Living with a Positive
and Joy-Filled Attitude

by Sister Namita
Excerpts from a talk at 2010 Convocation, August 13, 2010

Awake and Ready!

Master would start his talks by asking “how feels everyone?”

“Awake and Ready!”

Answer Master as if you are ready to conquer the world!

“I shall go forth with the courage of a hero and the smile of a conqueror.” ~ Master

When we get in touch with truth we are affected, purified, uplifted.

The Guru promised – whoever cries to me with the right spirit will never be the same again.

Each one of us is a different person, a better person, a more spiritual person for having heard Guruji’s gems throughout the week. Every effort we make in loving God is preparing us for the ever-new joy we are seeking.

Great joy and laughter: the sound of a soul waking up. Laughter is good healing. Live with a positive and joyful spirit. Guruji gave us so much counsel that if we take it to heart it can really change our lives.

Essentially,
conditions are always neutral.

Conditions are neither good nor bad. Our mind perceives them as good or bad. Our perceptions change how we see our own personal experiences. Two people can have the same experience – one can become embittered while the other can be strengthened.

Don’t be a Pollyanna – there are times we need to face sorrow. This is the lot of all human beings.

Rise above with courageous spirit within. Problems will disappear if we cultivate the right attitude of the mind.

How do you arrange your mind? You have a choice. We have control over how we are going to react, how we are going to rearrange our minds. Will we choose understanding, resentment, bitterness? When facing challenges remind yourself that you can choose how to react – will you become angry or will you grow in understanding?

Look at Nelson Mandela – how many years he spent in prison. He says we tend to focus on external factors. Yet internal factors are more crucial to one’s growth as a human being. Service, humility, absence of vanity – qualities that give inner joy.

Every time you’re inclined to react to situations, do you remember that conditions are neither good or bad – that they are neutral? We get to choose how we are going to react. Easy? No. Worthy? Yes!

Have a sense of humor… not to take our life so seriously. Be able to laugh at yourself. Whatever comes into your life – take it joyfully and not personally. It is so freeing not to take life so seriously.

Watch your thoughts and do a little editing. Replace not-so-divine thoughts. We will start feeling God’s presence instead of His absence. Keeps your mind filled with thoughts of God.

Think of a garden. Will you plant a stinky weed in your garden? Pluck out the stink weeds in the mind. Don’t let anything take your consciousness away from God. Is it not wonderful to live, think, and feel God all the time.

Remind yourself of the truth that you are joy. Joy is your true nature. We are nothing but sparks of God’s infinite body. We are tiny sparks of his consciousness. “For joy I came, for joy I live.”

Trouble is that most people look for joy outside of themselves – on waves of likes and dislikes. Master asks us, why not seek joy directly? That beautiful joy is what we bring with us from the astral plane. That beautiful joy is who we truly are. During the first years of our lives we are still connected to the astral plane. Day by day we can lift ourselves up and go walking with our divine Gurus until we are aware of this beautiful realm we are in. Imagine in your every moment being in the consciousness that Divine Mother and the great ones share.

Desire

One obstacle we face that prevents us from feeling joy in our lives is desire. Wrath springs only from desires. Analyze your thoughts and actions – they are compelled by some desire. It may be subtle but it is there. Desires are running our lives.

You can’t attain salvation unless you free yourself from desires. Let go of the desires that enslave you. Go on a desire –reduction diet! When man reduces desire for this world he finds true joy. Transmute worldly desires so there’s more room inside us for divine joy.

Expectations. Can we say what Sri Yukteswar said about not expecting anything from others? This attitude will take us to a more peaceful life. We will not be hurt.

Desire My Great Enemy chant. Remain in the castle of peace within – this is how you get rid of desire.

If you learn to give every desire to God, He will see to it that your good desires will be fulfilled and your bad ones destroyed.

Master had a playful spirit and a sense of humor. When you ask Master for something, be very specific. Be authentic – do away with masks. Who is behind the mask, the façade? The real you minus the fear and human problems that cover up your beautiful soul.

Be sincere, honest, free from hypocrisy and self-seeking. Be one with God. This enables us to live as Guruji suggested we do and for the light of God to kiss our face.

Shakespeare: This above all -- to thine own self be true. Then thou canst be false to any man.

What Gandhi said, felt, and did was all the same. He remained true to himself. He wouldn’t wear his suit – he wore his cloth no matter what. How divine to be so unmasked, so yogi-like… to always be so in harmony.

Self-forgetfulness can lead to greater joy. Think of God more. Empty consciousness of I, me, and mine and fill it with you, you, you Lord. We need to think less of ourselves. Think more of God.

When we love someone, we don’t think so much of our little selves. We think of the one we love.

Relate everything to Divine Mother

Divine Mother is always very very near as the force that guides your life.

Love transforms everything we see. We live with rose-colored glasses and live in a world of inner enchantment. We know when love has touched our hearts.

We love our friends – we have chosen them so let’s choose God and Guru as our best friends, our eternal friends. Talk to them. They are very very near. Listen to their answers because they do answer us.

We can trust God and Guru totally. We can trust the love they have for us and that what comes to us is for our greater good.

“God has sent you to me and I shall never fail you.” ~ Master said to his disciples.

Jesus told his disciples that he will be with them always -- until the end of the world.

We are loved so much that we cannot comprehend it. The Divine loves us and wants us to live a very high life – the best life possible… A divine life we can create ourselves.

Realize God loves us so much – let’s reciprocate that love in our lives.

Ever new joy night and day, O Lord!