Ego- or Soul-control

This morning,
Silence all around.
A good time for reflection

I often feel I have not a good control over my ego.
It wants to be important and goes on hurting sometimes people to achieve its aim
Please my soul, take over.
Please my God forgive my lack of control over my ego.
I wish peace and soul control for all my friends and all on earth.

Ignorance

It was Gandhi who said that one of the worst kind of violence is poverty.
I am not sure whether he meant only physical poverty.

Ignorance of the basic principles of life is maybe as bad a form of poverty!

Basic principles of life include:
that honesty brings peace of mind
that kindness is the chief recipe for happiness
that success without peace of mind is no success
that we do have a choice on how to look at things
and so on,

Ignorance of principles as listed above,
will lead to impoverishment in terms of happiness and peace of mind

I risk being called a dreamer, but I am quite sure that this ignorance cannot last much longer.
I am pretty sure about a vast upcoming wisdom revolution in which selfless service to one another becomes the most understood and most practised source of happiness throughout the world.
If humanity would miss out on this, humans may just destroy their own existence as a species.

Giving

A very famous saying: it is in giving that we receive.
When I was younger I thought this was just a clever paradox
Now I see it is so much more than that; it is a simple but giant truth.

If we selflessly give,
we get immediately a superb peace of mind, so big,
not even a little bit comparable to the peace of mind
that we get when we receive something precious

If we selflessly give
we will become friends with like-minded people
who if we are in need will selflessly help us too.

Language

Today our last day in Istanbul, Turkey.
The land of Ataturk, Erdogan and a lot of taxi drivers

I was surprised that so many taxi drivers in a major capital with so many tourists do not seem to understand even simple English.

My friend, Tan Sri Ani Arope, who is no longer among us since this morning, used to always praise people who know many languages and he was proud of his own wide range of language skills. It is so true, such a valuable lesson of the wise late Tan Sri: a language you know gives you a supreme advantage throughout your life. The more languages you know, the more job opportunities, the better your chances, the more interesting your life.

It is never too late to learn a new language. Five new words per day give you vocabulary of 1500 words after one year. Keep on practicing, keep on learning, we never know enough.

Reflection 158 (a few centuries ago)

While on a holiday in Turkey we visited the blue mosque, the Hagia sophia and the adjacent Topkapi palace. A mixture of Byzanthyne and Ottoman influences, Christianity and Islam, cathedrals converted to mosques and then into a museum with signs of both religions overwhelmingly present.

Visiting the musea attached make you aware that times were not easy, but humankind survived the most rough circumstances, managed to erect wonderful buildings and a huge body of wisdom emerged from those times gone by.

With candle light and feathers as pens, some of the sages from old were penning their deepest feelings into amazing poetry and reflections.

Sometimes I wonder when all the true wisdom and beauty from old and from anew will engulf the world and take it over completely destroying the stupidity of greed, jealousy, hatred and anger.

Reflection 157 (heart)

People do not always need advice
Sometimes they need just a hand to hold,
a pair of ears to listen to them and 
a heart to understand them

I found this wonderful quote  on facebook (in French) and promptly translated it and shared it.

An understanding heart is much valued.
As St. Francis said: Lord, let me try to understand
rather than to be understood.
If we try more to understand than to be understood
we will make a real positive difference in the world
and what else brings us greater peace of mind
than making a positive difference

Many of us hunger much more for appreciation than for food.
Likewise let us try to appreciate more than being appreciated
to console rather than be consoled
to love rather than be loved
Appreciation, consolation and love will land on our hearts
like butterflies on flowers

Reflection 156 (dream)

I am feeling sleepy
Soon I will go to bed
I anticipate a comfy sleep
I want to dream
I want to dream about my mother
I want to dream about my father
I want to dream about both
my mother and my father
They are no longer here on earth
I want to meet them tonight
in my dreams

Reflection 155 (teaching)

Teaching should be thoroughly enjoyable
For both the students and the teacher

This means a big responsibility for the teacher
But with a dose of empathy for the students
And a bit of teaching skills that can be readily learned
It can be achieved
If the teacher manages to truly enjoy the session
Chances are high that the students will enjoy too

Reflection 154 (bulldozing your garden)

Fighting for or about religion is like
bulldozing your garden because someone stole a flower.

A small explanation:

Peace is such an important part of religion,
that giving up peace is like destroying your religion
No person can hurt an omnipotent God
Only people with limited belief will feel the hurt
They will start a fight and destroy the image of their religion in the process
by violating the principles of the huge universal driving force representing Love and Peace

Peace to all.

If our belief is really strong, it is like a garden filled to the brim with wonderful flowers
Others may try to pick some of the flowers or even step on them but the garden will be basically untouched, flowers growing back much faster than anyone could destroy them

Peace to all.

Reflection 153 (love and God)

Love and God

Not so long ago I wrote a small poem, titled Y.... Have you seen love  (click-able)

Love cannot be seen, it cannot be heard, it cannot be touched and yet if we ask anyone, does love exist, they will answer, sure it does. We have no problems believing in love since we can feel it. One could ask: but love is created by humans, without humans there would be no love? Quite a superfluous thought, no one knows whether love would exist without human existence; there are so many humans in the world.

Similarly to love, no one can see, hear or touch God. And even though this is not different from love, many more people will take this as a reason not to believe in God. This is logical for those who have never felt the presence of God. People who consciously or unconsciously exclude spirituality from their lives and choose to a live a life purely based on 5 senses actually miss out on a whole dimension of life and true enough they do not experience God. Those who choose to lead a spiritual life or make spirituality part of their life will experience God and the existence of God becomes as tangible as the existence of love.... I think I am explaining too much here, perhaps we should let poetry speak for itself ... 

For those believing only in our 5 senses, these 5 tend often not to be too reliable: think about rainbows, horizons, wet streets on sunny days, etc. Read also the transcendentalist by RW Emerson.

Reflection 152 (getting real)

Getting real

We say that our Creator is the most gracious
Let us say it again and feel it
Really feel the grace and love of our God

We say that our Creator is the most forgiving
Let us say it again and feel it
Really feel the forgiveness of our God

Let's feel it. Let us be filled, feeling Love
He filled our hearts with Love and kindness at birth
So freely to share with all around us, all the world

Free refills, whenever our love reaches a soul,
when a smile adorns the face of a child
Free refills at every prayer, every thought of God

We used to say thanks to God for He created the world
Let us say it again and feel it
Feel the thanks, the gratefulness deeply in our hearts

Feel the gratefulness for our wonderful senses
Feel the gratefulness for all the things we have
But most of all for that enormous Grace and Love

Let's feel the grace, Let us feel the forgiveness
Let's thank from truly within
Let us feel it,

Let us feel it with our mind,
Feel it with our heart
Let us feel it with our soul...

Aufie Zophy

Reflection151 (waking up)

Waking up

When we wake up and we rejoice in the prospect of going to work...
When we wake up and we dread the prospect of going to work...

We do have a choice.
It doesn't mean that if our previous day was dreadful, today will be so too
No matter what the past, we can always to choose to rejoice in the new day

I am sure everyone can fill up the ... in the opening two lines
Let us make the right choice tomorrow morning.

Reflection 150 (nature)

After being away for the three past days, home again.
This morning I spent 2 hours in pure nature and pure it was
When spending time in nature I feel I am truly myself
No caution, free flow of thoughts, pure delight for my eyes
I just love it.
I will stop typing here immediately and off I am
to nature...
Bye

Reflection 149 (write)

The sky is so vast
The universe so wide
Nature so nice
How can we not-write

Each of us should write out our soul
Write out our heart
Write out our thoughts

Let us all write
Write something that leaves behind
something really valuable of ourselves
for posterity
If not just for your self

Write a quote, write few verses, write a short essay, one paragraph, a short story, a novel anything, a poem, a work of proze.
 Just take the pen or that keyboard, and write