"I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life." - Mahatma Gandhi

"Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army." - Edward Everett

"If we're looking for outer conditions to bring us contentment, we're looking in vain." - Ayya Khema

"Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account." - Oscar Wilde

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Real Seeker

Shri. P. Rajagopalachari, President, Shri Ram Chandra Mission -http://www.sahajmarg.org 

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers. - Basho

Hospital beds are miserable places. Mine seemed to swallow me up. I was six years old and wanted to go home. My throat hurt and no one was offering me ice cream. The children's book my parents had read to me about having my tonsils removed said the hospital would give me some ice cream. Where was my ice cream? I was mad. No ice cream.

Nothing had happened that day the way I had been told. Even in the operating room. The book said I would count backwards from 100, then go to sleep. Instead, the hospital staff put a strange blindfold on me. For a moment, I saw flashes of colored light and then went to sleep. And I had practiced counting backwards.

It had been a difficult day and now I faced a long night. A long night, but as it turned out, not a lonely night. Although Mom had returned home to care for my baby sister, my wonderful, loving father was there. All night. Relaxing in his presence, I fell asleep. When I woke up not long afterward, Dad was asleep on the floor beside my bed. Not able to speak above a raspy whisper, I wondered how to wake him. I needed Dad to give me water, hug me, and comfort me. Searching for an idea, I looked around the room, stopping at the box of tissues on my nightstand. Reaching over, I pulled one out, and dropped it by the side of my bed hoping it would fall onto Dad.

My idea worked. Instantly, Dad was on his feet tending to my every need. He told me to drop a tissue whenever I needed him. I dropped a lot of tissues that night. Each time, Dad was instantly beside me. He never complained. Not once. His constant presence that long night was a gift of love.

Dad gave me another gift of love the following year when I was swallowed up by another hospital bed. This time, I was a thousand miles from home and flattened by severe cystitis, a bladder infection.

The infection had developed during my family's annual visit to my grandmother's house. I hated going to my grandmother's house. There simply wasn't anything for a kid to do. Now, on top of being bored, I was in pain and confined to bed.

Before I became too depressed over my lousy summer, a series of special gifts lifted my spirits. My mother gave me the gift of her loving presence, rarely leaving my side. My grandmother sent me a large portion of the "thank you" bouquet her Sunday school students had sent to her. My aunt and uncle presented me with a batch of peonies and snapdragons. Peonies to remind me of Peony Park, the city's amusement park. Snapdragons because I enjoyed squeezing them open and shut.

The most beautiful flowers were yet to come, however. Dad brought them -- a tiny vase of plastic flowers.

"These flowers," he said as he handed them to me, "represent my love for you. Not that it's artificial but that it will never die."

I hugged the vase to my chest.

Over the next few years, Dad continued to envelop me in his boundless love. Then, one day, he was gone.

I was sixteen.

I lost Dad's physical presence that day but his gifts of love have never left me.

When my eight-year-old nephew, Andrew, underwent a tonsillectomy, I sent him a Pittsburgh Steelers box of tissues along with the story of my tonsillectomy, the hospital box of tissues, and the grandfather he never knew.

Andrew still has the tissue box.

The tiny vase of flowers sits in my bedroom. And sitting on Dad's grave, there are always artificial flowers. Always. These flowers represent my love for him, not that it is artificial but that it will never die.

"People love to talk but hate to listen. Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us. You can listen like a blank wall or like a splendid auditorium where every sound comes back fuller and richer." - Alice Duer Miller

"A competent professional listens well, probes, asks questions, and thinks before he speaks. This is easy to say, but hard to do." - Jeffrey G. Allen

"When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles." - Horace Walpole

"Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind." - Earl Nightingale

"The removal of the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind." - Francis Bacon

"We're always and only feeling our thinking." - Dr Keith Blevens

"This art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men." - Captain J.A Hadfield

"Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend." - Laertius Diogenes

"A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being." - William Hazlitt

"He who is carried on another's back does not appreciate how far off the town is." - African Proverb

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." - Beverly Sills

"Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him." - Booker T. Washington

"You can't shake hands with a clenched fist." – Indira Gandhi

"You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough." - Frank Crane

"One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life." - E. M. Forster

Life is Like That..

No Police Available

A man awoke one evening to discover prowlers in his storage shed. He immediately called 911, gave his address, to report the prowlers and possible burglary.

The operator at the other end said "Are they in your house?" He said they were not, only in his storage shed in back of the house. The operator said there were no cars available at that time. He thanked the operator, hung up the phone and counted to 30 and called again.

"I just called you about prowlers in my storage shed. Well you do not have to worry, as I just shot them all dead!"

Within seconds there were 3 police cars, an ambulance and fire engine at the scene.

After capturing the prowlers red-handed, the policeman asked the caller, "I thought you said you had shot them all!"

The man answered, "I thought you said there were no police available!"

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Different Perspective

Confusius say: "man who run behind car get exhausted"..."man who run in front of car get tired"