A Journey called LIFE

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. "What food might this contain?", the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed this warning:

"There is a mousetrap in the house!
There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him,

"There is a mousetrap in the house!
There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."

The mouse turned to the cow and said,

"There is a mousetrap in the house!
There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap .. Alone.. .. .

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house; the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it. It was a venomous snake whose tail was caught in the trap. The snake bit the farmer's wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital. When she returned home she still had a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup. So the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.

But his wife's sickness continued.

Friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

But, alas, the farmer's wife did not get well. She died.

So many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them for the funeral luncheon.

And the mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and you think it doesn't concern you,

Remember:

When one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.

EACH OF US IS A VITAL THREAD IN ANOTHER PERSON'S TAPESTRY. OUR LIVES ARE WOVEN TOGETHER FOR A REASON.

One of the best things to hold onto in this world is a FRIEND YOU CAN TRUST.

Life's Anthem - Love, Laugh, Live

When you're feeling lonely, lost and let down
Seems like those dark skies are following you around
And life's just one big shade of gray
You wonder if you'll see the light of day

Behind the clouds, the sun is shining
Believe me even though you can't quite make it out
You may not see the silver lining
But there's a big blue sky waiting just behind the clouds

I've heard it said that this too shall pass
Good times or bad times, neither one lasts
But thinking that your luck won't ever change
Is like thinking it won't ever stop once it starts to rain

Behind the clouds, the sun is shining
Believe me even though you can't quite make it out
You may not see the silver lining
But there's a big blue sky waiting just behind the clouds
Yeah, there's a big blue sky waiting just behind the clouds

Cheer up & Look up

Live in the present

If you are feeling disoriented and out-of-sync, maybe you just need to slow down.

The first step towards self-healing of either emotional imbalances or physical ailments is to slow down, so that we get a chance to perceive what is really happening in our lives. We can then better observe and understand our inner state of being, for it is mirrored in our outer situation in life. Once we understand this, we can take responsibility and change whatever that is bothering us.

Illness often results when we are too busy or overwrought to pay attention to signals that point to where our true priorities lie. The causal factors of a common cold are a case in point. The two main reasons for 'catching' a cold, for instance, could be that you are carrying a lot of grief or anger and have suppressed your need to cry or that you have submitted your body to too much stress — to a deluge of toxins such as air pollutants, alcohol, drugs (including unnecessary over-the-counter and prescription drugs) and too much or unhealthy food.

These together with excess stress and lack of rest can exhaust the immune system; it now needs to purge itself.

Go slow now

When you slow down, it becomes possible to be in touch with your feelings again, the very ones you were ignoring in the first place. The neurotically busy pace of your lifestyle can make you lose touch with your genuine feelings. When you can barely keep your head out of water, it is easy to not notice what is really going on. When you are speeding along like a rat on a skateboard, there is no time to reflect and feel.

When you slow down, you also begin to get the first inkling of peace — the silent power with you all the time. In ordinary circumstances, we simply do not notice this — neither our innate peace or our own power, because we are never fully present or living life in the 'now'. If you are always engaged in mind games, worrying or planning, you are bound to suffer. In such a state of mind, you overlook your existing reality — the eternal moment, the now, the inner joy.

Peace, balance, harmony and health only exist in your awareness of the present moment. Therefore, to notice these qualities, your attention must be focused on the present moment, enabling you to directly experience these emotions. However, you can only perceive the present moment if your mind is in slow motion and is able to imbibe everything consciously, rather than in the hypnotised fast track of future projections, which ultimately is a product concocted from memory. On analysis, you will see that all the great plans you have made for the future are without exception, based on what you have known in your past. 'Futurising' always comes from memory.

This is not to say that you should not make plans for the future. By all means, plan and experience your life as it is only then that the body will take action to fulfill your plan. The secret to happiness is to participate fully in life, but to be also aware of all that is happening because of your own actions.

Play of life

Sometimes, you might feel that your body and mind play out their roles automatically like actors in a well rehearsed play. This helps you to explore who you actually are — and invites you to look into your own Consciousness. Quantum physics has demonstrated that the body or mind has no real substance, but is like a dream within your Consciousness with a past, present and future.

Time (past, present and future) and space (as a container of things), however, are real because of the five senses of the body. Everything seems to occur one after the other in a linear fashion. In truth, reality is more like the dream states you experience at night which appear out of nowhere. While you totally identify with the dream, you naturally assume that each character has a past history until that moment in the dream. You even know how they will most likely end up.

The dream seems real but disappears when you wake up — similar to the process of living in the now.

Conversations

A stranger was seated next to a little girl on the airplane when the stranger turned to her and said, 'Let's talk.

I've heard that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.'

The little girl, who had just opened her book, closed it slowly and said to the stranger, 'What would you like to talk about?'

'Oh, I don't know,' said the stranger. 'How about nuclear power?' and he smiles.

OK, ' she said. 'That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff - grass - . Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?'

The stranger, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, ‘Hmmm, I have no idea.'

To which the little girl replies, 'Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don't know shit?