Elephant has more strength than a lion. Nevertheless, lion is considered the king of jungle. Most people admire an elephant more than a lion. Lion is a beast, literally even, while elephant is a peaceful herbivore. Elephant also has more strength than a lion.

The thing I am talking about may be only figurative but still it brings home an important point.

Lion looks more aware of itself and its strength while elephant is more of a happy-go-lucky animal and unaware of its humongous strength. This self-knowledge gives a lion its assurance which is lacking in an elephant. This awareness about its strength make lion a more daring and intrepid animal and crowns it with the title of a king.

“Know thyself” – as they say. It should be added to this statement – “Know thy strengths first”.

Most people are grappling with their weaknesses. While it is important to know our weaknesses and remove them, it is more important to know our strengths. Knowing one’s strengths, a person becomes assured that he has something to fall back upon if things don’t work around. It also gives a sense of self-confidence and may also provide him with a livelihood where his strengths are the best-fit.

“The world is changing.”

I had this thought today.

There was a time when people who were immersed in self-help literature or blabbering the cliche – be positive, were considered stupid by most and downright lunatic by some.

Now, the situation has transformed. Since last few years, most people are themselves in some way or the other touched by motivational and inspirational gold nuggets. Now, people don’t disdain others if they find them reading a self-help book.

The cause of this tectonic shift has been the intrepidity of motivational speakers who despite huge discouragements from a cynical world kept on teaching the principles to others. The people who we know with the names of Robin Sharma, Eckhart Tolle, Jim Rohn, Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy and others are reaping victories now.

The change in atmosphere has been more pronounced in India as Western countries had these teachers since long decades back.

The first Indian motivational speaker I came across was Shiv Khera. His book – You can Win, created a flutter at that time. I, suffering a burden of IIT-JEE preparation wanted a hand on it. I could not read it though at that time. Nevertheless, it surely burned an effigy in my mind making me reach for self-help materials and teachings everywhere.

The most motivational and inspirational figure in my life has always been Swami Vivekananda. His quotations sometimes shiver me up. These shivers are not just inspirations, they are electric convulsions to the core of my being. Motivational and inspirational sayings and teachings we find in modern books also exploded out in Vivekananda’s speeches. His works are replete with strength building utterances and writings. Though whole work is rather very deep, dense, spiritual and displays signs of a humongous personality.

French Nobel laureate Romain Rolland writes about Vivekananda’s sayings -“I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages of books at thirty years distance, without receiving a thrill through my body like electric shock. And what shocks, what transports must have been produced when in burning words they issued from the lips of the hero!”

Similarly, modern motivators are now not shy of delivering assertions that humongous success and happiness is within everyone’s reach. These things when verbalized few years ago carried a big risk of making a fool of oneself. Now, life changing shifts are being seen in many people. A sizeable percentage of humanity is evolving to an altogether new levels of consciousness. Having benefited from these principles and teachings, they are passing on the gifts to all who care to listen.

Every situation in life is a present from God, Providence, Nature, Good Forces or whatever you believe in. Sometimes the gift is wrapped in a shiny glazed colourful cover, and we call this gift “good times”. Still, other times the gift is wrapped in an ugly and rough sheet. This we call bad times.

We must need to have courage, patience, trust and industry to peel off the cover and find the real gift inside.

Every problem and obstacle brings with it the opportunities of the same amount or to any degree higher than the challenge faced. The obstacles are actually the stepping stones which take us to real success. These are all there for us to learn from.

We must see all the problems, not as obstacles but as challenges. These challenges are not there to break us. They are there to reveal to us our real character and strengths. Let all the difficult challenges in our life come to know that we are difficult too. We are not here to back down but to deliver such a severe blow to shatter them to pieces.

Mind is a tremendous tool. It can be our worthy ally but is a cruel master. It should help us rather than dictate us. There are three minds – conscious mind, subconscious mind and unconscious mind.

Conscious mind is like a gatekeeper that decides what should enter in our subconscious mind. The beliefs we have in our subconscious mind decide our fate in life.

Most of us have become unconscious about our thoughts. The reason for this is the pain we experience all through life. The remedy is to move towards happiness and pleasure. Pleasure is not wrong. Most of us have wrong conceptions about pleasure. Definitely, pleasure should not be our end goal in life. Nevertheless, it should not be shied away with. It should not be considered our enemy rather an ally in moving through life.