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Conversations on the Spiritual Path

To those of you who took the time to respond to my weekly email and share your thoughts and questions with me…thank you! After my long hiatus, it’s nice to hear what is on your mind. This allows me to direct my emails in a direction that hopefully is beneficial to your needs. 

Now, I won’t be able to respond to all the emails that came in (I did read all of them) but I’ll address a few in this email and subsequent ones. FYI: I’ve left the questions as they were sent in (unedited). I’m answering as briefly as possible to keep this email short. Here we go. 

Managing a spiritual life whilst being a wife, a mother and a professional?
Being a wife, mother and a professional is a lot. If these are your priorities in life and what you have chosen to focus on then you need to simplify other aspects of your life. Relinquish some of the people and things that you are dedicating energy towards and redirect that energy into your spiritual life. It comes down to the wise management and investment of a finite resource – your energy. 

How to train your thoughts?
You don’t train your thoughts. You reshape the patterns in your subconscious. You resolve the unresolved emotional experiences in your subconscious. These are amongst the things that release thoughts in your mind. I would define thoughts as energy evaporating from a pattern in the subconscious that has emotion attached to it. Imagine a pond. The surface of the pond would be evaporating water on a hot day. That water vapor you could say are your thoughts. You don’t try to control the water vapor. You work with the water in the pond so that it is not evaporating. 

How do we control anger over kids at times when the repeated polite requests are not heard by them?

I recommend you read this book, Positive Discipline by Jane Nelson

How to not be an energy vampire yourself?
Learn to serve others. Learn to give. Every day ask yourself what is the one thing you can do to make another person’s life better? Even in a small way. Download my free app – the Dandapani app (App Store | Play Store), head to the Journal section and do the exercise “Who will I uplift today and how will I do so” every day for a month. 

I don’t understand the concept of “live in the now”?
To live in the moment or in the now is to have awareness fully absorbed in what or whom you are engaged with. When you can do this you are being focused. When you are focused you are living in the present moment. 

How to concentrate all day?
Practice! Practice! Practice! Until the patterns in your subconscious mind are molded in a way that it supports you to be in a state of focus all the time. The exact same way where so many people have practiced the art of distraction all day thus molding the patterns in their subconscious in a way that it supports them to be in a state of distraction all day. If you can do it for distraction you can do it for concentration. 

Insights on how we can lean more on our own spine.
By cultivating and being consistent with a daily spiritual practice. In doing so you need to be clear of the philosophy you subscribe to, the goal it defines, and the path to it.

Thank you for sending in those questions.