"Our character, basically, is a composite of our habits. "Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny," the maxim goes.
Habits are powerful factors in our lives. Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character and produce our effectiveness or ineffectiveness.
As Horace Mann, the great educator, once said, "Habits are like a cable. We weave a strand of it everyday and soon it cannot be broken." I personally do not agree with the last part of his expression. I know they can be broken. Habits can be learned and unlearned. But I also know it isn't a quick fix. It involves a process and a tremendous commitment.
Those of us who watched the lunar voyage of Apollo 11 were transfixed as we saw the first men walk on the moon and return to earth. Superlatives such as "fantastic" and "incredible" were inadequate to describe those eventful days. But to get there, those astronauts literally had to break out of the tremendous gravity pull of the earth. More energy was spent in the first few minutes of lift-off, in the first few miles of travel, than was used over the next several days to travel half a million miles.
Habits, too, have tremendous gravity pull -- more than most people realize or would admit. Breaking deeply imbedded habitual tendencies such as procrastination, impatience, criticalness, or selfishness that violate basic principles of human effectiveness involves more than a little willpower and a few minor changes in our lives. "Lift off" takes a tremendous effort, but once we break out of the gravity pull, our freedom takes on a whole new dimension.
Like any natural force, gravity pull can work with us or against us. The gravity pull of some of our habits may currently be keeping us from going where we want to go. But it is also gravity pull that keeps our world together, that keeps the planets in their orbits and our universe in order. It is a powerful force, and if we use it effectively, we can use the gravity pull of habit to create the cohesiveness and order necessary to establish effectiveness in our lives."
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Principles & Practices
Principles are not practices. A practice is a specific activity or action. A practice that works in one circumstance will not necessarily work in another, as parents who have tried to raise a second child exactly like they did the first one can readily attest.
While practices are situationally specific, principles are deep, fundamental truths that have universal application. They apply to individuals, to marriages, to families, to private and public organizations of every kind. When these truths are internalized into habits, they empower people to create a wide variety of practices to deal with different situations.
Principles are not values. A gang of thieves can share values, but they are in violation of the fundamental principles we're talking about. Principles are the territory. Values are maps. When we value correct principles, we have truth -- a knowledge of things as they are.
Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. They're fundamental. They're essentially unarguable because they are self-evident. One way to quickly grasp the self-evident nature of principles is to simply consider the absurdity of attempting to live an effective life based on their opposites. I doubt that anyone would seriously consider unfairness, deceit, baseness, uselessness, mediocrity, or degeneration to be a solid foundation for lasting happiness and success. Although people may argue about how these principles are defined or manifested or achieved, there seems to be an innate consciousness and awareness that they exist.
The more closely our maps or paradigms are aligned with these principles or natural laws, the more accurate and functional they will be. Correct maps will infinitely impact our personal and interpersonal effectiveness far more than any amount of effort expended on changing our attitudes and behaviors.
While practices are situationally specific, principles are deep, fundamental truths that have universal application. They apply to individuals, to marriages, to families, to private and public organizations of every kind. When these truths are internalized into habits, they empower people to create a wide variety of practices to deal with different situations.
Principles are not values. A gang of thieves can share values, but they are in violation of the fundamental principles we're talking about. Principles are the territory. Values are maps. When we value correct principles, we have truth -- a knowledge of things as they are.
Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. They're fundamental. They're essentially unarguable because they are self-evident. One way to quickly grasp the self-evident nature of principles is to simply consider the absurdity of attempting to live an effective life based on their opposites. I doubt that anyone would seriously consider unfairness, deceit, baseness, uselessness, mediocrity, or degeneration to be a solid foundation for lasting happiness and success. Although people may argue about how these principles are defined or manifested or achieved, there seems to be an innate consciousness and awareness that they exist.
The more closely our maps or paradigms are aligned with these principles or natural laws, the more accurate and functional they will be. Correct maps will infinitely impact our personal and interpersonal effectiveness far more than any amount of effort expended on changing our attitudes and behaviors.
Friday, October 2, 2009
The Power of a Paradigm Shift
Perhaps the most important insight to be gained from the perception demonstration is in the area of paradigm shifting, what we might call the "Aha!" experience when someone finally "sees" the composite picture in another way. The more bound a person is by the initial perception, the more powerful the "Aha!" experience is. It's as though a light were suddenly turned on inside.
The term Paradigm Shift was introduced by Thomas Kuhn in his highly influential landmark book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn shows how almost every significant breakthrough in the field of scientific endeavor is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms.
For Ptolemy, the great Egyptian astronomer, the earth was the center of the universe. But Copernicus created a Paradigm Shift, and a great deal of resistance and persecution as well, by placing the sun at the center. Suddenly, everything took on a different interpretation.
The Newtonian model of physics was a clockwork paradigm and is still the basis of modern engineering. But it was partial, incomplete. The scientific world was revolutionized by the Einsteinian paradigm, the relativity paradigm, which had much higher predictive and explanatory value.
Until the germ theory was developed, a high percentage of women and children died during childbirth, and one could understand why. In military skirmishes, more men were dying from small wounds and diseases than from the major traumas on the front lines. But as soon as the germ theory was developed, a whole new paradigm, a better, improved way of understanding what was happening made dramatic, significant medical improvement possible.
The United States today is the fruit of a Paradigm Shift. The traditional concept of government for centuries had been a monarchy, the divine right of kings. Then a different paradigm was developed -- government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And a constitutional democracy was born, unleashing tremendous human energy and ingenuity, and creating a standard of living, of freedom and liberty, of influence and hope unequaled in the history of the world.
Not all Paradigm Shifts are in positive directions. As we have observed, the shift from the character ethic to the personality ethic has drawn us away from the very roots that nourish true success and happiness.
But whether they shift us in positive or negative directions, whether they are instantaneous or developmental, Paradigm Shifts move us from one way of seeing the world to another. And those shifts create powerful change. Our paradigms, correct or incorrect, are the sources of our attitudes and behaviors, and ultimately our relationships with others.
The term Paradigm Shift was introduced by Thomas Kuhn in his highly influential landmark book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn shows how almost every significant breakthrough in the field of scientific endeavor is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms.
For Ptolemy, the great Egyptian astronomer, the earth was the center of the universe. But Copernicus created a Paradigm Shift, and a great deal of resistance and persecution as well, by placing the sun at the center. Suddenly, everything took on a different interpretation.
The Newtonian model of physics was a clockwork paradigm and is still the basis of modern engineering. But it was partial, incomplete. The scientific world was revolutionized by the Einsteinian paradigm, the relativity paradigm, which had much higher predictive and explanatory value.
Until the germ theory was developed, a high percentage of women and children died during childbirth, and one could understand why. In military skirmishes, more men were dying from small wounds and diseases than from the major traumas on the front lines. But as soon as the germ theory was developed, a whole new paradigm, a better, improved way of understanding what was happening made dramatic, significant medical improvement possible.
The United States today is the fruit of a Paradigm Shift. The traditional concept of government for centuries had been a monarchy, the divine right of kings. Then a different paradigm was developed -- government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And a constitutional democracy was born, unleashing tremendous human energy and ingenuity, and creating a standard of living, of freedom and liberty, of influence and hope unequaled in the history of the world.
Not all Paradigm Shifts are in positive directions. As we have observed, the shift from the character ethic to the personality ethic has drawn us away from the very roots that nourish true success and happiness.
But whether they shift us in positive or negative directions, whether they are instantaneous or developmental, Paradigm Shifts move us from one way of seeing the world to another. And those shifts create powerful change. Our paradigms, correct or incorrect, are the sources of our attitudes and behaviors, and ultimately our relationships with others.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Why do we suffer pain by recreating it moment to moment?
Thought creates energy. If thought is negative, then energy is negative and that creates pain. A hurt body looks at the world through pain. A hurt body will try its best to sustain pain. It is a matter of survival. So, it loves to attract pain and sustain pain. It will use logic to protect it. Look at unhappy people. They will convince you to be miserable.
All that you can do is to create a bliss body in you. There are five layers in you: the physical body, the pranic body, the breath body, the mental body, the intellectual body and the bliss body.
All these layers in us have energies. It is in potential form. Just as there is latent fire in wood and by rubbing the wood it is invoked. In the same way you have to awaken the physical body through exercise, yoga, dance and a balanced diet. Keep the body alive and enthusiastic. You will then kindle a happy energy through the body.
The pranic or breath body has to be awakened. Breathe deeply by doing pranayama and find a different kind of joy surfacing in you. Shallow breathing creates lower energy field while deep breathing enhances one’s aliveness. The mental body can be awakened if you keep your mind calm. A calm mind has a different joy; a noisy mind is an avenue for energy leakage. When your intellect is open and receptive, yet another dimension of blissful energy arises. One who is open and receptive is always learning. That’s why children learn very fast. In deep sleep, the bliss body opens up naturally. In the waking state, if one is committed to be happy and learns to look at life as a celebration, the bliss centre will be awakened.
All that you can do is to create a bliss body in you. There are five layers in you: the physical body, the pranic body, the breath body, the mental body, the intellectual body and the bliss body.
All these layers in us have energies. It is in potential form. Just as there is latent fire in wood and by rubbing the wood it is invoked. In the same way you have to awaken the physical body through exercise, yoga, dance and a balanced diet. Keep the body alive and enthusiastic. You will then kindle a happy energy through the body.
The pranic or breath body has to be awakened. Breathe deeply by doing pranayama and find a different kind of joy surfacing in you. Shallow breathing creates lower energy field while deep breathing enhances one’s aliveness. The mental body can be awakened if you keep your mind calm. A calm mind has a different joy; a noisy mind is an avenue for energy leakage. When your intellect is open and receptive, yet another dimension of blissful energy arises. One who is open and receptive is always learning. That’s why children learn very fast. In deep sleep, the bliss body opens up naturally. In the waking state, if one is committed to be happy and learns to look at life as a celebration, the bliss centre will be awakened.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The Right (and Left) Stuff
"Our brains are extraordinary. Yet for all the brain’s complexity,its broad topography is simple and symmetrical. Scientists have long known that a neurological Mason-Dixon Line divides the brain into two regions.And until surprisingly recently,the scientific establishment considered the two regions separate but unequal.The left side,the theory went,was the crucial half,the half that made us human. The right side was subsidiary — the remnant,some argued,of an earlier stage of development. The left hemisphere was rational,analytic and logical. The right hemisphere was mute,nonlinear and instinctive — a vestige that nature had designed for a purpose that humans had outgrown.
This view prevailed for much of the next century —until a soft-spoken Caltech professor named Robert W.Sperry reshaped our understanding of our brains and ourselves. In the late 1950s,Sperry studied patients who had epileptic seizures that had required removal of the corpus callosum,the thick bundle of some 300 million nerve fibers that connects the brain’s two hemispheres.In a set of experiments on these “split-brain”patients,Sperry discovered that the established view was flawed.Yes,our brains were divided into two halves. But as he put it,“The so-called subordinate or minor hemisphere,which we had formerly supposed to be illiterate and mentally retarded and thought by some authorities to not even be conscious,was found to be in fact the superior cerebral member when it came to performing certain kinds of mental tasks.”In other words,the right wasn’t inferior to the left. It was just different.
Thanks to Sperry’s pioneering research and the advent of technologies like the fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) that allow researchers to watch the brain in action,the right hemisphere today has achieved a measure of legitimacy. It’s real. It’s important. It helps make us human. No neuroscientist worth his or her Ph.D. ever disputes that. Yet beyond the neuro-science labs and brain-imaging clinics,two misconceptions about the right side of the brain persist."
This view prevailed for much of the next century —until a soft-spoken Caltech professor named Robert W.Sperry reshaped our understanding of our brains and ourselves. In the late 1950s,Sperry studied patients who had epileptic seizures that had required removal of the corpus callosum,the thick bundle of some 300 million nerve fibers that connects the brain’s two hemispheres.In a set of experiments on these “split-brain”patients,Sperry discovered that the established view was flawed.Yes,our brains were divided into two halves. But as he put it,“The so-called subordinate or minor hemisphere,which we had formerly supposed to be illiterate and mentally retarded and thought by some authorities to not even be conscious,was found to be in fact the superior cerebral member when it came to performing certain kinds of mental tasks.”In other words,the right wasn’t inferior to the left. It was just different.
Thanks to Sperry’s pioneering research and the advent of technologies like the fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) that allow researchers to watch the brain in action,the right hemisphere today has achieved a measure of legitimacy. It’s real. It’s important. It helps make us human. No neuroscientist worth his or her Ph.D. ever disputes that. Yet beyond the neuro-science labs and brain-imaging clinics,two misconceptions about the right side of the brain persist."
A Whole New Mind - Introduction
"The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind — computer programmers who could crank code,lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind — creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people — artists,inventors,designers,storytellers,care-givers,consolers,big-picture thinkers — will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.
There is a seismic — though as yet undetected — shift now under way in much of the advanced world. We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical,linear computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age. This summary is for anyone who wants to survive and thrive in this emerging world — people uneasy in their careers or dissatisfied with their lives,entrepreneurs and business leaders eager to stay ahead of the next wave,parents who want to equip their children for the future,and the legions of emotionally astute and creatively adroit people whose distinctive abilities the Information Age has often overlooked and undervalued.
Six Senses
There are six essential aptitudes—“the six senses”—on which professional success and personal satisfaction increasingly will depend:Design,Story,Symphony,Empathy,Play and Meaning. These are fundamentally human abilities that everyone can master.
A change of such magnitude is complex. But the argument at the heart of this summary is simple. For nearly a century,Western society in general,and American society in particular,has been dominated by a form of thinking and an approach to life that is narrowly reductive and deeply analytical. Ours has been the age of the “knowledge worker,”the well-educated manipulator of information and deployer of expertise. But that is changing.Thanks to an array of forces — material abundance that is deepening our non material yearnings, globalization that is shipping white-collar work overseas,and powerful technologies that are eliminating certain kinds of work altogether — we are entering a new age. It is an age animated by a different form of thinking and a new approach to life — one that prizes “high concept”and “high touch”aptitudes. High concept involves the capacity to detect patterns and opportunities,to create artistic and emotional beauty,to craft a satisfying narrative,and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new. High touch involves the ability to empathize with others,to understand the subtleties of human interaction,to find joyin one’s self and to elicit it in others,and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.
Two Hemispheres
There’s something that encapsulates the change —and it’s right inside your head. Our brains are divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere is sequential,logical and analytical. The right hemisphere is nonlinear,intuitive and holistic.
We enlist both halves of our brains for even the simplest tasks. But the well-established differences between the two hemispheres of the brain yield a powerful metaphor for interpreting our present and guiding our future. Today,the defining skills of the previous era — the “left brain”capabilities that powered the Information Age — are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous — the “right brain”qualities of inventiveness,empathy,joyfulness and meaning — increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders. For individuals,families and organizations,professional success and personal fulfillment now require a whole new mind."
There is a seismic — though as yet undetected — shift now under way in much of the advanced world. We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical,linear computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age. This summary is for anyone who wants to survive and thrive in this emerging world — people uneasy in their careers or dissatisfied with their lives,entrepreneurs and business leaders eager to stay ahead of the next wave,parents who want to equip their children for the future,and the legions of emotionally astute and creatively adroit people whose distinctive abilities the Information Age has often overlooked and undervalued.
Six Senses
There are six essential aptitudes—“the six senses”—on which professional success and personal satisfaction increasingly will depend:Design,Story,Symphony,Empathy,Play and Meaning. These are fundamentally human abilities that everyone can master.
A change of such magnitude is complex. But the argument at the heart of this summary is simple. For nearly a century,Western society in general,and American society in particular,has been dominated by a form of thinking and an approach to life that is narrowly reductive and deeply analytical. Ours has been the age of the “knowledge worker,”the well-educated manipulator of information and deployer of expertise. But that is changing.Thanks to an array of forces — material abundance that is deepening our non material yearnings, globalization that is shipping white-collar work overseas,and powerful technologies that are eliminating certain kinds of work altogether — we are entering a new age. It is an age animated by a different form of thinking and a new approach to life — one that prizes “high concept”and “high touch”aptitudes. High concept involves the capacity to detect patterns and opportunities,to create artistic and emotional beauty,to craft a satisfying narrative,and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new. High touch involves the ability to empathize with others,to understand the subtleties of human interaction,to find joyin one’s self and to elicit it in others,and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.
Two Hemispheres
There’s something that encapsulates the change —and it’s right inside your head. Our brains are divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere is sequential,logical and analytical. The right hemisphere is nonlinear,intuitive and holistic.
We enlist both halves of our brains for even the simplest tasks. But the well-established differences between the two hemispheres of the brain yield a powerful metaphor for interpreting our present and guiding our future. Today,the defining skills of the previous era — the “left brain”capabilities that powered the Information Age — are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous — the “right brain”qualities of inventiveness,empathy,joyfulness and meaning — increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders. For individuals,families and organizations,professional success and personal fulfillment now require a whole new mind."
Thursday, March 26, 2009
'Megaliving' Introduction excerpts
...You can make your world the bed of roses that you have always dreamed of, the decision is yours alone. If you want this kind of a magical existence,the golden key is to remember that your mind is the sole author of your success. If you master your thoughts, you master your mind. Once you master your mind, you master your life and when you master your life you master your destiny.
Past experiences, failures or trouble spots have nothing to do with the potential that exists within you. If anything, past failure has made you far wiser and stronger than you would have been without the benefit of the experience. Pain is a teacher. Today, and every day, take complete charge and responsibility for your life and all that is in it. If you don’t have enough money and want more, decide to make changes and take determined action to realize your dreams. If you want better health and more energy, make a decision from your very core to achieve greater vitality. If you want ideal relationships, dedicate yourself to becoming the kind of person that sustains such bonds. But it will not just come to you by chance. If you keep doing the same things every day, you are certain to get the same results every day. Winners are no different from less successful people, they have just learned to do different things that give them their fabulous results.
... Small victories lead to large victories. Once you start feeling more vital and energetic, you will start achieving even more because you cannot do good unless you feel good. This leads to another primary principle of successful living:
we are happiest when we are growing and feeling that we are contributing in some way. The purpose of life is a life of purpose and we all, deep down,want to leave a legacy of some form or another. When you dedicate yourself to tapping into the extraordinary potential of your mind, body and spirit, you set powerful forces into play and things start to happen in every aspect of your life. And when you know that you are improving, your confidence and enthusiasm starts to blossom. And when your enthusiasm starts to blossom, your passion and energy blooms. And when your energy starts to explode you start to create opportunity after opportunity for success in your life. Perhaps the great philosopher of India, Patanjali said it best: “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts break their bonds, your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in anew great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
Past experiences, failures or trouble spots have nothing to do with the potential that exists within you. If anything, past failure has made you far wiser and stronger than you would have been without the benefit of the experience. Pain is a teacher. Today, and every day, take complete charge and responsibility for your life and all that is in it. If you don’t have enough money and want more, decide to make changes and take determined action to realize your dreams. If you want better health and more energy, make a decision from your very core to achieve greater vitality. If you want ideal relationships, dedicate yourself to becoming the kind of person that sustains such bonds. But it will not just come to you by chance. If you keep doing the same things every day, you are certain to get the same results every day. Winners are no different from less successful people, they have just learned to do different things that give them their fabulous results.
... Small victories lead to large victories. Once you start feeling more vital and energetic, you will start achieving even more because you cannot do good unless you feel good. This leads to another primary principle of successful living:
we are happiest when we are growing and feeling that we are contributing in some way. The purpose of life is a life of purpose and we all, deep down,want to leave a legacy of some form or another. When you dedicate yourself to tapping into the extraordinary potential of your mind, body and spirit, you set powerful forces into play and things start to happen in every aspect of your life. And when you know that you are improving, your confidence and enthusiasm starts to blossom. And when your enthusiasm starts to blossom, your passion and energy blooms. And when your energy starts to explode you start to create opportunity after opportunity for success in your life. Perhaps the great philosopher of India, Patanjali said it best: “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts break their bonds, your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in anew great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Power of Limitless Living
One of the most essential truths to recognize is the fact that the only limits on what we can achieve in life are those we create and place on ourselves. Circumstances are the creation of people and not the other way around. Peak performers, as opposed to the weak performers, have trained themselves to shape the events of their lives rather than being shaped by them. Think of the current limitations in your life, the obstacles preventing you from attaining your dreams and that state of bliss you so much desire. You have interpreted each one of these circumstances to be a roadblock or negative element in your life when this is not the case.
One of the most fundamental of all strategies for success is also one of the most simple: there is no such thing as a negative circumstance, only a circumstance that you may learn from. There are no mistakes in life, only lessons which will allow you to grow and advance higher on the path of self-mastery. If you set limits on yourself such as “I am too young to be a multi-millionaire,” “I am not smart enough to be a world leader,” “I am too lazy to start my own business”or, “I don’t have enough money to do this,” your spirit will slowly die and you will fulfill your negative prophecy. Stop being a prisoner of your past - become the architect of your future. Every event happens for a special purpose. Every problem is a special challenge from which we can learn and prosper to new heights of achievement. Every moment is perfect in nature, whether you realize it or not. If you recognize this age-old truth, you will accept every experience with gratitude and you will see the opportunity in every event, no matter how challenging it might appear initially. If you don’t understand this principle, you will never realize the wonderful destiny that is yours for the taking.
The mind has immeasurable and vast potential that remains untapped in most people. It has been said that even the best conditioned thinkers use only about 25% of their minds. What happened to the remaining 75%? Indian yogis living high up in the Himalayan mountains have disciplined their minds to the point where they can control their so-called involuntary processes such as their heartbeat, digestion and nervous functioning. These wise sages of the East have been dipping their fingers into the vast pool of mental potential for over 5000 years and have refined mastery of the mind into a science. Through a combination of meditative techniques and breath control these yogis are able to withstand enormous amounts of physical pain and go for extended periods without food or sleep. Such is the power within every one of us. Mothers whose children have fallen under cars have, in the heat of the moment, lifted the vehicle to save their little ones. Seventy-year-old men have run marathons and climbed mountains. There are simply no limits for a person who accepts no limits.
One of the most fundamental of all strategies for success is also one of the most simple: there is no such thing as a negative circumstance, only a circumstance that you may learn from. There are no mistakes in life, only lessons which will allow you to grow and advance higher on the path of self-mastery. If you set limits on yourself such as “I am too young to be a multi-millionaire,” “I am not smart enough to be a world leader,” “I am too lazy to start my own business”or, “I don’t have enough money to do this,” your spirit will slowly die and you will fulfill your negative prophecy. Stop being a prisoner of your past - become the architect of your future. Every event happens for a special purpose. Every problem is a special challenge from which we can learn and prosper to new heights of achievement. Every moment is perfect in nature, whether you realize it or not. If you recognize this age-old truth, you will accept every experience with gratitude and you will see the opportunity in every event, no matter how challenging it might appear initially. If you don’t understand this principle, you will never realize the wonderful destiny that is yours for the taking.
The mind has immeasurable and vast potential that remains untapped in most people. It has been said that even the best conditioned thinkers use only about 25% of their minds. What happened to the remaining 75%? Indian yogis living high up in the Himalayan mountains have disciplined their minds to the point where they can control their so-called involuntary processes such as their heartbeat, digestion and nervous functioning. These wise sages of the East have been dipping their fingers into the vast pool of mental potential for over 5000 years and have refined mastery of the mind into a science. Through a combination of meditative techniques and breath control these yogis are able to withstand enormous amounts of physical pain and go for extended periods without food or sleep. Such is the power within every one of us. Mothers whose children have fallen under cars have, in the heat of the moment, lifted the vehicle to save their little ones. Seventy-year-old men have run marathons and climbed mountains. There are simply no limits for a person who accepts no limits.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Joy - The Happiness that comes from Within
Foreword
Let me first tell you an anecdote:
"My doctor insisted that I come to see you," the patient told the psychiatrist. "Goodness knows why - I am happily married, secure in my job, lots of friends, no worries..."
"Hmmm," said the psychiatrist, reaching out for a notebook, "and how long have you been like this?"
Happiness is unbelievable. It seems that man cannot be happy. If you talk about your depression, sadness, misery, everybody believes it; it seems natural. If you talk about your happiness nobody believes you-it seems unnatural.
Sigmund Freud, after forty years of research into the human mind-working with thousands of people, observing thousands of disturbed minds-came to the conclusion that happiness is a fiction: Man cannot be happy. At the most, we can make things a little more comfortable, that's all. At the most we can reduce unhappiness a little, that's all, but happy? Man cannot be.
This sounds pessimistic...but if you look at humanity, it seems to be exactly the case; it seems to be a fact. Only human beings are unhappy. Something deep down has gone wrong.
I say this to you on my own authority: Human beings can be happy, more happy than the birds, more happy than the trees, more happy than the stars - because human beings have something that no tree, no bird, no star, has. They have consciousness.
But when you have consciousness, two alternatives are possible: Either you can become happy or you can become unhappy. Then it is your choice.
Let me first tell you an anecdote:
"My doctor insisted that I come to see you," the patient told the psychiatrist. "Goodness knows why - I am happily married, secure in my job, lots of friends, no worries..."
"Hmmm," said the psychiatrist, reaching out for a notebook, "and how long have you been like this?"
Happiness is unbelievable. It seems that man cannot be happy. If you talk about your depression, sadness, misery, everybody believes it; it seems natural. If you talk about your happiness nobody believes you-it seems unnatural.
Sigmund Freud, after forty years of research into the human mind-working with thousands of people, observing thousands of disturbed minds-came to the conclusion that happiness is a fiction: Man cannot be happy. At the most, we can make things a little more comfortable, that's all. At the most we can reduce unhappiness a little, that's all, but happy? Man cannot be.
This sounds pessimistic...but if you look at humanity, it seems to be exactly the case; it seems to be a fact. Only human beings are unhappy. Something deep down has gone wrong.
I say this to you on my own authority: Human beings can be happy, more happy than the birds, more happy than the trees, more happy than the stars - because human beings have something that no tree, no bird, no star, has. They have consciousness.
But when you have consciousness, two alternatives are possible: Either you can become happy or you can become unhappy. Then it is your choice.
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