Life 02 (Nov 08 - May 09)

Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby LenaHuat » Thu May 14, 2009 5:01 pm

Hi SanSan

I wrote these lines when my thoughts turned to a secondary classmate who has just died of lung cancer. She was a non-smoker and mother of 3 :( . Her husband blamed it on her smoking co-workers during the early years of her career when smoking was permitted in air-conditioned offices. I think Chinese-style cooking in poorly ventilated kitchens contribute to the cause too.

We can't create time. Life is often unsorted. We can only pour our energies and spirit when opportunities arise and on things that matter to us. Hence I do not favor much speculation about the lifehereafter. Seize the moment and dump those trivial wants and nice-to-have things.

Unclutter my life, I suppose that's what I am trying to say. :lol: :lol:
Please be forewarned that you are reading a post by an otiose housewife. ImageImage**Image**Image@@ImageImageImage
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby helios » Thu May 14, 2009 5:30 pm

yo Lena Jie,

life breathes and expands.
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Fri May 15, 2009 9:26 am

Not sure that I agree with this article...

The Power of Negative Visualization by Alexander Green. Spiritual Wealth

When Norman Vincent Peale wrote "The Power of Positive Thinking" sixty years ago, he received a stack of rejection slips from publishers.

Dejected, he threw the manuscript into the trash, forbidding his wife to remove it. She didn't.

The next day, however, she took the manuscript, still inside the wastebasket, to a publisher who accepted it. The book became a foundation stone of the human potential movement, selling more than 20 million copies in 47 languages.

Much of Peale's homespun advice sounds quaint or even amusing to us today. Still, the book did a good job of articulating a basic truth: To a great extent, you create your world with your thoughts. Most personal achievements begin with an abiding faith that we can and will accomplish them.

Even realizing your goals, however, will not lead to lasting satisfaction. That's because human wants are insatiable.

Most of us are trapped on what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill. We work to achieve what we desire. Those things satisfy us for a while. But we soon adapt to them and dissatisfaction returns.

So next time we set the bar a little higher...

Our lives can easily become a pastiche of unfulfilled desires. We yearn for a better-paying job, more recognition, greater social status, a newer car, a bigger house, a firmer abdomen, perhaps even a sexier spouse.

Dissatisfaction is not all bad, of course. Desire can motivate us to achieve good things in our lives, too.

But a continual sense of lack creates anxiety. It undermines our satisfaction. Peace of mind eludes us.

Fortunately, the ancient Stoic philosophers knew a technique to override the adaptation process and recapture the contentment we seek. It's called negative visualization.

Negative visualization is spending time each day imaging that you have lost the things you value most. Vividly imagine, for example, that your job has just been terminated, that your house - with all your possessions - has burned to the ground, that your partner has left you, or that you have lost your sight, your hearing or the use of your limbs.

This sounds horribly bleak at first, I know. But the Stoics were onto something here.

They understood that everything we enjoy in life is simply "on loan" to us from Fortune. Any of it - all of it - can be recalled without a moment's notice.

Epictetus reminds us, for example, that our children have been given to us "for the present, not inseparably nor forever." His advice: In the very act of kissing your child, silently reflect on the possibility that she could die tomorrow.

The Roman philosopher Seneca advises us to live each day as if it were our last, indeed as if this very moment were our last.

He's not suggesting that you drop your responsibilities and squander the day in frivolous or hedonistic activities. He's encouraging you to change your state of mind.

Most of us are already living the dream we once had for ourselves. Along the way, however, we become jaded, bored, numb to the blessings that surround us. The Stoics' goal is to wake us up, to make us appreciate what we have today.

Some will argue that negative visualization is fine for those of us who are happy, healthy and prosperous, but how about the troubled, the less fortunate?

Negative visualization works for them, too. If you have lost your job, imagine losing your possessions. If you have lost your possessions, imagine losing the people you love. If you have lost the people you love, imagine losing your health. If you have lost your health, imagine losing your life.

There is hardly a person alive who could not be worse off. That makes it hard to imagine someone who wouldn't benefit from this technique.

Adaptation diminishes our enjoyment of the world. Negative visualization brings it back.

It also prepares us for life's inevitable setbacks. Survivors of tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters, for example, may suffer terribly.

Yet afterwards they often tell us that they were just sleepwalking through life before. Now they are joyously, thankfully alive.

No one should need a catastrophe to feel this way. You can attain the same realization through negative visualization.

Moreover, it can be practiced regularly, so its beneficial effects, unlike a catastrophe, can last indefinitely.

Try it and you'll see. I've found it's perfect for when you're standing in line or stuck in traffic, time that would be wasted anyway.

By contemplating the impermanence of everything in your world, you can invest all your activities with more intensity, higher significance, greater awareness.

In sum, Norman Vincent Peale got it half right.

Positive visualization helps you get what you want. Negative visualization helps you want what you get.
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Fri May 15, 2009 4:21 pm

You don't have to justify the good that flows to you; it is a given.

You are of more value in the joy of your cross-stitching than in the struggle of your ironing.


Excerpted from the workshop in Virginia Beach, VA on Saturday, April 12th, 1997

Source: abraham-hicks.com
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sat May 16, 2009 6:51 am

Virtue can be cultivated through voluntary, selfless service to the living beings. A virtuous person can be both healthy and happy.

Virtue must flow through the triple channels of love, mercy and detachment, if it has to feed the roots of Service. Human beings are endowed with the instinct of gregariousness, in order to tread the path of mutual sympathy, continuous compassion and concrete service.

Virtue is the panacea to lead a healthy and happy life.

- Divine Discourse, Sep, 1980.

Source: radiosai.org
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sat May 16, 2009 7:50 am

Seasons of Change: The Law of Rhythm by Dawn McIntyre

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Everything is either growing or it’s dying.” It’s a simple expression that sums up the Universal Law of Rhythm, which states that the energy in the universe is like a pendulum. When something swings to the right, then it must swing to the left. Everything in existence is involved in a dance—swaying, flowing, and swinging back and forth.

The one thing we can count on is change, as everything is energy, and energy is constantly changing form. Why is then, that we seem to have a meltdown whenever change occurs?

We experience the Law of Rhythm everywhere and in everything. We see it in our sunrises and sunsets, in the ocean’s tide, in our seasons, our growing children, our moods, bank accounts, relationships, our economy, and even in our businesses.

Everything goes through cycles, yet everything has a rhythm or a pattern. What seems to be random is actually very orderly.

I believe that it is part of our divine mission to simply go with this flow- to embrace change and allow it to stretch and expand us. It is through our divine wisdom that we recognize the signs that it is time for us to change—to grow and prepare ourselves for it. Eric Hoffer says, “In times of change, the learners will inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Here’s a good example for you: It’s no doubt the world has been changed by the Internet. In one instance, print publications—newspapers and magazines are being shut down right and left because most people get their information and entertainment on-line. However, there are a few newspapers that have embraced the new paradigm by offering on-line publications, and are achieving great success because of their flexibility and innovation. Instead of resisting the change, they embraced it and figured out a way to co-exist gracefully with the shift.

Wayne Dyer talks about behaving like a palm tree in times of change and refers to the flexibility of the palm, as opposed to an oak tree, in the midst of a storm. The oak tree will snap in half, while the palm tree can bend completely horizontally, only to snap back up once the storm has passed.

Once we acknowledge and accept that the Law of Rhythm is at work, not only can we learn to adapt to change, but we can also relax into our lives with grace and ease. Instead of feeling guilty for taking a few days off from work, for example, realize that the amount of energy you put into your work previously, has been exhausted. Your energy must be replenished, and it is through rest that it is. By knowing this, you can then be gentle with yourself and predict the patterns of your own behavior, and schedule time for work and time for rest.

Expect change. It is inevitable. Instead of retreating in fear, uncertainty and doubt, look to it as natural progression and divine opportunity for us to expand into our absolute brilliant selves.

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Seas ... hange.html
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sat May 16, 2009 7:56 pm

How do you feel about those things that you are giving most of your attention to?

If there is something in your life that gives you negative emotion almost every time you think about it, we would do anything that we could do to get that negative thing out of our awareness.

Excerpted from the workshop in Phoenix, AZ on Sunday, April 5th, 1998

Source: abraham-hicks.com
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sun May 17, 2009 7:20 am

Just as you prescribe minimum qualifications for every profession, the minimum qualification for Grace is surrender of egoism, control over senses, and regulated food and recreation.

The body is the boat on which we voyage across the ocean of our worldly lives. It has to be kept trim and sea-worthy. The atmosphere we breathe in, the water we take in, the ground we live in, the animals and plants that surround us - all have to be maintained clean.

Exercise, bathing, washing and cleaning activities are prescribed for this purpose. So also, the voyager too, must be strong, confident and courageous.

- Divine Discourse, Sep 1980

Source: radiosai.org
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sun May 17, 2009 7:52 am

On Talking

Source: The 'Prophet'

"You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;

And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words many indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone. The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.

And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.

And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words. In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue. Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;

For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more."
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Mon May 18, 2009 7:30 am

Liberation is giving up of the unreal.

Let us suppose you want a cup of fruit juice. Unless you throw away the water already in the cup, you cannot pour the juice in the cup. Similarly, unless you give up materialism, Spiritual Attitude cannot come to you.

Liberation is not a distinct and different spiritual discipline. It is only giving up unnecessary desires. Ignorance is the cause of jealousy, and jealousy is the cause of disharmony. And disharmony is the cause of anger. Through anger, wisdom is lost.

The real spiritual wisdom is seeing "One in All" at all times. If there is duality or differences, wisdom declines.

- Divine Discourse, Sep 21, 1980.

Source: radiosai.org
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