our physical diet and our emotional diet are also diets of the mind, because they affect our consciousness.

Have you ever given thought to the diet of your mind? Of course, our physical diet and our emotional diet are also diets of the mind, because they affect our consciousness. But let's now consider the intellectual processes. How much information, how many facts is it necessary and healthy for us to ingest in a single day? It's a good idea for a devotee to budget his reading, to choose and discriminate what he wants to make a part of himself through the process of mental digestion. We have to discriminate to the nth degree whether or not we will have the time and the capacity to digest everything that we desire to place in our minds. For instance, quickly reading an article in a newspaper might stir your mind and emotions. If it is not properly digested, it could conceivably upset your whole day. In the realm of intellect, the commonsense rule "Don't eat when you are already full" also applies.  You may read a book of philosophy, and if you have time to digest it, well and good, but many people don't and suffer from philosophical indigestion. They have read so many things and only digested a small part of what has passed through the window of the mind. Then again, it is one thing to digest something, and it is still another to assimilate it and make it a part of you, for when it becomes fully a part of you, you have a hunger and room for something more.   Many people come to lectures and then tune themselves out and simply benefit from the vibration created by the teacher and others in the room. They tune themselves out so that what is said is not absorbed consciously, but rather subconsciously. This is a good method for those who are still digesting material received from previous lectures. Another practice that makes for a very good mental indigestion pill is that of opening a spiritual book and allowing your eye to fall upon a random sentence on the page. Often you will find it will accent ideas that you are currently concerned with. Just as you would participate in a seminar, gaining from the interpersonal relationships, so can you learn from the intrapersonal relationship established between your perceptive state of mind and the conscious and subconscious states of mind. When you awaken to the point where your inner mind teaches your personality, you are involving yourself in the "innerversity" of your own being. But this will not occur until you have balanced your physical and emotional bodies to the point where they are functioning at a slightly higher rate of vibration.  Add to your contemplative lifestyle a hobby or craft. Working creatively with your hands, taking physical substance and turning it into something different, new and beautiful is important in remolding the subconscious mind. It is also symbolic. You are remolding something on the physical plane and by doing so educating yourself in the process of changing the appearance of a physical structure, thus making it easier to change the more subtle mental and emotional structures within your own subconscious mind. Energy, willpower and concentrated awareness are needed for both types of accomplishments--hard work, concentration and concerted effort to produce an effective and useful change in either the physical substance or the mental substance.  Siva's devotees, in their homes, endeavor to surround themselves with Saiva images, music and song. In the world they may enjoy the arts of other cultures but strictly avoid lower-world artistic expressions. Aum.  Each day we make affirmations with our thoughts and our feelings--and the very words that we speak stabilize these patterns. But as the inner light begins to dawn its life-giving rays, a new, positive power comes into our words, our thoughts and the feelings that well up from the subconscious, making new manifest patterns in the force fields of the conscious world for us to meet and speedily experience. An affirmation can alter your life by creating mentally the patterns and moods of each day through which you will subsequently move. Here is one that can be used to dynamically begin each day. "I am now open to a flow of spiritual energy in which I perceive the most worthy course of action for this day. My service, being selfless, opens new doors of supply, making available all of the tools required so that my work will be beautiful, energetic and influential to the highest degree." The subconscious mind is like a piece of clay that can be impressed. These impressions go into the subconscious from the conscious mind and remain there vibrating until changed. The intuitive mind, which we call the superconscious, works through the subconscious when the channels of the subconscious are open. Hence, in impressing the subconscious mind, we must be very careful to create positive channels, and not to create a negative block. You can also write your own affirmation, but it must always be positive and carefully worded.   The power of thought is very strong, but only strong for a short time. It is the power of feeling that awakens the knowing consciousness. For example, suppose we repeat an affirmation such as this: "All my needs will always be met." And we repeat it again, "All my needs will always be met." In the initial stating of this affirmation, we understand something about it. However, unless we gain a conscious mental picture of what the words mean, they mean little more than nothing, for they do not reach deep enough to make contact with the limitless powers of your inner self.   Get into the rhythm of the affirmation. This causes strong feelings and impressions deep in the inner mind. Each word has a certain rate of vibration. Feeling is greater than visualization. Although each word of your affirmation may have a certain meaning to you intellectually, the rate of vibration of the word may not impress your mind in the exact same way in which you think it should to produce the result that you desire.   A daily chapter from South Indian saint Tiruvalluvar's Tirukural, "Holy Couplets."   : Discerning Unspoken Thoughts  He who can discern another's unspoken thoughts by merely looking  is an emerald on an Earth encircled by equable seas.  Regard as god-like those who can divine without hesitation what is in the minds of others.  Give whatever is required to gain an advisor  who, knowing his own mind, can read another's intentions.  Those who grasp others' unspoken thoughts have the same   physical features as most folks--yet how different they are.  Of what benefit are eyes in a body, if they cannot  by their observing powers perceive another's intentions?  As a crystal mirror reflects objects that are nearby,   so the face reflects what is foremost in the heart.  What is more forthrightly profound than the face?   For whether the heart is angry or glad, the face expresses it first. If you find a man who understands matters by looking into  the mind, it suffices to stand silently looking into his face. If you find men who know the eye's language  the eyes will speak to them of hidden hate and love. Observe those who are said to see subtly with their mind's eye--  their singular measuring rod is their eyes.    Vedic Verses         A daily collection of verses from the Vedas, Hinduism's revealed scripture  He divided Himself into three: the sun one-third and the air one-third. Thus Prana is divided into three. His head is the east and His arms are that (the north-east) and that (the south-east). His hinder part is the west and His two hip-bones are that (the north-west) and that (the south-west). His sides are the south and the north, His back is heaven, His belly is the intermediate region and His chest is the earth. Thus He stands firm on water. He who knows this stands firm wherever he goes. He desired: Let a second self be born of Me, and He (Death or Hunger) brought about the union of speech with the mind. What was the seed there became the year. Prior to that there had been no year. He (Death) bore him (the year) for as long as a year and after that time projected him. Then, when he was born, Death opened His mouth to devour him. He (the child) cried: Bhan! and that, indeed, became speech.  He thought: If I kill him, I shall have but very little food,'' and through the union of that speech and that mind He brought forth all this, whatever there is: the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, the metres, the sacrifices, men and animals. Whatever He brought forth He resolved to eat. Verily, because He eats everything, therefore is Aditi (Death) called Aditi. He who knows why Aditi came to have this name of Aditi becomes the eater of everything and everything becomes his food.   He desired: Let me sacrifice again with the great sacrifice. He was tired and he practiced austerities. From Him thus fatigued and heated, His fame and vigour departed. The pranas (organs) are verily fame and vigour. When the pranas went out His body began to swell, but the mind was set on the body.  He desired: Let this body of Mine be fit for a sacrifice and let Me be embodied through this. Thinking thus, He entered the body. Because the body swelled (asvat), therefore it came to be called horse (asva). And because it became fit for sacrifice (medhya), therefore the Horse-sacrifice came to be known as Asvamedha. He who knows this verily knows the Horse-sacrifice. Prajapati, desiring again to sacrifice with the great sacrifice, imagined Himself as the horse and letting the horse remain free, He reflected on it. At the end of a year he sacrificed it to Himself and dispatched the other animals to the gods.