Loving some one is considering him or her of value.
Any thing that we consider of value, we spend time with it.
Any thing that we spend time with, we start to know it more.
The more we know it more, the more we begin to accept it.
If you say I love my children, only ask how much time I do spend with them.
Do not let it drop to less than full 5 hours of quality time with your kids and that is for working fathers and mothers.
Others can spend more…..but do not forget to ignore the balance, coz balance is another act of love !
There are nearly 6.98 billion people living on Earth as of now. To this date, how many people have been born and died can be another staggering number, perhaps several times more than that.
The question is why you were born as an another soul? Why did the invisible hand sent you to this blue planet? You can call it God, Jesus, Allah, Raam, Om or whatever who sent you here but the fact is you were sent here and you would leave this place at some point in time. The question is thus why your soul was created and you were sent here? And if now you are here, why are you here?
Just take out a few minutes of your time to seriously think on it?
1. There was a gap that only you could fulfill.
2. That gap would require some thing e.g. a talent, a skill, a creative process, a service, a contribution that only you were able to do or to make.
3. If there were other people who could exactly do the same, then there were no need to send you for doing the same job. As we all know its stupid to designate the same job to more than a person, would not the intelligence and divine wisdom spread across the universe know this fact.
Thinking and pondering on the above three points may lead you to a feeling of Eureka about the most important pheonomenon in your life: you.
Why is your purpose important? Every thing has a reason to be. It is in our built in nature to do things for a cause. This is shown from our every day experiences of handling things and spending routines to our life long aims. We hate wandering around for no reason. Leaving a room and being asked where are you going, if we do not know where and we answer the same, we shall be considered insane.
For most of us we do things for a cause in a hierarchy. We learn things to earn and enjoy a good life. We earn because we want to have more comfort for ourselves, our families and those whom we love. We want to have things and activities done in a hierarchy.
Understanding the hierarchy is important. We need oxygen to breathe. The second most important need is of water. Then comes food. Then comes the comfort or maintaining a suitable temperature for our bodies which includes the need for clothing and shelter. Then lies the need of being loved and being intimate i.e. of touching and being touched, of hugging and making love. Then is the need of contribution; to give back what we have received. At the final top is the need for spirituality.
This hierarchy has been addressed in different manners of arrangement by several authors.
Spending real time to find out the real purpose of our life is addressing the top most need first. Knowing it and then weaving your path towards it step by step. This principle is quite highlighted by Stephen R. Covey in his work The Seven Habits and he has termed it Begin with End in Mind. To decide the final outcome first and then gradually work towards it and on our way keep addressing the needs as they need to be met.
What happens to us that we are addressed in the intermediary needs of comforting our bodies and egos so much that we never make it to the top. Most of us are caught up in a frenzy of gadgets, digital toys, cell phones, laptops, cars, devices, jewelleries and wearing apparel, dining and cuisines that we in fact lose sight of the final goal: our mental and spiritual development.
Efforting to know and finding out our entire purpose of being does not let us go lost. We do not end up confused some where in the middle before reaching our goals.
Knowing our entire purpose of life makes us stand in the elite of the elites. This elite group is nobler than any other elite group formed cause of possessions or financial status, since this can never be taken away from us.
Shall you choose to be in the super elite?
Being able to truly love ourselves involves delaying gratification.
This can be best explained by the experiment conducted with children aged 4 to 6 at Stanford University in 1972. They were offered marshmallows on a condition. Those children who would eat it right now, would get only one. Those who would chose to eat 30 minutes later would get two. Those who would choose to eat after an hour would get three.
Majority of the children chose to eat now. A little less opted for half an hour wait and further less number of children opted to wait for a full hour.
Years later studying the careers of the children, was discovered that those who were able to delay or defer the gratification had achieved a significantly higher level of success in their career.
Delaying gratification would thus mean postponing instant relief and joy for a much higher cause.
Miracles are outcome of thought process transformed into belief in three stages.
Delaying gratification means to delay the pleasure for a higher reward or a higher destiny we believe in. For that we have to have a higher cause; a direction or a destiny which we want to achieve.
It is a fact that people with aimless lives are not able to exercise delaying gratifications and they can fall for any thing that brings instant joy to their five senses. We face countless situations in our daily life, where we have to delay our gratification. There always exists a deferred achievement and an instant gratification for every emotion we feel.
The gratification for anger for example is to take it out, immediately, instantly, with all the frustration on the person whom you think is responsible. Yet there is a higher achievement reward if we chose to delay our bursting out. It is a high mutual trust, respect and strengthened bond between us and the person involved. The gratification for a news paper reading is that no one disturbs us but if our 4 year old kid comes to us with a drawing book, we have to delay our gratification and attend to the child. For a higher reward of bond, love and value
A hand searches some thing in the mudded floor of a mine. A stone rolls itself towards the palm. The hand picks it up and takes off mud from it. Raises it to see in the sun light. A diamond is born.
It is uncut. Potentially a gem, but presently a stone.
It lets itself be cut and cut again. It lets itself be exposed to the several hundred cuts and hits by the gem cutter.
Its shine depends on its willingness to expose itself for the cuts.
Believe yourself to be a potential gem, but currently a stone. Be willing to offer yourself to be exposes to the tests and cuts of time. Do not be afraid or hesitant for that. Not for a single moment.
In works of theology I have seen saints and prophets thanking God in fact , whenever they were put to a test. They knew it was another cut by a super hand to transform them into a gem.
This understanding and willingness is an act of love!
The recent earth quake in Japan 14:46 Tokyo Time on March 11, 2011 shifted Earth’s axis by 10 inches. It took a huge jolt of 8.9 magnitude to do that.
In the late hours of the night, all I do listen is the click click of my key board. The past few years seem to be like a dream. I wonder if they ever existed in reality. I wonder if they ever were a part of real time.
I look back into the past in the silence of these hours and I feel I am no more what I used to be. I have gone through the pains, the woes, the joys, the pleasures, the winnings and the losses and they all have made me what I am.
I am changed and yet I find the most inner deep core has remain unchanged, unaltered by any of the event, harsh or smooth. That inner core is what I really am.
For some a jolt or an event of much less magnitude shifts their core. This shift is often not controlled but involuntary and thus often not very benevolent.
For some, rather a few, it takes only a huge event to shift their inner core.
For some more, who are much rare, nothing is able to shift their inner core. They are determined and have an attitude of no matter what.
Their act of not allowing their inner core to shift is a deliberate act, requiring wisdom, poise, self discipline and a commitment to stay what they are. This is an act of love!
Our conquest for happiness is torn apart between our two selves. A part of us remembers things from the past and a part of us is involved in experiencing the current moment.
Whether we are happy in our life or we are happy about our life as what happened are two different questions. The former is related to the current experience and the later to our memory.
We keep on toggling between experience and memory.
We keep on comparing the two. We go to a dinner. We are having an excellent food, yet a part of us some where in our mind tells us: hey, last dinner was superb. We don’t have that fudge in desert tonight. And we feel unhappy, very slightly, in a very subtle manner, but we feel that way.
I have learnt that people chosen to be saints had one common trait among them: all of them had an intrinsic ability to love after losing love, to love after having seen everything around them shattered,to love after being cheated, to love after they thought they could not love any more and to love after they had been angry and disappointed and had become bitter, they were people of love!
To love like this requires ultimate faith. If you want to know whether you are a person of faith, try to find out your ability to love under any or all circumstances, for to love like this is purely divine.
And you can touch divine only by acting like one!
We are afraid to lose. We are afraid of our hopes not being fulfilled. We are afraid of people who might let us down. We are afraid of taking a risk.
Some times we are afraid to lose our repute against the benefits reaped. In Eastern cultures this is so common. Some times despite all the liking, we do not move forward because of the fear of disapproval of those who are close to us.
Whatever the reason, we fear love because we simply do not know what it is or is capable to do? Any price for receiving genuine love is nothing.