Powerful and deep thoughts! Must read! Adding some excerpts from the book, for my easy reference!
If you are happy in life right now, it's not because everything about your life is necessarily going right, but because a relationship that really matters to you the most is going great.
For your children your life will either serve as a warning or as an example; how else can you explain why you came into this planet before them.
Even if a car is damaged, be happy that you are fine; you can buy another car! No point if car is fine and you aren't alive!
It does not matter how much we have, but what really matters is what we do with what we have:
A pawn if used well, will become the Queen.
Pareto principle: Focus on the 20% and 80% off everything in your life will be taken care of.
Every age and every phase of life has some sense of respect associated with it, and you need to respect that.
Life will not postpone our death. So, let us not postpone our life.
The is a subtle difference between waiting and 'waiting for', and in that lies the difference between 'peaceful progress' and 'stressful success'
Remember, on the totem pole of growth, a failure in tenth grade is still higher than a pass in eighth grade. A just-miss in an attempt to scale Mount Everest is still a leg higher than making it to the top of a local hill. The higher the maturity, the higher the challenge. That's how life moulds man.
Marriage , in its true sense, should improve the quality of life of both involved. Marriage can and should be a continuity of life, magnifying the possibilities for both. A good marriage has to be nurtured and developed. Building a great marriage is an art; so get artistic.
Instead of accepting yourself as you are and expecting the world to change, accept the world as it is and you start changing your approach towards the world. Let life be beautiful because of the world. Let life be beautiful in spite of the world.
Let our behaviour not be instigated by forces from outside, but be born out of an internal value based choice. The greatest pride is in riding in your own eyes. How much ever you are tested, wherever you go, whatever you do... Live your character. Let the limitations of other people not limit us. 'someone is wrong' isn't an excuse for us to be wrong.
Emotions - Yes. Emotional drama - No. What is, is. What is not, is not. Genius is knowing when to hold on and when to let go.
Holidays are mandatory. Without brakes, we will break down. "For in six days the lord mate heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed"
It is not about right and wrong. It is about compatibility.
When a weakness, a limitation, can be knocked off, why suffer it and let it incapacitate us for the rest of our lives? Invest some time in reading, knock a weakness of and enjoy its benefit for the rest of your life.
Why is it that you don't want to know what you must know? Just because you close your eyes, it doesn't mean that the world will become blind. Eventually, what just be faced, must be faced. Then, why at all eventually? Why at all postpone? Why at all delay? The first fire you will face tomorrow is the little spark your tried to escape yesterday.
It is a fact that most of us lack the courage to face the facts of life. That we lack courage to face the facts of life is the first brutal fact we must face.
Life is like a game of chess and you play this game with him. After every move of yours, he makes the next move. Your moves are called choices and his moves are called consequences. When you are found to play your game well, he wins by allowing you to win the game.
Be someone's greatest gift.
Your most precious resource is yourself. Are you using yourself enough. It's not that you don't have time; is about managing the resource called time effeciently. It's not that you don't have enough money, and hence you're not rich; it's about managing the resource called money, the little there is, efficiently enough to become rich.
In everything we make, create and produce there is an invisible ingredient, and this invisible ingredient make the difference between the better and better, the ordinary and the extra ordinary. The involvement of the heart in any task performed is that invisible ingredient.
In prayer you talk to existence. In meditation, you listen to existence. In prayer, you listen to your own voice. In meditation you listen to the beyond. Prayer is communication with existence. Mediation is a communion with existence.
There was enough and you still had reasons to frown. The wasn't enough, you still had reasons to smile. Today, you can look back with tears of gratitude for all the times you have laughed, and also look back with a smile at all the times you cried alone. All in all, life filled you with experiences to create a history of your own self, and you alone can remember them all.
If you are not happy with what you have, no matter how much more you have, you will still not be happy. Make a statement with the way you live your life: how I feel has nothing to do with how much I have.
Quality consciousness is expecting more from yourself than what anyone else expects of you.
Cleansing of body is as important as cleansing of soul.
We ought to realise that quality begins on the inside and then works it's way out.
The presence of quality is seldom noticed but the absence of it can never be missed.
Where there is excellence, explanation is not required.
What the world calls a failure, I call it a turning point. God upsets your plans sometimes to execute his plans for you.
Between deep hatred and shallow love, your subconscious will always choose hatred. That's why you can process hurt and hatred for years, and yet, every few days you need renewals of expressions of love. Else, it hurts. See the irony! You are self sufficient when it come to keeping your hatred alive, but need external help to keep your love going. The remedy is to learn to experience deep love. Intensify your expressions and demonstrations of love. Sink in love. Drown in love. Epitomises love. More importantly, learn to tranquilise hurt and hatred with forgiveness and keep it shallow. Eventually, your subconscious will spontaneously choose love over hatred, for the sheer deepth of it.
The seeker asked, "why do bad things happen to good people", the pastor replied,"when the question itself is wrong, how do you energy me to answer it?". The question should have been, "what happens to good people when bad things happen to them" and the reply would be, "they become better people"
"Why is this happening to me?" sets your intelligence in a direction that will lead you to self-pity. In the same scenario ask, "what can I learn from this?"and it will direct you to higher maturity.
The world will follow your example, not your advice.
While existence may punish or reward us based on our intentions, man will punish or reward us only based on our actions. Able actions backed up by noble intentions of the way of a complete man.
The tragedy of life isn't the ultimate death, but the resources that die within you when you are still alive. Unused money devalues. Unused value diminishes. Unused machinery gets rusted. Unused time does. Use it or you will lose it.
We become like the company we keep. What is the point of wasting/putting a seed in a heap of garbage. A seed can become a tree only if it has the company of sand, water and sunlight etc!
Let us realise that even the greatest of industrial enterprises were also once just an idea. Every revolution and every social organisation was once only an idea. Nothing elder is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. What happens to the idea depends on the mindset of the person in whose mind the idea is born, and what he does with that idea.
Let nothing of your outside touch the core of your inside.
Without happiness there is no life. Without dissatisfaction there is no growth. Be happily dissatisfied.
The saline waters of ocean, the contaminated drains. The stinking ponds, the stagnant lakes... From anywhere, when water evaporates into the above and comes down again as rains, it is pure drinking water.
In letting go of your hurt, you will let in peace. A peaceful you is a beautiful you. The good news is, you can be beautiful. The very good news is, it is in your hands. See... Even the right of 'let go' is getting you to smile.
Live your character at any cost; at all costs. Whenever you point out someone's mistake, the immediate retort is,"what am I going that the world isn't doing?" Never let the weakness of the world become a justification for your weakness.
When you were born, you were gifted to this world and this world was gifted to you. Your birthday is your biggest day. If you live well, it will also become a big day for the world.
You do not get what you desire. You only get what you deserve.
Activity without direction is change. Activity with direction is progress.
When lived honestly, life heals itself. The truth you resist is the battle you fight.
Emotional stress is due to thoughts not communicated and emotions not expressed.
You're telling me,"honestly, if I start expressing all my thoughts and feelings, I will hurt the person who matters so much to me. I am telling you,"if you don't, you will hurt the relationship itself".
Every good human being has the moral responsibility to be rich. Surplus in the hands of a good human being will be used to create a better world; the same surplus in the hands of unethical or evil minded person will be used to destroy the world. Think of surplus in the hands of mother Teresa. Also think of surplus resources in the hands of Osama