(not necessarily in that order)
Ramesha and I will spend five days this week in silence.
I won’t be checking emails and will take a (blessed!) break from the news, but will still write a short blog each day.
Hopefully I’ll be able to share some inspiration or insight gleaned from each day of seclusion.
“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
Mother Teresa said that, and it was the perfect reminder I needed this morning to start tackling my day.
Later…
I read that quote this morning and it did get me going. The challenge now is to keep going until it’s all finished.
Much, much later…
Well, I couldn’t get it all done before coming home, so for the first time this week I’m working late into the evening. There were just a few too many details requiring completion.
Oh well.
This quote by Swami Kriyananda is new to me. I love it, but can’t help wondering how I managed to miss it for so long!
This world is like a symphony;
~Swami Kriyananda
God is the great conductor
who alone can bring music
out of everything.
I saw this beautiful photo, accompanied by the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, in a post from a Facebook group (Rumi and Spiritual quotes).
“The earth laughs in flowers.”
This lovely imagery immediately brought to my mind these lyrics from Swami Kriyananda’s song, “There’s Joy in the Heavens.”
“…the flowers are all laughing to welcome the morning; your soul is as free as the air!”
“If you don’t like where you are, change it. You’re not a tree.”
–Jim Rohn
I really got a kick out of this quote when I saw it this morning. Not sure why it struck such a chord with me, but I absolutely love it!
No matter how much I struggle to stick with my day-to-day routines (including meditation), I’m always grateful for the boost of bliss and inspiration I feel after a Kriya initiation!
I was on Facebook yesterday when I saw the above quote.
It definitely made me think. But then, it was immediately followed by this quote as the very next post:
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.” — Thomas Henry Huxley
Reading the two, one right after another like that, made me pause and reflect. I think of myself as educated and mature. And yet, I still struggle to live up to the standards expressed within those two quotes.
I guess the truth is that, no matter one’s chronological age, our true educational process of reaching our full human potential is never completely done.
“Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.” —Harold S. Kushner
Tonight’s celebration of Lahiri Mahasaya was very inspiring, filling the Temple of Light with deep, deep devotion.
The first time I really tuned into Lahiri was the end of September 2001; someone had printed up cards with just the final sentence a longer quote (the full quote is below): Though man’s ingenuity for getting himself into trouble appears to be endless, the Infinite Succor is no less resourceful.
I found those words profoundly reassuring in the aftermath of 9/11 and they are just as meaningful to me in the crazy times we’re living in today!
Solve all your problems through meditation. Exchange unprofitable religious speculations for actual God-Contact. Clear your mind of dogmatic theological debris; let in the fresh, healing waters of direct perception. Attune yourself to the active inner Guidance; the Divine Voice has the answer to every dilemma of life. Though man’s ingenuity for getting himself into trouble appears to be endless, the Infinite Succor is no less resourceful.
— Lahiri Mahasaya
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.”
— Thomas Henry Huxley
I’ve got quite a bit of education, but I have not yet achieved this oh-so-valuable result.
I keep trying, though.