Gaur Gopal Das is a spiritual leader and a monk who is well known for his wisdom and sense of humor. He is actively present on social media sharing his wisdom. He is an engineer and left his well paid job to be a monk. His learnings as a monk over the years and his passion for being able to help people as seva (service) has positively affected many lives. His approach to teach is very friendly as one is sharing his problem to his friend.
There is no use of hundreds of self help book if you are not implementing its wisdom in your life. Self help book is not just to read but to reflect its learning in your life. I know on days when you are reading it, you are too motivated to not only change your life but also the world. But that fire diminishes over the time. Discipline, consistency and faith are the fuel for this fire, even on the mundane days.
If I have to take one thing from this book I would take these questions that we often forget to ask to ourselves in everday life. Those questions are
- List three things you are grateful for that morning.
- When you wake up in the morning, think of three things that you are looking forward to during the day ahead and why are you looking forward to them.
- Write down the three things that you love about yourself and why you love these about yourself.
- What makes you feel the most loved?
- How much time are you spending on the things that make you feel most loved?
- How are you giving love to others?
- Know the boundary with relationships.
- Is this situation so significant that it deserves my reaction?
This book is all about Identifying Icerbergs – what external infulences in our lives could cause damage to our mental health, Navigating the water – how we can sail through life, ensuring that our journey is safe and understanding how to control our emotions and mental well being, Building a strong ship – how we can strengthen our state of mind so that external influences seem less devastating
The society is ran by the individuals not the other way around, and an individual has his own perception about life, and how to listen to that inner voice when there is so much noise of society and the world, how to calm one’s own noisy mind to concentrate what is significant and crucial, how to respect and empathize others’ perception, and how universe and self is connected, Gaur Gopal Das will make you dive deep in all this issues to learn, to find out the answers with the help of this book.
Quoting my Favorite lines from the book.
“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives.”
“Three things we can do to help increase our mental well being by understanding our emotions are: expanding our vocabulary to label our emotions better, noting down the intensity of emotions and writing down how we feel.”
“Do not fear missing out at the expenses of missing Now.” – Brendon Burchard
“You can not have it all: learn to be present.”
“Remember these four principles : neglect, note it down, negotiate and become a neutral observer the next time you hear your mind talking too loudly.”
“Regardless of the weight, it is how long we are carrying it that can cause injury.”
“What do we gain by proving that we are right? Rightness. But what do we lose? The person.”
“Self forgiveness is foundational in moving on and rising above those negative feelings.”
“We don’t have to attend all the social drama we are invited to.”
“What we tell ourselves is more important than what others tell us.”
“Isn’t it hard to hug yourself and cry on your own shoulder? It is important that when it rains, we share our umbrella and if we don’t have the umbrella, we share the rain.”
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
