"Dogs look up to you. Cats look down on you. Pigs treat you as equals. I like pigs. " - Winston Churchill-
“The true way to be humble is not to stoop till you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is.” -Phillips Brooks-
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” - Rumi-
“You can talk with someone for years, everyday, and still, it won’t mean as much as what you can have when you sit in front of someone, not saying a word, yet you feel that person with your heart, you feel like you have known the person for forever… connections are made with the heart, not the tongue.” - C. JoyBell C.
“Life has knocked me down a few times. It showed me things I never wanted to see. I experienced sadness and failures. But one thing for sure, I always get up!”-- Author Unknown
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“God changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls and coal into diamonds using time and pressure. He’s working on you too.”-Unknown-
We are here for a short time. Let us not be attached to our home but know the law of impermanence and begin the day with deep conviction that through every thought and action you would seek and search your true Home. Our true home is the stable ground of our mind where peace and happiness prevails. Fill the day with more compassion, love and spiritual sharing so that God is pleased with you. Know all you give He alone receives, and gives you back. What you give you receive.
~~ Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
“With every act of self-care your authentic self gets stronger, and the critical, fearful mind gets weaker. Every act of self-care is a powerful declaration: I am on my side, I am on my side, each day I am more and more on my own side.”-- Susan Weiss Berry
“The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. If a man’s self is not kept clean and bright; his glimpse of God will be blurred.” -C.S. Lewis-
“Seek to have your life in God, not in things, not in people, not in places, not in circumstances, not in arguments, not in human intelligence, but in God.” -Theodore Austin-Sparks-
Once you realise the true glory of surrender to Divine Will, you will start to feel less stressed and burdened for we all are traveling in a train and it is not wise to carry the baggage on our head when the engine is pulling us towards our ultimate destination. Do what your prarabdha demands, do not react or resist, for that will make the journey difficult. For an effortless journey, the art is to be like water! Be like an eagle to rise high and fly without flapping wings, or like a fish of deep waters, glide through water without leaving any trace!!!
~~ Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
“Nothing can separate you from His love, absolutely nothing, neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature… We do not need to beg Him to bless us, He simply cannot help it. Therefore God is enough! God is enough for time, God is enough for eternity. God is enough!” -Hannah Whitall Smith-
“Adopt the pace of Nature. Her secret is patience.”-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“No one can be saved - in virtue of what he can do. Everyone can be saved - in virtue of what God can do.” -Karl Barth-
There are situations when you will have high level of stress even if you do not want it. If you can, overcome the challenge, pat yourself on the back and appreciate your strengths. If you fail, do not allow your mind to deceive you with negative brooding. Just scan through the whole experience and analyse in the light of your awareness, find where you missed. What are your learning lessons? Resolve to do better the next time similar situations occur. I have seen failures have taught me about life better than any of my successes and accolades. Isn’t life a continual learning and evolving to a state of natural happiness?
~~ Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
“The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough.”
– Rabindranath Tagore
"God has mercy on us. He says ‘yes’ to us, he wills to be on our side, to be our God against all odds. Indeed against all odds, because we do not deserve this mercy, because, as we rightly suppose, he should say ‘no’ to us all. But he does not say ‘no’; he says ‘yes’. He is not against us; he is for us. This is God’s mercy." -Karl Barth-
There is no medicine better than laughter. Whatever the external situation learn to be cheerful. That is the way to beat stress. Blessed are they who can laugh like a child with every cell of the body vibrating with the rest of the universe. When we laugh it is a direct message to the cells of our body “hey! join me in the celebration, let’s enjoy total health”.
Let us not forget, laughter is to say to God, “Thank You”.
LOL!!
Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
In case you haven’t guessed by now…humor and laughter is a BIG part…of both my mundane and spiritual lives.
“My ability to remember song lyrics from the 80s far exceeds my ability to remember why I walked into the kitchen.”-- Author Unknown
And here’s how to be, a humorous cowboy - in the old west! And since at the end, the cowboy said:
I know. Believe me, I know.
Would that make him… a humorous, singing, Calvinist Cowboy? 
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“You can throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon him, for you are his personal concern.” - J.B. Phillips-
“Instead of a river, God often gives us a brook, which may be running today and dried up tomorrow. Why? To teach us not to rest in our blessings, but in the blesser Himself.” - Arthur W. Pink-
We all want to get rid of anger, but did you ask anger whether anger is ready to leave you? Don’t ask anger to leave you. Don’t even resolve not to get angry! Just keep doing acts of compassion and love. Expand your heart by forgiving and healing those who need it the most. Trust that the need for anger is over and the light of love is radiating through you. Let the miracle happen without your doing it!!
~~Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
“Never be discouraged because good things get on so slowly here; and never fail daily to do that good which lies next to your hand.” -George MacDonald-
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“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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