Share the Wealth with Christina Gebel: “Hello, God. I’m Not You.”
In the summer of 2022, I found out I was not God. It might sound like a silly conclusion to come to, or a good one if I’m an otherwise self-absorbed, prideful narcissist. Whatever I…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
Forgetting the Sufi Three-Gate Rule
Awkward and Embarrassing Things You happen to say something rude about someone, and a child who overhears it repeats your words in front of the person concerned.— Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book, translated by Meredith McKinney…
Both/And
Like other works, [Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets] is concerned with the nature, and, more importantly, the limits of human achievement. It assumes what its surrounding works assume: The continuity and dignity of the…
Look up!
“Do you look at the stars a lot? Do you know them? Plato said that sight is not truly precious unless it helps us to know the stars, the planets, the moon, and the sun….
How to Save Energy
But whatever be the motive of insult, it is always best to overlook it, for folly scarcely can deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect. –Samuel Johnson, quoted in Paul Fussell, Samuel Johnson and the…
Advice
Avoid gossip. Avoid their feuds. Concentrate on what is essential–contact with Swami, and prayer. Associate with people you can really help in one way or another, and not with those whose curiosity is always offering…
Abandon Any Hope of Fruition
Anyone who wants to know the art of living, who wants to experience this Dhamma, has to understand it clearly. But as long as you are expecting, then it will not happen. –Mirka Knaster, Living…
Journals and Commonplace Books
It was becoming a habit with [Thoreau] now to work back over his journals and to reread books, to reengage old subjects in the light of new interests, to revise and recopy his own earlier…
Train Wholeheartedly
One who practices the teachings of these great scriptures will become aware of the unity of life, and this awareness will give constant strength and inspiration to those who seek to turn anger into compassion,…
Two Distant Worlds?
There is nothing in mere scholarship. The object of study is to find means of knowing God and realizing Him. A holy man had a book. When asked what it contained, he opened it and…