Best Thoughts from
Your Mind, Your Best Friend
by Shuddhaaandaa Brahmachari

Developing a true friendship with your mind is the best way to move closer to the divine potential within. Treat your mind as you would your very best friend. Nurture your mind, coach it, take care of it and your mind will do the same for you.

Watch your thoughts closely. Start observing & analyzing where they may lead so that you can compassionately guide your mind to higher more positive ground. Take control of the helm of your mind and do not allow it to droop into depression. A positive mind will help you uplift yourself.

Be compassionate with your friend rather than fault finding. It grows with your nurturing attention. Thoughts witnessed without judgment naturally dissolve as you become more conscious and understanding.

Accept , without judgment, all that life brings you as a gift of God. Learn to let go of worldly (impermanent, unimportant, self oriented) attachment and expectations. They naturally lead to unhealthy swings between extreme highs and lows. Instead, release all outcomes to God and just begin. Observe how you receive the guidance and inspiration you need to respond to each moment as it unfolds.

A MIND top

After all, a friend is nothing but a mind. Who are we going to trust if we cannot trust our own mind? loc.136

Your mind is the thing with which you are working either to lower yourself or to uplift yourself. loc.217.

The most sublime gifts (of God) are your body and your mind. loc.870

What a great gift it is to have a human mind … which can commune with Nature in totality, provided we keep the instrument properly tuned. loc.972

The self you think yourself to be is limited …that is governed by the past. It is the ego. You are a prisoner of the past and the destiny that proceeds from it. loc.942

The only way to transcend the ego is to become conscious, to continually surrender your limited awareness into an ever expanding awareness of the Universal Oneness, to rely ever more deeply on Divine grace. loc.950

A FRIEND top

The more committed you are to the one true friend of your befriending mind, the more your mind becomes brilliant. loc.128

The only real solution is to befriend yourself. Make friendship with yourself first. loc.144. Then seek friends outside. When you find your mind has become your true friend , you will be surrounded with friends. loc.145

So the most important task in life, the greatest achievement, is to seek the true friend. Our best friend is our positive mind. loc.550

WATCH top

We are keen to know what our mind is saying, where it is leading us. Then, we do not allow our mind to become depressed, to get mired in untruth and spin out of control. … Whenever you notice yourself falling into self criticism, catch yourself. Befriend yourself. loc.255

I may not know what is in the mind of God, but I can become conscious and aware of what is in my mind. I can watch my own mind, rather than letting it play itself out unconsciously. loc.276

The lamp is the flame of our aspiration. It is our yearning, our love for truth, our love for all that is good and beautiful, our love for God, … That is the light of awareness that we need to keep aflame in our hearts. loc.284

Then spend 10 minutes in the evening writing about what uplifted your life and spirit throughout the day. Make it a practice to gather the gifts of the day … to thank God for them each night before going to bed. loc.293

We begin by keenly watching our mind. … We become alert to the ways and directions in which the mind pulls us. We intervene. We adjust. We compassionately guide the course of the mind to higher ground whenever it begins to slip toward negativity. Take a few moments several times each day to keenly observe your thoughts. loc.355

Practice becoming watchful and alert so you can come to understand when your mind is going in the wrong direction. At that point, catch yourself. You can say, “No, my child, this is not the right way. You are my best friend. How could you talk like this?” loc.632

Negative mechanism and habits of mind will no longer be able to grip you. They will not be able to steer you off course because you have taken the helm of your own mind. loc.641 end of day 14

Cultivate greater awareness of how you use language. What does it reveal about who you are being in this moment? What does it contribute to others? loc.675

Practice responding to the faintest stirrings of your own heart. Practice noticing them. loc.919

Practice being more aware. Practice being more accepting. Practice becoming more conscious. loc.981

Thus, constant self-analysis … about where your ego is dominating, where you are drawn to impermanence, where you seek happiness outside of your own being, where you are drawn unconsciously – is invaluable. loc. 1082

At night let go of the mind. Allow it to float in a way that you observe it, without judgment, to see where it is ultimately going. You can discover what types of thoughts, what kinds of preoccupations, your mind is gravitating toward. That is the pull of your nature. loc.1107

If we keep watching our mind, we eventually become mindful that it is the mind observing the mind, without any judgment. After you gain some skill in this, gradually, begin to follow your thoughts. loc.1154

The consciousness of our thoughts gradually brings to us a calmer mind. Anything you observe keenly calms down. After you observe for some time, it becomes quiet. Anything you do unconsciously persists as long as you are unconscious. The moment you observe it and become conscious about it, it stops. Try this … without judging. loc.1162

POSITIVE top

A truly spiritual mind is always positive. A truly spiritual mind is a controlled mind. One of the ways by which you can control your mind is to lift your mind with your own mind. loc.217

Gradually, we learn: never, ever allow the mind to droop. We need always to be awake. … observing how the mind plays. loc.247

If you leave your mind to its own upward and downward cycles, however, the downward cycles gradually dominate. Gravity overtakes you. loc.692

You are on a journey home to your true Self, to who you are in God. The vehicle of your mind naturally veers off course from time to time. loc.255

No situation can make you unhappy unless you agree to become unhappy, unless you sign the contract to be unhappy. loc.354

Positive thoughts, courage and confidence, and continuous affirmations that make your path to God and God-Realization easier, are your best friends. You need to keep company with them always. loc.616

CONTROL top

Your only enemy resides in you … That enemy is your uncontrolled state of mind. loc.318

As you recognize a mistake, decide to change, and open your heart to God’s grace. Things begin changing naturally. They happen subtly. There is no need to force yourself if change is not immediately apparent. loc.343

Notice what you say to yourself inwardly about such things. Counter every false statement with a true one. loc.472

Brush away the negative emotions, the negative patterns and rut. Imagine them as trivial, small insects crawling on your shoulder. That is what they are. loc.1190

God asks only two things from us: trust and patience & perseverance. loc.1209

COMPASSION top

The less judgmental you are to your mind, … the better your mind will perform, the more cooperative and harmonious it will be. loc.1112

Confronting your own limitations with compassion, you become more appreciative of the problems and weaknesses of others. loc.716

Watch your thoughts in a very compassionate meditation. You are separate from the thoughts. … If you witness without judgment the thought comes and it dissolves. loc.1145

Be more loving of yourself rather than condemning and finding fault. The moment you begin to glimpse the positive within you, it grows. It grows with your nurturing attention. loc.1182

Compassionately and relentlessly recognize the areas of darkness in your life. They are leading you to some awakening. They are invaluable teachers which enlarge your compassion and understanding. loc.1227

Find a new way to contribute to another human being each day, to practice generosity of mind and heart. loc.1260

ACCEPTANCE top

“What deeper good might God be working toward here? How can I open my mind and heart and spirit to give consent to the Divine’s purposes, however hidden … There is no need to come up with “answers” per se. Rather, hold the questions prayerfully in your heart, resolving to remain open and accepting …” loc.241

Witness the inevitabilities of life as they come and go. Don’t grumble over them. You allow your Divine potential to take care of you. Thus you have your best friend along with you everywhere you go in the world. loc.391

This problem is not my enemy. It is an occasion for grace, a friend of my soul that offers me the chance to draw closer than ever to God. loc.480

The three As of your spiritual practice: Arise into your spiritual inheritance, awake to your own mind and lift it into the light of higher truth, accept all that life brings you as the gift of God. loc.692

As your spirit grows in understanding, you no longer fight against what comes to you. You learn to trust, to accept where life is leading you. loc.716

Appreciate and bless every aspect of your life, even the “negatives” of the past, as stepping stones toward befriending your own mind. loc.1285

ATTACHMENT top

If you are attached to something, you are inevitably going to receive a blow in relation to it. Attraction and repulsion … continuously pull us back and forth. We all swing between the two extremes. loc.504 When the mind is allowed to play of its own accord between these fields, we are not really conscious. Without proper training to control the mind, anything that happens can rob the mind of its higher properties, the stable state of equanimity. If we allow the intensifying energies of the mind in attachment and the lower, debasing energies of the mind to play freely, havoc rules. loc.512

We begin to practice letting go. The instant we realize we are in attachment to a certain outcome, we let go of our demand that life fit our limited expectations. We let go of our demand for a certain outcome. loc.571

Release all outcomes to God and begin. Observe how you receive the guidance and inspiration you need to respond to each moment as it unfolds. loc.612

GOD top

God is here and now … nowhere else. loc.183 You and reality are One. You are indivisible from all that is. loc.200 We are blessed by each instant, by each experience of our lives … loc.200

The ultimate state of human mind occurs when the mind becomes single-pointed and flows uninterruptedly toward its own origin in spirit, toward its intrinsic Divine potential. loc.225

A true seeker’s mind is dwelling on the plane of that positive, one-pointed thought of the Divine potential that is within, .. Then continuously, acceptance happens. It happens spontaneously. loc. 391
That is what we all are seeking in life. It is the one thing we need to achieve. It is important that we always return to a positive frame of mind. loc. 400

The Divine is within. It is forever singing through the world around us. Our task is to awaken to it until we see it everywhere, until we hear and feel it in every moment. loc.624

We are born to awaken from the slumber of our unconsciousness … which is the root cause of all unhappiness. Grace is eternally available to all of us. No small effort toward awakening goes in vain. loc.1014

The Divine is ultimately the source of all thoughts, the source of all actions, the source of all energies, the source of consciousness. loc.1060

Best Thoughts from Your Mind, Your Best Friend by Shuddhaaandaa Brahmachari