To really live… August 31, 2006
Posted by Shel in Philosophy, Quotations.1 comment so far
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
Really simple, right? August 29, 2006
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How many of us go through our days parched and empty, thirsting after happiness, when we’re really standing knee-deep in the river of abundance?
— Sarah Ban Breathnach
From Hold That Thought by Sarah Ban Breathnach (Warner Books)
The five people you meet in Heaven August 29, 2006
Posted by Shel in Books, Philosophy.add a comment
Some excerpts from Mitch Albom’s book, The five people you meet in Heaven.
“There are no random acts. We are all connected. You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind.”
“Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.”
On Sacrifice:
“Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices, Big sacrifices.”
On Forgiveness:
“No one is born with anger.” (We accumulate it in our lifetimes.) “And when we die, the soul is freed of it.”
On Anger:
“Holding anger is poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.”
On Love:
“Love, like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive. “
This is an incredible book. The storyline, the language, the examples used are so straightforward making it easy to understand, relate to and apply to ones lives.
The wheel of life August 29, 2006
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From today’s Sacred Space in Times of India:
The Wheel Turns
There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man’s whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.
Everyone lets the present moment slip by, then looks for it as though he thought it were somewhere else. No one seems to have noticed this fact. But grasping this firmly, one must pile experience upon experience. And once one has come to this understanding he will be a different person from that point on, though he may not always bear it in mind.
When one understands this settling into single-mindedness well, his affairs will thin out.
From Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo
