Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just n...
The ecstatic state of wholeness is bound to be transient because it has no part in the total pattern of ‘adaptation through maladaptation’ which is characteristic of our species…the hunger of imagination, the desire and pursuit of the whole, ta...
We each have a special something we can get only at a special time of our life. like a small flame. A careful, fortunate few cherish that flame, nurture it, hold it as a torch to light their way. But once that flame goes out, it’s gone forever.
Our mind is who we are; it’s where we feel and think and believe. It’s where we have love and hate and faith and passion.’ I was getting a little embarrassed by your earnestness but you continued, ‘How can someone hope to treat another person...
Rumi and Shams taught us how to see the world with new eyes, how to find our place in the order of things, and how to extricate the true self trapped under layers of noise.
Rumi and Shams bring to our lives the simple truth that we are not alone, that God really does care. And God's joyous love for each of us is rivaled only by Her divine sense of humor.
He is not a punishing God, Lizzy. That is the mistake most people make, thinking He sits with an account book and a big fist, waiting to punish us. He is not a wrathful God but a loving God who made each of us and loved us since we were in our mother...
...art must must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal t...
We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of God… Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass – a beautiful swift seeming of spring; which, after a day’s...
With the music of our singing in the background, I looked at the church candles and thought about the surreal connection between images and memory. The peaceful and joyous candles flickering there during the Christmas ceremony projected warmth, comfo...
He looks at me, and I don't know what he sees. I used to think it was Rose. But she's not here with us now, in this room. It's just him and me, and the books. I feel like our lives are in those books. I feel like all the words on the pages are for us...
All we have to do is ask and believe that God will work on our behalf and give us what we need to overcome and rise above the adversities and stress that we are facing.
I reckon that blaming people fixes nothing. You're the only person who is going to sort you out. No-one else really can - or really cares, enough. That's what Nepalis know - better than anyone. That's our Western disease. Don't take responsibility. T...
So you see, the most vital question then becomes, what type of woman will conquer our hero? If she be of poor quality, he’ll become a slave. But if she be great, then her greatness will elevate the man to greater heights than he could ever have att...
Research shows that sincere positive feelings--like love, care, gratitude, appreciation, compassion, or joy--smooth out our heart rhythm into a harmonious coherent pattern.
Moisture falls from the sky, cleansing the world and sustaining precious life. But it's the gloom—the cold, dark air—that receives notice. We fail to see the miracle of raindrops through our own tears.
You and I were never meant to be together, but we are. Our pairing is not unlike two electrons ignoring natural laws in order to orbit one another. Life now defies reason—quirky but beautiful.
When life knocks us down, God CAN put us back together again. He can meet us in our brokenness and restore us to something even more glorious than we were before we were shattered.
...I had been with my father so constantly for so long that I knew less and less about him with every passing year. Every meaningful image was jumbled together with the countless moments of our daily life defeating my efforts to gain some perspective...
No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even - perhaps even - those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call 'hard but necessary steps' for the good of ...
Thinking is like exercise, it requires consistency and rigor. Like barbells in a weightlifting room, the classics force us to either put them down or exert our minds. They require us to think.