Two Perspectives

Two Perspectives on What Matters Most

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Janet Smith Warfield, J.D., Florida, USA

____________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

Do we really know what matters most to us? Just give it a second deeper thought, “Do we?”

I came across something very touching in this regard on Facebook recently. It was a photo with the message, “The greatest discovery in the world is to discover yourself.” Very often we are running the rat race or living a life dictated by society because we do not even know what matters most to us and what do we truly want or value in life.

After observing many people over the past 10-15 years, I have reached a conclusion that most of the people chase money or love during their entire adult life depending on what they lacked the most in childhood. If one was born into a rich family where parents hardly had time and one was starved of affection as a child, one often becomes affection-centric . On the other hand, if one was born into a poor family and always saw a shortage of money and material, one tends to become money-centric. We need to realize these imbalances in our personality and try to develop a holistic attitude towards life. A balance of money and material is necessary for true happiness.

Very often we run the rat race thinking that we are making all this money for our family, while family is no more interested in money and wants our time and affection. We think what we want the most is money but on deeper reflection, we realize what we want is a happy family (and of course a clear conscience that we are providing the best possible to our loved ones.)

We should not assume our own needs or the needs of others. We need to rather reflect deeply to understand what matters most to us. To an average human being what matters most is emotional and financial security or in other words the need to be loved and have sufficient material to meet our needs.

No wonder we often feel so empty inside even after becoming millionaires and billionaires. I once posted on Facebook, “The rats are running the rat race while the cool cat enjoys the tamasha from the sidelines.” Once we have understood what matters most to us then we need to balance between our own needs and the needs of our loved ones.

Only such a delicate balance can bring us true happiness and joy. At times, such a balance can feel like walking a tight rope but I assure you it is worth the trouble.

After all anything worth its salt comes at a price.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant, passionate Blogger, and Motivational Speaker based in New Delhi, India. He specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is “Take Charge of your Life and your Brand” He writes a Blog, “The Joys of Teaching”

_____________________________________________________________________________

Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

Well, what does matter most? Things? People? Love? Living your values?

What if we simplify the question. What if we ask instead, “What matters most right here, right now, in this moment? And what if we add “What matters most right here, right now, in this moment, to you.”

Not always easy to answer, even when we narrow it down to the present moment and you. But it is far easier than asking the general question we started out with, “What matters most?”

So many things matter: our homes, our families, our pets, our jobs, our cars, our lawns, our communities, our churches.

And what about love, peace of mind, non-violence, freedom, courage, truth, honesty, accountability, gratitude, service? Don’t these matter, too?

You are the only one who can answer the question what matters most. Yes, you can simplify the question by limiting it to right here, right now, and to you personally. Please do that. Why? Because life is always changing and what matters most today may not be what matters most tomorrow.

You do need to decide on your priorities – for yourself – right here, right now. Which is more important to you, right here, right now? To wash the car or play soccer with your son? To watch the football game on TV or spend quality time with your wife? To paint the house or call your parents to say ‘hello?’ To rest or work on that job for the office? Only you can decide. Go with your gut. Do what you want to do or need to do, not what you ought to do.

As you choose your priorities moment by moment, you’ll see patterns emerging. What activities do you choose to do most? This tells you something about your overall values.

If you spend your life working at a job you hate, come home angry, shout at your wife, and slump into a chair to watch TV, perhaps what matters most is simply physical survival – earning enough money to pay for food, shelter, electricity, water, a car, and other physical items. But is that all that matters?

What about your emotional and spiritual needs?  Do you need less stress and more joy? Do you need to take action to improve your self-esteem? Do you need the motivation, discipline and intention to look for a better source of income that pays more money, requires less work, and brings you joy and challenge? Are you willing to do what it takes to go back to school and get that degree that didn’t matter at all when you were sixteen?

Whatever you decide, you’ll be able to do more things that matter if you organize your time and resources. Get all your errands done in one trip. Plan ahead so you don’t have to retrace your steps.

You’ll also be more effective if you pace yourself through your tasks and finish each one before you begin another. That way, you don’t pressure yourself and put yourself under stress. What you don’t finish today will be waiting tomorrow for your time and attention.

Block out time for each thing that matters. Even ten minutes of quality time with your wife is better than a day of arguing because you’re overstressed.

Simplify your life. There are many things you are doing that don’t need to be done, right here, right now, by you. What are they? Let them go and simply do what matters most.

Most important, make sure you take time for yourself. Sleep when you need to sleep. Eat when you are hungry. Meditate when you need to get centered. Be open to receiving gifts and support systems that are all around you when your eyes and heart and mind are open to receiving them. Then watch the miracles happen.

When you take time to re-center yourself, all your tasks and relationships work more smoothly. What matters most emerges in each moment. What emerges that truly matters most is the strength, clarity, intention, focus, and motivation to bring about your deepest desires.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. To learn more, see www.wordsculptures.com, www.janetsmithwarfield.com; and www.wordsculpturespublishing.com.

Two Perspectives on Love

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Janet Smith Warfield, J.D., Florida, USA

____________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

When we say, “I love you”, most of us are actually saying, “I need emotional energy. Do you also need it? Can we exchange it?” Some of us will say, “So what is wrong, everything is give and take in this world.” And others will say, “Sadly this is true, even love has become a business of emotions.”

I am a true Libran and I am always trying to achieve that delicate balance (though I may not succeed all the time). On one hand I agree there is no harm in give and take (In fact my favorite Hindi song Sach mere yaar hai has a similar tone) and it is difficult for a human being to love someone who does not love you in return. On the other hand if every time you tell your loved one, “See I have done this for you and now you must do this for me in return, it can become a very logical love.” Love is of course a very beautiful emotion which should not get too logical.

Business of love

For most of us love is a business where we invest emotional energy to get equal emotional energy in return. I sometimes jokingly use the management term ‘Return on investment’ or ROI. Though our economies keep on fluctuating between recession and boom, I think love in this world has been in the depression stage for quite some time. The return on the investment on love has become very low. The next thing which immediately strikes our mind is, “Does unconditional love exist in today’s world?”

Unconditional love

I once posted on Facebook, “Since you have met my conditions, now I shall give you unconditional love and the human story goes on.” Sadly this is the true state of affairs. Mothers in particular and parents in general do give us unconditional love to their children but the duration and intensity of the unconditional love is being questioned in the society now. So why is LOVE disappearing into thin air?

Love in a materialistic world

As our greed for material becomes stronger and stronger, the life span of love becomes shorter and shorter. “Kab aata hai, kab jaata hai…” Love comes and goes but as long as it stays it takes you through a heavenly experience. Since the world has become too materialistic, the relationships have become too vulnerable. But we need to remember, the less love we get, the more we try to feed our insecurities with money and material. Money can never give the lasting happiness which loving relationships can. But our greed for money and increasing distrust in the negative society we live in has created a question mark on the status of love.

Is true love possible?

Love is a much glorified word and is probably the most misused word in the world. I am reminded of a famous quote which is probably true for love too, “Love is dead. Long live love.” The base human feelings of selfishness must be conquered first to be able to love someone. In fact my experience has been, you should be either too mature or too spiritual to develop the capacity to love truly.

Though love is a very broad word and covers love for living and non-living things but love in a narrow sense is used for life partner. In fact as the society evolves, we will move from the concept of life partner to life purpose partner. When we discover our deepest passion and life purpose we would want a life purpose partner who supports us in our mission. That’s why they say, “Love is not looking into each other’s eyes but looking together in the same direction.”

I remember receiving a beautiful New Year message from a friend sometime back, “Faith makes all things possible, hope makes all things work and love makes all things beautiful.” We have moved from love to business of love and now to tamasha of love. Will love stage a comeback in the society? Is there a hope in the near future? Will we achieve a delicate balance between love and money, emotion and material? I am keenly awaiting your answers.

Inspiring Quotes on Love

To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.

-Lao Tzu

‎A man travels all over the World to find what he needs and returns home to find it

-George Moore

_____________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant, passionate Blogger, and Motivational Speaker based in New Delhi, India. He specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is “Take Charge of your Life and your Brand” _______________________________________________________________________________

Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

What is love?

Yesterday, in preparation for writing this blog, I reread Plato’s Symposium. In the Symposium, Socrates and his friends, Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon take turns conversing about love. Their offerings end with a dialog between Socrates and Socrates speaking as Diotema, a wise woman of Mantineia, who was Socrates’ instructress about love.

Phaedrus speaks of love as being courageous, true, and honorable – a willingness to die for another.

Pausanias differentiates between heavenly love and earthly love. Heavenly love has a noble purpose, is faithful to the end, and has no shadow of lust. Earthly love is a coarser kind of love – love only of the body.

Eryximachus, the physician, focuses on the reconciliation or harmony which unites opposites. Love which is just and temperate has the greatest power and is the source of happiness.

Aristophanes professes that love is the desire for the whole. The pursuit of the whole, or reconciliation with God, is called love.

Agathon states that love dwells in the hearts and souls of men and can neither do nor suffer wrong. Where there is love, there is obedience. Where there is obedience, there is justice. Love is temperate, courageous, and wise.

Then Socrates, speaking as Diotema, dialoging with Socrates himself, begins his discourse by saying that his friends have spoken only what is good about love and not what is true about love. Socrates speaking as Diotema continues by saying that love is the son of Plenty and Poverty, both full and squalid; a mean between ignorance and knowledge, neither mortal nor immortal, never in want and never in wealth. Love interprets between gods and men. Love desires birth in beauty and the everlasting possession of the good – immortality in a mortal creature through the creation and invention of conceptions of wisdom and virtue.

The discourse is interrupted by Alcibiades, a drunken and disappointed lover of Socrates, who joins in the discourse to sing the praises of Socrates, proclaiming him a great speaker and enchanter who ravishes the souls of men and convinces their hearts. Alcibiades has suffered agonies from Socrates and is at his wit’s end. He relates Socrates’ superior powers of enduring cold and fatigue and how Socrates saved Alcibiades’ life. Socrates is the most wonderful of human beings and also a satyr. He uses the commonest words as masks for divine truths.

And then, this morning, as I was luxuriating in bed, pondering what I had read the day before and asking myself, “Well, what is love anyway?” I found myself challenged by the words with which to express the experience. We all know love when we experience it, but how can we create the words to describe it? The words can only point to the experience. They cannot accurately communicate it.

I loved my parents, even though they mistakenly guided me into physical marriage and only partially into being the creative being that I am. I loved the father of my children, even though he brought suffering into my life through an affair. I know what it feels like to love a soul mate and then be brutally abused by him. I love being immersed in beautiful sunsets, fine art, mountain waterfalls, and angelic choirs.

So what is love?

For me, it is simply a state of creative being, a dynamic energetic flow, a creative life force, constantly shifting in form as I dance my own dance of consciousness with the other life forms around me. It is the conscious choice to be the divine and support the manifestation of the divine in everything around me.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Janet Smith Warfield works with wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information about Janet, go to www.janetsmithwarfield.com; www.wordsculpturespublishing.com;   www.wordsculptures.com.

Copyright © 2011 – Janet Smith Warfield. All rights reserved.

Two Perspectives on Piercing the Veil of Word Illusions and Creating Our Own Reality

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Janet Smith Warfield, J.D., Florida, USA

____________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

Words do not matter. The meanings do. Words are understood in the context in which they are spoken, the tone which is used, the cultural interpretation added, and bias for/against the individual. With all these factors mixed, our personalized meaning of the words is ready. Words are actually a cocktail.

Two words which have always fascinated me are ‘exploitation’ and ‘love’. While the dictionary says exploitation of resources is positive and should be done, the same dictionary says that exploitation of labor is negative and should not be done. Is labor not a resource?

Love is such a glorified word since the languages began that I am scared of using it even in close relationships. Is humanity not basically selfish and incapable of love, the idealized love, we always talk about? I prefer to use the word ‘care’; it does not create unrealistic expectations. The background which the word ‘love’ carries makes me feel that only a spiritually advanced person has the capacity to love. Ordinary mortals like me don’t. What ordinary mortals do is only an exchange of emotional energy, a business. Maybe when you develop the capacity to truly love, you cannot restrict it to family and close relationships. You will be in love with everything around. You will become a Rumi, a Kabir or a Mother Teresa.

Do words wear the veil of illusions or do we human beings add the veils to them? Words only convey approximate meanings. No wonder lawyers have to work so hard at them. After the lawyer has worked for long hours on refining the language, the opposing lawyer finds a loophole to give a totally different meaning to the same words.

Under such a background, do words matter? To me, they don’t. To me what matters is the meaning hidden behind them, the intentions, the feelings, the emotions, the tones and overtones, the vibrations that they carry. To me what matters is the non-verbal part, the honesty which you can see only in the eyes, the genuineness which you can feel only in the smile, the coldness or warmth which you feel in the vibes that they carry, the underpinnings and overtones which tell more about the sincerity than the words themselves.

The more we clear ourselves of negative energy, the more sensitive we become to the subtleties behind the words.  We develop maybe a seventh sense of reading the intentions, listening to the unspoken messages, smelling the vibrations, tasting the warmth or the coldness behind and feeling the touch of the soul (or soullessness) of the entire communication.

Then only can we create our own reality integrating the words with the environment and comprehending the essence of not just the words but the integrated communication.

If my words do not make any sense to you, please sense what is between the lines, between the words, between the alphabets…..

________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant and specializes in Personal Branding with a holistic touch. He is based in New Delhi, India. His philosophy is, “Take charge of your life and your brand.” To know more about him, click here: http://www.dramitnagpal.co.in/p/about-us.html

Copyright © 2011 – Dr Amit Nagpal. All rights reserved

________________________________________________________________________

Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

A Co-Creation Allegory

Imagine you are part of a beautiful moving picture. The picture flows. The story line flows. One scene moves flawlessly into another, and you move with it. You are totally immersed in the flow.

Then suddenly, you bump into a rock or tree or mountain and experience pain. You bump into a monster and experience fear. Your mind wants to understand the pain and fear because you want to control it and stop it. Your mind moves outside the flow and becomes an observer. Your mind has now divided what was once just flow into:

• Flow, and
• You as observer of the flow.

You have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge and been cast out of the Garden of Eden. Your mind has stopped the moving picture at a single frame so you can analyze it, dissect it, understand it, and control it.

Science does this very well. So does orthodox religion. However, each of these is only a single limited understanding within the confines of the single frame they have stopped.

Albert Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

If everything is a dynamic flow of energy, then each one of us is a minuscule part of that energy, all flowing and connected. Rocks are energy. Trees are energy. Cockroaches are energy. Words are energy.

Our minds can artificially stop the flow to try to understand and control it, but all our minds can truly understand is that one single frame on which we are focusing at a particular moment in time. This is understanding of a sort, but it is only partial understanding. Depending on where we stop the moving film and which frame we look at, the perception, dissection and analysis differ. When our minds hold onto any one single frame, any one set of words or symbols as Truth, we remain divided and separated from the energetic flow. When we allow the energy to flow through us, we tune into all that is and become magnificent co-creators of something much larger than any one of us individually.

To know is to know that we don’t know. We can only co-create.

When we shift our beliefs that words say something about an external reality to beliefs that words, for sure, say something about our perceptions of an external reality, we can choose to shift our perceptions to something that works better for both us and everything around us. We all then return to the dynamic energy flow of the Garden of Eden as conscious co-creators.

______________________________________________________________________

Janet Smith Warfield works with wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information about Janet, go to www.janetsmithwarfield.com; www.wordsculpturespublishing.com; www.wordsculptures.com.

Copyright © 2011 – Janet Smith Warfield. All rights reserved.