Life is 99 percent attitude. Yet for the majority of people, it is the remaining one percent that dominates 99 percent of their life.
Your body knows you very intimately; it is aware of your whole spirit and soul life.
Depth of spirituality is measured by your reactions to the challenging situations.
Spirituality is the ability to face any situation of life through constant evolution, responsibility and equanimity.
A lot of people struggle with sensuality because sensuality requires spirituality.
It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness rather than the idea of will. Too often people try to change their lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their lives into proper shape. This way of approaching the sacredness of one's own presence is externalist and violent. It brings you falsely outside yourself, and you can spend years lost in the wilderness of your own mechanical, spiritual programs. You can perish in a famine of your own making. If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and naturally home to yourself. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey. There are no general principles for this art of being. Yet the signature of this unique journey is inscribed deeply in each soul. If you attend to yourself and seek to come into your presence, you will find exactly the right rhythm for your life.
You do not have to go away outside yourself to come into real conversation with your soul and with the mysteries of the spiritual world. The eternal is at home--within you.
In the Celtic world, and especially in the Celtic world of the senses, there was no barrier between soul and body. Each was natural to the other. The soul was the sister of the body, the body the sister of the soul. As yet there was no negative splitting of dualistic Christian morality, which later did so much damage to these two lovely and enfolded presences. The world of Celtic consciousness enjoyed this unified and lyrical sensuous spirituality
For the Celts, the world is always latently and actively spiritual.
There is a labyrinth within the soul.
When the unconscious becomes illuminated, its darker forces no longer hold us prisoner. This work of freedom is slow and unpredictable, yet it is precisely at this threshold that each individual is the custodian and subject of their own transfiguration.
Spirituality is the art of transfiguration. We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence.
Your soul mediates between your body and your mind; it shelters the two and holds them together.
...we cannot continue to seek outside ourselves for the things we need from within. The blessings for which we hunger are not to be found in other places or people. These gifts can only be given to you by yourself. They are at home at the hearth of your soul.
The moment your fear transfigures, you come into rhythm with your own self.
There is such an intimate connection between the way we look at things and what we actually discover. If you can learn to look at yourself and your life in a gentle, creative, and adventurous way, you will be eternally surprised at what you find.
Each of us needs to learn the unique language of our own soul.
Het losstaan van ÊÊn specifieke traditie beaam ik als legitiem, maar het losstaan van traditie als zodanig beschouw ik als slechts ÊÊn zijde van een munt, en als niet geheel terecht. Enerzijds is uitsluitend *nu* van belang, en daarin valt traditie inderdaad weg, maar anderzijds is het van belang ook te blijven erkennen wat precies de bronnen zijn geweest voor het inzicht dat 'louter nu van belang is'. Dat zijn toch de teksten uit de verschillende oosterse non-dualistische tradities, de teksten die juist omdat ze het tijdloze benadrukken, nu nog volkomen tijdloos en fris zijn gebleven. Ik zie het als wezenlijk dat ook de westerse leraar deze oosterse tradities onder de aandacht blijft brengen - althans de tijdloze kern ervan, datgene wat na onderzoek overblijft als waardevol, en wat om die reden het verdient om zo helder en verstaanbaar mogelijk in westerse taal vertaald en doorgegeven te worden.
The planet Saturn, which represents anatomy, is the skeleton: It is a rigid structure upon which the rest of the body is built. To what moral qualities does this correspond? The first point of virtue in a bone is its rigidity, its resistance to pressure.
But every evil brings its own remedy. Another quality of Saturn is melancholy; Saturn represents the sorrow of the universe; it is the Trance of sorrow that has determined one to undertake the task of emancipation. This is the energizing force of Law; it is the rigidity of the fact that everything is sorrow which moves one to the task, and keeps one on the Path.
