Today we continue to hear about some of the messages from Mahatma Ghandi.  Our messages for today will be about being in the moment and the importance of seeing the good in other people.

Be in the moment

“I do not want to see the future.  I am concerned with taking care of the present.”  On this blog we have talked many times about the importance of staying in the moment.  The basic idea of being in the moment is that we need to take care of what is in front of us right now.  If we properly handle the current situation then that is one less “problem” we will have in the future.

If you think about it, we cannot do anything to change the past.  Any time we spend playing the “woulda, shoulda, coulda” game is wasted time.  This way of thinking always brings recriminations, which in turn leads to a downward spiral of self doubt.  When our thinking is stuck in the past we are not in the moment.

Similarly, we cannot change the future through our nervous anticipation of what will come.  We all want different things from our future.  However, living in a future where we cannot control what happens to us is wasted effort.

We cannot control what happens to us in the next moment.  What we can control is what we do in this moment.  Take care of this moment and the next moment will be exactly what it needs to be.

Even though we cannot control what happens to us we can control how we react to what does happen.  When we stay in the moment we remain in control of ourselves and the situation.  When we learn the power of these two behaviors – staying in the moment and controlling how we handle what happens to us – we begin to learn how to change our lives.  When we learn how to change our lives we begin to learn how to change the world.

Accepting ourselves

“I look only to the good qualities of men.  Not being faultless myself I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”  If we wanted to, we could easily find many faults within each person in our lives.  When we concentrate on their faults we lose sight of their positive qualities.  At this point it becomes very easy to see people as evil or bad because we are only looking at their faults.

Let’s turn this idea around.  Do we want people looking at only our faults?  Do we want people ignoring us because they cannot see our positive qualities?  I do not think that any of us want that.  So, if we want other people to see us for our positive qualities then we must begin to see the positive qualities in other people.  After all, shouldn’t we do to others what we want done to us?

We also must start the process of seeing the good in others.  When we wait for others to do this to us before we do it to others it never happens.  We must be the example of the change we want to see, another of Ghandiji’s precepts.

That is all for today.  Some of the ideas for this series of posts have come from the website “Ghandiji’s Top Ten Fundamentals for Changing the World”.

Until tomorrow –

Es kava turen hai

We work towards an identical goal.

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We finished last week by taking a look at a few concepts from Mahatma Ghandi.  This week we will continue by talking about more of the concepts that have been important to me.  But first…

Welcome back!

I hope that everyone had a great weekend.  It certainly seems that winter has set in early in most of North America.  I guess we all have been dreaming of a white Christmas.  Now we have no one to blame – we got what we asked for.

More Ideas from Ghandiji

We finished Friday with some of the things that I consider important from what I learned about Ghandi.  Over the years I have come back to this inspiration countless times.  I hope what has inspired me will also inspire you.  Here are some more ideas that I have found to be important and what I have learned from them.

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”  I originally learned this as “Nobody can hurt you unless you allow it.”  They say the same thing.

When I was first exposed to this concept my first thought was “That is crazy.”  I remember as if it were yesterday.  I could not get my brain around the idea that someone could hurt me only if I let them.  I knew that being hurt was mostly beyond my control.  If I was going to be hurt, then I was going to be hurt.  There was nothing I could do about it.  Or so I thought at the time.

As I traveled my spiritual path I gradually began to get a better understanding about concepts like acceptance, unconditional love, forgiveness, and judgment.  It took awhile, but I began to understand how they worked and how to incorporate them into my life.  Every once in awhile I would think about the idea that I could only be hurt if I allowed myself to be hurt.  It took a long time for that to make sense.

Then I started to link some of the concepts together.  If I did not judge the meaning of what happened to me then I would not be looking to be hurt all the time.  If I was accepting of myself and those around me I realized that most of the time they did not mean to be hurtful.  The times they did want to be hurtful they were acting out of fear.  If I wanted to receive unconditional love I had to love unconditionally first.

After many years these concepts started to fall together.  I realized that most of my perceived hurt was because I was judging it as hurt.  With practice I learned to be much happier because I did not spend my life trying to figure out if people were hurting me.  I realized that it was much more important to spend my time learning to accept them and love them unconditionally than to reciprocate the hurt I perceived they gave to me.

I understand how difficult this idea is for most of us.  That is why I started this post with my inability to comprehend it.  If you cannot comprehend it right now, that is OK.  Set it to the side and work on other ideas that you can comprehend.  This one will come back for your further understanding when you are ready for it.

That is all for today.

Until tomorrow –

Es kava turen hai

We work towards an identical goal.

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© Copyright 2008 by KanDu Associates, LLC 

The content of this blog is copyrighted by KanDu Associates.  All rights are reserved by the owner.  For reprint information please email:

noahnow@yahoo.com

Today we take a look at Mahatma Ghandi.  We have referred to Ghandi several times in the last few months.  Now we will take a closer look at some of his ideas that have become important to me.

Thankful Friday

As always we will begin our Friday post with a few thanks.  Today I want to thank our readers for taking the time from their busy day to read our post.  We have a small but gradual increase in both the visits to the site as well as a gradual increase in the number of email subscriptions.  Thanks!

As always, we thank WordPress and FeedBurner for providing the tools that make publishing and distributing this site free for everyone.  Thanks WordPress and FeedBurner!

A few ideas from Mahatma Ghandi that are important to me

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”  This idea has grown on me over the years.  When I first heard this idea I was in a place that I could not imagine changing myself.  I thought that I was what I was and that I could do nothing to change that.

As I travelled my path I gradually realized that I was able to change myself.  I began to see things in my false self that were getting in the way of my happiness.  I learned to change their control over me and found more of my own true happiness.

As I learned to find my internal happiness I realized how unhappy so many people are.  I realized that I could help them, but that I needed to be the example.  It was “walk the walk and talk the talk.”  If I wanted to see a change for true happiness in the world I had to be doing it for myself.

Since that realization several years ago I realized the importance of being the example.  Many times you do not have to say anything – being the example is all that is important.  Others see the example and will follow it without you ever having to say a word.

”The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.”  Many years ago when I was acting mostly from false self I had a very hard time forgiving anyone for anything.  After all, I had been wronged.  How could I forgive anyone for hurting me?

It took many years, but I gradually saw that by not forgiving others I was actually doing great damage to myself.  By not forgiving I was keeping tremendous amounts of anger inside of me.  This anger would frequently leak out in very self destructive behaviors.  I thought I was punishing those who hurt me by blaming them.  Eventually I realized that I was only hurting myself.

As I learned to forgive those who I thought were hurting me I learned a lot of other lessons.  First, I learned that until I forgave myself I could not forgive anyone else.  I learned self forgiveness and self acceptance.

Then I learned that many of my supposed hurts were actually judgments on my part.  I began to learn the difference between assessing a situation and judging a situation.

The difference is that a judgment is always an attachment to the way you want to see the situation.  An assessment is an open-minded attempt to understand the true nature of the situation without prejudices or attachments.  This became an invaluable lesson.

Well that is all for this week.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Until Monday –

Es kava turen hai

We work towards an identical goal.

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The content of this blog is copyrighted by KanDu Associates.  All rights are reserved by the owner.  For reprint information please email:

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Learn All you Can About Ghandi and Nonviolence

The Star Children and their compatriots are not here to “fight”.  We are here to help the planet through the imminent rebalancing and help the people on the planet to learn to be in the moment.  We do not accomplish these objectives by fighting.

When we choose to fight we are just strengthening the traditional paradigms of the planet.  For thousands of years on this planet we have thought that when we do not like something or if we are opposed to something then we have to actively fight it.  When the members of the project team fight things on this planet they are only keeping this idea entrenched.

Through the course of history on this planet there have been many examples of nonviolent resistance.  For me, one of the best examples of this was Mahatma Ghandi and his work in India during the first half of the 20th century.  He organized a resistance movement that adamantly refused to become violent.  That movement eventually overthrew the British Empire, the strongest military, economic, and political force in the world when the movement began.

Ghandi attempted to show the difference between resisting and fighting.  Resisting is determining the direction you want to go and stubbornly insisting on going in that direction.  While you are going in that direction you make sure you protect your right to go in that direction.  A little tweaking of a nose or some stepping on toes is acceptable.  Anything more is not.

What this does is to highlight the fact that those who are opposing you are keeping you from reasonably and peacefully exercising your human rights.  By maintaining your composure (staying in the moment) you allow all who are observing the situation to see that you are being reasonable and peaceful and that those opposing you are not.  Over time, the vast majority of uninvolved and initially uninterested observers will come to your side and begin working with you and not sympathizing with your opponents.  Peaceful but insistent resistance brings out the best in most people.

Star Children, Indigo Children, and Crystal Children must recognize that they will be doing work that will be opposed by many on the planet.  Many of those opponents will be those who do not want anything to be changed.  They will resist the work simply because they want everything to stay the way it is.  Our answer will be: That is great for you, but you should not oppose my right to live a peaceful life in the way I want to live it.  In order to make that statement we have to be living peaceful lives.

Being peaceful is a direct outcome of being in the moment.  When you are in the moment you realize when it is the appropriate time to defend yourself.  Being nonviolent does not necessarily mean you cannot defend yourself.  When you are in the moment you will know when you are defending yourself for appropriate reasons and when you are defending yourself out of attachments.

This also implies that you do not attack anyone.  When you are in the moment you realize that there is never any reason to attack anyone.  Defending yourself does not imply attack.  It just means that you will resist any attempt to keep you from exercising your right to live a peaceful and productive life.

Most of the readers of this blog have probably thought that all this talk of attack, resistance, defense, etc. has been referring to physical violence.  Will it does, but only as a minor and last resort.

Most of the violence that occurs on a daily basis is through our words and “nonviolent” physical actions.  Think of all the times that you speak hurtful words or think malicious thoughts about people.  Think of all the times that you want to respond to verbal attacks or perceived slights with aggressive words or behavior. 

We need to learn to practice nonviolence in our daily life and through our routine human interactions.  As we learn to control ourselves on a day to day basis, should there ever come a time for nonviolent responses to physical provocations, we will be much more likely to respond appropriately.  Years of daily training will pay off no matter what situation we encounter.

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The content of this blog is copyrighted by KanDu Associates.  All rights are reserved by the owner.  For reprint information please email: noahnow@yahoo.com