Simply Serene Quotes

A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you." The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?" The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.

During the flames of controversy, opinions, mass disputes, conflict, and world news, sometimes the most precious, refreshing, peaceful words to hear amidst all the chaos are simply and humbly 'I don't know.

And I still have other smothered memories, now unfolding themselves into limbless monsters of pain. Once, in a sunset-ending street of Beardsley, she turned to little Eva Rosen (I was taking both nymphets to a concert and walking behind them so close as almost to touch them with my person), she turned to Eva, and so very serenely and seriously, in answer to something the other had said about its being better to die than hear Milton Pinski; some local schoolboy she knew, talk about music, my Lolita remarked: 'You know what's so dreadful about dying is that you're completely on your own'; and it struck me, as my automaton knees went up and down, that I simply did not know a thing about my darling's mind and that quite possibly, behind the awful juvenile cliches, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate - dim and adorable regions which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me, in my polluted rags and miserable convulsions...

I have to admit it humbly, mon cher compatriote, I was always bursting with vanity. I, I, I is the refrain of my whole life, which could be heard in everything I said. I could never talk without boasting, especially if I did so with that shattering discretion that was my specialty. It is quite true that I always lived free and powerful. I simply felt released in the regard to all the for the excellent reason that I recognized no equals. I always considered myself more intelligent than everyone else, as I’ve told you, but also more sensitive and more skillful, a crack shot, an incomparable driver, a better lover. Even in the fields in which it was easy for me to verify my inferiority–like tennis, for instance, in which I was but a passable partner–it was hard for me not to think that, with a little time and practice, I would surpass the best players. I admitted only superiorities in me and this explained my good will and serenity. When I was concerned with others, I was so out of pure condescension, in utter freedom, and all the credit went to me: my self-esteem would go up a degree.

He puts down the pen, folds the sheet of paper, and slips it inside an envelope. He stands up, takes from his trunk a mahogany box, lifts the lid, lets the letter fall inside, open and unaddressed. In the box are hundreds of identical envelopes, open and unaddressed. He thinks that somewhere in the world he will meet a woman who has always been his woman. Every now and again he regrets that destiny has been so stubbornly determined to make him wait with such indelicate tenacity, but with time he has learned to consider the matter with great serenity. Almost every day, for years now, he has taken pen in hand to write to her. He has no names or addresses to put on the envelopes: but he has a life to recount. And to whom, if not to her? He thinks that when they meet it will be wonderful to place the mahogany box full of letters on her lap and say to her, 'I was waiting for you.' "She will open the box and slowly, when she so desires, read the letters one by one. As she works her way back up the interminable thread of blue ink she will gather up the years-- the days, the moments-- that that man, before he ever met her, had already given to her. Or perhaps more simply, she will overturn the box and astonished at that comical snowstorm of letters, she will smile, saying to that man, 'You are mad.' And she will love him forever.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith." The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed.

A Native American wisdom story tells of an old Cherokee who is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil—he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.

A Cherokee elder was teaching his young grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil- he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt and ego. The other is good- he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too." The boy thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The elder simply replied, "The one you feed.

My code of life and conduct is simply this: work hard, play to the allowable limit, disregard equally the good and bad opinion of others, never do a friend a dirty trick, eat and drink what you feel like when you feel like, never grow indignant over anything, trust to tobacco for calm and serenity, bathe twice a day . . . learn to play at least one musical instrument and then play it only in private, never allow one's self even a passing thought of death, never contradict anyone or seek to prove anything to anyone unless one gets paid for it in cold, hard coin, live the moment to the utmost of its possibilities, treat one's enemies with polite inconsideration, avoid persons who are chronically in need, and be satisfied with life always but never with one's self.

Those were good days. They were serene days and quite undemonstrative, like the best days in one's life... Nothing happens; one simply lives and breathes and wishes for nothing more, and nothing more.

The face of happiness may be someone who is intensely curious and enthusiastic about learning; it may be someone who is engrossed in plans for his next five years; it may be someone who can distinguish between the things that matter and the things that don’t; it may be someone who looks forward each night to reading to her child. Some happy people may appear outwardly cheerful or transparently serene, and others are simply busy. In other words, we all have the potential to be happy, each in our own way.

In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done.

Why was I not overcome with nausea? At the time I had no such reaction. Perhaps nausea is simply an unconscious device of the egoist, who, when he hears of horrors outside the course of his present serene existence, allows only his stomach to respond

When life is a weariness and escape impossible, it is wonderful to have a friend who can bring us peace with the touch of a hand. After this Finna decided to tend the cow herself... Those were the good days. They were serene days and quite undemonstrative, like the best days in one's like; the boy never forgot them. Nothing happens; one simply lives and breathes and wishes for nothing more, and nothing more.

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.94 “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil—he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.” –CHEROKEE LEGEND

But my poor Saul, there’s no help for you, you’re heading straight for it. What about all those marvelous people we know, aged about fifty or sixty? Well, there are a few of them…marvelous, mature, wise people. Real people, the phrase is, radiating serenity. And how did they get to be that way? Well, we know, don’t we? Every blood one of them’s got a history of emotional crime, oh the sad bleeding corpses that litter the road to maturity of the wise, serene man or woman of fifty-odd! You simply don’t get to be wise, mature, etc., unless you’ve been a raving cannibal for thirty years or so.

Acceptance is an important part of serenity. It is not enough, however, simply to accept the things we cannot change. For me, serenity comes from not having any investment in the outcome. If I am genuinely serene, then it will not matter to me whether things change or stay the same. Either way, I choose to be happy.

Hello. (Serenity) I’ve killed over a hundred men. Half of them I kill for simply saying hello. (Ushakii)

Only the neurosurgeon dares to improve upon five billion years of evolution in a few hours. The human brain. A trillion nerve cells storing electrical patterns more numerous than the water molecules of the world’s oceans. The soul’s tapestry lies woven in the brain’s nerve threads. Delicate, inviolate, the brain floats serenely in a bone vault like the crown jewel of biology. What motivated the vast leap in intellectual horsepower between chimp and man? Between tree dweller and moon walker? Is the brain a gift from God, or simply the jackpot of a trillion rolls of DNA dice?

What, then, makes for a good person? These principles: Be content in all circumstances, accepting whatever Fate brings you; preserve the spark of divinity within, not crowding it out with entertainments and distractions; follow the light of reason, always speaking truly and acting justly; live simply and serenely, disregarding what others may say about you; be happy with your lot in life, and ready to depart when you’re called.

Those were good days. They were serene days and quite undemonstrative, like the best days in one's life; the boy never forgot them. Nothing happens; one simply lives and breathes and wishes for nothing more, and nothing more.

Life is naturally going to have ups and downs, comings and goings, pleasures and hardships, joy and pain. Let us be kind to ourselves, understanding that we are here to learn. And let us be kind to others, knowing that peace is the ultimate prize of life and nothing is worth more. Simply to side with peace is to disempower the ego's hold. In so doing, the natural, beautiful, and healing rhythms of life have a chance to start singing their sweet song in our listening ear.

Opposition to food can’t persist if there is no opponent. In the face of a child’s refusal to eat, the best parental response is serene indifference. Parents should remind themselves: ‘I know this will pass. My child will not continue refusing to eat if I simply refuse to react.

His room was a sickly dual-tone of crimson and charcoal, like an Untitled Rothko, the colours bleeding into each other horribly and then rather serenely. The overall effect was overwhelmingly unapologetic but it grew on you like a wart on your nose you didn't realise it was a part of your identity until one day it simply was. His room was his identity. Fiercely bold, avant-garde but never monotonous. He was red, he was black, he was bored, and he was fire. At least to me he seemed like fire. A tornado of fire that burned all in its wake leaving only the wretched brightness of annihilation. His room was where he charmed and disarmed us. We were his playthings. Nobody plays with fire and leaves unscarred. The fire soon seeps into chard and soot. The colours of his soul, his aura, and probably his heart if he didn't stop smoking.

One evening, a Native American elder told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride and superiority. The other is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth and compassion.’ The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, ‘Which wolf wins?’ The elder simply replied, ‘The one that you feed.

There’s an old Cherokee legend about two wolves at war. It’s good food for thought on the topic of self-control. One night a grandfather was teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.” The boy paused to think for a moment before looking up at his grandfather. “Which wolf will win?” He asked. The wise man simply replied, “The one that you feed.”  Hearing that story, I’m reminded of the scripture that says, And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. – Galatians 5:24

The common factor to all of these experiences would seem to be the momentary disappearance of inner conflicts. The person feels in harmony with the world and with herself. Someone enjoying such an experience, such as walking through a serene wilderness, has no particular expectations beyond the simple act of walking. She simply is, here and now, free and open.

An old Cherokee man was teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he told the boy. “It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil — he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” After a few moments to make sure he had the boy’s undivided attention, he continued. “The other wolf is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside of you, boy, and inside of every other person, too.” The grandson thought about this for a few minutes before replying. “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee man simply said, “The one you feed, boy. The one you feed…

What, in fact, do we know about the peak experience? Well, to begin with, we know one thing that puts us several steps ahead of the most penetrating thinkers of the 19th century: that P.E’.s are not a matter of pure good luck or grace. They don’t come and go as they please, leaving ‘this dim, vast vale of tears vacant and desolate’. Like rainbows, peak experiences are governed by definite laws. They are ‘intentional’. And that statement suddenly gains in significance when we remember Thorndike’s discovery that the effect of positive stimuli is far more powerful and far reaching than that of negative stimuli. His first statement of the law of effect was simply that situations that elicit positive reactions tend to produce continuance of positive reactions, while situations that elicit negative or avoidance reactions tend to produce continuance of these. It was later that he came to realise that positive reactions build-up stronger response patterns than negative ones. In other words, positive responses are more intentional than negative ones. Which is another way of saying that if you want a positive reaction (or a peak experience), your best chance of obtaining it is by putting yourself into an active, purposive frame of mind. The opposite of the peak experience—sudden depression, fatigue, even the ‘panic fear’ that swept William James to the edge of insanity—is the outcome of passivity. This cannot be overemphasised. Depression—or neurosis—need not have a positive cause (childhood traumas, etc.). It is the natural outcome of negative passivity. The peak experience is the outcome of an intentional attitude. ‘Feedback’ from my activities depends upon the degree of deliberately calculated purpose I put into them, not upon some occult law connected with the activity itself. . . . A healthy, perfectly adjusted human being would slide smoothly into gear, perform whatever has to be done with perfect economy of energy, then recover lost energy in a state of serene relaxation. Most human beings are not healthy or well adjusted. Their activity is full of strain and nervous tension, and their relaxation hovers on the edge of anxiety. They fail to put enough effort—enough seriousness—into their activity, and they fail to withdraw enough effort from their relaxation. Moods of serenity descend upon them—if at all—by chance; perhaps after some crisis, or in peaceful surroundings with pleasant associations. Their main trouble is that they have no idea of what can be achieved by a certain kind of mental effort. And this is perhaps the place to point out that although mystical contemplation is as old as religion, it is only in the past two centuries that it has played a major role in European culture. It was the group of writers we call the romantics who discovered that a man contemplating a waterfall or a mountain peak can suddenly feel ‘godlike’, as if the soul had expanded. The world is seen from a ‘bird’s eye view’ instead of a worm’s eye view: there is a sense of power, detachment, serenity. The romantics—Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Goethe, Schiller—were the first to raise the question of whether there are ‘higher ceilings of human nature’. But, lacking the concepts for analysing the problem, they left it unsolved. And the romantics in general accepted that the ‘godlike moments’ cannot be sustained, and certainly cannot be re-created at will. This produced the climate of despair that has continued down to our own time. (The major writers of the 20th century—Proust, Eliot, Joyce, Musil—are direct descendants of the romantics, as Edmund Wilson pointed out in Axel’s Castle.) Thus it can be seen that Maslow’s importance extends far beyond the field of psychology. William James had asserted that ‘mystical’ experiences are not mystical at all, but are a perfectly normal potential of human consciousness; but there is no mention of such experiences in Principles of Psychology (or only in passing).

Like the two were learning with one another now, there’s always something so serene about simply sitting down and relaxing quietly in the company of a connected other. To bask in the attendance of an admired someone without a single word spoken possesses an odd tendency to spin a fine web of pure solace. Focusing solely on the comfort they bring, the surrounding environment turns into that of an inessential consequence of time. Nothing more and nothing less.

The object of facing up squarely to the fact of the climacteric is to acquire serenity and power. If women on the youthful side of the climacteric could glimpse what this state of peaceful potency might be, the difficulties of making the transition would be less. It is the nature of the case that life beyond the menopause is as invisible to the woman who has yet to struggle through the change as to the top of any mountain is invisible from the valley below. Calm and poise do not simply happen to the post menopausal woman, she has to fight for them.

One's deeds are done by oneself, but destiny is bestowed by heaven. The relation of deeds to destiny is like shadows and echoes following form and sound. If you want to practice the way to attain reality, first get rid of warped behavior. There are people who are serene and free, following natural reality, whom others consider lazy, but I consider at peace. There are people who conduct themselves simply and have very stable personalities, whom others consider uncultured, but I consider unspoiled. To those who want to know the way to deal with the world, I suggest, Love People.

The greatest gift ever given to someone could be simply including them. In the little things. Most minor things. Great things happen all the time and are left unnoticed. The sun shines, rises and sets every day. We aren’t thankful enough for it. What makes us truly happy are these little yet prominently noticed things; a smile from someone you like, bare feet walk on the grass at a rainy day, the serenity of the beach, the scent of a flower or a mere acquaintance avoiding the wild plants at a pathway just because you asked. This is the definition of happiness from a simple person.

For me, raging and raging like a wild, irrational beast, denying one’s own mortality, clinging to delusion and false hopes, pursuing treatment at the cost of living in the moment, sacrificing one’s quality of life for the sake of quantity, none of this is graceful or dignified, and all of it denies us our contemplative and evolved humanity; such acts do not cultivate an invincible spirit; such acts are not testaments to inner strength and fortitude. For me, true inner strength lies in facing death with serenity, in recognizing that death is not the enemy but simply an inevitable part of life.

Gautama found that there was a way to exit this vicious circle. If, when the mind experiences something pleasant or unpleasant, it simply understands things as they are, then there is no suffering. If you experience sadness without craving that the sadness go away, you continue to feel sadness but you do not suffer from it. There can actually be richness in the sadness. If you experience joy without craving that the joy linger and intensify, you continue to feel joy without losing your peace of mind. But how do you get the mind to accept things as they are, without craving? To accept sadness as sadness, joy as joy, pain as pain? Gautama developed a set of meditation techniques that train the mind to experience reality as it is, without craving. These practices train the mind to focus all its attention on the question, ‘What am I experiencing now?’ rather than on ‘What would I rather be experiencing?’ It is difficult to achieve this state of mind, but not impossible. Gautama grounded these meditation techniques in a set of ethical rules meant to make it easier for people to focus on actual experience and to avoid falling into cravings and fantasies. He instructed his followers to avoid killing, promiscuous sex and theft, since such acts necessarily stoke the fire of craving (for power, for sensual pleasure, or for wealth). When the flames are completely extinguished, craving is replaced by a state of perfect contentment and serenity, known as nirvana (the literal meaning of which is ‘extinguishing the fire’). Those who have attained nirvana are fully liberated from all suffering. They experience reality with the utmost clarity, free of fantasies and delusions. While they will most likely still encounter unpleasantness and pain, such experiences cause them no misery. A person who does not crave cannot suffer.

Ask any number of people to describe a moment of “perfect” happiness. Some will talk about moments of deep peace experienced in a harmonious natural setting, of a forest dappled in sunshine, of a mountain summit looking out across a vast horizon, of the shores of a tranquil lake, of a night walk through snow under a starry sky, and so on. Others will refer to a long-awaited event: an exam they’ve aced, a sporting victory, meeting someone they’ve longed to meet, the birth of a child. Still others will speak of a moment of peaceful intimacy with their family or a loved one, or of having made someone else happy. The common factor to all of these experiences would seem to be the momentary disappearance of inner conflicts. The person feels in harmony with the world and with herself. Someone enjoying such an experience, such as walking through a serene wilderness, has no particular expectations beyond the simple act of walking. She simply is, here and now, free and open. For just a few moments, thoughts of the past are suppressed, the mind is not burdened with plans for the future, and the present moment is liberated from all mental constructs. This moment of respite, from which all sense of emotional urgency has vanished, is experienced as one of profound peace.

He had always assumed that a time would come in adulthood, a kind of plateau, when he would have learned all the tricks of managing, of simply being. All mail and e-mails answered, all papers in order, books alphabetically on the shelves, clothes and shoes in good repair in the wardrobes, and all his stuff where he could find it, with the past, including its letters and photographs, sorted into boxes and files, the private life settled and serene, accommodation and finances likewise. In all these years this settlement, the calm plateau, had never appeared, and yet he had continued to assume, without reflecting on the matter, that it was just around the next turn, when he would exert himself and reach it, that moment when his life became clear and his mind free, when his grown-up existence could properly begin. But not long after Catriona's birth, about the time he met Darlene, he thought he saw it for the first time: on the day he died he would be wearing unmatching socks, there would be unanswered e-mails, and in the hovel he called home there would still be shirts missing cuff buttons, a malfunctioning light in the hall, and unpaid bills, uncleared attics, dead flies, friends waiting for a reply, and lovers he had not owned up to. Oblivion, the last word in organization, would be his only consolation.

Sometimes the demons did fight…did win…did destroy. Still. We deserve to live, he thought. Like everyone else, they suffered if their friends were hurt, read books, watched movies, gave to charity. Fell in love. Hunters, though, would never see it that way. They were convinced the world would be a better place without the Lords. A utopia, serene and perfect. They believed every sin ever committed could be laid at a demon’s feet. Maybe because they were dumb as shit. Maybe because they hated their lives and were simply looking for someone to blame. Either way, killing them had become the most important mission of Sabin’s life. His utopia was a life without them. Which

An old Cherokee chief is teaching his grandson about life: “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. “One is evil—he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, self-pity, arrogance, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego. “The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, truth, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, compassion and faith. “This same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old chief simply replied, “The one you feed.

We will decide, as best we know how, on the basis of love for all involved and with a readiness to sacrifice what we simply want. And in every situation we have the larger view. We are not passive, but we act always with clear-eyed and resolute love. We know what is really happening, seeing it from the point of view of eternity. And we know that we will be taken care of, no matter what. We can be vulnerable because we are, in the end, simply invulnerable. And once we have broken the power of anger and desire over our lives, we know that the way of Christ in response to personal injury and imposition is always the easier way. It is the only way that allows us to move serenely in the midst of harm and beyond it.

The thing I remember from the Letters Page in those antique days was the way the OBs signed off. There was Yours faithfully, Yours sincerely, and I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant. But the ones I always looked for - and which I took to be the true sign of an Old Bastard - simply ended like this: Yours etc. And then the newspaper drew even more attention to the sign-off by printing it: Yours &c. Yours &c. I used to muse about that. What did it mean? Where did it come from? I imagined some bespatted captain of industry dictating his OB’s views to his secretary for transmission to the Newspaper of Record which he doubtless referred to with jocund familiarity as ‘The Thunderer’. When his oratorical belch was complete, he would say ‘Yours, etc,’ which Miss ffffffolkes would automatically transcribe into, ‘I have the honour to be, sir, one of the distinguished Old Bastards who could send you the label off a tin of pilchards and you would still print it above this my name,’ or whatever, and then it would be, ‘Despatch this instanter to The Thunderer, Miss ffffffolkes.’ But one day Miss ffffffolkes was away giving a handjob to the Archbishop of York, so they sent a temp. And the temp wrote Yours, etc, just as she heard it and The Times reckoned the OB captain a very gusher of wit, but decided to add their own little rococo touch by compacting it further to &c., whereupon other OBs followed the bespatted lead of the captain of industry, who claimed all the credit for himself. There we have it: Yours &c. Whereupon, as an ardent damp-ear of sixteen, I took to the parodic sign-off: Love, &c. Not all my correspondents unfailingly seized the reference, I regret to say. One demoiselle hastened her own de-accessioning from the museum of my heart by informing me with hauteur that use of the word etc., whether in oral communication or in carven prose, was common and vulgar. To which I replied, first, that ‘the word’ et cetera was not one but two words, and that the only common and vulgar thing about my letter - given the identity of its recipient - was affixing to it the word that preceded etc. Alack, she didn’t respond to this observation with the Buddhistic serenity one might have hoped. Love, etc. The proposition is simple. The world divides into two categories: those who believe that the purpose, the function, the bass pedal and principal melody of life is love, and that anything else - everything else - is merely an etc.; and those, those unhappy many, who believe primarily in the etc. of life, for whom love, however agreeable, is but a passing flurry of youth, the pattering prelude to nappy-duty, but not something as solid, steadfast and reliable as, say, home decoration. This is the only division between people that counts.

So you've nearly done it, huh?" I said, a trifle inanely but just trying to make conversation. "Yes" said the girl. She said it slowly, as two syllables, as if it hadn't previously occurred to her. There was something serenely mindless in her manner. "Did you ever feel like giving up?" The girl thought for a moment. "No," she said simply. "Really?" I found this amazing. "Did you never think, 'Jeez, this is too much. I don't know that I want to go through with this'?" She thought again, with an air of approaching panic. These were obviously questions that had never penetrated her skull. Her partner came to her rescue. "We had a couple of low moments in the early phases," he said, "but we put our faith in the Lord and His will prevailed." "Praise Jesus," whispered the girl, almost inaudibly. "Ah," I said, and made a mental note to lock my door when I went to bed. "And God bless Allah for the mashed potatoes!" said Katz happily and reached for the bowl for the third time.

When I first walked into the Chapel, I was overwhelmed by the space and its vastness – a common reaction for many who gaze up at the world’s largest fan vaulted ceiling. When my visits increased in number, the vastness kept me speechless: I often was so enveloped in one aspect that would I stumble en route to the next. For hours upon hours, I photographed and I waited – for the sun to shine – for corners to darken – for candles to light – for fog to move. And the series grew… This series contemplates the balance of serenity – between the expansive architecture and its details – between my former career in science and new career in art – between formalism and the sublime – between visual art and poetry – between abstract ambiguity and transparency. These photographs and words together are an attempt to encompass this balancing act. At the most fundamental level, I simply seek to illuminate the unique and remarkable qualities that enable the chapel at King’s College to become King’s Chapel.

Now I know what makes you so different from other women," said John Tenison, when he and Margaret were alone. "It's having that wonderful mother! She--she--well, she's one woman in a million; I don't have to tell you that! It's something to thank God for, a mother like that; it's a privilege to know her. I've been watching her all day, and I've been wondering what SHE gets out of it--that was what puzzled me; but now, just now, I've found out! This morning, thinking what her life is, I couldn't see what REPAID her, do you see? What made up to her for the unending, unending effort, and sacrifice, the pouring out of love and sympathy and help--year after year after year..." He hesitated, but Margaret did not speak. "You know," he went on musingly, "in these days, when women just serenely ignore the question of children, or at most, as a special concession, bring up one or two--just the one or two whose expenses can be comfortably met!--there's something magnificent in a woman like your mother, who begins eight destinies instead of one! She doesn't strain and chafe to express herself through the medium of poetry or music or the stage, but she puts her whole splendid philosophy into her nursery--launches sound little bodies and minds that have their first growth cleanly and purely about her knees. Responsibility--that's what these other women say they are afraid of! But it seems to me there's no responsibility like that of decreeing that young lives simply SHALL NOT BE. Why, what good is learning, or elegance of manner, or painfully acquired fineness of speech, and taste and point of view, if you are not going to distill it into the growing plants, the only real hope we have in the world! You know, Miss Paget," his smile was very sweet in the half darkness, "there's a higher tribunal than the social tribunal of this world, after all; and it seems to me that a woman who stands there, as your mother will, with a forest of new lives about her, and a record like hers, will--will find she has a Friend at court!" he finished whimsically.

It was as she remembered, a haven of comfort and serenity. With a glad sigh, she kicked off her shoes and sat down on the side of the bed.Smiling, she patted the mattress beside her. Her husband scowled. It seemed to have become his habit. "We aren't here to relax." "Wolscroft may not even be in the area. It could take days for this to be settled." "He's here," Dragon said with certainty. "He will know what happened at Winchester, and he will be looking for a way to stop us before we can threaten him further." Privately, Rycca believed the same but she saw no reason to stress it. Nothing would happen until dark. Of that she was confident. Which meant... "We have hours to fill.Any ideas?" When he realized her meaning,he looked startled. With a laugh,she scrambled off the bed and went to him. "Oh,Dragon,for heaven's sake, do you really want to mope around here all day? I certainly don't. I still haven't gotten over being afraid Magnus was going to kill you,and I simply don't want to think about death anymore. I want to celebrate life." "There are three hundred men out there-" "Which is why we're in here." She raised herself on tiptoe, bit the lobe of his ear, and whispered, "I promise not to yell too loudly." A shudder ran through him. Even as his big hands stroked her back,he said, "Warriors don't mope." "No,of course they don't.It was a poor choice of words.But you'll be pacing back and forth, looking out the windows, or you'll go get that whetstone I noticed in the stable and sharpen your sword endlessly, or you'll be staring off into space with that dangerous look you get when you're contemplating mayhem. You'll be totally oblivious to me and-" He laughed despite himself and drew her closer. "Enough! Heaven forbid I behave so churlishly." "Speaking of heaven..." With the covers kicked back,the bed was smooth and cool.They undressed each other slowly, relishing the wonder of discovery that still came to them fresh and pure as their very first time. "Remember?" Rycca murmured as she trailed her lips along his broad, powerfully muscled shoulder and down the solid wall of his chest. "I was so nervous..." "Really?" Fooled me....Ah..." "I'd never seen anything so beautiful as you." "Not...beautiful...you are..." "I can't believe how strong you are. Why am I never afraid with you?" "Know I'd die 'fore hurting you? Sweetheart..." "Ohhh! Dragon...please..." His hands and lips moved over her, sweetly tormenting. She clutched his shoulders, her hips rising, and welcomed him deep within her. Still he tantalized her, making her writhe and laughing when she squeezed him hard with her powerful inner muscles. But the laughter turned quickly to a moan of delight. She looked up into his perfectly formed face,more handsome than any man had a right to be, and into his tawny eyes that were the windows of a soul more beautiful than any physical form. A piercing sense of blessedness filled her that she should be so fortunate as to love and be loved by such a man. Her cresting cry was caught by him, hismouth hard against hers, the spur to his own completion that went on and on,seemingly without end.

In the Japanese vision of winter, in Japanese poetry, and Japanese prints have an imagery of the “floating world,” where there is no notion that winter has in any way fallen from the hand of God, or is in any way evidence of cosmic organization. The Japanese idea of winter simply speaks of winter as simultaneously empty and full; the emptying out of nature by cold, and it’s also the filling up of the world by wind and snow… the Japanese idea of winter marked the final transformation of winter, and the idea of winter in Europe in the nineteenth century…Monet gets from the Japanese wood block prints a new infatuation with pure white-not a white that’s laid down unvaryingly with a single brushstroke, but instead a white that is made up kaleidoscopically with tiny touches of prismatic color. This is sweet winter at its sweetest, a winter so sweet that it loses the tang of the picturesque and becomes entirely exquisite- not pretty but deeply, renewingly lovely…winter becomes another kind of spring, a spring for aesthetes who find April’s green too common, but providing the same emotional lift of hope, the same pleasure of serene, unfolding slowness; the slow weight of frost, the chromatic varnishing of snow on the boughs of the chestnut tree, the still dawn scene, the semi-frozen river.

To be present at the time of death can be one of the most important moments in life. To see those last, awesome minutes of transition from life into death can only be described as a spiritual experience. And then afterwards, when the body lies still, one gets the strange feeling that the person has simply gone away, as though he has said, ‘I’m just going into the other room. I’ll leave that thing there while I’m gone; I won’t be needing it.’ It’s a very odd experience – the body is there, but the person has gone. No one would say, ‘I am a body’; we say, ‘I have a body’. So what, therefore, is the ‘I’? The ‘I’ or perhaps ‘me’ has just stepped into the other room. It is a strange feeling, and I can’t describe it in any other way. Another thing that is strange is that the body left behind looks smaller, quite a lot smaller, than the living person. The face looks the same, but calm and relaxed, wrinkles and worry lines are smoothed, and a feeling of serenity pervades the entire room. But the person, the ‘I’, has gone. It also greatly helps the process of mourning to see the body after death, and preferably to assist in the laying out. Nurses used to do the job when I was young girl, and we always asked the relatives if they wanted to help. Nurses don’t do it any more, but anyone can ask.

13. If the goal is to build up one's sexual energy, what's the harm of sleeping with a lot of different women (or men) to increase your ching chi? Chia: The goal is not to build up one's sexual energy—it is to transform raw sexual energy into a refined subtle energy. Sex is only one means of doing that. Promiscuity can easily lower your energy if you choose partners with moral or physical weakness. If you lie with degenerates, it may hurt you, in that you can temporarily acquire your partner's vileness. By exchanging subtle energy, you actually absorb the other's substance. You become the other person and assume new karmic burdens. This is why old couples resemble each other so closely: they have exchanged so much energy that they are made of the same life-stuff. This practice accelerates this union, but elevates it to a higher level of spiritual experience. So the best advice I can give is to never compromise your integrity of body, mind and spirit. In choosing a lover you are choosing your destiny, so make sure you love the woman with whom you have sex. Then you will be in harmony with what flows from the exchange and your actions will be proper. If you think you can love two women at once, be ready to spend double the chi to transform and balance their energy. I doubt if many men can really do that and feel deep serenity. For the sake of simplicity, limit yourself to one woman at a time. It takes a lot of time and energy to cultivate the subtle energies to a deep level. It is impossible to define love precisely. You have to consult your inner voice. But cultivating your chi energy sensitizes you to your conscience. What was a distant whisper before may become a very loud voice. For your own sake, do not abandon your integrity for the sake of physical pleasure or the pretense that you are doing deep spiritual exercises. If you sleep with one whom you don't love, your subtle energies will not be in balance and psychic warfare can begin. This will take its toll no matter how far apart you are physically until you sever or heal the psychic connection. It's better to be honest in the beginning. For the same reason make love only when you feel true tenderness within yourself. Your power to love will thus grow stronger. Selfish or manipulative use of sex even with someone with whom you are in love can cause great disharmony. If you feel unable to use your sexual power lovingly, then do not use it at all! Sex is a gleaming, sharp, two-edged sword, a healing tool that can quickly become a weapon. If used for base purposes, it cuts you mercilessly. If you haven't found a partner with whom you can be truly gentle, then simply touch no one. Go back to building your internal energy and when it gets high you will either attract a quality lover or learn a deeper level within yourself.

And I still have other smothered memories, now unfolding themselves into limbless monsters of pain. Once, in a sunset-ending street of Beardsley, she turned to little Eva Rosen (I was taking both nymphets to a concert and walking behind them so close as almost to touch them with my person), she turned to Eva, and so very serenely and seriously, in answer to something the other had said about its being better to die than hear Milton Pinski, some local schoolboy she knew, talk about music, my Lolita remarked: 'You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own'; and it struck me, as my automaton knees went up and down, that I simply did not know a thing about my darling's mind and that quite possibly, behind the awful juvenile clichés, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate — dim and adorable regions which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me, in my polluted rags and miserable convulsions; for I often noticed that living as we did, she and I, in a world of total evil, we would become strangely embarrassed whenever I tried to discuss something she and an older friend, she and a parent, she and a real healthy sweetheart, I and Annabel, Lolita and a sublime, purified, analyzed, deified Harold Haze, might have discussed — and abstract idea, a painting, stippled Hopkins or shorn Baudelaire, God or Shakespeare, anything of a genuine kind. Good will! She would mail her vulnerability in trite brashness and boredom, whereas I, using for my desperately detached comments an artificial tone of voice that set my own last teeth on edge, provoked my audience to such outburst of rudeness as made any further conversation impossible, oh my poor, bruised child.

PROLOGUE Some years ago in the Planet Orfheus ... It was dark when Lucius reached the rendezvous which had been chosen to be the new hideout. The latter had been used for several months and they were concerned that they were being followed and were close to being discovered. "I thought you were not coming. I've been waiting for you for almost an hour. I was getting anxious," Sofia said, relieved. "Sorry, love. It is becoming increasingly difficult. I almost didn't make it today. The troops were ambushed in the last invasion. Igor and many warriors returned seriously injured," Lucius replied. He looked worried. Why this sudden encounter? They had agreed that the next would be the following week. Lucius gave her a big hug, pulled her close to him, and remained silent for a few moments. His longing and desire consumed him. She meant the world to him. Without Sofia, his life would never make sense. He would never forget those eyes, serene and sincere, with a blue so bright and clear that were able to see the soul of the tormented warrior that was he. With her golden hair, Sofia looked like an angel. "Is there a problem? You're so quiet and deep in thought," she asked, puzzled. He answered, "I'm thinking about us. How long are we keeping it secret?" He walked away from her, sighing. "We can't keep lying and pretending that all is well. You have no idea how much I have to endure when you are away from me, or when I see you with him." "Love, not now. We have already discussed this subject several times. You know that our only alternative would be to flee and pray they will never find us," she replied. Sofia knew very well that the laws of the kingdom could not be disregarded. Love, respect, and loyalty were key factors that were part of the hierarchy of Orfheus. Although she had always been in love with Lucius who had never shown any interest in her, Sofia was bound to his brother Alex as a result of a pact. Over the centuries, Lucius began to change and express loving feelings for her. She never ceased to love him and both succumbed to the temptation and passion of it. Inevitably, a love affair developed between the two. Interrupting her thoughts, Lucius grabbed her by the hand and led her into the hut. This hut was located inside a vast and beautiful forest. He pulled her by the waist, gave her a passionate kiss, stroked her hair, and said softly, "Love, I missed you so much." "I also felt homesick but the real reason I came here today is to tell you something very important. I need you to listen carefully and keep calm," she said as she ran her hands through her hair which contrasted with her pale skin. Sofia did not want to scare him. However, she imagined that he would be upset and angry with the news. Unfortunately, the revelation was inevitable and sooner or later, everything would come out. "I'm pregnant," she said unceremoniously. For a brief moment, Lucius said nothing. He just stared at her without any reaction. He seemed to be in a silent battle with his own thoughts. "But how?" he babbled, not believing what he had just heard. It was surely a bombshell revelation. That would be the end for them. Sofia said, "Stay calm, love. I know this changes everything. What we were planning for months is no longer possible." She sat on a makeshift stool and continued with tears in her eyes. "With the baby coming, I cannot simply go through the portal. The baby and I would die during the crossing." Lucius replied, "Could we ask for help from Aunt Wilda? She is very powerful. Probably she would be able to break through the magic of the portals." Sofia had already thought of that. She was well aware that it was the only choice left. Aunt Wilda had always been like a mother to her. The sorceress adopted her when she was a girl, soon after her family had died in combat.

Claude Monet's Water Lilies (The Clouds) consists of nothing more than dabs of different colored paint on a canvas.14 But because of the particular arrangement of those dabs of paint, Monet has produced not simply a piece of canvas with dabs of paint on it. Monet has produced for us a painting, a unique picture, a cognitively recognizable and culturally meaningful representation of a reality, a new entity with its own characteristics and capacities to cause effects in the world. One of the emergent causal capacities of those particularly arranged dabs of paint is the ability to evoke certain emotions in people who view the painting, such as warmth or serenity. Neither the recognizable and meaningful picture nor the capacity to evoke emotions is present in the dabs of paint totaled up. It is through Monet's particular relational arrangement of those paint dabs that a unique picture emerges possessing particular characteristics and capacities that can cause experiences in observers. To say that Monet's Water Lilies (The Clouds) is reducible to many dabs of colored paint on a canvas would be to say that all of the characteristics and capacities we observe in the painting are present in the sum total of all the dabs of paint and the piece of canvas. To say that about this painting would be to make oneself a reductionist in relation to it. And to do this would be misguided.

In her inspiring book The Not So Big Life, she says, “We need to remodel the way we are living, but not in a way that gives us more of the same kinds of space we already have; that would simply create an even bigger life. What we need is a remodeling that allows us to experience what’s already here but to experience it differently, so that it delights us rather than drives us crazy.” Even a small detail in a home

And whether you are aware of these cosmic energies or not, you are being impacted by them, as they awaken you to those areas in which you are out of alignment with your true desires. The strong energy pouring to earth will also bring to the surface the beliefs, the limitations, the blockages you have accepted as a part of your being. Those that no longer serve you must be released, and the energy assists you in this with a constant stream of cosmic light. Begin to tune in to this now, allowing light to fill your body. Notice that, as you open your heart to this experience, you are able to feel good, to feel lightened in this energy. Return to the space of serenity, peace, and balance with your open heart by connecting to the realms of spirit and love. Regularly doing this will lessen and even eliminate much struggle and challenge on your path. As we mentioned, challenges come up for you in this energy to draw your attention to areas where change is needed and to areas of your life that no longer serve you and your acceleration path. When you are tuned in and observant with a calm mind, you are able to know what changes are needed. You will know which emotion is yours and which emotions are others. You will know what is your truth and which emotion is lingering and bubbling up to the surface now for you to ultimately release. When you find yourself feeling emotions of anger or sadness, anything that is on the scale of discomfort or negativity, remember that this is indeed tied to a thought or a belief. And so, allow yourself to feel whatever vibration is coming up and then release it. Imagine yourself surrounded with the light. And with your words and your intentions, you are able to simply ask for that emotion or belief to be released and replaced with unconditional love, compassion, and joy. Then continue to go about your day grounded in love and peace, knowing this is your true authentic nature as a spiritual being, which you are moving into. You are here on earth to return to living in love, happiness, and well-being.

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil—he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.” —CHEROKEE LEGEND

And then there is this jewel with its many facets of wisdom. It’s not difficult to imagine the breadth and depth of this sentiment – at least where astuteness and faith are an inseparable dynamic duo running rampant: “…while God does listen, knowing what He knows about us, and how well we take disappointment, often He will find a way to save us all the heartache and trouble we unwittingly plead and beseech and continually pester him for; ever a loving, wise Father, He will just simply answer, “no,” by default; by not answering, “yes.

The really remarkable thing, and Rambert was greatly struck by this, was the way in which, in the very midst of catastrophe, offices could go on functioning serenely and take initiatives of no immediate relevance, and often unknown to the highest authority, purely and simply because they had been created originally for this purpose.

One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. “The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.” —ANONYMOUS

Good hearts are boundless, free, infinite On the inside They are simply bounded by Morality, integrity, serenity On the outside And this is where their silence Get you all trapped They notice everything And know you so well

If we spent our whole lives here we would have little to offer the world and know little enough of the world to have context for our prayer …’ Seeing Nona’s frown she spoke more simply. ‘We wouldn’t understand what we’re praying for. Without knowing the chaos and confusion that washes all around this plateau, our Rock of Faith, we could not appreciate the serenity we seek.’ Abbess Glass paused and fixed Nona with dark eyes. It seemed important to her that Nona understand … that Nona believe. ‘I wasn’t always a nun. I had a son and I breathed for him. When we buried him my sorrow consumed me. Was my grief holy? Was it unique? All our hurts and follies are repeated time and again. Generation after generation live the same mistakes. But we’re not like the fire, or the river, or the wind – we’re not a single tune, its variations played out forever, a game of numbers until the world dies. There’s a story written in us. Your parents – your father and his ice tunnels, your mother and her Church of Hope, both of them, whether they loved you or left you, are in you bone-deep, remembered in your blood.

hands, smiling sweetly at the Madam. “I volunteer to lead a tour of our city. Would it please Madam?” Madam Vesteria frowned and rubbed her chin as if deciding how to respond to the spoiled twin. “I suppose…that would be acceptable. But you must behave yourself around your new friends and return before lunch. Now look at me, you will be a proper guide and a gentleman, am I understood?” “Perfectly.” Killian bowed, his face serene and cold. Talis had a feeling that Killian had no intention of behaving himself when Madam Vesteria was out of sight. After Madam Vesteria left the foyer, Kolray whispered something into Killian’s ear that made a wide grin spread over his brother’s face. “Dreadfully delightful idea… We simply must! So, new friends, shall we go?” He gestured

No, on the contrary! In enlightenment you have freed yourself of any sense of “I”, and you certainly have not evolved into an enlightened “I”. You can say there is “AM” (nothingness-beingness), but you cannot say there is an “I” that is or owns or experiences that AM-ness. Now, language bids us to use phrases like “I AM”, but it will have one meaning from the enlightened perspective and another from the unenlightened. I have seen this phrase cause much confusion in many seekers because it makes them believe that they as persons have to evolve to a serene point where their individuality simply is. But it will never happen, because it is not in the nature of the “I” to simply BE. It is the nature of the “I” to change and to interact with what changes around it. The “I” will never, ever get enlightened

She just said nothing. Nothing. She let the silence between them fill the air. Unlike other people, Omakayas had noticed, silence did not make Old Tallow uncomfortable. Now the warrior lady simply stood and smoked her pipe. The smoke drifted serenely in wavering fangs from each corner of her mouth. She was thinking.

So don’t connect freedom with independence. Independence is naturally from something,from somebody. Don’t connect freedom with doing things that you want to do, because that is your mind, not you. Wanting to do something, desiring to do something, you are in the bondage of your wanting and your desiring. With the freedom I am talking about, you simply are—in utter silence, serenity, beauty, bliss.

They know that, from the outside, the child could be dismissed as a ‘felon’, ‘an idiot’ or ‘disgusting’. But no human is ever simply their worst moment – and every worst moment has a long history, which invariably merits a high degree of sympathy. The more we know of someone, the more difficult it becomes to caricature them with a single hostile slogan. Hatred is just a result of standing too far away, not daring to investigate who a person might really be or what they have gone through. There are – in the end – very few monsters; there are mostly only hasty judgements.

Will and Wheel (The Sonnet) Where there is a will, there is a wheel. Where there is intent, there is upliftment. Where there is heart, there is less dirt. Where there is content, there is less torment. Where there is simplicity, there is sanity. Where there is luxury, there is degradation. Where there is sharing, there is serenity. Where there is moderation, there is ascension. Where there is love, there is acceptance. Where there is division, there is judgment. Where there is selflessness, there is joy. Where there is self-absorption, there is lament. The requirement of civilization is simply this. We are to have the will to love and the will to lift.

A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil—he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.

A promising path to security, even though it may seem paradoxical, is letting go. When you are attached to nothing, there is no pathway to hurt. When you are attached to nothing, happiness appears in abundance. There is nothing passive or cold about letting go—it actually helps you live a much more active life, except that now you are living in alignment with the truth of impermanence. Yes, there are things and people you love, but they are always changing. They will be with you for some time, and eventually they, too, will be gone, just like everything else. If we embrace the truth of change, letting go becomes more clear-cut. We can enjoy things when they are around and we can help and be of service whenever possible, but we won’t expect anything to last forever, especially in the same way that things currently exist, because that is simply not possible. We can also have goals and plans for the future, but not expect to achieve all of them in a specific amount of time. When we stop fighting the truth of change, letting go of our attachments feels more natural, and, in the act of letting go, the love you have for whatever you hold dear will become purer because the element of control won’t be as predominant. Serenity is possible when we are no longer carrying the ever-growing baggage of mental images, fueled by craving or aversion, everywhere we go. Without realizing it, we are weighing ourselves down by existing in a state of judgment—judgment of the present moment. These mental cravings become like rocks in the mind. If we recognize what we are holding on to, we have the opportunity to let it go.

Yoga, whether dualist or nondualist, is concerned with the elimination of suffering (duhkha). Here suffering does not mean the pain resulting from a cut or the emotional torment experienced through political oppression. These are simply manifestations of a deeper existential suffering. That suffering is the direct outcome of our habitual sense of being locked into a body-mind that is separate from all others. Yoga seeks to prevent future suffering of this kind by pointing the way to the unitary consciousness that is disclosed in ego-transcending ecstatic states. From the viewpoint of traditional Yoga, even the pleasure or well-being (sukha) experienced as a result of the regular performance of yogic postures, breath control, or meditation is suffused with suffering. First of all, the pleasure is bound to be only temporary, whereas the innate bliss (ānanda) of the Self is permanent. Second, pleasure is relative: We can compare our present sense of enjoyment with similar experiences at different times or by different people. Thus, our experience contains an element of envy. Third, there is always the hidden fear that a pleasurable state will come to an end, which is a reasonable assumption. Yoga is a systematic attempt to step out of this whole cycle of gain and loss. When the yogin or yoginī is in touch with the Reality beyond the bodymind, and when he or she has a taste of the unalloyed delight of the Self, all possible pleasures that derive from objects (rather than the Self) come to lose their fascination. The mind begins to be more equanimous. As the Bhagavad-Gītā (2.48), the most popular Hindu Yoga scripture, puts it: “Yoga is balance (samatva).” This notion of balance is intrinsic to Yoga and occurs on many levels of the yogic work. Its culmination is in the “vision of sameness” (sama-darshana), which is the graceful state in which we see everything in the same light. Everything stands revealed as the great Reality, and nothing excites us as being more valuable than anything else. We regard a piece of gold and a clump of clay or a beautiful person and an unattractive individual with the same even-temperedness. Nor are we puffed up by praise or deflated by blame. This condition, which is one of utter lucidity and serenity, must not be confused with one of the many types of ecstasy (samādhi) known to yogins. Ecstasies, visions, and psychic (paranormal) phenomena are not at all the point of spiritual life. They can and do occur when we earnestly devote ourselves to higher values, but they are by-products rather than the goal of authentic spirituality. They should certainly not be made the focus of our aspiration. Thus, Yoga is a comprehensive way of life in which the ultimate Reality, or Spirit, is given precedence over other concerns. It is a sacred path that conducts us, in the words of an ancient Upanishad, from the unreal to the Real, from falsehood to Truth, from the temporal to the Eternal.

There really were rabbits everywhere. They’d whoosh and bound past you in the blink of an eye, sometimes so fast that all you’d hear was the rapid thump thump on the ground before they were gone. They were as quick as the wind, and the only thing you really ever saw was their shadows as they skittered by. What impression did this give to us? Did it suggest the land was alive, vital and strong? Did it convey a sense of chaos, confusion and clamour? No, quite the opposite in fact, for the land seemed ever so silent. Indeed, I don’t know what other animal could’ve been as quiet as those wild rabbits. Although the wilderness was generally quiet, it took the appearance of the rabbits before you would become acutely aware of how quiet it really was. It was a sereneness that seemed more illusory than anything else - a type of nothingness, nothing but the wind and the grass, a rippling expanse that gifted a sense of kindness, the drifting clouds, thoughts dim and hazy. The instant the rabbits appeared, all of this nature awoke, the horizon suddenly shrank, and the air grew taut, ever so slightly. My heart followed suit, and so did my ears. My throat was empty, and all I could do was utter a gentle ah. That sound, let loose, became the most solid, most compact thing in the entire world. My body felt heavy, overwhelmingly so, and I was unable to move. But the rabbits bounded in front of me, racing back and forth, their gracefulness blending into the calmness of the land. Then another appeared, hopped up on a largish stone and stood motionless, its eyes directed towards me, peering into me. The silence of the scene increased tenfold. One more rabbit jumped into view and the quiet deepened yet again. They came, more and more, and as they did, all sound was evacuated from the world, transforming it into a clear, limpid pool of silence. I turned my head, a movement that now seemed magnified amid the stillness. My ah lingered in the air, not yet absorbed into the sweeping quiet of the landscape. It seemed to persist, perched just above the calm. I’d been enraptured by nature countless times before, caught in its web, unable to free myself, but I’ve never been able to put this into words. Nothing but my ah…I simply stood there in the midst of all of that confusion and clamour, the chaos swirling about, avid and avaricious. The silence encircled me, stealing the words from my throat. Countless times I’d praised the earth, the wild, but still I could not put into words that there was really no connection between us.

...the free will defense, put simply, goes like this: "To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so... The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness; for her could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good." (Alvin Plantiga)

The mind is like the ocean ... no matter what the surface conditions are like, whether it’s smooth or choppy ... deep in the ocean it’s tranquil and serene. From the depth of the ocean, you can look toward the surface and simply notice the activities there, just as from the depth of the mind you can look upward toward ... all that activity of mind—the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories.

Blue high heels, a timeless and enchanting accessory, have long held a special place in fashion. These stunning footwear pieces effortlessly blend sophistication with a dash of whimsy, making them a coveted addition to any fashion-conscious individual's wardrobe. In all its shades, the color blue has always been associated with a sense of calm, serenity, and depth. When translated into high heels, this color takes on a whole new dimension, turning a pair of shoes into a fashion statement that exudes confidence and charm. One of the most remarkable aspects of blue high heels is their versatility. Whether you opt for a classic navy, a vibrant royal blue, or an ethereal pastel shade, there's a blue heel to suit every occasion. Navy blue heels, for example, are an excellent choice for corporate settings, exuding professionalism and power. On the other hand, a pair of electric blue stilettos can add a playful pop of color to your evening ensemble, making you the center of attention at any event. Blue high heels also beautifully complement a wide range of outfits. They can elevate a simple jeans-and-blouse combo, add a touch of elegance to a cocktail dress, or provide a striking contrast to an all-black ensemble. Their ability to effortlessly blend into various styles and settings is a testament to their timeless appeal. In addition to their aesthetic charm, blue high heels offer the wearer a sense of empowerment. The elevation they provide not only increases height but also boosts confidence. Walking in heels requires poise and balance, qualities that further enhance one's self-assurance. Blue high heels are a must-have for anyone looking to infuse their wardrobe with elegance and style. These captivating footwear pieces offer versatility, empowerment, and a touch of sophistication, making them an indispensable accessory for fashion enthusiasts. Whether stepping into the boardroom, hitting the town, or simply looking to turn heads, blue high heels will always rise to the occasion, leaving a lasting impression wherever you go.

Her face and the garden Her face is like a summer garden, By divine beauty tended and by grace never forsaken, There bloom roses many, and lilies too, And I keep looking at it, for in spell bound state what else can I do, Yesterday she was a garden of roses, Last year she was the entire spring, where once in bloom, the beauty’s flower never closes, This year she has transformed into a garden blooming with new flowers, Daisies, daffodils, and sunflowers standing like beauty’s radiant towers, Rendered more radiant in the never ending splendour of her eyes, And the garden of beautiful roses growing all over her, even time defies, While I watch the garden of beauty grow over her face, My heart beats assume a new and lovely pace, That draw my mind into this world of endless beauty, And I know not whether it obeys my heart’s yearnings or it too has grown fond of her pure serenity, The summer has found a permanent residence in her face, infact within her, Because I still see the roses blooming over her face although it is late November, And when sometimes she brushes her hair with her fingers, The roses peek from her face to feel her finger tips and their magical wonders, And when she rests her eyelids upon her eyes, The pollen dust of million flowers, upon her waiting eyelashes, a perfect sheen applies, That neither sparkles nor glows, But in the garden of her face it simply in its splendour grows, And when the winter sun gets tired and retires finally, The lilies apply the mask of radiance on her tenderly, While the violets and narcissus seep deep into her brow, And what a wonder she is to look at now, A beauty with no end, where waves of summer flow interminably, As she rests her head on the pillow and closes her eyes slowly, The morning glory turns into the night glory, And then begins our own love story, Where the lovely and winding creepers grow all over us, over her and over me too, Finally the garden of beauty grows all over us, and now it shall be so, no matter what you do, I in the garden of her beauty where flowers bloom everywhere, And then my heart confesses, “Irma, let us hide in this garden somewhere, To be never found by time, and never felt by any season, Because finally we have found love in each other that defies every reason,” And this is how it has been for many years now, I and my every feeling of love sinking deep into her beauty’s eternal brow!

If we spent our whole lives here we would have little to offer the world and know little enough of the world to have context for our prayer'' Seeing Nona's frown she spoke more simply.'We wouldn't understand what we're praying for. Without knowing the chaos and confusion that washes all around this plateau, our Rock of Faith, we could not appreciate the serenity we seek.' Abbess Glass paused and fixed Nona with dark eyes. It seemed important to her that Nona understand' that Nona believe.'I wasn't always a nun. I had a son and I breathed for him. When we buried him my sorrow consumed me. Was my grief holy' Was it unique' All our hurts and follies are repeated time and again. Generation after generation live the same mistakes. But we're not like the fire, or the river, or the wind' we're not a single tune, its variations played out forever, a game of numbers until the world dies. There's a story written in us. Your parents' your father and his ice tunnels, your mother and her Church of Hope, both of them, whether they loved you or left you, are in you bone-deep, remembered in your blood.

I am, myself, three selves at least. To begin with, there is the child I was. Certainly I am not that child anymore. yet, distantly, or sometimes not so distantly, I can hear that child's voice - I can feel its hope, or its distress. It has not vanished. Powerful, egotistical, insinuating - its presence rises, in memory, or from the steamy river of dreams. It is not gone, not by a long shot. It is with me in the present hour. It will be with me in the grave. And there is the attentive, social self. This is the smile and the doorkeeper. This is the portion that winds the clock, that steers through the dailiness of life, that keeps in mind appointments that must be made, and then met. It is fettered to a thousand notions of obligation. It moves across the hours of the day as though the movement itself were the whole task. Whether it gathers as it goes some branch of wisdom or delight, or nothing at all, is a matter with which it is hardly concerned. What this self hears night and day, what it loves beyond all other songs, is the endless springing forward of the clock, those measures strict and vivacious, and full of certainty. The clock! That twelve-figured mon skull, that white spider belly! How serenely the hands move with their filigree pointers, and how steadily! Twelve hours, and twelve hours, and begin again! Eat, speak, sleep, cross a street, wash a dish! The clock is still ticking. All its vistas are just so broad - are regular. (Notice that word.) Every day, twelve little bins in which to order disorderly life, and even more disorderly thought. The town's clock cries out, and the face on every wrist hums or shines; the world keeps pace with itself. Another day is passing, a regular and ordinary day. (Notice that world also.) [ ... ] And this is also true. In creative work - creative work of all kinds - those who are the world's working artists are not trying to help the world go around, but forward. Which is something altogether different from the ordinary. Such work does not refute the ordinary. It is, simply, something else. Its labor requires a different outlook - a different set of priorities. Certainly there is within each of us a self that is neither a child, nor a servant of the hours. It is a third self, occasional in some of us, tyrant in others. This self is out of love with the ordinary; it is out of love with time. It has a hunger for eternity.

I spent the strangest days of my life in Amirbar. In Amirbar I left shreds of my soul and most of the energy that fired my youth. Perhaps I came down from there more serene, I don’t know, but I was everlastingly weary too. What happened to me since then has been a matter of simply surviving each day’s difficulties. Trivialities. Not even the ocean could give back to me my vocation for dreaming with my eyes open: I used that up in Amirbar and received nothing in return.

once confided to him late at night after a game of billiards and rather a lot of excellent port that his wife hated it so much that she’d only let him do it when she wanted a baby. She was a damned attractive woman, too, and a wonderful wife, as Martyn had said. In other ways. They had five children, and Martyn didn’t think she was going to wear a sixth. Rotten for him. When Edward had suggested that he find consolation elsewhere, Martyn had simply gazed at him with mournful brown eyes and said, ‘But I’m in love with her, old boy, always have been. Never looked at anyone else. You know how it is.’ And Edward, who didn’t, said of course he did. That conversation had warned him off Marcia Slocombe-Jones anyhow. It didn’t matter, because although he could have gone for her there were so many other girls to go for. How lucky he was! To have come back from France not only alive, but relatively unscathed! In winter, his chest played him up a bit due to living in trenches where the gas had hung about for weeks, but otherwise . . . Since then he’d come back, gone straight into the family firm, met Villy at a party, married her as soon as her contract with the ballet company she was with expired and as soon as she’d agreed to the Old Man’s dictate that her career should stop from then on. ‘Can’t marry a gal whose head’s full of something else. If marriage isn’t the woman’s career, it won’t be a good marriage.’ His attitude was thoroughly Victorian, of course, but all the same, there was quite a lot to be said for it. Whenever Edward looked at his own mother, which he did infrequently but with great affection, he saw her as the perfect reflection of his father’s attitude: a woman who had serenely fulfilled all her family responsibilities and at the same time retained her youthful enthusiasms – for her garden that she adored and for music. At over seventy, she was quite capable of playing double concertos with professionals. Unable to discriminate between the darker, more intricate veins of temperament that distinguish one person from another, he could not really see why Villy should not be as happy and fulfilled as the Duchy. (His mother’s Victorian reputation for plain living – nothing rich in food and no frills or pretensions about her own appearance or her household’s had long ago earned her the nickname of Duchess – shortened by her own children to

...the free will defense, put simply, goes like this: "To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so... The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however counts neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.

We are a lot like the moon. We reflect the Heavenly Light that shines from God, but even then, we all have a dark side that is hidden from the light. Darkness is not made of anything itself. It is simply an absence—an absence of light. Evil is also not a presence of something, but an absence. It is the result of humans shielding their hearts from the Heavenly Light, casting a dark shadow across their souls. It is only when we let down our shield and allow the Heavenly Light to draw near that the darkness can be expelled.

I’ve been thinking about it,” Jeremy said. “You want to hear what I’ve come up with?” Myron swallowed. He looked into the boy’s eyes—serenity, yes, but not through innocence. “Very much,” he said. “You’re not my dad,” he said simply. “I mean, you might be my father. But you’re not my dad. You know what I mean?” Myron managed a nod “But”—Jeremy stopped, looked up, shrugged the shrug of a thirteen-year-old—“but maybe you can still be around.

The ways by which Providence ransoms and saves its elect are unforeseeable. At times, our enemy becomes a friend; at times he is despoiled of the capacity for evil that made him fearsome; at times he auto-destructs, or, without desiring it, produces beneficial effects and simply vanishes without leaving a trace. Generally, the Church does not have to do anything but persevere with peace and confidence in the fulfilment of its tasks, remain serene, and await salvation from God.[

Sonnet of Human I am but a human who's got no name, Simply alive in the land of liberty, I am but a human who talks no lame, Simply communicates with utter serenity, I am but a human who despises harming, No matter what some books command, I am but a human who loves not blaming, No matter how much my peers demand, I am but a human who lives not in history, Simply breathes in the now and here, I am but a human who's curious in mystery, And loves to investigate forged with questionnaire, I am but a human teeming with awareness beyond all race and clans, I am but a human whose religion is liberty and god the humans.

He meant the Grand Canyon was only a mood of nature, a bold promise, a beautiful record. He meant that mountains had sifted away in its dust, yet the canyon was young. Man was nothing, so let him be humble. This cataclysm of the earth, this playground of a river was not inscrutable; it was only inevitable—as inevitable as nature herself. Millions of years in the bygone ages it had lain serene under a half moon; it would bask silent under a rayless sun, in the onward edge of time. It taught simplicity, serenity, peace. The eye that saw only the strife, the war, the decay, the ruin, or only the glory and the tragedy, saw not all the truth. It spoke simply, though its words were grand: "My spirit is the Spirit of Time, of Eternity, of God. Man is little, vain, vaunting. Listen. To-morrow he shall be gone. Peace! Peace!