Ponder This
Posted on April 30th, 2008 by The Balsamean
Out of the woods we came, and to the woods we must return, at frequent intervals, if we are to redeem ourselves from the vanities of civilization.
- Paul Jamison, Preface to The Adirondack Reader, 2nd Ed. 1994
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
- Henry David Thoreau, in the essay Walking
The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullness when we keep our feet firmly on the physical. "Earth is His footing," says the Upanishad whenever it images the Self that manifests in the universe.
- Sri Aurobindo, in The Life Divine, pp. 15-16
A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends, even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
- Job 6:14
Don't walk behind me
I may not lead
Don't walk ahead of me
I may not follow
Just walk beside me
And be my friend.
- Unknown (often attributed to Albert Camus)
A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
- Proverbs 18:24
If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!
- Ecclesiastes 4:10
Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.
- Mark Twain
There is not anything that came from nothing. There is not anything that becomes nothing. All there is became, and becomes. I grow from countless causes into countless results. I do not live. Life lives me. I am life.
- The Balsamean (borrowing the statements about "nothing" from Thich Nhat Hanh)
Earth, my mother
Sky, my father
Water, my nature
Air, my breath
Light, my vision
Dark, my peace
Sound, my ears
Silence, my power
These are all me
I am made of all
That is not me
- The Balsamean
Our person is the same [as a tree] as far as our body and our mind - we have roots going down deep. If we just look at our emotions [branch tips and leaves] we feel very feeble, frail. But if we can come back to our roots, we will no longer be the victims of the storm.
- Thich Nhat Hanh, from a dharma talk on February 19, 1998 on the Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness - Mindfulness of Body and Feelings
The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.
- Jesus, in Matthew 13:6, 20
We need roots to be able to stand straight and grow strong.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
... it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.
- Romans 11:18
For there is hope for a tree, when it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its shoots will not fail. Though its roots grow old in the ground and its stump dies in the dry soil, at the scent of water it will flourish and put forth sprigs like a plant.
- Job 14:7-15
For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit.
- Jeremiah 17:8
So it was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches, for its roots extended to many waters.
- Ezekiel 31:7
Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble.
- Isaiah 40:24
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does, he prospers.
- Psalms 1:1-3
The unexamined life is not worth living.
- Socrates
True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness. It is to be who you are, to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on nothing outside itself. It is felt not as a passing experience but as an abiding presence. In theistic language, it is to "know God" - not as something outside you but as your innermost essence. True salvation is to know yourself as an inescapable part of the timeless and formless One Life from which all that exists derives its being.
- Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now, P. 146
My only me is God.
- Meister Eckhart
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
- Old Proverb
Consider the lilies of the field. They neither toil nor spin. Yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed such as these.
- Jesus
Do not be anxious for tomorrow ...
- Jesus
The man who travels alone can start today, but he who travels with others must wait until they are ready.
- Henry David Thoreau
In a confrontation between a rock and a stream, the stream always wins - not through strength, but through persistence.
- H. Jackson Brown
The greater the apparent disorder of the materials offered or the apparent disparateness, even to irreconcilable opposition, of the elements that have to be utilized, the stronger is the spur, and it drives towards a more subtle and puissant order than can normally be the result of a less difficult endeavor.
- Sri Aurobindo, in The Life Divine, p. 8 (Book I, Chapter I)
One who says, "It cannot be done," should not interrupt one who is doing.
- Chinese Proverb
One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
His response was a question: "Where do you want to go?"
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.
- James Bryant Conant
"What time is it?"
The oak tree or the eagle would be bemused by such a question.
"What time?" they would ask. "Well, of course it's now. The time is now. What else is there?"
- Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now, p. 34
Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your life."
- Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now, p. 35-36
That which you resist you create. That which you accept, you transform.
- Source unknown.
There is one certain criterion by which you can measure your success in this practice: the degree of peace that you feel within.
- Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now, p. 21
Fear not; it is I.
- Jesus
You gain strength and confidence by every experience where you really stop to look fear in the face. ... You must do the thing you cannot do.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Yes, fear creates imaginary terrors - even if there is real danger, fear does not help; it clouds the intelligence, takes away presence of mind and prevents one seeing the right thing to do. Let the Force at work increase, till it clears out the mixed consciousness altogether.
- Sri Aurobindo, in The Integral Yoga, p. 309
Expect nothing. Be ready to accept anything.
- The Balsamean
... There is the Reality of a Being and Consciousness, a Self of all things, one and eternal. All beings are united in that One Self and Spirit but divided by a certain separativity of consciousness, an ignorance of their true Self and Reality in the mind, life and body.
- Sri Aurobindo, in The Integral Yoga, p.3
We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or means towards the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose.
- Sri Aurobindo, in The Integral Yoga, p. 8
This is a slow and difficult process; the road is long and it is hard to establish even the necessary basis. The old existing nature resists and obstructs and difficulties arise one after another and repeatedly till they are overcome. It is therefore necessary to be sure that this is the path to which one is called before one finally decides to tread it.
- Sri Aurobindo, in The Integral Yoga, p. 10
It takes thirty good leaves to make one apple. So, remember your sangha.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Time, time, time
See what's become of me
While I look around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please
I look around now
The leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Oh, seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me
At any convenient time
While looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme
Drinking my vodka and lime
- Simon & Garfunkel (as found in memory ... uncertain of the accuracy)
Be intent upon the perfection of the present day.
- William Law
The future comes one day at a time.
- Dean Acheson
Let us then, be up and doing with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
- Duc de La Rochefoucauld
My advice to you is to get married: if you find a good wife, you will be happy; if not, you will become a philosopher.
- Socrates
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
- Joseph Addison
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
- Joseph Addison
I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields absolutely free from all worldly engagements. ... When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shop-keepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them - as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon - I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.
- Henry David Thoreau in the essay, Walking
It is because we don't know who we are, because we are unaware that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, that we behave in the generally silly, the often insane, the sometimes criminal ways that are so characteristically human. We are saved, we are liberated and enlightened, by perceiving the hitherto unperceived good that is already within us, by returning to our eternal Ground and remaining where, without knowing it, we have always been.
- Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy, 1944
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
- Henry David Thoreau in Walden
For every soldier killed in a modern war, nine civilians are killed.
- Jimmy Carter, heard in a C-SPAN interview
See: The Carter Center
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead
Beyond the element of giving, the active character of love becomes evident in the fact that it always implies certain basic elements, common to all forms of love. These are care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
- Erich Fromm in The Art of Loving, 1956
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
-from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, 1923
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost in The Road Not Taken
Love is a force. It is not a result; it is a cause. It is not a product; it produces. It is a power, like money, or steam, or electricity. It is valueless, unless you can give something else by means of it.
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Complaints make conditions worse.
- Emma Curtis Hopkins in Scientific Christian Mental Practice
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
- "First Lady of the World" Eleanor Roosevelt
If it be true that Spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is secret God, then the manifestation of the divine in himself and the realization of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to man upon earth.
- Sri Aurobindo in The Life Divine
This is my last message to you: in sorrow, seek happiness.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov, Chapter 7
If I didn't know better, I'd say I did.
- The Balsamean
