Friday, February 17, 2006

The Alchemist (By Paulo Coelho)


This is a story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure- With courage he gives up his sheep from his home in spain, meeting the wise old king who gave him Urim and Thummim the two stones, which were always a part of treasure for him, he journeys to the markets of Tangiers, makes a friend who turns out to be a robber and betrays him , but doesn’t give up hope when he is completely robed at first, tries to live out his destiny, and is very enthusiastic when he works with the merchant at the crystal shop. And then he is into the Egyptian desert, where a fateful encounter with the alchemist awaits him.

In the beginning of the book he is waiting for the merchants daughter, for a year when he was the shepherd, and finally in the end he is going back to Fatima, waiting for him in the desert, whom he had met when in search of the treasure…..

It teaches us to listen to our hearts, read omens on life’s path and above all to follow our dreams……

Some points worth remembering therein were:

1.The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.

2. Now I’m sad and alone. I’m going to become bitter and distrustful of people because one person betrayed me. I’m going to hate those who have found their treasure because I never found mine.

3. “Maktub” Arab word, it would mean be something like ‘it is written.’ Words of Allah: People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.

4.When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream. When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the soul of the World. It’s always a positive force. Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive….and it has a soul. We are part of that soul, so we rarely recognize that it is working for us.

5.There was a language in the world that everyone understood, the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.
Whoever understands soul, can also understand the language of things.
Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the language of the world.
Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the soul or the world, and it will one day return there.
Everything has its destiny, but one day that destiny will be realized. So each thing has to transform itself into something better, and to acquire a new destiny, until, someday, the soul of the world becomes one thing only.

6.Love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love…the love that speaks the Language of the World.’
Its not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And its not love to see everything from a distance. Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the world. It is not perfect, but like other aspects of creation, has its own passions and wars. The world we live in will be better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.

7.We are afraid of losing what we have, whether its our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and history of the world were written by the same hand.

8. Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.

9. Before a dream is realized, the soul of the world tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon’. As the old proverb: ‘The darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.’

10. When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.

11. Even the Suns wisdom has its own limitations. The wind cannot help us always. The desert, the wind, and the sun were also trying to understand the signs written by the hand, and were seeking to follow their paths, and to understand what had been written on a single emerald. Prayer has got strength; the Soul of God is our own soul. And that, a boy could perform miracles.

12. Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

13. No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it.

It was my old roomee, Shanthi, who inspired to read this book, told me about the Merchant who worked hard to go to Mecca, and when he had enough, did not go, thinking once he goes, there would be no other purpose or goal left in his life.

A good one, worth reading. …………

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY....




You need people in life, all the success, all the achievements would be worthless, unless you have people to share it with. May be for that all these celebrations……..

I wonder who started this practice of celebrating Valentines day……..Yesterday had a forwarded SMS, 14th February its ,’Valentines Day’ enjoy a lot with your lover. Do whatever you like but don’t cross the limit Bcoz just after 9 months its childrens day……

Just to love the feeling of love is amazing...to be carried away by your emotions. to do things with your heart...not thinking what's right or wrong..to let your heart take control over you...to tell someone how much you care about them………..But then when your head takes over your heart, you move back……

Already love is not easily understood and at time love has become misunderstood. Is it just a means to end your solitude…………….

It is not always that this love bug you get when u meet a guy/gal... you just say that it was a crush... starts out as a normal friendship...and then later on…..na, na, Mother Therisa was embodiment of love…., Need to be truly blessed to get parents love……Love of siblings…..and Friendship no doubt is love…with understanding….as Shameema had send today Give the whole heart to the lover they will break it. Give the Broken heart to your friend they will make it.

It is something which was there from the beginning of the world and will be there till the end of the world…Our epics is so rich of these stories……….Ganapthis love for parents…..and moving round them….a wise way to go round the world, and outwit, outwin, brother Subrmaniam……And who can forget…..Radha Krishna……There would be so much of fuss in society, over such relation, even today, ……But ….Its acceptable…..Though there are stories about Tajmahal….as is commonly known, it’s the embodiment of Shajahans love for Mumtaz…..Love knows no cast, creed, sex or religion….It is something that keeps people going……

By the year 2006, the idea of blog is into my head, and for sure it has brought me new ideas, and I owe this to lots of people who have inspired me. Amlaki, sis….some love blogging, some people feel it to be rubbish, just like, some people are lonely by nature, others are destined to be lonely, some would ve been lonely even when surrounded by people. So Bolgging is my new love of the year..................Howzzzthat.............

Men, Motives & Marriage

Men are supposed to be born with motives like food, clothing, shelter, safety, power etc. These are primary ones. Then there are motives, which are not in born. These are secondary which are created by exposure, interactions and experience. Then there are general motives like that of competence, curiosity and manipulation which lie between primary and secondary motives.

Men can control all these motives, and thereby he can lead a happy life. But then everymen gravitates towards it and in turn gives himself nothing but sorrow. Even then they crave for it.

Organized endeavor is superior and more efficient than an unorganized effort in order to meet the needs and goals of mankind, for the satisfaction of motives etc. Right from his primitive era, man realized that cooperative activity of living together and working together in an interdependent manner was better than isolated individual existence and efforts. He neutralized several of his physical and other limitations through cooperative functioning. ‘What one man cannot do, two can do, what one man can do, two can do still better’. This is the basis of forming family lives, so also villages, town, cities, education, commerce, bank, industries etc. A family- (Father and Mother I Love You) life begins with marriage. What is marriage? It is a social innovation to overcome the limitations of men and to enable him to carry on his business of life and inturn to satisfy his first mentioned motives in life with more order and convenience. The cooperative endeavors implicit in marriage involve setting common goals, division of labour, assumption of specific roles and behaviors by individuals and establishment of interactions. Only if all these are carried out marriage will be successful. Due to increase in population there is a growing complexity in mans life, which in turn requires, that marriage be conducted with greater degree of formality, standardization, centralization and control.

Male and Female are two characters with different qualities in the ‘stage of life’. And when these two characters come together, they make wonders, provided their tastes, and goals are similar. Eg. Mme Cure, and her husband P. Curie. Women are life water and fire, the basic necessity of life, without which life itself is not possible, but if uncontrolled, equally disastrous.

How these characters differ is that men are emotionally stronger than their counterparts. They crave for acceptance more than anything else. Female on the contrary are embodiment of Love. They are sadactive and acceptive. Though I do not know much about science, I remember having read somewhere that this is because of difference of hormones in them. The hormones in men are testermon and that in female is estargent. The general saying is that ‘To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a women you must love her a lot an not try to understand her at all.’ Men should remember that their wives are not puppets. She too has got her ideas, sentiments and feelings, which are to be respected and put to use. But then wives should not try to make their husbands henpecked. She should always remain the queen, and husband the kings of a married family life. A queen can be like Rani Lakshmi Bhai- but a queen. If a person intents to marry all these should be kept in mind.
The attraction, which draws men to women, is just like the force, which draws the positive electric pole to negative. In married life, by brute force or by mental force, a man can dominate a woman when the inner souls of both are suffering. In true marriage, neither the man nor the women dominates the other although one of the couple will yield naturally to the spiritual superior. Through wise understanding and hallowed love they become so complementary in time as to be one soul in two bodies.

Many married men have only half wives. At time, the complain after few years of marriage is that they wanted wives and not house wives. This is generally after children are born, and wives become more attached to their children and their matters. Once the child grows up, parents have to get separated from their children with sorrows of the middle age. Then again, her only companion is her life partner. Nothing should be more romantic than the illusion about one another with which many marriages begin. Nothing could be more tragic than the way in which these illusions are dispelled, when the marriages end.

Men and women must make sure that their spouse gets satisfaction in whatsoever activities they do. Never be selfish and make others dissatisfied. Avoid jealousy and suspicion. Find out what has gone wrong in your married life and try to set ti right. However intimate you may be, never open others letters or purse without permission. Pamper and make each other feel wanted. Take care of the minute details. Always be alert on the delicacy of the relationship with other. Never flirt. The start of any affair is with bandy risqué jokes. The end is always the same, an ugly affair that can break up and destroy families. It is better to remain within limits and enjoy a sweet decent relationship.

It’s not possible for every person to adjust through out his or her life and therefore most of the marriages end up in trouble. In today’s world, at the most after ten years of married life, people feel that they should have not married. Truly successful married life are lead only by 25% couples, 10% marriages end up in divorce, 10% people live separately without divorce and 55% couples after having children, live together only for the sake of their children.

There is a time for everything and therefore for marriage too. Its not 18 yrs, 21 yrs, 28 yrs or 30 yrs. The right age is when you are physically, mentally and economically strong to take up the responsibility of married life. Though marriage can be are even otherwise. The lesser the age difference between the couples, better it is. The thing required is before marriage one should think and understand about life. ‘Look before you leap’. Look into yourself as to how much you can adjust. Life is what you make it. There is no use crying over spilt milk. ‘Men marry because they are tired, women because they are curious, both are disappointed. –Oscar Wilde.

Though one knows that in marriage there are many pains, people jump into it thinking that in celibacy there is no pleasure. True the pleasure may not be as that in-married life, but infact in Celibacy there are many pleasures which married men cannot enjoy. To put forth in Lao Tzuns words: ‘Often times, one strips oneself of passion, In order to see the secrets of life, often time, one regards life with passion, In order to see its manifold results.’

As per the volume 4 of the complete works of Swami Vivekananada- ‘What is marriage, but the reunion of unchastity? The savage does not marry. Men marry because he renounces. So on and on. Renounce? Renounce! Sacrifice! Give up! Not for zero. Not for nothing. But to get the higher. But who can do this? You cannot until you have got the highter. You may talk. You may struggle. You may try to do many things. But renunciation comes by itself where you have got the higher. Then the lesser falls away by itself. This is practical religion.

In a way marriage is the end of ‘I’ and the beginning of ‘We’. Some say virginity is a dignity. It is because of lack of opportunity. While still some feels ‘Love is blind and Marriage is the institution for the blind.’ No wonder, one has to take care of their thoughts. Its what you are made of. If ever you marry, Marry only the right person. Remember, you will never find a 100% perfect person, but by learning to see the imperfect person perfectly.

For some, marriage is a licensee to do anything…As Shanthi Akka of chennai used to tell.

There is so much of difference between men and women, you can know more about it, from the book, ‘Men are from mars, women are from Venus’.

No matter how well matched a married couple seem to be, they differ in emotional make up, childhood experience and family background. Therefore some problems are to be expected after marriage. How will they be handled?

Loyalty: Loyal spouse know that, come what may, they will support each other. How different from those who abandon their marriage at the first hint of trouble! Such individuals quickly conclude that they chose the wrong person, that they have fallen out of love, that a new mate is the cure. But this gives neither spouse opportunity to grow. Instead, such disloyal ones may carry the same problems to new partners. When a person has a fine home, but finds that the roof is leaking, surely he tries to repair it. He does not just move to another house. Similarly, changing a mate is not the way to solve the issues that lie benith marital strife. When promises arise, do not try to get out of the marriage, but work very hard to preserve it. Such loyalty treats the union as something worth guarding, maintaining and cherishing.
Communication: There is frustrating of plans where there is no confidential talk. ) Proverb (5:22) what can you do in case of disagreement? Suspend the discussion until later, when you and your mate has cooled off. Your goal should be to remedy the situation, not to win the argument. Choose words and manner of speaking that will calm you and your mate. Above all, do not remain in a provoked state, but seek help by communication with God in a humble prayer together.
Honour & Respect: Honouring ones wife involves recognizing her values. He has high regards for her feelings, strengths, intelligence and dignity. A respectful wife would not thoughtlessly broadcast her husband’s faults. She would not strip him of his dignity by criticizing and belitting him either privately or publicly. This does not mean that a wife cannot express her opinions. If something disturbs her, she can respectfully give voice to it. Conveying an idea to her husband might be likened to throwing a ball to him. She can toss it gently so that he can easily catch it, or she can fling it with such force that it injures him. How much better it is when both mates avoid hurling accusations but, rather, speak in a kind and gentle manner…….

Knowingly or unknowingly parents often bring up their children the way they themselves were brought up. Faulty parenting techniques are sometimes passed on. In order to build a happy environment for children parents should
Set a fine example
Provide assurance of love
Discipline
Real life-everlasting life-Paradise on earth-Prayer

Marriage is fine, and Children are gifts from God, for he wants the world to go on. But if marriages does not materialise it is not that the future is dependent on it. Moreover there is no deadline for Shaadi, Shaadi eak aisa ladoo hey jo kaye tho pachthaye, na kaye thoo pachthayee....Mary a person who can tolerate you, and not reconcile but be one with you and whom there is no need to change...it is simply not possible and natural. Moreover anything that comes right from the heart simply excels.

In the 21 suggestions for success By H. Jackson Brown Jr. The first he says is: Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.