A prayer in sickness

O God,
I am in your hands.
You know me from my mother's womb.
O Wise Creator,
soothe my pain; heal my body and soul.
O Good Jesus,
you went doing good and healing many.
Once your hands raised the dead to life:
restore my health to me.
Once your hands gave sight to the blind:
take me from the darkness of my fears.
Once your hands made the paralyzed walk:
let me walk again
with my family and friends.
Once your hands were nailed to the cross:
strengthen me in sickness and pain.
O Holy Spirit,
Giver of Life,
Helper and Friend,
Source of all good gifts,
bring peace and comfort to me.

Source 

A prayer for healing

God, hear my prayer,

And let my cry come to You.
Do not hide from me in the day of my distress
Turn to me and speedily answer my prayer.
Eternal God, Source of healing,
Out of my distress I call upon You.
Help me sense Your presence
At this difficult time.
Grant me patience when the hours are heavy;
In hurt or disappointment give me courage.
Keep me trustful in Your love.
Give me strength for today, and hope for tomorrow.
To your loving hands I commit my spirit
When asleep and when awake. You are with me; I shall not fear.

Source

James Allen: Good-will gives insight

The spirit of man is inseparable from the Infinite, and can be satisfied with nothing short of the Infinite, and the burden of pain will continue to weigh upon man's heart, and the shadows of sorrow to darken his pathway until, ceasing from his wanderings in the dream-world of matter, he comes back to his home in the reality of the Eternal.

"Good-will gives insight," and only he who has so conquered his personality that he has but one attitude of mind, that of good-will, toward all creatures, is possessed of divine insight, and is capable of distinguishing the true from the false. The supremely good man is, therefore, the wise man, the divine man, the enlightened seer, the knower of the Eternal. Where you find unbroken gentleness, enduring patience, sublime lowliness, graciousness of speech, self-control, self-forgetfulness, and deep and abounding sympathy, look there for the highest wisdom, seek the company of such a one, for he has realized the Divine, he lives with the Eternal, he has become one with the Infinite. Believe not him that is impatient, given to anger, boastful, who clings to pleasure and refuses to renounce his selfish gratifications, and who practices not good-will and far-reaching compassion, for such a one hath not wisdom, vain is all his knowledge, and his works and words will perish, for they are grounded on that which passes away.

For such a one there is no more regret, nor disappointment, nor remorse, for where all selfishness has ceased these sufferings cannot be; and whatever happens to him he knows that it is for his own good, and he is content, being no longer the servant of self, but the servant of the Supreme. He is no longer affected by the changes of earth, and when he hears of wars and rumors of wars his peace is not disturbed, and where men grow angry and cynical and quarrelsome, he bestows compassion and love.

When a fierce storm is raging none are angered about it, because they know it will quickly pass away, and when the storms of contention are devastating the world, the wise man, looking with the eye of Truth and pity, knows that it will pass away, and that out of the wreckage of broken hearts which it leaves behind the immortal Temple of Wisdom will be built.

Let men, therefore, cease from vain and passionate arguments about Truth, and let them think and say and do those things which make for harmony, peace, love, and good-will. Let them practice heart-virtue, and search humbly and diligently for the Truth which frees the soul from all error and sin, from all that blights the human heart, and that darkens, as with unending night, the pathway of the wandering souls of earth.

-James Allen

 

Woman Who Run With the Wolves: La vidacita

We have to leave the chorus of detractors and plunge into the woods. There is no way to both stay and go. Women who try to make their deeper feelings invisible are deadening themselves. The fire goes out.

There is no greater blessing a mother can give her daughter than a reliable sense of the veracity of her intuition.

Women must bind, test, and feed the intuition. We strengthen our bond with our intuitive nature by listening inwardly at every turn in the road. "Should I go this way or that? Should I stay or go? Should I resist or be flexible? Should I run away or toward? Is this person, event, venture, true or false?"

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So, what is the solution? Do as the duckling does. Go ahead, struggle through it. Pick up the pen already and put it to the page and stop whining. Write. Pick up the brush and paint. Dancers, put on the loose chemise, tie the ribbons in your hair, at your waist, or on your ankles and tell the body to take it from there. Dance. Actress, playwright, poet, musician, or any other. Don't say one more word unless you are a singer. Shut yourself in a room with a ceiling, or in a clearing under the sky. Do your art. Generally, a thing cannot freeze if it is moving. So move. Keep moving.  

-Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Woman Who Run With the Wolves

Dynamic Thought by Henry Thomas Hamblin: Soon you will have more courage

Never stop to think of temporary appearances, but maintain an unfaltering belief in your ultimate success. Make your plans carefully, and see that they are not contrary to the tides of universal justice. The main thing for you to remember is to keep at bay the destructive and opposing forces of fear and anger and their satellites.

There is no power so great as the belief which comes from the knowledge that your thought is in harmony with the divine laws of thought and the sincere conviction that your cause is right. Plans that are not built on truth produce discordant vibrations and are therefore self-destructive. Never try to build until you can build right. It is a waste of time to do anything else. You may temporarily put aside your desire to do right, but its true vibrations will interfere with your unjust plans until you are forced back into righteous paths of power.

All just causes succeed in time, though temporarily they may fail. So if you should face the time when everything seems against you, quiet your fears, drive away all destructive thoughts and uphold the dignity of your moral and spiritual life.

The following method may assist you in gaining better thought control. If you are unable to control your fears, just say to your faulty determination, Do not falter or be afraid, for I am not really alone. I am surrounded by invisible forces that will assist me to remove the unfavorable appearances.

Soon you will have more courage.

-Henry Thomas Hamblin, Dynamic Thought

 

Hafiz: It happens all the time in heaven

It happens all the time in heaven,

And some day

It will begin to happen

Again on earth -

That men and women who are married,

And men and men who are

Lovers,

And women and women

Who give each other

Light,

Often will get down on their knees

And while so tenderly

Holding their lover's hand,

With tears in their eyes,

Will sincerely speak, saying,

"My dear,

How can I be more loving to you;

How can I be more

Kind?"

-Hafiz

Matthew 18: Lord, how many times?

Lord, how many times could my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven time? I tell you, not as many as seven, Jesus said to him, but 70 times seven.

Matthew 18:21-22

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Hafiz: Every child has known God

Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does anything weird,
But the God who knows only four words.
And keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come Dance with Me , come dance.”

- Hafiz

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father who art in heaven, hallow be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

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Dynamic Thought: Listen to the voice of inspiration

You, dear reader, have not been sent into this world for a joke, you have been sent to achieve a certain purpose, to accomplish something which no one can do but you. There is no one in all the world just like you, and all that you do is colored by your individuality. No one in all the world could do your work just as you do it; there are fields of conquest in front of you which no one but you can conquer. Therefore listen to the voice of inspiration.

-Henry Thomas Hamblin, Dynamic Thought

Hafiz: I saw you dancing last night

I saw you dancing last night

on the roof of your house

all alone.

I felt your heart longing for the Friend.

I saw you whirling

beneath the soft bright rose

that hung from an invisible stem in the sky.

So I began to change into my best clothes

in hopes of joining you,

even though I live a thousand miles away.

And if you had spun like an immaculate sphere

just two more times,

then bowed again so sweetly to the east,

you would have found God and me

standing so near

and lifting you into our arms.

I saw you dancing last night

near the roof of this world

-Hafiz

Women Who Run With the Wolves: Nurture

Those kinds of projects need nurture. They need vital support-from warm people. Little Match Girl is tattered. Like the old folk song, she's been down so long it looks like up to her. No one can thrive at her level. We want to put ourselves in a situation where, like the plants and the trees, we can move toward the sun. But there has to be a sun. To do this we have to move, not just sit there. We have to do something that makes our situation different. Without a move, we are back out on the streets selling matches again.

Friends who love you and have warmth for your creative life are the very best suns in the world. When a woman, like the Little Match Girl, has no friends she becomes frozen by anguish, and sometimes by anger as well. Even if one has friends, those friends may not be suns. They may give comfort instead of informing the woman about her increasingly frozen circumstances. They comfort her-but that is far different from nurture. Nurture moves you from one place to another.

The difference between comfort and nurture is this: if you have a plant that is sick because you keep it in a dark closet, and you say soothing words to it, that is comfort. If you take the plant out of the closet and put it in the sun, give it something to drink, and then talk to it, that is nurture.

When women are disconnected from the nurturing love of the wild mother, they are on the equivalent of a subsistence diet in the outer world. The ego is just eking out a life, just taking the barest of nourishment from without and returning each night from whence she began, over and over. There she sleeps, exhausted.

She cannot awaken to a life with a future because her wretched life is like a hook upon which she hangs daily. In initiations, spending a significant period of time under difficult conditions is part of a dismemberment that severs one from ease and complacency. As an initiatory passage, it will come to a conclusion, and the newly "sanded down" woman will commence a refreshed and enwisened spiritual and creative life. However, women in Match Girl condition could be said to be involved in an initiation that has gone awry. The hostile conditions do not serve to deepen, only to decimate. Another venue, another environ, with different supports and guides, must be chosen.

The Match Girl lights more matches. Each fantasy burns out, and again the child is in the snow and freezing. When the psyche freezes, a woman is turned toward herself and no one else. She lights a third match. This is the fairy-tale three, the magic number, the point at which something new should happen. But in this case, because fantasy overwhelms action, nothing new occurs.

And that is the blessedness of everyone's psyche. Even in the event of such a painful ending as the Match Girl's, there is a ray of light. When enough time, discontent, and pressure have been brought to bear, the Wild Woman of the psyche will hurl new life into a woman's mind, giving her opportunity to act in her own behalf once more. As we can see from the suffering involved, it is far better to heal one's addiction to fantasy than wait around wishing and hoping to be raised from the dead.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Woman Who Run With the Wolves

Remember, you are valuable.

A well-known speaker started off his seminar holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill? Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this $20 bill to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up. He then asked, "Who still wants it?" Still the hands were up in the air. "Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still hands went into the air. "My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the experiences we have, by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special. You are unique. Remember, you are valuable. Do not forget it!"

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Psalm 23: The Lord Is My Shepherd

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Psalm 23, King James Bible

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Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu: A great nation is like a great man

When a country obtains great power,
it becomes like the sea:
all streams run downward into it.
The more powerful it grows,
the greater the need for humility.
Humility means trusting the Tao,
thus never needing to be defensive.

A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.
He thinks of his enemy
as the shadow that he himself casts.

If a nation is centered in the Tao,
if it nourishes its own people
and doesn't meddle in the affairs of others,
it will be a light to all nations in the world.

-Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching

The Path to Prosperity by James Allen

As there are silent depths in the ocean which the fiercest storm cannot reach, so there are silent, holy depths in the heart of man which the storms of sin and sorrow can never disturb. To reach this silence and to live consciously in it is peace.

Hatred severs human lives, fosters persecution, and hurls nations into ruthless war, yet men, though they do not understand why, retain some measure of faith in the overshadowing of a Perfect Love; and to reach this Love and to live consciously in it is peace. And this inward peace, this silence, this harmony, this Love, is the Kingdom of Heaven, which is so difficult to reach because few are willing to give up themselves and to become as little children.

The angels of divine peace and joy are always at hand, and if you do not see them, and hear them, and dwell with them, it is because you shut yourself out from them, and prefer the company of the spirits of evil within you. You are what you will to be, what you wish to be, what you prefer to be. You can commence to purify yourself, and by so doing can arrive at peace, or you can refuse to purify yourself, and so remain with suffering.

-James Allen 

After the Quake by Haruki Murakami & Speaking as an Unrealistic Dreamer

"Tell me, Mr. Miyake, when you see the shapes that a bonfire makes, do you ever feel kind of strange?"

"How so?"

"I don't know, it's like all of a sudden you get very clear about something people don't usually notice in everyday  life. I don't know how to put it, I'm not smart enough, but watching the fire now, I get this deep, quiet kind of feeling."

Miyake thought about it awhile. "You know, Jun," he said, "a fire can be any shape it wants to be. It's free. So it can look like anything at all depending on what's inside the person looking at it. If you get this deep, quiet kind of feeling when you look at a fire, that's because it's showing you the deep, quiet feeling you have inside yourself. You know what I mean?"
---

Our hearts are not stones. A stone may disintegrate in time and lose its outward form. But hearts never disintegrate. They have no outward form, and whether good or evil, we can always communicate them to one another. All God's children can dance.
  ---

I want to write stories that are different from the ones I've written so far, Junpei thought: I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love. But right now I have to stay here and keep watch over this woman and this girl. I will never let anyone-not anyone-try to put them into that crazy box-not even if the sky should fall or the earth crack open with a roar.
---

-Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

Also check out this great speech by the author upon receiving the International Catalunya Prize.

Though I regret that America is no longer a nation of readers, for those of you who take solace in a good book, I highly recommend After the Quake by Murakami Haruki, a Japanese author. It's a collection of short stories that reminds me of The Catcher in the Rye, but more mature, and with more depth and wisdom.

Check it out.

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Key to Yourself by Venice Bloodworth

"Spiritual things are spiritually discerned." We can get no understanding from the world of visible things; the things we see have no originating power in themselves. The world without is relative only; Truth is absolute and must be found by each individual within his own soul. Go into the Silence every day and concentrate on the fact that you are a spiritual being, a child of God and co-heir with Christ. Put aside every other thought except the desire for the truth. Ask for wisdom, knowledge and understanding as Solomon did and you will find as he did, that all else follows in their train.

Increase in me that wisdom that discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolution to perform that which wisdom dictates. -Franklin

Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu: Embracing aloneness

The Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to all things.

All things have their backs to the female
and stand facing the male.
When male and female combine,
all things achieve harmony.

Ordinary men hate solitude.
But the Master makes use of it,
embracing his aloneness, realizing
he is one with the whole universe.

Living with Joy by Sanaya Roman

Opening the heart means remaining open and loving no matter what another person does, no matter what occurs to you, or what happens in your career. It means choosing to feel peaceful no matter what your outer life looks like. It is easy to be loving and open when those around you are loving; the challenge is to be loving when those around you are closed, afraid, or negative.

Inner peace comes from within, not without.

What is the value of inner peace? It certainly feels better to the emotional body. However, it is more than that-it is the ability to affect the outer world from you highest level, to create and manifest from a focused place of purpose and an inner sense of who you are. When you are tranquil and calm, when you slow down and feel relaxed, you are able to create and think at higher levels. What you bring to earth and create from this space is your higher good.

You can create things when you feel tense, anxious, or fearful, but those things may not be for your highest good; in fact, they will probably not be. If, before you plan your life or think of new ideas, you find a sense of inner peace and operate from it, you will find your plans reflecting more of your soul's purpose than your personality's desires. If, before you act or speak, you bring this sense of peace, you will find your world changing rapidly into a very different place.

Inner peace is a connection to your deeper self, and it will assist you in letting go of fear.

Fear is a lower energy, a vibration of less light, and you can change it with love. One of the goals of having inner peace is healing fear. It may be fear that someone will hurt or reject you, abandon or run away from you. It may be a fear that you cannot make it in the world, a fear of putting yourself out there and failing. Inner peace is a connect to the heart and a willingness to let go of fear. You can achieve inner peace by letting go of feeling you have to defend yourself, and by being willing to be vulnerable. It is not putting on an act for other people; it is being willing to shine through as who you are and knowing you are alright.

 

Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill

"If you think you are beaten you are,

If you think you dare not, you don't

If you like to win, but you think you can't,

It is almost certain you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost

For out of the world we find,

Success begins with a fellow's will-

It's all in his state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed you are,

You've got to think high to rise,

You've got to be sure of yourself before

You ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go

To the stronger or faster man,

But soon or late the man who wins

Is the man who thinks he can."

Tao Te Ching: Do your job, then let go

He who stands on tiptoe

doesn't stand firm.

He who rushes ahead

doesn't go far.

He who tries to shine

dims his own light.

He who defines himself

can't know who he really is.

He who has power over others

can't empower himself.

He who clings to his work

will create nothing that endures.

If you want to accord with the Tao,

just do your job, then let go.

-Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching 

Matthew 16:26: Don't gain the world and lose your soul

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

Matthew 16:26

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Love and laughter.