For nearly 30 years now I have been fascinated by inspirational quotations and sayings, that for me actually all came down to saying the same thing – understanding life and the question “Who Am I”
Everytime I read some words that really touched me I wrote them in my blue journal which I started way back in 1997.
For me the quotes are some of the most beautiful words I will ever read. Most enable me to feel that inner point of beauty, love, source, the core of my being. All these words are various ways of allowing me to experience that feeling and all said by so many different people over thousands of year. (see mc8)
So I have been gathering these words for nearly 20 years!
A couple of years ago I began to feel that I wanted to share them with others. So about eighteen months ago I started to collate them together onto my computer, and then six months later I felt that perhaps I could share them in some form of book. Which would not be enough on it’s own so I decided to add my story as a first half.
I think you are probably a few steps ahead of my fingers and have been able to see then, that for this website to come together, nearly 80% of the work had already been done for both the Inspirational quotations and My story. How clever is the Universe ???????
I can also tell you that My Coursework had already been 90% completed, as over these years, I also gathered prayers, affirmations, I Am meditations and lots of other inspirational reading. And now, here in this wonderful website of mine I am being given the opportunity to put it all together and God only knows that there may well still be a book within. Alleluia
QUOTATIONS TO UNDERSTAND ‘WHO AM I’
Book of Exodus (3.13-14) – Moses said to God.“ Suppose I go the Israelites and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name? Then what should I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” This is what you are to say to the Israelites “ I AM has sent me to you“;
Nicolya Christi 2012 – For self-actualization to become possible it requires just one thing. a conscious desire to evolve. Conscious awakening stimulates an evolutionary trajectory from ego to I, I to I Am, I Am God/Source /Creator;
Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) German Monist philosopher and mystic – “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one ye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
Thomas Merton 1915 – 1968 – If I penetrate to the depths of my own existence, to this indefinable Am that is myself in its deepest root, then through this deep centre I pass into the infinite I Am, which is the very name of Almighty.
Nicolya Christi – We are all sparks of Divine Consciousness. We all hold a deep gnosis that we are part of something vast and unfathomable, so infinitely inexpressible and boundlessly indefinable that may be termed Creator, God Source, or Divine Consciousness. However we name, our gnosis reveals to us that we are Consciousness, and that Consciousness can best defined as existence. We are in the time of the awakening – the awakening of Consciousness and of Divine consciousness. We are awakening to the reality of our own divinity and to the Divine. Consciousness permeated every atom, every molecule, and every cell of our very being, of every living energy on the Earth, beyond the Earth, and beyond the Universe. All that I, the Am, and I Am are immersed in the infinite and boundless of Divine Consciousness. There are three primary gateways to self-actualization: psychological evolution, conscious evolution, and spiritual evolution. Psychological awareness leads to consciousness and consciousness leads to spiritual awakening;
Carl Rogers 1951 – Self Actualisation “ The organism has one basic tendency and striving – to actualise, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism.
1. REASONS FOR UNDERSTANDING;
James W. Jones – Finding meaning & purpose is not optional, it is central to human life and is the goal of human development;
Nisargadatta Maharaj – Wisdom is knowing I am nothing. Love is knowing I am everything and between the two my life moves.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) –We are not humans having a spiritual experience but spirit having a human experience;
Carl Gustav Jung when asked if he believed in God replied :- I don’t need to believe, I know!!”
Sir John Eccles (1903-1997) physiologist and Nobel peace prize winner – I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its’ claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition, we have to recognise that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world;
Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior – There is no need to search: achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all One, you see. And the only laws are paradox, humour and change. There is no problem, never was, and never will be. Release your struggle, let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life, just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine. You are the world, you are the Universe, You are yourself and everyone else too! It’s all the marvellous Play of God. Wake up, regain your humour. don’t worry, just be happy, You are already free;
Rumi (1207-1273) Persian Sufi mystic and poet; The Lamps are different but the Light is the same; It comes from beyond. O Thou are the kernel of existence, the disagreement between Moslem, Zoroastrian and Jew, depends on the standpoint.;
(Indian) Chief Seattle – All things are connected, Man did not weave the Web of Life – he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the Web he does to Himself;
Deepak Chopra – Your Path to Happiness, when you truly find love, you find yourself. Therefore the path to love isn’t a choice, for all of us must find out who we are. This is our spiritual destiny. The path can be postponed; you can lose faith in it or even despair that love exists at all. None of this is permanent; only the path is. Doubt reflects the ego, which is bound in time and space; love reflects divine essence. The ultimate promise on the path to love is that you will walk in the light of truth extending beyond any truth your mind presently knows;
Eric Fromm psychologist – Love implies responsibility, care, respect & Knowledge and the wish for the other person to grow, develop. It is the expression of intimacy between two human beings under the condition of the preservation of each other’s integrity;
Richard Bach – from Illusions – The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy.
Socrates – An unexamined life is not worth living;
unknown –We are the ones we have been waiting;
Samuel Johnson – He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts:
The Key, Buddhist meditation –There is nothing wrong in the universe. Wrong only exists in our limited view of the Universe;
Marcel Proust – The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes;
Ervin Laszlo – Our separateness is an illusion, we are interconnected parts of the whole;
Archbishop William Temple (1881-1994): By the word of God… Isaiah and Plato, Zoroaster, Buddha and Confucius, uttered and wrote such truths as they declared. There is only one Divine Light, and every man in his own measure is enlightened by it;
Roberto Assagoli – Man’s spiritual development is a long & arduous journey, an adventure through strange lands of surprised, difficulties and even dangers. It involves a drastic transmutation of the ‘normal’ elements of the personality, an awakening of potentialities hitherto dormant, a raising of consciousness to new realities and a functioning along a new inner realm;
Clement of Alexandria 2nd century Christian philosopher – The greatest of all lessons is to know yourself, because when you know yourself you know God;
Lao Tse – Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever ways they like;
Proverbs 3:5– Trust in the Lord with your heart And lean not on your own understanding;
Saint Catherine of Siena (1347 – 1380) – Eternal Trinity, you are like a deep sea, in which the more I seek, the more I find; and the more I find, the more I seek you;
The Emerald Tablet (ca 5,000 – 3000 BC) – As below, so above; and as above so below. With this knowledge alone you may work miracles.
2. SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS / AWARENESS / MEDITATION;
Edgar Cayce – Spirit is the life, mind is the builder and the physical is the result. Realise that you are first a soul;
Mike George, student and teacher at Brahma Kumaris. –Meditation is the Cultivation of Self Awareness;
Sandy C. Newbigging – CALM = Conscious Awareness Life Meditation;
William James – American influential philosopher (1842-1910) – The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind;
Thich Nhat Hanh – It is not a matter of faith, It is a matter of practice;
Eckhart Tolle – Remember that your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of consciousness. You are not separate from it, and there is no objective world out there. Every moment, your consciousness creates the world that you inhabit;
unknown–The process of real meditation – to expand awareness, to direct attention, to ultimately surrender to the Light of Consciousness;
Eckhart Tolle- How easy it is to remember the truth and thus return home, I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perception, and experiences, I am not the content of my life, I am Life, I am the space in which all things happen, I am consciousness. I am the Now, I Am;
unknown – Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift – the precious present;
Pam Grout – God is the force field that runs the Universe – we also know that every thought incites change. Every time we think anything – be it a silent thought – we influence the field of infinite potentiality;
Carl Jung – Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart Who looks outside dreams – who looks inside awakens;
Yeats –The only journey worth taking is the journey within;
Dan Millman –Thought is an unconscious reaction to life;
Emmet Fox (1886-1951) American scientist & philosopher – It is the food which you furnish to your mind that determines the whole character of your life;
Beautiful Meditation – Inhale Awareness – Exhale Softness
Epictetus (55 – 135AD) Greek philosopher– We are disturbed not by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens.
Ram Das – The intellect is a beautiful servant but a terrible master. Intellect is the power tool of separateness. The intuitive compassionate heart is the doorway to our unity.
Joseph Campbell – Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows but we can choose to live in joy.
Einstein – No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
3. GUIDELINES FOR UNDERSTANDING LIFE & the Laws of the Universe;
William Shakespeare –All the world is a stage – And all men and women merely players – They have their exits & entrances – And one man plays many parts;
The Emerald Tablet (ca 5,000 – 3000 BC) – As below, so above; and as above so below. With this knowledge alone you may work miracles;
Edgar Allen Poe –All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream;
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi –The Truth is Simple, Make it Clear, let is stand on its’ own and don’t get lost in complications;
Albert Einstein –There are two ways to live your life;- One is as though nothing is miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle;
Rabbi Harry Kushner – I think of Life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense;
Somerset Maughan – It’s a funny thing about life, if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you often get it. (and vice versa !!);
M.Scott Peck – We must be willing to fail & to appreciate the truth that often life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived;
Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy – Life is a game of awakening and the way we win is remarkably simple. We choose to live consciously;
Haziz 1329-1389 – Now is the time to understand that all your ideas of right and wrong were just a child’s training wheels to be laid aside with veracity and love;
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together;
Martin Luther King Jr.– It really boils down to this; that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny, Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly;
Amit Goswami – theoretical nuclear physicist – The purpose of the Universe is to manifest the ideas of consciousness. Manifestation is necessary for consciousness to ‘see’ itself and its ideas;
Sai Baba– Life is a Game – play it, Life is a Challenge – meet it, Life is a Dream – realise it, Life is a Sacrifice – offer it, Love – Enjoy it;
Vivian Greene – Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, It’s about learning to dance in the rain;
Carroll Bryant – There are three types of people: – Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder –what happened !!!
Jim Carrey (see Full commencement address Maharishi University May 24 2014) – Life doesn’t happen to you – It happens for you;
From ‘An Introduction to Physchotherapy’-The past shapes the present but the present can also reshape the influence of the past;
Kahlil Gibran – Yesterday is todays memory and tomorrow is todays dream;
Matty Mullins – American Christian Rock Musician – The only person you should compare yourself to is the person you were yesterday;
Dr. Seuss(1904-1991) US children’s author – Those who mind don’t matter, those who matter don’t mind;
Rumi – Let the beauty of what you Love – Be what you do;
Henry Ford – If you always do what you have always done, you’ll always get what you have always got;
Oscar Wilde – Experience is simply the name we give to our mistakes;
Wayne Dyer – If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change;
Kieron Williamson genius child artist 2017 – It’s all about the moment in time;
Steven R. Covey – We are not the product of our circumstances we are the product of our decisions;
Resistance is futile, for whatever you resist persists;
unknown – Life reciprocates your belief in it;
unknown –As God brings you to it, He will bring you through it;
unknown – Life is a jigsaw. We can get so wrapped up in trying to make the little pieces fit, that we miss the whole picture;
Chinese Proverb – Be not afraid of growing slowly, Be only afraid of standing still;
In Tibetan – there is no word for “Guilty” – the closest thing is ‘intelligent regret that decides to do things differently’;
When written in Chinese, the word “Crisis” is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
4. HEALING / OVERCOMING SUFFERING / FORGIVENESS;
Paracelsus (1493-1514) alchemist, physician, astrologer – It should be forbidden & severely punished to remove cancer by cutting,burning, cauterising and other fiendish torture, it is from nature that the disease arises and from nature comes the cure, not from the physician;
Mary Craig from her book Blessings – Our tragedy is not that we suffer, but that we waste suffering, we waste the opportunity of growing into compassion;
Helen Keller – The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but no vision;
Clare Booth Luce – There are no hopeless situations in life; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them;
Michael J. Fox – Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation, It means understanding that something is what it is and there’s got to be a way through it;
Kahlil Gibran – Much of your pain is self-chosen, it is the bitter potion which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility. For his hand, though heavy and hard is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen. And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears;
Terry Waite 5 years in captivity in Beirut- Captivity changed my life. I know the fear of not knowing whether you’ll live to the end of the day. During that time I lost the ability to walk long distances when the soles of my feet were beaten. But suffering needn’t destroy you, something creative can emerge. It gave me the courage to work for myself and go back to my salaried job;
unknown – The only thing that can ever hurt you is your resistance to change;
unknown – I know that nobody can spoil my day, but me!
Words of Wisdom – “Trust the Process”
Assertiveness is striking a balance between your own self-respect and the respect you have for others. Positively expressing your own point of view without violating the rights of others.
5. VIRTUES;
most recently added after watching Call the Midwife January 2019
Doubt is a very good seed for progress
And Humility the perfect fertiliser
Quanta Qualia – our experience of the feelings & qualities of love, compassion, non-judgement, tolerance, patience & forgiveness;
Cicero 106-43 BCE – Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others;
I Corinthians 13 v 4 in understanding8 – Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protect, always trust, always hopes always perseveres. Love never fails. And now these 3 remain, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is LOVE;
Rupert Spira – In ignorance, I am something; in understanding, I am nothing; in Love, I am everything.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together;
Hafiz –I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jew. The truth has shared so much of itself with me that I can no longer think of myself as a man, a woman, an angel or even a pure soul. Existence has become so saturated with laughter, it has freed me of every concept and image a mind could ever war with;
Rumi – Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces. Love is the sea of no end. We are a drop of it. He brings forth hundreds of proofs. We can find our way only though them.
Reinhold Niebuhr (incl in 12 step programs) – Lord, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can and the Wisdom to know the difference;
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – The Truth is Simple, Make it Clear, Let is stand on its’ own and don’t get lost in complications;
Eric Fromm psychologist – Love implies responsibility, care, respect & Knowledge and the wish for the other person to grow, develop. It is the expression of intimacy between two human beings under the condition of the preservation of each other’s integrity;
Sai Baba- Duty without love is deplorable, duty with love is good, Love without duty is divine;
Henry David Thoreau – Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things it comes and softly sits on your shoulder;
Terry Waite 5 years in captivity in Beirut – The happiest moment you will cherish for ever? When my blindfold was taken off during my release in November 1991. I’d been in the dark – in a basement or blindfolded – for years. For the first time in five years I saw the sky, the grass, the colours, and I felt the wind on my face;
Mary Craig from her book Blessings – Silence does not always mean indifference;
Thomas Merton – Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another;
Deepak Chopra – Your Path to Happiness, when you truly find love, you find yourself. Therefore the path to love isn’t a choice, for all of us must find out who we are. This is our spiritual destiny. The path can be postponed; you can lose faith in it or even despair that love exists at all. None of this is permanent; only the path is. Doubt reflects the ego, which is bound in time and space; love reflects divine essence. The ultimate promise on the path to love is that you will walk in the light of truth extending beyond any truth your mind presently knows;
6. SERVICE;
Albert Schweitzer – I do not know what your destiny will be but one thing I do know, the only ones amongst you who will be fully happy are those who have sought and found how to serve;
Rabindranath Tagore – I slept and dreamed that life was joy, I awoke and saw that life was service,I acted and behold, service was joy;
Dr Norman Pittenger – Give me a humanist or agnostic who cares. In him or her I can see the charity of God working anonymously. Whenever and wherever I see self-giving love, I shall know it is of God;
Mother Teresa – Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them;
The Dhammapada – However many holy words you read, however many you speak, What good will they do you if you do not act upon them?;
Sai Baba – Hands that help are holier than lips that pray;
Mother Theresa – Peace begins with a smile, you will never know the good a simple smile will do;
7. SURRENDER / EGO / ACCEPTANCE;
Surrender is about letting go of control without losing power;
“Trust the Process”
Eckhart Tolle – Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no purpose.
Somerset Maughan – It’s a funny thing about life, if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you often get it.(and vice versa!!);
Edmund Burke – All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing;
Eckhart Tolle – Always say ‘yes’ to the Present Moment. Surrender to what is. Say yes to life – and see how Life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
Confucius 300 BC –To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it;
The Key. Buddhist meditation – A little wise secret; You don’t need to know anything in order to be wise. All you need to do to be wise is to accept;
Will Rogers once said that he knew that worrying was effective, because almost nothing he worried about ever happened;
Mahatma Gandhi – I love your Christ, I just don’t understand your Christians;
Jean Klein – Accept as a principle that there is nothing to attain, because what we are looking for, we are already… every step you take to attain yourself is a going away….there is nothing to gain, nothing to lose….you will find yourself, naturally, as you were before you were born;
Michael J. Fox – The more expectation the more unhappy I am going to be. The more I accept the more serene I am;
unknown – Don’t tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big God is