12 Months Later...

It's been a roller coaster month. Especially in my funny head. And I think myself silly sometimes....

I've been away from home for a year now. Well, not counting that I was back for a month in January. The words 'reflect' and 'meditation' keep appearing in my daily conversations with people (from them, not me). And perhaps I should take it as a sign that I must take time to pause and seek solitary space to go into deep thoughts.

In the last 12 months, I have just as many ups as I have downs and I'm grateful for every single thing that have turned up in my life.

I came into this country with nothing more than two suitcase and an old friend. With that, things have grown to him being a really good and reliable mate, a whitey house mate, an online business, new friends, an education in the stock market and a really good partner I can count on in sickness and in health. Life may have its down moments, but the ups have certainly compensated those experiences.

I made it this far and I know I can go further. There is much still for me to learn. Each time I get hit by a breakdown, I think to myself that I've been through bigger humps and bumps, so, this, I can handle.

I'm sticking my foot into the fountain, my toes are raisin soaked, and I'm enjoying every moment of it.

My Brain Works!

There is a line in The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles that says, “The poor do not need charity; they need inspiration”.

The question is not should we stop being charitable?

Instead, we should be asking: do we need inspiration?

For most part of our lives, we have been educated not to win but to merely survive. Our minds have been programmed for years and years to think ‘in-the-box’ so much so we live life half-baked, passionless and poor. Is that really all to life: to sit in the stands and thirst for more? To watch the rich get richer? And we become poorer?

No.

Life has never planned it for us that way.

We did.

‘Poverty is not the getting of pictures of poverty into your mind’, said Mr. Wattles, it is ‘getting pictures of wealth into the minds of the poor.’ So simply, by increasing our faith and purpose to be rich, only then will our poverty be reduced.

I believe in the development of the most powerful tool mankind ever possessed – the brain. The grey matter we’ve long ignored and left unexercised. Our brain is a machine far greater, far more powerful than we know.

Knowledge is Power and Power is Wealth. Wisdom is an amazing mechanism to propel one from the pits into the heights of abundance. So feed your brains, energize it with books, DVDs, seminars, videos. Read, listen, challenge and empower yourselves with enlightening resources (soon available at BrainWorks Central).

Believe that life is made to be enjoyed. Live a life so unimaginable and so great that we become unstoppable! Live it with Power so that our children’s children will continue to be touched by the essence of our Greatness.

When we increase our knowledge, we can. We can.

Do You Like Your Insides?

One of the turning points in my life, and one of the most important principles I have ever learned, is the Law of Correspondence. The Law of Correspondence goes back to 3000 years before Christ, and it says: "As within is the same as without." It says your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. Or as we say today: "Where ever you go there you are."

This is one of the great truths of all of human history. This is the basis of all religion, of all metaphysics, all psychiatry, psychology, philosophy. It says that if you can change your inner world; if you can change what is going on inside your mind, then you can dramatically change what is going on, on the outside. There is no other way. Your outer world "mirror" expresses your thoughts, feelings, hopes, goals, dreams and so on.

But let me get back to what this Law of Correspondence says... that your relationships, your health, your income, every part of your life merely reflects on a one-to-one basis back to you the way you think. Everything you have in your life you have attracted to yourself because of the person you are. You can change the aspects of your life because you can change the person that you are. William James of Harvard in 1905 said, "The greatest revolution of my generation is the discovery that the average person, by changing their attitudes of mind, can change the outer aspect of their mind."

But the flip side is there is no other way. We cannot change out external world except by changing our internal world, and you have 100% total control over your internal world. As a result, you have total control over your future destiny. You can become anything that you really, really want to become if you simply change what you think on the inside, to be completely in harmony with what you want to enjoy on the outside. You cannot be angry, frustrated and ignorant on the inside and have a successful, happy affluent life on the outside. But if you are fully integrated internally, your outer world will change. I promise you before this course is over you will begin to see the profound changes in your external world. Because in this course you will change because your thinking will change, and as the result other things will change in the "mirror."

The world is full of people who go to the "mirror" of life and they don't like their reflection so they pound the mirror. They try to change the mirror. They're frustrated; they curse the mirror, which is the equivalent to trying to change the external world, instead of going to work on yourself. So when you look the "mirror" use it to put the Law of Correspondence to work for you. Look at what is in your "mirror" that you don't want to see and then work to change the way you think internally, and watch your outer world change and become what you truly want it to become.

By Brian Tracy

To Do or Not To

Postponement is simply stupid. Tomorrow you will also have to decide, so why not today? And do you think that tomorrow you will be wiser than today? Do you think that tomorrow you will be livelier than today? Do you think that tomorrow you will be younger than today, fresher than today? Tomorrow you will be older, your courage will be less; tomorrow you will be more experienced, your cunningness will be more; tomorrow death will come closer--you will start wavering and being more afraid. Never postpone for the tomorrow. And who knows? Tomorrow may come or may not come. If you have to decide you have to decide right now. Dr. Vogel, the dentist, finished his examination on a pretty young patient. "Miss Baseman," he said, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to pull out your wisdom teeth!" "Oh, my!" exclaimed the girl. "I'd rather have a baby!" "Well," said Dr. Vogel, "could you make up your mind so that I can adjust the chair?" Make up your mind. Don't go on postponing infinitely.

Osho Dang Dang Doko Dang Chapter 8

Commentary:

The woman in this picture is living in a gray landscape, full of unreal, cut-out clouds. Through the window frame she can see colors and light and aliveness, and although she would like to move through the frame--as we can see by the rainbow colors appearing in her garment--she can't quite manage to do it. There is still too much 'what-if?' activity in her mind. Tomorrow never comes, they say, but no matter how often it is said, it seems that most of us tend to forget the truth of it. In fact, the one and only result of postponing things is a dull and depressing feeling of incompletion and 'stuck-ness' today. The relief and expansiveness you will feel once you put aside all the dithering thoughts that are preventing you from acting now will make you wonder why you ever waited so long.

[http://www.osho.com]

Brain Power!

For most part of our lives, we have been educated in ways not to win but to survive. Our minds have been programmed to think ‘in-the-box’ so much so we live life half-baked and unpassionate. Is that really the life we want? Is that really what life has been intended for us?

The answer is No.

Listen to the words as you read it: N-O.

People were born with tremendous potential and we use so little of our greatest tool – our brain.

Our school education didn’t teach us to be great. Instead it binds us to smallness, to limitations and to fear. How many of us can remember school to be an inspiration? I’m not denying that school education is an important key, however, we have to identify that it is not the only key to open doors. Education does not stop at school. It is a lifelong journey. And the only way to unlock our magnanimous potential is to learn continuously.

Knowledge is Power. And Power is Wealth. If we are to be powerful, it is in all facets of life – money, relationship, spirituality, health and most important of all, mindset. It is only when we master being humane that we become rich. Wealth is not measured by what we have but by what we are.

I have a purpose. A purpose that have been resonating in me since I was a child. That purpose is to spread Inspiration; grow Hope; show Love. I have a dream of bringing people up to greater heights in life. A life so unimaginable that they forget what fear is. A life so great that they become unstoppable. That is the life we should all be living from.

My intention in this lifetime is to reach out to people so that they become empowered and enriched. There is no maybe, no some day, no one day for me. There is only Now and Must.

"Love after Love"

The time will come
when with elation,
you will greet your self arriving
at your own door,
in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

- DEREK WALCOTT

Gods in Chrysalis

"Whenever you go out of the doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile and put soul into every handclasp.

Do not fear being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your mind that you would like to do and then without veering off direction, you will move straight to the goal.

Keep your mind on the great and splendid things you would like to do and then as the days go gliding by, you will find yourself unconsciously seizing upon the opportunity that are required for the fulfillement of your desire, just as the coral insect takes from the running tide the element it needs. Pciture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual.

Thought is supreme.

Preserve a right mental attitude - the attitude of courage, frankness and good cheer. To think rightly is to create. All things come through desire and every sincere prayer is answered.
We become like that on which our hearts are fixed.

Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are gods in Chrysalis."

- Elbert Hubbard.

Coming into a Dream

Let me tell you about a dream that I had. Someone put me back in school and there was all these things I had to do. Student things. Sports. Studies. Rules. Activities. And I dreaded every moment.

They had odd uniforms, odd sports, odd teachers and odder kids. How awful. At the end of the dream, I was running uphill and I thought, 'I could make this a pretty pathetic experience or I could make the best of the bad. And I fell into everything I did with deep enthusiasm and passion.

When I woke up, I felt that this was Now. And no different from my dream.

That even though I don't have everything I'd like to have, although everything isn't going the way I want it to, I still have a choice - to make it as dreadful as I believe it to be or the best.
Have fun while you can. Play. Don't drown in pity and don't take things or life so seriously. Life and Death is all a game that people fall in and out of. We are all players so PLAY.

'Live' is not just a word for 'breathe' or 'eat' or 'survive'. Whatever our purpose is in Life, we ought to live it with Full Intention. Play Hard. Live Hard. Love Hard (love in this context is define to be above physical lust; it is love of no condition. No boundaries).

Run with purpose, walk with purpose, drink coffee with purpose, laugh with purpose and you can never fail in Life.

Attitude Gratitude

The Gratitude Journal

In her book ‘Simple Abundance’, Sarah Ban Breathnach describes how we can enrich our life by creating a daily gratitude journal.

‘Each night before I go to bed, I write down five things that I can be grateful about that day. Real life isn’t always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgment of what is working in our lives can help us not only to survive but surmount our difficulties.

Simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy – all other principles that can transform your life will not blossom and flourish without gratitude…You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.

As you focus on the abundance rather than on the lack in your life, you will be designing a wonderful new blueprint for the future. This sense of fulfillment is gratitude at work. This sense of fulfillment is gratitude at work, transforming your dreams into reality. Begin this day to explore and integrate this beautiful, life-affirming principle into your life, and the miracle you have been seeking will unfold to your wonder and amazement’.

I Already Have All That I Seek

We're an answer-driven society. Everything we do we need answers.
We climb ladders. We climb mountains.
We go on journeys. We go for quests.
We chase. We search.
We look in the soul. We look at the soul. We look beyond the soul.

Have we found what we've been searching for?

What is it that we're looking for?

Do we even know?

How do we know the Hows, when we don't know the Whats?

We're lost, confused and disoriented.

But we're never hope-less.

If there's one thing about the humankind, we never lose hope. We may lose it as individuals, but as a collective, we care too much to do that. Have you ever given up hope on your family, friends or partners? That's what I mean. We're resilient in that sense. Hard to get rid of. Almost pest-like. Like cockroaches :D

So how do we know what we're looking for?

Look in the Whys.

This cycle of insanity is a fruitless one. As mentioned before, we seem to delight in this 'carrot & donkey' sequence of life. As though happiness is at the end of the 'string ofs...'.
The string of... graduation, work, wealth, sex, marriage, children, retirement... etc.

Myself? I'm like a dog chasing it's tail.

Came a day. One miserable day. A day I intent it to be miserable with my miserable thoughts. So miserable, I was miserable.

I was miserable because.
I was miserable because I felt I had nothing materially substantial to show for my 26 years of existence.
I was miserable because while the rest of the world had BMWs and LVs I had nothing
I was miserable because ten years ago, I had envisioned myself in love and in style.

So I was running a list of things in my mind: things I would do if; things I would feel when; things I would say at...etc.

In other words, I was saying that I can only be happy with myself if I'm thin, rich and beautiful.

Only later. Never here. Never now. Never in the moment.

Then I read. Even though I read it before. A singular line that meant everything and can mean also absolutely nothing. So powerful yet so power-less. In that moment, all things that clouded me depart.

"I have all that I seek."

Which simply means. There is nothing to achieve because I have it. There are no answers to seek. Because there are no questions. Everything that is to be provided for is already provided.

I have everything I need in this life.

Something else I read somewhere which I will loosely quote: "As long as you have shoulders, you will have clothes. As long as you have a mouth, you will have food."
And I will also like to add: "As long as you have limbs, you will have work. As long as you have ears, you have music. And as long as you have sight, you will have beauty."

In other words, be grateful for.

There is much to give thanks.

Talking Heads

Yes, you probably got this this morning. You probably read it. Thought about it. Thought little about it. Thought nothing about it. But I want you to re-think. So I cannot emphasize any more how important this is for you. I don't gain anything from doing this. Maybe a few nutters comments but I think all is well-received.

Dear friends,
Today is an email day for me.
It is a day simply devoted to writing emails to my family and to my friends.
I have not done this for a long time.
In fact... the last time I did that, it was in 1999. And this is just about
writing emails. Not forwarding emails. Or replying emails. Just writing them
from my heart.

But what calls to this devotion isn't quite as bizarre. What prompted all
this is after going to the Landmark Forum. Ahhhhh.... now you understand.
But the Landmark Forum isn't responsible for this. I am.

I haven't written a hearty-from-the-heart email for so long because I've
forgotten who I am and what I enjoy doing most. I grew up and I became too
old to write emails.

We've all been through the 'I'm-too-old-for-this-now'. And in fact, we're
living it. All of a sudden, we feel to old to play. Too old to tickle. Too
old to dance in the rain. Too old to look at the clouds and imagine pink
elephants. All of a sudden, we were told, and we told ourselves, to grow up.
And that's the day we went to sleep in our waking moments.

I've been asleep for a long time. And it usually starts the minute I get up
from bed.
When I wake up I want to go back to sleep.
When I'm brushing my teeth, I'm thinking of breakfast.
When I'm having breakfast, I'm thinking about work.
When I'm at work, I'm thinking about home.
When I'm at home, I'm thinking about what to cook.
When I'm cooking, I think about what's on TV.
When I'm watching TV, I think how nice it is to be them.
And then I brush my teeth, change in to my jammies, go to sleep and think
I've done a fat lot for myself.

We think we're in charge of our lives but we're not. We think we make our
decisions but we don't. We think we're free but we're prisoners.

So what are we?

What are we doing?

What do we want in life?

The answer: We are really victims of our thoughts. Thoughts? What thoughts?
That one. The one that's asking, 'What thoughts?'
The 'voices in our head' tells us what we can do and what we cannot. How
many of us here have had conflicting thoughts. For example, when my nephew
tells me he loves me, a voice in my head says, 'no you don't'. Simply
because I 'think' he's too young to know what love is. Pfft.... Or when my
boss said to me, 'We missed you' (while I was on holiday) ... the voice in
my head said, "Yea right. Liar."

People, that voice is not real. It is not us. And it is not who we are.

The same voice also tells us when to be happy. It will tell us that we are
only happy when we're in school. And when we're in school, we're not happy.
Then it tells us, look at your parents, look how happy they are as adults.
So we say, 'When I grow up, I'll be happy'. Then we grow up, and we're still
not happy. Then we say, 'I know... I'll get a high-paying job, get money,
buy some really cool stuff THEN I'll be happy." Still not happy. 'Get a
girlfriend/ boyfriend THEN I'll be happy'. Stillll not happy. 'Get married
then I'll be happy'. Nope. 'How about some kids? I'll be happy then'. Uh-uh.
'When I retire, get the kids out the house, go on holiday... I'll definitely
be happy.'

You know what? You get a phone call from your doctor. He says he found a
lump in your breast/ balls. And you only have 3 months to live.

And you live the rest of that 3 months thinking, I wish I was happy when I
had the chance to be happy i.e. in school, at work, being single, being
un-single, without kids and with kids.

Life is indeed bull shit.

But it is only bull shit if we think it's bull shit and all we always will
have will be bull shit.

People, we will never be happy later. We will never be happy when we're
thin, rich and beautiful.

We all have a choice to happy now. To take responsibility of our thoughts,
our emotions and our actions. If we don't believe we can be happy or loved,
we will never feel happy or loved and we will never allow happiness or love
to come into our lives.

That's why I want you to do the Landmark Forum. Wherever you are.

I'm not an ambassador of the forum. I'm not working for them. And no, I
don't get money for writing this email. Not even a voucher.

I'm writing this email because I know you can be greater than you think you
are.

And the only reason why you think you're not good enough is because you
think so.
But I don't.

I'm not asking you to get fixed or changed. You're not a car. That's nothing
about you that needs to be fixed. Because, there's nothing wrong with you in
the first place.
The word here is not about fixing or changing. It's about transformation.
Being aware of a greater possibility.

But I know you can create a difference in your life. A happy difference. I
know you can do so much more. You are more than what you imagine.

And I know the only way to reach our highest potential is to understand our
selves. We don't know ourselves enough. It's the voice in the head that
makes us think we do. We DON'T. If you can see how much more you can BE in
life. If you can only see how much more you can DO in life. If you can only
see how much more you can GIVE to life and also RECEIVE in life, you won't
be stuck with the voice in your head.

Do the Landmark Forum. Don't see it as a thing. See it as a key to unlock
possibilities to your highest potential. We all need education to learn, to
have a skill. Take it as a skill you want to have in order to know and love
who you truly are.

With love,
Mable

*YawNn* *sTrecTch* *mOAn*

It's a little dusty rusty in here isn't it?

Nobody's probably here much.

But you know... it's funny... when something is made so available to you the less it seems appealing.

Like for example, if you had tubs of chocolate fudge ice cream lying all around you waiting to be picked up, it'll remain... waiting to be picked up. Why? Simply because it doesn't become a novelty anymore. To me, it might look like a miniature potted scrub.

My point is: I had the Internet, the PC, the lettuce, the tomatoes, the lots for a whole month and I simply didn't bother to blog. Why? It just didn't seem appealing. My 'why' wasn't strong enough. I had other things better to do (even though I probably didn't). I was busy (even though I might not)... the thing is... this - like every other gross human habit that I own - is unhealthy. Discipline is such a undeveloped skill, I feel like a crab with one claw too tiny.

I'll make an effort from now on.

Maybe.

If and when the time is right.

Hrm... or maybe just when I feel like it.

Change,Choice,Decision by Jim Rohn

"One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental "I should" list.

Indecision is the thief of opportunity.

Every life form seems to strive to its maximum except human beings. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it possibly can. Human beings, on the other hand, have been given the dignity of choice. You can choose to be all or you can choose to be less. Why not stretch up to the full measure of the challenge and see what all you can do?

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

Decision making can sometimes seem like inner civil war.

I used to say, "I sure hope things will change." Then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change.

Don't say, "If I could, I would." Say, "If I can, I will."

It doesn't matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off! You cannot make progress without making decisions.

We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation.

If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree."

Summer Holiday