From Illusions

From One

An easy life doesn't teach us anything. In the end it's the learning that matters: what we've learned and how we've grown.

We are each given a block of marble when we begin a lifetime, and the tools to shape it into sculpture... We can drag it behind us untouched, we can pound it into gravel, we can shape it into glory.

Any powerful idea is absolutely fascinating and absolutely useless until we choose to use it.

From The Bridge Across Forever

"The opposite of loneliness, it's not togetherness. It is intimacy."

* * *

"Next to God, love is the word most mangled in every language. The highest form of regard between two people is friendship, and when love enters, friendship dies."

* * *

“There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.”

* * *

"The only thing that shatters dreams is compromise."

* * *

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

* * *

“That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.”

"You either plan for what's ahead or you fight with what you've got: worry is a waste of time." ? Running From Safety

* * *
“All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment.” ? Running From Safety
* * *
“Life does not require us to be consistent, cruel, patient, helpful, angry, rational, thoughtless, loving, rash, open-minded, neurotic, careful, rigid, tolerant, wasteful, rich, downtrodden, gentle, sick, considerate, funny, stupid, healthy, greedy, beautiful, lazy, responsive, foolish, sharing, pressured, intimate, hedonistic, industrious, manipulative, insightful, capricious, wise, selfish, kind or sacrificed. Life does, however, require us to live with the consequences of our choices.” ? Running From Safety
* * *
“Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know.” ? Running From Safety
* * *
“Good and evil are not what our parents told us, not what our church tells us, or our country, not what anybody tells us! All of us decide good and evil for ourselves, automatically, by choosing what we want to do!” ? Running From Safety
* * *
"With every choice you risk the life you would have had; with every decision, you lose it." ? Running From Safety
* * *
"Whatever We Hold in Thought Comes True in Our Experience; Like Attracts Like; we experiment with the Law of Changing Appearances, to make our outer world reflect our inner."  ? Running From Safety
* * *
"Avoid problems and you'll never be the one who overcame them." ? Running From Safety
* * *
"...not being known doesn't stop truth from being true" ? There's No Such Place As Far Away

"Reminders for the Advanced Soul"?

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.

Perspective - Use It or Lose It.

Remember where you came from, where you're going...

You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them.

You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.

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.

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a false messiah.

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.

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.

Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.

A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion....this is the place to go now.
But the sky knows the reason and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.

You are never given a wish without being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours.

If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.

The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums.
It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.

Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.

In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.

The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, "I've got responsibilities."

Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.
And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.

Everything above may be wrong!

Too New age for me

If you turned to this page, you're forgetting that what is going on around you is not reality. Think about that.

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.