Living In The Moment

There is not a soul in your life who is going to live or be around forever. People come. People go. Everyone is passing through. Enjoy the moment. Don't try to stretch it or prolong it or hang on to it. Clinging and craving causes much suffering. Live in the moment of whatever the moment IS. As Byron Katie says:

Do You Hear What I Hear?

"Which is all to say that I am grateful for last week’s hearing loss- almost as grateful as I am for its restoration. It has rooted a needed awareness in my body, reminded me that even though in some sense we are One, every other is also wholly other with their own history, inner and outer challenges and resources. Remembering this, each encounter becomes an opportunity to explore the Mystery of the other. And for this, I am deeply grateful." 

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer ~

  http://oriahsinvitation.blogspot.in/

Releasing Resentment

In the infinity of life where I am
All is perfect, whole and complete.
I am safe.
My life is ever new.
Each moment of my life is new
And fresh and vital.
I use my affirmative thinking
To create exactly what I want.
This is a new day. I am a new me.
I welcome change. I choose to change my way thinking.
I choose to change the words I use.
I move from the old to the new with ease and joy.
It is easier for me to forgive than I thought.
Forgiving makes me feel free and light
It is with joy that I learn to love myself more and more
The more resentment I release, the more love I have to express
There is no right or wrong, nor good or bad
The past is over and done
There is only the experience of the moment
I love myself for bringing myself
through this past into this present moment
Changing my thoughts makes me feel good
I am learning to make today a pleasure to experience
All is well in my world.

(Louis L Hay)

Yearning!

"To sit patiently with a yearning that has not yet been fulfilled, and to trust that, that fulfillment will come, is quite possibly one of the most powerful "magic skills" that human beings are capable of.  It has been noted by almost every ancient wisdom tradition."

~ Elizabeth Gilbert ~

Listening With Love

"To listen another's soul into a condition of disclosure and discovery may be almost the greatest service that any human being ever performs for another" 

~ Douglas Steere ~

"When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence.  How can you love if you are not there?" 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~

Healing Through Deep Listening

Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. You can call it compassionate listening.  You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty his heart.  Even if he says things that are full of wrong perceptions, full of bitterness, you are still capable of continuing to listen with compassion. Because  you  know that listening like that, you give that person a chance to suffer less.  If you want to help to correct his perception, you wait for another time.  For now, you don't  interrupt.  You don't argue.  If you do, he loses his chance.  You just listen with compassion and help him to suffer less.  One hour like that can bring transformation and healing.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~

Deep Listening

I Am determined to practice deep listening.

I Am determined to practice loving speech.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~

Live The Questions

"I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Don't search for the answers which could not be given to you now. The point is, to LIVE EVERYTHING! Live the questions NOW."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

Changing A Habit

"A habit cannot be tossed out of the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time."

~ Mark Twain ~

Let Nothing Disturb You

"Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee; All things pass; God never changes.  Patience attains all that it strives for.  He who has God finds he lacks nothing: GOD ALONE SUFFICES."

~ St. Teresa of Avila ~

Follow Your Heart!

Don't be afraid to go where others fear to tread!

Follow your Heart

Many will be inspired when you do!

If I Had My Life to Live Over Again

"I've decided that if I had my life to live over again, I would not only climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets; I would'nt only jettison my hot water bottle, raincoat, umbrella, parachute, and raft; I would not only go barefoot earlier in the spring and stay out later in the fall; but I would devote not one more minute to monitoring my spiritual growth.  No, not one."

~ Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God ~

"You" & "The Rest of You"

"There is the "you" that people see and then there is the "rest of you".  Take some time and craft a picture of the "rest of you".  This could be a drawing, in words, even a song.  Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions."

~ Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God ~

Longing!

If you call yourself a disciple of any person, the only real gift they can give you is to send you away.  A longing will begin that after awhile will force you to return, and  you fall at the master's feet with great humility.  Again you are told, "Go away".  Over and over you come and you go, and the longing increases till it is unbearable.  Finally something happens that you did not expect.  A door opens inside you that you did'nt know existed, but which the master saw all along.  It is the longing that creates the opening, not the satisfaction of finding another person who seems to have satisfied their longing for God.  It will never be satisfied within you until you  realize  that God, or the master, have never left your side, no matter where  you wandered off to.

~ Jeshua/The Art of Spiritual Peacemaking ~

Be Like The Sun!

Be Like the sun!

SHINE!

even if no one ever thanks you for it.

~ Alice in Wonderland’s Teatray ~

                                                                                                           

What Is It You're Looking For?

What is it you’re looking for?  Find it within yourself, and then it will surely be yours.  If you believe that you don’t have something, then the Universe is unlikely to give it to you, simply because it believes that that is the way you want it – to seek but never find.  But when you know that you have everything within, then God rushes in to fill your every desire.  Does this make sense at all?  Of course not, and that is why IT’S TRUE!

~ The Art of Spiritual Peacemaking ~

Only Love is Real

Only Love is Real.  Whatever questions enters your mind, this is the answer.  Whatever evidence the world seems to provide, it cannot withstand the singular logic of this Truth.  Your mind will never understand it, for it was made to not understand.  Your eyes will never see the evidence, for they were made not to see.  But there is another part of you that does understand and does SEE.  That is where I am drawing your attention, for once it is established, it cannot fade away.  Then Love will be seen for what it is – the foundation of the Mind and Heart of the Beloved, forever safe from the dream you made that seemed to threaten it for but a moment.

~ The Art of Spiritual Peacemaking ~

What Is Creation?

   Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts,

   in number infinite, and everywhere

   without all limit. Only Love creates,

   and only like Itself. There was no time

   when all that It created was not there.

   Nor will there be a time when anything

   that It created suffers any change.

   Forever and forever are God's Thoughts

   exactly as They were and as They are,

   unchanged through time and after time is done.

   God's Thoughts are given all the power that

   Their own Creator has. For He would add

   to Love by Its extension. Thus His Son

   shares in creation, and must therefore share

   in power to create. What God has willed

   to be forever one will still be one

   when time is over; and will not be changed

   throughout the course of time, remaining as

   it was before the thought of time began.

   Creation is the opposite of all

   illusions, for Creation is the truth.

   Creation is the holy Son of God,

   for in Creation is His Will complete

   in every aspect, making every part

   container of the whole. Its oneness is

   forever guaranteed inviolate;

   forever held within His holy Will

   beyond all possibility of harm,

   of separation, imperfection and

   of any spot upon its sinlessness.

   We are creation; we the Sons of God.

   We seem to be discrete and unaware

   of our eternal unity with Him.

   Yet back of all our doubts, past all our fears,

   there still is certainty. For Love remains

   with all Its Thoughts, Its sureness being Theirs.

   God's memory is in our holy minds,

   which know their oneness, and their unity

   with their Creator. Let our function be

   only to let this memory return,

   only to let God's Will be done on earth,

   only to be restored to sanity,

   and to be but as God created us.

   Our Father calls to us. We hear His Voice,

   and we forgive creation in the Name

   of its Creator, Holiness Itself,

   Whose holiness His own creation shares;

   Whose holiness is still a part of us. 

~ Original Handscript of ACIM January 12, 1971 ~ 

Tears

Tears are like healing rain that can restore life to a parched inner landscape. ~ Colette Baron-Reid

Nisargadatta Maharaj - Wrong focus of attention

Question: What do you see?

Maharaj: I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus of your attention. You give no attention to your self. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self. Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your Self. The way back to your Self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the sense ‘I am’ is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over — you are no longer intent on verbalizing what you are. All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define yourself. All definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly. The only difference between us is that I am aware of my natural state, while you are bemused. Just like gold made into ornaments has no advantage over gold dust, except when the mind makes it so, so are we one in being — we differ only in appearance. We discover it by being earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one’s life to this discovery.

Living In Wisdom

The Bhagavad Gita

Living in Wisdom

Arjuna:

Tell me of the man who lives in wisdom,

Ever aware of the Self, O Krishna;

How does he talk, how sit, how move about?

Sri Krishna:

He lives in wisdom

Who sees himself in all and all in him,

Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed

Every selfish desire and sense-craving

Tormenting the heart. Not agitated

By grief nor hankering after pleasure,

He lives free from lust and fear and anger

Fettered no more by selfish attachments,

He is not elated by good fortune

Nor depressed by bad. Such is the seer.

Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs

The sage can draw in his senses at will.

An aspirant abstains from sense-pleasures,

But he still craves for them. These cravings all

Disappear when he sees the Lord of Love.

For even of one who treads the path

The stormy senses can sweep off the mind.

But he lives in wisdom who subdues them,

And keeps his mind ever absorbed in me.

When you keep thinking about sense-objects,

Attachment comes. Attachment breeds desire,

The lust of possession which, when thwarted,

Burns to anger. Anger clouds the judgment

And robs you of the power to learn from past mistakes

Lost is the discriminative faculty,

And your life is utter waste.

But when you move amidst the world of sense

From both attachment and aversion freed,

There comes the peace in which all sorrows end,

And you live in the wisdom of the Self.

The disunited mind is far from wise;

How can it meditate? How be at peace?

When you know no peace, how can you know joy?

When you let your mind follow the Siren call

Of the senses, they carry away

Your better judgment as a cyclone drives a boat

Off the charted course to its doom.

Use your mighty arms to free the senses

From attachment and aversion alike,

And live in the full wisdom of the Self.

Such a sage awakes to light in the night

Of all creatures. Wherein they are awake

Is the night of ignorance to the sage.

As the rivers flow into the ocean

But cannot make the vast ocean o'erflow,

So flow the magic streams of the sense-world

Into the sea of peace that is the sage.

He is forever free who has broken out

Of the ego-cage of I and mine

To be united with the Lord of Love.

This is the supreme state. Attain thou this

And pass from death to immortality.

These are the closing verses of the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita (“Song of the Lord”), India’s best-known scripture, a masterpiece of world poetry on which countless mystics have drawn for daily practical guidance. The Gita is a dialogue between Sri Krishna, an incarnation of the Lord, and his friend and disciple Arjuna, a warrior prince who represents anyone trying to live a spiritual life in the midst of worldly activity and conflict. This translation is by Eknath Easwaran, from his Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living (Petaluma, California: Nilgiri Press, 1975–85).

Moving Forward

"Being born into a religion, according to Jesus, is not enough to ensure salvation. When Jesus said that we have to be born again, he was saying that we have to leave the second womb of our religious and mythological support matrix. All religions are second wombs, whose purpose is to prepare us for a life of spiritual realization, not religious or ethnic identity."

~  Michael Maciel ~

My Opinion

You Are What Your Deepest Desire Is

You are what your deep, driving desire is.

As your desire is, so is your will.

As your will is, so is your deed.

As your deed is, so is your destiny.

~ The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad ~

                                                                 

Who Am I?

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."  

~ Mark Twain ~

I Am My Deepest Desire

Our deepest, most heartfelt desires are like stars in a constellation . . . brilliant, twinkling lights that show us the way and create pathways to our true destinies. It is our soul’s mission to connect with, cherish, and realize our desires in order to live our lives to the fullest and make our greatest contributions to the world. In fulfilling our heart-held dreams we flourish, serving ourselves and others from a place of bliss, generosity, and love. Our journey starts at the beginning, in the center, as we go within to listen to our deepest truth.

 Our centering thought for today is:

I AM MY DEEPEST DESIRE

~ Oprah & Deepak 21 Day Meditation ~

Desire and Destiny 

Finding the Truth

You say you want to find the Truth. But it cannot be done. What actually happens is that as you are looking for your factual self, the identity you are looking with begins to disappear. Like a falling star that disappears before it touches the earth, nothing remains but the immutable and formless awareness space — THE SELF.
~ Mooji ~

"Seeing" God

“Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love a cow - for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage.”

~  Meister Eckhart ~

Be Willing!

“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.”  

~ Meister Eckhart ~

Do it or let it be done!

Do it - or let it be done - the thing for which your heart has always been waiting. What is the risk? Losing everything? Then lose everything. The experience of failure? Then experience failure, taste it, find a new kind of success within it. Rejection? Then open up to the glory of rejection, open your heart wide to the ones who reject you, see their pain and forgive them for it. Ridicule? Then fall in love with those voices of ridicule, seeing them as your beloved newborns, your own voices in need of kind attention. Life is too precious to waste, and too immediate to postpone, and the 'worst' that could happen is a broken body or a shattered image, neither of which are who you really are. Nothing to lose, except perhaps your imaginary pride, your frightened ego which secretly longs to burn in the furnace of living.
~ Jeff Foster ~

Who Will Be My First New Friends?

“Friends fell away as I individuated on my soul’s journey. As I shed one self-sense, I no longer identified with the people attached to it. Old ways of interacting seemed artificial, scripted, silly. Whereas before it was fine to hang out and waste time, now there was no time to lose.  Now I had to protect my sacred purpose from connections that undermined it.
Be prepared for the lonely times on the journey.  It can be very isolating to quest for true-path amid the trumpets of modern life.  Walking through uncharted territory often means walking alone.  This is particularly true in the transition states before we find our consciousness soulpod.  It’s like primary school all over again – who will be my first REAL friends?”
~ Jeff Brown ~

Gratitude

If the only prayer you say in your life is "THANK YOU", that would suffice.

~ Meister Eckhart ~

Live as though ....

Live as though only God and yourself

were in this world

so that your heart may not be detained

by anything human.

~ St. John Of The Cross ~

Get to it Brilliant Being!

"Your lack of readiness is an illusion communicated by shame-ridden parts of you that will forever have you believing that you have to take a few more steps until your real life begins.  It's an illusion of epic proportions.  Get to it Brilliant Being! There is no need to procrastinate the gateway to wholeness - it stands before you with your name on it.  The world is ready for what you have to offer.  No time like the Presence.  ~Jeff Brown~

Deepest Acceptance

"There was never anything wrong with you.  

From the very beginning you were not broken. 

You were always a unique and  

irreplaceable wave in the vast ocean of life, 

perfect in your imperfection." 

~ Jeff Foster ~

Soul Desire

When the Soul wishes to experience something, She throws an image of the experience out before Her and enters into Her own image.

~ Meister Eckhart ~

Read!

“Tolle, lege: take up and read.”

~ St Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions 

“For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away. ”  

~ St Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions