*Emotional Intelligence* by psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman is a groundbreaking work that challenges the traditional understanding of what makes people successful in life.

मनोवैज्ञानिक और विज्ञान पत्रकार डैनियल गोलेमैन द्वारा 1995 में प्रकाशित *भावनात्मक बुद्धिमत्ता* एक अभूतपूर्व कृति है जो लोगों को जीवन में सफल बनाने वाले कारकों की पारंपरिक समझ को चुनौती देती है। हालाँकि लंबे समय से बुद्धि को बुद्धिमत्ता का प्राथमिक माप माना जाता रहा है, गोलेमैन का तर्क है कि भावनात्मक बुद्धिमत्ता—अपनी और दूसरों की भावनाओं को पहचानने, समझने और प्रबंधित करने की हमारी क्षमता—उतनी ही महत्वपूर्ण है।

मनोविज्ञान  के आधार पर, गोलेमैन पाठकों को भावनात्मक बुद्धिमत्ता के पाँच प्रमुख घटकों से परिचित कराते हैं: आत्म-जागरूकता, आत्म-नियमन, प्रेरणा, सहानुभूति और सामाजिक कौशल। वह दर्शाते हैं कि ये गुण व्यक्तिगत और व्यावसायिक दोनों ही स्थितियों में हमारे व्यवहार, संबंधों, निर्णय लेने और प्रदर्शन को कैसे प्रभावित करते हैं।

गोलेमैन के काम ने “स्मार्ट” होने के अर्थ को नए सिरे से परिभाषित करने में मदद की और शिक्षा, नेतृत्व और मानसिक स्वास्थ्य के क्षेत्र में एक वैश्विक आंदोलन को जन्म दिया। वैज्ञानिक अंतर्दृष्टि को व्यावहारिक सलाह के साथ मिलाते हुए, *भावनात्मक बुद्धिमत्ता*  पुनर्विचार करने के लिए आमंत्रित करती है—बाधाओं के रूप में नहीं, बल्कि मानव विकास और जुड़ाव के लिए आवश्यक उपकरणों के रूप में।

Published in 1995, Emotional Intelligence by psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman is a groundbreaking work that challenges the traditional understanding of what makes people successful in life. While IQ has long been viewed as the primary measure of intelligence, Goleman argues that emotional intelligence—our ability to recognize, understand, and manage our own emotions and the emotions of others—is equally, if not more, important.

Drawing on research in psychology and neuroscience, Goleman introduces readers to five key components of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. He demonstrates how these traits influence our behavior, relationships, decision-making, and performance in both personal and professional settings.

Goleman’s work helped redefine what it means to be “smart” and sparked a global movement in education, leadership, and mental health. Blending scientific insight with practical advice, Emotional Intelligence invites readers to rethink how they approach emotions—not as obstacles, but as essential tools for human growth and connection.

Q: Can the mind continue its process of evolution between lifetimes as well? Does it need a body and situations for its evolution?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, it needs a body. That is why the human body is very precious.
You know, in day to day life, when you do things, sometimes you lose energy. When the energy goes down, the mind also goes down. Sometimes you wonder, why is my mind going down? Many people ask this question.
You think, ‘I feel so depressed and down. Nothing feels interesting’. A sort of, (the mind)feeling down, happens to you.
This is because of a few reasons:
One of the reasons is Time. There is a particular time in everyone’s life cycle, where for no particular reason the energy of the mind goes down.
The second reason is, too much thinking and too many desires. When the mind is clogged with too much ambition and too many desires, it will definitely give rise to depression.
The mind goes down because it loses all its energy in just thinking and thinking, and dreaming, and wishing for this and that. So too many desires causes the mind to go down. That is why vairagya (dispassion) is essential to counter depression. If you have dispassion, you cannot be depressed. The lack of dispassion causes depression. So too much ambition and too many desires drains your mind of energy, and you feel depressed.
The third reason is when energy is low in the body; when the body is weak. When you do not have much energy, or when you are sick, then the mind goes down.
Associating with the body’s vitality, energy and fluids, the mind becomes low. It can happen through some sickness, or because of a wrong diet.
Sometimes you eat some food that does not suit your system, or you eat too much, then also you feel depressed, and this is a vicious circle. People eat more because they are depressed, and then they get depressed because they ate too much.
So, if you feel a little low on energy, or depression, for a few days stop stuffing yourself with food. Eat some light food, or fruits, and suddenly you will feel your energy go up. Don’t fast too much, again that is not good. Fasting is good to a certain limit. So, eating light food helps uplift mental energy.
The fourth reason is, total inactiveness. If you are too active, then you get depressed. Or if you are totally inactive, and don’t do anything; or do things only for yourself without a mission or a vision to do something for others (lack of a seva attitude), definitely brings depression.
That is why in the ancient days, in the ashrams, people were always pushed to do some service. Go to the slums, sweep the floor, or water the plants, and keep things neat and tidy.
Keep yourself busy. If you keep yourself engaged in some activity, that is also another way to counter depression.
So, here, either someone who is too outgoing, or someone who does not do any work physically, and sits all the time engaging in mental circus, get depressed. So the middle path is the way to come out of it.From time to time, go into deep meditation, and then come out and dynamically get involved in activity, without thinking ‘what will I get from this’. Whatever is necessary to be done in the world, do it. What the time and place requires you to do, doing that, is service. This will also help you to uplift your mental energy.
The fifth thing is, you are all singing, dancing, listening to the chanting, sitting for the Poojas, all this also uplifts your energy.
Now you cannot say, I only want to sit in the Pooja and go on chanting, and do only this. No, it is not going to work. Or, I will eat as much as I want, and then I will come and sit in the Pooja, that won’t work. You must always have that balance between activity and rest. The right amount of food, the right amount of activity, and the right amount of service (service is necessary) is essential. When you follow this, then all the sorrow runs away. When you follow these conditions, then you get united with the universal spirit (Yoga happens), and then sorrow runs away and you smile!

   Your thoughts are what have created your reality up until now and what will create your reality for the rest of your earthly existence. You will be astounded, when you start taking notice, of the amount of negative thoughts you have every single hour of the day. What you think about is what you get, whether it is positive or negative. If the universe hears your thoughts of lack, it will make sure you receive more lack, and if it hears your thoughts of abundance, it will make sure you have abundance in your life.
   So take notice of what you are thinking and what your emotions are telling you. As soon as you notice a negative thought or bad feeling, stop yourself right there and then and turn it into a positive affirmation.
   We all have so many negative programmes in our subconscious mind that have been given to us by our parents and other adult influences in our life during childhood (this is not their fault, they are just passing on the beliefs they have been given from their parents).
   The best way of doing this is to watch our thoughts and emotions and practice positive thinking and affirmations every day of our life. Slowly but surely we are able to reprogramme our mind, changing negative beliefs that hinder our life experiences to positive beliefs of self worth and love, enabling us to live a more fulfilled life, attracting positive loving experiences into our daily existence. So if you catch yourself thinking a negative thought such as ‘I have a bad relationship or I am so broke’, immediately turn this into a positive thought such as ‘I have a happy, loving relationship or, I now have an abundance of money’ — any affirmation will do as long as it turns the negative into a positive. It doesn’t matter if you don’t really believe it initially, if you say it regularly enough, the subconscious will start believing it and begin attracting it to you. It is amazing how this one practice can change your whole life.

Love yourself : 

Most of us are bought up thinking it is wrong to love ourselves, that we are vain if we even like ourself. This programme sets us up for so much heartache in our life. The truth is, if we don’t love ourselves, we cannot truly love anyone else. Until we love ourself unconditionally, we are constantly looking for fulfillment in other people, especially our partners, which can only lead to disappointment and heartache. When we can honestly say we love every part of ourselves, we will automatically stop judging others. It is then that we realise, we are all perfect in spirit and doing the best we can in this human existence with the programmes we have been given in childhood. When we can just accept without judgement, we really start to understand the term inner peace. It is then that we can truly forgive others for the wrongs we think they have done to us — often becoming the cause of lifelong pain and eventually illness or disease of our physical body.

Time to meditate :By meditating, we are nurturing our body, mind and spirit. If we spend 20 minutes every day in meditation, we will soon reap the rewards. We become more peaceful throughout the day and sleep more soundly at night. Things that would normally upset us start to just wash over us — the peace is too lovely for us to let these little incidents interfere with it. Anxiety and other fear-based emotions will drop away as we become aware that we are connected to the creator and the abundance of the universe, leaving us feeling safe and peaceful. Our own spiritual guidance becomes stronger and we become more in tune with our own psychic gifts.

Live in the ‘now’ : When we live for today, life becomes so much less stressful. Really, all that there is, is now. None of us even know if tomorrow will ever come, so why do we spend so much time worrying about tomorrow instead of making the most of what we know we do have and filling our days with laughter and love. If there is only now, then there is no yesterday, no past and no reason to be angry at anybody. When we can release all anger from our body we will certainly feel the benefits. Holding on the anger and unforgiveness is debilitating to our physical and emotional bodies. I read once that the most selfish thing we can ever do is to forgive. I truly understand that now, forgiveness equals freedom. If we are holding on to anger we need to work on loving ourself. If there is no tomorrow, no future, no reason to stress about bills and money, no reason to worry about what’s going to happen to. 
   By     : Lyn Nichols – an expert in the field of New Age spirituality
Source : sunday times.

            So how do thoughts affect us? Thoughts can be episodic and fleeting, or they can be recurrent, or they can become a belief. Let’s see the kind of beliefs people have:

·                    I am so plain, who will like me?

·                    Money only comes to people who are wicked and evil and who do wheeling and dealing.

·                    I will always be fat because I have fat genes and no willpower.

·                    Some people are lucky but I’m not.

·                    Life is a struggle.

A lot of you must be wondering what such esoteric ideas have to do with health. Here’s what:

Health is th final outcome of our thoughts. Many doctors struggle to heal their patients of lifestyle diseases, skin problems and allergies and find it frustrating because the patient harbours such strong fatalistic thoughts that ultimately the disease wins and the doctor loses.

We have to ultimately realize the presence of the most powerful energy in the universe – mental energy and thoughts. All thoughts about ourselves need to be watched. Are they about prosperity, health, positive relationships or they only fearful thoughts of loss of money, bad health, children who hanker after money? Thoughts are energy. Repeated thoughts become habits, habits become character and character leads to destiny.

So please be responsible about what you think.

Tag:[tag] health, habits, character, destiny, relationships, prosperity, thoughts, life style, energy, gandhi, physical pain, family, money, fat, struggle, luck [/tag]
By Shikha Sharma

Source – HT

Is it possible to consciously choose to create a more satisfying life experiences?   The reason why most peo ple have only a few satisfying life experiences is because they are almost completely unconscious. They are operat ing on automatic, on subcon scious programs that run qui etly in the background, dictat ing their every move, pulling on their emotional strings, se lecting their perceptions, and organising their experiences around past hurts, fears, and insecurities.
   Ironically, they think that they are conscious. Acting out in a crazy, self- and other-de structive way is not con scious. And it is only because of acting out on our drives that we are unconscious Someone who is conscious does not let their drives dic tate their thoughts, feelings and actions. Instead, they choose the best possible op tions available to them based on what they currently know A casual survey of people around you will quickly re veal that impulsive actions are the norm. Rationality takes a back seat to innate ten dencies and urges.
   The way to become con scious is to become aware Awareness is stepping back and looking at everything for the first time. It is pulling the subjective ego state out of the equation and making an at tempt to see what is the way that it is. Awareness is not simple. It is not something that you naturally snap into And this is why spiritual dis ciplines like yoga, focusing on your breath, meditation mindfulness, and so on exist and have the power to change your life for the better. The natural state for human be ings is to be hypnotised by the onslaught of conditioning that began since birth. Thus the natural state for human beings is to be unnatural. It is to perceive through the lens of bias. It is to hear selectively. It is to act impulsively, regard less of consequences. It is to defend the ego from all possi ble threats while at the same time pretending to make a show of being open-minded rational, and even objective.
   Another way of describing this phenomenon is to say that the neocortex is used much less often than the mammalian or reptilian por tions of the human brain. Yet it is only the highly-developed and functional neocortex which will inform our actions to choose the best possible ex periences. The emotional brain and the instinctive brain take over the show.
   Thus, if we desire to have more satisfying life experi ences, we have to be present to the moment. This means that we have to be aware. We have to be cognisant of the envi ronment. And we have to recognise our own subcon scious programs trying to bubble up to the surface to take over our experience.
   If you are aware enough the past does not have to equal the future. You can, in fact choose your ideal future and find ways to reach it. Howev er, because most people are not aware enough that the fu ture happens to be a constant repetition of past patterns.
   The weight of past experi ences, because it is unexam ined and therefore uncon scious, has a stronger pull on them. The way to create awareness is to take on the practice of some psychologi cal or spiritual discipline which will train you to think in an original and creative way. Those who choose not to examine the past are con demned to repeat it.
   Cultivating awareness is not easy, but there is nothing more worthwhile. The culmi nation of supreme awareness is enlightenment, the uncan ny ability to be in a stream of constantly unfolding satisfy ing experiences.
   Ultimately, it is a spiritual experience to be in charge of your own mind and direct it away from unconscious act ing out to conscious delibera tion. The culmination of this discipline is awareness. And the gift of awareness is con nection with your own divine nature.