SOUL AFLAME!

[knightofalbion]

This thread is for inspirational quotations, poems and short stories. If there is something that has touched your soul, led you to a higher path or given you strength in a time of adversity, then please add it here.
If it has inspired you, the chances are it will inspire others too and to help each other along is the duty of every soul.
Into the light!

All this talk of religion, but it's how you live your life that is the all-important thing.
If you set out each day to do all the goodness and kindness that you can, and to do no harm to man or beast, then you are walking the highest path.
And when your time is up, if you can leave the earth a better place than you found it, then yours will have been a life well lived.

Sometimes I get very tired with those who want what they call 'higher teachings' from the spirit world and do nothing to help their brother men. As people grow they understand more and more the operation of the laws of the Great Spirit. There is no 'high' and there is no 'low' teaching.
If all the people who clamour for teachings would do something to make the earth a better place, a brighter place, a place where the hungry would be fed and the thirsty would be given drink, where people were allowed to live in houses where the sunshine of the Great Spirit could reach their poor, tired bodies, then they would be putting into operation the highest teaching of all

• Silver Birch

Help thy brother's boat across and lo! thine own has reached the shore

• Hindu proverb

(Through Service the soul is advanced)

And how you ask are we to walk the spiritual path? We answer; say little, love much, give all, judge no one, aspire to all that is pure and good - and keep on keeping on

• White Eagle

"I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that stll remains"

• Anne Frank

Despite all the doom and gloom on the news every night, this is a BEAUTIFUL world, full of many wonderful sights and sounds - and people.
Open your eyes, open your heart and marvel...

?Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.?

― Rumi

It is our deeds, the accumulated acts of goodness and kindness, that define us and ultimately are the true measure of our worth.
Service is the coin of the spirit.

Determination and a just cause:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed, it is the only thing that ever has"

• Margaret Mead

Be the change you want to see in the world

• Mahatma Gandhi

May I be a protector for the unprotected;
A guide for travellers on the way;
A boat, a raft or a bridge
For those who long to cross to the other shore.

May I be an isle for those who seek an island;
A lamp for those who wish for light;
A shelter for those in need of rest;
A servant for those in need of service.

• Shantideva (Bodhicaryavatara 3:17-18)

It is no non-violence if we merely love those that love us. It is non-violence only when we love those that hate us.
I know how difficult it is to follow this grand law of love. But are not all great and good things difficult to do?
Love of the hater is the most difficult of all. But by the grace of God even this most difficult thing becomes easy to accomplish if we want to do it

• Mahatma Gandhi

?People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.?
― Mother Teresa

:) crescentmoon

Two men looked out through prison bars, one saw mud the other saw stars.

World of Wonder:
Every day the sun rises and sets, tides ebb and flow. All these things happen wheter or not we notice them, but when we take time to notice them, we are filled with wonder.
Even to think that every snowflake is different. Billions and billions of snowflakes that fall, every single one wonderful, looking so much alike and yet no two are the same

• Sister Stanislaus Kennedy (From 'Gardening the Soul')

" So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us"

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children

• Native American proverb

The best portion of a good man's life
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and love

• William Wordsworth

We do not have to talk very much in order to pray well.

St. Jean-Marie Vianney

'You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.'

Max Ehrmann, "Desiderata"

Those who have forsaken the killing of all; those who are helpmates to all; those who are a sanctuary to all; those men are in the way of Heaven

• The Hitopadesa

marking spot :-)