Journey to Enlightenment Part 02

Author(s): Chitrabhanu, Nirmala Hanke
Publisher: Create Space

Page 42

Make a Commitment to Yourself
Fall 2007
Given at the Lighthouse Center, Inc. 19 August 2007
It is the best day. The present day is the best day, not yesterday or tomorrow. Yesterday is a dead past, a cancelled check. If you want to keep it, keep it. Tomorrow is a fantasy, it may happen or not. But today is the best day, because we are alive. Alive to make what we want to make. Alive to have a choice: to make the day or mar the day. It's your choice. How to make the day is in your hand. This is the teaching of Mahavir. He does not teach you to depend on anyone—no props. You stand on yourself, your Atma. A building that stands on props has no security, it is supported by props.
This human life is the best gift we have, not money, power, position, name or fame. Realize what you are. Say, "I am alive, I am life, I can do what I want to." It is a beautiful Saturday; instead of going here and there, you are here at the Lighthouse by 10:00 am. Who made you come here? No God, no guru, you. You decided to come here. So you could find out who you are. Others have told you what you are not, they've told you that you are a sinner. So you go on carrying this load on your head your whole life. Or they may have told you that you are handsome or beautiful, or ugly, an ugly duckling or cute as a rabbit. All different names for who you are, but no one has addressed you, the living life, the Atma that you really are.
In the olden days there was a narrow road with two people coming in two chariots from opposite directions. One had the belief that the person that gives way is weak, and the other person is strong, and he thought, “I don't give way to fools." But the other person, who was initiated on the spiritual path, thought, “I always give way to fools." The person who calls you a fool is a fool within. When someone is not aware of himself, he blames others. The word "fool" came in his mind, not yours. There's no need to argue with fools. Holding hate, revenge, and bad feelings only harms us. It is sad to carry negative vibrations of a relationship when it is over. One may be divorced but still married to the bad feelings, the negative vibrations. Instead recite "Namo arihantanum", I bow down to myself, I can overcome my inner enemies.
On the Wings of Light and Love - Volume Two - 41