posted March 09, 2008 06:46 AM         

By choosing your thoughts,
and by selecting which emotional currents you will release
and which you will reinforce,
you determine the quality of your Light.
You determine the effects that you will have upon others,
and the nature of the
experiences of your life.

~ Gary Zukav - from "Seat Of The Soul" ~

If we understood the power of our thoughts,
we would guard them more closely.
If we understood the awesome power of our words,
we would prefer silence to almost anything negative.
In our thoughts and words we create
our own weaknesses and our own strengths.
Our limitations and joys begin in our hearts.
We can always replace negative with positive.

~ Bettie Eadie (from 'Embraced By the Light') ~

Keep your thoughts positive,
because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive,
because your words become your behaviours.
Keep your behaviours positive,
because your behaviours become your habits.
Keep your habits positive,
because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive,
because your values become your destiny.

~ Gandhi ~

http://www.sapphyr.net/smallgems/quotes-thoughts-create-realilty.htm

posted March 09, 2008 06:47 AM         

Mahavir said that nonviolence must begin in the mind. Unless the mind is compassionate, nonviolence is not possible. Unless one is at ease in the inner world, one cannot practise nonviolence in the external world. If the mind is condemning other people yet the tongue speaks sweet words, then that is not nonviolence. The seeds of nonviolence live within the inner consciousness. Keeping consciousness pure is therefore an essential part of Jain nonviolence. Pure consciousness means consciousness that is uncorrupted, uncontaminated and undiluted with the desire to control others.

Why are we violent? Jains would answer that it is because people wish to control others. People say: "We own everything here. This world is for our benefit." Those who eat meat say: "Animals and fish are there for our food." Everything is for us and we are the masters of nature. This is the violence of the mind, which leads to physical violence.

Mahavir saw the world as a sacred place. The birds, the flowers, the butterflies and the trees are sacred; rivers, soil and oceans are sacred. Life as a whole is sacred. All our interactions with other people and with the natural world must be based on this sacred trust, on deep reverence for all life.
Nonviolence of the mind should be translated into nonviolence of speech.

Harmful, harsh, untrue, unnecessary, unpleasant and offensive speech is violence. Skilful use of language is a sacred skill. Mahavir insisted that we must understand others fully before we speak. Language can express only partial truth; therefore nonviolence is an essential guide to our spoken words. In this context Mahavir put a very high value on silence. A Jain monk is called muni, which means 'the silent one'.

Nonviolence of mind and speech leads to the nonviolence of action. Ends cannot justify means. Means must be compatible with ends. Therefore, all human actions must be friendly, compassionate and unaggressive. Do no harm. No ifs and no buts. No compromise. Mahavir's nonviolence is unconditional love to all beings.

posted March 09, 2008 03:17 PM         

“It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.” - Rene Descartes

posted March 09, 2008 03:58 PM         

Ghanima, about the first quote, I too have been pondering the way that they say love and hate are sides of "the same coin". And also the numbers 6 and 9; I want to go and re-read what Linda wrote in Star Signs about these numbers; they seem to have great significance within this subject.

posted March 11, 2008 08:42 AM         

quote:

---

it takes a strong heart to forgive

---

Could it just be it takes an innocent, gentle heart to forgive?

Sensitivity hurts easily, and can emanate terrible bitterness as a result (maybe that's why the watery sign of Scorpio has a sting in its tail).
But equally, sensitivity struggles more with disharmony.
Kind of like a double sided coin.

Therefore, all is one, and love is all that truly counts?

posted March 11, 2008 09:13 AM         

Have you heard of Satish Kumar? Is he very well known in India?

I saw this beautiful documentary about his/ the Jain perspective on nature; our relationship with nature.
(It's on Youtube under the title of "Earth Pilgrim").

After that I read "The Buddha and the Terrorist" which I found incredibly profound and powerful (not naeive).

"You are, therefore I am" is another beautiful book of his I'm halfway through.

I have an aunt who is very spiritual, who I always felt close to. She is a vegan animal lover. She told me once about a past life memory she feels she had in India, of being a child who drowned in a well.....
She is very into Hindu/ Buddhist Spirituality, her home is decorated with wall decorations and things from Hindu temples and such.

So perhaps I have had one or more past lives there- who knows?

I guess whether I did or not is not really important, but what one feels inside. Who we are, not what we are.

Love & Light.

posted March 11, 2008 05:03 PM         

In any case, I know that it's much easier to hate someone who merely even threatens someone I love greatly than one who threatens a complete stranger. I can sympathize & have empathy with a stranger, I can loathe the person that does them harm, but that HATE that shows my potential for cruelty and mercilessness, seems only to come about when I see, or even fear, someone I love deeply being harmed. And that my hate will be proportional to the love I feel.

The only way I see to get rid of hatred within myself is to get rid of my capacity for love.

That said...some other concepts you'd probably want to at least see:
http://www.kentforliberty.com/zap.html

quote:

---

The Zero Aggression Principle (ZAP), or the Non-Aggression Principle, is the defining rule of peaceful coexistance. This version was composed by L. Neil Smith, who says: "A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

This is the basis of a freedom philosophy which respects the rights of everyone. Some go so far as to say that anyone who lives by this rule is a libertarian; anyone who does not, is not a libertarian. The basic idea has been expressed throughout human cultures across the globe and in every era. The "Golden Rule"* and "The Wiccan Rede"** are just two examples among many. Even very young children have an innate understanding of this one "law of humanity". In any dispute they always cry "He started it!" I think that this idea is part of what makes us philosophically human

---

That's about the ZAP, or Zero Aggression Principle. There used to be a site that explained it in detail, but I wasn't able to find it, so that's the short and sweet of it.

It should be noted that it's not against self-defense. The key is not to INITIATE force. However, a home invader that means you and your loved ones harm is another matter (however, no lynch mobs or "pre-emptive strikes" and the like, as that's initiating force).

Another one (thankfully, this one is still up):
http://www.deepleafproductions.com/wilsonlibrary/texts/raw-karma.html

quote:

---

Karma, in the original Buddhist scriptures, is a blind machine; in fact, it is functionally identical with the scientific concept of natural law. Sentimental ethical ideas about justice being built into the machine, so that those who do evil in one life are punished for it in another life, were added later by theologians reasoning from their own moralistic prejudices. Buddha simply indicated that all the cruelties and injustices of the past are still active: their effects are always being felt. Similarly, he explained, all the good of the past, all the kindness and patience and love of decent people is also still being felt.
Since most humans are still controlled by fairly robotic reflexes, the bad energy of the past far outweighs the good, and the tendency of the wheel is to keep moving in the same terrible direction, violence breeding more violence, hatred breeding more hatred, war breeding more war. The only way to "stop the wheel" is to stop it inside yourself, by giving up bad energy and concentrating on the positive. This is by no means easy, but once you understand what Gurdjieff called "the horror of our situation," you have no choice but to try, and to keep on trying.

And Luna, at 13, understood this far better than I did, at 43, with all my erudition and philosophy.... I still regarded her absolute vegetarianism and pacifism as sentimentality

---

*****
Quote of the Day (chosen by me):

"You're not a bad person. You're a very good person, who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are."