Pearls Of Wisdom

Pearls of Wisdom:

• Don't love the Heart that hurts you and don't hurt the Heart that loves you.


• Don't cry over anyone who won't cry over you.


• Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave, and impossible to forget.


• Most people walk in and out of your life, but only friend's leave footprints in your heart.


• True friendship "never" ends. Friends are forever.


• People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.


• If we are incapable of finding peace in ourselves, it is pointless to search elsewhere.


• The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.


• A change of heart changes everything.


• Our greatest glory is not in ever falling, but in rising every time we fall.


• You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough.


• One generation plants trees, and the next enjoys the shade.


• It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.

Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Charity Begins At home

A woman lost her husband through death. She decided to give charity on his behalf. One Friday night she prepared some food and sent her son to give it to a poor man who lived near her house. While sending the food the dead man's son felt very hungry but he controlled himself and after having given the charity, he returned home hungry and went to bed.

The next Friday the same sequence of events took place. On the third Friday, the orphan while sending the food to the poor, could not control himself and ate the food on the way. That night the widow of the dead man dreamt her husband who told her that: "That night was the first night whence he received the reward of the charity she had given, while the charities she had given before had not reached him."

The widow got up and doubting that her son had committed a blunder went to investigate the matter. Her little orphan said that contrary to her suspicion he had sent the charity the two Friday's to the poor man, and it was on the third Friday that he had eaten the food.

It was then that the widow understood that her son deserved the food more than the poor neighbor. Thus we need to give charity to our near kith and kin before we look further.



Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. -Abraham Lincoln

More Blessed To Give Than Receive

A young man, a student in one of the university, was one day taking a walk with a professor, who was commonly called the students' friend, for his kindness towards the students.

As they went along, they saw lying in the path a pair of old shoes, which they supposed to belong to a poor man who was employed in a field close by, and who had nearly finished his day's work.

The student turned to the professor, saying: "Let us play the man a trick: we will hide his shoes, and conceal ourselves behind those bushes, and wait to see his perplexity when he cannot find them."

"My young friend," answered the professor, "we should never amuse ourselves at the expense of the poor. But you are rich, and may give yourself a much greater pleasure by means of the poor man. Put a coin into each shoe, and then we will hide ourselves and watch how the discovery affects him."

The student did so, and they both placed themselves behind the bushes close by.

The poor man soon finished his work, and came across the field to the path where he had left his coat and shoes. While putting on his coat he slipped his foot into one of his shoes; but feeling something hard, he stooped down to feel what it was, and found the coin.

Astonishment and wonder were seen upon his countenance. He gazed upon the coin, turned it round, and looked at it again and again. He then looked around him on all sides, but no person was to be seen. He now put the money into his pocket, and proceeded to put on the other shoe; but his surprise was doubled on finding the other coin.

His feelings overcame him; he fell upon his knees, looked up to heaven and uttered aloud a fervent thanksgiving, in which he spoke of his wife, sick and helpless, and his children without bread, whom the timely bounty, from some unknown hand, would save from perishing.

The student stood there deeply affected, and his eyes filled with tears. "Now," said the professor, "are you not much better pleased than if you had played your intended trick?"

The young man replied, "You have taught me a lesson which I will never forget. I feel now the truth of those words, which I never understood before: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"


Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Find the light and fragrance within....

Everytime I look at myself, I find an individual being, cut off from the rest, trudging along on a journey called 'life'. I know I ought to tread the path of dharma or right living, but I also know it requires a great deal of effort and will power.

Unfocused, I continue to trudge aimlessly, and so I feel inadequate in terms of "achievement". I tell myself I should achieve something, but then, achieving more always seems to be in the "future". Without questioning, I keep going, on and on, trying desperately to achieve things in life in the hope of making myself more complete and secure.
Still, I find myself insecure and unhappy — at least, most of the time. In my endeavour to make myself happy in as easy a manner as possible, two things have become very important pursuits in my life, Artha and Kama.

Artha pursuits are those which bring me security economically, emotionally and socially which is why I enjoy my pursuit of wealth, stocks and shares, relationships with family and friends, and a name, title or designation in a job or society.

It makes me feel very secure when I am addressed as "Sir", "Mr..." etc., little realising that titles and honorifics add nothing of true value to one's spiritual evolution or understanding of the Ultimate Truth. I attach myself to my bank balance, investments and designation and take myself to be that alone. When my shares plummet or rise at the stock exchange, my heart beats wildly and I get excited and anxious.

I have all that I could wish for — yet, I feel unaccomplished and unhappy. And at such times I go for another pursuit, Kama, to feel happy and complete, but with no success. I am unable to sustain efforts to follow the path of dharma. I flit from one day to another, through what I call "living" and I try to "eke out" a few "thrilling moments" in my life just like the musk deer.

The musk deer, enchanted by the fragrance of musk, and not knowing its source, keeps running hither and thither, looking for it. It is only when the musk deer is dying that it realises for the first time that the beautiful fragrance was coming from its own body.

We human beings are more fortunate in that guidelines are available to us in the form of the Vedas and other teachings to tell us that the source of happiness lies within. Ancients declared: "Aham Brahma Asmi" — "I am the whole".

I am that very thing which I am trying to be. It is my very seeking that makes me separate from the whole that I already am. This doesn't mean that the Vedas ask us to stop our pursuits in life. They merely show us a way as to how to pursue knowing well that we are already "complete". This, naturally, wipes out the notion of inadequacy and incompleteness centred around the "I" and makes life truly worth living.

For this to happen, the student has to, however, live with a traditional teacher of the Vedas. A learned guru can teach us all about Vedanta, using the Vedas as an instrument with which to discover the Self just as you would use the pramana of a mirror to see your face. The guru only helps you unfold the message to help you grow in your understanding.

In fact, it is only when one understands the message of the Vedas that one can say "I live life". Until then we are only dragging ourselves from one life to another. And that too, only to keep coming back, again and again.


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The Ultimate Joy..How to Attract good and happy things in life

Why do sad people attract sad incidences in life? Why do happy people attract happy situations in life?
Depending on what state of being we are, we attract situations. We have to focus on heightening our state of being rather than changing situations in life. If our state of being is low, then the external situation, even though sacred, will be pulled down to our level of being. For example, a poor man in a palace will make the palace into a gutter.

Mullah Nazaruddin, while walking in the desert, saw a group of people riding horses. He thought they were robbers and started running. They turned out to be tra-vellers. Seeing the Mullah running, the travellers thought he was in trouble — so they started going towards him.

Now the Mullah was convinced they were after him and he ran into a graveyard — the travellers followed him there. The tired Mullah lay down on one of the coffins. Then he realised they were not robbers but travellers. They asked him: "Why are you here?'' ''I am here because of you and you are here because of me'' answered the Mullah. ''This is the law of karma''.
In other words, we attract situations in life.

We often find ourselves in such situations aligned to our state of being. If our consciousness is not committed to transformation, then we will not grow wiser from situations, but complain and grumble, expecting the situation to be different.

According to yogic shastras, there are different levels of being — seven chakras or centres. Some operate from the lowest centre and such people attract similar situations. Nature context is that humans evolve from lower to higher centres. This happens when you learn and grow.

If one does not do that then the situation goes on repeating itself until we learn and grow.
How can we change one state of being? There are two types of growth: horizontal and vertical growth. Horizontal growth means more money, name, fame.

People's yardstick of growth is more in the horizontal domain. People come and tell me, ''I have grown'' — which means five years back I earned one million dollars a year and now I earn 10 million dollars a year. This type of growth is not fulfilling.

The second type of growth is vertical growth. The yardstick for this is: Five years back how calm was I, and how calm am I now? The growth is measured in its depth and not in its width. The more one grows in love, kindness and compassion, the more one is truly growing. Such a growth is fulfilling. Growth happening in the vertical dimension changes one's state of being.

In ancient India a king sought to resolve a dispute between two of his ministers who wanted to marry the same woman. He told both of them to walk on a rope and whoever did so successfully, would win the hand of the woman. One minister spent a sleepless night worrying how he would be able to walk the tightrope. The other minister was very relaxed — he felt there was no point in getting agitated when death was imminent anyway.

The minister who kept his cool emerged the winner, walking effortlessly on the rope. Asked to share his secret, he only said, ''I do not know''. To walk on the rope without losing one's balance involves being relaxed, balanced and being in the present. The same qualities are vital for the success of a marriage, too.

In order to grow vertically, one has to cultivate the art of relaxation, be balanced, and stay aware in the present. Life is fulfilling only with such a type of growth. Happiness and joy flower forth in this state of consciousness.


Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Trust The Third Eye...............

Trust is an inner eye. Just as the two outer eyes are for seeing the universe, there is a third eye inside of you whose name is trust. With this eye of trust the divine is seen. The eye of trust means the eye of love. There are some things which only love can know. There is no other way to know them.

If you love someone you will see certain things in the person that no one else will see. You will see in that person a sweetness that no one else can see. That sweetness is delicate and the touch of love is needed for it, only then is it revealed. You will hear the echo of a song in that person that no one else will hear. To hear it one has to come closer than anyone else has come. Only you are that close.

This is why beauty begins to manifest in the person whom you love. People think that you fall in love with someone who seems beautiful to you. They are wrong. The one you fall in love with begins to be beautiful – all of life's grandeur, all of its dignity is revealed in the person. And it is not that you are imagining it. As soon as the eye of love opens the invisible begins to be visible to you, the unperceivable begins to be perceivable. The presence of what is hidden begins to be experienced. Without any door opening, someone enters into you.

"Finding upon waking the doors yet bolted,
Who knows by which door he enters and leaves."

This is a very lovely couplet from Bihari. The beloved is sleeping with all the doors and windows of the room bolted, yet in her dreams her lover visits her. Later she wakes up and sees that the doors are still closed with the bolts in place, just as they were. Who knows how he enters and by which route he leaves?

"Which way do you enter, which way do you depart? From which window do you peep?" This window is called trust.

Someone living in logic will never know anything deeper than the material; his life will be meaningless. He may well collect money, but all his wealth will be left lying there when he dies and he will have missed meditation. And it is only meditation that will accompany you in death. Such a person will not attain the ultimate wealth. Only the one who has the eye of trust within attains the ultimate wealth.

Trust is the culmination of love. Trust is the faith that what has not already happened so far will happen. Trust also arises from what has already happened: there is such beauty in this universe, there is such light, such music...the throat of each bird is filled with song.... There is beauty in each leaf, light in each star; this universe is so full of magnificence, there must be some energy or other behind it.

Trust means trusting that there must be some energy creating all this colour. Trust means trusting that where so much beauty is being showered, the source of such beauty must also exist.

Trust means accepting the existence of the source from which you receive these subtle, delicate indications.

From Osho

Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. -Horace

Can you take away The Moon?

Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal.

Ryokan returned and caught him. “You may have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you shoud not return emptyhanded. Please take my clothes as a gift.”

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.

Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow, ” he mused, “I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”

On the road, don’t be too paranoid about losing your stuff. Material possessions are useful, but pale in comparison to the true riches of a journey

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The Present Moment

The secret of health for both mind and body is
not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the
present moment wisely and earnestly.

Gautama Buddha

*

Past and future are in the mind only I am now.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

*

We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be,
we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the
result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future
can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.

Swami Vivekananda

*

We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future;

men of discern-ment deal only with the present moment.

Chanakya

*

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave,

find your eternity in each moment.

Henry D Thoreau


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Have Patience It Pays

Patience Pays

Be patient (in adversity);
for, verily, God will not let the reward of the
righteous be wasted.

Quran, 11.115

*

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have pa-tience with yourself.

Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections,
but instantly set about remedying them every
day begins the task anew.

Saint Francis De Sales

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We cannot learn real pa-tience and tolerance from a guru or a friend.

They can be practised only when we come in contact
with someone who creates unpleasant experiences.

The Dalai Lama XIV

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With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.

Chinese Proverb

*

Learn the art of patience.

Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the
outcome of a goal.

Impa- tience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and fail-ure.

Patience creates confi- dence, decisiveness and a rational outlook, which
eventually leads to success.

Brian Adams


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Peace Is Within

Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace.
Bhagavad Gita 12:12

*
Blessed are the peacemakers for they will inherit the earth
New Testament

*
Peace be to earth and to airy spaces!
Peace be to heaven, peace be to the waters,
Peace to the plants and peace to the trees!
May all the Gods grant to me peace!
By this invocation of peace may be diffused!
Atharva Veda

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Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.
Gautama Buddha

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Peace is an attribute in you, you cannot find it outside.
A Course in Miracles

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We shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which consciously or unconsciously the whole world is hungering.
M K Gandhi


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Speak With Care.......

He whose speech is unwholesome cuts himself with his axe. When a person praises someone who should be blamed, or attacks someone worthy of praise, then this man is accumulating evil with his mouth and this evil will not lead to happiness.

It is little harm if one loses money in gambling with dice, even losing everything, including oneself; but if one bears ill-will towards well-conducted ones it is greater harm indeed.

Insulting men of real worth, bearing ill-will in thought and speech, leads to aeons upon aeons in the states of misery.

Sutta Nipata

The Messenger of God... took hold of his tongue and said, "Restrain this". I said, "O Prophet of God, will what we say be held against us?" He said, "Is there anything that topples people on their faces into hell-fire other than the harvests of their tongues?"

Hadith of an-Nawawi

The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue — a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

James 3.6-8


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“The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.” -Napolean Hill

The Mouse Merchant

The Mouse Merchant [Diligence and Gratitude]

Once upon a time, an important adviser to a certain king was on his way to a meeting with the
king and other advisers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dead mouse by the roadside. He said to those who were with him. “Even from such small beginnings as this dead mouse, an energetic young fellow could build a fortune. If he worked hard and used his intelligence, he could start a business and support a wife and family.”
A passer-by heard the remark. He knew this was a famous adviser to the king, so he decided to
follow his words. He picked up the dead mouse by the tail and went off with it. As luck would have it, before he had gone even a block, a shopkeeper stopped him. He said, “My cat has been pestering me all morning. I’ll give you two copper coins for that mouse.” So it was done.
With the two copper coins, he bought sweet cakes, and waited by the side of the road with
them and some water. As he expected, some people who picked flowers for making garlands were returning from work. Since they were all hungry and thirsty, they agreed to buy sweet cakes and water for the price of a bunch of flowers from each of them. In the evening, the man sold the flowers in the city. With some of the money he bought more sweet cakes and returned the next day to sell to the flower pickers.
This went on for a while, until one day there was a terrible storm, with heavy rains and high winds. While walking by the king’s pleasure garden, he saw that many branches had been
blown off the trees and were lying all around. So he offered to the king’s gardener that he would
clear it all away for him, if he could keep the branches. The lazy gardener quickly agreed.
The man found some children playing in a park across the street. They were glad to collect
all the branches and brush at the entrance to the pleasure garden, for the price of just one sweet
cake for each child.
Along came the king’s potter, who was always on the lookout for firewood for his glazing oven. When he saw the piles of wood the children had just collected, he paid the man a handsome price for it. He even threw into the bargain some of his pots.
With his profits from selling the flowers and the firewood, the man opened up a refreshment
shop. One day all the local grass mowers, who were on their way into town, stopped in his shop. He gave them free sweet cakes and drinks. They were surprised at his generosity and asked, “What can we do for you?” He said there was nothing for them to do now, but he would let them
know in the future. A week later, he heard that a horse dealer was coming to the city with 500 horses to sell. So he got in touch with the grass mowers and told each of them to give him a bundle of grass. He told them not to sell any grass to the horse dealer until he had sold his. In this way he got a very good price.
Time passed until one day, in his refreshment shop, some customers told him that a new ship from a foreign country had just anchored in the port. He saw this to be the opportunity he had been waiting for. He thought and thought until he came up with a good business plan.
First, he went to a jeweler friend of his and paid a low price for a very valuable gold ring, with a beautiful red ruby in it. He knew that the foreign ship was from a country that had no rubies of its own, where gold too was expensive. So he gave the wonderful ring to the captain of the ship
as an advance on his commission. To earn this commission, the captain agreed to send all his passengers to him as a broker. He would then lead them to the best shops in the city. In turn, the man got the merchants to pay him a commission for sending customers to them.
Acting as a middle man in this way, after several ships came into port, the man became very
rich. Being pleased with his success, he also remembered that it had all started with the words of
the king’s wise adviser. So he decided to give him a gift of 100,000 gold coins. This was half his entire wealth. After making the proper arrangements, he met with the king’s adviser and gave
him the gift, along with his humble thanks.
The adviser was amazed, and he asked, “How did you earn so much wealth to afford such a generous gift?” The man told him it had all started with the adviser’s own words not so long
ago. They had led him to a dead mouse, a hungry cat, sweet cakes, bunches of flowers, storm damaged tree branches, children in the park, the king’s potter, a refreshment shop, grass for 500 horses, a golden ruby ring, good business contacts, and finally a large fortune.
Hearing all this, the royal adviser thought to himself, “It would not be good to lose the talents
of such an energetic man. I too have much wealth, as well as my beloved only daughter. As this man is single, he deserves to marry her. Then he can inherit my wealth in addition to his own,
and my daughter will be well cared for.”
This all came to pass, and after the wise adviser died, the one who had followed his advice became the richest man in the city. The king appointed him to the adviser’s position. Throughout his remaining life, he generously gave his money for the happiness and well being of many people.

The moral is: With energy and ability, great wealth comes even from small beginnings.

Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Guru Speaks.........

Awareness, though essentially one, is known as conditioned or unconditioned. That awareness, which is free of the ego-sense of "I am," is the unconditioned.
*
The basis of object-consciousness is four-fold, consisting of: The material, the non-material, the causal, and the fourth kind. These names are also applicable to the appropriate states of consciousness.
*
Love of others is my happiness, Love that is mine is happiness for others. And so, truly, deeds that benefit a man must be a cause for other's happiness too.
*
Acts that one performs for one's own sake should also aim for the good of other men.
*
Difference in men's creed, dress, language and other such distinctions don't matter as they all belong to the same kind of creation... there is no harm at all in their dining together or marrying.
*
Devoid of dividing walls of caste or race or hatred, we all live here in brotherhood.


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Detachment Enjoy It Fully

The person whose mind
is always free from
attachment, who has
subdued the mind and
senses, and who is free
from desires, attains the
supreme perfection of
freedom from karma
through renunciation.

Bhagavad Gita 18.49

*

Break free from posses-
sions and from desires
from whatever may
darken the mind.
Attachment to things
and to places is spiritual
bondage, and leads
to darkness.

Dhammapada

*

Live in the world but
don't be of the world.
Live in the world but
don't let the world live
within you. Remember
that it is all a beautiful
dream, because every-
thing is changing and
disappearing...
If you become detached
you will be able to see
how people are attached
to trivia, and how much
they are suffering. And
you will laugh at yourself
because you were also in
the same boat before.

Osho







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Chinese Proverbs....

• The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.

• Each generation will reap what the former generation has sown.

• Dig the well before you are thirsty.

• A child's life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark.

• A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers.

• When you drink the water, remember the spring.

• There are two perfect men: one dead, and the other unborn.

• Life is really simple but we insist on making it complicated.

• Men trip not on mountains, they stumble on stones.

• Life is a dream... Death is going home.

• Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

• Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead.

• If you always give, you will always have.

• Patience is power. Govern by doing nothing that goes against nature.

• Jade stone is useless before it is processed; a man is good-for-nothing until he is educated.

• A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.

• Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Karmic Account....

Every one of us has a karmic account.
It is like a bank account where your good karma or deeds are your deposits and bad karma are liabilities.
Karma is what a person does in his day-to-day life.

If you help someone without a selfish motive,
your balance goes up with the good karma.
Bad karma reduces your bank balance because it is a liability.

Like your bank account, your karmic account earns
interest on deposits and incurs interest charges on liabilities.

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There's a saying in some Buddhist circles that if you want to see a person's past actions,
you look at his present condition; if you want to see his future condition, you look at his present actions.

This principle, however, is based on a basic misperception: that we each have a single karmic account,
and what we see in the present is the current running balance in each person's account.

Actually, no one's karmic history is a single account.

It's composed of the many different seeds planted in many places through the many different actions we've done in the past, each seed maturing at its own rate.

Some of these seeds have already sprouted and disappeared;
some are sprouting now; some will sprout in the future.

This means that a person's present condition reflects only a
small portion of his past actions. As for the other seeds, you can't see them at all.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

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Prayer

Every single evening

As I'm lying here in bed,

This tiny little prayer

Keeps running through my head:



God bless all my family

Wherever they may be,

Keep them warm

And safe from harm

For they're so close to me.



And God, there is one more thing

I wish that you could do;

Hope you don't mind me asking,

Please bless my computer too.



You see, that little metal box

Holds more than odds and ends;

Inside those small compartments

Rest so many of my friends.



I know so much about them

By the kindness that they give,

And this little scrap of metal

Takes me in to where they live...



Please take an extra minute

From your duties up above,

To bless those in my address book

That's filled with so much love.



Wherever else this prayer may reach

To each and every friend,

Bless each e-mail inbox

And each person who hits 'send'.



When you update your Heavenly list

On your own Great CD-ROM,

Bless everyone who says this prayer

Sent up to GOD.Com


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