God did not give us a spirit of cowardliness but a spirit of power and of love and of self-control

If it is really so that there is something in life that has or can have such power over a person that it little by little makes him forget everything that is noble and sacred and makes him a slave in the service of the world, of the moment; if it is really so that time has or can gain such power over a person that while it adds days to his life it also every passing day measures the greater distance of his life from the divine, until he, trapped in everydayness and habit, becomes alienated from the eternal and the original; if experience has taught us that this has also happend to someone who once had a strong sense of the pesence of the eternal-- then it certainly would be beneficial to recommend every means against this ... God be praised , there are many means, just as the dangers are many . One such means is resolution, because resolution joins a person with the eternal, brings the eternal into time for him , jars him out of the drowsiness of uniformity, breaks the spell of habit, cuts off the tedious bickering of troublesome thoughts, and pronounces a benediction upon even the weakest beginning, when it is indeed a beginning.

Kierkegaard

When You are Sugar

When you are sweet because of sugar,
it is (possible) that sometime the sugar may become absent from you.
(But) when you become sweet as a result of being faithful,
then sugar will never be separated from sugar.
When the lover (of God) finds nourishment from (within) himself
(in the form of) "pure wine,"
the intellect will become lost there, lost, O companion.


The partial is the denier of Love,
although it may appear that it is the companion of (Love's) secrets.
It is smart and learned, but it is not non-existent.
As long as the angel has not become nothing, it is a devil.
It is our friend in (helping us with) words and actions,
(but) when you come to the dominating power of the (spiritual) state, (then) it is nothing.
It is nothing since it did not become nothing beyond (its) existence;
since it did not become nothing willingly,
there are (a great) many (who do so) unwillingly!




RUMI

We are in His hands in Anger and Peace

If we come to (a state of) ignorance, that is His prison.

And if we come to (a state of) knowledge, that is His (lofty) balcony.

If we come to (a state of) sleep, we are His drowsy-drunken ones.

And if we come to (a state of) wakeful alertness, we are in His Hands.

If we come to (a state of) weeping, we are His cloud full of
listening (raindrops).

And if we come to (a state of) laughing,we are His lightning in that moment.

If we come to (a state of) anger and battle, it is the reflection of His Wrath.

And if we come to (a state of) peace and pardon, it is the reflection of His Love.

RUMI

Ego

By a keen outlook on life we find that what disturbs us most in life is the ego of another person; it is the ego that has a jarring effect upon life। Those who know the right manner of developing personality know that the first lesson in life is to efface that ego as much as possible. Christ says, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit.' That poorness in spirit is the softening of the ego. When the ego is softened in a person then in the thought, speech, and action of that person there is a charm. Sometimes a person, after going through disillusionment, suffering, torture, shows in his personality some charm, and that charm has come from the softening of the ego. But any virtue that develops naturally, forced by life or circumstances, is not a virtue in the same sense as that which has been developed through one's own effort. Every beautiful action, thought or speech is derived from the effacing of self, or ego. For instance, every manner of courtesy comes from holding the reins of the ego. Beauty of speech always depends on the same effacement of the self, and so it is with thought. As soon as the ego expresses itself without control it hurts the ego of another person. The tendency in the lower creatures to fight is caused only by the ego, and man has this tendency no less than they, but rather more. It is this tendency which brings about disturbances in the life of individuals and in the multitude. The family feuds in ancient times, and now wars, all come from the same source, the ego. The idea of self-denial in Christianity, if rightly considered, expressed the idea of effacement rather than that of renunciation. Those whose contact brings us comfort, ease, peace, always have a softened ego. The greater the person the finer the ego. No example can be better than that of Christ washing the feet of his disciples.


इनायत खान

faith

I wish to tell you of my conversation with a man yesterday, a man who was a great believer, a Frenchman. And then from that he turned into an unbeliever and last he came to me. In conversation he told me that there was a time when he had such a belief, but there came something which has taken away his belief. I said: “I am sorry for your loss”. I said: “I would rather lose and trust than distrust and gain”. He said: “What do you mean then by faith?” I said: “Trust”. He said: “Trust in what?” I said: “First trust in yourself. No one can trust in another if one has not the trust in oneself”.
He said: “If in trusting someone you are disappointed, would you still trust?”

I said: “I would continue to trust. For there is no greater loss than the breaking of the trust and the power that the trust gives is a power which can be equal with nothing”.
The golden words of my murshid which I remember, when he blessed me every day I met him, he said: “May your faith be strengthened”. I was a young man at that time; I doubted if my faith was little, therefore my murshid says it. I sometimes wondered why he does not say: “May you be prosperous, healthy, may you live long. May you make a success, may you be happy, may you attain a very high spiritual attainment”. Why does he say such a simple thing: “May your faith be strengthened”?
And it is now that I am beginning to see what he really meant. It was everything ... In the strength of the faith there is everything. And in the absence of that there is nothing. Nothing in anything. And where is faith, then in everything there is all that is necessary. You see, the presence of God and the absence of God both are the conditions of faith: He is present when our faith allows us to see him present. He is absent when our faith fails us to feel his presence. And what is God? God is all: wealth and health and prosperity and inspiration and success and progress and spirituality and goodness and peace and happiness and wisdom and all. Therefore Christ has said: “Seek ye the kingdom of God first and all else will be added”. I wish that my friends will realize more and more what is meant by our Sufi idea. The more they will realize, the more they will feel that it is more than a religion, more than a philosophy, mysticism, it is the very truth, which is our ideal and which we wish to attain.


Inayat Khan

Father in heaven!

You hold all the good gifts in your gentle hand.

Your abundace is richer than can be grasped by human understanding.

You are willing to give, and your goodness is beyond the understanding of a human heart, because you fulfill every prayer and give what we pray for

or what is far better than what we pray for.

Give everyone his allotted share as it is well pleasing to you, but also give everyone the assurance that everything comes from you ,

so that joy will not tear us away from you in the forgetfulness of pleasure,

so that sorrow will not seperate you from us,

but in joy we may go to you and in sorrow remain with you,

so that when our days are numbered and the outer being is wasting away,

death may not come in its own name , cold and terrible,

but gentle and friendly, with greetings and news, with witness from you,

our Father who is in heaven !Amen.

Soren Kierkegaard