543. Study, but What to Study ?

All of your life, study Life, Love, Philosophy, Politics, Martial Arts, and Business. Keep abreast of Technology. After that, you should study what you please.

439. Who's Holding the Keys ?

As a being of Power, Intelligence and Love and as the Lord of your own thoughts, YOU hold the key to every situation and contain within you the trasformative and regenerative agency by which you can make of yourself whatever you will.

371. Would you Rather be Loved or Trusted ?

It might well be pleasanter to be loved but it is a greater compliment to be trusted than to be loved.

341. To Work with Love

"We can all do small things with great Love." -Mother Teresa of Calcutta

"...And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads from your own heart as if the cloth were to be worn by your beloved..." - Khalil Gibran (The Prophet)

Try to work always with Love in your heart, that way it won't be like work at all.

210.The Principles of Work.

These are the Principles of Work. You should keep a copy of them near you at all times or better still memorise them and bring them to mind whenever you have a task to do.

1. Attend to the working surface. (Let the mind rest at the point where the working surfaces meet.)

2. Trust the instrument to do the job.

3. The work is more important than our ideas about it.

4. Work until it is time to stop.


Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work."
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.



- Khalil Gibran.

http://leb.net/~mira/works/prophet/prophet.html

196. Co-operation

Love is co-operation rather than competition.

193. Inevitability

The word "inevitable" is fearful to the ego but joyous to the Spirit. Do not invest yourself in fear. Teach only Love for that is what you are. You teach by what you do.

177. Love, Fear and Miracles

"Perfect Love casts out fear.
If fear exists, then there is not perfect Love.
But only perfect Love exists.
If there is fear, it produces a state that does not exist.
All aspects of fear are untrue because they do not exist at the creative level.
Therefore they do not exist at all.
Know this to be true and you will be free. - The Course in Miracles


The Course in Miracles is published by the Foundation for Inner Peace

95. Learning, Meditation, Prarers, Answers

You have within you the greatest Teacher there is, your own Higher Self. This Self is always with you, whether or not you feel it or are aware of it. When we go inside in meditation and ask for guidance, truth, support, love, encouragement or strength, they begin to come to us in the right way.This is not always the way we (our egos) think they should.

65. Your (and everyone's) Higher Needs

Always look to your higher needs and values. Keep uppermost in your mind your need and quest for :

* Truth
* Beauty
* Justice
* Love
* Peace
* Enlightenment
* Joy

This is a good list of values and it is in a good order. You could do worse than to start off with these. A very useful exercise when making plans for your life (About every 5 years or so) is to list your values and then prioritise them - that is to say for example ask do you value Love more than Beauty or Wealth ? If so put Love as your No. 1 priority. As you get older, these prioities may change a little but the values themselves will be part of who you are. It is good to aspire to these things but not in a selfish way. These are benefits we should wish for all mankind, not just ourselves. We attain them by practicing them and this makes them available for all.

54. Loving Yourself and Others

You want to treat those you love with love. To be like that you need to be a fight-free person, a peaceful warrior. If you love yourself you will not allow yourself to :
a. become overweight.
b. become anorexic or bulimic.
c. become addicted to alcohol,drugs, sex, tobacco, t.v. etc.
d. become the victim of guilt, worry or anger (your own or others').
e. become involved in fights, arguments, conflicts wars etc.

If you love yourself then you will treat yourself with respect. Among other things, this means that you will not allow others to lure you into fights. When you do this, they will realise that you think too much of yourself to waste precious moments of your life in the pain agony and distress caused by fighting.

Live your life as an example of someone who is deeply peaceful and who cannot be bought and sold emotionally at the whim of others or through their lack of consideration.

Learn to avoid leaving the keyboard of your internal computer in the street where anyone can randomly push your buttons for fun.

52. People are More Important than Things

People are more important than things. Things can always be replaced, people can not. No thing in this world is more important than a person and no thing is ever worth fighting about. Happiness, joy, love, bliss, these are the things that life is all about. When the emphasis shifts from people to things then people become less happy. You can refuse to let any one thing be the cause of your happiness or unhappiness by breaking any attachments you find to objects "out there".

45. Seeing Beneath the Surface

Always look for the Peace, Love, Harmony and Perfection that is always present everywhere. Seek it out rather than the hostility ugliness and hatefulness that is often more apparent but is always transient. You do this by looking beneath the surface of things to see into the essence. See the unity of all beings rather than their differences.

6. Your Most Grievous Loss

The most grievous loss a man can suffer is the loss of a friend. A true friend loves you for who you are and is blind to your shortcomings. Some friendships last your whole life long. A friendship represents a considerable investment. That is to say, an investment of your substance, your time, your energy and your love. To lose a friend through death or distance is a sad loss indeed but it is much more tragic if you lose a friend through a falling-out that could have been avoided. For that reason, you should always do your level best to avoid having cross words with your friends.