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« Previous EntriesPortrait of the Artist
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008In the end, we arrive at a kind of model of the artist’s world, and that model is that there exist other, higher planes of reality, about which we can prove nothing, but from which arise our lives, our work, and our art. These spheres are trying to communicate with ours. When Blake said Eternity is in love with creations of time, he was referring to those planes of pure potential, which are timeless, placeless, spaceless, but which long to bring their visions into being here, in this timebound, space-defined world.
The artist is the servant of that intention, those angels, that Muse. The enemy of the artist is the small-time Ego, which begets Resistance, which is the dragon that guards the gold. That’s why an artist must be a warrior and, like all warriors, artists over time acquire modesty and humility. They may, some of them, conduct themselves flamboyantly in public. But alone with their work they are chaste and humble. They know they are not the source of the creations they bring into being. They only facilitate. They carry. They are the willing and skilled instruments of the gods and goddesses they serve.
– Taken from “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield
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The Artist’s Life
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008Are you a born writer ? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace ? In the end the question can only be answered in action.
Do or don’t do it.
It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along the path back to God.
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.
– Taken from “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield
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High speed learning from Grand Prix driving
Thursday, April 10th, 2008You are driving too slowly. I want you to go faster.
I want you to go fast because speed will burn that fear out of you. Your fear keeps you stuck. You get up to your fear and then back off on the throttle. Your fear is still driving the car. That is why, when you get up to the fear, I want you to go full throttle.
You have to trust that there is a Grand Prix driver inside you. If you don’t go fast, you’ll never meet the driver inside you. I want you to push yourself, push that throttle, so the driver in you comes forward and takes over the car. If I let you go slowly, the coward in you is still driving the car. There is only one way the professional driver can come out and that is by pushing hard on the accelerator. When you go to full throttle, you have to trust that the professional racecar driver in you will take over.
– Except taken from “Before you quit your job” by Robert Kiyosaki
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Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
Thursday, March 6th, 2008“If you are not doing as well as you’d like, all that means is there’s something you don’t know.”
“The goal of creating wealth is not primarily to have a lot of money. The goal of creating wealth is to help you grow yourself into the best person you can possibly be.”
“Every master was once a disaster.”
“To get paid the best, you must be the best.”
– T. Harv Eker, “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind“
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Care, but not t-h-a-t much
Sunday, September 9th, 2007“Whenever a social interaction looms so large in your mind that you view it as watershed event in Western Civilization, you are in trouble. You’re caring too much and with that you lose the requisite detachment necessary for success.
There’s a prosaic saying that whenever a person is overcome with feelings, be it anger or desire, he or she “can’t see the forest for the trees”. Oddly, or maybe fittingly, when that happens you move in close that you might even swear, “There is no tree, only a knothole right here.”
In other words, what you must do is to train yourself to step back, so that you can see the pattern, relationships and interconnection of things.”
Excerpt taken from Negotiate This!: By Caring, but Not T-H-A-T Much
This not only applies in negotiation, but also in the endeavours we undertake. Do you sometimes suffer from mental blocks in your work, or the things you do ? I do. Besides the occasional perfectionism bout, I think one other reason is that I care too much for the outcome of my efforts. This excerpt is a stark reminder to me to care, but not that much.
Caring too much about the outcome will only impede progress because we are too afraid to try. We are forever aiming and aiming but never firing.
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Did Mother Teresa doubt her faith and God ?
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007
Letters reveal Mother Teresa’s doubt about her faith and God
By Daniel Trotta, Reuters | August 25, 2007
NEW YORK - A book of letters written by Mother Teresa of Calcutta reveals for the first time that she was deeply tormented about her faith and suffered periods of doubt about God.
“Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear,” she wrote the Rev. Michael van der Peet in September 1979.
Due out on September 4, “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light” is a collection of letters written to colleagues and superiors over 66 years. In the United States it will be published by Doubleday, an imprint of Random House, which is owned by German media group Bertelsmann.
The ethnic Albanian Roman Catholic nun, who dedicated her life to poor, sick and dying in India, died in 1997 aged 87.
Mother Teresa had wanted all her letters destroyed, but the Vatican ordered they be preserved as potential relics of a saint, a spokeswoman for Doubleday said.
Mother Teresa has been beatified but not yet canonized.
Time magazine, which has first serial rights, published excerpts on its Web site.
“I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God — tender, personal love,” she wrote to one adviser. “If you were (there), you would have said, ‘What hypocrisy.’”
The book was compiled and edited by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, a proponent of her sainthood and senior member of the Missionaries of Charity order that she founded.
The letters likely would do little to affect her cause for sainthood as church history is dotted with saints who have been tormented about their faith.
Saint Thomas the Apostle — the “Doubting Thomas” — doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead until, according to scripture, he touches the wound of a resurrected Jesus. Christ himself wondered “God, why have you forsaken me” while on the cross, the Bible says.
But the Mother Teresa letters nonetheless stand in marked contrast to her public image as a selfless and tireless minister for the poor who was driven by faith.
“I’ve never read a saint’s life where the saint has such an intense spiritual darkness. No one knew she was that tormented,” the Rev. James Martin, an editor at Jesuit magazine America and the author of “My Life with the Saints,” told Time.
THE DARK LETTERS
The writings address numerous topics, but the ones most likely to create a stir are what Doubleday called the “dark letters.”
“Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself — for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead,” she wrote in 1953. “It has been like this more or less from the time I started ‘the work.’”
Then in 1956: “Such deep longing for God — and … repulsed — empty — no faith — no love — no zeal. (Saving) souls holds no attraction — Heaven means nothing — pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything.”
And then in 1959: “If there be no God — there can be no soul — if there is no Soul then Jesus — You also are not true.”
At times she also found it hard to pray.
“I utter words of community prayers — and try my utmost to get out of every word the sweetness it has to give — but my prayer of union is not there any longer — I no longer pray.”
After reading the news reports, what do you think ?
Most of us will never be able to appreciate what Mother Teresa went through during “the work” because we have not been in situations as trying as hers for an extended period of time. To live amidst deeply suffering people and offer perhaps the only hope in their world, is to live a life of tremendous burden and stress.
People who do not come close to living in similar conditions will find it hard to empathasize with what Mother Teresa went through. We think we know through words and print which we hear and read, but unless and until we are in the same shoes, we’ll never truly know.
When you read a book or listen to a news report, do you find yourself thinking then that you know what is written or said ? Then at some point in the future, when you experience a similar situation, your memory calls forth whatever that you have read or heard, and you realise that only now do you truly understand what it was all about.
I’m an ardent student of personal development and business. In a strange twist of events, I find myself attracted to the path of entrepreneurship. I guess it’s a natural progression and choice because I am an adventurous person, and passionate about growing and developing myself spiritually, emotionally, mentally and fully as a human being. Entrepreneurship is the ultimate challenge. You are bound to no master but yourself. Slave to no one but your own demons.
Some times you think that you know, but do you really know ? Until I embarked on the journey, I could never come this close to appreciating what it’s like. The journey is exciting and challenging, yet at the same time it’s lonely, uncertain and grey. The path ahead is lighted only by the fire in my heart. The heart and mind wavers between belief and faith in one moment, and self-doubt and anxiety in another. Sometimes the fire burns bright with passion and strength, other times it dims and weakens and is at the brink of extinguishing.
Does it mean that I need to have absolute faith and no tinge of weakness whatsoever to be worthy of this journey ? Definitely not. It’s only human to experience these emotions. And these emotions are brought out by the experience that I’m going through. In earlier “secure” times, I had always perceived myself to be strong. I never knew I can be so weak - till I choose to put myself through the test.
“I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God — tender, personal love,” she wrote to one adviser. “If you were (there), you would have said, ‘What hypocrisy.’”
Mother Teresa was not a hyprocrite. She was honest and humble to admit the doubt in her heart.
Saint Thomas the Apostle — the “Doubting Thomas” — doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead until, according to scripture, he touches the wound of a resurrected Jesus. Christ himself wondered “God, why have you forsaken me” while on the cross, the Bible says.
But the Mother Teresa letters nonetheless stand in marked contrast to her public image as a selfless and tireless minister for the poor who was driven by faith.
Existence of doubt in one who is spiritually advanced and saintly like Mother Teresa can only suggest how tormented she was in what she was doing. Most people are of spiritual levels very distant from that of Mother Teresa, and so will not be able to appreciate how she saw, felt and thought.
Without doubt, what is faith worth ?
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Exponential Growth of Money and Success
Friday, August 3rd, 2007This is quite an interesting article - Exponential Growth of Money and Success
Focus, Consistency and Patience - formula for persisting with your chosen path, and not to give up and change paths quickly whenever you hit a bump. Be focused on the big picture and your goal. Consistently do the things which you have to do to get to your destination. Have patience to go through the process. People usually give up too soon before they allow their efforts to transform into results.
Then again, be wary of the danger of target fixation. We have to be flexible and adjust our tactics as we navigate the terrain. If it is obviously a dead-end, then it is wiser to drop that approach and look for a way around the obstacle. Know when to quit and what to quit. The important thing is to maintain the momentum and keep moving forward in the direction towards your destination.
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