Living Faith
The Just Shall Live by Faith
The Bhagavad Gita states, "Nonviolence, truth, slowness to wrath, the spirit of dedication, serenity, aversion to slander, tenderness to all that lives, freedom from greed, gentleness, modesty, freedom from levity, spiritedness, forgiveness, fortitude, purity, freedom from ill will and arrogance-these are to be found in one born with the divine heritage.""For evil to bend it's knees, admitting its guilt, to implore the forgiveness of God, is the hardest thing in the world."
"Meditation is a from of cultivating inner strength. And inner strength means inner peace. If you acquire inner strength that means that you are in a position to be able to face the troubles of the external world. And in that way, you can create your own sense of security, which come from your inner strength. So, therefore, you are creating your own peace, as it were." Aung San Suu Kyi
How Can I Help
Who’s helping?
“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a
part limited in time and space. He experiences himself. His thoughts and feelings
as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his
consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our
personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task
must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
“How does who we think we are affect what we have to give?”
“Hundreds of times a day, we shift costumes to fit
appropriate roles. This is the life of the separate self, moving through the
world of ‘other’.” This made me question how many identities I have.
“Because we often identify ourselves, consciously or not,
with our shortcomings, we may feel that we don’t have enough, that we just aren’t
enough, to help meet the needs of others. We give very little because we feel
very small.”
“We seem to cling to one dimension of our identity at the
expense of the others. We specialize.”
“If any of these roles are who we think we are…what’s left
when they fall away? Where’s the rest of me?” What happens when I’m no longer a
student? A daughter? A church member? With it gone also goes my feeling of
importance.
“If we’re only seeing one part of the picture about
ourselves, positive or negative, that’s all we’ll be able to make real to
anybody else.”
“Who you? This man took away my degree, and then gave it
back to me with ‘And also…? And also… and also? Scribbled across. I’ll never
forget that.” I am more than just a job description, all the things I’ve done
and experienced also make me up and make me so much more than any one title
can.”
“Moving in and out of these various identities, each is ‘real’
only at the moment we are invested in it. But if all our identities are only
relatively real, coming and going as circumstances warrants, is there any part
of us that remains steady and stable behind all our roles? Behind all these
identities is a state of awareness that incorporates them all and yet is still
able to rest behind them.”
“We don’t have to be anybody in particular. We don’t have to
be ‘this’ or ‘that.’ We are free simply to be.” I don’t just want to be
__________ when I grow up. I want to be a wife, a mother, educator, care giver,
friend, so many things… I just want to be. So we look for and cherish those
experiences in which we feel ourselves connected to all things in the universe.
“To forget the Self is to be enlightened by all things.”
