COURAGE - THE MOST IMPORTANT QUALITY YOU NEED FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIFE

COURAGE!

This seven letter word designates the most important quality you need, to live a successful life.

Virtuous life in today's world is impossible without courage. Gandhi is  one of the most courageous men of our times, and because of that, he was also one of the most virtuous men of  our times. Name any virtuous man. He was so, because he was courageous.

Love in your life - is impossible unless you have courage. 

Material prosperity in life - is impossible  without courage.

Whatever you want in life - put courage first - and you shall have it.

Courage in you  - grants you leadership in many places.

You cannot enjoy life at all - in the absence of courage. You cannot always bank upon the courage of some other person to sail through your life successfully, though the friendship of like minded, courageous persons is a great asset in life.

Fixing a goal for your life, planning meticulously for its achievement, embarking on the journey of achievement, fighting against  odds, remaining  steady in the face of obstacles and failures, lasting that last mile to success - all these require courage. 

Success gives great joy to all of us. Even to fully experience that joy, you need courage.

Living well and dying well both need courage.

Fighting for right causes requires courage. Fighting  wrong doers needs  even more courage.

To assemble a band of courageous and committed men to achieve great causes,needs great courage. To lead them on a great path, needs even more courage.



Every significant change and progress in life comes from courage. 


Courage is not the mere absence of fear.Courage implies huge levels of initiative.


Confronting our own weaknesses requires tremendous courage.

This shows that - courage does not merely mean physical courage.It does not necessarily flow from physical strength.

Courage flows from the core of your heart. It resides there. It flows from there. It is your moral strength. It is your physical strength. It is your emotional strength. It is your will to succeed. Or, make some one succeed, in which you see your own success.Courage, more often , turns you into the majority - even if you are one and the others are many.


Courage of course knows the difference between wisdom and foolhardiness.


What can potentially take away our courage?


If it is not the sword, it may be mere words of criticism. If it is not power and violence, it can merely be discouraging words of pseudo friends! If it is not superior intellect of the enemy, it can merely be our own foolish deeds. 

What can potentially transform you into a highly courageous person?

It can be the person you love. It can be the Guru you respect.It can be the acquiring of wisdom. It can be just one catastrophe! Any thing can transform you. A gradual exposure to fearless experiences can also build courage.


The opposite of courage is not just FEAR.  It can well be anger, greed, jealousy, lust, or any one or more, of a host of negative attitudes lurking in you - which can destroy your courage at the drop of a hat! Be ware!

Do you want to tread the spiritual path to the almighty? You will need the best of courage on this path. 

A Buddha has more courage than an Alexander. Buddha goes to the most dangerous places smilingly, without a sword. That is absolute courage! No Alexander ever did that.

Ancient Indian sages often define MOKSHA, the ultimate liberation (or success) of life as - TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE FEARLESSNESS. It is the same as COURAGE! If you achieve it - you have achieved everything else.

Lastly, Be assured that Courage can be imbibed and practiced as your way of life. It does not at all matter if you are very fearful today. Tomorrow can be different; tomorrow can be a great courageous and successful day.

Every time, you meet a catastrophe successfully, courage grows in you by leaps and bounds. Every time you get up and speak out your mind honestly, courage grows in you. Every time, you explore the unexplored, courage flows all over you.


Now, what are you waiting for? Make courage as your way of life. Make your life lively and successful.

COMMUNICATION - THE ALL IMPORTANT TASK OF YOUR LIFE !

COMMUNICATION

THE ULTIMATE PROOF

OF LIFE

Without an iota of doubt, Communication is life's most important task. 

Whatever you do is communication. Breathing is communication. Seeing is communication, Touching is communication. hearing is communication. Talking is communication.Any body movement is communication.Even sleeping is communication. Refraining from doing any of these, is also communication!

A doubt arises whether, what we think and feel also is communication. 

Yes. That also, is communication. 

You know well that thinking and feeling happen in the brain. The whole body receives it and responds in many ways.Every thinking and feeling result in some body movement and it gets noticed by the world.

Just put an intelligent electrode outside the brain. It perceives the thinking pattern inside, as reflected to the skin and the nervous system below the electrode. There are many, many invisible electrodes in your body and all over the world which receive your thought, action and emotional communication.

Whatever you do (or do not) communicates something to the world and to other people around. Your communication is absorbed by the world in unimaginable ways, probably permanently and probably, in perfectly reproducible ways - like a VCR / VCP.

You can never afford to feel that, no one is perceiving you doing this, thinking that or feeling such. Beware that the whole world does!

Slowly, but surely, the scientific and modern analytical thinkers are stumbling upon unassailable evidence of these phenomena. Consequently, modern thinkers are formulating universally applicable laws such as law of cause and effect, law of attraction and so on. We will see many such laws and related phenomena in subsequent Posts.

Knowing that we are any way communicating all the time, we need to know next what exactly is in our best interests to communicate.

All communication starts with a small unit of thought. Next comes an associated feeling. Next comes an action in the body.

The ultimate goal of all such human action on this earth is to ensure joyful living.

Hence,the goal of all communication must also be to ensure that our thinking, our feeling and our action are always resulting in our ultimate goal of joyful living.

The art of communication is in reality, the art of living!

GET OUT OF YOUR WAY - CONQUER THE ENEMY WITHIN !

GET OUT OF YOUR WAY

TO SUCCESS

CONQUER THE ENEMIES WITHIN

Who are our real foes, destroying our happiness and joy all the time and standing as stumbling blocks to our success?

We must recognize them and destroy them? We must ensure that our happiness and joy do not desert us because of these enemies and that we succeed in achieving our essential goals of life.

Most of us think most of the time that our enemies are out in the world around us. 'No', say the ancient Indian sages, who had made detailed, incisive research into human happiness. 

They affirm that our real enemies are not outside of us,not in the outside world, but are within us.

They are called "Anger, Fear, Greed, Pride, Jealousy, Lust and desire".

When any of them possesses you, your identity is LOST! They become YOU. You become anger, not merely angry, you become jealousy, not merely jealous, you become FEAR, not merely fearful.When LUST possesses any one, they don't know where they are, who they are with, LUST   is all that matters. They are LUST PERSONIFIED. 


Haven't you seen proud people? PRIDE IS WRITTEN all over them; in every cell of them. They are no more They - they are PRIDE (OR, PROUD).

These qualities are all around us - waiting for a chance to possess us, and dispossess us of our joy and success,  and then, get out of us laughing all the way at us.

If you carefully analyze how they destroy us - you will notice this certainly.

What we are angry with, what we are afraid of, what we are jealous of, what we desire or lust for and what we are greedy of or proud of - takes control of us and becomes our master.This external object sits in our mind and occupies the whole of it.

The persons or objects who or which evoke these emotions in us are still outside of us physically.But, they get inside of us and start controlling us.

They start controlling our minds, our emotions and our bodily actions every moment. They reside within us as our master. We become their slave.

All reasoning power leaves us once they enter. All of our happiness leaves us.The only thing that we will be intensely aware of, is the negative emotion inside us and the outside object or person which has aroused the emotion in us.

Just think of it. Many great wars all around the world were fought for satisfying the pettiest lust. 

We may not remember our friends often. But, our enemy is always on our mind. 

If we are greedy, the object of our greed dominates our waking time and our sleep.

When we are angry, we turn temporarily insane. We might kill any one, including our most loved person, blinded by fleeting anger.

All these negative qualities have the power to conquer you instantly and make you their slave. Once you allow them inside, they grow inside you on their own and make you their helpless victim.

Some one likens himself to a lion; some one else feels proud to call himself a tiger. Yet,some one else calls himself a cheetah; But, no one likens himself to a cow or a deer - which are very obviously and visibly much happier than these wild animals all through their life.Have you ever seen a lion in a calm and happy moment? Very,very rare. Haven't you see the cows and deers in calm and happy posture. Yes. Most of the time.

Anger dominates the life of some wild animals -and wild human beings. 

It is not any outside enemy but their inside enemy, i.e., their anger, that dominates their lives. Uncontrollable anger becomes the primordial characteristic.They are constantly in search of an external enemy to fight with.

If none is available, they will create one. But, fighting they will. This has been happening in human history always. Rare indeed, that a real, wicked villain happens to be the enemy. 

Even in cases where a wicked enemy exists, after the wicked villain is destroyed, the person continues to be angry, calls himself a lion, tiger or cheetah and does not become a kinder, happier person. He continues to search for another enemy.

Their own internal Anger,pride and enmity are their real enemies sitting within them and directing their attention all around for some pseudo targets.

True, they may destroy some persons initially, but their own end will also occur in the same way. Most Dictators perish that way.

It is the same with fear. The object of fear may or may not be there at all. But our eyes see it, even where it is not. A harmless rope is mistaken for a poisonous cobra. Our internal fear of an outside object invests a huge strength into the object of fear. And then, it sits inside us permanently. It destroys our days and nights and our total happiness.

It is no different with other negative emotions like greed, pride, jealousy and so on. These internal emotions become our master and destroy our happiness forever.

How then can we vanquish these internal enemies?

The first step is - we must recognize them as our real enemies. By any stretch of imagination, we should not think that they are our strength.This is the mistake people commit all around the world.Anger is not your strength. Pride is not your strength. Jealousy is not your strength. fear is not your strength. Get out of you fallacy that they can be your strength.

What is their antidote? Most of the time,the antidote is Love and courage.

What you fear,

What you hate,

What you are angry of,

Controls you from anywhere and all the time.

But,

whatever you love,

whoever you love,

Comes under your control, slowly but surely.

Not merely anger, fear or hate; but, Greed, lust and desire are also emotions, which destroy all the happiness we can possibly derive from any object or person. 

The antidote for them is, reduction in our attachment to the object or person of our love. It does not mean you will love them any less. No. Let your love be total, but UNCONDITIONAL. You don't want to possess them fully, make them your property, and be jealous of all those who also try to befriend them or like them.

Practice non-attachment to them. And, how to do that. Suppose, we are greedy of money. We must start giving, donating and distributing the money we earn, at least a reasonable portion of it. You still have the money. But, you are unattached to it. 

You begin feeling an immense joy in the process of giving, donating and distributing and your non-attachment towards money grows. You begin recognizing that greed for money destroys happiness whereas sharing it with others creates a lot of joy.

Pride and jealousy are two other emotions is us, which destroy all friendships and create all types of bitterness.What makes us proud or jealous? Some sort of 'LABELS' that we acquire in the process of growing.These may be any thing like - our power, position, education, money, strength, fame, skills, or just the fact of our birth in a particular country, or state or town, or in a particular religious, linguistic or racial group. 

Any such label is enough to make us proud or jealous. Being proud or jealous requires that we treat some one else as an outsider, some one as not our equal, some one not to be respected as much as we respect people of our own label.

Unfortunately, none of these labels can make us - not grow old, not die, not fall sick, not feel hungry or thirsty or not lose our happiness -specially because of these labels.

Labels don't make us happy! Labels can only make us proud and jealous. Sooner or later, our pride and our jealousy will prove to be our real enemies by destroying our happiness from within, ostensibly by bringing some pseudo, outside foe before us in some form.

These two enemies have another name, or another label :EGO! Ego can be taken to mean, Edging God Out!

What is God? We haven't seen him. I haven't. You haven't.

But, the real GOD on earth is in the form of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE within us. God is Love and Love is God. You must awaken that GOD within you.

Love for whom? Love for people. Whom so ever we love unconditionally, we will never treat them through the spectacles of pride, jealousy, anger etc.

Where love is, even a pimple looks like a dimple, as the saying goes. We don't see any scars or ugliness in the object or person of our love. 

The crow loves its kin, the Lioness loves its, the peacock loves its. It is love at work in all of them. And unconditional love.

The colour of skin doesn't matter, the size doesn't matter, the strength doesn't matter,the scars do not matter, nothing else matters when the heart is full of love.

Love does not subsist long, without courage. Both go together. The mother crow fights all the way, to save its children. So does the lioness. So does every mother on earth. Love and courage go together.

Whoever loves with courage, loves forever.

Whoever loves the world at large, becomes Buddha, the enlightened.

Buddha, is not the label of one individual great man. Nor is it particular for a religion. So is Christ. So is Krishna. They are not lables of a particular religion. Whoever conquers the inner enemies and fills himself with universal love becomes Buddha, christ and Krishna.

This view is shared by many enlightened masters.I subscribe to this view of these great masters.

A Buddha, Christ and Krishna  is waiting to manifest himself in each of us. The day, we cultivate love and courage in sufficient measure, he will feel free to manifest himself. where love and courage is, there joy of the ultimate kind will rule forever.

There..there are no internal enemies. 

Which means, get out of your way - and cultivate the God within.

The death of Distance!

the air I exhale

passes through space

and becomes

the air you inhale!

And,

Vice Versa

the air you exhale

passes through space

and becomes

the air I inhale!

through the space

and through the air

all that I exhale

carries to thee all

my best wishes

which are more than

any affectionate kisses

your eyes see me not

your ears hear me not

your nose smells me not

your skin touches me not

Your lungs are but

full of the best

and the heartiest wishes

from me, from all this distance!

your heart is listening

to all my affectionate greetings

in every lub-dub,lub-dub, lub-dub

and all the distance is vanishing.

PS : This post may not be great poetry - but is the way to say "SARVE JANAH SUKHINO BHAVANTHU", with all the heart, which means "May all men and women remain in joy and comfort" and send your wishes to every one all over the world. Readers are welcome to improve it, keeping its purpose in mind.

You can all try to become one with everyone, by doing this as a meditation, periodically, while breathing deep and easy. You will find it great!

CHIP OFF WHAT ISN'T YOU - AND FIND YOURSELF

FIND THE

BEST OF

WHAT YOU ARE

You perhaps know the saying,'there is a beautiful statue hiding in every stone'. It is very true. True of you.

You are a very beautiful and happy person hiding in the mind-body complex that you are presently identifying with.

To find the beautiful statue, you have to chip off the stone and remove all that does not belong to the beautiful statue. 

In similar fashion, chip off from you all that you, the beautiful and happy person, are not,and you will find your pristine, beautiful, calm, happy, joyous self.

Along the muddy road of life, you have picked up a lot of things - anger, jealousy, hate, fear, greed, laziness and so on - which are not your innate qualities;you have to drop them off, to find your real self.

Many wonder, is it possible to drop off qualities such as anger, hate, jealousy and greed, in today's world? It is. This blog will take you through that journey in successive posts. We will examine each each of these negativities of life and explore how you can master them and make them your servant, instead of being tossed and swayed by them in life. 

We will explore our goals of life and how how can achieve them.

This journey will be a great and fruitful journey. Get ready!

THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF SUCCESS

THE FIRST

PRINCIPLE OF

SUCCESS

World over, success is always accompanied by responsibility. So, what is the one factor that can make you a successful person or turn you into an unsuccessful person? 

The Foremost quality of successful people is found to be that they take charge of their life and hold themselves predominantly responsible for their success and failure. 

The corollary is, that the foremost block to your success is the inner feeling that some one else, other than you, is responsible for your failure – failure specially, since most of the time, you will tend to take credit for success on yourself. 
 
When failure occurs, it becomes a spontaneous reaction to place the blame on others. It is highly tempting to do so. This one feeling is enough, to lead any one into the depths of failure throughout life.
   
You must clearly understand that you are the creator of your own destiny.  The essential law of nature that must guide you in life is - that ‘I’ am the creator of success in my life and ‘I’ am responsible for failure in my life. 
 
Never, never substitute the ‘I’ with ‘we’ or ‘you’ or  ‘they’ or the ‘government’ and so on. Take total responsibility for your life. All success authors of east and west agree on this unanimously. Lord Krishna has said unequivocally in the Gita that,”you only, uplift yourself and you only, destroy your life. You are your best friend when you do the former and you are your worst enemy when you do the latter!”  

You must identify your goals. Give them primacy in your life. Success Experts affirm that you goals must be there daily on your ‘TO DO’ list. That is your calendar. If it does not figure in your calendar on daily basis, it is not your goal, but a mere wish.
 
Swami Vivekananda has said the same. He wants us to think of the goals, meditate on them, eat on them, drink on them, breath on them and make them an integral part of the life.
 
Your goals are both the path and the end. Enjoy the journey and you will enjoy the final achievement. 
 
The ‘Law of Attraction’ which is attracting immense attention in recent times all over the world is found to be true in most circumstances. This law affirms that whatever you seek ardently as a goal is also attracted to you and comes half way to meet you! 
  
So, take total responsibility for your life and you will be SUCCESSFUL!

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