This proverb comes from centuries of experience with the traumatic changes that accompany conquest, and it deserves at least a footnote in any organizational plan for strategic change. Continue reading
transformation
The Illusion of Outwitting Death
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Once upon a time in a Baghdad marketplace, there was a servant who bumped into Death himself. Terrified, the man dropped his purchases and ran home on foot. When he arrived, he breathlessly begged his master, “Please, may I borrow your fastest horse? I met Death in the marketplace, and he gestured like he was about to take me, so I ran back here as fast as I could. I must escape from him!” The master said, “Take my fastest steed, and perhaps you can outrun Death tonight. Flee to Sammara, for he will never find you there.” The servant thanked him profusely, and galloped off at breakneck speed toward the village of Sammara, which was many hours away. The master then went to the marketplace, and when he saw Death, he asked, “Why did you threaten my poor servant when he was here earlier today?” Death replied, “I wasn’t threatening him. I was just shocked to see him, that’s all. You see, I was expecting to meet up with him tonight—in Sammara.” Continue reading
Courage is the opposite of Apathy
When we throw cold water on every opportunity life offers us for fixing a situation, we exhaust ourselves and everyone around us. When we’re apathetic, we have an endless string of excuses for why we can’t act. The people who love and want to support us burn out and avoid us because they can’t stand hearing yet another reason for why we have no power to change our lives. Courage is the opposite of Apathy. Continue reading
Thought for the Week – 20th July 2015
BISMILLAH!
BISMILLAH!
It’s a habit of yours to walk slowly.
You hold a grudge for years.
With such heaviness, how can you be modest?
With such attachments, do you expect to arrive anywhere?
Continue reading
Giving Up Your Symbols of Grandiosity
Ask yourself, “What do I feel I need to have to signal how very important I am?” Is it an expensive car? A job title that makes people look at you in awe? A Rolex watch? A trophy wife, wealthy husband, or child who attends an Ivy League school? The latest information on a controversial topic? The most salacious piece of gossip? A caustic attitude that intimidates others? A terrible childhood trauma that left you with no self-esteem?
The domain of discovery is a magical one
Mark Twain once summed up his life. “I became a silver-miner in Nevada; next, a newspaper reporter; next, a gold-miner; next, a special correspondent in the Sandwich Islands; next, a roving correspondent in Europe and the East; next, an instructional torchbearer on the lecture circuit; and, finally, I became a scribbler of books, and an immovable fixture among the other rocks of New England.”
Attaining through ‘effortless effort’
So there are two ways to grow. One way is the way of effort, resolve labour. There you are the master. Whatever you do you are the planner. Then whatsoever you attain is nothing but your own game. Much can certainly be achieved through effort, through labour and resolve. But whatever you attain will be smaller than you. And whatsoever you attain is called the world. What you get through resolve and labour is worldly. Your ego is strengthened by it. – it is a search for your own ego.
Come home to yourself
Observe yourself. That’s why I said earlier that self-observation is such a delightful and extraordinary thing. After a while you don’t have to make any effort, because, as illusions begin to crumble, you begin to know things that cannot be described. It’s called happiness. Everything changes and you become addicted to awareness.
There’s the story of the disciple who went to the master and said, “Could you give me a word of wisdom? Could you tell me something that would guide me through my days?” It was the master’s day of silence, so he picked up a pad. It said, “Awareness.” When the disciple saw it, he said, “This is too brief. Can you expand on it a bit?” So the master took back the pad and wrote, “Awareness, awareness, awareness.” The disciple said, “Yes, but what does it mean?” The master took back the pad and wrote, “Awareness, awareness, awareness means — awareness.”That’s what it is to watch yourself. No one can show you how to do it, because he would be giving you a technique, he would be programming you. But watch yourself. When you talk to someone, are you aware of it or are you simply identifying with it? When you got angry with somebody, were you aware that you were angry or were you simply identifying with your anger? Later, when you had the time, did you study your experience and attempt to understand it? Where did it come from? What brought it on? I don’t know of any other way to awareness. You only change what you understand. What you do not understand and are not aware of, you repress. You don’t change. But when you understand it, it changes.
– Anthony de Mello
Book Recommendation : Courageous Dreaming by Alberto Villoldo
Modern physics tells us that we’re dreaming the world into being with every thought. Courageous Dreaming tells us how to dream our world with power and grace. The ancient shamans of the Americas understood that we’re not only creating our experience of the world, but are dreaming up the very nature of reality itself—that is, “life is but a dream.” When you don’t dream your life, you have to settle for the nightmare being dreamed by others. Continue reading
ONE TUSK 