The monk who sold his Ferrari - Some Gems

Some absolutely stunningly soothing and healing commentary copied verbatim from the book

1. Everything happens for a reason. Every event has a purpose and every setback its lessons.
2. Failure, whether personal, professional or spiritual is essential to personal expansion. It brings inner growth and whole host of psychic rewards.
3. Never regret your past, rather embrace it as the teacher that it is.
4. Your mind is like a garden. If you nurture your mind like a fertile rich garden, it will blossom far beyond your expectations. But if you let weeds take root, lasting peace of mind and deep inner harmony will always elude you.
5. Though most people guard their gardens like soldiers, yet look at the toxic waste that most people put into the fertile garden of their minds;the worries and anxieties, the fretting about past, the brooding over the future and the self created fears that wreck havoc within your inner world.
6. Worry drains the mind of much of its power and sooner or later, it injures the soul.
7. To live life to the fullest, you must stand guard at the gate of your garden and let only the best information enter. You truly can not afford the luxury of a negative thought-not even one.
8. People think the same thoughts everyday, most of them negative. As a result, they have fallen into bad mental habits. Rather than focusing on all the good in their lives and thinking of ways to make things even better, they are captive of their pasts. Some of them worry abt failed relationships or financial problems. Others fret over their less than perfect childhoods. Still others brood over trifling matters including even how a store clerk might have treated them. As a result, they are blocking the enormous potential of their minds to work magic and deliver into their lives all that they want, emotionally, physically and yes even spiritually.

My favorites

9. No matter what happens to you in your life, you alone have the capacity to choose your response to it. When you form the habit of searching for the positive in every circumstance, your life will move into its highest dimensions. This is one of the greatest of all the natural laws.

10. Your outer world reflects the state of your inner world. By controlling the thoughts that you think and the way you respond to the events of your life, you begin to control your destiny.

The year that was ... 2007

Ok. Its that time of the year when you look back at the past year and look ahead at the new year as well. Time to reflect upon the happenings of the year going by and time to make resolutions for the new year (that in a separate blog tommorow).

To summarise last year, it was an awsome year, a year with lots of memories to cherish and lot of new experiences which have enriched my life tremendously. To begin with, I was in USA for first couple of months till mid feb. I have to say my US trip last year was an amazing experience. It gave me lot of time to introspect, look deep down within and make attempts to solve some long standing issues in life. More than anything, it gave me opportunity to have fresh perspectives and a chance to be more open to experiments and finally make some concrete decisions to change things. And I was able to do that and took some steps which would lead me into some decision !!

The biggest decision was to choose a life partner. I started my search with a lot of preconcieved notions. But as time went by I learnt to throw away those preconcieved notions and get real.

In July I finally found my life partner. All the wait seemed to be paying rich dividends for me. Divya came into my life and we had a "Chat pat Byah". Everything happened very quickly. Within a month we were married on 11th of July 2007. Miracles do happen and dreams do come true.

Everyone including me (more importantly!!) was very happy. As per my resolution, I was able to move on and start a new life with Divya. It was and is great to have her together. We gell with each other very well and are very happy (touch wood) ! Although, it has been just 5 months, it seems we know each other for a long time. i would give that entire credit to Divya since she gets along so very well with everyone in family and is such a fun person to be with. She is down to earth, friendly, humorous, lively, enthusiastic and most importantly knows how to take everyone together. These were precisely the things which I wanted in my life partner Though these are still early days(honeymoon period as the cynics call it), we both are sure that we will do well in difficult times too as "anti incumbancy" sets in.

I also got promoted this year at work and so the "feel good factor" continued in work as well. I am thankful to so many people in my team who helped me in getting the promotion.

More importantly, I felt good from within after a long long time and there is no better feeling than this. I learnt lessons from my past (there were plenty!) and I felt confident as I moved ahead in life.

I started blogging at the end of year 2006. As I moved into 2007, I wanted to write more and for that I needed to read more. And read I did ! I read an outstanding book called "Mrityunjay" by authot Shivaji Samant. This has to be the best book I have ever read in my life till now. And I already know the only book better than this would be "Yugandhar" by the same authot. I intend to read it in 2008. I read many other books like Call of honor, Everything happens for a reason, Inspite of Gods, and couple of other fiction novels.

Divya and I also attended two fantastic music concerts. We attended one in Pune by
sudesh Bhosale. The other one was in Dec 2007 in Chicago. We have followed Sa Re Ga Ma Pa show on Zee TV and it was an awsome experience to attend this show. We both loved it like nothing !

We are now in USA and trying to adjust in the windy city of Chicago. I am back to this place as I was here last winter as well.

All in all, this year has been great and it made me love and live life once again. 2007, the year that was will always remain in my memory for a long long time.

Wish you all a great 2008. Wish the best for everyone and hope all you want comes true !!

Life and cricket ....

Ball 1 - Bowler bowls down the leg side, and the batsmen flicks it for 4
Ball 2 - Bowler tries to compensate and balls a juicy half volley wide outside offstump and batsman caresses it through covers for a 4
Ball 3 - Bowler tries to cut down on length and ends up pitching it short, and the batsman just goes on backfoot and hits it outside the park
Ball 4 - Bowler tries to compensate again and tries to bowl a perfect yorker, but instead it is a full toss and the batsman just hits it out of the park again.
Ball 5 - Bowler is out of options and just wants to get away with the over quickly so he could go back to third man and think abt his strategy, but instead balls a noball and has to bowl it again.
Ball 6 - Bowler wants to avoid the no ball and so tries to cut his pace and speed, and the ball is a simple one for the batsmen .. and he again hits it outside the park

The bowler is having a terrible over. Isnt it? Life could exactly be like that on many ocasions. Whatever be your good intentions, you just cant get it right !!!

What do you do in such a case? Well, as all great bowlers will tell you, just wait for the over to be finished and wait on the boundary for the next over ......

What do the commentators do in such a case??? They will say, just keep it simple and try to bowl within the stumps, keep it nice and straight .... But does it ever work????? The answer is NO .....

I will ...

1. Attend few music concerts this year
2. Get settled
3. start doing regular exercise
4. reinvent my book reading hobby
5. keep blogging ....
6. contribute something to the society
7. be happy
8. lead a guilt free, bias free life.
9. utilize my time well and travel more and explore things that I haven't till now.
10. keep reading points 1-9 above :-)