swlogo.gif (3630 bytes) Spiritwalk Thought for Today
Archive/August 1999
 
 
 
 

 

Sunday, August 1, 1999 

Man’s chief work is to praise God. 

~ St. Augustine
 
 
Monday, August 2, 1999

He only has freedom who ideally loves freedom and is glad to extend it to others. 
He who cares to have slaves must chain himself to them. 
He who builds walls to create exclusion for others, builds walls across his own freedom. 

~ Rabindranath Tagore
 
 
Tuesday, August 3, 1999 

Liberation and enlightenment do not exist outside of your own self. We need only open
our eyes to see that we ourselves are the very essence of liberation and enlightenment. All dharmas, all beings, contain the nature of full enlightenment within themselves. Don’t
look for it outside yourself. If you shine the light of awareness on your own self, you will
realize enlightenment immediately. 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh (Words of the Buddha)
 
 
Wednesday, August 4, 1999 

The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. 
It can’t be organized or regulated. 
It isn’t true that everybody should follow one path. 
Listen to your own truth. 

~ Baba Ram Dass 
 
Thursday, August 5, 1999
 
Zen in its essence 
is the art of seeing 
into the nature of one’s being, 
and it points the way 
from bondage to freedom. 

~ D.T. Suzuki
 
 
Friday, August 6, 1999
 
The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased.
If I were a doctor and were asked my advice I should reply “Create Silence.”
 
~  Søren Kierkegaard
 
 
Saturday, August 7, 1999
 
The man of contemplation walks alone.
He lives desireless amidst the objects of desire.
The Atman is his eternal satisfaction.
He sees Atman present in all things.
 
~  Shankara
 
Atman=pure spiritual consciousness
 
 
Sunday, August 8, 1999
 
Nirvana or lasting enlightenment
or true spiritual growth can be achieved
only through persistent exercise of real love.
   
~  M. Scott Peck, M.D.
 
 
Monday, August 9, 1999
 
Be patient, do nothing, cease striving.
We find this advice disheartening
and therefore unfeasible because
we forget it is our own inflexible activity
that is structuring the reality.
We think that if we do not hustle,
nothing will happen and we will pine away. 
But the reality is probably in motion
and after a while we might take part in that motion.
But one can’t know.
 
~  Paul Goodman
 
 
Tuesday, August 10, 1999
 
The spiritual path is one of falling on your face, getting up, brushing yourself off, 
turning and looking sheepishly at God and then taking the next step.
 
~Sri Aurobindo
 
 
Wednesday, August 11, 1999
 
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
this is the long distance call,
the way the camera follows us in slow mo,
the way we look to us all,
the way we look to a distant constellation
that dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry,
Don't cry....
 
~ Paul Simon
 
 
Thursday, August 12, 1999
 
The finest qualities of our nature,
like the bloom on fruits,
can be preserved
only by the most delicate handling.
Yet we do not treat ourselves
nor one another thus tenderly.
 
~  Henry David Thoreau
 
 
Friday, August 13, 1999
 
The truth I must love in my brother is God himself, living in him.
I must seek the life of the Spirit of God breathing in him.
 
~  Thomas Merton
 
 
Saturday, August 14, 1999
 
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
 
~  Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 
 
Sunday, August 15, 1999
 
Until he extends his circle of compassion
to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
 
~  Albert Schweitzer
 
 
Monday, August 16, 1999
 
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
 
~  Leonard Cohen
 
 
Tuesday, August 17, 1999

We dance round in a ring and suppose, 
But the secret sits in the middle and knows. 

~ Robert Frost
 
 
Wednesday, August 18, 1999
 
We all have within us a center of stillness surrounded by silence.
 
~  Dag Hammerskjöld
 
 
Thursday, August 19, 1999
 
Listen in the silence.
Listen and you shall hear God speak.
The chamber of silence is man’s divine self.
It is there that man meets man’s God.
 
~  Frater Achad
 
 
Friday, August 20, 1999
 
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.
 
~  Margaret Fuller
 
 
Saturday, August 21, 1999
 
What is beyond the mind,
Has no boundary.
In it our senses end.
 
~  Mira Bai
 
 
Sunday, August 22, 1999
 
In primitive man, as in all human beings
the desire to enter into contact with the sacred
is counteracted by the fear of being obliged
to renounce the simple human condition
and become a more or less pliant instrument
for some manifestation of the sacred.
 
~  Mircea Eliade
 
 
Monday, August 23, 1999 
 
On the path to love,
impossibilities are resolved by turning non-love into love. 
With spiritual growth comes new creative potential,
leading to the realization that you are pure potential,
able to fill any creative impulse.
~ Deepak Chopra
 
 
Tuesday, August 24, 1999
 
Change yourself and you 
have done your part in changing the world. 
Every individual must change his own life 
if he wants to live in a peaceful world. 
The world cannot become peaceful unless and until 
you yourself begin to work toward peace. 
It is only by removing hate from our hearts 
that we can live a Christlike life. 

~ Paramahansa Yogananda
 
 
Wednesday, August 25, 1999
 
Where there is great love there are always miracles.
 
~  Willa Cather
 
 
Thursday, August 26, 1999
 
To set up what you like against what you dislike~
This is the disease of the mind.
 
~  Seng-T’san
 
 
Friday, August 27, 1999
 
Master your senses,
What you taste and smell,
What you see, what you hear.
 
In all things be a master
Of what you do and say and think.
Be free.
 
Are you quiet?
Quieten your body?
Quieten your mind.
 
By your own efforts
Waken yourself, watch yourself,
And live joyfully.
 
Follow the truth of the way.
Reflect upon it.
Make it your own.
Live it.
It will always sustain you.
 
~  Dhammapada (Words of Buddha)
 
 
Saturday, August 28, 1999
 
Our body and mind have the capacity
to heal themselves if we allow them to rest...
Stopping, calming, and resting are preconditions for healing.
If we cannot stop, the course of our destruction will just continue…
 
~  Thich Nhat Hanh 
 
 
Sunday, August 29, 1999
 
The sole purpose of this human life
is nothing but the realization of God.
 
~  The Shivapuri Baba
 
 
Monday, August 30, 1999
 
We can do no great things ~
Only small things with great love.
 
~  Mother Teresa
 
 
Tuesday, August 31, 1999 

Listen to me! 
Listen to me, and remember: 
Suffering is nothing, 
Suffering is illusion. 
Only you yourself create it, 
Only you cause yourself pain. 

~ Herman Hesse, 
(Voice in a dream described in his diary, 
which led to the writing of Siddhartha) 
 

 

 
Spiritwalk Thought for Today Archive Files
 
1999
 
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[Spiritwalk Daily Meditations Archive, August 1999 ~ http://www.spiritwalk.org/thoughts9908.htm]