Each thought creates according to its own nature.
Remember that the law works at all times and that you are always demonstrating according to the kind of thoughts you habitually entertain. Therefore, start now to think only those thoughts that will bring you health and happiness.
Paramahansa Yogananda, 1893 – 1952
The way to the goal seems chaotic and interminable at first and only gradually do the signs increase that it is leading anywhere. The way is not straight but appears to go around in circles. More accurate knowledge has proved it to go in spirals: the dream-motifs alway return after certain intervals to definite forms, whose characteristic it is to define a center. And as a matter of fact the whole process revolves about a central point or some arrangement round a centre.
Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything.
The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything
Shunryu Suzuki roshi, Zen Mind, Beginniers Mind
Albert Einstein once said that the most important question a human being could answer is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ A spiritually optimistic point of view holds that the universe is woven out of a fabric of love. Everything that is happening is ultimately for the good if we are willing to face it head-on and use our adversities for soul growth. As soon as we begin to …..open to faith in a friendly universe, the proverbial path opens before us. The people, events and teachings we need are supplied. This is the action of grace.
Joan Borysenko, Fire in the Soul: A New Spirituality of Spiritual Optimism
Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work.
Søren Kierkegaard, 1813– 1855), philosopher.
In one of his insightful talks Zen master Shunryu Suzuki said that in your practice you should walk like an elephant.
It means to move at a comfortable pace. No rushing toward a goal. No push to make it all meaningful. The … texts of Taoism and Zen teach that it’s important to do what you do without trying to accomplish anything.
You don’t have to get anywhere. There are no goals and objectives: nothing to succeed in, and nothing in which to fail. You can sit in your house, as Thoreau did, and be attentive – his suggestion. “We are surrounded by a rich and fertile mystery. May we not probe it, pry into it, employ ourselves about it – a little? . . . If by watching all day and all night I may detect some trace of the Ineffable, then will it not be worth the while to watch?”
Thomas Moore, A Religion of One’s Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a Secular World
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