Alphabet of Happiness...
A--Accept
Accept others for who they are and for the choices they've made even if you have difficulty understanding their beliefs, motives, or actions.
G--Grow
Leave the childhood monsters behind. They can no longer hurt you or stand in your way.
P--Play
Never forget to have fun along the way. Success means nothing without happiness.
Q--Question
Ask many questions, because you're here to learn.
One day all the employees reached the office and they
saw a big notice on the door on which it was written:
"Yesterday the person who has been hindering your
growth in this company passed away. We invite you to
join the funeral in the room that has been prepared in
the gym".
In the beginning, they all felt sad for the death of
one of their colleagues, but after a while they
started getting curious; who was that man who hindered
the growth of his colleagues and the company itself.
The excitement in the gym was such that security
guards were brought in to control the crowd within the
room. As they neared the coffin, the more the
excitement heated up. Everyone was thinking: "Who is
this guy who was hindering my progress? Well, at least
he died!"
One by one the thrilled employees got closer to the
coffin, and when they looked inside it, they suddenly
became speechless. They stood over the coffin, shocked
and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest
part of their soul.
There was a mirror inside the coffin: everyone who
looked inside it could see himself. There was also a
sign next to the mirror that said:
There is only one person, who is capable to set limits
to your growth:
It is You.
You are the ONLY person who can revolutionize your
life.
You are the only person, who can influence your
happiness, realization and success.
You are the ONLY person who can help YOURSELF.
Your life does not change when your boss changes, when
your friends change, when your partner changes, when
your company changes. Your life changes when YOU
change, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when
you realize that you are the ONLY one responsible for
your life.
THE MOST IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP YOU CAN HAVE IS THE
ONE YOU HAVE WITH YOURSELF! ".
Examine yourself. Watch yourself. Don't be afraid of
difficulties and losses: Be a WINNER, Build Yourself
and Your Reality.
The world is like a Mirror. It gives back to anyone
the reflection of the thoughts in which one has
strongly believed.
The world and your reality are like mirrors lying in a
coffin, which show to any individual the death of his
divine capability to imagine and create his happiness
and his success.
It's the way you face Life that makes the difference.
A Sign Of Imbalance
Overachieving and Overreaching
Overachievers are people who have achieved but still feel the need to do more, creating an imbalance in their lives. People who exhibit this behavior may be trying to compensate for feelings of insecurity and doubts about their worth. They may be chasing unresolved issues from their past into the present, or they might not be looking at their lives as a whole, but judging themselves based only on one aspect of their being. If this is a word that we've heard used with respect to our choices and lifestyle, it is worth examining in order to balance our lives for a more rewarding experience.
If we find that we cannot allow ourselves to experience and enjoy the present moment, putting pleasure off into some distant future, it may be a sign that we are being driven to achieve more than is truly necessary. Pushing ourselves beyond the point of exhaustion, or to the exclusion of important people in our lives, robs us of true and meaningful joy. Once we make the connection to the eternal part of us, it can nourish us and allow our priorities to shift from chasing after an elusive feeling to being fully present in the moment so that we can live our lives in the now.
Sometimes we need to look to those we love and admire in order to realize what we value about life. We can take time to note what we like about others, and then turn the mirror to reflect the light of those same words and feelings toward ourselves. It can be quite a revelation to see ourselves in this nourishing light. When we can put the energy that we've been devoting to a phantom sense of achievement into the truly satisfying aspects of our lives, we can restore the balance between our inner and outer worlds and experience true joyful peace.
1 Placement
The act of seeking and finding an object on which one will have to place the mind is know as placement. It is the stage where the mind will have difficulties identifying the object. One attains this stage through proper guidance, which one has to learn from a qualified meditator. One must employ the strongest effort to do this.
2 Continual Placement
At this stage the meditator has already found the object but his mind will refuse to stay on the object. Because of this the object could disappear at any time and one's mind will make repeated efforts to find the object. At this stage the meditator generates more effort to place the mind on the found object but cannot place the mind any longer than the first stage. The difference between the first and second stage is in the frequency of placement.
3 Repair Placement
At this stage one would have identified the obstacles which were stealing one's concentration and therefore one develops a technique to straighten or repair one's distracted mind with the help of forced attention and contemplation. The meditator's mind will combat the thief of distraction and will reinforce one's mindfulness to win over the army of distraction. The difference between the second and the third stage is in the recognition of distraction.
4 Closed Placement
When the meditator gains some familiarity with the object of meditation without excessive distraction he or she has to refine his or her mindfulness to gain complete control over the obstacles. This is similar to a leader who has defeated his enemy but needs to consolidate the internal problems of the nation. The meditator will be able to closely place his mind on the object for the favorable duration without any noticeable interference. This is done with the help of his refined mindfulness and uninterrupted attention. There will be no danger of losing the object at this point. This is similar to the example of the swords men defending himself against an experienced archer whose seductive wife also tries to trick him. One's mindfulness has reached its maturity but one will still fail to prolong the duration because of the obstacles of sinking and excitement. One should try to prolong the session but should repeat many short sessions instead. Master that stage without failure.
5 Subdued placement
During the previous stage one can only place the mind for the estimated duration but still the danger of obstacles i.e. sinking and excitement occurs. At this stage one develops an awareness which is capable of remedying grossing sinking and excitement. However, because of the uninterrupted effort to develop awareness, this stage will face the obstacles of subtle sinking which has to be subdued with a carefully managed spy of awareness. This should not however be overdone as it can cause subtle excitement. The difference between the fourth and the fifth stage is that at the fifth stage, the meditator will no longer face gross sinking and excitement. Uninterrupted attention is still required. It is said that " when I develop effort, mental excitement occurs, but when I remedy that, mental sinking sets in"
6 Pacified Placement
At this stage, one has already overcome subtle sinking with the help of matured awareness. This subsequently causes one to face the problem of subtle excitement and the meditator needs to refine awareness with the help of uninterrupted attention. It is called pacified placement when the subtle excitement is totally overcome.
7 Perfectly calm Placement
During the initial period of this stage, residues of both subtle sinking and excitement will still occurs. With the help of the newly developed enthusiastic perseverance, one will have uninterrupted attention to unify mindfulness and awareness.
8 One Pointed placement
The meditator will no longer find any problem and he or she will be able to place the mind one pointedly while strengthening one's uninterrupted attention.
9 Placement in Equanimity
This is the stage of spontaneous achievement where the meditator requires no effort to meditate. Whether he is walking, talking, or meditating there it makes no difference to the power of his concentration. One can stay in this stage while experiencing complete pliancy of one's body and mind.
Your Wellspring Of Energy
A Stress-Free Home
Sometimes our lives are so busy that we treat our homes as if they were impersonal places that we merely pass through. But we can make certain that our homes truly feel like our sanctuaries by taking the time to tend to them like gardens, which need care in order to offer us the beauty of their blooms. When we take the time to treat our homes like beloved treasures, we can shift their energy from being merely places to being wellsprings for the replenishment of our energy.
Consider that homes are the outer reflections of those who live within. If we feel that the current appearance clashes with how we'd like to see ourselves, it can keep us from fully allowing our light to shine. Updating our homes to reflect our inner landscape need not involve massive redecorating or a large outlay of money. Small things can make a big difference, like simply moving items so that we constantly gaze upon the things we love the most, liberating the treasures we've hidden in our closets, using our best dishes and making small repairs. Organizing and cleaning is a no-cost way to remove chaos from our homes and introduce more calm. Lovingly rejuvenating our personal space can become a creative project that increases the flow of good throughout all aspects of our lives and increases our feeling of connection. We can give old things new life by donating them to charity, opening space for newness to enter. Removing stress from our homes can be as simple as putting o! ur bills into pretty boxes and choosing a specific time to deal with them, or removing clutter so that we and our energy can move freely throughout our space.
Simplifying our space lets our imagination and energy roam free. We can choose to prioritize our homes, making them the true heart of our family's activities. Then we are free to focus on what really matters—time to ourselves, to share with loved ones, and to replenish our energy so that we have more to share with each other and with the world.
Research shows that after 5-7 drinks, the brain is numbed to an extent that a person cannot even hold a pen and write properly. Despite knowing this, many people drive under the influence of alcohol, only to meet with devastating results. There have been numerous cases of people driving under alcohol and involved in fatal accidents. So in case you don't want to risk your life doing something silly and dangerous, stay away from drinking and driving. Given here are some facts and effects of drinking under influence.
Facts about Drunken Driving
Effects of Drunken Driving
Every year the special day comes. The most anticipated day of the year for any of us. Its our birthday. A day of joy and celebration. A day of gifts, a day of extra love from everybody. A day when we are the most special individual and treated as if we were the Queen or Prince of England. So here are some interesting facts that has something to do with birthdays.
Firstly, although we might celebrate our birthday every year, our actual birthday only occurs once every 7 years! Not counting leaping years, the date we were born on moves each year to the following day of the week. For example, if we were born on Saturday March 15th, the following year, March 15th will fall on a Sunday, the year after on a Monday, and so on. This means our annual celebration is actually for our birth date - not our birthday - and in truth our birthday (the actual day we were born on) occurs only every 7 years!
Here are some Country facts relating to birthdays :-
In England, when a person reaches 80, 90 or 100 years, the person receives a telegram from the Queen.
Until quite recently, most Japanese children used to celebrate their birthdays on January 1st, regardless of which day of the year they were actually born on. Today however, most Japanese children celebrate on their actual birthdays. Also in Japan, usually only the birthdays of 60, 70, 79, 88, and 99 rate gifts. Also, gifts consisting of less than ten items in a set should be given in odd numbers (tea cups are sold in sets of five). Avoid the numbers 4 and 9 in general. White gift-wrap is associated with death (so is four of something).
In Korea, on a child's first birthday, the birthday child is dressed in special clothes. The friends and family all visit for a big feast, and leave money for the child. The child's future is foretold by the items it picks up. Also, the two most important birthdays are the 100th day and the 60th year.
In Denmark, when it's somebody's birthday a flag is flown outside the window. For children's birthdays, the presents are placed around the child's bed while they are sleeping, so they will see the presents as soon as they awake!
In Mexico, a piñata, made from paper mache and filled with sweets or other treats, is made in the shape of an animal. It is hung from the ceiling by a rope, and the birthday child is blindfolded, and hits the piñata with a stick, until it cracks open. Once the piñata is broken open, all the children share the treats.
In Russia, instead of a Birthday Cake, many Russian children are given a Birthday Pie! Instead of using icing to spell a message, Russian Birthday Pies have the message carved into the pie crust.
In Ireland, the birthday child is lifted by hands and feet, and "bumped" on the floor for good luck. The number of bumps given is the age of the child, plus one for luck!
Germans take birthdays seriously, sometimes receiving a half-day of vacation. Flowers and wine are common gifts among friends.
In China, small birthday gifts are given by family and friends. Age 30 is considered becoming an adult (there's quite a celebration). For men, age 60 is usually combined with retirement (for those doing physical labor). Do not give clocks as gifts (the Mandarin word for clock is similar to one for death). Avoid wrapping the gift using white, black or blue colors.
The French and Italian celebrate Name Days more so than birthdays.
In India, black and white gift-wrapping is considered unlucky.
In the Islamic world, green is a good color to use for wrapping.
Strange Birthday Facts :-
Since your last birthday 31,536,000 seconds have passed. In the past year your hair will most likely have grown 12 cm and your nail about 4 cm. Your heart beats at a rate of around of 72 to 80 beats per minute - since your last birthday it will have beat about 42,075,900 times. You breath at a rate of about 30 breaths per minute so, since your last birthday you have taken approximately 15,768,000 breaths. The volume of blood in your body is approximately 5 litres. The heart pumps about 280 litres of blood around your body every hour - that's 2,688,000 litres per year! The average garden snail (not one that has entered the Olympics 100 meters race) moves at around 0.03 mph. If one set out on your last birthday, and walked non-stop it would have traveled 263 miles. If you walked this distance non-stop you would complete it in around three days. Since your last birthday you will have had about 1,460 dreams. World population has grown by around 76,570,430 since your last birthday. In the time it takes you to read this another five babies will have been born. During the past year there have been more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world. The Earth is zooming around the sun at around 66,780 miles per hour! Since your last birthday the Earth has completed one journey around the sun traveling about 584,337,600 miles. If you counted 24 hours a day, you would be over 31,000 years old when you reach one trillion!
Cake, Candles, Balloons And Parties
There are a few possible explanations as to why we have candles on birthday cakes, nobody is completely sure how the tradition started. One possible reason is because the ancient Greeks used to take cakes (round to represent the full moon) to the temple of their goddess of the moon, Artemis. The Greeks are said to have placed candles on the cake to make it look as if it was glowing like the moon. It has also been claimed that the Germans invented birthday cakes, and celebrated birthdays with a cake called "Geburtstagorten". The Germans were known to have been skilled candlemakers and may have put small candles on their cakes, possibly for religious reasons. The tradition of sending birthday cards started in England about 100 years ago. Originally cards were often sent as an "apology" when a person couldn't visit somebody in person. Today we often sent birthday cards even if we can! The earliest birthday parties in history were held because people thought that evil spirits would visit them on their birthdays. They stayed close to their family and friends for protection. Later parties became social gatherings where friends and family would bring gifts or flowers to the person having their birthday. Today birthday parties are held just for fun! The first balloons are believed to have been children's toys, made from animal bladders and/or intestines, often filled with water. The Aztecs used to blow air into the bowels of sacrificed cats and twisted them into animal shapes and presented these to the gods as a sacrifice. Toy balloons were introduced by pioneer rubber manufacturer Thomas Hancock.
Trivia :-
More people celebrate their birthdays in August than in any other month (about 9% of all people). The two other months that rate high for birthdays are July and September. A recent survey suggests that more people are born on October 5 in the United States than any other day. October 5 holds a not-so-surprising significance, as conception would have fallen on New Year's Eve. The least common birth date in the U.S. is May 22nd. A Golden Birthday happens only once in a person's lifetime. It happens when the person's age and the date of the day they were born is the same.
To sum it all up. After reading this facts our next birthday will be more special. Happy Birthday to all of you in advance.
Excerpted from a speech delivered by Mr. Brody to the graduating class of John Hopkins University on May 26, 2005.
There is a man who I'd like to tell you about. His name is Sandy Greenberg. In his youth, Sandy was a very good student, but he came from a poor family. And so he went to Columbia University on a scholarship and there he met his roommate who also was receiving financial aid.
Now while he was a sophomore at Columbia University, Sandy contracted an eye disease that eventually proved to be glaucoma. But the trouble was, it wasn't detected early enough, and as a result he became legally blind. I ask you all to imagine for a moment having been sighted all your life, and then all of a sudden being faced, in a very competitive school, with losing so much sight you could no longer read. This is what happened to Sandy Greenberg.
But something else happened to Sandy that may surprise you. Sandy said that when he lost his sight, his roommate would read his textbooks to him, every night.
So I'm going to put you in that position, in a competitive school like Columbia, or Johns Hopkins. If your roommate had a serious disability, would you take the time to read textbooks to him every night, knowing the more you spend time reading textbooks to your roommate, perhaps the less well you might do with your other activities? That's not as easy a question as it first appears.
But luckily for Sandy, his roommate did. And as a result, Sandy went on to graduate with honors. He got a Fulbright Scholarship, and he went off to study at Oxford. He was still quite poor, but he said he had managed to save about five hundred dollars as he went along.
His roommate, meanwhile, also went on to graduate school. One day, Sandy got a call from him at Oxford. And his former roommate said, "Sandy I'm really unhappy. I really don't like being in graduate school, and I don't want to do this."
So Sandy asked, "Well what do you want to do?"
And his roommate told him, "Sandy, I really love to sing. I have a high school friend who plays the guitar. And we would really like to try our hand in the music business. But we need to make a promo record, and in order to do that I need $500."
So Sandy Greenberg told me he took all his life savings and sent it to his roommate. He told me, "You know, what else could I do? He made my life; I needed to help make his life."
So, I hope you'll remember the power of doing well by doing good. Each of you, in your own lives, will be faced with challenges, with roadblocks, with problems that you didn't anticipate or expect. How you are able to deal with adversity will be influenced, to no small extent, by how you deal with others along the way. What you get will depend a lot on what you give. And that's the end of the story of doing well, by doing good.
Ah! I almost forgot. You probably are wanting to know who Sandy's roommate was. I think you've heard of him. Sandy's roommate was a fellow by the name of Art Garfunkel, and he teamed up with another musician by the name of Paul Simon. That $500 helped them cut a record that eventually became "The Sounds of Silence." Recently, we had the pleasure of going to Sandy's daughter's wedding, and it was Art Garfunkel who sang as Sandy walked his daughter down the aisle.
When you get to be my age (which, for some of you, is really old, (though it doesn't seem so old to me anymore), you will find yourself beginning to ask, did my life make a difference?
That's the day of personal reckoning. And I think the only way to face it is to consider, every day of your life: How can I do something for somebody else? How can I give back to others? It may be teaching, it may be becoming a doctor, you may be successful in business - no matter what your career path, there will always be the opportunity to give back. The chance will present itself to be giving of your time, giving of your money, but mostly, to be giving of yourselves, of your own heart and soul.
My hope today, as you commence to new beginnings, is you will always keep your eyes open for those opportunities to give and embrace them as your best sure way of doing well.
Let them know you care.
A Creed for Self-Discipline
Napoleon Hill
Excerpt from ‘The Master-Key to Riches’
Willpower:
Recognizing that the power of will is the Supreme Court over all other departments of my mind, I will exercise it daily, when I need the urge to action for any purpose; and I will form habits designed to bring the power of my will into action at least once daily.
Emotions:
Realizing that my emotions are both positive and negative I will form daily habits which will encourage the development of the positive emotions, and aid me in converting the negative emotions into some form of useful action.
Reason:
Recognizing that both my positive emotions and my negative emotions may be dangerous if they are not controlled and guided to desirable ends, I will submit all my desires, aims and purposes to my faculty of reason, and I will be guided by it in giving expression to these.
Imagination:
Recognizing the need for sound plans and ideas for the attainment of my desires, I will develop my imagination by calling upon it daily for help in the formation of my plans.
Conscience:
Recognizing that my emotions often err in their over-enthusiasm, and my faculty of reason often is without the warmth of feeling that is necessary to enable me to combine justice with mercy in my judgments, I will encourage my conscience to guide me as to what is right and what is wrong, but I will never set aside the verdicts it renders, no matter what may be the cost of carrying them out.
Memory:
Recognizing the value of an alert memory, I will encourage mine to become alert by taking care to impress it clearly with all thoughts I wish to recall, and by associating those thoughts with related subjects which I may call to mind frequently.
Subconscious Mind:
Recognizing the influence of my subconscious mind over my power of will, I shall take care to submit to it a clear and definite picture of my major purpose in life and all minor purposes leading to my major purpose, and I shall keep this picture constantly before my subconscious mind by repeating it daily.
Signed_____________________________
Discipline over the mind is gained, little by little, by the formation of habits which one may control. Habits begin in the mind; therefore, a daily repetition of this creed will make one habit-conscious in connection with the particular kind of habits which are needed to develop and control the six departments of the mind.
The mere act of repeating the names of these departments has an important effect. It makes one conscious that these departments exist; that they are important; that they can be controlled by the formation of thought-habits; that the nature of these habits determines one's success or failure in the matter of self-discipline.
