Favorite Readings & Quotes

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 “Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”
― Eckhart Tolle

  This took some time to sink in. What do I resist? What do I fight? I thought about conflicts in my life. Conflicts in work, family and relationships.

Currently I am not employed, but that does not mean I do not have conflict. When will I work again? Where? The questions and the conflict flood my mind. And now is the time to learn to quiet my mind. Stop questioning and begin to let things be as they are. Continue to look for work but do not let the process be a problem. Accept what is today. Be grateful for what I have today. Enjoy and embrace each day with all the love there is. Create.....grow.....but quiet the mind.

Do the same with family conflicts. I cannot change what has happened. I can only accept my role in today's circumstances and then move on. Once I can be accountable then I can accept. Quiet the mind. Once I do this then I will be able to "see" what the truth is. That is only time I can see the truth. When my  mind is running, questioning, thinking about who said what or who did what....it cannot see the truth. The mind is too clouded with opinions and speculation. Clouded with anger and suspicion. Once I can clear my mind the truth will be revealed. And what is the truth? The truth is that once I can accept things as they are is when I can truly find peace and happiness....and only then. Complete peace and happiness will never be found in the presence of conflict. Never. The conflict may well be a part of life. But I can get past it. Like a puddle of mud I find myself stuck in. My feet are heavy and it takes so much strength to take a step. But with each slow moving step I can get out of it. Maybe I reach for a branch (a friend?) to help aid me through the mud. I grab for it and it is strong....I hold on to it and take another step. Painful, hard....but there is movement. "Don't think about it...just take the step" I say to myself.  Just act!  Then comes the relief. The last step? Perhaps. The last step of gettng out of the mud and I will be free. "Don't look back" I tell myself. Don't complain about it, don't take pictures and show it to everyone. The mud is there and will always be there....but I can walk away. I can accept it's existence and I can move on. I can learn from it and remember who was there to help me and who was there but unable to help. Unable because they too are stuck. I tell myself not to be angry with them. Accept where they are and try to help them. But if they do not reach out for your help, accept that too and move on.

From Krishnamurti:

Why are we such tortured human beings? 

Meditation is really very simple. We complicate it. We weave a web of ideas round it, what it is and what it is not. But it is none of these things. Because it is so very simple it escapes us, because our minds are so complicated, so time-worn and time-based. And this mind dictates the activity of the heart, and then the trouble begins. But meditation comes naturally, with extraordinary ease, when you walk on the sand or look out of your window or see those marvellous hills burnt by last summer's sun. Why are we such tortured human beings, with tears in our eyes and false laughter on our lips? If you could walk alone among those hills or in the woods or along the long, white, bleached sands, in that solitude you would know what meditation is. The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything. Then, like that dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there. - Meditations,1969