' Unconditional Love '...
Even if a person hurts you, give him love. The worst punishment is to throw someone out of your heart... You should love everyone as God, and love each other. If you cannot love each other, you cannot achieve your goal.
...............................Neem Karoli Baba
' The Essence of Reality '...
The Divine realm extends to the earthly; but the later, illusory in nature, does not contain the essence of Reality.
.................Mahavatar Babaji
' In, but not of '...
A boat may stay in water, but water should not stay in boat. A spiritual aspirant may live in the world, but the world should not live within him.
...........................Ramakrishna
' Never say NO '...
Never say NO, Never say, 'I cannot', for you are INFINITE. All the power is WITHIN you. You can do anything.
..............................Swami Vivekananda
' Everything '...
Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.
........................Rabindranath Tagore
' Leela '...
When you realize yourself as completely empty and devoid of all form... this is wisdom, When you realize yourself as the fullness of love overflowing itself without object... this is bliss, And when you are aware of yourself incarnate in the appearance of form... this is leela.
.............................Eli Jaxon-Bear
' An Ocean of Peace '...
Under the obsessive thoughts and plans, under the emotions, positive and negative, there is an ocean of peace.
....................Gangaji
' Separation '...
Separation is the absence of Love, and Love is the absence of separation.
.............................Ramesh S Balsekar
' Your Life Turns '...
When I look inside and see that I'm nothing, that's wisdom. When I look outside and see that I'm everything, that's love. And between these two, my life turns.
..................................Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Happiness '...
Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.
.....................Ramana Maharshi
' Magic '...
We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already.
..................................J. K. Rowling
' Life '...
The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.
The chances, the changes are all yours to make.
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.
........................J. R. R. Tolkien
' Learning '...
Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy
................................Alexandre Dumas
' Extracts from the Works of Theodotus: @everyone '...
Extracts from the Works of Theodotus: @everyone
7 Therefore, the Father, being unknown, wished to be known to the Aeons, and through his own thought, as if he had known himself, he put forth the Only-Begotten, the spirit of Knowledge which is in Knowledge. So he too who came forth from Knowledge, that is, from the Father's Thought, became Knowledge, that is, the Son, because “through' the Son the Father was known.” But the Spirit of Love has been mingled with the Spirit of Knowledge, as the Father with the Son, and Thought with Truth, having proceeded from Truth as Knowledge from Thought.
Note the Only-Begotten is the father's own thought also called the the spirit of Knowledge
The Father could be known through the two Spirits proceeding from him, which were mingled together. These spirits are the Spirit of knowledge (πνεῦμα γνώσεως) and the Spirit of love (πνεῦμα ἀγάπης).
Now since the word "logos" means the entire thought it would be logical to conclude that this reasoning had within its self, foreknowledge, forethought, insight or gnosis, this is referred to as the spirit of knowledge also contained within the reasoning is life grace light which is the spirit of love
In Extracts from the Works of Theodotus 6-7, the principal Tetrad (a group or set of four aeons,) consisted of the Mind, the Truth, the Logos, and the Life but the Father was not counted as a member of the Pleroma.
Maybe this Tetrad is where we get the name Barbelo from? Barbelo meaning (EL) God in four in the Sethian system
The Extracts from the Works of Theodotus goes on to say:
8 But we maintain that the essential Logos is God in God, who is also said to be “in the bosom of the Father,” continuous, undivided, one God.
God came forth, the Son, Mind of the All. This means that even his thought takes its existence from the root of the all, since he had him in mind (Valentinian Exposition from the Nag Hammadi Library)
The All preexisted within the Father, and the son who is the Father's Thought and Will, revealed it
Ptolemy's Commentary On The Gospel of John Prologue
Now since he is speaking of the first origination, he does well to begin the teaching at the beginning, i.e with the Son and the Word. He speaks as follows: "The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the beginning, with God." [Jn 1:1] First, he distinguishes three things: God; beginning; Word. Then he unites them: this is to show forth both the emanation of the latter two,( i.e. the Son and the Word), and their union with one another, and simultaneously with the Father.
For the beginning was in the Father and from the Father; and the Word was in the beginning and from the beginning. Well did he say, "The Word was in the beginning", for it was in the Son. "And the Word was with God." So was the beginning. "And the word was God"; reasonably so, for what is engendered from God is God. This shows the order of emanation. "The entirety was made through it, and without it was not anything made." [Jn 1:3] For the Word became the cause of the forming and origination of all the aeons that came after it. (Ptolemy's Commentary On The Gospel of John Prologue)
The phrase “The Word was in the beginning” was not a temporal expression, but it “shows the order of emanation” (See Ptolemy's Commentary On The Gospel of John Prologue)
Since the term logos signifies an inward thought it would be logical to conclude that logos is Sige or silence in the Valentinian system.
Silence has a partner or companion (syzygies, pair) with the Depth (Bythos)
The Depth is another aspects or attributes of the Father or the Deity
Thus the logos is the silent thought of the Deity.
The Deity was reasoning with himself this reasoning lead to the rest of the Emanations or attributes coming forth from the divine mind. The Deity was always self aware and had self knowledge
There is one life force: the creative all-embracing life, even the logos which is God. This life is eternal and without limit, from before time to everlasting.
' Fasting '...
Fasting is not bodily hunger but bodily elevation and purity. It is not a body that hungers and longs for food, but a body that rids itself of the desire to eat. Fasting is a time when the soul flourishes and lifts the body up with it. It rids the body of its loads and burdens and lifts it up so that God may work with it without impediment to the happiness of the spiritual entity.
......................Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria
' Negative Thoughts '...
When a thought oppresses you, do not be downhearted, but put up with it in courage, saying, 'They swarmed around me closer and closer, but I drove them back in the name of the Lord' (Ps. 118:11). Divine help will arrive at your side immediately, and you will drive them away from you, and courage will compass you round about, and the glory of God will walk with you; and 'you will be filled to your soul's desire' (Isa. 58:11).
...........................Pachomius the Great
' The Sick '...
Before all, and above all, attention shall be paid to the care of the sick, so that they shall be served as if they were Christ Himself.
....................Benedict of Nursia
' Knowledge is Love '...
There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge; that is curiosity. There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others; that is vanity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve; that is Love.
.............................Bernard of Clairvaux
' Now '...
The past is no longer yours; the future is not yet in your power. You have only the present wherein to do good.
......................Alphonsus Liguori
' Have Patience '...
Have patience with all things - but first with yourself. Never confuse your mistakes with your value as a human being. You are perfectly valuable, creative, worthwhile person simply because you exist. And no amount of triumphs or tribulations can ever change that.
...........................Saint Francis de Sales
' The Mystical I '...
When the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, you are ordained, but you are not ordained to be set apart. You are ordained to heal the sick, to comfort, to feed, to forgive. That is the purpose of ordination~ not that you may be glorified but that you may be better equipped to give more abundantly, to share more freely, to understand more universally that it is not only the children of your flesh who are your children, but that all children of this world are your children, and you have an equal responsibility to share with them.
You must be able to look out upon this world and say unto it: "The Spirit of God in me is your Father. You may look to the Father within me for substance and sustenance. You, friend or so-called foe, may look to the Spirit of God in me, the fatherhood of God in me, for your care."
Then you will understand this relationship that has been kept secret from the world, the invisible bond that exists among all mystics. The visible and invisible mystics of the world who have recognized I standing at the door of their consciousness, are eternally united in consciousness, sharing with one another.
I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it.
.. Revelation 3:8
.....................................Joel S. Goldsmith, The Mystical I
' Before '...
Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you quit, try.
....................Ernest Hemingway
' The Truth Goes On '...
However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing.
.....................George Orwell
' Face It '...
Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.
.........................Joseph Conrad
' Happiness '...
Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
...............................Nathaniel Hawthorne
' Public Opinion '...
When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.
.....................Frederic Bastiat
' Words from the Nazarene '...
John Smallman
Dec 24
Sorrow is a powerful emotion that arises when you experience loss.
Today I want to address sorrow. Many people are experiencing great sorrow as a result of being separated from friends and loved ones, due to the present worldwide restrictions on meetings and social interactions of all kinds. When you experience yourself feeling sorrow, sadness, or any kind of dissatisfaction with the circumstances of your life, please call on me. I am always available, and I will always answer your call immediately! It is my joy to assist you all in your ongoing awakening processes, which many of you are finding extremely unsettling. As you spend more time alone, and find emotional issues arising powerfully within you which need to be addressed, thanked, forgiven, and released, ask me to help you to relax into your holy inner sanctuaries where Love awaits you, wishing only to embrace and honor you if you will allow It to do so. Allowing and welcoming is the key, so let go of any negative feelings or self-judgments about your worthiness and invite Love to join you there.
Sorrow is a powerful emotion that arises when you experience loss, and which can be extremely debilitating, often leading to intense depression and lack of motivation for life. In these unusual times everyone needs someone to whom they can talk about personal issues that they would normally not talk about with anyone. And many of you feel that there is no one to whom you can safely disclose these seemingly private matters, often due to a sense of shame and inadequacy, believing that you should be able to deal with them by yourselves, as others obviously do. The truth is that you are not alone in experiencing this sense of having no one to whom you can talk, this sense – even a belief – is in fact endemic. So let it go, call on me, and I will guide you to meet with someone who can and will listen to you lovingly and without judgment, to assist you in identifying and releasing those deeply buried but strongly ingrained beliefs that have never served you. Also let go of expectations as to who this might be – an egoic fear-driven attempt to limit your choices – thus allowing your intuition to present you with the most felicitous opportunity. You will, of course, still be completely free to choose whether or not to engage with the one who propitiously appears, as you work with your issues of trust.
Learning how and whom you can trustoften causes worry and anxiety because you have all had your trust betrayed at some time, or many times in your lives. But with the ongoing effects of the Tsunami of Love, that is flowing abundantly to assist in your awakening process, people are becoming increasingly aware of the need to live their lives honestly and with integrity while respecting another’s trust in them, and are therefore making a conscious choice to honor both themselves, and all others. Love is your nature, and as more and more become aware of this the opportunities for kind and loving social interactions – one on one, or in groups – are growing rapidly.
There is only One, therefore each one is that One. As more and more of you recognize this divine Truth your interactions with one another become ever more loving, allowing issues that may have divided you, and even led to conflict among you, to be discussed openly, without any individual setting preconditions or needing to prove to others the rightness of his or her beliefs or opinions. When discussions are started from this loving state of openness and acceptance, there are no issues that cannot be resolved, although time and patience will be necessary because, even though you have entered the New Age, many are still working on personal issues of non self-acceptance, unworthiness, and lack of trust that can be spontaneously triggered and lead to conflict.Fear often leads to anger, sometimes intense anger, that can be used to defend the self or to attack another, and when this happens it is inevitably divisive.
Fear is a response to separation from or abandonment by a loved one, and unreal as it is, because you are all permanently and eternally in the Presence of God from Whom separation is impossible, nevertheless, for humans it seems very real. Were you to be separated from Source, your life force, your consciousness would be terminated, you would cease to exist, and by choosing to incarnate into the world of form you seem to have been separated, so all do have a deep inner sense of fear. The way to release this fear permanently is to become aware of your true nature as One with God, and to know that that is indeed who you are. Many who have had NDEs have talked and written about the wonder and joy of that experience, the full knowing realization that there is only Love, the infinite field of divine energy in which all that has been created is eternally present without interruption.
The unreal state of limitation that you experience as beings in form is temporary, a state from which God has promised that you will awaken.
Humanity is now fully engaged in the awakening process because the time for unreality has been terminated by your collective intent, and you are now most actively engaged in awakening. For most it is a very unsettling moment because the belief that unreality is real has become so deeply ingrained within you. As humans, you collectively dislike change because it brings uncertainty, and for many to think about aging and dying is anathema, while modern medical science tries desperately to overcome and prevent death. Therefore, to come to the realization that there is no death, that there is but a transition to Reality is amazingly and intensely freeing.
This realization can be accessed by everyone, because God would not withhold it from any of His beloved children. The way to realization of who you really are is by going within, and spending quiet time alone there as you ask to know, and then really allow yourself to listen to and hear the Voice for God within you, where It is always present. You are never alone, so go within, ask for confirmation of this divine Truth, and allow yourself to hear It, feel It, and Know It.
Your loving brother, Jesus.
' Politics '...
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
................Baron de Montesquieu
' Existence '...
Everything that is possible demands to exist.
..........................Gottfried Leibniz
' Power '...
The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.
...............................Rene Descartes
' Rules for Happiness '...
Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.
............................Immanuel Kant
' The Best Part of Life '...
That best portion of a man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
..............................William Wordsworth
' The Spirit of Christmas '...
“Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is happiness because we see joy in people. It is forgetting self and finding time for others. It’s discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values.” .................. Thomas S. Monson
' Peace Within '...
Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
.......................William Hazlitt
' Christmas by Rumi '...
There is a morning where presence
comes over you, and you sing
like a rooster in your earth-colored shape.
Your heart hears and, no longer frantic,
begins to dance. At that moment
soul reaches total emptiness.
Your heart becomes Mary, miraculously pregnant,
and body, like a two-day-old Jesus,
says wisdom words.
Now the heart turns to light,
and the body picks up the tempo.
Where Shams Tabriz walks, the footprints
are musical notes, and holes
you fall through into space.
' Death '...
I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death. They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make. Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories. We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love.
.....................Leo Buscaglia
' Leaders '...
Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.
.........................John C. Maxwell
' The Value of Work '...
You can get everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.
...................Zig Ziglar
' Positive Thinking '...
A positive thinker does not refuse to recognize the negative; he refuses to dwell on it. Positive thinking is a form of thought which habitually looks for the best results from the worst conditions
..........................Norman Vincent Peale
' The Mystery of Human Existence '...
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.
.......................Fyodor Dostoevsky
' Loving Truth '...
A man who loves you the most is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself.
.....................Robert Murray M'Cheyne
' The World Changes '...
The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives.
........................Armistead Maupin
' Loving '...
It is by loving and not by being loved that one can come nearest to the soul of another.
..............George MacDonald
' The Little Things '...
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
.............Robert Breault
' Your Karma '...
How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
...................Wayne Dyer
' A Connection to Source '...
When you seek a connection to God, you suffer. God is not absent.
..................Mark Whitwell
' Surrender of ego '...
Inhale, and God approaches you. Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you. Exhale, and you approach God. Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.
.........................Tirumalai Krishnamacharya
' Yoga Nidra '...
Yoga nidra is the yoga of aware sleep. In this lies the secret of self healing. Yoga Nidra is a pratyahara technique in which the distractions of the mind are contained and the mind is relaxed.
.........................Satyananda Saraswati
' Expectation '...
Any kind of expectation creates a problem. We should accept, but not expect. Whatever comes, accept it. Whatever goes, accept it. The immediate benefit is that your mind is always peaceful.
.....................................Swami Satchidananda
' Education '...
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
..............................Albert Einstein
' The Guns of War '...
I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I aint a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns.
.........................Woody Guthrie
' Self-sufficiency '...
A lot of people say there is no happiness in this life and certainly there's no permanent happiness. But self-sufficiency creates happiness.
....................Bob Dylan
' The Valuable Possession '...
The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace.
.............................Carlos Santana
' Level of Achievement '...
The level of achievement that we have at anything, is a reflection, of how well, we were able to focus on it. Because the only thing that's holding you back, is the way you're thinking.
........................Steve Vai
' The Illusion of Freedom '...
The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.
............................Frank Zappa
' Time '...
It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong.
.........................Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
' Time Runs Out '...
Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.
..............................Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
' Two Faces '...
No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
.............Nathaniel Hawthorne
' Simplify your Life '...
Simplify your life. Don't waste the years struggling for things that are unimportant. Don't burden yourself with possessions. Keep your needs and wants simple and enjoy what you have. Don't destroy your peace of mind by looking back, worrying about the past. Live in the present. Simplify!
...............................Henry David Thoreau
' Fundamental Honesty '...
I believe fundamental honesty is the keystone of business.
.........................Harvey S. Firestone
' The Universe '...
Without consciousness and intelligence, the universe would lack meaning.
.......................Clifford D. Simak
' Beliefs '...
So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe.
.................................Isaac Asimov
' A Story '...
A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell them to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning.
.................................Flannery O'Connor
' Raise your Voice '...
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.
.................................William Faulkner
' Several Kinds of Love '...
There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
.......................John Steinbeck
' A Society of Criminals '...
In a society of criminals, the innocent man goes to jail.
.........................Philip K. Dick
' Step out of the Hologram '...
Sometimes, you have to step outside of the person you've been and remember the person you were meant to be. The person you want to be. The person you are.
......................................H. G. Wells
' Dreaming '...
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
........................Edgar Allan Poe
' Power ,,, Wealth ,,, and Fame '...
Real power is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges.
................................George Orwell
' Nirvana '...
The traditional Buddhist belief that all happiness must in the end change into unhappiness is not a cheerful one.
It need never be taken too literally as being universally true, nor by itself alone, for there are counter weighting truths.
When Buddha brought to an end the meditation which culminated in final enlightenment, dawn was just breaking.
The last star which vanished with the night and the first one which he saw as he raised his head was Venus.
What was his inner state, then?
Did it synchronize with the reputed planetary influence of Venus--joyous and happy felicity--or with the gloomy view of life which tradition later associated with Buddhism?
Who that has had a glimpse of those higher states, felt their serenity, can doubt it was the first?
The Overself is not subjected to suffering. But this is not to say that it is bubbling with happiness.
It is rather like an immensely deep ocean, perfectly tranquil below the surface.
That tranquillity is its ever-present condition and is a true joyousness which ordinary people rarely know.
This is what Buddha felt.
This is what he called NIRVANA.
...................................Paul Brunto
' Enemies '...
I will destroy my enemies by converting them to friends.
...............................Maimonides
' Long Life '...
Width of life is more important than length of life.
........................Avicenna
' Health '...
When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot become manifest, strength cannot be exerted, wealth is useless, and reason is powerless.
....................................Herophilos
' Health and Healing '...
All that man needs for health and healing has been provided by God in nature, the Challenge of science is to find it.
................................Paracelsus
' Actions '...
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
............................John Quincy Adams
' Seize the Moments '...
Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.
..............................Leo Tolstoy
' Action has Magic '...
The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. Whatever you think you can do, or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, power and grace.
......................Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
' The Charming Gardeners '...
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
.......................Marcel Proust
' Loss of Freedom '...
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
...........................W. Somerset Maugham
' Beyond the Mind '...
The mind must be punctured by The Real Self... In Divine Consciousness ,, the Dream of life separate from Reality is found to be just another Dream... There is the Personality of Light and Love but without any other Desires... There comes one more Door to Complete Freedom called Nothingness,,, Pure Awareness without any personality or name,, except for the name of Complete Freedom.............................. thomas
' Negative Thoughts '...
Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.
.........................Willie Nelson
' The Greatest Fear '...
Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.
...................................Francis Chan
' A Happy Marriage '...
A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.
..................Ruth Graham
' Honesty and Compassion '...
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.
............................William Faulkner
' Character '...
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
..........................John Wooden
' True Self-analysis '...
Millions of people never analyze themselves. Mentally they are mechanical products of the factory of their environment, preoccupied with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, working and sleeping, and going here and there to be entertained. They don't know what or why they are seeking, nor why they never realize complete happiness and lasting satisfaction. By evading self-analysis, people go on being robots, conditioned by their environment. True self-analysis is the greatest art of progress.
................................Paramahansa Yogananda
' God of Truth '...
My hope is in you, Lord. Be my refuge, for You are my strength.... Into Your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit. You have redeemed me, Lord, God of Truth.
..................... Saint Bernadette Soubirous
' End War '...
And let them first pray together, that so they may associate in peace.
.................Benedict of Nursia
' Lose the Ego '...
He will provide the way and the means, such as you could never have imagined. Leave it all to Him, let go of yourself, lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely.
.................................St. Catherine of Siena
' Falling into Enlightenment '...
The mind must be punctured by The Real Self... In Divine Consciousness ,, the Dream of life separate from Reality is found to be just another Dream... There is the Personality of Light and Love but without any other Desires... There comes one more Door to Complete Freedom called Nothingness,,, Pure Awareness without any personality or name,, except for the name of Complete Freedom................ thomas
' Happiness '...
Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.
..............................Charles Dickens
' Tears '...
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.
..................................Washington Irving
' My Wish for You '...
This is my wish for you: Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth, Love to complete your life.
.............................Ralph Waldo Emerson
' Our Perspective '...
The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.
..........................Douglas Adams
' The Dream-state '...
There is a very Simple Secret to being happy. Just let go of your 'demand' on this moment. Any time you have a demand on the moment to give you something or remove something, there is suffering. You're Arguing with 'What Is' - Your demands keep you chained to the 'dream-state' of the conditioned mind. The desire to 'control'... is, ultimately, our unwillingness to just be awake.
...........................Adyashanti
' Being Present '...
Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems - most life situations are - but find out if you have a problem at this moment. Do you have a problem now?
............................Eckhart Tolle
' Neuroplasticity '...
Among other things, neuroplasticity means that emotions such as happiness and compassion can be cultivated in much the same way that a person can learn through repetition to play golf and basketball or master a musical instrument, and that such practice changes the activity and physical aspects of specific brain areas.
......................Andrew Weil
' Gratitude '...
Gratitude is one of the most effective ways of getting in touch with your soul.
........................Deepak Chopra
' True Happiness '...
Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
...........................Og Mandino
' The Modern Human '...
The unphilosophical majority among men are the ones most helplessly dependent on their era's dominant ideas. In times of crises these men need the guidance of some kind of theory; but, being unfamiliar with the field of ideas, they do not know that alternatives to the popular theories are possible. They know only what they have always been taught.
..............................Leonard Peikoff
' The Identity of Self '...
The identity cannot be compartmentalized; it cannot be split in halves or thirds, nor have any clearly defined set of boundaries. I do not have several identities, I only have one, made of all the elements that have shaped its unique proportions.
.............................Amin Maalouf
' War '...
I warn you against shedding blood, indulging in it and making a habit of it, for blood never sleeps.
....................Saladin
' Source '...
Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.
................Naguib Mahfouz
' Computers '...
Our first computers were born not out of greed or ego, but in the revolutionary spirit of helping common people rise above the most powerful institutions.
.............................Steve Wozniak
' Your Time '...
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
................................Steve Jobs
' Remember '...
So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and hold on to that childlike wonder about what makes the universe exist.
......................Stephen Hawking
' Great Leaders '...
Great leaders love to see people grow. The day you are afraid of them being better than you is the day you fail as a leader.
............................Jack Welch
' The Game of Life '...
A positive attitude is important, but it is only part of the story. Understanding how to surmount pain, doubt, and failure is a vital component in winning the game of life.
.................Chin-Ning Chu
' True Being '...
For if you are caught up in ideas, then you will be caught up in the
self. And even if you are caught up in ideas about nothingness, you
will still be caught up in the self. That's why we should not get
attached to the belief that things either exist or do not exist. This
is the hidden meaning when I say that my teachings are a raft to be
abandoned when you see true being.
..................Diamond Sutra ... Gautama the Buddha
' We are not Mad '...
We are not mad. We are human.We want to love, and someone must forgive us for the paths we take to love, for the paths are many and dark, and we are ardent and cruel in our journey.
..................Leonard Cohen
' Listening '...
From a very young age, my parents taught me the most important lesson of my whole life: They taught me how to listen. They taught me how to listen to everybody before I made up my own mind. When you listen, you learn. You absorb like a sponge - and your life becomes so much better than when you are just trying to be listened to all the time.
..........................Steven Spielberg
' Importance '...
Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.
...................T. S. Eliot
' Gratitude '...
Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.
..................................John Milton
' Knowledge '...
No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.
..............................L. Frank Baum
' The Secret of Happiness '...
The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.
......................James M. Barrie
' Success '...
The man is a success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.
.........................................Robert Louis Stevenson
' Life is Short '...
Life is short, Break the Rules. Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably And never regret ANYTHING That makes you smile.
............................Mark Twain
' Lonliness '...
Everyone is alone and yet nobody can do without other people, not just because they are useful... but also when it comes to happiness.
...........................................Maurice Merleau-Ponty
' How to be Nobody '...
To become imperceptible oneself, to have dismantled love in order to become capable of loving. To have dismantled one's self in order finally to be alone and meet the true double at the other end of the line. A clandestine passenger on a motionless voyage. To become like everybody else; but this, precisely, is a becoming only for one who knows how to be nobody, to no longer be anybody. To paint oneself gray on gray.
....................Gilles Deleuze
' Schools '...
Schools serve the same social functions as prisons and mental institutions- to define, classify, control, and regulate people.
............................Michel Foucault
' Transcendental Homelessness '...
Philosophy is transcendental homelessness; it is the urge to be at home everywhere
........................Gyorgy Lukacs
' The Good Stories '...
I realized that the good stories were affecting the organs of my body in various ways, and the really good ones were stimulating more than one organ. An effective story grabs your gut, tightens your throat, makes your heart race and your lungs pump, brings tears to your eyes or an explosion of laughter to your lips.
..........................Christopher Vogler
' Nothing is Better '...
Nothing is better than music; when it takes us out of time, it has done more for us than we have the right to hope for: it has broadened the limits of our sorrowful life, it has lit up the sweetness of our hours of happiness by effacing the pettinesses that diminish us, bringing us back pure and new to what was, what will be, what music has created for us.
..................................Nadia Boulanger
' Music '...
The end of all good music is to affect the soul.
.........................Claudio Monteverdi
' Your Last Day '...
Live each day like it's your last, 'cause one day you gonna be right
..................Ray Charles
' The Sandman '...
A candy coloured clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes into my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and whisper;
"Go to sleep, everything is alright"
.....................Roy Orbison
' Evils '...
The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.
........................Ludwig von Mises
' Stay Present '...
"Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of any emotional pain but also of "the one who observes," the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens."
..................................... Eckhart Tolle, "The Power of Now"
' Foes to Truth '...
The world is made up, for the most part, of fools and knaves, both irreconcileable foes to truth.
...................................George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
' Laws '...
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
........................................Cardinal Richelieu
' Two Ways of Seeing '...
There are two ways of seeing: with the body and with the soul. The body's sight can sometimes forget, but the soul remembers forever.
..........................Alexandre Dumas
' Self-existing Wakefulness '...
The basic nature of all conscious beings is 'self-existing wakefulness'.
Self-existing meaning spontaneous or without effort and wakefulness meaning natural awareness.
To ignore our basic nature, is to wander in fear and confusion,
to directly realise our essential nature is to be Enlightened.
...........................................Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
' Turn on the Light '...
Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.
...........................Sogyal Rinpoche
' Human Suffering '...
You cannot find any peace by escaping from human pain and suffering; you have to find peace and harmony right in the midst of human pain. That is the purpose of spiritual life
.............................Dainin Katagiri
' The Joy of Life '...
Moment after moment everything comes out of nothingness. This is the true joy of life.
..................Shunryu Suzuki
' Singing '...
"Singing is a way of escaping. It's another world. I'm no longer on earth."
....................Edith Piaf
' Marriage '...
"Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years."
...................Simone Signoret
' Age '...
"You can only perceive real beauty in a person as they get older."
....................Anouk Aimee
' Into the Void '...
He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.
..............................Jean-Luc Godard
' Happiness '...
Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.
.......................John Barrymore
' Profound Forgiveness '...
You cannot learn a lesson of profound forgiveness unless you understand what it is to be wounded and forgive that which has wounded you.
........................Ben Kingsley
' Sleep on It '...
Something happens when your subconscious goes to work... That's why 'Sleep on it' is an adage.
........................Jon Voight
' Liberty '...
Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.
.....................D. H. Lawrence
' A Source of Evil '...
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
.......................Joseph Conrad
' The Easiest Thing '...
The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.
.............................Leo Buscaglia
' Greed '...
Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.
............................Erich Fromm
' The Lust for Power '...
The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness.
............................Erich Fromm
' We Learn '...
We learn...
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we both hear and see
70% of what is discussed
80% of what we experience personally
95% of what we teach to someone else
.................................William Glasser
' Self-helping Thoughts '...
You have considerable power to construct self-helping thoughts, feelings and actions as well as to construct self-defeating behaviors. You have the ability, if you use it, to choose healthy instead of unhealthy thinking, feeling and acting.
................................Albert Ellis
' Here I Stand '...
Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason-I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other-my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.
...........................Martin Luther
' Talking '...
Talking much is a sign of vanity, for the one who is lavish with words is cheap in deeds.
.......................................Walter Raleigh
' The Secret of Happiness '...
The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their troubles.
........................William Penn
' The Greatest Loss '...
Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
.............................Norman Cousins
' Three Degrees of Knowledge '...
Knowledge has three degrees--opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition.
...................................Plotinus
' Troubles '...
But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own.
................................Herodotus
' Behavior '...
I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies.
..............................Winston Churchill
' Enthusiasm '...
I would rather hire a man with enthusiasm, than a man who knows everything.
........................John D. Rockefeller
' Negative Thoughts '...
When you close the door of your mind to negative thoughts, the door of opportunity opens to you.
..........................Napoleon Hill
' Create Trust '...
When you make a commitment, you create hope. When you keep a commitment you create trust!
....................John C. Maxwell
' Think Lovingly '...
Think lovingly, speak lovingly, act lovingly, and every need shall be supplied.
...............................James Allen
' Your Gardian Angel '...
Trust your intuition. It is the best friend you will ever have.
.............................Judith Orloff
' Our Deepest Fear '...
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
............................Marianne Williamson
' Always say Yes '...
Always say 'yes' to the present moment... Surrender to what is. Say 'yes' to life - and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you.
..................................Eckhart Tolle
' Progress of Wisdom '...
Do not be impatient with your seemingly slow progress. Do not try to run faster than you presently can. If you are studying, reflecting and trying, you are making progress whether you are aware of it or not. A traveler walking the road in the darkness of night is still going forward. Someday, some way, everything will break open, like the natural unfolding of a rosebud.
..............................Vernon Howard
' Light and Dark '...
We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.
....................................J. K. Rowling
' Only in Books '...
The world was a terrible place, cruel, pitiless, dark as a bad dream. Not a good place to live. Only in books could you find pity, comfort, happiness - and love. Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave you security and friendship and didn't ask anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly.
..............................Cornelia Funke
' Smile '...
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.
...........................Dr. Seuss
' Happiness '...
Happiness is anyone and anything that's loved by you.
......................Charles M. Schulz
' Know It or Not '...
When you seek truth, you seek God whether you know it or not.
..........................Edith Stein
' Love Endures Everything '...
Love endures everything, love is stronger than death, love fears nothing.
...........................Mary Faustina Kowalska
' Divinity Hidden '...
Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it.
...................................Josemaria Escriva
' Prayer '...
Prayer is the raising of the mind to God. We must always remember this. The actual words matter less.
.......................Pope John XXIII
' Moksha '...
Moksha is derived from the root, muc, which means to free, let go, release, liberate.... In Buddhism,, It is called Enlightenment... It is the Surrender of the 'ego-desire' to the Universe,,, Freeing You as Divine Consciousness back Home to Light, Love, and Knowledge............. thomas
' Real Power '...
Real power is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges.
.......................................George Orwell
' Righteousness '...
Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right.
.............................Ezra Taft Benson
' Procrastination '...
Do not procrastinate. Someone has said that procrastination is the thief of time. Actually, procrastination is much more. It is the thief of our self-respect. It nags at us and spoils our fun. It deprives us of the fullest realization of our ambitions and hopes.
..................................Thomas S. Monson
' The Nazarine Speaks '...
Through John Smallman
.........................................
As you wait most expectantly, and filled with excitement for the grand awakening, it is essential that you continue to visit the holy inner sanctuaries deep within yourselves every day to reset the intent to be only loving whatever arises. You are all Love incarnate, but for the most part you become so busy with your daily human lives, and distracted from the reality of who you truly are by the stress of those daily lives as humans, that you remain in your illusory or dream-like state of unawareness of your authentic nature. The world of form seems very real, because this was your intention when you built it, and this is indeed very confusing for you as you live within it today.
Visiting your holy inner sanctuaries and resetting your loving intent reminds you, for a moment or two, that you are Love incarnate, then you get re-distracted by the demands of daily life. But those momentary periods of awareness do most effectively redirect each one of you toward your pre-incarnationally chosen life path, and beneath the daily life distractions you do, if rather unconsciously, follow that path.
Because you chose your paths, with divine assistance and enormous encouragement, you cannot fail to follow them precisely as intended. Therefore, whenever any sense of unworthiness, incompetence, or not being good enough arises, dismiss it because it is completely invalid. You are, each and every one of you, totally competent to follow the paths you planned for yourselves before incarnating to be on Earth as humans in this time of your awakening. Trust yourselves . . . God does, and He knows that you will succeed.
You cannot be unaware of the immense amount of suffering that is presently being experienced by so many on Planet Earth right now, and setting the intent to send love to those in pain or suffering is very effective and potent. Your task, as well as to follow your own individual and perfectly planned life paths, is to assist others by allowing Love to flow through you to all of humanity without any exceptions whatsoever. Let go of any felt need to judge anyone else. You do not and cannot know or understand the path that another is following – after all you frequently have great difficulty making sense of your own paths.
Everyone, absolutely everyone, is following their own individual paths perfectly, and what is occurring all across the planet right now is an enormous movement towards an awareness of the infinite power of Love, and an awareness that it is the only power available; and of course, therefore, you need nothing else! As more and more of humanity opens to this Truth and invites Love into their hearts, and then allows and intends for It to flow through them to all of humankind, the awakening process intensifies, because Love is filling more and more hearts and flowing most vigorously through them to amalgamate and integrate with the Tsunami of Love that has been bathing and embracing the world for quite a number of decades in preparation for this moment of NOW.
You are on Earth now in form as humans to awaken. You chose to be here to participate in this miraculous event, and you are all highly honored for doing so, because, immersed in the illusion as you are, you are intensely experiencing the sense of separation from your Source that it is intended to provide. Separation is unreal, and has not and never will occur, but while you are in form you do experience it incredibly realistically, and often that can cause you a lot of pain and suffering. When you awaken that will all be gone, as will all painful and disturbing or unsettling memories, because in Reality, in the eternal Presence of Mother/Father/God there is only Love and all that is in complete alignment with It – joy, peace, bliss, happiness, and an infinite variety of etceteras.
As you wait with enthusiastic anticipation for THE moment of awakening, know that all is proceeding perfectly, just as divinely willed, and rest assured that the instant in which it blooms has been most magnificently prepared to astound you all in your remembering and consequent re-experiencing of the beauty and brilliance that Reality is – the extreme joy of being at One with and eternally in the Presence of your infinitely loving Source. That state cannot be imagined, it can only be experienced, and WHAT a magnificent experience that is going to be for you all!
So, go within daily, to your holy inner sanctuaries, and invite Love into your hearts, then reset the intent that It flows through you to bless and embrace all those you know and love, and also, of course because all are one, ALL sentient life forms, and thus bring all to their most glorious moment of awakening.
Your loving brother, Jesus.
' Now '...
Why should you trouble yourself about the future? You do not even properly know about the present. Take care of the present, the future will take care of itself.
..............................Ramana Maharshi
' Pride '...
Do not be proud of wealth, people, relations and friends, or youth. All these are snatched by time in the blink of an eye. Giving up this illusory world, know and attain the Supreme.
.............................Adi Shankara
' The Beloved '...
The Beloved is inside you and also inside me. You know the tree is hidden inside the seed. Let your arrogance go. None of us has gone far. Inside love there is more power than we realize.
..............................Kabi
' What Kills the Ego '...
The ego can exist only if you take yourself and everything seriously. Nothing kills the ego like playfulness, like laughter. When you start taking life as fun, the ego has to die, it cannot exist anymore. Ego is illness; it needs an atmosphere of sadness to exist. Seriousness creates the sadness in you. Sadness is a necessary soil for the ego. Hence your saints are so serious, for the simple reason that they are the most egoistic people on the earth. They may be trying to be humble, but they are very proud of their humbleness. They take their humbleness very seriously.
....................................Rajneesh
' What we Do '...
It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.
......................Jane Austen
' Christmas,,, 2022 '...
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
...................................Charles Dickens
' Intellectual and Spiritual '...
The most dangerous condition for a man or a nation is when his intellectual side is more developed than his spiritual. Is that not exactly the condition of the world today?
..............................Arthur Conan Doyle
' Stronger than Hate '...
Let your love be stronger than your hate or anger. Learn the wisdom of compromise, for it is better to bend a little than to break.
................................H. G. Wells
' Self-education '...
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.
.............................Isaac Asimov
' Happiness is Beauty '...
Happiness lies in thinking or doing that which one considers beautiful.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
......................................................................
What is really good? The answer is, there is no such thing as good or evil.
There is beauty. That which is beautiful, we call good. That which is ugly
compared with the beautiful, we call evil: whether it is custom, idea, thought
or action. This shows that this whole phenomenon of the universe is the
phenomenon of beauty. Every soul has an inclination to admire beauty, to seek
for beauty, to love beauty, and to develop beauty. Even God loves beauty.
In all ages the various religions have given different standards of good and
evil, calling them virtue and sin. The virtue of one nation has been the sin of
another. The virtue of the latter is the sin of the former. Travel as we may
through the world, or read the histories and traditions of nations as we may, we
shall still find that what one calls evil, another calls good. That is why no
one can succeed in making a universal standard for good and evil. The
discrimination between good and evil is in man's soul. Every man can judge that
for himself, because in every man is the sense of admiration of beauty. But he
is not satisfied with what he does himself, he feels a discomfort, a disgust
with his own efforts. There are many people who continue some weakness or some
mistake, or who are intoxicated by some action which the world calls evil or
which they themselves call evil, yet go on doing it. But a day comes when they
also are disgusted. Then they wish for suicide. There is no more happiness for
them. Happiness only lies in thinking or doing that which one considers
beautiful. Such an act becomes a virtue or goodness. That goodness is beauty.
Man is always seeking for beauty, and yet he is unaware of the treasure of
beauty that is hidden in his own heart. He strives after it throughout his whole
life. It is as if he was in pursuit of the horizon: the further he proceeds, the
further the horizon seems to have moved away. For there are two aims: the one is
real, and the other false. That which is false is momentary, transitory, and
unreliable - wealth, power, fame, and position are all snatched from one hand by
the other. ... Man wants something in life upon which he can rely; and this
shows, whether he believes in a deity or not, that he is constantly seeking for
God. He seeks for Him not knowing that he is seeking for God. Nevertheless,
every soul is pursuing some reality, something to hold on to; trying to grasp
something which will prove dependable, a beauty that cannot change and that one
can always look upon as one's own, a beauty that one feels will last forever.
And where can one find it? Within one's own heart. And it is the art of finding
that beauty, of developing, improving, and spreading that beauty through life,
allowing it to manifest before the inner and outer view, which one calls the art
of the mystic.
' Metaphysics and Mathematics '...
Thus metaphysics and mathematics are, among all the sciences that belong to reason, those in which imagination has the greatest role. I beg pardon of those delicate spirits who are detractors of mathematics for saying this . . . . The imagination in a mathematician who creates makes no less difference than in a poet who invents. . . . Of all the great men of antiquity, Archimedes may be the one who most deserves to be placed beside Homer.
......................................Jean le Rond d'Alembert
' Power '...
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
............................Voltaire
' Losing the Ego '...
I remember the first time I had this astonishing experience. I was fond of disappearing from London whenever the weather allowed and wandering alongside the river Thames in its more picturesque country parts. If the day was sunny I would stretch my feet out, lie down in the grass, pull out notebook and pen from my pocket--knowing that thoughts would eventually arise that would have for me an instructive or even revelatory nature, apart from those ordinary ones which were merely expressive.
One day, while I was waiting for these thoughts to arise, I lost the feeling that I was there at all. I seemed to dissolve and vanish from that place, but not from consciousness. Something was there, a presence, certainly not me, but I was fully aware of it. It seemed to be something of the highest importance, the only thing that mattered.
After a few minutes I came back, discovered myself in time and space again; but a great peace had touched me and a very benevolent feeling was still with me. I looked at the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, and the grass and felt a tremendous sympathy with them and then and then when I thought of other persons a tremendous benevolence towards them.
...................................Paul Brunton
' Happiness '...
Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.
..............................Isaac Asimov
' Practice any Art '...
Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.
......................Kurt Vonnegut
' Toleration of Wrong '...
Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.
.......................Robert Kennedy
' The Dark Night '...
The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!
......................Fyodor Dostoevsky
' Walking '...
Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
.................Albert Camus
' Metaphysics '...
The way towards 'wisdom' or towards 'freedom' is the way towards your inner being. This is the simplest definition of metaphysics.
.................................Mircea Eliade
' Follow your Bliss '...
Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Follow the path that is no path, follow your bliss.
...............................Joseph Campbell
' The Number pi '...
The soul may not be destroyed. The soul goes on forever. Like the number pi, it is without cessation or conclusion. Like pi it is a constant. Pi is an irrational number, incapable of being made into a fraction, impossible to divide from itself. So, too, the soul is an irrational, indivisible equation that perfectly expresses one thing: you.
................................Joe Hill
' A Compassionate Heart '...
Imagine you are walking in the woods and you see a small dog sitting by a tree. As you approach it, it suddenly lunges at you, teeth bared. You are frightened and angry. But then you notice that one of its legs is caught in a trap. Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern: You see that the dog's aggression is coming from a place of vulnerability and pain. This applies to all of us. When we behave in hurtful ways, it is because we are caught in some kind of trap. The more we look through the eyes of wisdom at ourselves and one another, the more we cultivate a compassionate heart.
...................................Tara Brach
' The Power of Belief '...
Thoughts are just moving through consciousness. They have no power. Nothing has reality until you reach it, grab it, and somehow impregnate it with the power of belief.
.............................Adyashanti
' Non-Duality '...
You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don’t have a life. You are life.
..................................Eckhart Tolle
' Human Nonsense '...
See human nonsense as nonsense and save years of trying to make sense out of it.
.................................Vernon Howard
' Is Society Doomed ?'...
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.
...............................Ayn Rand
' Liberty '...
When we prohibit others from being different, we end up forfeiting our own right to Liberty.
...................................John Webster
' Manifestation '...
The true way to gain much is never to desire to gain too much.
...........................Francis Beaumont
' Life is Short '...
When men are not regretting that life is so short, they are doing something to kill time.
....................................E. W. Howe
' Ignorance '...
Ignorance ain't not knowin' stuff; ignorance is knowin' stuff that AIN'T TRUE.
.......................Josh Billings
' Matter and Spirit '...
Life is the hyphen between matter and spirit.
......................Augustus William Hare
' The Power of Life '...
The power of life that is buried deep inside you will never rise up until you have become convinced that you're walking the only path open for you.
.....................Kosho Uchiyama
' Finding Truth '...
If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
.................................Dogen
' Breathing '...
Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out.
Breathing in, I am grateful for this moment.
Breathing out, I smile.
Breathing in, I am aware of the preciousness of this day.
Breathing out, I vow to live deeply in this day.
....................................Nhat Hanh
' Inner Peace '...
When we start to feel anxious or depressed, instead of asking, "What do I need to get to be happy?" The question becomes, "What am I doing to disturb the inner peace that I already have?"
.........................D.T. Suzuki
' True Love '...
It is only true love when you have no choice. Love is the most highly valued disease that is identified by the symptom of You-can´t-help-it.
.....................................Martin Walser
' Action has Magic '...
The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. Whatever you think you can do, or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, power and grace.
.............................Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
' What is Life ?'...
What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story. And the greatest good is little enough: for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams.
..............................Pedro Calderon de la Barca
' Tranquility '...
The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.
.......................James Allen
' The Meaning of Life '...
The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.
.......................Pablo Picasso
' Purest Feelings '...
Take pleasure in your dreams; relish your principles and drape your purest feelings on the heart of a precious lover.
...........................Giotto di Bondone
' Light '...
For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.
..........................Claude Monet
' The Best Portion '...
That best portion of a man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
.....................William Wordsworth
' Your Imaginary Life '...
Everybody has his own theatre, in which he is manager, actor, prompter, playwright, sceneshifter, boxkeeper, doorkeeper, all in one, and audience into the bargain.
...............................Julius Charles Hare
' Emptiness '...
He who has seen everything empty itself is close to knowing what everything is filled with.
..............................Antonio Porchia
' Free Speech '...
Free speech is my right to say what you don't want to hear.
.................George Orwell
' Destroying a Culture '...
You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
.............................Ray Bradbury
' I Exist '...
Sir,' I said to the universe, 'I exist.' 'That,' said the universe, 'creates no sense of obligation in me whatsoever.
...............................Douglas Adams
' Belief '...
Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.
..................Edgar Allan Poe
' Unselfish Love '...
If we give what we treasure most to a Being we love with all our hearts, if we can do that without expecting anything in return, then the world becomes a beautiful place.
.................................Orhan Pamuk
' Humor '...
Humor is really one of the hardest things to define, very hard. And it's very ambiguous. You have it or you don't. You can't attain it. There are terrible forms of professional humor, the humorists' humor. That can be awful. It depresses me because it is artificial. You can't always be humorous, but a professional humorist must. That is a sad phenomenon.
..................................Heinrich Böll
' Time '...
If the years of youth are experienced slowly, while the later years of life hurtle past at an ever-increasing speed, it must be habit that causes it. We know full well that the insertion of new habits or the changing of old ones is the only way to preserve life, to renew our sense of time, to rejuvenate, intensify, and retard our experience of time - and thereby renew our sense of life itself. That is the reason for every change of scenery and air.
................................Thomas Mann
' Lies '...
A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying - lying to others and to yourself.
....................Fyodor Dostoevsky
' United States of Corporations '...
The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That's the only difference.
..........................Ralph Nader
' Empathy '...
Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.
..................Cornel West
' Choose to Love '...
When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other.
...................Bell Hooks
' Miracles '...
Around us, life bursts with miracles--a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life's daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.
.......................Nhat Hanh
' Patriotism '...
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.
.....................Theodore Roosevelt
' Silencing Opposition '...
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
..............................Harry S. Truman
' To Serve '...
We the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve
.......................Dwight D. Eisenhower
' Many Races '...
We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions-bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities.
.......................Franklin D. Roosevelt
' Silence '...
Nothing more enhances authority than silence. It is the crowning virtue of the strong, the refuge of the weak, the modesty of the proud, the pride of the humble, the prudence of the wise, and the sense of fools. To speak is to . . . dissipate one's strength; whereas what action demands is concentration. Silence is a necessary preliminary to the ordering of one's thoughts.
......................Charles de Gaulle
' Only Love is Real '...
John Smallman................... From a Nazarine Mystic..................................
As you are well aware humanity is awakening right now! This is God’s Will, God’s Will for humanity, and God’s Will always comes to fruition just as intended, and His Will is always for eternal peace, joy, and harmonious cooperation throughout heaven – Reality. When you awaken and see the divine gardens of heaven, their brilliance and beauty will most joyfully astound you. To awaken is your divine and fully assured destiny, and the moment for that to happen is closer than you can possibly imagine.
Renew your faith and trust in God regularly during your day, because doing so magnificently intensifies the power and effect of your individual human energy fields as they interact with each other all across Planet Earth. Your presence in form now is an irreplaceable and essential aspect of the collective awakening process, and it is why you chose to be on Earth at this moment in the process. There are no accidents!
Your presence on Earth as humans at this moment is the divine Will of Mother/Father/God, and also, of course, your will. Even though, as humans in form, it is almost impossible for you to be aware that your wills and the Will of God are constantly in alignment. But yes, your collective wills are always in alignment with the Will of God.
Your response to that is most likely: “How can that be when there is presently so much pain and suffering on Earth, and when it has been like this throughout our entire history as humans?”
I will just remind you once more that what you are experiencing is unreal. You collectively chose, but a moment ago, to build and enter an unreal or dream environment where you could experience separation from Source. A state that is completely unreal and which cannot possibly exist. Because you have the Power of God, given freely and infinitely lovingly to you at the moment of your creation, along with your free will, you were able to build an hallucination, a dream or nightmare illusion of absolutely terrifying proportions – a vast sense of separation from Source. When you chose to engage with it by entering into it, you thought you were taking part in a harmless and amusing game. You really were not fully mindful of what you had chosen to do. Now you are experiencing the results of that insane choice, and which appear to you to have been the case for eons of time. And again, I remind you, it is unreal!
Your awakening is your collective choice to dissolve that unreal environment and return to full awareness of your inseparable Oneness with Mother/Father/God – LOVE. The magnificence and brilliance of that return to Reality was divinely planned at the same moment that you chose to hide Reality from yourselves, because God in His infinite Love and Wisdom knew that you would become totally lost in the experience that you had chosen to undergo, and would be unable to find your way Home without holy guidance. Wandering through that unreal environment you came upon signs and indicators offering you guidance, guidance that initially you chose to ignore. Various holy ones or mystics have, on countless occasions over the eons, entered your dream to show you the way Home, and some of them have been most highly revered by parts of the collective, and their words of guidance have been widely shared. Now, finally, that guidance is being widely followed as awareness that only Love is Real most rapidly intensifies.
Love is what you are, each and every one of you, there are no exceptions. Those you might judge as unloving or worse, are in fact, just like everyone else, lost souls in the nightmare that they helped to build. Like you they will awaken, although possibly not in the same moment as the collective majority, and they will be honored, as are you, for the suffering that they have undergone as they searched for the way Home.
Many of you have experienced the thought or the dogma of the necessity of being saved. However, all are already saved. To be saved is to awaken, and that has in truth already happened, it is just that the vast majority have not yet chosen to accept this divine truth, and so remain with their eyes closed.
Your collective awakening is, therefore, a collective opening of your eyes to the Love that you are, to the full awareness of the Love that you are, to the full awareness of your inseparability from the Oneness that is Mother/Father/God. That opening of your eyes – obviously this is a metaphor for something far more wondrous – is the moment when you reach the end of your earthly path and are most enthusiastically and most wholeheartedly welcomed Home. The celebrations that have been planned for this ineffable moment will astound you. Many of you have, during your lives on Earth, been welcomed home from overseas, from college, from hospital, or from long and painful separations, and have experienced wonder at the explosion of love you felt embracing you mightily and so extremely warmly from those loved ones welcoming you. Your joy and happiness on those occasions was probably quite overwhelming.
WELL, you are to be welcomed HOME to REALITY! Home from a long and painful journey that has seemed endless for most of you, and you can have absolutely no idea at all of how amazing and wondrous that welcome will be. Prepare yourselves for joy that is beyond miraculous. And yet you cannot. It is impossible to prepare yourselves for the wonder of which all of you are essential parts, the Wonder of Oneness.
Your loving brother, Jesus.
' Within '...
As fragrance abides in the flower
As reflection is within the mirror,
So does your Lord abide within you,
Why search for him without?
......................Guru Nanak
' Success in Life '...
To be successful in life what you need is education, not literacy and degrees.
.....................Munshi Premchand
' The Highest Education '...
The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.
.........................Rabindranath Tagore
' Doubt '...
Doubt is a very important trait. Out of doubt comes thinking, decisions, choices. We learn stuff. We learn to make mistakes. Or not to.
..............Martin Landau
' Morning '...
No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.
.............................Bram Stoker
' Architecture '...
You employ stone, wood and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work.
But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say: This is beautiful. That is Architecture. Art enters in.
.....................Le Corbusier
' The Job of a Citizen '...
The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.
.....................Gunter Grass
' Something Stronger '...
My dear, In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm. I realized, through it all, that… In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back. Truly yours, Albert Camus
......................Albert Camus
' The Opposite of Love '...
I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn.
........................Leo Buscaglia
' True Nobility '...
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.
....................Ernest Hemingway
' A Miracle '...
I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.
.......................Kurt Vonnegut
' Self-Education '...
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.
...........................Isaac Asimov
' The Love of Learning '...
love of learning is the most necessary passion ... in it lies our happiness. It's a sure remedy for what ails us, an unending source of pleasure.
.....................Emilie du Chatelet
' World Suffering '...
You add to the suffering in the world when you take offense, just as much as you do when you give offense.
.......................Ken Keyes Jr.
' Learning to Die '...
Learning to live ought to mean learning to die - to acknowledge, to accept, an absolute mortality - without positive outcome,or resurrection, or redemption, for oneself or for anyone else. That has been the old philosophical injunction since Plato: to be a philosopher is to learn how to die.
.............................Jacques Derrida
' Time and Space '...
Love is the time and space where "I" give myself the right to be extraordinary.
.................................Julia Kristeva
' The General Population '...
The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.
.......................Noam Chomsky
' Illegal Mandates '...
A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power not authorized by the constitution is an assumed power, and therefore illegal.
.....................Thomas Paine
' Ego.. the False Center '...
The first thing to be understood is what ego is. A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself; the first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards.
That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others. 'Other' means the thou. He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body.
This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, thou, other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, thou, he becomes aware of himself.
This awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says, "You are beautiful," if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born.
Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance.
A center is born.
But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is; he simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born: an ill ego; sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego. This too is a reflection.
First the mother - and mother means the world in the beginning. Then others will join the mother, and the world goes on growing. And the more the world grows, the more complex the ego becomes, because many others' opinions are reflected.
The ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others. If a child lives totally alone, he will never come to grow an ego. But that is not going to help. He will remain like an animal. That doesn't mean that he will come to know the real self, no.
The real can be known only through the false, so the ego is a must. One has to pass through it. It is a discipline. The real can be known only through the illusion. You cannot know the truth directly. First you have to know that which is not true. First you have to encounter the untrue. Through that encounter you become capable of knowing the truth. If you know the false as the false, truth will dawn upon you.
Ego is a need; it is a social need, it is a social by-product. The society means all that is around you - not you, but all that is around you. All, minus you, is the society. And everybody reflects. You will go to school and the teacher will reflect who you are. You will be in friendship with other children and they will reflect who you are. By and by, everybody is adding to your ego, and everybody is trying to modify it in such a way that you don't become a problem to the society.
They are not concerned with you.
They are concerned with the society.
Society is concerned with itself, and that's how it should be.
They are not concerned that you should become a self-knower. They are concerned that you should become an efficient part in the mechanism of the society. You should fit into the pattern. So they are trying to give you an ego that fits with the society. They teach you morality. Morality means giving you an ego which will fit with the society. If you are immoral, you will always be a misfit somewhere or other. That's why we put criminals in the prisons - not that they have done something wrong, not that by putting them in the prisons we are going to improve them, no. They simply don't fit. They are troublemakers. They have certain types of egos of which the society doesn't approve. If the society approves, everything is good.
One man kills somebody - he is a murderer.
And the same man in wartime kills thousands - he becomes a great hero. The society is not bothered by a murder, but the murder should be commited for the society - then it is okay. The society doesn't bother about morality.
Morality means only that you should fit with the society.
If the society is at war, then the morality changes.
If the society is at peace, then there is a different morality.
Morality is a social politics. It is diplomacy. And each child has to be brought up in such a way that he fits into the society, that's all. Because society is interested in efficient members. Society is not interested that you should attain to self-knowledge.
The society creates an ego because the ego can be controlled and manipulated. The self can never be controlled or manipulated. Nobody has ever heard of the society controlling a self - not possible.
And the child needs a center; the child is completely unaware of his own center. The society gives him a center and the child is by and by convinced that this is his center, the ego that society gives.
A child comes back to his home - if he has come first in his class, the whole family is happy. You hug and kiss him, and you take the child on your shoulders and dance and you say, "What a beautiful child! You are a pride to us." You are giving him an ego, a subtle ego. And if the child comes home dejected, unsuccessful, a failure - he couldn't pass, or he has just been on the back bench - then nobody appreciates him and the child feels rejected. He will try harder next time, because the center feels shaken.
Ego is always shaken, always in search of food, that somebody should appreciate it. That's why you continuously ask for attention.
You get the idea of who you are from others.
It is not a direct experience.
It is from others that you get the idea of who you are. They shape your center. This center is false, because you carry your real center. That is nobody's business. Nobody shapes it.
You come with it.
You are born with it.
So you have two centers. One center you come with, which is given by existence itself. That is the self. And the other center, which is created by the society, is the ego. It is a false thing - and it is a very great trick. Through the ego the society is controlling you. You have to behave in a certain way, because only then does the society appreciate you. You have to walk in a certain way; you have to laugh in a certain way; you have to follow certain manners, a morality, a code. Only then will the society appreciate you, and if it doesn't, you ego will be shaken. And when the ego is shaken, you don't know where you are, who you are.
The others have given you the idea.
That idea is the ego.
Try to understand it as deeply as possible, because this has to be thrown. And unless you throw it you will never be able to attain to the self. Because you are addicted to the center, you cannot move, and you cannot look at the self.
And remember, there is going to be an interim period, an interval, when the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are, when you will not know where you are going, when all boundaries will melt.
You will simply be confused, a chaos.
Because of this chaos, you are afraid to lose the ego. But it has to be so. One has to pass through the chaos before one attains to the real center.
And if you are daring, the period will be small.
If you are afraid, and you again fall back to the ego, and you again start arranging it, then it can be very, very long; many lives can be wasted.
I have heard: One small child was visiting his grandparents. He was just four years old. In the night when the grandmother was putting him to sleep, he suddenly started crying and weeping and said, "I want to go home. I am afraid of darkness." But the grandmother said, "I know well that at home also you sleep in the dark; I have never seen a light on. So why are you afraid here?" The boy said, "Yes, that's right - but that is MY darkness." This darkness is completely unknown.
Even with darkness you feel, "This is MINE."
Outside - an unknown darkness.
With the ego you feel, "This is MY darkness."
It may be troublesome, maybe it creates many miseries, but still mine. Something to hold to, something to cling to, something underneath the feet; you are not in a vacuum, not in an emptiness. You may be miserable, but at least you ARE. Even being miserable gives you a feeling of 'I am'. Moving from it, fear takes over; you start feeling afraid of the unknown darkness and chaos - because society has managed to clear a small part of your being.
It is just like going to a forest. You make a little clearing, you clear a little ground; you make fencing, you make a small hut; you make a small garden, a lawn, and you are okay. Beyond your fence - the forest, the wild. Here everything is okay; you have planned everything. This is how it has happened.
Society has made a little clearing in your consciousness. It has cleaned just a little part completely, fenced it. Everything is okay there. That's what all your universities are doing. The whole culture and conditioning is just to clear a part so that you can feel at home there.
And then you become afraid.
Beyond the fence there is danger.
Beyond the fence you are, as within the fence you are - and your conscious mind is just one part, one-tenth of your whole being. Nine-tenths is waiting in the darkness. And in that nine-tenths, somewhere your real center is hidden.
One has to be daring, courageous.
One has to take a step into the unknown.
For a while all boundaries will be lost.
For a while you will feel dizzy.
For a while, you will feel very afraid and shaken, as if an earthquake has happened. But if you are courageous and you don't go backwards, if you don't fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives.
That is your soul, the self.
Once you come near it, everything changes, everything settles again. But now this settling is not done by the society. Now everything becomes a cosmos, not a chaos; a new order arises.
But this is no longer the order of the society - it is the very order of existence itself.
It is what Buddha calls Dhamma, Lao Tzu calls Tao, Heraclitus calls Logos. It is not man-made. It is the VERY order of existence itself. Then everything is suddenly beautiful again, and for the first time really beautiful, because man-made things cannot be beautiful. At the most you can hide the ugliness of them, that's all. You can decorate them, but they can never be beautiful.
The difference is just like the difference between a real flower and a plastic or paper flower. The ego is a plastic flower - dead. It just looks like a flower, it is not a flower. You cannot really call it a flower. Even linguistically to call it a flower is wrong, because a flower is something which flowers. And this plastic thing is just a thing, not a flowering. It is dead. There is no life in it.
You have a flowering center within. That's why Hindus call it a lotus - it is a flowering. They call it the one-thousand-petaled-lotus. One thousand means infinite petals. And it goes on flowering, it never stops, it never dies.
But you are satisfied with a plastic ego.
There are some reasons why you are satisfied. With a dead thing, there are many conveniences. One is that a dead thing never dies. It cannot - it was never alive. So you can have plastic flowers, they are good in a way. They are permanent; they are not eternal, but they are permanent.
The real flower outside in the garden is eternal, but not permanent. And the eternal has its own way of being eternal. The way of the eternal is to be born again and again and to die. Through death it refreshes itself, rejuvenates itself.
To us it appears that the flower has died - it never dies.
It simply changes bodies, so it is ever fresh.
It leaves the old body, it enters a new body. It flowers somewhere else; it goes on flowering.
But we cannot see the continuity because the continuity is invisible. We see only one flower, another flower; we never see the continuity.
It is the same flower which flowered yesterday.
It is the same sun, but in a different garb.
The ego has a certain quality - it is dead. It is a plastic thing. And it is very easy to get it, because others give it. You need not seek it, there is no search involved. That's why unless you become a seeker after the unknown, you have not yet become an individual. You are just a part of the crowd. You are just a mob.
When you don't have a real center, how can you be an individual?
The ego is not individual. Ego is a social phenomenon - it is society, its not you. But it gives you a function in the society, a hierarchy in the society. And if you remain satisfied with it, you will miss the whole opportunity of finding the self.
And that's why you are so miserable.
With a plastic life, how can you be happy?
With a false life, how can you be ecstatic and blissful? And then this ego creates many miseries, millions of them.
You cannot see, because it is your own darkness. You are attuned to it.
Have you ever noticed that all types of miseries enter through the ego? It cannot make you blissful; it can only make you miserable.
Ego is hell.
Whenever you suffer, just try to watch and analyze, and you will find, somewhere the ego is the cause of it. And the ego goes on finding causes to suffer.
You are an egoist, as everyone is. Some are very gross, just on the surface, and they are not so difficult. Some are very subtle, deep down, and they are the real problems.
This ego comes continuously in conflict with others because every ego is so unconfident about itself. Is has to be - it is a false thing. When you don't have anything in your hand and you just think that something is there, then there will be a problem.
If somebody says, "There is nothing," immediately the fight will start, because you also feel that there is nothing. The other makes you aware of the fact.
Ego is false, it is nothing.
That you also know.
How can you miss knowing it? It is impossible! A conscious being - how can he miss knowing that this ego is just false? And then others say that there is nothing - and whenever the others say that there is nothing they hit a wound, they say a truth - and nothing hits like the truth.
You have to defend, because if you don't defend, if you don't become defensive, then where will you be?
You will be lost.
The identity will be broken.
So you have to defend and fight - that is the clash.
A man who attains to the self is never in any clash. Others may come and clash with him, but he is never in clash with anybody.
It happened that one Zen master was passing through a street. A man came running and hit him hard. The master fell down. Then he got up and started to walk in the same direction in which he was going before, not even looking back.
A disciple was with the master. He was simply shocked. He said, "Who is this man? What is this? If one lives in such a way, then anybody can come and kill you. And you have not even looked at that person, who he is, and why he did it."
The master said, "That is his problem, not mine."
You can clash with an enlightened man, but that is your problem, not his. And if you are hurt in that clash, that too is your own problem. He cannot hurt you. And it is like knocking against a wall - you will be hurt, but the wall has not hurt you.
The ego is always looking for some trouble. Why? Because if nobody pays attention to you, the ego feels hungry.
It lives on attention.
So even if somebody is fighting and angry with you, that too is good because at least the attention is paid. If somebody loves, it is okay. If somebody is not loving you, then even anger will be good. At least the attention will come to you. But if nobody is paying any attention to you, nobody thinks that you are somebody important, significant, then how will you feed your ego?
Other's attention is needed.
In millions of ways you attract the attention of others; you dress in a certain way, you try to look beautiful, you behave, you become very polite, you change. When you feel what type of situation is there, you immediately change so that people pay attention to you.
This is a deep begging.
A real beggar is one who asks for and demands attention. And a real emperor is one who lives in himself; he has a center of his own, he doesn't depend on anybody else.
Buddha sitting under his bodhi tree...if the whole world suddenly disappears, will it make any difference to Buddha? -none. It will not make any difference at all. If the whole world disappears, it will not make any difference because he has attained to the center.
But you, if the wife escapes, divorces you, goes to somebody else, you are completely shattered - because she had been paying attention to you, caring, loving, moving around you, helping you to feel that you were somebody. Your whole empire is lost, you are simply shattered. You start thinking about suicide. Why? Why, if a wife leaves you, should you commit suicide? Why, if a husband leaves you, should you commit suicide? Because you don't have any center of your own. The wife was giving you the center; the husband was giving you the center.
This is how people exist. This is how people become dependent on others. It is a deep slavery. Ego HAS to be a slave. It depends on others. And only a person who has no ego is for the first time a master; he is no longer a slave. Try to understand this.
And start looking for the ego - not in others, that is not your business, but in yourself. Whenever you feel miserable, immediately close you eyes and try to find out from where the misery is coming and you will always find it is the false center which has clashed with someone.
You expected something, and it didn't happen.
You expected something, and just the contrary happened - your ego is shaken, you are in misery. Just look, whenever you are miserable, try to find out why.
Causes are not outside you. The basic cause is within you - but you always look outside, you always ask:
Who is making me miserable?
Who is the cause of my anger?
Who is the cause of my anguish?
And if you look outside you will miss.
Just close the eyes and always look within.
The source of all misery, anger, anguish, is hidden in you, your ego.
And if you find the source, it will be easy to move beyond it. If you can see that it is your own ego that gives you trouble, you will prefer to drop it - because nobody can carry the source of misery if he understands it.
And remember, there is no need to drop the ego.
You cannot drop it.
If you try to drop it, you will attain to a certain subtle ego again which says, "I have become humble."
Don't try to be humble. That's again ego in hiding - but it's not dead.
Don't try to be humble.
Nobody can try humility, and nobody can create humility through any effort of his own - no. When the ego is no more, a humbleness comes to you. It is not a creation. It is a shadow of the real center.
And a really humble man is neither humble nor egoistic.
He is simply simple.
He's not even aware that he is humble.
If you are aware that you are humble, the ego is there.
Look at humble persons.... There are millions who think that they are very humble. They bow down very low, but watch them - they are the subtlest egoists. Now humility is their source of food. They say, "I am humble," and then they look at you and they wait for you to appreciate them.
"You are really humble," they would like you to say. "In fact, you are the most humble man in the world; nobody is as humble as you are." Then see the smile that comes on their faces.
What is ego? Ego is a hierarchy that says, "No one is like me." It can feed on humbleness - "Nobody is like me, I am the most humble man."
It happened once:
A fakir, a beggar, was praying in a mosque, just early in the morning when it was still dark. It was a certain religious day for Mohammedians, and he was praying, and he was saying, "I am nobody. I am the poorest of the poor, the greatest sinner of sinners."
Suddenly there was one more person who was praying. He was the emperor of that country, and he was not aware that there was somebody else there who was praying - it was dark, and the emperor was also saying:
"I am nobody. I am nothing. I am just empty, a beggar at our door." When he heard that somebody else was saying the same thing, he said, "Stop! Who is trying to overtake me? Who are you? How dare you say before the emperor that you are nobody when he is saying that he is nobody?"
This is how the ego goes. It is so subtle. Its ways are so subtle and cunning; you have to be very, very alert, only then will you see it. Don't try to be humble. Just try to see that all misery, all anguish comes through it.
Just watch! No need to drop it.
You cannot drop it. Who will drop it? Then the DROPPER will become the ego. It always comes back.
Whatsoever you do, stand out of it, and look and watch.
Whatsoever you do - humbleness, humility, simplicity - nothing will help. Only one thing is possible, and that is just to watch and see that it is the source of all misery. Don't say it. Don't repeat it - WATCH. Because if I say it is the source of all misery and you repeat it, then it is useless. YOU have to come to that understanding. Whenever you are miserable, just close the eyes and don't try to find some cause outside. Try to see from where this misery is coming.
It is your own ego.
If you continuously feel and understand, and the understanding that the ego is the cause becomes so deep-rooted, one day you will suddenly see that it has disappeared. Nobody drops it - nobody can drop it. You simply see; it has simply disappeared, because the very understanding that ego causes all misery becomes the dropping. THE VERY UNDERSTANDING IS THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE EGO.
And you are so clever in seeing the ego in others. Anybody can see someone else's ego. When it comes to your own, then the problem arises - because you don't know the territory, you have never traveled on it.
The whole path towards the divine, the ultimate, has to pass through this territory of the ego. The false has to be understood as false. The source of misery has to be understood as the source of misery - then it simply drops.
When you know it is poison, it drops. When you know it is fire, it drops. When you know this is the hell, it drops.
And then you never say, "I have dropped the ego." Then you simply laugh at the whole thing, the joke that you were the creator of all misery.
I was just looking at a few cartoons of Charlie Brown. In one cartoon he is playing with blocks, making a house out of children's blocks. He is sitting in the middle of the blocks building the walls. Then a moment comes when he is enclosed; all around he has made a wall. Then he cries, "Help, help!"
He has done the whole thing! Now he is enclosed, imprisoned. This is childish, but this is all that you have done also. You have made a house all around yourself, and now you are crying, "Help, help!" And the misery becomes a millionfold - because there are helpers who are also in the same boat.
It happened that one very beautiful woman went to see her psychiatrist for the first time. The psychiatrist said, "Come closer please." When she came closer, he simply jumped and hugged and kissed the woman. She was shocked. Then he said, "Now sit down. This takes care of my problem, now what is your problem?"
The problem becomes multifold, because there are helpers who are in the same boat. And they would like to help, because when you help somebody the ego feels very good, very, very good - because you are a great helper, a great guru, a master; you are helping so many people. The greater the crowd of your followers, the better you feel.
But you are in the same boat - you cannot help.
Rather, you will harm.
People who still have their own problems cannot be of much help. Only someone who has no problems of his own can help you. Only then is there the clarity to see, to see through you. A mind that has no problems of its own can see you, you become transparent.
A mind that has no problems of its own can see through itself; that's why it becomes capable of seeing through others.
In the West, there are many schools of psychoanalysis, many schools, and no help is reaching people, but rather, harm. Because the people who are helping others, or trying to help, or posing as helpers, are in the same boat.
...It is difficult to see one's own ego.
It is very easy to see other's egos. But that is not the point, you cannot help them.
Try to see your own ego.
Just watch it.
Don't be in a hurry to drop it, just watch it. The more you watch, the more capable you will become. Suddenly one day, you simply see that it has dropped. And when it drops by itself, only then does it drop. There is no other way. Prematurely you cannot drop it.
It drops just like a dead leaf.
The tree is not doing anything - just a breeze, a situation, and the dead leaf simply drops. The tree is not even aware that the dead leaf has dropped. It makes no noise, it makes no claim - nothing.
The dead leaf simply drops and shatters on the ground, just like that.
When you are mature through understanding, awareness, and you have felt totally that ego is the cause of all your misery, simply one day you see the dead leaf dropping.
It settles into the ground, dies of its own accord. You have not done anything so you cannot claim that you have dropped it. You see that it has simply disappeared, and then the real center arises.
And that real center is the soul, the self, the god, the truth, or whatsoever you want to call it.
It is nameless, so all names are good.
You can give it any name of your own liking.
....................................From Beyond the Frontier of the Mind by Osho
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