“I have noticed that people are dealing too much with the negative, with what is wrong…Why not try the other way, to look into the patient and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
For thousands of years what man has done to woman is simply monstrous. She cannot think of herself as equal to man. And she has been conditioned so deeply that if you say she is equal, she is not going to believe it. It has become almost her mind, the conditioning has become her mind, that she is less in everything…physical strength, intellectual qualities.
Man has crippled woman. It is politics. Woman constitutes half of humanity, and man has no right to completely cripple her, but for centuries he has been crippling her.
He has not allowed her education, he has not allowed her even to listen to the holy scripture. In many religions he has not allowed her to enter the temple; or, if he has allowed her, she has a separate section. She cannot stand with the man as equal even before God.
And the man who has reduced the woman to such a state also cannot love her. Love can only exist in equality, in friendship.
– Osho
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It is a beautiful thing when wisdom and art come together in the sky :)
Byron Katie reached the depths of despair and overcame it all with a revelation that she calls “The Work.” Byron’s work has changed the thoughts and lives of many with her four simple questions.
I encourage you to give it a try and visit the link below for further study! She has been so kind as to include all materials needed to practice The Work for free online :)
Write down any situation, and then ask yourself these four questions:
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?
Next, Turn the thought around. (e.g. If your statement was about someone else, substitue “I” for them in the sentence.) Then find at least three specific, genuine examples of how each turnaround is true for you in this situation.
Click here for an example of The Work in action
Love and appreciation to Byron Katie for sharing her work!
Change your thoughts and change your life!
Fame or integrity: which is more important?
Money or happiness: which is more valuable?
Success or failure: which is more destructive?
If you look to others for fulfillment,
You will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money,
You will never be happy with yourself.
In my travels, I came upon a village that had a new temple built over a big well, but no one could draw water from it without paying a price.
I asked about this, and this story was told:
One hundred years ago, there was a group of boys that would go to the well to swim, that is, all but one would dive from the top, for one was crippled and could only watch. With all his heart, he would wish he was like his friends, that his one arm and leg had not been limp since he was born.
One day, when it was especially hot, and he was watching his friends cut up and laugh at the bottom of the well, they all turned to him and stared in awe as if seeing something miraculous.