The previous post “How to deal with negative memories from past and anxiety about future” outlined the attitude which is necessary to deal with negative memories from past and anxiety about future. It touched the notion of forgiving attitude also, but this being a very  important topic, requires great explanation in a separate post.

Q 1. Why does some people harm others and what is the right attitude to be developed towards those who harm us or others?

Ans. If we accept this self-evident truth that everyone (even the worst criminals) wants to have peace and happiness for at least himself (if not for others) and another self-evident truth that by harming and hurting others, no one can enjoy inner peace and happiness, the only wise conclusion that can be drawn that those who harm or hurt others, do so out of pure ignorance/immaturity. Wickedness is super-ignorance, because a wicked person, though, desiring to get peace and happiness for him/herself, ends up getting only pain and sorrow, because by doing wicked deeds, he/she sets forth a chain of reaction, which ultimately returns to him/her as pain and sorrow.  Let us consider for example, Hitlar, the dictator of Germany, who made 6 million Jews suffer from death: everyday his sleep was full of nightmares and he would wake up  from sleep with fear and trembling. He was not able to sleep peacefully nor in his waking period, he has any peace. A person who knows no peace of mind, suffers from the worst hell. Even if we agree that Hitlar was wicked and wanted to murder jews and all those who came on the path of his egoistic ambitions,  we also should accept that Hitlar never wished such an utter lack of peace and constant sorrow for himself whole day and night. So, we can conclude that Hitlar committed his horrible crimes because of his ignorance about the eternal law of mind that by giving other pains and sufferings, he will not have even an iota of peace and happiness in his own life.

Now comes the case of those who harm and hurt others due to their impulsive nature or lack of proper decision-making. The same reasoning as explained in case of wicked people applies to them also.

Ignorance is the mother of all sins and mistakes. That’s why even if everyone wants supreme peace and happiness for him/herself, some unfortunate members of human family, due to their super-ignorance, commit crimes and mistakes, which rob them as well as their unfortunate victims of all peace and happiness.

So, the proper attitude towards such people should be to consider their crimes and follies as an effect of their ignorance and to have the attitude of protecting the innocent by restraining the evil/wrong-doers, but after restraining them, reforming the evil/wrong-doers through forgiveness, love and guidance.     

Q.2. What is forgiveness and what is forgiveness not?

Ans. Forgiveness is

1. recognizing that the source of all crimes and mistakes is ignorance and that wickedness or foolishness is super-ignorance and a person possessing these wrong qualities, is more an object of concern that an object of hatred, more an object of understanding than an object of rejection, more an object meant to be transformed than an object meant to be destroyed.
2. letting go of the hurt from the past, in order to live and let others live with peace and happiness.
3. being well-wisher for even those who hurt and harm us, because at the core of their core, such people are highly ignorant.

What forgiveness is not:

1. defending or surrendering to others’ crimes or mistakes & cowardly allowing evil or mistakes to flourish.

Q.3. Why is forgiveness so challenging even after one recognizes its great importance in restoring peace and balance?

Ans. Nature has created a strong survival instinct in all animals, including humans. It is a biological fact that negative memories persist for a long time in human brain. The reason is negative memories are associated with events which threaten our survival, either in physical sense or psychological sense. As part of evolution (so that the species can survive from dangers), nature has designed living beings in such a way that we remember negativity well so that we may survive by avoiding the repetition of similar danger in future. Due to this reason, we find it very challenging to let go of negativity from past and forgive people for causing us harm intentionally or unintentionally.

So, we should understand that real biological reason behind negative memories persisting so much, is a positive one, but being more intelligent, humans have evolved at a much rapid pace over-growing some of originally well-meaning biological designs of natural evolution and hence, when negative memories pervade our life in excess, it becomes quite harmful for us. Thus, we should have a ‘learn, forgive and move on’ attitude towards negative memories, only then there can be hope for peace and happiness in life.

Q.4. What is the right attitude for forgiveness?

‘Learn, forgive and move on’ is the right attitude for forgiveness:

1. Learn from past negative experience, so that similar mistakes or sufferings can be avoided in future,
   
2. forgive yourself as well as others for the harm and hurt caused due to ignorance or lack of self-discipline,
3. move on with life and live life with a present and future oriented vision.
   

Q.5. Should we forgive those who don’t accept their mistakes?

Ans. Any person who wants to tread the path of peace, happiness and wisdom should forgive even those who don’t accept their mistakes, while simultaneously protecting him/herself and others from more harm caused by such people. The most important reason behind this is – like every other virtue, forgiveness is its own reward and like every other vice, unforgiveness (and resulting ill-will) is its own punishment. Let us consider numerous benefits of forgiveness even if other side is not accepting his/her mistakes:

1. It gives you peace of mind, without which life is more a hell than a heaven.
2. It allows you space to think constructively about life, otherwise constant meditation on negativity makes the life seem meaningless and hopeless.
3. It allows you to have a fulfilling relationship with others, as you let go of negativity through forgiveness and gain more positivity in the process.
4. It sets a great moral example for others, benefitting many more people and society at large. So, by setting an example of forgiveness, you do a great service to your family and society.
5. It makes you physically healthy and mentally happy.

So, my dear friend – please practice forgiveness.

Q.6. What to do when unforgiveness (and resulting ill-will) arises in mind towards someone?

Ans. One technique will suit all in such a case because  it is based on two great insights:

1. As long as resentment (and resulting ill-will) is harbored in mind, one cannot enjoy peace and happiness despite desiring utmost to feel peace and happiness.
2. When one has to go to the roof of the house, no one can jump from ground and directly land up on the roof, but one has to use the stair and ascending it one step at a time till one reaches the roof. Even an adult cannot jump to roof from ground directly, whereas using a stair, even a small child is able to reach the roof.

The technique is following:

When resentment (and resulting ill-will) arise in mind towards someone, do the following for 10-15 minutes.

1. Close your eyes and sit with spine, neck and head in a straight line. If one cannot do this because of not being in a position to do so, one can practice this in standing or lying position as well.
2. Now, say to yourself for 2-3 minutes: “May I be full of peace, happiness and wisdom.” or “May God/Allah/Bhagwan/Guru give peace, happiness and wisdom to me.”
3. After that, say to yourself for 2-3 minutes: “May all my friends and family members be full of peace, happiness and wisdom.” or “May God/Allah/Bhagwan/Guru give peace, happiness and wisdom to all my friends and family members.”
4. After that, say to yourself for 2-3 minutes: “May all those, who unintentionally hurt me, be full of peace, happiness and wisdom.” or “May God/Allah/Bhagwan/Guru give peace, happiness and wisdom to all those, who unintentionally hurt me.”
5. After that, say to yourself for 2-3 minutes: “May all those, who intentionally or unintentionally hurt me, be full of peace, happiness and wisdom.” or “May God/Allah/Bhagwan/Guru give peace, happiness and wisdom to all those, who intentionally or unintentionally hurt me.”
6. After that, say to yourself for 2-3 minutes: “May all beings be full of peace, happiness and wisdom.” or “May God/Allah/Bhagwan/Guru give peace, happiness and wisdom to all beings.”

What will happen when one practice this technique? The first prayer is for oneself – everyone will do that with full devotion. That will increase the level of peace and purity in him. The second prayer is for one’s friends and family members. Everyone will do this also. The first 2 prayers will increase peace and purity to a degree that the third prayer for those who hurt us unintentionally, will become possible. And the first 3 prayers will increase the peace and purity to a degree that the fourth prayer for those who hurt us intentionally or unintentionally, will also become possible. And after that, one should end with universal prayer for all beings.

It works for everyone because this technique doesn’t demand us to jump from ground to roof directly (i.e., directly ‘pray for’/forgive those who intentionally or unintentionally hurt us), but gives us a stair-based approach, which increase the level of peace and purity (sattwa quality) in us and gradually make us pray for those also who intentionally or unintentionally hurt us.

And what happens if we are not able to remove thoughts of resentment – they create a chain-reaction of thoughts bearing more and more resentment and ill-will, thus enormously wasting our time and energy and disturbing our peace and happiness for many minutes (and even hours). One who instead practises above technique, will be able to transcend resentment for the time-being rather than loosing minutes and even hours of time, energy and inner peace to it.

Please read other techniques on dealing with negative thinking here: “How to deal with negative memories from past and anxiety about future”.

Q.7. How to develop peace and purity which becomes the ground for a forgiving and loving attitude towards all?

Ans.

1. Develop the habit of positive and broad-minded thinking so that you can see the real level of peace and happiness that people who cause harm or hurt to others intentionally or unintentionally enjoy. Once this delusion is gone that such people are happy, we will be able to feel concern rather than disgust for them.
2. Always remember that there is at least one person in this world whom you always forgive and love despite all the mistakes that person does. And that person is YOU. If YOU can forgive and love YOURSELF despite all mistakes YOU do, YOU are quite capable of doing it for others also.
   
3. Always remember, every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. A sinner can become a saint in future – many examples exist. No amount of sin destroys the seed of humanity in a person – there is always a chance that given a good ground, the seed of humanity in a wrong-doer will germinate into the mighty tree of virtue and will yield the shade of peace and fruits of joy to all. So, hope for the best future for wrong-doer and work for their transformation with love, kindness and skillful guidance. This is how every mature person, should act.
   
4. Daily do yoga (particularly thoughtless awareness and breathing exercises – kapalbhati and nadi shodhana pranayama are most strongly recommended to readers) to store up peace and positivity in mind so that their cumulative effect is able to neutralize and help you in removing negative feelings arising in future.

I will end this post with one couplet by Saint Kabir.

Jo toko kata boye, tahe boye too Phool.

Phool ke phool hai, kata ke shool.

This means, those who sow thorns for you, you should sow flowers for them. By sowing thorns, they reap sorrow, whereas by sowing flowers, you reap joy and help in making them eventually realize and correct their wrong-doings.

Amen!

How to deal with negative memories from past and anxiety about future – this is a huge topic regarding which I feel slightly incompetent to write, but based on whatever little I have gathered from wise people’s teachings and personal reflection, my suggested steps to do this are below:

1. Use this master technique based on a great insight at the exact time when negative feelings start arising: Feel negative feelings (anger,sorrow, frustration, hopelessness, anxiety) without any thinking. One can feel without thinking, because feeling and thinking are two different processes. If you doubt this, just reflect over this – “Do we first feel headache or we first think that I have a headache?” , “Do we first feel hunger or we first think that I am feeling hunger?”. What happens when one feels without thinking - positive feelings (joy, peace, etc.) become stronger in absence of thinking and weaker when combined with thinking (when you feel peaceful or happy, try to continue that state of feelings without any thinking and you will find that your feelings of peace and happiness grow deeper and more intense in absence of any thinking process.); whereas negative feelings (anger,sorrow, frustration, hopelessness, anxiety),  become weaker (and eventually vanishes completely) in absence of thinking and grow stronger when combined with corresponding thinking. For example, when one feels angry over something, if one adds corresponding negative thinking, then his/her angry feelings become stronger and stronger – everyone can notice this; the same holds true for all other negative feelings like sorrow, frustration, hopelessness, anxiety. Even when one tries to use positive auto-suggestion, it becomes more like repressing negative feelings particularly, when negative feelings are stronger – thus, this creates psychological problems in long run. But, if one can feel negative feelings without any thinking process in mind, those feelings will grow weaker and eventually will vanish completely (without any repression) within few seconds/minutes. So, now the technique - Whenever any negative feelings arise in the mind, say to yourself 3-4 times ‘Feel this anger/sorrow/frustration/hopelessness/anxiety without any thinking‘ and try to do that by paying attention to just feelings without using thinking process. To help this process of paying attention to just feelings without using thinking process, one may pay attention to the sensations caused by those feelings in the region of head, which are few inches inward from the middle of two eyebrows (Yoga calls this Agya/’Third Eye’ Centre). Keep on doing this till negative feelings vanish completely. When those feelings vanish completely, (say, heartfelt thanks to me :) – just kidding!) move on with your work. Do this whenever negative feelings arise within you. If this technique clicks you, then you will realize that this is the most efficient and fastest technique in yoga to deal with negative feelings. If this technique doesn’t click with you, here are some other techniques for you -
   1. Additional technique 1 – Focus on your breath, while keeping breath completely natural. Give yourself positive auto-suggestion with positive word chosen carefully as per the type of negative feelings. Some examples are - ”I forgive those who have hurt me.“; “I am very peaceful/happy/relaxed/positive/optimistic.” such that one short-word (a long word should be broken into multiple short-words to suit the time-period of natural incoming and outgoing breath. Like,  “peaceful” word may be broken into two short-words “peace” and “ful”) is said with one incoming or outgoing breath (breathing should be 100% natural throughout the process).  For example, when you inhale, say “I”, when exhale next say, “am”, when inhale again, say “very”, when exhale again, say “peace”, when inhale again, say “ful”; when exhale again, say “I”, when inhale again, say “am”, and so on. Keep on doing this for 5-10 minutes (or more if the negative feelings are much stronger) till you feel peaceful and positive again. The reason why this technique works is because, the mind’s negative feelings get neutralized through positivity and relaxation produced by positive auto-suggestion given in a manner,  which is rhythmically linked with our natural breathing process.
   2. Additional technique 2 - To make the mind free from corresponding negative thinking, which just adds more fuel to the fire of negative feelings, ask yourself 3-4 times “What will be the next thought/imagination/talk in my mind?“  or “What will I think/imagine/talk next in my mind?“. If this technique clicks with you, your thinking process will stop for some time and you will experience thoughtless awareness. Some other thought might come after some time, in which case you repeat the same method to remove that thought also. The reason why this technique works is because the thinking process stops for some time when the mind encounters an unknown question or experiences something unknown, unexpected or unpredictable. And in absence of thinking, the negative feelings also vanish within few seconds. One common experience of everyone is – feeling the peace of thoughtless awareness, when one sees a new, beautiful painting/”natural scenery” or meets a friend after a long time. This happens due to above mentioned reason.
   3. Additional technique 3. If one watches/observes one’s thoughts in an emotionless manner (which is same as saying, without feeling positive emotions or negative emotions about them, i.e. without judging them good or bad, joyous or sorrowful, positive or negative.), they vanish, leading one to experience the peace of thoughtless awareness for next few moments. So, the technique is following – Whenever the negative feelings arise, say to yourself 3-4 times “Watch these thoughts emotionlessly.“/”Do emotionless watching/observation of these thoughts.” and try watch the thoughts in mind in a completely emotionless manner. If you do this properly, all thoughts will vanish and the mind will experience the peace of thoughtless awareness for next few seconds. After sometime, some other thoughts will come; in that case, repeat the above technique so that they also vanish. And keep on doing this for around 5-10 minutes (or even longer) till your mind becomes free from negative feelings. The reason why this technique works is – by making the mind thoughtless, the negative feelings also vanish soon, as explained in the beginning.
      
2. Daily do yoga (particularly thoughtless awareness and breathing exercises – kapalbhati, nadi shodhana pranayama and Maha Bandha are most strongly recommended to readers) to store up peace and positivity in mind so that their cumulative effect is able to neutralize and help you in removing negative feelings arising in future. If you are wondering, how peace and positivity can be stored in mind, just think over this – “Can stress and negativity be stored in mind?” – definitely YES. Similarly, peace and positivity can also be stored in mind and yoga is very helpful in doing that, because it makes us experience thoughtless awareness, which is the highest state of peace and relaxation; balances our harmonal system (hormonal imbalances also cause stress and negativity) and helps in giving us a broad and positive outlook by increasing our consciousness level.
3. Work very hard, taking care of every minute of your time – focusing on present task with full devotion will surely fulfill you despite negative past. Recognize that life is in present & not in dead past. Recognize that life always comes as present; what you know as past, also came as present to you and what you imagine as future, will also come as present to you. So, live and enjoy life in true sense by living in present.
4. Recognize that future is more  important than past; that past is in no one’s hand as it is already gone for ever, but future is in our hand. So, leave attachment to the negative past so that you can focus your attention to making future happy and bright.
5. Recognize that every relation and every possession is temporary by nature. Everyone has to leave this world one day alone, with neither any relation nor any possession to accompany him/her. If that is the unchangeable reality of life, then why should we not use our life in a positive, joyous and creative way rather than keep on making life negative and sorrowful over loss of ‘by nature impermanent’ relations or possessions.  So, please remove all attachment to negative past, so that you can enjoy your life and helps others in doing the same.
6. People who hurt you, cannot be transformed by your hate or your hurting them due to reaction. In the worse case, do not interact with them, but never keep on scratching your old wounds by feeding feelings of hate, disgust and revenge. If you cannot forgive them, at least forgive yourself – don’t keep your mind continuously distressed and sorrowful by harboring negative feelings because by doing so, you are punishing yourself for someone else’s mistakes.
7. Recognize the importance of a positive attitude. We can suffer from hell even amidst heavenly circumstances, if we have a negative attitude; likewise we can enjoy heaven even amidst hellish circumstances, if we have a positive attitude. The best approach towards past is to learn and move on. This applies to both negative as well as positive past, because by getting stuck to negative past, we loose our peace, happiness and positivity, thus making ourself both emotionally as well mentally crippled; likewise by getting stuck to positive past, we loose our inner drive and motivation for further self-improvement and success. So, learn from the past, both negative as well as positive past, and move on in life. And the best approach towards future is to recognize that future is always unknown for every person. One cannot predict with 100% accuracy even what one will do in next 1 hour. But, despite future being unknown, it is ultimately shaped by our own thinking and action. So, if we keep a negative attitude towards future, future will have more chance to actually become negative; likewise if we keep a positive attitude towards future, future will have more chance to actually become positive. So, always keep a positive attitude towards future, irrespective of past experiences and present circumstances – this is what wise people should do.
8. Lead a life of selfless service - selflessly helping others will generate happiness in you and your life will take a new meaning and direction, away from your negative past and towards a fulfilling present and future. You know now, how painful it is being left hopeless and helpless. There are many people in this world, who are hopeless and helpless sometimes due to their own faults and sometimes due to outer circumstances. How nice it would be, if you would focus your attention on helping such people rather than on continuosuly feeling distressed yourself. You are fully needed by this world, as long as you can bring a little joy and peace to even one person for even few moments. Recognize the importance of your life and utilize it in selfless service to your fellow humans (and other beings). As per law of the world, what we give to others, is bound to come back to us. So, by giving others comfort, comfort is bound to come to us; by giving others peace, peace is bound to come to us; by giving others love, love  is bound to come to us; by giving others joy, joy is bound to come to us.

Since a very long time, I have been wondering how should a person, inclined deeply towards spirituality, think, behave and act in life and whether those qualities are present in me or not and if they are not present in me, what is the reason behind it and how can it be rectified.

All this should be understood in the background of Sarvodaya Mission ( http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dftvb2vq_22f37c2pfq&hl=en ) and Sarvodaya Sannyasa ( http://gopal4mission.wordpress.com/2007/12/21/sarvodaya-sannyasa ) because this is a basic truth that my first conscious thought of life has been the desire to sacrifice all, if that is needed, for the sake of society (at age of 8-9) and that under-current of social consciousness remained ever-present as eternal and sublime music of universal love whereas all else (even spiritual aspirations) has to bow down to that under-current (so strong it has been).

Now, the big question arises – what are those defilements of mind which harm the purity of life (both personal and public life). As per spiritual sages, they can be classified as tamo and rajo gunas (explained here – http://gopal4mission.wordpress.com/category/yoga/thoughtless-awareness-faq/#What-are-the-attributes-of-mind ).

Of course, both gunas are present in all of us. Accepting the fact that only a fully sattwic mind (having no trace of tamo and rajo gunas) can lead a life(both personal and public life) of total purity, the big question arises, what do we mean by a fully sattwic mind, how to achieve it and how to restrain inner impurity till the mind is rendered totally sattwic.

I am sharing my understanding on these vital questions mainly because this is how a person aiming at universal love plus universal consciousness (even if he/she is not totally in the state of universal love plus universal consciousness at this moment) should behave – he/she should egolessly share with others whatever may help others in becoming more peaceful and pure… (this is one of main teachings of Buddha, which unfortunately most spiritual people don’t practice due to fear that it will develop attachment and ego in them, but which anyone inspired by Buddha or Sarvodaya Mission/Sannyasa is bound to practice along with tackling the danger of lurking attachment and ego by evolving awareness rather than by escapism.)

1. What do we mean by a fully sattwic mind?

Ans. A very simple answer – a fully sattwic (same as “a totally pure”) mind is same as the awareness being so high that one is fully aware even in the state of dreamless sleep. This is the state which happens when 5th center (Vishuddhi Chakra) is fully awakened and is a pre-cursor to full enlightenment.

2. How to achieve it?

Ans. One has to go on expanding his/her awareness so that it starts penetrating first dream state (during dream, one will suddenly become aware that it is a dream and then sleep will vanish and one will be in thoughtless awareness) and eventually dreamless state. The way to do that involve multiple dimensions:

1. Just before sleep, if one practices thoughtless awareness (at least for 30 min. – less than that is too little, isn’t it?), the practice continues at subconscious level even when one falls asleep. This can be easily understood by a simple fact that whatever thought predominates in our mind just before falling asleep, that remains an under-current at subconscious level even when we fall asleep and manifests even in dreams and is often the first thought just after waking up. Now, during thoughtless awareness practice, whenever any thought happens, we use some other thought (like “Who is thinking? or “I am not this thought, I am only its witness.”), so that pattern of thoughts (whenever some thought comes, use some other thought to bring back awareness and eventually become thoughtless) continues even at subconscious level. Its effect happens after sometime (many months/years/lifetimes depending on how fast our awareness evolves) when during dreams, one raises question “Who is seeing this thought? or “I am not this thought”, which results in dream (and sleep) getting broken then and there. One wakes up, but there is no need to open eyes – one should just continue thoughtless practice with close eyes till sleep happens again or actual time to wake up (may be alarm is used for that) occurs. I know only till this how awareness penetrates dream state, because this is recent personal experience and corroborated by Osho, Ramana Maharshi and Upanishads. “How does the awareness penetrates dreamless state?” – the only thing that I know about this is (again from teachings of Osho, Ramana Maharshi and Upanishads), this stage happens spontaneously and gradually (may take few months/years and even lifetimes depending on sincerity of spiritual practice) as a result of evolution from the stage of awareness penetrating dream state. This is the reason, why Buddha, Raman Maharshi, Osho and other sages advised repeatedly to practice thoughtless awareness just before sleep.
2. If one practices thoughtless awareness technique of “observe the incoming and outgoing breath”, then the awareness penetrates dream state in a different way – during dreams, one suddenly becomes aware of incoming and outgoing breath and that breaks dream (and sleep). But, there is no need to open eyes – one should just continue “observe the breath” practice with close eyes till sleep happens again or actual time to wake up (may be alarm is used for that) occurs. On other spiritual paths also, the same mechanism of awareness penetrating first dream and eventually dreamless sleep happens, but the exact explanatory details are not known to me. If you know it, please let me know and I will put that here.
3. One should practice thoughtless awareness with closed eyes and in sitting position at least for 30 min daily.
4. One should always live in present most of the times. Present-moment awareness (which, in its entire purity, is same as thoughtless awareness , because every thought pulls mind into past or future) is the most important key to expansion of awareness.
5. One should, of course, trying to use body-mind mechanism only for sattwic thoughts, words and deeds, to help the process of expansion of awareness.

3. How to restrain inner impurity till the mind is rendered totally sattwic
Ans. Everyone has to design his /her own way to deal with impurity of mind till it becomes totally sattwic through expansion of awareness. My way is sincerely following below principles titled as “Basic principles of right living” in thoughts, words and deeds (they are given here – http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dftvb2vq_31g5qc67cx ) and listed below:

Basic principles of right living (read with a peaceful and one-pointed mind during meals)

1. Maximum possible level of continuous, well-planned and whole-hearted labor is the only key to maximum possible success and self-satisfaction, whatever may be the field of endeavor.
2. Unless one’s awareness level is so high that one is fully aware even in the state of dreamless sleep, one is always within the danger-zone of break of physical celibacy and delusion of  lust, anger, greed, pride, attachment and jealousy. Always keep this fact in mind in order to save yourself from spiritual downfall.
3. Total (whole-hearted) effort built upon the foundation of total “let go”/non-doership (I am not the doer, I am only a non-judgemental witness of all thoughts, words and deeds of this body-mind mechanism.) is the key to Nishkama Karma Yoga (non-attached action).
4. Life is always here, and never there. Life is always now, and never then. Indeed, life is always here and now – by not being here and now, we completely miss life. So, enjoy every present moment (always ‘be here and now’/'live in the present moment’) in order to enjoy life.
5. For gaining peace and purity, thoughtless awareness is the best means. For gaining energy and removing untimely sleep, internal breath-retention is the best means.
6. In this world, love is a greater truth than truth itself. Always maintain a loving, positive and optimistic attitude towards yourself, others and society at large.
7. Always learn from others’ views and reactions – they provide vital clues for improving your thinking, behaviour and communication skills. But, never get influenced by any view conceived on the plane of moral weakness or crowd mentality.
8. Self-unconscious virtue/goodness is beautiful/real, self-conscious virtue/goodness is ugly/false – forget all virtues/goodness you have, all good that you do to others (and society) and forget all ills that others do to you.
9. We” is beautiful/spiritual, “I” is ugly/unspiritual – always use the language of “we” and always avoid the language of “I” as much as practically possible in every form of communication.
10. “What is respected and rewarded, gets repeated and promoted.” – this is an absolute law of human psychology. So, always praise and reward good thoughts, words and deeds of other individuals and organizations whole-heartedly whenever occasion for that arises.
11. Always remember and practice the following with respect to criticism:
    1. Criticism is similar to a poisonous substance – it can easily poison our relationships and create long-lasting, negative image/perception about us and our organization.
    2. Just like some poisonous substance becomes life-saving when administered in a trace amount, in right manner and under right circumstances, similarly criticism, when given in a trace amount, in right manner and under right circumstances, is helpful for the growth and evolution of individuals and organizations.
    3. Criticism should always be given in the form of suggestion rather than condemnation.
    4. Criticism should precede with sincere praise and end with encouraging words and suggestions.
    5. Never criticize harshly or in more than a trace amount, otherwise it hurts the self-esteem of other person, making him/her react, become defensive or demoralized, thus totally defeating the purpose of criticism.
    6. Criticism should always be impersonal (never criticize any person or organization directly) and based on ideas or events rather than persons.
    7. Use the sweetest possible words and the strongest possible arguments for making criticism.
    8. Be open to re-evaluate and even change your own views during the process of criticism – after all, we may be wrong and the other person may be right. Thus, criticism should be considered as a dialogue for mutual benefits rather than one-sided communication for only others’ benefits.
12. The secret of health for both body and mind is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
13. Mind has a harmful tendency to magnify one’s virtues and others’ shortcomings and to diminish one’s shortcomings and others’ virtues due to influence of ego. Always remain aware of this fact in order to develop a balanced and wholesome understanding of yourself and others.
14. Egolessness is the source of all other virtues.
15. The most important thing is not to get born into a good society (and family), but to give a good society (and family) before we die.

Feel free to give your comment/feedback in comment section just at bottom of this post.

Love and regards,

Gopal Krishna