" Forever Love............"

~ Forever Love ~



People call love blind, but love in reality is the light of the sight. The eye can only see the surface; love can see much deeper. All ignorance is the lack of love. As fire when not kindled gives only smoke, but when kindled, the illumination flame springs forth, so it is with love. It is blind when undeveloped, but, when its fire is kindled, the flame that lights the path of the traveler from mortality to everlasting life springs forth. The secrets of earth and heaven are revealed to the possessor of the loving heart, the lover has gained mastery over himself and others, and he not only communes with God but also unites with Him.


A heart lightened by love is more precious than all the gems and jewels of the world. ... Love is like the fire; its glow is devotion, its flame is wisdom, its smoke is attachment, and its ashes detachment. Flame rises from glow, so it is with wisdom, which rises from devotion. When love's fire produces its flame it illuminates the devotee's path in life like a torch, and all darkness vanishes.


When the life-force acts in the soul it is love, when it acts in the heart it is emotion, and when in the body it is passion. Therefore the most loving person is the most emotional, and the most emotional is the most passionate, according to the plane of which he is most conscious. If he is most awake in the soul he is loving, if awakened in the heart he is emotional, if he is conscious of the body he is passionate. These three may be pictured as fire, flame, and smoke. Love is fire when in the soul, it is a flame when the heart is kindled by it, and it is as smoke when it manifests through the body.


Love must be absolutely free from selfishness, otherwise it does not produce proper illumination. If the fire has no flame it cannot give light, and smoke comes out of it, which is troublesome. Such is selfish love. Whether it be for man or for God it is fruitless, for though it appears to be love for another or love for God, it is in fact love for the self.


If one asked: Where is the soul? Where can we see the soul manifest to view? Where is paradise? Where is heaven? Where is joy and pleasure? If one asked: Where is love? Where is God? We can answer each of these questions by saying: it is in the heart.


Imagine how wonderful and at the same time how obscure to our view! If we call the heart the spark of fire then we can see its different aspects: as sympathy in the form of heat, as longing in the form of fire, as affection in the form of glow, as devotion in the form of flame, as passion in the form of smoke that blinds the eyes. ... One may ask: How to cultivate the heart quality? There is only one way: to become selfless at each step one takes forward on this path, for what prevents one from cultivating the loving quality is the thought of self.

" What Soft Drinks do To Your Body ?.........."

Soda, pop, cola, soft drink — whatever you call it, it is one of the worst beverages that you could be drinking for your health. As the debate for whether to put a tax on the sale of soft drinks continues, you should know how they affect your body so that you can make an informed choice on your own.

Soft drinks are hard on your health
Soft drinks contain little to no vitamins or other essential nutrients. However, it is what they do contain that is the problem: caffeine, carbonation, simple sugars — or worse, sugar substitutes — and often food additives such as artificial coloring, flavoring, and preservatives.

A lot of research has found that consumption of soft drinks in high quantity, especially by children, is responsible for many health problems that include tooth decay, nutritional depletion, obesity, type-2 diabetes, and heart disease.

Why the sugar in soft drinks isn’t so sweet
Most soft drinks contain a high amount of simple sugars. The USDA recommendation of sugar consumption for a 2,000-calorie diet is a daily allotment of 10 teaspoons of added sugars. Many soft drinks contain more than this amount!

Just why is too much sugar so unhealthy? Well, to start, let's talk about what happens to you as sugar enters your body. When you drink sodas that are packed with simple sugars, the pancreas is called upon to produce and release insulin, a hormone that empties the sugar in your blood stream into all the tissues and cells for usage. The result of overindulging in simple sugar is raised insulin levels. Raised blood insulin levels beyond the norm can lead to depression of the immune system, which in turn weakens your ability to fight disease.

Something else to consider is that most of the excess sugar ends up being stored as fat in your body, which results in weight gain and elevates risk for heart disease and cancer. One study found that when subjects were given refined sugar, their white blood cell count decreased significantly for several hours afterwards. Another study discovered that rats fed a high-sugar diet had a substantially elevated rate of breast cancer when compared to rats on a regular diet.

The health effects of diet soda
You may come to the conclusion that diet or sugar-free soda is a better choice. However, one study discovered that drinking one or more soft drinks a day — and it didn’t matter whether it was diet or regular — led to a 30% greater chance of weight gain around the belly.

Diet soda is filled with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose, or saccharin. These artificial sweeteners pose a threat to your health. Saccharin, for instance, has been found to be carcinogenic, and studies have found that it produced bladder cancer in rats.

Aspartame, commonly known as nutrasweet, is a chemical that stimulates the brain to think the food is sweet. It breaks down into acpartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol at a temperature of 86 degrees. (Remember, your stomach is somewhere around 98 degrees.) An article put out by the University of Texas found that aspartame has been linked to obesity. The process of stimulating the brain causes more cravings for sweets and leads to carbohydrate loading.

Carbonation depletes calcium
Beverages with bubbles contain phosphoric acid, which can severely deplete the blood calcium levels; calcium is a key component of the bone matrix. With less concentration of calcium over a long time, it can lower deposition rates so that bone mass and density suffer. This means that drinking sodas and carbonated water increases your risk of osteoporosis.

Add in the caffeine usually present in soft drinks, and you are in for even more trouble. Caffeine can deplete the body’s calcium, in addition to stimulating your central nervous system and contributing to stress, a racing mind, and insomnia.

Skip the soda and go for:

• Fresh water
Water is a vital beverage for good health. Each and every cell needs water to perform its essential functions. Since studies show that tap water is filled with contaminants, antibiotics, and a number of other unhealthy substances, consider investing in a quality carbon-based filter for your tap water. To find out more about a high-performance filtration system, click here.

On the go? Try using a stainless steel thermos or glass bottle, filled with filtered water. Enhance the flavor of your water with a refreshing infusion of basil, mint leaves, and a drop of honey.

• Fruit Juice
If you are a juice drinker, try watering down your juice to cut back on the sugar content. Buy a jar of organic 100% juice, especially cranberry, acai, pomegranate, and then dilute three parts filtered water to one part juice. You will get a subtle sweet taste and the benefit of antioxidants. After a couple of weeks, you will no longer miss the sweetness of sugary concentrated juices.

• Tea
Tea gently lifts your energy and has numerous health benefits. Black, green, white, and oolong teas all contain antioxidant polyphenols. In fact, tea ranks as high or higher than many fruits and vegetables on the ORAC scale, the score that measures antioxidant potential of plant-based foods.

Herbal tea does not have the same antioxidant properties, though it is still a great beverage choice with other health benefits, such as inducing calming and relaxing effects.

If tea doesn’t satisfy your sweet tooth, try adding cinnamon or a little honey, which has important health benefits that refined sugar lacks. For a selection of healthy teas that promote total body wellness, Drink up!

I hope you find the ways and means to avoid soft drinks.

May you live long, live strong, and live happy!

" Alphabetical order.................."

~ Alphabetical order ~

A plane is flying over the United States at night.

The pilot says "Ladies and gentlemen, the plane is losing altitude and all the luggage has to be thrown out."
After a while, the pilot says "We are still losing altitude, we have to throw something out of the cabin."
Eventhough things are thrown out, the plane continues to lose altitude.
The pilot "We are still going down! We need to throw out some people... "
The passengers sigh.
The pilot "But to do tht, the passengers will be thrown out in alphabetical order!
So... A... are there any africans aboard?"
Nobody moves. "B... any blacks aboard?"
No movement. "C... any caribbean aboard?"
Nobody moves again.
A black kid turns to his father and asks "Dad? What are we?"
The father: "Son, tonight we're Zulus... "

" Within Our Reach................."

~ Within Our Reach ~



It was quiet and relaxing, just sitting there with my thoughts. I let my attention shift for a moment from the trees to the sky. It was a bright, cloudless day. Not even a balmy breeze -- just a cool, wonderful afternoon. As I looked up again at the sky, I wondered where all the stars were. I couldn't see even one.

Of course, I couldn't see them because they were all hidden by the brightness of the sun. But the stars hadn't gone anywhere. They were always there. They do not run and hide or just disappear into nothingness when the sun comes up. They seemed to have been lost. We just cannot see them when our vision and perception are blocked by clouds or the sun or a roof or even deep thought.

Even on a clear, moonless night, we may not see stars if we are looking down at the ground. To see stars, we generally have to lift our eyes and our vision. We have to look up from where we are.

So it is in life. The noise of daily problems, the worries of making a living or our focus on the struggle may block our view to the glories of making a life. We do not only need to rely on our sight, but on our insight as well.

Sight is seeing with our physical eyes, insight is seeing with our inner eyes, our heart and soul. Sight is a storehouse. It gathers data and stores it for current or future needs. Insight is a powerhouse. It takes the data and combines it into ways that are most helpful to us.

The solutions to every problem we have are within our reach if we could see them clearly. Just like the stars seem to be hidden by the brightness of the sun, so the solution to our problem may be hidden by the intensity of our struggle or our focus on worrying.

Perhaps the world is waiting for us to take the solution that best fits us. Our attitude definitely determines how we solve our problems. If we sit back and say that there's nothing we can do, the Universe would show us a face, which says there's nothing you can do.

If we stand up and say that maybe there's a solution to our problem, the Universe would say that, perhaps, there is a solution. But if we grab life boldly and look it straight in the eye and say that the solution is there for the taking, life responds by giving you what you demand.

If we've been plagued by the frustrations of everyday living, let us look at the world slightly differently from the way we've been looking at it. Perhaps the solutions to all of our problems are waiting for us, within our reach, ready for us to grab them.

You are bigger than your problems. You have within you the power to live life fully and gloriously.
Your problems are nothing until you give up your power to change them. So, as Sir Winston Churchill once said, "Never give in. Never, never give in."