Koffee 4 the Soul

Watch Mini Avengers

2015-09-18T11:46:00.001-07:00

Too cute to miss!

Being weird is a side effect of being awesome!

2015-09-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

Reading biographies of great people have really led me to believe me that not only am I awesome but I'm a genius in the making :) On a serious note, all geniuses have some fabric of weirdism that runs through the pattern of their life. Enjoy reading the following threads......

Leonardo Da Vinci the renowned artist was noted for carrying his notepad around included things like jokes, fables, financial records--even theories on anatomy, flight, and botany.

Andy Warhol the 'pop art' maverick was a hoarder of stamps, souvenirs, photographs, and even food, in a cardboard box next to his desk. Many of these hoarded objects made their way into his time capsules.

Here's a fascinating glimpse into the surrealist art works of Salvador Dali ....he took micro naps that lasted about a couple of seconds, he'd hold a key in his hand and when he drifted off to sleep the key would slip and fall on a plate creating a loud *clink* waking him up from his 'micro nap'. This, apparently, according to him gave his creativity an instant boost.

Beethoven was such a coffee fiend that he would spend a major part of his morning looking for 60 coffee beans to make his favourite cup of java . Apparently, the artist was so picky that he wouldn’t trust anyone to make his first cup of coffee exactly to his liking and continued to brew his cup of coffee with the choicest beans till his last breath.

A.R. Rahman is known to record music only at nights, compelling well known Bollywood bigwigs to burn their midnight oil in order to belt out chartbusting music

Doesn't this prove that we're all more than the patterns of our daily routines and maybe some of these elements of weirdisms embroider themselves in such a way which results in the splendor that is YOU! :)

The magic of books

2015-09-08T00:54:00.000-07:00

The daily grind can often leave us wanting for a certain tranquility that only books can provide. When read, you speak to yourself and listen to the unspoken words!

The written word of some of the authors beg to be read. I have my ever growing list of must- read....and what never fails to surprise me is that every time I re read a book it touches a totally new dimension of my emotions. If that's not magic, then I don’t know what is.

Eat, pray, love and read the next best seller *wink* *wink* by moi! Haha!

Are you in your element?

2015-09-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

As far as I can tell, I’ve always had a book in my lap, my purse and these days in my laptop bag (probably the laptop and book arguing with each other daily on who’s better lol!). Well, there are some books that are to be internalized and their learnings to be shared with the people at large to put some humanity into humans (*wicked*)!

So here we go, the book that I live by and urge everyone to read it atleast once in their lifetime is

Amazon.in Widgets

An elementary school teacher is giving a drawing class to six-year-olds. At the back of the room sits a girl who usually struggles to pay attention. Yet she’s totally absorbed during the art lesson. The teacher is fascinated and after 20 minutes asks the girl what she’s drawing.

“I’m drawing a picture of God,” says the girl without looking up from her masterpiece.

“But nobody knows what God looks like,” says the teacher.

“They will in a minute,” says the girl.

Author Ken Robinson loves telling this story because it reminds us just how confident kids are with their own imaginations. Ask a class of first graders who’s creative and Robinson says every hand will go up. Ask a class of college students and you’ll get far fewer hands. Ask around at work and you’ll be lucky to get a single hand.

He’s peppered the book with numerous life stories that are not only inspiring but completely transforming – if it’s not transformed my life, it sure has transformed my perspective about being in my element!

Here’s an interesting story – my 10 year old niece walked in while watching his ‘TED Video – do schools kill creativity’. She reads the title and says “yes, that is true” then walks out. She starts 5th grade next week :)

This one is a keeper! Stock up!

See you soon with another of my favorite books! Do comment and share favorite book!

Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life

Scion of Ikshvaku

2015-08-28T17:48:00.001-07:00

I'd pre ordered Scion of Ikshvaku book and was really apprehensive on how Amish would retell the story of Ramanyana. I was pleasantly surprised as this was clearly not what his storyline is all about.

The narrative is a fast, twisting and character forming fiction of Prince Ram.

Highly recommended!

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Winspirations

2015-08-28T13:43:00.001-07:00

Sacconeyjolys in Sorrento

2015-08-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Meet the Sacconejoly's on iTV

2015-08-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

Big Magic - Elizabeth Gilbert

2015-08-23T03:33:00.000-07:00

You can rebound from every negativity, sadness, darkness, rejection if you harbor hope in your heart. But the world suddenly becomes a burden when there is no hope left in your heart. When you have settled for your present misery and have accepted that this is how your life is going to be. This is when geniuses are killed, creativity goes into hibernation, light goes out of you eyes and ill patients succumb to depression and demise. - Elizabeth Gilbert

Jon Stewart - the funny man!

2015-08-22T15:28:00.001-07:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D2PAGaKioM

Manuel Lima: A visual history of human knowledge

2015-08-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

How does knowledge grow? Sometimes it begins with one insight and grows into many branches; other times it grows as a complex and interconnected network. Infographics expert Manuel Lima explores the thousand-year history of mapping data — from languages to dynasties — using trees and networks of information. It's a fascinating history of visualizations, and a look into humanity's urge to map what we know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXXU9agWcPU
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Soul strings

2015-08-18T13:08:00.001-07:00

Follow The 5th Corner's board Most pinned from Koffee 4 the Soul on Pinterest.

Posted by The 5th Corner on Saturday, 22 August 2015

Wisecracks

2015-08-18T11:33:00.001-07:00

What does your handwriting say about you?

2014-09-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

http://webonine.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/what-does-your-handwriting-say-about-you/

Koffee 4 the Soul:

2014-09-13T08:09:00.001-07:00

Koffee 4 the Soul:

2014-09-13T08:04:00.000-07:00

The Monkey and the Hatseller

2012-09-29T08:26:00.002-07:00

Wanna make everything ok?

2012-09-24T09:40:00.002-07:00

Musings of a Mystic

2012-09-24T00:43:00.000-07:00

The mystic - Sadhguru Jaggi VasudevQuotes and Sayings

Without working on human consciousness, trying to change social or national or global realities means there is no serious intention.
What you can do and what you cannot do outside is always a question of capability. But when it comes to the inside it is just a question of willingness.
The greatest crime that you can do to humanity is to teach your children that suffering is a part of their life. You have taken away the possibility of them being joyous human beings.
Fundamentally, the only thing you can give is yourself.
Life is far beyond meaning, Life is beyond meaning and that's why it is so beautiful.
Only when you are truly happy, you can be concerned about somebody. When you are unhappy you are only concerned about yourself.
Whenever you are happy, the real source of happiness is within you. It bubbles up. It is just that you are looking for an external stimulus to make you happy.
We know how to go to the moon, but the tragedy is that we still do not know how to live on planet earth.
The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering. Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing they are doing in their life.
Being with a Master is never comfortable, because He will break all your limitations, all your ideologies.
Till something becomes a reality in our life, if we talk about it, it amounts to lying. The whole world is lying to themselves and to everybody about God.
Religions of the world are not bout one man’s belief against another, but an opportunity for all humans to each to their common ultimate source.
Positive thinking is about trying to escape reality. It’s about wanting to look at one side of life, and missing out on another. You may ignore the other, but the other will not ignore you. Right now, you can choose to ignore a black cloud in the sky, but it’s not going to ignore you.
When you become meditative, you will see, your intellectual capabilities will increase many times more than what it is right now. Not because meditation makes you intelligent, but because meditation clears up the mess, the muck that’s gathered on the glass of the flashlight. As your meditation deepens, it just clears up the muck more and more and the flashlight becomes more and more powerful. It shows you things more and more clearly.

The Wise Woman

2012-09-22T13:35:00.002-07:00

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. "I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone." - Author Unknown

Why Mysticism Matters So Much - Andrew Cohen

2012-09-20T02:53:00.000-07:00

I had my first mystical experience when I was a 16-year-old secular atheist. I was sitting up late one night having a conversation with my mother when suddenly the “doors of perception” swung wide open and I found myself in a dramatically altered state of consciousness. Even though I could see the four walls of the room, inwardly, my conscious experience was one of no boundaries whatsoever. I felt like I was swirling in an infinite ocean of my own and everyone else’s Being. The presence of ecstasy was overwhelming and even unbearable at times. In the profundity of this beginningless and endless state, it became apparent that death was an illusion and that everything that exists and does not exist—the seen and the unseen, the known and the unknown—is all inseparable from this one inconceivable mystery.

Mystical experiences can convey to us that no matter what happens to our bodies and personalities in the world of time and space, mysteriously, at some other level, in another dimension of our own being, beyond the mind, everything is always okay.

The lightness of being that flows from the heart and mind of the mystic is very different than the sometimes disconcerting absolute self-confidence of the religious believer. The believer is convinced beyond doubt of the incontrovertible nature of the apparently unique truth espoused by his particular mythic tradition—whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist. Of course, in all of these traditions, there are many extraordinary men and women who are transformed in important ways by the liberating power of their faith alone. But the mystic has seen beyond the truth of any particular tradition because he has directly experienced at least what seems like a depth-dimension of reality that transcends all personal, religious, political, and cultural differences. This is because she has access to a truly transcendent knowing of the substratum of reality that remains unseen and unfelt by most. Mystical certainty spontaneously arises from the lightness of being that is the emotional resonance of the deepest dimension of the self.

When the mind is transcended, awareness of the passing of time fades away. And when time disappears, awareness of the world also disappears. All mystics have made the same unexpected and liberating discovery: when awareness of the world and everything in it, including one’s own bodily shape and form, disappears, the most intimately felt sense of “I” still remains. Except now, “I” is all there is—beginningless, endless.

Before time and space, before the universe was born, you didn’t have any problems and the world was not in crisis. That is why lightness of being is the emotional resonance not only of the deepest dimension of the Self, but also of the deepest dimension of reality itself. If we can find access to that Unborn, Uncreated, timeless domain of our own being, then we can know here and now, just like the greatest mystics throughout the ages, that everything is always okay . . .

In an interconnected world where bad news dominates news space, knowing that deeply, everything’s always okay, is more important than ever. It doesn’t mean we are living in denial of the very real and complex problems we are facing. But the ever-new and always-liberating truth of mystical insight spiritually empowers us so that we won’t become discouraged, even on really bad days. Being awake to our own infinite depths empowers us to fight the good fight with courage.

Where will I be After Death? Sadhguru

2012-09-16T00:17:00.003-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k-V98B9ipg&feature=related

Can you enforce morality?

2012-09-13T15:31:00.001-07:00

It is very easy to preach morality. Everyone blabbers on about dharma according to their convenience. The husband says the wife’s dharma is to take care of him; the wife says the husband’s dharma is to take care of her; parents say the children’s dharma is to take care of them. These are all vested interests.

I know I am expected to offer a moral code in this article—one that you will anyway not follow. So, I’m not willing to preach another dharma for businessmen. Morals can always be subverted.

They may make you feel good, but everyone always ends up doing what they have to do.Ethics and morals have great relevance only in those areas of life where there are no laws. There are many areas where laws are irrelevant—within a family, with friends, in certain trustful atmospheres. But when it comes to business, it is very important that as a nation and as a society, we set up laws which leave very little room for ambiguity.

Right now, we have laws which are so ambiguous that even experts in the field do not understand them. These laws were fixed by people who conquered this land, who wanted to keep a hold on the population, to curb anyone who is successful. The laws here are such that just about anybody can be picked up for something he doesn’t even know he’s done. Tomorrow, if I pick you up and put you in the lockup, I can always show you a reason why you could be arrested!

It is time we made the laws very simple and direct and reduced the grey areas, to limit our dependency on individual values and ethics. But instead of fixing the system, we try to fix individual morality and hope for results. This is never going to work.

You can never impose one standard morality on the whole population, because ideas of good and bad are always changing. Osama Bin Laden had his own fantastic logic about why he had to do what he had to do. Veerappan had his own logic. Ask a Maoist, who is right now blasting away a police van, and he has his own perfect logic.

So it is best that business is fixed by simple laws where everybody knows what can be done and what cannot. These laws can also be fixed in such a way that everything that you earn in some way benefits everybody.

Right now, nobody wants to pay their taxes because the tax goes into the pockets of a few. So it is important that the laws are not just fixed, but enforced. Now you may ask, don’t we need morality to enforce a law?

No, you don’t. All you need is humanity. That’s why it’s important for people in responsible positions—in society, politics or business—to have at least a drop of the spiritual process within them. Why? Because spirituality stirs up your humanity and when your humanity comes to the fore, you are naturally inclusive and you do what is best for everyone. It is a far better insurance than stirring your morality.

But instead of allowing humanity to overflow, you try to constrain it with ethics. Constraints never work. Curbing people is never the answer; liberating them is the only way. You have to liberate people from their petty needs rather than try to control them and make them feel guilty.

What Karl Marx offered was a fantastic dream in which everybody lives by his need, not by his greed. But this was a utopian ideal. Marx had a brilliant vision for humanity, but grossly underestimated the human need to be committed to limited boundaries. Our existing society is a consequence of existing human nature. Without working to transform human nature, you cannot transform society. Communism is wonderful if it comes voluntarily, but when it is enforced, it is the ugliest way to live

Credits: Forbes India Magazine

Individualism is a Disease-Sadhguru in conversation with Shekhar Kepur

2012-09-12T14:25:00.002-07:00