Whole Living Today

For Bill
Thank you for so many things…

1. Just for today I will be happy. This assumes what Abraham Lincoln said is true: ‘Most folks are about as happy as they make their mind up to be.’ Happiness comes from within; it is not a matter of externals.
2. Just for today I will try to adjust myself to what is; not try to adjust everything to my own desires. I will take my family, my business, and my luck as they come and fit myself to them.
3. Just for today I will take care of my body. I will exercise it, care for it, nourish it, not abuse or neglect it, so that it will be a perfect machine for my bidding.
4. Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind. I will learn something useful. I will not be a mental loafer. I will read something that requires effort, thought, and concentration.
5. Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do someone a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two chores I don’t want to do, as William James suggests, just for exercise.
6. Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can, speak diplomatically, act courteously, be liberal with praise, criticize not at all, nor find fault with anything, and not try to regulate or improve anyone.
7. Just for today I will try to live through this day only, not tackle my whole life problem at once. I can do things for twelve hours that would appall me if I had to keep them up for a lifetime.
8. Just for today I will have a program. I will write down what I expect to do every hour. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it. It will eliminate two pests: hurrying and indecision.
9. Just for today I will have a quiet half hour by myself and relax. In this half hour sometimes I will think of God, so as to get a little more perspective into my life.
10. Just for today I will be unafraid. Particularly, I will be unafraid to be happy; to enjoy what is beautiful; to love; and to believe that those I love, love me.

— Copyright © Sybil Partridge
Photo by Tania - 6/11/08 New Day in Mystic

“Love cannot be born of mere determination: through the exercise of will one can at best be dutiful. Through struggle and effort, one may succeed in assuring that one’s external action is in conformity with one’s concept of what is right; but such action is spiritually barren because it lacks the inward beauty of spontaneous love.

Love has to spring spontaneously from within; it is in no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together; but while love cannot be forced upon anyone, it can be awakened through love itself.

Love is essentially self-communicative; those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. Those who receive love from others cannot be its recipients without giving a response that, in itself, is the nature of love.

True love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone it touches. Humanity will attain a new mode of being and life through the fee and unhampered interplay of pure love from heart to heart.”

From leaves from the tree: thoughts from Meher Baba

Happy Valentine’s Day to all my blogging friends and readers!

China Rose - Enya

Who can tell me if we have heaven,
Who can say the way it should be;
Moonlight holly, the Sappho Comet,
Angel’s tears below a tree.

You talk of the break of morning
As you view the new aurora,
Cloud in crimson, the key of heaven,
One love carved in acajou.

One told me of China Roses,
One a thousand nights and one night,
Earth’s last picture, the end of evening
Hue of indigo and blue.

A new moon leads me to
Woods of dreams and I follow.
A new world waits for me;
My dream, my way.

I know that if I have heaven
There is nothing to desire.
Rain and river, a world of wonder
May be paradise to me.

I see the sun.
I see the stars.

With love and blessings to all,
~Tania

What if we were to wake one morning without any of our fears? Without judgement, anger, greed, envy, prejudice, fear, control, hate, negativity?

What if we were to wake with only love in our hearts? Full of joy, compassion, grace, trust, forgiveness, love, honesty, gratitude?

Isn’t this true freedom?

What if you put your “rose-colored glasses” on for just one day?

Turn off the media and ignore the negative. Give it a try, see how your day goes. Go through your day with love and joy, offering smiles. You can’t help but experience a wonderful and magical day!

What if you try it tomorrow?

What if everyone did the same? What if it was all the time?

I finished reading a wonderful novel a few weeks ago that contained a beautiful story in it which I wanted to post on my blog. But, I figured it might be a little too long and that I might be infringing on the copyright notice of “except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.”

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, Paulo Coelho is one of my favorite authors. His book “The Alchemist” is the best read for those seeking. There is a great interview in Newsweek Magazine where bestselling author Paulo Coelho reveals how he supports piracy of his own work. I do agree with his philosophy on internet books. If people like what they read on the internet; reviews, scanning a chapter of a book, quotes, they will purchase the book. Who is really going to sit in front of the computer and read a whole novel? Libraries are still growing, books are not going out of style because of the internet. Books are like friends, they provide entertainment, company, and insight. A book is something tangible, something to hold on to and enjoy. To be reread at a later date. As we grow, we are able to see different concepts, ideas and symbolism because our perceptions have changed.

So, I’m going to take a little liberty and post this wonderful story from Paulo Coelho’s book “Eleven Minutes: A Novel“, a story of passion, desire, love, disappointment, freedom, and dreams.

“Once upon a time, there was a bird. He was adorned with two perfect wings and with glossy, colorful, marvelous feathers. In short, he was a creature made to fly about freely in the sky, bringing joy to everyone who saw him.

One day, a woman saw this bird and fell in love with him. She watched his flight, her mouth wide in amazement, her heart pounding, her eyes shining with excitement. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two travelled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird.

But then she thought: He might want to visit far-off mountains! And she was afraid, afraid that she would never feel the same way about any other bird. And she felt envy, envy for the bird’s ability to fly.

And she felt alone.

And she thought: “I’m going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again.”

The bird, who was also in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and was put in a cage.

She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: “Now you have everything you could possibly want.” However, a strange transformation began to take place: now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except for feeding him and cleaning out his cage.

One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds.

If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realized that what had thrilled her about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in motion, not his physical body.

Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and Death came knocking at her door. “Why have you come?” she asked Death. “So that you can fly once more with him across the sky,” Death replied. “If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him even more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.”

Visit Paulo’s blog for quotes, stories, interviews and more: Paulo Coelho