On the interplay of well-being, happiness and resilience Well-being is commonly defined as a state of being healthy and happy. Contemporary psychology adds “resilience” as an indispensable component of happiness. The word initially used in physics defines body’s ability to absorb an impact. Resilience is featured as the preparedness to transcend challenges. It is the inner force which uplifts the person after a failure, defeat or a disappointment. Resilience empowers us to continue on whatever our pursuit is in life. The eminent neuropsychiatrist and writer, Boris Cyrulnik known with his lifetime work on resilience describes it as a process : …
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A flower- tinted cheek, the flowery close Of the fair earth, these are enough for me – Enough that in the meadow wanes and grows The shadow of a graceful cypress tree. I am no lover of hypocrisy; Of all the treasures that the earth can boast, A brimming cup of wine I prize the most – This is enough for me ! To them that here renowned for virtue live, A heavenly palace is the meet reward; To me, the drunkard and the beggar, give The temple of the grape with red wine stored! Beside a river seat …
One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich is the true story of a devout Russian soldier wrongly accused of treason and sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp –the gulag –where there is no escape but death out in the cold, dark and bare tundras. Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) wrote this book after his eight-year imprisonment in the gulag during the reign of Stalin. The very existence of the gulag system was enough to keep the average person fearful and silent in Stalin’s Russia. The dictator’s spies were everywhere. He …
Here is a story from Mathnawi, a monumental epic written by timeless Rumi (1207-1273). One day, Moses heard a shepherd on the road praying, God, where are you ? I want to help you tie your shoes and comb your hair. I want to wash your clothes and clean the lice off. I want to bring you milk , kiss your hands and feet when you go to bed. I want to sweep you room and keep it neat. Dear God, my sheep and goats are yours. When remembering you, all I can say is eyyyy and ahhhh. Moses could …
One night a fool of God wept bitterly And said: “The world, as far as I can see, Is like a box, and we are locked inside, Lost in the darkness of our sin and pride; When death removes the lid we fly away– If we have feathers –to eternal day, But those who have no feathers must stay here, Tormented in this box by pain and fear.” Give wings to aspiration; love the mind; And if at death you’d leave this box behind, Grow wings and feathers for the soul; if not, Burn all your hopes, for you …
The most acclaimed drawing of the cosmos and how the discovery of the magical Higgs particle – also called the God particle transformed the physicists’ view of the beginning of the universe Musician Pablo Carlos Budassi has decided to make a simple drawing of the cosmos for his son’s birthday. In doing so, he used the logarithmic maps of the physicists, the photographs taken by Nasa and his photoshop application. The contemporary physicists, having acclaimed this picture, marked it as the simplest up-to-date illustration of the cosmos. In the center lies the sun and the solar system surrounded by …
The days of absence and the bitter nights Of separation, all are at an end! Where is the influence of the star that blights My hope? The omen answers: At an end! Autumn’s abundance, creeping Autumn’s mirth, Are ended and forgot when o’er the earth The wind of Spring with soft warm feet doth wend The Day of Hope, hid beneath Sorrow’s veil, Has shown its face –ah, cry that all may hear: Come forth! The powers of night no more prevail! Praise be to God, now that the rose is near With long-desired arid flaming coronet, The cruel stinging …
A wonderful story told by Rumi on the art of pure reflection and mystical beauty in the sufi way of being. The Prophet said, “There are some who see me by the same light in which I’m seeing them. Our natures are one. Without reference to any strands of lineage, without reference to text or traditions, we drink the life-water together.” Here’s a story about the hidden mystery : The Chinese and the Greeks were arguing as to who were the better artists. The king said, “We’ll settle the matter with a debate.” The Chinese began talking, but the Greeks …
People like to wonder, and this is the kernel of science. – Ralph Waldo Emerson The story of two comrades who went to war and the near death experience of one of them During the Second World War, the Austrian poet and writer Karl Skala (1924–2006), went to Russia with his troops. He and his comrade, Hannes, caught under artillery fire, took refuge in a fox inn. Hannes got hit and died there. Skala recounts that heavily wounded as he was, he experienced that they were both rising up high in the sky, and found themselves looking at the battlefield …
Late one moonless night The Sîmorgh first appeared She let a feather float down through the air, And rumours of its fame spread everywhere. The Canticle of the Birds written by the mystical poet Farîd-ud-Dîn ‘Attâr (1146-1221) tells the story of the birds, who one day gather together to discuss who their Sovereign King is and where she dwells. All kinds of birds had a common yearning to meet their Sovereign. Among them, the little bird Hoopoe, chosen and sanctified by King Solomon, knew that the name of the Sovereign is Sîmorgh (means thirty birds in persian, si thirty morgh birds …
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