Thought of the week – 25th July 2022 (3)

Unless you are in your knowing, you will be supposing. And if you are supposing, you are entrenching yourself in the data that you assume you must need to act upon.
As you go to knowing, it becomes like breathing. You know what you need to know, you know where you stand, you know what will make you happy, and the agreements are made.
But you are still so busy listening to the small self’s voice that you ignore the True Self that is as available to you.

Paul Selig

Thought of the Week – 25th July 2022

The most significant contribution that prayer makes to our welfare is not the curing of any particular disease, but the realization that we are infinite, eternal, and one.

Thich Nhat Hanh

the importance of what you choose to emphasise

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. 

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. 

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Howard Zinn

Thought of the Week – 18th July 2022 (3)

Pain cannot be escaped, yet even greater pain lies in the effort to get away from it. You will try to escape from pain or insecurity, so long as the ‘me’ keeps itself separate from experience.

The desire to achieve (which is also the fear of failure) is what makes the mind lose its fluidity through the rigidity induced by inhibition. This then gets translated into faulty execution of all our actions and compounds our inner conflict and neurotic tension.

– Ramesh Balsekar

(Contributed by Mr Balasunder)

Thought of the Week -18th July 2022(2)

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.” 

Alexander Fraser Tytler

( Contributed by Kerry R)

Thought of the Week – 18th July 2022

You confirm the old because you see it
and because it’s been there,
but until you confirm the unknown or unmanifest, all you will get is all you have had.

Paul Selig