Related States & Conditions | Syntonic | Dystonic
Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates. Just as you breathe in and breathe out
Sometimes you're ahead and other times behind
Sometimes you're strong and other times weak.
Laozi
570-490 BCE, Chinese Philosopher, Founder of Daoism
Tao Te Ching , Gia Fu-Feng & Jane English, trs., 1972
Where the solid qualities are in excess of accomplishments, we have rusticity;
where the accomplishments are in excess of the solid qualities, we have the manners
of a clerk. When the accomplishments and solid qualities are equally blended, we then
have the man of virtue.
Kongfuzi
c. 551-c. 479 BCE, Chinese Philosopher, Educator
Analects
The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great
powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a
wise man.
Euripides
c. 485-406 BCE, Greek Dramatist, Poet
Where there is sunshine, there is also shade.
Kashmiri Saying
Human lives go along with circumstances. It is not necessary to reject activity and
seek quiet; just make yourself inwardly empty while outwardly harmonious. Then you will
be at peace in the midst of frenetic activity in the world.
Yuanwu Kekin
1063-1135, Chinese Chan Master
in Zen Essence: The Science of Freedom , Thomas Cleary, tr. & ed.,
1989
Calm, activity – each has its use.
Shaku Soen
Zen Master
The dark threads were as needful, in the weaver's skilful hand,
as the threads of gold and silver, for the pattern which he planned.
Greek Saying
Observe the qualities of expansion and contraction
in the fingers of your hand:
surely after the closing of the fist comes the opening.
If the fingers were always closed or always open,
the owner would be crippled.
Your movement is governed by these two qualities:
they are as necessary to you
as two wings are to a bird.
Rumi
1207-1273, Afghani-Turkish Sufi Mystic, Poet
"Two Wings," Mathnawi III, 3762-66, The Pocket Rumi Reader , Kabir Helminski,
ed., 2001
Be humble, for you are made of dung. Be noble, for you are made of stars.
Serbian Saying
Ask counsel of both times, of the ancient time what is best; and of the latter time
what is fittest.
Francis Bacon
1561-1626, English Philosopher, Essayist, Politician
Whatever difference may appear in the fortunes of mankind, there is, nevertheless,
a certain compensation of good and evil which makes them equal.
Rochefoucauld
1613-1680, French Moralist, Epigrammatist
A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life … The world looks like a
multiplication table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances
itself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist
The Oversoul
For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything
you gain, you lose something else.
Emerson
If ever the faculties of the great majority of mankind were exclusively bent upon
the pursuit of material objects, it might be anticipated that an amazing reaction would
take place in the souls of some. I should be surprised if mysticism did not soon make
some advance among a people solely engaged in promoting its own worldly welfare.
Alexis de Tocqueville
1805-1859, French Historian, Politician, Lawyer, Memoirist
Into each life some rain must fall; Some days must be dark and dreary.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1807-1882, American Poet, Writer
The Rainy Day
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
Theodore Roosevelt
1858-1919, 26th US President
The movement of life has its rest in its own music.
Rabindranath Tagore
1861-1941, Indian Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, 1913 Nobel Laureate
In the ocean we cannot raise a wave without causing a hollow somewhere else. The
sum total of the good things in the world has been the same throughout in its relation
to man's need and greed. It cannot be increased or decreased.
Vivekananda
1863-1902, Indian Guru, Writer
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 1984-1987 , 1:111
The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds
the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence
and solitude of the desert.
Ibid. , 1:34
Ordinarily speaking, spiritual aspiration ought to be balanced through the
intellect; otherwise it may degenerate into mere sentimentality.
Ibid. , 7:22
The world acquires value only through its extremes and endures only through
moderation; extremists make the world great, the moderates give it stability.
Paul Valery
1871-1945, French Poet, Mathematician, Philosopher
The word "happiness" would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
Carl Jung
1875-1961, Swiss Psychologist, Theorist
Keep self well-balanced, and keep the body physically fit, the mental body alert,
and the spiritual body – give it an opportunity to manifest.
Edgar Cayce
1877-1945, American Seer
Reading No. 342-1
A lament in one ear, maybe; but always a song in the other. And to me life is
simply an invitation to live.
Sean O'Casey
1880-1964, Irish Dramatist
I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two
loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honor one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of
one loses the love and the faith of both.
Kahlil Gibran
1883-1931, Lebanese Poet, Mystic, Painter
The Prophet , 1923
Order is not pressure which is imposed from without but an equilibrium which is
set up from within.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
1883-1955, Spanish Philosopher, Critic
But I am not so sure that to be balanced is necessarily a virtue. Some urgent
inner problem or some imbalance may actually improve the impetus for dealing with
outer wrongs. The rebel who is stirred to action by injustice or cruelty to others
may well have himself suffered from an inner tyrant which bullies him. Most geniuses
in whatever field are, to ordinary eyes, more than a little mad. The heavy prices some
artists have to pay for their unusual insight may be lack of balance.
Irene Claremont de Castillejo
1885-1967, British Jungian Analyst, Writer, Poet
Knowing Woman: A Feminine Psychology , 1973, 1990
Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action should make up the sum of man's
life.
Vita Sackville-West
1892-1962, English Writer, Poet, Gardener
The good life can be lived only in a society where tidiness is preached and
practiced, but not too fanatically, and where efficiency is always haloed, as it were,
by a tolerated aura of mess.
Aldous Huxley
1894-1963, English Writer, Poet, Critic
Themes and Variations
Apparently, in nature's scheme, there is not a blessing in this life without its
concomitant evils, and not an evil without its compensatory blessings.
Lin Yutang
1895-1976, Chinese Writer, Dramatist, Translator
The Vigil of a Nation
My studies of self-actualizing people find in them simultaneously the ability to
abstract without giving up concreteness and the ability to be concrete without giving
up abstractness.
Abraham Maslow
1908-1970, American Psychologist, Educator
My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.
Errol Flynn
1909-1959, American Actor
The great skill of life is to be able to maintain the innocence of a child in
one's heart while at the same time possessing mastery and control. The combination of
these two modes of being is a great art.
Vilayat Khan
1916-, Indian/British Sufi Master, Writer
Awakening: A Sufi Experience , 1999
We must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in
repose.
Indira Gandhi
1917-1984, Indian Prime Minister
It is necessary to teach both to accept and to reject the past with a kind of
balance that takes considerable skill. Science alone of all the subjects contains
within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest
teachers of the proceeding generation.
Richard Feynman
1918-1988, American Physicist
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Man always travels along precipices … His truest obligation is to keep his balance.
John Paul II
1920-, Polish Pope
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.
Jimmy Carter
1924-, 39th US President, 2002 Nobel Laureate
When a person has access to both the intuitive, creative, and visual right brain
and the analytical, logical, verbal left brain, then the whole brain is working. There
is psychic synergy taking place in our own head. And this tool is best suited to the
reality of what life is, because life is not just logical – it is also emotional.
Stephen Covey
1932-, American Management Educator, Writer
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , 1989
Balance isn't either/or; it's and.
Covey
First Things First
A life of wisdom must be a life of contemplation combined with action.
M. Scott Peck
1936-, American Psychiatrist, Writer
The Road Less Travelled , 1978
Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and
draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Robert Fulghum
1937-, American Writer
Happiness is equilibrium. Shift your weight. Equilibrium is pragmatic. You have to
get everything into proportion. You compensate, rebalance yourself so that you maintain
your angle to your world. When the world shifts, you shift.
Tom Stoppard
1937-, British Writer, Dramatist
Balance is a perfectionist ideal, never to be found in actual life. Therefore,
it is not a good image to keep in mind. Rather, the soul's complexity is achieved over
time, through error and extreme. There may be only rare moments, quickly fading, in
which the desired amalgam appears to be within reach. Most of the time we feel the
unwelcome tug of one side or the other. That, I believe, is as it should be. We are
guided by our emotions, by pain, by the feeling of going wrong. The point is to enter
the mysterious complexity of the soul's polytheistic structures, and not to arrive at
some static point of perfect balance.
Thomas Moore
1940-, American Psychologist, Writer
Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationship , 1994
A balanced life doesn't just happen. It is a state of grace we create by staying
connected with our thoughts and feelings and consciously measuring what we do. Just as
feeling fit and flexible demands physical exercise, just as expanding your mind requires
intellectual effort, so bringing your life into balance and maintaining your spiritual
equilibrium require focused awareness and daily retreat from the stresses of the world.
Susan Taylor
1946-, African-American Editor, Writer
Lessons in Living
By trying to focus only on the things we deem "positive" and ignoring or repressing
the rest, we are simply perpetuating the polarization of light and dark forces.
Ironically, this further distorts and empowers the very energies we are trying to
avoid. We must deeply recognize that there is no split between "spiritual" and
"unspiritual," good and bad. All aspects of life are elements of the life force and
facets of the divine. True healing comes from owning and accepting all of life's
energies within ourselves.
Shakti Gawain
1948-, American Therapist, Writer
Return to the Garden: A Journey of Discovery , 1989
It's a question of balance: don't take yourself or your task too seriously, yet
give it your best. It may seem like walking a tightrope in the beginning but later the
spaciousness of your mind will make it seem like a broad path with lots of room on
either side. When you live like this your presence becomes quite natural, and like a
flower or a waterfall, your actions have an unselfconscious beauty which enriches
existence not just for yourself but for everyone.
- G. BlueStone
Maverick Sutras , 1994
The heroic quest is not about power over, about conquest and domination; it is a
quest to bring balance into our lives through the marriage of both feminine and
masculine aspects of our nature.
- Maureen Murdock
Therapist
The Heroine's Journey
Difficulties are opportunities to better things; they are stepping stones to
greater experience. Perhaps someday you will be thankful for some temporary failure
in a particular direction. When one door closes, another always opens; as a natural
law it has to, to balance.
Brian Adams
How to Succeed , 1985
The middle path is the way of balance, neither to the left nor the right, neither
to the wrong nor the correct, but we shall not have this balance through trying to
grasp it. It will come when the extremes are properly looked at and dissolved. The
mind is always wanting to grasp something in order to stay with it and not let it go,
but in doing that it is not open, and for the middle path it needs to be open.
Ajahn Dhiravamsa
Thai Buddhist Teacher, Writer
The Middle Path of Life: Talks on the Practice of Insight Meditation , 1988
Happy is the man who knows what to remember of the past, what to enjoy in the
present, and what to plan for the future.
- A. Gibson
BALANCE | |
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This cross-index may help identify and delineate more closely
subjective realities often hard to pin down.
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Related States & Conditions | Actualization/Fulfillment , Being/Essence/Soul , Centering , Collaboration/Synergy , Compassion/Empathy/Kindness , Composure/Peace/Tranquility , Congruence/Resonance , Connection/Interbeing/Interdependence , Detachment, Engagement/Integration/Involvement, Equanimity, Flexibility/Flux/Flow, Friendship, Giving/Serving, Health/Healing, Moderation, Oneness/Wholeness/Unity, Paradox, Partnership, Polarity/Contrast, Reciprocity/Reflection, Relationship, Relativity, Restraint, Solution, Synthesis, Unconscious/Subconscious |
Syntonic | Affirmation/Approval , Appreciation , Attention/Awareness , Autonomy/Control , Enlightenment/Realization/Transcendence, Exploration, Forgiveness, Growth/Expansion, Introspection/Self-Knowledge, Learning, Leela/Leisure, Love-Eros, Meditation, Openness/Receptivity, Optimism/Positivism, Patience, Practice, Preparation/Readiness, Prudence, Release, Renewal, Retreat/Withdrawal, Self-Reliance, Silence/Stillness, Solitude, Spontaneity, Strength, Understanding, Wisdom |
Dystonic | Anger , Attachment , Avoidance/Denial/Refusal , Chaos/Uncertainty , Comparison/Competition , Conformity , Criticism/Judgment , Defeat , Delusion, Dependence, Depression/Despair/Despondency, Distraction/Diversion, Fear, Fault, Greed, Guilt, Haste/Impatience, Hate, Indulgence/Temptation, Insecurity/Risk, Jealousy/Envy, Loquacity, Regret, Revenge, Worry |
Wisdom for The Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, © 2004