“Woman was taken out of man; not out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be trampled underfoot; but out of his side to be equal to him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved”

“There is one thing one has to have: either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
Albert Einstein

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”
Leonardo da Vinci

How to make the next 12 months ?your best 12 months
1 – Review your successes during the last 12 months and write them down.
What did you achieve? What are you proud of? And why?
2 – Write down the things that didn’t go so well.
What was your part in them? What mistakes did you make? What lessons have you learned from them?
3 – List what you’d really like to do in the next 12 months!
What dreams do you have that have never been acted on, or started but abandoned? Where in your life do you really want to step up to the next level?
4 – Identify the things you’re putting up with in your life.
These are known as “tolerations”. They drain you of energy, distract you from your real needs and desires., and block your progress.
5 – Commit yourself to making your top 6 dreams come true, and eliminating your top 6 tolerations.
The two go hand-in-hand. Eliminating tolerations will give you more energy for less effort to make your dreams come true, and increase your confidence.
6 – Use a goal setting framework to identify the steps you need to take.
Make each dream and each toleration to be eliminated SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and with Time deadline) .
7 – Do it!
Keep a written record of what you do – and tick each item that you complete. Watch as you build a solid record of success!
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one”. ?- Mark Twain
8 – Celebrate each achievement.
“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done”. ?- Marie Curie (remember to NOTICE your accomplishments!!)
Then in 12 months time? You can start all over again!

I would say that the thrust of my life has been initially about getting free, and then realizing that my freedom is not independent of everybody else. Then I am arriving at that circle where one works on oneself as a gift to other people so that one doesn’t create more suffering. I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people.

Ram Dass

Just think of how healthy everyone would be if they thought like this.

Mindfulness of Ourselves Mindfulness of Others
by Thich Nhat Hanh
Peace Walk 2002
September 28, 2002
Memphis, Tennessee

Let us enjoy our breathing.
Breathing in–I feel I am alive.
Breathing out–I smile to life.
To Life…smiling to life

Anger. There’s a seed of anger in every one of us. There is also a seed of fear, a seed of despair. And when the seed of anger manifests, we should know how to recognize it, how to embrace it, and how to bring [ourselves] relief. When the seed of fear manifests itself as energy in the upper level of our consciousness, we should be able to recognize it, to embrace it tenderly, and to transform it. And the agent of transformation and healing is called mindfulness.

*****

Mindfulness is another kind of energy that is in us in the form of a seed also. If we know how to practice mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, then we should be able to touch the seed of mindfulness in us and transform it into a zone of energy. And with that energy of mindfulness, we can recognize our anger, our fear, our despair. We practice recognizing and embracing.

When a mother working in the kitchen hears the cries of her baby, she puts anything she is holding down and goes to the room of the baby, picks the baby up and holds the baby dearly in her arms. We do exactly the same thing when the seed of anger and fear manifest in us; our fear, our anger is our baby. Let us not try to suppress and to fight our fear and our anger. Let us recognize its presence; let us embrace it tenderly like a mother embracing her baby.

When a mother embraces her baby, the energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the baby. The mother does not know, yet, what is the cause of the suffering of the baby, but the fact that she is holding the baby tenderly can already help. The energy of tenderness and compassion in a mother begins to penetrate into the body of the baby, and the baby gets some relief right away. The baby may stop crying. And if the mother knows how to continue the practice of holding the baby mindfully, tenderly, she will be able to discover the cause of the suffering of the baby.

*****

When the seed of anger is watered, when the seed of fear is watered, whether by yourself or by another person or by the mass media–because the mass media in this country has watered a lot the seed of anger and fear in us–we should know how to recognize, embrace and bring relief to our anger and our fear.

The attitude is the attitude of non-duality, non-violence. Our fear, our anger are not our enemies; they are us. We have to treat our fear, our anger in a most non-violent way, the most non-dualistic way, like we are treating our own baby. So if you are a good practitioner of meditation, you will know exactly what to do when the seed of anger is watered and begins to manifest in the upper level of your consciousness. With the practice of mindful breathing or mindful walking, you generate the energy of mindfulness, and exactly with that energy, you can recognize the energy of anger, of fear in you.

Anger is… energy number one. By practicing mindful breathing or mindful walking, we generate the energy number two: the energy of mindfulness. We call it in Buddhist terms: mindfulness of anger. Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something. When you drink your water mindfully, that is called mindfulness of drinking. When you eat mindfully, that is called mindfulness of eating. When you breathe mindfully, in and out, that is called mindfulness of breathing. When you walk mindfully, it is called mindfulness of walking.

So, when you recognize your anger, embrace your anger tenderly with that energy of mindfulness, it is called mindfulness of anger, mindfulness of despair, mindfulness of fear. We should be able to learn and help the young people to learn how to do it. It’s very important.

The Buddha offers us very concrete and simple exercises in order to become mindful. The first exercise on mindful breathing is: Breathing in–I know I am breathing in. Breathing out–I know I am breathing out. You can reduce the length of the sentence to one word. In. Out. While you are breathing in, you just recognize that this is your in breath, and you use the word, in. And you are wholly concentrated on your in breath. Nothing else.

You become your in breath. You’re not thinking of anything. You’re not thinking of the past, of the future, of your projects. You release everything. You just follow your in breath, and you become one with your in breath. And the energy of mindfulness is generated together with the energy of concentration.

*****

If you are an organic gardener, you know that a flower is made of several elements that may be called non-flower elements: the sunshine, the cloud, the minerals and the seed. And among the non-flower elements, there is the element compost… garbage. The garden always produces garbage.

If you are an organic gardener, you know how to handle the garbage. You know the techniques of transforming the garbage back into compost and into flowers. You don’t have to throw away anything at all. So, the energy of fear, of anger should be considered to be the garbage. Let it be produced, because it can become the art of mindful living.

So, now we should learn how to handle the garbage in us, namely, craving, anger, fear and despair. We should not be afraid of the garbage in us if we know how to transform it back into joy, into peace.

*****

…Mindfulness has the power, has the capacity of helping us to recognize what is there in the present moment. When anger is there, we recognize the fact that anger is there. When fear is there, we recognize the fact that fear is there. And the practice is not to fight, to suppress, but to recognize and to embrace.

“Oh my little anger, I know you. You are my old friend. I will take good care of you. Oh my little fear, I know you are always there. I will take good care of you.” That is the attitude of non-duality, the attitude of non-violence, because we know that mindfulness is us; love is us; but fear and anger are us, also.

Let us not fight. Let us only take care and transform. The organic gardener doesn’t have to fight the garbage placed in (or created by) the garden. She knows exactly what to do in order to handle the garbage, in order to transform it back into cucumber, into tomatoes, et cetera.

The first function of mindfulness is to recognize what is there, positive or negative. The second function of mindfulness is to embrace it and to get deeply in touch with it. If it is a positive thing like a blue sky or the beautiful face of a child, that becomes something very nourishing, very healing for us. And if it is something negative, like hatred or fear, we should be able to embrace it and bring relief to it.

The third function of mindfulness is to help us look deeply into the nature of what is there; in this case, fear or anger. The nature of something means the root of that something: how this fear has been created; how this anger has manifested. Look deeply into the nature of our fear and our anger in order to see their true nature. When we understand, when we have insight into the nature of our fear and our anger, that insight will help transform our fear, our anger into positive energies.

Looking deeply helps us to recognize, to realize things that we have not realized before. In the past three years, we have been bringing groups of Israelis and Palestinians to Plum Village (where we live and practice) to support their practice. We have learned a lot from them, also. When they arrive, they always bring with them a lot of fear, a lot of anger, a lot of suspicion. They could not talk to each other, because everyone has a lot of suspicion and anger and fear in himself or herself….

The groups of Israelis and Palestinians, when they arrive, they are introduced to the practice of mindful breathing and mindful walking right away. The practice helps to generate the energy of mindfulness so they can recognize and embrace their fear, their anger, their suspicion, their despair. We do it together with the support of the International Community of Meditation.

The Jews and Palestinians practice sitting together, eating mindfully and silently together, walking together, breathing together for a number of days — seven days, eight days, nine days. Every day they listen to a Dharma talk in order to receive the teachings on how to do the practice of mindfully recognizing their fear, their anger, their suspicion and their despair, how to embrace them and how to treat them with nonviolence and non-duality.

About ten days are necessary for each of them to be able to see more clearly, because anger and fear prevent us from seeing things clearly, especially when anger or fear has become collective.

When anger has become collective, when fear has become collective, it’s extremely dangerous for our nation and for the world. That is why we should practice not only as individuals but also as communities, as nations.

With the support of the international community, the Jews and the Palestinians are able to come down, and now they are assisted in the practice of listening deeply with compassion to the other groups.

Listening to our own suffering, our own fear, our own anger is the first thing we have to do as a person and as a community. After that, when we have some insight about the roots of our fear, our anger, our despair, then we can listen to other groups of people.

While listening, you have to practice mindful breathing in order to keep calm, to maintain compassion in you, because that practice of deep listening is also called the practice of compassionate listening.

Compassionate listening means to listen with one purpose: helping the other side, the other person to express himself or herself and to get relief. You don’t listen to criticize. You just listen in order to give the other person a chance to empty his heart; to empty her heart in order to get relief.

*****

When you can listen like that for one hour to the other person, he or she will get relief. During the whole time of listening, you keep your practice of mindful breathing, in order to maintain compassion. If these two things do not exist during the time of listening, your listening will not have a good effect.

Even if the other side says things that are full of wrong perceptions, blaming and judgment, you are still capable of listening with compassion. This is extremely important. And that is possible only with the practice of mindful breathing and the maintaining of compassion during the whole time of listening. We have to train ourselves for at least one week in order to be able to do it and to help our beloved one get relief.

When you are the person who speaks, you practice gentle speech, loving speech. You have the right, and you have a duty to tell the other group of people, the other person, what is in your heart. But you have to use the kind of language that can convey your feelings, that can convey your insights, your suffering to the other person; namely, the language of love and kindness.

If you do not use the language of love and kindness, then you touch off the energy of anger and hatred in the other person, and he or she will not be able to listen to you. That is why it is very important to practice loving speech, gentle speech. That is the subject of the fourth mindfulness training in the Buddhist tradition.

So, with the assistance and the support of the Plum Village community, the two groups sit down and practice listening to each other and using gentle speech. It works very well always. Listening like that in the presence of many, many other practitioners, you realize– maybe for the first time– that on the other side they are human beings also, and they have already suffered very deeply because of anger, of hatred, of violence, of despair.

The moment that you realize they are human beings who have suffered deeply also, compassion begins to arise in your heart, and now you are able to look at them with the eyes of compassion. You have become a Bodhisattva, capable of using the eyes of compassion in order to look at other living human beings.

Fourteen days or twenty-one days can produce a miracle. There are people who say, after having been in Plum Village, “I believe that peace is possible in the Middle East.” Both groups want to bring home the practice; to organize sessions of practice among friends. Now they have set up Sanghas, communities of practice–a little bit everywhere in the Middle East. And they want to maintain their practice, because their practice helped them maintain compassion and insight, [and allowed them] not to be drowned in the ocean of despair.

It is our conviction that if their leaders come together and practice the same kind of practice, they will be able to bring peace and reconciliation to the Middle East.

If we practice, if we organize a peace conference supported by many nations, and if we organize so that the two parties have a chance to try this kind of practice, then the peace conference will bring a wonderful result. Because if you still have a lot of anger, a lot of suspicion, a lot of hatred, it would be extremely difficult for you to come to an agreement that will really bring peace and well-being to the two nations, the two people.

*****

I would like to tell you the story of a couple who live in California. They have practiced in this mindful way. The lady, who is a Catholic, wanted to commit suicide, because she had suffered so much. There was no joy in her life anymore. Her husband was like a bomb, ready to explode at any time. He had a lot of anger, a lot of bitterness, a lot of frustration, a lot of violence in him. The three children, who attended university, were very afraid of coming close to their father. Their father would get angry at anything–would explode at any time. He believed that his wife and his three children were boycotting him, and that made his anger and frustration grow bigger and bigger every day.

*****

The lady had a friend, a Buddhist practitioner, who was aware of her situation, and who had tried to persuade her to listen to a Dharma talk given by her teacher. The title of the Dharma talk, in the form of a cassette tape, is “How to Diffuse a Bomb.”

When you contain within yourself too much violence, too much anger, you become very tense. You become like a bomb. You suffer very much, and you spill your suffering all over the people who live with you, and people are afraid of you. They don’t want to approach you, and then you believe that everyone is boycotting you. You are extremely lonely.

The Buddhist lady believed that if her friend listened to the Dharma talk, she would know how to help diffuse the bomb in her husband. But that lady considered herself a Catholic. She said, “I am a Catholic. Why should I listen to this kind of stuff?”

But the morning that [the lady] called and announced that she was going to die, her Buddhist friend asked her to come over right away. She wanted to see her for the last time, and this time she tried her best to convince the lady to listen to the talk. She said, “You always said that I am your best friend, and the only thing I ask you to do is to listen to the Dharma talk of my teacher. I don’t think that you are truly my friend.” That challenge helped. The lady told herself, “Now, I am going to die. Why don’t I satisfy the person I consider to be my friend.” So she agreed to listen to the Dharma talk.

The Buddhist lady withdrew in order to allow her friend to be alone in the living room, and she began to listen to the cassette tape. As she listened to the Dharma talk, insight came to her. She recognized the fact that the suffering in her had not been created only by her husband, but by herself. And the suffering in her husband had not been created by her husband alone, but she had participated in creating the suffering in him.

When she listened to the Dharma talk, she realized that in the last six years, she never used the kind of language that is called loving speech. She always blamed him. She always used a very sour language, full of blaming and judgment. She realized she had made the situation worse every day, and she felt that she was partly responsible for her own suffering and the suffering of her husband.

When you suffer, you have the tendency to blame the other person as the only source of your suffering. You don’t recognize that you are responsible to some extent for your suffering, and you have also created the suffering of the other person. That was her insight during the time that she listened to the talk, and her heart opened, and for the first time in so many years, she felt sorry. She felt compassion for herself and for her husband.

She was animated, inspired by the idea of going home and helping her husband by practicing listening deeply, listening with compassion. She became very enthusiastic. But her Buddhist friend said, “No, my friend. You are still very weak. You have to train yourself at least one week in order to be able to do so. Because if you listen to him, and if his language is full of blaming and wrong perceptions, you will interrupt him and spoil everything. You have to train yourself first. Let me propose to you this. My teacher is coming from France, and he is going to offer in the Bay area two retreats, one for the Vietnamese-speaking people and one for the English-speaking people. Why don’t you sign up for the first retreat?”

The Catholic lady accepted, and during the six-day retreat, she practiced with all her heart, because for her it was a matter of life and death. That is why she invested herself entirely into the practice. She learned how to breathe, how to walk, how to embrace the suffering in her, how to use the kind of loving speech that will be able to open the heart of her husband. And with the support of other practitioners, she went very deeply into the practice.

The night that she came home, she put into practice what she had learned on the retreat. She was very silent that night, practicing mindful breathing, mindful walking. And, finally, she came and sat down close to [her husband], and she began to speak. She said, “My husband, I know that you have suffered terribly during the past six or seven years. I have not been able to help you, and I have made the situation worse. I am sorry. I did not know how to listen to you. I didn’t know what was going on in your heart, in your mind. I was blind. I was unable to see. And that is why I have made the situation worse. I didn’t want you to suffer. I wanted you to be happy, but because I did not know how, I have made the situation worse. So, please, my husband, please help me. Please tell me what is in your heart. I want to understand so that I will not repeat the unskillful things I have done. I am very sorry. You have to help me; alone I cannot change.”

She was very surprised to see him begin to cry like a little boy. Seeing that, she knew that the door of communication had opened. So she practiced mindful breathing, deeply, and she insisted, “Please, my husband, please tell me what is in your heart. I will try to listen. I will try to understand. I want you to be happy. I don’t want you to suffer.”

It turned out, that that night was a very healing night for both of them. She was very successful in her practice of deep listening and using loving speech, and she was able to restore communication. She was able to convince him to sign up for the second retreat of mindfulness. And during the last day of the second retreat, he stood up and he introduced his wife as a bodhisattva. (A bodhisattva in Buddhism means an enlightened being who is able to help other people to be enlightened, also.)

*****

It is my conviction that the practice of the Israeli and Palestinian groups, the practice of that couple in California can be applied as the practice in the international political scenery. The principle of the practice is to go home to yourself and listen to your own suffering and raise your own suffering and despair and fear. That is what I proposed last year after 9/11.

Two days after the 9/11 event, I spoke to four thousand people in Brooklyn. I proposed that America should go back to herself, practicing mindful breathing and embracing the pain, the suffering, the fear, the anger, and listening to the suffering of America. On the 25th of September that year, I spoke at the Riverside Church in New York City with Ambassador Andrew Young. We went to Ground Zero the day after, and I again proposed that [America] should embrace this practice of going home to herself, listening to her own suffering; that she must bring relief to herself before she can do something to help the situation in the world.

In the United States of America, there are people– sections of the population– who feel that they are victims of social injustice and discrimination. They feel that they have never been listened to. Suffering is there in America, and America has to practice listening to her own pain and suffering.

This is the first step. There are vast resources of peace in this country. There are those of us in America who have the capacity to listen deeply and with compassion to the suffering of America. We should be able to look around, to identify them, and to invite them to come in order to form a parliament for deep listening, a kind of counsel of sages, in order to practice listening to the suffering of our own nation, of our own people.

Then we should be able to invite those people who have felt that they’re victims of social injustice and discrimination to come in order to tell us about their suffering. We should have people who come and help them to practice calming, embracing their suffering, help them use the kind of language that can convey the suffering, the feeling within themselves, exactly like in the case of that couple, exactly like in the case of the Palestinians and Israelis in Plum Village.….

America can act compassionately within her frontiers in order to heal the wounds, to mend the wounds within America first. This is the first step. We cannot do the second step before we can make the first step. If you want to help other countries, other groups of people like Afghanistan and the others, we have to help ourselves first, …all of us know that this has to begin with one’s self. So, acting with compassion and wisdom within our own frontiers is the first step.

*****

Then bringing that practice into the international levels, America can ask other nations to help create sessions of deep listening where America can participate.

Around the world there are those who are capable of being compassionate, of being attentive, of being able to listen deeply. You shall invite them to come and listen. Other groups who believe that they have been victims of injustice, that they are mistreated by America and other big nations, they are invited to come and to tell the world about their suffering, their fear, their anger.

If we have not been able to listen to our fear, our anger, we cannot listen and understand the fear and the anger of other nations and people. Then there are those of us who can come as volunteers to help these people to breathe, to walk, to calm down, to use the kind of language that can convey what is deep in their heart.

*****

…Looking deeply, we realize that hate, violence, anger, and terrorism are born from wrong perceptions. [Others] may have wrong perceptions of themselves, and they may have wrong perceptions of us, and they have acted on the basis of these wrong perceptions.

In order for them not to continue, the only way is to help them remove these wrong perceptions of themselves and of us, and that work cannot be done by the Army. That work cannot be done by bombs and guns. That can only be done with the practice of deep listening, compassionate listening, and loving speech. We have to support our political leaders in this practice.

*****

One of the deepest teachings given by Buddha is that you should not be too sure of your perceptions. You have to practice looking deeply in order not to be fooled by your perceptions. If you are a doctor, you have to be very careful. Even if you are sure, check again. This kind of practice should be applied in our political life also.

The mass media has the duty of informing the people about what is happening. Journalists, reporters should be able to be calm, not to be carried away by their emotions, their feelings, their anger, their despair, in order to report well, to reflect the situation with more accuracy.

Our political leaders have to train themselves in order not to be carried away by fear, by anger. They should be able to retain their lucidity for the sake of the nation and of the world. When fear and anger has become collective, the situation becomes extremely dangerous for everyone. That is why we have to bring a spiritual dimension to our political life.

*****

You have elected your government. You have elected your House of Representatives and your Senate. You should continue to support them. You should continue to give them the kind of information that helps them correct their poor perceptions.

The situation of our country, of our world, is [too important] to be entrusted only to politicians. As a mother, as a father, as a school teacher, as a doctor, you have to practice in order to remain calm, in order to look deeply, in order to understand, and you have to convey your insight, your compassion to your elected people. You have to practice. We cannot leave the matter only to our politicians.

In Buddhist psychology, we speak of consciousness in terms of seeds. In the lower level, lower layer of our consciousness, there is a part that is called store consciousness. Store consciousness is the place where all the seeds of mental formations are preserved.

There is a seed of fear; there is a seed of anger; there is a seed of despair; there is a seed of peace; there is a seed of joy; there is a seed of loving kindness–all the good seeds and all the negative seeds that have been transmitted to us by our ancestors, our parents. It depends on the environment where we live, [but] such seeds can be watered several times a day.

Our children watch television three hours a day or even more. And during the time they watch television, their seed of fear, of anger, of craving may be watered, and they continue to grow. We have to create, we have to produce television programs that are able to water the seed of compassion, joy, peace, loving kindness.

That is why mindful consumption is very important. When you read a magazine, you consume. When you listen to music, you consume. When we begin a conversation, we consume, because a conversation can also be highly toxic.

If a man or a woman is full of fear, of despair, of hatred, and if we listen to him or to her for an hour, the poisons will penetrate into store consciousness, and make the seed of fear and anger grow very quickly. That is why the practice of mindful consumption, including consumption of conversation, is very crucial for self-protection, for the protection of our family and society.

*****

… We should be able to stop violence and to take up the path of reconciliation and peace. This is possible. I have the conviction that America has enough wisdom and courage and compassion in order to pick up that path of reconciliation and healing.

*****

When we listen to the other person, to the other group of persons, you get insight about their suffering, their difficulty, their fear, and their anger. And at the same time, you realize that we do have wrong perceptions also. We have done, we have said things that have created misunderstanding. We have not understood us completely. We have not understood them completely. We vow to practice in order to have a better understanding of ourselves and of them so that our action will be in the direction of peace.

America will learn a lot with the practice of deep listening and compassionate listening. The insights she will get will be able to serve as the ground for repairing the damage she has done to herself in America and she has done in other parts of the world. She will be able to help remove the wrong perceptions of the people outside of America, about America, and about themselves.

It is my conviction that [she must work to] remove wrong perceptions–for that is the base, the foundation of hatred and violence and terrorism. That work cannot be done by the bombs. It should be done by the practice of deep listening, compassionate listening, and loving speech.

*****

My dear friends, peace is not something we can only hope for. Peace is something we can contemplate in our daily life by our practice of mindful breathing, mindful walking, embracing our fear, our anger, producing the energy of understanding and compassion. And with that element of peace in us, we should be able to support our government, our Congress.

And let us remember that peace is in our hands. We can do something for peace every day. Let us practice as individuals. Let us practice as communities, as Sanghas, and let us give peace a chance.

nteresting!!

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.
My confession:
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees.
It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a Crèche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away .
I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the con cept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.
Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her “How could God let something like this happen?” (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.
She said, “I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?”
In light of recent events…terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.
Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK.
Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with “WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.”
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we be lieve what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says . Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Are you laughing?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.
Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.
Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it… no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards.
Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Conflict can move you to grow even more amenable as it is likely that you have little desire to pit your needs against the needs of another. Yet your compassionate nature and gestures of kindness may not sway the minds and hearts of those on the other side of the negotiating table. If it is your intention to seek a compromise that both parties can agree to, you may need to learn more about your opponents. Try having a brief casual conversation with them during which no mention is made of the matter currently in contention. You may discover today that each of you wants to come to a harmonious conclusion more than anything else.

Having a simple conversation with those on the other side of the negotiating table can help you gain a more thorough understanding of both their needs and the motives influencing them. There is no need to bring up potentially charged topics the point of engaging in a non-confrontational discourse is to get to know our adversaries and to provide them with an opportunity to get to know us. As we share our thoughts and feelings, we will discover that our individual objectives are likely not wholly incompatible. And because from hereon in we will regard one another as sympathetic human beings rather than opponents, each of us will be more apt to take the other into consideration when framing lists of stipulations. Reaching an agreement during negotiations will prove easiest today when you understand where the people with whom you are in conflict are coming from.

Restful Escape

You may feel overwhelmed by strong emotions and long to escape your everyday reality. You may find yourself feeling sensitive to the moods of others, which could cause you to overreact to minor conflicts. If you can set aside some quiet time to be alone and calm your emotions, you will be able to release your tension and regain a stronger state of mind. If you find that you are in need of peace and quiet more than anything else, you could engage in meditative activities to encourage a calm mind-set, or you could spend time on activities you enjoy in order to lift your mood. Reading an enjoyable book, listening to soothing music, or taking a restorative walk in nature could help to ease your sensitivity and renew your optimistic outlook today.

We can regain our inner balance and restore our peaceful state of mind by escaping our normal routine to engage in soothing activities. We often resist the urge to escape our ordinary reality because of pressing obligations. Taking short respites, however, can actually help us to be more productive in our tasks. By making time to honor our own needs for solitude and relaxation, we can release our tension and regain a sense of inner balance again. We then feel more optimistic and connected in our daily activities, and we can proceed with a stronger, more focused mind-set. Choosing to spend time pursuing activities you love can renew your focus and ease your sensitivity today.

Chakra-Centered Creative Energy

You can find alternative ways to look at things, kindling progressive and creative ideas. Since it is more interesting and energizing to do things differently, you might view your standard way of looking at life as stilting. Focusing on your second chakra, which is your energetic center for creativity, may help you think outside the box today. If you can, try imagining a ball of orange light about three inches below your navel. As you picture this light, think about whatever problem or challenge you have that you wish to solve. By breathing into this area and visualizing the light growing with each breath, you may notice that your thoughts become freer and more open. Using this form of visualization might help you energetically release your muse and find the innovative solutions you are searching for.

Breathing into our second chakra can enable us to cultivate our creative energy more fully. When we wish to think in a way that is new and unusual, we usually use our logical minds to find a creative solution. Drawing on the energetic resources of our bodies, however, connects us to the flow of unlimited universal energy and allows us to pull our creative power from a deeper source. Instead of trying to find a solution logically, we use the more insightful part of ourselves our inner connection to spirit. By getting in touch with the wonders of your energetic body today, you will use your creativity to the fullest.

Actually, we have no problems – we have opportunities for which we should give thanks…
An error we refuse to correct has many lives. It takes courage to face one’s own shortcomings and wisdom to do something about them.

Edgar Cayce

Back In The Driver‚s Seat
The Passenger

It‚s easy to go through this fast-paced world feeling as if you are being dragged through your weeks on the back of a wild horse. Many of us go from one thing to another until we end up back at home in the evening with just enough time to wind down and go to sleep, waking up the next morning to begin the wild ride once more. While this can be exhilarating for certain periods of time, a life lived entirely in this fashion can be exhausting, and more important, it places us in the passenger‚s seat when really we are the ones who should be driving.

When we get caught up in our packed schedule and our many obligations, weeks can go by without us doing one spontaneous thing or taking time to look at the bigger picture of our lives. Without these breaks, we run the risk of going through our precious days on a runaway train. Taking time to view the bigger picture, asking ourselves if we are happy with the course we are on and making adjustments, puts us back in the driver‚s seat where we belong. When we take responsibility for charting our own course in life, we may well go in an entirely different direction from the one laid out for us by society and familial expectations. This can be uncomfortable in the short term, but in the long term it is much worse to imagine living this precious life without ever taking the wheel and navigating our own course.

Of course, time spent examining the big picture could lead us to see that we are happy with the road we are on, but we would like more time with family or more free time to do whatever we want at the moment. Even if we want more extreme changes, the way to begin is to get off the road for long enough to catch our breath and remember who we are and what we truly want. Once we do that, we can take the wheel with confidence, driving the speed we want to go in the direction that is right for us.

I highly recommend that you take some time out of what you think is your busy schedule and watch everyone on of these video clips!

You must have a Moral Society or you will have no Society.

You must wake up to the reality that is happening to this planet and do something positive/proactive about it or there will be no planet to wake up to very soon.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=g7cylfQtkDg

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tqfvUA2vRAM&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9piIziXU9RE&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z57zs_Q67Ng&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2BqJMwKZdyE&feature=related

The time is now people!!

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.
Robert Frost. American poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes.