God has given the bible not only to guide our faith but to provide us with ways to interpet the origins of the earths mysteries and destiny. In the bible we are told that the earth was created in six days in the original condition of divine perfection.
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
- John 16:33
Love the Lord your God, and love one another.
Love one another as he loves.
Love with strength and purpose and passion
and no matter what comes against you, don't weaken.
Stand against the darkness, and love.
That's the way back into Eden.
That's the way back to life.
I don't want to speak about God, because I am not here to review a book I haven't read entirely.
There is, of course, much that is wise and consoling and beautiful in our religious books. But words of wisdom and consolation and beauty abound in the pages of Shakespeare, Virgil, and Homer as well, and no one ever murdered strangers by the thousands because of the inspiration he found there. The belief that certain books were written by God (who, for reasons difficult to fathom, made Shakespeare a far better writer than himself) leaves us powerless to address the most potent source of human conflict, past and present. How is it that the absurdity of this idea does not bring us, hourly, to our knees? It is safe to say that few of us would have thought so many people could believe such a thing, if they did not actually believe it. Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything – anything – be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.
Because they are believed to be nothing less than verbatim translations of God’s utterances, texts like the Koran and the Bible must be appreciated, and criticized, for any possible interpretations to which they are susceptible – and to which they will be subjected, with varying emphases and elisions, throughout the religious world. The problem is not that some Muslims neglect to notice the few references to nonaggression that can be found in the Koran, and that this leads them to do terrible things to innocent unbelievers; the problem is that most Muslims believe that the Koran is the literal word of God. The corrective worldview of Osama bin Laden is not to point out the single line in the Koran that condemns suicide, because the ambiguous statement is set in a thicket of other passages that can be read only as direct summons to war against the “friends of Satan.” The appropriate response to the bin Ladens of the world is to correct everyone’s reading of these texts by making the same evidentiary demands in religious matters that we make in all others. If we cannot find our way to a time when most of us are willing to admit that, at the very least, we are not sure whether or not God wrote some of our books, then we need only count the days to Armageddon – because God has given us far many more reasons to kill one another than to turn the other cheek.
Who you are is this "motion of seeing" that is looking through your eyes right now. When you stop at and as this "motion of aliveness" - by consciously refocusing your attention to this seer; by coming to being deeply at rest at and as this one that is the "you" that you can never get away from; by no longer furthering out from this "you" and into the attempt to try and be something that is notyou; you are immediately freed from who you think you are in every given moment of this realization.
True happiness is completely causeless; it is not reliant on a thing; it is its own reward, its own pleasure. It is immutable and immovable even as it is constantly changing and forever increasing in its movement into its own manifestation.
Your true home is in being deeply at rest at and as the heart of existence itself, the "you" that you truly are and have always been. The heart is totally free of everything even as it contains everything, sustains everything and is flowing through everything - without any paradox or contradiction to any of it.
As you learn to leave alone the activity of unconsciously trying to be the mindbody that you think that you are - the mindbody that this "you" is currently flowing through - and you learn to move as this one that you truly are - this "you" of you; the very heart of existence - steadily, consciously and momentarily, the continuity of the ever deepening of this innermost as it keeps on entering its manifestation, through this mindbody that you find yourself flowing through, allows you to simply bubble in the sheer joy, pleasure, peace, delightfulness and stillness that this "you" of you is.
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the HOPE that you have.
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the HOPE that you have.
"As often as you did it to one of the least of My brothers and sisters, you did it to Me."
The Sea
Will be the Sea
Whatever the drop's philosophy -
Farididdin Attar
Hold The Thought Of What You Are - To Guide You Into What You Want To Be.
We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure." ~ Paulo Coelho, 21st century Brazilian writer from The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream That makes it pretty simple, eh? What would you do if you weren't afraid? thinkdreams. thinkcourage.
The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.
