Inspired by Stars
“If the Stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Poet and Essayist, 1803-1882)
The Stream of Life
“The same stream of life that runs through the world runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.”
–Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Poet, Playwright, Essayist, Painter and, in 1913, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1861-1941)
The Play of Universal Forces
“All life is the play of universal forces. The individual gives a personal form to these universal forces. But he can choose whether he shall respond or not to the action of a particular force. Only most people do not really choose – they indulge the play of the forces. Your illness, depressions etc. are the repeated play of such forces. It is only when you can make oneself free of them that one can be the true person and have a true life – but one can be free only by living in the Divine.”
–Sri Aurobindo (a.k.a. Aurobindo Ghose, Indian Nationalist Leader, Mystic, Philosopher and Creator of Purna (Integral) Yoga, 1872-1950)
An Organ of Minor Importance
“The seat of the soul and the control of voluntary movement-in fact, of nervous functions in general, are to be sought in the heart. The brain is an organ of minor importance.”
–Aristotle (Greek Scientist and Philosopher, 384-322 B.C.)
Notes on a Musical Score
“Each individual life is as special as a note on a musical score where…each fills a designated space….When such individual musical notes are played together, a melody emerges; when nature, including man, responds appropriately through the intertwining of all its unique vibrations, harmony of life emerges.”
–Meredith L. Young-Sowers (American Writer and Creator of the Stillpoint Model of Integrative Life Healing)
The Power of Solitude
The path of the hermit is meant for very few people. But we can all benefit from learning the power of occasional solitude.
Even if you have a house full of cats, dogs and kids demanding your attention, you will be better able to help them all if you can have just a little quiet time. Even if it means spending five minutes sitting on your own in a closet!
“When you cease to fear your solitude, a new creativity awakens in you. Your forgotten or neglected wealth begins to reveal itself. You come home to yourself and learn to rest within. Thoughts are our inner senses. Infused with silence and solitude, they bring out the mystery of inner landscape.”
–John O’Donohue (Irish Poet, Author, Catholic Priest and Hegelian Philosopher, 1956-2008)
Spiritual Principles
“The (mythic) stories of spiritual principals who are everywhere and all at once recalls the finding in quantum physics concerning the ways in which everything is part of everything else – every electron having knowledge and influence upon every other electron – and each one of us is ubiquitous throughout the great hologram that is our universe.”
–Jean Houston (American Scholar, Researcher and Author on Human Potentialities, 1937-)
{“Living in One’s and Future Myths” in:
“The Fabric of the Future – Women Visionaries Illuminate the Path to Tomorrow” (Conari Press)
A Mark of Maturity
“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”
–Wilhelm Stekel (Austrian Physician and Psychologist, 1868-1940)
Moving Toward Mastery
“The inactive man does not do his duty to his Creator or to the society that maintains him. The recluse who devotes his entire life to sincere effort in meditation fulfills part of his duty by trying to find and love God, and thus spiritualize his own life. To improve oneself is to help society by the example of virtue and by making at least one of its members good! But the yogi (monastic or householder) who does his duty to God, and also to the world through some form of uplifting service, is the most highly evolved type of being. He becomes a master (asiddha) when by such dutiful action he attains the supreme inactive state (nirvikalpa God-union), which is free from karmic effects of actions and is filled with the bliss of Spirit.”
–Paramahansa Yogananda (Indian Spiritual Teacher and, in 1920, Founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, 1893-1952)
“God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita” (Paramahansa Yogananda)
Living, Not Existing
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
–Oscar Wilde (Irish Dramatist and Wit, 1854-1900)
