Navigate by Norman Vincent Peale

"The best thing to do id to get healed of negatives in life, become filled with faith" hence goes the words by Dr Peale as it appears n the introduction of the book and that exactly is the purpose and vision of the book. He seeks to replace the negativities in life with a positive outlook through the medium of prayer and faith. Dr Peale was a minister by occupation and this has aided him in bearing witness to the many sufferings there is and as he himself states that the sheer volume if published as a book could be consider as the account of all human suffering. This very aspect of his occupation has also helped him witness many miracles and has shown him what the human spirit can achieve ones it is determined to so so. This book is a guide to help realize that potential.

That being said one of the greatest back-draws that I experienced when reading the book was also culminating from the fact Dr Peale was a minister and that his proximity to his religion and its intricacies. The book is full of references to Bible, anecdotes, events and stories from the Bible and the christian religious world view. Now I don't mean to say that the book is a christian doctrine, but any person totally unaware or illiterate of the christian world view would find it hard to comprehend and fully appreciate the wisdom of Dr Peale. 

Peale at length talks about the importance of faith and the power and potential of the human spirits and all the chapters in the book is directed towards discovering that potential and that faith. He asks for unflinching faith and he preaches of the enormous life altering strength that is dormant in every one of us. he seeks to liberate that strength by means of prayer and faith. He believes and with the aid of several examples from his life and the ones he touched emphasizes on to the reader this belief of his.

The whole essence of the book can be found in the phrase "Be filled with love and faith" and he prophesies that all your vows will be gone once that is achieved. The book is an excellent guide to any one who finds himself in a doldrum and seeks to escape that impasse. Once you are willing to look deep into the elements of christianity in this book and seek out its meaning and why he choses to use it, this becomes and excellent guide but even without that all you have to do look beyond them and the book will serve its purpose, and will help navigate you through your life.

In association with Jaico Publishing House

The Drought...

It strikes me gravely, to write such as this. This is not ability to write that I share but the inability to do so. It is no story of real drought and hunger that affect many a millions in this world. This is the story of just a single person starved on the keyboard. This is no story, in fact this is the absence of any story that I would like to share.

I must be frank, this is just a weeping. This certainly is going to be a boring piece to read. It has no happiness in it at all. No happy beginning, no happy happenings and certainly no happy endings that I know of. This is the grim story of myself and my pen, sitting together to write nothing. Its our explorations in the dark unfathomable shadows that we fear the most. If the darkness is what that scares the least, its the fearfully personal happenings that seemed to carve in the most.

Its been sometime, sometime now that the pen and paper had shown any mercy to me. No matter what I start writing I inevitably bump into that invisible wall that separates me from making any sense of what I write. Either I end up making a hash of it or even worse I end up stuck in the middle with both my pen and my mind refusing to budge a single inch. Its certainly not the lack of ideas or topics, but its the matter of the flow, no longer can I caress the piece of paper with ease and it has started to show.  All those brilliant sparks die out the miserable death leaving me to fend on my own. Talk about being ditched by myself.

I do not know how long its going to be, till I can get a hold of myself and come back to the good old times. I can but only hope that it will all be alright, Anything more is too much to ask for. One thing is certain it has came back every single time it has happened to me. May be its inside somewhere in the hiding and if I look hard enough and let myself be inspired by life around me, then certainly it would come back one day

The Things Around You.

Its is often a bit too much to ask for to have the ability to observe. It gives great option to the things that you see every day, adding a new level of detail to the monotonous. The way one sees the world is entirely different from that of any other, this subtle but crucial difference make them poles apart on many a occurrences. May be this is what we mean by the word 'perspective'. And we do know that perspective changes the world around us. 

One way it can touch our life has a significance that surpasses Many things, your perspective can alter things in such a great manner that we owe a very large slice of ourselves to it. The way we see and interpret things shape the way we think, the way we think dictates how we act and respond to a wide range of things and finally the way we act out makes us who we are.

Many things may add to this making of a man and those have been debated upon for times immemorial and rest assured we wont be finished with it any time soon. But as of now that is not we started out with, have we ? I apologies to have got carried away but still that was worth it, like the good old times!

The ability to observe can in itself be a sin or curse, it becomes just a question how we come to deal with it. These sides of the coin I have seen just enough times  to have come in terms with. The large part of it may be just a prick in the hand, but some go real deep, sometimes a bit too much for your comfort. The things you see can bring within you a vibrant set of colourful feelings, from the light ones of joy to think ones of fear and angst. This vibrant world is put open to all but many shut their eyes to the dark ones and eventually the lighter ones too disappear. So naive are some that their life is but a gruesome monotone to live. Their is a world of rainbows they trade off for the fear of a dark one they have not yet been condemned to. Its such a shame that the fear of a few

It is even more creulsome to watch man after man chose not to feel, man after many take What is not life but a life that destroys any vibrate the word still holds. It is so sad to watch men waste the life of a dreams for the pretence of security.

But for the few who chose to see there is matter of great significance that they have to perform , they have to chose. They have to chose what to see and what to think of what they have seen, they have to chose what is that, that they have to take and what is that, that they have to un-see.  Those who whose to see the darkness turn up to be abominations of the sense those colours seems to posses., and the others who have opted to be on the brighter side of the place, gets to be the ones to set it all right again. To have chose is a quest of Philosophical value yet again.

Daffodils in Life’s way

                                       Many a daffodils laughed upon the little road by a brook, many a birds chirped upon the humble grass they fed on. Many waves lashed the shores and many a winds sang the song of nature. But marched on the soldiers of today, dreaming. A world of tomorrow they lost for the world of today they had

                                       How many has a seen a daffodil? Many have I suppose, but how many has a seen a daffodil today? Not many I should think. Where did these daffodils go? Did they just vanish or had they all withered. But neither had happened, the truth is you just did not see them today, they were there and they were still blossoms but they were not seen. These daffodils are like shadows they appear and go but they are hardly noticed.

                                       Often in life the most memorable are memories of small things. These little things that you have seen and you have heard will play a role in life that no big things will. The beauty of remaining fall is that they shall be only discovered by the wise. The intelligent has sight but only the wise knows where to look. The little things you have done for someone and the little things they did it for you are all in the package. The amount and magnitude of things are secondary to the way it was done for you.

                                       Those small moments of love and that instant of a smile, aren’t those that you cherish more that the grades you scored in 1oth grade?

                                       But somehow along the line, people forget what they seek and they pursue things they think they want. They forget to see what the daffodils along the way by looking up at the crowd ahead. They do fail to realize that if they won’t be finding happiness along the way they hardly will find it at the end of the journey. Everyone should now and then halt and take a look around. They will be bewildered by the sings they see by simply looking at them.

                                       Everyone I would like to tell you something, when on any journey make sure that you take a time out for yourself, you can discover answers to many complex questions by simple looking at the world around us. Nature is a great teacher and an ultimate adobe of all information. But after all make sure to see the daffodils before you walk away.

Looking up at the Stars . . .

                          " We are all in the gutter , But some of us are looking at the stars.  "

   -- Oscar Wilde              

          

               Wonderful isn't it ? The night sky!. It is something that never fails to fascinate. So  Adorable, So magnificent, as if someone had accidentally dropped a million diamonds upon the black sky. They dance and the sway, they twinkle and they smirk. They make u look up at them with awe, with fascination. Nothing has inspired men like the stars if you would not count " love ". But unlike " love " the stars makes you desire, envy them in an entirely diffident manner, May be its because underneath you are aware of the impracticality in achieving it. Never the less. men has always chased stars and chased it quite far too.

                         Where is a child in all the worlds, who has looked up at the night sky and not desired a stellar speck of his own. No wonder men compare their dream to the stars, those are as special as it gets. I remember Carl Schurz  who once said stars are like ideals, never to be achieved but to be followed. Sure every one of us know that one is never going to have a star, but does that stop them from dreaming of having one? Of course not!. 

                         To have a dream is very fundamental, To compare it to the stars. A life without a dream is a sky with no stars. 

                         I still remember when i used to gaze up at the stars. As the many dreamers i know, and the many millions i do not know, the thing that's going to separate the men from the boys definitely is whether they believe they can actually capture the " STAR "!