United States

Infinite Power of Self

Ensures4 Comments

Hmmm…..heady days!!! Was on an amazing personal development course for the past fortnight with Art of Living and goodness me….after blissful fortnight I am back to mundane stuff  of life and yet to land on the Terra firma. The bonding, the knowledge, the ability to go within is simply indescribable with the best of linguistic capability and hence wont dare to attempt it.

Found a few requests for help on my personal inbox of a spiritual discussion forum of which I am a member (mind you! it had nothing to do with the material help, just that bit of moral support and prop). In life we do have the lows and highs – when you feel low, you feel like a loser having lost the race and try to seek help from all possible quarters. Hey! Believe in yourself – you understand yourself better than anyone else – the power to heal, power to conquer, power to win and power to stay is not outside of you, it is deep within you. If you cannot climb your mountains, no one else can do it. In any case the mountains are actually the devils of our own minds and almost likely to be imaginary ones.

Of course there is that bit of the “Cheque” (obviously not a piece of paper which you would realize as you read on) in the form of Grace from the Divine to keep your spirits high. Couldn’t help posting a nice inspirational story in this context…

Read on….and here we go to exorcise the devils of the mind!

The business executive was deep in debt and could see no way out.

Creditors were closing in on him. Suppliers were demanding payment. He sat on the park bench, head in hands, wondering if anything could save his company from bankruptcy.

Suddenly an old man appeared before him.

“I can see that something is troubling you,” he said.

After listening to the executive’s woes, the old man said, “I believe I can help you.”

He asked the man his name, wrote out a cheque, and pushed it into his hand saying, “Take this money. Meet me here exactly one year from today, and you can pay me back at that time.”

Then he turned and disappeared as quickly as he had come.

The business executive saw in his hand a cheque for $500,000, signed by John D. Rockefeller, then one of the richest men in the world!

“I can erase my money worries in an instant!” he realized. But instead,the executive decided to put the uncashed cheque in his safe. Just knowing it was there might give him the strength to work out a way to save his business, he thought.

With renewed optimism, he negotiated better deals and extended terms of payment. He closed several big sales. Within a few months, he was out of debt and making money once again.

Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the uncashed cheque. At the agreed-upon time, the old man appeared. But just as the executive was about to hand back the cheque and share his success story, a nurse came running up and grabbed the old man.

“I’m so glad I caught him!” she cried. “I hope he hasn’t been bothering you. He’s always escaping from the rest home and telling people he’s John D. Rockefeller.”

And she led the old man away by the arm.

The astonished executive just stood there, stunned. All year long he’d been wheeling and dealing, buying and selling, convinced he had half a million dollars behind him.

Suddenly, he realized that it wasn’t the money, real or imagined, that had turned his life around. It was his new found self-confidence that gave him the power to achieve anything he went after.

Power of Self 🙂

For me personally, the cheque that keeps me going is that blank cheque of grace from my Master, His Holiness Param Pujya Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji of Art of Living which has been supplied to be infinitely and replenished at my will. Unlike in this story, I never had the capability to keep it in the safe, but encashed it at every opportunity and found that the supply never ran out.

Thank you! Dearest Gurudev!

The Golden Ring

Ensures

Returned back from a very brief sojourn to Chennai – sweltering heat and profuse sweating pretty much describes the trip. Someone approached me for my opinion on the course to pursue (this person was at career crossroads) and it set me thinking. Seeking advice is such a serious business of late, since there seem to be no dearth for people who ask for and dish out advices.

Should someone’s opinion about us matter too much to us? Shouldn’t we apply some discrimination in taking advices or opinions and act accordingly? Why live life to someone else’s standards, especially if they don’t qualify to be your counsel in the first place? Let us be wise builders and role models. Take care of yourself, and those you love…today, and every day!

Reminded me of a story that a senior teacher and Disciple of His Holiness Pujya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar ji Founder of Art of Living (you can follow Him on Twitter here : https://twitter.com/#!/SriSriSpeaks )

Read on….

A school boy went to see his teacher to talk about a problem that was troubling him.

“Everyone says I am good for nothing” he complained. “No one believes that I will ever achieve everything. They think I am stupid and lazy. How can I become a better person? What do I have to do for people to appreciate me?”

Without looking at him, the teacher answered “I am sorry, lad, but at the moment I have problem of my own that is occupying my mind, so I can’t help you” he paused and then continued, “But perhaps if you first help me to solve my own problem I could look at how to help you with yours.”

“Of course, Sir” said the boy. But inside he felt let down and small.

The teacher took a gold ring off his little finger and held it up saying, Take your horse and go to the market. There you must sell this ring for me as I need the money to repay a debt. Obviously you must get the best price you can, but whatever you do, don’t accept less than one gold coin for it. Go, and come back with the money as fast as you can.”

The boy took the ring and left. When he arrived at the market, he started to show it to the stallholders. They seemed very interested and were keen to know how much the young boy wanted for it. But when he started to talk about a gold coin, some of them felt about laughing while others just walked off without a backwards glance.

Only one old man was kind enough to explain to him that a gold coin was too much too much to ask for an old ring. Trying to help the young boy, he offered him a bronze coin for it, and then a silver coin. But following the instructions of his teacher not to let it go for less than one gold coin, the boy refused all offers.

After having approached every stallholder and passer-by in the market without success, feeling extremely downhearted at his failure, he got back on his horse and returned to his teacher. How he wished that he had a gold coin himself that he could use to buy the ring, thus freeing the teacher of debt so that he in turn could help him with his own problem!

He went up to his teacher and said, ”I am sorry, Sir, I have failed to achieve what you asked of me. I could have got two or three silver coins for it, but I believe that we can’t mislead anyone about the value of this ring.”

“What you say is very important” replied the professor with a smile. ”First of all we have to find out the real value of this ring. Get back on your horse and take it to the jeweler. Who else can know its value better than he? But whatever he offers you for it, don’t sell it to him. Come back to me with my ring.”

The boy went and to find the jeweler and held out the ring to him to examine. The jeweler scrutinized it through his magnifying glass, weighed it, and said “Tell your teacher that if he wants to sell it today I can only give him 58 gold coins for it.”

“58 gold coins!” exclaimed the boy.

“Yes. And in a while I might be able to give him 70, but if it’s an urgent sale…”

The boy ran back to his teacher in a state of excitement to relate what had happened.

“Sit down” said the teacher. After having listened to the child’ story, he said, “You are like this band of gold; a unique jewel of immense value?” So saying, he put his ring back on his little finger.

The student then realized, a lot of them who adversely commented on this guy were like a stall holder who aren’t qualified enough to realize his worth. It also was an eye-opener in the sense that he realized the importance of seeking guidance or opinion from the right person – teacher was the jeweler who realized his potential which was that of a gold band.
The point to note, never go for an advise when you are too anxious as some researcher points out as a result of his study. When you are deep in the well, you cannot have a proper perspective of possible solutions to extricate yourselves out of that situation. Approach someone who generally has no stake in the solution but understands you well (but make sure he is the jeweller and not a stall hold

Remember a solution is not necessarily a stress reliever. You would end up with more than one solution as a result of this advises received. Helps to Sleep over it for a while – As the chinese proverb goes – When confused, take a pillow and go to bed.

Unilateralism – American Autarky

Ensures

Wondering if the early morning telly news calls for Rejoicement or Mourning? Well! for me it was a mixture of both but more of mourning. Saddam, the terrorist who had Weapons of Mass Destruction hung to death. And it was a free and fair trial and Americans had nothing to do with the judicial process. Can there be a bigger joke than this to end 2006 (yes there is another right at the end of this blog). If Saddam had to reap what he sowed, rope sellers would make it a big industry manufacturing ropes to hang the American Presidents to reap what they sowed too. Killers in Nagasakki, Hiroshima, Vietnam and at the drop of the hat bomb any place in the world as if American lives are any more precious than other lives in this world, and more recently Afghanistan, Iraq when killing and counter killing never seem to end. All said and done, Iraq was the most prosperous Arab nation despite the stories of torture and abuses (tell me which dictator USA propped up, weren’t) and it took the might of the US of A and Bush’s policy to bring Iraq to the current state.

Saddam deserved whatever he just got. My point is Saddam looks only a wee bit dirtier than Geroge Bush and whether George Bush will get his due. The numbers Saddam achieved sounds microscopic compared to what Americans are doing day in and day out, bombing left, right and centre. I am sure the innocent Americans would pay for the lousy things that this clown is doing. According to me, Bush ranks quite high along with Bin Laden, Taliban et al for making the world precarious and dangerous to live in. I am sure we haven’t seen the last act of this Play. The world will pay heavily due to the folly and fancy of this single man. In that respect, I am proud of the Indian Government‘s response. For a change, the response was immediate and prompt. Condemning the Execution. The world needs to condemn in the most despicable terms, this unilateralistic attitude of the Amercian Government. As the former U.N. human rights chief in Iraq, John Pace put it, “Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein, as lawlessness and sectarian violence sweep the country”

At the end of the day, George Bush you have made the world a very difficult place to live in for yourself, your countrymen and the rest of the World too… Come to think of it, all whom America is fighting today are their own creation of the past. Taliban, Saddam and many more who are tightening the noose round the neck of USA. Having dug a deep hole called Iraq, something worse than Vietnam is in the making.

You have to give it to the Americans or more specifically someone who answers to the name George Bush – whose origin is explained below 

Three Texas plastic surgeons were playing golf together and discussing surgeries they had performed.

One of them said, “I’m the best plastic surgeon in Texas. A concert pianist lost 7 fingers in an accident, I reattached them, and 8 months later he performed a private concert for the Queen of England.”

One of the others said. “That’s nothing. A young man lost both arms and legs in an accident, I reattached them, and 2 years later he won a gold medal in 5 field events in the Olympics.”

The third surgeon said, “You guys are amateurs. Several years ago a cowboy who was high on cocaine and alcohol rode a horse head-on into a train traveling 80 miles an hour. All I had left to work with was the horse’s ass and a cowboy hat. Now he’s president of the United States.”

Considering what is happening, I am sure it is a true story