He who arrogantly declares “mine” is under the false assumption that he is the master of the house.


You may think you own your house and your dog and your land, but before you permit yourself to be so prideful ask yourself this perspective question: Am I the owner of the sun which makes the plants to grow, to flower and bear fruit? Am I the owner of the lightning, or the clouds and rain, or the orbiting earth in the vastness of space? Am I the owner of the nostrils which enable me to smell, or the tongue which enables me to taste, or the stomach which enables me, without my effort, to digest my food, etc, etc. Don’t you think humility is the better part of wisdom?


One’s tentative and temporary opinion is often thought of as the final truth. He who thinks so has arrogated to himself a premature and totally undeserved omniscience.


The more I learn, and the more educated I become the more convinced I am that I really know very little.


Man knows so much about other things but so little about himself.


Most people’s opinions are not carefully worked out but are mere quotations of what someone else has said.


The same light that reveals your faults is the same light that will dissipate them. However, you have to let the light shine.


Apparently there are some people who see in the dark while most are blind even in the light.


When one says “I” they are unknowingly referring to their Ego, not their imprisoned Self. It is our task to eliminate the Ego and emancipate the Self. When are you going to begin doing it?


The most awful characteristic of man, which leads to the most awful internal pain and destruction known to man, is his egocentricity, which is another word for selfishness.


The enlightened and awakened person will admit that it is imperative that he destroy his egocentricity. But, he simply cannot do it alone. There must be a power outside himself which gets into him and works a mighty change within him. However that power must be called upon.


God’s will is seldom enacted in behalf of an individual until that person’s will corresponds with His.

Often the choices we face are not between right and wrong, good and bad – that is easy if we are clear on our values – but between good and better.


What appears to be good may, upon further experience and reflection, actually be bad.


The knot which we have tied around ourselves and which is choking us cannot be cut; it must be untied.


Don’t blame life for all its evil; blame yourself for succumbing to it.


The problem with modern society is that its private vices have become public virtues.


Sometimes the most horrible of violences are done in the most gentle of ways.


Those who strive to keep their illusions tend to stagnate and do not move on; those who fear their illusions generally create more and thus walk backwards thinking they are walking forward; those who overcome them – and they do so by walking the hard road of persistence – walk forward.


One of the purposes of remembering is to remember to forget.


Idle thoughts sometimes generate profound ideas.


Those who appear idle are sometimes engaged in exhausting work.


He who is truly successful has no regrets of the past and no fears of the future. I would like to meet such a person.

Do you ever wonder who you may have associated with in your past life?

Interesting thing about failure: Those who have never or seldom experienced it have never or seldom stretched themselves beyond their grasp.

When we try anything there is always the risk of failure. And when we fail, yes, it hurts. When we are disappointed, especially in ones we love and trust, we hurt. And when such hurt ensues, after so many prior hurts, maybe we just don’t have the internal resources anymore to try again. If so, then we must lean on someone when we are not strong. Maybe that someone is the very one, now repentant and contrite, who hurt us. Maybe now it is he or she who will save us.


Be careful before you put all your trust in mammon, for mammon has a history of betrayal. He who appears to be wisest and strongest may prove to be unwise and weak.


Hearing with your ears is one thing; hearing with your soul is quite another.


Finding meaning in sound comes from hearing with our ears. Finding meaning in the silence means hearing with the soul.


You will never attain or obtain the highest and best if you don’t first learn to renounce the lowest and worst.


What you try so hard to keep may be exactly what you need to let go in order to have something better. On the other hand, maybe you already have the best and what you intend to let go may be exactly what you need to keep.
The greatest challenge in life, obscured by a multitude of temporary pleasures, is to discover our higher self.


Whenever we touch another human body we are touching a holy and sacred thing. Be careful, therefore, how you touch it.


Smart people often fail because they are in a world controlled by dumb people.


Some people are often intellectually smart but intelligently stupid.


Have you decided where you want to go and how to get there? Or are you just drifting hoping that the currents will favor you and get you there?


Do we allow the age in which we live to influence us, or do we influence the age in which we live?

Watch out! Be alert! Sometimes our greatest attributes can turn into our worst enemies.


Love is a choice available to us all. But few choose it. And of those who do, few endure its demands.


Free choice means God will not impose upon us His will. Churches do, but God won’t.


Our penchant for noticing ourselves and fulfilling our selfish needs does not correspond with our power to notice the goings-on in the vast universe, and it is especially derelict in its notice of the invisible.


Why is it that we use such a small portion of our capacities?


Is it any wonder that we don’t hear anything else when we listen to such loud, frantic music? Or detect anything else when we don’t pay attention to anything but the frenetic activity surrounding us?


What we choose to make the ruling fact of our existence determines what kind of being we are.


If you don’t take matters into your own hands and determine what your standards will be, circumstances will choose for you. You will then discover that you don’t like the choices.


The questions are often asked, but seldom answered: Who am I? What is my purpose here?


You will find that you will get more answers to your questions about life if you listen instead of talking so much.


Many people don’t listen when others are talking. They are merely preparing their next rebuttal.


Alas! Many people who will not change their minds in the light of new evidence, but assume that their evidence, which usually has a peculiar spin on it, is the only validity there is. Thus many are frozen and few are warm.


We have control over many things, but not everything.


Sacrifice is not loss, but gain.


In this life people are divided up into winners and losers. But in the eternal scheme of things the race is not to either, but to he who endures.
Our generation would do well to remember the poem of Rudyard Kipling entitled “IF.” It starts
out like this: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…,”

To be absorbed and intoxicated by the world around us rather than the world within us is to recognize only what is present and tangible instead of what is possible and transformational.


The soul which is overwhelmed by external stimuli is unable to reflect, stays stuck, and cannot look where it is going.


Contemplate this: Simplicity is different from simplistic!


The way to self-victory is the way of over-coming.


“Adaptation” and “Adjustment” are the hallmarks of this go-along generation when what is needed and called for is the up-grading of perceptions.


The reason the world is in such a mess is that unenlightened people vote in office unenlightened politicians. We are influenced more by bombast than by perceptive acuity.


There are certain conditions of life which MUST be met and which will not change. Learn what they are! Trying to change them instead of us is not only destructive but futile.
The modification of ourselves leads to the edification of ourselves.


You have not got the message of these sayings if you believe them to be mere moral idealisms or a prescription for principles. They do, indeed, encompass those ideas, but they are not the whole of it.


Do we allow evolution to determine who we are or do we decide who we shall be?

Evolution has done its work! Now, what are you going to do?


When we are faced with the stresses of choice we are faced with the opportunity to be blessed.

We all seek for what is likeable, what is enjoyable. But what is likeable or what is enjoyable may not be the best for us. None of us like to suffer, yet suffering may be exactly what we need. Choice, decision, implies suffering; otherwise we merely evolve but don’t become.


In the rhythms of the world, which we think is everlasting, is a strange, unseen, often undetected, redeeming grace which, if we collaborate with it, erases all our failures and introduces to us our escape from this mortal trial, and thrusts us into a transition to better things.


Out of the quagmire of our mistakes, out of the dilemmas, perplexities and consternations of our lives, is a constant, albeit subtle, reminder of our eternal destiny, and an invitation to develop a larger heart.


Persistence without change of heart constitutes raw stubbornness and is not the virtue often supposed.


Why is it so few ever find the Way? Because they don’t pause to define themselves! They act more out of impulse than out of thought. They have a viewpoint rather than a point-of-view.


There is no more pressing need than finding the Way, yet people generally do not search for it because, in the first place, they are asleep, and in the second place it isn’t easy. The process of achieving it is arduous and long – no instant gratification here – no quick-fix here – and requires a fundamental reorientation of the entire personality.

The greatest illusion of man is that he cannot change! “I am the way I am” is the regular utterance, conscious and verbal, or unconscious and unspoken, of most people. Thus do they fix themselves in stagnation! Yet if they unscrambled their will and woke up they would see their incredible capacity for change.


What enters into man determines what exits from him.


The greatest advice ever given to man is this simple invitation: “Think on these things.”

We need to abandon the idea that this world is the central point of the universe.


Do our idiosyncrasies and personal ideas represent things as they are, or as we are?


Have we harvested from our selves a richer, fuller fruit from a seed once barren and void, from a soil blanched with tears, but now fertile and ripe?

Can we now, after all those strife-ridden years which strove to tear us apart, look up to glory and solace, or are we still cast down by the weight of life’s mighty winds?


There is no need to be lonely wanderers, no need to search but never find, for the truth is already here. All you have to do is reach out and grasp it and make it your own.


So what if it’s easier said than done! Put ease in its proper place by doing it. Just who, after-all, is in control: You or ease?


So, what do you wish to pursue: The small gleam or the brightest star?


What we follow determines whether we become followers or leaders.


Open the door to your dank prison and let in the bright of sun and the smell of the winsome grass. Then go out where you can breathe the fresh air and be beside the beauteous flowers.


It seems to be an axiom of life that the best treasures are hidden and must be sought. Jesus said something similar when he said, “Seek and ye shall find.”
Perhaps, after years of searching for your treasure and not finding it, you have been looking in the wrong place. It’s not out there someplace, it’s in here. Often, however, we don’t know it’s within us until we travel long distances without us and dug in the wrong field.

What, then, is an awakened person? One who has a longing for unity, who engages in a sincere quest for consciousness, who aspires to doing what’s right in spite of pressures against it, who conducts his life according to sound principles of goodness, who acts from the intrinsic nature of his being rather than the periphery of his personality, and one who desires with a consuming desire to be one with the universe.


What, then, is an awakened person not? He is not perfect, but he does not make excuses for his imperfection. And he is not offended by shoulds and oughts.


As I reflect on my sojourn through life I sometimes get this uncanny feeling that while I am searching for the highest and best, the highest and best is searching for me. The question I ask then is, have I at last found the highest and best, and has the highest and best found me. Or is the search a never-ending quest?


Not until you have been possessed with an insatiable desire to continue the quest have you been found.


We are not misled by falsehood so much as we are by half-truths.


What discourages us most in the pursuit of our spiritual goals is not our vision of the outcome – that we have a clear vision of – but the process, which is often obscure and difficult.


The Ten Commandments offend the radical liberal. The reason why is that they do not know, or will not accept, that they are but paradoxical laws. They do not know, or do not care, that when they break them they break themselves.


All the king’s men and all the king’s horses may not put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But God can!


To exalt one’s self is the greatest kind of humility.


Oh, let the self exalt itself,
Not sink itself below:
Self is the only friend of self.
And self Self’s only foe.
For self, when it subdues itself,
Befriends itself. And so
When it eludes self-conquest, is
Its own and only foe.

So calm, so self-subdued, the Self
Has an unshaken base.
Through pain and pleasure, cold and heat,
Through honor and disgrace.

The Bhagavad- Gita


One of our greatest illusions is the assumption that actions determined by following our uninspired inclinations, by obeying our unschooled instincts and habits, is expressing our selves. In reality we have forfeited our freedom at the core level and frustrated the expression of our selves.

Attempting to escape the suffering exacted upon us by life, and which if endured will lead to meaning, will eventually lead to yet a different kind of suffering which is more intense and meaningless.


Not until we extend ourselves beyond ourselves do we begin to see in ourselves the habit patterns that need transcended.


There are four basics which seem to motivate man: Happiness, money, love, and the fullness of life. The first three are illusions. Only the last one will give man the peace he searches for.


In the unseen regions of the human spirit lies a craving untrammeled by the physical world of possessions, social power or influence, sex and love. It is the hunger and thirst for the right direction.


Every system of religion, every system of psychology, every system of philosophy, is but an underlying search for the right direction.


No one is born a new being. But everyone is born with the potential for becoming so. The choice is always ours.


Is it not astonishing that we allow our culture to mold our personality rather than permit our personality to mold our culture?


Continued observation of the dynamics of human thinking and perception more and more convinces me that there is a deeper aspect to their humanity than is ordinarily utilized.

The horrible pain and utter failure we experience is usually brought upon ourselves by not only our indifference but our blindness to higher values. The greatest failure we experience is the failure to recognize that we are built for success in being, not the success espoused by the world.


What do you choose? Comfort and pleasure, or meaning and purpose. You cannot have both. How long does it take to learn that the latter has greater satisfactions than the former?

Never to have known the truth is better than to have
known it but acted against it.


It is easy to establish a doctrine or a theology. But it is quite another to be visited by such a doctrine or theology and deal with it. For example, a fundamental doctrine of life is that there is opposition in all things. But be compelled to face an opposition directly in our lives and we lament and retreat.


Many are they who seek to find a Way. But few find, fewer still enter, and fewer still endure.


What one does unconsciously reflects what one thinks consciously.


Often the accumulation of rigid dogma and beliefs obscures the original insights and convictions which generated them.


It is an axiom of life that our inner dilemmas reflect our outer lives. We therefore need to learn that both our inner and outer lives are irretrievably connected and interdependent


It is amazing to me that man is such a noble presentiment in the universe, yet spends so much of his time and effort in rendering himself unconscious.


We cannot escape the inevitable effects of our issues. Sooner or later we will be billed an onerous bill, the payment of which must be made.


When we pursue material success, worldly happiness and peace, telestial security and certainty, we are worshiping false gods which do not deliver what they promise.


Grappling with the elements of nature, especially including our own nature should not eclipse the very essence of our greatness.

We all come in folded layers. And in those folds lie the secrets of ourselves. It is our task to unfold ourselves.


Metaphors are wonderful expressions of the eloquence of life. But life is more than metaphors. Metaphors can trigger beautiful and transformational experiences and can enhance our understanding, but they are not the experiences or the understanding themselves.


Life is not just a technique. It is a discovery. And a process.

The unity of man and spirit becomes apparent in the similar descriptions of him in virtually all cultures and all sacred traditions the world over.


Why, I regularly ask myself, do most men work so persistently at overcoming themselves?

The primordial urges of man are often spoken of in negative terms, but man also has urges to become better than he is.


One cannot fully appreciate the beauty of a butterfly if he does not know that first it was a caterpillar.


Transformation does not usually occur in the collective, but in the individual. Perhaps that is one of the reasons we hear so little about it.

Society or humanity will never be transformed until the individual is transformed. That is why all the legislation of governments will never reform nations.


This is the greatest truism about man ever discovered: He is a god in embryo. But it is he who determines whether the embryo gives birth.


Oh, Man! Wake up. Give birth. Examine yourself, and spread your wings.

You reveal by outward action your inner state. Do you want to be known by who you really are or by who you pretend to be?


What we were yesterday need not be what we are today.


By plotting to get even we are actually falling behind.


Someone said “Tomorrow never comes!” Oh, yes it does!


To be clever and devious in trying to hide ourselves will eventually reveal our deviousness and dishonesty, and thus expose ourselves.


When we enter the spiritual realm, the secular forms don’t seem to matter much anymore.


To focus on our strengths by making them stronger is better than always trying to overcome our weaknesses.


When we consecrate ourselves to any noble cause our individuality is enhanced, not diminished.


When we have an eye single to the glory of God a strange, unexpected event happens: We become more glorified!


Consequences of our acts are not determined by whether you want them or not.


All you have to do to put the shadow behind you is to turn around and face the sun.


There is so much talk from so-called spiritual adepts about the shadow within. When are they going to discover the light within?

Neither glibness, nor accentuated decibels, nor quickness of talk, nor witty remarks, add to the validity of our argument.


Churchianity is not Christianity. Churchianity is strict adherence to doctrines. Christianity is strict adherence to Christ.


Authority is not intended to deny us freedom, but to grant it.


A genuinely good man or good woman is better than a talented one.


There are some who, even though they have left the world and joined the Kingdom, still like to party there or visit it on week-ends.


It is easier to stay out of debt than to get out of debt.


Isn’t it rather curious how some people seem to have this inordinate ability to fool themselves.


Sometimes it isn’t excited thrust that leads us where we want to go, but slow plodding.




The glib talk, the fast way, the loud voice, the failure to listen, is just what often keeps us stuck.


When you are on the inside often it is mere exacerbation of what is on the outside.


If we spent more time counting our blessings instead of nursing our hurts we would be happier.


Blessings come only after we have paid our dues.


Do not carry over from yesterday its hurts, but begin the day anew. New days are offered for new beginnings.

The hard, cold fact of reality is that we have our free-agency and it will not be abrogated merely because we make choices which make ourselves and others miserable. The secret is to use our freedom wisely.


Maybe we ought to stop wringing our hands in anxiety and fold them in prayer.


It is not as important to concentrate on who our rescuer is as it is to be thankful that we were rescued.


Are you a true believer in the Kingdom, or are you just a tourist passing through?


Beware when you are feted before the large and raucous crowd for someday you will stand before a much smaller and quieter assembly: the judgment bar of God.


I have solemnly and sadly observed that the quiet and gradual relinquishment of faith results in surrender to the world.


Succumbing to temptation means one has grossly undervalued himself and overvalued the temptation.

How easy it is to get caught in the traps of the world and how hard it is to extricate one’s self.


Our tendency to belong and to be loved should not permit us to be manipulated and maneuvered.


To follow good principles and ideals is good. But it is better to be those principles and ideals.

It is O.K. to ask why, for then you are geared to look for the answer.


Maybe there is no answer to your question. Just hold it to your bosom, then, and recognize the majesty in mystery. If the answer were given now perhaps you wouldn’t understand it anyway.


So, you’ve received bad breaks. What you have to work for is that they don’t break you.


A momentary lapse, though it may be extremely hurtful and we think at the time that it is everlasting, when the hurt finally dissipates and our perspective grows wiser, we then understand that the moment of lapse does not nullify a lifetime of being at one’s best.


We must not assume that because something at present is not explainable that it has no explanation.


What may now appear to be an aberration may later become clear.


It is so easy to walk to the thermostat and turn down the heat. Would that it would be so simple in life!


Part of our waking up occurs when we are tried at the point where we thought we were strongest, but it turns out it was our weakest.


We must be alert to not only what goes on around us but to what goes on in us.


Sometimes our best is ameliorated by someone else’s worst.


Do you realize that it takes the same muscles to smile as it does to sneer?


Our mistakes are not set in concrete; our weaknesses can turn into strengths if we allow ourselves to be tutored by higher standards.

Isn’t it better to develop sensitivity rather than have it foisted upon us?


Oh, so it’s rained on your parade and you got wet. Get used to it for in this life it will often happen. But, remember, the sun will eventually come out and dry you off.


I used to think that a faith-filled life was a stress-free life. Now that I’m older I know better.


We do not glide through life; we stumble through it. The secret is keeping our balance, and getting back up and continuing the journey when we fall.


We seem to pre-determine the suffering we will put up with. We will endure physical pain, grief, sorrow, loneliness, but not betrayal or forsakenness of loved ones. But they are part of the challenges of the spirit, too, and we had better learn to put up with them.


We are required by the soul-alert life to not merely put up with our suffering, but to forgive it and transcend it.

Of course it isn’t easy. But some have done it. And if others have done it, why can’t I?


Suffering may, in the eternal scheme of things, result in our consecration. It is intended to hallow us rather than denigrate us.


Oh, how hard it is to learn the lessons we must learn. But let us be touched by this knowing: The more difficult the lesson, the more glorious the learning of it.


We live in a time when “men’s hearts shall fail them.” Then do something to strengthen your heart!

Whenever we see someone with great ability we naturally think that such ability is a free gift; he or she was, in other words, born with it. That may be true. But it is more likely that those “gifts” were earned by painstaking effort, here a little, there a little –it is like everything else, a process of growth.


The manufacture of a multitude of words often are used to cover up a multitude of sins.


Do not be deceived into thinking that you are now clean merely because you’ve washed your hands of the whole thing.


Be careful when you roll a pebble down a hill. You may start an avalanche.


Generosity in one thing does not remove niggardliness in another. Neither does remembrance of one thing negate forgetfulness in another.


Our lost faith cannot erase the effect of our past faith. Well, on second thought that aphorism needs to be pondered. It may be true in one sense but not in another. The trails we leave behind may or may not make clear the road ahead.


Recognize that sometimes there is a whole lot of love in a very big challenge.


To lose one’s sense of belonging is to lose one’s sense of Life. To gain, therefore, perspective, ask yourself this question: To whom, or what, do I choose to belong?


Sometimes, what we are so desperately searching for has already been found.


Deprivation often leads to magnification. But we have to wait and endure before it manifests.


Refining fire means we may be burned. Of course we do not like it because it is painful. But, the burning may be necessary in order to burn away the chaff.


What may be inexplicable to us now may be explicable later. In the meantime we will go through a lot of irony, paradox, injustice and unfairness. Maybe those trials are the tools which at last render what is now inexplicable explicable, and not our categories of rationality.


Do not let our darkest hours eclipse our finest hours.


The fact that we sometimes feel dark, and lonely, and unloved, bespeaks what a high order of species we are.

The trouble with many Christians is that they try to have one foot in the world and the other in the temple. In other words, church and good behavior is reserved for Sunday and the rest of the week we can indulge ourselves.


The paradox of the divine tutorial is that suffering will come to us if we are serious and that our afflictions become a form of learning, and that our learning is exactly that which wrenches our hearts and is the most difficult for us to do. This is why sometimes the best people have the worst things happen to them.


The true citizenship for the disciple of peace lies in another world; we merely have a temporary passport to this one.


It is often not the noble and great, the talented and gifted, the famous and notorious, who fight the greatest battles of life, but the quiet ones who, according to the world’s ways, never achieve anything noteworthy.


Or task is not to make a favorable impression on the world, but a favorable impact on ourselves.


It is the person who works silently in the background, unnoticed and unheralded, who lives his life with purpose and strain and dies his death in ignominy and pain in some obscure place, who is the true hero of life.


Do you entirely fathom the insight that of all the billions of people who have lived on this planet and who will live on this planet, you are unique. There has never been one exactly like you here before, and after you leave, there will never be another exactly like you here again. Individuality is an awesome thing. But, don’t be puffed up about it; be thankful for it.


If we are lucky we will leave only a legacy of excerpts on our tenure here, but no lengthy books will be written and no memorable speeches or accolades given.


The legacy we leave of our life, whether quotable or not, whether memorable or not, do not represent the frequency or the power with which we have felt or spoken. Thus are the greatest aspects of our lives held in secret.


The one thing I want my children to remember about me is that I loved them. And that they learned to love me!


Not remembrance of my mistakes and failings, but remembrance of my struggles and purpose – that is what I want to be remembered for.

Wherever you go or whatever you do you cannot escape the laws of being and existence. One of those laws is that there is an opposition in all things. There will always be some thing or some person who will sabotage your becoming or there will be obstacles in your way. Just keep on keeping on and someday you will discover that those obstacles were forces of strength and the path which was often difficult now becomes easier.


Oh, how onerous the sacrifices we must make in the process of our becoming! Especially the sacrifice of our sins.


You must – MUST – give up your short-term pleasures for long-term, more lasting satisfactions. Isn’t that the definition of maturity?


We generally react to one of the most healing and safest words in the English language with fear and pride and stubborn resistance. That word is Repentance! What repentance does is free us from all the rubbish and bad habits that have held us captive and wrecked our lives.


“Endure to the end” is an axiom that many quote, but do not know its full meaning and intent. It is assumed that if one does it his salvation is assured. Thus they take life as a pleasant, complacent place of ease where they expect to be rescued at last if they just follow the rules and don’t do anything terribly bad. “Enduring to the end” means that our spiritual growth is a continuous discipleship, and we fail if we rest on our laurels

I used to think that retirement should allow me to now at last take it easy, only to discover that after I retired I am still faced with difficulty and challenges. One’s discipleship is a never-ending process, not only of advancement, but of discovery. When, I ask, will I ever be allowed to rest? Not until you become what you have designed for yourself to become.


A human being is like a garden. It must be fertilized, weeded, watered and cared for.


A true Christian does not forgive because he ought to, or love because he should, but does so as a natural result of the kind of being he is. So then, we need to pause in our journey once in a while and ask ourselves: What kind of being have I become, and what kind of being am I in the process of becoming?


If you pause often to count the cost, you will never accumulate the
benefits.


There are some things we must deny ourselves. Of course indulgence is comfortable, but what you don’t see at the time is that you may have to give up some other desirable thing. You simply cannot have it both ways. The law of life is that if you claim something you have to give-up something else. The quest therefore is, not do I want it, or is it a good thing, but is it appropriate? What will it manifest in the long run?


We must be devoted to singleness of purpose. If we indulge in every attractive thing, we lose our promise. The world is filled with attractive things which tempt us, but attractive things have a curious way of turning into unattractive things.


The trouble with many Christians is that they try to have one foot in the world and the other in the temple. In other words, church and good

It’s alright to “play it safe.” It’s better to keep what is old and bent and dented and tried, rather than go with the new that has not been tried. Just because something is new or attractive does not mean it is best. One must also have the perceptive acuity to recognize potential rather than just the actual.


Well, the offended one, too, often uses psychological defenses such as rationalization, self-justification, isolation, intellectualization, and others, to deal with his hurt.

I read this in a book the other day. The author was not given, but it represents everyman.
You have to help me? You have to help me by holding out your hand, even when that’s the last thing I seem to want or need. Each time you are kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand, because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings. Very small wings. Very feeble wings. But wings. With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding, I can make it. You can breathe life into me. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. But love is stronger than strong walls, and therein lies my hope. Please try to break down those walls with firm hands but with gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive. And I am a child.
Now that you’ve read it and pondered it, answer the following question: Am I my brother’s keeper?


Few of us are wholly in the light. Some of us have moved to the edge of the darkness where the light begins to penetrate, but we still remain in the shadows. At least we are no longer wholly in the darkness. Nor do we hover around the edges. But if we continue our move toward the light some day we will emerge into it, and then merge with it. It is then we become a being of light.


Simply because you are in the world does not mean you should be of the world.


Our journey through life is not one of sequential transitions. Often we go up and down, backward and forward. It is therefore folly to judge ourselves when we are in a downward or backward stage. It is the trend of our pursuing that counts more than the direction we are flowing at the moment. Not who we are at present, but who we are becoming portends who we will be. Human beings are not therefore mere human beings, but human becomings.


Are you a victim of the pulling and repulsing forces of the opposing influences of our world, or do you DECIDE in what direction you will go? Do you allow yourself to merely be acted upon, or are you the actor?


The central concern of the Christian gospel is this: What kind of man ought you to become? If you know the answer to that vital question, then why procrastinate? Procrastination means not becoming!

Allegiance to The church is a means to an end; it is not the end itself. It was intended be a hospital – that is, a place of healing – for the sinner, for the lost and forlorn, not a school for Pharisees. Or a place to hide in to protect ourselves from ourselves or from others.


Many church-goers have simply got their priorities mixed up. It is not their spouse, or their families, or their jobs, or the church, or any other mundane thing that should be the center of their lives, but Jesus Christ.


When one makes Christ the center of their lives they make an important discovery: They love their spouses, their friends, and everything else about life, better.


There is a strange paradox about Divine Love. The more you center your life in Christ, the more you love everything. Thus love of Christ is not a diversion or neglect of love for everything important to you, but adds to it.


There is nothing so baffling as one who is incongruous – that is, one who leaves the outward impression that he is above the fray, and then reveals by his actions that he is really not what he represents himself to be. And then attempts to justify himself by declaring that he is just a weak human being and ought to be forgiven. Such an one, if he is sincere, should read and ponder the parable of the foolish virgins.


Just because one is foolish enough to leave his lamp empty, or is so careless as to think it is full when in fact it is empty, when light is needed, and then expect someone else to fill it, transfers an obligation to another which is rightfully his.


Are you a stepping stone to one who follows, or are you a stumbling block? If one willingly takes your hand expecting you to lead him to safety, would you lead him into harm?


I rather suspect that those who complacently think they are close to the Lord, are in actuality far from him. But, it may be too, that those we suspect are far from the Lord, may in fact be closer to him than we think. Is that one of the reasons why we are instructed not to judge?


Stop being so concerned about the salvation of another and be more concerned about your own.


We have little control over the behavior of another; but we do have control over how we will respond to it. It may, however, take a little time for us to learn to respond properly.


He who has put on the WHOLE armor of God has little need for psychological or social defenses. The question is, have you put on the WHOLE armor of God, or does it have chinks in it?


If we discover that we have chinks in our armor, then exchange it for the WHOLE armor, not just a new one of the same.


The newness of something is not the criteria by which it is judged, but is it whole? Something may be old, and worn, and have dents in it, but if it is whole it is better than something new and shiny but has chinks in it.

We need to remember that our perceptions are not complete, and that we interpret the world, not as it really is, but as we are; i.e. – incomplete. We are not, as we so readily assume, even insist, dealing with the facts, but dealing with ourselves.


However astute your thinking and research, in the final analysis you must make a choice. Is your choice going to be Thomas Henry Huxley, Charles Darwin, David Hume, or some other scientist or philosopher, or is it going to be Jesus Christ, or Paul, the Apostle, or Peter? The scripture is very clear on this matter: “Choose ye this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Faith means that we are humble enough to subordinate our perceptions to the perceptions of another in whom we have confidence. In whom do you have confidence?


We need, however, to distinguish between blind faith and intelligent faith.

Just because we created the map of life does not mean we also created the territory. Nor does it always accurately represent the territory. It must follow, therefore, that if the map be correct, he who makes the territory must also make the map.


Do not be deceived! Being faithful to the light you have is not the same as being faithful to the light there is.


What is internal produces what is external. Therefore, by your fruits, or what you manifest externally, shall you be known.


So what then, have you chosen to make the center of your life? Is it your spouse, or your children and family? Or is it your job, or your friends, or your possessions? Or perhaps it is your club or your church, or your self, or your education and knowledge? Or is it a blend or combination of all these? Whatever it is, ask yourself this question: Does the center of my life result in consistency of values, standards and direction? In short, is it making you happy? Or is it like a roller-coaster through life? One moment you’re on a high, then you are in a low, then you are uncertain, then you compensate for one weakness by choosing another. You are “driven by the sea and tossed.” Have you given serious consideration to selecting the Divine Center?


Have you made the critical distinction between being active in the church or being active in the gospel?


Alas, many people who consider themselves Christians have their center in their church. Thus, they subordinate their lives to Churchianity rather than Christianity. Wasn’t it intended to be the other way around?

When a person opens his mouth to describe what he sees or what he thinks he knows, he is, unknown to him, describing himself.


Well, does that mean there are no facts, only perceptions? Ask yourself this question: Did I create the universe? If I did not, could there possibly be a different interpretation of it?


If we interpret our lives and the world in which we live by our unique experiences, do we account for the possibility that someone sometime has had a different experience and therefore interprets the world differently than we do?


Do we interpret the world from its beginning, from the time of its original creation, or from our late point of view?


We can only perceive what is presently here. Would our perceptions change if we could see what was not here in the beginning?


Can we perceive correctly if we cannot see both the beginning and the end, or the consummate?
If we could see the world as its creator sees it, would we see it differently?


Well, perhaps there was no creator. The universe exists by happenstance and is completely indifferent. But, isn’t that a perception too? How do you know that perception is correct? You can’t. It is a matter of choice, and choice is a matter of faith.


So, what then shall we choose? What shall we have faith in? Shall we choose nothing, or something?

You cannot not choose! If you choose to not choose you have made a choice. The question then becomes, what is the consequence of my choice?

The primary focus of the Christian should be on behavior, not on doctrine. It is behavior that dictates the doctrine, not vice versa.


To understand something at a deep level requires more than mere
intellectual appreciation. It requires an emotional impact.


The problem is not to act; we all have the power to act, but to act
with integrity.


Our past experience determines our perception, and our perception determines meaning and behavior. But does it determine credibility?
In other words, is it the truth?


We generally do not see the world as it is, but as we are.


If we so habitually misperceive and therefore misbehave, wouldn’t it make sense to transfer our perceptions to one who perceives correctly? And if we follow him honestly we will eventually come to perceive, and therefore behave correctly, as he does. But, in order to accomplish this something is expected of us: We must be honest, not only with him, but with ourselves.


We must first follow in order to become, then lead. In other words, we must first follow before we can be a leader.


Most of the world’s problems is not a problem of fact, but a problem of perception.


The worst counsel you can give a person who is feeling negative is to think positively.


Our lack of spiritual progress is often not due to lack of effort, but lack of proper perception.


What we often think is thinking is just perception.