If only we know, boss, what the stones and rain and flowers say.Maybe they call -- call us -- and we don’t hear them.When will people’s ears open, boss?When shall we have our eyes open to see?When shall we open our arms to embrace everything -- stones, rain, flowers, and men?What d'you think about that, boss?And what do your books have to say about it.
All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.
Holy Mother Earth, the trees and all nature are witnesses of your thoughts and deeds.
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
As we walked in silence a passage from the Bhagavad Gita came to me:"We live in wisdom who see ourselves in all and all in us.We are forever free who have broken out of the ego cage of 'I and mine.' "The Bhagavad Gita described a voice within all of us that tells us each the same thing: what we want is not money, fame, or material possessions, but a world of peace, hearts filled with love, and an earth where the air and water are clean, the environment healthy.We want to rid ourselves of those unwanted habits and negative thoughts that prohibit us from living in peace with ourselves, the environment and our neighbor.
A circle of trees . . . I felt I was bringing the journey home to the ordinary dimensions of my life, rooting it in the place I lived every day.I lay back on the earth and looked up through the branches of an oak, feeling suddenly like the sun was my own heart pulsing up there with light.Wind swirled, and it seemed to me it was my own breath billowing through the branches.The crocus bulbs were buried in my tissue, the cedars growing from my body.The birds flew inside me.Stones sat along my bones . . . a jubilant, stunning loss of boundary, a deeper sense of oneness than I’d ever felt.
I knew that I was part of one vast, universal quilt; I knew that this quilt was itself, the Holy Thing, the manifestation of the Divine One.And I loved this universal quilt, every stitch, color, and fiber, with a heartbreaking love.It was one clear moment in time, like going to the Deep Ground that underlies all things and seeing, really seeing, what is and being pierced by the unbounded nature of it.
An ancient river of inner wisdom flows like limitless living water in deep recesses of our being; this activating wisdom wells up in every age to inspire all who have open minds and are able to hear and receive Sophia's sacred energy of new life, light, and purpose.
We attain wisdom not by creating ideals but by learning to see things clearly, as they are.
Resplendent and eternal is Wisdom,
readily perceived by those who listen
in the Silence of the heart.
Wisdom hastens to make Herself known;
She is available to all who love and seek Her;
who awakens Her from within
will not be disappointed;
for Wisdom awaits at the threshold.
There is an ancient tradition that when Divine Revelation comes into the world, only one part is given as prophetic writings.The words are only a part of the message.The other part is placed within nature, the wisdoms inherent in the Creation.Only when we understand those hidden wisdoms will we be able to read between the prophetic lines and fully understand the message.
In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery.It’s the place of reflection and contemplation, and it’s the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Knowledge gives us information.Wisdom gives us light on the way.Knowledge is skill.Wisdom is a quality.Knowledge can be learned.Wisdom can only be distilled from those places in life where knowledge is not enough to really explain what was happening to us, or information failed to resolve what was happening to the other.
We each contain an enduring spark of that Wisdom at the heart of all creation.Isolated and unsupported, it is but a small spark.United with others, those sparks grow into a flame of illumination and strength for us all.
Wisdom is
sweeter than honey,
brings more joy
than wine,
illumines
more than the sun,
is more precious
than jewels.
She causes
the ears to hear
and the heart to comprehend.
O Highest Wisdom,
who circles the great circle,
who envisions the whole world
as one living path,
you have three wings.
One soars above the sky,
another moistens the ground with sweat,
while a third flies
everywhere at once.
O Wisdom, we sing your praise.
Everybody has had transcendent wisdom break into the mind.When you’ve wracked your brain with a problem for a long time and then, for some reason, you’ve stopped struggling, and then all of a sudden you got an "Aha! That’s it," where does that come from?Wisdom has broken through.
Wisdom is an attribute of the soul and unfolds naturally as the soul manifests through the personality.Knowledge can be taught; wisdom is loving understanding or knowledge illumined by love.
Wisdom is not gained by traveling afar, but by standing still; not by thought, but by the absence of thought.
Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine as well as through public service.The one is incomplete without the other.Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is ineffective.
Each part of the world holds wisdom, a key to reigniting humanity’s pure spark.
Awaken Wisdom within and let it flow out to the world like a gardener sowing seeds of life.
Loving communication implies prayerful surrender to the word of God speaking in ourselves and others.Out of this respectful openness there emerges the wisdom to know when to speak and when to be silent.When we do have to say something, we do so wisely and moderately, and to the appropriate person.In persistently trying to see the other against the background of the Sacred, we preserve inner peace.
Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing -- resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings.
The Earth is home to all creation,
to be lovingly cared for by us in
communion with the Divine Friend.
Praises be to the Creator of the cosmos!
With grateful hearts, let us give thanks!
What other return can we give to the One,
Who continues to gift us with life?
When we open our heart to the Friend,
when we live with compassion and kindness,
we walk in beauty!
We come to know the Divine Guest,
Whose companioning Presence
is ever with us.
The greatest gift of all is an awakened, unconstrained, limitless heart. It takes you out of your skin and fills you with such compassion that, in the words of one of my Bushmen teachers, "It even makes you love the man who stole your wife." I have no doubt that the Bushmen doctors of the Kalahari hold the most important answer to the world's present state of crisis, terror, and madness. It is not found in any defense budget, technological development, or politician's deal. It is found in each and every one of our hearts. It's the oldest news that can set us free and it is found when one surrenders to the hot, sweaty, weeping steam of love, the love that reveals the ropes that take us straight to the Big God.
Compassion is not helpless pity, but an awareness and determination that demand action.
Compassion is defined in Buddhist teaching as the trembling or quivering of the heart in response to seeing pain or suffering. Alone with love and altruism, compassion can be seen as warm-heartedness replacing cynicism, beneficence taking the place of indifference, caring supplanting aloofness. The Dalai Lama, whose life has not been easy, has said, "The reason I am pretty happy is because of the force of compassion. Compassion makes me feel at one with everyone."
Live with attention,
cultivate compassion,
establish justice.
Then you will realize the purpose for which
you were created.
Everything is here because of love. That's why we were created -- to love, and creation is set up to make love possible. Love keeps things going, not just for now but forever. Love gives life and makes sure what's around today will be around tomorrow. Love sets us on the journey and ensures our safe return. It's about compassion, it’s what the cosmos best responds to.
What should you do?
Do good by doing compassion
to everyone
you know needs it.
Expect adversity.
Bear adversity with love.
In a talk about compassion, a former teacher of mine once said that practice prepares the mind, but suffering prepares the heart. Perhaps the final step in the healing of all wounds is the discovery of the capacity for compassion, an intuitive knowing that no one is singled out in their suffering, that all living beings are vulnerable to loss, attachment, and limitation. It is only in the presence of compassion that we can show our wounds without diminishing our wholeness. For those who have compassion, woundedness is not a place of judgment but a place of genuine meeting.
Knowing God is the source of compassion in our lives. We realize that our separation from others is artificial. We are neither separate from other people nor from Tao. It is only our own egotism that leads us to define ourselves as individuals. In fact, a direct experience of God is a direct experience of the utter universality of life. If we allow it to change our way of thinking, we will understand our essential oneness with all things.
In spiritual maturity, the opposite of injustice is not justice, but compassion. Not me against you, not me straightening out the present ill, fighting to gain a just result for myself and others, but compassion, a life that goes against nothing and fulfills everything.
Compassion is the fire which the Lord has come to send on the earth.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
The process of establishing ourselves in a habitual state of compassionate love takes place in the context of countless failure to be compassionate.But this proves to be no hindrance as long as we commit ourselves to being compassionate toward ourselve in our failings to be compassionate.Even our failures to be compassionate prove to be but new opportunities . . .This process of yielding to compassionate love unfolds and deepens over a lifetime of learning that when all is said and done, love is the playing field where we most truly meet ourselves and others as we really are, precious in our collective frailty.
Ask that your consciousness be filled with Light;
ask to be illumined to follow the path of simplicity
with integrity and inner sight.
Inspired by Divine Light and Love
you begin to express Divine Will in action:
thus will your journey be eased,
joy will nest in your heart.
Awakening to the indwelling Divine Guest,
Loving Companion Presence of your heart,
family, friends, and strangers alike
are greeted with compassion.
A greater state of awareness being aroused,
you recognize the interconnectedness
of everything and everyone:
the unity of diversity.
Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and then we'll need no other light.
The grosser consciousness depends heavily on particles of matter. The subtler consciousness is more independent -- it does not depend so much on the brain. Luminance, radiance, imminence -- the three states of subtle mind -- all of these disappear in the clear Light, the innermost consciousness.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.
I had wondered what Nicholas was doing behind the closed door of his study so early in the morning. Now I knew he was not just reading scripture and praying. He was following a discipline which focused him and made it possible for him to realize his full potential. He was lining up his center with the integrating principle at work in the universe, the principle which was ultimately stronger than the drive to fragment. He was tapping into the powers of light which would allow him to live dynamically, surfing the chaos, splitting the darkness, serving the Creator by serving others again and again and again.
I dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves, and re-creates. . . . in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists.
Say from the heart that you are the perfect day and in you dwells the light that will never fail.
One winter day
something will shine out
from an everyday object
and the darkness will flood with light.
Something we have seen
a thousand times
suddenly becomes
the sentinel of
another world.
All living creatures are sparks from the radiation of God’s brilliance, and these sparks emerge from God like the rays of the sun. If God did not give off these sparks, how would the divine flame become fully visible?
"I have just the question for you: who are you?" "I just told you," said the young man. "No, you told me about the clothes you wear. You told me your name, where you’re from, what you've done, the things you've studied. Your problem is, you don’t know who you are. Let me tell you who you are. You are a ray of God's own light."
You can visualize God's light each day and send it to someone who needs help. Your divine nature must reach out and touch the divine nature of another. Within you is the light of the world. It must be shared with the world.
I slowly began to make out forms and shapes, and the shapes soon became brighter until I was in a world of just light . . . As I flowed like mercury into the center of this light field, I knew I was Home! I had been there before. At the center of this awesome experience was a round ball of living water. I stepped into the middle of this ball of light-filled water just as I was asked to return. I know I'll go back there… I didn’t want to return, I was so alive.