Monday, 30 November 2015

Like The Angel You Are

by Micha-el Cleveland





            There is no time within a moment
            The universe can unfold within
            This can strike you like lightening
            Streaking across your vision
            Revealing your inner wisdom
            No one can open this door for you
            Nor provide the key
            There is no door or key
            You hold the answers
            Within your heart, your soul,
            your love, your beauty,
            your Unity, your acceptance
            You are your hidden truth, your story
            Turn off the marketing
            Turn your back on fear
            And walk down your path with head held high
            Like the angel you are
            I care not about your beliefs
            I only hope you care what you believe
            May your beliefs be rooted like the tree
            As clean as the air
            Nourishing as water
            And burn like fire

            Meditate Everyday
            In Your Own Way

All rights reserved David Micha-el Cleveland,
30 November 2015





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Sunday, 29 November 2015

DANCE



Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises to him with the tambourine and harp. -Psalms 149:3

And Jephthah came to Mizpeh to his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
-Judges 11:34

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing: you have put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness. -Psalms 30:11





Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf. ~Rabindranath Tagore

But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. ~Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass … it's about learning to dance in the rain. ~Vivian Greene





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Saturday, 28 November 2015

Dad's Blessing



A young man was getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted.

As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation, his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautifully wrapped gift box. Curious, but somewhat disappointed, the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible, with the young man's name embossed in gold. Angry, he raised his voice to his father and said "With all your money, you give me a Bible?" and stormed out of the house, leaving the Bible.





Many years passed and the young man was very successful in business. He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He had not seen him since that graduation day. Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care of things.

When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart. He began to search through his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. And as he did, a car key dropped from the back of the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words PAID IN FULL.

There is no truth. There is only perception.
-Gustave Flaubert





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Thursday, 26 November 2015

I Hide In My Mind

by Charles Finch






I hide in my mind because I feel safe there,
Not allowing myself to go to that land of great despair.
For if I allowed the despair to creep in,
I would probably make many bad decisions
And that to me would be a horrible sin.

With that being spoken and that being said,
Hopefully one thing I can get off my chest and out of my head.
We all have some purpose in our life, even if we don't realize it,
When destiny is upon us, we ourselves become a light.

For the ones who see and can tell the difference
between the phonies and those of us that are truly true,
You have what it takes to make it and one day your light
will shine on somebody too.

For they will see and learn what had made them blind,
To teach another along the way, so they are not left behind.
That's when the chains are broken and a positive life begins again.
Hope this made sense and helps you in your life.
From me to you my very new friend.

© C.N.A.F.3rd.






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CHANGE


 
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. -Romans 12:2
 
Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may judge what is God’s will, what is good, pleasing and perfect.
-Corinthians 12
 
 
You should live in the world but remain untouched by it.
You should remain in the world, but the world should not remain in you. -OSHO

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. -George Bernard Shaw






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Tuesday, 24 November 2015

Ama-ZEN Holiday Gift Guide



The holiday season is here, and with it comes consumer madness.

I’m not a fan of buying a bunch of gifts and getting into credit card debt just to stress myself out more and work harder to pay off the bills, all to add to the needless clutter we already have in our homes.

So I say opt out.

Don’t be a part of the madness. It’s a trap, designed to get us to spend our money, but we don’t need to fall prey to it. We can opt out.

What should you do instead of buying a bunch of crap? I have a few ideas, but I’m sure you can come up with even more.




Zen Gift List

Here are some alternative gift ideas for your loved ones, to get your creative juices flowing:

•Create a personal website for someone, complete with photo montage, if you’re good at web stuff.
•Create an indoor or outdoor picnic for the two of you, or for the whole family or group of friends.
•Plan a day trip into nature.
•Create a scrapbook.
•Find a board game at Goodwill and customize it for the person’s personality.
•Make a treasure hunt for them.
•Crochet or Knit a mitten, hat and scarf set.
•If you have an expertise, give them the gift of coaching: be their personal trainer, French tutor, guitar teacher, if that’s what they’ve been wanting to do, and that’s in your expertise.
•Pass along your absolute favorite books.
•Massages are often appreciated.
•Clean their house or wash their car.
•Do their Holiday baking.
•Help them realize their dreams.
•Do a challenge with them.
•Take a class together (community classes are often free or cheap).
•Pass on your digital camera if you aren’t using it and they would.
•Gift certificate for mowing their lawn or shoveling their driveway.
•Make an illustrated book about how awesome the person is.
•Create a video from family/friends with everyone sharing what they love about the person.




These aren’t all free, but they aren’t part of the consumerist holiday shopping tradition. They take extra effort, which is why they’re special. The loved ones in your life are worth more than a few clicks online and a hit to your credit card.

Source: Zen Habits

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Sunday, 22 November 2015

TRANSFORM YOUR THOUGHTS `★.¸¸¸.•°´ Spot Your Negative Thinking Habits



I wish I had a dime for every time I heard someone making a negative comment about me, about others, or about themselves. That last is really the worst. I could retire on those dimes.

The thing is, life could be so much better for many people, if they would just spot their negative thinking habits and replace them with positive ones.

Negative thinking, in all its many splendored forms, has a way of creeping into conversations and our thinking without our noticing them. The key to success, in my humble opinion, is learning to spot these thoughts and squash them like little bugs. Then replace them with positive ones. You’ll notice a huge difference in everything you do.

As the Dalai Lama said, “The way to overcome negative thoughts and destructive emotions is to develop opposing, positive emotions that are stronger and more powerful.”

Let’s take a look at 9 common ways that negative thinking emerges (there are many more, of course) — get good at spotting these patterns, and practice replacing them with positive thinking patterns. It has made all the difference in the world for me.

9 Negative Thinking Sins

1. I will be happy once I have _____ (or once I earn $X).

Problem: If you think you cannot be happy until you reach a certain point, or until you reach a certain income, or have a certain type of house or car or computer setup, you will never be happy. That elusive goal is always just out of reach. Once we reach those goals, we are not satisfied — we want more.

Solution: Learn to be happy with what you have, where you are, and who you are, right at this moment. Happiness does not have to be some state that we want to get to eventually — it can be found right now. Learn to count your blessings, and see the positive in your situation. This might sound simplistic, but it works.

2. I wish I were as ____ as (a celebrity, a friend, a co-worker).

Problem: We will never be as pretty, as talented, as rich, as sculpted, as cool, as everyone else. There will always be someone better, if you look hard enough. Therefore, if we compare ourselves to others like this, we will always pale, and will always fail, and will always feel bad about ourselves. This is no way to be happy.

Solution: Stop comparing yourself to others, and look instead at yourself — what are your strengths, your accomplishments, your successes, however small? What do you love about yourself? Learn to love who you are, right now, not who you want to become. There is good in each of us, love in each of us, and a wonderful human spirit in every one of us.




3. Seeing others becoming successful makes me jealous and resentful.

Problem: First, this assumes that only a small number of people can be successful. In truth, many, many people can be successful — in different ways.

Solution: Learn to admire the success of others, and learn from it, and be happy for them, by empathizing with them and understanding what it must be like to be them. And then turn away from them, and look at yourself — you can be successful too, in whatever you choose to do. And even more, you already are successful. Look not at those above you in the social ladder, but those below you — there are always millions of people worse off than you, people who could not even read this article or afford a computer. In that light, you are a huge success.

4. I am a miserable failure — I can’t seem to do anything right.

Problem: Everyone is a failure, if you look at it in certain ways. Everyone has failed, many times, at different things. I have certainly failed so many times I cannot count them — and I continue to fail, daily. However, looking at your failures as failures only makes you feel bad about yourself. By thinking in this way, we will have a negative self-image and never move on from here.

Solution: See your successes and ignore your failures. Look back on your life, in the last month, or year, or 5 years. And try to remember your successes. If you have trouble with this, start documenting them — keep a success journal, either in a notebook or online. Document your success each day, or each week. When you look back at what you have accomplished, over a year, you will be amazed. It is an incredibly positive feeling.

5. I’m going to beat so-and-so no matter what — I’m better than him. And there’s no way I’ll help him succeed — he might beat me.

Problem: Competitiveness assumes that there is a small amount of gold to be had, and I need to get it before he does. It makes us into greedy, back-stabbing, hurtful people. We try to claw our way over people to get to success, because of our competitive feelings.

Solution: Learn to see success as something that can be shared, and learn that if we help each other out, we can each have a better chance to be successful. Two people working towards a common goal are better than two people trying to beat each other up to get to that goal. There is more than enough success to go around. Learn to think in terms of abundance rather than scarcity.




6. Why do these bad things always happen to me?

Problem: Bad things happen to everybody. If we dwell on them, they will frustrate us and bring us down.

Solution: See bad things as a part of the ebb and flow of life. Suffering is a part of the human condition — but it passes. All pain goes away, eventually. Meanwhile, don’t let it hold you back. Do not dwell on bad things, but look forward towards something good in your future. And learn to take the bad things in stride, and learn from them. Bad things are actually opportunities to grow and learn and get stronger, in disguise.

7. You can’t do anything right! Why can’t you be like Johnny?

Problem: This can be said to your child or your subordinate or your sibling. The problem? Comparing two people, first of all, is always a fallacy. People are different, with different ways of doing things, different strengths and weaknesses, different human characteristics. If we were all the same, we would be robots. Second, saying negative things like this to another person never helps the situation. It might make you feel better, and more powerful, but in truth, it hurts your relationship, it will actually make you feel negative, and it will certainly make the other person feel negative and more likely to continue negative behavior. Everyone loses.

Solution: Take the mistakes or bad behavior of others as an opportunity to teach. Show them how to do something. Second, praise them for their positive behavior, and encourage their success. Last, and most important, love them for who they are, and celebrate their differences.

8. Oh yeah? Well up yours too!

Problem: If someone insults you or angers you in some way, insulting them back and continuing your anger only transfers their problem to you. This person was probably having a bad day (or a bad year) and took it out on you for some reason. If you reciprocate, you are now having a bad day too. His problem has become yours. Not only that, but the cycle of insults can get worse and worse until it results in violence or other negative consequences — for both of you.

Solution: Let the insults or negative comments of others slide off you like Teflon. Do not let their problem become yours. In fact, try to understand their problem more — why would someone say something like that? What problems are they going through? Having a little empathy for someone not only makes you understand that their comment is not about you, but it can make you feel and act in a positive manner towards them — and make you feel better about yourself in the process.

9. I don’t think I can do this — I don’t have enough discipline. Maybe some other time.

Problem: If you do not think you can do something, you probably won’t. Especially for the big stuff. Discipline has nothing to do with it — motivation and focus has everything to do with it. And if you put stuff off for “some other time”, you will never get it done. Negative thinking like this inhibits us from accomplishing anything.

Solution: Turn your thinking around: You can do this! Find ways to make yourself a success at your goal. If you fail, learn from your mistakes, and try again. Instead of putting a goal off for later, start now. And focus on one goal at a time, putting all of your energy into it, and getting as much help from others as you can. You can really move mountains if you start with positive thinking.




Source: Zen Habits
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Friday, 20 November 2015

STRANGER

 

Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body ... Hebrews 13-1

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken. ~Fyodor Dostoevsky
 




Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache. ~Gilbert K. Chesterton





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Wednesday, 18 November 2015

HOME



Then my people will live in a peaceful habitation, and in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting placesIsaiah 32:18



Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule.
~Frederick W. Robertson





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Monday, 16 November 2015

Daybreak: Make Your Goals Happen


The sun begins to come up, and the first rays of light begin to shine upon this fresh day.

What do you do with this time?

The most important thing:

If you have a project you want to happen (let’s say you want to write a book), this is the time to form a habit that will make that project happen. A morning writing habit will get the book done. Simply wishing for the book to get written, or saying you’ll do it “someday,” doesn’t make it happen.

If it’s important, you’ll make a morning habit of it:

•If you want to lose weight, create a morning walking habit. Or morning strength training. Or a healthy breakfast with fruits and veggies.
•If you want to start a new business, create a morning session where you work on it every morning.
•If you want to become more mindful during your day, create a morning meditation habit.
•If you want to work on your relationship with your spouse, have a morning habit of talking about your relationship over coffee.
•If you want to journal, make it a morning habit.




Why is morning a better time for important habits? Why not afternoons or evenings? Well, I’m biased, because I really love the mornings. But I’ve found the time to be quieter, less chaotic, better for reflection and focus. Some people will work better in the late nights, but I’m usually tired by then. So figure out what time is your magic time — I think for most people that will be mornings.

I’ve done pretty much all my important achievements through morning habits.

There are great habits you can create in the afternoons and evenings too, but I recommend trying a morning habit if you have something important you want to get done.

Make it a habit to do it first.





Source: Zen Habits

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Tuesday, 10 November 2015

Spirit SELF and ego self ༗


Ego is a social fiction for which one person
at a time gets all the blame.
-Robert Anton Wilson

WHO OR WHAT IS THE EGO?

As human beings, we are similar in the respect that we each have a body, mind and soul. We all share the same distinguishing characteristics of human nature — ways of thinking, feeling and acting — independently of cultural influence.


Click on image to enlarge
However, in many ways, we are all quite unique — no two people are the same. There are over 7 billion people on the planet, and each of us has a different perspective, therefore presenting each of us with a different life experience.

Somewhere between these two — our common humanity and our unique individuality — lies personality.

Personality is about our different ways of being human: how we are all variations on the same theme; how we all share manifests in different styles of thinking, feeling and acting.

PERSPECTIVE 101

1. Something happens.
2. It means nothing.
3. We make up a story about what it means.
4. The story we make up creates our reality; it creates our world;
it creates what is possible and not possible.




The ego is not master in its own house.
-Sigmond Freud

Click on image to enlarge
We are born as Spirit — a pure innocent being. Our true essence is that of unconditional Love. As we grow up we become conditioned with so many lies-conditioned by others beliefs and concepts. From these concepts and beliefs, we form our personal selves (character roles we live out).

One of the biggest lies is that of our own imperfection, which is fed to us by ego thoughts. The ego is the voice in your mind, actually an impostor, who is pretending to be you. Believing the ego becomes an addiction. It is the ego who drives the vehicle, while you daydream behind the steering wheel.

The ego was created as a survival mechanism, which creates the illusion that we are separate from one another and separate from God. Thoughts are mind generated; not world generated.




The ego mind is essentially identification with one’s thoughts (belief in thoughts). We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are. Thoughts like: “I have failed” or “I’m not good enough” are lies. Spiritual consciousness (awareness) comes from presence-from realizing you are not your thoughts.

You are the awareness behind these thoughts and can just as easily perceive, “I have learned something,” or “I am perfect just as I am.”

Your greatest protection from the ego is to become fully conscious and aware. Awareness is the power which is concealed within the present moment.

Spirit Self  vs  ego self

Click on image to enlarge







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Wednesday, 4 November 2015

Butterfly Buddha


Once upon a time, someone found the chrysalis of a butterfly. Soon a small opening appeared. The person sat and watched the butterfly for hours as it struggled to squeeze its body through the tiny hole. Then it stopped unable to go any further.

Deciding to help the butterfly, a pair of scissors were used to snip off the end of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily, but it had a swollen body and shriveled wings.

The person continued to watch it, expecting that at any moment the wings would enlarge and expand enough to support the body in flight. It did not happen. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around like a caterpillar. It was never able to fly.




What the person, in kindness and haste, did not understand was that the butterfly's struggle to get through the restricting cocoon was a way of forcing the fluid from the body into the wings so that it would be ready for flight once it emerged.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. Going through life without obstacles to overcome would cripple us. We would not become as strong as we could, nor fly as happily as we might. So if we struggle, rather than asking someone or something to remove everything we dislike, it will be to our benefit for a long time to come.





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