Batch 20

Can you think of anything more dreadful than to be tyrannized by the unreal parts of us which we fail to see? - Vernon Howard

"What is love?"

"The total absence of fear," said the Master.

"What is it we fear?"

"Love," said the Master.

- Anthony de Mello, SJ One Minute Wisdom

Spiritual progress is like detoxification. Things have to come up in order to be released. - Marianne Williamson in "A Return to Love"

A long time ago I learned that everything is exactly as it is for a reason. The crumb is on our table not only to remind us of this morning's cookie, it is there because we have chosen not to remove it. No exceptions. Everything has a reason and the tiniest detail is a clue. - Richard Bach, Out of My Mind

The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. - Helen Keller

If we find the truth without an equal effort to find ourselves, we wander down the wrong trail. That is like trying to find an apple seed outside of an apple. It is what we see in ourselves which saves us; nothing else can do it. The seeing is the saving. If a man could endure for five minutes all the things he has hidden from himself for fifty years, he would redeem those fifty years in those five minutes. – Vernon Howard

One does not become enlightened by imaging figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. - C. G. Jung

Time and money spent in helping men do more for themselves is far better than mere giving. - Henry Ford

Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.... - J. Krishnamurti

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the desire to find out, which is the exact opposite. - Bertrand Russell

I find that it is not the circumstances in which we are placed, but the spirit in which we face them, that constitutes our comfort. - Elizabeth T. King

It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going. Not consciously, of course, for consciously he is engaged in bewailing and cursing a faithless world that recedes further and further into the distance. Rather, it is an unconscious factor which spins the illusions that veils his world. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely envelop him. - C. G. Jung, "Phenomenology of Self" in The Portable Jung

If you could get rid Of yourself just once, The secret of secrets Would open to you. The face if the unknown, Hidden beyond the universe Would appear on the Mirror of your perception. - Rumi

Enthusiasm is the best protection in any situation. Wholeheartedness is contagious. Give yourself, if you wish to get others. - David Seabury

It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision. - Helen Keller

God is not external to anyone, but present with all things, though they are ignorant that He is so. - Plotinus

This we know. The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth. This we know. All things are connected like blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. - Chief Seattle, 1853 Address

This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don't be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, for these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings. To suffer with is the literal meaning of compassion. – Joanna Macy

Peace is a species of action. It dies in the bank. Truly felt peace will pulsate outward toward the world around it, and peaceful people live generous, not quarantined lives. - Paul R. Fleischman in "Cultivating Inner Peace"

Every man stamps his value on himself... man is made great or small by his own will. - J.C.F. von Schiller

A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. - Rita Mae Brown

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones' own way. - Victor Frankl

One's true happiness depends more upon one's own judgment of one's self, on a consciousness of rectitude in action and intention, and in the approbation of those few who judge impartially, than upon the applause of the unthinking undiscerning multitude, who are apt to cry Hosanna today, and tomorrow, Crucify him. - Benjamin Franklin

For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted to convince you that you must make every act count, since you are going to be here only a short while; in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it. - Don Juan Matus in Journey to Ixtlan

Not the owner of many possessions will you be right to call happy: he more rightly deserves the name of happy who knows how to use the Gods' gifts wisely and to put up with rough poverty, and who fears dishonor more than death. – Horace

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. - Albert Einstein

I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me that I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, an angel, or even a pure soul. Love has befriended Hafiz so completely it has turned to ash and freed me of every concept and image my mind has ever known. - Hafiz

"How does one become a butterfly?" she asked pensively.

"You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."

- Trina Paulus

You are here on earth to find yourself, not prove yourself. - Vernon Howard

You are accustomed to authority which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can create, by his extraordinary powers - a miracle - transport you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based in that authority. You are depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else... When I say look within yourselves for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. - J. Krishnamurti

Unquestionably, there are sad things in the world right now, even in my life right now, but grumbling doesn't make anything better. In fact, it makes things worse. The Buddha taught, "Every mind moment conditions the next." - Sylvia Boorstein in "It's Easier Than You Think"

Never put a period where God has put a comma. - Gracie Allen

The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts. - Anotole France

You need not fear to not know who you are. A lack of labels or identities does not cause fear. It is just the reverse - labels cause fear. Every new label is a new shudder, for it must now be anxiously protected against all that seems to oppose it, all that bears a different label. Since labels are suppressed below the level of awareness, we deny their existence emphatically. Even the loud denial could be a clue for us, but it is also rejected. The only answer to 'Who are you' is total silence. - Vernon Howard, Secrets for Higher Success

It is a fool who blames the sun for his own blindness... The scriptures even proclaim aloud: "There is in truth no creation and no destruction; no one is bound, no one is seeking Liberation, no one is on the way to Deliverance. There are none Liberated. This is the absolute truth." My dear disciple, this, the sum and substance of all the Upanishads, the secret of secrets, is my instruction to you. - Shankara

Courage means being well aware of the worst that can happen, being scared almost to death, and then doing the right thing anyhow. - William Sloane Coffin in "Credo"

If a man be gracious to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the world, and his heart is no island, cut off from other islands, but a continent that joins them. - Francis Bacon

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine, as perhaps it may be thought, the true poetry of life. - Sir William Osler (1849-1919) Canadian Physician

Remember this: The Truth, when it arrives, is always different from what we thought it would be. If we imagine that we already know the truth, that imagination is based on old and habitual ideas. But the truth is always something entirely new to the mind; therefore, we cannot know what a new day is like before we experience it, we cannot think accurately about a new truth until we first live it. - Vernon Howard

There is much satisfaction in work well done, but there can be no happiness equal to the joy of finding a heart that understands. - Victor Robinsoll

Let your mind wander in the pure and simple. Be one with the infinite. Allow all things to take their course. Do not try to be clever. Then the world will be ruled! - Chuang Tzu Inner Chapters Feng & English, tr.

Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if you had aimed at an object on a level with yourself. - F. Hawes

We are disturbed not by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens. - Epictetus

Trials, temptations, disappointments - all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fibre of a character, but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before. - James Buckham

Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process. - Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American Bishop

Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning. - John Henry Cardinal

Don't tell me you will love me forever. Tell me that you will love me Thursday afternoon at four o'clock. - W. H. Auden quoted in "The Five Things We Cannot Change" by David Richo

There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live. - James Truslow Adams

You are not happy because you are well. You are well because you are happy. You are not depressed because trouble has come to you, but trouble has come to you because you are depressed. You can change your thoughts and feelings, and then the outer things will come to correspond, and indeed there is no other way of working. - Emmet Fox

Q: Why do you say that we must question everything in spiritual matters, instead of having faith and trust?

R: Because much of what is called faith is merely gullibility. Also, deceivers are clever in making stones resemble bread. You may acquire a taste for stones, and in time will be unable to distinguish between stones and bread. And in the final tragedy you will no longer want bread, and will even fight those offering it.

- Vernon Howard, Pathways to Perfect Living

You can find on the outside only what you possess on the inside. - Adolfo Montiel Ballesteros

Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost part of your life. - Michael Leboeuf

God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open. - Hazrat Inayat Khan quoted in "The Exquisite Risk" by Mark Nepo

I don't know what I appear in the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary. Whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. - Isaac Newton

Do not seek to know the truth. Only cease to cherish opinions. - Zen Saying

Fear is the opportunity for courage, not proof of cowardice. - John McCain

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. – Confucius

A childlike man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle aged habit and convention. - Aldous Huxley

Fear about how one will support oneself in the future arises not because there is no way of sustaining oneself, but because one's mind is poor. - Jae Woong Kim quoted in "Polishing the Diamond, Enlightening the Mind"

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can be aroused by two things: first, an idea which takes the imagination by storm; and second, a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that idea into action. - Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975)

Would you like something to challenge and strengthen your mental forces? At the next disappointing event, reflect: "This is also just as much a part of life as what I label a favorable event. As a whole person, I see both sides equally; I do not split events into good and bad. Being whole, I see the whole." Do this, even if you don't understand it, for it contains a tremendous secret. - Vernon Howard, Esoteric Mind Power

To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline - training - is about. - James Clavell, in his novel "Shogun"

The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the obviously not true. it is the chief occupation of mankind. - H. L. Mencken

The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart. - Mencius (371-291 B.C.)

A society based on universal compassion is not just our only hope; it is an evolutionary imperative. - Marc Ian Barasch in "Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness"

It did not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each of us. - Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. - Anne Lamott in "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith"

Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise-then you will discover the fullness of your life. - Brother David Steindl-Rast

Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside. - Ramana Maharshi

Man improves himself as he follows his path; if he stands still, waiting to improve before he makes a decision, he'll never move. - Paulo Coelho

That which we do not confront in ourselves we will meet as fate. - C. G. Jung

Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him. - Epictetus (55-135 AD) Roman Philosopher

Batch 19

Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values. - Joshua L. Liebman

A friend is one who sees through you and still enjoys the view. - Wilma Askinas (1926- ) American Author

Acceptance is the universal currency of real friendship. . . . It does not warp or shape or wrench a person to be anything other than what they are. - Joan Chittister in "The Friendship of Women"

My life is my message. - Mahatma Gandhi

Beauty, truth, friendship, love, creation - these are the great values of life. We can't prove them, or explain them, yet they are the most stable things in our lives. - Jesse Herman Holmes

Have the courage and the wisdom and the vision to raise a definite standard that will appeal to the best that is in man, and then strive mightily toward that goal. - Harold E. Stassen

It is good to dream, but it is better to dream and work. Faith is mighty, but action with faith is mightier. - Thomas Robert Gaines

He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger. - Japanese proverb

At first Truth appears harsh and threatening. Stick with its ideas and you will see it appears harsh only to the wrong parts in us that have chained us to our self-defeating habits. - Vernon Howard Your Power of Natural Knowing

Practice wise medicine and try to have a good laugh at least three times a day. Be humorous with God and religion, for laughter is the best way to exorcise evil, which by its nature is as heavy as hell. - Edward Hays in "Feathers on the Wind"

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test. - Elbert Hubbard

A good thought, a word of thanks, a greeting on the street, a helping hand, and the world will be a heaven on earth. - Jean Maalouf in "The Healing Power of Kindness"

There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. - John Andrew Holmes

I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amidst the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail. - C.A. Beard

To know exactly where you're headed may be the best way to go astray. Not all those who loiter are lost. - Anthony de Mello in "The Heart of Enlightenment"

Spirituality cannot be something a person toys with, a little compartment of their lives. It has to be at the core, in a way that affects every other part of their lives. - Stephen Covey

The solution to our physical problems of the environment, of hunger, poverty, and injustice will be resolved through experiencing ourselves as one.....cannot be resolved by linear, materialistic means alone. - Barbara Marx Hubbard in "For the Love of God".

What was hard to bear is sweet to remember. - Portuguese proverb

The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality. - John Quincy Adams

I take the assumption that every religion has been rooted in some mystical or transcendent experience. From that assumption, I just look at all the different systems as metaphors or doorways to God. - Ram Dass

Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness. - Chuang - tzu

Sooner or later you will have to decide whether to continue writing a movie script about your life or write a true story. - Vernon Howard, A Treasury of Trueness

Seek refuge in the attitude of detachment and you will amass the wealth of spiritual awareness. Those who are motivated by the desire for the fruits of their actions are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do. - Bhagavad Gita 2: 49-50

When we are unable to love and appreciate ourselves and our efforts, we run away from our mistakes and failures, rather than learning from them. - Meredith L. Young-Sowers

If God said: "Rumi pay homage to everything that has helped you enter my arms,"

There would not be on experience in my life, not one thought, not one feeling, nor any act I would not bow to.

- Rumi Love Poem from God, by D. Ladinsky

To a disciple that was always at his prayers the Master said, "When will you stop leaning on God and stand on your own two feet?"

The disciple was astonished, "But you are the one who taught us to look on God as Father!"

"When will you learn that a father isn't someone you can lean on but someone who rids you of your tendency to lean?"

- Anthony de Mello, SJ

"The greater danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and we miss it, but that we aim too low and we reach it." – Michaelangelo

Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish. - Jean de la Fontaine

A person incapable of thinking beyond his own false desires will unconsciously block fulfillment of his true needs. - Vernon Howard, The Power of Your Supermind

Every human pleasure is meant to be a stepping-stone to knowing God better or to discovering some new aspect of God. - Thomas Keating in "The Human Condition"

We can go through our whole lives worrying about our future happiness, and totally miss where true peace lives-right here, right now. - Peter Russell

Those who, relying upon themselves only, not looking for assistance to anyone besides themselves, it is they who will reach the top-most height. – Buddha

We are cocreators, and it takes a great deal of strength and work to be a conscious cocreator. To choose God's way, the way of peace, in the midst of adversity takes incredible strength and points us to the source of strength-unlimited love. - Bernie Siegel in New Thought for a New Millennium

Now and then I like to lift my eyes up from the details of daily life and remember the bigger picture, and take a breath of God, and feel and remember that ultimately, it's all okay. - Dan Millman

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. - Albert Einstein

Men can be stimulated to show off their good qualities to the leader who seems to think they have good qualities. - John Richelsen

We come into this world crying while all around us are smiling. May we so live that we go out of this world smiling while everybody around us is weeping. - Persian proverb

He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age. – Plato

Finding peace within and bringing peace to the world may start with the capacity to look into another's eyes and recognize there a kindred soul, whether the eyes belong to a German, a Dutchman, a friend, a chimpanzee, or a wolf. - Gary Kowalski in "Peace to All Beings" by Judy Carman

Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past. - Tyron Edwards

The egoic sense of self needs conflict because its sense of a separate identity gets strengthened in fighting against this or that, and in demonstrating that this is "me" and that is not "me." Not infrequently, tribes, nations, and religions derive a strengthened sense of collective identity from having enemies. Who would the "believer" be without the "unbeliever?" - Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

The mystic discovered this new life. He once had every pain, temptation, and confusion as other seekers had, maybe a lot more. But he heroically sought and found answers. He recognized his self-deception and stopped it; he faced the horror of his illusion-based wickedness and dissolved it; he ran into one blank wall after another, but kept going.

The authentic mystic personally experiences the Truth; the hypnotized man merely repeats what he has been told. The mystic hears the music within himself; the unawakened person merely plays another man's phonograph record.

- Vernon Howard

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by, and this you will become. - James Lane Allen (1849-1925) American Author

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. - Thornton Wilder

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. - William James

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears. - Glenn Clark

You are making progress if each mistake you are making is a new one. - unknown

To get your ideas across use small words, big ideas, and short sentences. - John Henry Patterson

Thus, ultimately to try to escape a distress merely perpetuates that distress. What is so upsetting is not the distress itself, but our attachment to that distress. We identify with it, and that alone is the real difficulty. - Ken Wilber

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. - Elie Wiesel

Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life. - Sophia Loren

As a beautiful flower that is full of hue but lacks fragrance, even so fruitless is the well-spoken word of one who does not practice it. - The Buddha

Regard your body and senses as instruments for experiencing, not as self. – Vasishtha, Vasishtha's Yoga

The light around someone who speaks truth, who consistently acts with compassion for all, even in great difficulty, is visible to all around them. - Jack Kornfield

You explore the spirit of God the same way you explore the spirit of another person: you spend time in God's presence, you examine your own heart and mind with respect to God. You watch the world for signs of the spirit. - Barbara Crafton in "Meditations on the Book of Psalms"

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life. - T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American Poet

The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings, the past and the future are not as real, but rather more real than the present. - Alan Watts

However many holy words you read, However many you speak, What good will they do you If you do not act upon them? – Buddha

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen. - Frank Lloyd Wright

What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this. - Epictetus (55-135 AD) Roman Philosopher

Whatever joy there is in the world, all comes from wanting others to be happy; and whatever suffering there is in this world, all comes from wanting oneself to be happy. - Shantideva quoted in "Inner Revolution" by Robert Thurman

Christ has no body now on earth but yours, No hands but yours, no feet but yours, Yours are the eyes through which is to look out Christ's compassion to the world; Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now. - St. Teresa of Avila, Essential Spirituality, by Roger Walsh

The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring. - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish Dramatist and Poet

Self-knowledge is the shortest road to the knowledge of God. - Islamic Sage

It is in the silence of the heart that God speaks. - Mother Teresa

See God in every person, place, and thing, and all will be well in your world. - Louise Hay

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. - Aldous Huxley (1864-1963) English Novelist

You might as well not be alive if you're not in awe of God. - Albert Einstein

To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. - Jean Anouilh

For me, God is personal in the sense that He affects every individual differently. The rabbis of the Midrash said, 'God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes but everyone who looks at it sees a different face.' - Harold Kushner

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. - William Arthur Ward

I had rather do and not promise than promise and not do. - Arthur Warwick

Deep down we must have real affection for each other, a clear realization or recognition of our shared human status. At the same time, we must openly accept all ideologies and systems as a means of solving humanity's problems. One country, one nation, one ideology, one system is not sufficient. - The Dalai Lama

Say this scrap of paper is a billion-dollar check. Ah, I must renounce it, the gospel says, I must give it up if I want eternal life. Are you going to substitute one greed - a spiritual greed - for the other greed? Before, you had a worldly ego; and now you've got a spiritual one, but you've got an ego all the same, a refined one and one more difficult to cope with. When you renounce something, you're tied to it. But if instead of renouncing it, I look at it and say, "Hey, this isn't a billion- dollar check, this is a scrap of paper," there is nothing to fight, nothing to renounce. - Anthony de Mello, SJ

When I meet new people, in my mind there is no barrier, no curtain. As human beings you are my brothers and sisters; there is no difference in substance. I can talk with you as I would to old friends. With this feeling we can communicate without any difficulty and can make heart-to-heart contact. Based on such genuine human relations-real feeling for each other, understanding each other-we can develop mutual trust and respect. From that, we can share other people's suffering and build harmony in human society. - The Dalai Lama

There's only one thing stopping us from having heaven on earth: that we can't believe it can be. - Patricia Sun

True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. - Helen Keller

When nothing is sure, everything is possible. - Margaret Drabble (1939-) English Novelist

All methods and techniques - and of course all human beings who propound them - are merely instruments to help the student to attain a methodless, technique-free, teacherless state. Let him not get enslaved by the thought of their necessity. Let him not confuse the attitudes towards life which they provide with life itself. Let him neither turn the way into the goal, nor the means into the end. All techniques were originated for the purpose of opening a door to the inner essence. But undiscriminating people cling stubbornly to the door and do not permit it to open! The wise student will keep his attitude subtle, elastic and dogma-free. - Dr. Paul Brunton

Trust the unfolding of your life and see what you have to learn from that. - Anne Wilson Schaef

Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor. - James Lane Allen (1849-1925) American Author

Life is a romantic business. It is painting a picture, not doing a sum - but you have to make the romance, and it will come to the question of how much fire you have in our belly. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

All we need to do is allow more joy and love into our experience. We need to really choose it, to allow ourselves to feel it, paying attention, choosing to be alive and to be kind; allowing ourselves to feel and to be nurtured by the natural order of the Spirit of God. When we choose and allow it, the dramas fall away and dissolve. - Patricia Sun

To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue... gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness. – Confucius

It is possible to work in such a way that not only does the work not distract us from prayer but it actually becomes contemplation in the true sense, that is, an activity of God within. - Bede Griffiths in "River of Compassion"

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. - Mother Teresa

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. - Charlotte Bronte

To truly find God, truth needs to be found independently from the opinions of others. The truth has to be found in our hearts. - A.H. Almaas

People are of differing spiritual temperaments and therefore will approach God in different way. - Huston Smith

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are... Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in my pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return. - Mary Jean Iron

Truth has to appear only once in a single mind, for it to be impossible ever to prevent it from spreading universally and setting everything ablaze. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Heart of Matter

Play is as essential to the aged as it is to the young. I count that day lost when I am not moved to tears or laughter, but even more if I have not played. - George Sheehan in "Going the Distance"

Good friendships are fragile things and require as much care as any other fragile and precious thing. - Randolph S. Bourne (1886-1918) American Writer

When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen. - Arland Gilbert

Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers. - Ranier Maria Rilke

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. - Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English Poet

The nearest way to glory - a shortcut, as it were - is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be - quoted in Cicero, 44 BC. – Socrates

No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness. - Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American Bishop

Life is no brief candle to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. - George Bernard Shaw

Only a renewed consciousness of the worth of each and every one of us can provide the beginning of a new politics and of community that could bring us together. To create such a new consciousness will be a formidable spiritual and political task. - Jim Wallis in "The Soul of Politics"

When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens like one of those fluted Japanese blossoms, flimsy and spastic, bright and warm. This almost always seems to happen in community. - Annie Lamott quoted in "The Impossible Will Take a Little While"

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. - Samuel Ullman

In order to discover new lands, one must be willing to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. - Andre Gide (1869-1951) French Writer

I run great risk of failing. It may be that I shall encounter ruin where I look for reputation and a career of honor. The chances are perhaps more in favour of ruin than of success. But, whatever may be the chances, I shall go on as long as any means of carrying on the fight are at my disposal. - Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) English Novelist

The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green. - Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish Writer

"Lest my way of life sounds puritanical or austere, I always emphasize that in the long run one can't satisfactorily say no to war, violence, and injustice unless one is simultaneously saying yes to life, love, and laughter." - David Dellinger, peace activist and author

You can find on the outside only what you posess on the inside. - Adolfo Montiel Ballesteros

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.

- Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell, tr.

This human being is a guest house, every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and attend them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture....The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing...be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

- Rumi, The Illustrated Rumi

Correct the mind and we lose the burden of having to correct everything else. - Vernon Howard, Cosmic Command

What matters is that you do not squander your moments of silence and solitude. - "The Cloud of Unknowing" quoted in "Silent Hope" by John Kirvan

Would you like to liberate yourself from the lower realm of life? Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems to be destined for? Then step away from the shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation. - Lao Tzu Hua Hu Ching, Brian B. Walker, tr.

Never, ever regret or apologize for believing that when one man or one woman decides to risk addressing the world with truth, the world may stop what it is doing and hear. - Robert Fulghum in "Maybe, Maybe Not"

The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light. - Felix Adler

The world is good-natured to people who are good natured. - William Makepeace Thackeray

As our world becomes smaller, through a growing common culture, the true test of community will be our tolerance for our most profound differences and love for the most challenging among us. - Wayne Teasdale in "A Monk in This World"

Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come, the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness, not the glory. - F.W. Faber

In order to be centered and evolved, one must remain unattached and uncommitted to any ideology. The truth about reality cannot come through words, but only through direct experience. Whether seeking reality in relationship, in a government, or in a universe, it can only be known with the intuitive mind. - R. L. Wing

If we could read the secret history of those we would like to punish, we would find in each life enough grief and suffering to make us stop wishing anything more on them. - Unknown Source

"But try," you urge, "the trying shall suffice; The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life: Try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!" - Robert Browning

Great is the road I climb, but the garland offered by an easier effort is not worth the gathering. - Sextus Propertius (50BC-16AD) Roman Poet

Wise people are not absorbed in their own needs. They take the needs of all people as their own. They are good to the good. But they are also good to those who are still absorbed in their own needs.

Why? Because goodness is the very nature of the Great Integrity.... - Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching

Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes. - Ramana Maharshi

How deeply will you dig in order to expose and destroy a false sense of self? At that same depth will you know genuineness. It is like digging away sandy soil in order to build on solid rock. - Vernon Howard

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody. – Longfellow

Q; What a strange predicament we humans are in!

R: It is needlessly tragic. The more advanced the teacher, the less he appeals to the masses who don't want the riches he offers, yet the more valuable he is to the few who do. Be one of the few!

- Vernon Howard, The Power of Your Supermind

I think our concept of God is a product of our own dualistic thinking, which is that things are either transcendent or immanent. And I don't believe that anymore. Spirit and matter are not split in the manner that we have stereotypically thought of it. My experience of God is of being transcendent and immanent all at once....I no longer believe that God is up there, and I don't believe that God is merely out there in history. I think we are actually in God all the time. - Sister Madonna Kolbenschlag

If you are content with the old world, try to preserve it, [even though] it is very sick and cannot hold out much longer. But if you cannot bear to live in everlasting dissonance between your beliefs and your life, thinking one thing and doing another, get out of the medieval white sepulchers, and face your fears. I know very well it is not easy. - Leo Tolstoy

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. - Mohandas Gandhi

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen. - Herodotus (485 - 425BC), Greek Historian

Man has never made any material as resilient as the human spirit. - Bernard Williams (1929-), English Philosopher

I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei

The self is not something that one finds. It is something that one creates. - Thomas Szasz (1920-), American Psychiatrist

When the traffic lights are red in New Delhi, they display the word "relax." Every time you come to a red light, instead of sitting grinding your teeth, try seeing it as an opportunity for practice. Connect with the in-going and out-going of the breath. Be one with the breathing. - Tenzin Palmo in "Reflections on a Mountain Lake"

The word courtesy actually comes from the word "court." My dictionary defines courteous as "marked by polished manners, gallantry, or ceremonial usage of a court . . . marked by respect and consideration of others." To be courteous is to adopt the manners of the court, to treat one another like royalty." - Donald McCullough in "Say Please, Say Thank You: The Respect We Owe One Another"

Q: How can we know what is true?

R: As you detect and expel the false, the truth appears, just as a submarine comes to the surface by expelling the water in its tanks.

- Vernon Howard, The Power of Esoterics

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage "coaches" ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory. - Herbert Kaufman

You don't need to think of yourself as a spiritual seeker. It is a back-bending burden to go around with a self-picture of being a spiritual or religious person. A man is genuinely spiritual when he has no conditioned ideas of what it means to be spiritual. To be real is to be spiritual. A cat is normal because no one has fixed him with the neurotic notion that he should be a tiger. - Vernon Howard, The Power of Your Supermind

If you always imagine God in the same way, no matter how true and beautiful it may be, you will not be able to receive the gift of the new ways he has ready for you. - Carlos Valles quoted in "This Our Exile" by James Martin

I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do. - Helen Keller

People do not see the enormous difference between mere self-improvement and a deep change of inner nature. The great difference is this. Self-improvement, such as learning better grammar or a foreign language, never challenges a man's false ideas about himself. But inner transformation requires him to hear facts about himself that he does not want to hear. Only a teaching which makes a man face himself as he is, with all his hidden confusions, can develop a truly new kind of person. Wholeness exists when the inner and the outer are the same, and this is attained by seeing the inner as it actually is, not as it is imagined. - Vernon Howard, Inspire Yourself

Reconnecting politics to our best values is now the most important task of political life. - Jim Wallis in "The Soul of Politics"

There is no path to the truth. Truth must be discovered, but there is no formula for its discovery. What is formulated is not true. You must set out on the uncharted sea, and the uncharted sea is yourself. You must set out to discover yourself, but not according to any plan or pattern, for then there is no discovery. Discovery brings joy - not the remembered, comparative joy, but joy that is ever new. Self knowledge is the beginning of wisdom in whose tranquility and silence there is the immeasurable. - J. Krishnamurti

Anyone can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success. - Oscar Wilde

When you say it's the end, it only means that you've come to the end of what your experience of tiredness believes to be the end of your strength. Just forget all you've ever known about tiredness....Just try and go on. You'll find that there's no such end inside yourself. - Laurens van der Post, A Far Off Place

A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they're not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they're not so bad. - Arnold H. Glasow

A feeling of futility is trying to tell you something of great importance. Do not be afraid to listen to its entire story. A feeling of futility serves the same purpose as feeling chilly on a cold day. Feeling chilly is not a scolding or a condemnation nor does it wish to make you miserable. It is simply nature's way of saying that something must be changed. A feeling of emptiness and purposelessness can be wisely used to change the way we meet life, just as we change clothing to meet changing weather. So see moods of depression and aimlessness like this. That begins to change your psychological clothing, which keeps you comfortable in all kinds of conditions. - Vernon Howard, Esoteric Encyclopedia of Eternal Knowledge

Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you. - Mary Tyler Moore

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions. For your mother and my mother were friends. Your soul and my soul once sat together in the Beloved's womb playing footsie... Your heart and my heart are very, very old Friends. – Hafiz, The Gift

True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess. - Louis Nizer (1902-1994), American Lawyer

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do. - Bertrand Russell

There is much satisfaction in work well done, but there can be no happiness equal to the joy of finding a heart that understands. - Victor Robinsoll

"God is not a Republican, neither is he a Democrat, and their candidates are wonderful Christians, but neither of their parties has a direct line to God.... It is known that the Bible is very accommodating and respects divergence of opinion and our ability to choose. People who use their Bible to reach their own ends do a great disservice to Christianity." - Zimbabwean Bishop Patrick Mutume of the Catholic Diocese of Manicaland

A prudent man will think more important what fate has conceded to him, than what it has denied. - Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658) Spanish Philosopher

Truth is discovered through direct realization. It is in what the true teachers point to, and not their image or personality. This is very important, because if we identify too strongly with a teacher, something inside hardens, creating a huge obstacle to development. High and healthy respect for a true teacher never includes worship or fanaticism; these symptoms indicate a severe misunderstanding posing as sincerity and loyalty. - Tom Russell from the "Superwisdom" E-zine

To a fearful religious visitor the Master said, "Why are you so anxious?"

"Lest I fail to attain salvation."

"And what is salvation?"

"Moksha. Liberation. Freedom."

The Master roared with laughter and said, "So you are forced to be free? You are bound to be liberated?"

At that minute the visitor relaxed and lost his fear forever. - Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. - Leo C. Rosten (1908-1977) American Writer

He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has. – Epictetus

"There is such an enormous gap between our words and deeds! Everyone talks about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, and peace; but at the same time, everyone, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to defend and serve his own interests, and those of his group or his state. Who should break this vicious circle? Responsibility cannot be preached: it can only be borne, and the only possible place to begin is with oneself." - Vaclav Havel

Batch 19

Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values. - Joshua L. Liebman

A friend is one who sees through you and still enjoys the view. - Wilma Askinas (1926- ) American Author

Acceptance is the universal currency of real friendship. . . . It does not warp or shape or wrench a person to be anything other than what they are. - Joan Chittister in "The Friendship of Women"

My life is my message. - Mahatma Gandhi

Beauty, truth, friendship, love, creation - these are the great values of life. We can't prove them, or explain them, yet they are the most stable things in our lives. - Jesse Herman Holmes

Have the courage and the wisdom and the vision to raise a definite standard that will appeal to the best that is in man, and then strive mightily toward that goal. - Harold E. Stassen

It is good to dream, but it is better to dream and work. Faith is mighty, but action with faith is mightier. - Thomas Robert Gaines

He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger. - Japanese proverb

At first Truth appears harsh and threatening. Stick with its ideas and you will see it appears harsh only to the wrong parts in us that have chained us to our self-defeating habits. - Vernon Howard Your Power of Natural Knowing

Practice wise medicine and try to have a good laugh at least three times a day. Be humorous with God and religion, for laughter is the best way to exorcise evil, which by its nature is as heavy as hell. - Edward Hays in "Feathers on the Wind"

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test. - Elbert Hubbard

A good thought, a word of thanks, a greeting on the street, a helping hand, and the world will be a heaven on earth. - Jean Maalouf in "The Healing Power of Kindness"

There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. - John Andrew Holmes

I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amidst the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail. - C.A. Beard

To know exactly where you're headed may be the best way to go astray. Not all those who loiter are lost. - Anthony de Mello in "The Heart of Enlightenment"

Spirituality cannot be something a person toys with, a little compartment of their lives. It has to be at the core, in a way that affects every other part of their lives. - Stephen Covey

The solution to our physical problems of the environment, of hunger, poverty, and injustice will be resolved through experiencing ourselves as one.....cannot be resolved by linear, materialistic means alone. - Barbara Marx Hubbard in "For the Love of God".

What was hard to bear is sweet to remember. - Portuguese proverb

The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality. - John Quincy Adams

I take the assumption that every religion has been rooted in some mystical or transcendent experience. From that assumption, I just look at all the different systems as metaphors or doorways to God. - Ram Dass

Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness. - Chuang - tzu

Sooner or later you will have to decide whether to continue writing a movie script about your life or write a true story. - Vernon Howard, A Treasury of Trueness

Seek refuge in the attitude of detachment and you will amass the wealth of spiritual awareness. Those who are motivated by the desire for the fruits of their actions are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do. - Bhagavad Gita 2: 49-50

When we are unable to love and appreciate ourselves and our efforts, we run away from our mistakes and failures, rather than learning from them. - Meredith L. Young-Sowers

If God said: "Rumi pay homage to everything that has helped you enter my arms,"

There would not be on experience in my life, not one thought, not one feeling, nor any act I would not bow to.

- Rumi Love Poem from God, by D. Ladinsky

To a disciple that was always at his prayers the Master said, "When will you stop leaning on God and stand on your own two feet?"

The disciple was astonished, "But you are the one who taught us to look on God as Father!"

"When will you learn that a father isn't someone you can lean on but someone who rids you of your tendency to lean?"

- Anthony de Mello, SJ

"The greater danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and we miss it, but that we aim too low and we reach it." – Michaelangelo

Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish. - Jean de la Fontaine

A person incapable of thinking beyond his own false desires will unconsciously block fulfillment of his true needs. - Vernon Howard, The Power of Your Supermind

Every human pleasure is meant to be a stepping-stone to knowing God better or to discovering some new aspect of God. - Thomas Keating in "The Human Condition"

We can go through our whole lives worrying about our future happiness, and totally miss where true peace lives-right here, right now. - Peter Russell

Those who, relying upon themselves only, not looking for assistance to anyone besides themselves, it is they who will reach the top-most height. – Buddha

We are cocreators, and it takes a great deal of strength and work to be a conscious cocreator. To choose God's way, the way of peace, in the midst of adversity takes incredible strength and points us to the source of strength-unlimited love. - Bernie Siegel in New Thought for a New Millennium

Now and then I like to lift my eyes up from the details of daily life and remember the bigger picture, and take a breath of God, and feel and remember that ultimately, it's all okay. - Dan Millman

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. - Albert Einstein

Men can be stimulated to show off their good qualities to the leader who seems to think they have good qualities. - John Richelsen

We come into this world crying while all around us are smiling. May we so live that we go out of this world smiling while everybody around us is weeping. - Persian proverb

He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age. – Plato

Finding peace within and bringing peace to the world may start with the capacity to look into another's eyes and recognize there a kindred soul, whether the eyes belong to a German, a Dutchman, a friend, a chimpanzee, or a wolf. - Gary Kowalski in "Peace to All Beings" by Judy Carman

Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past. - Tyron Edwards

The egoic sense of self needs conflict because its sense of a separate identity gets strengthened in fighting against this or that, and in demonstrating that this is "me" and that is not "me." Not infrequently, tribes, nations, and religions derive a strengthened sense of collective identity from having enemies. Who would the "believer" be without the "unbeliever?" - Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

The mystic discovered this new life. He once had every pain, temptation, and confusion as other seekers had, maybe a lot more. But he heroically sought and found answers. He recognized his self-deception and stopped it; he faced the horror of his illusion-based wickedness and dissolved it; he ran into one blank wall after another, but kept going.

The authentic mystic personally experiences the Truth; the hypnotized man merely repeats what he has been told. The mystic hears the music within himself; the unawakened person merely plays another man's phonograph record.

- Vernon Howard

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by, and this you will become. - James Lane Allen (1849-1925) American Author

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. - Thornton Wilder

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. - William James

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears. - Glenn Clark

You are making progress if each mistake you are making is a new one. - unknown

To get your ideas across use small words, big ideas, and short sentences. - John Henry Patterson

Thus, ultimately to try to escape a distress merely perpetuates that distress. What is so upsetting is not the distress itself, but our attachment to that distress. We identify with it, and that alone is the real difficulty. - Ken Wilber

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. - Elie Wiesel

Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life. - Sophia Loren

As a beautiful flower that is full of hue but lacks fragrance, even so fruitless is the well-spoken word of one who does not practice it. - The Buddha

Regard your body and senses as instruments for experiencing, not as self. – Vasishtha, Vasishtha's Yoga

The light around someone who speaks truth, who consistently acts with compassion for all, even in great difficulty, is visible to all around them. - Jack Kornfield

You explore the spirit of God the same way you explore the spirit of another person: you spend time in God's presence, you examine your own heart and mind with respect to God. You watch the world for signs of the spirit. - Barbara Crafton in "Meditations on the Book of Psalms"

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life. - T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American Poet

The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings, the past and the future are not as real, but rather more real than the present. - Alan Watts

However many holy words you read, However many you speak, What good will they do you If you do not act upon them? – Buddha

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen. - Frank Lloyd Wright

What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this. - Epictetus (55-135 AD) Roman Philosopher

Whatever joy there is in the world, all comes from wanting others to be happy; and whatever suffering there is in this world, all comes from wanting oneself to be happy. - Shantideva quoted in "Inner Revolution" by Robert Thurman

Christ has no body now on earth but yours, No hands but yours, no feet but yours, Yours are the eyes through which is to look out Christ's compassion to the world; Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now. - St. Teresa of Avila, Essential Spirituality, by Roger Walsh

The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring. - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish Dramatist and Poet

Self-knowledge is the shortest road to the knowledge of God. - Islamic Sage

It is in the silence of the heart that God speaks. - Mother Teresa

See God in every person, place, and thing, and all will be well in your world. - Louise Hay

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. - Aldous Huxley (1864-1963) English Novelist

You might as well not be alive if you're not in awe of God. - Albert Einstein

To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. - Jean Anouilh

For me, God is personal in the sense that He affects every individual differently. The rabbis of the Midrash said, 'God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes but everyone who looks at it sees a different face.' - Harold Kushner

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. - William Arthur Ward

I had rather do and not promise than promise and not do. - Arthur Warwick

Deep down we must have real affection for each other, a clear realization or recognition of our shared human status. At the same time, we must openly accept all ideologies and systems as a means of solving humanity's problems. One country, one nation, one ideology, one system is not sufficient. - The Dalai Lama

Say this scrap of paper is a billion-dollar check. Ah, I must renounce it, the gospel says, I must give it up if I want eternal life. Are you going to substitute one greed - a spiritual greed - for the other greed? Before, you had a worldly ego; and now you've got a spiritual one, but you've got an ego all the same, a refined one and one more difficult to cope with. When you renounce something, you're tied to it. But if instead of renouncing it, I look at it and say, "Hey, this isn't a billion- dollar check, this is a scrap of paper," there is nothing to fight, nothing to renounce. - Anthony de Mello, SJ

When I meet new people, in my mind there is no barrier, no curtain. As human beings you are my brothers and sisters; there is no difference in substance. I can talk with you as I would to old friends. With this feeling we can communicate without any difficulty and can make heart-to-heart contact. Based on such genuine human relations-real feeling for each other, understanding each other-we can develop mutual trust and respect. From that, we can share other people's suffering and build harmony in human society. - The Dalai Lama

There's only one thing stopping us from having heaven on earth: that we can't believe it can be. - Patricia Sun

True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. - Helen Keller

When nothing is sure, everything is possible. - Margaret Drabble (1939-) English Novelist

All methods and techniques - and of course all human beings who propound them - are merely instruments to help the student to attain a methodless, technique-free, teacherless state. Let him not get enslaved by the thought of their necessity. Let him not confuse the attitudes towards life which they provide with life itself. Let him neither turn the way into the goal, nor the means into the end. All techniques were originated for the purpose of opening a door to the inner essence. But undiscriminating people cling stubbornly to the door and do not permit it to open! The wise student will keep his attitude subtle, elastic and dogma-free. - Dr. Paul Brunton

Trust the unfolding of your life and see what you have to learn from that. - Anne Wilson Schaef

Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor. - James Lane Allen (1849-1925) American Author

Life is a romantic business. It is painting a picture, not doing a sum - but you have to make the romance, and it will come to the question of how much fire you have in our belly. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

All we need to do is allow more joy and love into our experience. We need to really choose it, to allow ourselves to feel it, paying attention, choosing to be alive and to be kind; allowing ourselves to feel and to be nurtured by the natural order of the Spirit of God. When we choose and allow it, the dramas fall away and dissolve. - Patricia Sun

To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue... gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness. – Confucius

It is possible to work in such a way that not only does the work not distract us from prayer but it actually becomes contemplation in the true sense, that is, an activity of God within. - Bede Griffiths in "River of Compassion"

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. - Mother Teresa

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. - Charlotte Bronte

To truly find God, truth needs to be found independently from the opinions of others. The truth has to be found in our hearts. - A.H. Almaas

People are of differing spiritual temperaments and therefore will approach God in different way. - Huston Smith

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are... Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in my pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return. - Mary Jean Iron

Truth has to appear only once in a single mind, for it to be impossible ever to prevent it from spreading universally and setting everything ablaze. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Heart of Matter

Play is as essential to the aged as it is to the young. I count that day lost when I am not moved to tears or laughter, but even more if I have not played. - George Sheehan in "Going the Distance"

Good friendships are fragile things and require as much care as any other fragile and precious thing. - Randolph S. Bourne (1886-1918) American Writer

When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen. - Arland Gilbert

Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers. - Ranier Maria Rilke

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. - Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English Poet

The nearest way to glory - a shortcut, as it were - is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be - quoted in Cicero, 44 BC. – Socrates

No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness. - Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American Bishop

Life is no brief candle to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. - George Bernard Shaw

Only a renewed consciousness of the worth of each and every one of us can provide the beginning of a new politics and of community that could bring us together. To create such a new consciousness will be a formidable spiritual and political task. - Jim Wallis in "The Soul of Politics"

When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens like one of those fluted Japanese blossoms, flimsy and spastic, bright and warm. This almost always seems to happen in community. - Annie Lamott quoted in "The Impossible Will Take a Little While"

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. - Samuel Ullman

In order to discover new lands, one must be willing to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. - Andre Gide (1869-1951) French Writer

I run great risk of failing. It may be that I shall encounter ruin where I look for reputation and a career of honor. The chances are perhaps more in favour of ruin than of success. But, whatever may be the chances, I shall go on as long as any means of carrying on the fight are at my disposal. - Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) English Novelist

The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green. - Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish Writer

"Lest my way of life sounds puritanical or austere, I always emphasize that in the long run one can't satisfactorily say no to war, violence, and injustice unless one is simultaneously saying yes to life, love, and laughter." - David Dellinger, peace activist and author

You can find on the outside only what you posess on the inside. - Adolfo Montiel Ballesteros

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.

- Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell, tr.

This human being is a guest house, every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and attend them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture....The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing...be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

- Rumi, The Illustrated Rumi

Correct the mind and we lose the burden of having to correct everything else. - Vernon Howard, Cosmic Command

What matters is that you do not squander your moments of silence and solitude. - "The Cloud of Unknowing" quoted in "Silent Hope" by John Kirvan

Would you like to liberate yourself from the lower realm of life? Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems to be destined for? Then step away from the shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation. - Lao Tzu Hua Hu Ching, Brian B. Walker, tr.

Never, ever regret or apologize for believing that when one man or one woman decides to risk addressing the world with truth, the world may stop what it is doing and hear. - Robert Fulghum in "Maybe, Maybe Not"

The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light. - Felix Adler

The world is good-natured to people who are good natured. - William Makepeace Thackeray

As our world becomes smaller, through a growing common culture, the true test of community will be our tolerance for our most profound differences and love for the most challenging among us. - Wayne Teasdale in "A Monk in This World"

Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come, the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness, not the glory. - F.W. Faber

In order to be centered and evolved, one must remain unattached and uncommitted to any ideology. The truth about reality cannot come through words, but only through direct experience. Whether seeking reality in relationship, in a government, or in a universe, it can only be known with the intuitive mind. - R. L. Wing

If we could read the secret history of those we would like to punish, we would find in each life enough grief and suffering to make us stop wishing anything more on them. - Unknown Source

"But try," you urge, "the trying shall suffice; The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life: Try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!" - Robert Browning

Great is the road I climb, but the garland offered by an easier effort is not worth the gathering. - Sextus Propertius (50BC-16AD) Roman Poet

Wise people are not absorbed in their own needs. They take the needs of all people as their own. They are good to the good. But they are also good to those who are still absorbed in their own needs.

Why? Because goodness is the very nature of the Great Integrity.... - Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching

Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes. - Ramana Maharshi

How deeply will you dig in order to expose and destroy a false sense of self? At that same depth will you know genuineness. It is like digging away sandy soil in order to build on solid rock. - Vernon Howard

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody. – Longfellow

Q; What a strange predicament we humans are in!

R: It is needlessly tragic. The more advanced the teacher, the less he appeals to the masses who don't want the riches he offers, yet the more valuable he is to the few who do. Be one of the few!

- Vernon Howard, The Power of Your Supermind

I think our concept of God is a product of our own dualistic thinking, which is that things are either transcendent or immanent. And I don't believe that anymore. Spirit and matter are not split in the manner that we have stereotypically thought of it. My experience of God is of being transcendent and immanent all at once....I no longer believe that God is up there, and I don't believe that God is merely out there in history. I think we are actually in God all the time. - Sister Madonna Kolbenschlag

If you are content with the old world, try to preserve it, [even though] it is very sick and cannot hold out much longer. But if you cannot bear to live in everlasting dissonance between your beliefs and your life, thinking one thing and doing another, get out of the medieval white sepulchers, and face your fears. I know very well it is not easy. - Leo Tolstoy

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. - Mohandas Gandhi

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen. - Herodotus (485 - 425BC), Greek Historian

Man has never made any material as resilient as the human spirit. - Bernard Williams (1929-), English Philosopher

I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei

The self is not something that one finds. It is something that one creates. - Thomas Szasz (1920-), American Psychiatrist

When the traffic lights are red in New Delhi, they display the word "relax." Every time you come to a red light, instead of sitting grinding your teeth, try seeing it as an opportunity for practice. Connect with the in-going and out-going of the breath. Be one with the breathing. - Tenzin Palmo in "Reflections on a Mountain Lake"

The word courtesy actually comes from the word "court." My dictionary defines courteous as "marked by polished manners, gallantry, or ceremonial usage of a court . . . marked by respect and consideration of others." To be courteous is to adopt the manners of the court, to treat one another like royalty." - Donald McCullough in "Say Please, Say Thank You: The Respect We Owe One Another"

Q: How can we know what is true?

R: As you detect and expel the false, the truth appears, just as a submarine comes to the surface by expelling the water in its tanks.

- Vernon Howard, The Power of Esoterics

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage "coaches" ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory. - Herbert Kaufman

You don't need to think of yourself as a spiritual seeker. It is a back-bending burden to go around with a self-picture of being a spiritual or religious person. A man is genuinely spiritual when he has no conditioned ideas of what it means to be spiritual. To be real is to be spiritual. A cat is normal because no one has fixed him with the neurotic notion that he should be a tiger. - Vernon Howard, The Power of Your Supermind

If you always imagine God in the same way, no matter how true and beautiful it may be, you will not be able to receive the gift of the new ways he has ready for you. - Carlos Valles quoted in "This Our Exile" by James Martin

I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do. - Helen Keller

People do not see the enormous difference between mere self-improvement and a deep change of inner nature. The great difference is this. Self-improvement, such as learning better grammar or a foreign language, never challenges a man's false ideas about himself. But inner transformation requires him to hear facts about himself that he does not want to hear. Only a teaching which makes a man face himself as he is, with all his hidden confusions, can develop a truly new kind of person. Wholeness exists when the inner and the outer are the same, and this is attained by seeing the inner as it actually is, not as it is imagined. - Vernon Howard, Inspire Yourself

Reconnecting politics to our best values is now the most important task of political life. - Jim Wallis in "The Soul of Politics"

There is no path to the truth. Truth must be discovered, but there is no formula for its discovery. What is formulated is not true. You must set out on the uncharted sea, and the uncharted sea is yourself. You must set out to discover yourself, but not according to any plan or pattern, for then there is no discovery. Discovery brings joy - not the remembered, comparative joy, but joy that is ever new. Self knowledge is the beginning of wisdom in whose tranquility and silence there is the immeasurable. - J. Krishnamurti

Anyone can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success. - Oscar Wilde

When you say it's the end, it only means that you've come to the end of what your experience of tiredness believes to be the end of your strength. Just forget all you've ever known about tiredness....Just try and go on. You'll find that there's no such end inside yourself. - Laurens van der Post, A Far Off Place

A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they're not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they're not so bad. - Arnold H. Glasow

A feeling of futility is trying to tell you something of great importance. Do not be afraid to listen to its entire story. A feeling of futility serves the same purpose as feeling chilly on a cold day. Feeling chilly is not a scolding or a condemnation nor does it wish to make you miserable. It is simply nature's way of saying that something must be changed. A feeling of emptiness and purposelessness can be wisely used to change the way we meet life, just as we change clothing to meet changing weather. So see moods of depression and aimlessness like this. That begins to change your psychological clothing, which keeps you comfortable in all kinds of conditions. - Vernon Howard, Esoteric Encyclopedia of Eternal Knowledge

Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you. - Mary Tyler Moore

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions. For your mother and my mother were friends. Your soul and my soul once sat together in the Beloved's womb playing footsie... Your heart and my heart are very, very old Friends. – Hafiz, The Gift

True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess. - Louis Nizer (1902-1994), American Lawyer

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do. - Bertrand Russell

There is much satisfaction in work well done, but there can be no happiness equal to the joy of finding a heart that understands. - Victor Robinsoll

"God is not a Republican, neither is he a Democrat, and their candidates are wonderful Christians, but neither of their parties has a direct line to God.... It is known that the Bible is very accommodating and respects divergence of opinion and our ability to choose. People who use their Bible to reach their own ends do a great disservice to Christianity." - Zimbabwean Bishop Patrick Mutume of the Catholic Diocese of Manicaland

A prudent man will think more important what fate has conceded to him, than what it has denied. - Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658) Spanish Philosopher

Truth is discovered through direct realization. It is in what the true teachers point to, and not their image or personality. This is very important, because if we identify too strongly with a teacher, something inside hardens, creating a huge obstacle to development. High and healthy respect for a true teacher never includes worship or fanaticism; these symptoms indicate a severe misunderstanding posing as sincerity and loyalty. - Tom Russell from the "Superwisdom" E-zine

To a fearful religious visitor the Master said, "Why are you so anxious?"

"Lest I fail to attain salvation."

"And what is salvation?"

"Moksha. Liberation. Freedom."

The Master roared with laughter and said, "So you are forced to be free? You are bound to be liberated?"

At that minute the visitor relaxed and lost his fear forever. - Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. - Leo C. Rosten (1908-1977) American Writer

He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has. – Epictetus

"There is such an enormous gap between our words and deeds! Everyone talks about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, and peace; but at the same time, everyone, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to defend and serve his own interests, and those of his group or his state. Who should break this vicious circle? Responsibility cannot be preached: it can only be borne, and the only possible place to begin is with oneself." - Vaclav Havel