What a long, strange trip it's been!!!

"Religion is for people who fear Hell; spirituality is for people who've been to Hell."
~~~ Wynonna Judd

Jesus man! you do look for acid! acid finds you when *it* thinks you're ready. - Hunter S.Thompson

The idea is that when we become too closely bound up with this matter, we descend to its level, much to our own injury.  This brings our attention to the great precept of the Indian pundits and masters-vairagya, meaning complete detachment from the world, while still living in it.  Do not allow it to cling to you.  Do not allow yourself to be drawn into the mire of it.  Keep the self above worldly entanglements, like the lotus flower, which holds its beautiful head above the muddy waters, even though its feet are buried in them.  This is the wu-lei of the Chinese sages, the doctrine of the non-assertion of self.

He who looks for rewards will become a slave to such rewards. - Lao Tse

Aum, the one-syllabled eternal, reciting, thinking upon me, he who goeth forth, abandoning the body, he goeth on the highest path. - Krishna (Gita VIII:13)

Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti. - "That which exists is one; sages call it by various names" 10,000 years ago, Veda

There are two things emphasized by Jesus which are also stressed by all the great Masters.  They are: 
1) The vital importance of Love, without which there can be neither wisdom nor religion;
2) The immanence of the kingdom of heaven, which is to be found only within man himself.
 
Multitudes of people are like the million dewdrops in which the one sun is reflected.  Untold millions of them, but only one sun.  So is our relation to the eternal One.

"It is one of the saddest aspects of religious history that the original Jesus had to disappear to give place to an ecclesiastical icon.  The historical religion by that name was not founded by Jesus Christ.  It was formulated and given to the world by St. Paul, an educated Jew.  He was schooled in the Hebrew Law, also in the Neo-Platonism of the Alexandrian school.  It was Paul who gave to the world the Christian theology.  His central idea was based upon the old Judiac system of sacrifice, and that itself was handled down from time immemorial, a bloody stream that has colored all history.  When the new religion was formulated and given out, it was but little more than an allegorical metamorphosis of Judiaism.  Jesus was now made the sacrificial offering, 'the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.'  It was his blood that was to take away the the sins of the world.  Thus the real mission of Jesus, which was to lead his disciples to realize the kingdom of heaven within themselves, was turned into a bloody tragedy.  The whole system was made into a complicated mixture of spiritual precepts and material practices nailed to the cross.  The lofty ideals of Jesus were dragged down to the grossly material ceremonies of the sacrificial altar.  Human blood was mixed with love and spiritual precept.

Believe not that men consists solely of flesh, skin and veins.  The real part of man is his soul. and the things just mentioned are only outward coverings.  They are only veils, not the real man.  When man departs this life, he divests himself of all the veils which cover him. - Zohar

Religious prejudice is always blind and full of hate.  The capital crime of all history, in the eyes of the people, has been the preaching and the practising of any doctrine subversive of the established institutions.  It is safe to say that more people have been murdered for that one offense than for all others put together, including executions for crime.  And do you know the psychology of this procedure?  Vanity.  The 'Holy Inquisitors' imagine themselves to be very godlike, very saintly, because they are defending their own religion.  But in fact, they exhibit the most fiendish qualities, the exact antithesis of saintliness.  There is nothing more devilish than a thrist for blood, fired by a religious zeal.  If any man wonders how human beings can commit such crimes while exhibiting religious zeal, let him be reminded again and again that religious and morality have no relation to each other-none at all.  It is only genuine spirituality, as taught by the great Masters, which becomes the very soul of pure ethics.

The opposite of loneliness, it's not togetherness. It is intimacy. - Richard Bach 

The Best way to pay for a lovely moment is to
enjoy it.

The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
Think about these once in awhile, and watch your answers change. - Richard Bach

"The works that I do, ye may do also."

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
 ~Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty. - the Gospel of Thomas

We should love nothing with the desire to possess it. - Lao Tse

When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.
--Rabindranath Tagore

They said unto him, "How shall we then, enter the kingdom?" Jesus said unto them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside, and when you make the male and the female one and the same; then will you enter the kingdom."
~The Gospel of Thomas

The heart itself
is only a small vessel,
yet dragons are there, and lions,
there are poisonous beasts,
and all the treasures of evil,
there are rough and uneven roads,
there are precipes;
but there too is God and the angels,
life is there, and the Kingdom,
there too is light, and there the apostles and heavenly cities,
and treasures of grace.
All things lie within
that little space.

-Makarios the Great 
                
      Emitte lucem el veritatem
- send out light and truth.

The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it. Moliere

There is nothing better or more necessary than love. - John of the Cross

A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg even if you are half-cracked.  ~Author Unknown


Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, and teachers.

    

 
The tao that can be described
is not the eternal Tao.                                                      
The name that can be spoken
is not the eternal Name.
The nameless is the boundary of Heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of creation.
Freed from desire, you can see the hidden mystery.
By having desire, you can only see what is visibly real.
Yet mystery and reality
emerge from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness born from darkness.
The beginning of all understanding.

He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know

He who knows that enough is
enough will always have enough.

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.

 When you make peace with authority,
you become authority.
The old get old
And the young get stronger
May take a week
And it may take longer
They got the guns
But we got the numbers
Gonna win, yeah
We're takin' over
Come on!

"Five to One" on the album Waiting for the Sun (1968) - Jim Morrison

Here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that Love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect. - Siddhartha, Herman Hesse

It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing. -Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1011

I'd rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world. - George Washington

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a man-eating tiger.
Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses. - Confusius

A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.  - Guy Fawkes