Merlin The Magician: The Magic Of Believing Story

Once upon a time, there was a young man who dreamed of becoming a knight for
King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table.

Before he could become a knight, he had to pass one last test - he had to slay a dragon.

The young man was scared to death.

He asked one of the knights what he should do about his tremendous fear.

This knight advised him to see Merlin the Magician because Merlin had a magic sword.

When the young man told Merlin about his problem, Merlin went to his back room and brought
out a beautiful, gilded sword.

Merlin then instructed him, “This sword is magic and the day that you go out to slay your
dragon, come see me and I will give you this magic sword. But make sure that your scabbard is
empty. And remember that this sword only works its magic if you are in danger.”

One week later, the would-be knight returned. He was dressed for battle and, as Merlin
instructed, his scabbard was empty.

As Merlin went to the back room again, he told the young man to close his eyes.

Then Merlin returned and put the sword into his scabbard.

As the young man left. Merlin reminded him, “This sword will only work its magic if you are in
danger.”

The young man, now more confident, rode his horse out onto the plains where he confronted his
dragon.

It was a fierce battle. The dragon was breathing fire. The dragon’s tail knocked the young man
off his trusty steed.

The young man was on the ground and the dragon came in for the kill.

Just at that moment, the young man remembered about the magic sword. He took the sword out
of his scabbard and started slashing the dragon’s legs.

The dragon was hurt and fell down. The young man jumped onto the dragon and put the sword
into the dragon’s heart and killed the dragon.

The young man returned home victorious.

The first person he went to see was Merlin.

He told Merlin about how the magic sword saved his life.

As he took it out of his scabbard to return it, he looked at it in amazement. “Merlin this isn’t the
same sword you showed me last week. This isn’t the beautiful, gilded magic sword. It’s just an
ordinary sword!”

Merlin nodded and said, “There is no magic sword. The magic is believing.” 

How To Overcome: The Classic Carrot, Egg, and Bean Coffee Story

You may never look at a cup of coffee the same way again!

A young woman told her mother how difficult things were for her.

She did not know how she was going to make it and felt like giving up.

Her mother took her to the kitchen and filled three pots with water. Soon the water started
boiling. In the first pot, she placed carrots. In the second, she put eggs. And in the third, she
placed coffee beans. She let them sit and boil.

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

Turning to her daughter, she asked, “What do you see?”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” her daughter replied.

Her mother handed her some carrots. They were soft.

The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it.

After pulling off the shell, she observed that the egg was now hard boiled.

Then the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich
aroma.

Then the daughter asked, “What does all this mean?”

Her mother said that each of these had faced the same adversity—boiling water. But each reacted
differently.

“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?

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 an open heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit,
but after a death, a break-up, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened
and stiff?

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?

Donkey In The Well: A Classic Short Motivational Story

Once upon a time, there was a little donkey that lived on a ranch. The little donkey spent all of
his time in a pen with his grandfather. One day, the little donkey said, “Grandpa, I want to grow
up to be big and strong like you.

What do I have to do?”

Grandpa said, “All you have to do is learn how to shake it off and step up.”

That confused the little donkey so he asked his grandfather what that meant.

Grandpa said, “Let me tell you a classic short motivational story! One day, when I was just about
your age, I was right here in this pen when someone left the gate open by mistake. Well, I
escaped and started walking out on the prairie. I was admiring the big mountains and the huge
sky.

Then, all of a sudden, when I wasn’t looking at where I was going, I fell into an old, abandoned
well. I was trapped at the bottom of the well, scared to death, thinking I was going to die. I was
the donkey in the well. Then, within a few minutes, I heard a truck and looked up and saw an old
farmer. I thought he would surely save me. But he just looked down at me, shook his head, got
back into his truck, and left.

“A few hours later, I heard what sounded like four or five trucks. I looked up and saw the farmer
and several of his friends. The old farmer said, ‘Boys, the well’s abandoned and that little
donkey ain’t worth anything, so let’s get to work.’

“They got their pick axes and shovels and started burying me alive. Now I knew I was going to
die! The dirt started burying my hooves and then it started covering my lower legs and then I
suddenly realised something — every time a shovel-full of dirt landed on my back, I could shake
it off and step up on it. So I shook it off and stepped up, and shook it off and stepped up, and I
continued shaking and stepping, and shaking and stepping, until I eventually shook off enough
and stepped up enough that I was able to step out of the well and save my life!”

Then the grandfather looked right at the little donkey and said,

“Remember, if you want to grow up to be big and strong, you have to learn how to shake it off
and step up.” 

Nails In The Fence: A Story About Anger

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper.

His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper,
he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned
to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He
discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and
the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his
temper.

The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.

He said, ‘You’ve done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be
the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.

You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m
sorry, the wound is still there and a verbal wound is just as bad as a physical one. 

The Fox and the Grapes

One afternoon, a fox was walking through the forest and spotted a bunch of grapes hanging from a lofty branch.

“Just the thing to quench my thirst,” he thought.

Taking a couple of steps back, the fox jumped and just missed the hanging grapes. The fox tried again but still failed to reach them.

Finally, giving up, the fox turned his nose up and said, “They’re probably sour anyway,” and walked away.

Moral of the story: It’s easy to despise what you can't have.

Two Friends and the Bear

Vijay and Raju were friends. One day while on holiday, exploring a forest, they saw a bear coming towards them.

Naturally, they were both frightened, so Raju, who knew how to climb trees, climbed one quickly. He didn’t spare a thought for his friend who had no idea how to climb.

Vijay thought for a moment. He had heard that animals don’t attack dead bodies, so he fell to the ground and held his breath. The bear sniffed him, thought he was dead, and went on its way.

Raju, after he had climbed down from the tree asked Vijay, “What did the bear whisper in your ears?”

Vijay replied, “The bear asked me to keep away from friends like you.”

Moral of the story: A friend in need is a friend indeed.

The Greedy Lion

It was an incredibly hot day and a lion was feeling very hungry.

He crawled out of his den and searched here and there, but he could only find a small hare. He caught the hare, but with some hesitation as he knew the hare wouldn’t fill him up.

As the lion was about to kill the hare, he spotted a deer coming his way and thought, “Instead of eating this small hare, let me eat that big deer.”

So he let the hare go and went after the deer, but it vanished in the forest. The lion now had nothing to eat as the hare was also long gone.

Moral of the story: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Having a Best Friend

Two friends were walking through the desert. At one stage in their journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face.

The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything he wrote in the sand, “Today my best friend slapped me in the face.”

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to have a wash. The one who had been slapped got stuck in a mire and started drowning, but his friend saved him. After he had recovered from his shock, he wrote on a stone, “Today my best friend saved my life.”

The friend who slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write in stone, why?”

The other friend replied, “When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

Moral of the story: Don’t value the things you have in your life. Value those who you have in your life.

The Wise Man

People visit a wise man complaining about the same problems over and over again. One day, he decided to tell them a joke and they all roared with laughter.

After a few minutes, he told them the same joke and only a few of them smiled.

Then he told the same joke for a third time, but no one laughed or smiled anymore.

The wise man smiled and said: “You can’t laugh at the same joke over and over. So why are you always crying about the same problem?”

Moral of the story: Worrying won’t solve your problems, it’ll just waste your time and energy.

An Old Man Lived in the Village

An old man lived in the village. The whole village was tired of him; he was always gloomy, he constantly complained and was always in a bad mood. The longer he lived, the viler he became and more poisonous were his words. People did their best to avoid him because his misfortune was contagious. He created the feeling of unhappiness in others.

But one day, when he turned eighty, an incredible thing happened. Instantly everyone started hearing the rumour: “The old man is happy today, he doesn’t complain about anything, smiles, and even his face is freshened up.”

The whole village gathered around the man and asked him, “What happened to you?”

The old man replied, “Nothing special. Eighty years I’ve been chasing happiness and it was useless. And then I decided to live without happiness and just enjoy life. That’s why I’m happy now.”

Moral of the story: Don’t chase happiness. Enjoy your life.

Box Full of Kisses

Some time ago, a man punished his young daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became angry when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.

Nevertheless, the girl brought the gift to her father on Christmas day and said, “This is for you, daddy.”

The man became embarrassed by his overreaction a few days before, but his rage continued when he saw that the box was empty. He yelled at her, “Don’t you know, when you give someone a gift, there’s supposed to be something inside?”

The little girl looked up at her dad with tears in her eyes and cried; “Oh, daddy, it’s not empty at all. I blew kisses into the box. They’re all for you, daddy.”

The father was devastated. He put his arms around his daughter, and begged for her forgiveness.

A little while later, the girl died in an accident. Her father kept the gold box by his bed for many years and, whenever he was feeling down, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

Moral of the story: Love is the most precious gift in the world.

The Blind Girl

There once was a blind woman who hated herself purely because she could not see. The only person she loved was her boyfriend, as he was always there for her. She said that if she could only see the world, then she would marry him.

One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her – now she could see everything, including her boyfriend. Her loving boyfriend asked her, “now that you can see the world, will you marry me?”

The woman was shocked when she saw that her boyfriend was blind too, and refused to marry him. Her boyfriend walked away in tears, and wrote a short note to her saying: “Just take care of my eyes, dear.”

Moral of the story: When our circumstances change, so does our mind. Some people may not be able to see the way things were before, and might not be able to appreciate them.

The Butterfly

Once upon a time, a man found a butterfly that was starting to hatch from its cocoon. He sat down and watched the butterfly for hours as it struggled to force itself through a tiny hole. Then, it suddenly stopped making progress and looked like it was stuck.

Therefore, the man decided to help the butterfly out. He took a pair of scissors and cut off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily, although it had a swollen body and small, shrivelled wings.

The man thought nothing of it, and he sat there waiting for the wings to enlarge to support the butterfly. However, that never happened. The butterfly spent the rest of its life unable to fly, crawling around with small wings and a swollen body.

Despite the man’s kind heart, he didn’t understand that the restricting cocoon and the struggle needed by the butterfly to get itself through the small hole were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings to prepare itself for flying once it was free.

Moral of the story: Our struggles in life help to develop our strengths. Without struggles, we never grow and get stronger, so it’s important for us to tackle challenges on our own, and not rely on help from others all the time.

The Obstacle in Our Path

In ancient times, a king had his men place a boulder on a roadway. He then hid in the bushes, and watched to see if anyone would move the boulder out of the way. Some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers passed by and simply walked around it.

Many people blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none of them did anything about getting the stone removed.

One day, a peasant came along carrying vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to push the stone out of the way. After much pushing and straining, he finally managed.

After the peasant went back to pick up his vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and note from the King explain that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the road.

Moral of the story: Every obstacle that we come across gives us an opportunity to improve our circumstances, and while the lazy complain, others are creating opportunities through their kind hearts, generosity, and willingness to get things done.

A Pound of Butter

Once, there was a farmer who regularly sold butter to a baker. One day, the baker decided to weigh the butter to see if he was getting the exact amount that he asked for. He found out that he wasn’t, so he took the farmer to court.

The judge asked the farmer if he uses any measure to weigh the butter. The farmer replied, “Your Honor, I’m primitive. I don’t have a proper measure, but I do have a scale.”

The judge replied, “Then how do you weigh the butter?”

The farmer replied; “Your Honor, long before the baker started buying butter from me, I have been buying a pound loaf of bread from him. Every day, when the baker brings the bread, I put it on the scale and give him the same weight in butter. If anyone is to be blamed, it’s the baker.”

Moral of the story: In life, you get what you give. Don’t try to cheat others.

Love Yourself

How To Love Yourself

When we love ourselves, we are going to be happy, regardless of our situation or what others think of us. When we don’t love ourselves, we are going to be unhappy, regardless of our situation or what others think of us. Therefore, loving ourselves is quite important. In this blog post, I am going to explain how to love yourself.

The Most Popular Tactics To Love Yourself Don’t Work

Before we get into exactly how to love yourself, I think it is important to address why the most popular and most common tactics for how to love yourself can’t give you the results that you want.

The 2 most commons tactics that I hear for how to love yourself are:

1)      Positive affirmations

2)      Treating yourself to something physically nice

Both of these tactics are fine. There is nothing wrong with doing either of these. But, if we look at these tactics closely, we can discover why they don’t have the ability give us the love that we are looking to have for ourselves.

If I think I am unlovable, then there is a reason why I believe that. If I just tell myself over and over again that I am lovable, it is very unlikely to make me fully believe that I am lovable because this statement doesn’t address the original reason for why I believed I was unlovable.

How To Love Yourself: Why Doing Something Nice For Yourself Won’t Make You Love Yourself
The only reason why we don’t love ourselves is because we believe negative thoughts about ourselves or our situation. These negatives thoughts are what create our shame and sense of unworthiness or insufficiency. When we treat ourselves to something nice externally (spa, vacation, dessert etc.), we are basically saying “I deserve this”, “it is nice that I get to experience this”, “this is something I should give myself because I am worth it”. And that is completely fine. There is no problem with this at all. It can feel enjoyable to do these things. If you enjoy it, continue doing it.

Now that we see why the 2 most common tactics for how to love yourself don’t really work, let’s examine how to truly experience love for ourselves.

The first question you have to ask yourself is “Why do I not love myself?”, “What do I not like myself?”, “Why do I feel unlovable?”, “What do I not like about my situation?”

We are generally so busy entertaining ourselves and distracting ourselves from our thoughts that we don’t allow ourselves to just be with our thoughts. And if we don’t see what thoughts are making us feel unlovable, then we certainly can’t address these thoughts.

Since negative thoughts about yourself and your life are what make you not love yourself, the answer to the question “How to love yourself?” is to address the thoughts that make you not love yourself. In order to love yourself, you need to eliminate the thoughts that make you feel unlovable.

What Thoughts Are Making You Not Love Yourself?

It may seem scary to look at why you truly don’t love love yourself. But, if you don’t look at these thoughts, if you don’t identify the reason why you don’t love yourself, you will just keep feeling the way that you do and going through life trying to make everyone else love you in order to help you love yourself. And that creates a lot of suffering.

For some of us, we might not love ourselves because we believe “I am unattractive”,  “my personality isn’t good enough”, “I am a failure”, “I am not successful enough”, “I am a bad parent”, “I am not fun enough”, or “I am not outgoing enough”. For other people, there is often no specific trait that we don’t like about ourselves. Rather, there might just be an underlying sense of unworthiness or unlovability.

You can have a look right now to see if you can find your reason. You can ask yourself any of the following questions: “Why do I not love myself?”, “What do I not like myself?”, “Why do I feel unlovable?”, “What do I not like about my situation?”

The answers might be very obvious to you, but it also might be very difficult to identify the reason or thought as to why you don’t love yourself. If you don’t want to do it right now, try to give some time toward this discovery process later on. And be patient with yourself. You can’t force it.

How to love yourself: Whatever thoughts are making you feel unlovable or unworthy, these thoughts pop up out of nowhere. You didn’t pick these thoughts. You didn’t choose them. They are not under your control. If you controlled your thoughts, you quite obviously would choose to never think negative thoughts about yourself. So this is not personal issue. Therefore, you can be gentle with yourself.

How to love yourself in this world

An Exercise To Discover That There Is Nothing Wrong With You

We tend to think that we feel insufficient because we ARE insufficient. We tend to think that we feel unlovable because we ARE unlovable. We tend to think that we feel lacking in our life because there IS something wrong with us.

But I would like to help you see how these assumptions could not be further from the truth. This will be the key in seeing how to love yourself. In order to help you do this, I would like to ask you to ask yourself the following questions:

1) Can I Escape My Unwanted Feeling When I Am Being Distracted From Thoughts?

How do I feel when I am being entertained? How do I feel when I am engaging in my favourite hobby? Do I feel lacking, do I feel unworthy, do I feel insufficient, do I not love myself in these moments? In the moments that we are having fun, we don’t feel unlovable or unworthy. In other words, when we are not thinking about ourselves (when we are distracted from thoughts), we don’t feel unlovable, unworthy, lacking, or insufficient.

If your feeling of unlovability was caused by you being unlovable, then you would continue to experience this feeling when you are simply distracted by thoughts. If your feeling of insufficiency was created by you being insufficient, then you wouldn’t be able to escape this feeling simply by distracting yourself from thoughts. If your feeling of lack was created by there being something wrong with you, then would still have this feeling even while you were being entertained.

If all it takes to eliminate your feelings of not loving yourself is to simply distract yourself from thoughts, then it must mean that your feeling of not loving yourself isn’t created by anything about yourself… but only created by thoughts about yourself.

What is the way for how to love yourself

2) Is There Factually Something “Wrong” With Me, Or Does This Idea Only Exist As A Thought About A Fact?

Take a moment and ask yourself “What are the negative things that I think about myself?” Then, ask yourself: Does this exact as fact? Am I factually unworthy of love? Am I factually unattractive? Is my situation factually bad? Is there factually something wrong with me?

Can I touch these concepts? Can I see them? Can I hold them? Can I grasp them and show them to others? If it is a fact, is this something that can be seen by everyone? Where does unlovability exist? Where is my “bad” trait? Am I not good enough factually, or does that idea only exist as a thought? What are the facts, and what are thoughts about the facts?

It is not that you ARE unlovable or unworthy. It is not as though there is something wrong with you or you are insufficient. It is not as though you have any “bad” personality traits or “bad” physical characteristics.  “Bad” can’t exist as a fact. “Bad”, “not good enough”, “unlovable”, and “unworthy” can only exist as a thought about a fact.

Therefore, your experience of being insufficient, not loving yourself, or feeling like there is something wrong with you can’t be created by the facts of who you are, what you look like, how you act or what your situation is. These feelings can only be created by thoughts in your mind. So it is not as though you ARE unlovable, it is just that you sometimes feel this way when certain thoughts pop up in your mind and you believe them.

An Exercise To Discover That Your Thoughts About Yourself Aren’t True

When you discover that your feelings of not loving yourself aren’t created by something about YOU, that can weaken the strength of these feelings, and possibly even free you from them.

But, in addition, once you see what thoughts are keeping you from loving yourself, then you can begin to question whether these thoughts are actually true. And when you stop believing a negative thought about yourself, it stops creating the emotion.

Take a moment to think of your answer to the question “What are the negative things that I think about myself?” Then, based on your answer, you can ask yourself the following:

Can I think of any reasons or examples as to why the opposite might be true? If the opposite could be true, can I be sure that my thought about myself is true?

Could someone else have the opposite perspective? Could someone think that I am attractive, enjoyable to be around, and completely worthy of love? If other people could have a positive opinion about what I think is “bad”, can I be sure that my perspective is true?

Does the “bad” quality about myself exist in every moment? Does it describe how I act or how I am in every moment? Am I always me? If I am always me, but yet this quality or characteristic doesn’t exist in every moment, then am I sure that it describes who I am?

Next Steps for How To Love Yourself:

The next time you begin to feel unworthy or not loving yourself, instead of pushing away or denying this feeling, instead of distracting yourself from this feeling, instead of telling yourself something positive and trying to convince yourself that you are great, look to see what thoughts are creating these feelings, look to see what stories are being told in your mind in that moment. And then question whether these thoughts or stories are true.

Once you see that these thoughts aren’t true, or that they aren’t real and tangible, or that these thoughts don’t mean anything about you, then you are free.

You won’t have a thought that says “I love myself” or “I am wonderful”. But you don’t need these thoughts to love yourself, you don’t need these thoughts to feel wonderful. Loving yourself is simply the absence of negative thoughts about yourself my dear Friends :-)

God Bless !!

Why Positive Thinking Doesn't Work

Why positive thoughts aren’t fulfilling?

In this blog post I’m going to talk about why positive thoughts aren’t enough to give you the happiness and fulfilment that you want. The happiness created by positive thoughts is definitely enjoyable and makes us happy. However, positive-thought happiness isn’t very strong or very fulfilling.

An exercise to help you see what feelings positive thoughts create

In order to help you see for yourself that positive thought happiness isn’t very fulfilling, I would like to ask you to engage with the following exercise.

1) Please take a moment to think back to a time when you achieved something you had really wanted for a long time. This could be the moment when you got a job offer, a promotion, learned that you had passed an important exam, won a championship title, got proposed to, or anything else. Try to remember how happy you were in the first moment when you got what you wanted. Remember how that felt. Think about the all encompassing and intense happiness that you had in that moment. It was pretty great, right?

2) Now, I would like you to think to yourself, “I am in my dream job”, “I am a licensed lawyer”, “I am a champion”, “I am married”, or “I am… whatever else it was that you achieved. How happy does it make you feel when you tell yourself this?

3) Lastly, please tell yourself the story of the moment when you achieved your goal. How does this memory make you feel right now?

Directly discovering how positive thoughts don’t create a fulfilling happiness
Was the quality of your happiness the same in each of these three scenarios? For the vast majority of us, the first few moments after we achieve a goal, we are fulfilled and overtaken with happiness.

On the other hand, when you think about the achievement now, how happy does it make you feel? It generally provides a pleasant feeling, but this feeling isn’t particularly strong. And, it is completely incomparable to the all-encompassing and intense happiness we experienced in the initial few moments when we got what we wanted.

The reason that our experiences of happiness are so different between the moment we got what we wanted, and the moments when we think about it, is simply because they are created by two very different causes. The first few moments of happiness when we get what want are created by the absence of thoughts, while our happiness later on is created by positive thoughts about the present or the past.

The happiness of getting what we want

If we manage to get anything in our life to match our definition of “perfect”, when we get what we want, we often immediately experience happiness. Despite how it seems, this immediate happiness is not created by the new circumstance itself or by positive thoughts. This happiness is actually the direct result of losing the thoughts that were creating our suffering.

If we have a goal, we almost always believe the following 3 thoughts:

1)      “The way things are right now isn’t “good enough”. This creates a feeling of sadness, lack, and insufficiency in our life.

2)      “I (someone else) is to blame for the current “bad” circumstances”. This creates a feeling of shame or anger.

3)      “It would be “bad” if I never achieve my goal.” This thought creates anxiety and fear.

But, in the moment that we achieve our goal (i.e. make things “perfect”), there will be no more thoughts about how this particular circumstance is “bad”, no more thoughts about who is to blame for the “bad” circumstance, and no more thoughts about the possible “bad” outcome of not getting what we want. These negative thoughts created our sadness, anger, and anxiety about this specific circumstance. Therefore, when these negative thoughts leave, we are left with happiness. Happiness is what remains when there are no thoughts to create our suffering. This is the experience of the present moment.

If, in the moment that you got your achievement, the happiness was created by positive thoughts, then you would have the same experience in this moment when you tell yourself the same positive thoughts about achieving your goal (i.e. “I am a champion”). But, yet it doesn’t. The happiness is very different because they are created by 2 very different things.

There are a few reasons why our positive thoughts aren’t very fulfilling and don’t create the all-pervasive happiness that we experience when we get what we want.

In the midst of positive thoughts there are still negative thoughts

By nature, when we think some aspect of our lives is “great”, we also still believe that other aspects are “bad”. Therefore, when we think a positive thought, our happiness is generally being held back by the attention, whether conscious or not, that we’re giving to some negative thoughts in the background.

In other words, when you tell yourself a positive thought about something, that one thing is not your whole life. For example, if you say “I am successful”, “I am a lawyer”, or “I’m married”, it doesn’t eliminate all the other thoughts about how “I’m not good enough at this”, “he is not good enough at that”, “It would be bad if that happened”, or “It would be bad if they thought that about me”. These thoughts are still creating lack, disappointment, anger, anxiety, and worry underneath the surface when a positive thought/story is being told in your mind.

Positive thoughts are not stable or real

When we have a positive thought about something, it is usually easy (or at least possible) for that thought to change so that it becomes “worse”. Therefore, when we rely on positive thoughts to make us happy, there is almost always a constant subtle anxiety that our positive thought might change and we might lose our happiness.

For example, if you think about yourself, “I am attractive”, this would give you a little pleasure. Since you like this pleasure, of course you would not want this thought to change to “I am unattractive”. Obviously, it doesn’t feel nice to think “I am unattractive”. But, once you unconsciously decide that it would be “bad” to think “I am unattractive”, you start to feel a subtle anxiety about the possibility of that thought changing to “I am unattractive”. It’s not as though attractiveness is a real and stable thing, just “I am attractive” end of story. No, this thought can be affected of many different things such as gaining weight, skin problems, ageing, or anything else. In order to maintain your thought “I am attractive”, you may frequently worry about whether your face, clothes, and body meet your definition of “attractive”.

If others were to tell you that you are unattractive, or if you get rejected or broken up with, it would be harder to continue to believe, “I am attractive”. Therefore, you would naturally begin to worry about what others think.

Because positive thoughts aren’t real and tangible, they are not stable. Since they can be relatively easily lessened, worsened, eliminated, there is always at least a subtle worry of losing the positive thought. But, most often, it is a very apparent worry.

Memories are tinged with discontent about this moment

Generally, the most common time we go to memories is when we’re not content in this moment. When we are enjoying ourselves, we usually have no reason to start telling stories of the past. But, when we don’t like where we are, we go to our memories to provide us with a little enjoyable escape.

Therefore, even while we are telling the nice story from our past (the memory), if the memory doesn’t take our full 100% attention, a small portion of our attention is still given to our negative thoughts about this moment. These negative thoughts in the background create a sense of lack, and prevent us from fully experiencing the happiness of our memory (a positive thought). In addition, memories are also often tinged with the anxiety of knowing that we have to come back to this “worse” moment or from thinking that we may never have such a “good” moment again.

For example, if you think about your wonderful vacation on the beach last month, this will give you some pleasure, and maybe put a smile on your face. However, telling yourself this great story will also at least create subtle thoughts about how where you are right now isn’t as “good” as where you were, which creates the feeling that you are lacking something. We usually aren’t aware that the anxiety or negative thoughts are present when we are giving attention to our positive memory, but this is part of the reason why positive-memory happiness is a much less peaceful and satisfying experience than present-moment happiness.

Positive thoughts are pleasurable, but not enough

In conclusion, positive thoughts give us pleasure, but if you really want to be fulfilled, if you really want lasting peace in your life, you need to go beyond positive thoughts. And I welcome you to do it. I invite you to do it.

Thank you so much my dear Friends :-)

God Bless !!

जब एक छिपकली कर सकती है, तो हम क्यों नहीं

जब एक छिपकली कर सकती है, तो हम क्यों नहीं

[यह जापान में घटी, एक सच्ची घटना है।]

अपने मकान का नवीनीकरण करने के लिये, एक जापानी अपने मकान की दीवारों को तोड़ रहा था। जापान में लकड़ी की दीवारों के बीच ख़ाली जगह होती हैं, यानी दीवारें अंदर से पोली होती हैं।

जब वह लकड़ी की दीवारों को चीर-तोड़ रहा था, तभी उसने देखा कि दीवार के अंदर की तरफ लकड़ी पर एक छिपकली, बाहर से उसके पैर पर ठुकी कील के कारण, एक ही जगह पर जमी पड़ी है।

जब उसने यह दृश्य देखा तो उसे बहुत दया आई पर साथ ही वह जिज्ञासु भी हो गया। जब उसने आगे जाँच की तो पाया कि वह कील तो उसके मकान बनते समय पाँच साल पहले ठोंका गई थी!

एक छिपकली इस स्थिति में पाँच साल तक जीवित थी! दीवार के अँधेरे पार्टीशन के बीच, बिना हिले-डुले? यह अविश्वसनीय, असंभव और चौंका देने वाला था!

उसकी समझ से यह परे था कि एक छिपकली, जिसका एक पैर, एक ही स्थान पर पिछले पाँच साल से कील के कारण चिपका हुआ था और जो अपनी जगह से एक इंच भी न हिली थी, वह कैसे जीवित रह सकती है?

अब उसने यह देखने के लिये कि वह छिपकली अब तक क्या करती रही है और कैसे अपने भोजन की जरुरत को पूरा करती रही है, अपना काम रोक दिया।

थोड़ी ही देर बाद, पता नहीं कहाँ से, एक दूसरी छिपकली प्रकट हुई, वह अपने मुँह में भोजन दबाये हुये थी - उस फँसी हुई छिपकली को खिलाने के लिये! उफ़्फ़! वह सन्न रह गया! यह दृश्य उसके दिल को अंदर तक छू गया!

एक छिपकली, जिसका एक पैर कील से ठुका हुआ था, को, एक दूसरी छिपकली पिछले पाँच साल से भोजन खिला रही थी!

अद्भुत! दूसरी छिपकली ने अपने साथी के बचने की उम्मीद नहीं छोड़ी थी, वह पहली छिपकली को पिछले पाँच साल से भोजन करवा रही थी।

अजीब है, एक छोटा-सा जंतु तो यह कर सकता है, पर हम मनुष्य जैसे प्राणी, जिसे बुद्धि में सर्वश्रेष्ठ होने का आशीर्वाद मिला हुआ है, नहीं कर सकता!

कृपया अपने प्रिय लोगों को कभी न छोड़ें!  लोगों को उनकी तकलीफ़ के समय अपनी पीठ न दिखायें! अपने आप को महाज्ञानी या सर्वश्रेष्ठ समझने की भूल न करें! आज आप सौभाग्यशाली हो सकते हैं पर कल तो अनिश्चित ही है और कल चीज़ें बदल भी सकती हैं!

प्रकृति ने हमारी अंगुलियों के बीच शायद जगह भी इसीलिये दी है ताकि हम किसी दूसरे का हाथ थाम सकें!

आप आज किसी का साथ दीजिये, कल कोई-न-कोई दूसरा आपको साथ दे देगा!

धर्म चाहे जो भी हो बस अच्छे इंसान बनो,हिसाब  हमारे कर्म का होगा धर्म का नहीं.

Ten Signs Your Boss Is A Manager -- But Not A Leader

A simple way to answer the question "What's the difference between managing and leading?"

Managing people means watching them to make sure they do what they're supposed to do.

The concept of traditional supervision is rooted in the fear that working people will misbehave or make mistakes if someone isn't watching them to make sure they don't.

A manager marches backwards, watching their troops like a hawk in case somebody is marching incorrectly. They cannot look out over the horizon when they're marching backwards!

A leader faces forward and marches confidently, assuming their troops will follow them because they trust their troops and themselves.

Leaders are confident enough to hire people they can trust and let them do whatever they do best with a minimum of oversight.

Managers cannot relax into trust. They are keyed up, judgmental and certain that dire consequences will befall them if they ever let their vigilance flag.

Managerial fear is the great unaddressed workplace topic that sucks vision, creativity, collaboration and profitability from organizations large and small!

It is hard to talk a fearful manager into adopting a confident leader's mindset because to do so the fearful manager would have to gain a level of self-awareness that they do not understand.

Because they sit in fear, they assume everyone is guarded and political the way they are.

They cannot see trust. They believe that without their constant inspection and evaluation, their department would fall to pieces.

We have been so well-trained in the concepts of fear-based management that we do not recognize there is another way to lead. We can lead without reams of policies and rules.

We can lead people by involving them in decision-making and inspiring them to band together to accomplish something cool.

It is a human urge to create and collaborate unless we thwart the urge by rating and ranking people relative to one another and by tying them down with pointless daily and weekly yardsticks.

When we make work a zero-sum game where my triumph is my co-worker's downfall, we are not only cruel but bad business people, also.

Here are 10 signs your boss is a manager — but not a leader.

1. They don't ask for their teammates' opinions before making decisions. They do not dare to share their authority with anyone. They believe their authority to make decisions without asking for input is the source of their power.

2. They do not acknowledge their employees for their effort or accomplishments. They are afraid to thank and recognize their teammates because they need to keep the unequal power relationship intact.

3. They cannot be wrong. Even when everybody knows the manager is wrong, no one will say it because of the force field around the manager. They pretend the manager is not wrong and the manager pretends to believe it, too.

4. They cannot handle dissent or even polite debate.

5. They can only take advice from their subordinates when they are behind closed doors with one person.

6. They do not allow their employees to interact with higher-level managers for fear that a higher-up leader might trust their team member's advice more than their own.

7. They do not stand up for their team members when they could. They will not spend political capital on anyone except themselves.

8. They don't give their teammates visibility into the future, even when it would help the employee and the company to do so. They have taken the adage "Knowledge is power" to heart. They hoard whatever information they acquire, and dole it out in tiny doses.

9. They discount any information or feedback that feels threatening to their political status. When they say "I'll take that idea under advisement" they want to shut you up. They have no intention of considering your idea.

10. They are more concerned about maintaining whatever status, prestige or organizational power they have accumulated than in doing the best thing for the organization.

How do fearful managers keep their jobs? They keep their jobs because they deliver one kind of business result — the numeric kind — for a limited period of time.

They deliver that result by managing through fear.

Over time, a fear-based manager will fail because they have no credibility. No one trusts them.

Fear is a good motivator in the short term but useless over the long term as person after person realizes that the little-tin-god manager has very limited power over them.

If your manager is stuck in fear, your first assignment is to start building an escape hatch.

Life is long, but it's still too short to waste your time and talent working for someone who doesn't deserve you my dear Friends.

Stay Fit, Take Care & Keep Smiling :-)

God Bless !!

Kranti Gaurav
XLRI Jamshedpur