Antennae for droplets of received wisdom

Thursday, August 27, 2009

You Cannot Control How People React to You

Try to move beyond your hurt feelings, realizing it isn't easy to do if someone else is inconsiderate. Nevertheless, it's important for you to realize that you cannot control how people react to you, even if you are tempted to manipulate their emotions by subtle things you say or don't say. Instead of wasting your energy on exerting your will, find a place within that can transform your fear into love by accepting others for who they are. ~ Rick Levine

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Spiritual development is not a luxury but a necessity for survival...

To serve the world out of the dynamic union of wisdom and compassion would be to participate most effectively in the preservation of the planet. Masters of all the religious traditions on earth now understand that spiritual training is essential not solely for monks and nuns but for all people, whatever their faith or way of life. The nature of spiritual development is intensely practical, active, and effective. The danger we are all in together makes it essential now that we no longer think of spiritual development as a luxury but as a necessity for survival.

As a famous Tibetan teaching says: “When the world is filled with evil, all mishaps should be transformed into the path of enlightenment.” ~ Sogyal Rinpoche

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Malicious Hypnotism, Einstein's Perspective

We are all very susceptible to hypnotism as long as we are materially minded. But if we are spiritually minded, the hypnotism has no effect on us. It is important to recall here a remark Albert Einstein once made: "Arrows of hate ('fiery darts') have been shot at me many times, but they never touched me because they came from a world with which I have nothing in common." What did he mean? Where was he dwelling that these arrows of hate couldn't reach him? He was dwelling above and beyond interaction thinking, in the land of spiritual consciousness.

An ancient Chinese proverb says: "A poisoned arrow can find no place to lodge itself in an enlightened man." ~ Thomas Hora, M.D.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Short Fuse?

"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." ~ Robert Frost

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Please explain human cruelty...

"It is characterized by two features. First, a cruel person gets a strange sort of exhilaration, a false sense of power, by hurting another. Secondly, he doesn't see how cruelty destroys his psychic self. If he saw cruelty as self-ruin, he would stop in horror. All evil, including cruelty, is unconscious. It is done in a hypnotic state of unawareness." ~ Vernon Howard

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Annoyed by the shallow, often senseless behavior of others...

"Don't believe that they can do any better than they do. A child of five can't behave like a child of ten. The same with adults. No one can possible behave above his own level of understanding. Don't expect people to do any better than they are compelled to do at their present level. Your problem is in assuming that they should and could behave better. That is like thinking that a monkey should be as dignified as a deer. Understand this and annoyance disappears." ~ Vernon Howard

Unawareness Causes Grief

Never sacrifice your integrity in order to get something from him or her." ~ Vernon Howard

"Above all, cherish no opinions."

"In order to be able to participate in a dialogic process, we must be willing to abandon, or put aside, opinions. What are opinions? They are cherished ideas personalized ideas. As long as we cherish opinions we cannot participate in a dialogic process because we have an investment in affirming our opinions... the wise man has no opinions whatsoever about anything ... a wise man has a thirst for understanding. He does not claim personal knowledge. At the drop of a hat he is ready to alter his thoughts." ~ Thomas Hora, M.D.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Becoming Unstoppable

"To see that the places where we feel stuck in life are really secret passageways -- provided for us to gain insight into our own greater potential -- is to no longer perceive these hurdles as a hindrance to success in life. In fact, once we learn to welcome whatever challenges us, we stand at the threshold of a new order of our own being where never again will we feel ourselves the victim of anything!" ~ Guy Finley

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Perception

Man's life begins only with the appearance of rational consciousness...

But if men who do not see life would only approach nearer to the phantoms which alarm them, and would examine them, they would perceive that for them also they are only phantoms and not realities. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Monday, August 10, 2009

Progress

The test of progress is not how much intellectual knowledge you have added, but how many mental illusions you have discarded. There are those who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom ~ Democritus

Sunday, August 9, 2009

"Consciousness...

...is a unique faculty of man enabling him to be aware of himself in a transcendent manner. This is the divine element in us. To fully appreciate it is very important because until we have learned to appreciate the divine in us, we are undeveloped and we live below the level of our potentialities." ~ Thomas Hora, M.D.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Face Fearful Feelings

There is really no such thing as a shaky situation, so any time you start to trimble, don't look around you for the fault: Look inward. It's the inner ground you're standing on that isn't solid. Any weakness faced by looking in this new direction becomes the foundation of a new strength. Face those fearful feelings. Fearlessness follows. ~ Guy Finley

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