Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Perhaps the greatest mistake we can make, which causes loss of self-respect, is making the opinions of others more important than our own opinion of ourselves. You'll find no shortage of opinions directed at you. If you allow them to undermine your self-respect, you're seeking the respect of others over your own, and you're abdicating yourself.
We can choose to function at a lower level of awareness and simply exist, caring for our possessions, eating, drinking, sleeping and managing in the world as pawns of the elements, or we can soar to new and higher levels of awareness allowing ourselves to transcend our environment and literally create a world of our own - a world of real magic.
Once you put your attention, your thoughts, your energy, your consciousness on a new intention, that's what you begin manifesting into your life. The word "intention," I believe, is really important, because it doesn't leave any room for doubt or maneuvering: "I intend to create this in my life out of the circumstances that I'm now experiencing."
You must make a daily effort to look upon others without condemnation. Every judgment takes you away from your goal of peace. Your ego loves your judgments, because with them you remain in a constant state of anguish and remorse. Keep in mind that you do not define anyone with your judgment; you only define yourself as someone who needs to be judged.
If all people are unique, and if they are constantly changing each and every day, then all one can say about any social research finding is that it applied to that group of people on that given day, and given the propensity of humans to be different and to change, then it is unlikely that one would get the same results if one were to repeat the study.
Research has shown that a simple act of kindness directed toward another improves the functioning of the immune system and stimulates the production of serotonin in both the recipient of the kindness and the person extending the kindness. Kindness extended, received or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved.
The biggest questions that always have perplexed me are "Where do I come from?" and "Where am I going?" The "Where do I come from?" question, which I think I largely am answering now, is about what quantum physics teaches us. If you try to find your source, you are not going to find it in a tiny little particle that began with your parents commingling.
Everything that you are against works against you. Everything that you are against can be restated in a way that puts you in support of something. When you are able to state what you are for rather than what you are against, you are focusing on the potential for positive change. Once that is in place, you will find whatever you are focusing on expanding.
Motivation is when you get hold of an idea and don't let go of it until you make it a reality. Inspiration is the reverse - when an idea gets hold of you and you feel compelled to let that impulse or energy carry you along. You get to a point where you realize that you're no longer in charge, that there's a driving force inside you that can't be stopped.
No storm lasts forever no matter what it is. Nature builds calmness within its storms. That's true in our own lives as well. When you reach the zenith of where you are going in your life, or in a relationship; the only place you can go is down or up. That's the nature of this universe; a cyclical thing. The seasons, the moon; everything has a cycle to it.
I think anything that you can use to connect is fine. For some people it's meditation. For some people it's yoga. For some people, it's running. For some people, it's affirmations. For me, it's photographs and drawings, and affirmations, and statues, and crystals. I fill my writing space and I fill my home with symbols of what I think of as higher energy.
Let the world unfold without always attempting to figure it all out. Let relationships just be, since everything is going to stretch out in Divine order. Don't try so hard to make something work - simply allow. Don't always toil at trying to understand your mate, your children, your parents, your boss, or anyone else because the Tao is working at all times.
Fear of the unknown... They are afraid of new ideas... They are loaded with prejudices, not based upon anything in reality, but based on... "If something is new, I reject it immediately because it's frightening to me." What they do instead is just stay with the familiar. You know, to me, the most beautiful things in all the universe, are the most mysterious.
Cultivate your own garden and let go of your tendency to examine and judge how others cultivate theirs. Catch yourself in moments of gossip about how others ought to be living and rid yourself of thoughts about how they should be doing it this way, or how they have no right to live and think as they do. Stay busy and involved in your own projects and pursuits.
Abraham Maslow taught me, that when you're working with a patient, never let them spend more than a few moments on the problem, because what you think about is what expands, and if they're talking about the problem all the time, when they leave your session, the problem will expand. Get 'em to put their attention on what they intend to create, or on solutions.
While you were four, you didn't know anything other than being terrified and scared; you're not four any longer. Now [as an adult] you have to make a choice and recognize that even the abuse that came into your life offers you an opportunity to transcend it, to become a better person and even more significantly, to help someone else not go through what you did.
If you still are growing, you go through the archetype of the statesman or stateswoman. You stop asking "What are my quotas?" and stop saying "What is in it for me?" and "How much can I get?" You begin to say, instead, "What are your quotas?" and, "How may I serve?" Providing for others becomes much more important in your life than what you can get for yourself.
There is no need to invent an ego that is separate from the divine if our basic human nature is trusted. If we trust ourselves, we know how to avoid interfering with nature and how to live in harmony. When we know God as an unseen, loving, and accepting power at the heart of everything, allowing us to make our own choices, then God is a trusted part of our nature.
I greet every new day with the words, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.' That's the state of mind that directs me, fulfills me, and sends me out into the world with a gift to share. It's a blessing that I have learned over a lifetime - to experience the presence of Spirit in most of my waking moments. It's a feeling of contentment and satisfaction, of peace and love.
What is hope but a feeling of optimism, a thought that says things will improve, it won't always be bleak, there's a way to rise above the present circumstances. Hope is an internal awareness that you do not have to suffer forever, and that somehow, somewhere there is a remedy for despair that you will come upon if you can only maintain this expectancy in your heart.
When I was a kid at 16, sneaking into a burlesque theater in downtown Detroit was a big thrill. Today, in every hotel room in America, you can turn on the television and see hardcore pornography. So the shifts can go both ways, and it's incumbent on us as leaders of the spiritual community to get as many people as possible to really begin to think in God-realized ways.
Don't evaluate your life in terms of achievements, trivial or monumental, along the way... Instead, wake up and appreciate everything you encounter along your path. Enjoy the flowers that are there for your pleasure. Tune in to the sunrise, the little children, the laughter, the rain, and the birds. Drink it all in... there is no way to happiness; happiness is the way.
People need to learn how to respond to each other's hatreds with love - which is what Jesus taught us, which is what Buddha came here to teach us, which is what Muhammad taught us, which is what all of the great spiritual masters who have ever walked among us who live at those highest energies taught us - responding to force with more force will just create more problems.
Everyone and everything that shows up in the world of form in this universe originates not from a particle, as quantum physics teaches us, but from an energy field. That energy field can be called God, soul, spirit, or consciousness. It looks a certain way, sounds a certain way, and feels a certain way. I try to stay in harmony with what I believe it sounds and feels like.
When you consider what you would love to accomplish in your life but feel ill-prepared to bring it about, picture the eighty-nine Michelangelo living five centuries ago, painting, sculpting, and writing. Imagine he is telling you that you can create whatever you desire, and the great danger is not in having too much hope, but in reaching what you have perceived as hopeless.
The key is to trust in your own divinity, to know that you are a piece of God, and that you are like what you came from. As a spiritual being, you have Divinity within. When Albert Einstein was asked about the impact of quantum physics, he said, "It's just all details, I just want to think like God thinks." And God thinks in terms of creating, kindness, beauty and goodness.
You are not saintly (a good person) because an organization says so, but rather because you stay connected to the divinity of your origination. You are not intelligent because of a transcript; you are intelligence itself, which needs no external confirmation. You are not moral because you obey the laws; you are mortality itself because you are the same as what you came from.
The war in Iraq, specifically America's role of leadership in this war, is a painful invitation to ask ourselves what, if anything, we've learned from previous wars. I am revolted by the brutal killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people during any war. And I'm saddened by the apparent inability of human beings to find less violent solutions to conflict and terrorism.
Finally, if you still are growing, you reach the highest archetype, the archetype of the spirit. This is the time when you finally realize what Jesus meant when he said, "You are in this world, but you are not of this world." You are not here as a human being having a spiritual experience, but the reverse is true: All of us here are spiritual beings having a human experience.
For years I taught in universities and high schools for classes of 30 or 35 students. Now I teach in very large venues with thousands of people in the audience. I used to have notes. Now I just let go and let God. I just allow it to come, and I didn't do that before. I never even used the word "God" for twenty or twenty-five years. Now it just rolls out of my mouth all the time.
I think the most common meme is that it's too difficult to change. It's too risky to change. My nature doesn't allow me to change. When you're thinking that, you're not understanding what your nature is. All of us come from this place of well-being, love, and kindness. But we've taken on these other things, and we think that they're our nature. Our nature really is to be like God.
Patanjali said that when you are steadfast in your abstention of thoughts of harm directed toward yourself and others, all living creatures will cease to feel fear in your presence. Steadfast means you never slip. I think my mission is to support people in being steadfast in not having thoughts of harm - thoughts of judgment, worry, or hatred - directed toward themselves or others.
... Remember in the beginning God created heaven and earth and all that was created was good so that anything that isn't good has come about because of your belief of mind that you are separate from this divinity. You are not what you have. You are not what you do. You are not what others think of you. You are beloved. You are divine. You are a creation that is made into perfection.
You can ask the question, "What's making the boat go forward?" It can't be the wake. The wake can't drive the boat. It's just the trail left behind. It can't make the boat go forward, any more than the trail that you've left behind in your life is responsible for where you're going now in your life. The belief that whatever you've been is what you have to be is a meme - a mind virus.
If your message to the universe is gimme, gimme, gimme, the universe's response back to that kind of mentality is exactly the same. The universe will say right back to you over and over again, gimme, gimme, gimme. If you shift that and you say to the universe, to the world, how may I serve? How may I serve? The universe's response back to you is how may I serve you? How may I serve you?
If you say to the universe, "Gimme, gimme, gimme," which is what a lot of the work around the law of attraction says because of a misinterpretation, then the universe gives you back what you offered out. You get more "gimme, gimme, gimme." "Gimme" means you don't have enough. You have a shortage. The universe just keeps giving you more shortage because of what you're thinking and saying.
There is only one time that is important-Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary person is the one with whom you are, for no person knows whether he or she will ever have dealings with anyone else: and the most important affair is, to do the person good, because for that purpose alone were human beings sent into this life!
Releasing guilt is like removing a huge weight from your shoulders. Guilt is released through the empowering thought of love and respect for yourself. Let go of standards of perfection and refuse to use up the precious currency of your life, the now, with thoughts that continue to frustrate and weaken you. Instead, vow to be better than you used to be, which is the true test of nobility.
Just as we're all students throughout life, we're all teachers. In fact, we learn best by offering what we desire for ourselves to as many individuals as we can, as frequently as we can.....Following this line of thinking, it's imperative that we make deliberate effort to increase our inspirational energy, as this will lead us to being both a spiritual learner and teacher simultaneously.
Your past history and all of your hurts are no longer here in your physical reality. Don't allow them to be here in your mind, muddying your present moments. Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much longer. But all are necessary, otherwise they wouldn't be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.
The ability to see yourself as a temporary expression of intention and to see yourself in all of humanity is a characteristic of the holy relationship. It's the ability to celebrate and honor in all others, the place where we're all one. ...establish a holy relationship with your Source, the world community, your neighbors, acquaintances, family, the animal kingdom, our planet, and yourself.
The Wright brothers didn't contemplate the staying on the ground of things. Alexander Graham Bell didn't contemplate the noncommunication of things. Thomas Edison didn't contemplate the darkness of things. In order to float an idea into your reality, you must be willing to do a somersault into the unconceivable and land on your feet, contemplating what you want instead of what you don't have.
Everything that's love can't be fear, and everything that's fear can't be love. You're either in one or the other. Almost every time you turn on the television set, you're in fear. You get aligned with fear. When you're aligned with fear, instead of with God-consciousness, you just keep attracting more fear-more stuff to be afraid of, more shortages, revenge, anger, wars, killing, and disease.
Everybody who works in the computer industry is in an industry that didn't exist twenty-five years ago. We are talking on cell phones, and there were no such things. All the people who work for Nextel and so on, those are lost jobs that became found jobs. We are in a constant state of changing, and there are numerous opportunities in a time like this, but people are still going back to the fear.
But even technical work filled with formulas can be valuable and important. Einstein offered a lot of technical work on quantum physics, which mostly eludes me. I refer to his work, and I have studied it, but I am not a physicist. But look at Einstein's simple statement that the most important decision you ever will make is the decision whether you live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe.
It's been proven that the thoughts we choose have everything to do with our emotions. I can tell you that a commitment to feeling good can take away a stomach ache, fear, depression, sadness, anxiety - you name it. Any stress signal is a way of alerting you to say the five magic words: I want to feel good. This is your intention to be tranquil and stress free - and it's a way of connecting to spirit.
Make the decision that you'll no longer use excuses to keep you from what you know is in your best interest. Today, act on something you've always avoided and explained away with a convenient excuse. Make a phone call you've been putting off, write a letter to a friend, put on a pair of walking shoes and go for a stroll, clean out your closet—do something you've been justifying not doing with excuses.
Thousands of children are killed by handguns in the United States each year. What is that about? What are we doing? We accept that? And we accept the presence of these weapons that are in silos and on submarines and airplanes? If any madman gets hold of them - and certainly there are madmen out there who will figure out how to get hold of them, they always have - what are we even making such things for?
Be a student. Stay open and willing to learn from everyone and anyone. Being a student means you have room for new input. When you are green you grow, when you are ripe you rot. By staying green you will avoid the curse of being an expert. When you know in your heart that every single person you encounter in your lifetime has something to teach you, you are able to utilize their offerings in a profound way.
When I'm on purpose - when I'm allowing Source to come through - it's always there. At those times, I'm not focused on any ego sense about how much I'm going to make, how well a book is going to do, whether people are going to buy it, or any of that. I just go to a state of awe and gratitude - I'm deeply, profoundly grateful - and it just works. The first words out of my mouth every morning are "I thank you."