Quote of the Week #47 - Essence is More Than the Sum of the Parts

A biological organism is something more than the sum of its parts. Consider the people you know. If you analyze them according to height, weight, age, where they went to school, and so on, you are engaging in a form of reductionism that will never capture their essence. We intuitively understand this to be true with human beings, but we have been trained not to apply it to every other substance and life-form and the planet.

--Herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner in an interview by Akshay Ahuja in Sun Magazine, December 2014, Issue 468

Quote of the Week #46 - With Your Light

Con tu luz, si se puede.

With your light, it can be done.

--Carlos Santana

Quote of the Week $45 - The Void

During deep sleep, there is the experience of the void; the same void can be experienced during meditation. That void is not empty, but there is a feeling of emptiness. During that time, there is no content, and that is why it is called deep sleep. So sleep is an unconscious state without content; there is no awareness. When one is in the void, he does not know that he is in the void, but once awake, he remembers being in the void. In deep meditation, one is in the void and is aware of it at the time. The meditative state is a fully awakened state.

--Swami Rama, Mandukya Upanishad, Enlightenment Without God, p. 98; OM, The Eternal Witness, Secrets of the Mandukya Upanishad, p. 161

Quotes of the Week #44 - Light of Different Grades/A Luminous Perspective

Light of Different Grades

The soul is light, the mind is light, and the body is light – light of different grades; it is this relation which connects man with the planets and stars.

--Hazrat Inayat Khan

A Luminous Perspective

The perception that dawns on a person to see the world, not as finished, but as in the process of continued becoming, ascending, developing - this changes us from being 'under the sun' to being 'above the sun' from the place where everything takes on new form. The joy of heaven and earth abide in us as on the day they were created.

In this luminous perspective one looks at all the worlds, at the general and human development, at the destiny of each creature, at all the events of all times.

--Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook

Quote of the Week #43 - Myth and Mistaken Assumptions

It is tragic that religious fundamentalists, on the one hand; and atheists (including, in particular, Neo-Darwinian fundamentalists) on the other tend to see no further than the literal acceptance of the Bible. Hence they base their hostility to each other regarding religious belief on the mistaken assumption that this is the true and only interpretation.

 …

Turning first to the Intuitive aspect: It is unfortunate that neither the Creationist nor the Atheist understands the true meaning of the word ‘Myth’. It has, too often, been mis-represented as ‘Falsehood’. However, in its spiritual meaning ‘Myth’ is a symbolic story or legend used in Scripture to present a moral or wisdom teaching, but; told in the form of language usually used to describe historical events. The correct understanding of Myth is important, for it stems from the archetypal consciousness of Mankind.

--Bill Heilbronn, from The Courage of Uncertainty; A Jewish View of the Continuing Evolution of Faith in the Fields of Religion and Science

This World and Our Place In It

This World and Our Place In It 

I took a morning walk this past Saturday. I take a morning walk every day, but there was something special in the air this particular morning. The day before, a storm had blown through in the early morning hours, dumping a good bit of rain before moving on around 11 AM. Clearing and sunshine rapidly replaced the grey skies of the storm, but a sharp decrease in temperature heralded in a reminder that Fall had arrived. On this morning, although the temperature remained the coolest since last winter, the skies were still blue and sunny, with widely scattered white clouds. A strong wind once again stirred, and the clouds were whisking across the sky at an unusually rapid pace. It was in this setting that I was taking my morning walk, and the following thoughts began to formulate in my mind, spurred on by a recent video I had seen depicting the activity of our solar system and galaxy as they course through the cosmos.

This world, this universe, this cosmos in which we find ourselves is an extremely complicated mechanism. Collectively, we have spent many lifetimes through the various disciplines of the arts, humanities and sciences exploring and examining this mechanism in attempts to better understand it, ourselves, our place in it, and to use it as a medium through which to express ourselves. These efforts, these expressions, are best served if we connect with the source, the foundation, the essence of it all, from which it all has arisen and continues to arise in constant process. There is a unifying source which is great, awesome, mysterious and simple. It can be accessed, and such access provides us with the broadest and best perspective from which to conduct our lives. To question or doubt our ability to access this source would be akin to questioning/doubting the ability of a fish to access the water in which it swims. We are all immersed in it, totally dependent upon it, and interdependently connected through it. Our explorations sometimes get us confused in the morass of the overwhelming detail and complexity of this mechanism through which we function. That is why it is important to establish, remember and retain contact with the perspective provided by connecting with the simplicity of the origin, of the essence. This perspective of simplicity is a great salve for our confusion. It is important, and even necessary, to conduct our explorations and engage in our expressions through the various avenues we have created. We possess an inherent impulse to do so; it is what supplies us with inspiration, meaning and purpose. Musicians, artists, poets, philosophers, scientists, mystics and people in all walks of life engage and express in a manner unique to their chosen path or field of endeavor. There is no end to such activity. However, it is equally important to establish and maintain connection with our essence, the origin of our activity. It provides us with stability, like an internal gyroscope, lest we wobble, spin out of control and become lost. This is the crux to finding ourselves and establishing the ability to lead productive, fulfilling, enjoyable and joyous lives.

Quote of the Week #42 - God According to Yoga

Yoga tells us that God is as real as we ourselves. God is among us, is

in us, is us, and yet is beyond us. It has no beginning, no middle, and no end. God is eternal, all-pervading, and beyond death, decay, and destruction. It is the total sum of all that is. It is everything – knower, known, and the means of knowing. It is endowed with limitless unrestricted power of will, power of knowledge, and power of action. God is pure Being with the ability to become anything imaginable. It is one, with the ability to become many. It is transcendental, with the ability to become immanent. It is abstract, with the ability to become perceptible. It is beyond time, space, and the law of causality with the ability to become part of the world existing within the domain of time and space. We attain Samadhi by surrendering to this God.

--from The Secret of the Yoga Sutra, Samadhi Pada, by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait

Quote of the Week #41 - Light

The soul is light, the mind is light, and the body is light – light of different grades; it is this relation which connects man with the planets and stars.

-- Hazarat Inayat Khan

Quote of the Week #40 - What Prompts the Search

Why can’t human beings sit still? We sit down, but the momentum in our bodies is still racing, scared. I wanted to know what was underneath that. I wanted to know what was underneath my thinking.

-- Michael Stone, “On Track with Paul Newman” article in Shambhala Sun magazine, Sept. 2014 edition

Quote of the Week #39 - The Value of Solitude

This much is certain, that, without absolute solitude, I cannot produce the smallest thing.

-- Johan Wolfgang von Goethe

Quote of the Week #38 - The Right Path

You know you’re on the right path if your capacity for holding paradox expands, your sense of humor broadens, your commitment to justice deepens, your compassion for and protection of life grows, and your love of people transcends race, color, creed, tribe, religion, politics, and sexual preference.

--Rabbi Rami Shapiro

Quote of the Week #37 - The Sense of the Mysterious

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.

-- Albert Einstein, The World As I See It (1949)

Quote of the Week #36 - Spirit and Art

Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.

--Leonardo da Vinci

Quote of the Week #35 - What God Does and Doesn't Do

I don’t believe that God causes mental retardation in children, or chooses who should suffer muscular dystrophy. The God I believe in does not send us the problem; He gives us the strength to cope with the problem.

--from When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner

New Audio: Interview with Gareth Young/NewMindSet on my early "Walkabout" and other subjects

I was recently interviewed by Gareth Young for his web-based initiative on creating a New Business Mindset. For a little introduction, click here: http://garethjyoung.com/stevegold/

To go straight to the recording, click here:

http://content.blubrry.com/newmindset/SteveGold.mp3

Quote of the Week #34 - Mysticism and Atheism Shake Hands

Nonduality may be said to be the place where mysticism and atheism shake hands. The cosmology may be identical, as there are no puppet-masters pulling the strings of our reality. Yet the stage is now a cathedral.

--Jay Michaelson, Everything Is God; The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism, page 30

Quote of the Week #33 - Collaboration is the Royal Road

Collaboration is the royal road to the wholeness that hallmarks healthy systems in the world. Collaboration calls for empathy and solidarity, and ultimately for love. I do not and cannot love myself if I do not love you and others around me: We are part of the same whole and so are part of each other.

--One of the Sixteen Hallmarks of the New Consciousness comprising The Oneness Declaration by Ervin Laszlo, as contained in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) January/February 2013 edition

Quote of the Week #32 - Dance to the Music

Those who dance to music are considered mad by others who can’t hear it.

--Atlanta Bumper Sticker

Quote of the Week #31 - Transition

Mind is like a projector, projects the external world. From where has this external world, Vaishvanara, come? What happens to it? Does it last forever? When we see that everything is changing, we know that a time will come when they will no longer exist. All namas and rupas, names and forms, will dissolve sooner or later.

Some forms last for a few years, other forms may last for more years. Once they are dissolved, what happens to them? Even this form that is called the universe is going to change one day. What will happen? It will go to annihilation. But even in annihilation, the ancient Vedic scriptures, shrutis say, Surya chandramasodata yata purvam akalpayet. The sun, moon, stars, this whole universe will at some point go to its resting place, Brahman, the summum bonum of life; then ages later, the universe will again remanifest exactly the way it used to be. It’s a scientific law. If you have a mango seed, no matter how it is stored, when it germinates, it will bring forth only mango. In reality, nothing happens. This is all Brahman, a gross aspect of Brahman.

…

Those who have studied the Ishopanishad know that its mantras say that while departing, a soul, an individual soul, should learn to remember all that it has done, all the good things it has done, because those good deeds will not create sadness, depression, fear in the mind when going through the transition. So far you have been preparing yourself to be comfortable in the external world, to be in a world full of means, which is essential, but now, you are preparing yourself to go through the period of transition. Sooner or later we all have to go through that transition. Look at this strange thing, we all have to depart one day, yet we never believe that we will die. Do you know why? Why do you believe that you will not die? Because there is no death for eternity and you are a child of eternity. The soul never dies, which you know unconsciously. The best part of you never dies. That which changes, goes to death and decay, that alone dies. So why are you afraid of dying? From where does this fear come? This fear comes from ignorance. Scientifically, nothing dies. Death only means change. Death does not mean complete annihilation.

--Swami Rama, Om, the eternal witness; SECRETS OF THE MANDUKYA UPANISHAD, pages 119 and 126  

Quote of the Week #30

I believe that every man represents humanity. We are different as to intelligence, health, talents. Yet we are all one. We are all saints and sinners, adults and children, and no one is anyone’s superior or judge. We have all been awakened with the Buddha, crucified with Christ, and we have all killed and robbed with Genghis Khan, Stalin, and Hitler.

I believe that man can visualize the experience of the whole universal man only by realizing his individuality and never by trying to reduce himself to an abstract, common denominator. Man’s task in life is precisely the paradoxical one of realizing his individuality and at the same time transcending it to arrive at the experience of universality. Only the fully developed individual can drop the ego.

--Erich Fromm

Quote of the Week #29 - The Fruits of Mercy

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

--Abraham Lincoln

Quote of the Week #28 - Distance

Distance is not always as far away as it appears to be.

--Steven J. Gold

Quote of the Week #27 - Intrinsic Value

Beyond the sacred whole we recognize as the world in its totality, only life and its development have what philosophers call intrinsic value; all other things have merely instrumental value; value insofar as they add to or enhance intrinsic value. Material things in the world, and the energies and substances they harbor or generate, have value only if and insofar as they contribute to life and well-being in the web of life on the Earth.

--One of the Sixteen Hallmarks of the New Consciousness comprising The Oneness Declaration by Ervin Laszlo, as contained in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) January/February 2013 edition

Quote of the Week #26 - It's Not the Answer

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.

--Jim Carrey

Quote of the Week #25 - If It Were Not Possible, I Would Not Ask You To Do So

Abandon what is unskillful…One can abandon the unskillful. If it were not possible, I would not ask you to do so. If this abandoning of the unskillful would bring harm and suffering, I would not ask you to abandon it. But as the abandoning of the unskillful brings benefit and happiness, therefore, I say, “Abandon what is unskillful!”

Cultivate that which is skillful. One can cultivate the skillful. If it were not possible, I would not ask you to do it. If this cultivation of the skillful would bring harm and suffering, I would not ask you to cultivate it. But as the cultivation of the skillful brings benefit and happiness, therefore, I say, “Cultivate that which is skillful!”

--The Buddha, Kusala Sutta