Saturday, November 29, 2008

Inspiring Addresses

American President Abraham Lincoln's Most Famous Gettysburg Address: November 19, 1863
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or
any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met
on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of
that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should
do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we
can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or
detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather
for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom --
and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "
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Abraham Lincoln's Farewell Address
Springfield, IllinoisFebruary 11, 1861
When Abraham Lincoln left Springfield, Illinois, to start his inaugural journey for Washington, D.C., he paid an unforgettable tribute to his friends and neighbors in what is known today as the Farewell Address. Lincoln spoke these famous, emotion-charged words as he boarded a special presidential train at the Great Western Railroad station, now a restored Lincoln visitor site. The day Lincoln saw this depot for the last time he recognized most of the people in the huge crowd gathered outside. Ahead of him was war, death, and enduring fame; behind him were the warm-hearted people who provoked this response:
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"My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of
sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I
owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed
from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one
is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return,
with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington.
Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I
cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who
can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us
confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as
I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate
farewell. "
============================= Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler.
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Friday, November 28, 2008

Hekima College: Jesuit School of Theology - Nairobi

Hekima College Chapel - Nairobi (Photo: Chuks Mueme SJ) Happiness is not tomorrow.Happiness is now! REALITY is your HOME. Find it, and you will never be lonely! IF YOU ARE STILL AFRAID,YOU HAVE NOT HEARD THE GOOD NEWS. A moment of reflection on this please…! ------------------------------------- Do visit again. Thank you! ------------------------------------- Contact: vmalpan@gmail.com
“Praise the Lord, my soul!
All my being ,
praise his holy name!” (Psalm 103:1)
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Do visit this blog again. Thank you!

Thursday, November 27, 2008

INSIGHTS

(Photo : Courtsy: Chuks Mueme SJ)
ANYWAY People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centred …. Love them ANYWAY. If you do good people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives… Do good ANYWAY. If you are successful you win false friends and true enemies… Succeed ANYWAY. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow… Do good ANYWAY. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable… Be honest and frank ANYWAY. People favour underdogs but follow only top dogs… Fight for some under dogs ANYWAY. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight… Build ANYWAY. People really need help but may attack you if you help them… Help people ANYWAY. Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth… Give the world the best ANYWAY. ------------------------ My E-Mail Id: vmalpan@gmail.com

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Quotes From India

Rabindranath Tagore: Poet, Philosopher, Musician, Writer, Educator, Nobel Laureate (1861-1941)
Selected Quotations of RABINDRANATH TAGORE A dewdrop is a perfect integrity that has no filial memory of its parentage.
A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.
According to the true Indian view, our consciousness of the world, merely as the sum total of things that exist, and as governed by laws, is imperfect. But it is perfect when our consciousness realizes all things as spiritually one with it, and therefore capable of giving us joy. For us the highest purpose of this world is not merely living in it, knowing it and making use of it, but realizing our own selves in it through expansion of sympathy; not alienating ourselves from it and dominating it, but comprehending and uniting it with ourselves in perfect union.
All men have poetry in their hearts, and it is necessary for them, as much as possible, to express their feelings. For this they must have a medium, moving and pliant, which can refreshingly become their own, age after age. All great languages undergo change. Those languages which resist the spirit of change are doomed and will never produce great harvests of thought and literature. When forms become fixed, the spirit either weakly accepts its imprisonment or rebels. All revolutions consists of the "within" fighting against invasion from "without"... All great human movements are related to some great idea.
Asks the Possible of the Impossible, "Where is your dwelling-place?" "In the dreams of the Impotent," comes the answer.
Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony which is in the universal being; truth the perfect comprehension of the universal mind. We individuals approach it through our own mistakes and blunders, through our accumulated experience, through our illumined consciousness - how, otherwise, can we know truth?
Beauty is truth's smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror. Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it.
Children are living beings - more living than grown-up people who have built shells of habit around themselves. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for their mental health and development that they should not have mere schools for their lessons, but a world whose guiding spirit is personal love.
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come. Do not say, "It is morning," and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a new-born child that has no name.
Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it. Facts are many, but the truth is one.
For the current of our spiritual life creeds, rituals and channels that may thwart or help, according to their fixity or openness. When a symbol or spiritual idea becomes rigidly elaborate in its construction, it supplants the idea which it should support.
Gross utility kills beauty. We now have all over the world huge production of things, huge organizations, huge administrations of empire - all obstructing the path of life. Civilization is waiting for a great consummation, for an expression of its soul in beauty. This must be your contribution to the world.
He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open. I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.
If anger be the basis of our political activities, the excitement tends to become an end in itself, at the expense of the object to be achieved. side issues then assume an exaggerated importance, and all gravity of thought and action is lost; such excitement is not an exercise of strength, but a display of weakness.
If lifeĆ­s journey be endless where is its goal? The answer is, it is everywhere. We are in a palace which has no end, but which we have reached. By exploring it and extending our relationship with it we are ever making it more and more our own. The infant is born in the same universe where lives the adult of ripe mind. But its position is not like a schoolboy who has yet to learn his alphabet, finding himself in a college class. The infant has it own joy of life because the world is not a mere road, but a home, of which it will have more and more as it grows up in wisdom. With our road that gain is at every step, for it is the road and the home in one; it leads us on yet gives us shelter.
If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out. In love all the contradiction of existence merge themselves and are lost. Only in love are unity and duality not at variance. Love must be one and two at the same time. Only love is motion and rest in one. Our heart ever changes its place till it finds love, and then it has its rest... Bondage and liberation are not antagonistic in love. for love is most free and at the same time most bound. In our desire for eternal life we pray for an eternity of our habit and comfort, forgetting that immortality is in repeatedly transcending the definite forms of life in order to pursue the infinite truth of life.
In the dualism of death and life there is a harmony. We know that the life of a soul, which is finite in its expression and infinite in its principle, must go through the portals of death in its journey to realise the infinite. It is death which is monistic, it has no life in it. But life is dualistic; it has an appearance as well as truth; and death is that appearance, that maya, which is an inseparable companion to life.
In the night we stumble over things and become acutely conscious of their separateness, but the day reveals the unity which embraces them. And the man whose inner vision is bathed in consciousness at once realizes the spiritual unity which reigns over all racial differences, and his mind no longer stumbles over individual facts, accepting them as final. He realizes that peace is an inner harmony and not an outer adjustment, that beauty carries the assurance of our relationship to reality, which waits for its perfection in the response of our love.
Leave out my name from the gift if it be a burden, but keep my song.
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Compilation by Alan Smolowe.
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Contact: vmalpan@gmail.com

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Blessed Mother Theresa 1

Mother Teresa
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try.
Good works are links that form a chain of love.
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.
I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.
I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out.
To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out.
To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.
Intense love does not measure, it just gives.
It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.
It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.
It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy.
It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.
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From: brainyquote.com
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Contact E-Mail: vmalpan@gmail.com