Sameness

 

I am open to experience my connection with God and all the people I meet on my path today. There is new joy as I realize our sameness rather than our separateness. - Ruth Fishel Everytime we thought we found what made us happy, it eventually changed, became less meaningful or fulfilling. Everytime we thought we had arrived, there was always another road to take, another hill to climb. There will always be something else that we want and somewhere else to go. That is life. It moves and changes...

NUGGETS OF WISDOM - 932

 

• ·       "The voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers." ~ Zitkala-Sa

  ·       “There is a direct attractiveness of a spirit nature between spiritually minded persons of like tastes and longings. The term kindred spirits is not wholly a figure of speech.”

  ·       We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us. - Rumi

  ·       “The acceptance of sonship, co-operation with the indwelling Adjuster, is the price of evolutionary survival.”

  ·       Instead of saving humanity, every person should save himself. - Alexander Herzen

  ·       "It takes a wise person to handle a lie; a fool had better remain honest."  - Norman Douglas

  ·       “You should rejoice in the recognition of the ever-present possibility of immediate communion with the bestowal spirit of the Father so intimately associated with your inner soul and your spiritualizing self.”

  ·       Freedom from desire leads to inner peace. - Lao Tzu

  ·       “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live. In truth, whosoever lives and believes in me shall never really die.” - Jesus

  ·       We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements in life, when all we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about. - Charles Kingsley

  ·       "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." - Norman MacEwan

  ·       “It requires courage to invade new levels of experience and to attempt the exploration of unknown realms of intellectual living.”

  
  

The Power of Unity (KB)

 

Karen Berg
MAY 14, 2023

 Like 15  Comments 2 

This article is also available in: español | Português Brasileiro

This article was previously published in 2017.

We are separate so that we may find unity.
We are different so that we may choose harmony.
We are varied so that we may discover the many ways in which we are surprisingly the same.

"We just need to be cognizant of each other’s worth, of the value in each spark that is unique unto itself."

This week, we read the portion of Bamidbar the first chapter in the book of Numbers. It is in this story that the Israelites themselves are counted, or ‘numbered.’ Why would the Creator ask to know how many followers He has? After all, He is the Creator. Wouldn’t he already know in his omnipresence? Thankfully, we have the Zohar to shed Light on the subject.

There were 600,000 souls accounted for. Just as there were 600,000 when they were in Egypt, 600,000 when they left Egypt, and 600,000 when they were wandering in the desert. And there were how many when they entered the land of Israel? You guessed it! 600,000. Now, how could this be? So much had happened in between each of those periods; individuals passed away, and babies were born, yet the number did not change. The Zohar reveals that 600,000 is the number of sparks of the Creator’s Light that are scattered within all the souls here on Earth. There are billions of people on the planet, many of whom share the same spark as you or me. (By the way, when you meet someone and you instantly feel an attraction or a soul connection with them, this is often why.)

It is no coincidence that the Torah also has exactly 600,000 letters when we count both the black letters and the white letters. The black are the letters we see, while the white, the inverse space between the black, are the letters we don't see. If just a single black or white letter is missing, it invalidates the entire Torah. What is the Torah trying to teach us?

We are all a part of the divine force known as the creative Light. We may seem fragmented, yet we are all connected at the core. Just as each letter in the Torah has a purpose, so too does each person. And that purpose is to help each other. For it is only through our combined strengths – the union of all our sparks – that we make up the sum of the whole. This is why mutual respect and human dignity for all peoples, even those whose ways are different from our own, is so important. We are meant to be different; we are meant to be varied, and yet to act as One.

This is a powerful week to practice unity. This doesn’t mean that we need to become best buddies with everyone. We don’t need to all hold hands and sing kumbaya. We just need to be cognizant of each other’s worth, of the value in each spark that is unique unto itself. We all have people who push our buttons – maybe we don’t even know why, something about them just annoys us, right? Well, this is a good week to do something nice for those individuals. Send them an email with words of encouragement or a virtual gift certificate. These may seem like small things, yet it is within the small kindnesses that we build bridges where once there were walls. This is how we become more united, more inspired, and inch closer every day to a world more at peace.

Change

 

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. -Henri Bergson Spirituality is about change.Why? Because spirituality is about life, and life is always changing. To resist change is to resist life, and this involves God. When we resist change, we are resisting God. When we understand that God is alive in each of us, then resisting change is self-defeating. Opportunity, growth, prosperity, and peace are all necessarily connected with change;...

NUGGETS OF WISDOM - 931

 

• ·       “When love becomes vast love becomes wordless.” - Kahlil Gibran

  ·       “And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.” - Kahlil Gibran

  ·       “Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.” - Kahlil Gibran

  ·       “When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.” - Kahlil Gibran

  ·       ““You should never forget that intolerance is the mask covering up the entertainment of secret doubts as to the trueness of one’s belief.”” - Jesus

  ·       Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. - Ovid

  ·       “Prayer is a part of the divine plan for making over that which is into that which ought to be.”

  ·       Order in your mind is order in your world. - Maxime Lagacé

  ·       I practice tolerance because it is in my interest. - Voltaire

  ·       “The prophet who said, “He will be kept in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on God,” was not a mere intellectual believer in authoritative theology. This truth-knowing human had discovered God; he was not merely talking about God.” - Jesus

  ·       Live the moment.

  ·       Today I know that I am in charge of the quality of my life. I am growing in the ability to become aware of the thoughts that have been controlling me. - Ruth Fishel

  
  

Wisdom Quote

 

Understanding

 

"Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand." Saint Augustine I understand that God is love. It makes more sense to live my life with love than with anger, resentment, or despair. I know the answer to life, with any problems that may arise, is love: not simply loving those people who love me, but beginning to love and understand those who dislike or hate me. Being imperfect people in an imperfect...

On this day of your life

 

I believe God wants you to know ...   ... that obstacles are not opposing you, but merely and gently re-routing you.   It is important not to view that which stands in your way as your 'enemy.' It can often be your best friend, sending you on a detour that takes you around what could have been your biggest stumbling block.   Send a word of gratitude, then, for anything that seems to be 'opposing' you now. All things in life happen for good. Trust God about that.

Compassion (OM)

 

 

 

True compassion recognizes that all the boundaries we perceive between ourselves and others are an illusion. Compassion is the ability to see the deep connectedness between ourselves and others. Moreover, true compassion recognizes that all the boundaries we perceive between ourselves and others are an illusion. When we first begin to practice compassion, this very deep level of understanding may elude us, but we can have faith that if we start where we are, we will eventually feel our way toward it. We move closer to it every time we see past our own self-concern to accommodate concern for others. And, as with any skill, our compassion grows most in the presence of difficulty. We practice small acts of compassion every day, when our loved ones are short-tempered or another driver cuts us off in traffic. We extend our forgiveness by trying to understand their point of view; we know how it is to feel stressed out or irritable. The practice of compassion becomes more difficult when we find ourselves unable to understand the actions of the person who offends us. These are the situations that ask us to look more deeply into ourselves, into parts of our psyches that we may want to deny, parts that we have repressed because society has labeled them bad or wrong. For example, acts of violence are often well beyond anything we ourselves have perpetuated, so when we are on the receiving end of such acts, we are often at a loss. This is where the real potential for growth begins, because we are called to shine a light inside ourselves and take responsibility for what we have disowned. It is at this juncture that we have the opportunity to transform from within. This can seem like a very tall order, but when life presents us with circumstances that require our compassion, no matter how difficult, we can trust that we are ready. We can call upon all the light we have cultivated so far, allowing it to lead the way into the darkest parts of our own hearts, connecting us to the hearts of others in the understanding that is true compassion.

GUIDANCE FROM EILEEN CADDY

 

 

"When life asks you to change, see clearly what is needed and change without any resistance, knowing that every change is for the very best. Change is not always comfortable, especially for those people who have set ideas and ways. You must be willing to fling out one nice, comfortable well-established idea after another until you are completely free and open to receive something entirely new and revolutionary. Here is where the difficulty often comes. Many people, having absorbed something new, want to cling on to it and refuse to let it go. Why not see it only as a stepping stone to greater and more wonderful revelations which are there waiting to be made when you have made room for them? You cannot fill up a full bucket; you have to empty it first. You cannot move into the new when you are still clogged up with the old and refuse to let go. So change and change quickly, for I have need of you."

NUGGETS OF WISDOM - 930

 

• ·       Be a curator of your life. Slowly cut things out until you’re left only with what you love, with what’s necessary, with what makes you happy. - Leo Babauta

  ·       "Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy, based upon excellence of performance." - James Bryant 

  ·       “The concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness are not inherent in either physics or chemistry. A machine cannot know, much less know truth, hunger for righteousness, and cherish goodness.”

  ·       Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence. - Alan Watts

  ·       “Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.” - Kahlil Gibran 

  ·       “Love, like a running brook, is disregarded, taken for granted; but when the brook freezes over, then people begin to remember how it was when it ran, and they want it to run again.” - Kahlil Gibran

  ·       “Love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the seasons.” - Kahlil Gibran

  ·       “For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.” - Kahlil Gibran

  ·       “And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” - Kahlil Gibran

  
  

Wisdom Quote

 

Choices

 

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be achieved." - William Jennings Bryan I create my destiny via the choices I initiate today. In addiction, I was a ship without a sail-drifting through life, tossed in a thousand directions. Today I point myself in the direction I want to go. This attitude does not take anything away from God's power because God gave me freedom in the first place and gave me the gift of decision making. God is not a dictator,...

On this day of your life

 

I believe God wants you to know ...   ... that progress is not measured in miles, it is measured in inches.   Do not wonder why things are "taking so long." In fact, everything is rolling out exactly as it needs to, using not a minute more than Perfection requires.   Rest easy and be at peace. Life is working its magic even as you take your very next breath.   There. See? You could almost feel the Perfection, couldn't you?