Awakening Inspirational Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Awakening Inspirational. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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I am not a teacher, but an awakener.
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Robert Frost
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Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world.
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Ramana Maharshi
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You are never alone. You are eternally connected with everyone.
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Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
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You are one thing only. You are a Divine Being. An all-powerful Creator. You are a Deity in jeans and a t-shirt, and within you dwells the infinite wisdom of the ages and the sacred creative force of All that is, will be and ever was.
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Anthon St. Maarten (Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny)
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There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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She remembered who she was and the game changed.
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Lalah Delia
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Your greatest awakening comes, when you are aware about your infinite nature.
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Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
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The struggles we endure today will be the β€˜good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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When God takes out the trash, don't go digging back through it. Trust Him.
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Amaka Imani Nkosazana (Heart Crush)
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Man made God in his own image...
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Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose)
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You are your master. Only you have the master keys to open the inner locks.
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Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
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As the smoke clears, I awaken, And untangle you from me. Would it make you feel better To watch me, while I bleed? All my windows still are broken, But I'm standing on my feet.
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Demi Lovato
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Each person you meet is an aspect of yourself, clamoring for love.
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Eric Micha'el Leventhal
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When blame and self-judgement are transformed, healed, and cease to be, we have reawakened without the myth, the mythos, of separation. We are One.
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Wendy E. Slater (Into the Hearth, Poems-Volume 14)
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This first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like dawn in the heavens; it is the awakening of something radiant and unknown.
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Victor Hugo (Les MisΓ©rables)
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Some people try to tell you the things you want in life are out of your grasp, while others lift you up on their shoulders and help you reach them. I may not know a lot, but I prefer to fill my life with people who let me climb on top of their shoulders, not people who try to keep me planted on the ground.
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Katie Kacvinsky (Awaken (Awaken, #1))
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The closer you come to knowing that you alone create the world of your experience, the more vital it becomes for you to discover just who is doing the creating.
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Eric Micha'el Leventhal
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Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some people move our souls to dance. They awaken us to a new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom. Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon. They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.
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Flavia Weedn
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Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.
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Walter Scott
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It's in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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How would your life be different if…You didn’t allow yourself to be defined by your past? Let today be the day…You stop letting your history interfere with your destiny and awaken to the opportunity to release your greatest self.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Everything you do right now ripples outward and affects everyone. Your posture can shine your heart or transmit anxiety. Your breath can radiate love or muddy the room in depression. Your glance can awaken joy. Your words can inspire freedom. Your every act can open hearts and minds.
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David Deida (Blue Truth)
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Life's trials will test you, and shape you, but don’t let them change who you are.” ~ Aaron Lauritsen, β€˜100 Days Drive
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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Then came the healing time, hearts started to shine, soul felt so fine, oh what a freeing time it was.
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Aberjhani (Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player)
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Spirituality does not lie in meditating the body of an ex-master. Spirituality exists in mediating on your own inner body.
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Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
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When one flower blooms spring awakens everywhere
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John O'Donohue
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Why Not You? Today, many will awaken with a fresh sense of inspiration. Why not you? Today, many will open their eyes to the beauty that surrounds them. Why not you? Today, many will choose to leave the ghost of yesterday behind and seize the immeasurable power of today. Why not you? Today, many will break through the barriers of the past by looking at the blessings of the present. Why not you? Today, for many the burden of self doubt and insecurity will be lifted by the security and confidence of empowerment. Why not you? Today, many will rise above their believed limitations and make contact with their powerful innate strength. Why not you? Today, many will choose to live in such a manner that they will be a positive role model for their children. Why not you? Today, many will choose to free themselves from the personal imprisonment of their bad habits. Why not you? Today, many will choose to live free of conditions and rules governing their own happiness. Why not you? Today, many will find abundance in simplicity. Why not you? Today, many will be confronted by difficult moral choices and they will choose to do what is right instead of what is beneficial. Why not you? Today, many will decide to no longer sit back with a victim mentality, but to take charge of their lives and make positive changes. Why not you? Today, many will take the action necessary to make a difference. Why not you? Today, many will make the commitment to be a better mother, father, son, daughter, student, teacher, worker, boss, brother, sister, & so much more. Why not you? Today is a new day! Many will seize this day. Many will live it to the fullest. Why not you?
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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True friends don't come with conditions.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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Without struggle, success has no value.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.
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Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose)
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A healer's power stems not from any special ability, but from maintaining the courage and awareness to embody and express the universal healing power that every human being naturally possesses.
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Eric Micha'el Leventhal
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From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.” ~ Aaron Lauritsen, β€˜100 Days Drive
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Aaron Lauritsen
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Whatever truth we feel compelled to withhold, no matter how unthinkable it is to imagine ourselves telling it, not to is a way of spiritually holding our breath. You can only do it for so long.
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Mark Nepo (The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have)
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With stillness comes the benediction of Peace.
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Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose)
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Instead of the terror of indecision and the fear of oneself, empathy for all living creatures and respect for nature can help us to save the world. As we let the waves of good vibrations flow into our minds, we inspire others and awaken their integrity. ("'My radio ")
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Erik Pevernagie
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No one and nothing outside of you can give you salvation, or free you from the misery. You have to light your own lamp. You have to know the miniature universe that you yourself are.
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Banani Ray (Awakening Inner Guru)
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A man, whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream; he is undeceived only when he is awakened from his slumber.
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Mahatma Gandhi (Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule)
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Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond.
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Mark Nepo (The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have)
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Those who achieve the extraordinary are usually the most ordinary because they have nothing to prove to anybody. Be Humble.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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At some point, you just gotta forgive the past, your happiness hinges on it.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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Change happens for you the moment you want something more than you fear it.
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Eric Micha'el Leventhal
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Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.
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Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose)
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The further I wake into this life, the more I realize that God is everywhere and the extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary. Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond, and music is in both the flowing violin and the water dripping from the drainage pipe. Yes, God is under the porch as well as on top of the mountain, and joy is in both the front row and the bleachers, if we are willing to be where we are.
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Mark Nepo (The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have)
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Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.
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Stephen Crane
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Explore, Experience, Then Push Beyond.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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Healing your wounds will hurt, so cry. Cry your pretty little heart out until you have nothing left to shed, that's how beauty is grown; through the darkest of our days we become the light.
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Nikki Rowe
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She wore her battle scars like wings, looking at her you would never know that once upon a time she forgot how to fly
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Nikki Rowe
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I am Not, but the Universe is my Self.
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Shih-t'ou
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the calling of the teacher. There is no craft more privileged. To awaken in another human being powers, dreams beyond one’s own; to induce in others a love for that which one loves; to make of one’s inward present their future; that is a threefold adventure like no other.
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George Steiner (Lessons of the Masters (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures))
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Don't ever stop believing in your own transformation. It is still happening even on days you may not realize it or feel like it.
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Lalah Delia
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Every chance worth taking will make you a little scared. That means you're taking a risk. And where there is risk, there is reward.
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Elise Kova (Crystal Crowned (Air Awakens, #5))
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The Lotus in Buddhism is a sacred symbol that represents purity and resurrection as attributes that develop through a spiritual awakening of the self. With humble beginnings in swamplands, the Lotus flower exquisitely blooms, pure and untainted, from this murky world it thrives in. The Lotus flower represents a higher state of mind, a strong spirit cultivated far from the suffering and temptations of this muddied world that personifies beauty through the present moment.
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Forrest Curran (Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love)
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when I left her to-day, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. 'The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.'Β 
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Kate Chopin (The Awakening)
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The worst disability in life is a bad attitude.
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SupaNova Slom
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The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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Sometimes your whole life could hinge on a fraction of an inch. Or the beat of nanosecond. Or the knock on a door. Kind of made a male believe in the divine. It really did.
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J.R. Ward (Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #3))
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Change is the very nature of Nature. if there's one thing that doesn't change, it is the fact that everything changes. In the Korean tradition of Tao, this is called impermanence. The teaching about impermanence can be summarized like this: Anything that has a beginning must have an end. Anything that is created will change. Impermanence is the very nature of things. Realizing that nothing is permanent is the true beginning of enlightenment. Suffering comes from attachment that wants to hold something permanently that is not permanent in its intrinsic nature. Awakening to the truth of impermanence frees you from attachment.
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Ilchi Lee (Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential)
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To make a change, you must be: willing to commit, willing to change, willing to have an open mind, and willing to take action!
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Tae Yun Kim (The Silent Master: Awakening the Power Within)
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When life is foggy, path is unclear and mind is dull, remember your breath. It has the power to give you the peace. It has the power to resolve the unsolved equations of life.
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Amit Ray (Beautify your Breath - Beautify your Life)
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Don't hang out with people who are: Ungrateful Unhelpful Unruly Unkindly Unloving Unambitious Unmotivated or make you feel... Uncomfortable
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Germany Kent
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There was something severed and rough about her, something tainted and, yet, at the same time those jagged pieces were the makings of something fearsome. She'd wanted to become someone the Senate would fear, why not shatter the sky?
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Elise Kova (Fire Falling (Air Awakens, #2))
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If you didn't earn something, it's not worth flaunting.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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Don't be afraid to speak out. Your human rights story could be the inspiration that opens the window to someone else's awakening. Let's draw open the curtains together.
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Janine Myung Ja (Adoption Stories)
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Awakening to faith is not a one-time event, but a continuously unfolding reality. The journey of faith is not a race, but a marathon of love that each person walks at a different pace.
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A. Helwa (Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam)
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Some people spend their whole lives seeking heaven, when all they needed to do was look about them, and embrace that which was already there.
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Tom Althouse (The Frowny Face Cow)
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Dance less in motion and more in spirit; awaken the dreamer within.
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Shah Asad Rizvi
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If you awaken from this illusion and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death (or shall I say death implies life?), you can feel yourself – not as a stranger in the world, not as something here on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke - but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental.
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Alan W. Watts
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Music replays the past memories, awaken our forgotten worlds and make our minds travel.
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Michael Bassey Johnson
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It’s the β€˜everyday’ experiences we encounter along the journey to who we wanna be that will define who we are when we get there.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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A Man who is doing his True Will has the inertia of the Universe to assist him.
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Aleister Crowley
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I called the world of phenomena an illusion, I called my eyes and my tongue and accident, valueless phenomena. No, that is all over; I have awakened, I have really awakened and have just been born today.
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Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)
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There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric....But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.
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Plato (Phaedo)
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Thoughts don't become things; thoughts ARE things.
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Eric Micha'el Leventhal
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Your own thoughts can be your worst enemy!
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Tae Yun Kim (The Silent Master: Awakening the Power Within)
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In one moment, we are now forever, in one moment...
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Paul Goldman (Journey Into Oneness)
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Whatever happens, love that.
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Matt Kahn
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Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the asronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.
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Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (Wind, Sand and Stars)
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Β»Eines TagesΒ«, sagte sie, Β»fange ich TrΓ€ume ein wie Schmetterlinge.Β« Β»Und dann?Β«, fragte er. Β»Lege ich sie zwischen die Seiten dicker BΓΌcher und presse sie zu Worten.Β« Β»Was, wenn jemand immer nur von dir trΓ€umt?Β« Β»Dann sind wir beide vielleicht schon Worte in einem Buch. Zwei Namen zwischen all den anderen.Β«
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Kai Meyer (Arcadia Awakens (Arcadia, #1))
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Don’t ever stop believing in your own personal transformation. It is still happening even on the days you may not realize it or feel like it.
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Lalah Delia
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Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements.
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Giacomo Puccini
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Sickness awakens sadness sleeps- Moments of aloneness results into peace.
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Santosh Kalwar (A Very First Book Of Poems: Heartbreak)
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The genius of a composer is found in the notes of his music; but analyzing the notes will not reveal his genius. The poet's greatness is contained in his words; yet the study of his words will not disclose his inspiration. God reveals himself in creation; but scrutinize creation as minutely as you wish, you will not find God, any more than you will find the soul through careful examination of your body.
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Anthony de Mello (Awakening: Conversations with the Masters)
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Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. Think of your ordinary emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun. If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation. Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind into the mindfulness of Calm Abiding, and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing. And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature.
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Sogyal Rinpoche (The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying)
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Once your soul is awakened, you never return to the sleepwalking state of mind. Some people become complacent in life. They are just going through the motions and not aware of truth. Seek the knowledge, wisdom, and the understandings that vivify your existence.
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Amaka Imani Nkosazana (Heart Crush)
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We have the Noble Desire to help others and benefit the world, without expecting any return or recognition. What makes us great is not our knowledge, skill, money, or power. What makes us great is not our knowledge, skill, money, or power. What makes us truly great is this noble desire, this passion that transcends all separation, goes beyond one's limitations, and wants to hug others and embrace the whole world. This is not something that we need to learn, because we already have it. It just needs to be acknowledged and awakened.
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Ilchi Lee (Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential)
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There is beauty all around us, and the light finds us when we realize, we are all part of that beauty and worth the cherishing. If we despise any, we journey to despise ourselves. See all as beautiful, even if they choose to see themselves through you, as being less than so. We have the power to see for each, and be the reflection of what they may yet see.
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Tom Althouse
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I looked about me. Luminous points glowed in the darkness. Cigarettes punctuated the humble meditations of worn old clerks. I heard them talking to one another in murmurs and whispers. They talked about illness, money, shabby domestic cares. And suddenly I had a vision of the face of destiny. Old bureaucrat, my comrade, it is not you who are to blame. No one ever helped you to escape. You, like a termite, built your peace by blocking up with cement every chink and cranny through which the light might pierce. You rolled yourself up into a ball in your genteel security, in routine, in the stifling conventions of provincial life, raising a modest rampart against the winds and the tides and the stars. You have chosen not to be perturbed by great problems, having trouble enough to forget your own fate as a man. You are not the dweller upon an errant planet and do not ask yourself questions to which there are no answers. Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.
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Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (Wind, Sand and Stars)
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Perhaps your hunger to belong is always active and intense because you belonged so totally before you came here. This hunger to belong is the echo and reverberation of your invisible heritage. You are from somewhere else, where you were known, embraced and sheltered. This is also the secret root from which all longing grows. Something in you knows, perhaps remembers, that eternal belonging liberates longing into its surest and most potent creativity. This is why your longing is often wiser than your conventional sense of appropriateness, safety and truth... Your longing desires to take you towards the absolute realization of all the possibilities that sleep in the clay of your heart; it knows your eternal potential, and it will not rest until it is awakened.
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John O'Donohue (Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong)
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Well,’ you may ask, β€˜how may I know when I am in love?’ . . . George Q. Morris [who later became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, gave this reply]: β€˜My mother once said that if you meet a girl in whose presence you feel a desire to achieve, who inspires you to do your best, and to make the most of yourself, such a young woman is worthy of your love and is awakening love in your heart.
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David O. McKay
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Things never happen the way you plan. Take it a second at a time. Stay in the moment. It's the only way to control it. Your thoughts can paralyze you. They make you second-guess and that's when you lose. You mentally beat yourself. Believe you can handle anything. Look at something that's bigger than you and take it all in, the enormousness of it. Drown in it. Then take a step back. Comparmentalize it. Remember, anything's attainable. And take every risk you can, as long as you trust yourself.
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Katie Kacvinsky (Middle Ground (Awaken, #2))
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Through systematic meditation one can awaken the third eye and touch the cosmic awareness. Sushumna nadi is the subtle pathway in the spinal cord which passes through the main psychic centers. The awakening of these centers means a gradual expansion of awareness, until it reaches the cosmic awareness. Each center has its own beauty and gracefulness. Through generations of ignorance and unconsciousness, this channel of awareness becomes obscured and hidden. Meditation is to become aware about this internal life energy. Meditation is the procedure to rearrange, harmonize, activate, and integrate the individual life energy with the cosmic life energy.
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Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
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The mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within...could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the result; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline; and the most glorious poetry that has been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet.
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Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master. That is to say, most artists are converted to art by art itself. Finding one's voice isn't just an emptying and purifying oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses. Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos. Any artist knows these truths, no matter how deeply he or she submerges that knowing.
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Lewis Hyde (The Gift)
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Be Drunken, Always. That is the point; nothing else matters. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weigh you down and crush you to the earth, be drunken continually. Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please. But be drunken. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, or on the green grass in a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and find the drunkenness half or entirely gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the clock, of all that flies, of all that speaks, ask what hour it is; and wind, wave, star, bird, or clock will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunken! Be Drunken, if you would not be the martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please.
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Charles Baudelaire
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A woman in her thirties came to see me. As she greeted me, I could sense the pain behind her polite and superficial smile. She started telling me her story, and within one second her smile changed into a grimace of pain. Then, she began to sob uncontrollably. She said she felt lonely and unfulfilled. There was much anger and sadness. As a child she had been abused by a physically violent father. I saw quickly that her pain was not caused by her present life circumstances but by an extraordinarily heavy pain-body. Her pain-body had become the filter through which she viewed her life situation. She was not yet able to see the link between the emotional pain and her thoughts, being completely identified with both. She could not yet see that she was feeding the pain-body with her thoughts. In other words, she lived with the burden of a deeply unhappy self. At some level, however, she must have realized that her pain originated within herself, that she was a burden to herself. She was ready to awaken, and this is why she had come. I directed the focus of her attention to what she was feeling inside her body and asked her to sense the emotion directly, instead of through the filter of her unhappy thoughts, her unhappy story. She said she had come expecting me to show her the way out of her unhappiness, not into it. Reluctantly, however, she did what I asked her to do. Tears were rolling down her face, her whole body was shaking. β€œAt this moment, this is what you feel.” I said. β€œThere is nothing you can do about the fact that at this moment this is what you feel. Now, instead of wanting this moment to be different from the way it is, which adds more pain to the pain that is already there, is it possible for you to completely accept that this is what you feel right now?” She was quiet for a moment. Suddenly she looked impatient, as if she was about to get up, and said angrily, β€œNo, I don't want to accept this.” β€œWho is speaking?” I asked her. β€œYou or the unhappiness in you? Can you see that your unhappiness about being unhappy is just another layer of unhappiness?” She became quiet again. β€œI am not asking you to do anything. All I'm asking is that you find out whether it is possible for you to allow those feelings to be there. In other words, and this may sound strange, if you don't mind being unhappy, what happens to the unhappiness? Don't you want to find out?” She looked puzzled briefly, and after a minute or so of sitting silently, I suddenly noticed a significant shift in her energy field. She said, β€œThis is weird. I 'm still unhappy, but now there is space around it. It seems to matter less.” This was the first time I heard somebody put it like that: There is space around my unhappiness. That space, of course, comes when there is inner acceptance of whatever you are experiencing in the present moment. I didn't say much else, allowing her to be with the experience. Later she came to understand that the moment she stopped identifying with the feeling, the old painful emotion that lived in her, the moment she put her attention on it directly without trying to resist it, it could no longer control her thinking and so become mixed up with a mentally constructed story called β€œThe Unhappy Me.” Another dimension had come into her life that transcended her personal past – the dimension of Presence. Since you cannot be unhappy without an unhappy story, this was the end of her unhappiness. It was also the beginning of the end of her pain-body. Emotion in itself is not unhappiness. Only emotion plus an unhappy story is unhappiness. When our session came to an end, it was fulfilling to know that I had just witnessed the arising of Presence in another human being. The very reason for our existence in human form is to bring that dimension of consciousness into this world. I had also witnessed a diminishment of the pain-body, not through fighting it but through bringing the light of consciousness to it.
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Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose)
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A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line...To snatch in a moment of courage, from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life is only the beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes and in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, its form, and its colour, reveal the substance of its truth -- disclose its inspiring secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing moment. In a single-minded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that at last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth, shall awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind to the visible world.
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Joseph Conrad
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Subhuti, someone might fill innumerable worlds with the seven treasures and give all away in gifts of alms, but if any good man or any good woman awakens the thought of Enlightenment and takes even only four lines from this Discourse, reciting, using, receiving, retaining and spreading them abroad and explaining them for the benefit of others, it will be far more meritorious. Now in what manner may he explain them to others? By detachment from appearances-abiding in Real Truth. -So I tell you- Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; A flash of lightening in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. When Buddha finished this Discourse the venerable Subhuti, together with the bhikshus, bhikshunis, lay-brothers and sisters, and the whole realms of Gods, Men and Titans, were filled with joy by His teaching, and, taking it sincerely to heart they went their ways.
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Gautama Buddha (Diamond Sutra)
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When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken. On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.
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Bill Wilson
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Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy. It not only enables them to keep abreast of the times; it qualifies them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive power to the mad pace. They are fortunate beings. They do not need to apprehend the significance of things. They do not grow weary nor miss step, nor do they fall out of rank and sink by the wayside to be left contemplating the moving procession. Ah! that moving procession that has left me by the road-side! Its fantastic colors are more brilliant and beautiful than the sun on the undulating waters. What matter if souls and bodies are failing beneath the feet of the ever-pressing multitude! It moves with the majestic rhythm of the spheres. Its discordant clashes sweep upward in one harmonious tone that blends with the music of other worlds--to complete God's orchestra. It is greater than the stars--that moving procession of human energy; greater than the palpitating earth and the things growing thereon. Oh! I could weep at being left by the wayside; left with the grass and the clouds and a few dumb animals. True, I feel at home in the society of these symbols of life's immutability. In the procession I should feel the crushing feet, the clashing discords, the ruthless hands and stifling breath. I could not hear the rhythm of the march. Salve! ye dumb hearts. Let us be still and wait by the roadside.
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Kate Chopin (The Awakening)
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Truth changes with the season of our emotions. It is the shadow that moves with the phases of our inner sun. When the nights falls, only our perception can guess where it hides in the dark. Within every solar system of the soul lies a plan of what truth is--- the design God has created, in our own unique story. This is as varying as the constellations, and as turning as the tide. It is not one truth we live to, but many. If we ever hope to determine if there is such a thing as truth, apart from cultural and personal preferences, we must acknowledge that we are then aiming to discover something greater than ourselves, something that transcends culture and individual inclinations. Some say that we must look beyond ourselves and outside of ourselves. However, we don’t need to look farther than what is already in each other. If there was any great plan from a higher power it is a simplistic, repetitious theme found in all religions; the basic core importance to unity comes from shared theological and humanistic virtues. Beyond the synagogue, mosques, temples, churches, missionary work, church positions and religious rituals comes a simple β€œmessage of truth” found in all of us, that binds theology---holistic virtues combined with purpose is the foundation of spiritual evolution. The diversity among us all is not divided truth, but the opportunity for unity through these shared values. Truth is the framework and roadmap of positive virtues. It unifies diversity when we choose to see it and use it. It is simple message often lost among the rituals, cultural traditions and socializing that goes on behind the chapel doors of any religion or spiritual theology. As we fight among ourselves about what religion, culture or race is right, we often lose site of the simple message any great orator has whispered through time----a simplistic story explaining the importance of virtues, which magically reemphasizes the importance of loving one another through service.
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Shannon L. Alder