Freedom

- I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

- You can only be free when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal.

- You are free when you are without a want and a grief and you rise above them naked and 

  unbound.

- You have chains around you and one of those chains is what you call freedom.

- Your freedom is the discarding fragments of your own self.

- If there is a law you would abolish for freedom it is the law that was written with your own 

  hand upon your own forehead.

- You cannot erase it by burning your law book or washing your forehead.

- Destroy  the throne which was erected within you by you.

- If it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of 

  others.

- All things move within you, the desired and the escaped from.

- Your freedom when it loses its fetters that confine, it becomes the fetter of a greater freedom.

   By Kahlil Jibran

(The book of Prophet).

FEAR

- Fear is not related to any concrete and true immediate danger.

- It comes in many forms.

- Is about something that might happen but not now.

- The mind is in the future and if you lose touch with now the anxiety will be your constant companion.

- The mind-made message is: Danger, I am under threat. The emotion generated is fear.

- Fear is ego's fear of death and affects every aspect of life.

- Once you have dis-identified from your mind fear goes away.

- True power is within and it is available to you now.

- Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

- The more you identify with your mind the more you suffer. 

- The more you honor the Now the more you are free of pain and suffering.

- Make the Now your primary focus of your life and pay brief visits to past and future.

- Always say yes to the present moment.

- Remove time from the mind and stop fear unless you choose to use it.

- Nothing will ever happen in the future. It will happen in the Now.

- Shift your consciousness from mind to Being and from time to the present moment.

  Eckhart Tolle

That's What It Is!

 

Coming to Baton Rouge and based on the recommendation of my family I went to the doctor for a complete check up without having any complaints or health problems. The doctor in turn referred me to the hospital where he worked and charged my insurance accordingly. At the end I received a statement of perfect health which made me feel good. I am not necessarily concerned about my health but when suggestions came to do a check up I went along with it. In general, check ups deal with the physical body and not necessarily with the emotional body as a totality. The emotional body deals with the concerns and preoccupations of clients impacting their physical body. That's why people who worry about the problems of their day to day life rarely go for check ups. Some may say that those people cannot afford it but I believe that the money factor is an additional reason. At present the activities of health institutions are mainly about lab work, x-rays and similar diagnostic measures which has made it easier for the doctors to make accurate physical diagnosis but the emotional aspects of care are lagging behind and are often overlooked. This is an area that can be explored by social and medical researchers.

                                                                               ***

The Bees

 Sitting in my room and looking out through the window I see the bees flying around and enjoying their freedom but there is one particular bee that keeps trying to get in and keeps hitting the glass of the window but does not stop trying. The persistence and the energy of the bee is unbelievable and almost at the level of some humans who have certain goals to achieve, therefore, they never give up!

Without Surrender

I still do not know how to express what I intend to say at this moment but I will try anyway. My inspiration is my son whom I am visiting in Baton Rouge Louisiana right now. He simply tells me “why don’t you just start writing something”!

I am at a stage of my life that I have cut ties with seasons of aging and I would like to go forward following the steps of Max Ehrman the American writer, poet and attorney who says “going as far as possible without surrender” which means having hopes and focusing on the positive aspects of life.

Most people do not realize that their way of being and showing up in life affects others. They are drowned in their own pre-occupations and cannot free themselves voluntarily. Human beings mostly tend to focus on the negative aspects of life and they rarely pay attention to the blessings that they have and can enjoy!

The Bird On The Power Pole

  

Sitting in the balcony and looking at the cloudy sky I saw a tiny little bird flying and landing on the nearby power pole. The bird's freedom of movement and choosing of the power pole captured my attention and created a feeling of joy. I asked myself "how many similar and joyful things do we miss in life because of being pre-occupied with our own mundane concerns"!

Wait Until...

I heard myself saying “wait until...” and then I stopped because what I was about to say was going to sound like a confession in relation to my age!  I was on the phone with my daughter who was calling me from Phoenix-Arizona while I was in Baton Rouge-Louisiana visiting my son. I told my daughter that I don’t have my car here and I don’t know much about the city, and she was trying to encourage me to rent a car and try to explore the place. I opened my mouth to tell her “wait until you get older like me” but I did not say that. Why frighten her from the old age while in time she will get there! She can at least enjoy her life while still young without worrying about some far away unknown future time!