“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”

– Seneca

Source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/lucius_annaeus_seneca_141090

     The number one tool at your disposal to help understand your mind is the tool of self-observation.  Developing this tool is easy; simply pay attention to your mind and thought processes, but do it as if you were an outside observer.  Watch your mind in play, at work, in your relationships … in all of the activities that make you happy and sad, confident and afraid, discontent or peaceful.  Just watch and experience your own mind.  See the energy flow first-hand, how thoughts lead to actions, how actions lead to results, and how results lead to reactions, both within yourself and the people and world around you.  Take note of which thoughts and actions bring you and those around you joy and peace, and which ones bring unhappiness and turmoil.  And of course, observe this process in the lives of the people around you as well.

— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 12)

Copyright 2018 Golden Rule Independent Publications

     “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

– Marcus Aurelius

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/64212-the-happiness-of-your-life-depends-upon-the-quality-of

     Look around you—are most people generally happy?  Are they peaceful and carefree, living in harmony with themselves and the world around them?  Or do they seem to be unhappy, anxious, always flustered and fighting with people in their lives, victims of their own troubled minds and emotions?  Now ask yourself these same questions.  If you see within yourself and the world around you evidence of unhappiness and chaos, perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate the garden of your mind.

— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 11-12)

Copyright 2018 Golden Rule Independent Publications

     An elderly priest invited a young rabbi over for dinner. During the meal, the young rabbi couldn’t help noticing how attractive and shapely the housekeeper was. Over the course of the evening he began to wonder if there might be more between the elderly priest and the housekeeper than met the eye. Reading the young rabbi’s thoughts, the elderly priest volunteered, “I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you my relationship with my housekeeper is purely professional.”

     About a week later the housekeeper came to the elderly priest and said, “Father, ever since your young rabbi friend came to dinner, I’ve been unable to find the beautiful sterling silver gravy ladle. You don’t suppose he took it do you?” The priest said, “Well, I doubt it, but I’ll write him a letter just to be sure.” So he sat down and wrote: “Dear Rabbi: I’m not saying that you DID take a sterling silver gravy ladle from my house, and I’m not saying you DIDN’T take it. But the fact remains that one has been missing ever since you were here.”

     Several days later the elderly priest received a letter from the young rabbi which read: “Dear Father: I’m not saying that you DO sleep with your housekeeper, and I’m not saying that you DON’T sleep with your housekeeper. But the fact remains that if you were sleeping in your own bed, you would have found the gravy ladle by now.”

Source: http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Spiritual_Humor.html

     …Within each of us there is the mysterious presence of whatever makes us conscious, an individuality or “I.”  Within this presence is the power to direct the flow of energy, what’s typically called the “individual will.”  This will-power is like a muscle in our minds—the more we use it, the stronger it gets.  If developed to its full strength, it can direct the energy flow with complete mastery.

— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 10)

Copyright 2018 Golden Rule Independent Publications

     “First say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do.”

– Epictetus

Source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/epictetus_161531

     “The deeper you get to know life the less you believe in its destruction.”

– Leo Tolstoy

Source: http://statusmind.com/life-quotes-449/

     In attempting to understand your mind, there is one principle that needs to be understood above all others; let’s call it the “energy-flow” principle.  Simply put, the mind is like an energy conductor; it gathers and directs energy.  The basic principle of energy in relation to the mind is that wherever energy goes, something grows.  Whether it’s good or bad, positive or negative, it doesn’t matter.  Where energy goes, something grows.

— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 10)

 

Copyright 2018 Golden Rule Independent Publications

     “Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ralph_waldo_emerson_130823