Sunday, March 25, 2018

Spirituality Quote of the Week


Maybe if more of us showed we cared, then maybe the guns would be silent, and the bullets would fly no more.

-- Reverend Henry Brown


Sunday, March 18, 2018

Spirituality Quote of the Week


When you look at the clouds, they are not symmetrical. They do not form fours and they do not come along in cubes, but you know at once that they are not a mess. A dirty old ashtray full of junk may be a mess, but clouds do not look like that.

-- Alan Watts


Saturday, March 17, 2018

The Same Holy Mountain


A few weeks ago, I met a Sufi friend of mine for tea at a bakery on a gray afternoon. We sat at a corner table and spent a couple of hours talking about Sufism and Islam and Jesus and the Bible and the "gospel" and Taoism, and about Turkey, his homeland.

We'd been in a few interfaith discussion groups before, but this was the first time we'd had a chance to talk one on one about our respective paths. I ought to be able to give a better accounting of the conversation, but the bulk of it escapes me right now.

I do remember one thing, though. Despite our different paths, I came away knowing he and I have crawled over some of the same spiritual ground. We've worked our way to some of the same wisdom. He comes from one direction. I come from another. But we're both making our way up the same holy mountain.


Sunday, March 11, 2018

Spirituality Quote of the Week


The Unmanifested is not separate from the manifested. It pervades this world, but it is so well disguised that almost everybody misses it completely. If you know where to look, you'll find it everywhere. A portal opens up every moment.

-- Eckhart Tolle


Thursday, March 8, 2018

Back Again


Part of me thinks I should feel guilty about not posting here for the last seven months except for the weekly quotes.

Another part of me chooses to believe I haven't written here for seven months because the currents of Tao have taken me elsewhere, and now those same currents have brought me back again.

That first part is my mind talking. The second part comes from my heart.

My "mind" is my ego, my sense of being separate from everything and everyone else. It's what I think with. It's my problem-solving machine. It comes up with explanations for the experiences I have as I go through my day. It's the logical part, the words-and-numbers part.

And it thinks it's in control of me.

My "heart" is something else. My heart (for lack of a better word) is the center of my being. It's my core. It's what I've always had and what I'll always have. It cannot be taken away. It's deep -- much deeper than my mind, my ego.

Much deeper than I'll ever know.

I've been thinking about these two aspects of myself lately. My mind and my heart. I spend a lot of time in my mind. Not so much in my heart.

Silence is the way to reverse this.



Sunday, March 4, 2018

Spirituality Quote of the Week


Spirituality is not just about sitting in a room encountering a mystical god in meditation or about seeing God in a sunset. Awe is the gateway to compassion. It is a deep awareness that we are creators, creators who work with the Creator, in an ongoing project of crafting a world.

-- Diana Butler Bass