Quotations

I love quotations and excerpts from different sources. They are constant jogs to my reality to keep me where I want to be every minute. I'll put up some of my favorites here.

The Oversoul

Let us learn the revelation of all nature and thought: that the Highest dwells within us, that the sources of nature are in our own minds.

As there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens, so there is no bar or wall in the soul where we, the effect, cease, and God the cause, begins.

I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.

There is a deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is accessible to us.

Every moment when the individual feels invaded by it is memorable.

It comes to the lowly and simple; it comes to whosoever will put off what is foreign and proud; it comes as insight; it comes as serenity and grandeur.

The soul's health consists in the fullness of its reception.

For ever and ever the influx of this better and more universal self is new and unsearchable.

Within us is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One.

When it breaks through our intellect, it is GENIUS;

When it breathes through our will, it is VIRTUE;

When it flows through our affections, it is LOVE.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Patricia Hampl's book, Virgin Time, In Search of the Contemplative Life, is such a good read that you can open it at virtually any place and find a jewel. In fact, this is what I did.

I wanted the spinsters as travel companions as much as I wanted the fresh figs--sane women without interesting erotic histories, women who had given themselves over to something other than men. But it’s wrong to call what I wished to escape "men." It was the tangled histories with men I’d come to dread, my own and everyone else’s. The stories women settle down to tell when they begin to be friends. The exhibition of battle scars. The swapping of titles of self-help books. And an ironic laugh bread of frequent recitation of these tales which does not heal the teller, perhaps, but is meant to soothe the wound.

My antipathy was from the finely tuned renditions of those romantic histories, delivered (post-therapy) with heavily analyzed subplots leading back to the Family of Origin, as mother and father are now called, according them the fateful giantism of characters in a novel. And of course I understand now that because his mother (who was thwarted--one of those really thwarted women) never managed to ...And naturally, given where I was coming from (rich pause, empathetic nod from audience of one), there was no way I could...

I was sick with insight, fed up with versions. The need to impose pattern on these baroque tales of sexual liberation, which seemed to send everyone I knew into therapy, had squeezed the very life out of the stories that had appalled everyone enough to require therapy in the first place. Even the phrase sexual liberation seemed antique, comic.

People wished to name things now, instead of living them...

Order the book!

DRIVE YOUR KARMA -- CURB YOUR DOGMA

Swami Beyondananada's Ten Guidelines for Enlightenment

1. Be a Fundamentalist -- ensure that the Fun always comes before the
Mental. Realize that life is a situation comedy that will never be
canceled. A laugh track has been provided and the reason we are put in
the material world is to get more material. Have a good laughsitive
twice a day, which will ensure reguhilarity.

2. Remember that each of us has been given a special gift just for
entering, so you are already a winner!

3. The most powerful tool on the planet today is Tell-A-Vision. That's
where I tell a vision to you and you tell a vision to me. That way, if
we don't like the programming we're getting, we can change the channel.

4. Life is like photography -- you use the negative to develop. No
matter what adversity you face, be reassured: Of course God loves you.
He's just not ready to make a commitment.

5. It is true-- As we go through life thinking heavy thoughts, thought
particles tend to get caught between the ears and cause a condition
called "truth decay". Be sure to use mental floss twice a day, and when
you're tempted to practice 'tantrum yoga', remember what we teach in the
Swami's Absurdiveness Training Class: DON'T GET EVEN, GET ODD.

6. If we want world peace, we must let go of our attachments and truly
live like nomads. That's where I no mad at you and you no mad at me.
That way there'll surely be nomadness on the planet. Peace begins with
each of us. A little peace here, a little peace there. Pretty soon all
the peaces will fit together to make one big peace everywhere.

7. I know great earth changes have been predicted for the future, so if
you're looking to avoid earthquakes my advice is simple: When you find
a fault don't dwell on it.

8. There's no need to change the world. All we have to do is toilet
train the world and we'll never have to change it again.

9. If you're looking for the key to the Universe I've got some good
news
and some bad news.

The bad news: There is no key to the Universe.
The good news: It was never locked.

10. Finally, everything I've told you is channeled. That way, if you
don't like it, it's not my fault. But remember: Enlightenment is not a
bureaucracy, so you don't have to go through channels.