Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.

Knowledge is not intelligence.

In searching for the truth, be ready for the unexpected, change alone is unchanging.

The same road goes both up and down.

The beginning of a circle is also its end.

Not I, but the world says it: all is one.

And yet everything comes in season.

By Heraklietos of Ephesos

 

If you want something you’ve never had, you must do something you’ve never done.   

Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action.                                                    – Brendan Francis

The driving force of the Seeker is spiritual hunger. Find spiritual food or die trying.

The soul’s beauty is harder to see than beauty of the body. It is not old age as such, but the abandonment of character that dooms later years to ugliness. As character directs aging, aging reveals character.  –James Hillman (the Force of Character)

For fourteen years Lawrence tried to please his mother. For nine years he tried to please his father; for untold years his different bosses, for twenty-one years his children and for twenty-six years his wife. The preacher was right when he said: Lawrence lived a very pleasing life.

It’s no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.        -Jiddu Krishnamurti

In order to solve problems we must ask is it:

1) a puzzle (to analyze patiently)

2) an obstacle (to overcome with perseverance) or

3) an entanglement (to extricate ourselves from as soon as possible) ???

 

The altar is mere wood, but the need to be reverent is real. God within maybe nothing but visualization, but our need for concentration is real. The gods within represent certain philosophies and extraordinary facets of the human mind/soul. When we devote ourselves to higher motivations, our devotion establishes communion with these deeper aspects.

Spiritual maturity can be evidenced by one’s ability to skillfully be true to self while honoring diversity in others and championing unity amongst the whole community.

Flames coming together in community activity, cooperation and inspiration provide momentum for growth and action. One must be careful not to lose one’s center, the idea is integration not assimilation; unity informed by the diversity of individuality.

Quotes / ideas taken from:  365 Tao Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao

 

Below quotes taken from:

Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

By Mark Greene

“We are very close to pathologizing emotional awareness in men. Because we continue to insist that thick skinned, emotionally distant men are the baseline for masculinity.”

“Whenever I see an aggressive man, I see a man who is taking with force what he cannot devise a way to be freely offered.”
“Bullying is not some simple extension of male energy. It is not biologically inevitable. But when emotional toughness is our society’s highest valued personal trait, bullying is inevitable, because bullying is, at its base, an expression of loss, isolation, grief and jealousy. It is the rage of boys who are wracked with confusion. “What is suddenly wrong with wanting to be held, comforted and kept safe? Yesterday you held me. Today you pushed me away.”

“The crappy mass media narratives about men will continue. They will go on telling our sons, brothers and fathers that the way to be a man is through your wallet or your fists. Our responsibility is to add other stories and other ideas to the cultural mix. Yes, men can be tough focused warriors. But they can also be gentle and loving and playful and funny and sweet and yes, feminine. They can be healers and caregivers and poets and artists and everything else under the sun.”
“It is the self-suppression of men’s desires and aspirations that contributes to epidemic levels of male anger and reactivity, depression, alcoholism, domestic violence, divorce and suicide.”
“Men who chose (or are forced) to reside in the Man Box are the first to talk about freedom and personal liberty. The fact that they are living within the mind numbingly narrow perimeters of the Man Box is so deeply ironic that it boggles the mind.”
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below quotes taken from:

Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

By Mark Greene

 

“We are very close to pathologizing emotional awareness in men. Because we continue to insist that thick skinned, emotionally distant men are the baseline for masculinity.”
“Whenever I see an aggressive man, I see a man who is taking with force what he cannot devise a way to be freely offered.”
“Bullying is not some simple extension of male energy. It is not biologically inevitable. But when emotional toughness is our society’s highest valued personal trait, bullying is inevitable, because bullying is, at its base, an expression of loss, isolation, grief and jealousy. It is the rage of boys who are wracked with confusion. “What is suddenly wrong with wanting to be held, comforted and kept safe? Yesterday you held me. Today you pushed me away.”

“The crappy mass media narratives about men will continue. They will go on telling our sons, brothers and fathers that the way to be a man is through your wallet or your fists. Our responsibility is to add other stories and other ideas to the cultural mix. Yes, men can be tough focused warriors. But they can also be gentle and loving and playful and funny and sweet and yes, feminine. They can be healers and caregivers and poets and artists and everything else under the sun.”
“It is the self-suppression of men’s desires and aspirations that contributes to epidemic levels of male anger and reactivity, depression, alcoholism, domestic violence, divorce and suicide.”
“Men who chose (or are forced) to reside in the Man Box are the first to talk about freedom and personal liberty. The fact that they are living within the mind numbingly narrow perimeters of the Man Box is so deeply ironic that it boggles the mind.”