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The ruling faculty does not disturb itself, I mean, it does not frighten itself or cause itself pain… The guiding principle in itself wants nothing, unless it makes a want for itself, and therefore it is free.
How much confusion of thought comes from our interest in self, and from our vanity when thinking “I am so great” or “I have done this wonderful deed.” The thought of your ego stands between your rational nature and truth, banish it, and then you will see things as they are. He who thinks correctly will rid himself of ignorance and acquire wisdom. The ideas of “I am” and “I shall be” or “I shall not be” do not occur to a clear thinker.
The only sure way to drop a problem is to never pick it up in the first place.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
A good intention clothes itself with sudden power.
Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know, all mystics — Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion — are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.
That is always best which gives me to myself. The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, “Obey thyself.” That which shows God in me, fortifies me.
To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.
O’ the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!
Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
Since riches point to misery and contempt?
Who would be so mock’d with glory? or to live
But in a dream of friendship?
To have his pomp and all what state compounds
But only painted, like his varnish’d friends?
The wise man recognizes the idea of the Good within him.
To be happy means to be self-sufficient.
You can understand (these principles) by giving careful attention to what has been said.
Oh, the difficulty of fixing the attention of men on the world within them!
The Formless is in the midst of all forms.
Be absolute with death. Either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep.
A fundamental teaching of Baha’u’llah is the oneness of the world of humanity. Addressing mankind, he says, “Ye are all leaves of one tree and the fruits of one branch.” By this it is meant that the world of humanity is like a tree, the nations or peoples are the different limbs or branches of that tree, and the individual human creatures are as the fruits and blossoms thereof.
The happiness we receive from ourselves is greater than that which we obtain from our surroundings.
Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
Father Pedro Arrupe (1907 – 1991)
A man should orient his will and all his works to God and having only God in view go forward unafraid, not thinking, “Am I right or am I wrong?” One who worked out all the chances before starting his first fight would never fight at all. And if, going to someplace, we must think how to set the front foot down, we shall never get there. It is our duty to do the next thing: go straight on, that is the right way.
Life is not happening to you, it unfolds as it does… for you.
