The Hundredth Monkey

The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.
An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.

This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable.Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.

Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

THEN IT HAPPENED!

The Hundredth Monkey

By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice.

A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea -- Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.

Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.

But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!

Are you that 100th monkey.
Ken Keyes Jr

Sherlock Holmes

Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Its elementary,dear Watson

45 lessons life taught me

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me." Regina Brett, 90 years old.

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

45 lessons life taught me

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

45 lessons life taught me

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's,we'd grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

Allen Grinsberg

"Breathe when you breathe,
Walk where you walk.
talk when you talk,
cry when you cry,
die when you die,
let go when you let go..."

Guesses at Truth

Practical life teaches us that people may differ and that both may be wrong: it also teaches us that people may differ and both be right. Anchor yourself fast in the latter faith, or the former will sweep your heart away.

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Leaves are light, and useless, and idle, and wavering, and changeable; they even dance; and yet God in his wisdom has made them a part of oaks. And in so doing he has given us a lesson, not to deny the stout-heartedness within because we see the lightsomeness without.

Augustus William Hare & Julius Charles Hare

25 Lessons for Life

• There is no free lunch. Don't feel entitled to anything you don't sweat and struggle for.
• Set goals and work quietly and systematically toward them.
• Assign yourself.
• Never work for just money or for power.
• Don't be afraid of taking risks or of being criticized.
• Take parenting and family life seriously.
• Remember that your spouse is your partner and friend.
• Forming families is serious business.
• Be honest.
• Remember that the fellowship of human beings is the most important.
• Sell the shadow for the substance.
• Never give up!
• Be confident that you can make a difference.
• Don't ever stop learning and improving your mind.
• Don't be afraid of hard work.
• Slow down and live.
• Choose your friends carefully.
• Be a can-do, will-try person.
• Try to live in the present.
• Use your power for the community.
• Listen for "the sound of the genuine" within yourself and others.
• You are in charge of your own attitude.
• Remember your roots, history and the forebears' shoulder on which you stand.
• Be reliable. Be faithful. Finish what you start.
• Always remember that you are never alone.

Marion Wright Edelman

The Alchemist...Paulo Coelho

• It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary.
• There is nothing to hold you back, except yourself.
• There is only one way to learn, and that is through action.
• Trust your gut (or Learn to recognize omens, and follow them.)
• Follow your dreams.
• Know what you want.
• Move on - always look forward.
• You will encounter obstacles and take detours while realizing your dreams.
• Learn to understand the universal language - the language without words.

If You Are Unhappy

Once there was a sparrow who decided not to fly south for the winter. Soon the weather turned so cold that he reluctantly started to fly south. In a short time ice began to form on his wings and he fell to earth in a barnyard, almost frozen. A cow passed by and crapped on the little sparrow. The sparrow thought it was the end. But the manure warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy, able to breathe, he started to sing. Just then a large cat came by and, hearing the chirping, investigated the sounds. The cat cleared away the manure, found the chirping bird, and promptly ate him.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY

1) Everyone who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy.

2) Everyone who gets you out of the shit is not necessarily your friend.

3) And if you're warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut.

Problem Solving

When something creates a problem, the performance or the status quo of the situation drops. Solving the problem deals with finding out what caused the problem and then figuring out ways to fix the problem. The objective is to get the situation to where it should be.

Many of the greatest non-technological innovations are identified while realizing an improved process or design in everyday objects and tasks either by accidental chance or by studying and documenting real world experience.

Use Your creativity to solve a problem in an indirect and unconventional manner.

Challenge the thinking !!!

Random Entry Idea: Choose an object at random, or a noun from a dictionary, and associate that with the area you are thinking about.

Provocation Idea: Choose to use any of the provocation techniques - wishful thinking, exaggeration, reversal, escape, or arising. Create a list of provocations and then use the most outlandish ones to move your thinking forward to new ideas.

Challenge Idea: Ask the question "WHY?", in a non threatening way, why something exists, why it is done the way it is. The result is a very clear understanding of WHY? which naturally leads to fresh new ideas. The goal is to be able to challenge anything at all, not just items which are problems.

Concept Fan Idea: Ideas carry out concepts. Systematically expands the range and number of concepts in order to end up with a very broad range of ideas to consider.

Disproving: Based on the idea that the majority is always wrong (Henrik Ibsen, Galbraith), take anything that is obvious and generally accepted as 'goes without saying', question it, take an opposite view, and try to convincingly disprove it. You will be surprised about how much makes better sense the opposite way than it is usually done.

Thinking Pattern

• Break your current thinking patterns - routine patterns, the status quo
• Broaden your mind on where to focus and search for new ideas
• Ensure more value is harvested and received from idea generating output
• Consider real-world constraints, resources, and support

Edward de Bono

Things To Ponder

1) Serendipity

It is making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of?

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2) Insight

Insight can be used with several related meanings:

• a piece of information
• the act or result of apprehending the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively (in Greek called noesis)
• an introspection
• the power of acute observation and deduction, penetration, discernment, perception
• an understanding based on identification of relationships and behaviors within a model, context, or scenario.

An insight that manifests itself suddenly, such as understanding how to solve a difficult problem, is sometimes called by the German word Aha-Erlebnis. It is also known as an epiphany.

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3) Coincidence

Some mystical teachings insist on the view that there is absolutely no coincidence in the world. Everything that occurs can be related to a prior cause or association, no matter how vast or how minute and trivial. All is affected by something related to it that is seen or unseen, cognized or unknowable.

4) Synchronnicity

The idea of synchronicity is that the conceptual relationship of minds, defined as the relationship between ideas, is intricately structured in its own logical way and gives rise to relationships that are not causal in nature. These relationships can manifest themselves as simultaneous occurrences that are meaningfully related.

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5) Lateral thinking

It is primarily concerned with judging the true value of statements and seeking errors. Lateral thinking is more concerned with the movement value of statements and ideas. A person would use lateral thinking when they want to move from one known idea to creating new ideas.

Our Deepest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Desiderata

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Desiderata

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann

Alice in Wonderland

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where -- " said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
" -- so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Goethe

In this internal storm and outward tide
We hear a promise, hard to understand:
From the compulsion that all creatures binds,
Who overcomes himself, his freedom finds.

Thomas Jefferson

A Decalogue of Canons for observation in practical life:

1. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have it.
4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.
5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.
6. We never repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How much pain have cost us the evils which never have happened.
9. Take things always by their smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.

If...(Part I)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

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If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If...(part II)

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

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If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Autumn Rain

I give you this one thought to keep -
I am with you still - I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone -
I am with you still - in each new dawn.

Navajo Prayer

Undefeated

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever God may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William ernest henley

A Dream Within a Dream

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet, if Hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it, therefore, the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

Edgar Allen Poe

10000 flowers

Ten thousand flowers in spring,
the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer,
snow in winter.

If your mind isn't clouded
by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

Wu Men

Keroncong Hujan

Mega mendung di angkasa
Hembusan bayu dingin terasa
gerimis berderai di merata
bagai mutiara

Rahmat dibawa bersama
Limpahannya meresap dijiwa
adakala bahgia terasa
meskipun duka nestapa

Tika hujan turun
sayup mendayu lagu keroncong
merdu irama dialun
bersenandung

Hujan membasahi bumi
melahirkan keluhuran budi
mengeratkan perpaduan suci
kasih sayang abadi

Adibah Noor

Celebrating Life

Your music cause my soul to dance,

and in the murmur of the wind I hear Your flute,

the waves of the sea keep the rhythm of my dancing steps.

Through the whole of nature hear Your music played, my Beloved,

my soul while dancing speak of its joy in song.
Hazrat Inayat Khan

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Lord,help us to rejoice in the gift of life with which you have grace us.

May we cherish each moment and rejoice in your infinite goodness.

Catholic prayer

Look To this Day

Look to this day:

For it is life,

the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and

realities of your existence.

The bliss of growth,

The glory of action,

The splendour of achievement

Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow is only a vision;

And today well-lived, makes

Yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well therefore to this day;

Kalidasa