Make passion your driver

Make passion your driver: If you work for happiness, you may not get it; but if you work with happiness, then you will get it. If you wish to achieve satisfaction in life, work according to your nature. Do the things you love doing since that will give you inner joy.  Work is effortless when you love doing your work. Whenever there is effort, it  'drains your energy' but when  action is spontaneous, you will see that enthusiasm and energy remains with you all through. Freshness and smile are always there on your face. People would like to talk to you about your energy and enthusiasm. Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart, give your hundred per cent to it. If you love to be a writer, find your passion in writing. If you love photography, find a career out of it. If you love  music, then choose it as your career, and so on. Find out that your work truly inspires you and then direct all your energy in accomplishing it. Start doing things which you have always wanted to do. But your passion must, in some way or the other, improve or serve the lives of others too.  If you study the lives of the happiest, healthiest and the most satisfied people, you will find that each one of them has found his/her passion in life; and they had spent their days and nights in pursuing their passion. WHEN YOU CONCENTRATE ON THE PURSUIT THAT YOU LOVE, ABUNDANCE FLOWS INTO YOUR LIFE AND ALL YOUR DESIRES ARE EASILY FULFILLED. You will wake up every morning with limitless energy and enthusiasm, all your thoughts will be focused on your objective. You won’t have any time to waste. Once you find your purpose, life would become far more interesting and rewarding.  Neglecting passion blocks creative flow. But when passion and skill go together, the end result is often a master-piece.

Doubts can do us good

Doubts can do us good: Doubt and faith are antithetical, especially in the perspective of religion. Faith begins where doubt ends. But, to have faith without a spark of doubt leads to blind faith, often a source of misery and exploitation, as the history of mankind vindicates. The Buddha once visited a small town called Kesaputta whose inhabitants were known as Kalama. When the Kalamas heard about the visit, they met him and told him, “Revered one, we are frequently visited by different religious Gurus who try to impress us with their religious doctrines. While glorifying their own doctrine, they condemn and despise others’ doctrines. These result in doubts of all sorts in our minds. We request you to show us the way so that we get rid of such doubts.” The Budhha gave this advice: “It is always good that we have doubts. To follow  the sermons and teachings blindly without exercising doubts can be very harmful. The next question is what to do. My advice is that be not led by the authority of religious texts as no religious text is infallible; and likewise  the aura around the person  should not make you accept  him or his teachings, without  critically examining what he  taught.  “Further, you should not get influenced by appearances; delight in speculative opinions or visions of heaven which are only in next life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, and have the courage to follow your heart, intuition and intellect. When you are convinced that certain things are wholesome for you and have the potential to make your life happier and better, accept them. Similarly, when you know for yourself that certain things are not good, then do not lose any time in rejecting them. Yes, when you are stuck up and are not able to decide what’s good and what’s not, go to your master”  The Buddha went even furfhér. “A disciple should examine even the master Tathagata(Buddha) before  he embraces his teachings.”

Art of bouncing back

Art of bouncing back: Troubles in life are like thorns in a rose. Some of us overcome them in our own ingenious ways; but some others keep crying all their lives. Actually, troubles should be taken as a test  to prove the survival of the fittest.  When taken in the right spirit, troubles strengthen our zeal and conviction that life is great and worth- living in all circumstances. Or else, we would just be  no better than animals that care for nothing but their day-to-day survival.  Let me say if you know how to face troubles, you know how to be happy and progressive. The only difference between a winner and a loser is the attitude one takes over obstacles.  The winner faces them positively and the loser fails to take full opportunity of a crisis.  No need to say that all great leaders in the world  had faced great hardships and it was because of their tenacity and resilience that they “could come out of the hole" and bounce back to a fighting fit situation.  True, resilience alone is not good enough; one has to learn from one’s mistakes and go a step ahead the next time without losing conviction and confidence in one’s own will to do and tide over any difficulty.  If you want to succeed, you must be willing to fall and bounce back cheerfully, irrespective of the knocks you have received. The art  of bouncing back comes through one’s willingness to learn from a mistake and the zeal to take on the thorns of life. . Philosopher Criss Jami  has this point elaborated beautifully, “You get hit  the hardest when trying to run or hide from a problem. Troubles are invited out  of a fear of weakness. One has to realise that fearing weakness is further  strengthening it. We have to be like the herb that, as Walter Scott says in Ivanhoe, flourishes most when trampled upon!Those who have mastered the art of resilience know that setbacks and challenges can be our most powerful learning opportunities. Some of the world's most successful people have been fired from their jobs, and used the experience to bounce back to great heights.

Fear ... your worst enemy

Fear ... your worst enemy: Fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger—if we didn't feel it, we couldn't protect ourselves from legitimate threats. But often we fear situations that are far from life-or-death, and thus hang back for no good reason. Traumas or bad experiences can trigger a fear response within us, that is hard to quell.Fear is your own making and it is in your mind only. We are prisoners of a non- existing threat of our own creation. Don’t be scared of it; face it and make it disappear. True, it is in human nature to fear and be cautious. But most of the time, fear kills your zeal to take up an initiative for success. Dale Carnegie says fear leads to inaction which in  turn breeds doubt and more   fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. “If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home just to brood about it. Go out and get busy”.  Perhaps Mark Twain has better words, “Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.” So, what you fear most must be your first target of attack. Success does not come to those who make fear a constant part of their persona. Success goes to them who are fearless and undaunted in the face of failures and challenges. If Gandhi had made fear a part of his character, India would have never got freedom. He was frail and weak but his courage and fearlessness  and his feeble cry moved millions inside and outside the country.  And, if Neil Armstrong had been scared of the danger of going to and landing on the moon, he would have never got the proud moment of making his joyous and triumphant cry, “ A small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind.”  Any success demands a great desire to eclipse the fear of failure. In the words of Bill Cosby, “your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” It is not that one will succeed always. That should not stand as a problem. One who can bounce back and then goes to war fully equipped will surely have  success in his bag.

Thanks to God and people those really helped me in my difficult...

I went into the love marriage against family wishes in the year of 1996. It was a drastic change for me since my new family was a big joint family and I had spent all my life in a nuclear family. And moreover the family members were not welcome and supportive. I tried my best coping up with the change and mingling with them, but they never understood me or supported me. I became a mother soon and couldn’t have been happier. The attitude of my extended family continued to get worse. I tried settling with them,  but to no avail. And then one day all hell broke loose when suddenly my husband passed away. My son was only 5 years old that time and I was not a working woman. This was the turning point of my life. My whole life changed. It was already very painful for me and on the top of everything everyone blamed me for my husband’s death. But yes,  there were people in my family who supported me,  but then they were few.

After my husband’s death, I started my studies again and completed my B.A. and did a computer course. 6 months after my husband had passed away, I started working and paid for my son’s school fees. I would work all day in the office and at night my family would bad mouth me. I used to cry all the time at night and then would take to reading to divert myself away from all the nagging. Almost 4 years passed like this. Some people advised me for remarriage. But I never wanted to remarry because I was concerned if the new person in my life would be able to love my son as much as his own father would have. That time I decided that time that I would be independent and work hard for the sake of my son. Now, after so many years, I am happy that I took this decision.

I continued working hard,  but the salary I was getting was very less. So, I applied on many job portals. I got an interview call from a company but I was full of negativity due to the hardships in life. Yet I gave the interview and to my surprise got selected.

After some time of taking up the new job, I got an increment in a couple of months and new responsibilities. After all these years I am earning well and am much more confident too. I feel safe as well.

I got separated from my in laws sometime back and now I am living with my son. He is 18 years old now and a matured person.  During all this long hard period God and some wonderful people have helped me and because of them I am still alive and smiling. So from the bottom of my heart,I am thankful to them all.

Besides this, I would really want to tell all women out there to study hard and be educated because education is something that will always help them in all walks of life. And there’s nothing like being self-dependent and having their own identity.

UN launches campaign for action on violence against women on 25th November, 2015

UNITED NATIONS: India's iconic India Gate and the Delhi Metro will join hundreds of monuments across the world that will be illuminated as part of a UN effort to galvanise support for global action to end violence against women and girls. 

India Gate will be illuminated in orange and messages of ending violence... View More

Domestic Violence A True Victim Story ...

Ms Nagma (named changed) a Muslim woman was married under  Muslim Marriage rites and rituals, her parents had given a handsome quantity of ‘Meher’ in the wedding. But  her dreams of a blissful married life was shattered, when just after 1 month of her wedding, her in-laws  began maltreating her, torturing her both mentally and physically. They used to mercilessly beat her and demanded more and more dowry which included a luxury car, a plot and other articles. They even attempted to kill her on petty issues, harassed her on several occasions, the neighbours saved her from cruel clutches of her in –laws