Most Read Author- The Excerpts Continue

I know I was supposed to post it soon after the part 1 but was busy with this and that and so here you go with part2 in the New Year :p

THE PILGRIMAGE
...People who consider themselves to be wise are often indecisive when command is called for and rebellious when they are called upon to obey. They are ashamed to give orders and consider it dishonorable to receive them. Don't ever be that way.

...could it be that, in my discouragement and haste, Ihink about had walked right past my objective without recognizing it.

I was immediately prepared for a fight. "Not again," I thought.

And when I think about it, I guess it is true that people always arrive at the right moment at the right place where someone awaits them.

Is this story never going to end? Nothing but more and more tests, battles and humiliations- and still no clue about my sword.

We are always trying to convert people to a belief in our own explanation of the Universe. We think that the more people there are who believe as we do, the more certain it will be that what we believe is the truth. But it doesn't work that way at all.

Our enemy joins the battle only because he knows that he can hurt u- and hurt us in exactly the spot where our pride tells us that we are most invincible. During our fight, we always try to protect our weak spot, so the enemy strikes at the unguarded site- the side in which we have the most confidence. And we wind up defeated because we allow what should never be allowed: we let the enemy choose how the battle will be waged.

...But I continued to sing as an antidote to my fear.

She had transformed herself into a woman in love, who marched with her man, carrying his sword when necessary and protecting him from all danger. She was a strong woman, although she appeared to be a weak one, she was a person who walked the path of love, regarding it as the only possible road to wisdom. A path where mysteries were revealed through surrender and forgiveness. She was seeing it with such clarity.

But we have also become used to miracles. And we always want to see others.[Faith is a difficult conquest, and it requires daily combat in order to be maintained.]

VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE
When she had achieved almost everything she wanted in life, she had reached the conclusion that her existence had no meaning, because everyday was the same. And she had decided to die.

Veronika pushed open the door to the lounge, went over to the piano, opened the lid, and summoning up all her strength, pounded on the keys. A mad, cacophonous, jangled chord echoed round the empth room, bounced off the walls and returned to her in the guise of a shrill sound that seemed to tear at her soul. Yet it was an accurate portrait of her soul at that moment.

She had finally allowed her negative feelings to surface, feelings that had been repressed for years in her soul. She had actually felt them, and they were no longer necessary, they could leave.

The best way to avoid trouble is to share responsibility; his father had taught him.

But these two illnesses only attack when the patient is debilitated; in the case of Bitterness, the right conditions for the disease occur when the person becomes afraid of so called 'reality'.

The great problem with poisoning by Bitterness was that the passions- hatred, love, despair, enthusiasm, curiosity- also ceased to manifest themselves. After a while, the embittered person felt no desire at all. They lacked the will either to live or to die, that was the problem.

You have passed through the two hardest tests on the spiritual road: the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what you encounter. It is you I will teach.

What was Sufi meditation? What was God? What was Salvation if- that is, the world needed saving? Nothing. If everyone there- and outside Villete too- just lived their lives and let others do the same, God would be in every moment, in every grain of mustard, in the fragment of cloud that is there and then gone the following moment. God was there and yet people believed they still had to go on looking, because it seemed too simple to accept that life was an act of faith.

So, let's turn to your illness: each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective way of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it, the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one. Have you ever met anyone in your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not in the other?
You are someone who is different but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness.
'Is wanting to be different a serious illness?'
It is if you force yourself to be the same as everyone else, it causes neuroses, psychosis and paranoia. It's a distortion of nature, it goes against God's laws, for in all the world's woods and forests, He did not create a single leaf the same as another. But you think it's mad to be different and that's why you chose to live in Villete, because everyone is different here, and so you appear to be the same as everyone else. Do you understand?

At precisely the moment when he was looking for God with such intensity, despite everything and everyone, God had no pity on him.

Dr. Igor pondered the arguments long and hard, and decided that it didn't really matter. She would consider each day a miracle, which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences.

THE ZAHIR
....the intelligent and those trained to say only what they think I would like to hear, ..will all come knocking at my door

THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO
Are they aware of what they have done, those nameless guilty parties? I doubt it because they too- the depressed, the arrogant, the impotent and the powerful- are the victims of the reality they created.

I am not surprised that her life ended as it did: she was always flirting with changes. They say that extroverts are unhappier than introverts, and have to compensate for this by constantly proving to themselves how happy and contented and at ease with life they are. In her case, at least this is absolutely true.

Each of us contains something within us which is unknown, but which, when it surfaces, is capable of producing miracles.

My experience as a manager had taught me to recognize people's states of mind, even if they said nothing. On a management course I attended, we learned that if you wanted to get rid of of someone, you should do everything you can to provoke them into rudeness, so that you would then have a perfectly good reason to dismiss them."

Because the hand that draws each line reflects the soul of the person making that line.

Reprogram yourself every minute of each day with thoughts that make you grow when you are feeling irritated or confused, try to laugh at yourself, laugh out loud at this woman tormented by doubts and anxieties, convinced that her problems are the most important thing in the world. Laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation......

When you are washing up, pray. Be thankful that there are plates to be washed; that means there was food, that you fed someone, that you've lavished care on one or more people, that you cooked and laid the table. Imagine the millions of people at this moment who have absolutely nothing to wash up and no one for whom to lay the table.

That's why I say again, be different even when you're washing up. Move your hands so that they never repeat the same gesture twice, even though they maintain the rhythm.

Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humour. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it.

Groups challenge us. Groups allow us to choose our affinities. Groups create a collective energy, and ecstasy comes more easily because everyone infects everyone else.

...Groups can also destroy us of course, but that's part of life and the human condition- living with other people.

Now since I have flu and had a long day, that was a lot of typing for now, so bu-bye :p

Most Read Author

Undoubtedly Paulo Coelho- the only author whose many books I've read. More than any of Sidney Sheldon or Agatha Christie or Danielle Steel or Jane Austen.
Of course, sometimes your beliefs are even contrary to what is written in his books, some times the stories are setup in a strange background too, but that's what makes them so very interesting, and on the whole they are inspirational and diverse as well.

I have read all the famous ones except for these(which I will read sooner or later :] ) : Like the flowing river, Manuscript found in Accra, Aleph, Manual of the warrior of light.

Here are few of those excerpts that seem to be really a voice of thy soul, and that I can relate to. These may or may not include the very famous of his inspiring quotes, as they are already imprinted in our minds and need not be recorded here.

P.S.- This needs to be quite a long post hence I am dividing it into volume A and B :]


THE DEVIL AND MISS PRYM
Man needs what's worst in him in order to achieve what's best in him.

...rich men never waste a penny, only poor people do that.

At the end of the tenth year, the priest realized his mistake: his search for wisdom had become pride. He was so  convinced of divine justice that he had failed to balance it with the art of diplomacy. He thought he was living in a world where God was everywhere, only to find himself amongst people who often would not even let God enter their lives.

If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid. :P

...Good and Evil struggled in both of them, just as they did in every soul on the face of the earth...It was all a matter of control. And choice. Nothing more and nothing less.

BY THE RIVER PIEDRA I SAT DOWN AND WEPT
I was sitting at a table where I knew only one person, and everyone was speaking to me as if they'd known me for years. I was amazed that I could enter into the conversation, that I could drink and enjoy myself with them. I was there because life had presented me with Life....to take a risk, to do crazy things.

The wise are wise only because they love. And the foolish are foolish only because they think they can understand love.

If we are not reborn- if we cannot learn to look at life with the innocence and the enthusiasm of childhood- it makes no sense to go on living.

Remember that human wisdom is madness in the eyes of God.

But other people also "invite" us to behave like victims, when they complain about the unfairness of life, for example, and ask us to  agree, to offer advise, to participate.

Simply having the courage to say senseless things made me euphoric.

THE VALKYRIES
When we are young, we don't take anything too seriously. But slowly, this set of daily rituals becomes solidified, and takes us over. Once things have begun to go along pretty much as we imagined they would, we don't risk altering the ritual. We like to complain, but we are assured by the fact that each day is more or less like every other. At least there is no unexpected danger.
That way we are able to avoid any inner or outer growth, except for the kinds that are provided for within the ritual: so many children, such and such a kind of promotion, this and that kind of  financial success.

Punish us because we speak of faith, and we feel hopeless. We speak of love, but we receive neither the affection nor the comfort we feel we deserve. We speak of freedom, and we are prisoners to our own guilt.

Since the beginnings of humanity, people have known that, if they wanted to enter into contact with God, they had to make room in their soul. They had to allow their spiritual energy to manifest itself, and to create a bridge between the visible and the invisible.

She had always been fearful of speaking out, of seeming ridiculous, stupid. Fearful of learning what others thought of what she said, because they always seemed more capable, more intelligent. Always seemed to have an answer for everything.

The clouds are rivers that already know the sea.

His was the gaze of boredom. He wasn't seeing anything- not the desert, not the road, and not  even the two customers who had come in so early in the morning. He limited himself to the motions required....The meaning of his life appeared to have been left behind, or to have disappeared in the immensity of the treeless desert.

That's it for now. See ya in volume B. :D.

Oh and these are my top favorites:

 

Left Is Right

"Oh you are lefty!!" So many times I hear this exclamation from people with awestruck expressions, and then leave them silent or even more awestruck with some remark or a whole description :p

So yeah, the funny thing is that they seem awed, and even funnier is when very urban, educated and self proclaimed modern people seem so. They might be envious I guess :p. I mean seriously, if you have such exposure of the world, it's obvious you'll come across like one or two people in ten who are left handed. Then why exclaim and make yourself look like a paindu :D

Now coming to what are they actually thinking. The other day a patient came and said: "Dr. sahiba, aap ultay hath se likhtey hain, mera beta ultay hath se likhta hai aur main usko dant-ti hun, ab aap ko dekh k mai usay mana nahi karun gi". I was like wow. I started scolding her, telling her of its importance, the famous people over the world who have been lefties, and that it's totally normal for her son to use his left hand, unless he doesn't use it for eating.

One time a colleague was impressed with my handwriting despite my lefthandedness. She was actually concerned about her four year old lefty daughter who happens to sort of rotate her hand while writing; she was relieved to know that a better option is actually turning the paper/copy instead of your hand :/ :p

Many people think of it as a taboo or something, that is nothing more than just believing in old school myths.

If you make use of a little awareness and some gray matter, you get to know that left handed people are actually right brained. The right side of their brain being dominant, they are creative, original, intuitive, thoughtful, subjective. They are better at recognizing faces, expressing and reading emotions, music, color, images. Well, that is the best to like about us. (I like all this in me!). Click here if you wanna know more about lefties.

The most interesting thing about all this is the fact that it is something to be proud of, as God prefers our right heads to be dominant instead of right hands which is quite an honour and hence we are few of the chosen ones. And, left-handers are the only ones in their right minds :P. Cheerio

Lucid Intervals

I don't even know where to begin. This is gonna be quite a philosophical post, that I know.

The first step in the process of 'making it big' is not having faith in yourself and belief in your Lord but to actually think of yourself the most supreme with no regard for anyone who comes your way and voila! Well, hah! Loser alert. There's actually a word for such personalities- narcissists.

Well, I am not to talk about narcissists right now, I am gonna include each and everyone of us here. The intelligent intellectual geniuses, successful smart know-it-alls, serious hardworkers, non serious lazy bums, happy go luckys, widely experienced mature wise owls, mediocres, losers, failures, lame joke crackers, super witty ones, sensible enlightening souls, friendly warm ones, freaks, embittered pessimists, extraverts, the genuine ones, drama queens, introverts, realist and optimists, of course narcissists, and all the normal people; all of them having one thing common in each and every one of them- an element of insanity, madness, craziness.

However small(or big) it may be, it varies widely in limit, and may be even dormant or active, but IT IS ALWAYS THERE. Because being too much normal (or perfect) is not normal. As of course, ideal is theoretical only.

Sometimes, and for some, this craziness is also quite a big reason for them being what they are or where they stand or what they have achieved. It is this crazy passion for example, that makes them take the extra step, walk an extra mile to be extraordinary.

There is another aspect of this madness- being a little more sensitive than many, a tad bit more aggressive than all, weirder than others in terms of being social, being more quarrelsome, loving with much intensity as compared to many more(read being too possessive), talking or making jokes more or less than others, doing/ having/experiencing too much or too little of anything in life-being on the extremes of spectrum.

Here comes 'understanding' the other person, and not being too judgmental on our part. If a person is short tempered, persistently cranky, silent, awkward, funny, dull, rude, bullying, serious etc there must be some reason behind it. Maybe its part of their habits, nature, genes or certain circumstances that make them (or has made them)the way they are. They might not have had the exposure and experiences vast enough to make them learn how not to be affected by negative external factors. (Hence, the key has to be "BALANCE" nonetheless; however, the so-called normals might NOT be balanced).

Our motive should be  to identify and understand people, and not assume, judge, jump to conclusions, or make snap decisions in this regard. That way you (who claim to be very 'normal') wont be feeling too sensitive or yourself turning all emo and making mountains of molehills if you have an awkward encounter or happen to come across people on the extremes when they are at behaving at their extremest. That might help them feel normal like you too(and ultimately can help decrease the number of people in asylums as well! :o ). Big or small, the element of craziness is found in each and every homo sapien on the face of this world. Everyone has a dark/mysterious/strange/awkward/obnoxious/creepy/evil/sick/weird/ridiculous side and THAT IS normal(though it should be minimum eee).

So, are we normal people with some craziness or are we crazy people with some normalcy(lucid intervals). Or is it one and the same?

I hypothesize :p, it is these lucid intervals in between all our mad mayhem, that make us the big or small achievers that we are -so these definitely need to be prolonged and frequent, while maintaining the equilibrium simultaneously!!! :D

The Awkward Moments.....

The awkward moment when at the OPD there are so many patients, fighting amongst themselves for their turn, and you instead of shouting at them, seat yourself comfortably to enjoy the show and smile :P

The awkward moment when the patient and attendant are easily conversing in Sindhi in front of you between them and have no idea that you are actually getting it all :/

The awkward moment(and this is the funniest) when you see a house officer *holding and showing her hair strands* to ask a patient if her fecal color is black like it :O (and still doesn't realize even when the colleagues around start giggling)!

The Baqra Eid Factor

Hajj- the best-est about Eid-ul-Azha

Here comes the exciting, meaty, spicy Eid, full of all the fervor, cattle, zest, hustle and bustle, work, flurry, bar-b-ques and what not.
Everybody, irrespective of age, enjoys this Eid to its fullest, with their own little farms popping up right amongst their localities. From shopping for the honored, perfect pet/s, to tending to them, playing with them, watching their every move, showing them off, taking pics and even annoying them, ridiculing others if theirs is any lesser than yours, helping parents with the Eid day qasai woes and distribution chores, missing his highness after its qurbani, and finally gorging the savory, scrumptious, luxurious meals including chops, paaye, kaleji, brain, raan, tikka boti(ummmmyummm *drool*), burping and bearing the dyspepsia. Wow! We enjoy it to its fullest and make the most of all this fiesta. It's such a unique activity, keeps us busy for about a week before Eid (and about a month or more after it!). It brings a happy change in our daily routines.
What is a little or maybe quite a lot irritating, is the lack of the essence, the real spirit in us-in its true sense. I dont mean it to seem like a rebuke or anything like that at all. But come to think of it. We spend quite a decent little mint on the sacrificial animals, according (or even not according) to our pockets, for the sake of it- the thrill, the bragging factor, the meat, and okay-for following the sunnah as well. But following blindly, or as a ritual, a yearly habit? Is this enough. Is that the value of it. Are we still missing out the motive, the actual purpose of this very festive ritual. What do we really learn from all this. How do we incorporate this sacrifice-in spirit and in actions- in our lives. How do we react when we find ourselves in such a situation in our own lives when a sacrifice is required in its truest sense .

Moo

My favorite animal for the Bari Eid :P

It did seem like a lecture now I guess. :p. But anyways, I got my point across. All in all, do let your inner animal die too before you go to sacrifice the one waiting outside.
Happy meaty Eid!

Toodles!

Anger

I, for one, am an extremely cool minded person; extremely because my threshold for anger is quite on the higher side. It just naturally is and I am proud of it. Yes. And even thankful for it, cuz that is how I want myself to be as. As in, unlike many coworkers, I don't like to be "pointlessly" grumpy with those patients who come at the government hospitals here (though many a times screaming at them becomes a necessity- that is when i dont like to stay behind!).
Now it has one major drawback and that one brings the threshold down. People who are too narrow-minded/indecent/judgmental/evil/petty/obnoxious/sick or plain annoying-and unfortunately there is no dearth of them- fail to understand anything about thresholds and psychology and the variation in human nature that God has created, and in many cases don't want to understand it, or even if they might do, are eager to exploit it. Hence they take your cool temper as a 'weakness', and start to mount their idiotic acts; and just when they think and try to act all over smart, my anger threshold jumps down; lo and behold, miss calm starts raising hell and even calls for a fight(which she normally abhors) thus sometimes stunning her own self :P. Well, why not? Expressing your anger at the right person and time, in the right amount, in a right way is just as important as controlling it. It in itself is an awesome experience I must confess :D(though i still prefer it once in a while only).
But now, for a change, I have started this new strategy of acting all growly and grumbly all the time, from the very beginning, with such people, and see what the results are, and I might come up with a post about that as well.
Ciao for now.
P.s. For people who think they seem dazzling while angry, seriously you don't!