I feel terribly guilty and sorry. When I started this journal, I thought that I would write every day about what I did, what I read and my impressions of various things. Unfortunately, the last entry was in February and now we are in June! If I call it writer's block that would be insulting all writers. So let me say that there was some block - plain laziness or something else for which I am yet to find a suitable name.
Now I decide that it would be good enough if I make one or two entries every week. Let us see.
Got up today at 4.30 a.m. Walked 1000 steps (subsequently, another 4000 steps; still, short of the target of 10,000-steps-a-day), did some exercise and asanas. Meditated and did some japa. Then read a chapter (The Plus Factor and Two Magic Words) from Dr Norman Vincent Peale's wonderful book, "Power of the Plus Factor"; another chapter (The Crown Jewels of Grand Children) from another great book, "Wisdom to Live By" by Henry Gariepy.
I am a great admirer of Dr Norman Vincent Peale and have read most of his books. The book under reference I got from my dear brother, Nellaiyappan (God bless him!) and it is about the Power within each of us which can revolutionize our life, provided we know how to manifest it. The author has very kindly tells us how to do it. So far I have covered 36 inspiring pages and savour every page, every word of it. A few inspiring excerpts from the First Chapter of this book, which will give you a clear idea about the book:
...there is a power within you that can revolutionize your life. A power that is invisible, intangible, but completely real.
A power that can transform you so dramatically that under its influence and guidance you can become an entirely new person, stronger, more confident, better balanced, more energetic, more resilient, more capable of coping with the ever-increasing complexity of modern living.
...this remarkable force could lift you from failure to success, from illness to health, from self-doubt to self-assurance.
...it could help you find congenial friends, solve problems, break out of stale habits, fairly explode into a world totally different from the world you have known before, a world of enthusiasm and exhilaration and understanding and joy...
I feel everybody should read this book and benefit by it.
The second book I picked up from Moore Market during my last visit to Chennai. It is an inspiring work, consisting of 100 devotional expositions from Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. The author has selected representative key passages from each, exploring their central truths. My being not a Christian, does not in any way lessen the impact of the book, as it contains universal truths. So this is another book which I would recommend to everybody.
Yesterday I got a brand new HP scanner and today morning I have scanning and saving some interesting materials from today's newspapers.
After a brief nap in the afternoon, I took up an old issue of The Reader's Digest. It is a magazine I love with all my heart. Limitations of space and other problems forced me to discard many old books and magazines from my collection. I did so with a heavy heart for collecting many of them required a lot of effort and personal sacrifice. However, I could never bring myself to discard my collection of The Reader's Digest. Let me honestly admit that I have not been able to read all my collections. At a pick I may get about a dozen books and magazines and before I could complete a few of them, I would buy another lot. It has been going on like that and as a result I have many books which I am yet to read. So I decided to give the old books/magazines also a chance. That is how I ended up today with The Reader's Digest of August 1964.
I read a moving article by Edith Guttmann about her dad, Morris Strauss - a gem of a man and a role model. I liked it immensely. I had time to read a condensed book in the feature supplement: THE REAL LAWRENCE OF ARABIA by Lowell Thomas. I have read about T.E.Lawrence from many sources (like 'Great Contemporaries' by Winston Churchill) but had only a vague memory about him, in spite of the fact that I saw the moview, Lawrence of Arabia on TV some years back. Today I could learn more about the enigmatic Lawrence and a great personality by any standard.
I took my Neurobion and homeo medicine, Calcarea Carb 0/3. Also I could attend to my household chore today. So I am happy today. Let me hope that I advance step by step towards my goals in the coming days.
Thank you and all the best!
For a detailed article on Dr Norman Vincent Peale from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Vincent_Peale
For a detailed article on T.E.Lawrence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_of_Arabia
For more on Henry Gariepy, the author of Wisdom to Live By:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Gariepy Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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