Time to Love
If you judge people,
you have no time
to love them.
~Mother Teresa
(1910 – 1997, Albanian Catholic Nun)
Awakening
When you pursue awakening,
it’s not going to lead
to disappointment.
Quite the contrary,
it goes wildly beyond
your expectations,
wildly beyond
your hopes.
~Thanissaro Bhikkhu
(1949 to pres., American Buddhist monk
Of the Thai Forest Tradition)
Joy and Misery
All the joy the world contains
Has come through wishing
happiness for others.
All the misery the world contains
Has come from wanting
pleasure for oneself.
~Shantideva
(685-763 Buddhist scholar and teacher)
Soul Is Light
The soul is light and love.
If we could look down on humanity
from a higher vantage point
we would see a light
illuminating each souls,
just as when we fly in an airplane at night
and look down at the earth
we see a myriad of lights.
The light in each soul
is one and the same.
God sees no distinction
in any of the lights
because they are all made
of the same essence as the Creator.
What differs is but
the outer human form surrounding it.
When we realize our soul,
we attain the same consciousness as God.
~Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj
(1946 to pres., Author, Scientist, Mystic,
Leader of Science of Spirituality and
International Movements for World Peace)
Unfold Your Own Myth
Who gets up early
to discover the moment light begins?
Who finds us here circling,
bewildered, like atoms?
Who comes to a spring thirsty
and sees the moon reflected in it?
Who, like Jacob blind with grief and age,
smells the shirt of his lost son
and can see again?
Who lets a bucket down and brings up
a flowing prophet?
Or like Moses goes for fire
and finds what burns inside the sunrise?
Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,
and opens a door to the other world.
Soloman cuts open a fish,
and there’s a gold ring.
Omar storms in to kill the prophet
and leaves with blessings.
But don’t be satisfied with stories,
how things have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth,
without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the message:
You have been opened!
Start walking toward God.
Your legs will get heavy and tired.
Then comes a moment of feeling
the wings you’ve grown, lifting.
~Mavlana Jalaladin Rumi
(1207-1273 Persian Poet and Mystic)
Thankfulness
What would it be to awaken
to a day devoted to gratitude,
a day of thankfulness
for what was
and yet will be?
Grateful for this life
in which we have been feeling
our way toward the truth.
~Stephen Levine
(1937 to 2016, Buddhist teacher, thanatologist)
Togetherness
Pain and joy, love of life,
and fear of death
know no boundaries of us and them.
We can all wake up to realize
that our happiness depends
on the happiness of our neighbors
and vice versa,
and our real safety
is in togetherness,
not intractable conflict.
~Stephen Fulder
(1946 to pres., founder and senior teacher
of the Israel Insight Society)
