"Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world.
The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same.
Every wonderful sight will vanish, every sweet word will fade,
But do not be disheartened,
The source they come from is eternal, growing,
Branching out, giving new life and new joy.
Why do you weep?
The source is within you
And this whole world is springing up from it."

Rumi

"The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose."

Khalil Gibran

"Do not insist that the universe comply with your understanding of it."
Gary Zukav

"The supreme experience is staggering, enrapturing, blissful, and inspiring, but at the same time inexplicable and ungraspable by the intellect. The experience is supremely illuminating because it reveals the grandeur, sublimity and the eternal nature of the soul, but beyond that -- what? All that is beyond lies out of the reach of the intellect, and hence cannot be translated into any language devised by the mind."
Gopi Krishna

"I have learnt silence from the talkative,
toleration from the intolerant,
and kindness from the unkind;
yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."

Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

"For behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal, or a window opening on something more than itself."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“The machine does not isolate us from the great problems of nature but plunges us more deeply into them”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Angel, some beauties there! Reminds me of one of my fave Antoine quotes.....

“How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become -- to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Heaven is in everything:
follow the light,
hide in the cloudiness and begin in what is.
Do this and your understanding will be like not understanding and your wisdom will be like not being wise.
By not being wise you will become wise later."

Chuang Tzu

Thanks Chuang I LOVE it!!!

"When you find the way others will find you.
Passing by on the road they will be drawn to your door.
The way that cannot be heard will be echoed in your voice.
The way that cannot be seen will be reflected in your eyes."

Lao Tzu

"Looking ahead the way is long,
Looking back it is short.
If you don't go within, you go without.
The beauty of the Way is that there is no Way"

Lao Tzu

In his youth Kabir was approached by two disciples who wanted intellectual guidance along the mystic path. The master responded simply;

"Path presupposes distance;
If He be near, no path needest thou at all.
Verily it maketh me smile
To hear of a fish in water athirst!"

Kabir

Quoted in Autobiography of a Yogi
(Paramahansa Yogananda)

Albert Schweitzer
Truth has not special time of its own. Its hour is now—always and indeed then most truly when it seems unsuitable to actual circumstances.

Dogen
If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

Martin Luther King
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Winston Churchill
Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."
H. Jackson Brown

A deeply touching card was gifted to me today with this quote...

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First to let go of life.
Finally, to take a step without feet." - Rumi

Thank you for meeting me beyond the depths and reflecting the light of my soul for me to see!
Trin
x

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere it's setting, and cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come.
From God, who is our home."

William Wordsworth

Is it possible for the rose to say,
'I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad?'
Or is it possible for the lamp to say,
'I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people'?
Or can a tree say, 'I'll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad'?
These are images of what love is about.

Anthony De Mello, 1931-1987

"The Great Way is not difficult
For those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clearer and undisguised
Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart."

This is the first verse of Hsin hsin Ming, on the challenge to acquire the bodhi(awakened mind)...

"The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp."
John Berry, Flight of White Crows

"The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers."
Thich Nhat Hanh

"When will you learn to expect what you can't imagine to happen?"

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
Anais Nin

"We must not be attached to a view or a doctrine,
even a Buddhist one. . .
The Buddha said that if in a certain moment or place you adopt something as the absolute truth,
and you attach to that,
then you will no longer have any chance to reach the truth.
Even when the truth comes and knocks on your door,
and asks you to open the door, you won't recognize it.
So you must not be too attached to dogma - to what you believe, and to what you perceive."

Thich Nhat Hanh

"Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space.
It does not seek anything in return;
it asks not whether you are friend or foe.
It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished."

Michael Strassfeld

"Fame or integrity: which is more important?
Money or happiness: which is more valuable?
Success or failure: which is more destructive?...
If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself.
Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you."

Lao Tzu (c.604 - 531 B.C.)
Tao Te Ching

"Let silence take you to the core of life.
All of your talk is worthless when
compared to one whisper from the Beloved."

Rumi

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

Kahlil Gibran

"The sun, with all those plants revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do."

Galileo

"It is by going down into the abyss
that we recover the treasures of life.
Where you stumble,
there lies your treasure."

"The goal of life
is to make your heartbeat
match the beat of the universe,
to match your nature with Nature."

"We must be willing to get rid of
the life we've planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
The old skin has to be shed
before the new one can come."

"If you can see your path laid out
in front of you step by step,
you know it's not your path.
Your own path you make with every step you take.
That's why it's your path."

"Find a place (inside) where there's joy,
and the joy will burn out the pain."

"I don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains."
Anne Frank

"Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow."
Aesop

"Should you really open your eyes and see,
you would behold your image in all images.
And should you open your ears and listen,
you would hear your own voice in all voices."

Kahlil Gibran

Peace is to be found only within,
and unless one finds it there he will never find it at all.
Peace lies not in the external world.
It lies within one's own soul.

Ralph W. Trine

"My actions are my only true belongings.
I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.
My actions are the ground upon which I stand."
Thich Nhat Hanh

"The appearance of things change according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
Kahlil Gibran

"Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend".

"There are no accidents... there is only some purpose that we haven't yet understood."
Deepak Chopra

Hi all,

Not exactly a spiritual quote, but certainly a spiritual experience... I just saw these intensely beautiful and moving images on the news and thought they would be great to share here. They were taken by the hubble telescope and show the collision of galaxies which may result in the birth of new galaxies.
I don't know how to put links on, so maybe you can help me? Else cut and paste the following into your browser

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7366597.stm

Blessed are we to be able to see it!

Lesley

Hi Lesley,

How interesting! It is amazing that there is such technology to see these things in action. Thank you for sharing that. Some of them looked rather like meditation experiences.

Regarding links (for future reference) - they work automatically, so you did it just perfectly. You can always start a new thread with too if you are unsure where to post something. That works well too

With Love
Trin

"In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.

In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped."

Lao Tzu