Laughter The Best Medicine

Many years ago, Norman Cousins was diagnosed as “terminally ill”. He was given six months to live. His chance for recovery was 1 in 500. He could see the worry, depression and anger in his life contributed to, and perhaps helped cause, his disease. He wondered, “If illness can be caused by negativity, can wellness be created by positivity?”

He decided to make an experiment of himself. Laughter was one of the most positive activities he knew. He rented all the funny movies he could find – Keaton, Chaplin, Fields, the Marx Brothers. (This was before VCRs, so he had to rent the actual films.) He read funny stories. He asked his friends to call him whenever they said, heard or did something funny. His pain was so great he could not sleep. Laughing for 10 solid minutes, he found, relieved the pain for several hours so he could sleep.

He fully recovered from his illness and lived another 20 happy, healthy and productive years. (His journey is detailed in his book, Anatomy of an Illness.) He credits visualization, the love of his family and friends, and laughter for his recovery. Some people think laughter is a waste of time. It is a luxury, they say, a frivolity, something to indulge in only every so often. Nothing could be further from the truth. Laughter is essential to our equilibrium, to our well-being, to our aliveness. If we’re not well, laughter helps us get well; if we are well, laughter helps us stay that way. Since Cousins’ ground-breaking subjective work, scientific studies have shown that laughter has a curative effect on the body, the mind and the emotions.

So, if you like laughter, consider it sound medical advice to indulge in it as often as you can. If you don’t like laughter, then take your medicine – laugh anyway. Use whatever makes you laugh – movies, sitcoms, Monty Python, records, books, New Yorker cartoons, jokes, friends.

Give yourself permission to laugh – long and loud and out loud – whenever anything strikes you as funny. The people around you may think you’re strange, but sooner or later they’ll join in even if they don’t know what you’re laughing about.

Some diseases may be contagious, but none is as contagious as the cure. . . laughter.

– “Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul”

Rules For Being Human

1. You Will Receive A Body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2. You Will Learn Lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called Life. Each day in this school, you will have the opportunity to learn lessons – you may like the lesson or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There Are No Mistakes, Only Lessons. There is a process of trial and error; experimentation. The ‘failed’ experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately ‘works’.

4. A Lesson Is Repeated Until It Is Learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning Lessons Does Not End. There is no part of Life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. ‘There’ Is No Better Than ‘here’. When your ‘there’ has become a ‘here’, you will simply obtain another ‘there’ that will again look better than ‘here’.

7. Others Are Merely Mirrors Of You. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What You Make Of Your Life Is Up To You. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

10. Your Answers Lie Inside You. The answers to Life’s questions lie inside you. All you need do is look, listen and trust.

Difference Between Right And Wrong

Once many pupil from many parts of Japan came to attend seclusion weeks of meditation. During one of these gatherings One of them was caught stealing. Whole matter was reported to Bankei. All pupil requested Bankei to expel that person from gatherings but Bankei ignored the case.

Again that person was caught in similar act of stealing and again people demanded Bankei to detain that person from gatherings but Bankei refused.  Pupil who asked for dismissal of thief got angry and drew up a petition and stated that If the person who is stealing is not dismissed then all other people will leave the gathering.

This petition reached to Bankei. After reading petition he asked everyone to gather before him and said, “You are Wise Brothers. You know what’s right what’s wrong. You may go somewhere else to study if you wish but this brother doesn’t even know the difference between right and wrong. If i will not teach him then who will? I am going to keep him here even if you all leave.”

Tears came out of the person who had stolen and all desire to steal had vanished from his mind.

Moral:

If someone commits crime then sometimes we need to look deeper and we might just see that that person simply need to be shown right path. We also need to take time to teach them right and wrong.

A Conversation with God

Come in,” God said. “So, you would like to interview Me?”

“If you have the time,” I said.

God smiled and said: “My time is eternity and is enough to do everything; what questions do you have in mind to ask me?”

“What surprises you most about mankind?”

God answered:

“That they get bored of being children, are in a rush to grow up, and then long to be children again.”

“That they lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health.”

“That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live neither for the present nor the future.”

“That they live as if they will never die, and they die as if they had never lived.”

God’s hands took mine and we were silent for a while and then I asked:

“As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons you want your children to learn?”

God replied with a smile:

“To learn that they cannot make anyone love them.”

“What they can do is to let themselves be loved.”

“To learn that what is most valuable is not what they have in their lives, but who they have in their lives.”

“To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others. All will be judged individually on their own merits, not as a group on a comparison basis!”

God continued:

“To learn that a rich person is not the one who has the most, but is one who needs the least.”

“To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in persons we love, and that it takes many years to heal them.”

“To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.”

“To learn that there are persons that love them dearly, but simply do not know how to express or show their feelings.”

As I listened intently, God said:

“To learn that money can buy everything but happiness.”

“To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it totally different.”

“To learn that a true friend is someone who knows everything about them and likes them anyway.”

“To learn that it is not always enough that they be forgiven by others, but that they have to forgive themselves.”

I sat there for a while enjoying the moment. I thanked Him for His time and for all that He has done for me and my family

He replied:

“Anytime.”

“I’m here 24 hours a day.”

“All you have to do is ask for me, and I’ll answer.”

Two Friends Who Discovered The Secret To Success

Hard work is the key to success. But only working hard won’t help you get success in life. There are other factors involved. Confused?

Let me tell you a story of two friends out of which one got rich and the other lagged behind even after putting in a lot of hard work.

Once, there were two great friends. The first friend used to work hard throughout the day but hardly got anything. Whereas, the other friend worked for four hours and used to help the needy and meditate the rest of the time.

When they meet after a long time they discuss their life with each other. The first friend asks his friend, “Why is it that you get success and money after working for just 4 hours and I remain poor even after working the whole day.” After hearing his friend’s complaints, the other friend smiles and asks his friend a question,” What do you have in mind while you do your work.”

The first friend replies, “I keep think about ways and mean of earning more wealth.” At this the second friend replies, “This is the reason behind your unhappiness and failure.”

“This is the reason behind your unhappiness and failure.”

He explained that,” One does not attain success by just working hard. Success is a state of mind. What is the purpose of working hard when you stay unhappy.”

“Mental happiness is very important for a successful life.”   

“Mental happiness is very important for a successful life.”   

He advised his friend to stay happy and calm under every circumstance. After hearing his friend’s advice the first friend started following the same thing and soon he became rich and successful in life.

Eagles And Storms

Did you know that an eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks. The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come.

When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it. The eagle does not escape the storm. It simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It rises on the winds that bring the storm.

When the storms of life come upon us- and all of us will experience them – we can rise above them by setting our minds and our belief toward God. The storms do not have to overcome us. We can allow God’s power to lift us above them.

God enables us to ride the winds of the storm that bring sickness, tragedy, failure and disappointment in our lives. We can soar above the storm.

Remember, it is not the burdens of life that weigh us down, it is how we handle them.

A Wise Old Owl

There was an old owl that lived in an oak. Everyday he saw incidents happening around him. Yesterday he saw a boy helping an old man to carry a heavy basket. Today he saw a girl shouting at her mother. The more he saw the less he spoke.

As he spoke less, he heard more. He heard people talking and telling stories. He heard a woman saying that an elephant jumped over a fence. He also heard a man saying that he had never made a mistake.

The old owl had seen and heard about what happened to people. Some became better and some became worse. But the old owl had become wiser each and every day.

Moral of the story :You should be observant, talk less but listen more. This will make you a wise person.