You are here means you are the seeker of knowledge and skills. You will find your way at any cost. I know, You know that Questioning and Reasoning are the base characteristic of Genius. I am here to give you the best life questions you need to ask yourself to improve your life on wisdom, motivation, goals, habits and Growth.
Wisdom:
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.~ Aristotle ~
The man who views the world at fifty the same way he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.~ Muhammad Ali ~
True and lasting happiness begins with the sudden all-encompassing realization by each member of the human family, that we are truly all limbs of one body, that we cannot find our true selves until we recognize that everyone is us and we are everyone. In truth there is no separation.~Maya Sarada Devi ~
Before the enlightenment, carry the water, till the soil. After enlightenment, carry the water, till the soil.~ Zen Teachings ~
Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.~ Buddha ~
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever or whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.~ Thomas H. Huxley ~
Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views.~ George Sand ~
Disappointment, always a shock to the feelings, it not only the mother of bitterness but the strongest possible incentive to a differentiation of feeling. The failure of a pet plan, the disappointing behavior of someone one loves, can supply the impulse either for a more or less brutal outburst of affect or for a modification and adjustment of feeling, and hence for higher development. This culminates in wisdom if feeling is supplemented by reflection and rational insight. Wisdom is never violent: where wisdom reigns there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.~ Carl Jung ~
Questions to Ask Yourself:
1) What is the Zen Master saying about the relation of the ordinary life and
the awakened life? What is non-dual awareness?
2) How do we have the perspective to be able to give up our pre-conceived
notions when we naively take them as part of our identity?
Goals:
Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.~ Chinese Proverb ~
Too many business men never stop to ponder what they are doing. They reject the need for self-discipline. They are satisfied to be clever, when they need to be wise.~ Louis Finkelstein ~
Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging of an uncompleted task.~ William James ~
Never look down to test the ground before taking the next step; only he
who keeps his eyes fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.
~ Dag Hammarskjold ~
The shortest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what
we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen
themselves by the practice and experience of them.
If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.
~ Spinoza ~
Questions to Ask Yourself:
1) If there is a fatigue when an uncompleted project is on the back burner,
why is it so difficult for us to stop procrastinating?
2)Are we afraid to study the past because change is more difficult than
repeating a habit?
Growth:
The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of
consciousness into our awareness.
~ Pir Vilayat Khan ~
The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that
minute he begins to be old.
~ William James ~
Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards.
~ Soren Kierkegaard ~
Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with
what happens to him.
~ Aldous Huxley ~
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers
his enemies; for the hardest victory is the victory over self.
~ Aristotle ~
It is the task of the conscious mind to understand these hints. If this
does not happen, the process of individuation will nevertheless
continue. The only difference is that we become its victims and are
dragged along by fate towards that inescapable goal which we might
have reached walking upright, if only we had taken the trouble and
been patient enough to understand the meaning of what crosses our
path.
~ Carl Jung ~
Questions to Ask Yourself:
1) What is the connection between self-growth and self-overcoming?
How
are we related to the self that we are over-coming?
2) How can we use the thorns and disappointments of life for growth
without becoming bitter or disillusioned?
Habit
Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot
break it.
~Horace Mann ~
Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of
your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.
~ Marcus Aurelius ~
Take care of your thoughts,
Then, actions will take care of themselves.
You sow an action and reap a tendency.
You sow a tendency and reap a habit.
You sow your habit and reap your character.
You sow your character and reap your destiny.
Therefore, destiny is in your hands.
~ Sathya Sai Baba ~
One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity,
average ones to habit and petty ones to fear.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
Buddha’s doctrine: man suffers because of his craving to possess and
keep forever things which are essentially impermanent. Chief among
these things is his own person, for this is his means of isolating himself
from the rest of life, his castle into which he can retreat and from which
he can assert himself against external forces. He believes that his
fortified and isolated position is the best means of obtaining happiness;
it enables him to fight against change, to strive to keep pleasing things
for himself, to shut out suffering and shape circumstances as he wills.
In short, it is his means of resisting life. The Buddha taught that all
things, including his castle, are essentially impermanent and as soon as
man tries to possess them they slip away; this frustration of the desire
to possess is the immediate cause of suffering.
~ Alan Watts ~
Questions to Asks Yourself:
1) Watts makes an interesting point that our habits actually are a means of
keeping life out. What are we trying to keep out?
2) Is habit hard to break primarily because of the history of repetition or is it
tied up with a hope that the repetition appears to solve?
Motivation:
I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world
are the people who get up and look for circumstances they want.
~ George Bernard Shaw ~
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so
long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been
opened for us.
~ Helen Keller ~
Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.
~ Napoleon Hill ~
Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with
what happens to him.
~ Aldous Huxley ~
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire
to appear.
~ Socrates ~
Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.
~ Henry Ford ~
Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it
is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and
province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.
~ Marcus Aurelius ~
Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly
you are doing the impossible.
~ Francis of Assisi ~
Questions to Ask Yourself:
1) How is the dark side of our experience the ground for self-transformation?
2) Can losing our ground be fruitful since it is questioning an older
orientation that might be unexamined?
Patience:
If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to
patient attention than to any other talent.
~ Sir Isaac Newton ~
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will
acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
~ Johann Friedrich Von Schiller ~
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
~ Aristotle ~
With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.
~ Chinese Proverb ~
Questions to Ask Yourself:
1) What concept of time do we have that makes patience so difficult?
2) How can we see waiting on line, being caught in traffic, the long never ending winter etc. in a different light so that it is a step or stage rather than a
disappointment?
