Life 03 (Jun 09 - Jul 09)

[winston]

On Attitude:-

Solomon: Too much pride will destroy you. You are better off to be humble and poor than to get rich from what you take by force.

Proverbs 16:18-19

[winston]

On Wisdom:-

Sharp words cut like a sword, but words of wisdom heal.

Proverbs 12:18

[millionairemind]

The Zero Vacation

By Byron Pulsifer, © 2009

Odd as it may seem, thousands of people have found solutions to problems or have been able to see their way through difficult choices at the strangest times. You may think that the best solutions to challenges or issues come from spending consistent and dedicated time focused on the issue or challenge in order to find the answer but you may be surprised.

Countless resolutions, to what may have seemed an insurmountable problem, haven’t been born through intense brainpower. Take, for example, the person who says that their best thoughts come when they are out walking their dog in the park, or during a long and leisurely shower, or when taking a drive through the countryside. So, why is this?

For those of you who have a burning issue where the solution or tactic eludes you, or when you have been working on a task that just seems to have gotten the better of you and you can’t make headway, take a mini zero vacation. A what, you ask?

In simple terms, it is sometimes better to let your mind go to zero where you are not consciously trying to arrive at an answer or solution. In order to take this mini zero vacation, you probably will best be doing something totally different from whatever it is you are attempting to overcome or resolve. Take yourself away from your normal surroundings and engage in an activity that, at least on the conscious level, involves your mind in something pleasurable, different, unusual, or physically challenging. It is when your conscious mind is involved in a different or rewarding activity that allows your subconscious mind to work on whatever it is that is giving you a particularly difficult time.

Going to zero doesn’t have to mean going on a long vacation to some remote island or exotic getaway either. Going to zero can be as close as a nearby wind swept beach, or tranquil lake where you can put a line in or go for a canoe ride, or simply skip stones across the water. An activity can be physically engaging like tennis, roller blading, swimming or jogging.

The point is this: give yourself permission to let your mind go to zero where it concerns whatever task, issue, or challenge you face and are struggling with. You may just find what you have been searching for.

[winston]

You have to be your own teacher

The speaker is not important at all; what is important is for you to find out these things for yourself, so that you are free and not second-hand human beings. You must look to find out, to find out whether or not it is possible for the mind to be completely and totally free of this violence, pride and arrogance, and so come upon a different quality altogether.

And to find that out you must look most intimately and discover for yourself; then it is your own, not somebody else’s, not something that you have been told, because there is no teacher and no follower. Unfortunately that word “guru” has been bandied about recently in this country; the word in Sanskrit means “the one who points”, like a signpost by the roadside.

However, you don’t worship that post, hang garlands around it; neither do you follow it around and carry out all the mysterious orders a guru is supposed to give; he is just a signpost by the roadside, you read and pass by. So you have to be your own teacher and your own disciple, and there is no teacher outside, no saviour, no master; you yourself have to change, and therefore you have to learn to observe, to know yourself. This learning about yourself is a fascinating and joyous business…

Talks with American Students, p 98

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com

[winston]

By saturating work with love, it can be transformed into worship. When such work is offered to the Divine, it gets sanctified into sacramental worship. This makes it free from ego. It is also freed from the earthly desire for success and the earthly fear of failure.

When you can feel that when you have done the work as best as you can, your worship is complete. It is then for Him who has accepted the worship to confer on you what He considers best. This attitude will make the work unattached. Regular practice of this discipline will render the consciousness clear and pure.

Without this practice, however prospective your career might be, however much you may accumulate the wherewithal of a comfortable life, to whatever heights of authority you may have climbed through the exercise of intelligence, your gains shall be nothing, unless your every activity is suffused with the Divine purity, that is inherent in consciousness.

- Divine Discourse, Mar 6, 1977.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What is it all about? To get things done? No! Because you do them, and you undo them, and you do them, and you undo them, and you do them, and you undo them... What is the point in all of it?

It is the thrill of the process along the way. Physical human minds keeps thinking, We have to be going towards some end. And you kill each other by the millions trying to decide what is the appropriate end that you are all going toward. And we say, well, there's your flawed premise. Because there is no end that you're going toward. We are all on a perpetual cycle of joyous becoming. We will never get it done, ever, ever, ever, ever

--- Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Spokane, WA on Tuesday, May 30th, 2000

Source: abraham-hicks.com

[winston]

All authority must come to an end

What we are going to do is to learn about ourselves—not according to the speaker, or to Freud, or to Jung, to some analyst or philosopher—but to learn actually what we are. If we learn about ourselves according to Freud we learn about Freud, not about ourselves.

To learn about oneself, all authority must come to an end, all authority—whether it be the authority of the church or of the local priest, or the famous analyst, or of the greatest philosophers with their intellectual formulas, and so on. So the first thing that one has to realize when we become serious, demanding a total revolution within the structure of our own psyche, is that there is no authority of any kind.

That is very difficult, for there is not only the outward authority, which one can easily reject, but there is inward authority: the inward authority of one’s own experience, of one’s own accumulated knowledge, of the opinions, ideas, ideals which guide one’s life and according to which one tries to live.

Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1967, p 11

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com

[winston]

The real problem is the mind itself

It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself, and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness. If I have a little mind and I think of God, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I may clothe him with grandeur, beauty, wisdom, and all the rest of it.

It is the same with the problem of existence, the problem of bread, the problem of love, the problem of sex, the problem of relationship, the problem of death. These are all enormous problems, and we approach them with a small mind; we try to resolve them with a mind that is very limited. Though it has extraordinary capacities and is capable of invention, of subtle, cunning thought, the mind is still petty. It may be able to quote Marx, or the Gita, or some other religious book, but it is still a small mind, and a small mind confronted with a complex problem can only translate that problem in terms of itself, and therefore the problem, the misery increases.

So the question is: Can the mind that is small, petty, be transformed into something which is not bound by its own limitations?

The Collected Works vol X, pp 155-156

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com

[winston]

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*** Article: How to Save Your Sanity During Life Transitions - By Tolu Adeleye, Ph.D. ***
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Life is full of changes, and transitioning from one stage or position to another is a natural part of daily living. Unfortunately, some of those changes -- like divorce, job loss, or the death of someone close to you -- are imposed on you most often by circumstances beyond your control. What more, such imposed changes often happen in the blink of an eye.

One minute you're securely employed, and the next minute you're packing up your desk because the company's been sold. One minute you're happily married, and the next your spouse is saying that he or she doesn't love you anymore. One minute you're laughing with your sister, and the next you're watching her slip away on a hospital bed. Such unexpected events can leave you emotionally and spiritually reeling.

On the other hand, you often welcome life transitions such as marriage and improved career status as positive changes because you have long desired and planned ahead for them. You are full of excitement when you get married or welcome a new baby into your family after months of expectation and planning. Your joy knows no limit when you get that new job or career that you have always wanted or move to your recently purchased new home. However, though positive, these desired life transitions can also take their toil on you in significant ways.

How do you save your sanity when going through difficult changes? How do you ensure that you'll be able to make it through life transitions and come out a whole person on the other side?

Here are a few tips to help you navigate through your period of change:

1. Take time to pause and mourn about your loss. Mourning involves acknowledging that something you owned or an old way of life is gone. It may be an old job, a loved one, or a state of singleness (for a new marriage). Adequate mourning in your own way is essential if you are to successfully move forward after the period of change.

2. Celebrate the past and carry the lessons learnt forward. Identify key achievements or acquisitions in the past that you are leaving behind. If you are moving to a new home, create an album of memories and have a going-away party. If the loss is an imposed one, try and find noble causes to celebrate even though it may be challenging.

3. Examine your options for your new status or position. Make a list of resources that can help you with making informed decisions about your new way of life. If you are seeking a new job or career, visit your library/online job boards, attend networking parties, and speak to human resources consultants. Take time to gather information and connect with appropriate people.

4. Maintain a constructive attitude. Focus on the positive aspects of the change that will help you rise above the challenges of the negative ones. You do not have to get stuck in the muddy paths of life transitions. Learn that you can use your change as a stepping stone to greater fulfillment.

Life transitions could be challenging, but with the right attitude and perspective, you can stay sane through the change and live an enriched life on the other side.

[winston]

Seeing one's own reality is the opening of the doors of liberation.

For this, the mirror of the heart has to be prepared by coating the back of the heart with Truth and Righteous Action. Otherwise the image will not appear. In every act of yours, if you observe truth and justice, then you can see your own reality revealed. You may say that the burden of past acts and their inevitable consequences have to be borne; but the Grace of the Divine can burn that burden in a flash; the revelation of reality, will, in a flash, save you from that burden.

-Divine Discourse, Dec 25, 1976

Source: radiosai.org