Tag Archives: living

A saint in heaven by Paulo Coelho

13 Wednesday Apr 2016

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‘Why is it that some people can resolve the most complicated problems really easily, whilst others agonize over every tiny crisis and end up drowning in a glass of water?’ I asked.

Ramesh replied by telling the following story:

‘Once upon a time, there was a man who had been the soul of kindness all his life.
When he died, everyone assumed that he would go straight to Heaven, for the only possible place for a good man like him was Paradise.

The man wasn’t particularly bothered about going to Heaven, but that was where he went.
Now in those days, service in heaven was not all that it might be.

The reception desk was extremely inefficient, and the girl who received him gave only a cursory glance through the index cards before her and when she couldn’t find the man’s name, she sent him straight to Hell.

And in Hell no one asks to check your badge or your invitation, for anyone who turns up is invited in. The man entered and stayed.

Some days later, Lucifer stormed up to the gates of Heaven to demand an explanation from St Peter.

“What you’re doing is pure terrorism!” he said. “You sent that man down into Hell, and he’s completely undermining me! Right from the start, there he was listening to people, looking them in the eye, talking to them.
“And now everyone’s sharing their feelings and hugging and kissing. That’s not the sort of thing I want in Hell! Please, let him into Heaven!’

When Ramesh had finished telling the story, he looked at me fondly and said:

‘Live your life with so much love in your heart that if, by mistake, you were sent to Hell, the Devil himself would deliver you up to Paradise.’

Story written by Paulo Coelho: http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2016/04/11/a-saint-in-the-wrong-place/

Image credit: aforgrave.ca

The Guest House – a poem by Rumi

09 Wednesday Mar 2016

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The guest house

Happy “hump day” to every one. I hope everyone has had a good week so far.

For people who know me or have been following my personal posts on this blog, you would know that in addition to being a book addict, I am also a bit of a music junkie.

On Sunday night, I came across a Facebook video which was posted by a pilot friend of mine, who has a habit of posting videos of himself driving to work. So I played this particular video and there was this song playing in the background which I instantly liked. I started to type a comment to find out what the title of the song was, when I remembered that I could “Shazam it”.

I instantly opened the app, and found out that the song was, “A Head Full Of Dreams” from Coldplay’s new album. Within five minutes, I had downloaded the entire album on Spotify and I haven’t stopped playing the album since then. Now, I listen to it every chance I get.

One of my favorite songs from the album is a short song titled, “Kaleidoscope” which begins with the voice of a man reciting some words, and is then followed by the voice of another man singing “Amazing Grace”. Naturally, I became curious and wanted to find out what the man was saying, so I consulted Google. To my utmost surprise, the man singing was none other, than President Barack Obama.

I also found out that the words were an excerpt from a beautiful poem by Rumi (above). I hope you find it as insightful as I did.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Love,

Chika

Image credit: http://genius.com/Coldplay-colour-spectrum-lyrics

2015: closing cycles

31 Thursday Dec 2015

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2015 ending

Hello everyone,

With today being the last day of 2015, I thought to share with you a profound and pertinent message, written by one of my favorite authors, Paul Coelho. I found it both insightful and I hope you do too.

Read below and have a pleasant New Year in advance:

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.
Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?
You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.

You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.
But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister.
Everyone is finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.

Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.

Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.
Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.

Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”

Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back.
Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need.
This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.

Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.

Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

Culled from Paul Coelho’s Blog: http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/12/27/closing-cycles/

Image credit: www.interstaff.com