Email: mpluss@optusnet.com.a
by Robin S Sharma
This is a book about a high flying US Trial Lawyer who collapsed in a court room. He went to India and came back a different man. This is the story of how he then shared what he learnt with a friend. It is all based around this story.
You are sitting in the middle of a magnificent, lush green garden. This garden is filled with the most spectacular you have ever seen. The environment is supremely tranquil and silent. Savour the sensual delights of this garden and feel as if you have all the time in the world to enjoy this natural oasis. As you look around you will see that in the centre of this magnificence stands a towering, red lighthouse, six stories high. Suddenly, the silence is broken as a loud creaking door at the base of the lighthouse opens. Out stumbles a 9 foot tall, nine-hundred-pound Japanese sumo wrestler who casually wanders into he centre of the garden. he Japanese sumo wrestler is almost totally naked. He has a pink wire cable covering his private parts.
As the sumo wrestler starts to move around the garden, he finds a shiny stopwatch which someone had left behind many years earlier. He slips it on, and falls to the ground with an enormous thus. The sumo wrestler is rendered unconscious and lies there, still and silent. Just when you think he has taken his last breath, the wrestler awakens, perhaps stirred by the fragrance of some fresh yellow roses blooming nearby. Energised the wrestler jumps swiftly to his feet and intuitively looks to is left. He is startled by what he sees. Through the bushes at the very end of the garden he observes a long winding path covered by millions of sparkling diamonds. Something seems to instruct the wrestler to take the path, and to his credit he does. This leads him down to road of everlasting joy and eternal bliss.
And now read it with the focus on the highlighted terms as they provide the basis of the message
You are sitting in the middle of a magnificent, lush green garden. This garden is filled with the most spectacular you have ever seen. The environment is supremely tranquil and silent. Savour the sensual delights of this garden and feel as if you have all the time in the world to enjoy this natural oasis. As you look around you will see that in the centre of this magnificence stands a towering, red lighthouse, six stories high. Suddenly, the silence is broken as a loud creaking door at the base of the lighthouse opens. Out stumbles a 9 foot tall, nine-hundred-pound Japanese sumo wrestler who casually wanders into he centre of the garden.he Japanese sumo wrestler is almost totally naked. He has a pink wire cable covering his private parts.
As the sumo wrestler starts to move around the garden, he finds a shiny gold stopwatch which someone had left behind many years earlier. He slips it on, and falls to the ground with an enormous thus. The sumo wrestler is rendered unconscious and lies there, still and silent. Just when you think he has taken his last breath, the wrestler awakens, perhaps stirred by the fragrance of some fresh yellow roses blooming nearby. Energised the wrestler jumps swiftly to his feet and intuitively looks to is left. He is startled by what he sees. Through the bushes at the very end of the garden he observes a long winding path covered by millions of sparkling diamonds. Something seems to instruct the wrestler to take the path, and to his credit he does. This leads him down to road of everlasting joy and eternal bliss.
In the story the garden is the symbol for the mind.
Master your Mind
" No matter what happens to you in your life, you alone have the capacity to choose your response to it. "
"Stop judging events as either positive or negative. Rather simply experience them, celebrate them and learn from them."
"Enlightened thinkers know that their thoughts form their world and the quality of one's life comes down to the richness of one's thoughts. If you want to live a more peaceful, meaningful life, you must think more peaceful, more meaningful thoughts."
"So simply figure what turns you on and then do it?... you passion must someway improve and serve the lives of others."
"Everything is always created twice first in your mind then in reality".
Mastering my mind, wow, that is a hard task. Sometimes I am a good thinker and other times it is all wasted. Like everything, the more you do thinking stuff the better you get at it. The whole thing about being in control of your own destiny and focussing on positive thoughts I try and subscribe to all the time.
Kindling your inner fire
"We all have been granted a unique set of gifts and talents that will readily allow us to realise this life work. The key is to discover them, and in doing so, discover the main objective of your life"
"You will never be able to hit a target that you cannot see"
"Enthusiasms is one of the key ingredients for a lifetime of successful living"
I really believe in this one.I am goal driven but I have lots of goals and I am more interested in the process. It is just that there are a lot of things that kindle the inner fire. It is just hard to pinpoint one in particular.
I have really noticed that running is important to me in this period where I have not been able to run. It is also connected to my age. At university I was a lot more radical in my thoughts and actions and now I am a lot more conservative in my thinking though I sometimes still break out in action. I think this comes with mortgages and school fees.
When I think about it more carefully I realise that it is about connecting with people that I like doing the most. So my interest in ICT came about as a means of communicating with people. This is why I blog otherwise I would just leave all of this writing on my computer.
Practice Kaizen - the practice of constant and never ending improvement.
"Try not to live your life bound by the shackles of your schedule. INstead focus on the things that your conscience and heart tell you to do. "
"Read as many books as you can...every answer to every problem you have ever faced is in print."
"We have many sleeping talents inside of us."
"Happiness comes through good judgment, , good judgment comes through experience and experience comes through bad judgment."
"Laugh"
"What would I do today if it was my last?"
Written affirmations: "I am inspired, disciplined and energised... I am strong, able and calm."
"when I change my in er world I change my outerworld."
"Take daily incremental action to build your character...anything that builds your virtues."
"Nothing to extremes, everything to moderation."
"So self mastery and Kaizen will help me help others by me helping myself."
I believe I have been doing this all my life but did not realise it. When I was a teenager I read the The Power of Positive Thinking and How to Win Friends and Influence People because I was going through a rough patch at school in Years 9 and 10.
I am still working on what my talents are. I can do a lot of things well but what do I do really well? What gets me about the 10 Rituals is that I have been involved in a few of them a lot and others not at all. This teaches me that I have to attain greater balance which in turn will help in periods, for example, when I do not run.
I have done some work on solitude, spoken word, music and simplicity. I have covered well physicality, personal reflections and abundant knowledge. Even though I think I have dome something there is a lot to do on life's nourishment, music and congruent character and early awakening must be in another life!
Live with Discipline
" Wage war against weaker thoughts that have crept into the palace of your mind. They will see they are unwanted and leave like unwelcome visitors."
"Truly enlightened people never seek to be like others. Rather, they seek to be superior to their former selves."
"It is still the dead of winter. The alarm goes off and you start to think of staying in bed. But instead of being a slave to your habits, you challenge them with more powerful thoughts. You start to picture in your mind's eye how you will look, feel and act when you are in peak physical shape...."
"I am more than I appear to be, all the world's strength and power rest inside me."
"Momentum is also the ingredient to self discipline."
I have had good discipline in racing running and triathlons but would like more in training. I was really disciplined in Year 11 and 12, my university days, working in university holidays. Completing my Masters invoked a fair degree of discipline.
In the day to day things I have less discipline and that is usually with home and work. I guess this is because they happen all the time and you just do it. I can do a lot more on this front. Somehow I think discipline refers to more than me.
Respect your time
"Failing to plan is planning to fail."
"80% of the results you achieve in life come from 20%of the activities that occupy your time."
"Some people learn from the errors others have made. They are the wise. Others feel that true learning comes from personal experience. Such people endure needless pain and distress over the course of their life."
"enlightened people are priority driven.'
"Stop acting like you have 500 years to live..the best time to plant a tree was 40 years ago. The second best time is today. Don't even waste one minute of your day. Develop a deathbed mentality."
"Act if failure is impossible, and you success will be assured."
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."
I have always been the person who does not tolerate very well comments from people who say they are too busy to do things. I try and do as much as possible and I am able to do this because I am well organised and plan things. It really is a question of doing that which needs to be done. This is why I embrace technolgy because it does save time - look at how much time bloglines saves.
Selflessly serve others
"The most noble thing you can do is to give to others. Start focussing on the higher purpose."
"The quality of your life comes down to the quality of your contribution."
"A little bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses."
"When you take care to practice random acts of kindness daily, your life becomes richer and more meaningful."
"..start seeing yourself as part of the collective."
"..shedding the shackles of self..."
"when we are born we are crying while the world rejoices...we should live our lives in such a way that when we die, the world cries while we are rejoicing."
"The person with three solid friends is very wealthy indeed."
I want to do more of this but keep making excuses.
Embrace the present
"We are here for some special reason. Stop being a prisoner of your past. Become the architect of your future. "
"Hours seemed to pass like minutes and I felt centred."
"...life doesn't always give you what you ask for, but it always gives you what you need."
" We are all here for some special reason... Meditate on what your true calling is, and how you can give yourself to others."
The best thing I every did was to take leave for all of 1993 and 1996 to look after Nick and Ali in the first years of their life. And even now (due to laziness, too many VBs, a CR Challenge or Striders Run I want to do) when I don't want to get in the morning I remind myself of my time with the kids. Before long they will be a lot older and I will missout.
This is something I have being embracing for 20 odd years. living in the here and now is hard to do ( I also sometimes see it as selfish) because I often think back to what I said to someone or the way I said it or the words I have written. I am always planning for the future whether it be personally for running, for the family and work and this planning is not in the here and now.
Meditation and Zen from The Way of the Peacful Warrior in the Eighties always brought me back to the present when I needed to and now The Monk who sold his Ferrari seems to be the "noughties" version.
When I do manage to be in the here and now, the time just passes, I am contented, highly focussed and sensitive to the world around me.