Everything we do, everything we are, rests on our personal power. If we have enough of it, one word is enough to change the course of our lives. If we don't, the most magnificent piece of wisdom can be revealed to us and that revelation won't make a damn bit of difference. Do you know that at this very moment you are surrounded by eternity? And do you know you can use that eternity, if you so desire? Do you know that you can extend yourself forever in any direction and use it to take the totality of yourself forever in any direction? Do you know that one moment can be eternity? If you had enough personal power, my words alone would serve as a means to round up the totality of yourself and get to the crucial part of it out of the boundaries in which it is contained.
It is a great art to have... an abundance of knowledge and experience - to know the richness of life, the beauty of existence, the struggles, the miseries, the laughter, the tears - and yet keep your mind very simple; and you can have a simple mind only when you know how to love. (Krishnamurity)
When you come to the end of your earthly experience and step forth from the physical body in the new life it will not be asked of you: "What religion did you follow? What belief did you hold?" There will be none to say: "Were you a Roman Catholic, a Hindu, a Jew or a Christian?" But those who have loved in your earth life, these will come to you with love. They will look to see how much service you have rendered, how much love you have given to those weaker and less evolved than yourself, how much courage you have shown in dark and lonely experiences, for by this measure is the soul known when it comes to the spirit life. But where spiritual knowledge has given the soul increased ability to live kindly and peacefully, then we say that religious belief has its value. Where a philosophy helps to raise the thoughts on high, then that philosophy is a true one. But it is not true that worship in any one church or belief or any one religion is more important than the other.
Order your life so that your reaction is always one of forgiveness, gentleness, peacefulness, & LOVE. So will your spirit become lightened and brightened, and at the end of the journey it will be released, ready to rise into the realm of light where it may enjoy all the happiness, harmony and beauty which I strive so inadequately to clothe in the words of earth, that you may gain some faint understanding of the beauty you may all see one day.
Let go of regret and let go of self reproach. Say sometimes in your prayer: "Yes, great Father of All, I have failed in this. I should have done better. Help me next time to fulfill this with a greater understanding." Do not weep over your failure and reproach yourself endlessly, for you only build a barrier which holds you back from Light and comfort.
It is true that you must pass through varying experiences in the daily life but you do not need to suffer; your suffering is simply your reaction to what occurs. God has not ordained suffering, but has ordained change, change which must come in every human life. But there is no need for you to suffer through these changes if you can accept them as experiences by which to learn.
It is a mockery of divine justice to think that a death-bed repentance will wipe away all the wrongs you have done.
If you knock on a door and it does not open, do not push. If you push the door gently and it opens, that is for you. You cannot go through a closed door. Too many people in your world waste time and effort banging at closed doors.
Disease is, in a large number of cases primarily due to the wrongful alignment of mind, body and spirit
The higher you seek to rise, the more difficult it must become.
It is easy to love those you love. There is no virtue, no saintliness in that. But to love those you do not love, that is the attribute of an evolved soul.
Creeds, dogmas, doctrines, rituals, ceremonies, stained glass, altars, mitre, cope -- what have these to do with religion? Religion is in the spirit, the spirit that belongs to all Creation, which expresses itself in every rhythm and manifestation of life, that is revealed in every aspect of Nature and in the striving of all idealists and reformers who wish to serve. What has that to do with creeds?
Sometimes the worst answer to your prayer would be to give you that for which you asked.
No harm can come to any soul whose honest motive is to do the best. Every soul who desires to serve will find the opportunity provided.
Man makes his own future,
Stamps his own character,
Suffers for his own sins,
and must work out his own salvation
Sin, in its essence, is the conscious violation of those eternal laws which make for the advantage of the spirit. God cannot view sin as a personal injury. He regards it as we regard the offenses of a child, which will bring sorrow and retribution in their train. Sin is not in itself any offense against the Creator. The punishment is not wreaked on a defenseless creature. Sin is itself its own punishment, as the transgression of immutable law.
