THE MONK WHO SOLD HIS FERRARI

 

The book 'Monk Who Sold His Ferrari' (by Robin Sharma) enlists the 7 basic virtues of enlightened living which helps us to enrich our inner world so that we can enhance our outer world achievements. Practice these virtues for atleast a month to get pronounced results and to cultivate a habit of performing them. 

So let's learn these virtues and simple techniques to apply them in our daily lives.

SEVEN VIRTUES OF ENLIGHTENED LIVING 

1) MASTER YOUR MIND 

•Control your thoughts - A persons runs 60,000 thoughts a day on average and 95% of them are same as the day before. So if we are having negative thoughts today, it can continue to affect us for many days after that also. Such thoughts block our minds to work upto its fullest capacity. Thus let only positive thoughts to enter your mind. 

•Cultivate your mind with positive thoughts, they will banish all your worry of past or future. 

•Quality of our life is determined by quality of our thoughts.

•Mind has magnetic power to attract all that we desire. If there is lack in our life its because of our negative thoughts.

Techniques to control negative thoughts:- 

a)Heart of Rose 

•Sit in a silent room with fresh rose. Stare at Rose's heart. At first, other thoughts will enter your mind but simply return your attention back to rose. 

•For first few days, you won't be able to control your thoughts for even 5 minutes but with practice you can sit for 20 minutes without your mind wandering - a stage of controlled mind. 

•For best results, practice at same time and same place for 21 days continuously so that it can easily become your habit.

b) Opposition Thinking 

•Mind can control only one thought at a time. So step 1 is to self acknowledge that your mind is running with negative thought. Step 2 is to replace it with positive thought by smiling or breathing deeply.  

c) Secret of Lake 

•In a silent place, close your eyes. Take few deep breaths. Then visualize a mental picture of all you want to be. 

•Pictures affect your self image and your self image affect the way you feel, act and achieve. 

2) FOLLOW YOUR PURPOSE 

• Secret of happiness -Happiness isn't attained by doing less work instead happiness is finding out what you truly love to do (your Dharma) and then direct all your energy towards doing it. This way your life will be filled with abundance, you will wait for a new day with excitement and will start to live every moment of your life with full of energy. 

•Joriki - Japanese word, which means concentrated mind. By finding your life's pupose you will have concentrated mind as now you have definite objective to focus on and have no time to waste. This means you have no time to bother about negative thoughts.

• Purpose need not only be material, it can be material, emotional, physical and spiritual. 

•There can surely be few risks involved in discovering your life's purpose. But, the purpose of life is a life of purpose. So these risks are meant to be taken. Never do anything because you have to, the only reason to do something should be because you want to (and you know it the right thing for you).

5 step method to reach our objectives:- 

Step 1 - Form a clear mental image of the outcome and envision yourself of what you think of becoming.

Step 2 - Get some positive pressure on yourself by taking public pledge. For eg If you want to be physically fit, tell everyone that you will lose weight. 

Step 3 - Attach precise deadline to your goal. Make your dream book and divide it in separate section of goals (financial, physical etc) and fill the book with images of people who have already cultivated abilities that you hope to achieve. 

Step 4 - Magic rule of 21 - For a new behaviour to crystallise into habit, one has to perform new activity for 21 days in a row.  

Step 5 - Enjoy the process. Don't delay your happiness until you reach your goal, enjoy the process of reaching towards goals. The very moment you are living in is a gift, so respect & enjoy it. To enjoy the process it's very important that you are doing what you love. Otherwise you will only look forward to achievement and not the process of achievement.

3) PRACTICE KAIZEN 

•kaizen is a Japanese word which means constant and never ending self improvement. 

•Enlightenment comes through consistent cultivation of your mind, body and soul.

Techniques to practice Kaizen-: 

A) Face your fear - Write down the things holding you back and face them. Fear is nothing more than the negative stream of consciousness that we create ourselves. Once you conquer your fear, you conquer your life. So put out short term pleasure for long term benefit and be little risky by getting out of your comfort zone. Eg public speaking is a fear almost equivalent to death for most of the people so start by giving 20 speeches. 

B) 10 ritual to practice 

i. Ritual of Solitude - Include mandatory period of silence (15-50minutes) in your daily schedule. Spending time alone connect you to your creative source. It's best to practice at same time and same place everyday. 

ii. Ritual of Physicality - 5/168 hours of week should be spent in vigorous exercise. Yoga rejuvenates body, rescue mind and unblock creativity. To breathe properly is to live properly, 2-3 times a day take few minutes to think about breathing more deeply (while breathing in belly should slightly come out).

iii. Ritual of live nourishment - prefer eating vegetarian diet. If you like meat, cut on amount of red meat (it's hard to digest). Digestive system consumes a lot of energy and thus by eating it you will soon start feeling tired. Start by having salad with every meal and fruit for desert to feel fresh all time. 

iv. Ritual of Abundant Knowledge - Read regularly for 30 minutes. Dont just read, study it and get best out of it, then apply it. So don't focus on reading more but on remembering more. 

v. Ritual of Personal Reflection - At the end of day do self contemplation by figuring out whether your actions/thoughts were positive or negative and then make improvements. 

vi. Ritual of Early Awakening - Rise with sun to start day off well. Quality of sleep matters, it's enough to have uninterrupted 6hr deep sleep than to have 10 hr disturbed sleep. To have sound sleep -:

•Don't eat after 8pm as eating after that wud reduce sleep quality because of digestive activity. 

• 10 minutes before you sleep and 10 minutes after you wake up have profound effect on subconscious mind. So before sleeping just relax or meditate and after waking up think only positive thoughts, give thanks for all you have, listen to music and laugh.

vii. Ritual of Music - spend some time listening to music, it's a finest motivator. 

viii. Ritual of spoken words 

•Mantra : Man = mind, tra = freeing 

•Recite Mantra every morning. Words affect self image and self determines actions we take. We can change our self image for best by using mantras. 

ix. Ritual of Congruent character - Your actions should be congruent with principles like compassion, patience, honesty, courage. Build your character based on these principles. Character affect the way you see yourself and action you take. 

x) Ritual of Simplicity - Focus only on priorities and live simple lives. If we don't reduce our needs, we will always want more than what we have --> unsatisfied everytime --> no happiness. 

4) POWER OF DISCIPLINE AND WILLPOWER 

• Through discipline you forge a character rich with courage and peace. Through will, you are destined to rise to life's highest ideal. Without these you are lost like a mariner without compass, one who eventually sinks with his ship. 

• Self discipline and willpower gives us the freedom and courage to live the life we have imagined for ourselves rather than accepting the life we have. 

•Also by having these virtues we can erase our worry habit and hence can control our mind --> control life. 

Techniques to attain discipline and willpower:-

a)Repeat this mantra : "I am more than I appear to be, all the world's strength and power rests inside me. For quicker results, sit in a quiet place with closed eyes and recite this mantra without letting your mind wander.

b) Start doing the things you don't like doing. By getting into habit of exerting your will, you will cease to be slave of your weaker impulse. 

c) Vow of Silence - Holding your tongue for sometime enhance self discipline. By doing this you are conditioning your will to do as you command it to do. 

Small victories create momentum that excites you to take larger step along the path of your highest self. 

5)VIRTUE OF TIME 

• Time mastery is life mastery. It allows you to spend more time on things that are truly meaningful to you. 

Techniques for time mastery :-

•Ancient Rule of 20 - 80% of the results you achieve in your life comes only from 20% of activities. These are called high impact activities. Direct your time to these activities. 

•Dont let others steal your time. Learn to say no. People will respect you more when they realise that you respect time. 

6)SELFLESSLY SERVE OTHERS

• Quality of life comes down to quality of your contribution.

• When you work to improve lives of others, you indirectly elevate your own life in the process. 

•Compassion and daily acts of kindness make your life richer.

7) LIVE IN PRESENT 

• Final virtue is about 'living in now'. Now is the most important moment. 

• Happiness is journey, not destination. Never put off living for achievement.

• Enjoy the beauty of all that is around you. Enjoy special moment that everyday offers because today this day is all you have. 

•Embrace wonders of living. There will be sad times and great times, but atleast you have the chance to embrace them. 

•Stop sacrificing present for better future. Spend time with those who make your life meaningful. 

Techniques to live in present :-

• Practice art of gratitude -We all have much to be thankful for. So daily give thanks for all your assets, to this will help you live in present 

•Finding your true passion helps you enjoy every moment and not just achievement. So it helps you live in present. 

Favourite quotes 

• Investing in yourself is the best investment, you will ever make. It will not only improve your life but of all those around you. 

•Don't try to be superior than others. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self. Run your own race. Don't be concerned about other's judgment as long as you know that you are doing right.

•The only limits on your life are those set by yourself. Pushing yourself beyond your limits will unlock mental and physical reserves that you never thought you had. 

• The moment you stop spending time on chasing big pleasures of life, you began enjoying little ones.

•Become the architect of future not the prisoner of your past, by controlling your thoughts. 

•'I can' is more important than 'I.Q' 

•Mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. Either you control your mind or it controls you. 

•Enjoy the process of personal expansion. The less you focus on end result, the quicker it will come.

• A 4yr old child, on an average laugh 300 times a day and an adult, 15 times a day on average. Laugh more. Don't take your life so seriously that you stop laughing.

#Please apply these 7 virtues in your daily life and comment about how they changed your life. Also please share it with your loved ones.