If I lost control of the business I'd lose myself--or at least the ability to be myself. Owning myself is a way to be myself.
For most women, beauty and body issues are the easiest path to awakening, because the pain is so very close to the surface and the inner critic’s voice is the easiest to hear. The beauty of awakening is getting this, down to your bones, so that the world no longer needs to play our internal dramas on the backdrop of life. We can watch the drama as it comes and goes, maybe making a genuine wise crack, or just laughing at our own antics.
We stop looking to manifest abundance; we are abundance. Even without a job. Even when you give away the majority of what you create. Even when there is no one but ourselves standing at the finish line to thank us for doing out part to help save the world.
The shaman knows that the soul’s urge toward beauty is not about perfect symmetry and mainstream approval. It is not about opening doors in business, or snagging the right mate, or fitting in at the A-list parties. The shaman knows that beauty is about opening doors to joy, snagging the moment, and fitting into your own life. She knows beauty is not something to buy. It is a path, a way of living and being in the world. The only path and the only way, if you want to keep dancing and singing.
I did not know I was on a search for passionate aliveness. I only knew I was lonely and lost and that something was drawing me deeper beneath the surface of my life in search of meaning. There is a hunger in people to go to those deep depths; to know that our lives are sacred; that our hearts are truly capable of love. It is a yearning to be all the we can be. A longing for what is real.
There is Nothing wrong with you. Be Who You Are.
Within the first few seconds of meeting you or being exposed to your communications, your audience will form an impression that is easily reinforced and unlikely to change. They’ll observe your mannerisms, voice, choice of words, etc. and judge whether you are worth listening to. To cut through their innate disbelief - and very short attention span -simply push past your comfort level and be authentic! Amazingly, that’s all there is to it. Simply take off your mask - your title, your expertise, your bureaucratic language and technical jargon - and connect with them with honest, simple, and engaging language. Be on the level. Be moved to candor. Tell them what you believe and what you think. Speak the unspoken. Try it and see.
Don't underestimate the value people place on authenticity. Politicians listen to the focus groups and say the things they think people want to hear. But after 30 years of reading consumers, I know that they can smell phonies.
I think a real writer simply has to think in other terms. Not, "Will I get in this magazine? Will I get the NEA next year?" but whether or not this work is something he would do if a gun was held to his head and somebody was going to pull the trigger as soon as the last word of the last paragraph of the last page was finished. Now if you can write out of the sense that you're going to die as soon as the work is done, then you will write with urgency, honesty, courage, and without flinching at all, as if this were the last testament in language, the last utterance you could ever make to anybody. If a work is written like that, then I want to read it. If somebody's writing out of that sense, then I'll say, "This is serious. This person is not fooling around. This work is not a means to some other end, the work is not just intended for some silly superficial goal, this work is the writer saying something, because he or she feels that if it isn't said, it will never be said." Those are the writers I want to read. And there are not many twentieth-century writers like that [nor twenty-first century writers either!--SMdM].
If we want to be sincere, we must admit that there is a well-nourished love and an ill-nourished love. And the rest is literature.
"Authenticity schmauthenticity!" "Be authentic" is a hollow cry. It smells of the marketing puffery we chide. Instead, follow the lead of brand auteurs like Apple's Steve Jobs, Ronald Shaich of Panera Bread, Brin and Page of Google, and Disney's Robert Iger. Dream big! Stay tuned in to the changing marketplace. Always be in beta. Have a fanatical attention to detail. Put your people at the heart of the brand, making sure that everyone understands his or her role in making the brand the star. And always, always put on a great show.
The function of high school, then, is not so much to communicate knowledge as to oblige children finally to accept the grading system as a measure of their inner excellence. And a function of the self-destructive process in American children is to make them willing to accept not their own, but a variety of other standards, like a grading system, for measuring themselves. It is thus apparent that they way American culture is now integrated it would fall apart if it did not engender feelings of inferiority and worthlessness.
You haven't changed. You may say: 'I'm full of love, I'm full of truth, I'm full of knowledge, I'm full of wisdom.' I say: 'That's all nonsense. Do you behave? Are you free of fear? Are you free of ambition, greed, envy and the desire to achieve success in every field? If not, you are just playing a game. You are not serious.'
Throughout the years of your life you will face many challenges, remember that you can climb the highest mountain, drive through the roughest storm, soar across the bluest sky, or even sail across the roughest waters. It is only destined by your attitude where you will end up in life. The most important thing is don't let yourself get lost in the crowd.”
You may make a jewelry flower out of gold and rubys and emeralds,but it will not have fragrance.
Many people ask, “Should I do this or should I do that?” I say, “Why are you wasting your time? Love God and perfect yourself. That is the fastest way to God.” It is the most perfect path to God. Become a principled human being. Become an authentic human being. When you say that you are going to do something, do it. Don’t say you will do something and then not do it. That’s not what a principled human being is like. Thought, word and deed must come together. These are actually the holy trinity within the human being: thought, word and deed. When thought, word and deed are in alignment at a very high level, then you are living a principled life. You are living an authentic life. This takes you to living a divine life.
When you can see through the mist of Maya to the Self, that mist has not disappeared. You have just learned to see through it. "
Your unrest is the last cramp in your legs as you climb this mountain. Rest awhile, if you like.
But do not return to your old house. It is not your home any longer.
The intersubjective structures that will hold our future potential don't preexist out there in the ether; they are created by real people. And I feel like a big part of my work has to do with finding out what it actually means to create those structures, consciously, together. I don't know where this is all ultimately leading, but I do know for sure that the stability of the new structures is completely dependent upon the actual level of integrity and authenticity of the individuals who are creating them.
The authentic self is the soul made visible.
A man is alive when he is wholehearted, true to himself, true to his own inner forces, and able to act freely according to the nature of the situations he is in. To be happy, and to be alive in this sense, are almost the same. Of course, a man who is alive is not always happy in the sense of feeling pleasant; experiences of joy are balanced by experiences of sorrow. But the experiences are all deeply felt; and above all, the man is whole and conscious of being real... This state cannot be reached merely by inner work. There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need do only inner work, in order to be alive like this; that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself. This teaching has some value, since it is so easy for a man to imagine that his problems are caused by "others". But it is a one-sided and mistaken view which also maintains the arrogance of the belief that the individual is self-sufficient, and not dependent in any essential way on his surroundings. The fact is, a person is so far formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings.
Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.
...being a good actor is the exact emotional opposite of what it takes to be a successful inmate. Rather than close off all feeling and look tough, you have to open your vulnerable self up, and withstand often cruel laughter as you try to find some authentic emotion within you. In this way, a Level IV, high-security prison is no different from high school.
Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
Every human being brings a truth into the world. Every human being is a messenger of God - not only Jesus or Buddha or Zarathustra; they know they are; others don't know that they are. But the moment you are born you bring a truth in your being. And unless that truth is expressed you will not feel contented. Unless you deliver the message to the world you will feel a deep discomfort because you are not fulfilling your duty towards existence.
You have to sing the song of your heart. You have to dance your dance. You have to be utterly individual, not an imitation, not a carbon copy. You have to bring out your original face. The moment you are able to reveal your original face to the world, your life will be fulfilled. Tremendous joy arises out of it.
The task is to recognize that you are uniquely special, have something to give, some talent no one else shares in quite the same way. This gift needs to blossom so we can appreciate and enjoy the benefits of it and acknowledge you for it. You owe this to yourself and to all of us to honor your gifts, for only when you share your unique joy with the world does the entire world benefit. Every advance mankind has known has come because of someone's effort. Don't let shyness rob you and the world of the power and the passion that lies within you. No one can be all that you will be except you yourself. Follow your passion.
It is finally when you let go of what people expect you to be and people's perceptions of you that you're able to be the version of yourself that you're supposed to be - like in God's eyes. It doesn't matter if you're half crazy, or eccentric, or whatever it is - that you have to be true to who you were born to be.
Live dangerously; take risks; cultivate eccentricity, which means growing closer to being yourself. This will give you a life worth living and of which you can be proud.
On love, not harming others, and respecting all beings. Even animals have these elements in their behavioral patterns. We should start by observing how animals act. They are honest and appreciate it when we are honest with them. If you present something nice to an animal in one hand while hiding a rope in the other, the creature will know your intention. Yet animals have no religion, no constitution. Basic nature has endowed them with the faculty of discernment. It is the same for humans.
Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.
You are one in infinity. There will never ever be another you no matter how far into the future - nor how far into the past - we look, and that makes you priceless beyond measure just the way you are. We all are - and we all forget - that's why we have each other. It's in the very reminding that we are reminded.
