heartsteps

Your ego’s tendency is to keep things as they are, no matter how bad they may be. God says: “let go of the past and make room for something that honours you more deeply.” You are afraid to do that because there is no guarantee that the new will be any better than the old. You’d rather hold onto the old and invite the new in at the same time. That is the inevitable Catch-22. The new cannot come in until the old is released. When you are attached to the past, you cannot move forward toward the future. And your experience of the present is one of deadlock.

Letting go of the past is never easy. Yet it is the only act that brings the presence of God (substitute grace, if you need to) into your life. When you let go of what used to be and accept what is, the universe instantly moves to support you. The deeper your let-go is, the more resources rush to your side.

It is the nature of the ego to become attached to the past. It is the nature of the ego to project the past forward into the future, to meet the new with the conceptual nets that would tame it and make it conform to yesterday’s experience. There is nothing new in this. It is simply the movement of fear which resists anything new.

It is important to see how that fear operates in your life. It is important to realize how you have become attached to your previous experience and resist anything new that wants to come into your life.

When you hold onto your experience or use it to interpret the present experience, you “take control” of your life, and push God (grace) away. When you surrender your ideas about the way things should be, let go of the past, and open to the future, you invite God back into your life.

Paul Ferrini

That hurt we embrace becomes joy.
Call it to your arms where it can change.
A silkworm eating leaves makes a cocoon. Each of us weaves a chamber
of leaves and sticks.
Like silkworms, we begin to exist
as we disappear
inside that room.

Without legs, we fly.
When I stop speaking, this poem
will close in silence more magnificent…

I don’t regret how much I love,
and I avoid those who repent their passion.

Hundreds of sweethearts!
I am the lover and the one
lovers long for. Blue, and a cure
for blues, sky in a small cage,

badly hurt but flying.
Everybody’s scandalous flaw is mine.

Rumi

The world is fast losing its soul
but you don’t have to surrender yours.
You don’t have to live in a mechanical globe.
You don’t have to tame your deep-forest passions.
You don’t have to suppress your radiant beauty.

Live your joy,
Go against the grain.
Don’t be made timid by worried rejection.
Let nature’s curious wisdom fill you.
Let the world’s mystical heritage guide you.
Paint your canvasses,
play your tunes.

Give your all to the words that are born from you.
Your father and your father’s heaven
will never abandon you
but always love the scintilla of your spirit.

Thomas Moore

But it’s always worth another viewing. After 52-million views and counting, this video has put smiles and joy on everyone who has invested the 5-minutes required to see it through to the end. Click on the full screen option, turn up the volume, sit back and enjoy. Bring Kleenex.

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow -
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope,
the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that are alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am a bird which, when Spring comes,
arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay his
“debt of blood” to my people
and dying slowly in a forced labour camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Beautiful are the youth
whose rich emotions flash and burn,
whose lithe bodies filled with energy and grace
sway in their happy dance of life;
and beautiful likewise are the mature
who have learned compassion and patience, charity and wisdom, though they
be rarer far than beautiful youth.
But most beautiful and most rare is a gracious old age
which has drawn from life the skill to take ts varied strands: the harsh advance of age, the pang of grief,
the passing of dear friends, the loss of strength,
and with fresh insight weave them
into a rich and gracious pattern all its own.
This is the greatest skill of all,
to take the bitter with the sweet and make it beautiful,
to take the whole of life in all its moods,
its strengths and weaknesses,
and of the whole make one great and celestial harmony.

Robert Terry Weston

“I wish I could show you
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!”

I know the voice of depression
Still calls to you.

I know those habits that can ruin your life
Still send their invitations.

But you are with the Friend now
And look so much stronger.

You can stay that way
And even bloom!

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions’ beautiful laughter.

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From the sacred hands and glance of your Beloved
And, my dear,
From the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
That may buy you a moment of pleasure,
But then drag you for days
Like a broken man
Behind a farting camel.

You are with the Friend now.
Learn what actions of yours delight Him,
What actions of yours bring freedom
And Love.

Whenever you say God’s name, dear pilgrim,
My ears wish my head was missing
So they could finally kiss each other
And applaud all your nourishing wisdom!

O keep squeezing the drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions’ beautiful laughter

And from the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.

Now, sweet one,
Be wise,
Cast all your votes for Dancing!

Hafiz

For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.

Dalai Lama

In the name of daybreak
and the eyelids of the morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonour
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the utmost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honour all life -
wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell – on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.

Diane Ackerman