Happy August!Happy August 2022 to you. We are closer to 2023 than 2022 in our sacred journey. The timing of the Universe is impeccable, and the stars have aligned perfectly for each of us to be here and succeed. The question is, are we doing our part to attain the goal of the sacred journey? To succeed, we must have all the tools; my friend, we indeed have all the tools for treading our sacred journey, not only treading but succeeding. It is up to us to figure how what we need to do to make our devices better equipped for our projects. All tools are not the same; for example, we know a screwdriver is not the same as a hammer, and we know we should not use a hammer to do a screwdriver's job. While the tools are different, they are also of a different caliber. There is a difference between a Harbor Freight drill and a Milwaukee drill. Both may get a job done, but will they work effectively and efficiently after 100 or 1000 jobs? We are doing thousands of "jobs" daily, and we should want to bring the best tool we can to each job site. We take one tool with us everywhere we go and take it with us after we die. It is our mind. My question to you what caliber is your mind? The Yogis gave us seven simple golden laws for living healthy. They seem pretty straightforward until you start trying to live by them and quickly see the challenge. But if peace and happiness are our goals and we are on this sacred journey to reach these goals, then we must adhere to these seven golden laws. I invite you to self-study and ask how closely aligned you are with these little gems. Do you eat correctly and with the right mindset? Do you eat in the right state of mind? Do you chew properly? Do you eat the right kinds of foods? Do you breathe appropriately and mindfully? Do you breathe through your nose? Is your breath serene? How well do you sleep? Are you in bed by ten every evening? Do you offer everything you used throughout the day back to God? Do you sleep through the night? Do you meet slumber with a mantra or stay awake festering about the past and future? Do you wake to feel rested or exhausted? Do you think properly, or do you live in a world of your distorted reality? Do you see the world as unjust, full of hate and turmoil, or do you see the world as perfect and divine? How do you enjoy your sense pleasures? Do your senses drive you around like a race car that has lost control of its steering, or do you navigate the senses like a well-maintained, safe, energy-efficient vehicle? Are you always searching for the next high in the world to feed your sense addictions? Do you practice "Yama" in your life? Yama can mean self-governance. You could think of the practice of Yama as staying in your lane, rowing your boat, minding your own business, doing your thing, driving your car, and keeping your head down. In other words, you don't look outside of yourself for happiness. Looking outside of ourselves for happiness could be feeding our senses day and night, cutting someone's head off to make ourselves taller, living vicariously through others, and generally not staying in our lane. How do you interact with yourself and others? You must remember you can only give what you have, which means you can only love others the way you love yourself. How focused are you on this sacred journey's higher goal and purpose? How committed are you to inner peace and happiness?
Enjoy spending some time being brutally honest and radically accepting of yourself with these seven golden laws. The goal is not to berate ourselves but to examine, evaluate and change ourselves. To do that, we must be honest. The goal is not to be the same person when we die as when we entered this world; the goal is to have our minds less cluttered with whatever mental agitations we bring. Remember, when we depart, we take our minds with us, and we want a more effective and efficient mind for leaving and returning purposes. In Loving Service, Ranjani
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