Are you a carrot, an egg, or coffee?

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me what you see."

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mother?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity - boiling water. Each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.

The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?"

Think of this: Which am I?

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.

When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet,
enough trials to make you strong,
enough sorrow to keep you human
and enough hope to make you happy.

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can't go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heart aches. When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling.

Live your life so at the end, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

Become one with the river

Today would be a wonderful day to immerse yourself completely, to align yourself with what is actually happening around you and what is heading your way.

In this river of life, you are where you are. If you float looking backwards, yearning for opportunities lost and events and relationships long past, you will lose awareness of the current moment and what is immediately ahead of you. So right now, today, turn around and consciously let go of the past. Just let it go. For you see, you are moving forward no matter what you do, and there is peril in moving forward without awareness.

First, become aware of the current in the river. These currents are opportunities to use the power of life and circumstance with little effort on your part. If you can sense a current, all you need to do is dip down your arm as a tiller and gently relax into the flow and it will propel you along with it. Know, too, that the force of a particular current can also be used to propel yourself out of it, if you use its force and then simply turn your tiller at the right time.

So begin with this, the knowledge of where you are in your life and the forces which are around you. As you do this, be certain to engage your center, your heart of rightness, to feel the current. It requires that you let go completely of what you had wanted to be true and instead come to understand what is true. And this is all known deep inside, if you will but stop resisting the truth your own heart and center are telling you.

And now, with a full awareness of what is, take a look out to the immediate future. See if there is a fork in the river ahead and if one side looks more desirable than another. A few powerful strokes could position you so that you are carried easily where you wish to go.

And listen carefully as well. Do you hear the rapids approaching? Can you make any choices to avoid them or are you going to be carried to them, regardless of what you do? If so, prepare yourself by moving into a state of relaxed awareness. The way to go through the rapids is to become one with the turbulent water, to become so closely connected to it, that you are reacting instantly and by instinct, not requiring conscious thought. Become so attuned that you are a part of all that is, even though it was not what you had desired. It is what it is and this is what you must respond to. If you try to fight the current or even cling to a rock, you will simply become worn down, and when you eventually lose your grip, you will not be strong enough to respond quickly.

Instead, let yourself be one with what is. Do not resist it. The more you become one with what is, the more your intuitive senses will take over and tell you to twist and turn at the right moment to reach the calm river on the other side.

And know, too, that the rapids never last forever. Just do what you need to do now and know that there will be an end to it, know that you will one day find again a calm stretch of river, a time to roll over on your back and gaze up at a few fluffy clouds as they drift lazily across the sky, while you just relax and regain your strength.

And after you drift for a while, then look around, release your attachment to the rapids you have just traversed and become aware of this new spot in the river in which you find yourself. Feel its more subtle currents, become aware of what it contains and where it is heading.

Yes, this is life, always changing, always challenging, always an adventure. Ah, how fortunate you are!

---

Here is a little prayer for today


I am deeply aware of all that I am
and all that surrounds me.
I go deeply into a connection with life
and feel its flows, its currents.
I release all that was
and allow myself to be one with what is,
completely and peacefully.

I feel myself align with what is.
If feel myself relax
into a deep awareness of life,
its opportunities, its flows.

I am one with the great river of life.
I am peaceful acceptance
and a deep, relaxed awareness.
I am.

A Reason, A Season... A Lifetime

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrong doing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on. Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it, it is real. But only for a season. LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons, things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

The Tale of Doctors who tried to create Art

The Tale of Doctors who tried to create Art
by Mike Adams, The Health Ranger

There was once a small group of medical doctors (MDs) who wanted to create art. To accomplish this, they first decided to study art to find what it was made of.

Using elaborate microscopes and measurement devices, they discovered that art was made up of ink on a canvas. With the help of the best high-tech equipment available, they applied thousands of tiny blots of ink to a canvas in the hopes of creating art.

But it wasn't art. It was just ink on a canvas.

Hoping to improve their results, one doctor noticed that art was usually made of different colors of ink. To succeed in creating art, he suggested, they would have to study these colors and find ways of applying them to the canvas.

Using even more elaborate instruments, they determined that ink colors were created by specific, measurable wavelengths of light reflected off the surface of the ink. By isolating different chemicals that absorbed certain wavelengths of light, they were able to synthesize chemical pigments with the appearance of different colors.

With this success in hand, they once again turned to the canvas, applying large quantities of chemical inks, in all varieties, in their attempt to create art.

But it still wasn't art. It was just a lot of different colored inks on a canvas.

Frustrated by the failure, another doctor in the group came up with the idea that since art obviously wasn't produced by the colored ink, then it must somehow be found within the canvas. They proceeded to dissect the canvas.

Using medical imaging equipment and an elaborate system of fiber classification, they were able to catalog and name over two hundred types of microscopic fibers found in the canvas. With this knowledge, the doctors were certain they now understood art. They knew the fiber structure of the canvas and the chemical composition of the inks. What more could art be made of?

Armed with this new scientific knowledge of art, they gathered enormous samples of all the fibers, chemicals and inks now known and combined them in a giant mass of ink colors and canvas fibers.

Only it still wasn't art. It was a flattened blob of canvas covered with multicolored inks.

In frustration, the doctors declared there is no such thing as art.

"If it cannot be scientifically replicated in laboratory experiments," stated one doctor, "it does not exist." And thus art was thereafter banned from all scientific discussion, and artists were ridiculed for dallying in their colorful parlor tricks.

The art laboratory was abandoned, left to fade into dust, forgotten by the scientists and doctors who once thought they could understand art by naming its chemical constituents.

Not long after, a young girl happened across the abandoned laboratory. There, she was surprised to find the most brilliant collection of multicolored inks she had ever seen. They reminded her of a dream she once had with rainbows and fields overflowing with wildflowers.

Spotting an empty canvas, she dipped her finger into a pool of brilliant blue paint and began to smear it across the canvas. She followed that with a warm yellow sun, luscious green fields, and brilliant blotches of color that looked like flowers.

She didn't notice the wall charts, diagrams and reams of data around her in the room. She knew nothing about the chemical composition of inks, nor the structure of canvas fibers. She only knew that brilliant colors and a fresh canvas tugged at her creativity, opening a window of possibility through which she traced the dreams that once danced across the canvas in her mind.

It was art.

Healing is like art.

Neither healing nor art come from the physical matter, the chemicals, the molecules.

Neither healing nor art can be measured or understood as an inventory of parts.

Neither healing nor art exist anywhere but in the minds and hearts of those who materialize observable artifacts by acting on utterly non-scientific dreams and intentions.

Healing and art are much the same. Hence the term, "Healing Arts."

Words of Wisdom from The Dalai Lama

Extracts from METTA-morphosis.
(Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple, 24 Burmah Lame, 10250 Penang.)


LIFE'S INSTRUCTIONS FROM HIS HOLINESS, THE DALAI LAMA

• Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
• When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
• Follow the three Rs : Respect for self, respect for others, responsibility for all your actions.
• Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
• Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
• Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
• When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
• Spend some time alone every day.
• Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
• Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
• Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
• A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
• In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
• Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
• Be gentle with the earth.
• Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
• Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
• Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

Spirituality & Management -- Pujya Swami Hari Chaitanyaji

As interviewed by PRADEEP NAMBIAR for SANSKAR TV

What is the purpose of life ?

We have to be of some use to the society, we have to find out the one within us and spread happiness. You cannot move like the pendulum too and fro. You have to have a direction. What you say is impossible has been achieved by someone else. You have to have an aim, pursue it like Arjun did.

How do we identify our talents, what is our swadharma ?

Talents are within everyone, one has to identify it and nurture it. The best way to identify it is to seek direction from our atma not our mind. Pray to the lord within you and seek direction , the course will automatically come to you.

What is success in life?

Purusharth and shraddha is essential for success. Both have their own significance and importance. You need to work hard and you need the blessings of the Lord. A devotee of Lord Hanuman got his bullock cart wheel stuck in the mud, instead of purusharth , he began shraddha, praying to the Lord for help. The lord asked his devotee that you should take the name of the Lord but at the same time push the cart, when you do both your karma becomes pooja and then you will succeed.

What is failure in life?

You have to play your life. Give your best performance. Outwit your earlier performance. Even if you lose , don't let it bother you. You were born with nothing and will go away with nothing. Let your work,karma be your pooja , an offering to God. That will be possible only when you perform with love and enthusiasm and burn the desire of result. When your karma becomes your pooja, your results will be much more than normal.

What is the best form of leadership?

Watch shri Ram, at every step he is an epitome of maryada. Sea is a boon when it is within its limits, when it crosses its limits it causes floods , destruction.Lord Rama teaches us to be within our maryada at all times. Lord Krishna teaches us what ever the situation demands work within the situation but have great ideals and thoughts. He was a cowherd when required, but also the king. He never preferred to be a "gavar gwala.". when need necessitates do what is required but also increase your limits so that you can become a "dwarkadeesh" when chance permits you.

Advise to the youth?

You are unsuccessful it only means you were short in your effort. God helps those who help themselves. A small deep , a candle has the strength to keep darkness away. The loftiest tower rises from the ground ,not from the skies. Run towards your goal taking the Lords name and the blessings of your parents , you will attain the impossible.