THE 4 WIVES

There was a rich merchant who had 4 wives. He loved the 4th wife the most and adorned her with rich robes and treated her to delicacies. He took great care of her and gave her nothing but the best.

He also loved the 3rd wife very much. He's very proud of her and always wanted to show off her to his friends. However, the merchant is always in great fear that she might run away with some other men.

He too, loved his 2nd wife. She is a very considerate person, always patient and in fact is the merchant's confidante. Whenever the merchant faced some problems, he always turned to his 2nd wife and she would always help him out and tide him through difficult times.

Now, the merchant's 1st wife is a very loyal partner and has made great contributions in maintaining his wealth and business as well as taking care of the household. However, the merchant did not love the first wife and although she loved him deeply, he hardly took notice of her.

One day, the merchant fell ill. Before long, he knew that he was going to die soon. He thought of his luxurious life and told himself, "Now I have 4 wives with me. But when I die, I'll be alone. How lonely I'll be!"

Thus, he asked the 4th wife, "I loved you most, endowed you with the finest clothing and showered great care over you. Now that I'm dying, will you follow me and keep me company?" "No way!" replied the 4th wife and she walked away without another word.

The answer cut like a sharp knife right into the merchant's heart. The sad merchant then asked the 3rd wife, "I have loved you so much for all my life. Now that I'm dying, will you follow me and keep me company?" "No!" replied the 3rd wife. "Life is so good over here! I'm going to remarry when you die!" The merchant's heart sank and turned cold.

He then asked the 2nd wife, "I always turned to you for help and you've always helped me out. Now I need your help again. When I die, will you follow me and keep me company?" "I'm sorry, I can't help you out this time!" replied the 2nd wife. "At the very most, I can only send you to your grave." The answer came like a bolt of thunder and the merchant was devastated.

Then a voice called out : "I'll leave with you. I'll follow you no matter where you go." The merchant looked up and there was his first wife. She was so skinny, almost like she suffered from malnutrition. Greatly grieved, the merchant said, "I should have taken much better care of you while I could have !"

Actually, we all have 4 wives in our lives

a. The 4th wife is our body. No matter how much time and effort we lavish in making it look good, it'll leave us when we die.

b. Our 3rd wife ? Our possessions, status and wealth. When we die, they all go to others.

c. The 2nd wife is our family and friends. No matter how close they had been there for us when we're alive, the furthest they can stay by us is up to the grave.

d. The 1st wife is in fact our soul, often neglected in our pursuit of material, wealth and sensual pleasure.

Guess what? It is actually the only thing that follows us wherever we go. Perhaps it's a good idea to cultivate and strengthen it now rather than to wait until we're on our deathbed to lament.

DON'T FORGET EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON

Have you ever been in a bad situation where everything in your life goes wrong & you just feel like giving up? Well this year I found my self in that situation where everything just went bad & then it got worse & worse. I had people telling me that everything happens for a reason & that sooner or later I would find out what it was. Of course, as depressed as I could be, I doubted it. When it's YOU, the whole world can tell you it will get better, but you don't believe it till you see it with your own eyes.So time went by & I kept on feeling the same way. Then one day I knew it in me what that reason was, why I had to go through all the things I did. It's part of growing up & learning to appreciating what you have every day; all those little things that we take for granted sometimes. I feel that all the things that happened to me this year made me a stronger person than I was before. I appreciate all those little things that I took for granted before. I got to meet my real friends for the very first time; I know who my real friends are & those are the ones who stuck by me no matter what.I know I'll have more bad times in my life, but next time someone say's "DON'T FORGET EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON", I'll know it's true. We all go through bad times in life, the important thing is to know that sooner or later that reason will come to you & when that happens you will find yourself better off than you did before...

10 Most Important Things...

10 Most Important Things...

LOVE: The Special Feeling That Makes You FeelAll Warm And Wonderful.

RESPECT: Treating Others As Well As You Would Like To Be Treated.

APPRECIATION: To Be Grateful For All The Good Things Life Has To Offer.

HAPPINESS: The Full Enjoyment Of Each Moment. A Smiling Face.

FORGIVENESS: The Ability To Let Things Be Without Anger.

SHARING: The Joy Of Giving Without Thought Of Receiving.

HONESTY: The Quality Of Always Telling The Truth.

INTEGRITY: The Purity Of Doing What's Right, No Matter What.

COMPASSION: The Essence Of Feeling Another's Pain, While Easing Their Hurt.


PEACE: The Reward For Living The 10 Most Important Things.-


-- Author Unknown ---

The Law of Individual Reality

You are the creator of your life and your reality.Your thoughts become your actions and your actions create the circumstances in your life.You are responsible for everything that happens to you in your life.This is the simple law of as you sow so you reap. It can also be called the law of motion and emotion. Every thought that we send out into the universe comes back to us with accumulated energy of its own kind.When negative thoughts go out of our minds, they will come back to us with redoubled negative energy and give us lot of pain and unhappiness.Positive thoughts on the other hand bring in positive energy and energize us, establishing in the process peace and harmony in our consciousness.Our actions too yield the same results.Our positive actions bring in positive rewards and our negative actions bring negative rewards. The energy that we unleash, either in the form of a thought or action, always comes back to us with increased force.Thus through our actions and thoughts we are constantly creating our own realities.Whatever we give comes back to us. We should therefore be very careful about our thoughts and actions as they have a lasting influence on the pattern of our lives.People blame others for what happens to them. Little do they know that if any one is to be blamed it is the person himself who made it happen to himself! Wisdom is when something happens to you. Instead of looking around for excuses and placing the blame on others, look into yourself and ask yourself why you made it happen? Why you invited those conditions and circumstances into your life? Perhaps it was because you wanted to learn something out of that experience. Perhaps you wanted to strengthen some aspect of your personality or resolve some long troubling relationship.When you start accepting responsibility for the events of your life, you begin to learn more about yourself, your inner thoughts, your fears and aspirations.Out of this awareness you also start expanding your consciousness. Become aware of your thought processes and through this awareness you finally learn to change the conditions of your life. --

- Author Unknown

Sand & Stone

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face.The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:'Today my best friend slapped me in the face.'They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:'Today my best friend saved my life.'The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, 'After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?'The friend replied, 'When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand, where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.'Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your benefits in stone.They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them. Do not value the things you have in your life, but value who you have in your life!

GENEROSITY

Mahatma Gandhi went from city to city, village to village collecting funds for the Charkha Sangh. During one of his tours he addressed a meeting in Orissa. After his speech a poor old woman got up. She was bent with age, her hair was grey and her clothes were in tatters. The volunteers tried to stop her, but she fought her way to the place where Gandhiji was sitting. "I must see him," she insisted and going up to Gandhiji touched his feet. Then from the folds of her sari she brought out a copper coin and placed it at his feet. Gandhiji picked up the copper coin and put it away carefully. The Charkha Sangh funds were under the charge of Jamnalal Bajaj. He asked Gandhiji for the coin but Gandhiji refused. "I keep cheques worth thousands of rupees for the Charkha Sangh," Jamnalal Bajaj said laughingly "yet you won't trust me with a copper coin." "This copper coin is worth much more than those thousands," Gandhiji said. "If a man has several lakhs and he gives away a thousand or two, it doesn't mean much. But this coin was perhaps all that the poor woman possessed. She gave me all she had. That was very generous of her. What a great sacrifice she made. That is why I value this copper coin more than a crore of rupees."

The Mystery of Silence

Silence cannot really be described. It is not the absence of sound. It makes it possible to notice sound. It is still, but its stillness is constantly moving. It is nothing, but a nothing filled with everything. It is aware, but may move unaware. It is love, but a love that lets hatred be. It is wise, but its wisdom only fools can know. It has a shape, the shape of this moment. It has its own sound, but can only be heard when the mind is still. Unceasingly, it speaks Truth without uttering a single word.
This Silent Mystery is prior to mind. It also moves as mind, but the mind cannot imagine what it is to disappear into Silence. That is why it is so often afraid of deep silence. Yet it is in silence that we can discover the truth of what is always here, always undivided, and always in peace, even if the moment does not seem peaceful. The Silence of our true nature is deeply, profoundly, and unceasingly present. It cannot be lost by the mind’s confusions nor gained by its clarity, for this awake and eternal Silence does not come and go.
We do not need long years on a meditation cushion to ask ourselves: What is here when we are not trying to arrive there? What is here, so close we do not notice? Who am I when I don’t go to my mind for an answer? What knows cannot be known except to Itself. It is a Mystery prior to any and all concepts. We might say it is what silences every thought and every concept—even those called truth, God, Buddha, world, or the concept of a “me;” yet it is simultaneously their source.
In This that dreams the world and the play of existence each moment, everything continually appears and disappears into an ever-present Silence that knows no separation between background and foreground, divine and human, teacher and student, enlightened and unenlightened, God and flea. It is undivided Silence, empty of nothing, continually moving, continually still. It is what we are. It is where the mind cannot go, where mind must remain in unknowing.