Touched by An Angel

Touched by An Angel
-Maya Angelou 
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Be Happy. God Bless.

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

by Francie Baltazar-Schwartz

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy", I protested.

"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning, and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door", Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?", I asked.

Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man'. I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?", I asked.

"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me", said Jerry. She asked if I was allergic to anything. "Yes", I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply... I took a deep breath and yelled, "Bullets!" Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Jerry lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

This story was send to me by a friend in my e-mail. Today sharing with my blog readers and friends so that you all keep positive and smiling attitude towards life and live it full.

Be Happy. God Bless.

WHO ARE WE

During his reign as emperor of China, Emperor Wu of Liang (502–549 AD) embraced & promoted the golden age of Chinese Buddhism. He came to be seen as the Chinese counterpart of the Indian Buddhist Emperor Ashoka the Great.

Bodhidharma, the first Zen patriarch of China, came to visit Emperor Wu around 520 AD.

The emperor told Bodhidharma, " I have built numerous temples & given financial support to the monastic community. Please tell me how much merit will I get for these deeds?".

Bodhidharma replied, "None whatsoever.You have not done anything out of piety nor out of wanting to do good. Pretending to do good you only wanted to purchase merit, but remember that merit cannot be purchased."

Furious & perplexed, the emperor asked Bodhidharma, "Who are you to tell me such things? I demand to know, who are you?' 
Bodhidharma replied, "Your Majesty, I don't know."

What can be learnt from this great historical encounter?

'Know thyself & then be thyself'. 
Everyday we have people who do not know who they themselves are, telling others what to be or become.

Even those who know a little about themselves are caught in a state of confusion, trying to be someone else.

Who are we? 
We are nothing, but existence at play.

We are given a name, then a religion, then a country, then a race, then an official qualification, then a work title & finally a social title. In the end we will die to be relegated to the dustbin of existence, clueless about who we are.

We know we are nothing, and we will remain nothing. Everything is given to us by others. All that is given to us will one day be taken away from us.

So we create this delusional concept that we are something or someone, who is going to journey to some far away place, where we will be surrounded by sweet music, where angels dance for us & there rivers of alcohol flow. In paradise we will feast & dine on the most wonderful of foods & be attended to, by beautiful people who refuse us nothing whatsoever.

Somehow this ridiculous notion survives, & we ridiculously foolish humans, lap it up & swear by it. So we will go out there, maim, kill, destroy for our place in this so called 'paradise'.

Even as we know we are nothing, we believe so greatly in our puny intellect to analyze & discover the so called reason of our existence.

The birds, the flowers & the animals never ask this question nor do the seasons, the sea, & win. They bestow unconditionally their wonderful grace & sometimes their awesome fury upon us.

Who are you? 
Spiritually speaking shorn of all those props & labels, you are merely another nobody, just like me. Someone who is on a journey from birth to death in a body that is perishing slowly by the moment.

Let us just, live & let live. Find harmony & balance between us & our world. To celebrate life, among-st its splendid wonders & bounty, and to die happily.

If there is a paradise, heaven or a hell, it is here & now.

Be Happy. God Bless.

To Care For Those

A son took his old father to a restaurant for an evening dinner. Father being very old and weak, while eating, dropped food on his shirt and trousers. Other diners watched him in disgust while his son was calm.
 After he finished eating, his son who was not at all embarrassed, quietly took him to the wash room, wiped the food particles, removed the stains, combed his hair and fitted his spectacles firmly. When they came out, the entire restaurant was watching them in dead silence, not able to grasp how someone could embarrass themselves publicly like that. The son settled the bill and started walking out with his father.
 At that time, an old man amongst the diners called out to the son and asked him, “Don’t you think you have left something behind?”.
 The son replied, “No sir, I haven’t”.
The old man retorted, “Yes, you have! You left a lesson for every son and hope for every father”.
The restaurant went silent.

Moral: To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors. We all know, how our parents cared for us for every little things. Love them, respect them, and care for them.

Be Happy. God Bless.

Famous Love Letter

Victor Hugo to Adele Foucher (1821)
“Since the soul is superior to the body, to which it is united, it would remain on earth in painful loneliness were it not for the fact that among other human souls it may choose a companion – a partner in the trials of life and in the joys of the hereafter. When two souls, which have sought each other amid the crowd, find they have met, realize that they belong to each other, and comprehend this affinity, then it is that a union has been brought about, as pure and aspiring as themselves – a union which begun on earth will be consummated in heaven.”
 ***
 “This union is love – genuine, complete love, such as few men can imagine. It is a love which is a religion, since the object of love is regarded as a divinity, with all the devotion and affection which turn the greatest sacrifices into the sublimest joys. Such a love you inspire in me, and such a love you will someday feel for me, although to my sorrow you do not feel it now. Your soul is incapable of an angelic love. It may be, therefore, that only an angel can inspire such a love.”

Be Happy. God Bless.