"Zindagi Na Milegee Dobarra"

Most people don’t discover what life is all about until just before they die. While we are young, we spend our days striving and keeping up with social expectations. We are so busy chasing life’s big pleasure that we miss out on the little ones, like dancing barefoot in a park on a rainy day, or planting a rose garden or watching the sun come up. We live in an age where we have yet to master ourselves. We have taller buildings but short temper, more possessions but less happiness, fuller minds but emptier lives. Do not wait until you are on your deathbed to realize the meaning of life and the precious role you have to play within it.

This leads us to the question what is the meaning of the life? What is the purpose of my life? What does the future holds for me? I was searching answers to these questions and all of a sudden I came across the movie “Zindagi Na Millegi Dobara.” For the first time, a movie inspired me to bits. It made me realize that all of us have been so busy in our lives that we forgot to discover our true selves; we forget to live in the moment. One of the most important lessons I have learnt from this inspiring movie is that, everyone’s life is a treasure and you are so much more than you know. The life you live today doesn’t have to be the life you lead tomorrow. Make a choice. Take a leap. Rise above your circumstances to your next level of greatness.

We have been so engrossed in lives that we forgot what true happiness and joy is one needs to realize that happiness does not arrive when you achieve certain things. It comes when you think certain thoughts and feel certain feelings. Happiness is nothing more than a state of mind that you create by the way that you process and interpret the events of your life. Happiness can be found in small moments of life, it can be found in things which are small yet they give us inner peace and joy. For example, in the movie, happiness for these three friends was achieved through that memorable journey. They achieved happiness by throwing away all the negative feeling and worries of life, in return they took joy from every moment.

We often stick to the shore. We forget that clinging to save shores in your life is nothing more than making a choice to remain imprisoned by your fears. And it’s impossible to discover new oceans without letting go off the shore. As seen in the movie that each of those three tried to overcome their fear. Someone did it by skydiving, someone by deep-sea diving and someone simply by letting go off a stagnant relationship. This shows that happiness can be easily achieved by exploring the life, by taking risk and by just fighting your fears.

Remember, life is such a fragile thing. It is a priceless treasure that we are given to guard and make se of to the best of our ability. That it will not come again is what makes it so sacred. So let’s return to, from where we started. What is life? Finally I have my answer, life is a game. Don’t take it too seriously. Have fun. Dance. Laugh. Love. Never forget the importance of living with unbridled exhilaration. Never neglect to see the exquisite beauty in all living things


Written by.
Areeba Siddiqui

WHAT IS A BELIEF?

SELF-DESTRUCTIVE IDEAS turning into SELF FULFILLING PROPHECIES 

What is a belief, anyway? Often in life we talk about things without having a clear idea of what they really are. Most people treat a belief as it it’s a thing, when really all it is a feeling of certainty about something. If you say you believe that you’re intelligent, all you’re really saying is, “I feel certain that I’m intelligent.” That sense of certainty allows you to tap into resources that allow you to produce intelligent results. We all have the answers inside of us virtually anything-or at least we have access to the answers we need through others. But often our lack of belief, our lack of certainty, causes us not to be able to use the capacity that resides within us.

A simple way of understanding a belief is to think about is basic building block: an idea. There are a lot of ideas you may think about but not really believe. There are a lot of ideas you may think about but not really believe. Let’s take, for example, the idea that you’re sexy. Stop for a second and say to yourself, “I’m sexy.” Now, whether it’s an idea or a belief will come down to the amount of certainty you feel about this phrase as you say it. If you think, “Well, I’m not really sexy,” what you’re really saying is, “I don’t feel very certain that I’m sexy.”

How do we turn an idea into a belief? Let me offer you a simple metaphor to describe the process. If you can think of an idea as being like a tabletop with no legs, you’ll have a fair representation of why an idea doesn’t feel as certain as belief. Without any legs, that tabletop won’t even stand up by itself. Belief, on the other hand, has legs. If you really believe, “I’m sexy,” how do you know you’re sexy? Isn’t it true that you have some references to support the idea-some experiences in life to back it up? Those are the legs that make your tabletop solid, that make your belief certain.

What are some of the reference experiences you’ve had? May be men and women have told you that you’re sexy. Or maybe you look at yourself in the mirror, compare your image to that of those whom other people consider sexy, and say, “Hey, I look like them!” Or maybe strangers on the street call out and wave to you. All these experiences mean nothing until you organize them under the idea that you’re sexy. As you do this, the legs make you feel solid about the idea and cause you to begin to believe it. Your idea feels certain and is now a belief.

Once you understand this metaphor, you can begin to see how you beliefs are formed, and get a hint of how you can change them as well. First, though, it’s important that we can develop beliefs about anything if we just find enough legs-enough reference experiences-to build life, or know enough other people who have gone through tough times with other human beings, that if you really wanted to you could easily develop the belief that people are rotten and , give half a chance, would take advantage of you? Maybe you don’t want to believe this, and we’ve already discussed that it would be dis-empowering, but don’t you have experiences that could back up this idea and make you feel certain about it if you wanted to? Isn’t it also true that you have experiences in life-references-to back up the idea that if you really care about people and treat them well, they are basically good and will want to help you too?

The question is: which one of these beliefs is the true belief? The answer is that it doesn’t matter which one is true. What matters is which one is the most empowering. We all can find someone to back up our belief and make us feel more solid about it. This is how human beings are able to rationalize. The key question, again, is whether this belief is strengthening or weakening us, empowering or dis-empowering us on a daily basis. So what are the possible sources of references in our lives? Certainly, we can pull from our personal experiences, sometimes we gather references, through information we get from other people, or from books, tapes, movies, and so on. And sometimes we form references based solely on our imagination. The emotional intensity we feel about any of those references will definitely affect the strength and width of the leg. The strongest and most solid legs are formed by personal experiences that we have a lot of emotion attached to because they were painful or pleasurable experiences. The other factor is the number of references we have-obviously, the more reference experiences supporting and idea, the stronger you belief will be in it.

Extract: AWAKEN THE GIANT WITHIN--Anthony Robbins

OZ Duo Trainers: Four Ways To End Procrastination For Good !

OZ Duo Trainers: Four Ways To End Procrastination For Good !: "I tend to procrastinate. I can start my day with the best of intentions to get important tasks done, but I soon find myself detouring from ..."

Four Ways To End Procrastination For Good !

I tend to procrastinate. I can start my day with the best of intentions to get important tasks done, but I soon find myself detouring from the path. I end up filling my hours with busyness and errands.

I know the most important things I need to do, and the ones that will bring me ultimate happiness; but I tend to put the more pressing things first, such as chores, errands, phone calls, etcetera.

I procrastinated about writing this article, for example. I knew what I wanted to say, but found excuses about writing it down on paper. I seemed to be too busy with less important tasks, so it didn’t get done.

People are usually aware of those times when they’re procrastinating, but they can’t seem to flip the switch. This can lead to all kinds of self-defeating thoughts and feelings of guilt, eventually causing depression. When we are procrastinating, it’s usually over the things that will make our lives better. Not doing them usually results in unpleasant consequences.

So, why do we procrastinate? Why do we let meaningless situations get in the way of our dreams? Why do we put off starting a new business, losing the weight, or taking that trip? What is really so important in life that we have to put our dreams on the back burner?

Here’s the good news; you are the one who procrastinates, and you are the one who can make it stop.

There are many reasons why people procrastinate, and most of them are valid excuses. Some may have a hard time concentrating, and find themselves with so much on their plate, they can’t focus on just one thing. Others may have anxieties about completing a project and doing it right, so they avoid doing it all together.

Our belief about ourselves is another reason why we may procrastinate. If a person doesn’t believe they can achieve their dreams, they will tell themselves so, and avoid trying.

For some, it could be the fear of failing. Why start out to accomplish something, only to realize you can’t do it after all—and then, there’s always the possibility that someone won’t like it.

Whatever the reasons for procrastination, there are ways to overcome it.

Step #1 Identify What’s Holding You Back

Take a close look at yourself and identify any behaviors that could be related to fear, anxiety, concentration or time management. Understand why you have these behaviors and try to eliminate them.

Understand your goals and your purpose. What is it you really want to accomplish? How do you want to live, act and feel?

Line up those goals with your current behavior and note where you are self-sabotaging your own dreams. Are you subconsciously creating behaviors and situations that will ultimately lead to failure?

Step #2 Practice Discipline & Motivation

Discipline and motivation are also vital to overcoming procrastination. Ask anyone whom you consider successful how they manage to continuously work on their goals, and never stop until they reach the finish line. I bet they’ll say it takes discipline to stay focused and keep going even when the going is tough or unpleasant.

Practice focusing on the reward and not on the work. Remember that the work is just a “means to an end.” It’s what you have to do to get what you want.

I was talking to an expectant mother a few months ago, and she asked me about the pain of labor. She was nervous about going through the experience, as this was her first delivery, and she’d heard horror stories.

I was honest with her. “Look at it this way,” I told her. “The labor is just a ‘means to an end.’ If you don’t go through the labor, then you’ll never meet that precious baby!”

I encourage you to use that same advice with your own goals. Focus on the end result. Figure out what you have to do to get there, and then make those tasks a priority each day. Do the work and reap the rewards! The hard work is just the means to an end. It’s what will bring you to ultimate victory.

Step #3 Dust Off Your Dreams

Most people have dreams. Some might not put them into action but they still have them, pushed into the recesses of their minds. “Some day,” they’ll tell you, “I will accomplish XXX.”

What are they waiting for? Why do they settle for living a mediocre life rather than an exceptional one? Why do they think they will do those things “later”? Why do they wait to really live to their fullest?

What if the doctor told you that you had only six months to live? What would you do? How would you act? What would be the most important things you would want to accomplish?
No one wants to think their time is up tomorrow or the day after, but the truth is, we all have a prognosis of death. We are all going to die one day and leave our loved ones behind.

If we were actually given six months to live, undoubtedly we would also make the best use of our time. But—what about now? Why not start living that way now? Why wait another day just living an ordinary life, when you could be living an extraordinary one? What is holding you back? What are you waiting for?

What if you didn’t die in six months but instead you lived to be 105? How do you want to spend all those years? Do you want to age with regret? Do you want to mourn the loss of your dreams? There will come a day when you won’t have the energy mentally or physically to go after your goals, so time is of the essence.

Start living a life of purpose today! If you continue down the same path you are on today, tomorrow will be as predictable as today. If you live to be 105, that is a very long time to live just an ordinary life. Think about it.

Step #4 Start Living Now

Why put off your dreams until tomorrow when you can accomplish them today? Will something magical happen “later” that will give you more time, energy or desire? Probably not. So—what are you waiting for?

Life can be so busy. Even if we have some down time, we can easily fill it up with “stuff.” Let’s face it: life will always be busy. There will always be an errand to run or an obligation to fulfill.

If we know we will always be busy, then why not get started now? Why delay happiness? Why not be happy while you’re busy? Just make the decision.

Life is short, but if we focus on the opportunities we have while we’re living, then we can have a life of greatness. Rather than running from the fear of dying, make it your goal to do everything you want to do in life. Live with more purpose. Focus on your goals.

Love those you love with a love that will last them a lifetime. And most important of all: love yourself. Love yourself enough to follow your dreams and be who you were born to be. Live now, while you’re still in “the living years.”
____________

By: Michelle Prince

The Path to Love

All of us need to believe that we are loved and lovable. We began life with confidence on both points, bathed in a mother's love and swaddled in our own innocence. Love was never in question, but over time our certainty clouded. When you look at yourself today, can you still make the two statements every infant could if it had the words?

I am completely loved.
I am completely lovable.

Few people can, for looking at yourself honestly you see flaws that make you less than completely lovable and less than perfectly loved. In many ways this seems right to you, for perfect love is supposedly not of this world. Yet in a deeper sense, what you call flaws are really just the scars of hurts and wounds accumulated over a lifetime. When you look in the mirror, you think you are looking at yourself realistically, but your mirror doesn't reveal the truth that endures despite all hurt:

You were created to be completely loved and completely lovable for your whole life.

In a way it is amazing that you do not realize this, because underneath everything you think and feel, innocence is still intact. Time cannot blemish your essence, your portion of spirit. But if you lose sight of this essence, you will mistake yourself for your experiences, and there is no doubt that experience can do much to obliterate love. In an often hostile and brutal world, maintaining innocence seems impossible. Therefore, you find yourself experiencing only so much love and only so much lovability.

This can change.

Although you perceive yourself in limited terms, as a mind and a body confined in time and space, there is a wealth of spiritual teaching that says otherwise. In spirit you are unbounded by time and space, untouched by experience. In spirit you are pure love.

The reason you do not feel completely loved and completely lovable is that you do not identify with your spiritual nature. Your sense of love has lost one thing it cannot afford to do without: its higher dimension. What would it be like to restore this lost part of yourself?

Mind, body, and spirit would unite--this union creates the love you have to give. You and your beloved would unite--this creates the love you have to share.

In our deepest nature each person is meant to be the hero or heroine of an eternal love story. The story begins in innocence, with a baby's birth into a mother's loving arms. It proceeds through stages of growth, as the young child step' out into the world. With more and more experience the circle of love widens, including first family and friends, then intimate partners, but also taking in love of abstract things, like learning and truth. The ripening journey brings us to love of giving, and the blossoming of higher values, such as compassion, forgiveness, and altruism. Finally there is the direct experience of spirit itself, which is pure love. The journey climaxes in the same knowledge that a baby began with, although it couldn't voice that knowledge: I am love.

You know that you have fully experienced love when you turn into love--that is the spiritual goal of life.

Not many people find the spiritual goal of life. The aching need created by lack of love can only be filled by learning anew to love and be loved. All of us must discover for ourselves that love is a force as real as gravity, and that being upheld in love every day, every hour, every minute is not a fantasy-it is intended as our natural state.

This book is about reviving love stories that should never have faded. The union of self and spirit is not only possible but inevitable. The spiritual meaning of love is best measured by what it can do, which is many things.

Love can heal.
Love can renew.
Love can make us safe.
Love can inspire us with its power.
Love can bring us closer to God.

Everything love is meant to do is possible. Knowing this, however, has only made the gap between love and non-love more painful.

Countless people have experienced love--as pleasure, sex, security, having someone else fulfill their daily needs--without seeing that a special path has opened to them. Socially, the "normal" cycle of love is simply to find a suitable partner, marry, and raise a family. But this social pattern isn't a path, because the experience of marriage and raising a family isn't automatically spiritual. Sad to say, many people enter lifelong relationships in which love fades over time or provides lasting companionship without growing in its inner dimension. A spiritual path has only one reason to exist: it shows the way for the soul to grow. As it grows, more of spiritual truth is revealed, more of the soul's promise is redeemed.

When you find your path, you will also find your love story. People today are consumed by doubts about their relationships: Have I found the right partner? Am I being true to myself? Have I given the best part of myself away? As a result, there is a restless kind of consumer shopping for partners, as if the "right" one can be found by toting up a potential mate's pluses and minuses until the number of pluses matches some mythical standard. The path to love, however, is never about externals. However good or bad you feel about your relationship, the person you are with at this moment is the "right" person, because he or she is a mirror of who you are inside. Our culture hasn't taught us this (as it has failed to teach us so much about spiritual realities). When you struggle with your partner, you are struggling with yourself. Every fault you see in them touches a denied weakness in yourself. Every conflict you wage is an excuse not to face a conflict within. The path to love therefore clears up a monumental mistake that millions of people make--the mistake that someone "out there" is going to give (or take) something that is not already yours. When you truly find love, you find yourself.

Therefore the path to love isn't a choice, for all of us must find out who we are. This is our spiritual destiny. The path can be postponed; you can lose faith in it or even despair that love exists at all. None of that is permanent; only the path is. Doubt reflects the ego, which is bound in time and space; love reflects God, eternal divine essence. The ultimate promise on the path to love is that you will walk in the light of a truth extending beyond any truth your mind presently knows.

Excerpted from The Path to Love by Deepak Chopra. 

20 Second Reading: The Asylum

A Story by Kahlil Gibran

I was strolling in the gardens of an insane asylum when I met a young man who was reading a philosophy book.

His behavior and his evident good health made him stand out from the other inmates.

I sat down beside him and asked:

‘What are you doing here?’

He looked at me, surprised. But seeing that I was not one of the doctors, he replied:

‘It’s very simple. My father, a brilliant lawyer, wanted me to be like him.

“My uncle, who owns a large emporium, hoped I would follow his example.

“My mother wanted me to be the image of her beloved father.

“My sister always set her husband before me as an example of the successful man.

“My brother tried to train me up to be a fine athlete like himself.

“And the same thing happened at school, with the piano teacher and the English teacher – they were all convinced and determined that they were the best possible example to follow.

“None of them looked at me as one should look at a man, but as if they were looking in a mirror.

“So I decided to enter this asylum. At least here I can be myself.’

LEADERSHIP AND THE POWER OF BELIEF

Leaders are those individuals who live by empowering beliefs and teach others to tap their full capabilities by shifting the beliefs that have been limiting them. One great leader who impresses me is a teacher by the name of Marva Collings. You may have seen the 60 Minutes program or the movie that was made about her. Fifty years ago, Marva utilized her personal power and decided to touch the future by making a real difference in the lives of children. Her challenge: when she go to her first teaching job in what may considered to be a ghetto of Chicago, her second-grade students had already decided that they didn't want to learn anything. Yet Marva's mission is to touch these children's lives. She doesn't have a mere belief that she can impact them; she has a passionate, deep-rooted conviction that she will influence them for good. There was no limit to the extent she would go. Faced with children labelled as dyslexics and every other kind of learning or behavioural disorder, she decided that the problem was not the children, but the ways there were being taught. No one was challenging them enough. As a result, these kids had no belief in themselves. They had no references of ever being pushed to break through and find out who they really were or what they were capable of. Human beings respond to challenge, and these children, she believed, needed that more than anything else.

So she threw out all the old books that read, "See  Spot  run," and instead taught Shakespeare, Sophocles and Tolstoy. All the other teachers said things like, "There's no way it can happen. There's no way these kids can understand that." And as you might guess, many of them attacked Marva personally, saying that she was going to destroy these children's lives. But Marwa's students not only understood the material, they thrived on it. Why? Because she believed so fervently in the uniqueness of each child's spirit, and his or her ability to learn anything. She communicated with so much congruency and love that she literally got them to believe in themselves--some of them for the first time in their young lives. The results she has consistently produced for decades have been extraordinary.

I first met Marva and interviewed her at Westside Preparatory School, the private school she founded outside the Chicago city school system, After our meeting, I decided to interview some of her students. The first young man I met was four years old, with a smile that would knock your socks off. I shook his hand.

"Hi, I'm Tony Robbins."

"Hello, Mr Robbins, may name is Talmadge E.Griffin. I am four years old. What would you like to know?!"

"Well, Talmadge, tell me, what are you studying these days?"

"I'm studying a lot of things, Mr.Robbins."

"Well, what books have you read recently?"

"I just finished reading Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck."

Needless to say, I was pretty impressed. I asked him what the book was about, figuring he'd say something like it was about two guys name George and Lenny.

He said. "Well, the main protagonist is..."

By this time I was a believer! Then I asked him what he had learned from the book.

"Mr Robbins, I more than learned from this book. This book permeated my soul."

I stared to laugh, and asked , "What does 'permeate' mean?"

"To diffuse through," he said, and then gave me a fuller definition than I could give you.

"What touched you so much in this book Talmadge?"

"Mr Robbins, I noticed in the story that the children never judge anyone else by the colour of their skin. Only the adults did that. What I learned from this is that although I will someday become an adult, I'll never forget the lessons of a child."

I started to get teary-eyed because I saw that Marva Collins was providing this young man and so many others like him with the kinds of powerful beliefs that will continue to shape his decisions not only today, but throughout his life. Marva increases her students' quality of life by using the three organizing principles: she gets them to hold themselves to a higher standard, she assists them in adopting new, empowering beliefs that enable them to break through their old limitations, and she backs all this up with specific skills and strategies necessary for lifelong success. The results? Her students become not only confident, but competent. The immediate results in terms of their academic excellence are striking, and the processional effects generated in their everyday lives are profound.

Finally I asked Talmadge."What's the most important thing that Mrs Collins has taught you?" 

"The most important thing Mrs Collins has taught me is that

SOCIETY MAY PREDICT, BUT ONLY I WILL DETERMINE MY DESTINY!"

Maybe we all need to remember the lessons of a child. With the beliefs young Talmadge expressed so beautifully, I guarantee that he, as well as the other children in the class, will have a great opportunity to continuously interpret their lives in a way that will create the future they desire, rather than the one that most people fear.

Extract: AWAKEN THE GIANT WITHIN--Anthony Robbins