NEVER ENDING LOVE – the best spousal love

Make marriage a paradise – here’s how.

MARITAL UNIVERSE
When you marry you get more than a spouse – you actually get a whole world.

THE BLESSINGS OF MARRIAGE
Partner, companion and best friend are the three top blessings you get when you marry.

SHARING YOUR LIFE
Joys and sorrows, successes and failures, dreams and fears – all moments big and small are there for sharing. Joys, successes and dreams will be sweeter for the share.  Failure, fear and sorrow are soothed and solved when shared.

CARING
When you are not AI health wise, your spouse is there to assist you. When you wake up in the morning – the first thing you will see are her/him. You will either be together or if not together then she/he will be thinking of the other – When you go to bed – the last thing you will see are your spouse's eyes and the first thing in the morning you will see are your spouse’s eyes. When you are asleep you will see your spouse in your dreams. She will be your whole world and you will be her whole world!

THE CLOSENESS OF SPOUSES
“They are your garments and you are their garments.” (Surah Al Baqarah 2:187).

Spouses are just like garments for each other because just like garments – spouses provide one another with the protection, comfort, cover, support and the adornment that garments provide for humans.

WONDERFUL WORLD
Love, affection, intimacy and closeness, mercy and compassion, peace and tranquility are some of the best blessings.

THE REASON FOR THE CREATION OF MATES“And Allah has made for you Mates and Companions of your own nature." (Surah Al Nahl 16:72)

"And among His signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves that you may dwell in tranquility with them and He has put love and mercy between your hearts: verily in that are signs for those who reflect." (Surah Al Rum 30:21)

THE REALITY OF THE HUMAN HEARTWith time we may have a change of heart. Love may wither away. The marital bond must be cared for otherwise it might weaken.

NEVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTEDHappiness in marriage can never be taken for granted.  Constant giving from both sides is needed to maintain happiness.  There is a tree of marital happiness and to keep the tree growing the soil needs to be sustained, maintained, watered and nurtured.

THE LIFE OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD (PBUH)
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) found the time to go out into the desert and race with his wife Aisha. He also took his wife to watch the Ethiopians playing and dancing their folk dances.

EMOTIONAL INPUT AND REWARD
Showing one’s emotions is necessary to keep the marital bond fresh and reinvigorated.  "One would be rewarded for anything that he does seeking the pleasure of Allah even the food that he puts in the mouth of his wife" (Prophet Muhammad).

LITTLE TO LARGE THINGS
Little things are as important as big things. Putting food in your spouse’s mouth may seem a small thing but these are the gestures of love and oil and beautify the love. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) used to extend his knee to his wife to assist her up to ride a camel.

WAYS TO STRENGTHEN THE BONDS
Pray together. Always be good to your spouse by words and deeds. Talk, smile, seek advice, spend quality time together.

THE BEST SPOUSE
"The best of you are those who are best to their wives," said Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

WHEN LOVE IS ENOUGH, WHEN LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH
The vow of loving and honoring your spouse needs to be reinforced. You need to love what your spouse loves too (or at least have some things in common). Your family, her/his loved ones should become your loved ones too.

NEVER ENDING LOVE
It is not enough to love until death do you part. Love should never end. In life after death, those who did righteousness in this world will be joined by their spouses.  (Surah Al Zukhruf 43:70).

THE PROPHET’S LOVE FOR KHADIJAKhadija was the Prophet’s wife for 25 years.  His love extended to all those she loved. This continued after her death. He never forgot her and whenever a goat was slaughtered in his house he would send part of it to Khadija’s family. Further whenever he felt that the visitor at the door might be Khadija’s sister Hala, he would pray saying, “O Allah, let it be Hala.”

Love should never end

SOURCE: VARIOUS

The Road Less Travelled – tides of affairs in your life!

SHAKESPEAREAN WISDOM IN THE RIVER THAMES 

The Blessings in every situation – be blessed always. 

PRIVATE START
Life started for me in a private road a stone’s throw away from the tidal wash of the great River Thames.

PRIVATE ROADS IN ENGLANDPrivate roads usually have gates that are tightly closed, but at the entrance of this private oasis was Pitsea Methodist Church and everyone was invited.

INHABITANTS 
When the road was private a significant number of the inhabitants were practising Methodists. This included not reading newspapers or having a television. Time should be spent reading the Bible and some actually did.

FROM PRIVATE TO PUBLICWhen I was still a child, I overheard my parents and our neighbor Mr King talking. It was about the road and how the local council wanted to take over the road – to turn it from a private road to a public one.

NEVER A SMOOTH PATHMy father, Donald McKenzie, and Mr King (Church elder and brother of the church organist) opposed the change and the matter went to court. My father and Mr King lost. I remember them being very thankful that the council in its infinite mercy had not pressed for costs. I remember the shock they had on their faces when they lost – it was as if a whole way of life had come to an end. And to a certain extent they were right.

WE NEVER CLOSED OUR GATES OR HEARTSI asked my father why they had lost, and he explained it was because we never closed the gates. We might be a private road but we had behaved in an open, public way!

THE IRONY OF LIFE
What an irony! – that because we had not exercised our full rights to keep the gates closed that was a justification to take the road and our way of life away from us!

A CHURCH WAS LOSTAt the same time we also lost the church at the top of our road – I am not sure exactly why but I think the council took that too. I spoke to the Reverend Holden and asked him: “Why? Why?”  I never did get a satisfactory answer but with its closure and the change of status of the road – the whole atmosphere changed. Church elders moved away saying that they wanted to be closer to a church and moved nearer to other Methodist churches. Grassy lawns and trees gave way to road widening.

EXODUSMy parents did not join the exodus from Brackendale Avenue. This was an ebb period but there were other reasons to stay such as the wonderful surrounding picture-perfect farmland and Pitsea marshes.

NEXT TO THE SEA
Pitsea is a beautiful area of England, yet close to the Fenchurch Street Line with high-speed access to London and with the Wat Tyler Park and the tidal part of the River Thames – the great river that runs through London.

EBBS AND FLOWThe ebb and flow – is the increase and decrease of the tides of the sea and the tidal parts (near the sea) of rivers.

REALITY OF LIFE 
Life has increases and decreases in our fortunes. In other words, ups and downs.

TIDES OF TIME
One of the benefits of growing up along the tidal part of the River Thames is that we were reminded of the ebbs and flows constantly. We could swim, play on boats, fish and watch more wildlife when it was high tide. All we could see was mud and lots of mud at low tide – and there was so much wet mud. If you did not get out quickly enough – you were left high and dry (well actually muddy) – literally.

SHAKE UP YOUR LIFE 
Shakespeare talked about the tide of affairs. His views on this subject were that if you take something at the flood then that will lead on to success.

MORALS FROM THIS STORY

SEE WHAT IS LEFT

Never is everything lost – what seems like a setback may not be a setback at all. It may be a life changing event. For some a status of private to public and the lost of a nearby church was unacceptable and had to be marked by them leaving the area. For others life went on in the same way just that the world around them  had changed somewhat.

SHAKESPEARE IS RIGHT

Life is about ebbs and flows, flows and ebbs. And if you can take a situation at its flood (the highest point or if what you think is the highest point) then there will be success. Also use the ebb periods to regroup, rethink and reflect how you can do better in the future. Remember in all ebb periods the tide will come in again and are you ready for it.

EBB AND FLOW BLESSING
B: Be prepared for life – get on that boat and ride the waves of ebbs and flows. Be prepared for changes and meet those changes armed with solid values that guide you to the best decisions.
L: Life starts somewhere and life proceeds somewhere. Let life flow as strongly as you can make it.
E: Ebbing away is your life, so make sure you flow with the best of life and it is for you to fish for that best life.
S: Shakespeare’s wisdom benefits us all: Take life at the flood and you will be successful. Shaking up your life at times can do wonders. Shake it up when you want to jazz it up with more life.
S: Stand for something even if there is a chance to lose but benefits from the lessons of the lost.

Y: You have time on your hands but how you use this is up to you – do you use your time as wisely as you could?
O: Our way of life will change, and many changes may take place but keep your faith in God and your faith in the greater good and hopefully you will swim and not sink.
U:Unearth the good in every situation.

Brackendale when it was a private road

Respect is the greatest love! Living in a multiracial and multireligious country

Self-preservation or the greatest respect for othersI live by the words of Shakespeare – that nothing is good or bad except thinking makes it so. I also believe we need to assess a situation from all angles and not jump to conclusions, or if we do take the time to reflect upon those conclusions. We need to let anger subside before we come to a conclusion.

MANY MOTIVATIONSWe may act for self-preservation and we may act out of fear or we may act out of respect.

THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD
Jesus said there will always be poor people – poor in material standards, poor in spirit and poor in wisdom.

Jesus also said: Don’t cast pearls before swine – meaning that some people just will never listen or understand and you might as well talk to a wall for all the good it will do you.

This is the reality of the world we live in and even if we are the most religious person in the world, we may never be able to change hearts and minds.

REALITY CHECK
The reality of the world is that we live among people who will never accept or understand others’ cultural and religious practices. How do we deal with it – here is an example from Singapore that I learnt this week.

TUDUNG OR NO TUDUNG
The tudung is the Malay word for Hijab. This is religious covering of the head that Muslims should wear. I am told that it is a compulsory part of the Muslim religion.

SHOCK
I work  one day every week at another English tuition centre and for the first time I met the centre manager this week. Usually Tuesday evening is her day off and so this was the first time I met her. I asked one of the teachers – is she from the Philippines?

The teacher replied: She is from Malaysia. She comes to work in her Muslim clothes, changes and then changes back to go home.  The teacher seeing my utter shock went on to say:

“The Chinese look down on Muslims.”

ANGER
My initial reaction was to feel anger that someone could not wear tudung. But I decided to really think about this and here are my thoughts. I share my thoughts with you.

TIME AND A PLACE
The Hebrew Bible says that there is a time and a place for everything and this is one of my guiding principles.

PERSPECTIVE EXPERIENCE 
I also remembered my own childhood. My next door neighbour who was ethnically Scottish would always put his Scottish kilt on when he got home. He did not wear that outside of the house. Also one of my school friends had an English accent and the first time I went to her house, I got a shock because at home she was speaking with a Scottish accent. I also experienced this with one of my Irish friends.  Sometimes it is just easier to practice one’s culture at home.

NURTURING ENVIRONMENT
Our Malaysian lady works in a nurturing environment – for children who want to learn English. All the employees are women and most of the time the children are brought by mums, grandmums or female caregivers. Thus it is predominantly female and our overriding concern is to help children. Thus perhaps we could say this is a home from home.

LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE
Thus we could say that the centre manager has respect for her job, respect for the Chinese who just are uncomfortable with tudung-wearing people. Further there is no great harm because when she is outside of her home she wears the tudung and we can treat this particular work environment like a home because of the reasons I said earlier.

POSITIVE MORALS FROM THIS STORY
We should always respect the feelings of others where possible. Flexibility where possible is something else we should think about.  Blessings for reading this post. Blessings.

I pray for peace, tolerance and understanding. Blessings.

When love comes together – the love of son, daughter-in-law and mother

A touching true story of love

I would like to share a true story about my mother.

ENGLISH DOWRY 
We are one of the rare English families to get a daughter-in-law with a dowry.

WE ARE NOT AMUSED
Brother number 1 wanted to marry a Gujarati girl but her family were not amused.

DANGEROUS DATE
However, Gujarati girl wanted to marry him, so her family summ/ned my Mum and (Step) Dad for an interview/interrogation.

UNCOMFORTABLE DISCOMFORT
After hours of interrogation from many family members – they agreed subject to some conditions.

LASTING IMPRESSIONS
I am always impressed with my mother for doing this - it is not easy to face a battery of people who really don’t want their relative to marry your son but she managed to convince them.

NO PEACE 
At one point she wanted to go to the bathroom and she was not given any peace going there or coming out – when she came out she told me she was surrounded by people barraging her with questions.

The interrogation was in two parts – one was the men of the family and the bathroom incident were the women of the family.

IT WAS WORTH IT! 
I have a lot of respect for my mum and the good example she has set us. By the way, my dad died when my mum was in her 30s – but that is another story. So my step dad is her second husband.  I have a lot of respect for him that he would go through this in support of his wife. Looking back I think what my mum did was worth it and I would advise anyone in this situation – it is worth going through.

CONVINCING DOUBTS
They had a full Indian-style wedding along with the dowry.

THE OTHER SIDE 
Years later when speaking to Nayna's father - he told me their side. This meeting was to explain to my parents why the two could not get married or should not get married. He said they had to deal with so many objections from his family. However, after meeting my mum and the determination of all concerned they relented subject to conditions.

FACT IS STRANGER THAN FICTIONSome of the conditions Westerners may not understand, accept or believe,  and I have to say it caused concern to my brother such as that Nayna had to prostrate herself before every member of her family and seek forgiveness. I am impressed with Nayna too.

THE RESPECTFUL WAY IS THE BEST WAY
I am glad they did the marriage the proper way - seeking and getting parental approval (subject to conditions).

PARENTAL POWER 
Parents are important - and I think all the parents here behaved in an exemplary manner.

1. My parents for doing something that was so not their culture, and to be honest quite offensive in principle to us. Some  parents would never do that. The moral of the story: If you love find a way to support your child.

2. Nayna's parents for at least having enough respect for their daughter that they would at least meet my parents. Some parents would never do that.  The moral of the story: If you love find a way to support your child.

Morals of this true story: Seek to understand what you don't understand; work sometimes with what you don't understand but seek to understand or appreciate it; and show support for your family even if you don't agree with what they are doing.  Be flexible enough to accept conditions when there is a greater issue at stake than some of the conditions.

Love is the strongest and most fulfilling emotion possible

Scheherazade (Shahrazad): Sowing good is never lost

DO YOU HAVE A MENTOR?Mentors can be from the past, present or even fictional. Shahrazad is strictly fictional but I feel she could be real – a composite character of realness, and she is my mentor because for me she is real.

PARALLELS WITH LIFE
Fiction can be so real because it draws upon real life. This is how it was in olden times or with a composite character – it is so real.

DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGSIn olden times Kings had the divine right to execute their wives and if the Queen was unfaithful that was high treason and a capital offence.

OFF WITH HER HEAD!
Punishment was death. Think Queen Anne Boleyn – one of the executed wives of England’s King Henry VIII.

MY PAST AND NOW MY PRESENT AND FUTURE
When I was growing up I read as many biographies as I could of the Queens of England and Scotland – that was my reading matter when I was a teenager – great big books of their lives.

THE LASTING QUEEN
There is one Queen that continues to capture my imagination and that is Queen Shahrazad. She today continues to be my mentor. I wish to share with you the lessons she imparts to the world. Come with me on a journey of one thousand and one nights. It is thanks to her lessons that I feel that there is real hope for this world and the future. See my earlier post:http://abetoday.com/2010/07/30/scheherazade-success/

DEVELOPMENT FOR A KING AND US
Let us develop like the Persian king who enjoyed one thousand and one stories and countless lessons in kindness, goodness and morality.

FIGHTING FOR OUR LIVES
Let us learn the lessons by a lady who was fighting for her life and fighting for the love of her husband and life partner.

THE FIRST THREE NIGHTS
The stories of the first three nights are connected – but each posting will contain one story – see if you are like the King  -- dying for more!

THE MORAL OF THE STORY
The greatest stories teach a moral – a lesson for us to take to heart, embody and live by. The moral of the story of the first three nights is: Sow good, even on an unworthy soil; for it will not be lost wherever it is sown.

LAYERS OF LESSONS
For the enlightened there are many mansions, many dimensions and many lessons. See if you see more lessons than I can.

FAITHFULNESS
The first story is an example of faithfulness, even though you might die as a result.  For ordinary people when they think of faithfulness – they think of sexual faithfulness. Faithfulness or fidelity applies to all conduct - business and personal.

HIGH PROMISE
Fidelity is about loyalty to a person, principle or organization. There was fidelity to his promise and only when people are loyal to their promises can there be trust in this world.

THE POWER IN A PROMISE
Every time you keep a promise you add trust to the world. Every time you break a promise you make the world just a little less stable.

NEVER PLAY WITH A PROMISE
Promises are promises – if you think you can’t keep a promise – don’t make it in the first place and if you make a promise keep it even if it seems at the time that it is a bad deal for you.

COURAGE
Courage strongly features – the merchant in the story could have run away – but then if you run away  – perhaps that is no way to live life and is in reality no life. Sometimes we are alive but we don’t have the true dignity that life is supposed to be.

TRUE TO ONE’S WORD
By being true to his word, the merchant impressed three complete strangers.

The story portrays examples of faithfulness (keeping true to one’s word) and keeping one’s promises. It also shows how three complete strangers could be moved by the plight (bad situation) of another and come to his aid.

BONDS OF FIDELITY
“My word is my bond” and really keeping that bond is one of the greatest things you can do for yourself, others and the betterment of the world. At the end of this story I hope you will agree with me.

DAY 1: STORY 1

THE MERCHANT AND THE JINNI
A wealthy merchant/businessman engaged in international trade. He went to a neighbouring country to collect a debt.

STONY HEART
It was hot and he sat under a tree in a beautiful garden. He ate a date and afterward threw the stone. A lesson here could be we should properly dispose of stones and not carelessly throw. The moral: think before you throw!

DATE WITH DEATH
Immediately an angry gigantic demon (an Efrit) appeared before him.  “I wanna kill you!” shouted the demon.  “You killed my son!”

SOMETIMES WE DON”T EVEN KNOW THAT WHAT WE HAVE DONE IS WRONG!
Perplexed the merchant responded:  “How did I kill your son?”

“The stone from the date hit my son and he instantly died!”  The Jinni explained.

What or who is a Jinni?A Jinni in Muslim legend is a spirit that is often capable of assuming animal or human form and has supernatural powers.

PARDON ME
“We belong to God, and to Him we must return. There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the Great! If I killed him, I didn't do it intentionally, but without knowing it. I trust you will pardon me,” the merchant entreated.

COMMITMENT TO GOD
The Jinni was unmoved, dragging him and throwing him to the ground.  As the Jinni raised his sword to strike him – the merchant wept bitterly and pleaded:

“I commit my affair unto God, for no one can avoid what He hath decreed.”—and he continued his lamentation. Still the Jinni was unmoved.

SOLEMN PROMISE
The merchant told the demon that he had debts to pay and other obligations. He requested that he be permitted to go back to his house and settle these matters. He vowed he would return. He invoked God as his witness.  The Jinni accepted – granting him a year.

ONE YEAR OF JOY
Our merchant settled his debts and informed his wife and family of what had befallen him. At the end of the year he returned to the land of the Jinn.

ENTER THE SHEIKH
Back in the garden, the merchant sat weeping thinking about his certain death. A Sheikh saluted the merchant wishing him a long life and wanted to know why he is sitting in the land of the Jinn. The merchant then revealed what had happened.

A LESSON OF FAITHFULNESS
“By Allah, O my brother, thy faithfulness is great. I will not leave this place until I see what happens.” Two more sheikhs came along and upon hearing the story also stayed with the merchant.

YOU KILLED THE VITAL SPIRIT OF MY HEART
The Jinni arrived to kill the merchant who started to wail, as did the three sheikhs. The first sheikh kissed the hand of the Jinni and asked: “If I relate to you the story of myself and this gazelle (he had a gazelle with him), and you find it to be wonderful, and more so than the adventure of this merchant will you give up to me a third of your claim to his blood?”

PACT (Bargain) WITH MERCY AND LIFEHe answered: “Yes, if you tell your story and I find it to be as you say, I will give up to you a third of my claim to his blood.” 

DAY 2 – to be continued.

CREDIT:

See:  http://abetoday.com/2010/07/30/scheherazade-success/

Source of the story:  http://www.bartleby.com/16/

Laden with lessons are the stories by Shahrazad - the lady fighting for life and for the heart of the ruler of a kingdom

Do we need a Steve Jobs of religion?

UNPRECEDENTEDSteve Jobs revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. Jobs was an innovative thinker of mega proportions.

MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism, Dallas says: 

INNOVATION GALOREThroughout the history of mankind, the "Steve Jobs of religions" have made significant contributions to innovative universally-synthesized acceptable traditions for living a balanced life.

COMPETITIVE HEATHowever, they ended up becoming another competitive religion instead of the one that everyone would embrace.

ALTERNATIVE PATHSIndeed, there is a new focus in understanding the essence of religion and looking at all religions as valid alternative paths to achieve freedom.

OWN ORDERThree thousand years ago, a man shared a corollary between the laws of physics and laws of society. Just as matter finds its own balance, society will find its own order whenever it goes awry.

RISE UPSomeone from among them will rise up and restore the order, or the dharma as Lord Krishna called it.

ANOTHER STEVE JOBSTwenty-five hundred years ago, another Steve Jobs of religion appeared with the name Gautama Buddha.

SIMPLE BALANCEHe shared a simple philosophy of life to live with minimum (or no) suffering. He taught a balanced approach between ascetic life and living with given human desires.

BUDDHA DISTINCTIONToday, it has not only become a distinct religion with adherents performing specific identifiable rituals but has split itself into three threads.

PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINETwo thousand years ago, there was another one who found a way to bring relief to mankind through teaching and prescribing the psychological medicine of forgiving and loving thy enemy.

FOR ALLHis teachings were for the whole humanity, but they got monopolized by a group. Two thousand years later, multiple groups claim their version is the truth. Jesus was his name.

YET ANOTHER STEVE JOBSFifteen hundred years ago, yet another Steve Jobs appeared on the horizon with an innovative idea to bring harmony among creation.

EQUAL MEASURE
He said all men are equal before God and that God's love reaches out to every human and every community through the peace makers, messengers and the prophets.

COHESIVE CO-EXISTENCE
Prophet Muhammad said it behooves us to know each other so we can learn to co-exist. He said submitting to the idea of a cohesive society (will of God) is Islam.

COMMON GROUND
Five hundred years ago, Akbar, the Great King of India, made serious efforts in finding a common ground among Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism and initiated Deen-e-Ilahi, religion of the creator. It died with that Steve Jobs.

INTERFAITH INITIATIVE
The last four hundred years have witnessed Guru Nanak and Bahaullah initiating interfaith movements to bring people together in spirituality. However, they ended becoming Sikhism and Baha'i faiths.

RITUAL RICH
Rituals are the differentiators. They signify the milestones of our daily life. Every significant moment of the day is a ritual. It is an unwritten way of measuring our progression; a memory pattern to bring discipline to our actions. From the moment we are born to the last rites of our life and every moment in-between is laden with rituals, though some of us may deny it.

RITUALS MAKETH A RELIGIONWhen specific rituals are prescribed or become a part of the group it will generate yet another religion rather than a commonality.

IN BALANCE
The bottom line to religion is to bring a balance to an individual and the balance with what surrounds him, people and the environment.

ARROGANCE IS THE ROOT OF ALL CONFLICTS
We have to shed the arrogance that our tradition is superior or the only way to salvation. Indeed, arrogance is the root cause of all conflicts.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD
We have to remember that God has not signed a deal with anyone behind my back or your back, if he did, then we don't a God like that and he is not the one we need to bow.

VALUE AND ESSENCE
The foundation for pluralism has done extensive experiments and workshops in religion and getting for people to see the value and essence of each religion that are deeply embedded in the rituals.

BELIEF BY MIKE GHOUSESteve Jobs would probably have echoed my belief:
To build a cohesive society where no one has to live in apprehension of the other, we have to learn to respect every which way one worships (or not) the creator and accept the God given uniqueness of each one of us, and then conflicts fade and solutions emerge.

Mike Ghouse – contributor, www.abetoday.com

For more information about Mike Ghouse.

http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2012/01/texas-faith-do-we-need-steve-jobs-of.html

Mike Ghouse is committed to building a cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day; he is a writer, thinker and a speaker. www.MikeGhouse.net

We have to learn to respect every which way one worships (or not) the creator

We are here today thanks to Mom, says Mike Ghouse. The best lady in the world!

To the Americans it is Mom, but to the British it is Mum! (or is it!)

Whether it is Mom or Mum – most of us dearly love our mums. By the way the word Mom is used widely in the Midlands of England (Think Birmingham). Mom and Mummy are old-English words. In some parts of Scotland they also use Mom and Mommy. Mom and Mommy were British to start with as is most English in use in America, but just from different parts of the UK (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). Throughout Asia, it is Mom that is in use more than Mum, although in Australia and New Zealand it is usually Mum.

THANKS TO MOM/MUM
This tribute is by www.abetoday.com contributor and leading figure in the world of pluralism, Mike Ghouse.

PRECIOUS LOVE
We are here today thanks to Mom. No matter what happens to the world, or her, you are first to her. Your life is more precious to her than herself.

ICONIC POWER
She is an icon of selflessness.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON
Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) was asked:
Who is the most important person in one's life?
His response:  "Mother."
They asked again, but the answer was "Mother again" and the same response was given for the third time, such is the importance given to mother.

HEAVEN, PARADISE AND PEACE OF MIND
Your heaven, your paradise and your peace of mind comes to you by serving your mother, said Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

THE FACE OF GOD
In the Hindu tradition Mother is worshiped and she is represented by Ma Saraswati (source of knowledge) and Ma Lakshmi (source of income). Mother’s face is equated with God’s face, a song celebrates Mother by saying, if I have seen your face mother, I have seen God.

THE FOUNTAIN OF KNOWLEDGE
The Baha’i faith states: “For mothers are the first educators, the first mentors; and truly it is mothers who determine the happiness, the future greatness, the courteous ways and learning and judgment, the understanding and the faith of their little ones.”

BLOOD LINE
In the Jewish tradition, your heritage is determined by your Mother, you are a Jew because of your mother.

MARY IN THE BIBLE AND THE QURAN
Many Christians consider Mother Mary, as Mother of God, and for many others she is the spiritual mother.

MOTHER CREATION
In the native traditions, be it American, European, African, or Asian, mother is creator in the form of mother Earth.

HIGHEST LEVEL
You will find mother is placed at the highest spiritual level in all religions, traditions and life forms. Those who have a mother to see, you are the blessed one, those who don't, you have her blessings.

ASK AND YOU WILL RECEIVE
Those who have tensions with their mother, ask her blessings, and you will find the best happiness of life in that asking.

MIKE GHOUSE’S DEDICATION TO HIS MOTHER
This is a dedication to Mike's mother. http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2011/05/mother-my-story-happy-mothers-day.html

A Powerful Message on Mo4her’s day from Amir Khan, Bollywood movie star. This video is in Urdu/Hindi.
http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2012/05/amir-khans-powerful-message-on-mothers_12.html.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1vASMbEEQc

Those who have tensions with their mother, ask her blessings, and you will find the best happiness of life in that asking.