Faith converts adversity into harmony.
Author: ojinoto
Trying to do good. Born and raised and living in NYC.
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It’s so hard to do the right thing,
I know it’s possible.
And if you do,
Things will work out.
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Just Like You, Life Is Thinking
Just like you, Life is thinking.
Like your thinking is beyond that of an animal’s,
Life’s thinking is immeasurably beyond that of your own.
Align yourself with how Life thinks and you are golden…well on your way.
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“You pick up dirt. That is the nature of the walk. But you are allowed to expel it.”
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Everyone Has Their Own Path
Everyone has their own Path
The aim is to publish the first edition of SparkTheFlame in paperback in 2015. Currently it’s shaping to be a small book of about 40 pages.
Here will be published the first few sections, which comprise much of the book. Enjoy!
This Is Your Life
- Your Life has been entrusted to you. You have a sacred duty to your Life.
- Your Life depends on you to live and thrive, to shine the world with its true expression.
- You are the only custodian, the sole guardian of your Life. You can place this sacred responsibility in the hands of another, but that is your choice to make. If you do this, choose your surrogate wisely.
- It is up to you to create your Life. It is your responsibility, your duty, your blessing.
- Life is yours to enjoy if you please. Happiness is your choice, and when it occurs, it occurs Now.
- If your Life is not going the direction you want, you must make changes and steer in a different direction. You are the one to do it.
- If you believe, you will receive the help you need. It may come in unexpected space and time, but it will show.
- Everyone has the right to direct their own Life.
- Doing what you feel and know is best in your heart, even if painful to yourself or others, will assure positive return.
- We are all learning. We are all students. Always give yourself room for mistakes, they help us grow.
- Anything and Everything can be part of your good story, with good endings.
- Love is a journey. Happiness, success, health, wealth…they are not destinations. They are all journeys. They all begin Now, and accompany you on the path.
Using The Brain
- Every thought, word, action, and feeling you experience changes the physical shape of your brain and influences your behavioral inclinations. This physical altering of your brain is called neuroplasticity.
- The more you repeat any thought, word, action, or feeling, the more likely you are to do it again. Each time you do so carves a deeper etching into your brain and being.
- To create a habit of something, practice it. To break a habit, practice the opposite. Practice who you want to be, and your brain will transform accordingly, following your lead and instruction to become the person of your ideal.
- The brain works very mysteriously. It connects with Life to produce situations and circumstances that represent, reflect, and reinforce the person who you are right Now.
- Deliberately continue the experience “I am blessed,” and your mind will produce surrounding conditions and personal perspective to confirm this.
- Your choice and your gift is to custom-tailor your brain to create a world dear to your heart.
Interconnectivity
- Everything in the universe is connected and part of a Whole.
- Everything you do affects everything else. Your thoughts, feelings, actions and words reach the world, touching and affecting everything everywhere.
- For something to be truly done in your betterment, you must aim for the betterment of all.
- When you help someone else, you help yourself.
- It is sacred to fill yourself with positivity. This reflects back onto the world.
- We are like waves of the ocean. Connected to everything in the ocean, through the ocean, but also having distinctive shape and form. The wave may crash and meld back into the larger ocean, but it can take shape and form again, all the while remaining ever connected and part of the all-encompassing ocean.
- All contains All. Every portion of this universe contains the whole universe. All information in this universe is everywhere at the same time. All things have equal inherent value.
- The outside world is a reflection of your inside world. To create change on the outside, make change on the inside.
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Humility helps us to be invested in benefit for all, which in turn benefits us. This way things turn out best.
Thank you
“…the point is to flex your flexibility, keep catlike presence with a reality that is becoming more unpredictable. not in an anxious way, rather in a “no matter what, something good for me arises from this” way. the more present and accepting of the moment you are, the more you will allow your mind to present you with opportunities to capitalize on every reality you encounter.“
Each new day Is unchartered territory.
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Had a tough time today with alcohol. So very glad I didn’t drink. Was at lunch with two coworker friends , even the bartender was drinking hard liquor at lunchtime. It was cozy in there, I felt like I was missing out by not drinking with them.
Then at the end of the work day most of the office had a game of poker and just about everybody was drinking. I don’t know why, but after a while I had the thought that I really wanted to drink, and that maybe I could be ok with one drink or so. Thankfully I am blessed that I didn’t drink. The strongest urge lasted only a moment or two, but it is scary to think that I considered it for a moment.
I have two and a half years without drinking. And I am still having frightening times of desire. I am scared to want to drink. I am scared to be fooled into thinking that I can have only a little and things will be perfectly fine.
The reality is the next time I choose to drink, I feel that myself or someone else could die. That is how serious alcohol affects me. How innocent and controllable one voluntary swig seems, but that one swig is a switch to open the floodgates of destruction.
With alcohol I don’t ever know how much destruction I will cause, or to whom.
I cant let that happen.
Please help me to stay clean. Please help me to stay clear and clean from alcohol. Please.
Thank you.
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You have to be OK with mistakes.
Because you know what?
You’re going to make them.
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This Is A Special Time
This is a special Time.
Are you afraid of losing it?
The adventure. Not knowing the recipe,
not knowing how.
This is special. But don’t be afraid
to lose it.
Don’t be afraid to move on.
We must all do that. We must all
progress.
There are more things to do.
Bigger. You must do this
first.
You must continue, you will
leave this time behind,
like you left all other times
behind.
And there will be more Times.
And more times.
And more times.
And more Times.
And more times. And more…
“So I would like to end this with a paragraph written by that young man, in a letter to his mother, the night before he was put to death.
…’and I want you all to remember — that you must not dream yourselves back to the times before the war, but the dream for you all, young and old, must be to create an ideal of human decency, and not a narrow-minded and prejudiced one. That is the great gift our country hungers for, something every little peasant boy can look forward to, and with pleasure feel he is a part of — something he can work and fight for.'”
This comes from the children’s book “Number The Stars” by Lois Lowry, and she is quoting the real-life letter of a leader of the Resistance in Denmark during Nazi occupation. His name: Kim Malthe-Bruun, and he was captured and executed by the Nazis at the age of 21.
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When you look at something, don’t read into it, just let it be.
No matter what, Life can change for the better, starting from right Now
Love yourself hug yourself
If I stop and think of How my Life is Freely given to me. I don’t know how to earn it, I don’t know of it being bought or earned. I’m Freely here, and I don’t know when its going to end.
And how valuable this is. How divine, gratefulness naturally arises
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Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
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Gratitude and Happiness
When this difficult thing occurs to us…they are opportunities and those who avail themselves of those opportunities are the ones that you admire, they make something out of Life. And those who fail…get another opportunity. You always get another opportunity. That’s the wonderful richness of Life
-David Steindl-Rast
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compassion
“Compassion…can also express itself in the simple act of Presence…just being there, just…showing up. I think that compassion also is often linked to beauty. And by that I mean a willingness to see beauty in the other, not just what it is about them that might need helping.”
–Krista Tippett
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“Loving myself exactly where I am is the only way to get where I’m going” – Tracy McMillan
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“Our capacity for wholeheartedness can never be greater than our willingness to be broken hearted” – Brene Brown
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Choice. Choice Is The Freedom
Choice. Choice is the freedom
“A superior man always assumes complete responsibility, knowing that, ultimately, he has no control at all and everything is out of his hands. He acts with impeccable courage and persistence, expecting nothing but the inherent feeling of completeness he enjoys in the fullest giving of his gift.”
—The Way Of The Superior Man, by David Deida
This is interesting: how are you supposed to assume complete responsibility over everything that occurs in your life, while ultimately not having control over anything?
Life and I work together, as a team, as partners. Not opposing players, not antagonists, but partners. Who knows exactly how this plays out. What exactly the rules are.
But everything we think, and do, is woven into the web of experience. And is a part of the manifested universe. And yet if it so wishes, Life will catch us completely by surprise…
The More We Can Forgive Others, The More We Can Forgive Ourselves
Not much to volunteer here, except an excerpt from Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. Vulnerability, it seems, is key to opening. How do I practice this?
how…do…I…open?
“It wasn’t just the relationship between joy and gratitude that took me by surprise. I was also startled by the fact that research participants consistently described both joyfulness and gratitude as spiritual practices that were bound to a belief in human connectedness and a power greater than us. Their stories and descriptions expanded on this, pointing to a clear distinction between happiness and joy. Participants described happiness as an emotion that’s connected to circumstances, and they described joy as a spiritual way of engaging with the world that’s connected to practicing gratitude. While I was initially taken aback by the relationship between joy and vulnerability, it now makes perfect sense to me, and I can see why gratitude would be the antidote to foreboding joy.”
The author uses the term foreboding joy to describe when someone is joyful but then immediately stops themselves from feeling that because of they don’t want to feel the vulnerability of joy. A sort of fear of letting go of fear, so that you’re not caught off guard by something bad happening.
While we’re at it, here’s a few more excerpts from a few pages back:
“In a culture of deep scarcity–of never feeling safe, certain, and sure enough–joy can feel like a setup. We wake up in the morning and think, ‘Work is going well. Everyone in the family is healthy. No major crises are happening. The house is still standing. I’m working out and feeling good. Oh, shit. This is bad. This is really bad. Disaster must be lurking right around the corner.'”
“A man in his early sixties told me, ‘I used to think the best way to go through life was to expect the worse. That way, if it happened, you were prepared, and if it didn’t happen, you were pleasantly surprised. Then I was in a car accident and my wife was killed. Needless to say, expecting the worst didn’t prepare me at all. And worse, I still grieve for all of those wonderful moments we shared and that I didn’t fully enjoy. My commitment to her is to fully enjoy every moment now. I just wish she was here, now that I know how to do that.'”
Maybe a life where everything is going well is not really our situation right now, or maybe it is. Either way, vulnerability seems to be a key to opening up and expressing your truer self, my truer self. Dropping the armor, personas, and letting yourself shine.
I guess I did have a little to share. And the author does offer gratitude as a way to feel the vulnerability of joy.
Bruce Lee and Self Expression
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Personal Production
My production, where is it going?
My effort represents personal production towards existence with every moment.
If I have high production and it is steered always good energy, your effort of direction, toward the good, gains you reward and padding of good vibration. Even if your current feelings mismatch.
Add gratefulness and humility so you keep the desire for good
And Faith