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Our deepest fear is not that
we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are
powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most
frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous - talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you NOT to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that
other people wont feel insecure about you.

We were born to make manifest the glory that is
within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in
everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we
unconsciously giver other people permission to do
the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others.

1994 Inaugural Speech
Nelson Mandela

In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in a inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Teach your children
what we have taught our children -
that the earth is our mother.
Whatever befalls the earth
befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.

This we know.
The earth does not belong to us;
we belong to the earth.
This we know.
All things are connected
like the blood which unites one family.
All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the earth
befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.
We did not weave the web of life;
we are merely a strand in it.
Whatever we do to the web,
we do to ourselves.

Chief Seattle

To be of the earth is to know
the restlessness of being a seed
the darkness of being planted
the struggle towards the light
the pain and growth into the light
the joy of bursting and bearing fruit
the love of being food for someone
the scattering of your seeds
the decay of the seasons
the mystery of death
and the miracle of birth

John Soos

All the world reposes in beauty to him who preserves equipoise in his life, and moves serenely on his path without violence…The forms of beauty fall naturally around the path of him who is in performance on his proper work.

Thoreau.

If your everyday practice is to open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that - then that will take you as far as you can go. And then you’ll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.

Pema Chodron

WE CAN REMEMBER WHO WE ARE AND WHAT ALL HUMAN BEINGS KNOW IN THEIR HEART:

That we are each enough as we are.

That we are each ultimately good and deeply connected to all life.

That we have within us all that we need to make us happy.

That we are lovable and capable of loving others.

That the most pleasurable way to live on the planet is in a community of nourishing, supportive relationships.

That we are capable of deep intimacy with a primary other.

That we can find friends who will support us on our path of spiritual and emotional growth.

That we can find our true work in the world - what we are uniquely called to give - which will also meet our real needs.

That we can find our right place to live, our grounding on this planet.

That this is ultimately a benign universe.

That there is order and meaning to our lives which we can gradually uncover from within.

That the process of facing and accepting all of our inner selves will bring peace, love, harmoney, happiness and fulfillment in our lives.

Susan Thesenga. 2001. The Undefended Self.

Nothing bonds like the truth. Nothing dispels distrust like the revealed heart. Bonding is this willingness to reveal, to simply be in the heart of another. To let go of our not-enoughness and self doubt, making room in our heart for our pain so as to have room in our heart for another’s. To see that this woman, this man, is all women, all men. And that this moment is the only moment we have to find the common essence. A conscious committed relationship is a bonding of two ‘whole’ human beings attempting to be mercifully human together.

Stephen and Ondrea Levine. (1995). Embracing the Beloved: Relationship as a Path of Awakening.

For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is mere preparation. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person - it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in herself, to become world, to become world in herself for the sake of another; it is a great demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances.

Rainer Maria Rilke. (1934). Letters to a young poet.

All we have to do…is maintain our awareness. As a thought arises from the state of stillness, if we simply recognize it with that awareness, it will dissolve back into the nature of mind. Thoughts and emotions become like the waves on the ocean, rising and sinking back into its expanse, and we become like the ocean itself, vast, spacious and placid. Nothing remains for us to do apart from maintaining that awareness.

Sogyal Rinpoche, (2000). Natural Great Peace.