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Nondual Highlights: Issue #2929, Saturday, September 15, 2007, Editor: Mark
I've heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts
because they're afraid that without them they wouldn't be
activists for peace. "If I feel peaceful," they say,
"why would I bother taking action at all?" My answer is
"Because that's what love does." To think that we need
sadness or outrage to motivate us to do what's right is insane.
As if the clearer and happier you get, the less kind you become.
As if when someone finds freedom, she just sits around all day
with drool running down her chin. My experience is the opposite.
Love is action.
It's clear, it's kind, it's effortless, and it's irresistible.
- Byron Katie, from A Thousand Names for Joy: A Life in
Harmony with the Way Things Are., posted to The_Now2
A teacher of fear can't bring peace on earth. We have been trying
to do it that way for thousands of years. The person who turns
inner violence around, the person who finds peace inside and
lives it, is the one who teaches what true peace is. We are
waiting for just one teacher.
You're the one.
- Byron Katie, posted to The_Now2
Yes, that's perfect! 'World peace' depends simply on how I treat
the person right in front of my nose...
- David, posted to The_Now2
I was thinking 'world peace' depends on how i treat the person i
see when i look in the mirror.... ;o)
- Jani Roxburgh, posted to The_Now2
Compassion brings us a certain inner strength. Once it is
developed, it naturally opens an inner door, through which we can
communicate with other fellow human beings, and even other
sentient beings, with ease and heart to heart.
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from A Simple Path,, posted
to DailyDharma
Enlightenment can be measured by how compassionately and wisely
you interact with others; with all others, not just those who
support you in the way that you want. How you interact with those
who do not support you shows how enlightened you really are.
As long as you perceive that anyone is holding you back you have
not taken full responsibility for your own liberation. Liberation
means that you stand free of making demands on others and life to
make you happy. When you discover yourself to be nothing but
Freedom, you stop setting up conditions and requirements that
need to be satisfied in order for you to be happy.
It is in the absolute surrender of all conditions and
requirements that Liberation is discovered to be who and what you
Are. Then the love and wisdom that flows out of you has a
liberating effect on others. The biggest challenge for most
spiritual seekers is to surrender their self importance, and see
the emptiness of their own personal story. It is your personal
story that you need to awaken from in order to be free.
To give up being either ignorant or enlightened is the mark of
liberation and allows you to treat others as your Self. What I am
describing is the birth of true Love.
- Adyashanti
Turning Toward Kindness
Anyone who genuinely and constantly with both hands
looks for something, will find it.
Though you are lame and bent over, keep moving
toward the Friend. With speech, with silence,
with sniffing about, stay on track.
Whenever some kindness comes to you, turn
that way, toward the source of kindness.
Love-things originate in the ocean.
Restlessness leads to rest.
- Rumi, Mathnawi III: 978-981, 987-992, version by Coleman
Barks, from One-Handed Basket Weaving, posted to Sunlight