Words Of Vivekananda

The message of Swami Vivekananda was the message of Vedanta. The four cardinal points of Vedanta are: (1)non-duality of the Godhead, (2) divinity of the soul, (3)oneness of existence, and (4) harmony of religions.
     (1) Vedanta gives a spiritual interpretation of man, his universe, and the Ultimate Reality. Philosophically non-dualistic and religiously monotheistic, Vedanta is a non-dogmatic, non-sectarian way of life. According to Vedanta, “Truth is one: sages call it by various names.” The validity of truth depends upon the direct perception of the Real. Religion is the manifestation of the divinity already in man. The different names and concepts of the divine are only frail, human attempts to name the nameless, attribute form to the formless, and limit the illimitable.
     (2) The divinity of the soul is innate. Religious practices do not generate divinity, but help us to regain faith in our divinity.
     (3) All life is one, homogeneous and integral. Individuals are like innumerable blood cells in the vast universal body that includes the human, superhuman, and subhuman. Life is interdependent, not independent. This oneness is the basis of all ethics and morality. Anything that separates us from the rest of the universe is sin, and whatever unites us with all is virtue.
     (4) Different religions are only different paths leading to the same goal, described by various names, such as communion, union, samadhi, Self-Knowledge, satori, eternal life in heaven, nirvana, and so forth. Harmony of religions is based on unity in diversity, not on uniformity. This harmony is to be discovered and realized by deepening our individual God-consciousness. Vedanta asks a Christian to be a true Christian, a Hindu a true Hindu, a Muslim a true Muslim, a Buddhist a true Buddhist, a Jew a true Jew. All roads, Vedanta contends, lead to Rome, provided Rome is your destination.
 
Vedanta is based not on personalities but on universal principles applicable to all people of all times. Its basis of ethics is derived from the unity of life. It offers attainable immortality through Self-Knowledge before death. It gives hope that just as a saint had a past, so a sinner has a future. The sufferings of life, according to Vedanta, are not due to any external agency but to our ego that denounces our true Self and wants to make its own Kingdom of Heaven. Salvation is return to sanity and wholeness.

Positive Thinking

Positive thinking means admitting into the mind thoughts, words and images that are conductive to growth, expansion and success. It is the expectation of good and favorable results. A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health and a successful outcome of every situation and action. Whatever the mind expects, it finds. 
 
Not everyone accepts or believes in positive thinking. Some consider the subject as just nonsense, and others scoff at people who believe and accept it. Among the people who are conversant with this subject, not many know how to use it effectively in order to get results. Yet, it seems that more people are becoming attracted to this subject, as evidenced by the many books, lectures and courses about it. This is a subject that is gaining popularity. 
 
It is quite common to hear people say: "Think positive!", to someone who feels down and worried. Most people do not take these words seriously, as they do not know what it really means, or do not consider it as useful and effective. How many people do you know that ever stop to think what the power of positive thinking means?  

Are You Polite

How would you feel if you received an e-mail from whoknowswho@whoknowswhere.com and all that was written was "Could you tell me how to do this...", or "I want to know this...," or "Could you do this for me...", etc. and there was no greeting, or "please" or even "bye". Worse, if the e-mail weren't even signed? Would you feel like responding to that e-mail?Further, how would you feel if you received an e-mail from someone who politely asked if you could customize some graphics, and after spending a couple of hours doing so, the politeness stopped without even receiving a confirmation of receipt or thank you?Do you feel that this is polite?Before continuing with WHY this page exists let us give you some background.The web is a fantastic place. You can communicate with countless individuals at any time. Everything is as near as a click of your mouse button. Communication is made easier, and if you have a question you can just type it out in a message send it to any website owner. If your message is reasonable, you'll receive a quick answer.Like many designers, the authors behind this particular page spend a lot of time working on personal websites and creating graphic sets. One of us has a tutorial website in Swedish and tips & tricks for PsP 7.0. Like many designers, we receive much e-mail every week from people asking for help or with questions regarding graphics making. We remember when we first started making graphics and we also wrote to designers asking how they did certain things. Most of the time we got nice feedback and without that help we wouldn't be where we are today!We love to receive e-mails but it's very disheartening when others fail to appreciate the time we take to answer them by simply responding with a "thank you". When people e-mail us asking how we did this or that we never fail to respond. Why? It's the polite thing to do (and we both consider ourselves to be polite.Think about this, if we don't receive a reply from you, we won't know IF YOU received OUR mail. That happens. Mail disappears.None of us had spoken to each other about how we felt about all these mails, not getting any confirmation, feeling that some people didn't know about "giving and taking", until one day we discovered that we both had written similar pages about this!Think about this. It's very easy to hide on such an anonymous medium as the Web. Maybe that's one reason why people forget to be polite. Our wish is that you treat the person you send e-mail to the same way as you would like to be treated by someone you meet in real life. For example, at your job. If someone there greets you with "good morning", we are quite sure you would respond. And if someone does something for you, we are sure you would say "thank you".We love that you visit our websites and use our graphics. Any designer would agreewith that. We're proud that you use our work. We would like to clarify that this does not apply to everyone. There are people who bring their courtesy from real life onto the web. Not everyone who writes to us is impolite.We love to receive feedback and e-mail, so please write to us. All we ask is that you bear this in mind: Contact us with the same courtesy with which you would like to be contacted. Thank you.

Dignity In Life

To ask what it means to live with dignity may sound strange in an age like our own, when our frantic struggle to make ends meet hardly allows us the leisure to ponder such weighty matters. But if we do pause a moment to give this question a little thought, we would realize soon enough that it is not merely the idle musing of someone with too much time on his hands. The question not only touches on the very meaning of our lives, but goes even beyond our personal quest for meaning to bore into the very springs of contemporary culture. For if it isn't possible to live with dignity then life has no transcendent purpose, and in such a case our only aim in the brief time allotted to us should be to snatch whatever thrills we can before the lights go off for good. But if we can give sense to the idea of living with dignity, then we need to consider whether we are actually ordering our lives in the way we should and, even more broadly, whether our culture encourages a dignified lifestyle.
  
Though the idea of dignity seems simple enough at first sight, it is actually fairly complex. My Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (1936!) defines dignity as "elevation of character, intrinsic worth, excellence, ... nobleness of manner, aspect, or style." My Roget's Thesaurus (1977) groups it with "prestige, esteem, repute, honor, glory, renown, fame" – evidence that over the last forty years the word's epicenter of meaning has undergone a shift. When we inquire about living with dignity, our focus should be on the word's older nuance. What I have in mind is living with the conviction that one's life has intrinsic worth, that we possess a potential for moral excellence that resonates with the rhythm of the seasons and the silent hymn of the galaxies.
  
The conscious pursuit of dignity does not enjoy much popularity these days, having been crowded out by such stiff competitors as wealth and power, success and fame. Behind this devaluation of dignity lies a series of developments in Western thought that emerged in reaction to the dogmatic certainties of Christian theology. The Darwinian theory of evolution, Freud's thesis of the Id, economic determinism, the computer model of the mind: all these trends, arisen more or less independently, have worked together to undermine the notion that our lives have any more worth than the value of our bank accounts. When so many self-assured voices speak to the contrary, we no longer feel justified in viewing ourselves as the crowning glory of creation. Instead we have become convinced we are nothing but packets of protoplasm governed by selfish genes, clever monkeys with college degrees and business cards plying across highways rather than trees.
  
Such ideas, in however distorted a form, have seeped down from the halls of
academia into popular culture, eroding our sense of human dignity on many fronts. The free-market economy, the task master of the modern social order, leads the way. For this system the primary form of human interaction is the investment and the sale, with people themselves reckoned simply as producers
and consumers, sometimes even as commodities. Our vast impersonal democracies reduce the individual to a nameless face in the crowd, to be manipulated by slogans, images, and promises into voting this way or that. Cities have expanded into sprawling urban jungles, dirty and dangerous, whose dazed occupants seek an easy escape with the help of drugs and loveless sex. Escalation in crime, political corruption, upheavals in family life, the despoliation of the environment: these all speak to us as much of a deterioration in how we regard ourselves as in how we relate to others.
  
Amidst these pangs of forlorn hope, can the Dhamma help us recover our lost sense of dignity and thereby give new meaning to our lives? The answer to his question is yes, and in two ways: first, by justifying our claim to innate dignity, and second, by showing us what we must do to actualize our potential dignity.
  
For Buddhism the innate dignity of human beings does not stem from our relationship to an all-mighty God or our endowment with an immortal soul. It stems, rather, from the exalted place of human life in the broad expanse of sentient existence. Far from reducing human beings to children of chance, the Buddha teaches that the human realm is a very special realm standing squarely at the spiritual centre of the cosmos. What makes human life so special is that human beings have a capacity for moral choice that is not shared by other types of beings. Though this capacity is inevitably subject to limiting conditions, we always possess, in the immediate present, a margin of inner freedom that allows us to change ourselves and hereby to change the world.
  
But life in the human realm is far from cozy. To the contrary, it is inconceivably difficult and complex, rife with conflicts and moral ambiguities offering enormous potential for both good and evil. This moral complexity can make of human life a painful struggle indeed, but it also renders the human realm the most fertile ground for sowing the seeds of enlightenment. It is at this tauntingly ambiguous crossroads in the long journey of being that we can either rise to the heights of spiritual greatness or fall to degrading depths. The two alternatives branch out from each present moment, and which one we take depends on ourselves.
    
While this unique capacity for moral choice and spiritual awakening confers intrinsic dignity on human life, the Buddha does not emphasize this so much as he does our ability to acquire active dignity. This ability is summed up by a word that lends its flavor to the entire teaching, ariya or noble. The Buddha's teaching is the ariyadhamma, the noble doctrine, and its purpose is to change human beings from "ignorant worldlings" into noble disciples resplendent with noble wisdom. The change does not come about through mere faith and devotion but by treading the Buddhist path, which transmutes our frailties into invincible strengths and our ignorance into knowledge.
  
The notion of acquired dignity is closely connected with the idea of autonomy. Autonomy means self-control and self-mastery, freedom from the sway of passion and prejudice, the ability to actively determine oneself. To live with dignity means to be one's own master: to conduct one's affairs on the basis of one's own free choices instead of being pushed around by forces beyond one's control. The autonomous individual draws his or her strength from within, free from the dictates of craving and bias, guided by a thirst for righteousness and an inner perception of truth.
  
The person who represents the apex of dignity for Buddhism is the arahant, the liberated one, who has reached the pinnacle of spiritual autonomy: release from the dictates of greed, hatred, and delusion. The very word arahant suggests this sense of dignity: the word means "worthy one," one who deserves the offerings of gods and humans. Although in our present condition we might still be far from the stature of an arahant, this does not mean we are utterly lost, for the means of reaching the highest goal is already within our reach. The means is the Noble Eightfold Path with its twin pillars of right view and right conduct. Right view is the first factor of the path and the guide for all the others. To live with right view is to see that our decisions count, that our volitional actions have consequences that extend beyond themselves and conduce to our long-term happiness or suffering. The active counterpart of right view is right conduct, action guided by the ideal of moral and spiritual excellence. Right conduct in body, speech, and mind brings to fulfillment the other seven factors of the eightfold path, culminating in true knowledge and deliverance.
  
In today's hectic world humankind is veering recklessly in two destructive directions. One is the path of violent struggle and confrontation, the other that of frivolous self-indulgence. Beneath their apparent contrasts, what unites these two extremes is a shared disregard for human dignity: the former violates the dignity of other people, the latter undermines one's own dignity. The Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path is a middle way that avoids all harmful extremes. To follow this path not only brings a quiet dignity into one's own lile but also answers the cynicism of our age with a note of wholesome affirmation.

Controlling Anger -- Before It Controls You

• What Is Anger?


• Anger Management


• Strategies To Keep Anger At Bay?


• Do You Need Counseling?

We all know what anger is, and we've all felt it: whether as a fleeting annoyance or as full-fledged rage.
Anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion. But when it gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to problems—problems at work, in your personal relationships, and in the overall quality of your life. And it can make you feel as though you're at the mercy of an unpredictable and powerful emotion. This brochure is meant to help you understand and control anger.
What is Anger?
The Nature of Anger
Anger is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage," according to Charles Spielberger, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger. Like other emotions, it is accompanied by physiological and biological changes; when you get angry, your heart rate and blood pressure go up, as do the levels of your energy hormones, adrenaline, and noradrenaline.
Anger can be caused by both external and internal events. You could be angry at a specific person (Such as a coworker or supervisor) or event (a traffic jam, a canceled flight), or your anger could be caused by worrying or brooding about your personal problems. Memories of traumatic or enraging events can also trigger angry feelings.
Expressing Anger
The instinctive, natural way to express anger is to respond aggressively. Anger is a natural, adaptive response to threats; it inspires powerful, often aggressive, feelings and behaviors, which allow us to fight and to defend ourselves when we are attacked. A certain amount of anger, therefore, is necessary to our survival.
On the other hand, we can't physically lash out at every person or object that irritates or annoys us; laws, social norms, and common sense place limits on how far our anger can take us.
People use a variety of both conscious and unconscious processes to deal with their angry feelings. The three main approaches are expressing, suppressing, and calming. Expressing your angry feelings in an assertive—not aggressive—manner is the healthiest way to express anger. To do this, you have to learn how to make clear what your needs are, and how to get them met, without hurting others. Being assertive doesn't mean being pushy or demanding; it means being respectful of yourself and others.
Anger can be suppressed, and then converted or redirected. This happens when you hold in your anger, stop thinking about it, and focus on something positive. The aim is to inhibit or suppress your anger and convert it into more constructive behavior. The danger in this type of response is that if it isn't allowed outward expression, your anger can turn inward—on yourself. Anger turned inward may cause hypertension, high blood pressure, or depression.
Unexpressed anger can create other problems. It can lead to pathological expressions of anger, such as passive-aggressive behavior (getting back at people indirectly, without telling them why, rather than confronting them head-on) or a personality that seems perpetually cynical and hostile. People who are constantly putting others down, criticizing everything, and making cynical comments haven't learned how to constructively express their anger. Not surprisingly, they aren't likely to have many successful relationships.
Finally, you can calm down inside. This means not just controlling your outward behavior, but also controlling your internal responses, taking steps to lower your heart rate, calm yourself down, and let the feelings subside.
As Dr. Spielberger notes, "when none of these three techniques work, that's when someone—or something—is going to get hurt."
Anger Management
The goal of anger management is to reduce both your emotional feelings and the physiological arousal that anger causes. You can't get rid of, or avoid, the things or the people that enrage you, nor can you change them, but you can learn to control your reactions.
Are You Too Angry?
There are psychological tests that measure the intensity of angry feelings, how prone to anger you are, and how well you handle it. But chances are good that if you do have a problem with anger, you already know it. If you find yourself acting in ways that seem out of control and frightening, you might need help finding better ways to deal with this emotion.
Why Are Some People More Angry Than Others?
According to Jerry Deffenbacher, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in anger management, some people really are more "hotheaded" than others are; they get angry more easily and more intensely than the average person does. There are also those who don't show their anger in loud spectacular ways but are chronically irritable and grumpy. Easily angered people don't always curse and throw things; sometimes they withdraw socially, sulk, or get physically ill.
People who are easily angered generally have what some psychologists call a low tolerance for frustration, meaning simply that they feel that they should not have to be subjected to frustration, inconvenience, or annoyance. They can't take things in stride, and they're particularly infuriated if the situation seems somehow unjust: for example, being corrected for a minor mistake.
What makes these people this way? A number of things. One cause may be genetic or physiological: There is evidence that some children are born irritable, touchy, and easily angered, and that these signs are present from a very early age. Another may be sociocultural. Anger is often regarded as negative; we're taught that it's all right to express anxiety, depression, or other emotions but not to express anger. As a result, we don't learn how to handle it or channel it constructively.
Research has also found that family background plays a role. Typically, people who are easily angered come from families that are disruptive, chaotic, and not skilled at emotional communications.
Is It Good To "Let it All Hang Out?"
Psychologists now say that this is a dangerous myth. Some people use this theory as a license to hurt others. Research has found that "letting it rip" with anger actually escalates anger and aggression and does nothing to help you (or the person you're angry with) resolve the situation.
It's best to find out what it is that triggers your anger, and then to develop strategies to keep those triggers from tipping you over the edge.
Strategies To Keep Anger At Bay
Relaxation
Simple relaxation tools, such as deep breathing and relaxing imagery, can help calm down angry feelings. There are books and courses that can teach you relaxation techniques, and once you learn the techniques, you can call upon them in any situation. If you are involved in a relationship where both partners are hot-tempered, it might be a good idea for both of you to learn these techniques.
Some simple steps you can try:

• Breathe deeply, from your diaphragm; breathing from your chest won't relax you. Picture your breath coming up from your "gut."


• Slowly repeat a calm word or phrase such as "relax," "take it easy." Repeat it to yourself while breathing deeply.


• Use imagery; visualize a relaxing experience, from either your memory or your imagination.


• Nonstrenuous, slow yoga-like exercises can relax your muscles and make you feel much calmer.

Practice these techniques daily. Learn to use them automatically when you're in a tense situation.
Cognitive Restructuring
Simply put, this means changing the way you think. Angry people tend to curse, swear, or speak in highly colorful terms that reflect their inner thoughts. When you're angry, your thinking can get very exaggerated and overly dramatic. Try replacing these thoughts with more rational ones. For instance, instead of telling yourself, "oh, it's awful, it's terrible, everything's ruined," tell yourself, "it's frustrating, and it's understandable that I'm upset about it, but it's not the end of the world and getting angry is not going to fix it anyhow."
Be careful of words like "never" or "always" when talking about yourself or someone else. "This !&*%@ machine never works," or "you're always forgetting things" are not just inaccurate, they also serve to make you feel that your anger is justified and that there's no way to solve the problem. They also alienate and humiliate people who might otherwise be willing to work with you on a solution.
Remind yourself that getting angry is not going to fix anything, that it won't make you feel better (and may actually make you feel worse).
Logic defeats anger, because anger, even when it's justified, can quickly become irrational. So use cold hard logic on yourself. Remind yourself that the world is "not out to get you," you're just experiencing some of the rough spots of daily life. Do this each time you feel anger getting the best of you, and it'll help you get a more balanced perspective. Angry people tend to demand things: fairness, appreciation, agreement, willingness to do things their way. Everyone wants these things, and we are all hurt and disappointed when we don't get them, but angry people demand them, and when their demands aren't met, their disappointment becomes anger. As part of their cognitive restructuring, angry people need to become aware of their demanding nature and translate their expectations into desires. In other words, saying, "I would like" something is healthier than saying, "I demand" or "I must have" something. When you're unable to get what you want, you will experience the normal reactions—frustration, disappointment, hurt—but not anger. Some angry people use this anger as a way to avoid feeling hurt, but that doesn't mean the hurt goes away.
Problem Solving
Sometimes, our anger and frustration are caused by very real and inescapable problems in our lives. Not all anger is misplaced, and often it's a healthy, natural response to these difficulties. There is also a cultural belief that every problem has a solution, and it adds to our frustration to find out that this isn't always the case. The best attitude to bring to such a situation, then, is not to focus on finding the solution, but rather on how you handle and face the problem.
Make a plan, and check your progress along the way. Resolve to give it your best, but also not to punish yourself if an answer doesn't come right away. If you can approach it with your best intentions and efforts and make a serious attempt to face it head-on, you will be less likely to lose patience and fall into all-or-nothing thinking, even if the problem does not get solved right away.
Better Communication
Angry people tend to jump to—and act on—conclusions, and some of those conclusions can be very inaccurate. The first thing to do if you're in a heated discussion is slow down and think through your responses. Don't say the first thing that comes into your head, but slow down and think carefully about what you want to say. At the same time, listen carefully to what the other person is saying and take your time before answering.
Listen, too, to what is underlying the anger. For instance, you like a certain amount of freedom and personal space, and your "significant other" wants more connection and closeness. If he or she starts complaining about your activities, don't retaliate by painting your partner as a jailer, a warden, or an albatross around your neck.
It's natural to get defensive when you're criticized, but don't fight back. Instead, listen to what's underlying the words: the message that this person might feel neglected and unloved. It may take a lot of patient questioning on your part, and it may require some breathing space, but don't let your anger—or a partner's—let a discussion spin out of control. Keeping your cool can keep the situation from becoming a disastrous one.
Using Humor
"Silly humor" can help defuse rage in a number of ways. For one thing, it can help you get a more balanced perspective. When you get angry and call someone a name or refer to them in some imaginative phrase, stop and picture what that word would literally look like. If you're at work and you think of a coworker as a "dirtbag" or a "single-cell life form," for example, picture a large bag full of dirt (or an amoeba) sitting at your colleague's desk, talking on the phone, going to meetings. Do this whenever a name comes into your head about another person. If you can, draw a picture of what the actual thing might look like. This will take a lot of the edge off your fury; and humor can always be relied on to help unknot a tense situation.
The underlying message of highly angry people, Dr. Deffenbacher says, is "things oughta go my way!" Angry people tend to feel that they are morally right, that any blocking or changing of their plans is an unbearable indignity and that they should NOT have to suffer this way. Maybe other people do, but not them!
When you feel that urge, he suggests, picture yourself as a god or goddess, a supreme ruler, who owns the streets and stores and office space, striding alone and having your way in all situations while others defer to you. The more detail you can get into your imaginary scenes, the more chances you have to realize that maybe you are being unreasonable; you'll also realize how unimportant the things you're angry about really are. There are two cautions in using humor. First, don't try to just "laugh off" your problems; rather, use humor to help yourself face them more constructively. Second, don't give in to harsh, sarcastic humor; that's just another form of unhealthy anger expression.
What these techniques have in common is a refusal to take yourself too seriously. Anger is a serious emotion, but it's often accompanied by ideas that, if examined, can make you laugh.
Changing Your Environment
Sometimes it's our immediate surroundings that give us cause for irritation and fury. Problems and responsibilities can weigh on you and make you feel angry at the "trap" you seem to have fallen into and all the people and things that form that trap.
Give yourself a break. Make sure you have some "personal time" scheduled for times of the day that you know are particularly stressful. One example is the working mother who has a standing rule that when she comes home from work, for the first 15 minutes "nobody talks to Mom unless the house is on fire." After this brief quiet time, she feels better prepared to handle demands from her kids without blowing up at them.
Some Other Tips for Easing Up on Yourself
Timing: If you and your spouse tend to fight when you discuss things at night—perhaps you're tired, or distracted, or maybe it's just habit—try changing the times when you talk about important matters so these talks don't turn into arguments.
Avoidance: If your child's chaotic room makes you furious every time you walk by it, shut the door. Don't make yourself look at what infuriates you. Don't say, "well, my child should clean up the room so I won't have to be angry!" That's not the point. The point is to keep yourself calm.
Finding alternatives: If your daily commute through traffic leaves you in a state of rage and frustration, give yourself a project—learn or map out a different route, one that's less congested or more scenic. Or find another alternative, such as a bus or commuter train.
Do You Need Counseling?
If you feel that your anger is really out of control, if it is having an impact on your relationships and on important parts of your life, you might consider counseling to learn how to handle it better. A psychologist or other licensed mental health professional can work with you in developing a range of techniques for changing your thinking and your behavior.
When you talk to a prospective therapist, tell her or him that you have problems with anger that you want to work on, and ask about his or her approach to anger management. Make sure this isn't only a course of action designed to "put you in touch with your feelings and express them"—that may be precisely what your problem is. With counseling, psychologists say, a highly angry person can move closer to a middle range of anger in about 8 to 10 weeks, depending on the circumstances and the techniques used.
What About Assertiveness Training?
It's true that angry people need to learn to become assertive (rather than aggressive), but most books and courses on developing assertiveness are aimed at people who don't feel enough anger. These people are more passive and acquiescent than the average person; they tend to let others walk all over them. That isn't something that most angry people do. Still, these books can contain some useful tactics to use in frustrating situations.
Remember, you can't eliminate anger—and it wouldn't be a good idea if you could. In spite of all your efforts, things will happen that will cause you anger; and sometimes it will be justifiable anger. Life will be filled with frustration, pain, loss, and the unpredictable actions of others. You can't change that; but you can change the way you let such events affect you. Controlling your angry responses can keep them from making you even more unhappy in the long run.

Enhancing the Life you Live

Bach Flower Remedies & Flower Essences - Vibrational Medicine

Sacred Space Essentials was born from my personal journey into self-healing using gentle forms of vibrational medicine such as Bach flower remedies and other flower essences to help create and maintain balance and harmony of the body, mind, heart and soul.
Vibrational medicine gently encourages and supports our body's natural ability to 'heal' itself, to return to a state of wholeness. The essence of a flower touches the soul in a way that only the purest of energy can.
Through our website you will find information on Dr Bach's flower remedies, our Sacred Space flower remedies, Tranquillity fine mist sprays, and the Essentials combination blends for many of life's recurring themes. If you feel a personal flower remedy would better suit you, we are available for online or phone consultations.
Flower remedies are the perfect choice for those looking to enhance their lives in any way. They bring into balance all aspects of our being so we 'feel like ourselves' again.
All living things - people, pets and plants - respond well to flower remedies.
It is my hope that the essences, products and information we share here with you will be of benefit to you in your life.
If you have any questions, please contact Sacred Space Essentials.

"The Responsiblity of Knowledge is to share it"

-Hollis Little Creek,AbnishinabeElder of the

Red Lakes band of the Ojibwa People.

Some Valuable Quotes of The Greatest

Life is wasted on the living. Douglas AdamsThe art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. -Marcus Aurelius

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.

-Richard Bach

Life is a long lesson in humility. - James M. Barrie

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well. - Josh Billings

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me". - Erma Bombeck

Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive. - Mel Brooks

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. - Buddha

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all he books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. - John Burroughs

A Few of our Favorite Quotes

To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe. --Eckhart Tolle

And we are put on Earth a little space, that we may learn to bear the beams of love. --William Blake

The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightening and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not. --The Upanishads

Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely. --The Land Before Time

Serenity isn't freedom from the storm, but peace within the storm. --Unknown

The way is not in the sky, the way is in the heart. --Gautama Buddha

Man Who Found The Truth of Life

Those of my kind visitors who honour me by expressing their delight and even--may this little indiscretion be forgiven me!--even their adoration of my spiritual clearness, can hardly imagine what I was when I came to this prison. The tens of years which have passed over my head and which have whitened my hair cannot muffle the slight agitation which I experience at the recollection of the first moments when, with the creaking of the rusty hinges, the fatal prison doors opened and then closed behind me forever.
Not endowed with literary talent, which in reality is an indomitable inclination to invent and to lie, I shall attempt to introduce myself to my indulgent reader exactly as I was at that remote time.
I was a young man, twenty-seven years of age--as I had occasion to mention before--unrestrained, impetuous, given to abrupt deviations. A certain dreaminess, peculiar to my age; a self-respect which was easily offended and which revolted at the slightest insignificant provocation; a passionate impetuosity in solving world problems; fits of melancholy alternated by equally wild fits of merriment--all this gave the young mathematician a character of extreme unsteadiness, of sad and harsh discord.
I must also mention the extreme pride, a family trait, which I inherited from my mother, and which often hindered me from taking the advice of riper and more experienced people than myself; also my extreme obstinacy in carrying out my purposes, a good quality in itself, which becomes dangerous, however, when the purpose in question is not sufficiently well founded and considered.
Thus, during the first days of my confinement, I behaved like all other fools who are thrown into prison. I shouted loudly and, of course, vainly about my innocence; I demanded violently my immediate freedom and even beat against the door and the walls with my fists. The door and the walls naturally remained mute, while I caused myself a rather sharp pain. I remember I even beat my head against the wall, and for hours I lay unconscious on the stone floor of my cell; and for some time, when I had grown desperate, I refused food, until the persistent demands of my organism defeated my obstinacy.
I cursed my judges and threatened them with merciless vengeance. At last I commenced to regard all human life, the whole world, even Heaven, as an enormous injustice, a derision and a mockery. Forgetting that in my position I could hardly be unprejudiced, I came with the self-confidence of youth, with the sickly pain of a prisoner, gradually to the complete negation of life and its great meaning.
Those were indeed terrible days and nights, when, crushed by the walls, getting no answer to any of my questions, I paced my cell endlessly and hurled one after another into the dark abyss all the great valuables which life has bestowed upon us: friendship, love, reason and justice.
In some justification to myself I may mention the fact that during the first and most painful years of my imprisonment a series of events happened which reflected themselves rather painfully upon my psychic nature. Thus I learned with the profoundest indignation that the girl, whose name I shall not mention and who was to become my wife, married another man. She was one of the few who believed in my innocence; at the last parting she swore to me to remain faithful to me unto death, and rather to die than betray her love for me--and within one year after that she married a man I knew, who possessed certain good qualities, but who was not at all a sensible man. I did not want to understand at that time that such a marriage was natural on the part of a young, healthy, and beautiful girl. But, alas! we all forget our natural science when we are deceived by the woman we love--may this little jest be forgiven me! At the present time Mme. N. is a happy and respected mother, and this proves better than anything else how wise and entirely in accordance with the demands of nature and life was her marriage at that time, which vexed me so painfully.
I must confess, however, that at that time I was not at all calm. Her exceedingly amiable and kind letter in which she notified me of her marriage, expressing profound regret that changed circumstances and a suddenly awakened love compelled her to break her promise to me--that amiable, truthful letter, scented with perfume, bearing the traces of her tender fingers, seemed to me a message from the devil himself.
The letters of fire burned my exhausted brains, and in a wild ecstasy I shook the doors of my cell and called violently:
"Come! Let me look into your lying eyes! Let me hear your lying voice! Let me but touch with my fingers your tender throat and pour into your death rattle my last bitter laugh!"
From this quotation my indulgent reader will see how right were the judges who convicted me for murder; they had really foreseen in me a murderer.
My gloomy view of life at the time was aggravated by several other events. Two years after the marriage of my fiancee, consequently three years after the first day of my imprisonment, my mother died-- she died, as I learned, of profound grief for me. However strange it may seem, she remained firmly convinced to the end of her days that I had committed the monstrous crime. Evidently this conviction was an inexhaustible source of grief to her, the chief cause of the gloomy melancholy which fettered her lips in silence and caused her death through paralysis of the heart. As I was told, she never mentioned my name nor the names of those who died so tragically, and she bequeathed the entire enormous fortune, which was supposed to have served as the motive for the murder, to various charitable organisations. It is characteristic that even under such terrible conditions her motherly instinct did not forsake her altogether; in a postscript to the will she left me a considerable sum, which secures my existence whether I am in prison or at large.
Now I understand that, however great her grief may have been, that alone was not enough to cause her death; the real cause was her advanced age and a series of illnesses which had undermined her once strong and sound organism. In the name of justice, I must say that my father, a weak-charactered man, was not at all a model husband and family man; by numerous betrayals, by falsehood and deception he had led my mother to despair, constantly offending her pride and her strict, unbribable truthfulness. But at that time I did not understand it; the death of my mother seemed to me one of the most cruel manifestations of universal injustice, and called forth a new stream of useless and sacrilegious curses.
I do not know whether I ought to tire the attention of the reader with the story of other events of a similar nature. I shall mention but briefly that one after another my friends, who remained my friends from the time when I was happy and free, stopped visiting me. According to their words, they believed in my innocence, and at first warmly expressed to me their sympathy. But our lives, mine in prison and theirs at liberty, were so different that gradually under the pressure of perfectly natural causes, such as forgetfulness, official and other duties, the absence of mutual interests, they visited me ever more and more rarely, and finally ceased to see me entirely. I cannot recall without a smile that even the death of my mother, even the betrayal of the girl I loved did not arouse in me such a hopelessly bitter feeling as these gentlemen, whose names I remember but vaguely now, succeeded in wresting from my soul.
"What horror! What pain! My friends, you have left me alone! My friends, do you understand what you have done? You have left me alone. Can you conceive of leaving a human being alone? Even a serpent has its mate, even a spider has its comrade--and you have left a human being alone! You have given him a soul--and left him alone! You have given him a heart, a mind, a hand for a handshake, lips for a kiss--and you have left him alone! What shall he do now that you have left him alone?"
Thus I exclaimed in my "Diary of a Prisoner," tormented by woeful perplexities. In my juvenile blindness, in the pain of my young, senseless heart, I still did not want to understand that the solitude, of which I complained so bitterly, like the mind, was an advantage given to man over other creatures, in order to fence around the sacred mysteries of his soul from the stranger's gaze.
Let my serious reader consider what would have become of life if man were robbed of his right, of his duty to be alone. In the gathering of idle chatterers, amid the dull collection of transparent glass dolls, that kill each other with their sameness; in the wild city where all doors are open, and all windows are open--passers-by look wearily through the glass walls and observe the same evidences of the hearth and the alcove. Only the creatures that can be alone possess a face; while those that know no solitude--the great, blissful, sacred solitude of the soul--have snouts instead of faces.
And in calling my friends "perfidious traitors" I, poor youth that I was, could not understand the wise law of life, according to which neither friendship, nor love, nor even the tenderest attachment of sister and mother, is eternal. Deceived by the lies of the poets, who proclaimed eternal friendship and love, I did not want to see that which my indulgent reader observes from the windows of his dwelling--how friends, relatives, mother and wife, in apparent despair and in tears, follow their dead to the cemetery, and after a lapse of some time return from there. No one buries himself together with the dead, no one asks the dead to make room in the coffin, and if the grief-stricken wife exclaims, in an outburst of tears, "Oh, bury me together with him!" she is merely expressing symbolically the extreme degree of her despair--one could easily convince himself of this by trying, in jest, to push her down into the grave. And those who restrain her are merely expressing symbolically their sympathy and understanding, thus lending the necessary aspect of solemn grief to the funeral custom.
Man must subject himself to the laws of life, not of death, nor to the fiction of the poets, however beautiful it may be. But can the fictitious be beautiful? Is there no beauty in the stern truth of life, in the mighty work of its wise laws, which subjects to itself with great disinterestedness the movements of the heavenly luminaries, as well as the restless linking of the tiny creatures called human beings?

Useful Links To Enlight Urself

Spic Macay http://www.spicmacay.com/ Indian Cultural Heritage Universal Truths

http://www.ramakrishna.org/universl.htm All things pointing in the same direction War on

Iraq- Arundhati Roy http://website.lineone.net/~jon.simmons/roy/03spiegl.htm Another View

Interview Spiritual Teachings http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~greg.c/ Differences and

Realization 5th Dimension http://home.infionline.net/~jforberg/id14.html Time... Our

Company http://www.washpostco.com/ Its a monument Islam For Today

http://www.islamfortoday.com/ Muslim history and civilizations

Swami Vivekananda and the Ramakrishna Movement

The Ramakrishna movement was established by Swami Vivekananda, who was a disciple of a Hindu saint Ramakrishna. The success of Swami Vivekananda began when he represented Hinduism at an international religion congress, which was held in 1893 in Chicago, USA. Vivekananda demonstrated India as a tolerant society, which allows different sects to live together under one roof of Hinduism and as a society, which also accepted in it people of other religions. He claimed that all religions eventually prayed to the same one God and the goal of all religions is the same, to reach God. He began his speech by referring to other delegates as ‘brothers and sisters’ and so proving his point that all the human race was one big family. His messages about humanity attracted many people of European culture and many claim that he started the European phenomenon of cults with Indian gurus.

After his success in America he returned to India and established the Ramakrishna movement with an aim to preserve the Indian culture. This movement considered the Indian culture as the most humanistic and spiritual culture in the world. This movement succeeded in establishing pride in Indian people about their culture which, they didn’t had before. His philosophy affected many nationalist leaders and they interpreted his philosophy so that it could be adjusted to Indian nationalism. For example the Ramakrishna movement believed in the existence of Supreme Being but Swami Vivekananda did not reject idolatry and claimed that the different idols were different ways to reach the same Supreme Being. This was interpreted to connect Goddess Earth (Mother India) and Goddess Kali whom many worshipped in Bengal. The message was sacrificing oneself for Mother India was like sacrificing for Kali. Some of Swami Vivekananda’s preachings were interpreted also by the British as hints to act against the British. For example Vivekananda preached that the path to realize God was not only worshipping idols in spiritual way but also through intellectual and physical action. The British thought that by saying physical action, Vivekananda meant terrorist actions against them.

Quotes of Vivekanananda

Friends, All can follow the link and get elevated by the quotes and try to follow this in ur life and get elevated in your life.The link may take you to elevation
www.borntomotivate.com/FamousQuote_SwamiVivekananda.html

Swami Vivekananda - Teachings to Humans

UNIVERSAL TEACHINGS OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

SEE GOD IN ALL:

This is the gist of all worship - to be pure and to do good to others. He who sees Siva in the poor, in the weak, and in the diseased, really worships Siva, and if he sees Siva only in the image, his worship is but preliminary. He who has served and helped one poor man seeing Siva in him, without thinking of his cast, creed, or race, or anything, with him Siva is more pleased than with the man who sees Him only in temples.

GOD IS WITHIN YOU :

It is impossible to find God outside of ourselves. Our own souls contribute all of the divinity that is outside of us. We are the greatest temple. The objectification is only a faint imitation of what we see within ourselves.

PERSEVERE IN YOUR SEARCH FOR GOD:

To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. "I will drink the ocean," says the persevering soul, "at my will mountains will crumble up." Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.

LOVE OF GOD IS ESSENTIAL:

Giving up all other thoughts, with the whole mind day and night worship God. Thus being worshipped day and night, He reveals himself and makes His worshippers feel His presence

Swami Vivekananda - About him

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA[1863-1902]:

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA'S inspiring personality was well known both in India and in America during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. The unknown monk of India suddenly leapt into fame at the Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893, at which he represented Hinduism. His vast knowledge of Eastern and Western culture as well as his deep spiritual insight, fervid eloquence, brilliant conversation, broad human sympathy, colourful personality, and handsome figure made an irresistible appeal to the many types of Americans who came in contact with him. People who saw or heard Vivekananda even once still cherish his memory after a lapse of more than half a century.
In America Vivekananda's mission was the interpretation of India's spiritual culture, especially in its Vedantic setting. He also tried to enrich the religious consciousness of the Americans through the rational and humanistic teachings of the Vedanta philosophy. In America he became India's spiritual ambassador and pleaded eloquently for better understanding between India and the New World in order to create a healthy synthesis of East and West, of religion and science.
In his own motherland Vivekananda is regarded as the patriot saint of modern India and an inspirer of her dormant national consciousness, To the Hindus he preached the ideal of a strength-giving and man-making religion. Service to man as the visible manifestation of the Godhead was the special form of worship he advocated for the Indians, devoted as they were to the rituals and myths of their ancient faith. Many political leaders of India have publicly acknowledged their indebtedness to Swami Vivekananda.
The Swami's mission was both national and international. A lover of mankind, be strove to promote peace and human brotherhood on the spiritual foundation of the Vedantic Oneness of existence. A mystic of the highest order, Vivekananda had a direct and intuitive experience of Reality. He derived his ideas from that unfailing source of wisdom and often presented them in the soulstirring language of poetry.
The natural tendency of Vivekananda's mind, like that of his Master, Ramakrishna, was to soar above the world and forget itself in contemplation of the Absolute. But another part of his personality bled at the sight of human suffering in East and West alike. It might appear that his mind seldom found a point of rest in its oscillation between contemplation of God and service to man. Be that as it may, he chose, in obedience to a higher call, service to man as his mission on earth; and this choice has endeared him to people in the West, Americans in particular.
In the course of a short life of thirty-nine years (1863-1902), of which only ten were devoted to public activities-and those, too, in the midst of acute physical suffering-he left for posterity his four classics: Jnana-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, Karma-Yoga, and Raja-Yoga, all of which are outstanding treatises on Hindu philosophy. In addition, he delivered innumerable lectures, wrote inspired letters in his own hand to his many friends and disciples, composed numerous poems, and acted as spiritual guide to the many seekers, who came to him for instruction. He also organized the Ramakrishna Order of monks, which is the most outstanding religious organization of modern India. It is devoted to the propagation of the Hindu spiritual culture not only in the Swami's native land, but also in America and in other parts of the world.
Swami Vivekananda once spoke of himself as a "condensed India." His life and teachings are of inestimable value to the West for an understanding of the mind of Asia. William James, the Harvard philosopher, called the Swami the "paragon of Vedantists." Max Muller and Paul Deussen, the famous Orientalists of the nineteenth century, held him in genuine respect and affection. "His words," writes Romain Rolland, "are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages of books, at thirty years' distance, without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shocks, what transports, must have been produced when in burning words they issued from the lips of the hero!''

Challenges to Faced Not to be Escaped

Each one in this world have some problems yp be faced. But many of them are not hard enough to face the problem and to face the and because of their problem they tend to succumb themselves by themselves.I like to say frankly onething to you all that everyone has got their own way of thinking and overwhelming the problems. So please everyone try to become dare enough to face the problem and overwhelm it.Many of the great people who are facing this world are surely infected by problems in their early stages. They overwhelmed it and now they are proud ones to show themselves to the people whom consider them as rottens. So please anyone in this world with any problem in them should have enough courage to face the world and over come the problems. So please dont take any unnatural decision to overcome or to hide urself from the problems