Those who count their blessings, who are grateful, have more blessings and fulfillment in life than those who do not. This is a simple principle. Yet it has the power to change your life. We are built on universal principles, and the universe behaves like us on a grander scale. If you were to give someone a gift and they just looked at it and then tossed it aside without thanks, would you be inclined to give them another? Of course not, and the universe responds just as you do. The universe bestows its gifts where they are most appreciated. If you’re not grateful for what you’ve been given, why would the universe want to give you more?

Many people confuse gratitude with elation. They think that when they’re elated about some event and go, “Oh, I’m so thankful for that!” that they are being grateful. But true gratitude actually has little to do with those temporary moments of happiness or elation.

True gratitude is a quiet state of poise and inner calm where you are truly thankful, where you sense the Divine order and wouldn’t want anything to change. Gratitude is a true prayer of thanksgiving. But there are two types of thanksgiving and they are both very different.

The first type of thanksgiving is often false. It arises when you are dissatisfied with life. It is represented by, “Oh god/universe/world, this is all messed up. Please fix it!”

The second type of thanksgiving is real. It arises when you are truly thankful for what has already been given. With this type of thanksgiving you recognize the order and perfection of what is. As a result you receive ever more gifts. To those who ‘have’ (gratitude) more is given. To those who ‘have not’ (ingratitude) more is taken away. Having gifts taken away as a result of ingratitude helps us wake up to the importance of being grateful.

5 Tips on how to show Gratitude

1. Say ‘Thank you’ – There is no limit to how many times you can thank a person, including yourself, and while it may only be two simple words, their meaning is universal and their effects can be profound.
2. Write a special note- Sometimes our best thoughts and ideas are those we do not try to edit, so let the message you write come to you in the moment. There is no need for the words to make sense to anyone else but the person it is intended for.
3. Treat yourself – The greatest relationship we will ever have is with ourselves, and it is wise to take the time to show ourselves that we are grateful for who we are and what we choose to be. How you treat yourself all depends on what you like, for some there would be nothing better than a treatment at their favorite spa, for others a new computer will do the trick.
4. Smile – a smile can be contagious if it comes from the heart and often tells a person so much more than what words can say. Giving the gift of a smile can be a great way to show you are grateful.
5. Give a gift that counts – the power of a gift when it comes to being a token of gratitude is ultimately the thought that goes into it. Take the time to really look at who the gift is intended for and what they value most in life. Everyone wants to be loved and appreciated for who they are. If you get a gift that really speaks to their values it is likely to be remembered forever!

Living through gratitude will awaken your heart and equilibrate your emotions allowing you to become inspired and enthused by your life once again.

By Dr John F Demartini

For more information on Dr Demartini, The Demartini Institute and Dr Demartini’s upcoming SA Tours visit www.drdemartini.com

1. Natural Stress is healthy
2. Grow your brain by learning to DO something you have never done before
3. All resistance causes pain and energy loss
4. Healing can start after acknowledgment
5. Everything has another side to it (The Polarity Principle) therefore every problem is also an opportunity
6. LOVE IT / LEAVE IT / CHANGE IT – make a decision
7. Exercise gets rid of residual stress in the body
8. We lose nutrition under stress – double up under stressful times
9. Conscious breathing brings you into the present
10. Get rid of possessions that drag you down and drain you.  Ask whether this/that uplifts you, otherwise de-clutter to de-stress: (photographs, admin, your desk, house, cupboards etc) including an inventory of your friends – who drains you or stresses you out?
11. Keep things simple, it’s less stressful
12. You don’t solve anything with your stories, so stop complaining and BE the change you want to see
13. Eat the frog first (do the most unpleasant thing on your list first) and get it over with, otherwise you prolong the stress
14. Avoid doing things that don’t align with your vision for life (your value system)
15. Communicate from your authentic self, say what you need to say, otherwise you will keep thinking about it/carrying it.  Get it out, if it hurts it can then start to heal
16. What you share you can own.  What you don’t own, owns you.

    By Jeanne Beukes

Notes from the Consciousness Coaching “Harnessing Stress” For Growth Workshop (www.consciousnesscoaching.co.za)

Select your choicest grouses, scrutinise thoroughly, pepper with scorn, beat well and discard.
Then, take a receptacle, such as a heart, brimful of gratitude.

Add:
* A good chunk of optimism
* And a large piece of backbone
* Sprinkle well with good cheer
* Season with humour
* Flavour with empathy
* Add a modicum of grit (to aid digestion)
* Spread on love

Render all to a sparkling consistency
Simmer in a warm heart for 24 hours
Finally, add a happy smile and turn outward
It is suggested a fresh supply is made daily to avoid staleness.
Best made first thing in the morning.

END OF YEAR REFLECTIONS

THE FIRST LETTER OF EACH ANSWER WHEN PUT TOGETHER WILL MAKE THE TITLE OF A WELL-KNOWN HINDU SCRIPTURE.

1. A posture by which you make your body rear up like a snake.

2. The active Guna, always driving, keeps us busy, ever striving.

3. A lunar channel, very fine, descending to the base of the spine.

4. A plough is useful for the grower, legs over head, to the floor we lower.

5. Of eight-fold steps, this one will unquestionably be number three.

6. Before you tackle meditation, try to master concentration.

7. With Krishna as his charioteer, this Gita hero conquered fear.

8. If this is so, we’ll live again on earth, or some other plane.

9. He comes when righteousness is weak, to be a light to those who seek.

10. Salvation, Mukta, utter bliss, Samadhi, Buddhists heaven this is.

11. To keep injunctions we must strive, Patanjali has laid down five.

12. It’s set apart from wordly strife, this place to seek the inner life.

13. Like sleeping snake, this power lies, but wakened, up the spine will rise.

14. Through yoga practised day and night, we’ll surely know this inner light.

15. Just like a jack-knife, bent in two, this stretch is very good for you.

16. A seated posture of great power, it’s name denotes a lovely flower.

17. This blissful word is one of three, which signify Divinity.

18. The God of Death great patience showed, and on this youth, three boons bestowed.

19. A Hindu scripture, very terse, embodies truth in ever verse.

20. As still as death, when in this pose, we lie stretched out, from head to toes.

21. Sirsasana; the name for pose of universal fame.

22. Three gates to heal there are indeed. Which one lies next to “lust” and “greed”.

23. The word’s not easy to translate. It’s “duty”, our prescribed estate.

24. And just to even up the score, one question more, for twenty four. in this Upanishad we read the story of a mustard seed.

Scroll down for answers…

ANSWERS:

1. Bhujangasana

2. Rajas

3. Ida

4. Halasana

5. Asana

6. Darana

7. Arjuna

8. Reincarnation

9. Avatar

10. Nirvana

11. Yamas

12. Ashram

13. Kundalini

14. Atman

15. Uttanasana

16. Padmasana

17. Ananda

18. Nachiketas

19. Isa Upanishad

20. Savasana

21. Head Stand

22. Anger

23. Dharma

24. Chandogya Upanishad

BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD

A recipe that begins in one’s being and ends in the place beyond one’s being:

• The realities of life are most truly seen in everyday things and actions.
• Everything exists in relation to other things.
• The self and the rest of the universe are not separate entities, but one functioning whole.
• True insight does not issue from specialised knowledge , from membership in coteries, dogmas or doctrines. It comes from intuition of one’s whole being, from one’s own code.
• In emptiness (meditation) forms are born. When one becomes empty of the influences, assumptions and judgements one has acquired over the years, one become’s close to the original nature and then is capable of conceiving original ideas and reacting freshly.
• Man arises from Nature (Pakriti) and gets along most effectively by collaborating with nature rather than trying to master it.
• Everything exists according to its own nature. Our individual perceptions of value, beauty, size, correctness, right and wrong exist inside our heads, not outside of them.
• Being the spectator while one is also the particpant spoils one’s performance.
• Once can only live in the present moment.

By Kavi Yogiraj Mani Finger, written on his 85th birthday

Your Teacher Is Always in Your Heart

“Your Teacher is always in your heart
You don’t need to write to Him
You don’t need to see Him
You don’t need to be by Him
You don’t need to touch Him.

Your Teacher is always in your heart
Your Teacher is always by you…even if He is on the moon.
Always, right by you, in your heart.

Love, heart-to-heart, is the connection
Heart-to-heart, even if you don’t know each other yet. ”
These words spontaneously came out of the mouth of a 6-year old child of one of Swami Veda’s dear initiates in Minnesota. The child sat on his mother’s meditation cushion and his fingers automatically formed a mudra and this came out of his mouth.

By Michael Smith submitted by the Association of Himilayan Yoga Meditation – visit their site at www.ahysmin.org

Did you know… ?

Om or Aum is a visual Sanskrit symbol, and is also a sacred sound. Ancient Indian texts, such
as Mandukya Upanishad describe the symbol Om: “This eternal word is all; what was, what is and what shall be”.

The long lower curve of the symbol is said to represent the dream state; the upper curve the waking state, and the curve coming in from the centre – deep dreamless sleep. The crescent signifies ‘maya’ or illusion and the dot above it – transcendence. When one passes through the veil of illusion to the dot or circle and its asoociated wholeness one is liberated from the three states and their qualities.

The mantra Om is also said to emanate from abstract sound and from this, in turn, come the seven notes of music.

SWAMI
The title “Swami” is the word most often used to designate or describe a sannyasim (renunciate) who is also a member of one of the ten-branched monastic orders founded by Sri Shankara, the celebrated acarya (teacher of Avaita Vedanta). These men dressed in orange robes are neither “samies” (sandwhiches) – as South African’s would love to pronounce – or Oros men (as kids love to refer) but rather men or women who have accessed one of the four maths (monastic orders or institutions) in India as founded by Shankara: Joshi (Badri) in the north; Shringeri in the south; Dvaraka in the west and Puri in the east. Each taught knowledge of the scriptures, gave counselling and initiated people according to their order.

The swami wears gerua (orange cloth) to represent the embers of a cremation fire. Their blessings and prayers are regarded as especially effective because they are presumed to express God’s will. The swami’s name often ends with the suffix “ananda” (bliss off) as an appellation of deity, or some spiritual quality, state, experience or practice.

Psychoneuroimmunology
That Psychoneuroimmunology (P.N.I.) is the only branch of conventional medicine that is really involved in understanding how the mind works in keeping us healthy or ill. This grand name was developed after recognising how the role of the mind (psycho) and the immune system (immunology) plays in relation to the nervous system (neuro).

NAMASTE
In India when people meet and part they say “Namaste” which means: I honour the place in you where the entire universe resides. I honour the place in you of love, of truth, of peace.