Newest Additions

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Browse through the Newest Additions to the One Journey Living Book

Arranged by date, with the most recent entry appearing first…

There is apart from mere intellect, in the make-up of every superior human identity, a wondrous something that realizes without argument, frequently without what is called education (though I think it the goal and apex of all education deserving the name), an intuition of the absolute balance, in time and space, of the whole of this multifariousness, this revel of fools, and incredible make-believe and general unsettledness, we call the world.

A soul-sight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the whole congeries of things, all history and time, and all events, however trivial, however momentous, like a leashed dog in the hand of the hunter. Of such soul-sight and root-centre for the mind mere optimism explains only the surface.

Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)

Dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)

The waters know their own, and draw
The brook that springs in yonder heights;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delights.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave comes to the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

John Burroughs (1837 – 1921)

Smoldering joy, oft-puffed by meditation,
Blinding my tearful eyes,
Burst into immortal flames of bliss,
Consumed my tears, my frame, my all.
Thou art I, I am Thou,
Knowing, Knower, Known, as One!
Tranquilled, unbroken thrill, eternally living, ever new peace!
Enjoyable beyond imagination of expectancy, samadhi bliss!
Not a mental chloroform
Or unconscious state without wilful return,
Samadhi but extends my conscious realm
Beyond limits of the mortal frame
To the farthest boundary of eternity
Where I, the Cosmic Sea,
Watch the little ego floating in me.

Paramhansa Yogananda (1893 – 1952)

God will not tell you that you should desire Him above all else, because He wants your love to be freely given, without “prompting.” That is the whole secret in the game of this universe. He who created us yearns for our love. He wants us to give it spontaneously, without His asking. Our love is the one thing God does not possess, unless we choose to bestow it. So, you see, even the Lord has something to attain: our love. And we shall never be happy until we give it.

Paramhansa Yogananda (1893 – 1952)

To do rightly by the cosmos depends on timing: right doing, right being at the right time and place. This right guidance, found in every heart, finds its source in the universal Heart. This rightness is ultimate good, ultimate happiness and joy. The joy comes naturally to and through a life lived in moment-by-moment contact with the truth behind all nature, for its own sake and not for anything else.

Zoroastrian Prayer

Love between human beings springs from a desire to be made free of another world than one’s own. Every true communion of lovers is a mutual discovery and recognition. Every passion is a passion for release, for that loss of one’s self by which alone one gains life.

Gerald Bullett (1893 – 1958)

The musicality of being holds both unending joy and infinite sorrow
It is the delicate touch of longing for the infinite
It is the tears of pain in the eyes of the worshiper
It is the sacrifice, at last rewarded
With a crown of roses, or thorns.

It holds the mystery of all beings who strive without knowledge
The infinite cycles of meaningless pain
The cares and woes of a thousand lives
Can one look at them, and listen without pity?

I touch them, I call them unto me
Those of little faith, and of great
Those who cry forever and those that laugh hysterically
The poor, the maimed, the lacking, the unhappy
The many parts each person must play.

I call them unto me, and I say:
Take all, take all, take everything and more
Your unhappiness is unbounded, take from me
And be at peace.

They scream, they cry, their tears are unending
The many forms of misery which all beings are heir to
Haunt me in the night.

There are beings of joy, of wonder, of enjoyment
There are sensual heavens, and pleasure-filled paradises
Yet where may those who suffer and grieve go
Those for whom the illusion of separateness
Is the truest reality?

Ropes and coils of evil deceptions
Locks and bars and endless loneliness
Before joy comes sorrow, before knowledge, pain
Before the thrill of enlightenment
Am I, who aid the wounded.

I share their grief, I hold them in my arms
I shed my tears, that they may realize they are not alone
In the vast depths of the infinite universe
There is one who cares.

Buddhism (circa 500 B.C.E.)