Thursday, April 30, 2009

Catastrophes and calamities - Torkom Saraydarian

Humanity is being bombarded with pessimistic literature from dark sources which is poisoning it. In this literature we read that:

  1. the earth will shatter into pieces;
  2. atomic radiation will pollute the entire earth;
  3. war and nuclear weapons will wipe out life on the planet; and
  4. the currency will lose its value and bankruptcy will be widespread.

These and similar kinds of ‘news’ will gradually paralyze the human spirit and extinguish the light of the heart. It is obvious that humanity is going through a dangerous time, through a crisis, but this crisis will hopefully put it back on the right track to victory and higher achievement.

………………

There are three ways of looking at the world and the events going on around us. These three outlooks are optimism, pessimism, and carelessness. Optimism means to see darkness in the world but still know that light can come, to know that a person is sick but also know that a remedy can be found; to see the burning building but be able to extinguish the fire.

Pessimism means to see all these conditions without being able to see solutions; to give up in the face of problems and difficulties.

Carelessness means to have apathy and non-concern toward the obstacles created by optimism and pessimism.

The Teaching challenges us to see the conditions of our planet and not to be trapped by any of these outlooks.

The conditions of the world have not improved. Not without reason are you full of expectancy. The abscess is coming to a head. We are on vigil, and he who is with Us is saved. But to be with Us means to know the Teaching; to know means to apply.” Agni Yoga, Fiery World, Vol. 1, para.481

This is the condition of the planet at this time. What should be our reaction to this condition?

“…Precisely in the days of grave sickness of the planet it is important to be filled with courage. By groping one does not pass, but the sword can cleave the harmful veils. Very grave is the moment, and it is necessary to intensify all courage.” Agni Yoga, Community, para. 48

Courage means to stand against the obstacles and find ways and means to annihilate them. The ‘sword’ is your truth, your spiritual values, your faith. If you have that sword, you can destroy the veils that are forming between you and reality.

People see the moral and spiritual degeneration in the world today and become very pessimistic about the future of the planet. The challenge of discipleship is to see the condition of the planet as it really is, but inspire courage in oneself and in others to stand up and try to improve the world situation.

…………

It is known that the presence of a Hierarchical worker can prevent earthquakes and natural catastrophes. Hierarchical workers are often sent to certain places to protect people from natural upheavals by their presence. They are sent to restore peace and understanding, to bring health and prosperity; but they remain unknown until people develop eyes to see their influence.


-Torkom Saraydarian



The secret of health - Buddha

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.

-Gotama Buddha


"This is why I tell you that Christians are lazy"

When Jesus said: 'My Father is still working, and I also am working', what did he want us to understand? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Very simply, he was asking us to start working as well. But instead, people leave Jesus to his work with his Father, while they tend to their hens and pigs. You will say: 'But there is a world of difference between Jesus and us! He is the son of God, he is perfect, while we! It is arrogant to imagine that we could do the same work he does.'

Fine, think what you will, but know that Jesus himself thought differently, since he also said: 'Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.' Or again: 'The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.' This is why I tell you that Christians are lazy. They would have others believe it is out of humility that they do not engage in the only activity which is truly worthwhile: participating in the work of God. No, this is not humility, but laziness!

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov


How to Be Happy All the Time - Yogananda

Happiness consists in making the mightiest efforts to reduce your desires and needs, and in cultivating the ability to meet those needs at will, always trying to smile, both outwardly and inwardly, in spite of every predicament.

Be silent and calm every night for at least ten minutes (longer if possible) before you retire, and again in the morning before rising. This will produce an undaunted, unbreakable inner habit of happiness that will make you able to meet all the trying situations of the everyday battle of life. With that unchangeable happiness
within, go about seeking to fulfill the demands of your day.

Seek happiness more in your mind and less in the acquisition of things. Be so happy in your mind that nothing that comes can possibly make you unhappy. Then, you can get along without things you have been accustomed to. Be happy knowing you have acquired the power not to be negative. Know, too, that you will never again become so materially minded that you forget your inner happiness, even if you become a millionaire.


-How to Be Happy All the Time

by Paramhansa Yogananda



Enlarge your sense of things

The Master instructed the unhappy student to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. "How does it taste?" The Master asked. Awful," said the student.

The Master then asked the student to take another handful of salt and throw it in the lake. The two walked to the nearby lake and when the student swirled his handful of salt into the lake, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake." The student did so and the Master asked, "How does it taste?" Good!" Remarked the student. "Do you taste the salt?" Asked the Master. "No, said the young man.

The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said, "The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the 'pain' depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things..... Stop being a glass. Become a lake!"


Gratitude

“We give what we choose, and we receive back that which we give. So in fact, we choose what we receive in life.

How sad for those who have not learned this simple truth.

Don’t take my word or anyone else’s word for it. Try it for yourself! Say thank you and watch the results in your life.

Then try saying thank you even before the desired results occur. You will be amazed by how quickly your life becomes filled with wonderful outcomes that some choose to call miracles.”

-Louise Hay


Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Living Graves - George Bernard Shaw

Living Graves
By George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

We are the living graves of murdered beasts,
Slaughtered to satisfy our appetites.
We never pause to wonder at our feasts,
If animals, like men, can possibly have rights.
We pray on Sundays that we may have light,
To guide our footsteps on the path we tread.
We're sick of war, we do not want to fight -
The thought of it now fills our hearts with dread,
And yet - we gorge ourselves upon the dead.

Like carrion crows we live and feed on meat,
Regardless of the suffering and the pain
we cause by doing so, if thus we treat
defenceless animals for sport or gain,
how can we hope in this world to attain,
the PEACE we say we are so anxious for.
We pray for it o'er hecatombs of slain,
to God, while outraging the moral law,
thus cruelty begets its offspring - WAR.


Friday, April 24, 2009

The saints of the world

The saints come to the rescue of this world when hearing from everywhere the moans of the oppressed. They run towards them like God's mercy. These fortresses against weakness, these doctors of hidden disease, are pure love, pure justice, pure mercy; like God they are unstained and impregnable.

-Rumi




Kundalini, the primal force of man

Kundalini, the primal force of man is an extension of the force that comes from within the core of this planet, deep within the second and third worlds. The Kundalini of this planet is in two sections. One is an extension of the Kundalini of the other planets. The second is an extension of the Being of this Planet. Where man situates his power within himself determines how he tunes into and is affected by this primal spiritual force. Only on those planets, called fire planets, that have great heat at their center can unfoldment proceed swiftly and naturally toward the ultimate destiny. During the Sat Siva Yuga, these rays, extending directly through the spine of man, will be intensified and alive, and humanity will awaken to the oneness of all and the Self within. During the Kali Yuga, these Rays will be dormant in all but a few.

-Taken From The Lemurian Scrolls by Sat Guru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami


Obsessive concern for the body

Deha Vasana (attachment to the body) impels one to seek physical strength and health and an attractive physique. All the efforts to make up one's face will not serve to alter its natural features. Only that which has been given by the Lord will be enduring. You must be content with that.

While taking as much care of the body as is essential, you should not have excessive attachment to that which is inherently perishable and temporary. The body must be taken care of only for realizing the Divinity within. It is no doubt necessary to maintain good health as long as one lives, but obsessive concern for the body is misconceived.

-Sai Baba

To love does not mean to concentrate all your attention on one person

Rare are the men and women who know how to love, which explains why people are unhappy, even when they believe they have found the so-called 'love of their life'. To love does not mean to concentrate all your attention on one man or woman, and when you limit yourself in this way, you become poorer.

When you truly love, your love for another is enriched with your love for the entire universe - for all creatures and all creation, from the stones to the stars. In this way you pour treasures into the soul of your beloved.

To say to a man or woman: 'I love no one but you' is of no real advantage to this person, and in fact it is the surest way to impoverish him or her. Unless your heart is already full of love for others, your love brings your beloved nothing.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov


Monday, April 20, 2009

Buddha - My Teaching requires...

My teaching does not require anyone to become homeless or resign the world unless he wants to, but it does require everyone to free himself from the illusion that he is a permanent self and to act with integrity while giving up his craving for pleasure.

-Buddha
Majjhima Nikaya



Saturday, April 18, 2009

The Heart of your partner - Torkom Saraydarian

In the coming centuries people will choose their friends, husbands, wives and work partners very carefully because they will realize that they cannot progress on the path of spiritual development at a normal speed if they make a wrong choice or continuously fail in choosing correctly. Many decades will pass before the human masses come to the conclusion that they must use pure discrimination when they choose their friends and marriage partners.


All the failures, disappointments, worries, agonies and conflicts that we create in our homes occur because we did not make, or are not making, the right choices.


To have right discrimination one must have true measures by which he can easily determine if he or his partner is on the right track. Without true measures one cannot discriminate and choose correctly. To discriminate means to see exactly what the values of things are and then to choose the best.


These true measures are within us. Sometimes our measures are imposed on us through outside pressures or subliminal suggestions. But in the depth of our hearts we have the true measures of life, which must be brought to the surface and applied in all circumstances of our lives.


Only with true measures can we further our own evolution and the evolution of others. If we put into action the measures that abide into our hearts, we will have highly-evolved marriages, and highly-evolved children as a result, and we will create a new generation of noble human beings.

As long as we use forced measures, measures built in us by hypnotic suggestions, we cannot survive long. The old unconscious, forced measures must be broken and new measures applied when choosing a partner.


If from the beginning we make the right choice in marriage because of the ability to discriminate, the rest will be easy for us. We will not only enjoy our partnership, but we also will make it an instrument for perfection. The following are twenty-one measures that are essential in choosing a correct partner. These include fourteen positive qualities to look for and seven negative qualities to avoid.



1. Look in the heart of your spouse, friend, or co-worker to see if he has love for all living beings. This is fundamental. If he hates people or any animal, plant, or innocent life-form, there is a defect in his consciousness, and in the future you will have trouble with him. You want him to love you, but if he does not have inclusive love, it means that he is not a wholesome person. He has cleavages in his consciousness that one day will affect your relationship.


Most of the problems in our home are based on sectarian love. “I love you, but I hate her and them.” Such words are a sign that one day you can be one of those whom he hates. Love is not partial. Partial love does not exist. Love must be all-inclusive. If someone loves with inclusiveness, then he can love you to. If he loves you but has no love for others, later he will hate you too.


Inclusiveness and synthesis are signs of inner health, psychological health. One does not need to be an encyclopedia to be inclusive. Inclusiveness and the sense of synthesis can be practiced and learned in our daily life.


If a spouse is psychologically ill, which means being separative, you cannot live with him or her very long. He has a wound, and eventually you will aggravate it and cause trouble for yourself.


Try and see how many people, ideas, or things you hate, If hate dwells you, it will grow and involve you also in its traps.



2. Look in the heart of your partner to see if he is inclusive in consciousness and has the sense of synthesis. An inclusive person does not hate any cultural value but makes his own “honey” from all diverse expressions of culture. People always have the right to reject certain religions, cultures, and educational beliefs, but inclusive people consciously find the common denominators that relate the various religions, cultural, educational, and even scientific expressions. They make evaluations but do not have preconditioned viewpoints.


You need a partner who is tolerant, who does not have fixed ideas about things, and who is open and discriminative to all new ideas and viewpoints. An intolerant person will be a burden on your shoulders any time you take progressive steps.



3. Look into the heart of your partner to see if he has compassion. Compassion is an ability to look at problems from both sides with equal interest, detachment, and the intense desire to help both sides. Compassion is not emotional love but an inclusive interest in understanding both sides of any problem or event. Compassion not only understands but also enlightens and leads to the highest interests of the people concerned.


We are told that compassion is a low. According to this low, one must observe all that happens without excitement, hatred, confusion, or attachment.


Compassion can be seen in the hearts of people when they demonstrate a deep understanding, without condemnation and with sincerity and love. People need compassionate individuals around them. It is among such people that one can grow and unfold. Those who are compassionate know that a person is higher than his needs, but they never tolerate violence or criminal acts.


Once I was on a mountain with a couple who were engaged to be married. While we were sitting under the trees a small deer passed by. The man had a revolver with him and killed the deer with it.

The young woman looked at her fiancé with grief and said: “You will never see my face again.” She run down the hill to her car as the man was busy with the deer.

I ran after her and asked, “Are you serious?”

“Yes I am. He has no compassion, no love. I couldn’t stay with him, knowing he killed that beautiful animal.”

She drove away, and I never saw her with that man again.


I knew two women who used to love the same man. One of them was very attached to him. The other was also deeply in love with him, but she was controlled and solemn. A day came when he could not decide which of the two women to marry.

The second woman, seeing his anxiety and the love of the first woman, called him and said, “I want you to marry her. She loves you. I, too, love you, but one of us must sacrifice, and I want to be that one. But I will always love you forever as a friend.”


Compassion does not think in outmoded emotions but acts in nobility and heroism.



4. Look in the heart of your partner to see if there is a permanent love of beauty.Those who really love beauty are advanced people, and their companionship is a great joy.


If your partner is ugly on his or her thoughts, if he acts in ugly ways, if his words and expressions are ugly, he will cost you a fortune.


Love of beauty brings success and happiness to our homes and creates right human relations.


Love of beauty is a sign that one has a refined heart and a refined consciousness, a consciousness that is harmonious within itself.


Love for beauty should be unconditional. You must love the beautiful culture or art of your enemy. You must see beauty everywhere. A person who loves beauty can see beauty in his spouse and others, and he adores their beauty and the cause of the beauty. The increase of and appreciation of beautify can create a new and higher consciousness in humanity. Without beauty, people turn into animals.


Some people not only lack a sense of beauty, but they also hate beauty in any form. They see beauty as threat to their interests and their existence.


One cannot leave with a person who does not love beauty. If one does not love beauty, he develops jealousy when he meets beauty in any form. Jealousy is absence of beauty in the heart. People must look in their hearts for the source of beauty. If a person loves beauty in Nature, in the arts, in man, he can be a good partner. But if he hates beauty and lives in ugliness, it is better to postpone your friendship until the sense of beauty unfolds in his heart.



5. You must look in the heart of your partner to see if there exists the spark of gratitude. Ungrateful, unappreciative people are heavy loads on our backs. One cannot do creative work with such people. One cannot proceed on the path of his evolution if he is tied to one who has no gratitude in his heart. Ingratitude is a bad wound in the psyche of man. Ingratitude manifests in little ordinary things and you can see it, but you may not consider it the dangerous viper that it is.


See if your partner expresses gratitude when you offer tea, a cup of water, a gift, an expression of love. If not, he is living in his ego, and he will take anything for granted. Gratitude shows that the nerves of a person’s soul are healthy.



6. The next sign you must look for in the heart of your partner is forgiveness. If your partner always speaks about how you hurt him in the past and cannot let it go, eventually he will be loaded with so many memories of hurt that he will be incapable of loving you or of having right relations with you. The life of true friendship is a life of forgiving. Remembrance of faults, failures, and mistakes makes unity impossible. Beware of people who cannot forgive. People are desperately sick if they cannot forgive. An unforgiving person will continuously bring and scatter poison in your home and in your children.


Forgiveness is a sign that a person’s spiritual heart is healthy. Forgiveness releases tension and gives continuous opportunity to grow. But forgiveness is not foolishness. A forgiving person is also intelligent enough to make a dangerous person realize that he cannot walk away without changing his heart. A forgiving person puts a dangerous person under heavy discipline, knowing that one cannot transform people by dwelling on their faults but by helping them to grow.



7. Look for responsibility and trust. Without a sense of responsibility and trust, friendship cannot last. A person must show a sense of responsibility for life as a whole, for humanity, for a group, for a family and children if he wants to have permanent friends and joy in life.


An indifferent person who is totally involved with himself cannot be depended upon as a friend. Such people use you and drain you, and one day they dump you. Children born to responsible parents reach high positions in society, but the children of those who never heard about the sense of responsibility cannot raise themselves any higher than the average human being.


The sense of responsibility cannot survive without trust. You cannot trust a person if he has no sense of responsibility. If there is no trust you do not have a foundation, and you cannot build your future without a foundation.


Trust brings out the best qualities latent in you. When you trust, you dedicate and sacrifice yourself. When you cannot trust, you cannot make commitments, and friendship continues only if there is mutual commitment.



8. Look in your parent’s heart the spirit of optimism. Optimistic people have the faith and awareness that life works for good and that the victory of Beauty, Goodness. Righteousness, Joy, and Freedom is in the process of manifestation.


Once a young woman and a good–looking man wanted to marry. The woman said, “He is very beautiful, but he has one little bad trait. He sees the dark sides of situations. He emphasizes the ugly qualities and things that life is chaos and there is no hope for this generation. But I like him and he is handsome.”

“Well,” I said, “it is good that you like him, but pessimistic people must be handled very carefully.”

She married him. Then three months later she came to me and said, “He is always depressed. Every move I make is not good or is dangerous. I do not know what I can do.”

Eventually she divorced him, but she found another man exactly like him. She did not learn her lesson and became like him. Eventually she filled her home with fear and depression.


Choose those who see things as they really are but who also have hope and a vision of the future. An optimism is not a fool but one who sees hidden opportunities for betterment and for future success. Through his creative imagination, he changes cloudy days into days of joy.


Through his thoughts, a pessimist pollutes the atmosphere and annihilates the joy of life. Through his thoughts, an optimist brings new sunshine and new rain for the fields of blossom. Choose your partner from those whose faces are sunny, from those who smile, and from those who think of the future, from those who have faith and hope.



9. The ninth quality is to look for joy. Your partner should be a person who is happy and joyful, someone whom even small things make happy. People do not always want to be happy. There are people who are always unhappy and want to remain unhappy and make others unhappy. Children from such families live in pessimism and fear.


You do not need such an unhappy partner. There are also happy fools, for whom all is fantastic. These are people caught in unreality. Real happiness is the ability to appreciate the beauty of life, Nature, and people and to be grateful and harmonious. A happy partner is a source of energy, health, and enthusiasm. Joy is deeper than happiness. Joy is not only physical but includes aesthetic realms as well. A person can be in intense joy reading a poem, looking at a painting, listening to music, or touching an idea. Such a joyful person brings light to his family and children and spreads beauty all around.


A joyful person appreciates your labor, your gift, and your help. You can live with such a person.


There are homes that have everything you can imagine except joy. Joy is the life-energy of a marriage and of a family. Joy supports health, prosperity, success, and achievement.


An absence of joy means many things. It is possible that an unhappy person has a guilt feeling, is breaking the low of the state or the low of love, or is hiding from the light. Joy and light exist together. Past crimes and transgressions sometimes accumulate and karmically hit a person, and if he does not learn his lesson, he becomes a pessimist. But if he learns, he becomes a joyful person.


Our past crimes are sometimes like a cloud that moves at certain times, obscures our sun, and keeps us under the shadow of depression.



10. The tenth quality is to look for enthusiasm. This is so important for you, your partner, and your children. Unless there is enthusiasm at home, everything will be dull, boring, and depressing. Enthusiasm causes creativity, joy, and cooperation.


Enthusiasm helps things be done joyfully and thoroughly, with love and blessings. Enthusiasm carries fiery energy and energizes not only your body but your heart and mind as well.


Enthusiasm is a fiery energy which is transmitted to human beings from higher sources. When the communication line is broken between these beings and man, enthusiasm evaporates, and the person does things mechanically. You do not need a person who has no enthusiasm.



11. The eleventh quality to look for is striving. Striving is like running water; it brings health and happiness. Lack of striving leads you toward stagnation Striving brings in new ideas, makes higher contacts, and creates more beauty. Steady unfoldment of spirit is what we call striving.


A striving spirit wants to do something new, to be something new, and to know something new.


In our friendship, our progress slows down or stops when there is no striving. Try to make your creativity a higher quality; make your life more inspiring for the people around you. Every day try to raise the level of your being, knowing, and serving. Those who do not strive become like people who stop on the journey, and you are forced to carry them on your back.



12. The twelfth qualification is the sense of righteousness or the sense of justice. There will be no bright future for a family if there is no sense of justice in that family.


Once some friends and I were going on a picnic and we stopped at an outdoor market to buy food for lunch. One couple with us went to a watermelon stand, and after they bought a watermelon we all began to walk to the picnic grounds. The young man who had bought the watermelon turned to his girlfriend and said, “Look, honey, I gave the man five dollars and he gave me back forty-six dollars.

Don’t you think I am a lucky man?’’

He tried to hug her, but to his surprise, she pushed him away. A few seconds later she said, “Go give it back.”

“Are you kidding? asked the man. “I won’t”

The young woman walked away and never came back to that man.


The sense of righteousness makes you strong, magnetic, and charming. If you do not have the sense of righteousness or justice, you repel people and cause them suffering. Many families are destroyed because either the husband or the wife is unjust. Sometimes unrighteousness is a serious sickness that obsesses people and makes them the cause of the sufferings of others.


Unrighteousness is a direct offense against the law of karma, which then organizes heavy disciplines for such people to cure them from the sickness of unrighteousness.


People think that obedience to the laws of state is the measure of righteousness or justice. Unfortunately it is not.


Justice is related to the heart, and reason alone cannot penetrate its depth.



13. The thirteenth qualification of the heart is the spirit of cooperation. See if you can find such a spirit in your partner. A cooperative spirit is a sign that the future will be joyful and successful. Without cooperation, people can not stand in unity. Cooperation unites them, fuses then into each other, cultivates their talents, and helps the economy of the home.

Before you choose a friend or spouse, see if he or she has the spirit of cooperation.



14. The fourteenth qualification to look for in the heart of your partner is tolerance.Tolerant people respect the ideas, dreams, visions, beliefs, and religious or political attitudes of others, and they try to learn something from these differing points of view.


Fanaticism is the opposite of tolerance. If a person does not have the spirit of tolerance, the spouse and children will not be happy and will not grow and be free. The ancients used to say that absence of tolerance is slavery. The first step to develop tolerance is to make an effort to understand the different viewpoints of others. Tolerant people can expand their consciousness and cooperate with various, diverse people for the common good. Future victories can be achieved not by fanaticism but by tolerance.


A tolerant person does not emphasize your errors and failures, though he tries to help you improve yourself. Such a person knows that on his own level he himself is not perfect.


A tolerant person does not encourage other people’s weaknesses but with loving understanding helps others to overcome them.


These fourteen qualities offer great hope for friendship. Through these qualities, friendship flourishes and turns into a companionship dedicated to high ideals.


When you buy a tree, you want that tree to grow and bring fruit, leaves, and beauty to your environment. When you marry or enter a partnership, you want that partner to bring beauty and joy to the union.


People are often afraid of the idea of progressiveness, or of improvement and striving toward perfection. They like to remain within their old “swamps and jungles,” in their old habits and old states of beings. But without progress and striving toward perfection, life decays and degenerates.



There are seven negative signs that you should carefully check for in prospective partners. Avoid those who have them.



1. Stay away from one who has a spoiled ego or who is selfish. The egotist, the selfish person, always seeks his own interest at the expense of others. You cannot live with such people. They do not respect your rights and your values. Everything revolves around their ego and must feed their own interest. Selfishness is a serious psychological disease, and it is difficult to cure people who are contaminated with it.



2. If one is inconsiderate, do not choose him or her as your partner. Such people bring shame to you, irritate you, and literally make you sick. An inconsiderate person continually hurts your feelings and puts you in danger. He does not know how to talk, what to talk about, or where to talk. He does not know how to behave.


A considerate person intuitively knows your psychological state, the conditions, and the right timing, and he relates to you and to others in a spirit of noble consideration.


Considerate people are controlled people, and they never allow themselves to be out of order. People can be measured by their ability to be considerate.


A considerate person is a sensitive person. He respects your rights, your sleep or rest,your prestige, your rank-your whole being- and he does not upset you with selfish or ignorant behavior. A considerate friend does not try to make you jealous. He does not manipulate you. He is noble.


An inconsiderate person thinks only of his own pleasures and ignores the rights of others. An inconsiderate person has a limited consciousness. He is selfish andimprisoned in his ego. Be careful of such people.



3. Beware of the person who has an urge to attack and hurt with words, with smiles, with sarcasm, or with collected knowledge. Such a person wants to make others small so that he feels great. Such people love to gossip. They also use malice and slander against others. This is a sickness that is sustained throughout many incarnations, and it is not easy to cure. Such people’s children follow in their steps, showing the same aggressive and belittling tendencies. The home of such a person always contains fighting. There is no respect between the family members, and everyone tries to put each other down. If you see this characteristic in someone, be careful. Do not prepare a hell for yourself in the future.



4. Do not choose someone who is separative. Separatism is a real sickness. To cure such a sickness requires heavy labor, sometimes for lives. Separatism builds a shell around the person’s heart, which does not let it bloom and be inclusive.


If you have such a sickness yourself, try to cure it because it manifests through manykinds of glandular disturbances and heart diseases.


A parent cannot raise noble children if he is separative. Separatism puts fear and hatred into the family members and prevents sunshine from coming into the home.



5. The fifth negative characteristic to stay away from is cruelty. Cruel people arementally sick people. Cruelty annihilates joy from the home and prepares criminalchildren. Observe your future partner to see if he or she is cruel toward trees, flowers, animals and people.


Cruel people even fight against furniture, food, and clothing. They express their cruelty with their thoughts, emotions, words and actions. When you see cruelty stay away.



6. Beware of those who deceive, tell lies, or fabricate things. If you see such signs, know that you will regret being the partner of such a person because he will tryto deceive you in any way possible.


A deceptive person has no respect for others. His sense of accuracy and justice is totally distorted, and he can involve you with many problems you do not need.


A deceptive person uses many methods to hide himself. He uses lies, fabrications,stories, imitations, and pretenses and makes dramatic maneuvers just to hide himself and to deceive you. You must be very alert not to be contaminated by such a sickness.



7. The seventh negative sign is ungratefulness. An ungrateful person forces you to go out of your limit to do things to try to please him or her. It is difficult to pleasesuch people. An ungrateful person wastes your time, your energy, your money, and your reputation and then laughs at you. He creates various psychological tensions within you and eventually forces you to be selfish and inconsiderate.


Those who are divorced from people who were ungrateful may carry the same sickness to their new homes. Be careful of those who are ungrateful and who do notappreciate life and other people.



If you learn by heart these twenty-one signs, you can choose a better partner and have a chance to build a better future. If people choose the best, the best will be the product.


One must expect his spouse or partner to have the best characteristics and virtues. As we look for the best lumber with the best qualities to fit the need of what we are going to build, similarly, we choose a spouse with certain special qualities to fit out ideal marriage and family requirements.


Do not think that it is impossible to find people with positive characteristics. They exist, but they need recognition and a spirit of “gardening” in order to bloom. You can evoke these characteristics from people if the seeds are in them.


In the future, these twenty-one signs will be used more often and more consciously in choosing partners. Future humanity must not live as they did in the past or even the present. People are awakening to the fact that in improving their lives, they can enjoy a better future.


If you are already married, try to work intelligently to develop greater virtues in yourself and to encourage your spouse to develop his own virtues and bloom in his own unique form and color.


One must not judge, criticize, or separate from a spouse who does have all fourteen positive characteristics or who has some of the negative qualities. Instead, one must create those conditions in which he slowly improves and meets the measures.


Gentleness, patience, and understanding are basic virtues that must be exercised inhuman relations. One cannot help people improve if one uses force or vulgar means to change them.


The motive to change a person must not be related to your own self-interest but to the welfare and interest of the others. Also, you must not try to make your partner an exact copy of yourself, but you must have a high expectation to see him bloom in his own beauty. A high expectation evokes development if it is handled impersonal, and it produces those qualities that are the foundations of right human relations.


A high expectation is not a built-up image, but a psychic energy that goes into the heart of your partner and calls forth higher values and releases them. If yourexpectation is sincere and firm, eventually you see the unfoldment of the beauty of your partner.


Some people pray that their spouse will develop certain spiritual qualities and will become free from bad habits. In most cases, such prayers bring results because they are delivered with an intense expectation.


Every human being is extremely beautiful in his essence. One must let this essence express itself without being pressured and by providing the right condition for growth and unfoldment.


No matter what kind of nature your husband or wife has, you can improve him or her by first improving yourself and setting an example, an example that does not usetechniques of showing off various kinds of imposition.


We need to look at our partners for three viewpoints:


-We look for qualities in our partners that are really beautiful.

-We look for qualities in our partners that promise future achievements

-We look for qualities in our partners that may be dangerous to our relationship.


In the first viewpoint, to the degree that we find and admire beauty in our partner, his beauty unfolds and increases.


In the second viewpoint, we see virtues in our parent that will help him gradually to become greater in some field of expression, and we encourage and inspire him to strive toward those principles.


In the third viewpoint, we notice those habits that may in the future create cleavages between us or become the source of unending problems. We do not need to ignore those problems or overemphasize them, but we need to see them in their right proportion and handle them wisely. It is possible that people who are full of nasty habits can slowly become beautiful under the magic sunshine of love, understanding, patience, and intelligent action.


There are people who think that when you encourage them to be beautiful, righteous, joyful, or free, you are really trying to limit their freedom to be what they want to be. First of all, the positive or constructive qualities suggested here must not be pushed on any person but must only be looked for and subtly evoked. The energies of Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, Freedom, and similar principles do not enslave people. They make them free human beings, human beings who are no longer children but are mature with the serious goal in life to perfect themselves.



Those who do not strive to improve their lives toward perfection eventually become the slaves of their lower urges and of other people, and they try to exercise their slave psychology on others.


Dull people are afraid to improve because they are stuck to their past habits. They do not yet have a new vision because they are not capable of making the needed sacrifices to contact a vision.



Looking for or expecting positive qualities or virtues in other is not imposing our will. But we must protect or secure our own freedom by not becoming involved with unnecessary problems and headaches.


It is possible to change people if people wish to change, but there are various cases in which one need not be involved. If one is seeking a partner, these positive and negative signs help save the person from many troubles and problems.



If you wish to have a partner who loves all human beings, and you reject someone because he does not have enough love for all, you are not limiting him or imposing your own will on him. If you refuse to buy corn that is not of good quality, you are not imposing your will on it; you just want good corn.



Should I live with him first?


One day someone asked me, “How will I know the character of my future spouse if I do not live with him first before marriage?”


My answer included the following points:


Do not take your friend immediately to the bedroom. Wait; become real friends. Talk, dance, walk near the seashore. It is possible to have a relationship based on similar interests in art, philosophy, or politics. Then you will understand each other more deeply.


If your friend is in hurry to enjoy sex with you, be patient and tell him to be patient. People often lose their dignity after being involved with sex prematurely in a relationship. A permanent relationship cannot be built upon lust but only upon patience, respect, and nobility.


If you live with your friend before marriage, three situations may occur:

You may get used to the person’s vices because they will not bother you much when love is still fresh, and then you may make the wrong choice about marriage. You create attachment without commitment


You may see the person’s vices and not like them but not have enough courage and power of detachment to leave him.


You may become involved with money or with a pregnancy, and it will become harder to leave if the person is not right for you.


A woman sees the qualities of a person more quickly than does a man, and she very often acts slowly. Man needs more time to see the qualities of a person, but he often acts in haste. Have trust in your feelings, especially in your heart. If the heart says no, wait for a long time until you see the reason why.


Some people think that patience alone can cure psychological diseases. It is possible to cure them in time, but the best way to cure them is to leave negative people to their karma. Many lives are needed to overcome serious defects of character, and only one who is sincere in his heart and can clearly see his failures can cure himself. This he does through penance, retreats, prayers, and dedicated service.


There was a holy man who, every time he saw a defect in his character, went into retreat- fasting, praying, analyzing the source ofhis weakness and trying to see his future perfection. This is the best way to deal with such negative points in ourselves, and especially under the guidance of a Teacher.


The key is to have in yourself the good qualifications that you want in a partner. Then you can expect them from the one towhom you are going to dedicate yourself for life. But if you do not have these qualifications and you are trying to make your partner have them, you are imposing yourself. Then if your partner develops these good qualities, he will see exactly the hypocrite you are, and this will not be pleasant for you.


The best way to develop these fourteen good qualities in your partner is first to see how beneficial they are in your life and in the lives of others; then develop them in yourself and wait until your partner sees how beautiful you are. Create those conditions or opportunities around you in which people will instinctively want to improve themselves.


We must think about our lives in the same way that we think about obtaining a university degree. We must have constant striving to learn more, to become better human beings, and to choose the best partner we can so that we do not waste our energy in unnecessary conflict. But most people look at life as an opportunity for them to make themselves happy to any extent possible. They expect to enjoy life and forget the existence of others and their rights and feelings.


The ancients repeatedly told us this life is a large educational field in which people learn on various levels how to perfect their bodies, hearts, and mind and enter into their spiritual evolution.


Life is a very serious endeavor in which either you graduate or fail. Failure complicates your life and makes you suffer and face much pain and grief. Success brings joy, abundance, and understanding, and you proceed toward your spiritual graduation. Some people play all day like school children and when the time for exams arrives, they feel terrified. Life has its cyclic exams. The only reason or purpose for being a human living on this planet is to unfold our inner qualities, our essence, and reach perfection. Al the rest is decoration, games, or traps.


When both people in a marriage touch the same vision of improvement, they create tremendous joy in their family-life by trying to improve themselves to reach that vision. Such couples can give birth to great children and raise them to be psychologically and physically healthy. From such children will come the future leaders of humanity.


Most homes are in a process of decay because there are conflicts, hate, tension, and sadness between husbands and wives. This society can only be changed by those who know how to select partners who have the fourteen positive characteristics and how to avoid marrying those who have the seven negative characteristics.



-Torkom Saraydarian

Sex, Family and the Woman in Society



If you want to improve your physical appearance

It is their nature that stimulates human beings - women especially, but men as well - to strive for physical beauty. But if they are to succeed in this they must also develop qualities of the soul and spirit. Have you noticed how, under the influence of a noble sentiment, faces that are normally devoid of beauty are suddenly transfigured? This is because the movements of our inner life act on our nerves and muscles.

Those who manage to live often in spiritual states gradually transform their face, while women who are preoccupied with their beauty out of a desire to oust a rival only make themselves ugly. The emotions of possessiveness, jealousy and hate are more powerful than any creams, lotions and make-up they may use. Of course, the use of certain beauty products is not to be condemned, but even if you want to improve your physical appearance you must give priority to your inner life.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Religion and the child

... It is very interesting to note that people in the communities mentioned never encouraged their children to get involved with religious practices. They thought that before religion, the child must have a trained mind in order not to fall into devotional traps, but analyze, discriminate, and choose by his or her own free will.

The voice of church was formed only by mature people between the ages of 30-40. Children were not advised to attend so-called Sunday school or Bible classes. They were encouraged to read about heroes, history and myths, to study the sciences and to engage in sports.

The people of the communities used to think that religious doctrines and Bible study would precondition the child's mind to such a degree that he or she would not be able to free himself from the limitations of the doctrines, dogmas, and traditional influences and thus would not try to approach life through his independent logic and reasoning.

When a child became interested in religious ideas, they used to give him broad outlines. On one occasion when I asked one of my teachers about Christ, he said, "All that I can tell you about Him is that He lived a life of beauty, goodness, truth, and simplicity. And as you live such a life you will not need to know what other people say about Him, because your Soul will be in contact with Him." This small conversation saved my life. After that, I looked at Christ's teaching as a living experience rather than a dogma, a doctrine, or theology which all seemed to me a waste of time.

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Real religion is a communication between you and the highest you can reach. Such communication can be possible without an organized religion. Whenever we teach beauty and truth and express goodness through our sacrificial service, we contact the Highest.

Unfortunately the religious movements of today are brain-washing processes consisting of social gatherings, politics, business and good times. Children must not be led by organized religions, but by ideals, ideas and visions of the religions.

It is not good to lead children into religious practices which will mold their attitude to life, but we can give them higher principles to live by without religion. We can bring the beauty revealed by great Saviors, without channeling it through an organized religion. An organized religion is separative and cannot create superior beings.

It is not good to lead children into religious conflict but give them the essence of the religions without the feeling of separatism and pride, and teach them virtues and higher principles to live by. We can bring the beauty revealed by great Saviors without instilling antagonistic attitudes in the children.

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Our religious teaching prevents children from contacting New Age ideas, for religions try to evaluate everything through their own belief and thus miss the new revelation. In many, many ages the children have gone through religious experiences, and most of them are ready for visions which are more inclusive and human than what they had before. The children are sometimes different seeds from different realms, and we force them to bloom as the flower we want them to be. This is the greatest catastrophe, for you are preventing that child from bringing out his own beauty and thus fulfilling his own destiny. It is wise never to give them religious or nationalistic lectures or practices. Try to help them discipline their bodies, emotions and minds and then allow them to have their own responses to the Almighty Life. Any imposed teaching is a step backward on the path of evolution.

We can show religion as a relationship between man and God, between the subjective and objective world, between the past and the whole. But in teaching it we must also find out why the religions failed in creating an ideal humanity, and where they failed, and how much must be replaced of that which is obsolete, until we come to the conclusion that "new wine needs new bottles" , as Christ said.

Many religious people will not agree with this concept, but wether they agree or not, the New Religion, the nature of which is synthesis, is already in the process of formation. It will take time to be a strong influence in the life of humanity, through those who already overcome their separativeness.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Woman, Torch of the Future