By Gaur Gopal Das
Ratings- 5/5
Understanding the meaning of the book Life's amazing secrets is a spiritual and self-help book about finding your true purpose and balance in life. Gaur Gopal Das a monk who signifies the most common key factors of our life and how to develop them to live a more meaningful, insightful, and happy life. So the story starts with the conversation between the author and his wealthy friend Harry who is figuring out solutions from his day to day problems in his life. Gaur Gopal Das who is a monk gives him practical and more purposeful answers to his questions. This book is a must-read for people who are trying to find out solutions in their life to live a more positive and happy sorted life. The whole book focuses on finding balance in life.
The book is divided into four parts- 1] Personal life 2] Relationships 3] Work life 4] Social contribution.
1] Personal life The author talks about the things which we are doing the wrong way in our daily life and focuses on improving our wellbeing. So there's a well-explained example in the book that, Consider that some foodstuff has stuck in your mouth and your tongue would try ignorantly to get rid of it from the teeth but the thing is that rather than just ignoring it our tongue will focus on the quirky thing. But will ignore the other 31 clean teeth. The point is our mind is just like the tongue we probably focus on the negatives more rather than looking at the positives, even if the positive overweight the negatives. Always have a positive mindset but don't ignore the negatives follow the positives and tackle your problems. He also explains the way you can handle your problems. When you have a problem in life you can do two things if you can do something about the problem you will try to find the solution but if the situation is not in our control you can do nothing but wait. Both the situations will lead to only one destination ''why worry''. Because if you can do something about the problem you will probably do it if you can't then it's still Ok. Most importantly don't judge the moment in which you are. ''Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy''. Most important thing is that you should seek gratitude for the things you have got or achieved or even for the person who has helped you. Sometimes you should just take a pause and just be grateful for the things which made your day happier. Appreciate the moments which make you grateful and just forget about the bad things happening to you. Pause for a moment and have a glance at the beautiful things in the world. Also, he explains the importance of spiritual practice in life. "We should practice meditation it is that discipline that holds our monkey mind together and also prevents from jumping from one thought to other". We are the spiritual beings who are practicing human experiences. If we need that kind of application in our life towards being disciplined always have some spiritual practice.
2] Relationships The monk talks about how you should deal with your relationship issues and also how to have a positive outlook when the times are bad. If we have to strengthen the relations we need to be more sensitive towards people and also we should have great respect towards them, then itself we will have better relationships through in and out. If we need to treat people with more dignity and value we should also treat the inanimate objects with great respect and should learn to respect them because when we show disrespect to any non-living object also our behaviour carries on with our relations. We should always think before we speak because the way we talk can affect the person even if it doesn't seem inappropriate. Treating things badly can affect our attitude negatively which may percolate into our relationships. Now there are 5 classes of people-
Type 1- A person who cannot see good at all- This kind of people will figure even the slightest negativity and magnify it, they just can't see the good qualities in anyone. Such kinds of people do not even accept that they are wrong.
Type 2- A person who sees both good and bad but neglect the positive
These kinds of people look at both side's positive as well as the negatives but instead favor negatives and neglect the positives.
Type 3- The person who sees the good and bad but remains neutral- such kinds of people don't bother about the positive nor care about the negatives. Such people are disconnected from everyone and everything.
Type 4- A person who sees both good and bad but neglects the bad- These people focus on the good and deal with the bad. These people consciously neglect the bad and just look for the good things that matter.
Type 5- A person who cannot see the bad at all, they see the slightest good and magnify it- This stage can be achieved only by God or by people who have reached the heights of spirituality. To see good in someone's character or to magnify the slight good to the point where it overshadows their ills.
Neglecting the bad doesn't mean that we do not deal with it practically. It just means that we do not allow our minds to focus on and hover over the bad. He also talks about the terminology of giving corrective feedback to people in an appropriate way "We need to invest in people before we correct them in an unpolite manner. When we correct them in an unpolite manner we leave them demotivated. Always think before you give any feedback to anyone to correct them". These are some steps you need to check to give feedback politely and appropriately. If your answer is "yes" throughout all these questions then you should give feedback.
Ask yourself Am I the right person to give corrective feedback Do I have the right motive to give the feedback? Do I know the right way to give corrective feedback? Is it the right time to give the feedback?
Also when it comes to forgiveness we face a lot of obstacles to forgive a person who has given us a lot of pain but if we want to tackle it properly then we should always keep in mind that when someone hurts you we should look behind the situation and think How are they suffering? What are they feeling to say such a thing? Is there some deeper chaos that is occurring in their life for them to say these words? Don't judge the person just because the person has failed us on some rare occasion. We should not treat the person as a failure instead we should look at the qualities and the things that person has given to us. And anything like this happens then separate the person from the problem and only deal with the problem. Have a higher purpose of the good things that the people did for us and neglect the bad that happened to us. Try to forgive them and give them a second chance.
If your character lacks some update then he has the best thing. He says that "Watch your thoughts they turn into words. Watch your words they turn into action. Watch your action they turn into habits. Watch your habits they turn into character. Watch your character they turn into destiny. After all, it just starts from a thought".
3] Work-life In this part, Gaur Gopal talks about the work-life balance people need to inculcate in their life to enjoy the process and also compete in a friendly way at work. "Competition is a mindset that we have to redefine. Competition is good when it is with ourselves. When someone outperforms us by doing better in what we aspire to do, the base tendencies of competition can settle. Envy is the root cause for being competitive with others in a way one does not mind going at any extent to achieve their place". People with a closed mindset want to grow by beating others in their field. Open-minded people on the other hand grow by developing themselves. Open-minded people strive to become a better version of themselves every day even if the growth is a tiny fragment. Your goal should be to become better than yesterday. Competing with others was a distraction from your inner creativity. If we do have to compare with others compare the positive attitudes. To tackle our issues we need to get spiritual practice in our life. Spirituality helps declutter your mind. It gives you the clarity to understand your ability and understand your purpose at a deeper level. The one who practices spirituality is satisfied within themselves because they know material things don't bring happiness. The standard of living gives us temporary happiness to our mind but it does not give us deep satisfaction. We can have a luxurious life but it should be balanced with charity. Helping people who are in need is the balance that we actually should have living a luxurious lifestyle. "Not only increase the standard of living but also increase the standard of giving''. Spirituality doesn't kill our ambition and the zest to achieve but it changes our motive to achieve. It makes us want to be hugely successful so that we can have the resources to help others.
4] Social Contributions This part is about the social contributions we should make towards society and the people we love. He explains an amazing concept of ice cream and the candle. The ideology of ice cream is "enjoy the life before it melts" and the ideology of a candle is to "give light to others before it melts". The thing is we need to change our lifestyle from being an ice cream to a candle. If we have enough wealth or fame then we should always help the ones who need it the most. Our true essence of life is to do the right thing with the right intention and the right mood.
Conclusions This book is a guide for a better lifestyle and finding the true essence and purpose in life. Spiritual books are the directory for a happy and resourceful life. It's a must-read book for the ones who are trying to bring peace and change their thinking towards life.
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