Day 13 of 30 Day Meditation Challenge

It is the coward and the fool who says, “This is fate” – so says the Sanskrit proverb. But it is the strong may who stands up and says, “I will make my fate”. It is people who are getting old who talk of fate. Young men generally do not come to astrology. — Swami Vivekananda

Meditation and Its Methods by Swami Vivekananda
Its been a wonderful day. My relationships are improving, my knack for observing emotions is improving and my quality of conversations is getting better and I am not exaggerating.  Even though there is excitement in my writing, I have a poker face from outside. A few of my colleagues started to think I don’t break under pressure and I am always cool and collected. I am an obese person and usually do not stand out like that in a group. I always used to relegate myself to second, third, fourth, fifth fiddle if you know what I mean. Self esteem was always at a premium.

I am not going to attribute all of the success to 13 days of meditation but it has a good part in keeping me relaxed. I also read a few books such as Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition , The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business and Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. However, meditation is acting like the glue in bringing these disparate concepts into one whole story.

Today, I was out most of the day and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to meditate. But, as they say, where there is a will, there is a way.  I parked my car in a parking lot, sat straight and let the thoughts flow like a stream of water. I was, metaphorically, sitting on the banks of thoughts river and saw live stream of thoughts flow through. I have realized that the more one meditates, the greater the calmness one attains. I built a stamina for 30 minutes of meditation and today, time just passed by today.  Since, I came home just now, I had to let it out immediately. This is definitely an experience all of us have to go through at least once. Over the years since our birth, we fill our pure consciousness with clouds based on all the experiences and perceptions that we have had. Meditation is all about gaining entry to our true core and start projecting the true self to external environment. Otherwise, without a trained mind, we will be constantly influenced by external stimulation.

Today’s Tip : How you react to external stimulation or provocation makes who you are. If you base your decisions completely based on environment, you are more often a prisoner of this matrix of external world. You will continue to get hurt and suffer from low self-esteem because you always need validation from external world. Instead, if you cultivate inner self worth, trust me, external world will orient according to your inner values.