The three secrets to developing an uncommonly powerful spiritual practice, among many secrets, are attitude, incremental improvement and controlling the tongue. These three are primary in my life and I will tell you why. My Guru told me that spiritual advancement is dependent on the attitude of the practitioner. So, I thought about that for a long time.
What is attitude? Something that affects our whole world. Because, people react to our attitude. So, then I thought, if we have an attitude, can we change it? And I found Yes, we can.
So, one of the ways that we can change our attitude is to take responsibility. And that is to think whatever happens to me is my responsibility. It’s come to me because of what I have done in the past or Who I am. And when I take responsibility, I don’t blame others and I don’t make excuses. Then I feel integrity and power to move forward. No one else controls my life. If it’s to be, it’s up to me.
The second is something I learned listening to a radio interview when I heard a man say “I live to be corrected” and I thought, “That is a powerful mantra”. If I take that mantra with me and I try it out, lets see how people react”
So, when my wife told me something, I said “ I live to be corrected”. She stepped back a second and said “Really!”. And when I saw her reaction, I realized, “This is an uncommon response to actually be open to correction. The world has so much to teach us. Other people have so much to teach us. Wisdom comes through other people. Even when they are correcting us. Even when we don’t like it. And if we keep this mantra on our lips that I live to be corrected, and we are open to the lessons that the world teaches us. Then we get wisdom from everywhere and from everyone.
The third secret is don’t carry grudges. What is a grudge? Of, course everyone knows the definition, that is to have some resentment for someone and to think ill about other people because of something they may have done to us, But actually, a grudge, is a nasty little animal that people carry under their arms. It snarls, it bites, and it’s very difficult to carry around. How do you get rid of a grudge? Take it to the edge of a forest and let it go. Just don’t carry it because it doesn’t hurt other people, it just hurts us.
True wisdom means to take a lesson from every experience we have in life. If we have a bad experience, it’s easy to try to push it away. But, if I go deeply within it and I try to find out, what’s this mean to teach me I become mature and wise. And the biggest lack in the world today is mature and wise people. So become one, by taking the lesson from everything that happens to you.
These are three very practical suggestions, Try them out, Take responsibility for whatever happens to you, Don’t blame others, The second is live to be corrected. When someone corrects you, just use the mantra and see what happens. And, the third is don’t carry grudges around. It only hurts you. Let them go.
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