Those
who do not feel this
love pulling them like a river,
those who do not drink dawn like a cup
of springwater or take in sunset
like supper, those who do not
want to change, let
them sleep.
This love
is beyond the study
of theology, that old trickery
and hypocrisy. If you want
to improve your mind
that way, sleep
on.
I have
given up on my brain.
I have torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away. If you are not
completely naked, wrap your
beautiful robe of words
around you, and
sleep.
The
best leader is one
whose existence is barely known.
Next best is one who is loved and praised.
After that, one who is feared. Worst
of all is a leader who is
despised.
If you
fail to trust people,
you won’t inspire their trust.
Therefore, guide others by quietly
relying on Tao. Then, when the
work is done, the people can
say, “We did this
ourselves.”
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The Buddha’s
teachings on love are
clear. It is possible to live
twenty-four hours a day
in a state of love.
When you are not
afraid to forget who you are,
life in the kitchen, or life in the office,
might contain huge and overwhelming happiness.
Everything you look at, the door, the walls meeting in the
corner of the room, the light shining on the cell phone, might be
so alive that it looks back. Other people might not be who you
thought they were. Family members might be as fresh
and surprising as strangers. And you, whom you
have only apparently known all your life,
might be fresh and surprising
to yourself too.
One learns to understand
that there is a world in one’s self,
that in one’s mind there is a source of
happiness and unhappiness, the source of
health and illness, the source of light and darkness,
and that it can be awakened, either mechanically or at will,
if only one knew how to do it. Then one does not blame his
ill fortune nor complain of his fellow man. He becomes
more tolerant, more joyful, and more loving toward
his neighbor, because he knows the cause of
every thought and action, and he sees
it all as the effect of a
certain cause.
…Therefore, the work
of the mystic is to be able to read
the language of the mind. As the clerk
in the telegraph office reads letters from the
ticks, so the Sufi gets behind every word spoken to
him and discovers what has prompted the word to come out.
He therefore reads the lines which are behind man’s thought,
speech, and action. He also understands that every kind of
longing and craving in life, good or bad, has its source
in deep impression. By knowing this root of the
disease he is easily able to find out its cure.
No impression is such that it
cannot be erased.