Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.

Are you stuck at the crossroads of life?

An oldCherokee Indian was speaking to his grandson:

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil–he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a long minute, and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

So when we are at the cross roads of life, which wolf do we listen to?

Faith

"Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe."

-St. Augustine

The New Ten Commandments

My spiritual teacher, Rev. Tom, has proposed Ten New Commandments (to augment the original Ten Moses gave the Judaic world) that he feels are especially appropriate for our modern times.

11. Thou shalt not worry. (it is the most unproductive of all human activities.)

12. Thou shalt not be fearful. (Most of the things we fear never come to pass anyway.)

13. Thou Shalt not cross bridges before you come to them (No one has ever succeeded in doing this.)

14. Thou shalt handle only one problem at a time. (Leave the others to God until their turn comes up.)

15. Thou shalt not take your troubles to bed with you. (They make poor bedfellows.)

16. Thou shalt not try to carry the problems of the world on your own shoulders (only God has a back that strong.)

17. Thou shalt be a good listener (For God often speaks to us through the mouths of others.)

18. Thou shalt not try to relive yesterday. (it is Gone; Rejoice in today.)

19. Thou shalt dismiss Feelings of frustration (90% of them are rooted in self-pity and interfere with positive action.)

20. Thou shalt count thy blessings daily (never overlooking the smallest one, for our biggest blessings are often composed of many small ones.)

"Our bravest and best lessons are not learned through success, but through misadventure."
-Amos Bronson Alcott

Photo courtesy of Kerstin. Click here

Meaning of LIfe!

It's not about the destination, It's all about the Journey, day by day, minute by minute...!!!! I wish I knew that when I was a teenager!

What does it take to succeed in you business? IQ is not engouh!

According to Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, emotional intelligence is the ability to

"motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one's moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope."

In other words, it's the ability to maintain a positive attitude and emotional control in the face of what life throws at you. Mark showed plenty of this kind of intelligence in his brushing off of snide comments from colleagues. Goleman argues that intellectual ability, or competence, can't by itself predict success. Intellectual ability plus emotional intelligence is what it takes. Failure to manage your emotions appropriately can both stunt your ability to learn and impede your ability to make use of what you do learn.

Read more here.

“We are what we think, having become what we thought,”
begins the collection of verse entitled the Dhammapada,the most accessible of ancient Buddhist texts.

Mind is both the problem and the solution. It is not fixed but flexible. It can be changed. But much of the time we are not even aware of what we are thinking and we are certainly not in control of it. The everyday mind runs on by itself and more often than not we are at the mercy of our immediate reactions. If someone cuts us off in traffic or looks at us in a nasty way, we get angry. If we have a drink, we want another one. If we taste something sweet, we want more even if we are full. If someone offends us, we repeat it over and over to ourselves, rubbing in the hurt. The Dhammapada delights in describing how out of control our minds can be and how much better it feels to do something about it. “Like an archer and arrow, the wise man steadies his trembling mind, a fickle and restless weapon. Flapping like a fish thrown on dry ground, it trembles all day,” it comments. The Buddha was more like a therapist than the founder of a religion. He saw, from his own experience, that self-awareness makes self-control possible. If we want to change what we become, the Buddha taught, we have to change the way we think. “A disciplined mind is the road to Nirvana,” is the Dhammapada’s insistent refrain.

Are you dying to do...?

If you can not read the text...Click on the picture.

2010 Resolution!

If you have been sitting, stand.

If you have been standing, sit.

If you have been traveling , stay home.

If you have been home, travel.

If you have been teaching, learn.

If you have been learning, teach.

If you have been talking , listen.

If you have been listening, talk.

~Golden Door's Annhariet.

To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at at anchor.
~Oliver Holmes

What Is Happiness?

Your Holiness, are you a happy man?

"I cannot answer that question without making sure that we understand the word "happiness" in the same way. If you are talking about a continuous state of mind, a permanent interior disposition where there is no regret, no suffering, no feeling of dissatisfaction, that state is foreign to me. But I believe that the state of mind is simply not human. In human life, happiness is a victory: the overcoming of doubt, despair, temptation. If this is how you understand happiness, then yes, I am happy!"

His Holiness Karekin I (1932-1999)

Who Are The Saints?

I reading a book called "Between Heaven and Earth", which is a convestation with His Holiness Karekin I, my all time favorite Armenian pop. In there the journalist asks him who does he think is a Saint? He said, "The saints, to me. are the interprestation of Chirstian fath in the context of lived, human life," and then recalls these two quotes:

"I cannot respect pure and saintly hands that have always been protected by gloves. I prefer hands that have remained pure in mud."

~ Daniel-Rops

"In our times. the path to sainthood passes necessarily through the world of action"

~Dag Hammarkold

Not "If", But "when"

Most people are familiar with world-famous boxer, Muhammad Ali and his renowned trainer, Angelo Dundee. But many people don’t know that just before every boxing match, Dundee would write a number on a small slip of paper and place it inside Ali’s glove. That may sound like a strange thing to give a boxer right before a fight, but Dundee had a reason for what he did. The number that Dundee would write on that slip of paper was the number of the round in which he predicted that Ali would knock out his opponent. Dundee was so confident in Ali’s ability that he didn’t consider “if,” he only considered “when”—and Ali knew it!

I love that story because it shows the confidence Ali’s trainer had in him, and it shows the positive effect it had on Muhammad Ali. I believe that confidence played a tremendous part in “the champ’s” amazing success as one of the greatest boxers that ever lived.

Continue reading this in this blog

History In Sand!

Every once in a while I find something worth sharing with you. This video was serendipitous surprise. It's an amazing video which it is Political. Historical. Artistic & Moving. It features Kseniya Simonova, an Ukranian sand artist, and she tells stories through art. Enjoy!

Enjoy this Persian song. I would appreciate if any of my Persian readers can translate it.

Now this is inspiring!

This image provided by NASA this July 23, 2009 is a photo made by the Spitzer Space Telescope of the galaxy, called NGC-1097, is located 50 million light-years away. It is spiral-shaped like our Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars. The 'eye' at the center of the galaxy is actually a monstrous black hole surrounded by a ring of stars. In this color-coded infrared view from Spitzer, the area around the invisible black hole is blue and the ring of stars, white. The black hole is huge, about 100 million times the mass of our sun, and is feeding off gas and dust along with the occasional unlucky star. The galaxy's red spiral arms and the swirling spokes seen between the arms show dust heated by newborn stars. Older populations of stars scattered through the galaxy are blue. The fuzzy blue dot to the left, which appears to fit snuggly between the arms, is a companion galaxy. This image was taken during Spitzer's cold mission, before it ran out of liquid coolant. (AP Photo/NASA)

True Nobility

If I was allowed to give only one advise, I would beg people to read anything by Eric Butterworth. His books have been a God sent to me and I often re-read his books have calming effect and extremely transformational and here is one excerpt that I just read that I would like to share with you:

Not that you you can or should become better than another person or even good engouh to fulfill certain wordly standards. This is giving too much power to the world "out there". In the wisdon of the East there is an axiom that says: there is nothing noble about begin superior to some other person. True nobility is being superior to you previous self"

~From Eric Buterworth book, In The Flow Of Life

In the book “Putting the One Minute Manager to Work,”one of the key concepts is this: Don’t Just Do Something—Sit There!

Too often, many of our problems arise from acting before thinking. We confuse activity with productivity. We think, “I’m so busy, I must be accomplishing something!” In reality, we may just be spinning our wheels. Like sitting in a rocking chair, you can expend a lot of energy and create a lot of motion, but you still aren’t going anywhere.

Progress and productivity always require thought! The Bible says:

“A wise man thinks ahead; a fool doesn’t and even brags about it!” (Proverbs 13:16 LB).

“A good man thinks before he speaks” (Proverbs 15:28 LB). “The wise man looks ahead. The fool attempts to fool himself and won’t face facts” (Proverbs 14:8 LB).

“A wise man is cautious and avoids danger; a fool plunges ahead with great confidence” (Proverbs 14:16 LB).

~Borrowed from Rick Warren's newsletter

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!

This post is in honor of Steve Jobs, who is back at work after long battle with his illness. Out all other business leaders, he inspires me the most.

Video: Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address 2005 – Steve talks movingly about life’s journey