The Bird and the Woman - Paulo Coelho

Once upon a time, there was a bird. He was adorned with two perfect wings and with

glossy, colourful, marvellous feathers. In short, he was a creature made to fly about

freely in the sky, bringing joy to everyone who saw him.

One day, a woman saw this bird and fell in love with him. She watched his flight, her

mouth wide in amazement, herheart pounding, her eyes shining with excitement. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two travelled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird.

But then she thought: He might want to visit faroff mountains! And she was afraid, afraid

that she would never feel the same way about any other bird. And she felt envy, envy for

the bird's ability to fly-

And she felt alone.

And she thought: 'I'm going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never

leave again.'

The bird, who was also in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and

was put in a cage.

She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object

of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said:

'Now you have everything you could possibly want.' However, a strange transformation began

to take place: now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly

and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning out his cage.

One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking

about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds.

If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realised that what had thrilled her

about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in notion, not his physical body.

Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and death came knocking at her

door. 'Why have you come?' she asked Death. 'So that you can fly once

Ore with him across the sky,' Death replied. 'If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and

admired him even more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.'

Don’t Quit

There are days when I felt like I am stuck in a prison of my own making. It’s not only that I felt stuck in life; but also that I had lost my dreams and even my sense of who I was as a person. The various roles I played that supported the lives of other people had somehow left my own life empty and unfulfilled. I began to think back to my childhood and remember the dreams and desires I held then.

I discovered the power of the positive affirmation which keeps me going to day. I have a poem in my computer called “Don’t Quit.” It speaks to me. I would read it every day and feel myself agreeing with the words. I want to share this concept of positive and right affirmation with you.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As every one of us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about,

When he might have won had he stuck it out;

Don't give up though the pace seems slow--

You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,

It seems to a faint and faltering man,

Often the struggler has given up,

When he might have captured the victor's cup,

And he learned too late when the night slipped down,

How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out--

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems so far,

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit--

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

- Author unknown

Fishing experience - Email From Johnathan John

Two men went fishing. One was an experienced fisherman, the other wasn't. Every time the experienced fisherman caught a big fish, he put it in his ice chest to keep it fresh. Whenever the inexperienced fisherman caught a big fish, he threw it back.

The experienced fisherman watched this go on all day and finally got tired of seeing the man waste good fish. "Why do you keep throwing back all the big fish you catch?" he asked.

The inexperienced fisherman replied, "I only have a small frying pan."
 
Sometimes, like that fisherman, we throw back the big plans, big dreams, big jobs, big opportunities that God gives us. Our faith is too small.

We laugh at that fisherman who didn't figure out that all he needed was a bigger frying pan, yet how ready are we to increase the size of our faith? 

Whether it's a problem or a possibility, God will never give you anything bigger than you can handle. That means we can confidently walk into anything God brings our way.

REMEMBER:
Stop telling God you've got big problems. Tell your problems you've got a BIG GOD!

Thoughts

Scientist say that in a day’s time sixty three thousand thoughts pass through our mind. Sixty three thousand thoughts passing through. Not all of these thoughts realize – you choose. Many of these thoughts are good and many bad. It’s upto us to choose which to realize. It’s like the stations in your radio. Just muttering RJ and lying Politicians all making a noise. You choose which station to listen and which to pass through. I wish we could just turn off all our thoughts for a while like the radio.

Over the days you start to get fixed only to one station.That’s the state of our minds. We get locked on to one way of thinking, stopping from even making a choice. We start to become a one track mind and these thoughts starts to realize in our lives.

Think more of what you make happen than what happens to you. Live in the active voice rather than the passive. Live in the first person, evaluating yourself rather than finding fault with others. Care more for your own conscience rather than for the applause of the crowd. If you want a word to live by then choose LOVE.

A Thousand Beads

A couple of months ago, I was driving home through the usual evening Dubai traffic. It was a Sunday evening. I turned on the radio to one of the presets. Along the way, the RJ Chris spoke to an old man about life’s experiences. He came across with a very zealous voice. He began to share his concept of a “ thousand beads”

I was intrigued and turned up the volume to listen to what this guy had to say. "Well, My son Mike, is always very busy with his job. I'm sure they pay him well but it's a shame he has to be away from home and his family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. “Too bad to miss your daughter's dance recital." He continued, "Let me tell you something Chris, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand beads."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Sundays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.

Now stay with me Chris, I'm getting to the important part. It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail," he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Sundays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a tailor store and bought every single bead they had. I ended up having to visit three tailoring stores to roundup 1000 beads. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right next to my bed.

Every Sunday since then, I have taken one bead out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the beads finish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.

Now let me tell you one last thing before I leave you and take my lovely wife out for dinner. This morning, I took the very last bead out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Sunday, then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time. It was nice to meet you and speak to you Chris, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. 75 year Old Man, this is Melvin, good evening and bye"

I could hear my heart beat, the sound of the car didn’t exist, when this old man finished. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about.

That evening changed a lot in my life. My priorities changed.

From my GURU

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it. --Rabindranath Tagore

Ctrl+Alt+Delete !!!!

When I logged into my computer this morning, the operating system prompted me saying ‘Your password expires in 5 days. Press Ctrl Alt Del to change your password’. If God send us a message in the morning ‘You expire in 5 days!’ how would we live those five days. What would our priorities be.

Will we find time enough to say sorry to all those we have trespassed. Can we manage to make up with all those we had avoided? Will we be able to spend enough time with our loved ones? Will we be able to visit that great places we haunted in your childhood?

Will we still be making haste to pack all our money to take with us? Will we still gossip?

Who’s Gain Who’s Loss

Squirrel Amitab works in Cher king Singh’s palace. He was very hard working. Cher King Singh wanted to recognize Amitab’s work, so he makes him the employee of the year. During the awards ceremony, Cher King Singh declares that he would give Amitab two more walnuts every year if he works like this. This got Amitab all excited. From then on he would take up more and more responsibilities. His wife and baby squirrels saw less and less of the hardworking Amitab. Days and months passed by… Baby squirrels became adults and left home not carrying any fond memories of father.

After four years came the day of retirement. Cher King Singh calls for a party and amidst all the employees hands Amitab a bag of walnuts for his industrious spell at the palace.

Amitab go home to his wife with the bag of walnut and sits down to eat them, but alas he’s too old and has no teeth to gnaw the nuts.

Secret of happy married life

Perry I can't help but share this. Thanks again

---

Once Mathai asked Kuttappan, "What is the secret behind your happy married life?" 

Kuttappan said, "You should share responsibilities with due love and respect to each other.

Then absolutely there will be no problems."

"Can you explain?" asked Mathai.

Kuttappan said, "In my house, I take decisions on bigger issues where as my wife decides on smaller issues. We do not interfere in each other's decisions."

Still not convinced, Mathai asked Kuttappan "Give me some examples"

Kuttappan said, "Smaller issues like which car we should buy, how much amount to save, when to visit home town, which Sofa, air conditioner, refrigerator to buy, monthly expenses, whether to keep a maid or not etc are decided by my wife. I just agree to it"

Mathai asked, "Then what is your role?"

Kuttappan said, "My decisions are only for very big issues....

Like whether America should attack Iraq , whether Britain should lift sanction over Zimbabwe , whether to widen African economy, whether Sachin Tendulkar should retire etc. Do you know one thing, my wife NEVER objects to any of these".

That is the secret of my happy married life !!!  

Are we sane?

During a visit to the mental hospital, the visitor asked the Director 'How do you determine whether or not a patient should be admitted to the hospital.' 'Well,' said the Director, 'we fill up a bathtub, and then we give a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him to empty the bathtub.'

'Oh, I understand,' said the visitor. 'A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup.'

'No.' said the Director, 'A normal person would pull the drain plug.      
Well.......  Do you want a bed near the window?

Live with harmony and respect for all

I read about this massive explosion in space. The US space agency's Fermi telescope has detected this massive explosion in space which scientists say is the biggest gamma-ray burst ever detected, in a report published Thursday in Science Express. The spectacular blast, which occurred in September in the Carina constellation, produced energies ranging from 3,000 to more than five billion times that of visible light, astrophysicists said. Thank GOD that this huge gamma-ray burst occurred 12.2 billion light years away.

This only made me think how great our GOD is? I want to share this with you all so that once again our view of GOD would be expanded at the end of reading this post. Our GOD is greater than anything we can imagine or perceive. He is a huge massive GOD of grace and mercy,  that is why we are here today. Look upwards towards the sky and awe at the work of HIS hands. GOD created the Milky Way, the home of our Solar System. Our solar system is situated in the outer regions of this galaxy, the center of which is at about 28,000 light years from where you are reading this post.  Light travels 180000km/sec, so if you are traveling at the speed of light it would take you many billion years to get there. There are at least 200 billion other stars their planets, and thousands of clusters and nebulae in this galaxy and it is one of the millions of galaxies that our GOD has made.

Compared to all these sizes we are smaller than dust. But since we look at everything from our perspective and not GOD’s we feel all our situations are too big for anyone to handle. We tend to be too self centered and blow our egos to the sizes of these galaxies. Take a minute to think. Our Star, the sun is 10,000 degree Fahrenheit on the surface. GOD has placed us at the exact distance away from the sun so that we receive the right amount of light and warmth. HE who loves you so much also loves every being around you. So let’s show love and concern for all around us and live with harmony and respect for all.

Think abt it

All can say how many seeds are there in a mango, but can anyone say how many mangoes are there in a seed?

Vanity

Easter bunnies and eggs made of chocolate sits welcoming in a decorated basket on the table on an Easter morning. A child runs up to the table and picks up one of the chocolate eggs and takes his biggest bite. Once he eats the piece of chocolate he finds nothing in the egg. Many a time life is like this. Everything thing seems so hollow and vain. You can have all the money yet have no peace of mind. You can have a hundred people on your address book yet you are lonely inside. Everything you see around feels like vanity. Don’t take this as a statement of pessimism. Every one sooner or later introspective will bring to mind a sense of futility. What do we do in times like these?

Here's an important lesson that I learnt. Past negative happenings that cannot be changed are a definite reality that must be squarely faced. These are the might-have-beens and could-have-beens of our lives. We all tend to embrace fantasizing about possibilities that never happened. This type of mythical thinking is an ego defense to loss or perceived loss. We project our defeats onto unfavorable circumstances, acts of nature, or people who we perceived blocked our way on the road to success.

Looking at the big puddle in your driveway you wish it weren't raining. Yet, no matter how much you wish it were gone, it isn't. A wish is no more than a thought. It has no power to bring about a change in reality unless it is acted upon. And even then there are circumstances in which no wish, desire, dream, or faith can change the situation. However, this doesn't mean you should necessarily stop wishing or hoping. Here a balance is needed: wishing, remains a thought unless it is brought into reality.

Change and accept situations or we're bound for a life of unhappiness and regret. Keep changing, keep flowing like the river. The problem is only with those who become ponds. To be a pond is to commit suicide, because there is no growth anymore, no new spaces, no new experiences, no new skies, just the same old pond becoming muddier. Become a seeker changing from this muddy pond to a flowing river. It does not matter when you reach the ocean, but the beginning is the end.

Think abt it

Use every letter you write, every conversation you have, every meeting you attend, to express your fundamental beliefs and dreams. Affirm to others the vision of the world you want. You are a free, immensely powerful source of life and goodness. Affirm it. Spread it. Radiate it. Think day and night about it and you will see a miracle happen: the greatness of our own life. --Robert Muller

Around the World in One-Two hours

We paid our yearly visit to the Global Village yesterday. We went into the many pavilions set up by the different countries, taking us into the glimpses of the beauty and uniqueness of the heritage of each. In each of these pavilions, one will find the merchandise and food items related to the country. One of the major attractions this year was the Venice like Canal which was worth taking a boat ride. The weather was very pleasant and the people all went around with harmony and joy.

10 things GOD won't ask on 'that day'

4. GOD won’t ask what your job title was. He’ll ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability.

Am I with a right partner? (From Sudha)

During a seminar, a woman asked," How do I know if I am with the right person?" the author then noticed that there was a large man sitting next to her so he said, "It depends. Is that your partner?" In all seriousness, she answered, "How do you know?" Let me answer this question because the chances are good that it's weighing on your mind replied the author. Here's the answer.

Every relationship has a cycle... In the beginning; you fall in love with your partner. You anticipate their calls, want their touch, and like their idiosyncrasies. Falling in love wasn't hard. In fact, it was a completely natural and spontaneous experience. You didn't have to DO anything. That's why it's called "falling" in love.

People in love sometimes say, "I was swept of my feet." Picture the expression. It implies that you were just standing there; doing nothing, and then something happened TO YOU. Falling in love is a passive and spontaneous experience. But after a few months or years of being together, the euphoria of love fades. It's a natural cycle of EVERY relationship. Slowly but surely, phone calls become a bother (if they come at all), touch is not always welcome (when it happens), and your spouse's idiosyncrasies, instead of being cute, drive you nuts. The symptoms of this stage vary with every relationship; you will notice a dramatic difference between the initial stage when you were in love and a much duller or even angry subsequent stage. At this point, you and/or your partner might start asking, "Am I with the right person?" And as you reflect on the euphoria of the love you once had, you may begin to desire that experience with someone else. This is when relationships breakdown.

The key to succeeding in a relationship is not finding the right person; it's learning to love the person you found.

People blame their partners for their unhappiness and look outside for fulfillment. Extramarital fulfillment comes in all shapes and sizes. Infidelity is the most common. But sometimes people turn to work, a hobby, a friendship, excessive TV, or abusive substances. But the answer to this dilemma does NOT lie outside your relationship, it lies within it. I'm not saying that you couldn't fall in love with someone else. You could. And TEMPORARILY you'd feel better. But you'd be in the same situation a few years later. Because (listen carefully to this): The key to succeeding in a relationship is not finding the right person; it's learning to love the person you found.

SUSTAINING love is not a passive or spontaneous experience. You have to work on it day in and day out. It takes time, effort, and energy. And most importantly, it demands WISDOM. You have to know WHAT TO DO to make it work. Make no mistake about it. Love is NOT a mystery. There are specific things you can do (with or without your partner). Just as there are physical laws of the universe (such as gravity), there are also laws for relationships. If you know and apply these laws, the results are predictable. Love is therefore a "decision". Not just a feeling.

Remember this always: God determines who walks into your life. It is up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let GO!!!

Solitude

Every time I look at my mother in front of the TV, I wonder how many elderly people are sitting in front of the TV as if it were the last hope of salvation from this lonely world. Their children all grown up and busy with their work and families, hardly finding time to talk to them. The brief moments in the day that their son/daughter sits to chat, they do not have the patience to listen to the old stories or the worry of sickness and pain that their mother or father has to share and get a comforting word. Slowly they become a burden to their children. Forgotten is the love, the tender care, the sacrifices they endured.
They slide into the world of loneliness. I am talking about the loneliness that we do not choose, the loneliness that we are obliged to accept - it is as if we no longer belonged to the human race.

10 things GOD won't ask on 'that day'

3. God won’t ask about the clothes you had in your closet, He’ll ask how many you helped to clothe.

Like a SALMON

Gleaming as it crashes against boulders along the banks, the river cascades towards the sea. The current grabs, pushes and tugs at leaves and logs carrying them along for the ride. Gravity pulls the water and the river pulls the rest downwards.

Suddenly a silver missile breaks the surface and darts upstream and then another, oblivious to the swirling opposition, the shining salmon swims upstream. They must go upstream and nothing must stop them from reaching their goal.

The current of the society’s flowing fast and furious, pulling downwards everything on its way. It would be easy to stay afloat and drift along, but God calls us to swim upstream against the flow. It may not be easy but it will be right.