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"The most traditional way to measure the quality of one’s life is to list accolades, achievements, and acquisitions. In its simplest terms, success is getting what we want, and most people want wealth and status. Yet as much pleasure as these attributes can bring, the rich, powerful, and famous usually discover that true happiness will elude them if they don't have peace of mind, self-respect, and enduring loving relationships.
Peace of mind doesn’t preclude ambition or desire for material possessions or high position, but it assumes a fundamental foundation of contentment, gratitude, and pride – a belief that whatever one has is enough and an active appreciation for the good things in life.
Feeling successful can generate satisfying emotions of self-worth, but feeling significant – that one’s life really matters – is much more potent. Peter Drucker, the great management guru, captured this idea when he wrote of the urge many high achievers have to "move beyond success to significance. "
The surprise for many is that one of the surest roads to significance is service. It doesn’t have to be of the Mother Teresa missionary variety. Parents who sacrifice their comfort and pleasure for their children are performing a service, as are teachers, public-safety professionals, members of the military, and volunteers who work for the common good.
In addressing graduates, Albert Schweitzer said, "I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts."
My comment: This reminds us why billionaire Bill Gates is giving away his fortune. Rich men like him knows the significance of service to others, of giving his material wealth as well as his time.
But we need to be of service to others and give out of love for our fellow human beings, not to be just significant or feel "important". To quote apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (2 Conrinthians 13):
"If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body [to hardship] that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."
To read more inspirations by Michael Josephson, please click here to visit his "Character Counts" commentaries.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Carrots, Eggs and Coffee (Author Unknown)
"A carrot, an egg, and a cup of coffee...
You will never look at a cup of coffee the same way again.
A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.
Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying aword.
In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, " Tell me what you see."
''Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.
Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft.
The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg.
Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.
The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mother?"
Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently.
The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.
The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.
The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.
"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?"
Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?
Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?
Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate yourself to another level?
How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy.
The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
Thebrightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can't go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.
When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling.
Live your life so at the end, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.
May we all be COFFEE!"
You will never look at a cup of coffee the same way again.
A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.
Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying aword.
In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, " Tell me what you see."
''Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.
Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft.
The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg.
Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.
The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mother?"
Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently.
The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.
The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.
The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.
"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?"
Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?
Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?
Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate yourself to another level?
How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy.
The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
Thebrightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can't go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.
When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling.
Live your life so at the end, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.
May we all be COFFEE!"
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Faith: Staircase to God By Soma Chakravarty
"Faith is where body, mind, soul and spirit merge, leading us to an ever-present awareness of the Absolute within."
"Yours faithfully - A letter ends there. However, faith is the beginning of the human quest for self-discovery and the Absolute. Faith can be neither forced nor taught; it is an experience that transcends trust, reason, belief and ideology.
Belief in religious scripture confines the mind; the trust we repose in an individual, too, is a limiting factor. The intellect can only too often weave a cobweb of theories, and reason can cause mistrust, taking us away from discovering the great scope and depth of an infinite power that's faith, that can otherwise serve as an effective spiritual guide.
Zen Master Hakuin said: "Not knowing how near the truth is, people seek it far away. What a pity! This very Earth is the Lotus Land of purity and this body is the body of the Buddha"."
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"Faith is heartfelt rather than knowledge-fed. It is the unquestioned surrender to the will of the Almighty. We have to become aware of the light within to know God, to become God-like.
Yajnavalkya says that the self is its own light when the sun has set, when the moon has set, when the fire is put out - atmaivasya jyotir bhavati . This light is the faith that gives us the vision of the eternal and eternity. Faith becomes reality when the mind concentrates on the Real.
The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad says: "Those who put their trust in the intellect cannot attain to a knowledge of Brahmn, yet there is an apprehension of His being by those who are childlike".
It is faith, rather than intellectual understanding or theoretical knowledge, that is needed for revelation of the Supreme in the individual soul.
One has to rise above religion and rituals, dogmas and doctrines that cloud our vision. "Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking", said Kahlil Gibran.
To discover faith that can lead us to consciousness of the infinite, we have to calm the mind, fill our heart with unconditional love and compassion, and listen to the sound of silence, the eternal song of the Absolute."
To read complete article, please click main title or here.
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"In the souls and spirits, the minds, hearts and physical bodies of men, the creator has planted seeds (gifts, virtues, magic powers, spiritual splendours) that can be nourished and made to grow only by the light and warmth of the Sun. When we expose ourselves to the rising sun, all these seeds will begin to sprout. The sun will provide light and warmth, but we have to water those little sprouts with love, faith, trust and goodwill. Meditate, contemplate, pray and give thanks to the lord, pronounce some positive, luminous words and in this way we will become a garden full of lovely flowers and delicious fruit."
Also see http://www.suryayog.org/.
Faith and Belief: Beyond Belief
Faith Moves Mountains (Author Unknown)
"A student of science once confided to me after some hesitation: "I've no faith in God." "Never mind," I said. "God won't mind!" "He won't, right?" was the young man's unguarded response, not without an air of relief.
The student no doubt represented the large number of agnostics whose 'no belief' is a vague proposition. But there are others who are firm in their belief that they do not believe.
However, an honest examination would show that what they do not believe in was a particular idea of God. Many take the concept of God they inherited from their family or milieu for granted, without analysing or questioning it and then quarrel with it, accept it or reject it.
The concept is often inane - God as a rigid taskmaster, an exaggerated version of one's familiar boss, or an uncompromising moralist, a headmaster with a halo, or a sort of spiritual director general of police or even the chief justice of the ultimate Supreme Court. There is nothing blasphemous in their rejecting God, for what they reject is an absurd notion of God.
In fact, blasphemy is an imaginary attitude. Nobody can offend God because the offender himself, like the believer, is an emanation of God searching for the truth and growing towards it in his own way. It is not that God simply created us, He became us. In the primeval stage He, in His uncontested wisdom or foolishness, plunged into a state that was His opposite, but is in the process of evolving out of that state, within each individual, towards the Light, Bliss, Freedom and Immortality that He is in His undiluted state. Indeed, even though He became this creation, He was not lost or exhausted in it. He also remained above it, transcending it, ready to help each one who consciously strives to recover his or her lost divinity. Thus, the One who oversees this process is God while we too are gods oblivious of ourselves.
There is no state of mind as 'nonbelief'. If I do not believe in God, I believe is the non-existence of God, as some philosophers point out. Or we believe in humanity, in a cause, or we believe in ourselves. Nobody can exist without faith. I cannot take another step, literally, unless I had faith that the earth would not give away; I would not write this unless I had faith that you would read this; you would not read this unless you had faith that it could be worth reading. If you are disillusioned, you are disillusioned only in one act of faith, not in faith itself.
Folklore informs us of a puny bird who does not trust the firmness of the sky - when it goes to sleep, it unfurls its tiny legs upward so that in case the sky falls down on it, it could throw it away. It does not have faith in the sky, but has faith in its legs. Faith itself is a divine quality, 'a support from above' as the Mother says, inherent in us. Spirituality only requires that we direct it to the Power that is behind the entire phenomenon.
There are different levels of faith. The tamasik faith, resting on inertia, suggests that all will be done whether one acts or not. The rajasik faith, inspired by one's own confidence in oneself, proves dynamic in whatever one does. The sattvik faith is activated by some laudable ideal. The highest is the faith that's spiritual. Once a little girl was heard praying at night, 'O God, please repair my broken toy'. Her elder brother laughed. 'You foolish girl, do you believe that God would respond to such a silly prayer?' he asked. 'Of course He would,' she replied.
In the morning the brother woke her up and pointing to the broken toy, asked: "So, did God respond to your prayer?" he asked, teasing the girl. "Of course He did," she insisted. "He has indicated that I am now past the age of playing with toys!"
This kind of faith is what gives one strength, helping us in our travels through life."
"A student of science once confided to me after some hesitation: "I've no faith in God." "Never mind," I said. "God won't mind!" "He won't, right?" was the young man's unguarded response, not without an air of relief.
The student no doubt represented the large number of agnostics whose 'no belief' is a vague proposition. But there are others who are firm in their belief that they do not believe.
However, an honest examination would show that what they do not believe in was a particular idea of God. Many take the concept of God they inherited from their family or milieu for granted, without analysing or questioning it and then quarrel with it, accept it or reject it.
The concept is often inane - God as a rigid taskmaster, an exaggerated version of one's familiar boss, or an uncompromising moralist, a headmaster with a halo, or a sort of spiritual director general of police or even the chief justice of the ultimate Supreme Court. There is nothing blasphemous in their rejecting God, for what they reject is an absurd notion of God.
In fact, blasphemy is an imaginary attitude. Nobody can offend God because the offender himself, like the believer, is an emanation of God searching for the truth and growing towards it in his own way. It is not that God simply created us, He became us. In the primeval stage He, in His uncontested wisdom or foolishness, plunged into a state that was His opposite, but is in the process of evolving out of that state, within each individual, towards the Light, Bliss, Freedom and Immortality that He is in His undiluted state. Indeed, even though He became this creation, He was not lost or exhausted in it. He also remained above it, transcending it, ready to help each one who consciously strives to recover his or her lost divinity. Thus, the One who oversees this process is God while we too are gods oblivious of ourselves.
There is no state of mind as 'nonbelief'. If I do not believe in God, I believe is the non-existence of God, as some philosophers point out. Or we believe in humanity, in a cause, or we believe in ourselves. Nobody can exist without faith. I cannot take another step, literally, unless I had faith that the earth would not give away; I would not write this unless I had faith that you would read this; you would not read this unless you had faith that it could be worth reading. If you are disillusioned, you are disillusioned only in one act of faith, not in faith itself.
Folklore informs us of a puny bird who does not trust the firmness of the sky - when it goes to sleep, it unfurls its tiny legs upward so that in case the sky falls down on it, it could throw it away. It does not have faith in the sky, but has faith in its legs. Faith itself is a divine quality, 'a support from above' as the Mother says, inherent in us. Spirituality only requires that we direct it to the Power that is behind the entire phenomenon.
There are different levels of faith. The tamasik faith, resting on inertia, suggests that all will be done whether one acts or not. The rajasik faith, inspired by one's own confidence in oneself, proves dynamic in whatever one does. The sattvik faith is activated by some laudable ideal. The highest is the faith that's spiritual. Once a little girl was heard praying at night, 'O God, please repair my broken toy'. Her elder brother laughed. 'You foolish girl, do you believe that God would respond to such a silly prayer?' he asked. 'Of course He would,' she replied.
In the morning the brother woke her up and pointing to the broken toy, asked: "So, did God respond to your prayer?" he asked, teasing the girl. "Of course He did," she insisted. "He has indicated that I am now past the age of playing with toys!"
This kind of faith is what gives one strength, helping us in our travels through life."
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