Happy November!Greetings Radiant Beings, Welcome to the second newsletter in our seven-part series on building better relationships with yourself and others—time to grab your relationship journal, general self-study, or contemplation journal. If you still don't have one, make time to buy one. It is time to execute a plan to become a better human. There is no need to feel that you are too far behind in this series to start; that is an excuse. You can begin at any time, but you should commit to it and finish it once you start. These questions are great to refer back to every few months or years to check your growth and acknowledge how you have changed. Remember, a baby step is still a step. If we clear one piece of garbage from the inner terrain of our hearts, we have made it easier for ourselves to pick up where we left off next time. Let us devote ourselves to cleaning our altars instead of tossing a few more litter layers onto them. The longer we wait, the more complicated and challenging it will be to free our altars from the debris of hate, anger, self-doubt, and jealousy. If your goal is to realize that the kingdom of Atman is within, then you must be faithful in your resolve to move forward to attain this goal. To monitor your progress with the highest of all objectives (to know your inner dweller), you must be aware of where you are in the worldly sense of the word faithful. Whatever we have within is also what we will be able to give (as within, without). Let's start with this month's question: How faithful are you? First, let's define faithful and pick a few synonyms that may help your understanding. We can think of it as being loyal, steadfast, or unwavering in our devotion, affection, or vows. Jesus said in Revelations 2:10, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I shall give thee a crown of life." In yoga, we say that once you find your path, you must stick to it if you desire to reach the goal. If we cannot be faithful to our words, vows, and daily commitments in the outer world, we will indeed not be committed and devoted to our inner promises. Suppose your goal in the mundane world is to have a better relationship with yourself and others and ultimately have that inner peace, bliss, and happiness which is your birthright. In that case, you want to continue with this newsletter, designed to create questions to make you think to know yourself better. If you cannot be loyal to yourself and others in the outer realm, you most certainly will not be dedicated and committed to the inner realms. We must be faithful to devotion, affection, and vows to progress and to do that, we must know ourselves more intimately. When you know yourself better, you can better comprehend the Self. We live in the Kali Yuga, where it is perfectly okay to be passionless and jump from this to that or think that a life hack will get us to the goal faster as we are innately lazy. Jumping from one infatuation or person to another creates confusion in the inner and outer worlds. Constantly flittering from this to that or trying various life hacks to obtain happiness will never give you lasting joy. The job is hard, but you must do the work if you want positive relationships. Because we are languid, we have deluded ourselves into thinking the life hack will get us to the goal, but that is, in fact, not the case. There are no life hacks for having a relationship with the Self or anyone. If so, the world would be a better place as we would have many more enlightened selfless beings serving humanity instead of living in the selfish world we have created with our chaotic minds and hearts. During the Kali Yuga, we will encounter many life hacks (distractions), and they will all take us to the same place, which is nowhere. There are many life hacks to choose I picked a few of my favorites to illustrate the point. Believing that wearing crystals will bring you peace and harmony is erroneous. If it were that simple, all those wearing crystals would be enlightened and happy, but that is not the case! Follow your heart; this only works if the altar of your heart is clean. Otherwise, you are following your manas (mind) which means you are feeding your desires. Behind one desire, there are a million more catering to these urges that will never leave you feeling satiated; instead, you will continue searching for ways to satisfy the subsequent longing. The belief that you are an empath watching blameless people suffer. Have you ever heard of karma? You are not an empath; you are a victim helping to keep others in that victim mentality by keeping the myth alive that others and yourself are blameless. Many of us believe that the grass is greener on the other side, but we always seem to forget that we take our minds with us to the other side. While the grass may indeed be greener, we will not be able to enjoy it because we have our intellect that is full of crabgrass and weeds. These newsletters are about developing better relationships with yourself to create better relationships with others. And if you can't be faithful to yourself, you will never be devoted to another and indeed not your higher Self. Now that there is an understanding of faithful time to get started with the questions. What does being faithful mean to you? How are faithfulness and perseverance related? How does the life you live show you are a loyal person? How does it show you are not a faithful person? Is it ever okay to be unfaithful? Have you ever been unfaithful? How did you justify these behaviors? Has someone ever been unfaithful to you? How did this treatment make you feel? How does it impact your inner strength, determination, and spiritual growth when unfaithful? In the past, where have you been faithful and unfaithful? What made you want to be loyal? How did you justify not being committed?
Happy Contemplating! See you on the other side. In Loving Service, Ranjani
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