What does success mean to you? It can mean different things to different people.

Is success always something big, or could it manifest in small daily acts? Does success manifest  only as money and wealth, or also does it also manifest in love, relationships, studies or overcoming negative habits?

Here are a few definitions of success:

Getting the job you wanted.

Earning more money.

Getting good grades at school.

Passing your driving test successfully.

Going on a date with someone you want.

Having a business with many customers.

Read the article Success Has Many Definitions for a list of various definitions of success.

Most people experience stress and tension on a daily basis. There are demands at work, at school and in relationships, and there is rush and hectic pace, which bring tiredness and unhappiness, impatience and frustration. All this adversely affects the body, the mind and the quality of life, and is quite unnecessary.

One needs a way to release all this tension and stress, or if possible, not create it at all. What you need is some relaxation, to get away from the stress, tension and hectic way of life. This why you need a vacation every now and then, but few are in a position to take a vacation whenever they desire or have the money to pay for one.

The good news is that you can afford to go on a vacation everyday, even more than once a day, without going away and spending money. You can enjoy a period of freedom from your daily tasks and chores, from stress and problems, and at the same time renew your energy and enjoy inner peace. You can enjoy such a vacation when you practice meditation.

To read the complete article, please visit:
www.successconsciousness.com/why-meditate.html

People often ask me why positive thinking does not work for them. Here is an email message I have received recently:

“I’ve been trying this whole positive thinking thing for about 2 years now with no results. Things actually seen to be getting worse. I’m up to my neck in debt and my health isn’t the greatest. I watched “The secret” and thought, “wow”, but after a while of really trying to change my thought patterns, I had to give up on it.”

Why does this happen?

Like everything in life, positive thinking requires constant training. You need to try again and again until you succeed. Rarely things change overnight.

Usually, when people first hear about positive thinking and how it can change their lives, they get excited and elated, but if they don’t see immediate results, they often get disappointed and discouraged and lose any faith in positive thinking.

To make it work for you, you need to make it your predominant mental attitude, and not something you think about only now and then. It is not enough to be positive for a few minutes and negative for the rest of the day.

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People who are on the path of spiritual growth are sometimes perplexed and don’t know what to do. They want to advance on the spiritual path, but they cannot devote all their time to this quest and abandon the material world. Most of them have responsibilities and duties they feel they cannot ignore, and have material needs they have to take care of.

Some people say that in order to walk on the spiritual path, one needs to give up all material possessions and money and live in seclusion. To prove their assertion, they point to the swamis, monks, yogis and fakirs living in the East. True spirituality is an inner state, and is not gauged by external lifestyle. Living like them is not fit everyone, and it does not always leads to real inner growth.

Did you ever stop to think that there might be people living ordinary lives, with job and family, even people whom you might know personally, who are well advanced on the spiritual path, but yet neither you nor anyone else know about this? They just prefer to hide this fact and there is nothing in their external life to denote their inner state.

Most people won’t be able to live without material possessions of some kind, and it is also not necessary. One needs a place to stay and sleep, clothes, food, health care, and all this costs money. Without them, it will be more difficult to concentrate or meditate, because the mind and the survival instinct will continuously distract and disturb your concentration.

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Some time ago I received an email, in which someone asked me whether it is possible to visualize world peace.

It would be a great thing to visualize world peace. Any positive thought projected into the atmosphere of the planet is beneficial. This energy is not wasted and has its affect on the world, but as long as most of the population does not think on world peace or visualize it, and does not desire it strongly enough, one person’s thoughts are not strong enough to affect the entire world. Just think how much positive thought power can one person generate, compared to the total negative thinking of the entire planet! On the other hand, if a large group of people thinks and concentrates on world peace, the total power generated by them is stronger, than the power generated by one individual.

You have to take into account the fact that opposing thoughts can weaken or even neutralize other thoughts. The total strength of any power is dependent on the power generated, less any other power that opposes it. If one person visualizes world peace for half an hour a day, and billions of other people think the opposite or just don’t believe that peace is possible, the power generated would be quite small and not very effective.

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