To give love is true freedom; to demand love is pure slavery.
– Swami Chinmayananda<\/p>\n
Peace… comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the Universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
– Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa), Oglala Sioux<\/p>\n
No one is less worthy than you, even if that person\u2019s behavior toward you is unwarranted and objectionable. His fear makes him act toward you in a belligerent way. Your fear makes you think of him and act toward him in an equally belligerent way. Fear in one person tends to invoke fear in another. That is the equation of mutual trespass. The only way out of the cycle of mutual attack and defense is to see your attacker as he really is. When you see him as a decent human being who is responding to you out of fear, you can speak and act in a way that will lessen his fear. That means you don\u2019t attack back. It does not mean that you allow the other person to intimidate you. Each of you must find a way to stand up lovingly for yourself without putting other people down. Your regard for yourself is essential. It is precisely that self-regard that must extend to include the other person. The common belief of those who are hateful is a firm conviction that life does not love them. Hate is their response to feeling hated. It is uncommon for a person who feels loved to project hate. Keep in mind the important biblical reminder, \u201cGod is love.\u201d Evil is in the mind of man. Any hate you encounter comes from the minds of people who feel disconnected from God and the flow of love energy that exists. Why you buy into their hatreds you too are disconnected. Revenge, anger, retaliation, gloom, and all the things that you perceive as problems are mental constructs. Forgiveness remains the only path that leads out of hell. Whether we\u2019re forgiving our parents, someone, else, or ourselves, the laws of mind remain the same: As we love, we shall be released from pain, and as we deny love, we shall remain in pain. Of what is the body made? It is made of emptiness and rhythm. At the ultimate heart of the body, at the heart of the world, there is no solidity… there is only the dance. The choice between love and fear is made every moment in our hearts and minds. That is where the peace process begins. Without peace within, peace in the world is an empty wish. Like love, peace is extended. It cannot be brought from the world to the heart. It must be brought from each heart to another, and thus to all mankind. Having found your lifework, the greatest obstacle to its fulfillment lies in your attempt to \u201cdirect\u201d it. You cannot make your spiritual work happen. If you try, you will fail. You will see the loftiest work be tainted by spiritual pride and undermined by ego expectations. You cannot do your spiritual work the same way you did your worldly work. The former requires surrender. The latter requires the illusion of control. As soon as you give up the need to control, any work can become spiritual. As soon as you try to take charge, the most spiritual projects begin to fall apart. The descent into the darkness of our own psyche is essential to our healing process. Without the descent, we cannot become light-bearers. In the moment of our emotional upheaval, when we have lost peace, for whatever reason, we need but leave everything behind and enter. We need but leave behind the thoughts that would judge, the temptation to evaluate or give meaning to what we see. We need but leave behind what we perceive and enter. For \u201cnothing we see means anything. We have given everything all the meaning it has for us.\u201d We think we know who we are, but we don\u2019t. We don\u2019t know anything. We don\u2019t know. Naked, we enter the heart. Empty-handed and without thought, we enter the place of silences. Living in the consciousness of God\u2019s love means coming to grips with our utter powerlessness to understand anything on our own. It means surrendering our need to know or control. It means learning to trust that everything that happens has a reason, though it can\u2019t be seen. Everything that enters my life brings a silent blessing, that I may not be able to feel it. When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves. See, that’s all you’re thinking about, is winning. You’re confirming your sense of self- worth through outward reward instead of through inner appreciation. There is in the body a current of energy, affection and intelligence, which guides, maintains and energizes the body and mind. Discover that current and stay with it. Good friends and excellent teachers – Stick close to them! Wealth and power are fleeting dreams but wise words perfume the world for ages. =====<\/p>\n Instead of being concerned with fitting every new experience into a preconceived category, put your energy into living the experience itself. Instead of using your thoughts to place a judgment on each thing that comes your way, put your energy into being more fully aware of it all.<\/p>\n How many things do you miss completely because you think you already know what you’re looking at? How many new concepts do you fail to grasp because you’re trying to fit them into concepts you already have?<\/p>\n If your life seems to be stuck in one place, the most likely reason is that your thoughts are preventing anything new from coming into your awareness. Relax your need to judge and to analyze, and you’ll glimpse the abundant richness that is always available to you.<\/p>\n Let go of the need to know it all, and you’ll begin to experience more and more. Move beyond the desire to always prove that you’re right, and your eyes will open to profound truths.<\/p>\n What has it ever gained anyone to be cynical and closed minded? Choose instead to open your mind, to open your eyes to the astounding, ever-increasing richness of what is.<\/p>\n Let yourself out of the prison that your ego keeps trying to build. There’s a big, beautiful universe right here and now that’s filled with value for you to live.<\/p>\n — Ralph Marston<\/p>\n =====<\/p>\n 2. You will learn lessons.<\/span> 3. There are no mistakes only lessons.<\/span> 4. A lesson is repeated until learned.<\/span> 6. There is no better than here.<\/span> 7. Others are merely mirrors of you.<\/span> 8. What you make of your life is up to you.<\/span> 9. Your answers lie inside you.<\/span> 10. You will forget all of this.<\/span> To give love is true freedom; to demand love is pure slavery. – Swami Chinmayananda Peace… comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the Universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
– Paul Ferrini, Miracle of Love<\/span><\/p>\n
– Wayne Dyer, There\u2019s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem<\/span><\/p>\n
– Marianne Williamson, A Year of Daily Wisdom<\/span><\/p>\n
– George Leonard<\/p>\n
– Paul Ferrini<\/p>\n
– Paul Ferrini, The Silence of the Heart<\/span><\/p>\n
– Paul Ferrini<\/p>\n
– Paul Ferrini, The 12 Steps of Forgiveness<\/span><\/p>\n
– Confucius<\/p>\n
– Barbara Hall, Northern Exposure<\/span>
Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.
– Sam Ewing<\/p>\n
– Nisargadatta Maharaj<\/p>\n
– Ryokan<\/p>\n
1. You will receive a body.<\/span>
You may like it or hate it. But it will be yours for the entire period this time around.<\/p>\n
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in the school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant or stupid.<\/p>\n
Growth is a period of trial, error and experimentation. The failed experiments are much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately works.<\/p>\n
A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it. You can then go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end.<\/span>
There is no part of life that does not contain it’s lessons. If you are alive there are lessons to be learned.<\/p>\n
When your there has been a here you will simply obtain another there that will again look better then here.<\/p>\n
You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.<\/p>\n
You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.<\/p>\n
The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.<\/p>\n
– Author unknown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"