Lucifer7, July 2007
Contents
New on Katinka Hesselink Net
Elsewhere online
Short Quotes
The Nature of Self-Forgetfulness, Leoline L. Wright
New on Katinka Hesselink Net
- Aum or Om: the sacred Indian mantra, Katinka Hesselink
- To Oprah: the limitations of 'The Secret', Katinka Hesselink
- Three questions, Leo Tolstoy
- Meditation quotes from Buddhism
- Thich
Nhat Hanh: what are your views on capital punishment? Suppose someone
has killed ten children. Why should he be allowed to live on?
- Thich Nhat Hanh, what do you mean when you say to go back to our religious roots?
How can we do that and continue to study and practice Buddhism, which
is so practical and helpful?
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Can you please elaborate on what is space inside of us? Why is this
good? I feel lonely sometimes. This feels like emptiness or space
inside, but it does not feel good.
- Thich Nhat Hanh, When I go home, I return to my husband who is a hunter. He goes into
our beautiful woods to shoot birds. He brings them home to show our
seven-year-old twins, who want to be like daddy. What can I do to stop
him from this habit of killing?
- Thich Nhat Hanh, What are your views on abortion?
- Thich
Nhat Hanh, In regard to television news and newspapers, how can we
balance not taking in toxins with not closing our eyes to suffering?
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Why do we cling to suffering?
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Could tell us about the benefits of silence and how we could bring that home with us from this retreat?
- Thich Nhat Hanh, How do you maintain mindfulness in a busy work environment? At times it
seems there is not even enough time to breathe mindfully.
- Mindfulness of breathing, from the Anapanasati Sutta. Translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
- Buddhist wisdom quotes on Love and attachment
Elsewhere online
I've
become active on bloglog, an online community for people on the web -
mostly webloggers. I've met a few interesting people there and here are
two of their blogposts:
See also another online experiment, my squidoo lenses:
Short Quotes
Theosophical Notes, November, 1956
The road begins in the dull swamp where we live; not on the
mountain top where we are not.
Buddha, Dhammapada, Translation Juan Mascaro
160 Only a man himself can be the master of himself: who else from
the outside could be his master? When the master and servant are one,
then there is true help and self-possession.
Self-reliance implies non-dependence psychologically on anything
external to oneself. Such non-dependence abolishes fear and invests
with a dignity that is wholly natural to him who achieves that
condition.
Paul Brunton, The Inner Reality, Chapter V
We are not here to live for ever, and therefore all mortal
possessions
and earthly glories should be wisely used and wisely understood; they
should
not make us captive.
The
efforts of those members who benefit the Cause should never be impeded
by criticism on the part of others who do nothing, but all should be
encouraged and as much help given as is possible, even if that
assistance be limited through circumstances to mere encouragement.
Every sincere effort for Theosophy will bear good fruit, no matter how
inappropriate it may appear in the eyes of those members who have set
to themselves and everybodyelse only one definite plan of action.
The Nature of Self-Forgetfulness
Leoline L. Wright, The Theosophical Forum, VOL. IX, No. 2, August,
1936
HOW few, even among the thoughtful, ever suspect the real and
intense
happiness which follows upon the determined practice of
self-forgetfulness!
In our wrong-headed civilization the very words have come to signify an
outworn if not impossible ideal. Yet self -forgetfulness actually
results
not only in the power to bless and bestow but in the transmutation of
our
ignorance, unrest, and miseries into knowledge, power, and peace.
For we have the assurance that the wise practice of daily
self-forgetfulness
will bring to us a sacred companionship with the Inner God and set our
feet
upon the pathway to divine adventure in the inner worlds.
There are, however, certain states of mind which might pass for
self-forgetfulness with the unthinking but which are most emphatically
the opposite.
One of these is a practice which has become nearly universal, in this
day
at least, and that is self-evasion. We are all familiar enough in
our
own experience and that of our associates with the itch to escape from
ourselves. And the insane lavishness of this mechanical
civilization pours out the
means: novels, cinemas, auto-trips, 'parties,' the bridge game,
and
a hundred other diversions. Yet most of our amusements are legitimate
enough
when they are intelli-gently used. They are harmful only when
allowed
to become a demanding habit. Even philanthropic work, if
undertaken
as such a soporific, is but another road to self-evasion. It is
motive
that colors the deed and automatically brings about the result.
Service
of others is naturally better for anyone than slavery to amusements,
but
in the case of using it to evade our own problems it is a neglect of
one's
essential duty. It may even result in a worse tangle of our
personal
affairs than before.
Why not say to ourselves when some of our intimate problems torment
us by our inability to solve them: "Well, after all, does it
matter
so much about me? Isn't it the burden of the world that really
matters - the tragedy of crime, the miseries of the poor, seeking
hearts everywhere that cry out for light and help? Here is
Theosophy with its grand
diagnosis, its power of prevention and cure. I will set aside for
a time this trouble of my own heart and see what I can do for the
spreading
of a knowledge of this panacea, acting in the meanwhile also as a good
neighbor,
a sympathetic 'home-fellow and friend.' " When a Theosophist, or
anyone
else for that matter, carries such a thought into action, mysteriously
his
personal problem is likely to begin to solve itself. This happens
often. Nature objects to our constantly pulling the plant up by
the roots to see how it is coming on. But if we trust her with a
divine impersonal
carelessness as to our own well-being, and will work unselfishly for
others,
she will come to make obeisance and work on our side.
Here the motive creates the apparent contradiction and gives to
service that is truly self-forgetful, but never self-evasive, its often
immediate reward. And the further 'rewards' which accrue more
slowly, flow
from the crystal fount of the Cosmic Heart - a beautiful happiness and
a serenity whose harmonies pervade in blessing and help the lives of
all
about us. And some day, suddenly, we ourselves shall awaken to a
new dawn breaking in splendor before our inner vision, and discover
that
our feet are set upon Amrita-Yana, the secret pathway to the gods.
Previous
issues of Lucifer7 can be found at the online index of
Lucifer7
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