“He who merely knows right principles is not equal to him who loves them.” – Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC) Chinese philosopher / teacher

Today’s SFZ

“PERSONAL GAIN FALLS BY THE WAYSIDE” – “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.”  “[In this way,] the drive for personal gain in the areas of sex, property and social position, which brought so much pain in the past, falls by the wayside … .” (The Basic Text, p. 75)

When have you taken less than you needed and felt good about that decision, lately?

PRIDE (In The Name of Love) U2 

Khalil Gibran’s Meditation on Love (4:27)

Simple living and high thinking.

This maxim advises the golden principles of life that a person would lead his life with minimum wants, as human wants are limitless and get multiplied one after another.  And should assimilate high thinking to serve the people with great deeds. Only the simple way of life encourages one to think about great deeds and great achievements. The wants of man are innumerable and they multiply one by one.   And these wants and desire to achieve them make the man a selfish to acquire worldly pleasures. They prevent the man to think of high ideals and bring him down to the narrow cycle of worldly pursuits. Most of the men in the history have practiced the principle and achieved greatness in all its glory.

Mahatma Gandhi – Father of our nation India – lived a simple life. He wore a dhoti and lived in a hut and ate vegetarian food. But the whole nation obeyed his words in a sense. His high and dynamic thinking and novel ways of protesting made the British to respect him and finally got us independence. Similarly the American President Abraham Lincoln lived a simple life and he did all his work personally and never employed servants. All great saints like Kabir and Buddha attained spiritual greatness and shook the world by their way to living and high intellectual thinking. Many Politicians during the independence movement lived a simple movement. So, one ought to follow this golden principle of life to do great and achieve not only in the spiritual field but also in worldly affairs.

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Slow and steady wins the race.

The maxim above says that those who are slow in actions but with constant efforts in their venture achieve their goal whereas people who start their work with vigor but with no constant efforts become overconfident and fail to reach the goal. It is very true that consistent effort makes one to complete one’s work.

This maxim originates the fable of the Hare and the Tortoise. The hare was a very boastful animal and he always boasted about his fast running. He challenged the tortoise to a race and the tortoise agreed. During the race the hare ran fast and after running half the distance he turned back to see the tortoise coming at a far away distance. He went to sleep and soon he was fast asleep, meanwhile the tortoise continued running and overtook the hare. When the hare woke up he saw the tortoise slowly approaching the goal and he tried to run fast. But the tortoise crossed the line and became the winner. The story is used to illustrate the point that the tortoise a creature which is slow in nature could over take a faster creature like the hare due to his persistent nature.

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Life is like a race and to win the race, one has to put forth every possible potential.  As well as regular and intact effort. This proverb insists that if our efforts and of course of action are consistent.  We can get success though we are slow at out work. When we start a work with vigor and in haste, we soon get tired and sometimes become overconfident over our fastness. This tiredness and overconfidence lead us to inconsistency.  And so it is inevitable to face failure to attain the goal. On the other hand, when we start and work slowly and steadily we have a good planning to do the work systematically,  And it leads to constant efforts. Even in student life a student who feels he is intelligent will soon be overtaken by slow learners who study regularly.   (http://www.english-for-students.com/simple-living-and-high-thinking.html)