Thomas Edison and Our Potential

At age 12 Thomas Edison came home from school and handed a sealed envelope to his mother. He told her, “My teacher gave this to me and told me to give it only to my mother.”

As his mother Nancy read the note here eyes became full of tears... "What does it say mother?" She then took a breath and read it out loud to her child: "Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself."

That she did and the rest it seems... is history. Thomas Edison became one of the greatest inventors of the century.

Many, many years, after Edison’s mother death, Edison was looking through old family things. Suddenly he saw a folded paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk. He took it and opened it up. On the paper was written: "Your son has a severe learning disability and is mentally deficient. We won’t let him come to school any more. He is expelled."

Edison cried for hours and then wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally deficient child with severe learning disability that, by a hero of a mother, became the genius of the century.”

“Remember the entrance to the sanctuary is inside you.” – Rumi

“Find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible.” —Deepak Chopra

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There is no heavier burden than an unfulfilled potential.” —Charles Schulz

“Fear and self-doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential.” —Brian Tracy

“Often it is not the stupid things we do in life that we most regret, but instead the hopes and dreams we left stranded and the things we want to do, but never had the courage.” - David Scott

“The quality of our breath expresses our inner feelings.” - T.K.V. Desikachar

“Water, if you don’t stir it, will become clear. Oil and vinegar, if you don’t shake it, will fall naturally into order.” Likewise, the mind left unaltered will find its own natural peace.

“Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.” Ma Jaya

“I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within.” – Rumi

"Meditation means dissolving those invisible walls that the ego and ignorance have built."

“Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.” ~Sharon Salzberg

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded. – Buddha

We can’t let go of thinking; it’s just part of being human. But we can choose not to get caught up in our thoughts. When we allow our thoughts to flow through us without attaching to them or analyzing them, we create space for peace and clarity.

It is all that I have lost that has set me free.

If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person.

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger. – Buddha

"You’d never invite a thief into your house. So why would you allow thoughts that steal your joy to make themselves at home in your mind?" – Prince EA

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” – Rumi

“Change is never painful, only the resistance to change is painful.”

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” – Epictetus

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” – Carl Jung

"Not everyone will understand the path you are on, but remember that you are here to live your life and not to make others understand."

"Never lie to someone that trust you and never trust someone that lies to you."

"Making mistakes is better than faking perfection"

“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.” The Bhagavad Gita

“In the same way that rain breaks into a house with a bad roof, desire breaks into the mind that has not been practicing meditation.” Buddha

Speak your deepest truth, even if it means losing everything - your pride, your status, your image, even your way of life. A life of lies and half-truths, the burden of unspoken things, will eventually suffocate you and everyone around you. Give up everything for a truthful existence. Know that you can only lose what's non-essential. Osho