“Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.”-- Sarah Dessen
“Don’t shine so that others can see you. Shine so that through you, others can see HIM.” -C. S. Lewis-
“At the desk where I sit, I have learned one great truth. The answer for all our national problems – the answer for all the problems of the world – comes to a single word. That word is education.”-- Lyndon B. Johnson
Mistakes and failures are true teachers of life. Only through mistakes do we learn life lessons; we grow, we mature, we realise better ways to do things, better methods of success in life. In Western world there is a saying that the manager who is perfect and makes no mistakes is fit to be fired!
Man makes mistakes, hence man can be a Buddha! Don’t fret on your mistakes or others mistakes, treat each of them as steps to higher possibilities; stand firm, and prove you can do things better!
~~Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
“You can do what I cannot do. I can do what you cannot do. Together, we can do great things.”-- Mother Teresa
" Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven. " -Henry Ward Beecher-
“Reason teaches us that Good having a divine principle, ought to be stronger than evil, which is essentially nothing but disorder and deprivation; that evil putting man into a state of violence, that state cannot continue for ever; that this state of violence supposes its contrary in man, struggling against it…that God being the God of order, and the undoubted Sovereign of the universe, can never consent that disorder and confusion should prevail there for ever.” -Marie Huber- (Swiss Protestant Theologian)
“Though a fall has been permitted, evil shall have an end, and the creature through God’s wondrous wisdom even by its fall be raised to a higher glory. Scripture distinctly teaches that, ‘the creature was made subject to vanity, not by its own will, but through Him who subjected the same in hope; because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God’.” -Andrew Jukes-
All creation shall be delivered and set free
Our brain is continuously developing on the basis of our thoughts and beliefs. These thoughts and beliefs are deeply rooted to our habitual patterns in the womb of subconscious mind. It is not easy to change. If you don’t want to be angry, even a smallest provocation can throw you into wild rage of anger! If you don’t want to eat junk food, restaurant will call you and tip of your tongue will deceive you! It is not you, it is your programmed brain!
Meditation and mindful life style will gradually change this pattern as you are no longer helplessly driven by habits but your calm mind that can lead you to a good life from inside.
~~Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
“Life is short and unpredictable. Eat the dessert first!”-- Helen Keller
“The world is by no means averse to religion. In fact, it is devoted to it with a passion. It will buy any recipe for salvation as long as that formula leaves the responsibility for cooking up salvation firmly in human hands. The world is drowning in religion. But it is scared out of its wits by any mention of the grace that takes the world home gratis.” -Robert Farrar Capon-
“The tragedy of life and of the world is not that men do not know God; the tragedy is that, knowing Him, they still insist on going their own way.” -William Barclay-
“When we believe that God is Father, we also believe that such a father’s hand will never cause his child a needless tear. We may not understand life any better, but we will not resent life any longer.” -William Barclay-
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“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”-- Anatole France
“He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them. He emphatically does not promise to meet only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery. He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing.” -Robert Farrar Capon-
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“Faith is not belief in spite of evidence but a life in scorn of the consequences.” - Clarence Jordan-
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”-- Jane Goodall
“One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.” -A.W. Tozer-
“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.” - A.W. Tozer-
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“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”-- Socrates
“Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely. … He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken.” - Dieter F. Uchtdorf-
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When we unconsciously think about the negative possibilities or feel worried, when we chew fearful thoughts and allow anxieties to grip us, we forget we are simply misusing our energy and time. Don’t forget once you become a programmed being of anxieties and worries, anything will trigger such things and push you into hypertension. Reverse is for those who knowing the power of thoughts shift their thoughts to energy of harmony and healing, health and happiness to eventually attract, like a magnet, only such holistic energies that enhance life and make it a joyful journey. It is a practice. Decide what you want and walk that path.
~~Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
“To those of you graduates sitting out there who have a pretty good idea of what you’d like to do with your life, congratulations. For many of you who maybe don’t have it all figured out, it’s OK. That’s the same chair that I sat in. Enjoy the process of your search without succumbing to the pressure of the result. Trust your gut, keep throwing darts at the dartboard. Don’t listen to the critics and you will figure it out.”
– Will Ferrell
"God’s judgment is corrective, not punitive. It destroys the dross, that is the old man.
God’s mercy doesn’t expire when you do!" -MartyMonster-
“The chief proof of man’s real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness” -Arthur Conan Doyle
Conservative Christianity practices the chief sin of being “right.” It may be a subset of pride, but it is “rightness” and “certainty” that is worshipped.
One of my favorite Christian philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard, put it this way:
The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly.
For ultra conservative Christians the gospel is about having the right information–hence you get fundamentalists–and being “right” is everything. But if the gospel is about transformation–which I know it is—then being Christ like is everything.
Christian fundamentalists honestly believe having the right information about God is essential for salvation. For them, the greatest heresy would be to believe the wrong things about God. This is also why they can’t bear to be around others who hold different beliefs than they do. If having the right information is what the Christian faith is all about, then having wrong information becomes the worst sin of all.
Mark Van Steenwyck, founder of the Mennonite Worker organization once wrote:
We have millions and millions of Christians who have had no experience of God, and the Church, for most part, prefers it that way. We can then supply beliefs and dogmas as a replacement for encountering a living God. This is part of the reason so many people cling to the Bible or their theological beliefs so firmly. Because, to them, it is the closest thing to God they have ever encountered.
But I met Jesus. I’ve tried to run from Him, prayed for Him to leave me be and let me burn in hell, but once Jesus gets a hold of a person because they once surrendered their life to Him, He will not let go.
Now I came out of that muddy mess that fundamentalism is. I was once there myself with all the “right” ideas about God and the Bible. Yet morality grows or it dies. It grew within me and that “faith” such as it was, was nothing more than the husk of an ugly caterpillar from which a butterfly would emerge (and continues to emerge decades later).
I’m not right about a lot of things, and my views have grown and changed and have been refined. But I do recognize when someone is living up to Christ’s standard of us loving others like He loves us. There is no will within the vast majority of conservative Christians to live what they read–instead they want to preach about the sins of others (rather than repent for the ones they have) and they want to insist they are certain about EVERY thing.
I’m certain about little except that God loves me much more than I deserve, all my other beliefs about sin or righteousness mean nothing beside that relationship with Jesus. Seems to me that if one’s relationship with God is not the primary spiritual goal, no matter how “right” or “certain” someone is, they have allowed themselves to become the Angel in the Garden of Eden passing commentary on what sins are the “biggest.” -Wardendresden-
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