कोई कह दे गमों से अब तो बाँध लो सामान अब अपना…

बहुत दिनों से रुका मेहमान, किसी को अच्छा नहीं लगता…

A LESSON FOR LIVING 

The legendary country singer, Johnny Cash was addicted to drugs in the 1960s and went to jail several times. Cash says he overcame his addiction by renewing his faith. He tells how a shoeshine man taught him a lesson for living back in 1956 but, unfortunately, it took several more years for him to really understand the lesson.

"I was expecting a fast, snappy job like the young folks do," Cash said, "and he was going about his job real slow. I said to him, ‘You don't seem to be doing too much snapping.'

"That shoeshine man looked up at me sort of sideways and said, ‘That's the problem with the world these days— there's too much snapping and not enough shining.'"

THE RIGHT QUESTION

Gun-Zai and his disciples were walking in the country and talking about God’s miracles, when it began to rain. They all ran to a cabin that stood close by.

When they reached there, the master turned to his pupils and said: “I shall only let you in if you give me the right answer.”

Intrigued, they all remained there under the downpour, not knowing how to please Gun- Zai. They trembled with cold, but could not find the right answer.

Finally, after nearly two hours in the rain, one of them said: “Master, you haven’t asked any question, and here we stand like fools, looking for explanations. It isn’t wise to look for problems if we weren’t posed any problem.”

“Congratulations, that’s how we should behave in life. You may come in,” said the master, opening the door

I FORGOT MY PRAYER BOOK

A peasant boy came to the big town to work. But found himself without his prayer book.

The wheel of his cart had come off right in the middle of the woods and it distressed him that this day should pass without his having said his prayers.
He thought:

“The Holy One blessed is enthroned in the heavens and we pray all year long to Him. It is time for me to pray but I forgot my prayer book”.

So this is the prayer he made: 

“I have done something very foolish, Lord. I came away from home this morning without my prayer book and my memory is such that I cannot recite a single prayer without it. So this is what I am going to do. I shall recite the alphabet five times very slowly and you, to whom all prayers are known, will put the letters together to form the prayers I can’t remember.”

And the Holy One said to his angels,

“Of all the prayers I have heard today, this one was undoubtedly the best because it came from a heart that was simple and sincere.”

OVERFLOWING GRATITUDE 

"Here's a thought based on Oprah's book club: Sit down at the end of each day and write out 5 things for which you are grateful.

We go through life each day so unaware, and take for granted so many things. There are those persons, unseen and unknown, to whom we need to be grateful. We take for granted turning on a light switch. We assume electricity will light the lamp, but how about the people that keep the system running? Same for the water, and the shops. We walk in and everyday it's filled with food. How did it get on the shelves; how did it get to the stores; how did it get out of the fields; how did it first get planted?

Everyday we need to overflow with gratitude. Looking at life from such a perspective will begin to change our daily attitude towards all life, and, possibly, even towards our self and others."

NORMA AND THE GOOD THINGS

In Madrid lives Norma, a very special Brazilian lady. The Spanish call her ‘the rocking grandma’. She is over sixty and works in various places, organizing promotions, parties and concerts.

She was once asked where she got all her energy from.

‘I have a magic calendar. If you like, I can show it to you.’

She picked up an old, much scribbled-upon calendar.

‘Right, today is the day they discovered a vaccine against polio,’ she said.’ We must celebrate that, because life is beautiful.’

On each day of the year, Norma had written down something good that had happened on that date.

For her, life was always a reason to be happy.

GET RID OF THAT GUILTY FEELING

Many of us find it easy to forgive others but find it impossible to forgive ourselves. Roman philosopher Carto admits this when he says “I can pardon everybody’s mistakes except my own.” Yet learning to forgive you is one of the basic steps of cultivation the spirit of forgiveness for all. If you cannot forgive yourself, how will you forgive others?

Forgive oneself is essential for self- acceptance. This doesn't mean that we give up our moral or ethical standards and justify all our actions. It only means that we learn to accept ourselves as we are, including our May shortcomings.

For some reason people persist in being harsh with them; they become inflexible and judgmental. Some people carry a lifelong sense of guilt because they could not become a doctor, or an engineer --- something that their parents wanted them to do. Many mothers refuse to forgive themselves when their children do not turnout right. Wives blame themselves when a marriage breaks down… it is strange, but our acceptance of ourselves seems to depend on other’s acceptance of us!

Many of us carry on our hearts, heavy loads of guilt which rob us of our peace of mind. No man is perfect. Every one of us has done some wrongs in the past, near or remote. We must repent and, if possible make amends. We must pray for wisdom and strength not to repeat the wrong and then forget about it.

The moment that an individual accepts and forgives himself, is the moment of renewal, a new beginning.

Dada J.P Vaswani