Guru Bob Quotes

Some of the middlemen who claim to be closer to God than all the rest of humanity realise that they can outwit their followers by making them believe that the more you serve them, the more you are pleasing God. Needless to say, many folks throughout history bought this codswallop. For those followers, having an authority figure like a middleman, teacher, cleric, or guru becomes their only way to add spiritual significance into their lives and to feel whole. As a result, they throw away that responsibility by counting on another entity outside of themselves. Depending on such hand-holding renders them mentally, emotionally, even spiritually immature — losing their freedom and critical thinking in the process while never achieving wholeness. On the other hand, propelled by the exhausted rules, dogmas, and hierarchy they embody, when “the false prophets in sheep's clothing” notice the submission of such followers they often begin taking advantage of it. Now bow down and kiss my feet to reach Nirvana! Wash them first. But as Allan Watts seamlessly put it: “Anybody who tells you that he has some way of leading you to spiritual enlightenment is like somebody who picks your pocket and sells you your own watch. Of course if you didn’t know you had a watch, that might be the only way of getting you to realise.” This all echoes with even more striking words by Bob Dylan: You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Simply Know Thyself; the rest shall follow.

Ironically, more impact may result from more cushioning because, to regain balance, the pillowish pile encourages the foot to plow into the ground like a bull in a china shop. A study Robbins published in 1997 found that runners tend to land harder on soft surfaces to improve stability. He concluded that sports shoes are too soft and thick and recommended they be redesigned to protect the wearer. Most

Calf pain is not a rite of passage; it is mostly a wrong of technique. If you bend the knees more and learn to allow a heel touch after the ball-of-the-foot landing, you should not suffer much, if any, calf pain. Those who say, “Barefooters must suffer while strengthening their calves”—either through pain on the road or hitting the weight room—are wrong;

Just as the eyes are the windows of the soul, the soles are the windows of the barefoot runner.

the natural barefoot form immediately and instinctively trains you to let your body lead the way and keep your feet back

When people focus on how the foot should land, they try to impose a forefoot landing without changing their overall running technique. But to land correctly, you actually first have to move up the body and relax your calves, which will then alter the way the foot lands. Often,

rather than trying to force a certain foot landing, we should let our feet land and try to feel whether they are landing comfortably without strain or tension. Instead

Let the hips and torso lead the way. This should feel a bit like falling forward; you’ll need to move the feet quickly under your hips to catch yourself, with each foot landing below—and not ahead of—your vertical body. (A

I’ve found that if I focus on a foot lift, not a foot push, it is easy to keep my cadence higher. Here’s why: when you try to push your foot into the ground, you are actually launching or pushing your body up into the air, fighting against gravity’s accelerating force (which is trying to pull you back down). The

You can’t take quick steps while you’re waiting for your body to crash back into the earth!

try thinking of yourself “floating” slightly above the ground, pulling your feet up, and just “letting” your feet touch the ground. (Don’t forget to bend your knees.) See

We’ve covered the time and work and responsibility a jackpot often entails, the isolation, trust and security issues, and the reluctance of the superwealthy to engage with outsiders. Well, all of the above was shaping up to be a hurdle for Bob Kenny, who was eager to learn about the inner lives of America’s wealthiest citizens. We met Kenny before. He’s a developmental psychologist and cofounder of North Bridge Advisory Group, which helps superwealthy parents and their children “manage the unique opportunities, dilemmas, and challenges that can accompany family money.” Back in 2007, though, he was the newly minted associate director of Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy. The center’s data guru, John Havens, had projected that the baby boomers and their successors would leave behind about $59 trillion in private wealth between 2007 and 2061. Some portion of that would go to charity, and so getting a handle on the mindset of America’s elite was of big interest to the philanthropic world. With a $250,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Kenny and Havens set out to survey ultra-high-net-worth families. “If you’ve got kids and you got more money then you’re going to spend in your lifetime, you’ve got a dilemma,” Kenny explains. “And if you don’t think about it and plan it out a little bit, you’re going to cause a problem.… You gonna give it to them now, give it to them later, not going to give it to them at all? How do you talk about it? How do you think about it?

So even if prasādam is very spicy to others, it is very palatable to the devotee. What is the question of spicy? Kṛṣṇa was offered poison, real poison, by Pūtanā Rākṣasī. But He is so nice that He thought, “She came to Me as My mother.” So He took the poison and delivered her. Kṛṣṇa does not take the bad side. A good man does not take the bad side – he takes only the good side. Just like one of my Godbrothers: he wanted to make business with my Guru Mahārāja [spiritual master]. But my Guru Mahārāja did not take the bad side. He took the good side. He thought, “He has come forward to give me some service.” Bob: Let us say some devotee has some medical trouble and cannot eat a certain type of food. For instance, some devotees do not eat ghee because of liver trouble. So should these devotees also take all kinds of prasādam? Śrīla Prabhupāda: No, no. Those who are not perfect devotees may discriminate. But a perfect devotee does not discriminate. Why should you imitate a perfect devotee? So long as you have discrimination, you are not a perfect devotee. So why should you artificially imitate a perfect devotee and eat everything? The point is, a perfect devotee does not make any discrimination. Whatever is offered to Kṛṣṇa is nectar. That’s all. Kṛṣṇa accepts anything from a devotee. “Whatever is offered to Me by My devotee, I accept.” The same thing is true for a pure devotee. Don’t you see the point? A perfect devotee does not make any discrimination. But if I am not a perfect devotee and I discriminate, why should I imitate the perfect devotee? It may not be possible for me to digest everything because I am not a perfect devotee. A devotee should not be a foolish man. It is said: kṛṣṇa ye bhaje se baḍa catura. So a devotee knows his position, and he is intelligent enough to deal with others accordingly.

There are no big things, only a logical accumulation of little things done at a very high standard of performance,’ the late John Wooden, US basketball coach and leadership guru once said