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The present alone is true and actual; it is the only time which possesses full reality, and our existence lies in it exclusively. Therefore we should always be glad of it, and give it the welcome it deserves, and enjoy every hour.
We can’t protect our heart and keep it open at the same time.
The internal nature is much higher than the external, and much more difficult to grapple with, much more difficult to control; therefore he who has conquered the internal nature controls the whole universe; it becomes his servant.
The friends of Job appear on the scene as advisers and “consolers,” offering Job the fruits of their moral scientia. But when Job insists that his sufferings have no explanation and that he cannot discover the reason for them through conventional ethical concepts, his friends turn into accusers, and curse Job as a sinner. Thus, instead of consolers, they become torturers by virtue of their very morality, and in so doing, while claiming to be advocates of God, they act as instruments of the devil.
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises?
Aye, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff. And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
Ambition becomes displeasing once it is satisfied; there is a reaction. Our spirit endlessly aims towards some object, then falls back on itself, having nothing else on which to rest, and having reached the summit, it longs to descend.
An idea about God is not God.
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.
The freer you feel yourself in the presence of another, the more free is he.
And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me…
And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me,
I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,
I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish’d breasts of melons.
And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths,
(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Remember Unity until you forget separation.
Then you may lose your way in the Named,
without the side-trip of namer and name.
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
Freedom has a thousand charms to show, that slaves, however contented, never know.
There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word.
Enter yourself, let self-honesty turn you in the right direction, after which self-awareness lives your life for you. Wishing for something other than darkness is already a bit of light. Have no fear of exposing the illusion that your present world is a false world, for the end of the old reveals the new. Change starts with even the dim realization of being betrayed by our own faulty thoughts. Self-renewal occurs spontaneously when habitual thoughts are dropped. Few people realize how little truth they can take, but those who do will become new.
No act is aloof. Your most secret deed is invisibly reported, its good being protected in joy, its evil destroyed in pain.
