“If we want to keep these freedoms, we may have to fight again. God forbid, but if we do, let’s always fight to win…Face the flag, son…and thank God it’s still there.” – John Wayne 

"Training is needed in order to love properly; and to be able to give happiness and joy, you must practice DEEP LOOKING directed toward the other person you love. Because if you do not understand this person, you cannot love properly. Understanding is the essence of love." - Thict Naht Hanh

Blissings, Ani 

"How can one not speak about war, poverty and inequality when people who suffer from these afflictions don't have a voice to speak?" - Isabel Allende

"Peace comes from being able to contribute the best that we have, and all that we are, toward creating a world that supports everyone. But it is also securing the space for others to contibute the best that they have and all that they are." - Hafsat Abiola

"Do every act of your life as if it were your last." - Marcus Aurelius

“To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.” - Christina Baldwin

Blissings, Ani 

"Miracles are the natural artwork of God/dess."  - APK

Blissings, Ani 

"Don't seek God in temples.  S/he is close to you.  S/he is within you." - Tolstoy

Blissings, Ani

“To meditate is to look deeply into the nature of things, including our own nature and the nature of the person in front of us.  When we see the true nature of that person, we discover his or her difficulties, suffering and anxieties. We can sit down, hold our partner’s hand, look deeply at him or her, and say, “Darling, do I understand you enough?  Do I water your seeds of suffering?  Do I water your seeds of joy?  Please tell me how I can love you better.”  If we say this from the bottom of our heart, he may begin to cry, and that’s a good sign.

True love includes the sense of responsibility, accepting the other person as he is, with all his strengths and weaknesses.  If we like only the best things in the person, that is not love.  We have to accept his or her weaknesses and bring our patience, understanding, and energy to help him transform.  The expression ‘long-term commitment’ helps us understand the word love.  In the context of true love, commitment can only be long-term.  ‘I want to love you.  I want to help you.  I want to care for you.  I want you to be happy.  I want to work for happiness.  But just for a few days.'  Does this make sense?”

- Thich Nhat Hanh, “Teachings on Love”

Blissings, Ani 

“Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.”

- Marianne Williamson

Blissings, Ani 

"In my ending is my beginning." - T. S. Eliot

Blissings, Ani 

"Love is the breath of life.  Breathe deeply, with a dancing heart."  - APK 

Blissings, Ani 

Giving love is always in season. So give daily....everyday...Jaylena

"I have spread my dreams beneath your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
- W.B. Yeats 

Blissings, Ani 

Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great.
Comte DeBussy-Rabutin

"All anyone wants is to be loved and accepted as s/he is." - Paul Ferrini

Blissings, Ani 

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."

- Carl Jung

Blissings, Ani 

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditonal love will have the final word in reality." -  Martin Luther King

Blissings, Ani

"I dream of things that never were and ask why not." - Robert F. Kennedy

Blissings, Ani 

"Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living."

-Bertrand Russell

Blissings, Ani

"The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love."

- Hubert Humphrey

Blissings, Ani 

"I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

- Martin Luther King

Blissings, Ani 

"Truth is a pathless land." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Blissings, Ani 

"A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood." 

Leo Rosten

"The way you speak to others can offer them joy, happiness, self-confidence, hope, trust, and enlightenment. Mindful speaking is a deep practice." - Thich Nhat Hanh

Blissings, Ani 

TY Jaylena! 

Blissings, Ani 

 ISN'T THIS THE TRUTH!...JAYLENA

How fabulous Lauren!  TY 

Blissings, Ani 

"When a woman tells the truth she is creating the great possibility for more truth around her."

- Adrienne Rich

Blissings, Ani 

Beautiful Ani and Victoria..Peace and love,Jaylena             The purpose of life is a life of purpose.
-- Robert Byrne

"We are not born all at once, but by bits.  The body first, and the spirit later..."-- Mary Antin

"Life is just a chance to grow a soul." - A. Powell Davies

Blissings, Ani 

Thomas TY 4 simple, heart-touching, truth. 

Blissings, Ani 

Thomas, Your insight  was beautifully expressed.Thank you..Peace and love, Jaylena

One interesting observation :

The Junk Yard Dog barks at you as you walk by.

But it is not the Junk Yard Dogs fault that he has spent his life chained to a post.

Love that Junk Yard Dog more than you love the others,

as much as that Junk Yard Dog will allow you to Love them,

for it is that dog, that needs your love the most, having been loved the least.

No one can make me Love them,

 but when I understand a Life, then I Love that Life,

So far, Every Life.

And... just as no one can make me Love them,

 so to,

 no one can make me stop Loving what I have come to KNOW, and therefore Love.

The Moral of my education :

To KNOW Life is to LOVE Life.

The rarest thing in the known universe.

- Thomas

When You Love Life,

Then Life Loves You back,

Because Life Knows,

What Life Needs.

- Thomas

"To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves--there lies the great, singular power of self-love."

- Joan Didion

Blissings, Ani 

"The choice of love is made, moment to moment, breath to breath." - APK

Blissings, Ani 

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round,
or listened to rain slapping the ground?

 

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight,
or gazed at the sun fading into the night?

You better slow down, don't dance so fast,
time is short, the music won't last.

Do you run through each day on the fly,
when you ask "How are you?", do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed,
with the next hundred chores running through your head?

You better slow down, don't dance so fast,
time is short, the music won't last.

Ever told your child, we'll do it tomorrow,
and in your haste, not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, let a friendship die,
'cause you never had time to call and say hi?

You better slow down, don't dance so fast,
time is short, the music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,
you miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
it's like an unopened gift thrown away.

Life isn't a race, so take it slower,
hear the music before your song is over.

This was a poem and not a quote but I thought quite inspiring for the topic....Jaylena

"If you see a friend without a smile, give her one of yours." - Anon

Blissings, Ani 

conqure yourself and you will conqure world.

Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive.  And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.  ~Harold Whitman

"Make Love, Not Plastic." - Anon

Blissings, Ani 

Every day is Earth Day.  ~Author Unknown

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." - Mother Teresa

Blissings, Ani 

"Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined."

- Bertrand Russell

Blissings, Ani

The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
~John Greenleaf Whittier, My Psalm

"Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine." - Thomas Jefferson

Blissings, Ani 

"Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself."

- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Blissings, Ani 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.

- John Keats, Endymion. Book I

Blissings, Ani 

Renew your passions daily.  ~Abbe Yeux-verdi


The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion.  ~Yves Saint Laurent

destruction and contruction both are happening in universal. everything is begins is to sure to be end. only thing we never see our own self beginning and end.

"People only see what they're prepared to see." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Blissings, Ani 

"To melt and be light a running brook that sings its melody to the night.  To know the pain of too much tenderness.  To be wounded by your own understanding of love.  And to bleed willingly and joyfully."

- Kahlil Gibran

Blissings, Ani 

"We can all be angels to one another. We can choose to obey the still small stirring within, the little whisper that says, 'Go. Ask. Reach out. Be an answer to someone's plea. You have a part to play. Have faith.' We can decide to risk that S/He is indeed there, watching, caring, cherishing us as we love and accept love. The world will be a better place for it. And wherever they are, the angels will dance."
- Joan Wester Anderson

Blissings, Ani 

"Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true." -Niels Bohr

"An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo

"Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order." - Virginia Woolf

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” - Yeshua

In these extreme times of transition, let us CREATE our new BEING with only the eyes, heart of deep compassionate love.  Let us allow ALL trespasses to be forgiven.  Let us bear a bold, beautiful and exquisite BEING, borne of love, light and laughter borne of the sweetest divine intention. 

Let us dance BLISS. 

BB, Ani 

1. “Whatever you create in your life you must first create in your imagination” - Tycho Photiou

"The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble." - Pascal

BB, Ani 

"Where there is faith, there is love; where there is love, there is peace; where there is peace, there is God; where there is God, there is bliss." - Sai Baba

BB, Ani 

"There is no end.  There is no beginning.  There is only the passion of life."  - Federico Fellini

BB, Ani 

"Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all."

-Emily Dickinson

Blissed be, Ani 

"The great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in this, that man and maid, freed of all false feelings and reluctances, will seek each other, not as opposites, but as brother and sister, as neighbors, and will come together as human beings." - Rainer Maria Rilke

Blissed be, Ani   

"We each are a light, and together, we illumine the world." - APK

...and the chocolate cake is yuuuummmmyyy, i bet.

BB, Ani

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.  Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams master the lessons we have learned as we have moved toward that dream. That's the point at which most people give up....Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."  - Paulo Coelho

BB, Ani 

"This very moment is a seed from which the flowers of tomorrow's happiness grow."  - Margaret Lindsey

BB, Ani 

Don't know if this is profound or juicy like the rest...but I like it.

"The only thing constant, is change."

Author unknown, but in the Jekyll and Hyde play

Said by Dr. Jekyll before the council of doctors

Bright Blessings,

Skye

yes freddie, HOW ABSOLUTELY TRUE...ty for your love.

"The success of love is in the loving - not in the results of loving." - Mother Teresa

The Self cannot be found in books.You have to find it yourself in yourself.

                    Ramana Maharishi

All in One ,One in All

Behave with others as you would with yourself

Look upon all the living beings as your bosom friends,for in all of them there resides one Soul.

All are but a part of that Universal Soul.

A person who believes that all are his soul mates and loves them all alike

never feels lonely.

The divine qualites of forgiveness,compassion and service will make him lovable in the eyes of all.

He will expereince intense joy throughout his life.

                                The Holy Vedas

kiss a child...

and embrace the sweet honey of innocence, know again love without conditions.

- APK  January 2008

bb, ani 

Give up all questions except one: ‘Who am I?’ After all,

 the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The ‘I am’ is

 are in reality. "

 - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

"BE THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD."

- Mahatma Gandhi

BB, Ani 

"Midnight but your forehead shines with dawn.  You dance as you come to me and curl by curl undo the dark." - Rumi

BB, Ani 

There is NO Way Out of Being. Being IS Everything, and No Thing. This. Is. It. Being IS. Being Life, Being Death, and That is all there is. No one gets That. The appearing manifest multiplicity - you and me and world - are in Reality,  One Being, Unicity, and there IS nothing but That....

"It's not things in themselves that trouble us but our opinion of things"   Epictetus   

"You are a spark of God's own fire." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Giving thanks for all graces,

Ani 

Alice came to a fork in the road.  "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

So true.  At times we tend to complicate our lives.

This quote has always appealed to me:

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old

Franz Kafka

'Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.'

--Epictetus                 

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another."

- Robert F. Kennedy, April 1968

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.  He who is devoid the power to forgive, is devoid the power to Love.

There is some good in the worst of us,and evil in the best of us.  When we discover this,we are less prone to hate our enemies.

--MLK Jr.

Blissed be, Annie 

Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.

Kahlil Kibran 1883-1931, Lebanese-born Poet, Philosopher, and Artist

Blissed be, Annie 

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."

- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Blissed be, Annie 

Hi all, I apologize for having been so absent after joining this wonderful group.....I found a quote I'd like to share, though....

'Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is.'

Peace, Usdi Gadu

How lovely, how very lovely and so very true! 

Blissed be, Annie 

"Without change there would be no butterflies."