DON’T LET GO OF HOPE

  Hope gives you the strength to keep going
when you feel like giving up.

Don’t ever quit believing in yourself.
As long as you believe you can, you will have

 a reason for trying.

Don’t let anyone hold your happiness in

their hands; hold it in your own, so it will

always be within your reach.

Don’t measure success or failure by

material wealth, but by how you feel. Our feelings

determine the riches in our lives.

Don’t let bad moments overcome you. Be

patient, and they will pass.

Don’t hesitate to reach out for help; we all

need it from time to time.

Don’t runaway from Love, but towards love;

because it is our deepest joy.

Don’t wait for what you want to come to you.
Go after it with all that you are; knowing

that life will meet you half way.

Don’t feel like you’ve lost when plans and

dreams fall short of your hopes.

Anytime you learn something new about

yourself, or about life, you have progressed.

Don’t do anything that takes away from

your self-respect. Feeling good about yourself

 is essential to feeling good about life.

Don’t ever forget how to laugh or be too

proud to cry. It is by doing both that we live

life to the fullest.

A friend 4 ever
Relations are all about three things -
Winning, Losing and Sharing.
Winning heart,
Losing ego
and
Sharing joy & sorrow.
So always be related.

FRIENDS & FRIENDSHIP.

A few thoughts on

FRIENDS

&

FRIENDSHIP.

Friendship is like standing on the wet cement;
Stronger you stay, harder it is to leave’
and
If you try to go, you cannot go without leaving your footprints.

Treat life as sea,
your heart as sea shore,
and 
Friends as waves.
It never matters how many waves are there,
but what matters is which one touches the shore.

A friend gives hope when life is a low;
A friend gives place when you have nowhere to go;
A friend is honest, true, precious 
and
that is you.

Friendship is not history to forget;
Friendship is not maths to calculate;
Friendship is not language to learn;
Friendship is not accounts to manipulate;
Friendship is no MBA to market;
Friendship is a science where we have to understand.

A friend understands when you say I FORGOT;
A friend waits forever when you say one minute;
A friend stays when you say leave;
A friend opens the door even before you knock.

I asked for a flower, HE gave me a garden;
I asked for a lake, HE gave me an ocean;
I asked for a good and sweet friend, HE gave me your number.

Physical strength is measured by what we can carry, spiritual by what we can bear. 

The Fourth Secret - The Power Of Friendship
***************************************
To find a true love, you must first find a true friend. Love does not consist of gazing into each other’s eyes, but rather looking outward together in the same direction. To love someone completely you must love them for who they are, not what they look like. Friendship is the soil through which love’s seeds grow. If you want to bring love into a relationship, you must first bring friendship.

TOMORROW IS NOT PROMISED

Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there.

They serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson or help figure out who you are and who you want to become.

You never know who these people may be; your neighbor, child, long lost friend, lover, or even a complete stranger, who, when you lock eyes with them, you know at that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way.

And sometimes things happen to you and at the time they seem painful and unfair, but in reflection you realize that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential strength, will power, or heart.

Everything happens for a reason.

Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad luck.

Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul.

Without these small tests, whether they be events, illnesses or relationships, life would be like a smoothly paved straight flat road to nowhere, safe and comfortable, but dull and utterly pointless.

The people you meet who affect your life and the successes and downfalls you experience create who you are, and even the bad experiences can be learned from.

In fact, they are probably the poignant and important ones.

If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart.

If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and opening your heart and eyes to things you would have never seen or felt without them.

Make every day count.

Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again.

Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen, let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high.

Hold your head up because you have every right too.

Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself for if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either.

You can make of your life anything you wish.

Create your own life and then go out and live in it!

Live each day as if it were your last.

Tomorrow is not promised. 

Mental Exercises

Mental Exercises for  young people

Why are young people quick to feel angry ?        Generally,we find a youngster who is disturbed is also angry.He is angry with life.He has the passion to achieve,but lacks direction.He is frustrated at others success.He wonders what is missing in him.In such a state,he finds his energy being drained.In his angry state,he is not able to enjoy life.

When one is youthful one has the energy but less maturity ; and when one is old one has the maturity and experience,but lack youthful energy.To be able to have both youthful energy and maturity,is a challenge,faced by the young people of today.          To make this happen one needs a healthy attitude. Attitude creates altitude.

What should be one’s attitude ?    Apply the  ABC  technique :  A  is for attitude, open and explorative ; B  is for having a belief which is powerful and not limiting and C  is to bring in caring energy in whatever we do.

There are two aspects to youth, thw physical and the psychological. Physically,a person can be young,but psychologically,if he is not open with a positive belief and without a caring energy,he is old. This distinction is a must for one’s growth.

What should be the vision of the youth ?           The vision of the youth should be to be an outer winner and an inner winner. Being an outer winner gives you success and being an inner winner gives you satisfaction. To bring in success and satisfaction in your life is the greatest challenge. To get what you like is being an outer winner.One should have the freedom to choose what he likes.

The desire to reach a goal is your freedom.Achieving this goal is being an outer winner.You should know how to maximise performance,You should know how to be a team player,you should have negotiating skills and you should know how to delegate and be a leader. You should be a leader and a follower. You should walk your talk and talk your walk.

Talk to yourself and say that you will be an outer and inner winner. Talk to yourself and say that you are always going to be young,mentally.

Actions are an expression of one’s thoughts and thoughts are an expression of one’s belief system.To change one’s actions,it is necessary to change one’s thoughts and to change one’s thoughts,one must change one’s belief.The course of one’s actions is belief.If you have a limiting belief,then your life will be limiting ; If you have a poweful belief,then your life will be powerful.

All successful people achieved success because the consistently held a positive belief,which is not a mere thought but something more than a thought.

How else can one change one’s belief system ?          Belief is nothing but a sense of certainity.It can be a negative certainity or a positive certainity ; either way it is a sense of certainity. If it is a negative belief,create a doubt in that certainity and then you will find you have destroyed the sense of negative certainity.

If a person saysthat he cannot be successful since he is not a graduate,then he believes that only graduates can be successful. Create a doubt by giving an example that Bill Gates is not a graduate but is still successful. In this way you break his cerainity by creating a doubt.            Every great achievement initially appeared impossible.

Whenever a negative belief comes,kick it off like you kick a ball towards the goal. When you get a negative belief,see it like a ball and push it off to the goal. Your goal should be  —  being both successful and satisfied. Keep this thought always and do not allow the opponents to shake you.

ANTICIPATION OF JOY

Where & how do we search GOD ?

Remember that God is within you,but you don’t see HIM because the one place you will never look is inside yourself.You will search everywhere,but never within yourself.Paradoxically you lose sight of because He is in you.

Now look at what God has given us.Our intelligence,buddhi,is a precious gift.Yet are we loving and greatful enough to God who has given us all these ? Do we have even a little of the gratitude a dog has towrds it’s master ? NO ! That is why Dattatreya considers the dog as one of his gurus.Dattatreya draws four lessons from his dog.

• A dog dosen’t count it’s misfortunes or grieves over them.
• A dog dosen’t live in the past.It dosen’t make long-term plans either
• A dog dosen’t live in the future.
• It lives instinctively,from moment to moment.

A dog’s life is one unbroken straight line marked by love,devotion and gratitude to the one who sustains it.Devotion  is its defining property.

Can we,like the dog,be always grateful to our creator and sustainer ?Can we give up being miserable about our past misfortunes and mistakes ?These are disciplines we impose on ourselves.

When we reach this stage we will have achieved a mental state that looks with equal ease at happiness and sorrow,at misery and luxury ; in short,we will have seen God in ourselves. This is the essence of the sanskrit saying : Tat Tvam Asi,You are That. That is,you are the object of your search.

Why do you say we should learn to enjoy adversity ?

When something is inevitable,when it’s occurance cannot be prevented,it is better to go along with it rather than resist it.The word “enjoy” here means,”make the best out of” something. Let me illustrate with an example :-

A person is walking along a mountain ridge.He stubles and falls.As he tumbles down the cliff,he sees the branch of a tree projecting from the cliff face.He catches hold of that branch.As he is hanging there pricariously,he sees his guru standing on the top of the mountain.He asks the guru what he should do?There is no way the guru can help him phisically.Instead,he tells him,”The left side of the valley below you is dry and thorny.The right side is lush and green.Look to the right and try to fall there.Now that the fall is inevitable,and you may be plunging to your death,enjoy the scenery during your last leap.”

Your assesment of any situation should be realistic.You must muster all your resources in protecting your interests.Understand the strenghts and weaknesses of your adversary and be prepared to put up the stiffest resistance you can.At the same time, if you find yourself over-powered,try to work out the best bargain. In corporate parlance,for example,try your best to fend off a hostile takeover bid against your company. But if you see that it is unavoidable,try to get the best terms of a takeover.

At least some kinds of enjoyment involves a willingness to suffer some unpleasantness. You go for an Ayurvedic or any other kind of massage.Massage is good for health.Sometimes the masseurs use foot massage,using their body weight to apply different degrees of pressure on your body.It might be uncomfortable or even painful, but later,you feel refreshed and rejuvenated. You are bearing the unpleasantness in anticipation of the joy. 

B O R E D O M

Why do we get bored ? What is the solution to boredom ?

Boredom is a state of mind.In that state, nothing appeals to us,nothing excites us,and nothing interests us. Boredom is not something that hits us from the outside.It’s nothing external.It is not like day and night or like the seasons that are inevitable. Boredom is in the mind,though it might be related to prescence or abscence of people,events or material elements that are outside the person.

Most often ,people get bored when they are weighed down by tasks that they don’t like,or don’t want to do.If that’s the case,one way of avoiding  boredom  is to learn to say ‘No’ whenever possible. For example,if you have to go shopping or attend a wedding - that you know will bore you - with family members or friends, you have the choice to say ‘no’. Sometimes you may have no choice, and will have to tag along,or will have to suffer the company of people whom you may not like. In such cases,one has no choice,but to grin and bear it,although you still have the option of engaging in some form of thinking ,daydreaming,introspection or analysis, which can go on inside your head,even as you are physically present at that place.

The most common reason for boredom is when one does not have anything worthwhile to do. Take up a hobby,call up old friends or relatives,start writing a journal,learn a new art like drawing,painting or music,remember all the things you wanted to do due to a genuine lack of time.Also,boredom is often the starting point for inspirational ideas and many discoveries and inventions have happened when people who are responsible for these had nothing to do,and were in a state of extreme boredom.

Make your boredom a rejoicing,a time to think,plan,introspect and come out with brilliant workable ideas,reconnect with others and with yourself. Instead of fretting and fuming,and generally making yourself and those around you miserable,with your continous lamenting.

Boredom  or constantly feeling bored can mean two things:  1)you do not know yourself.You don’t know what you like,what you dislike,what makes you tick and what irritates you.For if you really know yourself, you would also know why you are bored and would also know what would get you our of this boredom.So if you are bored and don’t know why, maybe it is time for some deep introspection and meditation,in an effort to know yourself. 2) the other reason,many of us complain of being bored, and this is especially true of children, is an attention seeking measure. we hope that those to whom we complain will drop everything and pamper and mollycoddle us, will give us more of their time, and will attend to us.

Like everything, boredom too has its benefits. If you use the time effectively and creatively. Otherwise, you can keep complaining that you are bored, and waste the one and only life that God has given you, in a bored mundane fashion. Feeling bored is also a choice - no one is stopping you from going ahead and doing all those things that could make your life interesting or exciting,except yourself.

N E W C O M B I N A T I O N S

A young boy left his house in search of truth. He met many people; he became richer in his awareness of his ignorance. Since people went to forests to meditate, he too went to a thick forest.He did not know how to meditate. So he screamed at the forest to give him knowledge. For years his only mantra was screaming at the forest to give him knowledge. He belived that if you are commited, existence will help you.

One day, a monk came to him. He asked : “what do you want,my son ? “I want to know what the meaning of life is,” he replied. “Go to the town. The first three persons that you meet will give you the meaning of life,” replied the monk.

The boy went to the town. The first man he met was doing carpentry work. The next man he met was doing sheet metal work. The third man he met was making strings. Disappointed, he sat on the bank of a river. Suddenly, he heard the sweet strains of violin music. Something mysterious touched him. He suddenly got the answer he was looking for and he started dancing.

The carpenter was preparing the wood for the violin. The sheet metal worker was preparing metal for the strings meant for the violin. Life has everything ; all you need is to be able to connect the dots. You need to work out new combinations. And for that you need creative perception.

Life has all the ingredients. Be creative. Don’t let yourself feel victimised. You might think that what is easy is beautiful, that what is easy is joy. You are a victim of such illusions. Difficulty has such a joy. Discovery has such a joy. Seeking out has such a joy.

You have to change the notion that difficulty is pain. In exercise, there is difficulty but also joy. In sports,there is difficulty but there is joy. In your relationships,when there is difficulty,treat it as joy, just reprogramme your mind.

In prayer you don’t have to do anything ; just be available to God’s grace.Prayer is a deep readiness to receive God’s flow. It is passive alertness. Go deep and you discover your original mind… it is deep passiveness.