There is a great deal of difference ( Read more... )

When Shiva the Great Yogin chooses
to become the Lord of the Dance, Nataraja,
the universe appears as Consciousness
in its most ecstatic forms:
as art and play, as knowledge and beauty,
as the very embodiment of awareness
in the form of the Self.

-From Clothed in Consciousness:
Nataraja in the Tantric Tradition
by Dr. Douglas Brooks

Radical self loveIn the tantric tradition it is said that chaos is 'extremely good news.' When you are willing to enter into your neurosis, your confusion, and your hopelessness, you approach the threshold of the sacred world. No matter where you look, all you see is path. Nothing is out of place and every state of mind is shown to be valid and ( Read more... )

People that don’t move
will never notice
the chains
they carry.

― Shannon L. Alder

The awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place, and all things are affected by the change. We ourselves have become mysterious strangers in our own eyes and tremblingly we ask ourselves who we are, whence we came, whither we are bound. Are we the being ( Read more... )

Don't ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive,
and go do that,
because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.

~Howard Thurman

If
your compassion
does not include
yourself,
it is incomplete.

~ Jack Kornfield

I didn't always understand this. When I was a young physician, I didn't realize that criticism was a good sign. Now I see that it means people know you care about them and are willing to change. If no one criticizes you, you can take that as a sign that you are perfect, which is unlikely, or that people feel you don't care enough to listen and ( Read more... )

If you're really listening,
if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world,
your heart breaks regularly.
In fact, your heart is made to break;
its purpose is to burst open again and again
so that it can hold evermore wonders.
--Andrew Harvey

You wouldn't worry
so much
about what others think
of you
if you realized
how seldom they do.
--Eleanor Roosevelt

(Supports one of the Four Agreements: Don't Take Anything Personally.)