Who am I?

Quotes upon quotes that resonate in me. [A reading list.]

'Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself - and there isn't one.' - Wei Wu Wei

I found that the chief difficulty for most people was to realize that they had really heard new things; that is, things that they had never heard before. They did not formulate it for themselves, but in fact they always tried to contradict this in their minds and translate what they heard into their habitual language, whatever it happened to be. And this certainly I could not take into account. - P. D. Ouspensky.

When the invisible, the clearing, appears, the impossible is possible.  When the invisible, the clearing, appears, the impossible disappears.  MJE

Inhale love, exhale gratitude.

The true object of all human life is play. - G.K. Chesterton

What we are talking about is learning to live in the present moment, in the now. When you aren't distracted by your own negative thinking, when you don't allow yourself to get lost in moments that are gone or yet to come, you are left with this moment. This moment-now-truly is the only moment you have. It is beautiful and special. Life is simply a series of such moments to be experienced one right after another. If you attend to the moment you are in and stay connected to your soul and remain happy, you will find that your heart is filled with positive feelings. - Sydney Banks

The belief that all cultures have equal value may hinder the coming of what's next.  While every culture has information unique and valuable, it does not mean that a culture of hunter/gather equals another with hospitals and unlimited food for all. MJE

You can’t think your way out of a problem you made up with your thinking. – Michael Neill

You can’t solve a problem from the same level of thinking that created it. - Albert Einstein

The word "belief" is a difficult thing for me. I don't believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it - I don't need to believe it. - Carl Jung

As soon as you grok that every feeling is the 'shadow' of a thought, you can choose to feel the feelings instead of resisting, fearing, denying, or attempting to avoid them.  The feelings, along with the thoughts that created them, come and go like butterflies.  MJE

Our free will can hinder the course of inspiration, and when the favourable gale of God’s grace swells the sails of our soul, it is in our power to refuse consent and thereby hinder the effect of the wind’s favour; but when our spirit sails along and makes its voyage prosperously, it is not we who make the gale of inspiration blow for us, nor we who make our sails swell with it, nor we who give motion to the ship of our heart; but we simply receive the gale, consent to its motion and let our ship sail under it, not hindering it by our resistance. - St. François de Sales

In our zeal to become the landlords of our own being, we cling to each achievement as a kind of verification of our self-proclaimed reality. We become the center and God somehow recedes to an invisible fringe. Others become real to the extent they become significant others to the designs of our own ego. And in this process the ALL of God dies in us and the sterile nothingness of our desires becomes our God.” — James Finley

There is no self! There is no I. There is merely a shifting mosaic of moods and thoughts, changed like a pattern in a kaleidoscope every time circumstances shake the instrument. This ridiculous object has been strutting around saying I this and I that and all the while it has no more I than a scarecrow and no more will than a puppet. - Fitz Hugh Ludlow

When we come to see that fear and discouragement, do not come from our results but from our thinking, we are less inclined to avoid challenges or the mistakes that make up our learning curve. - Michael Neill

I try not to mistake causation for correlation, and I do. What is it about 'no feeling,' that gnawing awe shucks after a disappointment that says 'find something to eat' or whatever the monkey mind keeps playing instead of napping or drinking water or waiting for 'it' to pass? MJE

What you like least in others, you like least in yourself.  - John Eisbrener

Wherever you point your finger, there are three pointing back at you. – John Eisbrener

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. - Carl Jung

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture. The 'nice' peanut butter is layered thicker the higher the degree of culture. The lower you go the more true honesty you find.  What we like least in others we like least in ourselves. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself. - Wayne Dyer

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself-your own thinking coming back to you. - Byron Katie

If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. - Mary Engelbreit

Since everything is a reflection of our mind… everything can be changed by our mind.  - Buddha

You see persons and things not as they are but as you are. - Anthony de Mello

Every problem perceived to be 'out there' is really nothing more than a misperception within your own thinking. - Byron Katie

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. -  Hermann Hesse

You can understand other people only as much as you understand yourself and only on the level of your own being. This means you can judge other people's knowledge but you cannot judge their being. You can see in them only as much as you have in yourself. But people always make the mistake of thinking they can judge other people's being. In reality, if they wish to meet and understand people of a higher development than themselves they must work with the aim of changing their being. -  P.D. Ouspensky

Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them. - Eckhart Tolle

You cannot 'do' forgiveness. - Richard Rudd

If the 'world' isn't as you believe, how do you react? What must be kept in place to keep you in place? MJE

Our repeated failure to fully act as we would wish must not discourage us. It is the sincere intention that is the essential thing, and this will in time release us from the bondage of habits which at present seem almost insurmountable. - Thomas Troward

Intention... Commitment... involved?...[engaged] ...inspiration... habits... how are they related, entwined? How does 'tentative' occur... what eliminates it? MJE

Do the thing, get the power. – Michael Neill

Confusion is normally explained by 'No, thank you'.  MJE

You don't expect much if there are only two pairs of jeans to choose from. If there are hundreds, you expect one to be perfect. - Barry Schwartz

All the 'choices,' options, and possibilities exist [only?] in some future, expected and hoped for.  The present moment offers only now.   There is a push and pull to stay out of now, to avoid being centered, to keep your eye on tomorrow or yesterday.  There is no tomorrow now, in the present moment.     MJE

In the midst of beings as a whole an open place occurs. There is a clearing, a lighting… Only this clearing grants and guarantees to us humans a passage to those beings that we ourselves are not, and access to the being that we ourselves are. - Martin Heidegger

Exodus 3;1-15 [Moses and burning bush, I AM]

A man was regretting the past and fearing the future.  Suddenly God spoke.  ‘My name is I am.’  He waited and God spoke again.  “When you live in the past, with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there.  My name is not I was.  When you live in the future, with its problems and fears, it is hard, I am not there.  My name is not I will be.  When you live in this moment, it is not hard.  I am here. My name is “I AM.” - Helen Mellincost

There exists only the present instant... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence. - Meister Eckhart         

Listen to the small voice within, follow its suggestion, and do what shows up next. MJE

If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?  - Zig Ziglar

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or ANYTHING ELSE, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of [hu]mankind.  When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So, a [hu]man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; [s]he is concerned with the total understanding of [hu]mankind.  - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Every creature is a word of God. - Meister Eckhart

When you are thwarted, it is your own attitude that is out of order. - Meister Eckhart

When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it, all else is madness.  - Eckhart Tolle

The structure of secrecy maintains the lie, the myth, and keeps every superstition in place. MJE

The ego wants to want more than it wants to have. - Eckhart Tolle

I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours, and God's... Anything that's out of my control, your control, and everyone else's control - I call that God's business. -  Byron Katie

Synchronicity is an ever present-reality for those who have eyes to see. -  Carl Jung

We do not create our destiny; we participate in its unfolding. Synchronicity works as a catalyst toward the working out of that destiny. — David Richo

"The truth matters.".... define truth... What if nobody believes it? MJE

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.  -Immanuel Kant

Sixty percent of the word attraction is action! – J.A. Ray

All feelings derive and become alive, whether negative or positive, from the power of Thought. - Sydney Banks

The sickness of the mind are feelings that we create and put onto objects. But if you see the objects without the feelings, then you are healthy. - Sydney Banks

All you have to know is everything is created from thought; you don't have to know anything else. -- Sydney Banks

You will always be too much for someone: too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy. If you round out your edges, you lose your edge.  Apologize for mistakes. Apologize for unintentionally hurting someone -- profusely. But don't apologize for being who you are.  - Danielle LaPorte

If an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends. If broken by an inside force, life begins. Great things always begin from inside.  – Jim Kwik

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.  -  Buckminster Fuller

If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself. - Martin Heidegger

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. - Hermann Hesse

An epistemological mastery (a from-the-stands mastery) of a subject leaves one knowing. An ontological mastery (an on-the-court mastery) of a subject leaves one being. – Werner Erhard

The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another's labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live.  - Leo Tolstoy

Instead of making statements you don't believe, and we all have been taught affirmations, ask a question, a question with no answer that triggers more questions and that can transform your life. MJE

I will not promote or participate in any kind of self-improvement course or movement. There isn't anything wrong, just thinking making it so. MJE

The joy of being, which is the only true happiness, cannot come to you through any form, possession, achievement, person, or event - through anything that happens. That joy cannot come to you - ever. It emanates from the formless dimension within you, from consciousness itself, and thus is one with who you are.  - Eckhart Tolle

All we are is peace, love, and wisdom, and the power to create the illusion that we are not. - Jack Pransky

There is nothing you need to do, be, get, have, change, practice, or learn in order to be happy loving and whole. When our thoughts look real, we live in a world of suffering. When they look subjective, we live in a world of choice. When they look arbitrary, we live in a world of possibility. And when we see them as illusory, we wake up inside a world of dreams. - Michael Neill

Once you realize that the road is the goal, and that you are always on the road NOT to reach a goal but to enjoy its beauty and wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy. - Nisargadatta Maharaj

So long as we do not, through thinking, experience what is, we can never belong to what will be. - Martin Heidegger

You don't have to go looking for love when it’s where you come from.  - Werner Erhard

The truth of life is not a matter of self-perfection nor a lonely road to personal salvation, but a headlong plunge into the turmoil of complex reality, a loss of selfishness in the seething ocean of joys and sorrows, births and deaths, victories, and defeats of the mass of humanity struggling toward its final and complete fulfillment. Yes, we still live in an imperfect, suffering, hurting world. No amount of love will ever do away with the pains of rebuke, frustration, ingratitude, misunderstanding, malice, or plain stupidity. But the difference is that, with love in our hearts, these miseries will no longer be overwhelming: we will have learned to swim in the moving, salty, treacherous but exalting sea of mankind, to live it in spite of everything. And if we ever do come to perfect wisdom, we will love it because of everything, for we will be able to see the striving behind the sin, frustrated hope behind despair, failures of love behind acts of malice, and infinite mercy covering them all. - Jose De Vinck

In the same way that you need to stop talking to hear what others are saying, you need to stop thinking in order to find what life is all about. - Alan Watts

Existentialism is a tool, a perspective positing existence precedes meaning.  Standing in THAT clearing for just a moment is ecstasy. Or another way to say it is to view life as though there is no meaning, and it has no meaning that there is no meaning.  OF COURSE, this isn't true. It is a construct, a point of view to see things perhaps as they really are for the first time. You may always go back to your normal, beaten into you construct. – MJE [paraphrasing Werner Erhard]

 "No" [or "Yes"] needs no justification or explanation. MJE  Scripture agrees.  Matt 5:36

Love [joy, bliss, the present moment, now, happiness...] is not an emotion.  Emotion, whatever 'feeling' that is there, comes from the thought you are currently thinking. Unhappy thoughts produce unhappy feelings. Anxious thoughts produce anxious feelings.  If that isn't you thinking, think something different, something new.  IF you cannot change your thinking, your thoughts, perhaps something other than 'you' is using you for some motive other than your own. MJE

Facts in random sometimes demonstrate a reality previously unknown.  The NRA kills no one every day and receives no money from the US taxpayer.  Planned Parenthood kills 887 babies every day (one every 90 seconds and gets over $500 million from the US taxpayers each year.)

There are people and organizations in the world that support and believe 'the end justifies the means.'   These judges, jury, and executioners must be avoided. It saddens me how many people I know and meet on a day-to-day basis who belong to the justified by their beliefs club. JBTBC are put back into the water, and maybe time and karma will awaken them. MJE

poor in spirit .... humble in spirit .... “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.” – Sydney Banks  The converse is 'pride'.  MJE

Meek is the apex of kind, humble, gentle. MJE

The enemy of my enemy is likely just another enemy. - John J. Bastiat

By their fruit, you will know them. Matt 7:15

One may witness truth only in experience, and one may report as a witness. The Truth is an energy vibration words only point at. Speaking the truth, however, is always a lie. You cannot speak it; you may point toward it, witness to it but speaking it always becomes another lie. Repeating another’s witness is simple gossip and all gossip is a lie.  – Werner Erhard

Most people can accept the truth only in the form of a lie. -  P.D. Ouspensky

The first step, one of the first anyway, in getting what you want is getting rid of what you don't. How? The way to get what you want is WANT what you got with all the gratitude and love you can create. MJE

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. - Marcus Aurelius

Where is all the knowledge we lost with information? - T.S. Eliot

black cats are unlucky

Struggle, strain, stress, and sacrifice as a path to success, never use effortlessness on the path [ever].  MJE

Follow your inner wisdom instead of outer goals. – Michael Neill

Follow the Breadcrumbs! MJE

Your own soul is designing the perfect path and laying it out in front of you, one daily brick at a time. – Michael Neil

You need to follow someone who has had success. NO! Your path is unique to you. Follow the breadcrumbs laid out for you. MJE

responsibility myth?

You are the arbiter of your desires.  1. can you choose what you desire? 2. is its acquisition solely up to you? MJE

left to right political myth construct or authoritarian to libertarian [sovereignty] politicalcompass.org

thinking myth.... if that's you thinking change the thought.... what to think or how to think

The solution is an answer. Life is either living in a question or looking for answers MJE

racism myth?

keeping your promises myth?

seek happiness myth? 

service myth? ... IRS/USPS/Cable TV Service/Civil Service/Public service.... what does service mean???   dictionary  noun 1. an act of helpful activity; help; aid:.... verb.... Two farmers talking and one of them said he bought a bull to service his cows....

Explanation versus expression.  Often, we are captured by something, a trigger perhaps, a glimmer maybe, that chooses us, uses us, to express anger or joy while leaving us out of touch from an explanation that anyone [self-included] can understand or relate to.  What is that???? Is it a clearing? Whose opening? It closes with an explanation, a reason, an excuse. MJE

What most can do, especially easily, pays poorly. What few can do and or is difficult to do pays handsomely. Find what you can do that pays better than most.

Begin with the possible: begin with one step.  There is always a limit you cannot do more than you can do. If you try to do too much you will do nothing. -  P.D. Ouspensky

IF you can change your mind, you can change your life. - William James

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds. - William James

You either submit to opinion [yours and theirs] or participate in reality and truth.  MJE

Imagine a path only you travel! Where NOTHING is wrong with you.  You are unique. Discover coming home after decades, experiencing awe, meeting someone again for the first time! YOU! Discover your profile, your true nature for the welcome home you never thought possible.  MJE

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. - e. e. cummings

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead [We need more than change. MJE]

Your mind is your garden, your thoughts are the seeds, you can grow flowers, or you can grow weeds - Osho [Weeds are the majority. MJE]

We must change our thoughts, our thinking must be different from what is currently formed, and then the evidence appears.  We make the mistake of holding on to a belief and waiting for evidence to change the belief when we must change our beliefs, be open to a new form, to see the evidence we don't believe exists. MJE

Preferences and expectations are guarantees for upset, failure, disappointment, or worse. MJE

Don't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness.  - Eckhart Tolle

Matt 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

The soul that does not attach itself solely to the will of God will find neither satisfaction nor sanctification in any other means, however excellent by which it may attempt to gain them. If that which God Himself chooses for you does not content you, from whom do you expect to obtain what you desire? …It is only just, therefore, that the soul that is dissatisfied with the divine action for each present moment should be punished by being unable to find happiness in anything else.

—Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade

We all have what we call a free will and a free mind. And this free will and free mind, nobody but nobody can take it from you. It is yours. But there’s a little trick to this free will and free mind. Because this free will and free mind is what holds you prisoner. It’s what keeps you in hell. It’s what keeps you in ignorance. Because you have chosen to use your own free will in this game of life, this illusion, instead of submitting this so called free will to the will of God. Because the will of God in actual fact is the only will that exists.” - Sydney Banks

Followers fail. They readily adopt another’s beliefs and cease to think for themselves. Never follow the words of others blindly, or you will take on another person’s reality. You will only hinder your progress by seeking fool’s gold. Use your own common sense. – Sydney Banks

If God told you
exactly what is was you were to do,
you would be happy doing it
no matter what it was.

What you're doing is
what God wants you to do.

Be happy.

          -Werner Erhard

I am here only to be truly helpful.
I am here to represent Him Who sent me.
I do not have to worry about what to say or what
to do, because He Who sent me will direct me.
I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing
He goes there with me.
I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal. – ACIM

Listen to the wee small voice within, follow its suggestion, and do what shows up next from joy and gusto. MJE