YOUR CHILDREN DO NOT DISTURB THEM

Always remember: children are not adults; you should not expect adult things from children. They are children. They have a totally different vision, a different perspective. You should not force your adult attitudes on them. Allow them to remain children, because they will never be that again; and once lost, everybody feels nostalgic for the childhood days, everybody feels those days were days of paradise. Don’t disturb them.

Sometimes it is difficult for you to accept children’s vision — because you have lost it yourself. A child is trying to climb a tree; what will you do? You immediately become afraid — he may fall, he may break his leg, or something may go wrong. And out of fear you rush and stop the child. If you had known what joy it is to climb a tree, you would have helped the child to learn how to climb trees. You would have taken him to a school where it is taught how to climb trees. You would not have stopped him. Your fear that the child may fall is good — it shows your love, but to stop the child from climbing the tree is to stop the child from growing.

There is something essential about climbing trees. If a child has never been doing it, he will remain somewhat poor, he will miss some richness — for his whole life. You have deprived him of something beautiful, and there is no other way to know about it. Later on it will become more difficult for him to climb the tree, it will look stupid or foolish or ridiculous.

Let him climb the tree. And if you are afraid, help him, go and teach him. You also climb with him. Help him learn so he doesn’t fall. And once in a while, falling from a tree is not so bad either. Rather than being deprived forever....

The child wants to go out in the rains and wants to run around the streets in the rain, and you are afraid he may catch a cold or get pneumonia or something — and your fear is right. So, do something so that he is more resistant to colds. Take him to the doctor; ask the doctor what vitamins should be given to him so that he can run in the rains and enjoy and dance and there is no fear that he will catch cold or will get pneumonia. But don’t stop him. To dance in the streets when it is raining is such a joy. To miss it is to miss something very valuable.

If you know happiness and if you are aware, you will be able to feel for the child, how he feels....

When you understand the child, the child understands you — children are very very responsive. When the child sees that he is never prevented, then once you say, “I am doing something please...” the child will know that it is not from a parent who is constantly looking to shout at him. It is from a parent who allows everything.

Courtesy: Osho international foundation, www.osho.com

GANDHI'S 10 RULES FOR CHANGING THE WORLD

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”

“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.
So let’s just move on to some of the favorite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.

1. Change yourself.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world."
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves."

If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.

And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.

And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.

2. You are in control.

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission."

What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.

You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.

And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.

3. Forgive and let it go.

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others.

You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.

If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.

4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.

"An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching."

Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and difficult. There can be much inner resistance.

And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results in real life.

So, to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.

5. Take care of this moment.

"I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following."

The best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be accepting.

Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences – or reflecting on past failures – of your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.

And remember that reconnecting with and staying in the now is a mental habit – a sort of muscle – that you grow. Over time it becomes more powerful and makes it easier to slip into the present moment.

6. Everyone is human.

"I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps."

"It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."

When you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.

And I think it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes. Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.

It’s also important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake. And then try again.

7. Persist.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Be persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away. And your inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.

Find what you really like to do. Then you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going, going and going.

One reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he and his followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.

Success or victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think one of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give up too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same amount of time it usually takes to achieve that goal. This faulty belief partly comes from the world we live in. A world full of magic pill solutions where advertising continually promises us that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a ton of money in just 30 days.

mg Finally, one useful tip to keep your persistence going is to listen to Gandhi’s third quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It can lighten things up at the toughest of times.

8. See the good in people and help them.

"I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others."

"Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men."

"I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people."

There is pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And if you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.

And when you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you not only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And the people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you, together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes stronger.

By strengthening your social skills you can become a more influential person and make this upward spiral even stronger.

9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

"Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well."

I think that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave in a congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to really like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be found when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerful and good about yourself.

When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. Because now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are over 90 percent of communication – in alignment with your words.

With these channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.

Also, if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in you too.

10. Continue to grow and evolve.

"Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position."

You can pretty much always improve your skills, habits or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.

Sure, you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time to time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically. But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear consistent while you realise within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to take.


Thank you very much!
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Source : www.dailygood.org

DISCOVER YOUR SLEEP

The thing which has been harmed the most in the development of human civilization is sleep. From the day man discovered artificial light, his sleep has become very troubled. And as more and more gadgets started falling into man’s hands, he started feeling that sleep is an unnecessary thing, too much time is wasted in it. The time when we are asleep is a complete waste. So the less sleep we can do with the better. It does not occur to people that sleep has any kind of contribution to the deeper processes of life. They think that the time spent sleeping is time gone to waste, so the less they sleep the better; the more quickly they reduce the amount of sleep, the better.

We have not even noticed that the cause behind all the illnesses, all the disorders that have entered man’s life is lack of sleep. The person who cannot sleep rightly cannot live rightly. Sleep is not a waste of time. The eight hours of sleep are not being wasted; rather, because of those eight hours, you are able to stay awake for sixteen hours. Otherwise you would not be able to stay awake all that time.

During those eight hours life-energy is accumulated, your life gets revitalized, the centers of your brain and heart calm down and your life functions from your navel center. For those eight hours of sleep you have again become one with nature and with existence. That is why you become revitalized.

Sleep needs to come back into man’s life. Really, there is no alternative, no other step, for the psychological health of humanity than that sleep should be made compulsory by law for the next one or two hundred years.

It is very important for a meditator to see to it that he sleeps properly and enough. And one more thing needs to be understood — right sleep will be different for everybody. It will not be equal because the body has needs which are different for everyone…according to age and to many other elements.

Perhaps you may not be aware that the latest research says that there cannot be one fixed time for everyone to wake up. It is always said that to wake up at five o’clock in the morning is good for everyone. This is absolutely wrong and unscientific. It is not good for everyone; it may be good for some people but it may be harmful for other people. Within twenty-four hours, for about three hours, the body temperature of each person goes down. And those three hours are the hours of deepest sleep. If the person is woken up during those three hours, his whole day will be spoiled and his whole energy will be disturbed.

Generally these three hours are between two to five in the morning. For most people these three hours are between two to five in the morning, but it is not the case with everyone. For some people their body temperature is low until six o’clock, for some it is low until seven. For some their temperature starts becoming normal at four in the morning. So if someone wakes up within these hours of low temperature, all twenty-four hours of his day will be spoiled and there will be harmful effects. Only when a person’s temperature starts rising to a normal level is it time for him to wake up.

Normally it is alright for everybody to wake up with the rising sun, because as the sun rises everyone’s temperature starts rising. But this is not a rule, there are some exceptions. For some people it may be necessary to sleep a little later than sunrise, because each individual’s body temperature rises at a different time, at a different pace. So each person should find out how many hours of sleep he needs and what is a healthy time for him to get up, and that is the rule for him…whatever the scriptures may say, whatever the gurus may say. There is no need to listen to them at all.

For right sleep, the deeper and the longer you are able to sleep, the better. But I am telling you to sleep, not to keep on lying on the bed! Lying down on your bed is not sleep!

To wake up when you feel it is healthy for you to wake up should be the rule for you. Usually it happens along with the sunrise but it is possible that this does not happen to you. There is no need to be afraid or worried or to think that you are a sinner and to be afraid of going to hell. Many people who get up early in the morning go to hell and many people who get up late are living in heaven. None of this has any relation whatsoever to being spiritual or unspiritual. But right sleep certainly does have a relationship with it.

So each person should discover what is the best arrangement for him. For three months each person should experiment with his work, with his sleep and with his diet, and should find out what are the most healthy, most peaceful and most blissful rules for him.

And everyone should make his own rules. No two persons are alike, so no common rule is ever applicable to anybody. Whenever someone tries to apply a common rule, it has a bad effect. Each person is an individual. Each person is unique and incomparable. Only he is like himself, there is no other person like him anywhere on the earth. So no rule can be a rule for him until he finds out what the rules for his own life-processes are.

Source: Osho, The Inner Journey

Follow the link: “The Science of Sleep” a video by Dr. Deepak Chopra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q9vSvd1Wa4

IS REALITY AN ILLUSION?

                        

Many of us have heard of the saying that "Life is an illusion." It is casually declared by many, and with such certainty one might add, as if to imply an understanding of reality. But what does the saying really mean? Is everything really an illusion or is it wishful thinking on the part of humans? Or is it because as T.S. Eliot says, "Humankind cannot bear very much reality," that we cling to our illusions even if they contradict the obvious?

To assert that everything is an illusion poses a problem. If everything is an illusion, why bother trying, improving or aspiring? Since none of what you experience, see or feel is real anyway, then who or what exists? The assumption may be that nothing exists. But isn't this in a way a diminishment of life?

Everything you and I see, touch, smell and hold is real -- is it not? Many schools of thought throughout time have pointed out that the world as we know it is an illusion. How could that be? Does that mean every experience I've had, or every person you have loved or cared about is an illusion? If not, then what do they mean by the statement?

Could it be that reality is not an illusion but that our version of reality is an illusion? In other words, none of us are perceiving reality for what it is but rather for what we wish it to be. Unfortunately, one simply cannot see things as they really are, cannot be aware of reality, with illusions acting as mediators.

There is a difference between what something is and what we think it is. Actually what we think is utterly inconsequential to what is. Illusions do not exist in the world (out there) but in here. The inner world is fertile ground for illusions to take root which then get projected into the world, thus influencing the perception of others about reality. These distortions, in the realm of reality, have no purpose other than for distraction and delusion.

                

So how can we know if illusions are creating reality? Well, we can't while we are under their spell and we can know only after the illusions no longer exist that we were living in illusion in the first place. When we begin to understand the difference between reality and that which we impose upon it through own thoughts, choices and beliefs, we will be made to realize that much of our despair, anger or pain was fueled by these mis-perceptions.

Most conflict, whether on a personal or collective level, stem from illusions. In our daily lives there is infinite opportunity to create them. We create them about our jobs, finances, relationships, friendships, love and life in general to shield us from that which we view as undesired truths. We do not want to live in reality but are comfortable living in illusion and we believe that somehow the gain far outweighs the effort needed to eliminate them.

As human beings we are conditioned (illusions) to hold onto culture, religion, tradition and politics even at the expense of our well being. From these elements our identity is shaped, and how this identity expresses itself is unique to each of us. Only time will tell if this identity is congruent with the essential self. In other words, illusions are learned and then passed on. Without knowing it, we live and express these distorted ideas, practices and patterns that influence our perceptions of reality and in turn create our reality. And then we point and say, "Look, that's reality." But upon further exploration, we realize that our perception was the illusion all along and not reality itself.

To summon the courage to question or challenge beliefs, assumptions and certainties ushers in a wiser and more mature perspective on reality. It takes experience to no longer mistake one for the other, and with time, life will reflect this distinction. Just recently we saw this distinction at play as Egypt and her people discarded their illusion of fear and powerlessness to reclaim their reality for freedom. People around the world are removing the veils at lightning speed -- illusions be gone -- its about time, don't you think?