“We begin life with the world presenting itself to us as it is. Someone—our parents, teachers, analysts—hypnotizes us to ‘see’ the world and construe it in the ‘right’ way. These others label the world, attach names and give voices to the beings and events in it, so that thereafter, we cannot read the world in any other language or hear it saying other things to us. The task is to break the hypnotic spell, so that we become undeaf, unblind, and multilingual, thereby letting the world speak to us in new voices and write all its possible meaning in the new book of our existence. Be careful in your choice of hypnotists.”
Sidney Jourard, via Sunbeams (Page 120)
Quotes from Sunbeams
“Our lives are also fed by kind words and gracious behavior. We are nourished by expressions like ‘excuse me,’ and other such simple courtesies. Our spirits are also richly fed on compliments and praise, nourished by consideration as well as whole wheat bread. Rudeness, the absence of the sacrament of consideration, is but another mark that our time-is-money society is lacking in spirituality, if not also in its enjoyment of life.”
Ed Hays, via Sunbeams (Page 119)
“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.”
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, via Sunbeams (Page 119)
“It is a good thing, it is even salutary, for a child to have periods of boredom, for him to learn to know the dialectics of exaggerated play and causeless, pure boredom.”
Gaston Bachelard, via Sunbeams (Page 117)
“There are no true beginnings but in pain. When you understand that and can withstand pain, then you’re almost ready to start.”
Leslie Woolf Hedley, via Sunbeams (Page 117)
“To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe.”
Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah, via Sunbeams (Page 115)
“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”
St. Francis of Assisi, via Sunbeams (Page 115)
“Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war.”
Thomas Merton, via Sunbeams (Page 115)
“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, via Sunbeams (Page 115)
“The answer to helplessness is not so very complicated. A man can do something for peace without having to jump into politics. Each man has inside him a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a man to listen to his own goodness and act on it. Do we dare to be ourselves? This is the question that counts.”
Pablo Casals, via Sunbeams (Page 114)
“Eternity is not the hereafter. Eternity has nothing to do with time… This is it. If you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere. The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here’s the place to have the experience.”
Joseph Campbell, via Sunbeams (Page 114)
“A cover of darkness, separation, and confusion are necessary prerequisites for the eventual rebirth of a lost and wandering soul.”
Nor Hall, The Moon And The Goddess, via Sunbeams (Page 114)
“When we think we’re separate, we lose power. Whenever I say ‘my,’ I have lost my power. Power is not my power; it is not enlarging oneself as a separate individual. It is only gainable as part of a larger whole. Then you communicate with the rest of yourself—which may be a tree. You, reciprocally, are moved by the universe. Whenever you shut down connectedness, you get depressed. Psychic awareness breaks in as a gift. It’s fearful to know we’re connected to everything in the universe, because then we’re responsible.”
Glenda Taylor, We Are The Web, via Sunbeams (Page 113)
“…Between grief and nothing I will take grief.”
William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, via Sunbeams (Page 113)
“Contemplating a flower for three seconds can be a captivating solitary journey back to original geometry, which is always revitalizing.”
Henry Skolimowski, via Sunbeams (Page 112)
“The real questions are the ones that obtrude upon your consciousness whether you like it or not, the ones that make your mind start vibrating like a jackhammer, the ones that you ‘come to terms with’ only to discover that they are still there. The real questions refuse to be placated. They barge into your life at the times when it seems most important for them to stay away. They are the questions asked most frequently and answered most inadequately, the ones that reveal their true natures slowly, reluctantly, most often against your will.”
Ingrid Bengis, via Sunbeams (Page 112)
“What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin.”
Henry Ward Beecher, via Sunbeams (Page 111)
“Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, than the unlived life of the parents.”
Carl Jung, via Sunbeams (Page 111)
“One has not understood until one has forgotten it.”
Suzuki Daisetz, via Sunbeams (Page 109)
“It had done me good to be somewhat parched by the heat and drenched by the rain of life.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, via Sunbeams (Page 109)