MY NEW YEAR MESSAGE - 2008

MY NEW YEAR MESSAGE

Today, the beginning of another year, let us give thanks to the Almighty for sparing our lives to see the rising of another sun, to enjoy the beauty of His Creation and to be another day with loved ones. And as He has preserved us to see this day, let us make every effort to redeem ourselves. Let us not live in the past for every new day we are given a clean slate. Let us take the opportunity to write Love and Compassion on it. Our Love must be all-embracing. True Love is indivisible. You cannot as Dr. Pandia puts it; cook half of the fowl and leave the other half for laying.

Bear in mind that God sees you as you are and not what you were as fallible man does. He dwells in the everlasting present; What you are in the present moment, when the inevitable comes will take you to judgment. So grasp the present which someone wisely says “is a Present”, and live as if there will be no tomorrow, for there will be no tomorrow. If you are spared another day, it will be another today.

As you know, the world is in chaos; fear and anxiety are everywhere. Man, who has been able to reach the moon and, with his inventions, has been able to conquer time and space, has not, through greed and lust for power, seen his interconnectedness with all nature and that his security lies in the recognition that all men are brothers and should, instead of making war, “beat his swords into ploughshares and his spears into pruning hooks”.

We can, however, if we so desire find that inner peace and remain calm in any storm, if we have FAITH in Him. “A faith that shines more bright and clear. When tempests rage without. That when in danger knows no fear, In darkness feels no doubt.”

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

 EXPLORATION

We shall never cease from exploration … and the end of all our exploration will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot - “Little Gidding” from Four Quartet

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

We live through one of the great hours of history. The false gods are crumbling, and the hearts are hungry for the voice of God. But the voice has been stifled. To recapture the echo, we must be honest in our willingness to listen, we must be unprejudiced in our readiness to understand.

             Abraham Heschel

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

THE GLOW OF FRIENDSHIP

Like a beautiful rainbow
A true friend can be
The most beautiful blessing
That your heart can see
For just like the sunshine
That comes from above
God’s gift of a friend
Is a treasure of love.

       Author unknown

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

GREAT THOUGHT

He who knows others is learned.

He who knows himself is wise.

Lao Tzu

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Affliction can be a blessing

Now let us thank the Eternal Power convinced,
That Heaven but tries our Virtue by affliction;
That oft the clouds that wrap the present hour,
Serves but to brighten all our future days.

John Brown

THOUGHTS FOR TODAY

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.
Abraham Sutzkever

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
Henri Frederic Amiel

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henri David Thoreau

MERRY CHRISTMAS

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

HE ALONE IS REALLY RICH
( a Hindu Thought)

He alone is really rich who has no more use for the finite joys of this ephemeral world of delusional pleasures.  Such an individual may have no shelter of his own more than the shade of a tree in the courtyard of a temple.  He may sleep there under it on the naked ground.  He may wear nothing but a deerskin.  Renouncing thus the entire idea of possesion and relinquishing all attempts to seek one’s fulfilment in life through objects of the world, he lives happily ever self-sufficient unto himself.  He is independent of the world outside.  He has discovered a inexhaustible well of joy and a rich mine of true satisfaction in his own deep within.

Sureshwaracharya
Swami Chidmayanda

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

HARBOUR A DEEP LOVE

The world is illusory as a dream in the night.
Listen mind, understand, no one is yours!
Attachment is as dangerous as a fast moving current,
The whole world is washed away by its flow.
The water jar breaks, and is no more.
The leaf falls from the branch.
Just like that, life vanishes from the world.
Listen dear one, realize your true self now!
Do not be lulled by the body’s beauty;
You only have a short sojourn here.
Realize that husband, wife, son, relatives,
Will all some day take their leave.
When your life comes to an end,
No one will be able to come to your rescue.
Those who understand the transience of the body,
Harbour a deep love for the ETERNAL SOUL.
Kabir pursues and harbours such love.
Those who do, sever the noose of death.

Songs of the Divine by KABIR.
translation by J. DAS.

Kabir was an unlettered Mystic Saint of India. All his many poems were done by word of mouth and written by his literate followers. His poems have made such great impressions that scholars are researching them and writing books about them. J. Das, a translator and follower of Kabir is living in Canada.