One Can Choose!

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.

Abraham Maslow

Education

Education is a progressive discovery of our ignorance

Will Durant

666 Transmuting Evil into Good

We've received so much attention for releasing our "Art of Spiritual Peacemaking" campaign on June, 6, or 6/6/6, that I thought I would respond. The Book of Revelations marks this as the sign of evil, one to be afraid of. The art of creating peace in the world requires that we find ways to transmute evil into good. This is the focus of the book, and so releasing it on such a day feels appropriate to me. We have the opportunity to create a new world, replacing the energies of hatred and violence with compassion and peace. Should we avoid a day because many will associate it with evil? I believe that we should let our light shine on such a day, releasing the negativity that it would otherwise inspire. From this moment on I hope that you will not think of 6/6/6 as a day to dread, but one to welcome. Your love is all that is required to bring about this transformation.

James Twyman

The Regenerated Mind

"Therefore I say, any pretence to God, whatever name it may be given, by which man might pretend to approach God, is a fruitless, useless thing outside of a regenerated mind."

Jakob Böhme, The Way to Christ (1624)

And Then What?

To undo the endless sequences of wanting and craving, it is useful to disassemble them by doing an exercise called “and then what?” I want (a better job, more money, better car, college degree, or whatever), followed by the question “and then what?” It will be found that the answer is always the final belief that “and then I will be happy.” In ordinary life fulfillment and desire bring temporary relief, but soon the wantingness merely switches to a new desire. Success and money are the most frequent illusory goals and not infrequently they become an obsession.

David R. Hawkins., M.D., Ph.D.

I am Not Enough?

The one unexamined assumption, the one fundamental error, the one unconscious thought is: I am not enough.

Eckhart Tolle

God Speaks to You Every Single Day

God speaks to all of us every single day, and in many different ways.

The question isn't "does it really happen?", because it most certainly does.

The question is.... will you HEAR what God is saying to you?
Do you know how to listen for His voice?

Neale Walsh

No Idea of this Force

"We have no idea of this force, except in our fear. For it is so utterly inconceivable, so totally opposed to us, that our brain disintegrates at the point where we strain ourselves to think it. And yet, for some time now I have believed that it is our own force, all our own force that is still too great for us. It is true we do not know it; but is it not just that which is most our own of which we know the least? Sometimes I reflect on how heaven came to be and death: through our having distanced what is most precious to us, because there was still so much else to do beforehand and because it was not secure with us busy people. Now times have elapsed over this, and we have become accustomed to lesser things. We no longer recognize that which is our own and are terrified by its extreme greatness. May that not be?"

Rainer Maria Rilke

Estranged

"The state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves, because we are estranged from the Ground of our being, because we are estranged from the origin and aim of our life. And we do not know where we have come from, or where we are going. We are separated from the mystery, the depth and the greatness of our existence. We hear the voice of that depth; but our ears are closed. We feel that something radical, total and unconditioned is demanded of us; but we rebel against it, try to escape its urgency, and will not accept its premise."

Paul Tillich

A Lasting Connection

As I scan from right to left,
I feel my ego melt away.
I desire to move towards real and
lasting fulfillment as I
resist the selfish impulses of
my ego.

I look forward towards real transformation and
spiritual elevation.

As I close my eyes, I am able to find that place inside that holds my true
joy and happiness. I am able to see the difference between the ego's wants,
and the soul's needs.

I am able to establish a true
and lasting connection
to the Light.

Danny Hughes

Mind Itself is the Problem

Don't try to solve individual single problems--there are none: mind itself is the problem. But mind is hidden underground; that's why I call it the root, it is not apparent. Whenever you come across a problem, the problem is above ground, you can see it--that's why you are deceived by it.

Always remember, the visible is never the root; the root always remains invisible, the root is always hidden. Never fight with the visible, otherwise you will fight with shadows. You may waste yourself, but there cannot be any transformation in your life; the same problems will crop up again and again and again.
Mind is never peaceful--'no-mind' is peace. Mind itself can never be peaceful, silent. The very nature of the mind is to be tense, to be in confusion. Mind can never be clear, it cannot have clarity, because mind is by nature confusion, cloudiness. Clarity is possible without mind, peace is possible without mind, silence is possible without mind--so never try to attain a silent mind. If you do, from the very beginning you are moving in an impossible dimension.

If you watch, you will never come across any entity like mind. It is not a thing, it is just a process; it is not a thing, it is like a crowd. Individual thoughts exist,....millions of thoughts, giv[ing] you the illusion as if mind exists. It is just like a crowd, millions of people standing in a crowd; is there anything like a crowd? Can you find the crowd other than the individuals standing there? But they are standing together, their togetherness gives you the feeling as if something like a crowd exists--only individuals exist.

[Only] You abide: not as you, because that too is a thought--as pure consciousness; not your name, because that too is a thought; not your body, because one day you will realize that too is a thought. Just pure consciousness, with no name, no form; just the purity, just the formlessness and namelessness, just the very phenomenon of being aware--only that abides.

If you get identified, you become the mind. If you get identified, you become the body. If you get identified you become the name and the form--what the Hindus call nama, rupa, name and form--then the host is lost. Then you forget the eternal and the momentary becomes significant. The momentary is the world; the eternal is divine.

Rajneesh

As Above, So Below

No journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.

Lillian Smith

A Kind of Prison

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us 'universe'...a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
Albert Einstein

God is Within; we are Without

"Further, I say that if the soul is to know God, it must forget itself and lose itself, for as long as it is self-aware and self-conscious, it will not see or be conscious of God. But when, for God's sake, it becomes unself-conscious and lets go of everything, it finds itself again in God, for knowing God, it therefore knows itself and everything else from which it has been cut asunder, in the divine perfection.

"No one ought to think that it is hard to attain this, however hard it sounds and however hard it may be at first to cut one's self asunder and be dead to everything. But once you have come in, no life is easier, nor pleasanter, nor lovelier, for God is very anxious at all times to be near to people, and to teach them how to come to him, if they are only willing to follow him. Nobody ever wanted anything as much as God wants to bring people to know him. God is always ready but we are not ready. God is near to us but we are far from him. God is within; we are without. God is at home; we are abroad."

Meister Eckhart

Words are Seeds you Plant

If you are going to reap good things, you have to sow good seeds first! That is a principle that God has established!

If we say it long enough eventually we're going to reap a harvest. We're going to get exactly what we're saying.
Joel Osteen

In God

In Him we live and move and have our being.

Acts 17:28

Asking for What You Really Want

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you; Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want; Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep!

Rumi

You Forgot the Wonderful Fire that Flows Through You

Life upon life, existence upon existence, you became so immersed in the illusion of this plane that you forgot the wonderful fire that flows through you. In ten and one-half million years you have come from being sovereign and all-powerful deities, to where you are utterly lost in matter, enslaved by your own creations of dogma, creed, sex and race; immersed in jealousy, bitterness, guilt, and fear. You so identified yourselves with your bodies that you entrapped yourselves in survival and forgot the unseen essence that you truly are--that God within you allows you to create your dreams however you choose. Immortality you have rejected; and for that you will die...and return here again, again and again. Thus, here you are, after ten and one-half million years of living here...and you hang on to your disbeliefs.

Ramtha

The Real Within

We are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself.

Paracelsus

You Are Not a Child of Circumstance

You are a child of God and not a child of circumstance. The very fact of having free will is what liberates you from the imprisonment of circumstance. You may initiate changes to make a situation compatible with your love, and you can choose not to support those situations that deny your love. Even if none of the choices available to you is ideal, the very act of making choices will give you an assertive power over external conditions and a way of moving through them.
Glenda Green

What is your primary purpose?

Your primary inner purpose in life is to awaken
Eckhart Tolle

Staring

The average American, by the time he is sixty years old, will have spent fifteen years staring at the TV screen.

Eckhart Tolle

Intentions

The greater our awareness of intentions, the greater our freedom to choose. -- Gil Fronsdal

Awareness

“I myself am heaven and hell"

Omar Khayam

Set a Prisoner Free

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was You.
Unknown

Littleness

Little men with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds

Zig Ziglar

The Doer of Works

The whole purpose of life is to realize one's inherent Godhood. There is no God, no saint and no power in which we can place any confidence for the purpose of our salvation, except the power of divine Wisdom within ourselves. Only when man realizes the presence of God within himself will he begin his infinite life, and step from the realm of evanescent illusions into that of permanent truth. This realization can be attained in only one way -- by the abandonment of the personal self.

Only when the illusion of "self" has disappeared from my heart and mind, and my consciousness has arisen to that state in which there will be no "I," then will not I be the doer of works, but the spirit of wisdom will perform its wonders through my instrumentality. (Philosophia Occulta.)

Paracelsus
1540

Infinite Paths

And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior

Comedian Stephen Colbert

Make Your Life Art

I see your life as already artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art.

Toni Morrison

You Can See the World Only through Love Glasses

“Everyone sees the world through glasses, and their world is that which they see through them, worry glasses, hate glasses, glasses of envy, jealousy, greed. I wear only Love glasses.”
Sai Baba

When You Give Opinions....

“My show is about me in that when you give opinions, you're saying something about yourself.”

Stephen Colbert