Courage - what does it mean?

Yesterday, I was searching for the meaning of various words like patience, anger, worry, ego/pride, courage, I was able to define the previous words with some explanation but I didn't know what does courage mean? Let me tell you what I felt about the other words :

Patience - It can be called as waiting & working for the results/success despite adversities.

Anger - It is an instrument which helps us in controlling situation when it is going out of hand.

Ego/Pride - The superiority & inferiority complex mixture which neither gives peace to person possessing it nor to the people who have to associate with him.

COURAGE - ????

Then I started searching in the dictionary at first and typed the word COU while Google figured out what was in my mind and prompted 'Courage meaning' and clicked that but the first post was related to images while the second one was 'www.brainyquote.com' seeing which immediately my hands clicked that.

The moment I have clicked the link, I jumped into the sea of courage that great people defined. Let me tell you whether I found it's meaning or not? Yes, I did find that and the most apt definition was given by 'Mark Twain' - Courage is not absence of Fear, but it is control/Mastery of Fear. I have a lot share about COURAGE but due to some work am unable to do it now... let me continue it in the next post .....

Earning is nothing before the means of Earning

This quotation was quoted by 'Chaganti Koteswara Rao' garu in his discourse on Sampoorna Ramayanam (whose discourse you can find on Youtube - You would definitely learn from it if you understand telugu)

The example he quotes regarding the statement above is that 'Ravana' who is the villian or the lead negative character in Ramayana has all obtained all the things which have glorified his Lanka (the place where he lived) were bought in an unrighteous (adharma) manner. Say, Pushpaka chariot (pushpaka vimanam) is given as gift to Lord Kuvera/Kubera (Lord of Wealth) from Lord Brahma (The Creator) for his tapasya (say one form of prayer).
The above story states that the pushpaka chariot belongs to Kuvera (who is elder brother of Ravana indeed) but Ravana wanted to possess any valuable thing thought it belonged to him/not by his prowess/power gained through his tapasya which has costed him his life, How?

Once, Ravana was flying on Pushpaka chariot over Mt. Kailasa where Lord Shiva resides in due to his respect pushpaka was not allowed to fly above his residence/residing place, Ravana has asked for the reason of not being allowed to fly which was informed to him by his messengers saying that as Lord Shiva resides here pushpaka cannot fly at any cost.

Ravana didn't know the greatness of Lord Shiva and wanted to meet him ... (cont. in the next post)

Quote of the Day

If a father brings a gift for his son both will laugh with happiness, but if a son gets his father a gift both will cry with happiness

- William Shakespeare

Being Assertive - Helps you saying 'NO'oo.... (continued)

Lazy continues to use passive the same way  on next day too then he tries to become passively aggressive n lazy speaks in helpless tone to get his help, out of kindness passive accepts work again... and this goes on for some days and lazy at last one day sends passive to another lazy person and the same continues. This shows us that a passive person will never be able to reach his destination.

Then we ll come to the story of Agg(Aggressive), similar to pass he will come across lazy and lazy tries to trick him to help in his work but agg does the work for a couple of days and starts fight with lazy, then lazy send him to the village head who is more aggressive n stubborn than agg. When agg comes across Village head due to the heavy weight of their heads they get in to quarrel easily which results in agg being thrown out of village. This way even agg had also been not able to reach destination.

Now finally we will come to the story of Ass(Assertive), when ass comes across Lazy as usual lazy asks ass to help him in his work and ass does that without any hesitation as he needs the help of lazy to reach the destination but the next morning when lazy shoulders ass with another work then ass comes up with a wonderful comment asking lazy to keep up his word as he has kept his word by helping him the last night, but still lazy insisted in making ass work but ass politely rejected (said NO) the work and started walking and this lead him to the village head coincidentally.

But when ass came across the Village head with polite and straight forward talk with absolute clarity not with agitation like agg, the head redirected him to a person named 'Smart' who is the final point in path of destination and tested smartness of ass (who is as smart as both agg and pass). Hence, this made ass reach his destination as planned in One night and a day.

So, in order to achieve anything we should learn to say NO. We can observe that ass has not said no always as he has accepted to help lazy for the first time, but when he noticed that lazy will not keep his word after promising to help him in the morning. Ass has decided that lazy cannot be trusted for route even if he helps him again so instead of behaving like agg/pass he politely says NO and walks away. Similarly we also have to learn to end up in WIN - WIN i.e., U WIN - I WIN situation.

Quote of the Day

Do not pray GOD for an easy life instead pray for the STRENGTH to endure a difficult one.
- Bruce Lee

Quotes of the Day - Yesterday (09/09)

1. A man is what he thinks all Day long - Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. Some people break under TROUBLE while some break records
- Norman Vincent Peale

Quote of the Day for Yesterday(09/08)

Trouble either makes a person bigger or smaller, it never leaves a person as he was before.
- Norman Vincent Peale

Quote of the Day

If your GOAL doesn't scare you then it is not big enough
- Author(I don't remember)

Being Assertive - Helps you saying 'NO'oo....

I have come to know that there are three types of behaviors/Attitudes in general

1. Passive 
2. Aggressive
3. Assertive

Passive - "You Win" though "I Lose"

Aggressive - "I should Win" though you Win or Not

Assertive - "You Win" - " I Win"

Lets discuss the three attitudes with the help of a small story....

There is a village named Life and there are three passengers who are passing through this village to reach their destination city named Success, the three passengers are Pass (Passive), Agg (Aggressive) and Ass (Assertive).

They begin their journey without knowing one and other from a place called The Unknown, it is known that it takes one full day and night to cross the village and reach the destination if a perfect and planned journey is carried out. And none of the passengers is aware of the plan to be followed to reach safely. Each passenger is tested by the people during the journey to test his ability to reach the city. (The destination cannot be reached without proper instructions from the villagers). Let us see who out of the three will be the first one to reach the city of.

Pass is the first one to begin the journey and he has a bag to carry food and water so that they will be sufficient for him till next day and journey started as he passed the way he found an old man (who was waiting for a passenger to help him do a work as his name was Lazy), Pass saw the old man sitting there and asked him for the route which helps him in reaching 'Success' while the Lazy asked him to help him doing a work of plucking fruits from his tree after which he wishes to tell the route, the dawn sets on still Pass has not finished even half of the work which he has agreed to do while the old man offers him the night to stay in his house and will tell him once he completes the whole work assigned to him and he asks Pass to set up his bed for him to go to sleep though it pinches Pass but he still does that work.

Next day he continues the work but as soon as he has finished that work the old man treats him with little praise for some time and gives him another work Pass tries to confront Lazy 'Passive aggresively' means in this way (Pass to Lazy) - " I cannot do all this work as I am getting late to reach my destination" Lazy replies "I will not tell you the route unless you complete this work" as Pass wants to impress/please Lazy, he shoulders even that work (to be continued...)