Only those have a true chance at success who recognize that the real roadblocks to any achievement lie within and not without.

It is abject failure to succeed at another person's definition of success. Rediscover yourself.

Much of life is waiting; much of waiting is a withering away of life. All of waiting is an anticipation - often hurried, occasionally mindful - to come up on the end of waiting. I often feel that waiting is mutual - life waits for us while we wait for life. In the mad rush of living, arrival has become but a fantastical thought. What does it feel like to not be waiting for something, for someone, for anything at all... Can we know now or do we have to wait to find out...?

We often misunderstand those who truly love us for they look at us with eyes with which we can only wish we could see ourselves. The look of love is devoid of all disfigurements.

Occasionally that which we cannot be without - family, friends, job, personal desires and demands - masquerades as that which we cannot be with. The lure of freedom from demands is enticing but is it really freedom that is slave to conditions? Let's find our freedom, our joy, our love right where we are, with whomever we are. A moment ignited with a smile often bursts into laughter smile emoticon

Living is marked by planning; Life by the unexpected.

Anything can be turned into a source of perennial joy when used to share, to care, to bring everyone together. Anything - wealth, idea, effort, words - used with the intention to create division, isolation, disharmony in life of another, only brings great sorrow and suffering. If you seek joy, help another to become happy. There is no way around it.

The quality of the sky is neither understood nor is it to be judged by the shape of the window through which it is viewed. God is benevolent regardless of how we choose to judge our experience of another or of our own self. Know that you are ever safe, ever protected, ever loved heart emoticon

The Universe is ceaselessly expanding. Expanding into what?

Indentation in the space's fabric accounts for Gravity, for why things go around each other. But what is holding the stars and planets "up"? Why are they not in a state of endless fall? Or are they?

Dear God, you are the greatest garbage collector ever. For all the junk we throw your way you lovingly accept and make it disappear like it never existed. If we stink, it is from what trash we choose to hold on to. Please relieve us of our ignorance so we may be fragrant with your love. Thank you heart emoticon

A cast allows one with a broken ankle to run around as if all was okay. Such is often also the case with many of us - we walk around as if all is okay but often things hurt within. Today let us be kind of each other and to ourselves.

A hamster is very busy running on its mill but does not really get anywhere. How many such mills we have got going in our life? have we turned our life itself into one such mill?

Just as one cannot awaken a person who is pretending to be asleep, one cannot show the way to one who purposefully chooses to act blind. In fooling another we fool ourselves the most.

My efforts I make, Your Grace You decide.

To a heart seeped in gratitude everything is a gift.

Nothing is as powerful, as painful, or as beautiful as life bringing to a screeching halt our breakneck race away from it. The stillness, the gravity, the silence, the surrender. A world lost, a universe found.

Religion attempts to remember God. Spirituality is unable to forget.

That which is discovered when nothing else is sought is what causes us to seek all that we search for. The one who seeks, what one seeks, and the search itself are all manifestations of the one and same. To know this is to know that there is nothing to know.

The desire to change yesterday is rooted in discontent with today. When we are content with what is, we are also at peace with what was.

Ambition devoid of compassion is as devastating as power disjointed from wisdom. May our progress not be built on the grave of another's joy or well being.

Indulgence can quench a longing only as long as the longing is not rooted in love. However, there is no longing devoid of love. Hence, no amount of indulgence ever brings complete fulfillment. All indulgence is ever tainted by a sense of dissatisfaction. Love is the only adequate and complete response to all longing.

Many are the ways in which we ignore life, as are the ways in which she seeks our embrace. Start doing more of what you keep telling yourself you will get to eventually. There is no coming back to where you are today. Life knocks. Open the doors.

It's hard to appreciate water without being familiar with thirst. 
It's difficult to accommodate people without having experienced alienation. 
It's easy to misunderstand silence without having known love.

All that we have is there for us to share. It's not ours to claim or to keep. Give abundantly, share generously, live magnanimously.

In understanding there is no forgiveness. Understanding is compassion; forgiving is judgmental. When we truly understand we cannot but accommodate, love.

Don't attempt to run away from the world or from yourself by going many places or doing endless things. Instead, wherever you are, however you are, abide in your Self. The Self is the only refuge, the only true home coming beyond all running, away from all escapes.

Today much of what is cheap for one carries a very high price tag for the many - the people, the animals, the planet. Be mindful of consuming processed foods, GMO, fancy packaging, slick marketing, farmed animals, plastics, overdosing on medicine, shortcuts to good health, and magical claims to instant gratification. We are not a point in an empty space but a link in an endless chain that relies on our integrity and intelligence to retain its strength.

Dear Universe, thank you for taking care of us. For the trials that make us strong, for the gifts that make life pleasant, and for the gratitude that makes everything beautiful heart emoticon

Life's a game of hide and seek. Sometimes we spend a lifetime seeking. At others, we hide in plain sight -waiting, hoping, praying - to be found.

Time rushing back as memory,
Memory gushing forward as time.
A moment no different from millennia,
Without memory, without time.

Jesus did not deviate from his truth even at the cost of crucification. How far are we willing to go before we decide to modify, embellish, abandon, or trade our truth for the convenience and comfort of our being? Be true. Be kind. Be yourself.

Just as the sun makes it possible to grow crops from which to make cloth that can be turned into a curtain that may screen the sunlight so ego is an expression of the Self which seemingly screens out the self. Yet, the curtain is not different from the sun; the ego is not different from the Self. The sun is always there, curtain or no curtain. The Self is always there, ego or no ego. The wise don't get distracted by the veil, remaining vigilant of the divinity beyond at all times, in all beings.

Ego is not different from the Self. Ego and Self are two expressions of the same phenomenon. Ego is to Self as ice is to water. Even though it seems as if there is only one or the other, at all times both are present - either revealed or hidden, as manifestation or as potential.

The indifferent bystander is as much a perpetrator as the perpetrator itself. Mindfully disavow all evils that lurk within and without.

Some days I feel like finding a seat by the ocean... 
Gaze in the clear blue eyes of its expanse...
Lend an ear to the rumble of its muted conversations...
Become one with the infinity of things... 
Today is one such day... heart emoticon

A relationship, like a good book, requires staying power for it to reveal its charm, its mystery, pull you in a pain you can neither bear nor let go of, to enthrall you with delights unperceived and to invite you to be part of a world hitherto unknown. But the greatest gift of a relationship, as of a good book, is a deep longing to come closer to one's own self, to somehow learn about oneself through another, and in the process become one with that which until that point was the other. It's a journey of love.

Fear is to love as darkness is to light. Without love, one can overcome fear no more than without light one can drive away darkness. When light is lit, darkness has no choice but to dissipate, to disappear. Transcending fear has all to do with love and nothing to do with fear itself. For fear, like darkness, has no existence of its own. It is but simply the absence of love.

A desire that refuses to leave us frustrates us no less than a desire that we choose to not let go of. Either way restlessness gnaws at one's heart.

Nothing and everything exist together at all times.

Tapas = Fire of inner strength = You easily can, you desperately want to, and ... you don't.

Our demand for freedom to pursue our self-indulgent cravings and pursuits is no freedom at all. It is the bondage of first order, the root of all misery, and a self created prison from which no other can ever free is. True freedom is free even of the demand for freedom.

Accommodating another begins with accepting oneself. We cannot stand in another what we deny in our own self. An ambitious person cannot help but despise the lazy. It is only when we are able to accept all aspects of our being that we are able to experience all shades of love.

Knowledge of the world requires becoming;
Knowledge of self, being.

The mind is endless wanting while the being is endlessly without need. Beingness is the silence amid mind's deafening clamor, an oasis in a vast desert, a harbor in turbulent waters. The want of our mind is not the need of our being.

Celebrate the absence of suffering but don't forget your courage and ability to gather all of you and celebrate in the face of suffering as well!

Our eyes do not open to that to which we close our heart.

All becoming eventually perishes under the sands of time. Becoming. Just a wave on the ocean of being.

Happy can be controlled no more than happiness can. When we seek control in our associations and relationships with another or with our own self, we only come across misery and the miserable. The expanse of our happiness is determined by the extent of our ability to let go.

May we not burden another in our attempts to unburden ourselves. May the togetherness of our being forever reside as an effervescent giggle of timeless laughter in the sacred core of our hearts.

How may I thank the rough sands that support my feet,
The light breeze that giggles as air in my hair?
How to be grateful to this dear life, its beauty, its passions, its despair?
How best to tend to this kind heart, that never does cease to care...

It slips through my fingers,
Into your awaiting hands
I could hold on to it no more,
In love, a life content.

Some hurts can be healed. 
Others, ignored. 
The pain of a longing heart,
Ever constant, life's ebb and flow.

The truths we are unable to share hurt just as much, and sometimes a whole lot more, as any lies that we tell, be it to another or to our own self.

Only in freedom from fear is there joy, is there generosity. Live heartily, share abundantly.

Love is not passivity or compliance. It is the most powerful revolutionary and transformative force in the Universe. Look deep within and investigate whether your efforts to "not rock the boat" are really love or the absence thereof?

Fear is to love as shadow is to light. As long as one seeks light, there will always be shadow. Only when one is light itself does the shadow disappear. To be love is to be free from all fear.

If nothing about our life changed from how it is today, if it continued to be just as it is in this moment for time eternal, could we be at peace with it? be alive with it? If not, know that we are already missing living our life, that we have understood neither life nor living. There is no life, no living, and no being alive to other than to the eternity of the present moment.

In essence, everything has always existed and always will; nothing had ever existed and never will. All that is there are forming and dissolving forms. All that never existed are the labels for these forms. That which exists is total emptiness - devoid of everything - of all forms, of all dissolutions, of all labels, and even absent of the one who labels and the one who observes the phenomenon of labeling and one who observes this observer observing the labeling and ad infinitum.

How wasteful to fill our days with doing more of that which does not serve us to begin with.

Do less. Be more.

The pain of truth lies in its capacity to mercilessly uproot our attachments. In it also lies inherent its power to liberate. Light can lead only at the expense of darkness.

We don't learn because we don't seek to learn from our life's lessons. What we seek is to not get hurt. Our resolve to learn from a fall is mostly limited to not get hurt again. Any surprise then that as soon as we feel safe and secure, we are back to being foolish.

A "what do you want to be?", rarely hears a sincere - "I want to be happy!"? We all want to be happy and yet we find happiness to be unworthy of our ambition - too paltry, too insignificant. For any who sincerely wanted to be happy would realize happiness to be what it is - a choice, a resolve. Happiness is the means to all things beautiful, an end unto itself.

How much do we really need to not be thirsty anymore? And what, if anything, is there that truly could quench our thirst?

Often happiness, like common sense, is readily available yet out of reach.

When we are not able to receive without a sense of obligation, we also become incapable of giving without expectation. To receive freely, is to share lovingly.

Desire, as attachment, binds us to the object/idea/person/outcome, without which, we tell ourselves, we cannot be. Dropping of attachment frees up the energy of desire, which can then transmute itself into lasting joy, into activity that does not tire, into a life that does not despair, and into a love that does not burden.

If we could see it clearly, it truly is hilarious that we would rush through our lives just as we rush through our days, as if there were actually some place for us to get to! Stop, smile, breathe, be... Why the rush?

Joy is the victim of excitement just as being is the casualty of becoming. To be is to be happy. To be happy, just be heart emoticon

To seek a cause or a remedy to our sorrow outside of ourselves is like locking ourself on the inside and then banging on the door asking another outside to free us. No other can free us from the prisons in which we imprison ourselves.

Don't burden another by trusting them to not let you down. Instead have faith in your own ability to transcend any hurt, any transgression. Be the lightness in another person's heart ♥

It's a good yardstick to measure the quality of our life not by the extent of our accumulations but by the immensity of our contributions, not in meeting the desires of one but in seeing to the well being of all.

All lives consist of parts either broken or not whole. This incompleteness cannot be mended. It can, on occasion though, find acceptance in forgetfulness of oneself in service of another.

Love is the heart of simplicity

The joy in my heart is a mere reflection of the smile that I bring about in another's life

It takes immense head to hold off a tsunami wanting to result from a throbbing heart. The heart propels without reason, the head reasons without enthusiasm. Trapped somewhere in between this illogical and the reasonable is the expression of my being.

Our tendency to endlessly rationalize our actions in our favor makes the truth about ourselves not just difficult but impossible to perceive. Driven by self-deception we argue for our limitations and they become ours to keep. The extent of our honesty about ourself can be measured by our sense of inner strength. Where we feel weak is where we have lied, deceived, and rationalized our actions to suit our comfort, convenience, & proclivities. In Truth there is neither fear nor weakness.

Much of what we seek is not to be found in the noise of our pursuits but is waiting to be discovered in the immense silence of our being.

This discovery is gratitude,
This gratitude is love,
This love is service,
This service, devotion.
♥

Love for one thing makes us afraid of another. Fear is the shadow cast from love's light. Only in the realization of oneness is there a light without shadow, a love free of fear, and a life devoid of conflict. Our fear is a doorway to understand our judgmental alienations; our love, a witness to our expansive acceptance.

Contentment is not of having enough but of not wanting more. If that, which we have, does not fulfill us nor will the fulfillment of that which we so desire.

One ray of light lifts away an entire night of deep darkness,
no matter how insurmountable or infinite the darkness may have seemed.
A single touch of love alleviates the pain of a lifetime,
no matter how deep seated and unending the pain may have seemed.
Let us then not close the window to the ray, let us not shut the door on love.
Today, let us be free of the fear of another and be courageously sharing of the gift that is ourselves. ♥

Often it is not the knowledge of another's strength but an unacknowledged sense of our own weakness, which is at the root of much of our fear, anger, and frustration. To be at peace with oneself is to be in harmony with the world around.

To complain is to require another to change for us to love them.
To demand is to require another to love us as we are.
Whether complain or demand, either by itself is sufficient to stifle love.
Willingly let go of any idea about who you believe you are to lovingly accommodate another as they are ♥

The opportunity to choose is ever present; the ability to do so, not as much.

If there were no empty, there would be no full either. Our inexperience of lack finds us indifferent to the rich fulfillment of our lives. Stop, look, acknowledge, thank, smile, and serve.

We are so similar in the very fears that divide us and keep us isolated from each other.

Life comes in small sips... some quench, some thirst...

Bring to life lessons from the day ♥

Bring to life lessons from the day ♥

Of the many regrets we repent for not listening to the voices in our head, there are as many virtues that find their way into our lives for paying no heed to the same. It is a great blessing to be able to ignore and not believe all that is spoken and exchanged in the vagaries of one's mind.

Hurt is the lid on the jar of love, the means of opening which lie within.

All lives are but stories of trajectories traced by love - of its embrace or its denial, of its avoidance or its abundance, of love of people or of things, of love of ideas or of knowledge, of love of another or of self.
Whether acknowledged or repudiated, like the invisible winds, it is what makes all life possible and ongoing.

Meet today with what scares you about tomorrow.

Tendency to judge another lies embedded in the inability to accept oneself.

The joy of power lies in the dissolution of self-doubt. Therein also lies its corruption. We go from wondering if we could do anything right to believing we can do no wrong. Neither is true. Neither is serving.

Knowledge is worthless without its application and dangerous without the wisdom of knowing when and how to apply. That which serves can also enslave.

Love as a feeling is elusive. Love as an action is always within reach. Let's reach for it. Let's make our love our practice.

Knowledge blocks the path to love unless love was the path that led to the knowledge.

No matter how much we may be in need, there is always room for us to meet the needs to another.

Just because you are talking does not mean someone is listening. Just because you are quite does not mean you are not being heard. Be silent, be prayerful, be forgiving, be kind. ♥

Making the right choice is not always easy but neither is choosing the easy way out. Be brave, be bold. Instead of always trying to change life, on occasion be open to letting life change you ♥

Dear God,
Grant within our hearts:
A silence that accommodates all noise;
A light that defeats all darkness;
A love that overcomes all fear;
And a wisdom that dispels all ignorance.
May each moment we discover a piece of you in our hearts
and all of our selves in yours. ♥

Come what may, be kind.

A blessing in hindsight is often a hardship that one endured with awareness or conquered with luck!

Today I choose to not worship busy. Today I refuse to be rushed. Today I decline the use of what I do and how much of it as a means to define who I am. Today I accept my sufficiency with all my accomplishments and with all my lacks. Today I declare I am enough as I am.

Another does not always lie with an intention to cheat. Often it is because we fail to instill in them the faith that we are capable of handling their truth; that we have the capacity to continue to love them in spite of their truth, whatever it may be. May we be forgiving of another's lie and be of greater faith when sharing our own truth.

The blissful canvas of ignorance lies devoid of the color of gratitude until painted with the awareness of the avoided pain.

Unless we are close to ourselves we cannot feel intimacy with another. We can only be distant from another when we keep ourselves at arms length...

We can take on the pain of another no more than we can offer our happiness to them. Often times it is not what we do but who we are, which is of most comfort.

We despise that which scares us. To be free from fear is to be free from hate, from judgement, from malice. End of fear is the beginning of love.

The fruit of a tree, whose seed is discontent, can never be fulfillment. To be fulfilled, requires that one act from a place of contentment. Contentment is either here and now or nowhere to be found.

The undrinkable sea water is the source of all drinking water. Thus that which cannot be experienced by the mind or by the senses is the root of all that is cognized or perceived. In the eternal nothingness lies the source of all things.

One who makes you doubt your friend is not your friend.