30 – Shailia Teaching 'The Role of Thought' to Refugees in Nakivale's Nyarugugu Village

0:00Philips TayebwaSo, Shaira, you are most welcome. And, uh, I was already explaining them, uh, how we shall share today about the role of thought, uh, like the wrong use of thought and the right use of thought. And I have already told them that, um, if they are still thinking much more of the past, as you have been sharing to them, they won't get, uh, positive results. And unless they change their thought and they start living positive, but I already told them that you are going to share much about that.

0:35So we are so much welcoming you to this group. This group is called Nyargugu. It is also in Nakiviri refugee settlement. And this group is for Banyamulenge, They come from Congo, DRC Congo, and they have faced a lot of hardship there because most of them here were farmers doing cattle rearing there. But almost each one of these, they have lost their cows, over 30, 40, even 100, these people. And they are now living here. Even getting water is hard, and they used to have a pint of milk in their homeland, but they are here in Nakivare living in hardship.

1:29And we are happy that through our teachings they have been able to acquire hope through 3 principles on what we are sharing to them. So I will welcome you to this group, and of course you will be sharing into English and I will be translating To them in Swahili.

1:49Shailia StephensOkay, yes. Are you ready? You can hear me well, Phillips?

1:59Philips TayebwaYes, yes. Can hear you.

2:01Shailia StephensYes. So should I start?

2:04Philips TayebwaYeah, you can start.

2:05Shailia StephensOkay, I'm gonna start with a question.

2:09Philips TayebwaSo أنا سمع أتعانز أنا صوالي.

2:16Shailia StephensYeah, it's very good. Hello, my name is Shelia. I am so happy to be here with you today. It is a great honor to be able to speak with you. I want to speak at Philip's request about the role of thought. There is a very powerful invisible force in life. We can't see it with our eyes, but it affects our entire experience. It is the energy of thought. For my whole adult life until I was 40 years old, I did not know about this powerful force. I didn't know how it was affecting how I was feeling and living.

4:25Philips TayebwaYes.

4:27Shailia StephensAnd then at 40 years old, I learned about the 3 principles, and I started to understand about the role of thought. And today, as I was getting ready to speak with you, I asked God to give me a picture that would make it easy to understand. So, and God gave me the picture of going to The marketplace. I've never been to Africa, so I don't know how your marketplace looks like. But recently I went to a very big marketplace in Turkey with many vegetables and fruits, cheeses and meats. All of the sellers of these goods were calling me to come and buy what they had to offer. So they they know this, yes? They have this experience.

6:39Philips TayebwaYeah, they know.

6:41Shailia StephensYes, they know. So, but the market was very big, and some things that were being offered, they taste good to me. Some things I didn't need. Some of the fruit looked really good and delicious. Other fruit looked Old and not so delicious. The market was very, very large, really so far hardly the eye could not finish seeing the many, many fruits and vegetables. So I knew there's no way I can take every offer being given to me. I have to be very selective about what I'm going to buy. I knew I must pass by some of the offers and say no thank you. In fact, I knew I must say no many, many times.

8:36Philips TayebwaSo, arianza sema apa na? Mis takit tomato anda yang delia. Arisema, arikatara dia minggi malaminggi bagaimana aku anak muita.

8:47Shailia StephensI had a budget of money and I needed to be selective about exactly what I needed to take home.

8:54Philips TayebwaSo, anak sema aku anak budget yak.

9:12Shailia StephensI knew I needed to take the right fruits and the right vegetables and the right meat and the right cheese for me. This makes sense, right? We can't say yes to all of the offers on the market. We can't believe that everything is for us. Is this making sense to you that we can't take every offer on the entire large market?

10:19Philips TayebwaYes, they understand that they need to be selective on what they want in the market.

10:25Shailia StephensYes, we need to be wise about choosing what is right for us, the right use of our, of our budget at the market. Yes, and this is the same is true when it comes to thought and our thinking. Did you know that every day our brain offers us many thousands of different thoughts? All day long, thoughts, many, many thoughts are going through our mind, invisible, but we feel and see them in our personal awareness. The brain that's creating the thoughts is making many, many offers, just like the people at the vegetable market.

12:44Many, many of those thoughts were being offered to you by our brain. They're not for us. They're not good for us. We have to be selective which ones are for us, which ones are right for us, which ones lead us to a healthy mental state.

13:10Philips TayebwaYes.

13:27Shailia StephensI did not know this to be true until I was 40 years old. Before then, my brain would offer me thousands of thoughts every day, and I would take every single thought to be true. If my brain told me I wasn't a good enough wife, I believed it, although there was no proof that that was true. If my brain told me I was not attractive enough and I needed to be prettier, I believed that to be true as well. If my brain offered me difficult memories of past hardships, I took those as well. If my brain offered me scary thinking about the future, that something bad might happen to me, In the future, I believe those thoughts as well.

15:29Philips TayebwaInnocently, I was using the power of thought in the wrong way.

15:56Shailia StephensI didn't know that I can be very selective about which of my thoughts to pay attention to, to give my, my power to. I began to learn that, just like at the fruit market, I'm gonna be saying no to a lot of the thinking that my brain is offering me.

16:32Philips TayebwaSo nayakansa juga ikom sokol, bintu bikominggi. Minyabanamgita ni minggi minyabanisema kucak kucak kucak nakini saya anda persaja juga.

16:49Shailia StephensYes, and I have within me the free will to be very selective which thoughts that I'm going to be having in my focus. This is what happened when I started to realize that. So, if I was thinking of a difficult hardship in the past and it came to me, I would just let it pass through me. And I would wait for a more healthy thought to come, a thought that helped me to feel nicer, happier. When I would have a worrisome thought about the future that hadn't happened, I would let it just pass right through me.

18:27Philips TayebwaCome again?

18:31Shailia StephensIf I would have a worried thought about the future, what could happen to me, I would just let it pass right through me. I would wait for a nicer, more healthy thought that came with a nicer, more healthy feeling. I would do my best to just come back to the now. And when those thoughts would pass On by, I would fall into a good feeling. And I would feel more love and more joy and happiness. I got much more selective about which of the offers that my brain gives me for thinking that I take.

20:05Philips TayebwaHmm?

20:15Shailia StephensHmm.

20:16Philips TayebwaKe ntho e nyenyane ke ya ntlohi. Ha sale ana se mane ha ntse ke wa akile . Ke ntso akile . Ke ntso akile . E no hole le motho. E no ho easy. Ke nkamona pokeng ya me akileng ebe ke na le data. Yeah, go ahead.

21:37Shailia StephensYeah, this is what Philip means when he says the right use of thought and the wrong use of thought. He means being more selective about which thought we let into our spirit.

21:51Philips TayebwaSo, naseema, kamu nuna tu naseema mahuazu na tumikanamunagani. Mahuazu mazuri na mahuazu mabandi cini dikotunasi. Una paswa cagura. Huh?

22:34Shailia StephensYou and your spirit are very valuable, and you deserve to be happy.

22:39Philips TayebwaAnd this is the way to happiness.

23:00Shailia StephensYes, living in the now. Understanding that we don't have to believe every thought that our brain is offering us. So I want to ask another question. And Filip, you, you can open up for asking questions or for sharing what they've seen or heard today.

24:03Philips TayebwaYeah, like their, their takeaways.

24:08Shailia StephensYeah, if they, if they saw something new for themselves today, what they understood or saw, or if they have any questions.

24:16Philips TayebwaOkay, anapenda, ku skiya vinyanyi vunghwelexa ku fana na mavabyi, muvihi yi lewa na munhakanyi ku kihi ntwini u na skiya u na u na skiya kha maṱo u si ma a i kihi nthu u swikiwa na jewa kilomina yi lewa u ni ta badelisa yivi ndi u tshinya anapenda ku skiya. So vinyanyi vunghwelexa i fana na mavabyi, ku fana na soko. Mhaka ya mavabyi. Yeah, I have listened about control of the thoughts because I have listened that going into the market Sometimes you go in the market with, uh, maybe overthinking, and sometimes maybe kids at home have not eaten and you have gone there with 1,000.

25:24And, uh, you have to understand that sometimes you cannot buy everything in the market. And to know that that 1,000 can even buy like to have cakes. But when you reach in the market, you see a lot of, uh, products, and you find you are thinking a lot and seeing everything. And sometimes you don't have— And sometimes maybe you find, uh, because of many things, someone is thinking about getting a debt from the market. And you find because you don't have money that day, and that day when I don't have money, I will not go in the market.

26:19And that sometimes brings a lot of overthinking. But I have understood how we need to change the thoughts. And it has been so helpful to me what you shared. Together with God, we shall keep understanding and sharing. Even myself, according to what you have shared about Saul, I have had a very good feeling in me because like, uh, We mothers, sometimes we are having a lot. We are overthinking because what we are, how we are living in here in Africa.

27:44We didn't know how to buy everything. We used just to go in our gardens. We dig, we get food, go home. But reaching Nakivale, things have changed. And the life, the way of living has made us to be down. And we had to think a lot. And sometimes when you find you don't have the possibility to send your children to school, you could feel a lot of hardship. Like for me, as example, I have 5 kids and already I have like 2 who are not studying because I can't afford, because I know it has not been easy to send them.

28:55But because we have spent some time like following Following the teachings from Phillips, we have come to see that controlling our thoughts is something so important. Because it has been very, very Thoughts, but we have come to know how to control. But together we know that God is there, and we know that we are hopeful that things will be better. Because even I didn't know that I can live all this time in Nakivari, but I'm living. Because I was living knowing that maybe I won't afford, we won't live, but I see my life is changing.

30:10And together with God, we are getting some food, the kids are eating, and we are seeing life changing. Okay, thank you so much. We have learned about salts. And it has been so helpful because sometimes you have to use what we have. You have mentioned how we go into the market and we become selective. And we have understood how to go in the market and we understand our budget and how to be shopping what we need. With this good thinking, we are very much appreciative to see that we have known to understand how to control our thinking. Thank you so much. They are saying, uh, you keep coming. They are happy for you.

31:45Shailia StephensSanté sana, santé sana.

32:01Philips TayebwaAnd, uh, we have, uh, seen that what you are sharing with us is very true because we are seeing that if we, we, we know how to control our thinking, then also our feelings will be, uh, much positive because we have come in Nakivale and we are living somehow better in our countries. But living here in Nakivale, of course it has been hard and we don't have option but only ways to overthink. But for all this time We have been receiving Sriji teachings.

32:45We have seen the calmness in our hearts. As you mentioned, sometimes we have come to understand that our brain can receive everything, but we need to understand how— what we are supposed to retain and what we are supposed to make like pass away and go. Because sometimes if you see the market, you don't have money to buy something there, then sometimes it will also bring overthinking. Even when you get the debts, you find it is also hard. But it is good to understand where to sit and how to control our thinking.

33:42And not to over-ask others about what they have. And we are happy that for God's grace we are getting some food and living. And we were living in all that hardship, but since we started receiving or learning from these spiritual teachings, we are, we are seeing a very good change in our lives. And we are seeing even in our heads, we are feeling that we are living like we're having pure, pure minds. Even in our hearts, we don't feel hardship. So together with God, we are so much appreciative for these teachings.

34:42Shailia StephensAsante sana.

35:23Philips TayebwaFor us, we are refugees, and of course we were having a lot of property in our home countries. And we have seen, like, reaching here in Uganda, we have even failed to afford even having a hen. Like, you get sick, you don't even afford to treat yourself. Even we lack food, like, uh, supporting our kids and our families at home. And you find children are just sitting at home, not going to school. So because of all those hardships We could think a lot, but because we have been lucky to have 3 principles and have these 3 teachings together with God to give you a very positive heart to come and share to us.

37:12And to see that you have thought about us and you are sharing with us, and we see like our negativity that we used to think, now we are thinking positive. Because of that, we are still hopeful. He's saying, uh, together with your energy that you are putting on to share to Earth and with God we shall, we shall like overcome anything that comes. They're saying they are so much thankful and we are feeling happy because we have come to visit them. May God bless you.

38:39It's good that you have come to. Share to us. And of course, what you have been taught here, it is to see how we control our thinking, because we have been having a lot of thinking here, because we passed a lot of hardships before. We had a lot of things, our cows, sheep, everything. And we had already built good houses in our home countries. But because of war, we left all those. And all our domestic animals were looted. But what you are sharing to us, we are like, we are seeing the calmness, and we are like, our thinking, our overthinking is now becoming calm.

40:14Because since we started, um, uh, like teachings of 3 principles here, we have come to understand that love is important. And already our overthinking have already passed away, and we are now thinking now. Because here there are a lot of things, but to eat them because of money But because sometimes we lack finance, the same way you find children are not studying. But together with God, we are seeing a very good change. And with God, with God everything is possible. It is good that you are sharing with us 3 principles, and we are so much appreciating what we are receiving.

41:33Shailia StephensAsante. Asante. Asante.

41:48Philips TayebwaYeah. We still have one coming, and this one got an accident when they were rearing cows in the bush, and they had to shoot him in the leg. That's why you see he's moving with the walking stick.

42:11Shailia StephensYes.

42:12Philips TayebwaYeah. So for me, I'm very happy for what you have shared to us, and we are seeing, uh, good change. Because I'm a lame man, sometimes overthinking comes. Because sometimes when I sleep, I think, now me, a lame man, what am I going to eat in Akivari? I just sit home, I don't have work. I like, I overthink. I used to overthink a lot. But I've come to understand that together with God, the positive thinking has to be there. But we are so much happy for the, for the 3P sharings because, uh, are seeing hope coming to us. And together with you and God, be, uh, happy. And we are already happy. Asante sana.

43:48Shailia StephensAsante sana.

43:53Philips TayebwaWe have We have one mom coming also.

43:57Shailia StephensYes.

43:57Philips TayebwaThis is a group of many old— there are many old people, but they love 3P because they have lost a lot.

44:10Shailia StephensYes.

44:11Philips TayebwaBut they are so much helpful. So we have— Yeah, so this is 90 years. So in our, our home area, it was, uh, goodness because We could have our houses, we could have our cows, we could do everything free. Having domestic animals and we could sell and eat whatever we want. We didn't know that one day we can even live there. Because we could just dig and get food, and we get milk free. Because of the war, we have been, uh, Like we have migrated from our country to this new area.

46:13And also eating has been very hard, but you have come to see how to control. And we are very happy to understand that we need to be selective on what we buy in the market. And through the teachings, we are very happy that you have come to understand about contrast. So we thank you so much because you have come to cool our thinking.

47:04Shailia StephensAsante. Asante. Asante. Asante. Asante.

47:11Philips TayebwaOkay, so that is the group, and, uh, they have been very happy. They are very happy to be with you today. And we are very thankful. These teachings have very good taste. We used to even overthink, and you find we are just living there as sick people. But through these sleepy teachings, it has helped us so much to cool our overthinking. We have now— we have gained hope and we are thinking positive. She's saying, uh, seeing you come here and, uh, Phillips and group coming to be teaching every time they come to visit, they, to visit them, they are very much appreciating what we are sharing to them. Okay, we have one more.

48:57Shailia StephensYes, yes, whoever wants to speak, we have time today.

49:17Philips TayebwaI'm called Nyafuraha Esperance. I'm very happy that you have thought about us. Nyarugugu is very big, but we thank God that We are already in this group, uh, receiving these teachings. We appreciate you so much because we have come to understand that if we are having overthinking and, uh, mostly think about the past we pass through in our home, home areas, then we shall still live in negative. Despite many challenges in the camp— limited food, water, children not going to school— but we are lucky that we have come to understand about the role of salt.

50:57These 3P teachings have been helpful to us. May God bless you. Okay, we thank God for what we are receiving today. Because what we are sharing here is so, is so good. We feel good and we are seeing what God can, can do for us. Really, it is very good. We thank God that we are here receiving these teachings. Because of overthinking from our home areas. We used to think very good when we are in our home area. We were living there with plenty of food, good water, medical care, and the rest.

52:25We were living happy. But because of negativity of other tribes and other people, the country had to change and the wars broke out. The burning of the houses and killing of people happened and we had to run there. Here we are receiving a lot of challenges, but we are very happy that with the Sri Sri teachings we have been able to understand how to control our life. Because sometimes, uh, we could, uh, have negative feeling, but we don't know how to control.

53:30But we are saying you are a very good woman, and we are very happy to have you today, and we thank God for you. And we pray that You never get tired of thinking about us, of teaching us, and we know that everything will be okay. And we also thank Philip and the group for always coming to our group to give Sharing of hope. May God bless you.

54:10Shailia StephensAsante, asante, asante sana.

54:19Philips TayebwaYeah, so that is how it is, and the group is so much relaxed for what you shared to them, and They have loved how you came to this group, and they're saying that you always come to share.

54:38Shailia StephensPhilip, do you mind if I share, say a few things back from what I heard?

54:45Philips TayebwaYes, yes.

54:47Shailia StephensDo you have a few more moments?

54:48Philips TayebwaYeah.

54:52Shailia StephensOkay. I'm so very touched by everyone who shared. I, I am so amazed at the love and The strength that is coming through you when you share. Sometimes We have the most spiritual growth in the most difficult of situations. I'm so happy you've understood about the role of thought and overthinking. I too have many days where I'm overthinking. And I, I'm so happy that I understand that I can quiet my mind and find my way back to wisdom. For me too, learning to quiet my mind changed everything for more positive. And my hope is that you will share this also with other people who are also not here today. It's, it's like when you throw a pebble in the lake.

57:50Philips TayebwaCome again?

57:53Shailia StephensIt's like when you throw a pebble in the lake. In the water. It makes waves and ripples across the entire lake. Today we are already very blessed because we have this time to connect with each other, see each other, listen to each other. This is a tremendous gift of spiritual connection. Your being here today is a tremendous gift to me. Thank you for, for listening today and sharing with me today.

59:23Philips TayebwaYeah, thank you so much. Uh, we are very happy that we got you today, Shelley, and it was so powerful and everyone is feeling very well.

59:42Shailia StephensThank you, Phillips, for translating. You did such a good job today. So good.

59:47Philips TayebwaYeah, thank you. Thank you too for coming along and share. Yeah.

59:53Shailia StephensYes, maybe we see each other again. Say hello to the team for me too, okay? Can you hear me?

1:00:03Philips TayebwaCome again.

1:00:04Shailia StephensI said I'll see you soon and say hello to the team.

1:00:15Philips TayebwaAll right.