Be here now

• About a guru
• "dont think about the past. Just be here now"
• "Dont think about the future. Just be here now"
• "Emotions are like waves. Watch them dissapear in the distance on the vast calm ocean."
• He wasnt the least bit interested in all of the extraordinary dramas that I had collected.
• Once you realize God knows everything, youre free. ... I had managed to keep private places in my head. ... And suddenly I realized that he knew everything that was going on in my head, all the time, and taht he still loved me. Because wo we are is behind all that.
• So: I can do nothing for you but work on myself... You can do nothing for me but work on yourself
• Sadhana: youve got to be quiet inside to do that kind of photography. Its very easy to photograph inanimate objects - like other people. But: Turn the lens right in on the very stuff youre hiding in. Shoot the camera this way.
• Making it sacred - this (shopping wood and carrying water) is karma yoga ... the yoga of daily life. The way to do it is: so what you do but dedicate the fruits of the work to me.
• People often say to me: I would really like to do sadhana... I am a teacher now. If I could only finish being a teacher, i could so sadhana. BAloney! You're either doing sadhana or youre not. Sadhana is a full tim thing that you do because there is nothing else to do. You do it whether youre teaching, or sitting in a monastery, whether youre lying in bed, going to the toilet, making love, eating, everything is part of waking up.... its all dedicated ... its all sacred
• you meet another person and there are qualities in that personality which offend you, seduce you, repel you, sexually excite you,....... It's only when you can see through all that veil... through all your own desires ... that you can see beyond all that to where THE OTHER BEING IS. You will do that when youve gone inside to see where you are
• You are the guru. Thats whats so far out. You are your own guru. And thats what you finally know when you are hanging out with one of these guys. You hang out with yourself. 
• When you wake up at 3:47
• What time is it? NOW
• Where am I? HERE
• When you get up at 9 a.m.
• What time is it? NOW
• Where am I? HERE
• Try 4:32 three weeks from next Thursday
• What time is it? NOW
• Where am I? HERE
• By God - is it - there's no getting away from it - thats the way it is. Thats the eternal present. You finally figure out that its only the clock thats going around... Its doing it thing but you - youre sitting HERE - RIGHT NOW - ALWAYS
• Nobody is going anywhere
• Nobody is coming from anywhere
• We're all here
• We're all here
• In eternal time & space
• We're always going to be here
• Nothing to do - there is nowhere to go and there is nothing to do
• Just the process of calming, centering, centering, calming - extricating myself from the drama
• So long as one feeld that he is the doer he cannot escape from the wheel of births and deaths
• Drama is drama is drama is drama
• desire is drama
• thought is drama
• breathing is drama
• emotions are drama
• all form is drama
• It's all part of the drama
• Everywhere I look I see only my own desires
• Go to bed early and get up early
• Meditate for a few minutes before lying down to go to sleep
• Get out of the habit of "thinking about things" when you are going into sleep. Clear your mind
• Asanas are positions. Once you have gotten into the position and made the statement connected with that position you are there. You become a statue in each asana. The statue image is a useful one. No matter how unusual the position of the asana may seem to you, once you are in the position then you become totally centered in that position. It - your body - comes to be a position of rest... as if you were always in that position, as a statue.
• Your state of mind is of paramount importance in asanas. Dont identify with the ego who is doing the asanas. Merely watch the body move into the appropriate positions. Stay in a place inside yourself where nothing is happening at all.
• When the body has gotten into the asana as perfectly as it is able without forcing (just firm pressure)... then go into "neutral" with the body so that it becomes perfectly relaxed and stable in the position of the asanas.
• You can make up other mantras for other daily acts to bring to consciousness your center so that you break the identification with an ego who is performin the act.
• The witness
• You play many roles in the course of a day - and that WHO YOU ARE from moment to moment changes. There is the angry you, and the kind you, the lazy you, - hundreds of different yous. If, as we have seen, the work is to break these identifications, we can work effectively throughout each day by making each of these "you's" objects, i.e. by breaking the identification with each of them. 
• The witness
• It is a part of the rational mind. 
• The witness could be thought of as an eye. It is not an active thing. It just sees it all happening.
• The witness is not evaluative. It does not judge your actions. It merely notes them. Thus, if you perfom an act because of desire, such as eating something the witness would merely note a) he is eating such-and-such and b) he is putting himself down for eating such-and-such. Thus the witness has noted a "you" of desires and a super-ego you ... two "you's"
• At first the witness is adoped because of an intellectual understanding of the need to separate the Self from the Doer
• It is difficult to fully get lost in the subtle sensual gratifications of eating when you are witnessing yourself eat. "He is chewing...testing..savoring, etc. It all seems so dispassionate. And truly it is
• You will also note that as you break identification with more and more of your roles and begin to live more calmly in the witness, that you begin to be aware of much more.
• Meditation
• The human mind is like that monkey, incessantly active by its own nature, then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire, thus increasing its turbulence.
• All that you do is register thoughts, states, etc. in the present
• You dont think about your thoughts. You merely note them.
• At first let your mind wander and just watch it. Just note how your mind works. Dont think about the thoughts. Just note them. Do this for about thirty minutes a day for a week.
• Let all other thoughts drift by and keep your attention focused on this muscle. (breathing)
• Count - Om...2...Om...3...
• Your only task is to count that muscle going up and down. All other thoughts dont belong here. 
• Note the intruding thought, give it a label, and return to the task at hand.
• This simple technique of bare attention is very powerful.

be here now

"Wir wollen versuchen, uns nicht in Zerstreuungen, im Bedauern über die Vergangenheit oder in Sorgen über die Zukunft zu verlieren."

Kommunikation nach Friedemann Schulz von Thun

Jede Aussage hat vier Seiten:

1. Appel
2. Selbstoffenbarung
3. Sachinhalt
4. Beziehungsaussage

Das heißt:

1. Was ich von dir möchte
2. Was ich von mir mitteile
3. Worüber ich dich informiere
4. Wie ich zu dir stehe

habits

Habits that have a high rate of return in life:

- sleeping 8+ hours each day
- lifting weights 3x week
- going for a walk each day
- saving at least 10 percent of your income
- reading every day
- drinking more water and less of everything else
- leaving your phone in another room while you work

On focus and priority

“Focus is a force multiplier on work. Almost everyone I’ve ever met would be well-served by spending more time thinking about what to focus on. It is much more important to work on the right thing than it is to work many hours. Most people waste most of their time on stuff that doesn’t matter. 

Once you have figured out what to do, be unstoppable about getting your small handful of priorities accomplished quickly. I have yet to meet a slow-moving person who is very successful.”

About reading - from 1330

"It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.”

From 1330!!!

You have to meditate for one hour a day. If you don't have the time - meditate two.

so true

Louis V. Gerstner jr. – Who says Elephants can’t dance?

Louis V. Gerstner jr. – Who says Elephants can’t dance?

• “It is not helpful to feel sorry for ourselves. I’m sure our employees don’t need any rah-rah speeches. We need leadership and a sense of direction and momentum, not just from me but from all of us. I don’t want to see a lot of prophets of doom around here. I want can-do people looking for short-term victories and long-term excitement.”
• I told them there was no time to focus on who created our problems. I had no interest in that. “We have little time to spend on problem definition. We must focus our efforts on solutions and actions.”
• Management principles
• I manage by principle, not procedure
• The market place dictates everything we do
• I look for people who work to solve problems and help colleagues. I sack politicians
• I am heavily involved in strategy; the rest is yours to implement. Just keep me informed in an informal way. Don’t hide bad information. Solve problems laterally; don’t keep bringing them up the line.
• Move fast. I f we make mistakes, let them be because we are too fast rather than too slow.
• Hierarchy means very little to me. Let’s put toether in meetings the people whi can help solve a problem.
• 5 ninety-day priorities upon start:
• Stop hemorrhaging cash
• Make sure we would be profitable in one years time
• Develop and implement a key customer strategy for year 1 and 2
• Finish right-sizing by the beginning of third quarter
• Develop an intermediate term business strategy
• Plus a thirty days assignment:
• Ten-page report from each BU leader
• I stepped to the table and, as politely as I could in front of his team, switched of the projector. After a long moment of awkward silence, I simply said, “Let’s just talk about your business”.
• I told the team that, effective immediately, the milking strategy was over and instructed them to get back to me with an aggressive price reduction plan
• When people realized that I really did read every one of the reports (from big clients problems to be solved from visiting them), there was quick improvement in action and responsiveness
• Turning around troubled companies, whatever hard or painful things you have to do, do them quickly and make sure everyone knows what you are doing and why.
• Sooner is better than perfect
• The real issue was going out and making things happen every day in the marketplace
• With an eye to the old management committee, I also announced what the CEO would not do: It would not accept delegation of problem solving. It would not sit through presentations or make decisions for the business units. Its focus would be solely on policy issues that cut across multiple units.
• No institutional transformation takes place, I believe, without a multi-year commitment by the CEO to put himself or herself constantly in front of employees and speak in plain, simple, compelling language
• This is about the bone-jarringly difficult task of forcing the organization to limit its ambition and focus on markets that made strategic and economic sense.
• I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game. An organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.
• My kind of executives dig into the details, work the problems day to day, and lead by example, not title.
• A good portion of our success was due to all of the deals we didn’t do
• People do what you inspect, not what you expect
• Companies don’t like to change because individuals don’t like to change
• I have always believed that it is better to underpromise and outperform than to overpromise and underperform

Charles Dickes – A tale of two cities

Charles Dickes – A tale of two cities

• From the foreword: Quoting from Charles Dickens memorandum book the outline for a character: “The man who is incapable of his own happiness. One who is always in pursuit of happiness”
• A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
• “I am a man of business. I have a business charge to acquit myself of. In your reception of it, don’t heed me any more than if I was a speaking machine – truly, I am not much else.”
• “A multitude of people, and yet a solitude”

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves and wise people so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell

How to get lots of sports done

I’d absorbed the running and training into my life so that was part of my life, nothing special. It wasn’t the center of anything, it was just one thing, connected to all the others.