A crow lived in the forest and was absolutely satisfied in life. But one day he saw a
swan. “This swan is so white,” he thought, “and I am so black. This swan must be the
happiest bird in the world.”
He expressed his thoughts to the swan. “Actually,” the swan replied, “I was feeling
that I was the happiest bird around until I saw a parrot, which has two colours. I now
think the parrot is the happiest bird in creation.” The crow then approached the
parrot. The parrot explained, “I lived a very happy life until I saw a peacock. I have
only two colours, but the peacock has multiple colours.”
The crow then visited a peacock in the zoo and saw that hundreds of people had
gathered to see him. After the people had left, the crow approached the peacock.
“Dear peacock,” the crow said, “you are so beautiful. Every day thousands of people
come to see you. When people see me, they immediately shoo me away. I think you
are the happiest bird on the planet.”
The peacock replied, “I always thought that I was the most beautiful and happy bird
on the planet. But because of my beauty, I am entrapped in this zoo. I have
examined the zoo very carefully, and I have realized that the crow is the only bird not
kept in a cage. So for past few days, I have been thinking that if I were a crow, I could
happily roam everywhere.”
That’s our problem too. We make unnecessary comparison with others and become
sad. We don’t value what God has given us. This all leads to the vicious cycle of
unhappiness. Learn to be happy in what you have instead of looking at what you
don’t have. There will always be someone who will have more or less than you
have. Person who is satisfied with what he/she has, is the happiest person in the
world.

One day a son came to his father for an advice:
– Dad, I can’t do this anymore, – he said, – those lessons only exhaust me, and
the result doesn’t change. It must be not destined for me to play football and my
dream will never come true.
The father looked at his son with loving eyes and said:
– You know son, every person in life has a dream, a goal of his life. They are the
ones that make us do what we are doing, because it’s what we should do. We
have to fight for what we believe in, what we feel. In other case, you will simply
brake. Once – and for all.
The easiest way is to quit everything and not go until the end, because the path is
difficult and we are not used to inconveniences. We want everything to be easy
and at once. But the wishes are fleeting! This is how our dream dies, and the goal
becomes unreachable.
Gradually, life becomes a routine without depth and meaning. Then one day, we
try to forget and start everything from the beginning, we wait for a new day to
make our life different. But new obstacles come in our way, and we stop again.
We become full of despair and anger for our own helplessness.
But you only need to remember one thing: never give up, fight, battle. It doesn’t
matter that you have lost one battle and even dozens of battles. Life goes on!
Your biggest enemies are hiding in you – laziness, fear, doubt, indecision. Be a
warrior of your dream, a knight of your goal and a soldier of your wishes!

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things
were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted
to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed that as one problem
was solved, a new one arise.
Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed
each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to a boil. In the first she placed carrots, in
the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She
let them sit and boil, without saying a word.
In about twenty minutes, she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and
placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then
she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.
Turning to her daughter, she asked, “Tell me, what do you see?” “Carrots, eggs,
and coffee,” the daughter replied.
Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and
noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and
break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the
mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its
rich aroma. The daughter then asked, “What does it mean, mother?”
Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity
—boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard and
unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and
became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its
liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became
hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the
boiling water, they had changed the water.
“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door,
how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?”
Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and
adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength? Am I the egg that starts
with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but
after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become
hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and
tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?
Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very
circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the
fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you
get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is darkest and
trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you
handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you
strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, and enough hope to make you happy.

The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything—they just
make the most of everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will
always be based on a forgotten past; you can’t go forward in life until you let go of
your past failures and heartaches.

One day Buddha was walking with his students through a village, where the opponents of Buddhism lived. The people of the village surrounded Buddha and his students and started insulting them. In respond, the students got angry and wanted to retort, but the presence of Buddha calmed them down. The words of Buddha confused not only the students but also the villagers.

He turned to his students and said: –

You disappointed me. These people are doing their thing. They are angry. They think that I am an enemy of their religion and their moral belief. These people are insulting me and it’s obvious. But why are you angry? Why did you let these people manipulate you? Now you depend on them, therefore you’re not free.

The people from the village were completely confused and asked: –

But we were insulting you, why aren’t you mad at us?

Buddha smiled: –

You are free people, and what you did – is your business. I am also a free person and a master of my own actions. That is why I have my own right not to react to manipulation and be free from anger.

One man was travelling and suddenly he go to the paradise.He sat down under
the desire tree (there is such tree in the paradise, sitting under which you can
immediately fulfil any your desire, you just need to think about it) and thought: “I
am hungry, so it would be nice to have a bite right now.” And when he just thought
about this, a table full of different dishes that he was thinking about appeared right
before him.
Wow! – The man was surprised, – but it can’t be! – He thought so, and the table
with dishes disappeared immediately. “It would be nice to get it back!” – And
dishes appeared again.
He ate a plenty of dishes – he has never eaten such tasty food before. After
satisfying hunger he thought: it would be nice to drink something – and a perfect
wine appeared immediately, because there are no restrictions in the paradise.
Lying in the shadow of the tree and drinking wine, he started wondering: Why
these miracles do happen? It just can’t be that everything would be so good –
probably some ghosts played a joke on me.
Suddenly the ghosts appeared. They were terrible and looked like he imagined
them.
The man became scared and thought: now they will kill me!
And they killed him.
Everyone lives in the world that he deserves.

“A gentleman once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God.

Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby. Surprised, he asked the sculptor, “Do you need two statues of the same idol?”

“No,” said the sculptor without looking up, “We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage.”

The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. “Where is the damage?” he asked.

“There is a scratch on the nose of the idol.” said the sculptor, still busy with his work.

“Where are you going to install the idol?”

The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high.

“If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?” the gentleman asked.

The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said,

“I know it and God knows it!”

Moral – The desire to excel should be exclusive of the fact whether someone appreciates it or not. Excellence is a drive from inside, not outside. Excel at a task today – not necessarily for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction.

Musk is a kind of valuable, extremely fragrant salve found in the navel of the musk deer, a habitant of the highest Himalayan Hills of India. At a certain age, the ravishing odor of musk secretly oozes out of the navel of the musk deer. The deer becomes excited at the attractive odor of musk and frisks about, sniffing under trees, and searching everywhere for many weeks to find the source of the fragrance. Finally he grows angry and very restless when he is unable to find the source of the musk perfume, and jumps from the high cliffs into the valley, trying to reach the source of the rare fragrance, and thus plunges to death. It is then that the hunters get hold of him and tear out the pouch of musk.

A divine Bard once sang: “O you foolish musk deer, you sought for the fragrance everywhere but in your own body. That is why you did not find it. If you only had touched your nostrils to your own navel, you would have found the cherished musk and would have saved yourself from suicide on the rocks below.”

Don’t you think that most people act like the musk deer? As they grow, they seek the ever-fragrant happiness everywhere outside of themselves – in play, temptation, human love, and on the slippery path of wealth, until finally they jump from the cliff of high hope onto the rocks of disillusionment when they cannot find the real happiness which lies hidden within the secret recesses of their own Souls.

If only you would turn your mind inward, in deep daily meditation, you would find the source of all true, lasting happiness existing right within the innermost silence of your own Soul. Don’t be like the musk deer and perish seeking false happiness in the wrong place. Beloved seekers of happiness awake and try to find your happiness within the cave of deep contemplation.

A CLERK, COMING OUT OF HIS OFFICE, GLANCED AT THE EMPEROR PALACE
A clerk, coming out of his office, glanced at the Emperor palace with its shining domes and thought: “What a shame that I wasn’t born in the royal family. Life would have been so easy then”. The clerk went in the direction of the town centre, were the rhythmical banging of the hammers and loud shouts were heard.

The workers were building a new building right in the middle of the square. One of them saw the clerk with his papers and thought: “Why didn’t I go to study, like my father told me. Now I would be doing easy jobs, writing texts the whole day, and life would be so easy then.”

At that time the Emperor came to the giant window in his palace and glanced into the square. He saw the workers, clerks, salesmen, buyers, children and adults, and thought how it must be good to be in the fresh air all day, doing physical work, or working for someone, or just being a street vagrant, not thinking at all about politics and other difficult questions. “What a simple life these simple people must have” – he whispered.

A tourist was walking through an elephant camp when she spotted gigantic elephants nearby.
Wanting to catch a glimpse of them from up close, she moved towards the elephants. As she
got closer, she noticed that the only thing restraining the elephants were tiny pieces of rope tied
to their legs. She was surprised by how such mammoth beings were being restrained by small
pieces of rope.
Noticing a trainer nearby, she went and asked him why the elephants didn’t escape when they
could easily break away from the rope. The trainer said, “When the elephants were young, they
were restrained using the same rope. Since they were much smaller then, they couldn’t escape.
As they grew up, they continued to believe that the rope was much stronger than them. That’s
why even now they do not try to break free.”
The tourist was amazed. The elephants could break away from the rope anytime and escape.
But just because they believed they couldn’t, they stayed as captives.
Moral of the story: Always believe in your capabilities and be determined to fight anything life
throws at you.

There once was a farmer who discovered that he had lost his watch in the barn. It
was no ordinary watch because it had sentimental value for him.
After searching high and low among the hay for a long while; he gave up and
enlisted the help of a group of children playing outside the barn.
He promised them that the person who found it would be rewarded.
Hearing this, the children hurried inside the barn, went through and around the
entire stack of hay but still could not find the watch. Just when the farmer was
about to give up looking for his watch, a little boy went up to him and asked to be
given another chance.
The farmer looked at him and thought, “Why not? After all, this kid looks sincere
enough.”
So the farmer sent the little boy back in the barn. After a while the little boy came
out with the watch in his hand! The farmer was both happy and surprised and so
he asked the boy how he succeeded where the rest had failed.
The boy replied, “I did nothing but sit on the ground and listen. In the silence, I
heard the ticking of the watch and just looked for it in that direction.”
MORAL :
A peaceful mind can think better than a worked up mind. Allow a few
minutes of silence to your mind every day, and see, how sharply it helps you
to set your life the way you expect it to be!