heartsteps

The healing power of love does not belong to any religion.
It is not Christian, or Jewish, or Buddhist or Hindu.
It is not exclusive or protective of itself.
It spontaneously opens to bless, surround and inspire any human being
who is ready to give it and receive it.

Your willingness to feel this energy of unconditional love in and around you
will transform your life and the lives of the people you know.
It will speed up the vibration of your life
and at the same time slow down your mental activity
so that you feel bliss you have never felt before.

It will be as if you are riding in a cocoon of positive energy.
Soon you will no longer feel that you can support or participate in
the negative fear-based patterns that you encounter.
You won’t want to judge or complain, blame or shame.

You will do what resonates with the energy of pure LOVE
and stop doing what doesn’t.
There will be no force or sacrifice in this.
What no longer serves you will simply drop away
as you more deeply attune to
and vibrate with the truth of who you are.

Paul Ferrini

The gifts you have been given in this life do not belong to you alone. They belong to everyone. Do not be selfish and withhold them. Do not be selfish and imprison yourself in a lifestyle that holds your spirit hostage and provides no spontaneity or grace in your life.

Risk being yourself fully.

Let go of the expectations others have for you. Let go of all the “shoulds” and “have tos” and consider what thoughts and actions bring you the greatest joy. Live from the inside out, not from the outside in.

To move toward your joy is not selfish. It is in fact the most kind action you can perform toward others. That is because your gift is needed. The spirit of others cannot be lifted up unless you trust your gift and give it unconditionally to the world.

Paul Ferrini

Doing your best is about trusting in yourself and trusting in creation, the force of life. You set a goal and go for it 100% without any attachment to attaining it. You don’t know if you’re going to reach your goal, and you don’t care if you do. You go for it, and when you reach the goal it’s wonderful. And if you don’t reach the goal, that’s wonderful too. Either way, you are complete because love in motion is a wonderful thing. Taking action is an expression of yourself, it’s the expression of the spirit, and it’s your creation.

Just expressing yourself leads you into ecstasy because you are creating. This is life as an art.

Don Miguel Ruiz

Subhuti was Buddha’s disciple. He was able to understand the potency of emptiness, the viewpoint that nothing exists except in its relationship of subjectivity and objectivity.

One day Subhuti, in a mood of sublime emptiness, was sitting under a tree. Flowers began to fall about him.

“We are praising you for your discourse on emptiness,” the gods whispered to him.

“But I have not spoken of emptiness,” said Subhuti.

“You have not spoken of emptiness, we have not heard emptiness,” responded the gods. “This is the true emptiness.”

And blossoms showered upon Subhuti as rain.

Paul Reps

Good morning, Grandfather.
I entered this life a ways back
and put skin on to walk two-legged on this Creation —
and what a glorious time it was.
It taught me about breath
and about sensing and feeling and caring through my heart.
And I walked on around that Red Road,
looking and trying to understand more
about the mystery and the secrets She holds.
And You spoke to me through the wind,
and You sang to me through the birds.
And You brought challenges forth so that
I might listen to the message You bring me more sincerely.
And I kept walking down this road.
And I came ’round the bend
at the middle of that curve in the road
and I began to find a secret in the Spirit of my Self…

And still I walked on, sometimes blind and deaf,
and sometimes with pain.
But I fought with my fears and I embraced my unknowingness—
and still I walked on.
And my children and my family stood with me
and we came to know each other in those later years more than we
had before—for some of our falseness had fallen away—
and still I walked on.
And I kept walking on this road towards You,
towards that other world that grew closer to me with each step.
And as the door of the Great Spirit world came closer
my fear loomed up inside sometimes. . . .
But something called me forth—
the Morning Star rose with each day—
and my prayer became a centering—and still I walked on,
until I began to hear the Song of the Mother,
and Her arms embraced me so,
that instead of walking She carried me right to the door.
And as the door opened, I heard Her Song,
And Her Song lifted me up, so I could soar.

Jyoti

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate
it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a
full-time informal school called, “life.”

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a
process of trial, error, and experimentation. The
“failed” experiments are as much a part of the
process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”

4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A
lesson will be presented to you in various forms
until you have learned it. When you have learned it,
you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of
life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re
alive, that means there are still lessons to be
learned.

6. “There” is no better a place than “here.” When
your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply
obtain another “there” that will again look better
than “here.”

7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You
cannot love or hate something about another person
unless it reflects to you something you love or hate
about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have
all the tools and resources you need. What you do
with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to
life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do
is look, listen, and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves…
Don’t search for the answers,
which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Our true home is in the present moment.
To live in the present moment is a miracle.
The miracle is not to walk on water.
The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment,
to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.
Peace is all around us-
in the world and the nature-
and within us-
in our bodies and our spirits.
Once we learn to touch this peace,
we will be healed and transformed.
It is not a matter of faith;
it is a matter of practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh

1. Change
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”

2. Control
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”

3. Forgiveness
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

4. Action.
“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

5. The present moment
“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”

6. Everyone is human
“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”
“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

7. Persist
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

8. Goodness
“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”
“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

9. Truth
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”

10. Development
“Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”

Mahatma Gandhi