“Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone.” – Robert Allen

I picked up Kierkegaard in a second-hand shop for $1, and I am utterly amazed. I have never read him before and I am practically speechless by the beauty of this book.

It is Either/Or.

By Soren Kierkegaard:

“What portends? What will the future bring? I do not know, I have no presentiment. When a spider hurls itself down from some fixed point, consistently with its nature, it always sees before it only an empty space wherein it can find no foothold however much it sprawls. And so it is with me: always before an empty space; what drives me forward is a consistency which lies behind me. This life is topsy-turvy and terrible, not to be endured.”

“My view of life is utterly meaningless. I suppose an evil spirit has set a pair of spectacles upon my nose, of which one lens is a tremendously powerful magnifying glass, the other an equally powerful reducing glass.”

And this:

“Tested Advice for Authors: Set down your reflections carelessly, and let them be printed; in correcting the proof sheets a number of good ideas will gradually suggest themselves. Therefore, take courage, all you who have not yet dared to publish anything, even misprints are not to be despised, and an author who becomes witty by the aid of misprints, must be regarded as having become witty in a perfectly lawful manner.”

-Soren Kierkegaard, 1843

“Find what you love, do that and nothing else.”

- Max

 I’ve been watching StarWars on DVD. Wow. It contains great lessons and great quotes.

From Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) to Anakin SkyWalker after he kills the whole tribe of monsters that killed his mother. Anakin is angry, a trait that Jedi Knights are supposed to have overcome, and she says to him:

“Anger is for human beings.”

From Yoda:
“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless.”

And also this:

Great quote from the Gospel of Thomas, verse 2:

Jesus said:

“Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All.

I love it! Here is the answer to all of you who continue to say: “But it’s not working, everything is falling apart, why am I not happy? I’m still troubled.”

Here is the answer! Just keep going a little further. One step beyond troubled is astonished, and then there is certainty. This reminds me that “troubled” is part of the journey. Rejoice! And be exceedingly glad!

To read the entire Gospel of Thomas – be astonished! – click here:

Gospel of Thomas 

It’s a great read. EJ sent it to me as a birthday gift.

Here’s another great quote from Thomas:

His disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?”
<Jesus said,> “It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying ‘here it is’ or ‘there it is.’ Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.”

Ha! I am over here laughing. This is too good. The Kingdom will not come by waiting for it. THERE IS NO PROCESS! It is here and now, spread out upon the earth and men do not see it.

I’m thrilled by this. Wow.  Thank you again EJ.

The Lord will stay with you as long as you stay with him! Whenever you seek him, you will find him. But if you abandon him, he will abandon you.” – Chronicles 15, Verse 12.

exclamation point!

The Lord will stay with you as long as you stay with him!

This bible quote is identical to my two favorite sections in A Course in Miracles that were a turning point for me:

ACIM Chapter 16:

Step gently aside and let healing be done for you. Keep but one thought in mind and do not lose sight of it, however tempted you may be to judge any situation, and to determine your response by judging it. Focus your mind only on this:

I am not alone, and I would not intrude the past upon my Guest.
I have invited Him, and He is here.
I need do nothing except not to interfere.

“He will not desert you, but be sure you do not desert Him. You are not sure that He will do His part, because you have never yet done yours completely.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow.

And this from Chapter 11:

“You may complain that this course is not sufficiently specific for you to understand and use. Yet perhaps you have not done what it specifically advocates. This is not a course in the play of ideas, but in their practical application.”

And what does Jesus specifically advocate?

That LOVE be your one and only response to everything.
That you drop all your grievances (all of them!)
That you be happy.

“Only appreciation is an appropriate response to a brother.”

This is not a course in the play of ideas, but in their practical application.

 ”You are not what happens, but the space in which it happens.” – Eckhart Tolle

This 3 minute video is great:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx526pO9UV0&feature=related

“Accept your genius and say what you think.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Harold Whitman wrote:

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

“Your devotion keeps you moving forward. All you have to do, believe it or not, is keep yourself centered toward the Light consciousness. It’s easy.”

“Everyday in every way, turn toward the Light. Ask for the Light in the morning when you get up, when you get to the car, when you get to the gas station, before you get on the freeway, when you park your car, and on the way into work. You’ll enhance your realization of Living In God’s Holy Thoughts.”

That’s the Light — all the time.

- John-Roger
(From: The Path to Mastership, p. 12-13)

http://www.lovingeachday.org

I love this quote, from unknown author.

(though it absolutely sounds like something I would say)

Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip, joy. With the second sip, satisfaction. With the third sip, peace. With the fourth sip, a danish.

haha.

When you see excellence, you should try to surpass it.
When you see the opposite, examine yourself. – Lao Tzu

“Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.”

- Jedi Master Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how…. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.”
— Agnes de Mille

I don’t tell you it’s a dream to scare you. I tell you it’s a dream because a) it is a dream and b) I want you to awaken to the vastness of the universe and the exciting possibility of that which lies within you. YOU ARE PURE CREATION. YOU ARE A MIND CAPABLE OF GREAT THINGS. If this is a dream, imagine what this means for you?? Life becomes a happy game you play. You would not react at all to anything. Sadness would become impossible for you. Fear becomes impossible. You are now observer and participant, fully consciously aware that you are directing this whole show. THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AWAKE. No one is doing anything. Nothing is happening. When you stop, you will see in that instant, everything else stops along with you. When you don’t react, nothing else reacts. Try it. See for yourself.

But as long as you are unaware that you are dreaming, you will believe random things are happening to you that are out of your control. To realize you are dreaming and that you are the dreamer of the dream places causation where it belongs: in your own mind. Here lies total freedom. Pure creation. Here’s where “miracles” occur.

Here’s some great quotes:

Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one. –Albert Einstein

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. —Albert Einstein

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state? —Plato

I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now? –John Lennon

All that you see or seem, is but a dream within a dream. —Edgar Allan Poe

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. —Buddha

Hope is a waking dream — Aristotle

This phantom world gave you false signs
But you turned from the illusion
and journeyed to the land of truth. —Mevlana Rumi

People fancy they are enjoying themselves,
but they are really tearing out their wings
for the sake of an illusion. — Mevlana Rumi

Those who have compared our life to a dream were right . We sleeping wake, and waking sleep. ~Michel de Montaigne

A wise man, recognizing that that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering. —Siddharta

You create your own universe as you go along. The stronger your imagination, the more variegated your universe. When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist. — Winston Churchill

Matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There’s no such thing as death, life is just a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. –Bill Hicks

The most dangerous thing is illusion. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“He who dreams of drinking wine may weep when morning comes; he who dreams of weeping may in the morning go off to hunt. While he is dreaming he does not know it is a dream, and in his dream he may even try to interpret a dream. Only after he wakes does he know it was a dream. And someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman–how dense! Confucious and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming , too. ” —Chuang Tzu

The life of this world is but comfort of illusion. —Koran 3.185

Some men look at things the way they are and ask “why?” I dream of things that are not and ask “why not?” — George Bernard Shaw

This world we think is real is merely an illusion generated by our own minds and doesn’t actually exist. It is a holographic illusion. And by manipulating our sense of reality that belief in what is real manifests itself as a three dimensional holographic illusion. If we start to realize that we are creating that reality we dont like we can take control of our consciousness back from the manipulation; deconditin from the reality we believe in and create a completely different illusion. It will still be an illusion but a nicer one. —David Icke

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. — Henry David Thoreau

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. — Henry David Thoreau

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. —Paul Valery

I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream. — Vincent Van Gogh

The fundamental delusion of humanity if that I am here and you are out there. —Yasuntani Roshi

A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it. —Bertrand Russell

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. — T.E. Lawrence

We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When we understand this, we see that we are nothing. And being nothing, we are everything. That is all. —Kalu Rinpoche

Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, I hear them all at once. What a delight this is! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing, lively dream.’ — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart