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November 2002
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November 1st 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Fields of Consciousness
Through forgiveness, which essentially means recognizing the insubstantiality of the past and allowing the present moment to be as it is, the miracle of transformation happens not only within but without. A silent space of intense presence arises both in you and around you.
Whoever or whatever enters that field of consciousness will be affected by it, sometimes visibly and immediately, sometimes at deeper levels with visible changes appearing at a later time.
You disolve discord, heal pain, dispel unconsciousness -- without 'doing' anything -- simply by 'being' and holding that frequency of intense presence.
Eckhard Tolle -- The Power of Now We already know the secret: The Father is in me, and I am in Him, and we are in each other.... Now without any words and without any thoughts, we must regularly go within, if only for half a minute, to acknowledge the Presence, to feel the divine Energy, the divine Spark, and so live that all coming within range of our consciousness feel in some way the influence of Infinite Grace upon them. Joel S Goldsmith
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 2nd 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Imprisoned Splendour Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fullness; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception -- which is truth. A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error: and, to KNOW, Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without. Robert Browning We are like an oil lamp with God the flame within us. His light radiates from the centre outwards, transfusing the oil, shining through the glass container and illuminating the niche. The Koran
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 3rd 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Your Life
Forget about your life situation for a while and pay more attention to your 'life'. Your life situation exists in time -- your life is now. Your life situation is mind-stuff -- your life is real. Find the "narrow gate that leads to life." It is called the Now.
Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems -- most life situations are -- but find out if you have any problem at this moment. Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now. Do you have a problem now?
When you are full of problems, there is no room for anything new to enter, no room for a solution. So whenever you can, make some room, create some space, so that you find the life underneath your life situation.
Eckhart Tolle -- The Power of Now
Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.
Sören Kierkegaard
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 4th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Being Alive
I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable ... but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
Agatha Christie
From three to four, he planned to stand perfectly still and think of what it was like to be alive.
E B White -- of Wilbur the Pig, in 'Charlotte's Web'
If it were possible to talk to the unborn, one could never explain to them how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real.
Jacques Barzun
Being can be 'felt' as the ever-present 'I am' that is beyond name and form. To feel and thus to know that you 'are' and to abide in that deeply rooted state is enlightenment, is the truth (reality) that Jesus says will make you free.
Eckhart Tolle
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 5th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Longevity
A 1991 survey of non-institutionalised centenarians revealed that they all had four qualities in common that seemed to account for their longevity.
1) They consistently displayed a positive mental attitude and a general air of optimism.
2) They had a deep commitment to something apart from themselves -- a faith or cause they considered important or worthwhile. They pursued interests and goals rather than comforts and pleasures.
3) They kept themselves physically active and took regular exercise.
4) They were able to cope successfully with loss (and change). They didn't let anything 'break their heart'. Aging people lose peers, siblings, partners and sometimes children. They must adapt to social, political and economic changes as well as changes in their environment etc.
PSS
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 6th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Finding Truth
To find Truth ... we must break through the outward shell of words and phrases which house it, and by experience and practice discover the 'inward beauty, life and loveliness of Truth'.
Rufus M Jones
Let us remember that spiritual truth can be likened to a checking account (or a debit card). We cannot draw out more than we have deposited. Truth is infinite, but demonstrated truth only in proportion to the effort, the devotion, the love, the labor, and the sacrifice that we put into attaining the realization of it. It takes effort; it takes work.
It is a labor of love; and, therefore, the person who does not love it and the person who does not labor with his or her love will not draw out any more than the little time, work, effort, or money he or she has put into it. Studying, reading, meditating, pondering, hearing -- these are all steps which ultimately lead us to say, "Whereas I was blind, now I see."
Joel S Goldsmith
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 7th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Happiness When I looked outside right into the depth of nature and God, then I was happy, really happy ... so long as I have that happiness here, the joy in nature, health and a lot more besides, all the while one has that, one can always recapture happiness. Riches can all be lost, but that happiness in your own heart can only be veiled, and it will still bring you happiness again, as long as you live. As long as you can look fearlessly up into the heavens, as long as you know that you are pure within and that you will still find happiness. Anne Frank
Happiness is permanent. It is always there. What comes and goes is unhappiness. If you identify with what comes and goes, you will be unhappy. If you identify with what is permanent and always there, you are happiness itself.
Poonjaji
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 8th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Let It Happen
Life just IS. You have to flow with it. Give yourself to the moment. Let it happen.
Jerry Brown
Use your senses fully. Be where you are. Look around. Just look, don't interpret. See the light, shapes, colors, textures, Be aware of the silent presence of each thing. Be aware of the space that allows everything to be. Listen to the sounds; don't judge them. Listen to the silence underneath the sounds.
Touch something -- anything -- and feel and acknowledge its Being. Observe the rhythm of your breathing; feel the air flowing in and out, feel the life energy inside your body. Allow everything to be, within and without. Allow the ''isness" of all things. Move deeply into the Now.
You are leaving behind the deadening world of mental abstraction, of time. You are getting out of the insane mind that is draining you of life energy, just as it is slowly poisoning and destroying the Earth. You are awakening out of the dream of time into the present.
Eckhart Tolle -- The Power of Now
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 9th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Follow the Stream of Love
For silence is not God, nor speaking; fasting is not God, nor eating; solitude is not God nor company; nor any other pairs of opposites. He is hidden between them and cannot be found by anything your soul does, but only by the love of your heart. The Cloud of Unknowing
He may not be known by reason, He may not be gotten by thought, nor concluded by understanding; but He may be loved and chosen with the true lovely will of thine heart ... such a blind shot with the sharp dart of longing love may never fail (to find God).
The Cloud of Unknowing
Thou hast but to follow the stream of Love, the Fountain of the Soul, if thou wouldst be led to that Sea which is the confluence of all the waters of Life, of all Truth, of all Goodness, of all Joy, of all Beauty and Blessedness.
Peter Sterry -- 1683
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 10th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Love Made Visible
Service is love made visible.
Anonymous
In an engine room, it's impossible to look into the great boiler and see how much water it contains. But running up beside it is a tiny glass tube, which serves as a gauge. As the water stands in the little tube, so it stands in the great boiler. When the tube is half full, the boiler is half full; when the tube is empty, the boiler is empty. Your love for God can be measured the same way. The way you love other people is the measure of your love for God.
Source unknown
When an individual turns to God desiring to serve Him, God directs his or her attention to the world and its need.
Emil Brunner
Let us love Him better for the love we bear each other.
William Booth
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 11th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Unknown Sin
No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.
George Macdonald
Selfishness is the great unknown sin. No selfish person ever thought himself selfish.
Anonymous
God is love, and the ability to love is inborn in every living creature, most especially in human beings. it is only right therefore that the Lover who has given us life and love itself should also receive love from us. God's love is creative and selfless, giving itself for the joy and benefit of creation. If we do not love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and if we do not love others freely and selflessly, then the love within us loses its divine character and turns to selfishness. Love then becomes a curse. ironically, those who are selfish end up destroying themselves.
Sadhu Sundar Singh
No one is happy or free who lives only for himself. Joy in living comes from immersion in something one recognises to be bigger, better, worthier, more enduring than he himself is. True happiness and true freedom come from squandering one's self for a purpose.
Carl McGeehon
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 12th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Not a Means to Gain an End
Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their cow-for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage. Indeed, I tell you the truth, any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost Truth.
Meister Eckhart
Some seekers are drawn not to God, but to the suprernatural phenomenon that sometimes accompanies spiritual growth. Such a seeker is like someone who wants to marry a rich man or woman because of the riches the person possesses, and not out of a genuine love for the person in question. The act of coveting supernatural experiences causes the seeker's love for God to become less pure.
Anonymous
Whoever seeks God as a means toward desired ends will not find God. The mighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, will not be one of many treasures, not even the chief of all treasures. He will be all in all or He will be nothing. God will not be used.
A W Tozer
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 13th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Taxation
The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.
Jean Baptiste Colbert (attrib.) c 1665
Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents?
Peg Bracken
It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them.
Tiberius Caesar
People want just taxes more than they want lower taxes. They want to know that every man is paying his proportionate share according to his wealth.
Will Rogers
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 14th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Life That Never Ends
The truest end of life is to know the life that never ends.
William Penn
If we ask ourselves what is life, in its reality, we know that it is not simply existence, that existence which we share with plants and animals. The life of the flower is an expression of vegetable existence, and the life of the animal is the expression of instinctive existence, but when we talk about human life we mean something more than that. It is not something that has its beginning and end in our physical being.
Human life is the expression of a spiritual existence, which we know has its glory in spiritual values and in spiritual beauty. 'In the way of righteousness is life', not in the way of riches or prosperity or health or happiness, but in the way of righteousness which is revealed to be nothing else than the purity of love.
Father Andrew
Grow in the increase of God ... Live in the life of God and feel it ... take heed of being hurried with many thoughts; but live in that which goes over them all.
George Fox
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 15th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Art of Medicine
We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession.
George Bernard Shaw
Most people think that medical care is good for you. The fact is that some medical care is good for you, a great deal is irrelevant and, unfortunately, some of it is harmful.
Lester Breslow
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Voltaire
A wise physician is a John Baptist, who recognises that his only mission is to prepare the way for a greater than himself -- Nature.
Arthur S Hardy
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 16th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Your Real Body
Treat your body like a temple, not a woodshed. The mind and the body work together. Your body needs to be a good support system for the mind and the spirit. If you take good care of it, your body can take you wherever you want to go, with the power and strength and energy and vitality you will need to get there.
E James Rohn
What you perceive as a dense physical structure called the body, which is subject to disease, old age, and death, is not ultimately real -- is not you. It is a misperception of your essential reality that is beyond birth and death, and is due to the limitations of your mind, which, having lost touch with Being, creates the body as evidence of its illusory belief in saparation and to justify its state of fear.
But do not turn away from the body, for within that symbol of impermanence, limitation and death, that you perceive as the illusory creation of your mind is concealed the splendor of your essential and immortal reality. Do not turn your attention elsewhere in your search for the Truth, for it is nowhere else to be found but within your body.
Eckhart Tolle -- The Power of Now
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 17th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Fruit of Love and Service
I do not know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know – the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
Albert Schweitzer
Happiness is the legitimate fruitage of love and service. Set happiness before you as an end, no matter in what guise of wealth, or fame, or oblivion even, and you will not attain it. But renounce it and seek the pleasure of God, and that instant is the birth of your own.
Arthur S Hardy
God's will and our highest personal good are that we be holy and useful. Nor can these two be separated. The holy person will be the useful person. And the curious outcome of it is that he or she is apt to be the happy person also.
W T Purkiser
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 18th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Life's Illusions
I've looked at life from both sides now, From win and lose and still somehow It's life's illusions I recall -- I really don't know life at all.
Joni Michell
The illusion that we are separate from one another is an optical delusion of our consciousness.
Albert Einstein
Joseph Roux once said, "Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than of wisdom acquired." From spiritual experience, we could also confess, "A deeper understanding of Life, together with the peace, joy and love of which there is no opposite, are experienced only as, and to the extent that, we awaken out of our illusionary state of unconsciousness."
PPS
Attachment is a manufacturer of illusions and whoever wants reality ought to be detached.
Simone Weil
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 19th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Why Sleep Renews
I always went to bed at least for one hour as early as possible in the afternoon. By this means I was able to press a day and a half's work into one. Nature had not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning to midnight without the refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it lasts only twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all vital forces.
Winston Churchill
Sleep is the indispensable condition of physical health and mental sanity. It is in sleep that our body repairs the damage caused by the day's work and the day's amusements; in sleep that the vix medicatrix naturae overcomes our disease; in sleep that our conscious mind finds some respite from the cravings and aversions, the fears, anxieties and hatreds, the planning and calculating which drive it during waking hours to the brink of nervous exhaustion and sometimes beyond. Many of us are chronically sick and more or less far gone in neurosis. That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed of all natural graces, sleep.
Aldous Huxley
You take a journey into the Unmanifested every night when you enter the phase of deep dreamless sleep. You merge with the Source. You draw from it the vital energy that sustains you for a while when you return to the manifested, the world of separate forms. This energy is much more vital than food: "Man does not live by bread alone."
Eckhart Tolle -- The Power of Now
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 20th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Circumstances
We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance.
Benjamin Disraeli
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
George Bernard Shaw
It is our relation to circumstances that determines their influence over us. The same wind that carries one vessel into port may blow another offshore.
Christian Bovee
You cannot always control circumstances. But you can control your own thoughts.
Charles E Popplestone
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 21st 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Controlling Our Attitude
It is ironic that one of the few things in this life over which we have total control is our attitudes, and yet most of us live our entire life behaving as though we had no control whatsoever.
E James Rohn
Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, "This is the real me," and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
William James
A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds, it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change.
Earl Nightingale
Maintaining positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Herm Albright
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 22nd 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Be Courageous
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Courage in fighting is by no means the only form, nor perhaps even the most important. There is courage in facing poverty, courage in facing derision, courage in facing the hostility of one's own herd. In these, the bravest soldiers are often lamentably deficient. And above all there is the courage to think calmly and rationally in the face of danger, and to control the impulse of panic fear or panic rage.
Bertrand Russell
It is a fine thing to face machine guns for immortality and a medal, but isn't it a fine thing, too, to face calumny, injustice and loneliness for the truth which makes men free?
H L Mencken
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 23rd 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Give it Your Best Shot
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
Dale Carnegie
Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail their failure must be but a challenge to others.
Amelia Earhart — in her last letter to her husband, 1937.
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
Beverly Sills
Give life your best. At all times and in all circumstances, always give your best in whatever you do. It does not matter in what place (in the race) you finish if you gave life your best. Likewise, no matter in what place you do finish, it doesn't matter if it is not your best. When you give life your best, there is no need for apologies or excuses, so go ahead-give life your best!
Brian Cavanaugh
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 24th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Humble Service
Jesus taught a lot about service by washing his disciples' feet. In our highly urban culture where we wear closed shoes and socks and drive in automobiles, washing feet is not an especially effective way to express service. We read about what Jesus did; we get the basic insight that it is important to serve others and then we try to interpret that in our culture. Maybe we read to an old person or mow somebody's lawn. For me, 'washing feet' might be to prepare coffee for my wife each morning.
Richard Foster
The highest service may be prepared for and done in the humblest surroundings. In silence, in waiting, in obscure, unnoticed offices, in years of uneventful, unrecorded duties, the Son of God grew and waxed strong.
Inscription in the Chapel of Stanford University
The service of the fruit is precious, the service of the flower is sweet, but let my service be the service of the leaves in its shade of humble devotion.
Rabindranath Tagore
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 25th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Failure Happens
The down cycle is absolutely essential for spiritual realization. You must have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very success became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be failure.
Failure lies concealed in every success, and success in every failure. In this world, which is to say on the level of form, everybody "fails" sooner or later, of course, and every achievement eventually comes to naught. All forms are important.
You can still be active and enjoy manifesting and creating new forms and circumstances, but you won't be identified with them. You do not need them to give you a sense of self. They are not your life -- only your life situation.
Eckhart Tolle -- The Power of Now
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 26th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Cheese Please
Milk is rendered immortal in cheese.
Enoch Powell
An apple-pie without some cheese Is like a kiss without a squeeze. Old English Rhyme
The Moon's made of cheese someone told me So I went-and was staggered to see, A mouse on a bike, Who said, "Which would you like? Camembert, Cheddar, Edam or Brie?"
Anonymous Limerick
The (great) poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
G K Chesterton
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 27th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Bedroom Drama
People who snore always fall asleep first.
Anonymous
I said, Baby! Baby! Please don't snore so loud ... You jest a little bit o' woman, baby, Sound like a great big crowd.
Langston Hughes
It was reported, that in Australia, seventeen people die every night through snoring. Either as a direct result of the snoring process or as a result of action taken by their sleeping partner.
Source unknown
Late last night I slew my wife, Stretched her on the parquet flooring; I was loath to take her life, But I had to stop her snoring!
Harry Graham
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 28th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Your Life Drama
Whenever two or more egos come together, drama of one kind or other ensues. But even if you live totally alone, you still create your own drama. When you feel sorry for yourself, that's drama. When you feel guilty or anxious, that's drama.
When you let the past or future obscure the present, you are creating time, psychological time -- the stuff of which drama is made. Whenever you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to 'be', you are creating drama.
Most people are in love with their particular life drama. Their story is their identity. The ego runs their life. They have their whole sense of self invested in it. Even their -- usually unsuccessful -- search for an answer, a solution, or for healing becomes part of it.
What they fear and resist most is the end of their drama. As long as they are their mind, what they fear and resist most is their own awakening.
Eckhart Tolle -- The Power of Now
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 29th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Paying the Tax Man
A farmer, whose income tax affairs were in a turmoil and who was suspected of doing a bit of evasion, was told to present himself at the Inland Revenue office with his business records. After examination of the records, he was asked to pay an amount to settle his back tax. He carefully counted out the money in cash and, when the Inspector asked him if he wanted a receipt, he looked startled. "You're not going to put that through the books, are you?" he exclaimed.
James Herriot
Income tax has made more people into liars than golf. Even when you fill out your tax forms with the best intentions in the world, you never know in the end whether you are a swindler or a martyr.
Will Rogers
I was told at a Positive Thinking seminar that I should pay my tax bill with a smile. I tried -- but they would only take cash.
Anonymous
A taxation department received an anonymous letter saying, "I'm having trouble sleeping because of my conscience. Please find enclosed a cheque for $1000: if this doesn't cure my insomnia, I'll send you the rest."
Source unknown
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
November 30th 2002
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Source of Happiness
A man without God is not like a cake without raisins; he is like the cake without the flour and milk; he lacks the essential ingredients of happiness.
Fulton J Sheen
God made us; invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn or the food our spirits were designed to feed on, there is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself because it isn't there! There is no such thing.
C S Lewis
We are to give our heart to God that he may make it happy, with a happiness which stretches its capacity to the full.
Gordon S Wakefield
