My favorite quote is the one below by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson summarizes exactly my philosophy in this profound quote. I wish I was wise enough to be the originator of these profound words. However, since truth belongs to everyone, these thought were in me all along. Emerson just brought them out of me as is stated clearly, “A man (or woman) cannot bury his or her meanings so deep in his or her book, but time and like-minded men and women will find them.” Emerson spoke the following wise words first because he lived and wrote many years before my time. This quote tells us that when we are pushed, tormented and defeated, we have the opportunity to change and become skilled as our weaknesses are exposed and our judgment is tried.
“OUR STRENGTH GROWS OUT OF OUR WEAKNESS. The indignation, which arms itself with secret forces, does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point.” —-Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Magnificent Stage of Reproduction
Elane Lee-Isa
This essay characterizes my philosophy about life and the necessity for struggles. An Egyptian author, Sayyid Qutb, who was born in 1906 and who wrote in the 1950s, was my inspiration. Life is a struggle from the day of inception. Hardship is life’s foremost characteristic. The purpose of struggles is to refine us – make us pure like gold. It takes a fire of 2000° to purify gold.
Please come with me on a journey through the magnificent stage of reproduction and see the infinite wisdom and perfection, which this stage involves, and the great suffering encountered by parents and child during the process from inception to birth and beyond when the child begins its journey into the world. This struggle is like unto plants and the harsh opposition that is met by a seed in the process of growth and adaptation. For example, germination in some seeds is promoted by ethylene gas. This process is like an ecological response to fire, which occurs naturally in many ecosystems. Burning vegetation generates trace amounts of ethylene and clears the ground for colonization by new plants. Now, relate this to the more advanced form of human life, and you will see something far more magnificent in human reproduction and its hardships and sufferings for the sake of preserving the human race and the beauty of the world.
Our life is a process of continued hardships, which never ends. As soon as the first living cell arrives in the mother’s womb, it begins to encounter affliction. The living cell works hard to prepare itself for the exact conditions for its survival. It continues this process until it is ready for birth, which is a tremendous ordeal for both the mother and the baby. Before the first breath a child takes, it undergoes a great deal of pushing and pressure almost to the point of suffocation as he or she makes their way out of the mother’s womb.
A stage of harder endurance and greater suffering follows. The newborn baby begins to breathe the air, which is a new experience. It opens its mouth and inflates its lungs for the first time with a cry, which proclaims its difficult beginning. The digestive system and the blood circulation then begin to function in a very unfamiliar manner. The baby empties its bowels encountering great difficulty in adapting its system to this new function. Without a doubt, every new step or movement is an action in struggle and suffering. As a baby begins to crawl, it is amazing to observe the effort required to perform such small and basic movements. Suffering continues with teething, developing the abilities to stand, walk confidently, learn and think. Each stage has its own set of struggles.
Then the roads of the journey of development change direction and the struggle takes different forms. One individual struggles with the physical self, another with the mental self and another with the spiritual self, and some struggles with all three. One toils for a mere mouthful of food and a garment to dress themselves, another strives to double their wealth. One person strives to achieve a position of power or influence and another strives for the sake of a divine cause. One struggles for the sake of satisfying basic primal desires, and the other for the sake of ideology. One strives for the eternal, and the other for momentary gain. Everyone is carrying their own load, ascending their own mountain, and descending through their own valley to arrive ultimately at the day of death. We enter the world alone and begin our individual struggles. The purpose of life’s struggles is to purify and find meaning for self until the day that we close our eyes in death alone. It is not a journey of complete unhappiness, but rather a magnificent journey of celebration as we achieve heights of experiences and blessings through our labor and sacrifices.
We diligently search the shelves of bookstores to try to find the answers to life’s personal and interpersonal concerns. People continuously ask me to recommend a book they can read about relationships, parenting, depression, anxiety, physical and emotional abuse, addictions, and so forth. While there are many excellent books with ribbons of truth laced throughout their pages, it is the Spiritual Laws of God that will answer every question of life, guide you safety through any situation and offer you lasting change. It seems as though we search the pages of many book before we turn, if ever, to God for the answer. If we only open our eyes to what is taking place around us every day, we would see clearly that a higher being controls the events in our life, the sole purpose of which is to teach us faith. For it is through faith that we are guided. It is through faith that we succeed and supersede. Faith is developed through exposure to the truth. The truth is recognized by the soul or spirit, which has been placed within all humankind. God speaks to us directly through the quietness and humility of our soul as we protect our minds, censor our thoughts and diligently search for the truth. We are given a special privilege to know the truth through our choices and our faith. It is impossible to keep the truth from a person who through faith wants to discover and understand the truth.
Life has been described in one of four ways: as a journey, as a battle, as a pilgrimage, and as a race. Select your own metaphor, but the finishing necessity is all the same. Each must be completed one way or another.
Biology defines life as the metabolic activity of protoplasm. When we think of life in biological terms, it sounds bad. However, there are times when it seems even worse than that. After all, life can be compared to that of a grindstone. Whether it grinds a person down or polishes him or her depends upon the kind of stuff of which he or she is made.
If you will die today, will people remember you?
If they do, what kind of life would they remember?
According to an article in the Vintage News, one morning in 1888, Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who had amassed a fortune manufacturing and selling weapons of destruction, awoke to read his own obituary in the newspaper. (Actually, it was his brother who had died, but a reporter mistakenly wrote Alfred’s obituary.) For the first time, Alfred saw himself as the world saw him: the dynamite king and nothing more. Nothing was mentioned about his efforts at breaking down barriers between people and ideas. He was simply a merchant of death, and he would be remembered for that alone. Alfred was horrified. He determined that the world would know the true purpose of his life. So, he wrote his last will and testament and he made the critical choice of leaving his fortune to establish the most coveted of all prizes: the Nobel Prize. Now, the world has forgotten his dynamite legacy. - Article in the Vintage News
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans.
Do not worry about the struggles you will encounter in your daily living.
Do not worry about the struggles you will encounter in your daily living.
One cannot attain success without struggling.
-William James
Florence Nightingale gives us this explanation: Life is a hard fight, a struggle, a wrestling with the principles of evil, hand to hand, foot to foot. Every inch of the way is disputed. The night is given us to take break, to pray, to drink deep at the fountain of power and the day, to use the strength, which has been given us, to go forth to work with it until the evening.
DESTINY * PREDESTINATION * PROVIDENCE * CHOICE
"Is our quest for material wealth or for truth?"
"It is simply a matter of choice."
—Elane Lee-Isa
"It is simply a matter of choice."
—Elane Lee-Isa
Some Principles to Follow
-We live in an orderly universe in which everything happens for a reason. There are no accidents.
-Thoughts objectify (make real) themselves. In other words, you become what you think about every day.
-Create in your mind an accurate mental equivalent of exactly what it is you desire.
-The clearer your vision, the greater opportunity is for success.
-As within, so without: your outer life will tend to be a mirror image of your inner life.
-Your external world of material accomplishments will correspond exactly to your internal world of preparation.
-People will reflect your attitude back to you.
-Your relationships will mirror your attitude and your personality.
-Your health will be reflective of your attitude.
-Whatever you believe becomes your reality.
-What you truly value and believe is expressed only and always in your actions.
-Inner desires, urges, and instincts trigger everything you do.
-Whatever thought or idea mixed with emotions you hold in your conscious mind will be accepted as a command by your subconscious mind.
-Whatever you expect with confidence will have a tendency to materialize in your life.
-Whatever you concentrate on and think about repeatedly tends to become a part of your inner and outer life.
-Virtually everything you do is automatic (subconscious).
Good habits are hard to form but easy to manage.
Bad habits are easy to form but hard to manage.
-You are always free to choose the content of your conscious mind, but in so doing, you are choosing every other part of your life.
-As a living magnet, you inevitably attract people, events and circumstances into your life that harmonize with your dominant thoughts.
-Change is inevitable, so learn to live with it, rather than against it.
-Change is inevitable, so learn to live with it, rather than against it.
-All things are amenable to hard work.
-All great success is preceded by a long period of inevitable hard work in a single direction toward a clearly defined purpose.
-To achieve more than average you must work longer and harder than average.
-You continually must be looking for the opportunities to go beyond the requirements of your job.
-Effective performance and efficient achievement are preceded by painstaking preparation.
-Just as your feelings determine your actions, your actions determine your feelings.
-The key to achieving financial wealth is to study and emulate those who have acquired it.
-Definiteness of purpose is the beginning of all riches.
-A person with a clear, definitive purpose will make progress on the roughest road.
-Deal with people as they are, not as you want them to be.
-You are mentally healthy and mature to the degree to which you can freely forgive those whom you feel have hurt or wronged you in any way.
Intra-dependence
(Dependence, Independence, Intra-dependence, Inter-dependence)
“To thine own self be true;
And, it must follow as the night the day.
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
-William Shakespeare
You have within you all the resources (actual and potential) that you will ever need to become whole, complete, and entire, lacking nothing.
By the time you reach adulthood, you should have the following:
-Emotional & Physical Balance
-A Sense of Responsibility
-The Ability to Delay Gratification
-Effective Communication Skills
-Healthy Interpersonal Relationships
-Clear, Definitive Boundaries
-The Ability to Face Reality
-A Strong Sense of Mastery
-The Ability to Make Appropriate Decisions
-The Ability to Solve Problems Effectively
-The Ability to Manage Your Emotions
-A Keen Awareness of Self, Others & Environment
-A Strong Spiritual Core
-An Expanding Mind of Pure Thoughts
-Elane Lee-Isa
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