More on Spirituality
There is very truly a gospel in all this teaching us never to forget that though the outer side of life may seem so dull and heavy, there is yet always the Divine fire glowing within, remember that 'the soul of things is sweet, the heart of being is celestial rest, stronger than woe is Will, that which is good doth pass to better, best.'
If men understood the plan of evolution, instead of working each for his own personal ends they would all join together as a community and work harmoniously for the good of all with mutual tolerance and forbearance. It is obvious that if this were done all of these evils would almost immediately cease or at any rate could very shortly be removed. p. 326
Science, dimly perceiving the truth, may find Bacteria and other infinitesimals in the human body, and see in them but occasional and abnormal visitors to which diseases are attributed. Occultism -- which discerns a life in every atom and molecule, whether in a mineral or human body, in air, fire or water -- affirms that our whole body is built of such lives, the smallest bacteria under the microscope being to them in comparative size like an elephant to the tiniest infusoria.
It must be so — Plato, thou reasonest well!
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
O falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
In ‘A Course in Miracles’ there is a line: ‘The Christ in you cannot be crucified,’ What that's saying is that the truth of who you are cannot be affected by lovelessness because you were not created to be the effect of lovelessness in yourself or in others. That means if I am identifying with the attacks on me, then, by definition, I am identifying with the false self.
The thought system that dominates our culture is laced with selfish values, and relinquishing those values is a lot easier said than done. The journey to a pure heart can be highly disorienting. For years we may have worked for power, money and prestige. Now all of a sudden we’ve learned that those are just the values of a dying world. We don’t know where to search for motivation anymore.
Marianne Williamson A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles (1992)
She’s always so ready to believe anything that anyone tells her, so long as it’s magical.
Well, I believe in magic, too, but it’s the magic that can turn a caterpillar into a butterfly, the natural wonder and beauty of the world that’s all around me. I can’t believe in some dreamland being real.
Indeed, if I may be allowed the anachronism, the Hindus were Spinozists more than two thousand years before the advent of Spinoza, and Darwinians many centuries before Darwin, and Evolutionists many centuries before the Doctrine of Evolution was accepted by the scientists of the present age, and before any word like ’Evolution’ existed in any language of the world.
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