DailyHappyLiving.com

gopimenon July 20th, 2010

Last week my grandson celebrated his First Birthday.   My son and daughter-in-law had planned everything very well and so the party went without a hitch!  The decorations were fine, so was the food, and so too were the guests and all of us enjoyed ourselves tremendously!

However the incident that made me think of God in a new light, came after all the guests had left, leaving just the immediate family! The doting parents were viewing the video that had been shot of their son blowing out the candles on his birthday cake.   The child was so happy that he was clapping his hands in glee when the guests finished singing the birthday song.  After blowing out the candle, when everyone clapped, the birthday boy too smiled widely and clapped.

The parents were so thrilled and happy at the sight of their child being happy that they kept rewinding the video to see it again and again! Why were they so happy?  Because they saw their child being happy!

Then it occurred to me:  If we as parents can be so happy to see our children happy,  would not God the omnipotent Parent also feel happy when we are happy? The answer is “Of course God would!”   Nothing could make God happier than have his creation (humans) enjoying themselves and being truly happy in this world of God’s creation, just as any doting parent would!   So it stands to reason that God would be happy if we were happy and not if we were miserable!

Unfortunately for us and the world, all of us are brainwashed from birth with teachings that make God out to be a vengeful, vindictive, autocratic dictator instead of a loving, caring Parent!

We are told to Fear God, to Obey God, to Pray everyday so as to Pacify the vengeful God!  We are told to feel guilt because “We are Sinners”;  “We are born on Earth to work out our Bad Karma”; that this wonderful world is like a Penal Colony to which we were banished from paradise because our first parents disobeyed God!

How vindictive must God be to punish all the following generations of children for a ‘sin’ committed once by a parent? How wicked must God be to create a horror called Hell to place his children in ‘forever’ just because they disobeyed Him?  How we do malign God to think of God’s compassion and love in such horrible terms!   But that is what we have been doing for ages and still continue to do so!  Our every belief about God is an insult to everything good in the Creator!

No wonder we find it difficult to be happy!  We turn everything good God has created and say that ‘this world is evil’, ‘people are sinners’, ‘life is an illusion’, and so on!  We are told we cannot be and should not be happy in this life but must suffer now so that we can reap the rewards in our afterlife! What crap?  But that is what is being preached even now!  Worst of all even educated people who should use their God-given power of reasoning, fall for such blatant untruths and continue to teach the same negative ideas to their children.   Then they complain God is not fair, the world is full of evil etc.

According to the Law of the Mind which we use in Affirmations, whatever we repeat to ourselves and continue to focus on we will attract!  So if you keep repeating that “I am a sinner” everyday, can you expect to become a saint? Of course not!  You will continue to remain a sinner and become a worse sinner if you believe such thoughts!

It is time to look at God in a new light – as a loving, compassionate, caring parent who has set up everything we need in this world to experience, enjoy, grow, be fulfilled and be happy in this life NOW and not only in the hereafter!

How much happier would we be if we believed in such a loving, caring God?   And that is the truth – God is loving, God is caring, God has your best interests at heart!  How can it be otherwise when even his creations (humans) can show so much love and caring to their own children? God has got to be the most wonderful Parent we could ever dream of having!   So let us Love God (not Fear God) and be grateful and happy and live a wonderful life here and now!

By looking at all the wonders of creation in this world, we can be confident that when our time is up on this plane of existence, God would have created an even better world for us to inhabit.   So have no fear for the present or the future!  Don’t listen to the false teachings of fear-mongers who only hope to control you by fear!

As always let me say again:

If you will reason things out for yourself using your God-given mind and discernment, and not just follow blindly what some so-called masters or gurus are saying, then you can make Happy Living a habit and a reality!

Will be back soon with more Tips on Happy Living.

• fear , gratitude , happy living , law of mind
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gopimenon May 10th, 2010

In earlier posts I have mentioned that feeling gratitude is one of the ways to remain happy.

The question that then comes up is this: “How can I show gratitude to my Creator?” “Is it by making offerings of flowers, fruits, candles etc, or by observing penances, or fasting…?”

Personally I feel that an easy way to show gratitude to God is by looking at everything we find in creation with wonder and amazement! For example:

• When we see a flower and enjoy its very presence and wonder at the magic of life that creates such colors and aromas from the dark and dank earth that the plant is growing in – then we are showing gratitude!
• When we see a baby and wonder in amazement at its mental and physical growth, then we are being grateful.
• When we see an ice cube float in a glass and wonder at how the solid ice can be lighter than the water, then we are showing gratitude. (See my earlier post on Happy Living Tip #5 )
• Etc.

I call these little things ‘daily miracles’.  If we would stop taking all these daily miracles for granted and appreciate them as wonderful, then we are showing gratitude to the Creator!

Just two days ago I had an occasion to experience this wonder with my one-year old grand-daughter, Hiranya:

We had been teaching her about the various parts of the body and she was learning fast – she could point out without fail her eyes, head, ears , hair etc. in a very cute manner.   We had also shown her to touch her chest when we asked her: “Where is Hiranya?”

The other day, when she was leaning her head on her Father’s shoulder while being carried, I asked her “Where is Hiranya?” and without hesitation (or raising her head from her dad’s shoulder) she just patted her rump in answer!  I was surprised to say the least.  This may not seem like much at first sight but to me it showed how fast her brain was growing.

You see, she could already differentiate the various parts of her body and would point to her rump when asked “Where is Hiranya’s bum-bum?”  So she was not making any mistake – she was actually answering my question .    She patted herself on her rump in answer to the question “Where is Hiranya?” instead of moving away from her dad’s shoulder and touching her chest because it was easier and more convenient for her to do!

Her brain had started synthesizing information; she now had an awareness of herself as an entity – the baby Hiranya!  She knew that her rump was also part of Hiranya the baby girl!  She knew the difference between her ‘ego’ and her ‘body’ – isn’t that marvelous?

How can I be confident that she had not just made a mistake?  Later when she was sitting on the floor and playing with her toys, I asked her again “Where is Hiranya?”  and she unhesitatingly touched her chest with her palm!

To me, observing little daily miracles like these and expressing my appreciation is one of the best ways of showing my gratitude to the Creator and to this Life!

Try it!  Instead of taking everything good in life for granted, and making a fuss about the bad, just reverse it.  Accept the bad things as just events that happen and appreciate the good things with wonder and amazement!  This will make happy living so much easier.

• gratitude , happy living
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gopimenon April 16th, 2010

Hello There,

I am sorry for the long break from posting.

How time does fly?  I can’t believe that it is already one year since I wrote a post entitled ‘Happy Birthday’ dedicated to my first grandchild Hiranya!   So I guess it is the right time to talk about the ‘Joys of Babysitting a Grandchild’!

A couple of weeks ago, a close relative got married and had a wedding dinner at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur.  When my wife and I arrived, we found that my son, his wife and daughter (Hiranya) were already there.   When the baby saw me from about three tables away she began to point at me and hold out her hands, asking to be carried!  Of course I happily did so!

But what I want to talk about is just how amazing a thing that little act was - a one-year old baby being able to recognize one person out of the sea of faces at the wedding dinner! How does the little brain register and sift through all that information – the hundreds of faces, the loud music, the babble of the guests talking, the movement of the waiters, the food on the tables etc.? But it is able to do so!  That is the miracle of life.

Every little thing the baby does is a cause for wonder – its first sneeze for example.   Even we as adults do not know all the muscles that have to be used in perfect timing (the eyes must be closed, the lungs must be able to drag in enough air, and the stomach and chest muscles must release all the pent up air in one small explosion through the mouth and nostrils!)   But the brain, or rather the  mind, is able to do all those myriad activities in an instant!  And to think that a baby’s just developing brain/mind can also do that easily!

Why am I talking about these little things (that we normally take for granted) in amazement and wonder?

I am merely applying Happy Living Tip # 5 (Look at Common Daily Miracles with Childlike Wonder & Amazement) and Happy Living Tip # 4 (Start a Gratitude Diary) – so that I can remain happy on a daily basis!

Thus I become aware of and enjoy the fact that everything that this body and mind is doing for us automatically, (without us knowing or even caring about it) is part of the Universal Source Energy (or God) and I am grateful!

While babysitting a grandchild, I am able to observe all these little miracles (baby’s first word, first step, first smile, etc.) with a greater intensity (no distractions such as a job or traffic jams) and this gives me boundless joy.   I think that the reason why a grandchild gives so much joy is because the love between a grandparent and a grandchild is truly unconditional!  As a grandparent we do not look forward to anything in return – all we want is to see the grandchild happy!

You may ask “What about a parent and child – can their love not be unconditional?”  Very rarely, because of the following:

1. ‘Parental pride syndrome’ which most parents suffer from.  They want to bask in the ‘reflected glory’ when their kids do well at school or excel at sports!  That is why there is excessive interest in tuition classes (even for kindergarten kids), and piano classes and karate classes etc.   When is there time for the child to be a child and enjoy childhood? But all these excesses are rationalized as “It is all in the child’s best interest and for the child’s future!”
2. Expectation: Also every parent cannot help but have some expectations of their child – that they will love and care for them in their old age.  But such thinking is not unconditional love – it is reciprocal love!

Reciprocal love is what is common in the world, whether it is between lovers or between friends – it is always conditional!  Imagine if a man loves a woman but she does not reciprocate – does he still love her unconditionally?  A friend breaks your heart – do you still love the friend unconditionally?  No!  It is not possible to have truly unconditional love.

But for a grandparent it is different!  He/she does not expect to live long enough to even see the grandchildren as adults.  So there is no expectation of the grandchildren having to repay them.   The love they have to give is truly unconditional and it therefore returned by the grandchild as unconditional love too!  And the beauty of it all is that unconditional love is truly Joyful – no expectation, just a feeling of being happy in the present!

Wouldn’t it be great if  we could truly love others unconditionally?

Expect Happiness!

• gratitude , happiness , happy living
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gopimenon January 4th, 2010

Hi There,

Today I would like to follow-up on last week’s topic ‘Not Putting Labels on People’ – which was all about learning to have ‘empathy’ for others.   Empathy is not the same as ‘sympathy’ which merely means to feel sorry for others!  Empathy means to be able to feel what others feel – to put ourselves in their position.

We can find many proverbs and sayings on various aspects of this subject ‘empathy’ such as:

• “Don’t judge a person until you walk a mile in the other person’s shoes!” – i.e.  See things from the other person’s perspective.
• “I was blue because I had no shoes, until I met a man on the street who had no feet!” - Learn to be grateful for what we have.
• “Live and let live!” – Live well but at the same time ensure that you let others live well too because they too are humans and deserve it!  (Unfortunately some people follow the adage ‘Live & Let Die!‘ thereby causing untold misery to others and to themselves too.)
• Etc.

But the phrase that has always struck a chord within me is one from the Bible which goes like this:

• “There, but for the Grace of God, Go I!”

It talks to me most strongly about ‘empathy’ – the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s situation.   But it is much more than that.  It also speaks to me of gratitude and humility.  In case you are not aware of what this phrase means, let me elaborate.

What it means to me is simply this:

If I see say a beggar, or a blind man, or a cripple on the street, I realize that if circumstances had been different, perhaps I could have been in their shoes!  Thus if I am sighted, able-bodied, and in a comfortable position financially now, it is merely because of the grace of God that I am not in the other’s plight.   Realizing this makes me exceedingly grateful and humble!  It also helps me to be kind to the other!

The other person need not be physically challenged for me to apply this phrase.  Even if I see a waiter, or a cleaner or a maid, I can still think about this and be grateful because I know that I could have been in their situation, but for Divine grace.  So I am always courteous to them – because I know they too are human, just like me and should not be treated as less than human!

Whenever I hear of people in positions of power, mistreating those less fortunate, I think about this phrase. If only these people would realize the true meaning of this phrase, they would not mistreat or condemn or judge others as they do now!

Unfortunately, I see many people going about acting boorishly  everywhere (in a restaurant, in the office, on the road, at home, etc.);  they look down upon others and treat them badly – without common courtesy.

Many people are arrogant about their position, their wealth or their health, not realizing that any of these could be taken from them in the blink of an eye – by an accident, by disease, by criminals etc.

In fact if you look at what happened in 2009 – some of those sacrosanct institutions (such as banks, insurance, huge conglomerates etc.) just went bust overnight!   Millions lost their means of livelihood, many lost their homes, and so on.

So now what happens to their arrogance and pride?   Who do they go to for help?  To those whom they have antagonized by their selfish, inconsiderate behavior?  On what grounds?

That is why we should realize that when we are in a comfortable position, we should be KIND to those in less fortunate positions! It is also the way to be happy in our relationship with others! If we continue to ‘distribute’ misery to others, how can we expect to remain happy?

This is why I place so much emphasis on this phrase as a means to Happy Living. Please remember: “There, but for the Grace of God, Go I!”

Expect Happiness!

• gratitude , happiness , happy living , unhappiness
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gopimenon July 29th, 2009

This has been a question that bothered me for years:  “Everyone seems to be praying for happiness, so why do so few find happiness?”

The answer is twofold:

1. The way we have been taught to pray, indeed the basic concept of prayer, is all wrong!
2. Happiness is not out there to be found!

The second answer has been well covered in my earlier post ‘The Pursuit of Happiness – Does It Make Sense?‘ so we will focus on the first (about Prayer) in this post.

What do I mean when I say that the basic concept of prayer is all wrong?  Just think about it!  What do we do when we pray? Here are some definitions from the web:

• the act of communicating with a deity (especially as a petition or in adoration or contrition or thanksgiving);
• reverent petition to a deity
• entreaty: earnest or urgent request;
• a fixed text used in praying

Except for when we are in `thanksgiving’ or `gratitude’ mode, most of the time we are asking (pleading, entreating, petitioning) for something from a Higher Source.  In this context, I find that a simpler word for this form of prayer is ‘begging’!  It is said ‘Beggars can’t be choosers!’ and I have to agree.  So how can we get what we want if we are always begging?

Personally we don’t really like to see beggars, do we?  We only feel sorry and throw them some loose change!  Even parents would not like to have their children beg them for what they want!  Why should we expect God to treat us any different?

When it comes to prayer, if we are not begging, we are ‘extorting’ or ‘bargaining’ with God.  We pray as follows:

• “Please give me that job/promotion/wealth/health etc. and I will light a candle for you in church; or break a coconut for you in a temple;  or sacrifice a goat for you;
• “If you give me what I want, I will pierce my body with hooks and needles, walk barefoot for miles, etc.”
• “If you don’t give me what I have prayed for, I will stop going to church/temple, etc”

Doesn’t it sound silly when put in such a way?  But that is exactly what we are continuing to do, day in day out!  We are bargaining with and giving ultimatums to the Supreme Power and then we expect our prayers to be answered!

Ridiculous!  I just can’t imagine God doing a ‘happy dance’ and saying: “Wow! This guy is going to light candles for Me and the other guy is going to break a thousand coconuts for Me!  The other guy is even willing to hurt/injure cause pain to his body (the body which I created for him to achieve great things in this world) for My sake.  How wonderful?  I have to give him/her what they want!

How silly is that way of thinking?   But this is what we have been taught – by our parents, by our priests, by our teachers, by our peers – and we just accept it as absolute truth and continue to practice and observe all the rituals as enjoined by them!

Even when we don’t get any results, we continue to ‘pray’ in the same manner.  Instead of rethinking our concept of prayer or our method of prayer, we continue to carry out the same actions and expect different outcomes (which happens to be a definition of insanity!)

What is a better alternative to begging?

Let me ask you this:  “If you wanted money from a bank, which gives you a better chance of getting the money – begging for a loan or submitting a business proposal?”

Of course you would have a better chance of getting your money if you submit a good business proposal!

Similarly when asking for things from the Source (i.e. praying), instead of just begging or giving ultimatums you must do the following:

1. Visualize your Desire:  Have a Clear Mental Picture of what you really want and Focus on it constantly!
2. Create the Appropriate Feelings: How would you feel if your desire were already manifested? Create those feelings of  Happiness & Gratitude as though your desire has already Manifested and send out those Happy Vibrations to the Universe.
3. Release your Desire to the Universe: Let the Universe take care of the Details of HOW your desire is going to be manifested!
4. ACT upon your Intuition: When you do the above 3 Steps, you will get inspired ideas on the steps to take so that you can achieve your desire.  Act immediately on such intuitive ideas.  Don’t wait or second guess them.  (Initially you may not be able to distinguish between true intuition and ‘wishful thinking’ because you have not made a habit of listening to your ‘inner voice’.  So you may make some mistakes, but act anyway and soon you will hear your inner voice clearly.  Then you will experience synchronicity – happy coincidences that lead you to your goal faster and easier!)
   

The above 4 Steps  are what I would call the New form of Prayer!

Remember, God is FOR us and NOT against us!  We don’t need to appease an angry or vengeful or judgmental God with offerings or prostrations!    He created this Universe for us to experience life to the fullest and live in joy and peace! – Gopi Menon

When you are clear about your Desire; when your Thoughts, Expectations, Beliefs & Emotions are aligned with Faith; and when you Act confidently on your intuition, then your Prayers are Answered!  This is how you literally transform your Dreams to Physical Reality!

• gratitude , happiness , happy living , unhappiness
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gopimenon June 29th, 2009

Hi There,

The last few posts have been a little intense, so am changing the pace a little for today’s post!   I am going to talk about Ice Cubes floating in a glass of water, from which we will lead up to today’s Happy Living Tip#5.

Today’s tip is also linked to Tip #4 on being Grateful.   It is about taking the time to really observe some  common daily occurrences that we take for granted – and wonder at how miraculous these things truly are!

Today I will talk about one little miracle that never fails to amaze me:

Ice Cubes Float – isn’t that miraculous?

The other day I was at a restaurant and observed that the ice cubes were floating on top of the fruit juice I ordered.   So what?  Big deal?

Hey it is a big deal!  Think about it.   Generally any element in solid form is more dense than when in the liquid form!  To put it another way,  any liquid expands as it is warmed up and contracts when it is cooled down.  This is the principle we use in our thermometers.

So if we were to cool a glass of water the colder water will sink to the bottom and the warmer water will rise to the top!  So by right ice which is colder than the water at zero deg. C should sink to the bottom, shouldn’t it?

However water has a special property called the ‘Anomalous Behavior of Water’ whereby water as it is cooled down say from room temperature, will initially contract until the temperature reaches 4deg. C, at which point it will start to expand!  So at zero deg.C or the temperature at which ice forms, the solid ice is actually less dense than water.  So ice floats on water!

By the way ‘anomalous’ is just another word for ‘peculiar’, ‘atypical’, ‘aberrant’, ‘abnormal’ etc. by which the scientist is simply saying: “We don’t know why water behaves in this way.  It just does!”   I would add “God only knows how!”   

But I do know why God makes water behave in that peculiar fashion.  It is because of the Creator’s love for all life on this Planet, to ensure that life continues to thrive!   Let me explain.

Imagine what happens to the oceans if water behaved like other liquids and kept contracting as it gets colder:

1. During winter, the colder water at the surface of ponds will sink to the bottom and if it were to continue to do so, the ice would also sink to the bottom and the pond will tend to freeze from the bottom upwards, and there will be no water for the fish to live in.  This is true for lakes and the oceans too!
2. Now when summer comes and starts thawing the ice, only the ice at the surface will become water but the ice at the bottom never gets the chance to thaw out.   After several winters the pond would be frozen solid.  If this were to happen to the oceans, we are left with no marine life as well as imminent danger of another ice age!  Finally no animal or human life on Earth!

Because Nature knows this, it made sure that water will start to EXPAND after 4 deg.C, thus causing the colder water to rise back to the surface and cause freezing from the top down.  Thus when summer comes, the ice layer on top can be melted easily by the sun and thus preserve marine life which have been existing under the ice.

• This then is the reason why water behaves in the ‘anomalous’ manner!   Because the Creator loves all living creatures (whether in the sea, on land or in the air) and wants them all to continue to have the gift of life!

Now what has all this got to do with Happy Living Tip #5?  Read the tip below and you will know the connection!

___________________________________________________________________

Happy Living Tip # 5:  Look at Common DAILY MIRACLES with Childlike Wonder & Amazement!

Too often we take everything around us for granted and never really sit down and think about them.

Each one of us can start to identify and think about some common daily occurrences that are truly magical!  Then we will begin to truly appreciate the world and the Creator, which will pave the way to Happy Living; instead of living always with complaints!

__________________________________________________________________

Since there are hundreds of daily things that can cause us to wonder, I invite you dear reader to share some of your own experiences in your comments!

I had already mentioned a common miracle in my earlier post “Thank God for My Elbows!”  Here are some other daily miracles to start the ball rolling:

1. Coconut Tree: How does water from the roots reach coconuts 40 feet above ground?
2. Dreams: How can we touch and taste and hear and see in color; feel all the emotions; as though it were totally real?  Therefore is a blind person able to see color in his dreams or a deaf person hear music in his dreams?
3. Our Tongue:  How does it synchronize its movements while moving food around to avoid getting chopped to pieces by the gnashing of the teeth while chewing?
4. Mind: Where is our mind located?  In the head?  In the heart? or in each cell? How?
5. Etc. Etc.

In life, there are too many things to wonder about, be amazed at in childlike curiosity and to be grateful for!  If only we would do it as a regular daily habit,  then we will find Happy Living much easier to achieve!

In closing may I say this:

It is Nature that Creates; Science merely tries to Explain that which has been created!

• gratitude , happy living , unhappiness , universal laws
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gopimenon June 18th, 2009

In this post I would like to answer another question by a reader:  “Why does God allow bad things to happen?”

Another great question!  I believe this is one that many people keep asking, because they do not understand the principle of creating and operating a system.

True Story: A few weeks ago a freak accident happened on one of the expressways of Malaysia.  A bus crashed through the guard rails at the side of the road and the rails speared through the bus.  This resulted in the horrific deaths of several passengers.

Image via Wikipedia

As usual there were a lot of mail in the newspapers saying that the guardrails should be better designed and changed and so on.   Most people forgot that the the true cause of the accident  was the driver and not the guardrails!   As some wit once said:  “The cause of any accident is always the nut behind the steering wheel!”   The guardrails are not designed to keep your vehicle on the road safely if you hit it at 90 km/h or so!  And they need not be!   But as usual the public will blame the highway builders.

Of course there are some cases where the highways are not designed properly: such as poor banking at road curves unable to accommodate the recommended speeds,  road surface deteriorating very fast in the rainy season, high possibility of landslides etc.   But in the vast majority of cases, the expressways in Malaysia are of a really high standard!

Why am I bringing up this incident?  Because it reflects the way people think in general.  They always tend to find someone or something outside of themselves to blame.   They do not accept responsibility for their own actions!  In the case above, if the driver had been alert (not sleepy or on drugs or whatever else caused the lapse of concentration) and was driving safely, then this accident would not have occurred.   To blame the road designers or the guardrails for being the main cause of the problem is ridiculous!

Of course when a public road used by thousands is involved, there will be cases when you may end up in an accident even if you are not to blame.   Some other car suddenly jumps the divider and falls into your path – you cannot avoid the crash and it is not your fault!   But it is still the other driver’s fault – not the fault of the road designer or builder! Similarly the world too is designed to be of a high standard (perhaps the highest standard) by the Creator.   But we have to be responsible for our own actions.

• To take just one example:  In the USA especially, every day we hear of shooting related deaths of children and other innocent people, but they are still very reluctant to pass a Gun Control Law!   It seems ridiculous to me that small kids (pre-teenagers) are involved in  fatal shootings.   If they had no easy access to guns, these tragedies would not have occurred.   But the majority of the adults  insist on their right to bear arms and are negligent in keeping the guns out of reach of the children.   So when the innocent children die, do we blame God or the people whose actions caused the tragedies?

Even when we talk of global events, such as climate change, is God really to blame?  We cause the problems and over a long period  of time it escalates into a global catastrophe!   Just as when we drive on the roads, we have to follow certain common sense rules to avoid accidents, so too in life we have to follow certain common sense rules to maintain the integrity of the planet.

Just as the designer of the road cannot (and should not) have to be responsible for every individual driver’s actions, so too God cannot be held responsible for the actions of each human!  Each one of us has been provided with the tools (our body and our senses) and the ability (our brains and mind) to live a wonderful life in a truly well-designed universe.   It is our responsibility to make sure we do live a wonderful life.

Another thing to remember is how Universal Laws work.   A universal law or principle has to be true all the time and has to be neutral – not a respecter of persons!   This will be discussed in the next post Part 2 of  “Why does God allow bad things to happen?”.

• anger , gratitude , happy living , law of mind , pursuit of happiness , self acceptance , unhappiness
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gopimenon April 22nd, 2009

Hope today’s title caused you to PAUSE and THINK!

Today’s post is all about being GRATEFUL – one of the easiest and fastest ways to become happy!  Too many of us take everything for granted.   Let me relate a very poignant (touching) experience I had about 3 years ago:

True Story: I was in the town of Kuala Perlis for two weeks on a technical writing job for the power station there.   I was staying at the hotel just opposite the ferry terminal to Langkawi.   One evening I was having dinner at a restaurant nearby (what locals call a `mamak’ shop), when I noticed a group of young men at a nearby table.

Most of them were fishermen or farmers with dark weather-beaten countenances, but one person stood out.  His face was fair and finely chiseled, and he was engaged in animated conversation with the others.   Then I noticed his left hand (or more correctly the lack of it)!   His left arm stopped just below his elbows ending in a stump with a few little protuberances (soft bubbles of flesh) that made up his `hand’.

He had no palm or fingers.  Yet he was holding a cigarette in that deformed limb.  When he reached down for a drink I was stunned to observe that his right hand too was similar – ending in a stump with a few small appendages in place of fingers.  So how did he drink?  His `fingers’ were not strong enough or long enough to hold the glass.

Fortunately his elbows were working fine.   So he held the glass between both his `arm-stumps’ and by bending his elbows brought the glass to his mouth, and drank as though it were the most natural thing in the world!  Yet he never looked morose or dejected.   In fact he seemed to be the life of that little party!

Later when he was about to leave, I had another shock – he rolled out a motorbike, not one modified for the disabled, but a normal one.  When he rode away, the shopkeeper saw me looking and said to me:  `Do you know that both his feet are also deformed?’  I hadn’t noticed because of the special shoes he wore.

Friends, can you imagine that?

That was an unforgettable lesson for me on the power of living in gratitude – to be able to carry on a `normal’ life in spite of such horrific disabilities!  That is also when I realized the true value of my elbows! So I am not being facetious when I say “Thank God for My Elbows!”   I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Let us think about this.  We see a blind man and we think `Thank God I’m not blind’.   We see a cripple and say `thank God for my legs’.  But has anyone ever said “Thank God for my elbows!” I guess not.  Because we take most things that Nature has given us for granted.  We don’t appreciate them enough or think about them at all!  Instead of living happily each day in GRATITUDE for all that we have, we spend the time COMPLAINING about all that we do not have!

Imagine this scenario: If I had no elbow of if it were fused solid, how would I reach into my pocket?  How would I comb my hair?   Oops! That’s a silly question – don’t have any hair to comb?  Okay but I still have to drink don’t I?  This bottle of water – how would I drink?  How would I brush my teeth? How would I eat?  How would I use the computer?  How would I write?   How would I hug someone?

Isn’t it incredible that without my elbows I could not do any of the thousand and one little daily actions that I take for granted?  Tying a shoelace, opening an umbrella, even waving goodbye – these are all impossible without elbows!

So I leave you with that thought and another practical tip for happy living:

“Be grateful for everything that you do have, even if it seems so common and unimportant as your elbows!” — Gopi Menon

See you soon!

• gratitude , happy living , self acceptance
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