu, Chetana Catherine Florida, Nirmala Hanke, Raksha Penni Helsene
Publisher: Create Space

Page 63

Spring 2003: Realizations
Dear Lighthouse members, families and friends,
Blessings for a loving heart and a peaceful mind to be with you always.
One of the greatest gifts of wisdom that I have gained in this lifetime is to realize that I am ultimately responsible for being happy or sad, joyful or sorrowful, optimistic or pessimistic, loving or hating. Someone else or something else is not responsible for the choices I make that bring to me the consequences of my actions.
This wisdom lets me see that neither God or anyone else is trying to make my life miserable, when I am trying to be a "good" person. Through meditation, I started gaining the realization that it was me, myself and I who, through my choices in thoughts, words, and actions made myself happy or sad, optimistic or pessimistic, loving or hating.
Through meditation and realization I gained the knowledge that with every action there is a consequence and there is also how I respond to that consequence. If I choose to respond negatively, then I could expect some negativity to come to me. The more I meditated, the more I realized how important it is not only to watch my thoughts, but also to become very clear that I am the one who can and will make a decision, a "choice" of what I want to do with that thought. I can choose to seek out a positive outcome or become negatively involved with my thoughts, and then I will experience a negative outcome.
The second realization I had was the experience that there is "Power in the Spoken Word”. So I began to choose, for the most part, words that would flower with beauty rather than pierce like thorns. For what or whom we hurt will eventually in some way come back to "haunt us". If they are hurtful words, we will be hurt; if they are loving words, love will also come to us as a response.
Thirdly, I gained understanding about my actions that any action did not just appear by itself. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind a “thought" triggered my actions. If it was a good thought it would lead to a good action. If, however, my thought was a bad thought, my action would follow through as bad. A further realization came in, and that was if I was aware of a negative thought, I could choose an action that would not be negative but positive, thus changing the circular consequences that had me trapped. I trapped myself in negativity and if I could do that, then I could also eventually free myself from the negative consequence. As I did this, a change began, and slowly I began to have a more Light and Love filled life.
I also learned that it depends on how many times I may have knowingly or unknowingly repeated an action, that it would be played out in my life in someway and at some day.
64 - Journey to Enlightenment