Leaves of Grass

Whoever you are holding me now in hand,
Without one thing all will be useless,
I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.

Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?
The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive,

You would have to give up all else,
I alone would expect to be your sole and exclusive standard,
You novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives
around you would have to be abandoned,
Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further,
let go your hand from my shoulders,
Put me down and depart on your way.


Walt Whitman

Am I intuitive?

it's the result of the test four:

I have Strong Intuitive feeling. Most intuitive people talk about their faculty rather as though they possessed sensitive feelers, like those of certain insects, that can detect very slight changes in their environment. the down side of being highly intuitive is that you may be less observant of facts than other people. you may also find it hard to convince the people around you of the validity of your feelings when forced to concede that they are 'only' based on intuitive insight.

Am I Optimistic?

and here it is the result of the third test:

You are still a pretty optimistic kind of person, and your world view is generally warm and pleasantly comfortable. you are aware that life may have its bad patches, but on the whole you don't expect such things to happen to you.

what a good result.. for me.

Am I anxious?

It's the result of the second test:
Are you anxious?

the result is that I am inclined to worry but do not let it get out control...

better result than the previous test.

Am I in control?

I've bought a book, it's "The Complete Book of Personality Test"
and this the result of the first test:
Are you in control? And the result is:

You seriously doubt your ability to handle events and suspects that much of your lie is beyond your control. Any optimistic feelings you have are very fragile indeed, and you are uncomfortably aware that you often fail.

That's the result, and it is true that I often fail and I'm not comfortable with it.

This is a letter received by Sibi sent by her friend.

Dear Sibi,

I had told you about my childhood abuse by a person close to my family.
As far as I can remember, I was angelic, calm, quiet, and innocent as a little girl. Moreover, highly intelligent too. I stayed at home till I was 7 and then cried to go away to another place,(may be to escape from my abuser) I never used to talk and so never had friends, never needed one. Though I am not from a prayerful family, somewhere along the way, a person called God became real in my life. He became my everything in my secret world, and I used to predict many things out of instinct, which was, to a little girl, told by Him. The more such things happened, I became happy with His companionship. I stood first in class, without much efforts, I didn’t feel proud of that first rank either. Nothing mattered at all.

But later on, I knew that someone did something WRONG to me and I was so sad about that. I started feeling bad, deceived. Gradually I became alone, I left my companion, I never spoke nor prayed to Him personally for many many years.

I thought I was used as I was so innocent and ignorant. So I wanted to help and protect myself. I became my god and guardian. I thought I was doing me a big favour. But it resulted in losing my innocence, my character, behaviour, all that was originally created. My world collapsed and went out of my control and I realised about ten years back, what the problem was.
When I thought my life is going to start again, there came the worst shock of my life. I identified a small little girl, inside me.The original me. Things which happened recently in my life were weird, but all had a reason. With all the boldness and confidence in me, I was just a slave to many hurts and humiliations. Nothing that I created worked out.

The girl inside me lived all these years, as my suppressed ignored personality, and I never derived any good feeling from my artificial personality. The night I told myself and God that I hate myself, I understood that there is more to it. I prayed over it and found out that I hate my artificial personality, which I wore for years around that little innocent girl.

The little girl cried for herself and I cried along with her. I knew what she suffered all these years, what she was asking me constantly. The moment came, that her cries came to the point of her liberation either through death or life, and I had no other choice but to take heed of her sobs. That was the time of the highest realisation in my whole life. INNOCENCE IS THE GREATEST POWER IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE. Nothing that I thought or the way I lived could ever make a slightest change to the thought or life or the little girl inside me. She stayed and waited decades, to win her battle, through the power of her innocence. I decided to liberate her to life by taking away all I had created around her. With God, and only God, all things are possible.

I saw her, the innocent little girl, her smile, her joy, near her stood her childhood companion, who proved faithful all through her journey.

I thanked God for keeping that angelic personality of mine live in me (though she was a constant cause of inner conflict, many times I thought of killing her, or giving her to God).

Anyway my life is not over and God doesn't need time to do miracles and fill the blank of all these years.

In every story, God appoints characters. There is a father, a mother, a teacher, a friend, many more, in mine. But among the few main characters, there is a friend, only one, who played a very direct part towards my return to myself, and that friend is Sibi, you. And very surprisingly, I used to call only you by the name "friend".

I am so thankful to God for all the people and incidents which changed my life. Thank you so much dear, for being God's instrument in my life. I love you so much friend.I am excited to share this joy with you. Take care.


Love,

G



Just like that little girl, I'm so thankful that I have a friend like Sibi to this little girl. Someone I called friend. A friend who also played a very direct part towards my return to myself, Ajanti. The first person who cross my mind every time i need someone to talk to.
Thank you.

Tomatoes and melons

If tomatoes wanted to be melons,
they would look completely ridiculous.

I am always amazed
that so many people are concerned
with wanting to be what they are not;
what’s the point of making yourself look ridiculous?

You don’t always have to pretend to be strong,
there’s no need to prove all the time that everything is going well,
you shouldn’t be concerned about what other people are thinking,
cry if you need to,

it’s good to cry out all your tears
(because only then will you be able to smile again).


Paulo Coelho

The magic moment

“You have to take risks”- he said.

“We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

“Every day, God gives us the sun–and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy.
“Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived that moment, that it doesn’t exist–that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow.

But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment.

It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock.
It may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us.

But that moment exists–a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.”

Paulo Coelho

How to behave like a fool

Mullah Nasrudin (the central figure in almost all tales of the Sufi tradition) had already become a sort of attraction at the main market in the town.
Whenever he went there to beg, people would show him a large coin and a small one: Nasrudin always chose the small one.

A generous man who was tired of seeing everyone laugh at Nasrudin, explained to him:

“When people offer you two coins, choose the larger one. Then you will have more money, and people will not think you a fool.”

“You are surely right”, replied Nasrudin.
“But if I always chose the larger coin, people would stop offering me money, in order to prove that I am a greater fool than they are.
“And then I would no longer receive enough for my food.
“There is nothing wrong with appearing to be a fool, if what you are doing is in fact intelligent.”


Paulo Coelho

Choosing the best road

When Abbot Antonio was asked if the road of sacrifice led to Heaven, he replied:

‘There are two such roads. The first is that of the man who mortifies his flesh and does penance because he believes that we are all damned.
‘This man feels guilty and unworthy to live a happy life.
‘He will never get anywhere because God does not inhabit guilt.

‘The second road is that of the man who knows that the world is not as perfect as we would all like it to be, but who nevertheless puts time and effort into improving the world around him.
‘In this case, the Divine Presence helps him all the time, and he will find Heaven.’


again, i copied this from Paulo Coelho's blog..

Measuring love

‘I’ve always wanted to know if I was capable of loving my wife as much as you love yours,’ said the journalist Keichiro to my publisher Satoshi Gungi over supper one night.

‘There is nothing else but love,’ came the reply. ‘It is love that keeps the world turning and the stars in their spheres.’

‘I know. But how can I know if my love is big enough?’

‘Ask yourself if you give yourself fully or if you flee from your emotions, but do not ask yourself if your love is big enough, because love is neither big nor small, it is simply love.
‘You cannot measure a feeling the way you measure a road.
‘If you do that, you will start comparing your love with what others tell you of theirs or with your own expectations of love.
‘That way, you will always be listening to some story, rather than pushing your emotions to their limits.


I've just copied this from Paulo Coelho's blog. Inspiring Man he is...