The questions which one asks oneself begin, at last, to illuminate the world, and become one’s key to the experience of others. One can only face in others what one can face in oneself. On this confrontation depends the measure of our wisdom and compassion. This energy is all that one finds in the rubble of vanished civilizations, and the only hope for ours. – James Baldwin
If people can be educated to see the shadow-side of their nature clearly, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more self-knowledge can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures. – Carl G. Jung
We must somehow strip ourselves of our greatest illusions about ourselves, frankly recognize in how many ways we are unlovable, descend into the depths of our being until we come to the basic reality that is in us, and learn to see that we are loveable after all, in spite of everything! – Thomas Merton
Undressing
Learn the alchemy true human beings know: the moment you accept the troubles you’ve been given, the door will open.
Welcome difficulty as a familiar comrade.
Joke with torment brought by the Friend.
Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets that serve to cover – then are taken off. That undressing, and the naked body underneath, is the sweetness that comes after grief.
Jelaluddin Rumi
Dreams are like letters from God. Isn’t it time you answered your mail? – Marie-Louise von Franz
True attention is part of the remedy, for genuine attention is a form of love. – Michael Meade
Look what happens to the scale when love holds it. It stops working. – Kabir
Love brings opposites together – that is its very definition. In the universe, in nature and between people and within ourselves, love is the force that brings disparate and separate realities toward each other into fusion and mutuality. – Jacob Needleman
Vulnerable we are, like an infant. We need each other’s care or we will suffer. – St. Catherine of Siena
Whenever we touch nature we get clean. People who have got dirty through too much civilization take a walk in the woods, or a bath in the sea. They shake off the fetters and allow nature to touch them. It can be done within or without. Walking in the woods, lying on the grass, taking a bath in the sea, are from the outside; entering the unconscious, entering yourself through dreams, is touching nature from the inside and this is the same thing, things are put right again. – Carl Jung
How did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all its beauty? It felt the encouragement of light against its being. Otherwise we all remain too frightened. – Hafiz
Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things. A table, a chair, a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages. And the petal falling from the rose, and the light flickering as we sit silent. – Virginia Woolf