Soul

A big heart!
A fantastic intention!
Outcome unsure.

Sometimes we give;
we give things to the poor;
things they do not use.

Our heart is good.
Our intentions are good.
The outcome unsure.

It is great to have a good heart and good intentions.
However if we manage to make it on and off silent,
to make some time to listen with our soul,
the chances of a great outcome do increase.

Let us continue to have a good heart,
to have the best of intentions.
Let us add some soul and silent reflection,
let us make a small prayer
and sometimes the universe will guide.

Let us do good
with our heart,
with our mind
and also with our soul...

Have some fun

Society has shaped the world around us.
We accept it, try to fit in, make some sacrifice
try to have some fun.

And then, after a while we get restless.
We want something more.
We are not happy to fit in and have some fun.

A giant truth dawns
We were given talents
and these talents demand to be used

Talents to make a positive difference
in this world, in our society.
We taste the sweet peace of mind of creativity

The sweet peace of mind of random kindness
the satisfaction of helping another person just like that
without expecting anything in return

We discover we were not meant just to fit in
not meant just to have some fun.

We were meant to use our talents
We were meant to make a positive difference

Abominable choice

If a friend makes an abominable choice.
Will you let him?

I think here is a dilemma.
Within his or her own frame of mind, it must sound a logical thing to do.
Within our frame of mind it sounds abominable.

Respecting the choice, while you are quite certain it has a high chance to bring misery.
Or try as hard as you can to bring him or her to his or her senses?

You know, I have an anti-vax friend.
It is sooo hard to see him err and put his child at risks that are completely and safely preventable.
I have talked literally hours to him
No effect
Today i told him he was irresponsible as a parent.
Some part of me regrets it, some part of me feels it was the right thing to do.

I don't know, but sometimes the ones who hurt your feelings
may be the ones who really care....

Peace is ours

Imagine the world in peace.
Hard to do?

Let us start with ourselves.
Make it quiet

Let there be some silence.
Only the breeze

Thoughts of anguish or anger
 All gone

Thinking only peaceful thoughts
or no thoughts at all

Peace is here now, just enjoy
Peace, peace, peace

Now imagine again all people
in the same peace

Imagine the whole world in peace
Not so hard to do


JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ

Actually my friends,
peace is a natural state
A gift of our God.

But what do we do with it?
Within our small own world
We kick it out.

Peace keeps coming back to us
But every day we kick it out
A gift we refuse

Our small self, our ego,
thinking the world is not fair.
Peace gone

Our small self, our ego,
talking harshly instead of full of love
Peace gone

Our small self, our ego,
feeling hurt about almost everything
Peace gone

Our small self, our ego,
thinking we are better than the rest
Peace gone

But the gift keeps coming back
Our God keeps giving it to us
day by day by day

One day we will accept it
Choose friendliness and kindness
no matter what

Peace will be ours
and we will spread it to those around
and they will spread it too.

No need to wait for tomorrow.
let us start today.

JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ

A small wish from me
of peace to you
of peace to your family
of peace to your friends
of peace to your colleagues
of peace to your world
of peace to our world
of peace to the world.

A tear

A tear in my brown right eye

was ready to leave and roll.

A heart with a small crack

leaked some precious blood,

some precious love

Life 'd been harsh;

self control not easy.

The tear was rolling now

down slowly, down.

Tumult in my soul;
revolt becomes humble
 

 Turning to God.

Strength seeps in.

The tear dries up,

the crack heals,

love flows

Dream

When I silently pray,
I know somewhere deep inside
that I still have a mission in my life.

When I was young,
my mission and vision
were inspired by Albert Schweizer
and by mother Teresa



Now I dream of inspiring people
I dream to become a writer
To become a speaker,
capable of inspiring many people

I can see in my dreams
a kindness revolution
A huge evolution
enveloping  the world
in a huge wave of kindness.

Let us dream together
Perhaps one day,...

Hard to believe

If you read the news,
it is so full of disheartening stories
of falsehood, corruption, decadency
that it would be hard to believe
that the world is changing fast for the better.

And yet it is!!
An idea whose time has come is simply unstoppable
The idea of random acts of kindness has come to the world
Anyone trying it, feels so fulfilled with peace and love
that it is spreading fast!

Slavery, women's rights, non-smoking,
all these things have changed so dramatically
over short time periods.
A few years before the change,
no one could imagine that it would go that fast.
Now all these have changed

So will it be with kindness in this world
If now you have a hard time believing kindness
is increasing fast everywhere all the time,
you will be amazed in a few years.

Hold on tight
A completely disruptive
enourmously gigantic
kindness revolution
is on its way

It is unstoppable
It will blow away all hypocrites
Lying leaders will fall deep and hard
a world of truth and sincerity lies before us
Hard to believe?
Believe!

Black dot

Here is a shortened version of an amazing story I found today on fb

A professor gave an exam paper to students
When the students looked at the paper, it was an A4 paper with a small black dot in the middle.
The professor asked the students to write an essay on what they saw.
At the end of the exam, all students had given their potential interpretation of the black dot.

Logical it is indeed to focus on the abnormality
No one had written anything about he whiteness of the rest of the page.
All focused on the one black dot.

At the end of the story, the writer gave some comments:
Is it not like this in our lives too?
We get health, love, wonderful sunrises.
But a few black dots like the troubles in traffic, a story from the news
get so much of our attention that we forget to enjoy all the good things
and blessings in our life.

Amazing story, isn't it?

Quotations, citations

I read about an Indian master dealing with a celebrated expert in religion as follows:

<A celebrity expert had been citing and reciting passages from the holy scriptures for about half an hour when the master said "I am waiting to hear you." as if it had been completely silent. The religious expert was puzzled.

"Quotations there have been, in superabundance." "But what original commentary can you supply, from the uniqueness of your particular life? What holy text have you absorbed and made your own? In what ways have these timeless truths renovated your nature? Are you content to be a hollow victrola, mechanically repeating the words of other men?">

I think here we strike a very important piece of truth.
What is the use of reciting holy scriptures without understanding?
I have encountered numerous people just doing that.
In many schools in the place where I live, students are learning to read Arabic
without any effort of the teachers to teach the meaning of the words they read.
Many children at a tender age have as such recited large volumes of scriptures
without understanding at all what they recite.

How much time is put in these efforts?
How much better the time could be spent in teaching the children good values?

Vax and anti-vax

In France and Italy certain immunizations are mandatory.
Refusal has bitter consequences in these countries
These countries rightfully put the importance of the health of children and the public above the so called freedom to refuse vaccinations.
Refusal of vaccinations puts innocent children at unnecessary risk of dangerous diseases. France and Italy give parents who refuse to understand science and live in a childish imagined world of conspiracies, not the right to endanger the life of their own children. It is high time that more countries take proactive action to counter the lack of intelligence of the anti-vaxers.

Expect

Expect the best.

So often we are afraid to expect the best.
As a child we were expecting the best but when it turned out to be not,
the disappointment was big. So to protect us from disappointment,
we started to expect the worst.

In the mean time we have matured into adulthood.
We are aware that everything is possible
However we do not want to give up the old habit of childhood
We keep expecting the worst in order to avoid disappointments

By expecting the worst, we prepare ourselves to receive the worst.
We tend to think and behave in ways that make the worst come true.

Let us today give up the bad habit of expecting the worst.
Let us live in a thoughts and action world reflecting our positive expectations
By doing so, we will see more of the positive.

Love and peace to you.

Choice

Sometimes we are full of self pity
All the problems we face
we tend to blame on our parents
on our circumstances
on what happened around us.

And yet, it was us who had made choices
Choices that were basically not the bet ones.
But taking responsibility
for our choices of the past
is a hard, a very hard thing to do.
It is so much easier to blame others
and to end up in a flurry of self pity.

I hope we can find the courage
to see that the choices we made in the past
have resulted in where we are now.
But that is the past
The past has no power over the future
unless we give it such power
The future will depend on the choices we make today

We can choose to continue self pity
and allow the past to continue to determine our future
or we gather the courage
and take responsibility.
We see that the past is over.
Today we have again freedom of choice.
if today we choose the right thing
our past will not have any power over our future.

We have to live in the present.
the past has passed and cannot be changed
The future is not yet here.
Making the right choices now will help the future
and will make the present so much more pleasant.

A Pleasant Present

I wish you a pleasant present

The past has permanently passed

We can nurture the future

but the only moment

we enjoy is the present

We do not have to let the past

having negative effects that last

Let us be aware and become mature

make new choices for a brighter future

Let your present

be truly pleasant

Free

I want to start this reflection with a giant cliché:
The best things in life are free.

I know it is a cliché but it is so good to remember it.
Simple friendliness is one of the biggest gifts we can receive.
During my recent travel in Japan, I asked a passerby the directions to a certain shop.
He stopped in his steps, explained to me and went back about 100m with me to show me the shop.

This was such a big gift to me.

When I remember doing something similar for someone asking directions in our hospital,
I know that the gift is not only a present to the one on the receiving end of the kindness.
The good feeling, a present from our Creator, is as big for the giver of kindness and friendliness as for the receiver.

Simple acts of kindness, friendliness, FREE
No money! A huge gift for the one on the receiving end
A much bigger present still for the one on the giving end.
~truly, the best things in life are free~

Quake

Today arrived in Osaka, Japan.
After check-in in the hotel, a bit tired from traveling.
Taking a nap.
Our room on the 31 floor, which happens to be the top floor.

Not yet fully asleep suddenly our beds are shaking
and so does everything in the room.
The light hanging from the ceiling was moving vigorously.

We did not know what to do
We were afraid but did not panic
Lots of thoughts flashed through my mind.

After a few seconds which seemed like eternity
the shaking stopped.
I called the reception of the hotel.
They related that this was a minor quake which happens quite regularly here.
Nothing to worry about they said.
They said it very convincingly.
I was not too convinced but chose to believe them. 

Reflecting on the event,
I think whatever we do, there is some fate.
If that quake would have been a major  one,
there was nothing we could do.
Hide next to the bed and hope for the best.

It reminded me of our own mortality
It can happen any time,
any moment of the day.
If you read this, at least I have made it until the end of this writing :)

Just a few reflections ago (can click here), I was thinking about readiness in our lives.
Today I was a kind of forced to think about it again.
I hope at any time the balance of me making people smile versus me making people sad is tipping over to the side in favor of the making people happy but we are never sure. We may unknowingly make many people upset. On the other hand sometimes a small gesture may have unexpected positive effects on people as well.

Whatever happens, I hope that balance described in  the above paragraph is favorable.
I ask again to our Creator, please let me live my full potential.
I have a few more big ambitions
I am willing to work hard for them
and hope that "fate" is on my side....  :)