What if our religion was each other


If our practice was our life

If prayer, our words.

What if the temple was the earth

If forests were our church......

If holy water - the rivers, lakes, and oceans

What if meditation was our relationships

If the Teacher was life

If wisdom was self-knowledge

If love was the center of our being



~ Ganga White

Silence

"If you could only keep quiet, clear of memories and expectations, you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. Its your restlessness that causes chaos."   Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

"The work you have done has prepared you for the next part of your spiritual journey.  Through meditation, heartfulness work and care of the body, your mind is calmer, your heart is more open, and your body is less blocked.  You are simultaneously more grounded and more sensitive; more sure of who you are, yet less attached to being 'somebody'.   You are learning to die."  Inayat Khan

Acceptance

"We can stop struggling with what occurs and see it's true face without calling it the enemy.   Our practice is not about accomplishing anything - not about winning or losing - but about ceasing to struggle and relax as it is.   That is what we are doing when we sit down and meditate.   That attitude spreads into the rest of our lives."  Pema Chodron

Becoming Human

"It took me a long time to decide to become a human being, and look within my own flawed nature for salvation.   It took mistakes, dark nights of the soul, hard work and help from teachers and friends to fashion a spirituality that respected both my divinity and my humanity, my radiance and my shadow.   It took my own combination of religion and psychology, meditation and physical healing, mysticism and science to forge a path that felt genuine and effective."   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

Moon

"Whereas sun rhythm would nourish into action, moon rhythm meditates, ponders, keeps the feeling in harmony with the thought."  Marion Woodman

Silence

"Silence is important because it provides direction.   What waits for you in silence is the insight and direction you need to determine the next step in your quest."  Christina Baldwin

Silence

"Daily silence experienced in humility and fervour as an indispensable exercise in spiritual nourishment gradually creates with us a permanent state of silence.   The soul discovers in such a silence unsuspected possibilities.   It realizes that life can be lived out at different levels."   Pierre LaCout

Be Here Now

Don't let your mind get weary and confused
Your will be still, don't try
Don't let your heart get heavy child
Inside you there's a strength that lies

Don't let your soul get lonely child
It's only time, it will go by
Don't look for love in faces, places
It's in you, that's where you'll find kindness

Be here now, here now
Be here now, here now

Don't lose your faith in me
And I will try not to lose faith in you
Don't put your trust in walls
'Cause walls will only crush you when they fall

Be here now, here now
Be here now, here now

From "Be Here Now" by Ray LaMontagne

Stillness

"When we avoid the emptiness, when we fill the stillness with too much doing, we are often trying to outrun our sometimes unconscious conviction that who we are will never be enough."   Rachel Naomi Remen

Meditation

"Meditation is the practice of unconditional friendliness toward whatever is happening in the moment; the moment during which we sit in meditation, and all the other moments of life, whether things are going well or falling apart.  Mediation helps us find an internal witness with which to view external events.   Discovering and developing an internal witness may be the most important act of our life.   Being able to observe ourselves honestly, with acceptance and friendliness trains us to do the same with others at home, at work and in the world.   It trains us to be less reactive to whatever it is in life that causes us suffering.  It gives us the ability to experience our own pain without identifying fully with it and therefore to be more free from it.   We begin to fear life's pain less, to contract less around it.

Meditation can be a magnifying glass that lights the fire of happiness in our hearts.  Over time, mindfulness practice sensitizes our capacity for joy so much that even tiny physical and emotional pleasures can bring great happiness."    Elizabeth Lesser

Judgment

"You do not have to pretend that you love something that you loathe.  Just get still and let the judgment subside."  Wayne Dyer

Meditation

Meditation makes you:

• empty of all rubbish, it empties you so completely so you can become
• spacious
• receptive
• sensitive
• vulnerable
• available