No despair of ours can alter the reality of things,
or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.
Indeed we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us,
for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.
Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget
ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the
general dance.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in themselves.
The least of things with a meaning is always worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.
Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung: The practice of psychotherapy
You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run. To “have” running water you must let go of it and let it run.
Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
photo Paul Glazzard
It is very important that you only do what you love to do.
You may be poor, you may go hungry, you may lose your car, you may have to move into a shabby place to live, but you will totally live.
And at the end of your days you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do.
Otherwise, you will do things only for a reason, to please other people, and you will never have lived.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
You must descend from
your head into your heart.
At present your thoughts of God
are in your head. And God Himself is,
as it were, outside you, and
so your prayer and other spiritual
exercises remain exterior.
Whilst you are still
in your head, thoughts will not easily be subdued but
will always be whirling about, like snow
in winter or clouds of mosquitoes in summer.
Saint Theophan the Recluse, (1815–1894) monk of the Russian Orthodox Church
photo alan Murray-Rust
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