Spiritwalk Thought for Today

Archive/December 1998

December 2, 1998

Once we have the condition of peace and joy in us,
we can afford to be in any situation.
Even in the situation of hell,
We will be able to contribute our peace and serenity.
The most important thing is for each of us to have
some freedom in our heart,
some stability in our heart,
some peace in our heart.
Only then will we be able to relieve the suffering around us.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

December 3, 1998

Inspiration follows aspiration.

~  Rabindranath Tagore

 

December 4, 1998

The sage holds to the inner-light,
and is not moved by the passing show.

Quiet and serene
he watches the merchants
with their merchandise pass by,
watches the sellers and the buyers
parading to the market
and returning to their homes.

Quiet and serene,
he is fixed upon the Eternal.

When the moment comes,
he will do what is right
without pausing to consider its rightness;

When the moment comes
he will act for the welfare of all.

~ Lao Tzu

December 5, 1998

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s life may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~ Wendell Berry

December 6, 1998

In every moment of genuine love,
we are dwelling in God
and God is dwelling in us.

~ Paul Tillich

 

December 7, 1998

Rabbi Jacob used to say:

Better a single moment of awakening in this world
than eternity in the world to come.

And better a single moment of inner peace
in the world to come than eternity in this world.

Why?
A single moment of awakening in this world
is eternity in the world to come.

The inner peace in the world to come
is living in this world with full attention.

The two are one, flip sides of a coin
forever tumbling and never caught.

~ Unknown, 3rd Century
Pirke Avot 4:22

 

 

December 8, 1998

The spirit of humankind is inseparable from the Infinite,
and can be satisfied with nothing short of the Infinite,
and the burden of pain will continue to weigh each persons heart,
and the shadows of sorrow continue to darken their pathway until,
ceasing from wanderings in the dream world of matter,
he or she comes back to their home in the reality of the Eternal.

~ James Allen

December 9, 1998

In the dark night of the soul,
bright flows the river of God.

~ St John of the Cross

December 10, 1998

If for a moment we make way with our petty selves,
wish no will to anyone, apprehend no ill,
cease to be but as a crystal which reflects a ray ~
what shall we not reflect!
What a universe will appear
crystallized and radiant around us!

~ Henry David Thoreau

December 11, 1998

God alone exists.

Our life is His life.
He embraces us in love

and reveals Himself to us through messengers

and chosen people of Truth, calling us to return.
These divine effusions of love become the great religions.
We stand in awe before these divine edifices,
amazed by the majesty of knowledge

and tenderness of love they embody
and by their power to guide billions of souls to the Source.

~ Sheika Fariha Al-Jerrahi (Sufi)

December 12, 1998

There is a land where doubt and sorrows do not reign,
where the terror of death is unknown.
Its woods are floored with the flowers of spring,
and a fragrance, “I am He,” floats on the wind.
There, the bee of the heart is drowning in nectar
and desires no other joy.

~ Kabir

 

December 13, 1998

As the soul becomes more pure and bare and poor,
and possesses less of created things,
and is emptied of all things that are not God,
it receives God more purely,
and is more completely in Him;
and it truly becomes one with God,
and it looks into God and God into it,
face to face as it were;
two images transformed into one.
Some simple folk think that they will see God
as if He were standing there and they here.
It is not so.
God and I, we are one.

~ Meister Eckhart

December 14, 1998

Consistent peace is not the same as regimented behavior.
Our behavior should follow our peace of mind
like a wake trailing the movements of a ship.
If peace is our single aim in all we do,
we will always know what to do
because we will do whatever will protect
and deepen our peace. 

~ Gerald Jampolsky

December 15, 1998

It’s odd that after thousands of years of great spiritual examples and literature
we have to remind ourselves that spirituality is to be found in everyday life.
The world’s sacred poetry, ritual, prayer and art are filled with images
of incarnated divinity…that lies, admittedly sometimes hidden, in the temporal,
or the transpersonal that animates our personal lives. Hundreds of times
painters have taken up the theme of the “Annunciation” and have pictured
that moment, that eternal moment that is in all our lives,
when the angel says: “You, mortal person, have divinity in you.”

~ Thomas Moore

 

December 16, 1998

Waking up this morning, I smile.

Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.

 

I vow to live fully in each moment

and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.

 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

December 17, 1998

Spirituality means waking up.

Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep.

They’re born asleep, they live asleep,

they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep,

they die in their sleep without ever waking up.

They never understand the loveliness and the beauty

of this thing that we call human existence.

You know ~ all mystics…

are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well.

'Though everything is a mess, all is well.

Strange paradox, to be sure.

But, tragically, most people never get to see

that all is well because they are asleep.

They are having a nightmare.

~ Anthony DeMello

December 18, 1998

To accuse others for one’s misfortunes
is a sign of want of education.
To accuse oneself
shows that one’s education has begun.
To accuse neither oneself nor others
shows one’s education is complete.

~ Epictetus

December 19, 1998

 

The superior man goes through his life

without any one pre-conceived

course of action or any taboo.

He merely decides for the moment

what is the right thing to do.

 

~ Confucius

December 20, 1998

A man is born gentle and weak.
At his death he is hard and stiff.
Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
At their death they are withered and dry.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.
A tree that is unbending is easily broken.

The hard and strong will fall.
The soft and weak will overcome.

~ Lao Tzu

December 21, 1998

       Solstice Yet

 

It lifts the basin up

a holy spirit rising

through rock and bone

along sacred ground

NO BOUNDARIES!

 

The waning moon that thin

pale arc sun lit

reflection from another world

 

Earth, each sensate twig

& dormant bud

continuous interplay

cold air & rising light

~ Clifford Burke

December 22, 1998

Just as a mother would protect her only child,
even at the risk of her own life, even so let one
cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings.

~ Shakyamuni Buddha

December 24, 1998

In the beginning,
meditative awareness is like a small flame,
which can be easily extinguished
and needs to be protected and nurtured.

Later, it is more like a huge bonfire,
which consumes whatever falls into it…
Then the more thoughts that arise,
the more awareness blazes up,
like adding logs to a bonfire.

Emaho!
Everything is food for naked enlightened awareness!

~ Dzogchen Master Jigme Lingpa

December 25, 1998

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,

    no hands but yours,

    no feet but yours,

Yours are the eyes through which is to look out

    Christ’s compassion to the world;

Yours are the feet with which he is to go about

    doing good;

Yours are the hands with which he is to

    bless men now.

~ Teresa of Avila

December 26, 1998

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday,
and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow:
Our life is the creation of our mind.

If a man speaks or acts with an impure mind,
suffering follows him as the wheel of the cart
follows the beast that draws the cart.

If a man speaks or acts with a pure mind,
Joy follows him as his own shadow…

~ Buddha, The Dhammapada

December 27, 1998

Something opens our wings.

Something makes boredom and hurt disappear.

Someone fills the cup in front of us.

We taste only sacredness.

~ Jelaluddin Rumi

December 28, 1998

I would rather live in a world
where my life is surrounded by mystery
than live in a world so small
that my mind could comprehend it.

~ Henry Emerson Fosdick

December 29, 1998

Losing touch with spirit
does nothing to the field of creativity,
which is beyond harm,
but it can do much to
damage a persons chance in life.
With spirit we are all children of the cosmos;
Without it we are orphaned and adrift.

~Deepak Chopra

December 30, 1998

Your vision will become clear

only when you look into your heart ...

Who looks outside, dreams.

Who looks inside, awakens.

~ Carl Jung

December 31, 1998

Be very careful

what you set your heart upon,

for you will surely have it.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Next Meditations, January 1999 or return to Meditations Archive]                        [Search Spiritwalk]

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