Religion

"Then, it appears to me, one gradually formulates one's religion, be it what it may. A person has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification."

-D.H. Lawrence

"Every society honors it's live conformists and it's dead troublemakers." Mignon McLaughlin

Relationships and Truth

"In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves". ~ Abraham J Heschel

Belief

"If your too convicted in your opinions and beliefs, perhaps you are a convict, imprisoned within the confines of your own understandings."  Jon Kabat-Zinn

Six Mistakes of Man

• The illusion that personal gain is made up of crushing others
• The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected
• Insisting that a thing is not possible because we cannot accomplish it
• Refusing to set aside trivial preferences
• Neglecting development and refinement of the mind and not acquiring the habit of reading and study
• Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

Cireco (Roman orator)

Why I'm Agnostic

“When I became convinced that the universe is natural; that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world; not even in infinite space. I was free; free to think, to express my thoughts; free to live to my own ideal; free to use all my faculties, all my senses; free to spread imagination's wings; free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope; free to judge and determine for myself; free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the..."inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past; free from popes and priests; free from all the "called" and "set apart"; free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies; free from the fear of eternal pain; free from the winged monsters of the night; free from devils, ghosts, and gods. For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought; no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings; no chains for my limbs; no lashes for my back; no fires for my flesh; no master's frown or threat; no following another's steps; no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain; for the freedom of labour and thought; to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs; to those whose flesh was scarred and torn; to those by fire consumed; to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.” (Robert. G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am Agnostic", 1896)

Trails of Life

"Isn't the trail of our relationships the time it takes for the heart to practice it's part in the movement we call Love?  Isn't the trail of our honest questions the time it takes for the mind to practice it's part in the movement we call Wisdom?  Isn't the trail of our changing beliefs the time it takes for the spirit to practice it's part in the movement called God?  Isn't the trail of our Oneness, those brief moments when everything comes together, isn't this the time it takes for Love and Wisdom and God to bring the common place in us alive?" Mark Nepo

A Vase

I am always holding a priceless vase in my hands.
If you asked me about the deeper truths
of the the path and I told you
the answers,

It would be like handing sacred relics to you.

But most have their hands tied
behind their
back;

that is, most are not free of events their eyes have seen
and their ears have heard
and their bodies have felt.

Most cannot focus their abilities
in the present, and
might drop what I said.

So I'll wait; I don't mind waiting until
your love for all
makes luminous
the now. 

Taught So Much

I

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

Ore even 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.

Humility

"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself. " ~Galileo Galilei~

Belief

"There is nothing that isn't true if you believe it; and nothing is true, believe it or not."
— Byron Katie

Blame

"Placing the blame or judgment on someone else leaves you powerless to change your experience; taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them"
— Byron Katie

Religion

"I am neither Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim.
Doing away with duality, I saw the two worlds as one.
I seek One, I know One, I see One, and I call One."
~Rumi

Love

"Love is the fruit of spiritual labor; it is not a technique you try or a dogma you adopt.  Love is the secret you unmask yourself to find; the destination where all roads of the journey lead.  But it does no one any good to rush the process, nor enforce loving behavior.  You cannot legislate forgiveness; you cannot make hate illegal.  Just as you cannot pull a shoot out of the ground and demand that it flower then and there, love cannot be forced.  Spiritual work prepares the ground.  Love will blossom when our egos and our wounds and our fears have been worked with, tilled into the soil of our understanding."  Elizabeth Lesser

Darkness and Light

"Don't worry about being good.  Instead discover how both good and bad live within you.   Deeply accept the shadow even as you seek the light.  Believe in change.  Take full responsibility for  who you are and what you want.  And from such forthright wisdom your goodness with prevail and your kindness will blossom and your heart will heal."   Elizabeth Lesser

Truth

"Don't keep searching for truth; Just let go of your opinions."  Seng-ts'an

Buddha's Wisdom

"Do not accept what you hear by report.  Do not accept tradition.  Do not accept a statement because it is found in our books, nor because it is in accord with your beliefs, nor because it is the saying of your teacher.  Be lamps unto yourselves."  Buddha (on his deathbed) 

Individuality

"To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying 'amen' to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive."  Robert Louis Stevenson

Reality

"We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic."  Susan Jeffers

Irony

"The worst offenders of the virtue of irony, this talent for multiple emotional and intellectual points of view are moralists.  They think they know what is right and wrong, tell others how to live, and see themselves as models of virtuous living.  Next in line are literalists, who anxiously take their every thought or belief as pure fact.   They are incapable of appreciating the paradoxes in belief and need to feel that they possess truth.. "  Thomas Moore