On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.

 

 

Sacred

"Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred."

Hafiz

Talking

Man's word is Spirit in man. Spoken words are sounds occasioned by the vibrations of thoughts, thoughts are vibrations sent forth by the ego or by the soul. Every word you utter should be potent with soul vibration. A mans words are lifeless if he fails to impregnate them with spiritual force. Talkativeness, exaggeration, or falsehood makes your words as ineffective as paper bullets shot from a toy gun. The speech and prayer of garrulous or inaccurate persons are unlikely to produce beneficial changes in the order of things. Mans words should represent not only truth but also his definite understanding and realization. Speech without soul force is like husks without corn...    Paramahansa Yogananda

Mind

"The mind is not our thoughts, just as the sky is not the weather."  Elizabeth Lesser

Meditation

‎"Practice helps us let the thoughts (like clouds) pass through the sky of the heart - we don't have to think them. The natural response of the heart is to expand in Love when it's not afraid." Krishna Das

Awakening

"When your soul awakens,you begin to truly inherit your life. You leave the kingdom of fake surfaces, repetitive talk and weary voices and slip deeper into the true adventure of who you are and who you are called to become. The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown. Yet we are afraid of the unknown because it lies outside our vision and our control. The normal way never leads home.

Once you start to awaken, no one can ever claim you again for old patterns. Now you realize how precious your time here is. You are no longer willing to squander your essence on undertakings that do not nourish your true self; your patience grows thin with tired talk and dead language. You see through the roster of expectation which promises safety and the confirmation of outer identity. Now you are impatient for growth, willing to put yourself in the way of change. You want your work to become an expression of your gift. You want your relationship to voyage beyond the pallid frontiers to where the danger of transformation dwells. You want your God to be wild and to call you to where your destiny awaits. When you begin to sense that your imagination is the place where you are most divine, you feel called to clean out of your mind all the worn and shabby furniture of thought. When your inner senses are blurred, you can see nothing in or of yourself; you become a respectable prisoner of received images. On this journey, you begin to see how the sides of your heart that seemed awkward, contradictory and uneven are the places where your treasure lies hidden. You begin to become truer to yourself. The journey shows you that from this inner dedication you can reconstruct your own values and action. You develop from your own self-compassion a great compassion for others. You are no longer caught in the false game of judgment , comparison and assumption. More naked now than ever , you begin to feel truly alive. You begin to trust the music of your own soul; you have inherited treasure that no one will ever be able to take from you. At the deepest level, this adventure of growth is in fact a trans-figurative conversation with your own death. And when the time comes for you to leave, the view from your death bed will show a life of growth that gladdens the heart and takes away all fear."

Forgiveness

"[Since your experience of the world represents] your combined state of thought and feeling [and thus your own] state of consciousness, if you hate anyone, you are disliking a part of yourself. Thus all forgiveness is self-forgiveness."  ~Raymond Charles Barker

Knowledge

"You can lead a Saint to knowledge, but you can't make him think." - Richard Packham

Santa

"The Santa myth is one of the most effective means ever devised for
intimidating children, eroding their self-esteem, twisting their behavior,
warping their values, and slowing their development of critical thinking
skills."   Tom Flynn, The Trouble with Christmas

Thinking

Freethinker- 

n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of
reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief.

Death and Conformity

"Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do."   Bertrand
Russell

Herecy

"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought."  Graham Greene

Perception

"All of the things that you have become convinced are limits are products of the way in which you have learned to think."  Wayne Dyer

Thinking

"When your thinking is locked in false certainty or negativity it puts so many interesting and vital areas of life out of your reach.  You live impoverished and hungry in the midst of your own abundance."   John O' Donahue

Thinking

"Thinking that deserves the name never attempts to make a cage for mystery."   John O' Donahue

Thinking

"More often than not, we have picked up the habits of thinking of those around us.   These thought-habits are not yours; they can damage the way you see the world, and make you doubt your own instinct and sense of life."   John O' Donahue

Individuality of Thought

"One of the greatest tasks in life is to find a way of thinking which is honest and original and yet right for your style of individuality.   It takes a lifetime to find a rhythm of thinking which reflects and articulates the uniqueness of your soul."   John O' Donahue

Perception

"Thought is one of the most powerful forces in the universe.  The way you see things makes them what they are.   We never meet life innocently.   We always take life in through the grid of thought we use."  John O' Donahue