While this letter is often attributed to Albert Einstein, Diana Kormos-Buchwald, a professor of physics and the history of science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and director and editor of the Einstein Papers Project has stated that it was not penned by Einstein. However, the publishers of this site find the letter so…
Category: Spiritual texts
Spiritual texts
In this section we will regularly present texts from all horizons which we hope will help those who are on a spiritual path to progress and to broaden their perspective on what constitutes spirituality which many people tend to encompass in rather narrow limits.
We want all readers to feel welcome and included, and while in these texts we will use “God“ whenever an author chooses that term, we should like to point out that there are many, many different names and attributes for deity: divine or cosmic Love, Creator, Source, Infinite Mind, Allah, Buddha, Jehovah, Great Spirit, It, Universe, Principle, Father-Mother, etc. etc. So please choose what best resonates with you!
A poem on hope, Abbé Pierre
I will continue to believe, even if everyone loses hope. I will continue to love, even if others distill hatred. I will continue to build, even if others destroy. I will continue to talk peace even in the midst of a war. I will continue to spread light, even in the midst of darkness. I…
Prayer – The Other
Lord, When I’m hungry, when I’m starving, lead me to someone who needs food. When I am thirsty, send me someone who needs water. When I am cold, send me someone I can give warmth to. When I am hurt, give me someone to console. When my cross becomes heavy, give me the cross of…
Reverence for All Life
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965). Here is an excerpt from My Life and Thought in which the Nobel Peace Prize winner ponders the spiritual practice of reverence. “The man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give to every will-to-live the same reverence for life that he gives to his own. He experiences that…
Compassion
Translated from the book Au Bord du Gange, (On the banks of the Ganges River) by Martine Quentric-Séguy Râmânuja, one of the three great masters of Védânta, was generous. He viewed all human beings in the same manner, gave to all the same attention, men and women alike no matter what caste they belonged to.…
Excerpt about compassion from Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko – 1967 Yevtushenko’s Reader
I believe it is impossible to live a happy life if one nourishes resentment for some harm done to oneself, or guilt or repressed anger for an error of omission or commission we caused. On the other hand, we become incapable of resentment when we have understood that everyone is at every moment at their…
Excerpt from The Soul of the Indian Eastman, Charles Alexander, 1858-1939
Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone! What is Silence? It is the Great Mystery! The Holy Silence is His voice! The original attitude of the American Indian toward the Eternal, the “Great Mystery” that surrounds and embraces us, was as simple as it was exalted.…
Excerpts from The ‘Eye of the I’
Chapter Ten (The Nature of God), by David R. Hawkins, MD, Ph.D., 2001 Veritas Publishing, www.veritaspublishing.com -God is everywhere present, including the here and now. God is not elsewhere, such as only in a distant heaven, nor in the future so as to be available only when one gets to heaven. The presence of God is…
Living a Life of Integrity ~ Rabbi Rami Shapiro
Rami M. Shapiro spells out how we can interpret the Ten Commandments as vows or daily affirmations of spiritual intent. In a chapter on watching our speech, he writes the following: “There is a Hasidic story about a town gossip. This fellow thoughtlessly told and retold stories about others that brought them shame. The town’s…
How to Raise your Spiritual Life
All the great spiritual teachers want us to look at this life as the universal self coming into the world to experience the human self. You are all of the cosmic dance. Intention is the starting point of any spiritual path. Intention includes will and purpose, aspiration and highest vision. If you set your intention…
Keys of Unconditional Love by the Hopi Indians
You are unique, unlike any other. Without reservation or hesitation, I allow you to be in this world as you are, without a thought or a word of judgment… I see no error in the things you say or do, feel and believe, because I understand that you honor yourself by being you and doing…
From – Conscious Union With God
By Joel Goldsmith P. 97 Disregard the Thoughts That Come in Meditation Your meditation is really for the purpose of arriving at the real meaning, the inner meaning, of the statement, “I and my Father are one.” As a beginner, however, you cannot keep that up for very long. You quickly lose the thread of…
The simplest gift
is to be unreservedly present when you are listening with another. I watched a waitress do this at a table next to ours today and instantly I saw her and her patron bathed in Heaven. I refrained from getting up and hugging the waitress, but just barely. Does she know the beatific magnitude of this…
Five Choices that will Change your Life
From Inspire Me Today, 9 Apr 2015, by Erin Ramsey We can choose to grow habits of the mind and the heart that will guide us naturally to love and service. We can blossom through presence and good mental habits to awaken our authentic spirit. Love is the common denominator. Love is the universal energy…
Excerpted from God Has a Dream by Desmond Tutu
Copyright © 2005 by Desmond Tutu “God says to you, ‘I have a dream. Please help me to realize it.’ It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its greed and harsh competitiveness, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts.” Many of us…
The Essence of Spirituality: Service of Others from Drops of Nectar
by Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswati. Chidananda Saraswati (called Pujya Swamiji or Pujya Muniji by disciples), is the President and spiritual head of the Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh, India, one of India’s largest spiritual institutions. He is also the founder and spiritual head of the Hindu Jain Temple in Pittsburgh, PA http://www.parmarth.com/ps_swamiji.php Spirituality is the…
The Three Hermits
Many people ask me how to bless “correctly”. I do not know the reply and we very much doubt that there exists a “correct” way of blessing. Religions have strayed in their search for correct forms, be these in the fields of liturgy, clothing, dietary recommendations, in a given form of catechism or prayer or…
The Hardest Lesson – Elisabeth Kúbler-Ross
(published April 14, 2003) Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was a world renowned medical doctor, psychiatrist and thanatologist who spent her whole life working with the dying, children, and AIDS patients; she is also credited with bringing the hospice movement to the U.S.) This is apparently the last text she published before her death in 2004. The…
Joel Goldsmith on meaningful prayer
Joel Goldsmith was one of the most original spiritual thinkers and mystics of the last century. He was also an extraordinary healer. At one moment of his career he was receiving over 130 calls for assistance, seven days a week 365 days in the year, proving the validity of what he writes here We feel…
The Little Candle
I wrote this tale for my grand-daughter, Samsara Menuka. However, while written for the very young, it has also struck a chord with some adults. Therefore, we share it in this section on Spiritual Texts in the spirit of freedom and non-conformity we aim to foster on this site. PP “Ye are the light of…
Metta Meditation: Joy to the World
The following text from Tosha Silver’s book “Outrageous Openness – Letting the Divine Take the Lead” illustrates how blessing may take many different forms. “The root of your problem vanishes when you cherish others” (Buddhist teaching), “Om mani padme hum” – mantra from Chenrezig Buddha of Compassion I love the practice of metta, the simple…
Excerpts from “Golden Rules for Every Day Life”
Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov (1900-1986) was a Macedonia-born Bulgarian philosopher, pedagogue, alchemist, mystic, magus and astrologer. In 1937 he moved to France where he spent the rest of his life, becoming naturalized shortly before his death. Become like a spring of water Pure water wells up in a continuous stream from a natural spring and, even…
Excerpt from The Infinite Way
(Meditation) by Joel S. Goldsmith The wave is one with the ocean, indivisible and inseparable from the whole ocean. All that the ocean is, the wave is; and all the power, all the energy, all the strength, all the life, and all the substance of the ocean are expressed in every wave. The wave has…
Worship Through Love
by Osho Worship is true only when it is through love, otherwise it is just a dead, impotent ritual. Touch any act with love and it becomes worship. Sit in any place in love and it becomes a temple. Look in any direction with love and you will find god. People go on asking ’Where…
On How Blessed You Are
The following text by Marianne Williamson, one of the leading spiritual figures of the North American scene, replaces the French translation of the text by Nasata La on love. We consider the following lines among the most important a person on the spiritual path can cherish. They reflect a boundless confidence in the ultimate goodness and tender…
Insults
The first of these texts is one we have been using for many years in our Living Differently workshops. It has helped many people understand the total subjectivity of our human experience, i.e that we create our own reality beyond anything we can imagine. Once we have grasped this fundamental truth, we understand that someone…
