Seekers Travel Quotes

We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.

But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the nonexistent horizon, and his empire is an intangible one, for his domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit.

Freedom wanders in the landscape of the mind, and nourishes the deepest yearnings of the soul.

I don't belong in this world, I am merely a traveller passing through, I repudiate to silence my thought, because they fear my light.

No lazy mind comes to poetry. For poetry goes where we are reluctant to travel. Travel we must.

What lies ahead is often unknown. But keep traveling.

This is exactly the sort of thing that makes traveling wonderful for me, the reason I defied everyone. The two of us together like we have always been, not saying anything, not doing anything special, just on vacation. I know nothing lasts, but even when you know that things are just about over, sometimes you can run back and take a little bit more and no one will notice.

Elsewhere there are no mobile phones. Elsewhere sleep is deep and the mornings are wonderful. Elsewhere art is endless, exhibitions are free and galleries are open twenty-four hours a day. Elsewhere alcohol is a joke that everybody finds funny. Elsewhere everybody is as welcoming as they’d be if you’d come home after a very long time away and they’d really missed you. Elsewhere nobody stops you in the street and says, are you a Catholic or a Protestant, and when you say neither, I’m a Muslim, then says yeah but are you a Catholic Muslim or a Protestant Muslim? Elsewhere there are no religions. Elsewhere there are no borders. Elsewhere nobody is a refugee or an asylum seeker whose worth can be decided about by a government. Elsewhere nobody is something to be decided about by anybody. Elsewhere there are no preconceptions. Elsewhere all wrongs are righted. Elsewhere the supermarkets don’t own us. Elsewhere we use our hands for cups and the rivers are clean and drinkable. Elsewhere the words of the politicians are nourishing to the heart. Elsewhere charlatans are known for their wisdom. Elsewhere history has been kind. Elsewhere nobody would ever say the words bring back the death penalty. Elsewhere the graves of the dead are empty and their spirits fly above the cities in instinctual, shapeshifting formations that astound the eye. Elsewhere poems cancel imprisonment. Elsewhere we do time differently. Every time I travel, I head for it. Every time I come home, I look for it.

HOME no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well your neighbors running faster than you breath bloody in their throats the boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory is holding a gun bigger than his body you only leave home when home won’t let you stay. no one leaves home unless home chases you fire under feet hot blood in your belly it’s not something you ever thought of doing until the blade burnt threats into your neck and even then you carried the anthem under your breath only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets sobbing as each mouthful of paper made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back. you have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land no one burns their palms under trains beneath carriages no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled means something more than journey. no one crawls under fences no one wants to be beaten pitied no one chooses refugee camps or strip searches where your body is left aching or prison, because prison is safer than a city of fire and one prison guard in the night is better than a truckload of men who look like your father no one could take it no one could stomach it no one skin would be tough enough the go home blacks refugees dirty immigrants asylum seekers sucking our country dry niggers with their hands out they smell strange savage messed up their country and now they want to mess ours up how do the words the dirty looks roll off your backs maybe because the blow is softer than a limb torn off or the words are more tender than fourteen men between your legs or the insults are easier to swallow than rubble than bone than your child body in pieces. i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark home is the barrel of the gun and no one would leave home unless home chased you to the shore unless home told you to quicken your legs leave your clothes behind crawl through the desert wade through the oceans drown save be hunger beg forget pride your survival is more important no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear saying- leave, run away from me now i dont know what i’ve become but i know that anywhere is safer than here

The world is full of travellers. Once in a year go to someplace you have never been before. You will meet Confused seekers, Hopeful wanderers, Enthusiastic story-tellers, Happy families. Look into their eyes and stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead any moment. Look at the world. It’s more beautiful than any dream you'd have ever seen. Make the most beautiful travel diary and open it up your third generation because only your grandchildren will understand what your children will fail to.

Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that is neither innocent nor praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me, and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium-seeker to his pipe. I would sooner read the catalogue of the Army and Navy stores or Bradshaw's Guide than nothing at all, and indeed I have spent many delightful hours over both these works. At one time I never went out without a second-hand bookseller's list in my pocket. I know no reading more fruity. Of course to read in this way is as reprehensible as doping, and I never cease to wonder at the impertinence of great readers who, because they are such, look down on the illiterate. From the standpoint of what eternity is it better to have read a thousand books than to have ploughed a million furrows? Let us admit that reading with us is just a drug that we cannot do without — who of this band does not know the restlessness that attacks him when he has been severed from reading too long, the apprehension and irritability, and the sigh of relief which the sight of a printed page extracts from him? — and so let us be no more vainglorious than the poor slaves of the hypodermic needle or the pint-pot. And like the dope-fiend who cannot move from place to place without taking with him a plentiful supply of his deadly balm I never venture far without a sufficiency of reading matter. Books are so necessary to me that when in a railway train I have become aware that fellow-travellers have come away without a single one I have been seized with a veritable dismay. But when I am starting on a long journey the problem is formidable.

A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Mark the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness, Have lain too long Face down in ignorance. Your mouths spelling words Armed for slaughter. The rock cries out today, you may stand on me, But do not hide your face. Across the wall of the world, A river sings a beautiful song, Come rest here by my side. Each of you a bordered country, Delicate and strangely made proud, Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. Your armed struggles for profit Have left collars of waste upon My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. Yet, today I call you to my riverside, If you will study war no more. Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs The Creator gave to me when I And the tree and stone were one. Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow And when you yet knew you still knew nothing. The river sings and sings on. There is a true yearning to respond to The singing river and the wise rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, The African and Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the teacher. They hear. They all hear The speaking of the tree. Today, the first and last of every tree Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river. Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river. Each of you, descendant of some passed on Traveller, has been paid for. You, who gave me my first name, You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, Then forced on bloody feet, Left me to the employment of other seekers-- Desperate for gain, starving for gold. You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot... You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare Praying for a dream. Here, root yourselves beside me. I am the tree planted by the river, Which will not be moved. I, the rock, I the river, I the tree I am yours--your passages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, Need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon The day breaking for you. Give birth again To the dream. Women, children, men, Take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, The rock, the river, the tree, your country. No less to Midas than the mendicant. No less to you now than the mastodon then. Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

Uncover what you long for and you will discover who you are.

Sometimes we have spent so long in the cage that it feels safer to be trapped inside.

Your heart knows there is a greater version of your life available to you.

You are right, Sahara. There are no mists, or veils, or distances. But the mist is surrounded by a mist; and the veil is hidden behind a veil; and the distance continually draws away from the distance. That is why there are no mists, or veils, or distances. That is why it is called The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. It is here that The Traveler becomes The Wanderer, and The Wanderer becomes The One Who Is Lost, and The One Who Is Lost becomes The Seeker, and The Seeker becomes The Passionate Lover, and The Passionate Lover becomes The Beggar, and The Beggar becomes The Wretch, and The Wretch becomes The One Who Must Be Sacrificed, and The One Who Must Be Sacrificed becomes The Resurrected One and The Resurrected One becomes The One Who has Transcended The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. Then for a thousand years, or the rest of the afternoon, such a One spins in the Blazing Fire of Changes, embodying all the transformations, one after the other, and then beginning again, and then ending again, 86,000 times a second. Then such a one, if he is a man, is ready to love the woman Sahara; and such a one, if she is a woman, is ready to love the man who can put into song The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. Is it you who are waiting, Sahara, or is it I?

Have you ever thought; whilst looking all this time for the magic in the world, it's been inside you all along? No matter how far you travel, how wide you spread your wings and learn to fly if you have no idea what treasures hide within you you'll be searching your entire life.

Zen has been called the "religion before religion," which is to say that anyone can practice, including those committed to another faith. And that phrase evokes that natural religion of our early childhood, when heaven and a splendorous earth were one. But soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, at the bottom of each breath, there is a hollow place filled with longing. We become seekers without knowing that we seek, and at first, we long for something "greater" than ourselves, something apart and far away. It is not a return to childhood, for childhood is not a truly enlightened state. Yet to seek one's own true nature is "a way to lead you to your long lost home." To practice Zen means to realize one's existence moment after moment, rather than letting life unravel in regret of the past and daydreaming of the future. To "rest in the present" is a state of magical simplicity...out of the emptiness can come a true insight into our natural harmony all creation. To travel this path, one need not be a 'Zen Buddhist', which is only another idea to be discarded like 'enlightenment,' and like 'the Buddha' and like 'God.

I thought that I must always search for the remarkable combinations, add unknowns, mix things that were clearly marked with things beyond marking. I would leave the simulated test and enter into forbidden territory. I would look for that moment when I would begin to pour alone and in wonder. I would always try to seize that moment and to accept its challenge. I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better to go at it knowing nothing at all, always choosing the unmarked bottle, always choosing your own unproven method, armed with nothing faith and a belief in astonishment. And if by accident, I could make a volcano in a single test tube, then what could I do with all the strange magnificent elements of the world with its infinity of unknowns, with the swarm of man, with civilization, with language?

What matters most on your journey is how deeply you see, how attentively you hear, how richly the encounters are felt in your heart and soul.

Having something is not always better than not having it.

It’s dangerous to be grateful for the cage that traps you.

If you’re trapped in a cage, you don’t want to start being grateful for the protection of the bars. You need to be grateful that there are gaps in between them so you can see what’s on the other side.

There was something shameful about surviving sorrow. You were corrupted. She was corrupted. She was no good anymore. She was inauthentic, apocryphal. She wanted to be a seeker and to travel further and further. But after sorrow, such traveling is not a climbing but a sinking to a depth leached of light at which you are unfit to endure. And yet you endure there.

I want to observe the ordinary things of earth—the moon, the stars, the rainbows, even the yellow leaves of the old cherry trees—and receive their messages. To hear them say what every weary traveler, every earnest seeker, longs to hear. Welcome home.

How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are! [...] When we are weary with travel, we lay down our load and rest by the wayside. So, when we are weary with the burden of life, why do we not lay down this load of falsehoods which we have volunteered to sustain, and be refreshed as never mortal was? Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them. When we would rest our bodies we cease to support them; we recline on the lap of the earth. So, when we would rest our spirits, we must recline on the Great Spirit. Let things alone; let them weigh what they will; let them soar of fall.

The wisdom of the time traveler, I realized, can be deceiving. We return to the past armed with more information and cutting-edge innovations. But there are hazards in having so much wizardry at hand. The feast of data means there are more circumstances to bend and connect. You're tempted to build your villain with the abundance of pieces. It's understandable. We're pattern-seekers, all of us. We glimpse the rough outline of what we seek and we get snagged on it, sometimes remaining stuck when we could get free and move on.

The time has come to set out for sacred ground...that will stir our sense of wonder. It is down the path to the deeply real where time stops and we are seized by the mysteries. This is the journey that we cannot Not take. The old hermit along the side of the road whispers, Stranger, Pass bythat which you donot love.

Worship, then, needs to be characterized by hospitality; it needs to be inviting. But at the same time, it should be inviting seekers into the church and its unique story and language. Worship should be an occasion of cross-cultural hospitality. Consider an analogy: when I travel to France, I hope to be made to feel welcome. However, I don't expect my French hosts to become Americans in order to make me feel at home. I don't expect them to start speaking English, ordering pizza, talking about the New York Yankees, and so on. Indeed, if I wanted that, I would have just stayed home! Instead, what I'm hoping for is to be welcomed into their unique French culture; that's why I've come to France in the first place. And I know that this will take some work on my part. I'm expecting things to be different; indeed, I'm looking for just this difference. So also, I think, with hospitable worship: seekers are looking for something our culture can't provide. Many don't want a religious version of what they can already get at the mall. And this is especially true of postmodern or Gen X seekers: they are looking for elements of transcendence and challenge that MTV could never give them. Rather than an MTVized version of the gospel, they are searching for the mysterious practices of the ancient gospel.

The fun-seekers, I noted, were spontaneous and flexible. They approached each day and each situation with a willingness to ride whatever wave came along, just for the experience of it. The complainers, on the other hand, would only catch a wave if it was exactly to their liking. Anything else drew loud protestations about how it was not what they expected.

Travel was wonderful, travel was glorious. See the USA in your Chevrolet! But

For a journey without challenge, has no meaning; one without purpose, has no soul.

Liberty is about being free and is granted by laws and conventions and government permissions. Freedom is about feeling free, and the only permission you need for that is your own.

If you can choose your way into a cage, you can choose your way out.

In finding the courage and confidence to escape our cages and shine, we help others do the same.

On an ordinary journey, one designed for sheer entertainment, diversion, or self-reward for a year of hard work, there would be no obvious need to go out of your way to strike up a conversation with a perfect stranger. But a pilgrimage asks us to do exactly that. The path needs more light. To shine the light of your own natural curiosity into the world of another traveler can reveal wonders. To remember the mysteries you forgot at home.

While my library contains the works of travel writers, I have mostly searched for those who speak about their own place in the world. But the world is changing and many people have no place to call home. Some of the most important kinds of travel writing now are stories of flight, written by people who belong to the millions of asylum seekers in the world. These are stories that are almost too hard to tell, but which, once read, will never be forgotten. Some of these stories had to be smuggled out of detention centres, or were caught covertly on smuggled mobiles in snatches of calls on weak connections from remote and distant prisons. Why is this writing important? Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist and human rights campaigner who has been detained on Manus Island for over three years with no hope for release yet in sight, puts it plainly in a message to the world in the anthology Behind the Wire. It is, he wrote, ‘because we need to change our imagination’.

This has got to be the most poorly named town I've ever visited. There is absolutely no sign of anything even remotely enchanting about it. It's one of the worst cases of false advertising I've seen. I've traveled a lot.Done considerable time in my share of dead-end dumps. Or at least that's what I thought until I came here. I mean,where do people shop for clothing and food? Where do the teens all hang out-the ones who haven't already hopped the first bus out of this godforsaken place? And,more important,where do I catch that very same bus-how soon 'til it leaves?

She weaves me anew, sacred and true Naked to her strength, I hear anew I need not even seek her for, she is here with me. Infinite space, sacred hums where all returns to one. The truths revealed and the lessons unraveled Seeker of time, I need not even travel All is here, with this one sacred love, sacred embrace.

Yet the sameness is also a trap. It’s part of the narrowing of your world, the tunnel vision of age. When something different happens to you, it’s hard to see it as a good thing. Which means you can’t always recognize a perfect moment or get yourself to a place where one can happen. Or sometimes perfect moments happen and you don’t even realize it. That is why you need to travel.

Pathways toward a New Shabbat Do 1. Stay at home. Spend quality time with family and real friends. 2. Celebrate with others: at the table, in the synagogue, with friends or community. 3. Study or read something that will edify, challenge, or make you grow. 4. Be alone. Take some time for yourself. Check in with yourself. Review your week. Ask yourself where you are in your life. 5. Mark the beginning and end of this sacred time by lighting candles and making kiddush on Friday night and saying havdalah on Saturday night. Don’t 6. Don’t do anything you have to do for your work life. This includes obligatory reading, homework for kids (even without writing!), unwanted social obligations, and preparing for work as well as doing your job itself. 7. Don’t spend money. Separate completely from the commercial culture that surrounds us so much. This includes doing business of all sorts. No calls to the broker, no following up on ads, no paying of bills. It can all wait. 8. Don’t use the computer. Turn off the iPhone or smartphone or whatever device has replaced it by the time you read this. Live and breathe for a day without checking messages. Declare your freedom from this new master of our minds and our time. Find the time for face-to-face conversations with people around you, without Facebook. 9. Don’t travel. Avoid especially commercial travel and places like airports, hotel check-ins, and similar depersonalizing encounters. Stay free of situations in which people are likely to tell you to “have a nice day” (Shabbat already is a nice day, thank you). 10. Don’t rely on commercial or canned video entertainment, including the TV as well as the computer screen. Discover what there is to do in life when you are not being entertained.

Film and TV V.I.P, seeker of the peace, part time chandelier cleaner, a legend in his own time, oppressor of champions, soldier of fortune, world traveller, bonvivant, all round good guy, international lover, casual hero, philosopher, wars fought, bears wrestled, equations solved, virgins enlightened, revolutions quelled, tigers castrated, orgies organised, bars quaffed dry, governments run, test rockets flown, life president of the Liquidarian Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

I think about what the man at the Coney joint said. He was right. We are the people who stay. We stay in our homes and pay them off. We stay at our jobs. We do our thirty and come home to stay even more. We stay until we are no longer able to mow our lawns and our gutters sag with saplings, until our houses look haunted to the neighborhood children. We like it where we are. I guess then the other question is: Why do we even travel? There can only be one answer to that: we travel to appreciate home. (p.97)

prophecy directed at the past, the yearning for ancestors projected into the future – that is Nietzsche's divine feeling of humanity. the mature individual who, conscious of of his responsability, shoulders the entire burden of human tradition, who is the highest point in the arch of the bridge spanning what was and what will be, the divine moment "on the high pass" – like Zarathustra "between two oceans, traveling between the past and the future like a heavy cloud" – that is Nietzsche's man of the future humanity. the poet is, in his view, the creator of the past, the founder of "all that remains". the philosopher, however, and the sage are preachers and seekers of the future: "whoever has became wise reflecting on old origins" Zarathustra says "will eventually look for sources of the future and for new origins". to redeem the Past by interpreting it affirmatively as the cradle of the Future. to work at constructing the future by building a vaulted crypt that will provide a permanent sanctuary for the powers of belief throught centuries – with that, the grand fusion takes place that merges Nietzsche's early "philological" ideals and the Dionysian ecstatic dream of Zarathustra's demanding Will.

Abu'd-Darda' (may Allah be pleased with him) said, "I heard the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), say, 'Allah will make the path to the Garden easy for anyone who travels a path in search of knowledge. Angels spread their wings for the seeker of knowledge out of pleasure for what he is doing. Everyone in the heavens and everyone in the earth ask forgiveness for a man of knowledge, even the fish in the water. The superiority of the man of knowledge to the man of worship is like the superiority of the moon to all the planets. The men of knowledge are the heirs of the Prophets. The Prophets bequeath neither dinar nor dirham; they bequeath knowledge. Whoever takes it has taken an ample portion.'" [Related by Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi; Riyad al-Salihin: 1388]

He wants to hold himself to this and not just disappear into the underground, burying himself beneath a city he no long looks at. Tomorrow he'll walk or take a bus – there must be a bus that follows a direct route across the city from his house to his work instead of describing the peculiar horseshoe around which he travels every day beneath the earth – he will make a journey overland, allowing him to look up and take stock of all that each street has to offer. He will roam from one side of town to the other, like a treasure seeker but with no map or coordinates, with no references or clues, leaving chance to do its work, letting an invisible hand carry him through the city, guiding his determination to rediscover something that, until recently, he didn't even realize he had lost.

There is another call, the one that arrives the day when what once worked no longer does. Sometimes people need a shock; sometimes a tocsin call. It is time for a wake-up call. A man is fired from a job; a child runs away from home; ulcers overtake the body. The ancients called this “soul loss.” Today, the equivalent is the loss of meaning or purpose in our lives. There is a void where there should be what Gerard Manley Hopkins calls “juice and joy.” The heart grows cold; life loses its vitality. Our accomplishments seem meaningless. As Tolstoy wrote in his Confessions, “Nothing ahead except ruins.” We seem to be in the thick of the forest without a road. “What, then, must we do?” The long line of myths, legends, poetry, and stories throughout the world tell us that it is at that moment of darkness that the call comes. It arrives in various forms—an itch, a fever, an offer, a ringing, an inspiration, an idea, a voice, words in a book that seem to have been written just for us—or a knock. THE KNOCK The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away. I'm looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling. —Robert Pirsig

no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well your neighbors running faster than you breath bloody in their throats the boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory is holding a gun bigger than his body you only leave home when home won’t let you stay. no one leaves home unless home chases you fire under feet hot blood in your belly it’s not something you ever thought of doing until the blade burnt threats into your neck and even then you carried the anthem under your breath only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet sobbing as each mouthful of paper made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back. you have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land no one burns their palms under trains beneath carriages no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled means something more than journey. no one crawls under fences no one wants to be beaten pitied no one chooses refugee camps or strip searches where your body is left aching or prison, because prison is safer than a city of fire and one prison guard in the night is better than a truckload of men who look like your father no one could take it no one could stomach it no one skin would be tough enough the go home blacks refugees dirty immigrants asylum seekers sucking our country dry niggers with their hands out they smell strange savage messed up their country and now they want to mess ours up how do the words the dirty looks roll off your backs maybe because the blow is softer than a limb torn off or the words are more tender than fourteen men between your legs or the insults are easier to swallow than rubble than bone than your child body in pieces. i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark home is the barrel of the gun and no one would leave home unless home chased you to the shore unless home told you to quicken your legs leave your clothes behind crawl through the desert wade through the oceans drown save be hunger beg forget pride your survival is more important no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear saying- leave, run away from me now i dont know what i’ve become but i know that anywhere is safer than here

As she lifted it, it caught the light and sent it out in a fan of intense colour. ‘Take this,’ Yollana said, and if there was a request in the two words, she hid it well. ‘Take this, and wear it. Travel this village, these lands. Speak to the people who make this your home. Visit your graves, your fields, your hills; find the shade in your forest, the cooling waters in your brook and small river.’ She let it fall; Ashaf gasped until she saw the glittering chain that stopped it from reaching the ground. A necklace or a pendant of some sort. She reached out an open palm, and Yollana carefully dropped the stone-for it was a stone, a clear one, like a diamond that would beggar even a Tyr-into her hand. At once, it flared with a deep, blue light; the light ran the length of her arm, shrouding it. Magic. ‘What-what does it do?’ Her voice was, momentarily, a girl’s voice-the girl that she had thought long gone. Dreamer. Seeker of wonder. ‘It is the Lady’s magic,’ Yollana replied, ‘not the Lord’s. It will not protect you; it will not defend you. Where a blade is raised or a spell is thrown, you will find no solace in it.’ Ashaf smiled wryly. ‘I did not ask you what it wasn’t. I asked you what it is.’ ‘It is a keeper’ Yollan said. ‘Of memory. Of affection. Of place. Wear it, as I have told you wear it, and it will take some of what you feel and hold it within depths that you cannot even imagine. Wear it, and you will feel exactly the peace or the joy or the quiet-yes, or the sorrow-that you felt when you donned it.’ ‘Why?’ ‘It is a piece of home,’ Yollana replied gravely. ‘Many of the Voyani women wear them, because the heart-our hearts-so seldom find a home, and when they do, we cannot remain there.

Instead the attitude of the medical profession has been that miracle cures are nonexistent, that the disease of which a person was cured did not exist in the first place, either because it was an imaginary disorder, such as a hysterical conversion reaction, or else because it was a misdiagnosis. Fortunately, however, a few serious scientists, physicians and religious truth-seekers are currently in the process of beginning to examine the nature of such phenomena as spontaneous remissions in cancer patients and apparently successful examples of psychic healing. Fifteen

In other words, if the journey you have chosen is indeed a pilgrimage, a soulful journey, it will be rigorous. Ancient wisdom suggests if you aren't trembling as you approach the sacred, it isn't the real thing. The sacred, in its various guises as holy ground, art, or knowledge, evokes emotion and commotion.

hThere was something shameful about surviving sorrow. You were corrupted. She was corrupted. She was no good anymore. She was inauthentic, apocryphal. She wanted to be a seeker and to travel further and further. But after sorrow, such traveling is not a climbing but a sinking to a depth leached of light at which you are unfit to endure. And yet you endure there.

The dedicated seeker of Paul will also find several letters, including a fourth century forgery of the very warm correspondence between Paul and the Stoic philosopher Seneca, and prayers, as well as two travels to Heaven: the Apocalypse of Paul, a Catholic account that appears to have inspired Dante's Inferno, and the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul, a Gnostic text.

It is very difficult for wealth seekers to understand the motives of powerseekers. A wealth seeker tried to improve his condition by, we hope, producing goods or services of value to trade for what he wants. This process of production and trade is satisfying in itself, and it moves the wealth seeker in the direction he wishes to travel. The powerseeker is willing to trade his wealth for the privilege of forcing others to bend to his will. If you watch closely in every election, you will see people investing thousands or millions of their own dollars for campaigns to acquire political jobs paying small salaries that can never repay the investment. Are these people trying to get government jobs to get rich? Or are they after something else, for the ability to impose their plans on others? If you are not a powerseeker, war is just a big waste (unless you are an arms maker). Bur war is the most thrilling and, therefore, most satisfying expression of political power. If you are a powerseeker, war is nirvana. Very important: war is not the route to nirvana; it is nirvana. War is the end in itself, the big payoff.

In Marrakech, Arabian open-heartedness is served up with a generous dose of pan-African mysticism, a dollop of French savoir-vivre, and a garnish of Moorish grace. The vibe is irresistible to meaning-of-life seekers and international hipsters looking for a scene.

I often refer to the great mythologist and American author Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) in this book. He used the designation of „hero“ to describe individuals who embark on the monumental psychological task of expanding and evolving consciousness and famously charted this journey. This hero‘s journey begins in our inherent state of blindness, separation, and suffering and progresses on a circular (as opposed to linear) route made up of stages shared by myths and legends spanning all cultures and epochs. From Buddha to Christ, Arjuna to Alice in Wonderland, the hero‘s journey is one of passing through a set of trials and phases: seeking adventure, encountering mentors, slaying demons, finding treasure, and returning home to heal others. Tibetan Buddhism‘s and Campbell‘s descriptions of the hero both offer a travel-tested road map of a meaningful life, a path of becoming fully human – we don‘t have to wander blindly, like college kids misguidedly hazed by a fraternity, or spiritual seekers abused in the thrall of a cult leader. The hero archetype is relevant to each of us, irrespective of our background, gender, temperament, or challenges, because we each have a hero gene within us capable of following the path, facing trials, and awakening for the benefit of others. Becoming a hero is what the Lam Rim describes as taking full advantage of our precious human embodiment. It‘s what Campbell saw as answering the call to adventure and following our bliss – not the hedonic bliss of chasing a high or acquiring more stuff, but the bliss of the individual soul, which, like a mountain stream, reaches and merges with the ocean of universal reality. (p. 15)

But then Yasmin changed her mind and hopped a flight to Fez. „I knew I had to go. I didn‘t know why but I had to go. And I was really quite scared because I was going alone and I‘d never been to Morocco. I didn‘t know anyone. I traveled at night so I call it my ‚isra‘, my Night Journey. I landed late. I was really scared but I prayed to Allah, „I trust in You to look after me and protect me. I‘m here for whatever the purpose You‘ve planned for me. (p. 193)

Each of the aforementioned quests involve uncertainty and risk. In becoming a world traveler, we expose ourselves to the unknown dangers that lurk in the unfamiliar corners of the world. In questing for knowledge, in becoming what Emerson called “an endless seeker” who “unsettles all things”, we can stumble upon terrible truths and knowledge that shakes the foundations of our worldview. “For in much wisdom, there is much sorrow.” says the book of Ecclesiastes. In going on a quest to appreciate beauty, we may become more aware of the transience of life and the sorrows of death: “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower…Is my destroyer.”, the poet Dylan Thomas penned. And finally, in seeing our life as a quest to create beauty, we might become a target of the envious. For as Rollo May explained: it is the “artists, poets, and saints [who] are the ones who threaten the status quo, which each society is devoted to protecting.” (Rollo May, The Courage to Create)

Freedom was my daring travel companion on the thrilling ride of life.

We often build our lives in a way that shuts out freedom.

Freedom is found within.

Art is the seeker and the sought, The dreamer and the dream, The traveler and the destination; Art is everything.

The wandering French essayist Jacques Reda reminds himself before he leaves his Paris apartment every Sunday morning for his long strolls around the city to see one new thing. . . . he has learned to notice what others ignore.

As you journey along with Sufi Way, you will experience the knowledge that the apparent world is indeed just that: apparent. The Traveler will reach a stage in which the apparent world is temporarily dissolved or seen through. However, the stage where this is experienced is an area where many seekers of Truth are stuck. As the apparent world is experienced to be an illusion, other explanations, reality-maps, entities, and worlds rush in to fill the void and present themselves as how things actually are. These alternative explanations and so forth, are no more The Real (and no less more, that matter) than is the apparent world that they help to expose as illusion.

Shiva’s world-destroying dance is another potent symbol that can be understood both cosmologically and psychologically. From a yogic perspective, the dance disentangles all the mental webs by which we have imprisoned ourselves through our incessant karmic activities or volitions. Shiva, as Natarāja (“Lord of Dance”), is the destroyer of our delusions and illusions. He is an inner force that undermines our laboriously created conceptualizations of the world, so that we may see reality “as it is” (yathā-bhūta). The Goddess Mohinī (“She who deludes”) is thought to tempt us with misconceptions and delusional fantasies, so that only serious spiritual seekers can find their way to Reality. The elephant-headed, pot-bellied God Ganesha, again, is traditionally called upon to remove all such obstacles. Each deity represents a particular symbolic function whose depth we can plumb only when we delve into our own psyche by means of Yoga. The artistic representations of the numerous deities of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism all are full of yogic symbolism. That symbolism is most prominent in the profound teachings of Tantra. To appreciate this fact, we just need to look at the esoteric meaning of hatha—as in Hatha-Yoga, a branch of Tantra. The dictionary meaning of the term hatha is simply “force” or “power,” and the commonly used ablative hathāt means “by force of.” Esoterically, however, the syllables ha and tha—quite meaningless in themselves—are said to symbolize “Sun” and “Moon” respectively. Specifically, they refer to the inner luminaries: the “sun” or solar energy coursing through the right energetic pathway (i.e., the pingalānādī) and the “moon” or lunar energy traveling through the left pathway (i.e., the idā-nādī). Hatha-Yoga utilizes these two currents—corresponding to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems respectively—in order to achieve a psychoenergetic balance and mental tranquillity. When this energetic harmony is achieved, the central channel (i.e., the sushumnā-nādī) is activated. As soon as the life force (prāna) flows into and up the central channel, it awakens the serpent power (kundalinī-shakti) and pulls it into the central channel as well. Thereafter the kundalinī rises to the crown of the head, leading to a sublime state of mind-transcending unified consciousness (or nirvikalpa-samādhi, “formless ecstasy”).

Some teachers refuse to call themselves teachers, because they feel they have nothing to teach; their teaching consists in their merely being present. And so on. Psychologist Guy Claxton, a former disciple of Bhagwan Rajneesh, has found the image of the guru as teacher somewhat misleading. He offers these comments: The most helpful metaphor is . . . that of a physician or therapist: enlightened Masters are, we might say, the Ultimate Therapists, for they focus their benign attention not on problems but on the very root from which the problems spring, the problem-sufferer and solver himself. The Master deploys his therapeutic tricks to one end: that of the exposure and dissolution of the fallacious self. His art is a subtle one because the illusions cannot be excised with a scalpel, dispersed with massage, or quelled with drugs. He has to work at one remove by knocking away familiar props and habits, and sustaining the seeker’s courage and resolve through the fall. Only thus can the organism cure itself. His techniques resemble those of the demolition expert, setting strategically placed charges to blow up the established super-structure of the ego, so that the ground may be exposed. Yet he has to work on each case individually, dismantling and challenging in the right sequence and at the right speed, using whatever the patient brings as his raw material for the work of the moment.1 Claxton mentions other guises, “metaphors,” that the guru assumes to deal with the disciple: guide, sergeant-major, cartographer, con man, fisherman, sophist, and magician. The multiple functions and roles of the authentic adept have two primary purposes. The first is to penetrate and eventually dissolve the egoic armor of the disciple, to “kill” the phenomenon that calls itself “disciple.” The second major function of the guru is to act as a transmitter of Reality by magnifying the disciple’s intuition of his or her true identity. Both objectives are the intent of all spiritual teachers. However, only fully enlightened adepts combine in themselves what the Mahāyāna Buddhist scriptures call the wisdom (prajnā) and the compassion (karunā) necessary to rouse others from the slumber of the unenlightened state. In the ancient Rig-Veda (10.32.7) of the Hindus, the guru is likened to a person familiar with a particular terrain who undertakes to guide a foreign traveler. Teachers who have yet to realize full enlightenment can guide others only part of the way. But the accomplished adept, who is known in India as a siddha, is able to illumine the entire path for the seeker. Such fully enlightened adepts are a rarity. Whether or not they feel called to teach others, their mere presence in the world is traditionally held to have an impact on everything. All enlightened masters, or realizers, are thought and felt to radiate the numinous. They are focal points of the sacred. They broadcast Reality. Because they are, in consciousness, one with the ultimate Reality, they cannot help but irradiate their environment with the light of that Reality.

Most of us suffer from the pangs of self-doubt; yet, the courage to tread forward must originate from within. I seek to articulate a definitive purpose behind my effort and then resolve to devote all interpersonal resources to achieve established goals. I need to be mindful of personal talents and imperfections, boldly face all fears, bravely straddle the unknown, and unerringly establish high-minded objectives. I must exhibit determination, resilience, and courage to give my best effort and never slacken a resolute pace. A seeker is obligated to be truthful; I cannot engage in self-deception if I hope to develop the integrity of my spirit. Comparable to all worthwhile tests of character, a person seeking growth must ultimately conquer his or her insecurities and discover a means to muster flagging personal fortitude. Can I throttle back from the black lagoon or did I travel too far as a chainless soul up the river of insanity to turn back now? Can I reintegrate myself in a normative world where self-preservation and reasonableness reigns? Can I conduct a Black Ops reconnaissance operation by reconfiguring the organs of a dismembered self with reawakened astuteness, and exhibit the determined stoicism indicative of my ancestor lineage?

One of the ancient functions of pilgrimage is to wake us from our slumber.

Gulmarg in December is a winter wonderland nestled in the heart of the Indian Himalayas. As the first snowflakes blanket the landscape, the entire region transforms into a picturesque paradise. The quaint town of Gulmarg becomes a hub for snow enthusiasts, offering a myriad of activities such as skiing, snowboarding, and snowshoeing. The Gulmarg Gondola, one of the highest cable cars in the world, provides breathtaking views of the snow-capped peaks. Adventure-seekers can also explore the pristine forests on snowmobiles or enjoy a serene horse-drawn sledge ride. The cozy hotels and cottages offer warm hospitality and delicious Kashmiri cuisine, making Gulmarg in December an idyllic destination for a winter getaway amidst nature's splendor. click here to book now-

of his travels. I knew something had taken place. Not until weeks later did he tell me about meeting you.” “He senses the presence of a one-time event,” John said. “One of your ‘windows of creativity’ is opening. All the elements are here now. Riverdale Center with its community of brilliant seekers has become the womb for a new vision. We don’t have a name for it yet, but that will come.

Freedom is found within, in the shape of our laughter and the way we love, in the truths that we live by and the stories we become

Feeling free is a choice that is ours for the making, ours for the taking at any time, at any age. 

I am a Freedom Seeker and I choose to feel free. 

I am a Freedom Seeker, willing and able to choose my own path.

I am a Freedom Seeker, committed to experiencing my life as my true self.

We aren't either afraid or brave, we’re usually both.

Some days of my vagabond life I read Arthur Schopenhauer and others Friedrich Nietzsche. I was a humble learner – an empty vessel - at the feet of the legends of human history. I was a seeker of truth, travelling through time while quenching my thirst for knowledge. And a humble learner of today becomes a strong leader of tomorrow.

2012 Continuation of My Message to Andy   Our simultaneous out-of-body experience was a once-in-a-lifetime one. To be honest with you, Andy, since that “perfect” day at the Keukenhof Gardens, I have not achieved that heavenly occurrence again.               Do you recall our subsequent Zentology sessions with Monsieur Dubois? He went to great lengths to describe what he saw when he found us at the poppy field? His words rang clearly in my mind. This was how he explained our “astral projection.” He said, “One of the reasons I’m interested in spiritual travel is that it provides a unique means of approaching distant and extraordinary states of transcendent awareness; especially that of sexual mysticism. This sui generis experience exposes the seeker to a series of spiritual lessons to his or her identity, therefore providing the soul the freedom to journey to various non-physical dimensions. These lessons introduce the traveler to a variety of psychic and metaphysical states, where individual freedom and spiritual awareness are heightened to insurmountable ecstasies. In addition, astral projection provides an inner laboratory where the seeker can experiment with techniques and methods of moving through our limited psychic consciousness, delving into distant realities, what we spiritualists call ‘exploring the heavenly states.’ We loosely term the experience ‘Nirvana,’ turning faith and hope into confidence and spiritual enlightenment. He continued, “That brings me to Sahasrāra chakra. This is the seat of the parabindu (the supreme bindu), the merging of Kundalini Shakti and Shiva, which emanate from this location. The liberation you and Andy attained is what Hindus believe to be the highest unification of the individual with the universe. “Above Brahma-randhra (‘the cave of Brahma’) is a hole in the crown of the head. It is through this opening that the soul escapes after death. This is the Sahasrāra chakra. When the soul separates from the physical body, the Brahma-randhra bursts open, freeing the soul from its confines through the ‘Door to Pure Consciousness’ or the ‘Door of Liberation.’ The Hindus call this perforation – Kapala Moksha.

Not only do westerners travel to some hot country within a given distance to the equator, we rarely even show the locals any respect with regards to their customs and cultures, not to mention speak to them. And usually we travel in groups, without feeling any shame. Then again, when hordes of Japanese tourists, Germans with caravans or Eritrean asylum seekers arrive n an area near our homes, we look at them hatefully and tend to freeze them out.

Ancient Ways Considering their favorable strategic location, pleasant climate, and natural beauty, is it any wonder that the Greek Isles became the cradle of Western culture? For millennia, the Greek islands have exerted a powerful magnetic force on people around the world. Seafaring conquerors have long recognized the importance and beauty of these islands. Ancient Phoenician ships came ashore as early as the third millennium B.C.E., followed by would-be conquerors from mainland Greece, Rome, Venice, and Turkey. Invaders have laid claim to these islands from antiquity well into the modern era. Pleasure seekers have also been drawn to the area. Ancient Minoan kings built their luxurious palaces among the citrus groves and rugged hillsides that overlook the placid seas. Scenes depicted in ancient wall paintings and on decorated pottery suggest that the islands have been a center of hedonistic activity--dancing, drinking, and romance--for eons. Today, visitors from around the world indulge in these same activities, drawn to the beaches, tavernas, and discotheques that pepper the many island harbors. Contemporary travelers to the Greek Isles come for myriad reasons and find a dazzling array of unexpected delights, for each of the more than three thousand islands has its own particular character. From the larger, bustling islands of Crete, Rhodes, and the island nation of Cyprus to the quieter havens of Folegandros and Kárpathos, to the hundreds of tiny, uninhabited islets of the region, the Greek Isles present a collage of diverse landscapes and customs. Mykonos is fun-loving, with lively tavernas and populated beaches. Delos is stoic, protecting the ruins of its ancient sanctuaries in solemn dignity. Milos is magical, with its volcanic rock formations and stunning village vistas.

The feeling of freedom is as precious as a fortune waiting to be told.

Live more. Worry less. Do what you love.

When you are trapped in a cage with broken wings, freedom can seem like a faraway deeply buried treasure. But it is always within reach.

Freedom seeking is the path to coming alive again.

Freedom is the willingness and ability to choose your own path and experience your life as your true self.

We all have the innate capacity to feel free.

While you cannot always change your situation, you can always change the way you respond to it.

You are not alone. There are Freedom Seekers everywhere.

Deep down we all know that freedom is a choice, yet so many of us don’t feel that truth.

Escape is a process, not a pill.

The journey of the Freedom Seeker isn’t always easy. But it is essential, and it is urgent, for it is the path to coming alive again.

Do the roads around your home seem altered, the food taste different, your everyday thoughts influenced by what you encountered on your pilgrimage? Much may seem changed, but the challenge now is to use the insights gathered on the road to see your everyday life as a pilgrimage. In ways like these, as Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “The path around our home is also the ground of awakening.” Remember again and again that the true pilgrimage is into the undiscovered land of your own imagination, which you could not have explored any other way than through these lands, with gratitude in your satchel and the compassion for all you see as your touchstone.

Sitting there, sweating profusely in the jungle heat, monks to the left and monks to the right, I thought of that beautiful line by Albert Camus, who wrote that a man's life is nothing more than the rediscovery, through the detours of art, of those one or two images that first opened his heart.

The Pilgrim's Law”: A soulful traveler replenishes the camp before moving on for those who will follow, and you must share whatever wisdom you've been blessed with on your journey with those who are about to set out on their own journey.

In Joseph Campbell's popular book of essays Myths to Live By, he described something pertinent to our theme of sacred journeys: “The ultimate aim of the quest, if one is to return, must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others.

What legendary travelers have taught us since Pausanius and Marco Polo is that the art of travel is the art of seeing what is sacred.

For those of us fascinated with the spiritual quest, the deepening of our journeys begins the moment we begin to ask what is sacred to us: architecture, history, music, books, nature, food, religious heritage, family history, the lives of saints, scholars, heroes, artists?

The point of the pilgrimage,” as a Buddhist priest told the traveling author Oliver Statler on his journey around the Japanese island of Shikoku, “is to improve yourself by enduring and overcoming difficulties.” In other words, if the journey you have chosen is indeed a pilgrimage, a soulful journey, it will be rigorous. Ancient wisdom suggests if you aren't trembling as you approach the sacred, it isn't the real thing. The sacred, in its various guises as holy ground, art, or knowledge, evokes emotion and commotion.

What is sacred is what is worthy of our reverence, what evokes awe and wonder in the human heart, and what when contemplated transforms us utterly.

When life has lost its meaning, a pilgrim will risk everything to get back in touch with life. This is why relics, such as a tooth of the Buddha, the dried blood of Christ, or a Shakespeare folio, are objects that must be touched as an integral part of the pilgrimage. This is what the risk is for, the confirmation that the mystery exists at all in a modern world seemingly determined to undermine the sacred as mere superstition.