Avoid
the bad habit
of domesticating the prophet
of your choice, turning him or her into
a cheerleader for your way of thinking and way
of life. Remember that all the great prophets were courageous
and outrageous folks who railed against the powers-that-be,
challenged self-satisfied piosity, threatened the
prevailing social order, and would find
you falling short in some
significant
ways.
I believe that
the universe is one being,
all its parts are different expressions of
the same energy, and they are all in communication
with each other, influencing each other, therefore
parts of one organic whole. This is
physics, I believe, as well as
religion.
The parts
change and pass, or die,
people and races and rocks and stars,
none of them seems to me important in itself,
but only the whole. This whole is in all its parts so beautiful,
and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled
to love it, and to think of it as divine. It seems to me that this
whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love;
and that here is peace, freedom,
I might say a kind of
salvation.
I think that
one may contribute (ever so slightly)
to the beauty of things by making one’s own life
and environment beautiful, so far as one’s power reaches.
This includes moral beauty, one of the qualities
of humanity, though it seems not to
appear elsewhere in the
universe.
hevrin khalaf, may she rest in peace
There is
only one way to strive for
decency, reason, responsibility,
sincerity, civility, and tolerance, and
that is decently, reasonably,
sincerely, civilly, and
tolerantly.
Václav Havel
What is
needed for dramatic change
is an accumulation of acts…We know that it
does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and
peace, but only a small, determined group
who will not give up during
the first, second, or
hundredth
gale.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
True
understanding in
a person has two attributes:
awareness and action. Together they
form a natural tai chi. Who can enjoy
enlightenment and remain
indifferent to suffering
in the world?
This is not
in keeping with the Way.
Only those who increase their service
along with their understanding
can be called men and
women of Tao.
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