THINKING

Fortunately or not, everything we do is led by our thinking. There's just no way
around it. Even if we say. 'I'm going to stop thinking and let feeling be my guide,'
-that's a thought.

Like the first step of a journey, it may pass unnoticed or forgotten, but you know it must have been there.

If we are going to transform our basic capacities, we'd better begin with the most basic of all....the one that helps us choose and guide all others.

We may suspect our thinking of being limited and culturally determined, we may complain of thinking as inadequate to its task of understanding this world and directing our behaviour and we may despise any reliance on the thought as unromantic.
What we can't do is to avoid it. Each of these critiques is itself an example of thinking and indeed dwell in an ocean of thinking. Harmony gets inside you through your thinking - the ancestor to all action in a thought.

All our behavior results from the thoughts that precede it and everything in the universe is connected through thought. The whole universal system is held together
through LOVE, HARMONY and COOPERATION. If you use your thoughts according to those
principle, you can transcend anything that gets in your way.

Thoughts, when properly nourished and internalized, will become a reality in your world of form. Thoughts are extremely powerful things. In the world of pure thought,
there is no boundaries, hence, there is no limits. Every human-made actions starts with a thought, an idea, a vision, a mental image. From there it materializes into forms, you can't age thought but you can only age form!

ps/smoh

Taking shape

I would rather think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to come together and make sense.

Every day is full of question. It's only as days, week and months go by that we are able to look back and see a pattern. Then, there is an intelligence to it all.

Years go by, and our character develops. We make choices as we set and achieve our goals. Life brings us unexpected joys and sorrows that become integral to our development. Like a grand patchwork quilt, none of the individual moment makes sense or seems to have much value by itself. Woven together, a work of art take shape.

Sometimes I'm not sure why I had to go through a certain chapter in my life. I trust that those moment will make more sense as I move forward. Meanwhile, I am thankful for the sense of adventure and mystery.

We all know this phrase....learning from mistakes. It is natural to make mistakes; it is terribly wrong to willfully keep making mistakes.

Learning requires trial and error. We need to give ourselves permission to mess up -
and we must learn from those mistakes. Pride or stubbornness might keep us trying the same unwise action.
We make much more progress and our loved ones sure appreciate it, when we dust off after a fall, admit our error and then try a smarter approach.

It's OK and even healthy for us to make mistakes, but, we want to look for ways to learn from those mistakes.

Understanding bring peace -Unshakable peace

"I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace. If you do not find peace in yourself, you will never find it anywhere else."

By definition, inner peace is a state of rest, well-founded peace is unshakable by external circumstances.We may look for peace by trying to make our surroundings more pleasant, it takes work and discovery to develop that level of peace.
But if we are in a peaceful room or moment, it's likely we are not experiencing internal peace so much as contentment with what's around you.
The unknown always seems a little scary - anxiety, frustration and fear often stem from lacking a full understanding of a situation or relationship.
The discontent can also come from our own unhealed hurts.
The hall mark of peace is its existence in the middle of a frustrating or frighting situation.

Whether we seek to better understanding other people and situations or to learn more about our own personal needs or healing processes, the natural by-product of increased understanding is greater peace.

Once we've experienced that real peace, we are able to enter into that state a little more easily the next time a tricky challenge arises. We are able to appreciate the contented moments even more, too!

I recognize there are areas in my life that lack peace. I will look for ways to increase my understanding so the unknown no longer seems so intimidating.

A Kind Response

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Things are rarely what they seem. Often, we can defuse a tense situation by listening to the other, asking questions and exploring from where the tension may be coming.

In passing moments, when we haven't time to discover those details, kindness is still a wise response. Not a passive rolling over or giving in, the kind word in the face of an uncomfortable interaction comes from a place of strength.
It alters the atmosphere and disarms most attacks.

I will watch for the opportunity to practice kindness in difficult encounters.

A Perfect Friend?

" We shall never have friends if we expect to feel them without fault."

When I am making new friends, I can balance my desire for certain character traits and qualities with a gracious understanding that people are not perfect. There is no such thing as perfect or normal for that matter - we are all a little quirky.

Do we ever rule out friendship with someone because of some personal flaw we've seen in them?
It is good to be careful about the character of those we choose for close friendship, but sometimes we are a little too quick with our judgments.
We may miss out on a friendship that could bring fresh perspective into our lives.
If we are impossible to please, we may find ourselves enjoying our high standards alone.

Creating ourselves

"Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement."

We will live with ourselves for the rest of our lives. We get to decide what kind of people we will be. We must make sure we are becoming the kind of company that we would like to keep!
Looking at ourselves and evaluating who we are in the light of who we would like to be can be daunting.
We wonder, 'Will I ever really get there?' We will; we can trust ourselves to continue to grow and mature in wisdom.
All we need to do is fan into flame the good and beautiful sparks we already carry within us.

I am sure we all have a picture in our mind of who we would like to be in 5 to 10 years. I know that vision will become reality as we start now, in a small ways, to turn into that person.

The way of LOVE

Human love that is carried by the warmth of the true feeling and derives its energy from the spiritual dimension of our life, is an ideal form of love.
Ideal both in the sense of something to aim at which will be difficult to achieve and also in the platonic meaning of Idea, it enables us to penetrate into the depths of phenomena and to reach the creative and formative idea behind each phenomenon.
It leads us towards intuition, the highest form of cognition.

As most of us have a long way to go before our soul becomes a bearer of this kind of love, we can take this as a challenge and strive towards it.
We can see ourselves, together with the main part of humanity, as trying to purify and spiritualize our way of loving.
This will take much time and the devotion of much soul-energy. It will call up in us a high degree of awareness of our actions and the will to transform our way of thinking.
For what is required is that we perceive the eternal element in all person and situation that we encounter in daily life.
We can be confronted by the knowledge that our very ordinary experiences provide opportunities for growing in our awareness of the spiritual, the eternal, in all that is seemingly
transient.
The days go by, and if each day brings us one tiny step forward, we can indeed make progress. One day we stop to look at the view just round the corner, we suddenly notice its beauty for the first time.
The aim to develop spiritual love will gradually open the channels through which this love can flow; if we look for the eternal being in everyone, we will find that this reveal itself more and more in those we meet or turn to in our thoughts.
And our thoughts themselves will gradually become free; free from the pressures of our instincts and emotions, our memories and our subconscious longings.
Thereby the basic conditions of the growth of spiritual love will be met. We will become bearer of a power of feeling that carries warmth of regard and thankfulness to our surroundings.
We will develop selfless love.

Faith and reason

" Faith is a belief in something for which we have no evidence and faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods."

Faith and reason are not necessarily at odds. As multiple facets of who we are, they often work to support each other. Faith may expand the boundaries of reason when it spurs us to try
something new or bring hope to a disheartening moment. Reason sees the tangible fruit of faith and accepts that new reality as sound.

When reality is tested and our emotions waver, faith step in to remind us that our belief is reasonable and worth retaining. Faith and reason become an inseparable team.

I realize I need both faith and reason in all growth and challenge.

Prayer of gratitude

" If the only prayer you say in your whole life is 'THANK YOU,' that would suffice."

Thank you - for this day, for this moment, for all the good in my life right now.

Our prayers need not to be long, loud or eloquent to be powerful. In fact, the most meaningful
prayers are not for anything. They are a simple awareness of all we already have. We quiet the fussy thoughts about the day and cease yearning for answers. Resting into a focused state of gratitude is the most important prayer we can learn.

Hearts

'The hearts has its reasons which reason knows not of.'

It's been a long road.....getting from there to here
It's been a long time..
But my time is finally here
And I will see my dream come alive at last

I will touch the sky
And they're not gonna hold me down no more
No, they're not gonna change my mind
Cause I've got faith of the heart

I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star

I've got faith
I've got faith
I've got faith of the heart


take risks, live fully - the proper function of man kind is to live, not to exist. We shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.

While it's wise to care for our bodies and take precautions when doing something dangerous,
it's possible to be too careful. It is refreshing and life-giving to dive fully into life, to take a few
extravagant risks and experience the rush of feeling completely alive. We were meant to live, not just preserve ourselves. If we're too cautions, we will get to the end of our lives wondering
if we missed out.

Take the risk of living life fully. We might try hiking a difficult mountain trail or take up a contact sport. Whatever we do, it will be an invigorating challenge. We will embrace it completely.

Facing our problems

" Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

We have little or no power to change some problems in our lives. An injury or illness leaves us with physical limitations, a dear friends moves away, a shift at our company limits our career advancement. It's tempting to become bitter, but facing the problem is far healthier.

When we face the problem, we may find there are some part of it we can change. Time and therapy help our injury and illness, a phone call with a friend result in scheduling a fun reunion, an honest chat with a supervisor reveals other opportunities for professional growth.

We will face our challenges head-on. It's only when we face them that we can see what we need to accept and what we can change.

Open the gate

" The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck"

Opportunity sometimes seems to knock more frequently on some people's doors, while others
struggle, wondering when they'll get their big break. If we look closer, we see that lucky individuals share some traits. They expect to find opportunity around every corner. They can view any new situation, even a difficult one, as an opportunity.

The world is brimming with possibility. What if we were to enter each day and moment with an attitude of childlike curiosity? Look, here is another gate, a transition from one space to another. We reach out and lift the latch, hear the creak of the hinges and instead of staying where it is safe and familiar, we step through.

I resolve to open a new gate in my life. I'll take a peek and see what's on the other side.