keep them close

One day something happened.

And on that clear, evening,in the warmth of her home, the mother of the two was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any more.

No more hugs, no more lucky moments to celebrate together,
no more phone calls just to chat, no more "just one minute."
Sometimes, what we care about the most goes away,
never to return before we can say good-bye, say "I Love You."

So while we have it … it's best we love it . And care for it and fix it when it's broken and take good care of it when it's sick.

This is true for marriage … and friendships!
And children with bad report cards;
and aging parents and grandparents.
We keep them because they are worth it,
because we cherish them!

Some things we keep -
like a best friend who moved away
or a classmate we grew up with.
There are just some things that
make us happy, no matter what.
Life is important, and so are the people we know.

And so, keep them close!

visit to a friends place

This write up is thanks to the visit that I had to my friend's place last evening after a long time. The family is so close knit happy go lucky and the moment I rang the bell my friend welcomed me with a smile and a hug and slowly all the members of the family woke up and aunty woke up calling my name and greeting me. Then all of us sat together having conversation and laughing and teasing each other. There was so much of warmth, genuiness such a comforting feeling. It felt so much at home. Never a dull moment at all. It felt defintely there is some bonding and I felt I was a part of their family.

Uncle was at his best with his witty and terrific sense of humor and aunty always smiling and at her best to make me feel special showering with loads of love, wishes and gave me hot steaming pulav, tutty fruity cake and my special chai.. the other member of the house ,friend's sibling was doing his best to prove himself flexible, and macho .. friend of mine silent spectator was enjoying every moment with a smile just not with the lips but also smiling with eyes.They say smile of the eyes is more captivating than the smile of the lips and that was so true. It took a lot of effort on my part to wear my shoes and get away from there and head towards home sweet home.

As I was driving back home, a sense of contentment, calmness engulfed me and tears of joy rolled down my cheeks and I realised sometimes simple pleasures of joy gives you immense satisfaction and happiness that money cant bring and yet most of the time we look for complex things to give us that happiness.

I dedicate this article to that friend of mine and all my other friends who make my life meaningful, fuller and so enriching.. Here it goes...

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

Life is wonderful. We are overcome by feelings of gratitude for the glimpses we occasionally have of its majesty and mystery. And we revel in the opportunity to connect with each other and those of many other walks of life in ways more satisfying than anything we had previously experienced.

I do not know if I will ever have that great relationship with a man. But I'm learning that all relationships are worth working on if they are worth having. I am blessed to have some wonderful friends who have helped me through some pretty rough times.

I am on the road back to me. And I am not afraid.

When we go walking, we do not walk briskly and get exercise. We walk slowly and stop to admire a spider web or a squirrel. Yes, my children slow me down. They make me pay attention, and remind me it is the pauses between the busy notes of life that make the music so beautiful.

There is something about my friends that automatically brings out the silliness in me. It's almost like being reunited with myself, because no thoughts expressed between us are incomprehensible, no jokes ever hang in the air like an albatross. For once, I never have to worry about feeling stupid for making some arbitrary comment. It is the equivalent of pure, creative freedom.

“Words cannot express such joys as a friend imparts.”

Imagine, if you can, a moment in time when you were sitting on a porch swing or a roof top, or beneath the branches of a shady tree. Maybe autumn had laid a crackling carpet of leaves beneath your feet. Or maybe it was a blazing summer day and you were parched for a swig of anything to quench your thirst. Winter may have deposited its first blanket of dew on the ground and you were hunkered down inside your fort, battle-weary and droopy-eyed . Spring may have beckoned you to the garden, and you were down on your knees, toiling in the hot sun, planting seeds to ensure the harvest. Wherever you were, whatever the time of year, nothing else in the world seemed to matter because you were not alone. A friend was at your side. And the moment was perfect.

A friend is a gift. Whether those words have ever rolled off your tongue or drifted through your head in a quiet moment of deep reflection, the truth is undeniable. Friendship is a gift of enormous value. Providing intimacy, rapport, trust, and affection, friendship is the common ground where kindred spirits find communion.

“Words cannot express such joy as a friend imparts,”. “For it would be better for us that the sun were extinguished than we should be without our friends.”

The sunlight of friendship is cast by design. After all, friends don't come included in the “package deal” of our birth or bloodlines. Unlike the families into which we are born, friendships are decided. “Our relatives are ours by chance,” wrote the French poet Jacques Delille, “but we choose our friends.”

The rewards of choosing well can be tremendous. As anyone who has ever had a close friend knows, friends lessen our sorrows and broaden our smiles, allowing us to feel accepted and understood when the world turns its back on us. Like the proverbial “bridge” that spans “troubled waters,” friends lay themselves down and also carry us through the dark nights of the soul. They do this, in the words of William Penn, by “unbosoming freely, advising justly, assisting readily, adventuring boldly, taking all patiently, defending courageously-and continuing a friend unchanged.”

True friends are also the cheerleaders who can provide the wind pushing up beneath our wings, that can lift us out of our doldrums and up to higher ground. When adversaries conspire against us, our friends can be counted on to mount a ready defense. To friends we can entrust our innermost selves, knowing they will safeguard our secrets and advise with gentle candor. Listening to our tribulations, they understand even what we do not say. Loyal, dependable, and kind, friends go out on a limb where the sweetest delights are found.

CAPSULES TO RAISE YOUR CHILD

Give your child any two appropriate capsules
from the following list, preferably early morning and night before going to bed. See the result.

I am sure, you can do it.
How smart!
Congratulations!
You are Unique!
Remarkable!
You must have practiced.
You are a treasure.
I love you.
Your hard work paid off.
Impressive!
Thank you very much.
Magnificent!
Great Thinking!
That is correct.
Super-star.
You mean the world to me.
Terrific!
Now you are flying.
You are on top of it.
You did even better than I expected!
Good job done.
You are looking good.
Incredible!
Now you have got it.
I like your enthusiasm
Artistic!
Wonderful.
Great Discovery!
That was a lot of work, but you did it.
What a good idea!
Bravo!
You did that all by yourself.
You are growing up!
Outstanding!
You are very good at this.
Fabulous!
You have a super brain.
Your memory is too good.
Beautiful!
What an imagination!
Super!
I like that.
Clever!
You deserve a treat.
How nice of you!
I trust you.

Are you an Oak Tree in a Flower Pot ?

A monkey which leaves the tree and swims in a lake is inferior to a fish.

A race horse housed in a beautiful apartment is inferior to a rat.

A good swordsman wielding a plough to cultivate a piece of land is inferior to a peasant. In the same way, people who do not raise their potential tend to get reduced to inferior beings.

"I am not comfortable talking to people, I feel shy, I can't mix with people, I feel diffident getting jobs done by others. I am an introvert. How can you help me someone asked me.

We have to strike the right balance between work and the home and at work among the people whom we work with. Imagine we spend so much time at work beginning from getting ready to work and then un-wind after work including the travel time. If we can strike a chord with our folks back home with far less time spent with them, and without any inhibitions of not comfortable talking, or feel shy, or can't mix with people, etc., and never have said while with people at home "I am an introvert, I do not seriously believe this is possible at work. It's fake. You ought to be a winner - both inside and outside the house, you ought to be a winner inside and outside yourself.

There is a story to support this (unknown source)

In ancient times, a wood-cutter had a struggle to earn two meals a day. He me a monk who then advised him, "Don't stop at the edge of the forest go right in. One day's work will fetch you one month's food. The woodcutter followed the advice. Deep within the forest he found sandal wood tress. He was excited. He expressed his gratitude to the monk. And the monk advised him again. "Take the risk of going further inside A day's work will fetch you six month's meal." The woodcutter ventured and found a silver mine. He came back and thanked the monk. The monk said, "if you trust me and go still deeper one days work will make you earn enough to fetch you food for a life time." This also turned true for he found a gold mine.

The woodcutter wondered, "Why then does the monk still stay at the edge of the forest and not venture into the forest, as he has been advising him.

He gathered courage and asked the monk about this. The monk replied, "If you want to be eternally happy sit under this tree and I will teach you to go within, then you will be eternally happy.

To be an outer winner, one has to explore the outer world. To be an inner winner one has to go within oneself. The balance between being an outer winner and an inner winner is what will make us feel good, and that is the balance which we all need to strive for.

When you say are you shy?.

You are shy because you are not feeling good within yourself or you are pre-occupied in trying to make yourself look good. When you aren't feeling good from within, even if you try a million times, it will end up the other way.

When you say you are not comfortable being with people. Your discomfort is mainly due to the lack of good self management, internally within you, and poor people skills externally. When you are in conflict within yourself, it will be the same, conflicting, when you project outside.

Your best comes when you strike a balance being both, an outer and an inner winner.

to motivate yourself from within and then motivate the others around you. Learn to be at peace with your imperfections inside you and then become tolerant to the imperfections of the others outside you. Shed your ego.

Don't be shy, for shyness could be a form of an ego, so reject the games that ego plays with you.
A woodpecker was pecking an oak tree. A lightning struck the tree and felled it. The woodpecker flew away and boasted, "I never knew I am so strong, that I can make a solid tree fall like that."

Drop your ego. Most of us are like the oak tree in a flower pot. The flower pot is like the ego and our being like an oak tree. Drop your lower self and let your higher self guide you. Which means look at everything around you and appreciate everything that is happening around you and not only that which is happening with you.

I have every right to be happy or contented but when I go outside I must work to see that the others reach a similar like the one I enjoy but I should not go "public" with it because I might either fan a jealousy or make the other feel inferior, both of which isn't good for me. We should live and let others live too, that's the unwritten "Law of the Universe."

Punch line for the day: If you'll not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives." - Vince Lombardi

As If We Had The Right

If we’re too afraid
to listen to the needs of the children,
How can they become whole
Or good enough parents themselves
When we have denied and denied
The validity of their needs
Wholesale?

Isn’t it human rights abuse
On an unimaginable scale
When we say to our children:“You’re not good enough as you are.

You need improving.
And furthermore, this is how…”
And then we send them away
From us – the ones they love
And trust most,
Send them to spend long days
In loveless buildings
Where well-intentioned, overstretched grownups
Strive to implant this
Improvement
Into them, whether willing or not?

“Best years of your lives!”
And
“It never did me any harm!”
But were they really – andAre you sure it didn’t?

If we really listen to the children
What do we think
They will ask for
That is so terrifying?

Do we really think they want
Limitless sweets and ice cream,
Computer games, game shows And never, ever
To get out of bed?

Is that what we fear?

Or do we suspect in our
Most secret hearts
That all they are asking for
Is our time?

That all they really need
Is our love?
Without conditions
Or strings
Or expectations?

Why, despite all we have had the chance to learn,
Do we still seek
To make them like us?
As if we had the right

Detachment - a popular, yet misunderstood concept

Often, after I have talked on detachment, my friends respond that detachment feels too cold, disconnected, impersonal, even lonely, for them.

But that is not an accurate perception of the true meaning of detachment. ...

This is the meaning I intend: the realization that no one person or group of people can determine your life's path - that it is solely between you and God. Thus, when change comes into your life, it is because a far larger dynamic than human relationships is moving it and you along. It may look like a person or group has conspired to have you removed from a certain situation - but that is an illusion. If you choose to believe that illusion, it will hold you captive, maybe even for a lifetime. But if it hadn't been the right moment for you to move on, the 'conspiracy' to remove you would not have been successful.
That is the higher truth of change, and the symbolic sight that accompanies detachment allows you to see it. ...The goal of becoming a conscious person is not to get your way, to outwit people or situations, to become immune to disease or death. The goal is to be able to handle any changes in our lives - and in our bodies - gracefully, without fear, looking only to absorb the message of truth contained in the change. Regarding the expansion of consciousness, it is a misinterpretation to view its purpose as insurance against bad things, physical illness, or death. Mastery of the physical is not the goal of becoming conscious; mastery of the spirit is the goal. The physical world, and the physical body, serves only as teachers and classrooms along the way. In keeping with this perception, healing the fear of death and dying - in other words, detaching from our physical form - is an aspect of the tranquility that the human spirit is capable of achieving through the journey of becoming conscious. ...My heart goes out to people who are working so hard to release their negative attitudes and painful memories. 'Just tell me how, and I'll do it,' they say over and over again. We are forever looking for the calming meditation, the easy exercise, that will lift us out of the fog, but consciousness doesn't work that way. Ironically, there is a simple way out, only it's not easy: just let go. Let go of how you thought your life should be; detach from your demands and expectations and embrace the life that is trying to live itself through you. So many people struggling to find their way are in that necessary but confusing state of waiting. A part of each of them is eager to allow God's will to direct their lives for real, yet they remain tormented by the fear that they will lose all comfort and security on the physical plane should they actually surrender to it, so they remain painfully bound, fretfully holding themselves in a waiting position until they are strong enough to detach from that fear, and other people or things that help them manage it, and embrace the deeper truth that 'all will be well' - not 'well' by our definition, perhaps, but certainly by God's."

Imagine a world where

Men and men listen to each other;Men and women listen to each other;Children witness parents who laugh together, cry together, work together and talk together;Businesses rate the well-being of the employees and their families as highly as their profits;We respect each other for our differences as well as our similarities;We give - without feeling we have to receive in return;We receive - without feeling we have to give back;We see everyone we meet as someone who can teach us something;Our physical appearance is always a blessing;The present moment is treated for what it is - a gift;Death is accepted as a positive part of life.Imagine a world wherewe all know that we are choosing our livesand we all celebrate being who we are...I wonder where this world could be?