A rich man stopped to visit the Teacher in his modest hut.  He was astonished to see that such a famous man had but a wood table, some simple chairs, and a few books in his main room.  “Teacher,” the man asked, “where is your furniture?”

     “I might ask the same question of you,” the Teacher replied.

     “I have no furniture because I am just a pilgrim.  I am just passing through.”

     The Teacher smiled, “So am I.”

From, Stories for the Journey, by William R. White.

Source: http://seattlestorytellers.org/ssg/inTheWind/1990-Vol-13.4-InTheWind.pdf

Question: What is your definition or understanding of Heaven?

Answer: My definition of Heaven is simply this: When a person is in spiritual unity with God and those around them, that is Heaven.

     Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, but that’s The Truth as I See It.

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone may destroy overnight; Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.

Do good today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be good enough; Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is all between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.

— “The Final Analysis” is a version of the “Paradoxical Commandments” by Kent M. Keith

Source: There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem by Wayne W. Dyer

     “Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

     “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

     “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

– Viktor Frankl^*

Although this quote is most often credited to Viktor Frankl, its source is actually found in the forward to the book, Prisoners of Our Thoughts: Viktor Frankl’s Principles for Discovering Meaning in Life and Work, by Stephen Covey (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2010).

Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/02/18/response/

     Like Jesus centuries before him, the Master warned people about religion because, left to itself, it sanctified the blind observance of the law.  This is how he put it:

     A commanding officer was asking some recruits why walnut was used for the butt of a rifle.

     “Because it has more resistance,” said one man.

     “Wrong!”

     “Because it has more elasticity,” said another.

     “Wrong again!”

     “Perhaps because it has a better shine than other woods,” said a third.

     “Don’t be a fool,” said the C.O.  “Walnut is used because it is laid down in the regulations.”

– Anthony de Mello, More One Minute Nonsense

     “It’s better to ask for help than to become helpless.”

— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 61)

 

Copyright 2018 Golden Rule Independent Publications

     “There are many ways to understand this. One simple way to know this is: today, if you lose your mental peace totally, you will go to a doctor. He will give you a pill. If you take this pill, your system will become peaceful. Maybe this will last just for a few hours, but you become peaceful. This pill is just a little bit of chemicals. These chemicals enter your system and make you peaceful. Or in other words, what you call peace is a certain kind of chemistry within you. Similarly, what you call joy, what you call love, what you call suffering, what you call misery, what you call fear, every human experience that you go through, has a chemical basis within you. Now the spiritual process is just to create the right kind of chemistry, where you are naturally peaceful, naturally joyous. When you are joyous by your own nature, when you don’t have to do anything to be happy, then the very dimension of your life, the very way you perceive and express yourself in the world will change. The very way you experience your life will change.”

― Sadhguru, Encounter the Enlightened: Sadhguru, A Profound Mystic Of Our Times

Source: http://thecalminside.tumblr.com/post/169887936254/there-are-many-ways-to-understand-this-one

     “To complain without offering a solution is like trying to fix a water leak by yelling at the water.”

— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 61)

 

Copyright 2018 Golden Rule Independent Publications

     “Each person looks at life through a different vision.  Three men can look at a tree.  One man will see so many board feet of valuable lumber worth so much money.  The second man will see it as so much firewood to be burned to keep his family warm in the winter.  The third man will see it as a masterpiece of God’s creative art, given to man as an expression of God’s love and enduring strength, with a value far beyond its worth in money or firewood.  What we live for determines what we see in life and gives clear focus to our inner vision.”

– Excerpted from Joshua by Joseph Girzone

 

Source: https://lindasuecab.blogspot.com/2016/10/simply-stated.html

     “Anytime you want to criticize someone for something they’ve done, take a long look at your life and see if you haven’t done the same thing at one point or another—chances are you have.”

— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 61)

 

Copyright 2018 Golden Rule Independent Publications