New Reflections

Lord, fashion my prayer. Teach me what you will, as you will.
I am vain to think I can instruct you in the ways to instruct me.

The heart is a treasurehouse, where the sweetest things are preserved.

In the heart of every sentient being, there is a fragment of the heart of God.

Unless you doubt everything you will believe anything.

Light is not positivity and darkness is not negativity. Light is awareness and darkness is its absence.

The center is wherever you are. If you feel you are in the dark, that is where the center is. Don't move from there. Say to yourself, "I feel I am in the dark". In this way, you shine light on your present. It is not holding the darkness, nor resisting it, but holding a light up to the darkness. Just be aware of it, as it is, and you will see it change.

The soul is only partially dependent upon God for its survival, but wholly dependent for its perfection. The greater our desire for perfection, the more completely we must abandon self-will and wait upon the grace of the Lord.

It is a sign of respect, when entering a church, or entering the prayerful chambers of the heart, to remove one's hat. In the same way, one ought to remove, as it were, and inasmuch as this is possible, one's own self and self-will, becoming receptive only to the divine presence and will of God.

Scripture can only be interpreted by the spirit which inspired it. If you could not have written the Bible, you could not have read it.

In every mind are vain and righteous thoughts, but the vain clamor and crowd and compete for the chief places in the heart, and one must dismiss them, turn them away, in order to discover the better; which are meek and audible only to one who has listened.

Glory to the blessed ones of all religions, and also to the blessed ones who serve God without religious structure. They are proof that all God desires is a pure and loving heart, humbly devoted and entrusted to the noblest impulses of the spirit. Glory to the many forms and names of God, and to the formless and unnamed divinity. Praises to the eternal source of love, hope, charity and healing. God makes saints of Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, and all who are full of humility and compassion. Boundless is His goodness. Praised be His graces, for ever and ever. Amen.

Wisely was it said, 'There is no companionship with fools.' Silence is a stranger to them, and peace has no part in their conversation. Neither do they speak by turns, but each, desiring his own hearing, clamors over the voices of his neighbors and is not edified. The more fools speak, the more confusion spreads; but a wise man instructs even by his silence.

A downer is someone looking for something deeper.

Give attention to the good, and the evil will swallow itself up.

All artists thirst and hunger for inspiration, and bear their craving like a prayer.

Don't forget music.

It is as if one is standing beside a heavy stone door, and one can hear God calling from the other side of the door, bidding one to enter. Alas, the door is too heavy to open. Still, there, just beside the door, is a set of weights. It appears the only thing to do is to lift the weights until one is strong enough to open the door. But this is difficult. This takes persistence, and persistence is the only true mark of faith. So, instead, we imagine that God has said "Don't come in. You are not ready." Or we leave and go searching for Him elsewhere. And the sound of His voice, still calling us to enter, fades into the distance as we wander off in search of Him. How sad. We ought to know by now that it is not a search. It is a practice.

The sun cooks food as it grows on the vine, on the tree, or in the earth. We call this process "ripening", but really this is cooking. The food is cooked, sun-cooked, when it is ripe (and raw). The truth is, we don't cook; we overcook. This is just one more example of a principle we see everywhere in human behavior. What nature has done, man wants to overdo.

Nothing so astonishes me as the popularity of the belief in an unconditionally loving God who will yet condemn you to an eternity of hellfire for the sin of thinking with your own mind and seeing with your own eyes; that God must be infinitely cruel to be infinitely kind. And nothing provides such palpable proof of the subtle depths to which human foolishness and impressionability may sink. Never imagine that simple men are insensible to paradox, or incapable of holding two contradictory notions in the mind at one and the same time. On the contrary, they have a genius for precisely this!

There is nothing like life in a war-torn country to make one amenable to the sentiments of anarchists.

Truth, like the sun, must not be gazed directly upon.

People always ask me the same question: "If you are against earthly life, why do you not kill yourself?" And my answer is always the same: If you discovered you were aboard a sinking ship, would you immediately abandon ship, or would you first attempt to rouse the other passengers and alert them to the impending catastrophe?

When you reach the point where you no longer need to reincarnate, you will choose to reincarnate "by default", for the sake of others. To transcend the world is not to escape from the world, but from one's attachment and aversion to it; as long as you desire to reincarnate or to escape reincarnation, you remain bound.

War is slavery, and the military man is a whip in the master's hand. A soldier is the personification of misguided service, who murders in the name of peace. He is the tragic figure par-excellence. All the more tragic because he not only dies in vain, but dies while making the world a more violent place. Generally, a brave, self-sacrificing soul without the sense to question the motivations of a government bent on war. And to think how many soldiers consider themselves Christians, as if it were possible to be a follower of the Prince of Peace and a professional killer. Judas betrayed Christ because, like so many, he was waiting for a worldly messiah, who would lead the Jewish people in a bloody revolt against their Roman oppressors. But Christ forbid Peter to defend him with force (when Peter cut off the Centurian's ear), and chose rather to allow himself to be crucified than to resist violence with violence. The entire message of his words, his life, and his death was to return good for evil; love for hatred. This was not some impractical ideal for which he wished to be honored, but an example which he demanded all his self-proclaimed followers to follow. "Why callest me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not the things which I say?" Though I have tremendous respect for the courage and the noble intentions of these soldiers, the fact remains that there is nothing sadder or more absurd than a person wearing a cross and holding a machine gun; praying to Christ while slaughtering the children of God, whom Christ came only to comfort, instruct, and forgive.

Nothing is as controversial, or as twisted, as the truth: Parents give their children cancer-causing poisons, and both the parents and the children think it's nourishment; Doctors torture children who have cancer, and both the doctors and the kids think it's helping; Soldiers devastate whole countries for the cause of peace; Believers in a loving God condemn Gandhi to hell. Any questions?

Are you on the right side of history? Every time period has overthrown and disproven the prejudices of the centuries preceding it. Yet, every time period continues to cling tenaciously to the contemporary models as if they were the final word. What can we learn from this? Only that one should not dare to consider oneself a critical thinker unless one is equally as skeptical of the mainstream as of the alternatives. The methods and models of the future have always arisen, and will continue to arise, from the margins. History has shown that every significant discovery was first disparaged and rejected by the established order of the day. Will we ever learn? How is that, in the face of the sweeping historical perspective mankind has achieved, the vast majority of people still sacrifice their skepticism in the face of a university degree, and embrace cynicism as a response to anything not already approved by the established order? The fact of the matter is that at a university, one is far more likely to be indoctrinated than educated. True scholarship is an independent effort requiring a passionately inquisitive mind. Practically all that is necessary for a university degree is the ability to memorize and to regurgitate the views of the past and present day. In such an environment, progressive thinking is a hindrance, not a help. We must realize that the ability to unlearn is often a prerequisite for the ability to learn. We can learn nothing new when we are fixedly convinced of a falsehood.

Silence is spiritual research.

Consciousness is paternal/maternal. The operations of consciousness are like children playing in a field of awareness. Consciousness watches from the background, tenderly observing the play of consciousness, like parents observing their children at play.

I am not a wise man dispensing his own wisdom, but an inspired man dispensing wisdom which is as much for his own edification as it is for others.

Who is the Mother? She is the one in whose lap we are cradled and tenderly held. She it is who, with boundless love and infinite tenderness, protects our innocence and receives the blessing of our devotion. In this way, we are nurtured, and mature into the saviors of the world.

The New Testament did not arise from the Old Testament and is not a fulfillment of it. The Grace of Jesus Christ did not arise from the Law of Moses. Christ emerged from the lap of Mary, not from the finger of Moses. The Goddess-worshiping cultures of prehistory are the true soil from which the Truth has sprung. She is the first part of the book. How can you understand the second part of the book, if you have not read and understood the first? Conversely, if you only read part one, your understanding remains incomplete. Seed begins in the earth, and only indirectly receives the sun. So, focus on the Mother, and see Christ peripherally. Once the seed has sprouted, grown roots, and pierced the soil of the earth, then it is ready to receive the direct rays of the sun. If it remains in the earth, it cannot reach its full maturity. First the Mother, then the Master. Worship the forms of God until you are ready to worship the formless God. When you have fed upon the wisdom of the earth, you will ascend to receive the manna from heaven. Understand this, and will you understand the mystery of reincarnation.

Rice scattered on water;
stars in the night sky.

Birds shining behind branches;
the moon singing behind clouds.

The moon perched on a cloud.

Birds dart thru branches,
like shafts of light,
shook loose by the wind.