Importance of Right Attitude - by SWAMI SUKHABODHANANDA

A young girl walks on the lonely street, unhappy with herself. She thinks that she is not beautiful like others. Moments later, a strong breeze blows against her face and her silky hair starts dancing. It says to her: "Be like me my child, go with the flow and you will glow." The breeze teaches her to have an attitude which will lift her beyond mere physical beauty. The breeze is constantly moving; so to move with the vastness of life without getting stuck, be like it, constantly move. The breeze says to her: "I do not move for happiness but out of happiness. I do not dance for happiness but out of happiness. A youth should learn this art to operate from happiness and not for happiness. Happiness is an attitude. To be a winner in life is also an attitude." Your attitude is more important than facts for the right attitude can empower you. When you are empowered, you are bigger than a problem rather than a victim to a problem, and living in such a space makes you a winner. An easy task becomes difficult when you have a poor attitude. A difficult task becomes challenging when you have a good attitude. Change your body posture. A trainer talking to students on the subject of public speaking told them: "When you talk of heaven your face must be glowing and radiating joy. Your eyes must shine and lips should reflect heaven." "What about talking of hell?" asked the student. "Your normal face is enough," replied the trainer. Change your mind. Always entertain healthy thoughts. Positive thoughts are a great asset. A pessimist sees difficulty in an opportunity and an optimist sees opportunity in a difficulty. Understand that when one door closes another opens. Trust life. Insecurity invites you to be alert and not worried. It tells you to be creative and not complain. One has to know how to take it easy and float in life and not fight with life. You can't fight with the waves but you can learn to float. Change your emotions. The quality of your life is the quality of your consistent emotion. When your emotion is low, just change it; think of a happy incident. Change your values. Have values that connect to goodness and connect to people. Follow these psychological exercises: Always stand and sit erect. "If you want to be a colonel, walk like a colonel," is an expression in the army. Keep the body posture like that of a winner. Fill your mind with positive thoughts. Keep your emotions on the top of the world. Exercise and keep the above alive in you; see and picture yourself doing this. Lots of people fear failure, death, insecurity and rejection. Come from a commitment that failure is only postponed success. Failure is the fertiliser for success. If you bring this energy into your life, it will give you methods of handling fear of failure. Also understand that fear is a movement of thought. Thought is nothing but a movement of the mental word. If you get identified with a fear which is actually just a thought, which again is just a word, then this identification makes you a prisoner of fear. Also, this thought-fear unconsciously pulls in the previous memories of fear and with the past fears, a snowballing effect happens. So when fear happens, just become totally aware and don't get identified with that thought. With wordless awareness, just watch. This watching will not allow the previous fears to have a snowballing effect. This is called objective watching. You feel insecure because you have a concept of what is security and from that concept you are seeing life. Anything that does not fit that concept makes you insecure. If you have the spirit of adventure in you then insecurity is a great adventure for you to explore. You will have fun with that insecurity. Learn to trust that insecurity is inviting you to be creative.

The Conclusion

One old man boarded a train along with his 25 years old son. The train was about to leave the station. All passengers were settling down. The young man was filled with lot of joy and curiosity. He was sitting on the window side. As the train started, he let his one hand out, feeling the passing air. He shouted, "Papa see all trees are going behind". The Old man smiled and admired his son's feelings. Beside the young man one couple was sitting and listening to the conversation between the father and son. They felt a little awkward about the attitude of a 25 years old behaving like a small child. Suddenly the young man shouted again, "Papa see the pond and animals. Clouds are moving with the train". The Couple was watching the young man embarrassingly. Now it started raining and a few water drops touched the young man's hand. Filled with joy, he closed the eyes. He shouted again, "Papa it's raining, water is touching me, see papa". The Couple couldn't resist themselves and ask the old man."Why don't you visit the Doctor and get treatment for your son." The Old man replied,"Yes, We are coming from the hospital as Today my son got his eye sight for first time in his life".

Moral: "Don’t draw conclusions until you know all the facts"..

Hang in there..

Churaofied this blog from a company website which sends insights every week..

I remember Navy boot camp like it was yesterday. It was clearly my second day from what I was wearing. I was walking single file with my unit down a hall and a sailor, who was about to graduate, passed us.He must have noticed my expression. It without a doubt said, 'I am tired, intimidated, scared and hungry.' You can't talk when walking in formation, therefore he whispered out of the side of his mouth as we passed...'Hang in there...you can do it.'I turned to look at his face, but all I saw was the back of his head. Every night before I drifted off to sleep I replayed those words. I will never know that sailor's name. He will never know how it turned my attitude around 180 degrees. He will never know that years later I still remember the electricity of encouragement that shot through my body.I knew that the only reason he knew what I was feeling is that because he had been where I was and felt how I felt. He had made it and wanted me to know that I could as well. I was eternally grateful.Then it was my turn. On my graduation day I walked into a storage facility and saw three sailors leaning up against the wall. They were new and scared, intimidated, tired and hungry. I walked over to them and whispered, 'Hang in there...you can do it.' Within a second tears filled the eyes of the female sailor and one of the males clenched his first and gave me a million thanks with his eyes.As I walked away I had goose bumps. I knew that my words would be motivation for the rest of the day and fuel every night to keep them focused on their goal of graduation when they wanted to quit. I hope they passed on the encouragement to another sailor before they graduated... and I know they did.~ Ron White

Would like to share quotes which I really like.. Will keep on updating it..

• Every action has a consequence.. thts true with inaction as well.. it too has a consequence..
• “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”Bonnie Jean Wasmund
• It takes courage to tell the truth.. But more than that, it takes courage to accept the truth and live by it..
• The right things and the hard things are sometimes the same..
• You do pay a price for speaking the truth.. but its worth it.. you dont end up paying again..
• Freedom of choicelessness is sometimes better than being a prisoner of choice..
• You are as happy as you think you can be.. you decide your happiness..
• Change your thoughts and you change your destiny..
• You can escape the burden of creating plenty of excuses and faking apologies if you live by few principles..
• How one generation loves, the next generation learns..
• Every morning when the sun rises, a Lion awakens, thinking that it would outrun the slowest Deer. Every morning when the sun rises, a Deer awakens, thinking that it would outrun the fastest Lion. It doesn't matter whether you are a Lion or a Deer. Every morning when the sun rises, you better run at your best..
• Everyone you know is a reflection of what you are..
• Where there are no human beings.. Be one..
• Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.. - Jerry Seinfeld
• Elaine: Ugh, I hate people. Jerry: Yeah, they're the worst.
• KRAMER (moves over and sits next to George): Do you ever yearn?

GEORGE: Yearn? Do I yearn?

Kramer: I yearn.

George: You yearn.

Kramer:Oh, yes. Yes, I yearn. Often, I...I sit...and yearn. Have you yearned?

George: Well, not recently. I craved. I crave all the time, constant craving...but I haven't yearned.

Kramer(in disgust): Look at you.

George: Aw, Kramer, don't start...

Kramer: You're wasting your life.

George: I am not. What you call wasting, I call living. I'm living my life.

Kramer: OK, like what? No, tell me. Do you have a job?

George : No.

Kramer: You got money?

George : No.

Kramer: Do you have a woman?

George: No.

Kramer: Do you have any prospects?

George: No.

Kramer: You got anything on the horizon?

George: Uh, no.

Kramer: Do you have any action at all?

George: No.

Kramer: Do you have any conceivable reason for even getting up in the morning?

George: I like to get the Daily News.

• It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.- Jerry Seinfeld
• You know you're getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It's like, "See if you can blow this out." - Jerry Seinfeld
• The thing about birthday parties is that the first birthday party you have and the last birthday party you have are actually quite similar. You know, you just kinda sit there... you're the least excited person at the party. You don't even really realize that there is a party. You don't know what's goin' on. Both birthday parties, people have to kinda help you blow out the candles, you can't do it... you don't even know why you're doing it. What is this ritual? What is going on? It's also the only two birthday parties where other people have to gather your friends together for you. Sometimes they're not even your friends. They make the judgement. They bring 'em in, they sit 'em down, and they tell you - 'these are your friends! Tell them thank you for coming to my birthday party. - Jerry Seinfeld
• Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge.- Jerry Seinfeld
• Why do people give each other flowers? To celebrate various important occasions, they're killing living creatures? Why restrict it to plants? "Sweetheart, let's make up. Have this deceased squirrel." - Jerry Seinfeld
• If I want a long boring story with no point to it, I have my life. - Jerry Seinfeld
• What is this obsession people have with books? They put them in their houses like they're trophies. What do you need it for after you read it? - Jerry Seinfeld
• The best revenge is living well. - Jerry Seinfeld
• Sometimes we forget that we have to die.. Sometimes we forget that we have to live.. We keep on forgetting until we realize that its too late now..

Story of the wounded warrior

"Char bans, chaubis gaj, angul ashta praman, Ete pai Sultan hai, Ab mat chuko Chauhan."(Ten measures ahead of you and twenty four feet away, is seated the Sultan, do not miss him now, Chouhan). The stage was set.. The mighty archer was ready to release the arrow with all the strength and skills he had got. Precision was a pre-requisite but above all the essentials were courage and the thirst for revenge. This was because he was no ordinary archer and the circumstances were not ordinary either. To begin with he was held captive, his kingdom was completely taken over and he was blinded using hot iron rods by his enemies because he refused to lower his eyes. He was the last Hindu ruler before the Mughals took over.
Prithvi Raj Chauhan is the name of the legend; and he pledged to kill the Mughal emperor Muhummad Ghori under the most terrifying circumstances one could imagine. The story goes that Ghori was earlier defeated by Prithvi Raj Chauhan, but Prithviraj pardoned Ghori when the latter begged for mercy and release.
The saying “Don’t leave your enemy half dead” holds true as later Ghori returned and defeated Prithviraj in the second battle of Tarain. He was tortured, blinded and treated as a prisoner by Ghori. The blind Prithviraj was then regularly brought to the presence of the barbaric warlord to be taunted by Ghori and his courtiers.
And so to avenge to those sufferings a scheme was hatched by Prithviraj and his loyal former courtier poet Chand Bardai. The Prince of Ajmer’s strength was archery. The plot was to somehow convince Ghori to arrange for an Archery competition to display the blind Prithiraj’s skills and to kill Ghori during the competition’s proceedings.
When the competition was proposed, Ghori disdained to believe this; the courtiers laughed and taunted Chand Bardai, asking how a blind man could possibly shoot arrows. In the spirit of their usual barbaric mockery, they brought the blind and hapless Prithviraj out to the field. Pressing a bow and arrows into his hand, they taunted him to take aim. Chand Bardai told Ghori that this taunting would avail nothing, for Prithviraj would never do as some sundry courtiers bade him do. He said that Prithviraj, as a king himself, would not accept orders from anyone other than another king. His ego thus massaged, and in the spirit of the occasion, Ghori agreed to personally give Prithviraj the order to shoot.Thus, Chand Bardai provided Prithviraj with an aural indication of where Ghori was seated. He gave Prithviraj one further indication of the same, by composing a couplet on the spot and reciting the same in Prithviraj's hearing. The couplet, composed in a language understood only by Prithviraj went thus:"Char bans, chaubis gaj, angul ashta praman,Ete pai hai Sultan, (Taa Upar hai Sultan),ab mat chuko hey Chauhan."(Ten measures ahead of you and twenty four feet away, is seated the Sultan. Do not miss him now, Chauhan). Ghori then ordered Prithviraj to shoot. Prithviraj turned in the direction from where he heard Ghori speak, and, taking aim based only on the voice and on Chand Bardai's couplet, he sent an arrow racing to Ghori's throat. Ghori was thus stuck dead by Prithviraj. The brave Rajput thus avenged the betrayals and humiliations suffered by him. Naturally, after this deed, Prithviraj was killed by Mahmud's courtiers. Thus ended the story of the brave and chivalrous Prithviraj Chauhan.
There is a reason why I chose this story as a medium to convey my thoughts. Whenever a question mark arises, history can be used as a medium to reflect on that problem. There are many take aways from history and according to me this story has the right ingredients for my concerns.
Prithviraj was blinded by his enemy because of his rebellious nature. Something of a similar nature occurs in our society every day. There are enemies all over the place, they blindfold people and their beliefs; they steal their right from truth. And then there are people who blindfold themselves through ignorance and are thus taken advantage of. The tragedy here is that it is difficult for one to conceive oneself as blindfolded.
So what can be the solution to this problem? The answer which this story provides is to focus on our strengths (just like Pritviraj did), to believe in one self and to have the courage to deal with testing situations. Despite the weakness, Prthivairaj took revenge by aiming precisely at the target. Had he lost focus or faith or the courage then he would never have been able to execute his skills to perfection.
Food for thought:- Can the blindfolds within the society be removed..??

Take care of my Ass....

This is my first post.. I intend to use this blog to share with everyone the experiences, interactions n lighter moments which I have shared with the humble people around me.
So I begin with an interesting story which I came across when I had just started working for a water treatment firm. This story was narrated to me by one my office colleagues during lunch hrs. The story is short and sweet but the content and moral is worth it.It is about a young man who fell in love with a blind woman. One day he decided to invest into the relationship by donating his eyes to that woman. He wanted her to see and feel his love. He wanted to wash away her darkness and fill it with the beautiful colours of the world. The woman agreed to his request and thus the eye transaction was done with success. She finally got an opportunity to see the world and to have a look at her donor. She thanked him a thousand times for the philanthropy. But, now when the blind donor proposed her for marriage, it got rejected. The blind young man couldn’t believe at what had happened. The woman did not want to marry him.
But unconditional as love should be, he accepted this fate, and when the woman was about to leave, he said, “Alright, but take care of my ass.”
In the pantry, the moment of silence which followed this statement, lasted for a few seconds and made our narrator feel proud. Just then with all innocence a question popped out, “But Sabari??.. Why would he ask her to do that?? Why would he give her an ass??.. Ass as in??.. Donkey??”.
Sensing failure, the story-teller replied, “ Arree, Aaess…. Aaess…. Aaken!!!!”.

“Oh!!, Eyes…. Oh yes.. that makes sense.. Take care of my Eyes..”.

The confusion got dissolved; but the story didn’t receive its desired response. Moral of the story :- Take care of my Aaesss!!!!