Materialism

Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and the outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is that lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas.

Jacob Needleman, 1934 – 2022, American philosopher, author, and religious scholar, The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders

always analysing

My immediate response to most situations is with reactions of defensiveness, control and analysis.

I am better at calculating than contemplating.

Lets admit that we all start there

The false self seems to have the “first gaze” at almost everything

Richard Rohr

Sunday Quote: Allowing

If you begin to understand what you are

without trying to change it,

then what you are undergoes a transformation.

  Krishnamurti

Practice contentment

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more.

Your desire can never be satisfied.

But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself “Oh Yes, I already have everything I need”

The Dalai Lama

The Christmas rush

Our minds are like crows.

They pick up everything that glitters,

no matter how uncomfortable our nests get with all that metal in them

Thomas Merton

Sunday Quote: living fully

Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books every day.

The person that puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.

Seneca,  Moral Letters, 101, 7b – 8a