Practicing Kindness

Being kind is the secret to being happy and healthy. Would you know why?

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

That morning, like most others, the train was packed. A lot of impatient people complaining about everything and everyone made the atmosphere not only stuffy, but also unbreathable.

It was when, with great difficulty, an elderly woman entered the vehicle and leaned on the seats as she could. The predictable happened as an elderly person enters crowded public transit: most of those seated sleep as quickly as possible.

However, a six-year-old boy, nudged his father for permission to leave the place where he was. The father, indifferent, told him to stay seated. But the boy, aloud, invited her to come and sit in his place.

An awkward silence ensued in the collective, while the lady, gratefully, took the seat offered to her.

Kindness and Happiness

We have observed that, in the midst of countless possibilities of choice, those who opt for cooperation and ethics build healthier and more lasting relationships.

Being kindness a form of love, studies have shown that kind people increase their happiness because this virtue is linked to the gene that releases the hormone responsible for well-being, dopamine.

A popular saying says that kindness breeds kindness.

Kindness turns out to be contagious too, motivating others to be equally kind. When we are kind to others, we contribute to making the environment in which we live better.

Kindness is also a form of attention, respect and love. Kind people show courtesy, are polite and attentive making their relationships more human and irradiating those feelings to those around them.

Kindness and Health

Another benefit of being kind is that due to our pre-disposition to help others, we are likely to improve our mental health. Our immune system tends to be better, because there is a direct relationship between well-being, happiness and health.

In other words, when we are kind we help and care for others and for ourselves.

Putting ourselves in the other's place is always the best way to act. By being attentive to the needs of other, we conquer the awareness that what makes us happy and make others happy too.

Final Thoughts

Let us be kind giving our best to others and we will see how more complete and happy we'll be.

As kindness stems from the awakening of conscience, when we are willing to develop this virtue we also gain joy, lovingness, affability, friendship, tenderness, gratitude, respect, tenderness and tolerance.

The gesture of kindness is undoubtedly a big step towards changing a situation of neglect, indelicity or indifference this world so much needs.

Think about it!

Adapted from Momento Espírita, originally published on October 07, 2017.

See Also

• The Power of Love
• Weighted observation
• The most important bridge
• Bridge of Life
• A Thinking Power
• Divine Poem

Purity

Purity is not an untangible virtue as most think, but something that can be achieved with effort, patience and dedication. Would you like to learn how?

Photo by Johnny McClung on Unsplash

Purity is a virtue that is very difficult to understand.

According to the dictionary, pure is that which is clean, untouched, without spots or blemishes. In that sense, purity would be the state of someone who has never been touched by evil, in any of its forms.

Purity would have to be preserved from the beginning, as any stain would imply its loss.

In human terms, everyone would be born pure and remain so until they commit the first fault. In such a sense, the state of purity would be forever lost and beyond the reach of the vast majority of men.

However, Jesus affirmed the bliss of the pure in heart.

It is not possible that the happiness of the blessed is restricted to a tiny minority, for Christ also said that none of his sheep would be lost. Thus, the meaning of the word purity cannot be restricted to the condition of someone who has never been touched by evil.

Perfect Purity

Purity is not something you are born with or something that can be lost at the slightest slip. It is a state of consciousness to be built over time.

Being pure is not being ignorant of the reality of life, but opting for the good, for the beautiful, for the just.

On the flip side, an impure person only sees evil everywhere. They are those who judge and are always willing show levity on each action. Being harsh censors, they often expect a purity that they do no have and violently criticize those who make efforts to achieve it.

The pure person identifies the evil where it really exists. They perceive and regret dishonesty, selfishness, perversion and cruelty.

Final Thoughts

Purity is something that can be achieved.

Struggling to overcome our own difficulties is hard but worthwhile. What we need is to stop wasting time criticizing the conducts of others and focusing on our own bad habits to overcome them patiently.

Mary Magdalene is an opportune example of purity achieved. Despite the great mistakes of his past, after meeting Jesus she began to cultivate purity in her life. Her story is an eloquent symbol of the victory of reason and will over passion and vices.

Becoming pure is possible and it only depends on our own efforts.

Adapted from Momento Espírita, originally published on January 10, 2018.

See Also

• The Power of Love
• Weighted observation
• The most important bridge
• Bridge of Life
• A Thinking Power
• Divine Poem

Vibrating Bridge

How do you deal with the challenges and stresses of the modern life?

Photo by Andre Xavier on Unsplash

She returned from school, where she worked for many years. She was discouraged by the routine situation. The violence in the children's actions and words left her actionless, after so many attempts to resolve them.

Every day she worked hard doing her best. She guided and corrected their attitudes so that the children would become kinder to each other, so that they felt like family.  However, she saw that none of her efforts was effective.

Discouraged, she sat on the bench in the garden and cried. Her father, seeing her there, came over and stroked her hair in silence. With her beloved presence, she allowed herself to give more freedom to emotions. She hugged him and let the tears flow.

When she calmed down a little, he spoke calmly: "I don't know what your problem is, but we can establish a vibrating bridge to the sky, from where you will come calm and tranquility to solve what ails you." Remember what we have been taught: "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you will get it and what you will grant will be what you ask for."

She smiled slightly and, because she still felt a little tormented, she asked him to formulate the prayer for her, for her work and for the children at school. Right there, among the flowers, he prayed. She, following her words mentally, felt her heart calm and hope to be reborn.

Later, they went into the house, had tea and continued to talk. She found that she was now calmer and more confident, envisioning other possible solutions.

The mechanism of prayer

It is important to know the mechanism of prayer. Jesus, the sweet Rabbi of Galilee, used to walk away from the crowd in order to pray to the Father in silence.

An enlightened creature wrote: prayer is the emanation of well-directed thinking and rich in vibratory content, establishing the creature's exchange with the Creator. Therefore, thoughts driven by love and charged with positive energies can perform real miracles.

Prayer not only dilutes negative energies, it renews the moral forces of being, saturating it with higher vibrations that alter mental, emotional and organic landscapes.

The act of praying is an expression of humility towards life and an awakening of the conscience to understand the goals to which one must give oneself.

Jesus sought prayer as an effective resource to be linked to the Father, maintaining the exchange for the inspiration and courage that he was always clothed with. Through the constant practice of prayer, He left us an example that we must not abandon.

Final Thoughts

Through sincere prayer, we are in tune with the spheres of light, from which we draw the energies that provide emotional balance and inner peace, which allows us to better reason and act.

A sincere prayer opens the windows of the soul and expands our possibilities of inspiration.

Allow ourselves the exercise of prayer, in all situations of our life. Pray and let yourself be guided by the Celeste Pastor who will send you superior support in any circumstance through this vibrating bridge, called prayer.

Adapted from Momento Espírita, originally published on May 06, 2016.

See Also

• The Power of Love
• Weighted observation
• The most important bridge
• Bridge of Life
• A Thinking Power
• Divine Poem

Planting and Harvesting

Could you explain why we suffer? Could you explain why some suffer more than others?

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

According to the dictionaries, freewill is the possibility to decide, to choose according to one's will, free from any conditioning.

And that is how Divinity - the supreme intelligence of the universe - allows us to conduct our existence. To make decisions in our lives we only depend on our own judgment, on our personal analysis, on confronting our own conscience.

The Divine Providence, in an educational way, provides us with the opportunity for choices. And, for the sake of justice, it offers us, as a learning experience, the full consequences of our actions.

That is how the judge will answer for what he does in the courts. The executive will account for the management of the resources under his responsibility. The public manager will face consequences proportional to the quality of his actions. The teacher will be responsible for the good or bad made during the course of the profession. The employee will be considered for the quality of his actions and conduct.

We are free to make our decisions

We are free to make our decisions. However, once they are executed, we link ourselves to them and become either victims or beneficiaries of them. We may act in any way we believe is appropriate or convenient but we will have to account for everything we do.

Nobody deceives the all-seeing Divine Justice, from the insignificant to the most expressive acts. Erroneous attitudes, even those hidden from men, those that we believe we have managed to circumvent human justice, do not go unnoticed by the Divine Justice. Therefore acting positively, ethically, is a matter of wisdom. All the good that we do, even if silently and anonymously will be counted in our personal accounts.

For this reason, every difficulty that we face now are nothing more than debts of the past. And they reach us now because the Divinity understands that we have the conditions to pay them off. Thanks to this mechanism designed by God - which is always just and correct - we are provided with the chance to repair previous mistakes.

Final Thoughts

Out of kindness and in favor of our balance, the Heavenly Father offers us to forget our criminal past, so that we can better face its consequences. The understanding of Divine Justice, a lucid, reason-based faith twill give us encouragement to continue our journey.

We are heirs of our actions. Nothing that happens to us is due to divine punishment, heavenly revenge, or forgetting the loving and good Father. Our misfortunes are the consequences of not observing the law of love and they are an invitation to reflection and learning, so that love, effectively, establishes itself in our intimacy.

In this light, we will understand pain as a blessing, a cheater of our lives. It will lead us to higher levels of evolution.

Adapted from Momento Espírita, originally published on June 13, 2015.

See Also

• The Power of Love
• Weighted observation
• The most important bridge
• Bridge of Life
• A Thinking Power
• Divine Poem