Close your eyes and you will see clearly.

Cease to listen and you will hear truth.

Be silent and your heart will sing.

Seek no contacts and you will find union.

Be still and you will move forward on the tide of spirit.

Be gentle and you will need no strength.

Be patient and you will achieve all things.

Be humble and you will remain entire.

Taoist meditation.

I N S T R U C T I O N S   F O R    L I F E

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
Respect for self
Respect for others and
Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realise you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

*********

I AM DIVINE GUIDANCE

Everything I do is orchestrated for my higher growth, my higher consciousness and my higher evolution.

***

   MONEY

   It can buy a House
   But not a Home
 
   It can buy a Bed
   But not Sleep
 
   It can buy a Clock
   But not Time
 
   It can buy you a Book
   But not Knowledge
 
   It can buy you a Position
   But not Respect
 
   It can buy you Medicine
   But not Health
 
   It can buy you Blood
   But not Life
 
   It can buy you Sex
   But not Love
 
   So you see money isn't everything.

      
     ~>*<~      ~><~       ~>*<~

IN THE FLOW                       A NEED TO REVIEW LIFE
happy                                        unhappy
joyful                                         surviving
fun                                             serious
tolerant                                      irritated
patient                                       impatient
allowing                                     making judgements
relaxed                                      up tight
flowing                                      rigid
laid back                                   jumping in
humorous                                 severe
in the heart                                in the mind
uncond. love                             conditional love
following excitement                  following survival
trusting                                     making sure
faith                                          hope
in the now                                planning ahead
balanced                                  up and down
calm                                         anxious
peaceful                                   argumentative

*********

A SPECIAL CHILD

A meeting was held quite far from Earth. “Its time again for another birth,”
Said the angels to the Lord above. “This special child will need much love,
His progress may seem very slow, accomplishments may be hard to show,
And he’ll require extra care from the folks he will meet down there.

He may not run, but he’ll laugh and play,
His thoughts may seem quite far away.
In many ways he will adapt, but he’ll be known as ‘handicapped’.

So let us be careful where he’s sent, we want his life to be content.
Please Lord find the parents who will do this special job for You.
They will not realise right away, the leading roll they’re asked to play,

But with this child sent from above, comes stronger faith, and richer love.
And soon we all will know the privilege given, in caring for this gift from
heaven,
Our precious child so meek and mild, is heaven’s very ‘special’ child.
Author unknown

****

"The smallest deed always exceeds the grandest of intentions."

       WHY BOTHER?

Occasionally, we all must wonder to ourselves why it is that we "fight the good fight." Why do we refuse to accept mere mediocrity? What makes us swim upstream against the current, to fight time and tide?

We do not take the easy way out, choosing instead to stand up to the ignorant multitudes. Not for love or money, nor for ego nor material gain, but simply because we know it is the right thing to do. Every now and again, one comes across a pearl of wisdom that reminds one of exactly "Why bother?"

John Jay Chapman addressed the Hobart College Graduating Class of 1900, one hundred years ago. Here is his reminder of why we bother:

--Barry Ritholtz

------------
"When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose.

If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course you become dampers, mutes and hooded executioners.

As a practical matter a mere failure to speak out upon occasions where no opinion is asked or expected of you, and when the utterance of an uncalled for suspicion is odious, will often hold you to a concurrence in palpable iniquity. Try to raise a voice that will be heard from here to Albany and watch what comes forward to shut off the sound.

It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your father's offering you a place in his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if any of you young gentleman have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well.

I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and wait. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard. "In a few years," reasons one of them, "I shall have gained a standing, and then I will use my powers for good."

Next year comes and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought. His ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say.

I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time."

- John Jay Chapman, commencement address to the Graduating Class, Hobart College, 1900

*****

o what makes your heart sing and not sink!    S. Stevenson

*****

If you try to find out more about God than about yourself, you may end up becoming some kind of fanatic.  abbi Blue

****

Quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny.
He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives.
He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good
and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy."
--"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
--

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction....
The chain reaction of evil --
hate begetting hate,
wars producing more wars --
must be broken,
or we shall be plunged
into the dark abyss of annihilation."

--"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
--
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

"I still have a dream.
It is deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning of its creed.
'We hold these truths to be self-evident
that all men are created equal.'"--

"The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important." --

"Life's most urgent question is: what are you doing for others." --

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character."

--Closing the tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with the following excerpt from his "I Have A Dream" speech, delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and
every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

***** "Driven by the force of love, the fragments of the world seek each other that the world may come into being.

-- Teilhard de Chardin

*****

Enlightenment is understanding  that there is nowhere to go,
nothing to do, and nobody you have to be except exactly who you're being right now.
 - Neale Donald Walsch

*****

One must EVER hold the vision of your JOURNEY'S END and demand the manifestation of that which they have already achieved.

*****

My personal connection to infinite intelligence and infinite being is adequate to yield me a huge personal fortune.

*****

"There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread."
-- Mother Teresa

********

"Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together."
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832 poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher

*********
To a disciple who depended overmuch on books the Master said:
"A man came to the market with a shopping list and lost it. When to his
great joy he found it again, he read it eagerly, held on to it till he had
done his shopping -- then threw it away as a useless scrap of paper."

Anthony de Mello, SJ


MORSEL: Wisdom is not in words. Wisdom is meaning within words. --Khalil
Gibran

"You are so proud of your intelligence," said the Master to a
disciple. "You are like the condemned man who is proud of the vastness of
his prison cell."
Anthony de Mello, SJ


MORSEL: Of all the vices, intellectual pride is the most treacherous and
the most difficult to free oneself from, because it is not recognized as a
vice. --Swami Veda Bharati

*******

"I asked God for water, he gave me an ocean. I asked God for a flower, he
gave me a garden. I asked God for a tree, he gave me a forest. I asked God
for a friend, he gave me YOU.

There is not enough darkness in the world to put out the light of one candle.

A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle". Roberta Ossana

**********
"When many dreams come together, their future is without limit."

-- James Halligan

********
"To put the bounty and the health of our land,
our only commonwealth,
into the hands of people
who do not live on it and share its fate
will always be an error.
For whatever determines the fortune of the land
determines also the fortune of the people.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that."

-- Wendell Berry

*******
"It is only in the mysterious equation of lovethat any logic or reason can be found."
-- John Forbes Nash, Jr. a man with schizophrenia who won the
1994 Nobel Prize for Economics The movie "Beautiful Mind" is about his life.

**********

The Master was asked by what criterion he selected his disciples.
He said, "I act in a submissive and humble manner. Those who become
haughty in response to my humility I immediately reject. Those who revere
me because of my humble demeanor I reject with equal speed."

Anthony de Mello, SJ

**********

"Work is love made visible." -- Kahlil Gibran, in "The Prophet"

********
"I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him."
-- Booker T. Washington

**********
"People naturally fear misfortune and long for good fortune,
but if the distinction is carefully studied,
misfortune often turns out to be good fortune,
and good fortune to be misfortune.
The wise man [or woman] learns to meet the changing
circumstances of life with an equitable spirit,
being neither elated by success
nor depressed by failure."

-- Gautama Buddha

********

"The earth laughs in flowers." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

*********
He was a religious writer and interested in the Master's views. "How does
one discover God?"
Said the Master sharply, "Through making the heart white with silent
meditation, not making paper black with religious composition."
And, turning to his scholarly disciples, he teasingly added, "Or making the
air thick with learned conversation."

Anthony de Mello, SJ


MORSEL: The sage wears clothes of coarse cloth
but carries jewels in his bosom;
He knows himself but does not display himself;
He loves himself but does not hold himself in high esteem.

--Lao-Tzu (fl. B.C. 600)

*********
To a man who hesitated to embark on the spiritual quest for fear of the
effort and renunciation the Master said:
"How much effort and renunciation does it take to open one's eyes and see?"

Anthony de Mello, SJ


MORSEL: There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the
light of even one small candle. --Robert Alden

******
"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826

********
"Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt,
kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate."
-- Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965 philosopher, physician, and musician

******

"At night make me one with the darkness, In the morning make me one with the light."
-- Wendell Berry

*********

"Ultimately, the choice to love each other is the only choice for a survivable future."
-- Marianne Williamson contemporary metaphysical author

*********
"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
-- Mother Teresa

******

"A passionate interest in what you do is the secret to enjoying life,
perhaps the secret of a long life."
-- Julia Child, age 88

**********

Reflect upon the powerful cosmic fact that the absence of inner
enemies means the absence of outer enemies.

*********

"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire,
 you will what you imagine, and at last you create what you will."
 -- George Bernard Shaw      Irish-born British playwright, Nobel Prize winner

******
"Calamities can bring growth and Enlightenment," said the Master.

And he explained it thus:

"Each day a bird would shelter in the
withered branches of a tree that stood
in the middle of a vast deserted plain.
One day a whirlwind uprooted the tree,
forcing the poor bird to fly a hundred
miles in search of shelter -- till it finally
came to a forest of fruit-laden trees."

And he concluded: "If the withered tree had survived, nothing would have
induced the bird to give up its security and fly."

Anthony de Mello, SJ

MORSEL:   Life can only be understood backwards   It must be lived
forwards. --Soren Kierkegaard

******

"In order to change something, don't struggle to change the existing model.
 Create a new model, and make the old one obsolete."
 -- Buckminster Fuller

********

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal,
    or acts to improve the life of others,
    or strikes out against injustice,
    he sends a tiny ripple of hope,
    and those ripples,
    crossing each other
    from a million different centers of energy,
    build a current which can sweep down
    the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

    -- Robert F. Kennedy

       *******

   "The time is always right to do what is right."
    -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

       *****

"By logic and reason we die hourly. By imagination we live."
 -- William Butler Yeats

******

" To do evil, a human being must first of all believe
   that what he's doing is good...
   Ideology -- that is what gives devildoing its long-sought
   justification and gives the evildoer the necessary
   steadfastness and determination.
   That is the social theory which helps to make his acts
   seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes,
   so that he won't hear reproaches and curses
   but will receive praise and honors."

   -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

                >>~o~<<

  "In a time of universal deceit,
   telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
   -- George Orwell


                >>~o~<<

  "A time comes
   when silence is betrayal."
   -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A writer arrived at the monastery to write a book about the Master.
"People say you are a genius. Are you?" he asked.
"You might say so," said the Master, none too modestly.
"And what makes one a genius?"
"The ability to recognize."
"Recognize what?"
"The butterfly in a caterpillar; the eagle in an egg; the saint in a
selfish human being."

Anthony de Mello, SJ


MORSEL:  Sincerity is a transparent diamond through which the light of God
shines in our lives.

*******
"If there is anything we wish to change in the child,
 we should first examine it and see whether it is not
 something that could better be changed in ourselves."
 -- Carl Gustav Jung

 ****

"Happiness is permanent.
 It is always there.
 What comes and goes is unhappiness.
 If you identify with what comes and goes,
 you will be unhappy.
 If you identify with what is permanent and always there,
 you are happiness itself."
 -- Poonjaji

*********
To a disciple who 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


MORSEL:  All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not
seen. --Ralph Waldo Emerson  (1803 - 1882)

*********
"For one human being to love another:
 that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks,
 the ultimate, the last test and proof,
 the work for which all other work is but preparation."

 -- Rainer Marie Rilke, 1875-1926
    German Poet

******
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs.
 Ask yourself what makes you come alive,
 and then go do that.
 Because what the world needs
 is people who have come alive."

 -- Harold Thurman Whitman

******
"There can be no Security without Peace
 There can be no Peace without Freedom
 There can be no Freedom without Justice
 There can be no Justice without Love.

 -- Graffiti from a wall in Thailand

********
Out Beyond Ideas Of Rightdoing And Wrongdoing
 There is A Field - I Will Meet You There."    -- Rumi

 *******
"Start by doing what's necessary;
 then do what's possible;
 and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
 -- St. Francis of Assisi

*******

 WISE WORDS  PAGE FOUR

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