BANYAN TREE
TEACHING STORY
A TEACHER’S POWER
Nobody can inspire us as great teachers can. They seem to come along at just the right moment, at a time when we need them the most. Great teachers show us things about ourselves we can’t see.
Les Brown is one of the world’s foremost motivational speakers and thought leaders on self-improvement and goal-setting. However, it wasn’t always that way for him. Born in Liberty City, Miami, on the floor of an abandoned building, he has known struggle and hardship his entire life.
Academically, Les was a struggling student from the get-go. The story goes that during his school days, he was labelled ‘educable mentally handicapped’ by the academic intelligentsia of his day and demoted from the 6th grade to the 5th grade. To make matters worse, he had a twin brother who was exceptionally bright and gifted, and as such, Les became commonly referred to by his peers as the ‘DT’—the ‘dumb twin.’
One day, a teacher asked him to come up and solve a problem on the chalkboard, but Les refused and said that he couldn’t. “Of course, you can,” the teacher responded encouragingly. “Young man, come up here and solve this problem for me.” “But I can’t,” insisted Les. “I'm educable mentally handicapped.” The rest of the class erupted in laughter. At that point, the teacher stepped out from behind his desk and looked Les straight in the eye. “Don’t ever say that again,” he told him firmly. “Someone else's opinion of you does not have to become your reality.”
Les never forgot those words and spent the rest of his life overcoming incredible odds and pursuing his goals with passion and fervour. Time and again, thanks to that one teacher’s powerful revelation, Les has lived the phrase he’s famous for, all over the world: “You have greatness within you.”
THIS, I KNOW
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
(An American Poet)
• Fate loves the fearless.
• Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
• A wise man travels to discover himself.
• No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
• A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.
• Not failure, but low aim is crime.
• One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
• Endurance is the crowning quality, and patience, all the passion of great hearts.
• Poetry is something to make us wiser and better by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth which God has sent in all men’s souls.
INSPIRATION
I WILL NOT DIE AN UNLIVED LIFE
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
—Dawn Markova
ONE-MINUTE WISDOM
RELATIONSHIP WITH ONESELF
Melissa participates in a dating experiment. She meets five different boys and clicks with two. She starts seeing them one after another and soon realises that she doesn’t fit in with any of them. She takes a week off from dating and seeing boys. The wisdom that downloads for her during this time is this: I first need to build, grow, nurture, cherish, and strengthen the relationship that I have with myself, as it is of prime importance. Then all other relationships will also reflect the same fulfilling qualities.
QUOTE
“If you want to create change, you have to do it from a level of energy that’s greater than guilt, greater than pain, greater than fear, greater than anger, greater than shame, and greater than unworthiness. In fact, any lower vibrational feelings cannot carry the thought of your future dream.”
—Dr Joe Dispenza
JUST FOR LAUGHS
THOUGHTLESS
Two Buddhist monks (a master and a disciple) are having a conversation about the disciple’s progress on the spiritual path.
Master: I’ve never met anyone so thoughtless in my life. Keep up the good work.
Disciple: Thank you, Mastwer.
WHO?
Two people sitting next to each other in a meditation class, thinking in their heads.
First person: “Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
Second person: “I wonder who that guy is.”