THE IMPERFECTION OF TIME

Our history tears us to pieces. Drop it as you do a dream when you wake up.

The whole world is like Alice in Wonderland, a madhouse. As long as you see everything slide by in reasonable sequence, one thing firmly tied to another, you are a bound person. When you realize there is no sequence, no congruity, you are free.

Swami Ashokananda
Shafts of Light: Selected teachings of Swami Ashokananda for Spiritual Practice
Compiled and Edited by Sister Gargi and Shelley Brown

Patience and Impatience

A person who is not afflicted by time - he alone has patience, endurance.

Do you know that patience is another name for eternity? Impatience is a state of mind that is to be condemned in every phase of life.

Do you know what is behind impatience? We are not willing to undertake as much trouble as we should. We want to get it over with quickly and get on to something else. Impatience can do you a great deal of harm.

Swami Ashokananda
Shafts of Light: Selected teachings of Swami Ashokananda for Spiritual Practice
Compiled and Edited by Sister Gargi and Shelley Brown

The impossible dream

Lyrics to "The Impossible Dream" from MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)


To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Fighting Bad Habits

Shall you be better able to fight [bad habits]
tomorrow than today? Why add today's mistakes to
yesterday's? You have to turn to God sometime, so isn't
it better to do it now? Just give yourself to Him and say:
"Lord, naughty or good I am Your child. You must take
care of me." If you keep on trying, you will improve.
A saint is a sinner who never gave up.
(Paramahansa Yogananda, `Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda')

Work in Truth - SV

In every attempt there will be one set of people who will applaud, and another who will pick holes. Go on doing your own work, what need have you to reply to any party? "Truth alone triumphs, not falsehood. Through truth alone lies the path of the gods" (Mundaka Upanishad, 3.1.6). Everything will come by degrees.

Be afraid of nothing

Trials will never be lacking in religious life, nor does God want them to be. Since he brings souls there to be proved and purified, like gold, with hammer and the fire (Eccles. 2:5), it is fitting that they encounter trials and temptations from human beings and from devils, and the fire of anguish and affliction….
The religious must undergo these trials and should endeavor to bear them patiently and in conformity to God's will, and not so sustain them that instead of being approved by God in this affliction he be reproved for not having wanted to carry the cross of Christ in patience.
(St. John of the Cross)

I am speaking practical truth to you, practical sense; and giving you a philosophy that will take away all of your consciousness of hurt. Be afraid of nothing. If death comes, all right. What is going to happen, will happen. Refuse to be intimidated by this dream. Affirm: `I will not be frightened by ill health, poverty, and accidents. Bless me, O Lord, that when You put me through trials, I realize their delusive nature and become victorious over them by positive action and by remaining inwardly united to You'…
(Paramahansa Yogananda, `A World in Transition')

Those whom Love draws near are the most severely tried.
(Islam, Attar)