Life is not about how hard you can hit, but how much you can take and keep moving forward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1tXhJniSEc 

"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place. And I don't care how tough you are. It will beat you to your knees and keep you permanently there if you let it."
"You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done."
"Now if you know what you are worth, go out and get what you are worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits and not pointing fingers, saying you ain't where you want to be because of him or her or anybody. Cowards do that, and that ain't you. You're better than that."

Yes, it's about taking full responsibility for our actions, no matter what!

If someone kills me, they become my servant. If I really understand that, then even all the little deaths will only be helpful.

Good ol Sylvester Stallone, in Rocky. "The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows." Well, yes it is...but if you stay out in the sun all day you get burnt and the rainbow only comes AFTER the rain.

Some places aren't as hard on you and some people have an easy life. But even that can kill you. The good life clogs your arteries, fortunately for the ones with jobs and medical insurance they can have heart surgery or if they live long enough to wait for the right one to die, a heart transplant.

Sarv...you are talking above the belt, above the head even... if someone kills you...literally...you're dead, right? So, how do they serve you? Or are you talking about the afterlife? The person that kills you becomes your servant in another dimension? 

And while we're at it...you always say, the that which you are thinking about at the end of your life is what you become in the next existence. Does that mean if I think only of Krshna...then I will become Krsna?    Look out little milkmaids, here comes Sarvoji, the big 'K'. 

But, Cezar...Rocky is seeing life from a perspective of a boxer. A boxer takes a lot of hits by choice.

My Guru, Yeshua says that if you live by the sword, then you will die by the sword. That goes for attitude too. If you go through life thinking that everyone is out to get you...they usually do.

But thinking at a higher level will pull you out of the material world to a place where you can think...when you think...you understand why...when you understand why these things are happening...they really don't bother you.

And Felicita summed it up beautifully, we MUST take responsibility for our own actions.

Love & peace

Do I detect a bit of ingenuousness here on your part, Melissa? For someone like you, who has previously demonstrated such a clear understanding of reincarnation, to pose as one who is not really clear on the subject is certainly surprising if not downright irritating. Now you can say, "Oh, Sarvo, where's your sense of humor?" At the same time though I really have to wonder.

Sorry to irritate you...consider it pearl making. Your pearls of wisdom are short and direct, but only to those who are aware of it's direction. If you tell me to go to the moon, but don't give me directions...how will I get there? I hear you say go...but I don't hear the directions.

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You say..."If someone kills me they become my servant."

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I say, if someone kills me, I don't want them as my servant. I want them to be aware of what they have done. And if YOU truly understand the concept of reincarnation, then you know that it's to come back to learn and succeed. It's another chance to clean up the actions from the past. If I have wronged someone...and they release me...forgive me...then the whole issue of being a servant is moot. The act of forgiving, no matter how hard it is to understand...is a way of releasing us all from the hellish natures for which we've become conditioned. So, if I can forgive myself for my ignorance, and you, yours and vice verso...then we all shall be lighter of  our burdens, thereby loosening the gravity of the situation.

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I apologise if I offended you or anyone. But I want to know WHY you think that death earns a servant? Little deaths are for little actions, how can they bring recognition to a big death?  So, please, help me to understand the way that YOU understand it.

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Love & Peace

If someone kills you, he/she interferes with your karma and takes from you the opportunity to experience life and maybe exit from the cycle of reincarnation. This means that your killer – from the spiritual perspective – has a debt to pay. Therefore, the killer becomes your servant until he/she manages to erase his/her sin.

About an year ago, I was travelling by train and I met a couple returning from India. They told me that nothing in this world can prepare you for what you can see there: wealthy people and poor people living next to each other. Surprisingly, they told me that there are no beggars (well, I can’t believe that! ). Why, I asked? Because, they answered, if you give some money to a beggar, you oblige him to come again, in another life, and pay you back (thank you for your help). That was something unexpected and is still vivid in my memory… an interesting viewpoint…

My perspective is similar to the one of a boxer, in this marsh of failed people, where I swim… Those who live by the sword, live. Those who refuse, fall in the swamp. Endurance is important in a swamp – the will to never give-up. You need to be adaptable so as to survive in my world, because nobody takes care of you. The government, the guys in politics, the police, the judges, the doctors – they wait for the opportunity to steal you. It’s great if you can avoid them, but if you can’t, you take the hits until they get tired. It’s important that they get tired before you collapse. That’s why I speak about endurance.
Life is not a fight everyday in my world, but you must always be alert. You can be lucky once or several times, but if you’re not aware of what’s around, nasty things can happen to you.
Damn, this was one negative text!

Yes, it was rather negative...but you won't stay that way, you'll find someone to share your life and be happy with for a time...as a team against the world. Thank you for informing me about the Indian viewpoint and what Sarvo meant by his killer becoming his servant. I just can't see it that way.

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What if you killed first in a past lifetime, and it is your due now? An eye for an eye gets old. And as far as beggars, did it ever occur...that the beggar is a test to your generosity? If you see him as a beggar, and make a judgement on his soul...what will happen to you over a mere thought? What frightening worlds have we given birth to with our vile thoughts? I'll give you a clue...we're living in it. We have created this reality from our collective consciousness. 

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A similar belief is that someone who gives his life for his religious beliefs will go to heaven. If a religious belief gives the idea that it's OK to kill in the name of God...then it is a false religion. And is there a religion that doesn't believe that? Name it, and it will become mine!

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Last night my daughter and I watched a movie called An American Crime. It was about a child abuse that had happened in the 1960's. It was heart-breaking, and I cried, then I became angry. A whole family...church-going people, who abused a 16 year old to death in their basement were imprisoned for their crime. I still feel like crying for that poor little soul, and what they did to torture her was hideous. They were like animals.

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My mind screamed for her justice...but my heart knew that what I was seeing was an animal drama. Just as you see the lioness run down a gazelle and sink her teeth into it's neck, that instinct to kill and to hit has not left man kind. Man is an animal. We will always have that animal nature when we exist as such. Verbal abuse is just as cruel and inconsiderate, and we often don't see that ugly nature in ourselves...only others.

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So...has the whole family become her servant? Or was she getting her karmic due? Perhaps she killed the whole family as a soldier in her past life...

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Truthfully...I think there is a lot more to the meaning of life than to hit, or to endure the hit, and to kill or be killed.

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I challenge you Cezar...can you look hard into any situation and see a small seed of goodness in the most irritating of people? Let the first thing that you allow to enter your mind be some thing good about that person...even if it's only the dress or tie they wear.  Practice makes perfect and maybe perfecting the way we see ourselves and others is what it's all about.

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Namaste

Let me tell you something, Melissa…
I don’t believe in reincarnation or in destiny/karma. But this doesn’t mean I don’t understand other viewpoints. I think that someone who believes in karma can give you a good answer for your questions. For me, the fact that I wouldn’t be able to remember my sins from past lives so that I can correct them, is a good reason not to believe in reincarnation. Also, you question about who killed first is legitimate, and I doubt someone can tell you if it’s you turn to kill now.
I gave the example of the beggar because I thought it’s an unusual way of thinking. For me, the beggar is the result of 2 main causes:
1. The state/country doesn’t have the facilities or/and the good management so that the beggars who are sick/cannot work have somewhere to stay and be looked after.
2. The beggars are just lazy people who don’t want to work, so their situation is a result of their actions.
For me, a guru that wanders the streets and asks for money and food is just a lazy guy, who doesn’t like to work and spends his life not producing anything and not helping the society. It’s the image of a parasite. For instance, in my country, the priests are given a lot of money, both from the population and from the state, and the only thing they do is praying to God. However, the situation in my country deteriorates, and fewer and fewer people are really happy. This is enough for me to say that the priests are useless and they are paid to do nothing. So, they should go and work, do something creative, produce something or educate people, not just speak alone in a church full of hypocrite people, who listen to the prayers and then return at home/job and do only bad things.
The beggars might be a test for my generosity, but I am generous with people who really try to do something constructive. When I see that someone tries to be better/do something, I may help him/her with advice, money, or just work with him/her, side by side. But when I see that someone who’s a parasite asks for money, I judge him/her and refuse to help him/her. Why help him/her? So that he/she continue to beg for another day? If people wouldn’t give money to beggars, they would start to work; otherwise they would die of hunger.
Sometimes it’s too much for me, so I need to say what I think. I judge people by what they create, because this is one of the things that separate us from the animals. Animals do not create anything. Animals are pleased to live in the natural world, and if their instincts are satisfied, they do nothing. What separated humans from animals, is that the human beings, even if they had a shelter, family and a full stomach, they wanted more, they started to make tools out of stones, they established moral rules… and so on… our civilisation appeared. The fact that people had in them the potential to develop and create, made the difference between them and the beasts. So, I think it’s obvious why I take creativity as a measurement tool for the humanity in us. Be warned, I speak about the beggars who are plain lazy, not about the ones that have been hit by life/society.
I agree that killing people in the name of God speaks about a wrong religion and about the inexistence of God in that belief. Therefore, I believe that, since there is not a single religion in this world that didn’t kill the others in the name of its gods, all religions are nothing more than severe disturbances of the human mind. I do agree that the initiators of the religious movements were good people, who wanted to reform moral and teach the others, but what the religions are now is the result of the abuse and the blood of innocent folks. That’s why I declared myself a freethinker.
Regarding the movie you saw… man is not an animal. Most of the people around us may be, in various degrees, on different levels of humanisation. But we can’t say we’re all animals. In this case, there wouldn’t be any hope. What is important is to take control of our instinctual tendencies and refrain from doing immoral things.

You challenged me to see the divine in anyone. Well… I recently read a book where the author says that the divine spark is not granted, at birth. He was saying that our souls begin to develop in our bodies during our lifetime, and only a small percent of us will get the eternity and the title of spirit. The rest – the ones who resemble to animals, in behaviour – will die for good. You remember the isolated cases of children that were lost in the jungle and were raised by animals? The humanity failed to develop in them, so there was no difference between them and the animals. Where was the divine spark? When they died, do you think they were aware of what was happening? I don’t think, because their consciousness wasn’t formed at the time of death, so the ability of self-awareness didn’t exist.
Somehow, I think that our divine spark appears when we learn, we socialize, we live in a society, and we have in us the potential to develop. Many of us become humans, many of us study, but few of us have the desire to do more – to help, to create new things, to evolve into something better.
I liked this theory.
So, I believe that the small seed of goodness exists in some people, but not in all of us. As a doctor, I can teach both human beings and animals with human body to leave a fulfilled life, I can show them the resources in them and teach them how to use those resources, but this is my job. However, when I detect someone with the signs of a divine spark, I sacrifice from my time and force to help him/her, knowing I have in front of me a special being.

All living beings possess that divine spark. It's the animating force within. Due to desire it becomes to a lesser or greater degree covered over. During the course of each lifetime we cultivate a certain set of desires. This determines our next birth. If I'm very fortunate I'll understand my actual eternal nature. That's my real dharma or identity. At that point it's possible to achieve full enlightenment and liberation. The most exciting thing of all about that is the increased chance to share with others.

Cezar posted..."Well… I recently read a book where the author says that the divine spark is not granted, at birth. He was saying that our souls begin to develop in our bodies during our lifetime, and only a small percent of us will get the eternity and the title of spirit. The rest – the ones who resemble to animals, in behaviour – will die for good."

I bought that book! Divine Code of Life. It should arrive this week.  I'm nearly finished with Song of Susannah.

Really? Does anything die for good? The vehicle decays, but that's because the spirit leaves.  Everything becomes something different. The body becomes the dust of the Earth again. The death is a misunderstanding, I think. Not to be associated with the spirit at all.

When the caterpillar wraps itself into a cocoon, it would appear to some that it has died...but look what it becomes after a certain waiting period.  

I believe along the line of Sarvoji...the spark is always there...it just becomes stifled under the dark matter of conditioning and that by understanding the nature of all that is...one can attain freedom from fear. Because with fear comes suffering. That is the only reason for it, fear and suffering walk hand in hand, together in a world of dark matter.

Perhaps a good question for our journey through life is...what do I fear? I've been asking this question of myself for several months, and haven't quite reached the root, but I will...it certainly has to do with change.  The current motto for the USA.  Alas! Sometimes...the more things 'change' the more they stay the same.  Man really IS just an animal.  Dress him in a suit and call him Mister...but he'll still turn around and steal the bread right out of your hands and the loincloth from your body as he kicks the hearth fire and leaves you shivering in the cold. He thinks that HE can distribute the necessities of life far better than you.