Baba Ram Dass, formerly Dr. Richard Alpert, wrote the bestseller, ‘Be Here Now’, in 1971. Despite suffering a stroke in 1997 (or perhaps because he did), he remains a successful and inspiring spiritual teacher.
“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
- Ram Dass, (1931- )
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From mythology and comparative religion professor, author and lecturer, Joseph Campbell…
“Instead if clearing his own heart, the zealot tries to clear the world.”
- Joseph Campbell (1904-1987)
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Albert Schweitzer, humanitarian, organist, JS Bach scholar, Lutheran pastor and African missionary, who won the 1952 Nobel Peace prize for founding and running the Lambarene Hospital in Gabon, west central Africa, most likely rekindled the spirit of many throughout his lifetime.
“In everyone’s life, at some time our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
- Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
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A reminder to take in and integrate the wordless counsel of nature, from the founder of the spiritually-oriented martial art of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba’s ‘Art of Peace’ writings…
"Do not fail To learn from The pure voice of an ever-flowing mountain stream
splashing over the rocks."
- Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969)
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Ken Kesey was most known for his 1962 novel, later made into a play, and finally into a movie that won 5 Academy Awards, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” He wrote a good deal of nonfiction and staged some very original performance art throughout his life.
“The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer - they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.”
- Ken KesKenKen - Ken Kesey (1935-2001)
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Cézanne, whose work bridged impressionism with cubism, preferred to live and paint in beautiful Provence, far to the south of Paris. He created portraits, still-lifes, landscapes and compositions featuring bathers. I found this quotation in a Zen Buddhist book, for he summarizes the main world view of mediators… experiencing each moment anew, spontaneously arising and fleeting. The artist captures and records that rich, pristine reality, and leaves concepts, conventions and historical renderings out.
“Right now a moment of time is fleeting by! Capture its reality in paint! To do that we must put all else out of our minds. We must become that moment, make ourselves a sensitive recording plate…give the image of what we actually see, forgetting everything that has been seen before our time.”
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Meister Echart, an iconoclastic German theologian, directed his teachings to lay people rather than to the scholars of the time. Late in his life, he was tried for being a heretic of the Catholic Church, but died prior to the verdict being delivered. Today, his teachings are considered very much ahead of his time, as they relate to psychological and unorthodox metaphysical concepts.
“If the only prayer you say in your whole life is 'thank you', that would suffice.”
- Johannes ‘Meister’ Eckhart (1260-1328)
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Reinhold Nieburhr, an outspoken protestant theologian, is perhaps best known as the author of the famous serenity prayer, the first paragraph of which, in his original 1942 non-copyrighted version, reads as follows:
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
- Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)
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This quote by Reinhold Niebuhr certainly fits with the extreme actions and irrational rationale utilized by many extremists, (including several who we actually elected), who fill the news of our own particular time in history…
“The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan values and ends is…the source of all religious fanaticism.”