The role of God in the TikTok era

Well, if you look for GOD and add TikTok, you will find a whooping 235 million results… But, of course, the results are of all kinds because to try to use such a high element of spirituality comprised in the shortest video possible, it is quite difficult.

My experience of God is a life-long one and it goes beyond reading or studying, suffering or joy, understanding or believing. Although those short videos can be helpful, they cannot convey the greatness that God has.

He is known at the Brahma Kumaris, an organization to which I have been affiliated for forty years, as the Ocean of all Virtues, because that is what He is: an Ocean that comprehends all that is good and powerful.

And yet, He is also known as being just a point of light… An extremely concentrated form of energy. The words in other languages are sindhu for ocean and bindhu for point, rhyming an experience, like a living song.

We are similar to Him, but so different. We are different than Him, but so similar.

Experience God through meditation, contemplation or prayer; let that experience fill your mind and actions.

Also, enjoy those short videos, without depending on them to decide what God really is for you.

New Year 2 – Qualifications…

OK, so you have your goals set and now, what? It is time to make it real!

But, before that, a particular reflection is necessary:

• What qualities do you require to fulfill your goals, qualities without which you cannot do it?
• Which qualities will help you to fulfill your goals, even though they are not mandatory?
• How are you going to develop those qualities?

Qualities maybe values, virtues or even inner powers; they will enable you to fulfill your goals. Without those qualities, you will struggle to fulfil your aims in life.

So, make a plan on how to get those qualities, by responding the three questions above and good luck!

A new world starts with your mind

Too many people promise a new city, a new country, a new way of doing things, a new business, a new man or woman…

But, you know, everything new starts with a new mind. For instance, let’s say we want a new world (we want it, right?):

1. Sow the seeds for a new world. They come from the best part of you – from your courage, honesty and love, from the sweetness you treat others and the pure intentions you have when you are working. Let all of that floods your mind with good thoughts and wonderful feelings.
2. Ah, before that… plough your mind a little bit. Unfortunately, we are so much engrossed into a world with so many problems that the idea of a total new world in which those problems are solved, are easy to solve or simply don’t exist is insane… And yet… that’s part of the game of thinking of a new world. Start to read more about a new world and talk with other people; awaken those crazy ideas that a better world IS REALLY POSSIBLE!
3. Take care of those thoughts. The best way to create a new world is from a new self; so, start to change little things here and there, improve your habits and your life’s quality. The other day, I was watching a video that showed how a guy moved out of a crowded city to give a better quality for his dog – why don’t we do a similar thing to our own selves?
4. Water it daily and be careful with the birds! You need to create a new thought every day for a new world; for instance, one day you may think on how the economics will be and another day, how the politics will be there. But, you know the birds, they love to eat new green leaves… in your case, new ideas will be tested and fought by your best friends, your mum and dad, your kids, and of course your boss and mother-in-law… So, be prepared to have good arguments and maybe, to encourage them to think of a new world too, why not?
5. The crop will take time. A new world starts with in your mind and with your mind, but it takes time to come to reality. Still, believe me, it will come one day… just be patient and keep on cultivating it. One day, the new world will blossom for you!

Many virtues and many defects

Maybe we don’t realize, but we have so many virtues – qualities that ease relationships and make life in a collective a wonderful experience.

Perhaps what we don’t realize is the quantity of defects we have – qualities that make life with others and the environment much hard.

We have both and it is good to know that, and to embrace both sides of the self. In a recent song nominated for the Oscar, the singer talks about how she saw clouds in a romantic way, until she understood clouds may mean harm and damage too. Life has both sides and to deny either of them is not healthy.

So if you are one of the many people in the world who don’t think very high of yourself, it is time to change that mentality: count your victories despite their small size, understand your main positive qualities and develop them, and above all, love yourself.

And if you are one of many who denies having any defects, just accept them: remember your defeats as a way to get a bigger success, work on those defects you have and, along with all that, unconditionally love yourself.

When you keep working on both sides, your life will be richer and you will inspire many others too.

Inside, there is a powerful source of energy - Reason 59

From time to time, we all lack energy, which is a generic name for all that stamina, that vital force that makes us want to get up, exercise, go to work, change the routine or to serve many others.

Then people look outside: movies, songs, drinks and food, good company, big parties, you name it!!  And these remedies do work, at least for some time.

However, a leader looks inside: experiences and teachings, virtues and values, inner powers and talents; the wonderful inner world…  They also work and they will keep working as much as the person wants, because these reserves are always there.  Not only that, the more an individual uses his or her inner resources, they will increase.

Outside sources of energy and vitality are limited, while inner sources are infinite; to tap into them, leaders need to have introversion, but not in the sense of withdrawal from the world.

Introversion is precious, because within each person, there is a vast treasure just waiting to be acknowledged and used accordingly.  By making a time to be by oneself and, with a methodology like meditation or reflection, to explore one’s inner world, a leader is boosting her or his energy.

(Excerpt from the book 82 Reasons to be a Leader)

You are an explorer of your own self! - Reason 35

At any time, a leader has always a place to go.  It is a place to which she or he wouldn’t need to take a flight or even a car ride, because it is there, within themselves.

Then, he or she can explore all that is inside a human being: virtues, values, powers, talents, dreams, feelings, and can learn to use all of these treasures with more confidence.

The motto of a leader who is this type of explorer is: Look inside where both power and protection can be found.  It is particularly useful during stressful situations or crisis, as the leader uses that mental and spiritual space to reflect and to make decisions, instead of just looking outwardly and reacting.

It also serves when the leader is going through a period and everything is alright; it is a time the leader takes in which to further enjoy these inner resources that are abundant and everlasting.

Others who haven’t developed the ability to go as deep as a leader will find their internal resources are not ready and available a time of need.  But leaders will go so deep they even will be able to help others in their own exploration.

(Excerpt from the book 82 Reasons to be a Leader)

Patience, an underrated key for success

Very few stories show how patience is important in reaching aims.

In Chris Gardner’s story, shown in the movie The Pursuitof Happyness, however, patience is shown as a very strong quality that pushed the man onto his limits, until he was able to break it and come out of a very tough situation.

Maybe people think of patience as a person who waits in a queue, with no hurry and no ambitions in life, instead of a very troubled man who did not even have a proper place to live whilst struggling to take care of his son.

But that is patience: a quality or virtue that allows us to wait for results, giving us the needed energy to live, or survive, until they come. And for a patient person, one day those results come…

So, check your patience as your ability of having a goal, investing in that goal and waiting to reach for it.

Do you have patience?

In a very fast-paced world, some virtues are not so cool and patience is one of them for it is connected to slow-moving men and women, weak individuals or very old people.

In fact, patience is connected to the reality of the world. If it is not for patience, your parents would not have expected you to be born – after all, NINE MONTHS!! So many things you can do during that time!!!!

For example, food and maturity come from a season and it is hard to be sped them up. When humans mix science with nature, results are not pleasant to everyone and there is a big wave in the world trying to revert that we did to our own food; same thing applies to maturity, which has its process and it is different to each person.

My observation is that patience is not the problem. The real challenge is how to discern between having patience and being slow. It is not that simple… Let’s take the example of a career.

On one hand, patience will help you to develop it in a pace that won’t stress you out but it will guarantee a good result at the end of the road. You will be focused on learning more than having immediate success as you know achievements will come along the way.

However you cannot just wait for things to happen. You will be pushed, threatened, taunted and even blackmailed by your bosses, co-workers, spouses and relatives to go for it! After all, your youth won’t last forever and maybe is already fading away…

Patience is good, it helps with health and it helps you to reach those goals you want to get, but it is not enough. No virtue or value is enough, they all need a partner. In the case of patience, its partner is perseverance that will help you to not accommodate to the situation but break reality and start your own change process.

OK, if you leave patience aside, you will be hurt as you will succumb to others’ and yours own desires, instead of waiting for the right season when fruit will be ripe. But if you don’t engage patience with perseverance you will live a very dull and boring life, and it is quite possible many of the things you are expecting won’t happen. After all, it is not only sowing seeds, you have to water and take care of whatever you have sown too.

Just perseverance without patience… Well, your life will be a big adventure, but you will probably miss some opportunities to just relax and flow with the flow.

At the end of this wonderful journey we all live, the most important thing will be the sense of balance. Life is all about balance… So, go and start it right now. Patiently…

A Christmas Palette

Once upon a time, a small boy looked at a plane in the sky.

It was unexpected. This boy were living at Gray City, where everything was, well, gray: buildings, cars, houses, clothes and, of course, the sky. They told him it was a very prosperous place to live and his family was very happy there. They used to express their happiness sitting in front of the TV set; with little messages on the screen, they knew very well when to laugh, smile, be sad and cry. Their food was also gray...

The little boy did not like to live there. He didn't like to eat gray food everyday - he would love to eat yellow, orange and red food at some point in life!! He didn't like to go to a gray school, where very gray teachers used to teach him gray things - he would love to learn green and blue lessons!

And one day, after a very gray fight with his gray mom, he saw the plane... It was so high in the sky, he couldn't believe he was seeing it; besides, he would swear he was also seeing a patch of... of BLUE!! Yes, around the plane!! Almost invisible, but it was there. He touched his eyes, he touched his heart, and he thanked for that gift. After all, it was Christmas Eve...

From that day on, something happened to him. It started in his dreams: they became blue. Later, he also started to have yellow, orange, red and even purple dreams!

Later, in his mind there was always a patch of blue... sometimes, he could also have green and yellow ideas.

Slowly, he changed. His family could not understand him and they tried to turn him gray again; his teachers did not like him and cause him more troubles than ever, and even his friends were scared of him.

What nobody knew was that he saw the blue sky and he saw the plane and he knew, one day, he would jump into that plane and go to a place, where you could find any color you wanted.

Scared as they were, forcefully trying to change him back into a normal and common gray, they could not do anything... And the small boy grew up into a wonderful guy.

And one day, in another Christmas Eve day, he jumped into a plane, leaving to Multicolor City. And he was so happy...

After one year, however, things did not go as he wanted. He missed things from his city...

What he realized one evening is that even though they have so many colors, still they were all gray inside.

Ok, that was not true... His boss for instance was a perfect red, and his neighbor upstairs, she was totally blue. And then she remembered a friend of a friend at Gray city who was totally a green one. Slowly, he changed... Because colors were not outside.

Nowadays, he is living at Blue City. He constantly goes to Gray City to visit friends and family who appreciate him as he is. Sometimes, he also goes to Multicolor City to enjoy the Carnival and meet friends he got there. And his mind is open for all colors of life...

Ah, did I say that evening when he realized that was... yes, right! Christmas Eve...

The skills of the self

An old book talked about the sixteen celestial arts, a series of skills the self needs to be happy in life. It included things like the art of developing, friendship, thinking and even the art of remaining happy and content.

Not, it is obvious nobody will put this into his or her curriculum... And no sensible company would hire someone because she masters the art of "concealing and revealing" or he is an expert in the art of "refreshing".

However, when people are working in a day-to-day basis, these arts turn to be the key for a person who wants to grow in the company because even though companies value techniques, knowledge and skills, the skills of the self are the ones which will help you to move forward. Even though you are in a company, you're still human.

The skills of the self are those virtues, values or qualities in general, plus those abilities that allow people to live with people, enabling them to overcome obstacles and to face the challenges that come on their way with victory.

Although some would have that naturally, developing those skills are not that different than any other skill. You will need for that:

• Knowledge. You really need to understand what patience means to develop it. Study and research are key.
• Attitude. A skill is nothing without a proper attitude to back it up. If you, for instance, want to develop patience, you need an attitude of understanding, perspective and maturity.
• Practice. A big part of any skill to be developed is to rehearse it. When you think of patience, you probably acknowledge there are situations which are easier for you to be patient with, and other situations that are much more difficult; practicing means trying first with those situations that are easy for you and then, gradually, trying the more difficult ones.

Even though you won't be able to mention these skills to your future client, I tell you one thing: many times, that is the real reason they are hiring you.

The basis of being a leader

I think this is a world which should have an overpopulation of leaders. There are a few reasons for that.

If you consider leadership a competence, its formula is very easy:

• Knowledge. There is plenty of knowledge on leadership, thousands and probably millions of books and an infinite number of articles on this topic, in most languages. There are courses in colleges and universities all over the world too.
• Skills. Apart from that, there are probably millions of consultants or training schools who can help leaders to develop certain skills for a better leadership.
• Attitude. With all courses and people talking about leadership, I feel it is not difficult to develop a leadership attitude, although that, as it is a little subtle, would require more effort.

Of course, that is problem the question of the century: What is leadership? Not in the sense of definition, but it is more like "where does it come from?". A friend of mine says there is no leadership; what we have is leaders (I particularly do not believe in that, but it is an idea...).

Ideas are coming and coming, but still leadership, from many different points of view, is easy and it is getting even easier. But then, why our wold is in such a situation? Because it does not matter what line of thinking you follow, a leader will always emerge at times of crisis. And, well, I guess this is not happening... At least not in a way to really overcome crises...

As a thinker, I feel that what is missing is self-leadership. You can find many articles in this blog itself on that, and thousands more in other places. The basic reason: you can't lead if you are unable to lead yourself!

So, what we have is not really a lack of leadership, or leaders, but a lack of self-leadership and leaders of the self.

Taking the same formula and understanding self-leadership as a competence, we have:

• Wisdom. Knowledge is good, but to be a leader of the self, that knowledge has to transcend and turn into wisdom. It is difficult to teach that in universities, but it is easy to assimilate that from reflection, contemplation or meditation.
• Powers and virtues. Skills are used to put leadership into practice. For self-leadership, you need more than skills. Spiritual power is an energy the being has that helps the self to overcome situations (check my post on 8 attitudes). Virtue is that energy that enable the being to live in the world adapting to all situations that come. Both could be called attitudes.
• Awareness. Leadership of the self is only possible if the leader's awareness is awaken. Most of the time, we are not aware of what is going on around us; it is only when that is interesting or it requires more from the senses, that you become aware of its reality (for instance, the sound of air-conditioning system or the traffic in front of your office). To be a leader of the self, for that you do need to awake the deep hidden awareness of who am I, where am I going to, what am I doing here and many of the traditional questions on self-existence.

So... you see, it is not that difficult!

Is it? I will help you with more and more posts on this topic. I can help you personally with examples of my own life and, most important, I am sure YOU CAN HELP me and others with your own example!