I AM AN INSTRUMENT

Good Morning!!! God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; and Wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done. *~*~*~*~*^Daily Reflections^*~ *~*~*~* July 9, 2026 I AM AN INSTRUMENT Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions, p.70 The subject of humility is a difficult one. Humility is not thinking less of myself than I ought to; it is acknowledging that I do certain things well, it is accepting a compliment graciously. God can only do for me what He can do through me. Humility is the result of knowing that God is the doer, not me. In the light of awareness, how can I take pride in my accomplishments? I am an instrument and any work I seem to be doing is being done by God through me. I ask God on a daily basis to remove my shortcomings, in order that I may more freely go about my A.A. business of "love and service." *************************************************** Beyond Agnosticism We of agnostic temperament found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God. << << << >> >> >> "Many people soberly assure me that man has no better place in the universe than that of another competing organism, fighting its way through life only to perish in the end. Hearing this, I feel that I still prefer to cling to the so-called illusion of religion, which in my own experience has meaningfully told me something very different." 1. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 46 2. Letter, 1946 As Bill Sees It, P. 137 © 1967 by Alcoholics Anonymous ® World Services, Inc ***************************************************** Going with the Flow Go with the flow. Let go of fear and your need to control. Relinquish anxiety. Let it slip away, as you dive into the river of the present moment, the river of your life, your place in the universe. Stop trying to force the direction. Try not to swim against the current, unless it is necessary for your survival. If you've been clinging to a branch at the riverside, let go. Let yourself move forward. Let yourself be moved forward. Avoid the rapids when possible. If you can't, stay relaxed. Staying relaxed can take your safely through fierce currents. If you go under for a moment, allow yourself to surface naturally. You will. Appreciate the beauty of the scenery, as it is. See things with freshness, with newness. You shall never pass by today's scenery again! Don't think too hard about things. The flow is meant to be experienced. Within it, care for yourself. You are part of the flow, an important part. Work with the flow. Work within the flow. Thrashing about isn't necessary. Let the flow help you care for yourself. Let it help you set boundaries, make decisions, and get you where you need to be when it is time. You can trust the flow, and your part in it. Today, I will go with the flow. ******* Just considering.................. Topic: CONTROL "Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death." Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 30 Thought to consider........... When a person tries to control their drinking, they have already lost control. Topic Question: How well did this part of Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" describe your life before recovery? © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.

SELF-CONDEMNATION KEEPS US BACK

Good Morning!!! SELF-CONDEMNATION KEEPS US BACK Around the Year with Emmet Fox July 9 People who are honestly trying to follow the spiritual life often make the mistake of being too hard on themselves. Because they do not seem to be progressing as fast as they would naturally like, or because they find themselves repeating some old fault that they thought they had completely overcome, they feel discouraged, and condemn themselves mercilessly. All this is foolish. If you are doing your best to use what Truth you know, at present, you are doing all that you have a right to expect of yourself. Don't be impatient with yourself— but this does not mean that you are to be lazy or complacent. Handle yourself as a wise parent handles an obstreperous child— kindly, patiently, but with gentle firmness, not expecting too much too quickly, but foreseeing inevitable growth and improvement. “and all of you are children of the highest” Psalm 82:6

❇YogaVasistha - pg1❇- Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

❇YogaVasistha - pg1❇ Sage Sutiksna asked Sage Agastya: Which one of the two is conducive to liberation, work or knowledge? Sage Agastya: Birds are able to fly with their two wings; even so both work and knowledge together lead to liberation. ⭕STORY 1⭕ There once lived a holy man Karunya who son of Agnivesya. Having mastered holy scriptures, Karunya became apathetic to life. Agnivesya demanded why Karunya had abandoned due performance of daily duties. Karunya replied: Do not the scriptures declare that one hand one should fulfill scriptural injunctions and on the other immortality can be realised by abandonment of action. What should I do? Agnivesya then narrates this story to his son. ⭕STORY 2⭕ A royal sage by name Aristanemi entrusted his kingdom to his son and was engaged in breath taking austerities. When he was sent for by Indra to be escorted to heaven, he wanted to know merits and demerits of heaven. To this he was told that, in heaven, the best, middling and the least among pious mortals receive appropriate award and once the fruits of their merits get exhausted, they return to the world of mortals. The sage on hearing this refused to accept the invitation to heaven. Indra requested the sage to consult Sage Valmiki before turning the offer down. He asked Valmiki,"What is the best way to rid oneself of birth and death." In reply, Valmiki narrated to him the dialogue between Rama and Vasistha. Jai Gurudev

Reporting live from Boone, NC :) - GuruDev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Reporting live from Boone, NC :) Excerpts from Q&A with Gurudev at yesterday’s Satsang - 7/26/2026 *My nephew is autistic. How can I help him become self-dependent and help my family understand him?* Gurudev: Autistic children have come to receive care and service from the family. Do whatever you can for them. *As a mother, how do I balance responsibility with letting go when my child resists everything?* Gurudev: A mother’s questions about her child never end. The question, “What more can I do for my child?” is itself an expression of love. When love is alive, you feel that you have not done enough and that there is always something more you can do. There is no fixed answer to this question, and you should not expect one from anyone. Embrace the question. From time to time, the right ideas will come to you. *How do I know whether I am on the right path and have made the right decisions?* Gurudev: Stop following the path. Don’t do your Sadhana & do not be with Sangha, wisdom then see how it feels :) Then be honest and listen to your own inner voice ! Doubt usually arises about something positive. You may doubt whether someone is honest, but you rarely doubt someone’s dishonesty. You may doubt whether you are happy, but you feel very certain when you are unhappy. Similarly, people doubt God, the unseen, and whether they are on the right path. Yet what is unseen can be more real than what is seen. Doubt as much as you need to. _Genuine truth cannot be obscured by doubt; doubt can only waste some time._Eventually, it disappears. Doubt also arises when prana is low. Pranayama, including bhastrika, increases prana and makes the mind sharp. Then you can go beyond doubt. *I continue to worry about my future and the health of my family. How can I stop worrying?* Gurudev: Worry is a thought that gets stuck in the mind and keeps repeating itself. Bring that thought to the level of music. Convert your worry into a song. Music helps you descend from the head into the heart. Sing your worry and see whether it still troubles you in the same way. Our worries are often very small: “What will happen to my job, my money, my son, my daughter or my family?” We rarely worry about what will happen in the next lifetime because we imagine we will remain here forever. Sing the worry away—but be a little careful about what you keep repeating, because what you ask for may come to you. The Art of Living is about music, meditation and laughter. *After my father’s death, I lost interest in sadhana, seva and satsang. I feel that we will all die one day, so what is the point?* Gurudev: Such feelings can arise for a short period when someone close to you passes away or when a major difficulty occurs. This is natural. The ancient tradition gave people freedom from social and spiritual obligations for a period after a birth or death in the family. When someone who lived, walked and spoke with you is suddenly no longer there, a vacuum is created. That emptiness shows you that the body and the visible universe are not everything; another dimension exists. This can be a profound time for meditation. Do not think, “I am doing sadhana.” Simply sit with the emptiness and go deep into it. That emptiness itself can free you from many attachments. Sensitive people do not need dramatic reminders of impermanence. They can simply observe that everything in the world is constantly changing. *How can I act fearlessly? I hold on to things because I fear losing what is good, and then I remain stuck.* Gurudev: This is where the Guru is essential. When you feel connected to the Guru, you know that what you need will be given to you and what you have will be protected. The Bhagavad Gita says that for those whose attention is not scattered and who remain one-pointedly connected, the Divine provides what they need and protects what they have—yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmyaham. The condition is one-pointed attention and connection. When that connection is there, this care happens. *How do I move beyond boredom in sadhana, seva and satsang?* Gurudev: Blessed are those who are bored. Boredom comes with repetition when you are operating only from the head. The head becomes bored, but the heart never becomes bored. When something comes from the heart, you can say, “I love you,” again and again, and it does not feel repetitive. The heart loves repetition, while the intellect dislikes it. Boredom is the stage in between: the intellect is loosening its grip, but the heart has not yet fully taken over. So allow the boredom to be there. Music and dance cannot truly be boring. If music feels boring, you are probably no longer listening or participating from the heart; you have moved into the head. Music itself depends on repetition. Without repetition, there can be no music.

Love Begets Love

Love Begets Love 💕 *Beautiful story!! Made me smile* 😊 I hope this makes you smile too. A man often bought oranges from an old lady. After they were weighed, paid for and put in his bag, he would always pick one from his bag, peel it, put a segment in his mouth, complain it's sour and pass on the orange to the seller. The old lady would put one segment in her mouth and retort, "why, it's sweet," but by then he was gone with his bag. His wife, always with him, asked, "the oranges are always sweet, then why this drama every time?" He smiled, "the old mother sells sweet oranges but never eats them herself. This way I get her to eat one, without losing her money. That's all." The vegetable seller next to the old lady, saw this everyday. She chided, "every time this man fusses over your oranges, and I see that you always weigh a few extra for him. Why?" The old lady smiled, "I know he does this to feed me an orange, only, he thinks I don't understand. I never weigh extra. His love tilts the scale slightly every time." Life's joys are in these sweet little gestures of love and respect for our fellow beings. Oh, such amazing kindness and gestures

“My boyfriend forgave me and we got married, but now he told me something im not sure I can get over.”

“My boyfriend forgave me and we got married, but now he told me something im not sure I can get over.” So this is an update for my previous post. I told him that i was pregnant as many of you suggested. I told him I was really sorry and that all of my feelings for him are very much real, and that I’m so sorry he had to find out like this. Ultimately he forgave me but we still need to work out our issues thats why i disappeared on my original post for a while. Since his parents are religious they suggested to him that we should get married before the baby was born and we did just that. We had a small wedding with only the close people nothing glamorous but it was seriously the best day of my life. Fast forward until a few days ago.Ever since we got married he was constantly texting someone and smiling at his phone. When i asked about it he reassured me that it was just his chat with the boys. I believed him because i never had any doubts about his loyalty, but a few nights ago i couldn’t resist so i checked his phone when he was in the bathroom.What i found made my stomach twist. All of our marriage he was texting Diana. Diana is his ex girlfriend and as i found out from the messages they got in touch again when he found out that i was taking money for dating him. I really thought all the bad things were behind us. I still feel sick to the thought of it. After he got out of the bathroom i acted like there was nothing wrong, we fell asleep and tomorrow morning i told him that i was gonna visit my parents and im with them right now. I desperately want to forgive him for this as he forgave me but i physically cannot bring myself to do so. I haven’t told anyone anything and around him i act like nothing is wrong. please send advice

Why do Brahmins still perform Upanayanam

Why do Brahmins still perform Upanayanam (sacred thread ceremony) when most of them who undergo that ceremony don't follow the practices that they are supposed to? I will explain this as a Brahmin and who has undergone Upanayana a long time ago(>5 years). One thing you need to know is that in most Brahmin homes, we are taught never to eat non- veg. Some people do do that when they get older and it is their personal choice. For me, the main difference of undergoing Upanayana is the 'Sandhyavandana'. I practiced it twice a day for a year(we are supposed to do it thrice a day) and found myself concentrating far better than I used to and yes, I was way more calmer. Even now, whenever I do Sandhyavandana (the longer version with pranayama and all) at least once-a-day for a week, I grasp information better and do not feel stressful at all. And yes, many of my friends have experienced this too. So, to sum it up, Upanayana leads to Sadhyavandana which is beneficial, to say the least!