So it's not that I,m a brilliant mind,But of this life I've taken quite a slice.I've lost enough and bled enough to make me kind of feelI'm qualified to offer this advice: Play the hand that's dealt you; play the cards as best you can And rejoice in all the time Life lets you win. And then, for all the other times when Life has cut you deep Sit back and feel the wisdom soaking in.

. The ego is a limited belief system within your mind that you have molded and identified as being the real you. The ego survives by establishing boundaries, borders and limits on everything it sees. The defining of such boundaries, borders and limits gives it the illusion that it can tell you what is right and wrong, all in an effort to control you by instructing you on what you are and are not, how you should act and not act, and why you should judge those who challenge it; the status quo. You are taught the right and wrong way to do things, the right and wrong way to react. Because you learn from the outside world, you believe that truth lies outside of you. Judgment and fear feed the ego, generating numerous perceived weaknesses and limitations you believe you must defend as real. The more time you spend in defense of the ego and your limitations, the more you believe that this is who you are. And because you see this ego as real and representing yourself, you defend it against anyone you perceive as attacking it. In your mind any view that does not support it attacks it. You perceive the attacks (disagreements with your belief system) on your ego and its illusion as real, and so you become defensive. The more time you spend defending your false or ego-self, the more you reaffirm its reality. The more you reaffirm its reality, the more willing you are to come to its defense. The more you defend the illusion of the ego-self as real, the more concepts and ideas you will encounter in the world that don’t fit into your reality. You perceive different concepts and ideas as assaults to your reality. You defend your ego-self, through the act of judgment. The exercise of judgment separates you from your fellow brother or sister causing stress that may be conscious or unconscious. Stress creates confusion, and a build up of confusion ultimately leads to chaos. You feel that by defending your beliefs, you strengthen them. Yet the more you defend them, the more they weaken you. The more time you spend in defense of your ego-self, the more time you will exist in a state of confusion. You might give your state of confusion a hundred different names, such as annoyance, anger, stress, sadness, depression, but they all exist because of your belief in the ego’s reality. They all exist within your mind and are fed and kept alive by your belief in your ego-self. Your tolerance for pain may be high but your acceptance of your ego-self is not without limit. You will come to a point in your life where you will tell yourself that there must be a better way, a more fulfilling way of living that this just can’t be what it’s all about!  These thoughts begin the process of awakening yourself to the knowledge of who you truly are. So it's not that I'm a guru or a sage of brilliant mind, But of this life I've taken quite a slice. I've lost enough and bled enough to make me kind of feel I'm qualified to offer this advice: Play the hand that's dealt you; play the cards as best you can And rejoice in all the time Life lets you win. And then, for all the other times when Life has cut you deep Sit back and feel the wisdom soaking in.
"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." "There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history in African and around the world's, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dare to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. press were paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper they connected with. Others also paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street looking for another job. If the press allowed their honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours their occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press? They are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. Journalist are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and journalist dance. Journalist talents, possibilities, and lives are all the property of other men. Journalist are intellectual prostitutes." Don't spend major time with minor people. If there are people in your life who continually disappoint you, break promises, stomp on your dreams, are too judgmental, have different values and don't have your back during difficult times...that is not friendship. To have a friend, be a friend. Sometimes in life as you grow, your friends will either grow or go. Surround yourself with people who reflect values, goals interests and lifestyles. When I think of any of my successes, I am thankful to God from whom all blessings flow, and to my family and friends who enrich my life. Over the years my phone book has changed because I changed, for the better. At first, you think you're going to be alone, but after awhile, new people show up in your life that make it so much sweeter and easier to endure. Remember what your elders used to say, "Birds of a feather flock together. If you're an eagle, don't hang around chickens: Chickens can't fly!" ................ A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died. The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time. This story gives us thoughts to think about: 1. An encouraging word to someone who is down can encourage them to achieve their goal. 2. A destructive word to someone who is down can have negative effects. Be careful of what you say. The quote below was sent to me by Master Mark Russell. His quote describes "words" very accurately: "Words: The Snow may look smooth and soft, but the rocks underneath are sharp!" One last point, Are your words encouraging? .. "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."
My friend, this is not the end but a beginning, for every moment allows you to begin anew. The moment is no longer some perception you must defend against, but has now become your playground, a place you now know you create by what you choose to believe and focus on. Now you understand that what you believe is within your mind, and because it is within your mind, you have the power to decide how you will experience the manifestation of the moment. Work on Yourself First Friend, the world you see outside yourself is simply a reflection of the world that you have shaped and supported within. The world you experience is simply an extension of your mind. The level of stress or peace you experience in the world is in direct correlation to the level of stress or peace within your mind. The more at peace you are with yourself, the more peaceful the world will appear to be. The more peace you have in your inner world, the more peace you will experience and extend to the outer world; whereas, the more stress you feel within, the more stress you will experience and extend into the outer world. The correlation here is not what is occurring in the world, but how you feel about yourself within your mind. My friend, it is for this reason that you are asked to work on yourself first. If you work on your mind, the rest will follow. As you change your thoughts and mind, you change your perception of the world and the way you react and participate in it. Throughout this book, I will make the following points repeatedly as I have done already: joy and peace are your natural state. If, in any situation, you are not at peace, it is because you have misperceived reality. You have lost your peace of mind, not because of some external force, but because of a simple misperception of reality. A reinterpretation of reality is all that is needed to obtain peace. Your interpretation of an event, not changing the event itself, accomplishes this. Realizing and acknowledging that you can do this with one event will bring you closer to the realization and understanding that you can do this with all the events in your life. Again, if you can find inner peace in one event by reinterpreting reality through your Godself, the possibility becomes real that you can do this with any event in your life.  The following words were written on the illustrate how one man recognized the importance of working on himself first: When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country. But it, too, seemed immovable. As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it. And now as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family. From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country and, who knows, I may have even changed the world. Taking Responsibility For Your Destiny Your destiny comes about as a result of what you do now. You are responsible for what you are doing and experiencing now, therefore you are responsible for the destiny you will experience in the future. You are in a constant state of creating your destiny, and every moment contributes to the destiny you will experience. What you are doing and experiencing now is your current reality. You have a great deal more control over your current reality than your ego has allowed you to remember. In fact, you are in a constant state of creating, manifesting and experiencing your reality. Each moment in your life is created, manifested and experienced by you for your growth and development. Let me further explain what I mean. Creation is the act of bringing a thought to your mind, forming a plan for its implementation and execution, and putting that plan to action. Manifestation is the physical result of your mental creation. Experience is the way you choose to see and react to your manifestation. You create and manifest both in the conscious and unconscious state. Most of us have already created and experienced conscious manifestations. Choosing to lose 10 pounds and achieving it, or getting a college degree are two examples of conscious manifestations. If something did not exist in your life, and you made a conscious decision to achieve it or not achieve it, this is an example of a conscious manifestation. It might take you a moment, hour, day, month, year or more to create, manifest and experience your current situation, yet the choice to bring this to you was yours. The value in a conscious manifestation lies not in what you can manifest, but in the knowledge that you can manifest whatever it is you choose. Having physical proof, the knowledge that you have the power to manifest your reality allows you to begin opening your mind to the possibility that your physical experience is created, manifested and experienced by you. What you experience in your physical world is simply a reflection of what is in your mind. Simply changing the thoughts that you allow to enter your mind can change your reality. If your mind lacks clarity, the circumstances that you will manifest in your physical world will also lack clarity. If thoughts of peace and love fill your mind, then the circumstances that you will manifest in your physical world will be equally as peaceful and loving. Think back to times when you have been in either a good or bad mood, and recall how being in that mood colored your experience for the day. The world feels tougher, less fair and more hopeless when you are in a bad mood. If you’re in a bad mood, little things upset you much more than if you are in a good mood. Those little or not so little things are still the same; the only thing that changes the way you see them is the kind of mood you’re in, or your mental state. Depending on whether you’re in a peaceful or agitated mental state, those little things will affect you differently. Little by little, you start realizing that reality has nothing to do with what those little things are. If you will, open your mind and entertain the possibility that it is your mind and not the outside world that needs changing. If the ego accepts this, it would want you to begin this process with the idea that you must improve yourself or become something better in order to have an improved or better life. For a moment, put the ego’s demands aside and simply recognize that this change will not come about by becoming something more or better, but by simply bringing yourself into a closer realignment with who you have always been, your Godself. My friend, you will some day realize that there is nothing easier than being who in truth you are. On the deepest level, it is an effortless accomplishment. You have manifested and continually manifest into your reality certain situations and patterns that assist you in your learning or remembering process. By looking back at your life, you can better understand which lessons you have chosen to learn, and which lessons you are still in the process of learning. Now you may be able to see how perfectly you created your circumstances in order to learn your lessons and complete your patterns. Patterns or lessons repeat themselves because you choose not to learn from them. You make certain ‘mistakes’ in your life that you don’t learn from and thus you repeat them until you learn to choose with love and forgiveness. Once you have learned what the pattern is about, it is no longer necessary to experience that pattern. Most patterns keep occurring in your life because there is some kind of value they hold for you. Once the value is recognized, you are able to release yourself from it. Only you can make the final choice of how you see life, of how you react to life and of how you live life. You may attract others to your life to assist you in your learning process, but it is you who gets to make the final choice of what you will focus on and experience. When I suggest that you attract others in your life to assist you, I am suggesting that you and others make a spiritual commitment to assist each other in the learning and remembering process, and ultimately in the release of all fear and ego-based patterns. Every brother and sister in your life has made a spiritual commitment to assist you, and you have consciously or unconsciously made a spiritual commitment to assist them in their growth and development. Thus, if your current perception toward them is anything but that of gratitude, you will create confusion. It is in the state of confusion that patterns and lessons are repeated. It is your beliefs and perceptions that will drive your focus; it is what you focus on that you will experience. If this is still difficult for you to grasp, take, for example, two types of people we have all met: optimists and pessimists. Spend an entire day with both of these types of people. If you do this once, you will never again question that a person’s reality, how he or she sees and reacts to the world, is mainly in that person’s mind and has little or nothing to do with the outer physical world.
A Fulfilling Life Do you currently believe that you lack certain personality traits that allow you to have a more fulfilling life? You might think of yourself as not having some of these qualities, but my friend, I offer you this reminder: it is not that you don’t have these traits; it is simply that you are looking for a greater expression of them in your life. You have everything you need to be who you want to be. It is simply the recognition and expression of this that will awaken your memory. The more time you spend convincing yourself that you do not have the traits you need for a more fulfilling life, the more you will increase the power of those thoughts over you. The more you increase their power, the more you will see them as real and true. The more you see them as real and true, the more you will defend them against other thoughts that question their reality. The more you see them as worth defending, the more you will defend them against the world and the more you will believe that they are worth defending. The more you buy into their reality, the harder you make it on yourself to understand that you are doing this to yourself. My friend, you are simply covering the treasure that lies within with dirt. Yet, however many feet of dirt you cover your treasure with, it does not eliminate the fact that the treasure still lies within. Conversely, the more you analyze, focus on, and implement what you want to become, the closer you will come to its manifestation. Again, the more time you spend remembering that the qualities you want to express, you already have, the more power you will give yourself. As you express this power, it will become more real to you. As you continue to increase the expression of your power, it will become more natural to you. Thus, the traits you once felt you did not have, will slowly be recognized as natural expressions of your trueself. You will look back and understand that it was not that you never had these traits, but simply that you had chosen not to express them. As you understand this of one trait, you will understand that this is possible of all traits you believe you need for a fulfilling life. Understand that you already have all traits that you believe you need for a more fulfilling life. Herein lies the beginning of the recognition of your Godself. Once you recognize your Godself, you will begin to recognize it in all others. You will see in others what they themselves cannot yet see. You will begin to have great respect and love for all your brothers and sisters. For you will recognize the beauty and perfection they have yet to recognize in themselves. You will see in every person’s eyes the perfect manifestation of God on Earth, and you will be thankful for their presence. Every encounter with a brother or sister will become holy, and every word and action you will experience as a gift. You will create heaven on earth and an absolutely fulfilling life through your simple recognition of your Godself. Your brothers and sisters will experience how you act and treat them, and they will be surprised. They will want to be like you and understand what it is you are doing in your life to be that way. And you will smile, but not from a sense of superiority, but from the knowledge that what your brothers and sisters are searching for, they already have. They will think of themselves as spiritual children, but you will know them as complete equals and peers. They will ask you questions that they believe they do not know the answers to, and yet when you answer them, a memory will be reawakened, and they will simply remember that they already know what you are saying. They will understand that the answer had always been within them, simply waiting for the question to be asked. You will remind them that all questions they could ever ask are exactly like that first question they themselves answered. They will recognize great freedom in this. They will recognize this memory as true. They will thank you for helping them remember their trueselves and you will thank them for not letting you forget yours. You will experience great joy and fulfillment from your interaction with your brothers and sisters. You will live in joy with the knowledge that all your brothers and sisters are either living in joy or searching for it. You will even love and respect those you perceive as not searching for joy, for where they are in their remembering has nothing to do with their perfection. You recognize and know them all as the perfect expressions of God, and it makes no difference where they believe themselves to be in that recognition. A fulfilling life is lived by recognizing and expressing your Godself. There is nothing that can stop you from experiencing heaven on Earth, other than your belief that it is not possible. Equally so, there is nothing that can stop you from living a fulfilling life, other than your belief that it is not within reach. Ask, my friend. You ask for so little. The universe waits for you to ask. Ask and be open to the recognition of the gifts that are offered to you every day. The more you focus on what you want, the easier it will be for you to recognize the gifts when they are being offered. The more you recognize the gifts that are being offered to you every day, the more thankful you will become. You will thank yourself for becoming more aware, and you will thank the universe. You will find yourself being more appreciative of the little things that life offers. You will acknowledge and be more thankful to your brothers and sisters. In doing this, you will raise your vibration, and it will become easier for you to acknowledge many more of the gifts that you once had not even noticed. You will more clearly see the signs on the road, and this will provide a more comfortable, carefree, and joyful ride. A fulfilling life is not only possible but also immediately accessible. There are no outside traits you must obtain to begin living such a life. If you have the thought of such a trait, it does not come from a sense of lack, but from a memory that is asking to be expressed. Through its expression, you will recognize that you have everything you need. Fulfillment comes as a result of acknowledging that you have everything you need.