Live Positive Way

Salt, Glass of Water and the Lake

 

Once an unhappy young man came to an old master and told he had a very sad life and asked for a solution.

 

The old Master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.

 

“How does it taste?” – the Master asked.

“Terrible.” – spat the apprentice.

 

The Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and when the apprentice swirled his handful of salt into the lake.

 

The old man said, “Now drink from the lake.”

As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the Master asked, “How does it taste?”

“Good!” – remarked the apprentice.

 

“Do you taste the salt?” – asked the Master.

“No.” – said the young man.

 

The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said, “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the ‘pain’ depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”

 

Author Unknown

Live Positive Way

The highest concept we can have of god is man.

Feeling is the soul, the secret of everything.

What you do not make free, will never grow.

Everyone is struggling for freedom – from the atom to the star.

The only religion that ought to be taught is the religion of fearlessness.

Freedom is of the nature of the soul, it is its birth right.

The search for freedom is the search of all religions.

God is a circle whose circumference is nowhere and whose centre is everywhere.

God is the centre of attraction for every soul.

God is lover personified.

- Swami Vivekananda

Live Positive Way

Infinite faith and strength are the only conditions of success.

Fame does not pay, nor learning.

Faith is one of the potent factors of humanity and of all religion.

Faith, faith, faith in ourselves, faith, faith in god – this the secret of greatness.

Fear is a sign of weakness.

Fear is the mother of all misery.

You are fearless and deathless only when you are the universe.

The greatest sin is fear.

It is fear that is the great cause of misery in the world.

God is the magnet and human soul is the needle.

- Swami Vivekananda

Live Positive Way

Live Positive Way

To me the very essence of education is concentration of mind, not the collecting of facts.

By declaring we are weak, we become weaker, we do not become better.

He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in god.

The cause of evil is our desire to be superior to others and our selfishness.

The worm of today is the god of tomorrow.

Fire and enthusiasm must be in our blood.

Bold words and bolder deeds are what we want.

Only that is ours which we earn.

One’s destiny is in one’s own hands – the Guru only makes this much understood.

One particle of matter has all the energy of the universe at its back.

- Swami Vivekananda

Live Positive Way

Strength, strength is what the Upanishads, speak to me from every page.

Real education is that which enables one to stand on one’s own legs.

Ours are the duties. Let the fruited take care of themselves.

Out of purity and silence comes the word of power.

The only way of getting our divine nature manifested is by helping others to do the same.

Duty of any kind is not to be slighted.

We need to have three things; the heart to feel, the brain to conceive the hand to work.

Experience is the only source of knowledge.

Everyone must work out his own salvation.

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.

- Swami Vivekananda

Live Positive Way

Two Traveling Angels

 

Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family.

 

The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion’s guest room. Instead the angels were given a small space in the cold basement.

 

As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it. When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied, “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

 

The next night the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife.

 

After sharing what little food they had the couple let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night’s rest. When the sun came up the next morning the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field.

 

The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel, “How could you have let this happen? The first man had everything, yet you helped him.” – she accused. “The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and you let the cow die.”

 

“Things aren’t always what they seem.” – the older angel replied.

 

“When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the wall so he wouldn’t find it. Then last night as we slept in the farmers bed, the angel of death came for his wife. I gave him the cow instead. Things aren’t always what they seem.”

 

Author Unknown

Live Positive Way

Death is better than a vegetation ignorant life; it is better  to die on the battle-field than to live a life of defeat.

It is our desire that blinds us.

Enjoyment lies not in physical development, but in the culture of the mind and the intellect.

Desire makes slaves of us.

Dirt cannot wash dirt; hate cannot cure hate.

First bread and then religion.

Faith is not belief, it is the grasp on the ultimate, an illumination.

If the poor boy cannot come to education, education must go to him.

The sum total of the energies in the universe is the same throughout.

Everything will come to you if you have faith.

- Swami Vivekananda

Live Positive Way

Ignorance is the great mother of all misery.

Character is repeated habits and repeated habits alone can reform character.

Every moment is a new chance.

It is character that leaves its way through adamantine walls of difficulties.

It is character that pays everywhere.

Upon ages of struggle a character is built.

Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.

It is the body that drags us down.

No one becomes learned by reading books.

It is culture that withstands shocks, not a simple mass of knowledge.

- Swami Vivekananda

Live Positive Way

Live Positive Way

The less the thought of the body, the better.

Civilisation is the manifestation of that divinity in man.

There is no greater sin than cowardice, cowards are never saved that is sure.

The living power you cannot find in the books.

Books cannot teach god, but they can destroy ignorance, their action is negative.

Is there a greater strength than that of Brahmacharya – purity, my boy?

The finer is always the cause, the grosser the effect.

We are the makers of our own fate.

We reap what we sow.

No one is to blame for our miseries but ourselves.

 

- Swami Vivekanda

Live Positive Way

A man who does not believe in himself is an atheist.

Attachment comes only whose we expect a return.

All misery and pain come from attachment.

Even our smallest attempts are not in vain.

One atom has the power of the whole universe at its back.

He who wants to become a Bhakta must be strong, must be healthy.

The great quality of Bhakti is that it cleans the mind.

Bhakti can be more easily practised by persons in every condition of life.

Bodies come and go, but the soul does not change.

Body is the name of a stream of matter continuously changing.

- Swami Vivekanda

Live Positive Way

Live Positive Way

An Investment

Education is both a form of consumption and a kind of investment, like bread and medicine, it is something we use or consume but like a dam or canal it is something in which we invest to produce more in the future. – Kenneth Galbraith

Sunshine

Love of your work, will enlarge your life and increase your ability.  Joy in one’s tasks is what sunshine is to the fruit and flowers.  A person can do much more and better work where his heart is than where it is not – Dr. O.S. Marden

Live Positive Way

I keep six honest serving men.  (They taught me all I know);

Their names are what and why and when
And how and where and who.  – Kipling

Education makes people east to lead, but difficult to drive, east to govern, but impossible to enslave – Henry Peter

Think big, believe big and act big.  To this, add work and struggle.  That is the formula for gaining victory over your difficulties – Norman Vincent Peale

Live Positive Way - Chopsticks

A woman who had worked all her life to bring about good was granted one wish, “Before I die let me visit both hell and heaven.” Her wish was granted.

 

She was whisked off to a great banqueting hall. The tables were piled high with delicious food and drink. Around the tables sat miserable, starving people as wretched as could be.

 

“Why are they like this?” she asked the angel who accompanied her.

 

“Look at their arms,” the angel replied.

 

She looked and saw that attached to the people’s arms were long chopsticks secured above the elbow. Unable to bend their elbows, the people aimed the chopsticks at the food, missed every time and sat hungry, frustrated and miserable.

 

“Indeed this is hell! Take me away from here!”

 

She was then whisked off to heaven. Again she found herself in a great banqueting hall with tables piled high. Around the tables sat people laughing, contented, joyful.

“No chopsticks I suppose,” she said.

 

“Oh yes there are. Look, just as in hell they are long and attached above the elbow but look, here people have learnt to feed one another”.

 

Author Unknown

Live Positive Way

The Thrill in Teaching

When children learn to use the dictionary, can explain what fractions and decimals are, enjoy “(surprising you) with an interpretation of a scientific discovery or historical event, any bit of accomplishment particularly from children whom you least expect to show it, is the thrill above all others in teaching. – William Abraham – A handbook for teacher

 

 

The teacher, like the artist and the philosopher, can perform his work, adequately only if he feels himself to be an individual directed by an inner creative impulse, not dominated and fettered by an outside authority – Bertrand Russel

 

Live Positive Way

Give me a lever long enough, and strong enough, I can move the world single handed – Archimedes

Knowledge and timber shouldn’t be used much until they are seasoned – Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Nations have passed away and left no traces; and history gives the naked cause of it.  One single, simple reason in all cases they fell because their peoples, were not fit – Kipling

Let every man be occupied, and occupied with highest employment of which capable and die with the consciousness that he has done his best – Samuel Smiles

A dictionary is the only place where success comes before work - Berman

Live Positive Way

Live Positve Way

A Philosophy of Education

Philosophy must at each successive stage of growth help men to set up appropriate aims and ideals of life.  A suitable philosophy of education must help practical school people find the educative procedures necessary to attain these aims and prepare for still higher.  Education must bring up successive generations devoted to making life really good for all – W.H. Kilpatrick