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Share in the accounts and discoveries of the many individuals who, just like you, set out to find new, true answers that could stand up to the test of passing time with its ever-changing conditions. Welcome these inward and uplifting thoughts as if they were your own, for in one sense… they are.
A quiet mind knows the answer, which means we must cease to fight anxiously for the answer.
Those who are inwardly alone, whose minds and hearts are free from the ache of loneliness, they are real people, for they can discover for themselves what reality is, they can receive that which is timeless.
We would desire few things ardently if we had a perfect knowledge of what we were desiring.
A man who desires to excel should work with those things that are in themselves most excellent.
There is only one way of truth, but different paths from different places join it, just like tributaries flowing into a perennial river. Solomon adds that there are plenty of righteous people and plenty of routes for them. He explains this as follows: “The paths of the righteous shine like light.”
It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.
Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,
But graciously to know I am no better.
All that tends to purify and elevate the mind will assist you in this attainment, and facilitate the approach and recurrence of these happy intervals.
So, in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not consist in evasion or flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw himself up to resolution. Let him front the object of his worst apprehension, and his stoutness will commonly make his fear groundless.
During the gap — infinitesimal though it be — between two thoughts, the ego vanishes. Hence it may truly be said that with each thought it reincarnates anew. There is no real need to wait for the series of long-lived births to be passed through before liberation can be achieved. The series of momentary births also offers this opportunity, provided a man knows how to use it.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
The longest journey is the journey inward.
When we meet with the self thus purified… even while here below, we have attained the heights, and need no further guidance.
As to the thirst after knowledge, it is an old law that we all get whatever we want. None of us can get anything other than what we fix our hearts upon… The success sometimes may come immediately, but we must be ready to wait patiently even for what may look like an infinite length of time. The student who sets out with such a spirit of perseverance will surely find success and realization at last.
The great challenge is living your wounds through instead of thinking them through. It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds deeply than to try to understand them, better to let them enter into your silence than to talk about them. The choice you face constantly is whether you are taking your hurts to your head or to your heart.
One must strive to become what one is.
I have sought to know myself.
All the matter of the world that surrounds us, the food that we eat, the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, the stones that our houses are built of, our own bodies — everything is permeated by all the matters that exist in the universe. There is no need to study or investigate the sun in order to discover the matter of the solar world; this matter exists in ourselves and is the result of the division of our atoms. In the same way we have in us the matter of all other worlds. Man is, in the full sense of the term, a “miniature universe”; in him are all the matters of which the universe consists; the same forces, the same laws that govern the life of the universe, operate in him; therefore in studying man we can study the whole world, just as in studying the world we can study man.
The force of necessity is irresistible.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
And this, our life exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.
Jews call this Word the Law; Christians call it the Logos or the blueprint; Taoists call it the Eternal Tao; Buddhists call it Emptiness or the Great Compassion; Hindus call it Brahman; Sufi Muslims call it the dance; and science speaks of universal theories. But we are all pointing to one underlying truth that we all strive toward in ten thousand ways. We all somehow believe it is a coherent and even a benevolent universe. Maybe that is the very heart of the meaning of faith. It is surely the Perennial Tradition discovered by all people of goodwill and sincere search.
To be strong is to be happy.
The tempest threatens before it rises upon us; buildings creak before they fall to pieces.
