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Word Gems
What is a man but the sum of his thoughts?

Wisdom

"It is not by accident that the happiest people are those who make a conscious effort to live useful lives. Their happiness, of course, is not a shallow exhilaration where life is one continuous intoxicating party. Rather, their happiness is a deep sense of inner peace that comes when they believe their lives have meaning and that they are making a difference for good in the world."

                                   Ernest Fitzgerald

• Carl Sagan: The Pale Blue Dot

• Rudyard Kipling: IF

• Craig Hamilton: A Moral Obligation to Transform: “Why is it that so few of us get the results our spiritual practices are designed to deliver? How is it that after decades of earnest spiritual seeking, most of us ultimately settle for an attainment far less profound or dramatic than the one we were aiming for when we started on the path? … I would like to suggest that the supreme and lofty goal of profound, life transforming spiritual liberation is not only possible in this lifetime, but is in fact well within reach of anyone of reasonably sound mind and stable character…”

• Milton Freedman: Free to Choose

• Henry Hazlitt: Economics in One Lesson

• F.A. Hayek: The Road to Serfdom

• Marcus Aurelius: "Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours."

• Eric Hoffer: "Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible."

• Thomas H. Huxley: "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly."

• Baltasar Gracian: "Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong."

• Francois de La Rochefoucauld: "Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it."

• Margery Cuyler: "I think wholeness comes from living your life consciously during the day and then exploring your inner life or unconscious at night."

• Lord Chesterfield, to his son: "Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket, and do not pull it out and strike it merely to show you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it, but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman."

• Sherman Finesilver, Chief Judge, US District Court: "Do not confuse notoriety and fame with greatness... For you see, greatness is a measure of one's spirit, not a result of one's rank in human affairs."

• Rilke, the poet, Dresden University: "Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for the answers that cannot be given, for you wouldn't be able to live with them. And the point is to live everything, live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along, some day, into the answers."

• George W. Childs: “Do not keep the alabaster box of your friendship sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier. The kind of things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go.” 

• Andrew DaPassano: "And when you have achieved serenity, you will benefit others by your presence. When your inner noise is silenced, you will have a quick, clear perspective on all human situations; you will be able to reach out effectively in generosity and compassion."

• Barbara De Angelis: "If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself."

• Henry Miller: "Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such."

• N. Riley Heagerty, The French Revelation: "The Spheres! No tongue can describe them. There are thousands... millions... countless in number... all rounded into complete worlds, and all the habitations of those who cherish the special idea which rules the sphere... There are spheres of every mental light, thought, and knowledge; spheres of special grades of intellect and wisdom. In all and each [person] is a special need of happiness... There are spheres of love, where tender natures cling to one another until they are drawn by higher, broader aspirations to broader planes of thought..." [Editor's note: The French Revelation features select testimonies from the OtherSide via direct-voice medium Emily French - thousands of spirit-interviews were recorded over a 20-year period. We are told that many souls upon entering the next life are "burned out" and in need of rest and healing. Each person harbors a private definition and "special need of happiness," and it would appear that there is a world, a "sphere," waiting to address each person's unique unfulfilled aspirations. More than hedonism is at stake here. This experience of personal fulfillment seems to be necessary before it is possible for one, from a greater sense of inner wholeness, to progress toward higher states of being. A common form of suffering in our world is that of the loss of love or unexpressed love. We are told that there is a special world designed for each person(s) to address this human tragedy; a world uniquely and particularly devoted to recuperation for individual lovers! There is a happy ending for every "Splendor In the Grass" couple!  Notice the word "until ." While lovers will eventually find healing and devote time to the "broader aspirations" of humanitarian service, nothing happens until these hurting hearts have had their therapeutic fill of clinging to one another, loving one another ! Imagine a place arranged only to satisfy a private and particular definition of "happiness"! How far we are from home! In another testimony, a counseling spirit-person informs us that he is not at liberty to offer much detail regarding specific joys that await us lest some here should unadvisedly consider ending their mortal lives in order to reach that world of tailor-made happiness! Maybe you'll remember the old joke about the minister who asked his flock if they wanted to go to heaven. One fellow refused to raise his hand, protesting that he didn't want to go today. Well, he might have been a little more amenable to the idea if he'd understood what is waiting for each weary soul, each hurting heart.]

• John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780: "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

• Kicking Bird, Dances With Wolves: "Of all the trails in this life, there is one that matters most: it is the trail of a true human being."

• Bruce Lee, creator of Jeet Kune Do: Jeet Kune Do Grappling Arts, a mixture of takedowns, throws and various blends of all martial arts styles, is effective against opponents regardless of size, weight or physiology. Lee recogonized that not everyone is built the same nor fights the same, that one must research his or her own experience and abilities: "Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless -- like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle... Now water can flow or it can crash -- Be water, my friend... When the opponent expands, I contract, when he contracts, I expand, and when there is an opportunity, I do not hit -- it hits all by itself... [Success in martial arts is] not being tense, but ready... not being set, but flexible -- liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement. It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come."

"I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if, at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside me."

                        Abraham Lincoln

Editor's note: Of the thousands of quotes in my collection, if I had to choose a favorite one, I think it might have to be this one. Lincoln amazes me. He grew up in the "back woods" with no formal schooling -- yet became a master of the English language, an intellectual force of his day, or any other; moreover, wise words, like those above, indicate that he may have reached that lofty status, what Maslow called a self-actualized person.

• JFK, from the movie, Thirteen Days: "There is something immoral about denying your own judgment."

• Dr. Leslie D. Weatherhead, Discipleship: "The name of John Wesley is sometimes invoked in favour of narrow views. Let me quote some words of his: 'Give me your hand. I do not mean you to be of my opinion; you need not. I do not expect it or desire it; neither do I mean I will be of your opinion. I cannot; it does not depend on my choice. I can no more think than I can say or hear as I will. Keep your opinion and I mine, as steadily as ever. Only give me your hand. I do not mean embrace my modes of worship or I embrace yours. I have no desire to dispute with you one moment. Let all matters -- of belief -- stand aside, let them never come inside. If thine heart is as my heart, if thou love God and all mankind I ask no more. Give me thine hand. "I believe," someone has said, "in the beloved community and in the spirit which makes it beloved and in the communion of all who, in will and deed, are its members." I see no such ideal community as yet, but my rule in life is: Act so as to hasten its coming.'"

• Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying: We "need to examine more closely our own reactions when working with patients as they will always be reflected in the patient's behavior and can contribute a great deal to his well-being or detriment. If we are willing to take an honest look at ourselves, it can help us in our own growth and maturity. No work is better suited for this than the dealing with very sick, old, or dying patients... Dying is the greatest pleasure that awaits you. You should never be worried about that. Instead you should be worried about what you do today. If today you take your highest choice in everything, not just in your deeds but also in your words and your thoughts, then you will have a most incredibly blissful moment at the moment of your death."

• Benjamin Graham, mentor to Warren Buffett, The Intelligent Investor: "One of the most persuasive tests of ... quality is an uninterrupted record of dividend payments going back over many years. We think that a record of continuous dividend payments for the last 20 years or more is an important plus factor in the company's quality rating. Indeed the defensive investor might be justified in limiting his purchases to those meeting this test."

• Dr. W. R. Maltby, Jesus Christ and The Meaning of Life: "...there is something essentially lovable in all men, and our part is to honor all men, even those who do not honor themselves or us, and to raise all human relationships to their highest meaning, even when that meaning is ignored by those with whom we have to do."

• Native American prayer: Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things you have made, and my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people. Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. I seek strength not to be greater than my brother but to fight my greatest enemy: myself. Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes. So when life fades as a fading sunset my spirit may come to you without shame.

• Australian Aboriginal proverb: We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home.

"When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete, like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost... incompleteness in absence."

                                     Erich Fromm

• Leslie Weatherhead: "I believe most assuredly that either on this side of death or the other there will come to every human spirit an hour when God calls up all the resources of the personality; assets which He has been guarding jealously all the years; when everything suffered, everything borne, everything overcome, every talent, every bit of character, everything we now dream we might become, will be used, mobilised and dedicated to some high purpose, a purpose which is the only reason why we ever emerged from that infinite source of personality from which, by the method of human birth, we were drawn as water from a well."

• Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person: "It seems to me that ... each person is asking, Who am I, really? How can I get in touch with this real self, underlying all my surface behavior? How can I become myself? ...  I should like to point out one final characteristic of these individuals [who] strive to discover and become themselves. It is that the individual seems to become more content to be a process rather than a product... to drop such fixed goals, and to accept a more satisfying realization that he is not a fixed entity, but a process of becoming... that he discovers in these experiences the stranger who has been living behind these masks, the stranger who is himself... a person who is more open to all of the elements of his organic experience; a person who is developing a trust in his own organism as an instrument of sensitive living; a person who accepts the locus of evaluation as residing within himself; a person who is learning to live in his life as a participant in a fluid, ongoing process, in which he is continually discovering new aspects of himself in the flow of his experience. These are some of the elements which seem to me to be involved in becoming a person."

Dr. Mortimer Adler & The Paideia Proposal: 

Three Kinds of Teaching & Learning

• Lord Chesterfield: "Mankind is made up of inconsistencies, and no man acts invariably up to his predominant character. The wisest man sometimes acts weakly, and the weakest sometimes wisely."

• Henri Nouwen: " Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body's deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body's superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity."

• Reinhold Niebuhr: "Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."

• Dr. Lonny Brown: "Keep your heart open; even if it hurts, it's better than cynicism... I think 'higher levels' are those moments when we're not coming from the small ego, but there's no simple formula for honorable behavior. Only your soul knows [the what and the when regarding the realization of heart's desires]... karma has a way of manifesting what we need, not what we want. Man proposes and God disposes. Meanwhile your good intentions serve you well. Pray for guidance and peace." (8-24-02; 3-27-04)

• Marcus Tullius Cicero: "Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; refusing to set aside trivial preferences; neglecting development and refinement of the mind; attempting to compel others to believe and live as ... we do."

• C.S. Lewis: "The rescue of drowning men is ... a duty worth dying for, but not worth living for. It seems to me that all political duties (among which I include military duties) are of this kind. A man may have to die for our country: but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country. He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself."

• Albert Einstein: "A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself ... as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature."

• Dr. Alsaker: "We should be lenient in our judgment, because often the mistakes of others would have been ours had we had the opportunity to make them."

• Silver Birch, testimony from the OtherSide: "There is a great power in the universe... it is so real that it transcends all other forces ... that love is deathless because it is part of the Great Spirit , the creative spirit of all life, part of the power which has fashioned life; it is indeed the very breath and the very essence of life. And wherever love exists, sooner or later those who are united by its willing bonds will find one another again [implying, the two had been temporarily "lost"] despite all the handicaps and obstacles and impediments that may be in the way... there is the love, the undeniable love, between man and woman who are complementary to one another; that is, they are two in form, but one in purpose -- they harmonise, they are, indeed, as your poet has expressed it, 'Two hearts that beat as one.' Now, where that love has found itself, there is never any separation. Those whom the natural law has joined by love can never be sundered in your world or in mine . Where there is that love -- and here I am afraid I am going to be controversial -- it is always reciprocated... the real love, that only comes once to each man or woman, whether on earth or in the world of spirit, is always reciprocal... the two halves instinctively, because they are two halves, must recognise one another. That does not happen in your world always because your vision, regarding things of the spirit, is often blind... Physical things [unfortunate circumstances in this world of suffering] could stop it [temporarily] ... but real love is so magnetic, is so overwhelming in its attraction, that it must find itself and claim itself, when once you have got rid of the imperfections of the earth which were the deterrents to recognition." [see full text]

• Sir Oliver Lodge, Raymond: "Our view of the Universe is a partial one but is not an untrue one. Our knowledge of the conditions of existence is not altogether false -- only inadequate... Nor let us imagine that existence hereafter, removed from these atoms of matter which now both confuse and manifest it, will be something so wholly remote and different as to be unimaginable; but let us learn by the testimony of experience -- either our own or that of others -- that those who have been, still are; that they care for us and help us; that they, too, are progressing and learning and working and hoping; that there are grades of existence, stretching upward and upward to all eternity; and that God Himself, through His agents and messengers, is continually striving and working and planning, so as to bring this creation of His through its preparatory labour and pain, and lead it on to an existence higher and better than anything we have ever known."

• Rolling Thunder, Native American medicine man: "People have to be responsible for their thoughts, so they have to learn to control them... if we don't want to think certain things, we don't say them... we don't have to say everything we think... begin by watching our words and speaking with good purpose only."

• Jonathan Swift: "The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up with curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former."

The Upanishads: "The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightening and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not."

Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness... failing to notice that we have this space kills our ability to change."

• William Wordsworth: "The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this."

• Warren Buffett:"Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment ... we venture the motto, Margin of Safety. Forty-two years after reading that [phrase of Benjamin Graham], I still think those are the right three words."

• Richard Nixon, his farewell words: "Always remember: others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself."

• Marcus Aurelius: "Think often of the speed with which all that is, and comes to be, passes away and vanishes.... Scarcely anything is stable, even that which is close at hand. Dwell, too, on the infinite gulf of the past and the future, in which all things vanish away... Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment... For the sole thing of which any man can be deprived is the present; since this is all he owns."

• Epictetus: "Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast... and one day you will build something that endures, something worthy of your potential."

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "Look not mournfully to the past ... it comes not again; wisely improve the present -- it is thine; go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear; and with a manly heart."

• Will & Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History: [Speaking of history's incessant rise-and-fall of nations] "The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints."

Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of the body over the mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem in itself.

                                    Susana Wesley (mother of John Wesley)

Editor's note: In principle, I agree with Susana Wesley, but for the choice of word "sin," which carries with it the notion of punishment and external condemnation. Instead of "sin," we must speak of that which will either enhance or inhibit our spiritual growth. All the world is for our learning, but some masters are more kindly than others; and all will eventually graduate, even with honors, but some will extend their studies for a very long time, while others will progress rather quickly. The only judgment one will face will be that of one's own Higher Self, never accepting anything less than excellence. (See Abraham Lincoln's quote, above, for an example of fearing no one's evaluation but his own.)

• Masanobu Fukuoka: "Life on a small farm might seem primitive, but by living such a life we become able to discover the Great Path.  I believe that one who deeply respects his neighborhood and everyday world in which he lives will be shown the greatest of all worlds."

• Dale Short, on author Lee Baumann: "In God at the Speed of Light, Baumann introduces ... an analogy.... King Midas never knew the feel of silk or a human hand after everything he touched turned to gold. Humans are stuck in a similar Midas-like predicament: we can't directly experience the true texture of reality because everything we touch turns to matter. In other words, our everyday lives are technically an illusion. The objects and surfaces that we perceive as real are only the temporary intersection of our consciousness with the 'true' universe, made entirely of energy. 'Which raises the question of this wooden floor,' Baumann adds, tapping it with his heel. 'If we weren't here looking at it, would this floor still exist? Well, it would, but it exists only as a nebulous, ill-defined mass of wave forms. It's not until some type of measurement or observation occurs, and you have what's called "the collapse of the wave function," that the nebulous mass of waves solidify into concrete, particulate matter.'"

• George Washington: "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow grow, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation."

• Howard Whitman, Success Is Within You: "... success has the intrinsic character of a batting average... a successful life will have its days or even years of failure. It will certainly have its moments of utter washout. These are not blights upon such a life but merely the inevitable failings which bear testimony to the fact that success isn't easy."

• Frederic W. H. Myers, Vanishing Night, transmitted to Juliet S. Goodenow, 1923: "It is not so much what you will find when you come to this side of life as what you will bring with you... Sleep is the best definition of death I know anything about -- just going to sleep unafraid to awake in a new and beautiful room, and to be satisfied. This is all there is... [On Earth] you are the apprentice to your own soul. Here you are the promoted individual... Bring all of your soul treasures -- you will need them, your culture, your love of art, of music -- all this you will use... Every want shall be satisfied. Material possessions you will not need... We are undisguised, for on our foreheads is the insignia of whatever we have gained in culture, love for humanity, charity, selflessness, energy and force, ambitions for the sake of others -- all this is here waiting for us when we are given ... our Price, our Wage, whatever we have earned during our years of apprenticeship."

• Kama Sutra: "If men and women act according to each other's liking, their love for each other will not be lessened, even in one hundred years."

• John Amos Comenius (1657): "The education that I propose includes all that is proper for a man and it is one in which all men who are born into this world should share. ... Our first wish is that all men be educated fully to full humanity, not any one individual, not a few, nor even many, but all men together and singly, young and old, rich and poor, of high and lowly birth, men and women -- in a word, all those whose fate it is to be born human beings, so that at last the whole of the human race become educated, men of all ages, all conditions, both sexes, and all nations."

• Doug C. Engelbart: "A person's ability to grow and succeed is directly related to [an] ability to suffer embarrassment" as one learns and practices new skills.

• John Ruskin: "Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last."

• Abd ER-Rahman III of Spain (960): “I have now reigned about 50 years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot. They amount to fourteen.”

Charles Van Doren, speaking at a memorial service for Mortimer Adler, 2001: "... I remember the first seminar we led together, nearly forty years ago. The text was Plato's dialogue, The Sophist. I had read it twice or three times and struggled to get the point. It could not be what it seemed to be. But Mortimer helped us all to understand it: The true sophist, Plato is saying, cannot be trapped -- if he is willing to say anything whatsoever to win the argument. If he wants to win at all costs and does not care what is true, and if he is adept at fending off the truth when it is presented, the sophist will triumph, and you will fail ..."

Editor's note: Adler's insight reminds us of the shameful state of politics today. Certain demagogues, unable to win on the merits of their arguments, those without a reasoned agenda, resort to "saying anything" -- lies and incessant lies, distortion, rewriting of history, character assassination, pandering, propaganda of every stripe: we wait for the new outrage of the day. Politics has always been a dirty business; but one is forced to wonder just where this new low of incivility, of these past 15 years, is taking us.

• Albert Camus: “When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast ... in the hearts you encounter."

• Emerson: "No one can cheat you out of your ultimate success but yourself."

• Abigail Adams: "These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed... The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues."

• Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has."

• Leslie Weatherhead: "The worst penalty of sin is that man is separated from God, his spiritual senses dulled, his spiritual desires lessened. Such separation involves progressive deterioration of character, which, if unstayed, may indeed involve such a disintegration of personality that the latter ceases to be recognizable... both our Lord and [Paul] use the word 'dead' ... to describe [this wayward soul]... The words of Jesus about His suffering and death reveal that He willingly committed Himself to some mighty task, costly to Him beyond our imagining, but effecting for all men a deliverance beyond their own power to achieve, and that in doing so He knew Himself to be utterly and completely one with God the Father." [Editor's note: I have noticed, too often, when communicating with childhood friends of decades ago, that many of these former bright sparks of personhood, now, as if walking casualties of the war that is this life, have lost much of their heart, tragic examples of Weatherhead's "disintegration of personality." On the positive side, I console myself  in my newfound knowledge of Universalism, the eventual heartening and resuscitation of every seemingly lost soul.]

"Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others.Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life."

                                      Galatians 6.4-5 (The Message)

• Miles Allen, Heaven Confirmed: The Most Compelling Evidence Yet Compiled For The Survival Of Your Soul: If we all originally came from God; if we at some point in the distant past wandered from Home; then, eventually, in the next life, as we reach higher levels of spirituality, we "will overcome the forgetfulness that now makes [us] feel separate and alone." We will not only remember who we were in past lives, a kind of merging, in "successive stages, at each of which you will realize a continually grander you... you will come to remember that you and other souls are, and always have been, one soul... there will come a time when we both remember that we are each other... There will never be any diminishment of your personality, no loss of your sense of self ... just continued merging with more and more parts of you, gaining more and more memories, until, at long last, all of our journeys are complete. Until we remember being All That Is... [but, even then] you will still remember being you."

• John Adams (only 20 years old), Oct. 12, 1755: "All that part of Creation that lies within our observation is liable to change. Even mighty states and kingdoms are not exempted. If we look into history, we shall find some nations rising from contemptible beginnings and spreading their influence, until the whole globe is subjected to their ways. When they have reached the summit of grandeur, some minute and unsuspected cause commonly affects their ruin, and the empire of the world is transferred to some other place... Soon after the Reformation a few people came over into the new world for conscience sake. Perhaps this (apparently) trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire into America . It looks likely to me."

• Charlotte Dresser, Life Here And Hereafter (1927): transcribed by Dresser, words sent from the Other Side: "I am wishing to tell those on earth, who are struggling to learn what is the meaning of life, that it is the way one looks at it that determines its value. If one thinks of it as a time of sensuous enjoyment, one makes his life a thing of little worth, for such things have no value in the spirit world. If one looks at life as something to be endured and to be gotten through as soon as possible, he will form a character that has nothing to rest on here. He will have to create new foundations before he can advance. If one there believes that life consists in praying and preaching, that spirit is apt to want to pray and preach here; and in this world there are no churches or congregations to respond as they did there, and the spirit has to learn that there are other things to acquire before the true life can be enjoyed. When a soul on earth can realize that there are others there who need assistance, who will be the better for aid and sympathy, and can learn to feel that this aid and sympathy can be given by himself, he is on the way to create the life that will mean the most to him when his mortal life is over."

 

"Whatever you do will be insignificant,

but it is very important that you do it."

                                     Mohandas Gandhi

• Abigail Adams, 1775: "I am more and more convinced that Man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or a few is ever grasping, and like the grave cries give, give. The great fish swallow up the small, and he who is most strenuous for the Rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of Government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which Humane Nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances."

• John Ruskan, Emotional Clearing: "I understand that my love for myself is the greatest possession I will ever have. Love for myself comes into being only when I accept and experience my feelings as they are, at this very moment, both pleasant and unpleasant. As I welcome my painful self, it heals. Loving myself provides the power for transformation." read more

• Theodore Roosevelt, 1917: "The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life."

• Alvin Toffler, Rethinking the Future: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

• Dr. Gary E. Schwartz: "I was trained to look at the world as an intellectual, a scientist. In science we hypothesize; we do not believe. And science does not establish 'proof' so much as provide evidence for or against a hypothesis."

• Elizabeth Fry, testimony from the Other Side: Fry speaks via Leslie Flint, direct-voice medium: "... Here no one glories in being a leader – whereas in your world [in various organizations] you do get this sort of glorification of the individual [leader]; the first thing a person must learn here, if they are to progress, is to lose this idea of self-importance. Those who are really progressed on This Side never, never, give that impression -- because it is not even in their nature to appear, or want to appear, important… I think that people will only recognize [who] Christ really was, when they begin to discount a lot of untoward creeds and dogmas, tacked on over the centuries by men who desired power and position – I would say to you, above all things, if you want to discover truth, avoid men of power and position, because … [they desire] power and position because of their material perception of things..." read more

• Ellen Terry, testimony from the Other Side: Terry speaks via Leslie Flint, direct-voice medium: "I would say that this [life on our side] is the natural life and yours is the artificial, and that the truly natural life is the spiritual… the material life is only a pale reflection of the reality... Here there is no restriction placed upon expansion of expression; here you assimilate knowledge and experience; here you throw off more and more of the old self and become truly free... It is the narrow confines of earth which prevent individuals from becoming spiritual beings" read more

• Mickey, testimony from the Other Side: "Mickey" speaks via Leslie Flint, direct-voice medium: She explains that each of us is part of something very “grand,” beyond our present comprehension; that we play an “important” part in this unfolding drama; as such, “when you try to tie yourself [to one person on the Other Side]… you, in a sense, complicate your own existence”; in that, at times, one’s progress and evolution is accomplished alone; sometimes with another person; and at other times with millions of others, each helping the other to advance. “As you evolve you realize that you are less and less caught up with any one individual – you become all-embracing in your outlook and your attitudes.” We are more than someone else's "other half," so to speak, in the cosmic scheme of things; we were destined for an existence much larger in scope than narrow romantic notions. We presently labor under “material conceptions” of love, and when we arrive on the Other Side we begin to "cast off the shackles and ties that bound us," in terms of negatively restrictive relationships; we see things differently as we grow in understanding of who we are and what we need in order to advance spiritually. We grow in a sense of unity toward all, leaving behind “narrow” loves, exclusive and “confining” loves which, in truth, have “held us back.” We no longer seek a “selfish love” but one with a sense of something “wider,” a love that is part of a “great brotherhood of love” focused upon “all God’s children.” In this spirit we “learn the purpose of being.”

"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget, falls, drop by drop, upon the heart; and, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us, by the awful grace of God."

                         Aeschylus

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