The Nirvana Juncture

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and in life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, theprofessor said: "If you noticed, all the nice lookingexpensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, and that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eye-ing each other"s cups. Moral: Life is the coffee, and the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to h...

A teenager lived alone with his father, and the two of them had a very special relationship. Even though the son was always on the bench, his father was always in the stands cheering. He never missed a game. This young man was still the smallest of the class when he e ntered high school. But his father continued to encourage him but also made it very clear that he did not have to play football if he didn't want to. But the young man loved football and decided to hang in there. He was determined to try his best at every practice, and perhaps he'd get to play when he became a senior. All through high school he never missed a practice nor a game, but remained a bench warmer all four years. His faithful father was always in the stands, always with words of encouragement for him. When the young man went to college, he decided to try out for the football team as a "walk-on". Everyone was sure he could never make the cut, but he did. The coach admitted that he kept him on t...

We sometimes do not get what we want or desire, it could be the promotion we were promised or we deserved. It could also be the dream job or admission into the preferred college/course or may be the most desired assignments/projects we desperately wanted. Or in a personal front may be the girl friend or the spouse we liked or loved the most. But on retrospect these things might be happening or not happening for good. Sometimes when we look back, we can connect the dots. Read the amazing speech given by Steve Jobs in Harvard which remains all time favourite and relevant even today. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The First Story is about Connecting The Dots. I dropped out of Reed ...

There was once a scientist. After a lot of practice & efforts, he developed a formula & learned the art of reproducing himself. He did it so perfectly that it was impossible to tell the reproduction from the original. One day while doing his research, he realized that the Angel of Death was searching for him. In order to remain alive he reproduced a dozen copies of himself. The reproduction was so similar that all of them looked exactly like him. Now when this Angel of Death came down, he was at a loss to know which of the thirteen before him was the original scientist, & confused,he left them all alone & returned back to heaven. But, not for long, for being an expert in human nature, the Angel came up with a clever idea. He said to the scientist addressing all thirteen of them, "Sir, you must be a genius to have succeeded in making such perfect reproduction formula of yourself. However, I have discovered a flaw in your work, just one tiny little flaw." The sc...

A letter from a Doctor who's dedicated his profession and work in AFRICA for FREE. One night I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all we could do, she died leaving us with a tiny premature baby and a crying two-year-old daughter. We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive, as we had no incubator (we had no electricity to run an incubator). We also had no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts. One student midwife went for the box we had for such babies and the cotton wool that the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to stoke the fire and fill a hot water bottle. She came back shortly in distress to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst (rubber perishes easily in tropical climates). "And it is our last hot water bottle!" she exclaimed. As in the West, it is no good crying over spilled milk, so in Central Africa it might be considered no good crying ov...

The Power Of Words Over Water Can water be affected by our words? Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese scientist, believes so. And he has proof. Dr. Emoto took water droplets, exposed them to various words, music, and environments, and froze them for three hours. He then examined the crystal formations under a dark field microscope. And he took photographs. The results were totally mind-blowing. Heres a photo of ordinary water without any prayer spoken over it. The molecular structure is in disarray. The photo below is water after the prayer was said. Its simply breathtaking. (I now have a great respect for praying before meals! More on this later.) Dr. Emoto also exposed water to Heavy Metal music. Heres how it looks like. Looks sad if you ask me. Heres water exposed to classical music and folk dance music.. Looks much better, right? Next, Dr. Emoto stuck a piece of paper with these words: You make me si...

Once there were two butterfiles.... Boy Butterfly: Let's play a small game within us Girl Butterfly: OK Boy Butterfly: The one who sits in this flower tomorrow early in the morning.....that one loves the other one more..... Girl Butterfly: OK Next morning, the boy butterfly waits for the flower to open so that he can sit before the girl butterfly does...... Finally, the flower opened..... What did he see.....?????........ The girl butterfly had died inside the flower..... She stayed there all night......so that early in the morning......as soon as she sees him.......she can fly to him and tell him how much she loved him........ This is true LOVE.... .

How often do you let other people's nonsense change your mood ? Do you let a bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss, or an insensitive employee ruin your day? However, the mark of a successful person is how quickly one can get back their focus on what's important. This inspirational piece has influenced me in every mode of my life. David J. Pollay explains his story in this way.... Sixteen years ago I learned this lesson. I learned it in the back of a New York City taxi cab. Here's what happened. I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station. We were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded, and missed the other Car's' back end by just inches! The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean...h...

A boy and a girl were playing together. The boy had a collection of marbles. The girl had some sweets with her. The boy told the girl that he will give her all his marbles in exchange for her sweets. The girl agreed. The boy kept the biggest and the most beautiful marble aside and gave the rest to the girl. The girl gave him all her sweets as she had promised. That night, the girl slept peacefully. But the boy couldn't sleep as he kept wondering if the girl had hidden some sweets from him the way he had hidden his best marble. Moral of the story: If you don't give your hundred percent in a relationship, you'll always keep doubting if the other person has given his/her hundred percent.. This is applicable for any relationship like love, employer-employee relationship etc., Give your hundred percent to everything you do and sleep peacefully

Rutali married Hitesh this day. At the end of the wedding party, Rutali's mother gave her a newly opened bank saving passbook with Rs.1000 deposit amount. Mother: 'Rutali, take this passbook. Keep it as a record of your marriage life. When there's something happy and memorable happened in your new life, put some money in. Write down what it's about next to the line. The more memorable the event is, the more money you can put in. I've done the first one for you today. Do the others with Hitesh. When you look back after years, you can know how much happiness you've had.' Rutali shared this with Hitesh when getting home. They both thought it was a great idea and were anxious to know when the second deposit can be made. This was what they did after certain time: - 7 Feb: Rs.100, first birthday celebration for Hitesh after marriage - 1 Mar: Rs.300, salary raise for Rutali - 20 Mar: Rs.200, vacation trip to Bali - 15 Apr: Rs.2000, Rutali got pregnant - 1 Jun: Rs.1...

Is your birthday day 1 of the month? Your Life You are very curious and dedicative. When you are interested in something, everything else has to wait. This is your quality. But if you learn to be more patient and complete what you have started, you will be successful in life. Your Love You believe in love at first sight. You won't wait to learn more about the person. Vise versa, people who fail to impress you will hardly get a chance to be your friend. Your emotion is on the extreme. You can only love or hate, nothing in between and this often shows in your __expression. Try not to end a relationship in a quarrel. ------------------------------ --- Is your birthday day 2 of the month? Your Life You have great common sense but usually fail to follow through. This might happens because you are too busy with your mission and shut yourself from the outside world. You are clever and profound so there's a slight chance for self-control problem. Your Love Your love progress slowly, a...

The Catalina Island is twenty-one miles away from the coast of California, and many people have taken the challenge to swim across it. On July 4th 1952, Florence Chadwick stepped into the water off Catalina Island to swim across to the California coast. She started well and on course, but later fatigue set in, and the weather became cold. She persisted, but fifteen hours later, numb and cold, she asked to be taken out of the water. After she recovered, she was told that she had been pulled out only half a mile away from the coast. She commented that she could have made it, if the fog had not affected her vision and she would have just seen the land. She promised that this would be the only time that she would ever quit. She went back to her rigorous training. And two months later she swam that same channel. The same thing happened. The fatigue set in, and the fog obscured her view, but this time she swam with faith and vision of the land in her mind. She knew that somewhere behind the ...

Satan called a worldwide convention of demons. In his opening address he said, "We can't keep Christians from going to church." "We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth." "We can't even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their saviour." "Once they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken." "So let them go to their churches; let them have their covered dish dinners, BUT steal their time, so they don't have time to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ.." "This is what I want you to do," said the devil: "Distract them from gaining hold of their Saviour and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!" "How shall we do this?" his demons shouted. "Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and bor...

There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real! When the door of happiness closes, another opens; But often times we look so long at the Closed door that we don't see the one, Which has been opened for us Don't go for looks; they can deceive. Don't go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile, Because it takes only a smile to Make a dark day seem bright. Find the one that makes your heart smile. Dream what you want to dream; Go where you want to go; Be what you want to be, Because you have only one life And one chance to do all the things You want to do May you have enough happiness to make you sweet Enough trials to make you strong, Enough sorrow to keep you human and Enough hope to make you happy. The happiest of people don't necessarily Have the best of everything; They just make the most of Everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will always...