Year 2004 Archive
Here we archive
"Here's A Thought" items from the year 2004.
To return to the current year, click here.
Addional years' archives are also accessible from the
same page.
December 25, 2004
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
December 19, 2004
If you can't control your emotional state, you must be addicted to it.
Joe Dispenza
quoted in What is Enlightenment?
December 12, 2004
Verily never
Will God change the condition
Of a people until they
Change it themselves
(With their own souls).
The Qur'an
13:11
December 5, 2004
The further you advance, the further the horizon recedes, so the secret treasure keeps on moving further and further away. It's a very curious thing, but we're creating the secret. It's not there. It's like the future -- we create it.
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
quoted in What is Enlightenment?
November 28, 2004
There is no one, no matter how wise he is, who has not in his youth said things or done things that are so unpleasant to recall in later life that he would expunge them entirely from his memory if that were possible.
November 21, 2004
There are books in which the footnotes or comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin are more interesting than the text. The world is one of these books.
November 14, 2004
Always remember that you are absolutely unique.
Just like everyone else.
November 7, 2004
A faultless man I cannot ever hope to meet; the most I can hope for is to meet a man of fixed principles. Yet where all around I see Nothing pretending to be Something, and Emptiness pretending to be Fullness, and Penury pretending to be Affluence, even a man of fixed principles will be hard to find.
October 31, 2004
Before long thou wilt raise
Thine eyes and the Supreme Good thou wilt see;
Hence thou must sharpen and make clear thy gaze.
Tu se' si presso a l'ultima salute
... che tu dei
Aver le luci tue chiare e acute.
Dante
Alighieri
The
Divine Comedy
(Paradise
XXII 124)
October 24, 2004
Here is my secret. It is very simple. One can see rightly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eyes.
Voici mon secret. Il est trés simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
Antoine de
Saint-Exupery
in The
Little Prince (Le Petit Prince)
October 17, 2004
All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion.
Ram Dass
in One
Liners - A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life
October 10, 2004
Look back at the hour that has passed, as if it was the last hour for you on the earth and that you have just acknowledged that you have died. Ask yourself, were you satisfied at that hour?
And now reanimate yourself again, and set up the aim for yourself. In the next hour (if you are lucky to live one more) try to extract from life a little more than you did in the last hour. Define where and when you should have been more aware, and where you should have put more inner fire.
October 3, 2004
If you do not make it empty,
how are you going to fill it up again?
Neem Karoli Baba
quoted in By His
Grace
If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.
September 19, 2004
Peace is knocking at your door. Why don't you answer it?
September 12, 2004
O my God, my concern and my desire in this world, is that I should remember Thee above all the things of this world, and in the next that out of all who are in that world, I should meet with Thee alone.
Rabbia
in Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill
September 5, 2004
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
August 29, 2004
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
Francis
Bacon
The Advancement of
Learning
August 15, 2004
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
August 8, 2004
What you are looking for is what is looking.
August 1, 2004
You have great regard and love for the Ganges and all the holy rivers, but you do not live on the banks of the Ganges. You live by a small stream: your house is there, you bathe and wash your clothing there, just as you would in the Ganges. But have this attitude: as the Ganges has come from Him, so also has this stream come from Him. It is the same water exactly; it is also holy. It will do the same thing.
Neem Karoli Baba,
quoted in By His
Grace
July 25, 2004
He it is that desireth in thee,
and He it is that is desired.
July 18, 2004
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
July 11, 2004
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
William Arthur Ward
see also here
July 4, 2004
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
God is strong, and has a good Mother.
Ta Dia laider agus ta maither mhaith agat.
Irish proverb, offered by Hugh Curran
at University of Maine
See also Theophyle
June 19, 2004
I am what the world is doing right now.
June 13, 2004
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing;
God alone never changes.
Patient endurance
obtains all things.
Who possess God,
Nothing is wanting;
God alone suffices.
June 6, 2004
How difficult could it be to be kind to somebody?
The movie Clara's Heart
May 30, 2004
Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
Norman
Cousins
(See also here)
May 23, 2004
It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.
May 16, 2004
I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free;
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.
Civilla D. Martin & Charles H. Gabriel
May 9, 2004
One must have for God the yearning of a child. The child sees nothing but confusion when his mother is away. You may try to cajole him by putting a sweetmeat in his hand; but he will not be fooled. He only says, "No, I want to go to my mother". One must feel such yearning for God.
Sri Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
May 2, 2004
Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.
April 25, 2004
Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.
Dogen Zenji
April 18, 2004
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
April 11, 2004
From the unreal lead me to the real!
From darkness lead me to light!
From death lead me to immortality!
Upanishads
Brihadaranyaka 1.3.28
April 4, 2004
You are never too old to be what you might have been.
George
Eliot
(Mary Ann Evans)
March 28, 2004
People change and forget to tell each other.
March 21, 2004
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
March 14, 2004
What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse.
March 7, 2004
What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.
February 29, 2004
All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
February 22, 2004
I said I love you, and that's forever
And this I promise from the heart
I could not love you any better
I love you just the way you are.
Billy Joel
in "Just The Way You Are"
February 15, 2004
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
February 8, 2004
Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No -- not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping
February 1, 2004
As we mature individually and as a species, we become less dependent on religious or cultural dictates and more capable of deciding for ourselves what is right and true.
The
Mountain Astrologer
August 2003
January 25, 2004
Spirit's all around you everywhere,
But you've got to open up your heart.
January 18, 2004
Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.
January 11, 2004
The universe in which we live is strangely and wonderfully accommodating. There is war for the warlike. There is peace for the peaceful. There is faith for the faithful. There is plenty for the plentiful. There is happiness for the joyful. There is a song for the singer; there is love for the lover; there is God for the worshipper. Each of us makes his own sunrise or his own sunset. Each soars or crawls as his thought decrees. He walks uprightly in fearlessness, or bending meekly before every pretender to his throne. Life is a comedy to the optimist and a tragedy to the pessimist. No loving heart but finds its mate. No hostile heart but finds its enemy. No fear but finds its devil; no faith but finds its God.
Unknown
January 4, 2004
If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you. The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe, would appear on the mirror of your perception.
