Inward Journey Quotes

Often, to be free means the ability to deal with the realities of one's own situation so as not to be overcome by them.

The longest journey is the journey inward.

Meditation is a journey from effort to effortlessness, from activity to stillness, and from stress, anxiety and frustration to a state of peace and tranquillity.

It is our inward journey that leads us through time – forward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling. Each of us is moving, changing, with respect to others. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge. Our living experience at those meeting points is one of the charged dramatic fields of fiction.

The inward Journey is about, Finding your own fullness; something that no one else can take away.

Most change starts with the simple process of something outside of us altering something inside of us. If you begin the inward journey and start to change your inner world of thoughts and feelings, it should create an improved state of well-being. If you keep repeating the process in meditation, then in time, epigenetic changes should begin to alter your outer presentation—and you become your own placebo.

But one must remember that they were all men with systems. Freud, monumentally hipped on sex (for which he personally had little use) and almost ignorant of Nature: Adler, reducing almost everything to the will to power: and Jung, certainly the most humane and gentlest of them, and possibly the greatest, but nevertheless the descendant of parsons and professors, and himself a super-parson and a super-professor. all men of extraordinary character, and they devised systems that are forever stamped with that character.… Davey, did you ever think that these three men who were so splendid at understanding others had first to understand themselves? It was from their self-knowledge they spoke. They did not go trustingly to some doctor and follow his lead because they were too lazy or too scared to make the inward journey alone. They dared heroically. And it should never be forgotten that they made the inward journey while they were working like galley-slaves at their daily tasks, considering other people's troubles, raising families, living full lives. They were heroes, in a sense that no space-explorer can be a hero, because they went into the unknown absolutely alone. Was their heroism simply meant to raise a whole new crop of invalids? Why don't you go home and shoulder your yoke, and be a hero too?

The physical body is not only a temple for our soul, but the means by which we embark on the inward journey toward the core.

You say tomato and I say shamanistic vision quest that uses an ordeal to lead us inward on a journey of spiritual discovery and eventual synthesis and peace.

Being responsible is taking ownership of your life. It means you have taken the first radical step to becoming a complete human being—fully conscious and fully human. In taking responsibility and beginning the journey toward conscious living, you are putting an end to the age-old patterns of assigning blame outward or heavenward. You have begun the greatest adventure life has to offer: the voyage inward.

The longest journey Is the journey inwards. Of him who has chosen his destiny, Who has started upon his quest For the source of his being." page 58 The present moment is significant, not as the bridge between past and future, but by reason of its contents, contents which can fill our emptiness and become ours, if we are capable of receiving them." page 62

Too many of us move through our lives with our true selves buried below layers of repressed emotion. With so much energy channeled toward sustaining the repression, there is little left over for the deeper questions. The consequences of our evasion are profound. Our stockpiles toxify into a cache of weapons that turn inward against the self: quick fix, long suffering. As Rumi said, “Most people guard against the fire, and so end up in it.” This is the power of then. If we don’t deal with our stuff, it deals with us.

when you talk of your journey and of what you have heard and seen, you inwardly desire your own glory in all you do and say." "All

One step inward is better than a million outward. Your own small lamp can help you more than a thousand external suns when the night is dark.

much of my confusion and sadness came from being disconnected from myself. the greatest journey i have taken so far is the one where i ended the alienation between me and all that i am, the once where i connected my light and my darkness, where i united what i wanted to know with what i did not want to face. only through this union and truthfulness did i begin to feel at home within my own being.

The mystery of life doesn’t seem so mysterious if you venture inward and listen to your soul’s voice.

The purpose of a pilgrimage is about setting aside a long period of time in which the only focus is to be the matters of the soul. Many believe a pilgrimage is about going away but it isn’t; it is about coming home. Those who choose to go on pilgrimage have already ventured away from themselves; and now set out in a longing to journey back to who they are. Many a time we believe we must go away from all that is familiar if we are to focus on our inner well-being because we feel it is the only way to escape all that drains and distracts us, allowing us to turn inward and tend to what ails us. Yet we do not need to go to the edges of the earth to learn who we are, only the edges of ourself.

If things seemed challenging, instead of trying to change them physically (which is what I did pre-NDE), I began checking in with my internal world. If I’m stressed, anxious, unhappy, or something similar, I go inward and tend to that first. I sit with myself, walk in nature, or listen to music until I get to a centered place where I feel calm and collected. I noticed that when I do so, my external world also changes, and many of the obstacles just fall away without my actually doing anything.

All that you see, see in love, All that you do, do in love, All that you speak, speak in love, All that you be, be in love.

Thus, Jeremiah’s love affair ends with a dull journey in which two doctors speak of the merits of Claudius Amyand’s successful appendectomy, the quality of French roads, moving onto other topics the reserve of the serious minded and Jeremiah, in his confinement, gazes out at the landscape, at the great conquered land lying between himself and his beloved and inwardly weeps, acknowledging that a whore in Covent Garden had foreseen it all.

Through learning at my later date things I hadn't known, or had escaped or possibly feared realizing, about my parents - and myself - I glimpsed our whole family life as if it were freed of that clock time which spaces us apart so inhibitingly, divides young and old, keeps our living through the same experiences at separate distances. It is our inward journey that leads us through time - forward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling. Each of us is moving, changing, with respect to others. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge. Our living experience at those meeting points is one of the charged dramatic fields of fiction.

Know thyself, Live thyself, Be thyself, Love thyself Mix Pages , The wind that found ink: A journey of thoughts

Peace is not a jewel, or a realm to be enforced. It's a deep and unseen journey inwards—quiet, brave, fierce as a thousand suns.

The quest for your Element is really a two-way journey. It is an inward journey to explore what lies within you; it is an outward journey to explore opportunities in the world around you.

There is a single truth, it filters through different stories and languages because people come from different cultures and speak different languages. And this truth has manifested itself through millennia, in multiple ways. Different people belong to different manifestations of truth. Some people take those manifestations and turn them into religions, or into gathering places or into a system. Others take those manifestations and allow that light to illuminate the paths on their inward journeys. All in all, the only reason why there is strife or hatred in any way, is because of the strife and hatred and intolerance inside of people. Truth does not call for any division or any hatred or intolerance of any kind. In order to love one thing, this does not mean we need to put down another one.

Being a published author is not just about selling books, or winning awards but it is also about the authors’ own maturity and sensitivity as a person. It is an inward journey, to the contrary.”—Mehreen Ahmed

I am not telling you to become cold, I am not telling you to choose aloofness and a detached life. I am telling you these are two aspects. If you want to live your life in its multidimensionality—as matter, as spirit, as body, as soul, as love, as meditation, as outward exploration and inward journey—if you want to live life in its totality, the ingoing breath and the outgoing breath, you need not choose. If you choose you will die. That

Purpose of life is unknown, and hence way to be is hidden from the eyes of living critters. Who can say if perhaps the schizophrenics are not correct? Mister, they take a brave journey. They turn away from mere things, which one may handle and turn to practical use; they turn inward to meaning. There, the black-night-without-bottom lies, the pit. Who can say if they will return? And if so, what will they be like, having glimpsed meaning? I admire them.

These are the two fundamental ways in which the spiritual journey can be approached: you can either go slowly, step-by-step, accepting all natural assistance available to you, or you can ignore all the steps and take the inward leap.

as she looked into her past, she noticed that the road she had traveled was no simple straight line. her journey toward fully loving herself and the world was full of forward and backward movement, twists, turns, detours, and even some pauses. at times, she doubted her progress, her potential, and even her power to change. but today, with the wisdom of experience at hand, she knows she could not have gotten to where she is without every movement she has ever made. (experience)

The journey to know the “I” is called inward journey. Whether you are studying galaxies or blackholes or quantum particles, never forget that your purpose is to know the “I”, not what the “I” is seeing. Watch “I” changing its location. When you are eating delicious meal “I” is body. When you are reading book, “I” is mind. Who is watching mind? Another partition of mind. When you keep watching “I”, you will realize that “I” is “nothingness” and it just gets attached things like body or mind.

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will - whatever we may think. They flower spontaneously out of the demands of our natures - and the best of them lead us not only outwards in space, but inwards as well. Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection....

I only had to drop acid once to know that Timothy Leary was right about questioning authority. Motorcycling is like life. There's nothing solid about it. Something not even the asphalt under your tires. Time on a motorcycle is unlike time spent anywhere else. There are moments lost in the landscape, seconds devoted solely to balance, and long stretches spent spiraling inward.

St. John Chrysostom said 'Find the door of your heart, you will discover it is the door of the kingdom of God.' So it is inward that we must turn, and not outward - but inward in a very special way. I'm not saying that we must become introspective. I don't mean that we must go inward in the way one does in psychoanalysis or psychology. It is not a journey into my own inwardness, it is a journey through my own self, in order to emerge from the deepest level of self into the place where He is, the point at which God and I meet.

William James said, “You cannot travel without until you have travelled within.” Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” People who discover their sweet spot are people who take the inward journey and examine themselves. They make the choice to live until they die.

Joseph Campbell reflects in The Power of Myth that in mythic terms, the first part of any journey of initiation must deal with the death of the old self and the resurrection of the new. Campbell says that the hero, or heroic figure, 'moves not into outer space but into inward space, to the place from which all being comes, into the consciousness that is the source of all things, the kingdom of heaven within. The images are outward, but their reflection is inward.

Now you must journey inwards to what you really fear it's inside you... there is no turning back. Your training is nothing. The will is everything. The will to act. If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, you become something else entirely. Are you ready to begin? - Batman Begins

Letting go of that will likely spin you inward on a journey examining your old ideas about yourself, where they have come from and where you want to go from here. But that journey - that is one worth having. Because unlike the tales of the joys at the end of the pursuit of perfection, there is peace there. It is within you to find it.

In the ebb and flow of my life, in years gone by, in moments now, in currents, undertows that almost did me in, someone was there, never let me go. I bathe myself in this love. Because of it I did not get lost in crossroads, curves of the years gone by. No dead-end streets, always an exit! How lucky I am—someone loves me! -Inward Journey

When we Love ourselves,we love another When we Love another,we love the Divine When we love the Divine,there can be no separation We are all One,no form of harm can be created!

the journey across the great ocean of existence Is a journey inward ever in deeper and deeper and the deeper you get in the more you meet truth

I believe that there are two necessary paths enabling us to move toward wisdom: a radical journey inward and a radical journey outward. For

Religion can take you from earth to heaven while spirituality can take you to the creator of heavens and the earth.

Your creativity is a reflection of God's creativity in you.

Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.”21

For Yesterday I was not the one I was, For Today I am what you made me who I am and For Tomorrow I leave it up to you oh God!

Where there is love there is hope and where there is hope there is light and when there is light there is enlightenment.

There is a humility to the act of the kora, which stands as a corrective to the self-exaltation of the mountaineer’s hunger for an utmost point. Circle and circuit, potentially endless, stand against the symbolic finality of the summit. The pilgrim on the kora contents himself always with looking up and inwards to mystery, where the mountaineer longs to look down and outwards onto knowledge.

Because I had inwardly surrendered each step of the way, no scars were left of my psyche. It had been like writing on water - the impressions only lasted while the events were actually taking place.

Discovering the true beauty of the world becomes elusive when our perception remains confined solely to the limitations of our own eyes. However, as the veils of illusion are lifted from our minds, a profound sweetness emerges, beckoning our attention towards the depths of our hearts. In this inward journey, we encounter a presence both substantial and weightless, surpassing the superficiality of mere visual observation. It's a richness that resonates from the very core of our being, a melody echoing from the depths of our souls. As we embrace the spectrum of experiences molding us, we ignite a flame within ourselves, one that has the power to engulf our souls in a final, exhilarating blaze of joy. It's the amalgamation of colors, emotions, and transformations that fuels this fire, propelling us towards a state of revelation and profound understanding.

But an authentic relationship with Christ also takes us into the depths — the shadows, the strongholds and the darkness deep within our own souls that must be purged. Surrendering to this inward and downward journey is difficult and painful.

Rites–of–passage stories…were cherished in pre–literate societies not only for their entertainment value, but also as mythic tools to prepare young men and women for life’s ordeals. A wealth of such stories can be found marking each major transition in the human life cycle: puberty, marriage, childbirth, menopause, death. Other rites–of–passage, less predictable but equally transformative, include times of sudden change and calamity such as illness and injury, the loss of one’s home, the death of a loved one, etc. These are the times when we wake, like Dante, to find ourselves in a deep, dark wood — an image that in Jungian psychology represents an inward journey. Rites–of–passage tales point to the hidden roads that lead out of the dark again — and remind us that at the end of the journey we’re not the same person as when we started. Ascending from the Netherworld (that grey landscape of illness, grief, depression, or despair), we are ‘twice–born’ in our return to life, carrying seeds — new wisdom, ideas, creativity and fecundity of spirit.

The season of Lent is the time for us to take a journey; an inward journey. The season of Lent is as the prophet Joel writes, “a time for us to rend our hearts and not our clothing.” It is a time for self-examination; a time to get to know ourselves a little better. Often times for Lent people will give up a favorite food, or some other form of self-sacrifice. These things are all well and good IF they come from the heart, IF they are a true attempt to re-connect with the Spirit inside us. Otherwise, we are simply “rending” our clothes.

It turns out that no one believes her anyway, and that lack of belief in her festers, infects her through and through—because, in her heart, she wants to be an honest person, and she thought she was. But she is not fully honest with anyone, not even with herself. It turns out she cannot give voice to uncertainty; this is not allowed. She does not need to be told this to know it is true. So she becomes quiet; she continues her journey inward, a journey she will be on for years, alone, unable to share with anyone, not her family, not her friends, not her lover.

He understood, too, that they had not necessarily been chosen to succeed, or even to live. But they'd been chosen to find the Holy Grail that was within themselves. And that's what this was always about; the Grail was a phantom and the journey was inward, into their hearts and souls.

So we would say in yoga that the subtle precedes the gross, or spirit precedes matter. But yoga says we must deal with the outer or most manifest first, i.e. legs, arms, spine, eyes, tongue, touch, in order to develop the sensitivity to move inward. This is why asana opens the whole spectrum of yoga’s possibilities. There can be no realization of existential, divine bliss without the support of the soul’s incarnate vehicle, the food-and-water-fed body, from bone to brain. If we can become aware of its limitations and compulsions, we can transcend them. We all possess some awareness of ethical behavior, but in order to pursue yama and niyama at deeper levels, we must cultivate the mind. We need contentment, tranquility, dispassion, and unselfishness, qualities that have to be earned. It is asana that teaches us the physiology of these virtues.

Success is directly proportional to one's ability to turn inward. Yoga is a journey that facilitates the process of reaching inward. Deeper you reach within your inner cosmos, greater will be your understanding of and influence in the outer world. It is this understanding and influence that determines the degree of your success.

how to focus—how to, as we might say these days, “bring it.” Like Hokusai, their lives begin to look like guided missiles. How exactly do they accomplish this? How do you get from where most of us live—the run-of-the-mill split mind—to the gathered mind of a Hokusai? Krishna articulates the principle succinctly: Acting in unity with your purpose itself creates unification. Actions that consciously support dharma have the power to begin to gather our energy. These outward actions, step-by-step, shape us inwardly. Find your dharma and do it. And in the process of doing it, energy begins to gather itself into a laser beam of effectiveness. Krishna quickly adds: Do not worry about the outcome. Success or failure are not your concern. It is better to fail at your own dharma than to succeed at the dharma of another. Your task is only to bring as much life force as you can muster to the execution of your dharma. In this spirit, Chinese Master Guan Yin Tzu wrote: “Don’t waste time calculating your chances of success and failure. Just fix your aim and begin.

Travel is just as much a journey inward as it is a journey out. As we soar the skies and sail the waters and crack the virgin soils of the earth, we too delve into our own caverns, peek around the corners of our dreams, tremble before our fire-breathing terrors, axe to splinters our biases and judgments and beliefs, and discover the uncharted wonders of our psyches and our hearts.

I want to be a cleaner, A person cleaner of his own heart, I want to be a bodyguard, A person guarding his own heart, I want to be a farmer, A farmer farming his own heart, I want to be a carpenter, A person crafting his own heart, I want to be a doctor, A person treating his own heart, I want to be a seeker, A person seeking his own heart, I want to be a perfect human, A person perfecting his own heart.

No relationship is a total waste. Despite how painful they may be, they teach you about what you want and what you don’t want. They can remind you that you deserve better. And if it’s painful enough, a bad relationship can be the catalyst for a journey inward. But no relationship, either with a past lover or friend or family member, is worth damaging future opportunities to connect with others or yourself.

We think "thought" is a simple thing having no impact, weight, or effect on our mind but isn't every single thing based and built on a thought? Everything today is phenomenal existence exists because it was someone's thought even we are too. We are God's thoughts in existence and in reality, we don't exist. In order to achieve something in life, we just need to improve our thought and I believe that's the secret of thought.

I now understand that God may very well give us ideas, but often our talent (or lack of it) gets in the way of His musings. But while we cringe inwardly, God smiles and delights in the fact that His children took the time to listen to Him, and tried their best with what He gave them. I think we’re often more interested in the end result than God is. He seems to care more about faith and obedience than how wonderful or talented we are.

What is between my soul and you is between us, What is between my heart and you is between us, What is between said and understood is between me and you is between us, What is between is one among two among two is one is between us, What is between silence is loud and between loud is silent is between us, What is between is the law of one and one of the law is love between us, What is between us is love and what is love is in between is between us.

The journey is in yourself. You travel along the highways of the inner world. Without inner movement it is impossible to bring forth anything. Inner action is introverted sensation. If you will construct mentally a drama which implies that you have realised your objective, then close your eyes and drop your thoughts inward, centering your imagination all the while in the predetermined action and partake in that action, you will become a self-determined being.

Unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life are common themes in the American culture today. Folks sometimes mistake my meaning when I say, “You have the freedom of choice and the ability to create your best life”, because they all too often rush to drop everything that is weighing them down. They quit the job, ditch the unhappy marriage, cut out negative friends and family, get out of Dodge, etc. I do not advocate such hastiness; in fact, I believe that rash decision-making leads to more problems further down the road. Another unsatisfying job manifests; another unhappy relationship results. These people want a new environment, yet the same negative energy always seems to occupy it. This is because transformation is all about the internal shift, not the external. Any blame placed on outside sources for our unhappiness will forever perpetuate that unhappiness. Pointing the finger is giving away your power of choice and the ability to create our best life. We choose: “That person is making me unhappy” vs. “I make myself happy.” When you are in unhappy times of lack and feelings of separation – great! Sit there and be with it. Find ways to be content with little. Find ways to be happy with your Self. As we reflect on the lives of mystics past and present, it is not the things they possess or the relationships they share that bring them enlightenment – their light is within. The same light can bring us unwavering happiness (joy). Love, Peace, Joy – these three things all come from within and have an unwavering flame – life source – that is not dependent on the conditions of the outside world. This knowing is the power and wisdom that the mystics teach us that we are all capable of achieving. When I say, “You have the freedom of choice and the ability to create your best life”, I am not referring to external conditions; I am referring to the choice you have to look inward and discover the ability to transform the lead of the soul into gold. Transformation is an inner journey of the soul. Why? Because, as we mentioned above, wherever we go, ourselves go with us. Thus, quitting the job, dumping relationships, etc. will not make us happy because we have forgotten the key factor that makes or breaks our happiness: ourselves. When we find, create, and maintain peace, joy, and love within ourselves, we then gain the ability to embrace the external world with the same emotions, perspective, and vibration. This ability is a form of enlightenment. It is the modern man’s enlightenment that transforms an unsatisfying life into one of fulfillment.

One final note here: you’ve probably noticed that whenever I mention serial killers, I always refer to them as “he.” This isn’t just a matter of form or syntactical convenience. For reasons we only partially understand, virtually all multiple killers are male. There’s been a lot of research and speculation into it. Part of it is probably as simple as the fact that people with higher levels of testosterone (i.e., men) tend to be more aggressive than people with lower levels (i.e., women). On a psychological level, our research seems to show that while men from abusive backgrounds often come out of the experience hostile and abusive to others, women from similar backgrounds tend to direct the rage and abusiveness inward and punish themselves rather than others. While a man might kill, hurt, or rape others as a way of dealing with his rage, a woman is more likely to channel it into something that would hurt primarily herself, such as drug or alcohol abuse, prostitution, or suicide attempts. I can’t think of a single case of a woman acting out a sexualized murder on her own. The one exception to this generality, the one place we do occasionally see women involved in multiple murders, is in a hospital or nursing home situation. A woman is unlikely to kill repeatedly with a gun or knife. It does happen with something “clean” like drugs. These often fall into the category of either “mercy homicide,” in which the killer believes he or she is relieving great suffering, or the “hero homicide,” in which the death is the unintentional result of causing the victim distress so he can be revived by the offender, who is then declared a hero. And, of course, we’ve all been horrified by the cases of mothers, such as the highly publicized Susan Smith case in South Carolina, killing their own children. There is generally a particular set of motivations for this most unnatural of all crimes, which we’ll get into later on. But for the most part, the profile of the serial killer or repeat violent offender begins with “male.” Without that designation, my colleagues and I would all be happily out of a job.

~ The Foolish Fool ~ I can tell the world I am Good, I can wear religious clothing show the world I am Good, I can pray 5 times prayers to convince people in the world I am Good, I can perform pilgrimage to holy places to be known by others I am Good, I can feed the poor to feed my ego and feel I am Good, I can hide my own sin call, people, sinners behind and become delusional that I am Good, I can wear a sheep mask being a wolf expecting the Shepard to consider that I am Good, I can fool the whole world to believe in me I am Good, But in reality, I fooled myself by proving to people, not God that I am Good.

BREATHE Mindful breathing is a basic wonderful pleasure for life. Breathing calms our body and mind to unify our soul within the present moment. Breathing is a supreme gift from Mother Nature, giving universal pranic energy which one guides within. BELIEVE Intentions, wishes and dreams can come true. Not necessarily all at once, but herein lies the splendour of life’s journey. The secret tonic to success is belief and imagination, blended with confidence to open your heart and follow your dreams. BE Savadhyaya is the practice of inward reflection, honest self-observation and learning. Whatever you do, wherever you are, find contentment and simply be there, because that’s exactly where you need to be.

If Today I die I won't regret it, Jewel of faith I have received now death I won't regret it, I don't need any path when I have found my destination now death I won't it, I don't have any expectations nor hope with anything or anyone when I have got LOVE now death I won't regret it, My search for drunk yard has ended I have found a perfect spiritual master now death I won't regret it, Now I don't search God in the books when I am drinking from the eyes now death I won't regret it, To know LOVE I setout myself in the world when I am under the blaze of LOVE now death I won't regret it, What is the need for any external decoration and beautifying things when you are in my HEART now death I won't regret it, Don't ask Aiyaz what is LOVE! Who's LOVER I am He is inside my HEART now death I won't regret it.

Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish…. If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love…. I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace….

The canyons of our minds and hearts are so deep and so full of mystery that we try at all costs to avoid entering them deeply. We avoid journeying inward because we are too frightened: frightened because we must make that journey alone; frightened because we know it will involve solitude and perseverance; and frightened because we are entering the unknown. Aloneness, suffering, perseverance, the unknown: All these frighten us. Our own depths frighten us! And so we stall, distract ourselves, drug the pain, party and travel, stay busy, try this and that, cling to people and moments, junk up the surface of our lives, and find any and every excuse to avoid being alone and having to face ourselves. We are too frightened to travel inward. But we pay a price for that, a high one: superficiality and shallowness. So long as we avoid the painful journey inward, to the depth of our caverns, we live at the surface.

The Camino points to something more fundamental, to a way of thinking about self and others that looks inward past window-dressing and the usual social identifiers. Pilgrims leave behind professional and social tags when they enter the Camino. Here we're fellow human beings. Period. Often I know only the first name and nationality of people I meet on the trail, sometimes not even that, and with our standard pilgrim attire, we don't offer the usual visual cues to who we are and what we do in life. Yet we affect each other in profound ways. On this level playing field, we talk easily about whatever is on our minds, and the insights from strangers can be surprisingly perceptive. The French pilgrim at Compostelle 2000 (the Paris pilgrim association) was on to something when she told me that the Camino is more than a physical place. It does present breathtaking encounters with the land itself, but it also pushes me to look beyond the physical world.

I suppose that an American's approach to English literature must always be oblique. We share a language but not a landscape. In order to understand the English classics as adults, we must build up a sort of visual vocabulary from the books we read as children.... I contend that a child brought up on the nursery rhymes and Jacobs' English Fairy Tales can better understand Shakespeare; that a child who has pored over Beatrix Potter can better respond to Wordsworth. Of course it is best if one can find for himself a bank where the wild thyme grows, or discover daffodils growing wild. Failing that, the American child must feed the "inward eye" with the images in the books he reads when young so that he can enter a larger realm when he is older. I am sure I enjoyed the Bronte novels more for having read The Secret Garden first. As I stood on those moors, looking out over that wind-swept landscape I realized that it was Mrs. Burnett who taught me what "wuthering" meant long before I ever got around to reading Wuthering Heights. Epiphany comes at the moment of recognition.

And like Vera, I know that "truth lies beyond." I know that faith - like chastity, like intimacy, like the journey to the self - is an ongoing process. Yes, we do walk the labyrinth to the center of every greater knowledge of ourselves as we do in books like Gordimer's. We may also learn from them, as Vera learned, that no single human relationship can fulfill us, draw a small circle around who we are or can be. Others, alas, are as limited, as frail - and as mortal - as we are. We will be compelled, somehow, to leave the center we have found, and continue on our journey. For, self-transcending beings that we are, it is not the center that symbolizes our true selves but the entire labyrinth. If we are courageous enough not to give up on life, on human relationships, or on ourselves - as we surmise from the tone of the last passage is the case with Vera - we will walk it many times, inward and outward, each time going more deeply within, each time reaching out in a wider embrace. And we will have, thanks to the writers among us, not a single book - no single book can satisfy us, either - but many books to accompany us like intimate friends at each stage of the journey, to lead us yet closer to the truth that, as long as we live, lies beyond.

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow men. That is the pattern of the myth, and that is the pattern of these fantasies of the psyche. Now it was Dr Perry's thesis in his paper that in certain cases the best thing is to let the schizophrenic process run its course, not to abort the psychosis by administering shock treatments and the like, but, on the contrary, to help the process of disintegration and reintegration along. However, if a doctor is to be helpful in this way, he has to understand the image language of mythology. He has himself to understand what the fragmentary signs and signals signify that his patient, totally out of touch with rationally oriented manners of thought and communication, is trying to bring forth in order to establish some kind of contact. Interpreted from this point of view, a schizophrenic breakdown is an inward and backward journey to recover something missed or lost, and to restore, thereby, a vital balance. So let the voyager go. He has tipped over and is sinking, perhaps drowning; yet, as in the old legend of Gilgamesh and his long, deep dive to the bottom of the cosmic sea to pluck the watercress of immortality, there is the one green value of his life down there. Don't cut him off from it: help him through.

The watcher’s eyes are likely to swivel forward in a sequence of stately turns as the screen’s pixel glows: each quarter-ounce mass of eyeball tugged by six flat muscles, in a glissando slide within the slippery fat lining the orbital cavity. The eye blinks, the widened pupils are in position, and the incoming electromagnetic waves roar in. Ripping through the thin layer of the cornea, they decelerate slightly, with their outermost edges forming a nearly flat plane as they travel inward, carrying the as-yet-undetected signal from the screen deep into the waiting human. The waves continue through the liquid of the aqueous humor and on to the gaping hole of the pupil. The human may have squinted to avoid the glare, but human reflexes work at the rate of slow thousandths of a second and are no match for these racing intruders. The pupil is crossed without obstruction. The stiff lens just below focuses the incoming waves even more, sending them into the inland sea of the jellylike vitreous humor deeper down in the eye. A very few of the incoming electric waves explode against the organic molecules in their way, but most simply whirl through those soft biological barriers and continue straight down, piercing the innermost wrapping of the eyeball, till they reach the end-point of their journey: the fragile, stalklike projection from the living brain known as the retina. And deep inside there, in the dark, barely slowed from their original 670 million mph, the waves splatter into the ancient, moist blood vessels and cell membranes, and something unexpected happens. An electric current switches on.

Society, in which we all live, is corrupt, immoral, aggressive, destructive. This society has been going on in primitive or modified form for thousands of years upon thousands of years, but it is the same pattern being repeated. These are all facts, not opinion or judgment. Facing this enormous crisis, one asks not only what one is to do but also who is responsible, who has brought the chaos, the confusion, the utter misery of humanity. Is the economic crisis, the social crisis, the crisis of war, the building of enormous armaments, the appalling waste, outside of us? Inwardly, psychologically, we are also very confused; there is constant conflict, struggle, pain, anxiety. We are together taking a journey into the whole structure that mankind has created, the disorder that human beings have brought about in this world. There is misery, chaos, confusion outwardly in society; and also inwardly, psychologically, in the psyche, the consciousness, there are pain and struggles. What are you going to do about all this? Turn to leaders, better politicians? This one isn’t good, but the next one will be better; and the next one still better. We keep this game going. We have looked to various so-called spiritual leaders, the whole hierarchy of the Christian world. They are as confused, as uncertain, as we are. If you turn to the psychologists or the psychotherapists, they are confused like you and me. And there are all the ideologies: communist ideologies, Marxist ideologies, philosophical ideologies, the ideologies of the Hindus and the ideologies of those people who have brought Hinduism here, and you have your own ideologies. The whole world is fragmented, broken up, as we are broken up, driven by various urges, reactions, each one wanting to be important, each one acting in his own self-interest. This is actually what is going on in the world, wherever you go.

When you journey inwardly exploring yourself, a sense of personal trust begins.

The most important journey, is the voyage inward.

Air, water, earth, fire Are just energy Just like your body is But Heart Intelligence is something else Be brave and journey inward to find out.

The things that matter to us are measured by depth. Would you assess your humanity by its pace? When I view myself as a time-sensitive product, valued for what I produce, then I have made depth, extended thought, and the inward journey marginal indulgences.

The late Dag Hammarskjöld, once the secretary general of the United Nations, suggested that we have become adept at exploring outer space, but we have not developed similar skills in exploring our own personal inner spaces. He wrote, “The longest journey of any person is the journey inward.”4 Most of us feel much more equipped to manipulate objects, control situations, and “do” things than to take that very long journey inward. Painful Honesty

Richard Grierson smiles, but it’s an inward-pointing smile, a smile of someone folding himself back up for storage in the colorful corners of his own crayon fantasies. She looks at the books, their titles hazy with a thin film of sawdust, and she looks at the toy ships built for imaginary journeys along the red dotted lines of a child’s map, and she looks at the exotic pictures in the books still open flat before her, and she understands that these places are just places of the mind, and she wants to be able to exalt his wild dreams and imaginings along with her own—but there’s something about them that make them feel like the saddest thing she’s ever seen.

Passion is the journey inward.. Purpose is the journey overcoming the fear.. Know Freedom and Leave Your Legend.

Since God lives in the heart, I was not to seek some Being way up in the sky . . . my journey to God was not outward, but inward! The only way to get closer to God was to become ordered enough inside to enable me to experience him within. When our emotions are running loose, and our minds are confused . . . and our imagination is working overtime, there's so much internal noise that we can't hear the still voice of God. So many times over my years as a mother I had felt tired, overwhelmed, and worn out So often I felt I couldn't get any personal space to think, what with the continual onslaught of "Mummy! Mummy!" coming from the children, or the work that I hadn't finished staring me in the face. I needed quiet time alone.

Part of me was shocked that he assaulted me while I spoke of Holy God! Hadn’t he heard anything I’d said? But as Ezekiel 12:2 says, “You are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people” (NIV). From the earliest moments of my Christian life I had experienced Jesus answering my prayers. I wholeheartedly believed Psalm 46:1: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (NIV). I cried out to the Lord inwardly. Help me! At that moment my attacker’s hand clamped over my mouth. But God filled me with supernatural strength like that possessed by David when he fought the giant Goliath: David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.” 1 Samuel 17:45 NIV Just as David was able to defeat his giant with only his hands and five stones, I fought back with a might that was not mine.

I start to turn inwards, withdrawing my senses, blocking out all the external stimuli, blind to everything but the narrow stretch of road immediately ahead within my gaze. I focus on moving forwards, riding on the rhythm of my breath. The world and all of time has been distilled down into this one moment. Now. Nothing else exists. Nothing else matters. All that there ever was, and all that there ever will be, is embraced by this one moment and my struggle to keep moving through it. The focus is absolute. It dissociates me from the rest of my journey. I am locked deep within my effort, right there in my moment of struggle.

Joy is inward, it is generated inside. It is not found outside and brought in. It is for those who accept the world as it is, part good, part bad, and who identify with the good by adding a little island of serenity to it. Hermann

A caravan of people were traveling from village to village through the deserts of Rajasthan. Since it was close to sunset, they decided to pitch their tent before the cold night set in. As the men got busy, tying their camels with a rope, they realized that they were short of just one peg and a rope. They were worried about losing their camel in the night and so decided to go to the village headman to seek a solution. The village sarpanch was a wise and intelligent man. The travelers approached him with their problem, “Sir, we are here to ask you for a solution to our problem.” The headman listened to their problem and said, “Go near the camel and pretend as if you are tying it down.” Although they had their doubts, the travelers did just as they were told. To their surprise, the next morning, the camel was right there. He had not moved an inch, forget about going anywhere. They untied the other camels and tents to move on with their journey. But this one wouldn’t move. Fearing something was wrong with him, they went back to the village head. “Did you untie the camel?” asked the village head. “Sir, we had not tied it in the first place.” The headman said, “My dear fellows, that’s what you know. The camel still believes that you had tied him. You pretended to tie him, now pretend to untie him!” The travelers went back to the camel and pretended to untie the rope and remove the peg. They were a picture of amazement seeing the camel get up and move on as if nothing had happened at all. In his own way, the village head had shown the travelers that the rope and peg were just an illusion which the camel thought to be real. In the same way, all of us are bound by our thoughts, which are actually not real but appear to be so. We are conditioned in that direction and are thus unable to experience complete freedom. If we assume that we are born in a middle class family and therefore will remain middle class all our lives, then the ‘middle class’ label will tie us up forever and will not allow us to explore further horizons. If you simply look inward, into your own life, you will see how much you have been conditioned. The realization of being conditioned is the first step towards breaking free from the artificial chains, which are but an illusion. Break free from all the limitations and conditioning that limit you.

Instead of a primary ministry of compassion for the few surviving members, they would need to focus on telling the good news of Jesus Christ in their community. Instead of preaching the Scriptures as a source of comfort to the faithful remnant, they would need to proclaim God's call for the remnant to spread the gospel to those in their community who were poor in spirit as well as in fact. Instead of taking care of their own, they would need to reach out to others. In stead of seeking consolation for themselves, they would need to make a radical commitment to live faithfully as missionaries in a hurting world that needed desperately to experience God's love and salvation." Over the next few years the church reorganized its life around small groups that were committed to an "inward journey" of spiritual practices and an "outward journey" o fa specific missional engagement. "The focus isn't on success as much as it is on building up and reaching out, inward and outward spiritual growth, lives lived in faithfulness to Jesus Christ in the midst of a non- Christian culture.

I do not know whether meditation and other inward journeys perfect the human soul. But I do know that believing that rays come out of your head and change the physical world, and that by thinking only of success you can become a success, are forms of psychosis and cannot be recommended as approaches to management or strategy.

Inwardly - nobody knows why - the passengers on one train always envy slightly the passengers on another train; it is something that's true but a little difficult to explain. Maybe it's because, even though they don't realize it very clearly, a third-class passenger would always be glad to change places with another, even if the other were third-class too. ― Camilo José Cela, Journey to the Alcarria: Travels Through the Spanish Countryside

The Sufi Way is to follow the model provided by the Prophet‘s representatives on earth, the saints, who are the shaykhs or the spiritual masters. Once having entered the Way, the disciple begins to undergo a process of inward transformation. If he is among those destined to reach spiritual perfection, he will climb the ascending rungs of a ladder stretching to heaven and beyond; the alchemy of the Way will transmute the base copper of his substance into pure and noble gold. The Truth or „attainment to God“ is not a simple, one-step process. It can be said that this third dimension of Sufi teaching deals with all the inner experiences undergone by the traveler on his journey. It concerns all the „virtues“ (akhlaq) the Sufi must acquire, in keeping with the Prophet‘s saying, „Assume the virtues of God!“ If acquiring virtues means „attaining to God,“ this is because they do not belong to man. The discipline of the Way coupled with God‘s grace and guidance results in a process of purification whereby the veil of human nature is gradually removed from the mirror of the primordial human substance, made in the image of God, or, in the Prophet‘s words, „upon the Form of the All-Merciful.“ Any perfection achieved by man is God‘s perfection reflected within him. (p. 11-12)

Our hero's journey combines two arcs: the inward arc involving leaving home, slaying the demon, and gaining insight into selflessness, and the outward arc involving finding the treasure of compassion and returning home with the elixir. (p. 205)

Because looking inward and telling it like it is Is how I carved my own path.

Only when we discover that the pain of being the way we are is greater than the pain of trying to change will we put forth the effort necessary to make significant progress on our inward journey.

It is part of love's growth towards higher levels and inward purification that it now seeks to become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of being “for ever”. Love embraces the whole of existence in each of its dimensions, including the dimension of time. It could hardly be otherwise, since its promise looks towards its definitive goal: love looks to the eternal. Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God

There is a kaleidoscope of beauty we can meet within us when we truly sit with ourselves.......whatever our external circumstance is,we have this precious gems within waiting to be utilized.Instead of discounting all the beauty we are, we can start opening up to it and make it a reality,activate it in various ways,be creative when we have a glimpse of it.That's how we can start breaking the barriers down from our hearts that blocks us from truly living fearlessly and kindly and nobly.

If you go outward, it is an endless journey. If you turn inward, it is just one moment.