Overheard a conversation between two girls by the bathroom door in a bar in Ortigas:
Girl 1: (emphatically)"I don't know why, but despite what he's done and what we've been through, I still want him back."
Girl 2: "Really?"
I wanted to storm out of my cubicle, cut into the conversation, give Girl 1 a pat on the back and say: "I can totally relate...I don't know either."
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Final Denouement
And so it ends. Spain won over the Netherlands and my heart is broken. I’m not a big fan of the Netherlands, in fact, I had been rooting for another team—Argentina but they had been booted out of the race to the World Cup when Germany mowed them down with a 4-0 match.
But the final showdown between Spain and the Netherlands had me at the edge of my seat. More than 100 minutes had passed and still no one was winning, despite best efforts from each team. I was almost certain that a penalty shoot-out was in the offing, but that wasn’t to be as Spain hit the goal…finally. The status quo had been broken, but it also meant the clear possibility that the Dutch would lose.
The final moments were painful to watch. The Dutch knew it was a losing battle but they went on, fighting as if it was still possible to turn the tables around, as if they could sway the fates to grant them this win. After all, it had been so long since they won the Cup, and isn’t it time that they won?
But things will always be what life intends it to be, and so at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether you lose or win, but whether you stayed true to the game, and whether you had given it everything you had. It is about you.
The little devil on my shoulders whispers: “that’s just what losers say, isn’t it?” Maybe he’s right, or maybe he isn’t, but it definitely wouldn’t hurt to have the prize in your hands.
"Do you think you would have won?" the devil asked the dutchman. "No, I wouldn't," replied the Dutchman, "But the point is, I did fight."
Ad so it ended as soon as it begun, and my little distraction is gone. Strangers, we will be again just as we were at the start, until the time comes to meet again, somewhere in Brazil, sometime soon.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
(Not So) Simple Wisdom
Karla seems to have gotten into the habit of lifting things off my blog and putting it in hers (No, Karla, I don't mind at all). And so, to get back at her (kidding!), I've decided to publish this one taken from her blog. We are members of the Mutual Admiration Club, Karla and I. But it still doesn't diminish the beauty and wisdom of Sadhguru (whoever he may be).
Sadhguru's Simple Sensibility
Devotion: is truly for the intelligent, not for the stupid because without devotion there is no profundity to your life.
Awareness: is aliveness. How aware you are, is how alive you are.
Being you: The fundamental problem with humanity is that everyone is trying to be special. Only when you become ordinary, like a tree, can a greater dimension of life open up to you.
This wanting to become special, this disease has come to people simply because they have not recognized the value of the uniqueness of their being.
Bliss: It doesn't matter who you are right now, how miserable you are right now, how disturbed you are right now. If you pay enough attention to your interiority, being blissful is a possibility for every human being.
Enlightenment: never happens.... It is there, it is always there.
Enlightenment need not always happen with a bang, it can happen quietly, it can be like a flower blossoming.
Freedom: Unless you are free from the process of your own mind, unless you are free from the process of your own body there is really no such thing as freedom.
If your happiness and your well-being are not subject to anybody or anything, only then are you free. Otherwise whether you are in a prison or walking outside on the street, you still are a prisoner within yourself.
If you’re seeking to live well, you should not talk about God. Only when your longing has become such that you want to know not just life but the very source of life, can you talk about God.
Everyone can love God, as He does not demand anything from you, but to love the one next to you right now costs life. It is a challenge. It takes much courage to do this.
Every human activity is in pursuit of happiness.
Intensity: You must be that kind of a person that even if they put you in Sahara desert, there also you must be successful with life available there.
People who have never been on fire will not know the coolness of water. People, who have just lived their life in a half-hearted manner, sedately, can never know the other way.
Involvement: You will never know the beauty of life unless you are deeply involved. At the same time, you cannot enjoy the beauty of involvement if you get attached. If you don’t get this subtle distinction, you will suffer.
The greatest crime a person can commit is to be a joyless person.
A joyful face is always beautiful anywhere in the world, whatever the shape of the nose, whatever the shape of your eyes, when you see a joyful face it’s a beautiful face.
Karma: Is not in what you have done or not what you have done. It is your volition. The, way you live. The way you are within yourself.
When you utter the word karma, it’s always about you; never about somebody. You have no business with somebody else’s karma.
Knowing: Only when you are torn, by the pain of not knowing, will knowing happen to you.
Leadership: Leadership can only give guidance and orientation, but it’s the people who have to make the difference. Every individual in whatever sphere of life he is in, whatever responsibility that he holds, whatever influence he has, he has to stand up and make it happen in his area.
Liberation: means becoming free from the very process of life, birth and death. It means becoming free form the basic structures of body and mind. For all these, the karmic structure is the string which holds them together.
Life: Life has come from a very beautiful source. If you remain in touch with that source, everything about you will be beautiful.
How deeply you can touch another life, is how rich your life is. May you have much opportunity to profoundly impact lives around you.
People try to create an outwardly perfect life, but quality of life is based on the inward.
Being alive is not a small thing; it is the greatest phenomena on the planet - not just on the planet, in this whole cosmos.
Love: is just a vehicle for oneness. What you are longing for is that oneness.
Mind: This mind is capable of takings to the peaks of what is possible by a human being but unfortunately we are using the mind to create ulcer, diabetes, misery, anger jealousy.
Collective unconsciousness means, if you go deep enough into your mind, there will be no such thing as my mind and your mind, there is just one mind.
Peace: Peace is not the ultimate attainment of life, but the very foundation of life, the birthright of all human beings.
Peace and Happiness are rooted neither in the marketplace nor the woods, but within.
When you do not know how to keep your body peaceful, when you do not know how to keep your mind peaceful, when you do not know how to keep your energies peaceful, world peace is just a joke.
If there are no peaceful human beings, there is no peaceful world. Maybe there is no killing right now, but people are torturing and killing themselves everyday in so many different ways. That’s bad enough, that’s worse than a war.
Once we are living on a planet with limited resources, and the whole thing that is driving our lives is the engine of economics, war is inevitable, peace is impossible.
Religion: We don’t need more Hindus, more Christians, more Muslims; we need Buddha’s, Jesus, Krishna’s, real ones. We need live ones. That is when true change will happen. And that potential every human being carries within himself. Who they were is also your innermost nature.
How can you love one and hate the other when the same divine exits in all. As many colors of the rainbow are an outcome of one pure light, the many religions of the world are an expression of one divine source. Religions of the world are not about one man’s belief against another. But an opportunity and a possibility for all humans of all hues and colors, of various stages of evolution, understanding, and experience to reach to their common ultimate source.
Seeking: You must seek constantly that which you know to be the highest. It doesn’t matter whether it is going to happen or not; simply living with the vision is an elevating experience and a joyous process in itself.
Self: Everything that you do is self-based. All your work, all your life is an expression of who you are.
You don't have to do anything, you don't have to think anything, and you don't have to feel anything to be complete. You are complete by yourself.
Spirituality: means to live with an alert intelligence.
When you say spirituality you want to progress on the existential level - not socially, not psychologically, and not emotionally. You are constantly seeing how to progress existentially.
Spirituality means you have started seeing life with utmost clarity, there are no more illusions about it; you see everything just the way it is.
To be spiritual means to be an emperor within you. This is the only way to be.
Tears have got nothing to do with sadness and pain. Whenever any experience becomes very intense, tears flow.
If tears of love, joy, and ecstasy have not washed your cheeks, you are yet to taste life.
Path: The path is the destination and the destination is hidden in the path as the creator is hidden in the creation.
The highest is also the simplest.
If you carry with you, what we are calling as Isha, right things start happening.
Being together is the beginning. Working together is the middle. Dissolving together is the ultimate.
Individual salvation is the only way for universal salvation.
Fear: If a person has no hope he is truly blessed, because that person has no fear of failure. Fear of missing out on something is totally not there in a person who doesn't hope.
If you want to enjoy the boons that are outside, you must do something about the inside. Otherwise, everything bypasses you
Truth: You cannot get to truth. You can never get to truth, but you can become truth.
Truth is not a conclusion. Truth is not somewhere you go. It is not a destination - it is just a living experience.
You can’t interpret truth, you can only experience it. You cannot understand truth; you can only dissolve into it. It’s not something that you grasp; it is something that you merge with.
Love is work in motion. Work is love in motion.
Only a man who works with intensity can know what rest is.
Work is an expression of who you are, so who you are needs to be worked at.
The Bliss of work is known only to those who have no need for action.
Today, with the tools of science and technology we have brought ourselves to a self-threatening situation that everybody in the society needs to turn spiritual; otherwise there is no survival for this world. With the kind of equipment, and capabilities that we have, it just takes one fool to blow it up- and there any number of those fools standing in the queue to get to the top.
Sadhguru's Simple Sensibility
Devotion: is truly for the intelligent, not for the stupid because without devotion there is no profundity to your life.
Awareness: is aliveness. How aware you are, is how alive you are.
Being you: The fundamental problem with humanity is that everyone is trying to be special. Only when you become ordinary, like a tree, can a greater dimension of life open up to you.
This wanting to become special, this disease has come to people simply because they have not recognized the value of the uniqueness of their being.
Bliss: It doesn't matter who you are right now, how miserable you are right now, how disturbed you are right now. If you pay enough attention to your interiority, being blissful is a possibility for every human being.
Enlightenment: never happens.... It is there, it is always there.
Enlightenment need not always happen with a bang, it can happen quietly, it can be like a flower blossoming.
Freedom: Unless you are free from the process of your own mind, unless you are free from the process of your own body there is really no such thing as freedom.
If your happiness and your well-being are not subject to anybody or anything, only then are you free. Otherwise whether you are in a prison or walking outside on the street, you still are a prisoner within yourself.
If you’re seeking to live well, you should not talk about God. Only when your longing has become such that you want to know not just life but the very source of life, can you talk about God.
Everyone can love God, as He does not demand anything from you, but to love the one next to you right now costs life. It is a challenge. It takes much courage to do this.
Every human activity is in pursuit of happiness.
Intensity: You must be that kind of a person that even if they put you in Sahara desert, there also you must be successful with life available there.
People who have never been on fire will not know the coolness of water. People, who have just lived their life in a half-hearted manner, sedately, can never know the other way.
Involvement: You will never know the beauty of life unless you are deeply involved. At the same time, you cannot enjoy the beauty of involvement if you get attached. If you don’t get this subtle distinction, you will suffer.
The greatest crime a person can commit is to be a joyless person.
A joyful face is always beautiful anywhere in the world, whatever the shape of the nose, whatever the shape of your eyes, when you see a joyful face it’s a beautiful face.
Karma: Is not in what you have done or not what you have done. It is your volition. The, way you live. The way you are within yourself.
When you utter the word karma, it’s always about you; never about somebody. You have no business with somebody else’s karma.
Knowing: Only when you are torn, by the pain of not knowing, will knowing happen to you.
Leadership: Leadership can only give guidance and orientation, but it’s the people who have to make the difference. Every individual in whatever sphere of life he is in, whatever responsibility that he holds, whatever influence he has, he has to stand up and make it happen in his area.
Liberation: means becoming free from the very process of life, birth and death. It means becoming free form the basic structures of body and mind. For all these, the karmic structure is the string which holds them together.
Life: Life has come from a very beautiful source. If you remain in touch with that source, everything about you will be beautiful.
How deeply you can touch another life, is how rich your life is. May you have much opportunity to profoundly impact lives around you.
People try to create an outwardly perfect life, but quality of life is based on the inward.
Being alive is not a small thing; it is the greatest phenomena on the planet - not just on the planet, in this whole cosmos.
Love: is just a vehicle for oneness. What you are longing for is that oneness.
Mind: This mind is capable of takings to the peaks of what is possible by a human being but unfortunately we are using the mind to create ulcer, diabetes, misery, anger jealousy.
Collective unconsciousness means, if you go deep enough into your mind, there will be no such thing as my mind and your mind, there is just one mind.
Peace: Peace is not the ultimate attainment of life, but the very foundation of life, the birthright of all human beings.
Peace and Happiness are rooted neither in the marketplace nor the woods, but within.
When you do not know how to keep your body peaceful, when you do not know how to keep your mind peaceful, when you do not know how to keep your energies peaceful, world peace is just a joke.
If there are no peaceful human beings, there is no peaceful world. Maybe there is no killing right now, but people are torturing and killing themselves everyday in so many different ways. That’s bad enough, that’s worse than a war.
Once we are living on a planet with limited resources, and the whole thing that is driving our lives is the engine of economics, war is inevitable, peace is impossible.
Religion: We don’t need more Hindus, more Christians, more Muslims; we need Buddha’s, Jesus, Krishna’s, real ones. We need live ones. That is when true change will happen. And that potential every human being carries within himself. Who they were is also your innermost nature.
How can you love one and hate the other when the same divine exits in all. As many colors of the rainbow are an outcome of one pure light, the many religions of the world are an expression of one divine source. Religions of the world are not about one man’s belief against another. But an opportunity and a possibility for all humans of all hues and colors, of various stages of evolution, understanding, and experience to reach to their common ultimate source.
Seeking: You must seek constantly that which you know to be the highest. It doesn’t matter whether it is going to happen or not; simply living with the vision is an elevating experience and a joyous process in itself.
Self: Everything that you do is self-based. All your work, all your life is an expression of who you are.
You don't have to do anything, you don't have to think anything, and you don't have to feel anything to be complete. You are complete by yourself.
Spirituality: means to live with an alert intelligence.
When you say spirituality you want to progress on the existential level - not socially, not psychologically, and not emotionally. You are constantly seeing how to progress existentially.
Spirituality means you have started seeing life with utmost clarity, there are no more illusions about it; you see everything just the way it is.
To be spiritual means to be an emperor within you. This is the only way to be.
Tears have got nothing to do with sadness and pain. Whenever any experience becomes very intense, tears flow.
If tears of love, joy, and ecstasy have not washed your cheeks, you are yet to taste life.
Path: The path is the destination and the destination is hidden in the path as the creator is hidden in the creation.
The highest is also the simplest.
If you carry with you, what we are calling as Isha, right things start happening.
Being together is the beginning. Working together is the middle. Dissolving together is the ultimate.
Individual salvation is the only way for universal salvation.
Fear: If a person has no hope he is truly blessed, because that person has no fear of failure. Fear of missing out on something is totally not there in a person who doesn't hope.
If you want to enjoy the boons that are outside, you must do something about the inside. Otherwise, everything bypasses you
Truth: You cannot get to truth. You can never get to truth, but you can become truth.
Truth is not a conclusion. Truth is not somewhere you go. It is not a destination - it is just a living experience.
You can’t interpret truth, you can only experience it. You cannot understand truth; you can only dissolve into it. It’s not something that you grasp; it is something that you merge with.
Love is work in motion. Work is love in motion.
Only a man who works with intensity can know what rest is.
Work is an expression of who you are, so who you are needs to be worked at.
The Bliss of work is known only to those who have no need for action.
Today, with the tools of science and technology we have brought ourselves to a self-threatening situation that everybody in the society needs to turn spiritual; otherwise there is no survival for this world. With the kind of equipment, and capabilities that we have, it just takes one fool to blow it up- and there any number of those fools standing in the queue to get to the top.
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