How Difficult are YOUR Conversations?

Conversation is a double-edge sword; both spoken and unspoken words communicate and set the dynamics of a relationship. Some people breeze through any relationship being warm, calm and accepting person and an empathic listener; at the other end of the spectrum, people go off like a box of fireworks in almost every encounter. Most people converse somewhere between the spectrum ends; some even oscillate between the ends of the spectrum from relationship to relationship. 

Generally, there are three factors that underpin a conversation. These are context, history and expectation. Context usually refers to an existing/perceived situation. History usually refers to previous encounter(s) and its associated baggage. Expectation is about our wants of others such as behavior, favor, acceptance, etc. 

So here are eight suggested guidelines to drive hazard-free down the conversation lane: 

1. Remember your primary responsibility:After a lifetime of conditioning in which we learn to believe it’s ‘the other’ that makes you feel what you feel, and therefore think what you think, and do what you do, it’s not easy to remember ...no it’s not them, it’s me! Take responsibility for your own emotional state. 
2. Respect is the secret ingredient: Any previous negative experiences (memories of suffering that you attributed to the other) or any previous negative judgment about the other will not allow you respect the other. A conversation without mutual respect will flounder and animosity may flourish. You won’t be able to affirm their innate worth and goodness as a human being unless your vision of them ascribes value to them. 
3. Resistance only leads to persistence so.. stop it! Once you have accepted that it’s you who is responsible for what you feel it’ll be easier to dissolve your resistance to them, even when you don’t agree with them. Resistance kills our capacity to hear the other clearly and eats away at our ability to understand them. Acceptance does not mean you agree with them but it makes conversation easier. 
4. Listen from your heart as well as your head: Listening from the heart can instantly soften a difficult conversation and remove most of the ... difficulty! Instead of being concerned just with their facts and your feelings, you become equally interested in the feelings of the other. Listening from the heart is a skill that develops a deeper connection with the other that leads to pleasant relationship. 
5. Be like a bendy toy: Entering a conversation with wants and conditions will make the conversation difficult. By being flexible, willing to compromise and acknowledge other’s feelings, you will improve your conversations and relationship with the other. 
6. Avoid presumption and assumption: When you make an assumption or presumption you become ‘closed’ around your own conclusions about their motivation, intention and behavior. Even better is to genuinely care about the other. When you can care for and about the other, you will do a lot of ‘asking’, which in turn will naturally reveal and dissolve your assumptions. 
7. Drop the past and pick up the future: Don’t dwell in the past by continuously going over the past. Ask only once what happened and what, if anything, can we learn. Then ask yourself how do we go forward, how will we deal with the same situation/issue next time. Revisiting the past tends to descend to blame- game and makes conversation difficult. 
8. Never DEXTIFY: When challenged, never Defend, EXplain and jusTIFY. Instead, ask before telling. This helps create space to restore openness in conversation. Remember, the root cause of a difficult conversation always lies within us, not with them. 

 Action: Identify 2 people with whom you tend to have difficult conversations and then practice each of the strategies listed above to improve conversations steadily.

 Adapted from Mike George’s article, “How Difficult are YOUR Conversations?”.© 2013

Shivratri Celebrations

Where IN the World Are YOU?

You wonder how in the world you can sail through life gracefully with generosity and gratitude, without being rocked, shocked or knocked, agitated, resentful or animus towards anyone! 

Realize that you are a soul and that you occupy a form comprised of the same elements as the world is made of - earth wind, water, fire, space (void); realize that you are a temporary dweller in the form you are in. Here are some insights and practices, some meditations and contemplations to correct our relationship with the world: 

1. A Day without Desires: Desire is the most frequent thought we create in our mind: I want destination wedding; a large home; a luxury car; an expensive vacation; private school for children and so on. Our desires keep our consciousness agitated and therefore vulnerable to the world. Desires give us fear of unachievability and thereby delay or thwart our happiness. Practice a day without a desire and if it arises, let it pass and become a master of contentment.
2. The Art of Detached Involvement: Attachment brings fear of loss. Make every interaction, every relationship an opportunity to practice detachment with involvement, that is, be present and empathize for others experiences but do not relate to your own or ‘re-live it’ so as to keep your consciousness cool and enhance your ability to care. 
3. Stillness in Motion: At the heart of consciousness lies an ‘inner space’ that never ever changes. It is the ‘still point’ that gives us stability in the chaos around us and the one that defines us who we are. Viewing our own life and things around us from this ‘still point’ allows us to see the world in transition, flow and thereby helping us become detached. 
4. Observe From Above: If you can rise above the scene in front of you, ‘as if’ you are leaving your body 'down there' in the scene and pull your perspective far enough away, like astronauts on a journey away from the physical world, the insignificance of...everything, becomes apparent. Events and circumstance lose their effect upon you. You may even see and realize that every scene that appears in front of you is just a fleeting image in the larger drama, one small frame in the reel of the movie called life. Your cravings diminish! 
5. Listen to the Silence: Behind all creativity and prior to all creation is silence. The artist begins with a blank canvas...silence. Between the notes of a symphony is nothing but ...silence. Between and behind your thoughts is the power of your being ... your silence. From the silence of the self comes all creation. If you remain busy and occupied with what is happening around you, you will not be able to harness your own power of silence coming from ‘still point’ to be detached or contented. Meditation takes you beyond your surroundings, into this silence. Practice meditation. 
6. Imitate a Seed: Hold the seed of any plant in the palm of your hand and it seems so small and insignificant, so inert and static. And yet the complete blueprint of the future growth of its form, color and fragrance are merged within. It is the perfect metaphor for the 'light of consciousness', for the self that 'I am', that ‘you are’. Real rest and renewal happens when we can bring our consciousness into a seed like state. There is no stimulation. The mind is completely still without thought, the intellect is silent without evaluation or judgment. All the tendencies and traits of your personality have temporarily dissolved back into the light of you, so there are no cravings or impulses towards action. The conscience is still and the memory bank has been temporarily shut down. There is a complete and natural detachment from the material world. 

Action: Analyze to what extent you are affected and dominated by the thought of, and things around you. Next take one of the tools above a day and try to reach still point in the midst of chaos.

Adapted from Mike George’s article, “Where IN the World Are YOU?”.© 2013

Message for the New Year from Dadi Janki

Happy New Year

Om Shanti!

Brahma Baba's Remembrance Day

Brahma Baba's Remembrance Day Special Program

Date: Thursday, January 17, 2013
Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Place: BK Meditation Center, 821 Anacapa Court, Milpitas, CA 95035

Program:

• 6:30pm - 7:30pm Intense Meditation 
• 7:30pm - 8:15pm Brahma baba's life story & Teachings 
• Followed by Brahma Bhojan (Dinner) 

(RSVP Required! Email: rsvp@bksiliconvalley.org)

Brahma Baba's Remembrance Day Special Yog Bhatti

Date: Friday, January 18, 2013
Time: 7:30pm - 8:30pm
Place: BK Meditation Center, 821 Anacapa Court, Milpitas, CA 95035

Happy New Year - 2013

The Immune System of the Soul

When our body is invaded by viruses or bacteria, the immune system, often referred to as antibodies and white blood cells, move to protect the affected parts -- what might be called ‘cellular malfunction’ -- of our body which we tend to call...disease! The ‘immune system of the soul’ has the potential to work in a similar way on the many kinds of dis - ease that occur within our consciousness. The immune system of the soul could be described as aspects or movements of consciousness. These are awareness, realization and transformation. 

One day when you are angry at someone and you become aware and realize that you have created anger in yourself just because you could not control others and that others made you unhappy by not complying with your wishes. What you realize is that you have created a dis – ease within your consciousness. When you cease to control others, your dis - ease would heal, releasing your energy for creative influence that nourishes your soul.

We all know how viruses infect functions of our body or our computer. Similarly, dis - ease within consciousness are caused by the virus of different beliefs. Hence the three phases of the art of healing the soul (self):

Phase 1: Awareness of the feeling of dis - ease within me! This can be anything ranging from the awareness of feeling of uneasiness to feeling of stress, anxiety, anger or rage.

Phase 2: Realization of the cause of dis - ease and the ‘viral belief’ that has infected our consciousness i.e. our self. This is only possible when we look into and through the feeling (the emotion that we feel). This requires quiet contemplation.

Phase 3: Transformation of our state of being takes place within the soul/self through the realization that the truth can overpower and replace the ‘viral belief’ and, in effect, heal consciousness. The dis - ease disappears and the feeling of peace/contentment/caring results.

Here are a few examples of the most common dis - eases of the soul/self (consciousness):

The Dis - Ease of ADDICTION: This is not only a disease that affects body and brain. ADDICTION is also a Dis - Ease of consciousness. The main symptoms to be aware of are DESIRE and CRAVING.

The Dis - Ease of BLINDNESS: There is a Dis - Ease of consciousness that could be called BLINDNESS; blindness of our inner eye, our third eye, our eye of awareness. The main symptom is EMOTION. Notice whenever you become emotional it’s as if you can’t see (perceive) clearly, can’t think clearly and cannot make good quality decisions.

The Dis - Ease of the HEART: There is a Dis - Ease of our heart, not the heart of our body, but the heart of our consciousness i.e. our spiritual heart, the heart of our being. We know this dis - ease as SADNESS. We sometimes refer to it as a feeling of heaviness in the heart. Only the realization of the basic truth that every thing comes to pass, can there be the deep healing of past sadness.

Action: Identify your dis - eases. What is the truth that will eliminate your beliefs and heal your dis - eases? If you acted from that truth what would your behavior/s now look like?

Adapted from Mike George’s article “The Immune System of the Soul” © 2012

Have YOU Found Your True Forgiveness?

Our feelings usually ‘hurt’ following someone’s bad comment or behavior towards us. How long our emotional feelings remain hurt depends on how long we keep remembering the experience and generating anger and resentment towards the one who caused the pain. Realizing that we are the creator of our feelings and that we can choose our feelings is one of the most significant steps in re-empowering our self and being the master of our own life. There are seven behaviors that may ‘trigger’ our hurt, but they never actually ‘cause’ our hurt feelings. Here is why: 

You REJECTED me! We feel rejected when we interpret someone’s attitudes and behavior towards us as non-accepting. If it happens often enough we will start looking for evidence of rejection almost as soon as we meet this person. It’s the need to be accepted and approved by the others which underlies any hurt feelings. If we can free our self from needing to get the acceptance and approval of others, we would probably never ‘decide’ to feel hurt by their behavior towards us even if it was overtly rejecting.  

You IGNORED me! Sometimes it seems there is nothing worse than being ignored by another. Can we live without the acknowledgement of another? Can we survive being ignored? Well, we usually do. And the way free of yet another form of neediness is to affirm our own existence and to find ways to make our self of value to others and thereby eliminating the feeling of being ignored. 

You DECEIVED me! It’s hard to overcome the feeling of hurtfulness when you know or learn that someone has deceived you. But it’s not the others deviousness that hurts us, it’s our expectation of honesty and openness of them. It’s our sense of our self as someone who is worthy of ‘their’ best behavior that is the underlying cause of our offended feeling. The best way free our self of hurt from others is to drop our expectations of them. 

You GOSSIP about me! We live in the age of the social media, a modern platform for Gossip. The social media builds our reputation, making us reputation dependent so much so that we become easily hurt by the slightest slur on our character. Sometimes we encounter someone who has no concern for what others think of them. Yet they are still warm and sensitive people to be with. That is because they are not dependent on others for how they see and feel about themselves. 

You LET ME DOWN! This is a code phrase for, ‘you made me suffer’! It’s one of the most prevalent illusions of modern society. It means that we are responsible for others feelings and therefore others are responsible for our feelings; a guarantee of lifetime of unhappiness. The only way to free our self from such illusion is to realize that no one is responsible for how and what we feel. We must control our feeling and expectations of others. 

You just INSULTED me! Some people will remember an insult for the rest of their lives and not realize the memory is as good as the best prison cell! Then, perhaps one day, they may realize that it was just an image of them that was in contradiction to what was said. This realization will free you from the feeling of insult. 

You BETRAYED me! We all view the breaking of a promise as a betrayal. The worst seems to be the transfer of a ‘promised confidentiality’. The hurt feelings go deep and often turn out to be expensive! What started out as love can end as hate filled resentment and the emotional wounds may last a lifetime. This again is the expectations we had set of others. Perhaps, we should realize that this was a mistake on our part and reset these expectations.

There is one reason why we are hurting our self emotionally in each of these seven examples. It is dependence on and expectations of others for our WANTS. We are not here to GET something, we are here to GIVE. As soon as we realize, “My life is for GIVING”, we discover the true meaning of forgiveness.

Action: Choose to give something of your self to the person whom you previously thought was the cause of your hurt feelings (but now you know they were just a trigger!) and notice how this ‘giving’ heals your hurt.

Adapted from Mike George’s article “Have YOU Found Your True Forgiveness?” © 2012

Are YOU Communicating Effectively?

Life is relationship that is hugely influenced by the quality of our communication. Relationship is an exchange of energy at many levels – physical, mental and spiritual being the main three. Effective communication builds, nurtures, empowers and nourishes the relationship itself with an awareness of the main principles of relational communication. 

The Principle of Right Attitude

Our attitude is the foundation upon which our communication with others is built. Attitude begins with the first thought we create the moment we awaken in the morning. Is that thought an ‘I have to’ thought or an ‘I want to’ thought? For many of us, it is somewhat habitual to create the ‘I have to get up and go to work’ thought. In so doing, we create an attitude of reluctance signaled by a definite absence of enthusiasm. In fact we have not yet realized that anytime we say we ‘have to’ to do anything we are, in that moment, living our life reluctantly. 

Some however, awaken and meet the day with a ‘want to’ thought, an energizing attitude that can connect us with others enthusiastically. So are you beginning the day with a reluctant ‘have to’ or an enthusiastic ‘want to’ attitude? It’s our first and probably most significant choice of our entire day. 

The Principle of Reciprocity
If we are on the receiving end of another’s negativity, we first check to see if, in our history with that person, there were any moments when we gave them negative or grumpy energy. If we value the creation of a harmonious and positive atmosphere then we will start to ensure that we end any negative reciprocity from our side, knowing that whatever we do send to the other will eventually return. We may however need to be patient! 

This is where leadership emerges in all relationships. The leader can receive the negativity of the other and, even when it’s ‘personal’, they have the capacity to return a positive energy thereby ensuring any cyclical process of negative exchanges is either broken or simply not established. Needless to say the underlying attitude of a leader is not a ‘have to’ but a very definite ‘want to’. The leader’s mantra is always YES! 

The Principle of Respect 

The ground on which every relationship stands or falls is respect. The most common mistake made in almost all relationships is that we expect to get respect. And when any anger or the subtle face of anger, which is resentment, is present there is an absence of respect and therefore almost no relationship. Those who know the secret of relationship building know that giving others unconditional respect helps to lift the relationship and therefore the communication to new heights. 

The Principle of Self Responsibility 

Each of these three principles is underpinned by the awareness of our personal responsibility for our own thoughts and feelings. Only when we stop projecting our ‘feeling states’ onto others i.e. mistakenly believing they are responsible for our feelings, can we maintain our respect for others. Only then can we create and radiate the highest quality of ‘attitudinal energy’ into our relationships through our words & actions. Knowing that it must come back! 

A keen awareness of the power of our attitude, an understanding of the law of reciprocity, the unfailing ability to transmit unconditional respect and the absolute truth of our self responsibility all lie at the heart of relationship building and therefore the art of effective communication that will bear the sweetest fruit in the dance of life and living that we know as relationship. 

Action: Take each principle on separate days this week and consciously check to see if your communication is being ‘shaped’ by that principle. 

Adapted from Mike George’s article “Are YOU Communicating Effectively?” © 2010

Diwali Celebration

What Does Love Mean to YOU?

Both the words GOD and LOVE tend to come with their own baggage, that is, established and entrenched ideas and beliefs about what a word means. The word God tends to invoke ideas of religion and therefore division, of conversion and therefore of coercion. The word love, on the other hand, tends to invoke ideas of romance, finding your soul mate, the ‘broken heart’, being with your ‘lover’, wedding bells and raising families. In both cases the true meaning of the words are almost entirely lost.

Love has many faces and expressions. Care and compassion, patience and kindness, respect and appreciation are all faces of love that find expression and value in a much broader context than just a romantic relationship. However, when we can’t or fail to find the person who is going to be our ‘one love’, the person whom we believe is waiting exclusively for us, we start to notice how fast these faces of love disappear. Often they are replaced by animosity, resentment and regret, and sometimes depression. When we do seemingly ‘fall in love’ with one other, we can think of no one else. This indicates that we have probably missed the deepest meaning of love. Little do we realize that freedom from all our sorrows, sufferings and sadness can only happen when we awaken to the truth about love - we don’t need to get it, we need to give it. The moment we realize it, all problems in all worlds, including the big world out there and the little worlds of home and work, are no longer viewed as problems, simply as signs of a temporary absence of love. Stress is then seen for what it is in its simplest definition - the absence of love in our relationships. Stress arises within and between people who have temporarily lost their awareness of the truth about love. 

Love is also the primary energy of creativity. When we use that energy, which is essentially the energy of our consciousness, of our self, without the distortions of any attachments or dependencies, we are able to conjure, as if by magic, whatever we create within our minds. 

While we may describe our special relationship with our ‘soul mate’ in terms of feelings, in terms of the depth, richness and intimacy of the connection that we feel with them, it may be a mistake to believe they are the only one with whom we can feel that way. There may be others, there usually are. Why? Because that’s probably the natural way that we used to feel with everyone until we lost our inner freedom, until we lost what some have called our ‘soul awareness’. In that moment we lost our awareness of our self as that vast, open, unlimited, unbounded, radiant energy, and we began to believe we were just that small decaying face, that funny shaped body that appears in perpetual decay before us in the mirror every day. 

In such a moment love is lost because we are lost to our self, and so the great search begins, the great seeking starts, the hunt for our self and for love commences. 

And then one fateful day, we awaken to the wisdom that says stop searching for love. Imagine instead what life would be like if you were loved itself. Allow your imagination to run its own creative riot and then notice how it becomes real, perhaps in small ways at first. You may eventually notice how easy and natural it is to translate this ‘imagination’ into action. 

In that moment your search for one ‘soul mate’ is over. You now see that all around you are your ‘soul companions’. Not quite as romantic. But then what has romance got to do with love? 

Controlling: Attempting to make others dance to our tune is a demonstration of the belief that others, and not we, are responsible for our happiness. If the truth were realized and lived i.e. that we are each responsible for our own happiness, the world would be a very different planet on which to live. 

These 7 of many habits block the light of sun of happiness from shining through our life. Each habit is embedded in one culture or another and has become acceptable though social collusion, thereby sustaining unhappiness and passing it on to the next generation. 

Action: Generate a conversation this month with three other people around the true meaning of love. 

Adapted from Mike George’s article “What Does Love Mean to YOU” © 2012

Br. Mike George's Talk on "The 7 Myths about Love...Actually!"

The 7 Habits of Highly Unhappy People!

It’s only when we acknowledge that we are 100% responsible for our own happiness that we start to ‘notice’ our actions that create our unhappiness and start to shed the habits that sabotage our contentment and joy. Many of us do not want to accept that their very habits are the cause of their unhappiness. Here are the 7 habits of highly unhappy people: 

Judging: When you judge others you lose your inner peace, the primary ingredient of authentic happiness, on the mental heals of which often come the sentence and the punishment! All together (judgment, sentence and punishment), they make up the package called ‘condemnation’ which is a guaranteed happiness killer! 

Criticising: Criticising is attacking, and somewhere ‘in there’ usually lies anger albeit in a milder form. And when you are angry you are unhappy. Some of us hide criticism behind ‘constructive criticism.’ Any criticism with anger is more often revenge; any criticism with revenge, however gentle, is punishment in disguise; an unhappy habit. 

Complaining: Complaining is endemic in some cultures. Complaining signals the presence of distress and therefore the absence of happiness whereas ‘giving feedback’ and ‘making a request’ ensure that there is no discontentment. Easy theory, but hard to practice, especially if we have been playing that old ‘complaining record’ all our life. 

Blaming: Projecting blame onto someone else is not only a happiness killer but usually a habit to avoid responsibility. It’s driven by the perfect combination of anger and fear and is therefore a painful cry that sounds like, “It’s all your fault”, but which, when decoded, really means, “I have just made my self very unhappy!” 

Arguing: Trying to prove we are right, or attempting to make others right, is usually both a tense and grumpy affair. Neither side is happy in the process, and even if it seems one side has won, any happiness is short lived until the next opportunity to ‘be right’ is craved for and invoked! To argue is to tell the world that we prefer misery to merriment! 

Competing: Most of us have assimilated the belief that competition is good, fun and even joyful. But a glance at the faces of long distance runners, tennis players will show that 99% of the game is played in a state of abject suffering. Occasionally, in the middle of the game or the match, someone will let a little joy slip out, but it doesn’t last long. Competition contains fear by definition, which along with anger, are the sworn enemies of happiness. 

Controlling: Attempting to make others dance to our tune is a demonstration of the belief that others, and not we, are responsible for our happiness. If the truth were realized and lived i.e. that we are each responsible for our own happiness, the world would be a very different planet on which to live. 

These 7 of many habits block the light of sun of happiness from shining through our life. Each habit is embedded in one culture or another and has become acceptable though social collusion, thereby sustaining unhappiness and passing it on to the next generation. 

Action: Identify your habits that cause unhappiness, rate them, shed them, find their positive equivalents and imbibe as your habits. 

Adapted from Mike George’s article, The 7 Habits of Highly Unhappy People! © 2010

The Sound of Silence

If ever there was an oxymoron, it is found in the phrase ‘sound of silence’. This silence is of course the silence ‘within’ the self, and the sound is more like an awareness, a feeling, of power of ones own being. The ‘sound of silence’ can have the profound effect of altering ones perceptions and perspectives of life. 

It is the still and silent core of our being that provides our strength, stability and the ultimate sense of security, much like the foundation of a building that makes it stable and secure on the ground. Just as we return home every day to rest, the central stillness and silence of our being is our spiritual home where we must return to rest, refresh and reinvigorate our spiritual energy. In today’s world, we habitually and constantly text, video-share, make phone calls and exchange emails with thoughts, emotions, experiences and desires, thereby drowning our awareness of still and silent self by these ‘noises’. To feel truly stable and secure, we must stop drowning ourselves and return to stillness and silence. The practice of ‘being in silence’, of consciously emptying our awareness of all forms of noise, is essentially the practice of meditation. Meditation is the foundation of mastering our mind, healing our heart and accessing our conscience. 

A Silent Mind: Self-talk is the incessant mental distractions and noise of all the inner conversations that we have in our heads with ourselves and with others based our identity we created out of our actions, relationships and environment. It’s not difficult to calm your mind and move into a quieter state. Sit in a quiet place and practice being an ‘observer’ of your own thoughts. As soon as you ‘notice’ a ‘train of thought’, come back to your ‘observer’ status. Next, observe the space between your thoughts. It’s small at first but as you continue to be an ‘observer’ of your own thoughts, gradually, the space will expand with silence. That silent space is the silent power of your being; truly knowing your self. 

A Silent Heart: When you know your self, you cease to crave and search outside for love in the form of the attention, acceptance and approval of others. With this awareness, the noise of desire and attachment subsides, emotional upheaval dissolves and the heart returns to its natural quiet radiant state and giving of itself, without prejudice, to all who are present. Sit quietly and watch your feelings. Next, consciously choose to be at peace. Allow any other distracting thoughts and feelings to pass. Return to choosing to ‘feel’ peaceful. Practice with immense patience! Notice that when you are at peace, there is an intention to give, to share, to connect. 

A Silent Conscience: The deepest resource of the self, of the spirit that we are, is an innate awareness of truth, also referred to as ‘conscience’, it is the quiet voice that speaks to us from deep within our being and guides us through our life. Only when the mind is calm and the heart is at peace, are we able to hear this voice and allow its gentle guidance to shape our thoughts and decisions. Sit quietly and calm the mind, allow your peace to fill your heart and place a question before your conscience. And then listen for a response. Once again persistent patience and practice are essential. There will be a response, often when you have stopped wanting it and when you least expect it! It is a window into our wisdom, and it is a state in which we can know how infinitely powerful we are! 

Action: Practice each of the three levels of silent being once every day, all next week. 

Adapted from Mike George’s article, The Sound of Silence© 2010

What is Success for YOU?

For many, success is some form of material achievement in the world, for others, it is recognition and applause, for some others, it is the journey that generates satisfaction of success. Yet others avoid pursuit of success altogether for fear of failure. 

What does success mean to me? 

Is it simply getting an admission to Ivy school, or getting a great job, award won, mountain climbed, target hit, or leaving a legacy behind? 

Whatever you believe “success” to be will have a profound influence on your life. If you were to follow the predominant mindset in the world today then success would likely be measured by acquisition. The more you have the more successful you are. For most of us, the success tends to be context specific such as sporting success or success in business, academics, science, politics, religion, spirituality, etc. 

However, if we don’t contemplate this question deeply then it’s likely we will blindly follow others ideas and measures of success, usually learned in childhood, craved in youth and pursued into our adult years. 

Inner Success 

When we take time out, however, and reflect on what exactly personal success is, we may notice a deepening of our awareness; awareness of our inner success and we may realize that personal success comes in ways that we seldom recognize as signs of success! 

Inner success looks and feels more like the capability than the success and enables us: 

• To act with total honesty and integrity thus generating a clear conscience without which the authentic happiness that we call contentment is impossible. 
• To remain peaceful and stable when all around you are in crisis or chaos. 
• To value what you are more than what you have. 
• To accept full responsibility for all thoughts, feelings, words and actions. 
• To be able to see past the mistakes of others and focus on their inherent strengths. 
• To be able to let go of the past. 
• To give without the desire for anything in return. 

So before you set on the path to contextual success, reflect on what success really means to you. It will of course generate many other questions such as what is the purpose of my life. What do I value? But when it comes to this unique and special journey called life, there is a time when the asking ‘right questions’ is much more important than having the right answers. 

Question: What does success mean to you? 

Reflection: Why do you think your definition of success might be challenging to achieve (scribble some notes to yourself) 

Action: Initiate a conversation sometime this week with friends, family or colleagues and ask them what success means to them.  

Adapted from Mike George’s article “What is Success for YOU?” © 2012