I know I was supposed to post it soon after the part 1 but was busy with this and that and so here you go with part2 in the New Year :p
THE PILGRIMAGE
...People who consider themselves to be wise are often indecisive when command is called for and rebellious when they are called upon to obey. They are ashamed to give orders and consider it dishonorable to receive them. Don't ever be that way.
...could it be that, in my discouragement and haste, Ihink about had walked right past my objective without recognizing it.
I was immediately prepared for a fight. "Not again," I thought.
And when I think about it, I guess it is true that people always arrive at the right moment at the right place where someone awaits them.
Is this story never going to end? Nothing but more and more tests, battles and humiliations- and still no clue about my sword.
We are always trying to convert people to a belief in our own explanation of the Universe. We think that the more people there are who believe as we do, the more certain it will be that what we believe is the truth. But it doesn't work that way at all.
Our enemy joins the battle only because he knows that he can hurt u- and hurt us in exactly the spot where our pride tells us that we are most invincible. During our fight, we always try to protect our weak spot, so the enemy strikes at the unguarded site- the side in which we have the most confidence. And we wind up defeated because we allow what should never be allowed: we let the enemy choose how the battle will be waged.
...But I continued to sing as an antidote to my fear.
She had transformed herself into a woman in love, who marched with her man, carrying his sword when necessary and protecting him from all danger. She was a strong woman, although she appeared to be a weak one, she was a person who walked the path of love, regarding it as the only possible road to wisdom. A path where mysteries were revealed through surrender and forgiveness. She was seeing it with such clarity.
But we have also become used to miracles. And we always want to see others.[Faith is a difficult conquest, and it requires daily combat in order to be maintained.]
VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE
When she had achieved almost everything she wanted in life, she had reached the conclusion that her existence had no meaning, because everyday was the same. And she had decided to die.
Veronika pushed open the door to the lounge, went over to the piano, opened the lid, and summoning up all her strength, pounded on the keys. A mad, cacophonous, jangled chord echoed round the empth room, bounced off the walls and returned to her in the guise of a shrill sound that seemed to tear at her soul. Yet it was an accurate portrait of her soul at that moment.
She had finally allowed her negative feelings to surface, feelings that had been repressed for years in her soul. She had actually felt them, and they were no longer necessary, they could leave.
The best way to avoid trouble is to share responsibility; his father had taught him.
But these two illnesses only attack when the patient is debilitated; in the case of Bitterness, the right conditions for the disease occur when the person becomes afraid of so called 'reality'.
The great problem with poisoning by Bitterness was that the passions- hatred, love, despair, enthusiasm, curiosity- also ceased to manifest themselves. After a while, the embittered person felt no desire at all. They lacked the will either to live or to die, that was the problem.
You have passed through the two hardest tests on the spiritual road: the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what you encounter. It is you I will teach.
What was Sufi meditation? What was God? What was Salvation if- that is, the world needed saving? Nothing. If everyone there- and outside Villete too- just lived their lives and let others do the same, God would be in every moment, in every grain of mustard, in the fragment of cloud that is there and then gone the following moment. God was there and yet people believed they still had to go on looking, because it seemed too simple to accept that life was an act of faith.
So, let's turn to your illness: each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective way of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it, the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one. Have you ever met anyone in your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not in the other?
You are someone who is different but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness.
'Is wanting to be different a serious illness?'
It is if you force yourself to be the same as everyone else, it causes neuroses, psychosis and paranoia. It's a distortion of nature, it goes against God's laws, for in all the world's woods and forests, He did not create a single leaf the same as another. But you think it's mad to be different and that's why you chose to live in Villete, because everyone is different here, and so you appear to be the same as everyone else. Do you understand?
At precisely the moment when he was looking for God with such intensity, despite everything and everyone, God had no pity on him.
Dr. Igor pondered the arguments long and hard, and decided that it didn't really matter. She would consider each day a miracle, which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences.
THE ZAHIR
....the intelligent and those trained to say only what they think I would like to hear, ..will all come knocking at my door
THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO
Are they aware of what they have done, those nameless guilty parties? I doubt it because they too- the depressed, the arrogant, the impotent and the powerful- are the victims of the reality they created.
I am not surprised that her life ended as it did: she was always flirting with changes. They say that extroverts are unhappier than introverts, and have to compensate for this by constantly proving to themselves how happy and contented and at ease with life they are. In her case, at least this is absolutely true.
Each of us contains something within us which is unknown, but which, when it surfaces, is capable of producing miracles.
My experience as a manager had taught me to recognize people's states of mind, even if they said nothing. On a management course I attended, we learned that if you wanted to get rid of of someone, you should do everything you can to provoke them into rudeness, so that you would then have a perfectly good reason to dismiss them."
Because the hand that draws each line reflects the soul of the person making that line.
Reprogram yourself every minute of each day with thoughts that make you grow when you are feeling irritated or confused, try to laugh at yourself, laugh out loud at this woman tormented by doubts and anxieties, convinced that her problems are the most important thing in the world. Laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation......
When you are washing up, pray. Be thankful that there are plates to be washed; that means there was food, that you fed someone, that you've lavished care on one or more people, that you cooked and laid the table. Imagine the millions of people at this moment who have absolutely nothing to wash up and no one for whom to lay the table.
That's why I say again, be different even when you're washing up. Move your hands so that they never repeat the same gesture twice, even though they maintain the rhythm.
Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humour. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it.
Groups challenge us. Groups allow us to choose our affinities. Groups create a collective energy, and ecstasy comes more easily because everyone infects everyone else.
...Groups can also destroy us of course, but that's part of life and the human condition- living with other people.
Now since I have flu and had a long day, that was a lot of typing for now, so bu-bye :p
THE PILGRIMAGE
...People who consider themselves to be wise are often indecisive when command is called for and rebellious when they are called upon to obey. They are ashamed to give orders and consider it dishonorable to receive them. Don't ever be that way.
...could it be that, in my discouragement and haste, Ihink about had walked right past my objective without recognizing it.
I was immediately prepared for a fight. "Not again," I thought.
And when I think about it, I guess it is true that people always arrive at the right moment at the right place where someone awaits them.
Is this story never going to end? Nothing but more and more tests, battles and humiliations- and still no clue about my sword.
We are always trying to convert people to a belief in our own explanation of the Universe. We think that the more people there are who believe as we do, the more certain it will be that what we believe is the truth. But it doesn't work that way at all.
Our enemy joins the battle only because he knows that he can hurt u- and hurt us in exactly the spot where our pride tells us that we are most invincible. During our fight, we always try to protect our weak spot, so the enemy strikes at the unguarded site- the side in which we have the most confidence. And we wind up defeated because we allow what should never be allowed: we let the enemy choose how the battle will be waged.
...But I continued to sing as an antidote to my fear.
She had transformed herself into a woman in love, who marched with her man, carrying his sword when necessary and protecting him from all danger. She was a strong woman, although she appeared to be a weak one, she was a person who walked the path of love, regarding it as the only possible road to wisdom. A path where mysteries were revealed through surrender and forgiveness. She was seeing it with such clarity.
But we have also become used to miracles. And we always want to see others.[Faith is a difficult conquest, and it requires daily combat in order to be maintained.]
VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE
When she had achieved almost everything she wanted in life, she had reached the conclusion that her existence had no meaning, because everyday was the same. And she had decided to die.
Veronika pushed open the door to the lounge, went over to the piano, opened the lid, and summoning up all her strength, pounded on the keys. A mad, cacophonous, jangled chord echoed round the empth room, bounced off the walls and returned to her in the guise of a shrill sound that seemed to tear at her soul. Yet it was an accurate portrait of her soul at that moment.
She had finally allowed her negative feelings to surface, feelings that had been repressed for years in her soul. She had actually felt them, and they were no longer necessary, they could leave.
The best way to avoid trouble is to share responsibility; his father had taught him.
But these two illnesses only attack when the patient is debilitated; in the case of Bitterness, the right conditions for the disease occur when the person becomes afraid of so called 'reality'.
The great problem with poisoning by Bitterness was that the passions- hatred, love, despair, enthusiasm, curiosity- also ceased to manifest themselves. After a while, the embittered person felt no desire at all. They lacked the will either to live or to die, that was the problem.
You have passed through the two hardest tests on the spiritual road: the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what you encounter. It is you I will teach.
What was Sufi meditation? What was God? What was Salvation if- that is, the world needed saving? Nothing. If everyone there- and outside Villete too- just lived their lives and let others do the same, God would be in every moment, in every grain of mustard, in the fragment of cloud that is there and then gone the following moment. God was there and yet people believed they still had to go on looking, because it seemed too simple to accept that life was an act of faith.
So, let's turn to your illness: each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective way of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it, the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one. Have you ever met anyone in your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not in the other?
You are someone who is different but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness.
'Is wanting to be different a serious illness?'
It is if you force yourself to be the same as everyone else, it causes neuroses, psychosis and paranoia. It's a distortion of nature, it goes against God's laws, for in all the world's woods and forests, He did not create a single leaf the same as another. But you think it's mad to be different and that's why you chose to live in Villete, because everyone is different here, and so you appear to be the same as everyone else. Do you understand?
At precisely the moment when he was looking for God with such intensity, despite everything and everyone, God had no pity on him.
Dr. Igor pondered the arguments long and hard, and decided that it didn't really matter. She would consider each day a miracle, which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences.
THE ZAHIR
....the intelligent and those trained to say only what they think I would like to hear, ..will all come knocking at my door
THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO
Are they aware of what they have done, those nameless guilty parties? I doubt it because they too- the depressed, the arrogant, the impotent and the powerful- are the victims of the reality they created.
I am not surprised that her life ended as it did: she was always flirting with changes. They say that extroverts are unhappier than introverts, and have to compensate for this by constantly proving to themselves how happy and contented and at ease with life they are. In her case, at least this is absolutely true.
Each of us contains something within us which is unknown, but which, when it surfaces, is capable of producing miracles.
My experience as a manager had taught me to recognize people's states of mind, even if they said nothing. On a management course I attended, we learned that if you wanted to get rid of of someone, you should do everything you can to provoke them into rudeness, so that you would then have a perfectly good reason to dismiss them."
Because the hand that draws each line reflects the soul of the person making that line.
Reprogram yourself every minute of each day with thoughts that make you grow when you are feeling irritated or confused, try to laugh at yourself, laugh out loud at this woman tormented by doubts and anxieties, convinced that her problems are the most important thing in the world. Laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation......
When you are washing up, pray. Be thankful that there are plates to be washed; that means there was food, that you fed someone, that you've lavished care on one or more people, that you cooked and laid the table. Imagine the millions of people at this moment who have absolutely nothing to wash up and no one for whom to lay the table.
That's why I say again, be different even when you're washing up. Move your hands so that they never repeat the same gesture twice, even though they maintain the rhythm.
Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humour. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it.
Groups challenge us. Groups allow us to choose our affinities. Groups create a collective energy, and ecstasy comes more easily because everyone infects everyone else.
...Groups can also destroy us of course, but that's part of life and the human condition- living with other people.
Now since I have flu and had a long day, that was a lot of typing for now, so bu-bye :p
