Words that I try to go by… LA

Monday, January 23rd, 2017

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profile xxx

We shall be heading back West in about a week or so while physically healing on the road which has so much to offer. In the meantime, while glancing at the News and other Social Media platforms once a week or so, I feel so much tumultuous, turbulent, agitated and even violent spirituality from others. It confuses me, concerns me and brings on such disappointment especially when I witness even close Friends caught up on such restless paths themselves loosing their own Friendships only because of other’s thoughts different then theirs while insults and words I could not even repeat follows.

another morning fog xxx

I thought I would share some words, quotes, that I try to go by and read daily, whenever possible while I make time for it. They are not my words but randomly of a few “thinkers” and their opinions on happiness and how to find it. Probably the most important words for me these past ten years.

We must take responsibility for our happiness:
“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”
Your purpose is key:
“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it.”
The journey is what matters:
“There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path.”
“As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.”
The present moment is all that exists:
“The past is already gone, the future is not yet here. There’s only one moment for you to live, and that is the present moment”
Do good:
“Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy.”
“Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to others.”

A rain in Dillon xxx

Seek nothing:
“To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.”
“People of this world are deluded. They’re always longing for something-always, in a word, seeking. But the wise wake up. They choose reason over custom. They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons. All phenomena are empty. They contain nothing worth desiring.”
Understand the mind:
“The mind is the root from which all things grow if you can understand the mind, everything else is included. It’s like the root of a tree. All a tree’s fruit and flowers, branches and leaves depend on its root. If you nourish its root, a tree multiplies. If you cut its root, it dies. Those who understand the mind reach enlightenment with minimal effort.”
“If you use your mind to study reality, you won’t understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you’ll understand both.”

Madison River-3 xxx

Help others:
“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
“To be kind, honest and have positive thoughts; to forgive those who harm us and treat everyone as a friend; to help those who are suffering and never to consider ourselves superior to anyone else: even if this advice seems rather simplistic, make the effort of seeing whether by following it you can find greater happiness.”
“When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.”
“Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility…without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed, or unhappy because of circumstances.”
“Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.”

white rim trail sunset xxx

“True happiness consists in eliminating the false idea of ‘I’.”
“What is the world full of? It is full of things that arise, persist, and cease. Grasp and cling to them, and they produce suffering. Don’t grasp and cling to them, and they do not produce suffering.”
“Happiness is when there is no hunger or want at all, when we’re completely free of all hunger, desire, and want.”
“The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the stars live together as a cooperative. The same is true for humans and animals, trees and soil. Our bodily parts function as a cooperative. When we realize that the world is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise, that human beings are all mutual friends in the process of birth, old age, suffering and death, then we can build a noble, even heavenly environment. If our lives are not based in this truth, then we shall all perish.”

Windmill near Las Cruces xxx

The moment is what matters:
“Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?”
You won’t be able to explain your happiness:
“No amount of wordy explanations will ever lead us into the nature of our own selves. The more you explain, the further it runs away from you. It is like trying to get hold of your own shadow. You run after it and it runs with you at the identical rate of speed.”
Compassion is essential:
“Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.”

Sunrise oon Hwy 118 xxx

And of course, no one has to agree…

Stay well, Ara and Spirit

Hat

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6 Responses to “Words that I try to go by… LA”

  1. Ginamarie Says:

    My favorite is “Let’s agree to disagree”

  2. Ara & Spirit Says:

    Absolutely! It is going nuts out there… outside of my bubble! We will make it as far as Arizona I think by the end of the month, doubt we will push any further but of course “we never know”! Stay well. Thanks.

  3. Susan Seacat Says:

    Fine thoughts to ponder. Thank you for sharing. Enjoy Arizona.
    Susan

  4. Douglas Bottom Says:

    Ara & Spirit,

    Thank you for the wonderful website and this post. Your “Oasis Of My Soul” website has become an Oasis for me as well. Happy travels and continued healing to you. I hope someday our paths of travel will meet. Venture on and enjoy.

    Doug

  5. Ara & Spirit Says:

    Venture on we do, mentally and physically… They both move on hand in hand. Thank You Doug.

  6. Claudio Says:

    “The past is already gone, the future is not yet here. There’s only one moment for you to live, and that is the present moment”

    This is so true. Thinking about it, I can’t help but notice that many of us forget to live, in a way. The present moment is all there really is. Our minds tend to let us live in the past (regrets, resentments, memories, good and bad ones) or in the future (fears, worries, securing a “future” life and so on). The present moment is often taken for granted, not really lived and enjoyed, in a way life ist constantly postponed to a moment in some „future“. When the latter finally „arrives“ it is nothing else than the “new” actual present, which will be, again, „reinvested“ in the „future“. So we run and run and run after something we don’t ever really grasp.

    Of course you have to feed a family, of course beautiful memories of the past can have a positive effect on the present moment, but we have to be a bit selective there and try to concentrate on the positive associations and let the negative stuff go „somewhere else“… :-).

    The sooner we understand that, the better, our time here is not THAT long.

    Ciao

    Claudio

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