What does it mean to be a good mother? Reflections on motherhood. #motherhood #reflections #philosophiawithminaathena #minaathena

A collection of poems to celebrate women. Blessings and Namaste. 💖MinaAthena

Excerpts:

“Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace. By the right choice and true application of thought, man ascends to the Divine Perfection; by the abuse and wrong application of thought, he descends below the level of the beast. Between these two extremes are all the grades of character, and man is their maker and master.

Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been restored and brought to light in this age, none is more gladdening or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this - that man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.”

“Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought- forces and mind-elements operate in the shaping of his character, circumstances, and destiny.”

“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires; and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.”

“All achievements, whether in the business, intellectual, or spiritual world, are the result of definitely directed thought, are governed by the same law and are of the same method; the only difference lies in the object of attainment.

He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.”

James Allen

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he

Proverbs 23:7 KJV

#JamesAllen #wisdom #blessings #namaste #minaathena 🙏💖✨🦋🙏

M.PEER MOHAMED SARDHAR

A Thought Provoking Story

This Too Shall Pass – Understand This Deeply

Once a king called upon all of his wise men and asked them, ” Is there a mantra or suggestion which works in every situation, in every circumstances, in every place and in every time. In every joy, every sorrow, every defeat and every victory? One answer for all questions? Something which can help me when none of you is available to advise me? Tell me is there any mantra?”

All the wise men were puzzled by the King’s question. They thought and thought. After a lengthy discussion, an old man suggested something which appealed to all of them. They went to the king and gave him something written on paper, with a condition that the king was not to see it out of curiosity.

Only in extreme danger, when the King finds himself alone and there seems to be no way, only then he can see it. The King put the papers under his Diamond ring.

Some time later, the neighbors attacked the Kingdom. King and his army fought bravely but lost the battle. The King had to flee on his horse. The enemies were following him. getting closer and closer. Suddenly the King found himself standing at the end of the road - that road was not going anywhere. Underneath there was a rocky valley thousand feet deep. If he jumped into it, he would be finished…and he could not return because it was a small road…the sound of enemy’s horses was approaching fast. The King became restless. There seemed to be no way.

Then suddenly he saw the Diamond in his ring shining in the sun, and he remembered the message hidden in the ring. He opened the diamond and read the message. The message was – “ THIS TOO SHALL PASS ”

The King read it . Again read it. Suddenly something struck him- Yes ! This too will pass. Only a few days ago, I was enjoying my kingdom. I was the mightiest of all the Kings. Yet today, the Kingdom and all my pleasures have gone. I am here trying to escape from enemies. Like those days of luxuries have gone, this day of danger too will pass. A calm came on his face. He kept standing there. The place where he was standing was full of natural beauty. He had never known that such a beautiful place was also a part of his Kingdom…

“If you are longing to caress the moon,

Don’t turn away from it!

If you are not ill,

why do you crawl under a blanket to hide?

You are in a quarry of sweets.

why do you look so sour?

You live in the spring of life.

why are you withered inside?

Don’t fight against yourself!

Don’t flee from what could be your glory!

Like a fearless moth,

dive into the flame.

Why be linked to your obsessions?

Burn out in the flames,

until your heart and soul are enlightened

Get out of the old carcass

and form yourself a new body.

Why are you afraid of a fox

when you descend from lions?

Why be a lam ass

when you have the strength of stallions?

The beloved you seek will arrive

to open the door to your fortune,

for love is the key

that opens all your locks.”

~ Rumi, Victory of Maryam

“I allow my dreams to live today

I will not deflect, diminish, or invalidate my dreams today, or concoct excuses for why they can’t happen. However outrageous they seem to be, I allow them to live within me. Today I will not allow my future to be limited by my beliefs about it.

I honor the images of my deeper self, and invite them to reveal to me the meaning of their message. I make a space within the temple of my mind for God, the dreamer of All of Life, to dream His dreams through me.

Dear God,

May I not be restricted by my mortal mind,

For in You all things are possible.

May I not be limited by the thinking of the world,

Or by the illusions of time and space.

May the dreams

That You would dream through me

be unblocked by thoughts of fear.

Amen

I allow my dreams to live today”

(meditation for 1.21.23) ~ Marianne Williamson, Transform with Marianne Williamson

The purpose of my life is to grow into my perfection

The embryo doesn’t struggle to become a baby, and the acorn doesn’t struggle to become an oak tree. Nor do I need to struggle to become the person I am created to be.

I am supported by nature in the process of my self-actualization. As I show up in glory, my life will be glorious. As I celebrate the beauty of life, life will celebrate my beauty. As I relax into the flow of the miraculous, then miracles will find me. I will embody in time the perfection of my true self.

Dear God,

I surrender to the thoughts of love,

That I might find my way to You.

In finding You I will find myself,

And then I will know joy.

Amen.

The purpose of my life is to grow into my perfection

(meditation for 1.22.23) ~ Marianne Williamson, Transform with Marianne Williamson

Happy New Year! I will share the legend of Buddha, the Folklore of Nian, the Lunar Zodiac to give you a bird’s eye view of Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rabbit. Be well and stay healthy. Blessings and Namaste. MinaAthena 💖

Sharing the following 12 poems to say goodbye to 2022 and say hello to 2023.

I Pack My Trunk by Amos R. Wells

How To Be Happy This New Year by Anonymous

Ring Out The Old, Ring In The New
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Year by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Death of the Old Year by Alfred Lord Tennyson

This was the year that was not the year by Brian Bilston

The Hill we Climb by Amanda Gorman

Dear Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

Warrior of the Light: A Manual by Paulo Coelho

Do not love half lovers by Gibran Khalil Gibran

Remember by Joy Harjo

Closing Of The Year by Poet Unknown

Happy New Year Dear Listeners. Thank you for your support.

Blessings and Namaste,

#MinaAthena

Rereading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s letter to his brother after he was almost executed but pardoned at the very last second. This letter is life changing and inspiring…Blessings and Namaste 💖🕊

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

Herman Hesse, Trees: Reflections and Poems

Blessings and Namaste 🙏

Life lessons and the wisdom of Fyodor Dostoevsky to his brother Mikhail written on December 22, 1849. “When I look back at the past and think how much time has been wasted in vain, how much time was lost in delusions, in errors, in idleness, in ignorance of how to live, how I did not value time, how often I sinned against my heart and spirit—my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, each minute might have been an age of happiness. Si jeunesse savait! [If youth knew!] Now, changing my life, I am being reborn into a new form. Brother! I swear to you that I shall not lose hope and shall preserve my spirit and heart in purity. I shall be reborn to a better thing. That is my whole hope, my whole comfort! The life in prison has already sufficiently killed in me the demands of the flesh which were not wholly pure; I took little heed of myself before. Now privations are nothing to me, and, therefore, do not fear that any material hardship will kill me. This cannot be! Ah! To have health!

Goodbye, goodbye, my brother! When shall I write you again? You will receive from me as detailed an account as possible of my journey. If I can only preserve my health, then everything will be right!

Well, goodbye, goodbye, brother! I embrace you closely, I kiss you closely. Remember me without pain in your heart. Do not grieve, I pray you, do not grieve for me! In the next letter I shall tell you of how I go on. Remember then what I have told you: plan out your life, do not waste it, arrange your destiny, think of your children. Oh, to see you, to see you! Goodbye! Now I tear myself away from everything that was dear; it is painful to leave it! It is painful to break oneself in two, to cut the heart in two. Goodbye! Goodbye! But I shall see you, I am convinced—I hope; do not change, love me, do not let your memory grow cold, and the thought of your love will be the best part of my life. Goodbye, goodbye, once more! Goodbye to all! Your brother.