A dairy of young girl

From Anna Frank’s diary on Wednesday, 5 April 1944, few months before her arrest.

“I finally realized that I must do my schoolwork to keep from being ignorant, to get on in life, to become a journalist, because that’s what I want! I know I can write ..., but it remains to be seen whether I really have talent ...

And if I don’t have the talent to write books or newspaper articles, I can always write for myself. But I want to achieve more than that. I can’t imagine living like Mother, Mrs. van Daan and all the women who go about their work and are then forgotten. I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! ... I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that’s why I’m so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that’s inside me! When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived! But, and that’s a big question, will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer? ” —Anne Frank

You did it Anna, your writing have crossed nations and touched millions of lives.
Click here to learn about Anna frank’s museum in Amsterdam.

Life of Pi

Just finished reading " Life of Pi" , its novel about a 16 year old boy 227 days cast away in pacific ocean with a bengal tiger. Below are some of the quotes I liked from the book.

When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival


It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then you can let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse


Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer

Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love- but sometimes it was so hard to love

And Now

Within you is a stillness that is bursting with energy, a moment of silence full of potential. Within you is a place which knows fear is an illusion and therefore anything is possible. Beneath all the stories of this world is the universal story, the realization of how we are each connected to all existence. This is not an idea, a moment, a place or even a feeling; it simply is. It is the Now.


The above quote is also from Story Waters of Limitless.com, the one I mentioned in the previous post :)

Now

I subscribe to newsletters from few empowering sites and limitlessness.com is one of them. Below is the excerpt from the newsletter I received today. Its about living in the present moment . I keep shuttling between past and the future and its so for me :)

Try thier free freedom excercise and 700 words you wont regret it. You may find it in youtube. Over to the quote.

"Now is the time of all creation. Now is when all realization births. Now is when all that is not wanted ends. Now is when all that is wanted begins. Now is when you change. Now is when you let go. Now is when you take your foot off of the brake. Now is when you choose, you choose to choose, you choose to create your dream. Now is when everything happens " - Story waters

Erma Bombeck's finest

Recently read about her in Aarti post. Got interested and googled her, her quotes are witty and insightful, hoping to buy her books soon :) below are the lovely quotes of hers I found in internet.

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."

"Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died."

"There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, "Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams." Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there."

When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway."

"It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else."

"Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?"

"Dreams have but one owner at a time. That is why dreamers are lonely"

"Seize the moment. Think of all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart."

Secrets of Success

1. Sleep less. This is one of the best investments you can make to make your life more productive and rewarding. Most people do not need more than 6 hours to maintain an excellent state of health. Try getting up one hour earlier for 21 days and it will develop into a powerful habit. Remember, it is the quality not the quantity of sleep that is important. And just imagine having an extra 30 hours a month to spend on the things that are important to you.

2. Set aside one hour every morning for personal development matters. Meditate, visualize your day, read inspirational texts to set the tone of your day, listen to motivational tapes or read great literature. Take this quiet period to vitalize and energize your spirit for the productive day ahead. Watch the sun rise once a week or be with nature. Starting the day off well is a powerful strategy for self-renewal and personal effectiveness.

3. Do not allow those things that matter the most in your life be at the mercy of activities that matter the least. Every day, take the time to ask yourself the question "is this the best use of my time and energy?" Time management is life management so guard your time with great care.

4. Try fasting one day every two weeks. During these fast days, drink fruit juice and eat fresh fruits only. You will feel more energetic, cleansed and alert. Fasting also has a salutary effect on your will-power as you are subverting the otherwise pressing impulses in your mind calling on you to eat more.

5. Remember that forgiveness is a virtue that few develop, but one that is most important to maintaining peace of mind. Mark Twain wrote that forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. Practice forgiveness especially in those situations where it is seemingly difficult. By using your emotional forgiveness muscles more regularly, petty wrongs, remarks and slights will not touch you and nothing will penetrate your concentrated, serene mindset.

6. Never complain. Be known as a positive, strong, energetic and enthusiastic person. Someone who complains, is cynical and always looks for the negative in everything, will scare people away and rarely will succeed at anything. From a purely psychological viewpoint, things are always created twice: once in the mind and then in realit Focus on the positive. Be so mentally tough that nothing takes you off your planned course to success. Visualize and firmly believe in what you want. It will most certainly come true.

7. Set aside every Sunday evening for yourself and be strongly disciplined with this habit. Use this period to plan your week, visualize your encounters and what you want to achieve, to read new materials and inspirational books, to listen to soft soothing music and to simply relax. This habit will serve as your anchor to keep you focused, motivated and effective throughout the coming week.

8. Always remember the key principle that the quality of your life is the quality of your communication. This means the way you communicate with others and, more importantly, the way you communicate with yourself. What you focus on is what you get. If you look for the positive this is what you get. This is a fundamental law of Nature.

9. Stay on purpose, not on outcome. In other words, do the task because it is what you love to do or because it will help someone or is a valuable exercise. Don't do it for the money or the recognition. Those will come naturally. This is the way of the world.

10. When a negative thought comes to your mind, immediately replace it with one that is positive. Positive always dominates over the negative and your mind has to be conditioned to think only the best thoughts. Negative thinking is a conditioned process whereby the negative patterns are established over and over. Rid yourself of any limitations and become a powerful positive thinker

From “The Top 200 Secrets of Success and the Pillars of Self-Mastery” -- Robin S. Sharma

212 degree

Two years ago a 3-minute movie titled: 212° was released ...The Extra Degree. The response to this simple, but powerful video has been overwhelming !!

Watch this video @ http://www.212movie.com/

Give and you shall receive

Whatever you choose for yourself, give to another.If you choose to be happy, cause another to be happy.If you choose to be prosperous, cause another to prosper.If you choose more love in your life, cause another to have more love in theirs.
Do this sincerely—not because you seek personal gain, but because you really want the other person to have that—and all the things you give away will come to you.

Why is that so? How does that work?

The very act of your giving something away causes you to experience that you have it to give away. Since you cannot give to another something you do not now have, your mind comes to a new conclusion, a New Thought, about you—namely, that you must have this, or you could not be giving it away.

This New Thought then becomes your experience. You start “being” that. And once you start “being” a thing, you’ve engaged the gears of the most powerful creation machine in the universe—your Divine Self.Whatever you are being, you are creating.The circle is complete, and you will create more and more of that in your life. It will be made manifest in your physical experience.This is the greatest secret of life.

- Summarised from the book " Friendship with God" - Neal Donald Walsh

Warrior of light

I am reading Paulo's warrior of light and can totally relate to it. It contains chapters one per page about the qualities/ wisdom of the warrior of the light. This warrior is a person who is just like us. A person who is trying hard to bring the light to the people around. Each chapter has a metaphorical meaning about the war, love, faith to that of everyday life.

" From now on - and for the next few hundred years - the Universe is going to help warriors of light and hinder the prejudiced.

The Earth's energy needs to be renewed.
New ideas need space.
Body and soul need new challenges.

The future has become the present, and every dream except those dreams that involve preconceived ideas - will have a chance to be heard.

Anything of importance will remain;anything useless will disappear. However, it is not the warrior's responsibility to judge the dreams of others, and he does not waste time criticising other people's decisions.

In order to have faith in his own path, he does not need to prove that someone else's path is wrong. "

Life is a rollar coaster ride!

This is from the latest books I read, Eleven Minutes by Paulo coelho

"I stood for a long time by the roller coaster, and I noticed that most people get on it in search of excitement, but that once it starts, they are terrified and wants the cars to stop.

The roller coaster is my life; life is a fast, dizzying game; life is a parachute jump; it’s taking chances, falling over and getting up again; it’s mountaineering; it’s wanting to get to the very top of yourself and to feel angry and dissatisfied when you don’t manage it.

If I believe that the track is my destiny and that God is in charge of the machine, then the nightmare becomes something thrilling. It becomes exactly what it is, a roller coaster, a safe, reliable toy, which will eventually stop, but, while the journey lasts, I must look at the surrounding landscape and whoop with excitement. "

How well said!!

My wish for you today

Where there is pain, I wish you peace and mercy.

Where there is self-doubting, I wish you a renewed confidence in your ability to work through it.

Where there is tiredness, or exhaustion, I wish you understanding, patience, and renewed strength.

Where there is fear, I wish you love, and courage.

Biblical Love

Came across this blog through Preethe , couldnt help but shamelessly copy the following lines from one of his post - these lines are from Bible about love

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love,I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing

A distant Heart

Hey there,
Hope you are doing good, I got this forward from my friend and I love to present it here.

A saint asked his disciples, 'Why do we shout in anger? Why do people shout at each other when they are upset?' Disciples thought for a while, one of them said, 'Because we lose our calm, we shout for that.' 'But, why to shout when the other person is just next to you?' asked the saint. 'Isn't it possible to speak to him or her with a soft voice? Why do you shout at a person when you're angry?' Disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the saint.

Finally he explained, 'When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other through that great distance.'

Then the saint asked, 'What happens when two people fall in love? They don't shout at each other but talk softly, why? Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very small...'

MORAL: When you argue do not let your hearts get distant, do not say words that distance each other more, else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return.

Try

"The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life,is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible"

I received this in email and the it hits me like a rock on the head.
We often complain that our life is not the way we wanted it to be.
But do we dare a try, to change it ?
Is it fear of failure?
Or is it losing the comfortness of the present?

"It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. - Somerset Maugham."

Now my friend, do your self a favour.
Do something that can bring you closer to the things you always wanted.
It can be a simple step, it might even sound absurd to your current situation.
Just do it my friend, it’s worth your effort.

Can a book really do this ?

Last week I finished "Angels and Demons”. If one word can express the reading experience its "WOW” - remember all capitals underlined and bold!

Although there are enough controversies surrounding this book and Da Vinci code (WOW again) one has to accept his works are very much inspiring stands apart from the rest.

For 3 to 4 days all I could think was the story. During the times I wasn’t reading, the last scene I read - kept playing on and on in my head. Page turners like this don’t generally offer philosophical or spiritual insights, because the quotes won’t settle in while you are rushing through the pages. However Dan brown has done a wonderful job of making an irresistible portion of Spirituality, Religion, Science and History.

Here are some quotes I loved from this book.

"Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand."

"Science seems irrelevant. Science can heal, or science can kill. It depends on the soul of the man using the science. It is the soul that interests me"

"Vittoria Vetra: Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised. In the end, though we are all proclaiming the same thing. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for that created us.
Robert Langdon: So you’re saying that whether you are a Christian or a Muslim simply depends on where you were born?
Vittoria Vetra: Isn’t it obvious? Look at the diffusion of religion around the globe.
Robert Langdon: So faith is random?
Vittoria Vetra: Hardly. Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles. In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves. "

"Robert Langdon: Do you believe in God?
Vittoria Vetra: Science tells me God must exist. My mind tells me I will never understand God. And my heart tells me I am not meant to. "

Zahir speaks

Half way through the book and I am thinking I should re read this book up teen times. Makes me wonder where Paulo gets his inspiration from. I mean I believe without a shadow of doubt that he is great writer and spiritual person. However I can’t believe such wonderful thoughts come from a mortal. Some of the paragraphs from Zahir make me think, ponder and analyse for a long time, like the one below

"What we need to learn is always there before us, we just have to look around us with respect and attention in order to discover where God is leading us and which step we should take next. As Einstein said, God doesn’t play dice with Universe; everything is interconnected and has a meaning. That meaning may remain hidden nearly all the time, but we always know we are close to our true mission on earth when what we are doing is touched with the energy of enthusiasm.

If it is, then all is well. If not, then we had better change direction.

When we are on the right path, we follow the signs, and if we occasionally stumble, the Divine comes to our aid, preventing us from making a mistake. "
I closed the book and stood there in the Metro station starring at space for several minutes. Am I really doing something that interests me? Is it even remotely closer to bringing me enthusiasm or satisfaction?

After several minutes my poor logical mind fails miserably to make any conclusion. For now I am holding on to the following quote

"Only when all logics fail, Magic can happen"

From Brida

Brida - Paulo Coelho is such a lovely book! From the front cover picture to the last page, it stirred me, excited me, made me cry... wow...I am so obsessed with it now.

Not so often we feel we have been served more than what we paid for , yet alone in books. But Paulo never dissapointed me. He writes to my heart !

Here are the some of the quotes from the book that I loved.

"Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong … even a stopped clock is right twice a day."

"Sometimes certain blessings from God come crashing in through the windows"

"Do not try to explain feelings. Live everything intensely and treasure what you feel as a gift from God.”

"The noblest thing a human being can experienceis acceptance of the mystery"

"When you find your way you cannot be scared. You need to be brave enough to take wrong steps. The deceptions, failures, lack of enthusiasm, are tools that God places in our way to reveal the path."

“In his or her life, each person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to plant. Builders may take years over their tasks, but one day they will finish what they are doing. Then they will stop, hemmed in by their own walls. Life becomes meaningless once the building is finished. Those who plant suffer the storms and the seasons and rarely rest. Unlike a building, a garden never stops growing. And by its constant demands on the gardener’s attention, it makes the gardener’s life a great adventure."

Relationship rules

1.Get along with yourself. The one relationship you will have until you die is yourself.

2.Value peopleYou cannot make another person feel important if you secretly feel that he or she is a nobody.

3.Make the effort to form relationships. The result of a person who has never served others? Loneliness.

4.Understand the Reciprocity RuleOver time, people come to share reciprocal, similar attitudes toward each other.

5.Follow the Golden RuleThe timeless principle: treat others the way you want to be treated.

- John c Maxwel

Thanks to my friend who originally posted this

http://phokattimes.blogspot.com/2009/01/relationship-rules-by-dr-john-c-maxwell.html

Promise to Thyself

I Promise Myself:

To be so strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind

To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person I meet

To make all my friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make my optimism come true

To think only of the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best

To be just as enthuisiatic about the success of others as I am about my own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future

To wear a cheerful expression at all times and give a smile to every living creature I meet.

To give so much time to improving myself that I have no time to criticize others

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble

To think well of myself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words, but in great deeds

To live in the faith that the whole world is on my side, so long as I am true to the best that is in me.

With Gratitude to Christian D. Larson - Thank you sir, you have taken my consious to next dimension.

From My friend's blog .. Beginning Today

Beginning Today .....

Beginning today I will no longer worry about yesterday. It is in the past and the past will never change. Only I can change by choosing to do so.

Beginning today I will no longer worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will always be there, waiting for me to make the most of it. But I cannot make the most of tomorrow without first making the most of today.


Beginning today I will look in the mirror and I will see a person worthy of my respect and admiration. This capable woman looking back at me is someone I enjoy spending time with and someone I would like to get to know better.

Beginning today I will cherish each moment of my life. I value this gift bestowed upon me in this world and I will unselfishly share this gift with others. I will use this gift to enhance the lives of others.


Beginning today I will take a moment to step off the beaten path and to revel in the mysteries I encounter. I will face challenges placed before me with courage and determination. I will overcome what barriers there may be which hinder my quest for growth and self-improvement.


Beginning today I will take life one day at a time, one step at a time. Discouragement will not be allowed to taint my positive self-image, my desire to succeed or my capacity to love.


Beginning today I walk with renewed faith in human kindness. Regardless of what has gone before, I believe there is hope for a brighter and better future.


Beginning today I will open my mind and my heart. I will welcome new experiences. I will meet new people. I will not expect perfection from myself nor anyone else: perfection does not exist in an imperfect world. But I will applaud the attempt to overcome human foibles.


Beginning today I am responsible for my own happiness and I will do things that make me happy . . . admire the beautiful wonders of nature, listen to my favorite music, pet a kitten or a puppy, soak in a bubble bath . . . pleasure can be found in the most simple of gestures.

Beginning today I will learn something new; I will try something different; I will savor all the various flavors life has to offer. I will change what I can and the rest I will let go. I will strive to become the best me I can possibly be.


Beginning today. And every day.


- Penny Jacqueline White

http://groovyislandgirl.blogspot.com/2008/03/beginning-today.html