Listen to silence

 

The story below in a simple way illustrates Rumi’s wisdom and the magic of silence:

“There once was a farmer who discovered that he had lost his watch in the barn. It was no ordinary watch because it had sentimental value for him.

After searching high and low among the hay for a long while; he gave up and enlisted the help of a group of children playing outside the barn.

He promised them that the person who found it would be rewarded.

Hearing this, the children hurried inside the barn, went through and around the entire stack of hay but still could not find the watch. Just when the farmer was about to give up looking for his watch, a little boy went up to him and asked to be given another chance.

The farmer looked at him and thought, “Why not? After all, this kid looks sincere enough.”

So the farmer sent the little boy back in the barn. After a while the little boy came out with the watch in his hand! The farmer was both happy and surprised and so he asked the boy how he succeeded where the rest had failed. 

The boy replied, “I did nothing but sit on the ground and listen. In the silence, I heard the ticking of the watch and just looked for it in that direction.”

The story proves that creative thoughts and problem solving solutions emerge only when the mind is calm and uncluttered. Even neuroscience has proven that silence nourishes the mind and body. Its a good to practice to sit in silence for at least 10 minutes once or twice a day. Soon the mind when faced with a situation will learn to auto-connect with our inner silence and think with clarity to find a solution.

Cheers and best wishes to all my friends! 🙂

 

 

 

 

A lesson in humility

In life we would rather be teachers than students. But we have to be learners till the end of our lives. A regular churchgoer felt a prompting one Saturday morning to go to the church. It was empty save for a woman in faded jeans who did not seem well off and was dusting and arranging the  benches. He concluded that she was doing this work to earn some money for her family. The man  returned to his car and took out two fifty dollar notes. He waited till the lady was leaving the  church and tried to help her by handing over his donation. She refused his offer, but he insisted and finally she accepted the offer. He accompanied her as she left the church. Imagine his consternation when they came to a brand new BMW and the lady  entered the car. As she was leaving she handed him her card. The result of her humility was that now there are two people every Saturday morning in the church dusting and arranging the benches.

His lesson on generosity turned for him into a lesson on humility!

We need to be careful never to fall in the trap of generosity which may be couched in our ego. Let our generosity always be tempered with humility.

Cheers 🙂

 

Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year 2017

Hello friends it feels good to be back after a refreshing break! Yes it’s that time of the year – December comes with all the joys of Christmas and the brightness of the New Year. In our fun and merriment lets also pause and give a thought and a prayer for our less fortunate brethren the gift of health happiness and love. Maybe a small act of kindness to bring a smile on their lips and in their eyes. 🙂

 

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year”. ~ Ralf Waldo Emerson

Cheers and best always  🙂

Ego so elusive

Our lives could be so much better, so much more peaceful and joyful if only we could become aware of our ego. Awareness is the first step to identify our deep rooted ego. Yet Ego itself is the most formidable barrier to awareness. Therefore instead of taking the elusive ego head-on it may be wiser to work towards achieving a state of awareness. This is because the ego lies couched in most of our actions even in our good acts like helping the needy or making donations. Why? because the ego makes us feel we superior like “playing God”! So we are back where we started.

“No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves”! ~ Hugh Prather

“If a man thinks he is not conceited, he is very conceited indeed”!  ~ C.S Lewis

Cheers dear friends and lets wish each other an ego-free journey ahead 🙂

A bloom of joy – the mystical Brahma Kamal

Hello friends this year too my friend Brig. Chow’s (Chowdhry) home was blessed with the bloom of the Brahm Kamal flowers in his garden. Very gracious of him to share his thoughts and pictures as below:

“The gorgeous Brahma Kamal’s are so beautiful that they are glorified by different names two of which are The Star of Bethlehem and the Lotus of the Gods. Lotus symbolizes purity and enlightenment. These breathtakingly beautiful flowers bring with them an aura of such calm, peace and beauty, as if to say, that despite the present turmoil in the World all will be well. They are perhaps the most precious flowers in the world since they come as night visitors, and by morning are completely a spent force, as if to ratify a favorite quote of mine by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

My candle burns at both ends;

   It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

   It gives a lovely light!

 

 

 

 

I would like to mention here quite an amazing occurrence – a niece of mine in L.A. with geographical and climatic conditions, have these flowers blooming within a day or two of us in Pune. It is monsoon time here but no rains there! Lovely are ways of God.

With the plants with me having matured now over the last four years or so, they bloomed a number of times during the monsoons in clusters of twos, fours and sixes as the rains progress. The first bloom of two this season occurred just a few days before the onset of monsoons.”

So friends we wrap-up now with a big thank you to our guest writer and a quote by Alfred Austin which aptly depicts the Brig’s love for gardening ~

“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul”.

Cheers and a have lovely week! 🙂

Secret to Happiness

Zen Masters have a way of expounding great truths in simple ways. Who doesn’t want to be happy? yet happiness remains elusive to most of us. The Zen wisdom below simplifies the secret to attain happiness in just a few words. Yes to be happy or not is entirely our choice as our happiness does not depend on anyone else. If we consider each moment as precious we will not allow it to be frittered away in bickering and negativity. For this we need to be intensely aware of every fleeting moment which we have and savor it.

So lets make it a point to enjoy the heavenly bliss of nature in all its bounties. In beautiful forests and serene lakes and by helping the needy. In the smiles and wonder of children and being in love with humanity.

What if after you die, God asks you “So, how was heaven?” 🙂 🙂

 

Cute managers!

These two young managers are in the business of selling happiness for free 😉

 

 

“Be the person who your dog thinks you are!” ~ J.W. Stephens

Have a wonderful weekend my dear friends!

The School Bell

Who doesn’t remember the school bell and the pleasant memories associated with it. And why does a school bell sound not so pleasant in the morning whereas the same bell sounds so beautiful at the end of school day closing.

The first bell signals a structured regimen of studies and discipline. Whereas the final bell is music to our ears as it heralds freedom fun and play.

How nice if we could start our day visualising the sweet sound of the second bell and have a wonderful day?

Come friends lets all “Live Life Less Serious” 😎 😎

 

 

 

 

Short and Sweet

ONCE, all villagers decided to pray for rain, on the day of prayer all the people gathered but only one boy came with an umbrella.
That’s FAITH

Grown-ups always need logic or reason to believe yet things can still go wrong. But little children live a happy life with wonder in their eyes and without care for the outcomes.

“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe” ~ Voltaire

Have a good day my friends 🙂

Patience in a fast moving world

We all seem to be in a hurry in whatever we do. More so as life today has become fiercely competitive and we want to achieve our goals before anyone else does. But in this frenzy our mind gets clouded with tension and negative thoughts and our ability to think gets severely weakened thereby losing the goal itself.

However the quote below makes me wonder whether such wisdom can work in a world of fleeting opportunities where speed is the mantra to winning?

 

A leader in a hurry is bound to make mistakes or achieve short-term wins but a leader who analysis the situation and plans well before execution will provide sustainable and robust results. No wonder leaders with high levels of emotional intelligence (EI) are considered to be better than leaders with high IQ levels and low EI. The former has the ability to remain calm in highly stressful and volatile situations thus validating the wisdom of  Lao Tzu ( 601 BC to 531 BC) even in present times. In Lao Tsu’s words ~

                                                                 “Do you have the patience to wait,

                                                              Till your mud settles and the water is clear?

                                                              Can you remain unmoving,

                                                             Till the right action arises by itself?”

Do share your views dear readers on the relevance of Patience not only in today’s fast moving business world but also in our own family relationships.