Interesting Reflections and Passages
( The passages referenced as ‘Simple Abundance’ are by Sarah Ban Breathnach )
One day, according to an eastern story, the gods decided to create the universe. They created the stars, the sun, the moon. They created the seas, the mountains, the flowers, and the clouds. Then they created human beings. At the end, they created truth.
At this point, however, a problem arose: where should they hide truth so that human beings would not find it right away. They wanted to prolong the adventure of the search.
"Let’s put truth on the top of the highest mountain," said one of the gods. "Certainly it will be hard to find there."
"Let’s put it on the farthest star," said another.
"Let’s hide it in the darkest and deepest of abysses."
"Let’s conceal it on the secret side of the moon."
At the end, the wisest and most ancient god said, "No, we will hide truth inside the very heart of human beings. In this way they will look for it all over the universe, without being aware of having it inside themselves all the time."
( Ferrucci, 1982, What We May Be)
According to a story at the time of the Italian Renaissance, God created all beings in the universe and gave each a particular quality and , therefore, a specific destiny. He gave cunning to the fox, fidelity to the dog, strength to the lion, and so on. When, at last, God came to human beings, he decided to leave them with an open destiny:
He welcomed him as an entity of indefinite nature, put him in the heart of the universe, and spoke to him in this way: "I created you as a being neither mortal nor immortal, neither heavenly nor earthly, so that you, as a sovereign and free artificer, could mold and forge yourself in the shape you choose. You can sink to the level of inferior beings . you can, if you so will, regenerate yourself in the likeness of superior beings."
( Ferrucci 1982)
A man was given permission to visit Heaven and Hell while he was still alive. He went first to Hell, and there he saw a great gathering of people seated at long tables set with rich and abundant food. Yet these people were starving and weeping. The visitor soon saw the reason: their spoons and forks were longer than their arms so they were unable to bring the food to their mouths. Next the man went to Heaven, where he saw the same setting: long tables richly furnished with food of every kind. Here too the people had spoons and forks longer than their arms and were likewise unable to feed themselves.
They were feeding each other.
( Ferrucci 1982)
"Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me..."
(Jennifer Wellwood)
"Do you find yourself in the same unhappy situation again and again, wondering where you went wrong and why it happened again?
It’s not always bad luck - it may be bad ideas."
(Arnold A Lazarus)
"If the essential core of the person is denied or suppressed, he gets sick sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes immediately, sometimes later."
(Abraham Maslow)
"True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions."
(Joseph Addison)
"If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are."
(Montesquieu)
"Blessing the circumstances in your life teaches you to trust. If you’re sick and tired of learning life’s lessons through pain and struggle, blessing your difficulties will show you there’s a better way."
‘Simple Abundance’
"When we have suppressed and closed off our feelings, we cannot contact the universe within us. We cannot hear our intuitive voice, and we certainly can’t enjoy being alive. When we are willing to fully experience a feeling such as fear, anger, loneliness or confusion and embrace the emotion without judgement, the blocked energy releases quickly and the feeling dissolves, allowing us to feel more peaceful and open."
(Shakti Gawain, Reflections in the Light)
Some of us are reluctant to recall our past because we’re afraid of painful memories. But as each illness brings a gift if we will look for it, so each painful memory comes bearing a peace offering. Do not fear. The past asks only to be remembered.
‘Simple Abundance’
Real Life – the real life of joy we are meant to be living – begins when we restore a sense of reverence to our daily affairs. Today, search for the sacred in the ordinary with gratitude in your heart and you will surely find it.
‘Simple Abundance’
People are sometimes unreasonable, illogical and self centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable.
Be honest and transparent anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People who really want help may attack you if you help them.
Help them anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt.
Give the world your best anyway.
(Compliments of Dean White)
Anyways, if you don’t get it bad once in a while, how do you know when you get it good? You got to learn things the hard way sometimes."
(County agent to Kenneth Switch, Accordion Crimes)
"To be nobody-but-yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
(e. e. cummings)
We need to feel more to understand others.
We need to love more to be loved back.
We need to cry more to cleanse ourselves.
We need to laugh more to enjoy ourselves.
We need to see more than our own little fantasies.
We need to hear more and listen to the needs of others.
We need to give more and take less.
We need to share more and own less.
We need to look more and realize that we are not so different from one another.
We need to create a world where everyone can peacefully live the life they choose.
(Susan Polis Schutz)
Repotting doesn’t mean you have to leave the relationship or quit the job. It just means you have to gently loosen the soil around your soul; discover what quickens your pulse, brings a smile or a giddy lift to your conversation.
'Simple Abundance'
When your roots are stunted, gently untangle them with simple joys that reveal Spirit’s seamless thread of mystery. Leaf. Stem. Root. Mind. Body. Soul.
'Simple Abundance'
More often than we’d like to admit, life has a way of hitting us where it hurts. Our souls become broken fields, plowed by pain. Often if we don’t prune away the stress and plow under the useless in our lives, pain will do it for us.
'Simple Abundance'
Pain prunes the unessential emotions, ambitions, and illusions, teaching us the lessons we either consciously or unconsciously refuse to be taught by joy.
Political progress depends on how much of the truth we know, how clearly and boldly we speak it, and how great an impression it makes on other people.
(Erich Fromm, For the Love of Life)
Why not think about what’s right instead of what’s wrong?
There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.
I have come to realize that all my trouble with living has come from fear and smallness within me.
(Angela L. Wozniak)
"Waking up this morning, I smile
Twenty-four brand new hours lie before me
I vow to live fully in each moment
And to look upon all beings with compassion."
(Author unknown)
"Happiness is the determination to be happy Always,
rather than wait for outer circumstances to make you happy"
(J. Donald Walters)
"He (The Truth) who cannot even be heard of by many, whom many,
even hearing, do not know, wondrous is he (the person) who can teach
(The Truth) and skilful is he (the person) who finds (The Truth) and
wondrous is he (the person) who knows, even when instructed otherwise."
All anger is really directed at the self. Forgiving the self for being human or for depending on another to do the things one should have taken care of on his or her own usually dissolved the anger instantly
(Jamie Sams)
(1) Age Is Nothing but A Number (2) Make Love Not War (3) Never Suck On A Calligraphy Pen (4) It's Not The Wound That Makes You Bleed It's The Fear (5) If You Don't Fall In Love You Can't Get Hurt (6) No matter How Long The Winter Is Spring Will Always Come (7) One Who Make's No Mistakes Never Makes Anything (8) Even If Your On The Right Track, You'll Get Run Over If You Just Sit There (9) To Make All your Dreams Come True, Take The First Step Then Follow Through (10) Make Your Dreams A Reality (11) A Heart is Like Glass, It Breaks Easily And It's Hard To Put Back The Pieces (12) Life Is As Interesting As You Make It (13) Keep Your Friends Close, But Your Enemies Closer (14) Never be Afraid Of Growing Old Too Many Are Denied The Privilege (15) The Two Most Valuable People In Your Life Are Also The Hardest To Find: A True Love And A True Friend (16) Art is the objectification of Feeling and the Subjectification of Nature (from the homepage of a rather mature young Websurfer)
(Suzanne K. Langer)
"A feminist is any woman who tells the truth about her life."
(Virginia Woolf)
SUCCESS: To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
(Ralph Waldo Emmerson)
THE ROSE
Some say love, it is a river that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower, and you its only seed.
It's the heart, afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance.
It's the dream, afraid of waking, that never takes a chance.
It's the one who won't be taken, who cannot seem to give.
And the soul, afraid of dyin', that never learns to live.
When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes
The Rose.
(Bette Middler)
A vision without a task is a Dream
A task without a vision is drudgery
(a combination of the two is hope for the world)
(Walt Whitman)
THE INVITATION
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled or closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstacy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be realistic or to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t matter to me if the story you’re telling is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bare the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from God’s presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and stll stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, " Yes!" It doesn’t interest me where you live or how much money you have I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children. It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone wth yourself, And if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
(Oriah Mountain Dreamer - an Indian Elder)
Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study.
(Francis Bacon , Essays)
Prosperity doth best discover vice, but Adversity doth best discover virtue.
(Francis Bacon , Essays)
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
(Francis Bacon, Essays)
It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one
is as painful
As the other.
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
(Francis Bacon, Essays)
This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.
(Francis Bacon, Essays)
Forgiveness
There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.... Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The day passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said,"You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there." A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one. Friends are a very rare jewel indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us." It's National Friendship Week. Show your friends how much you care. Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND, even if it means sending it back to the person who sent it to you. If it comes back to you, then you'll know you have a circle of friends. HAPPY FRIENDSHIP WEEK TO YOU!!!!!! YOU ARE MY FRIEND AND I AM HONORED! Now send this to every friend you have!! And to your family. This was sent to me by a friend, and is now passed on to YOU. Please forgive me if I have ever left a hole in your fence................... "To the children of the universe Who, by the essence of their being, Love. Bring light to a darkened world and lead us to the Kingdom of Heaven"
( G. Jampolsky)
A few years ago, at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash.
At the gun, they all started out, not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win. All, that is, except one little boy who stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a couple of times, and began to cry.
The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked back. Then they all turned around and went back. Every one of them.
One girl with Down's Syndrome bent down and kissed him and said: "This will make it better."
Then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line. Everyone in the stadium stood, and the cheering went on for several minutes.
People who were there are still telling the story. Why? Because deep down we know this one thing:
What matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What matters in this life is helping others win, even if it means slowing down and changing our course.
"Wisdom consists in doing the next thing that you have to do.
Doing it with your whole heart and finding delight in doing it.
And the DELIGHT is the sense of the sacred."
(Helen Luke - a Jungian)
Gandhi's words: "When I dispair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers. For a while they seem invincible. But they always fall. Think of it. ALWAYS."
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except that which is worth knowing.
(Oscar Wilde)
"O Man, Know Thyself, Possess Thyself, Transform Thyself, Realize Thy Higher Self."
(Assagioli, 1927)
The Interview
I dreamed I had an interview with God. "Come in," God said. "So, you would like to interview Me." If you have the time," I said. God smiled and said, "My time is eternity and is enough to do everything; what questions do you have in mind to ask me?" What surprises you most about mankind? God answered, "That they get bored of being children, are in a rush to grow up and then long to be children again. That they lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health. That by thinking anxiously about the future they forget the present, such that they live neither for the present nor the future. That they live as if they will never die and they die as if they had never lived." God's hands took mine and we were silent for while and then I asked... "As a parent, what are some of life's lessons you want your children to learn?" God replied with a smile, "To learn that they cannot make anyone love them. What they can do is to let themselves be loved. To learn that what is most valuable is not what they have in their lives, but who they have in their lives. To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others. All will be judged individually on their own merits, not as a group on a comparison basis! To learn that a rich person is not the one who has the most, but is one who needs the least. To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in persons we love, and that it takes many years to heal them. To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness. To learn that there are persons that love them dearly, but simply do not know how to express or show their feelings. To learn that money can buy everything but happiness. To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it totally different. To learn that a true friend iS someone who knows everything about them... and likes them anyway. To learn that it is not always enough that they be forgiven by others, but that they have to forgive themselves." I sat there for awhile enjoying the moment. I thanked Him for his time and for all that He has done for me and my family, and He replied, "Anytime. I'm here 24 hours a day. All you have to do is ask for me, and I'll answer."
(author unknown)
May you be filled with loving-kindness
May you be well
May you be peaceful and at ease
May you be happy
(author unknown)
Sooner or later you'll encounter a crisis in your life, and how you meet it will determine your future happiness and success. Since the beginning of time, everyone has been called upon to meet such a crisis. Close scrutiny will show you that most "crisis situations" are opportunities to either advance or stay where you are. Indeed, most changes in your life will be due either "inspiration" or "desperation." Personal growth is the process of responding positively to change. Whatever comes your way, give it meaning and transform it into something of value. A precious stone cannot be polished without friction, nor humanity perfected without trials.
(author unknown)
What you think about expands. If your thoughts are focussed on "what’s missing", then "what’s missing", by definition, will have to expand.
(W. Dyer)
- a note that speaks to the importance of priorities:
We can have anything we want but we can’t have everything we want.
(a very special friend, Elizabeth Cochran - not sure where it originated from)
The Noble New
Sing songs that none have sung,
Think thoughts that ne'er in brain have rung,
Walk in paths that none have trod,
Weep tears as none have shed for god,
Give peace to all to whom none other gave,
Claim him your own who's everywhere disclaimed.
Love all with love that none have felt, and brave
The battle of life with strength unchained.
(Paramahansa Yogananda)