Monday, October 13, 2008

Be harmless!

I was reading "The Little Book of Letting Go" by Hugh Prather this morning. I had started reading it a while ago, then put it away, and something made me pick it up again this morning.

The book has these "exercises" that Hugh recommends to do for a couple days and then notice the difference in how your day goes.

The exercise I read today made me have a very cheerful day! It said something like this...

"Just for today, I will live a harmless life. I will not hurt anyone, either by thought or by action, including myself"

It was quite profound! There are a lot of lessons in that one line. The most important ones being "not hurting anyone by thought" and "including myself".

Not hurting anyone by action is easy, but controlling thoughts, thinking ONLY good about everyone and everything...this takes practice! And I did it today simply by repeating the above line in my head! It works! I laughed more than I have in a long time. I made others laugh more than I have in a long time! I was happier and more cheerful! I felt that I liked everyone more than I have before, that I cherished them more, enjoyed their company more. All it took was a conscious decision!

And not hurting yourself is also quite a strong message. We all tend to be quite hard on ourselves, criticizing ourselves more than we should. So give yourself and everyone else a break, and be harmless!

17 comments:

Ankur said...

Amazing exercise... seriously!!!
I will try it today for sure, not taking too critical on myself.. i hope it will help!! !:)

another good post!! :)

Cheers!!

--xh-- said...

I believe very much in not hurting yourself - as i always ask, if you don't love yourself, who will?

Anonymous said...

Awesome in every sense!!

I will not hurt anyone, either by thought or by action, including myself

Awesome!

Pri said...

thankyou for that dear :)
its one valuable advice we all need....

Kanan said...

I like it quite a lot. Thank you!

When we are in pain or upset, it's so hard to be like this though.

Vrijilesh Rai said...

Awesome.. I'm going to try this out today! Thanx as always :)

§ωατι §ετhι said...

Hey Aneri,

How have you been?

Wow!!! I'm visiting ur blog after a long time and I'm delighted to see a fresh post on ur blog... :D

Its an amazing lesson.. I'll also try it tmrw..for sure!! :) Infact, I'll remind myself each day... :)

Cheers!!!
Love
Swati

megha puNAter" said...

thank you for this,couldn't have come at a better time.

aneri_masi said...

@ankur, cool. did it help?

@xh, you're the best! you know all the good stuff already :)

@veens, hai na :) Now if only those stupid bombers would also apply this!

@pri, you're very welcome!

aneri_masi said...

@kanan, that is the whole point...i kept repeating this all day in my head, and the things that usually irritate me, or are some sort of a trigger to hurt me, didn't matter! coz I was not going to let it hurt me!

aneri_masi said...

@vrij, welcome as always :) try kiya?

@swati, so good to see you! me been fine, can't complain! howz u?

@megha, am glad it helped :) although you always seem so serene...its hard to think u didn't already know this :)

Anonymous said...

"Just for today".... I love it. Breaking it down to just this one day. I was just working on affirmations this morning where I used that wording. If we choose to be good to everyone, including ourselves, just for one day then we have made the world better for one whole day.

Mana said...

Meaningful post.

I don't hurt anyone unless they harm me.

Neetal said...

=) I liked this lesson... so true when you say... most of the times we are too harsh on ourselves....

kallu said...

Hugh Prather can bond people across the world? He's a favorite author or mine but have never come across this one. Thanks for the exercise.
In case you are wondering, came a across your blog in Mysore blog park.
And it appealed.

Vani said...

Very meaningful post. I'm determined to practice that exercise at least for a day. Filtering the thoughts seems to be the tricky part here..
Thanks for sharing :)

I am said...

anhaa so this is where u wrote about the book... nice :)