The best music of life

“Love is the best music in the score of life. Without it , one would forever be out of tune in the immense choir of humanity." ~ Roque Schneider

Milky Way

If the Milky Way were not within me how should I have seen it or known it?
Excerpted from ‘Sand and Foam’ by Kahlil Gibran

Teacher

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
Excerpted from ‘Sand and Foam’ by Kahlil Gibran

Life is ecstasy

"Every child is born ecstatic. Ecstasy is natural. It is not something that happens only to great sages. It is something that everybody brings with him into the world; everybody comes with it. It is life's innermost core. It is part of being alive. Life is ecstasy."
Excerpted from 'Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language' by Osho

True love (A Sufi story)

Shibli entered a profound mystical state and was placed in an asylum as a madman. As soon as they heard, his shocked disciples come to visit him. Shibli asked, "Who are you?" "We are some of those who love and follow you." Shibli began throwing stones at his students. They began to run away, crying, "It's true, Shibli really has gone crazy." Then Shibli called out to them, "Didn't I hear you say that you loved me? You could not even bear a stone or two before running away. What became of that sincere love you claimed you had for me? Did your love fly away with a couple of stones? If you had really loved me, you would have patiently endured the little bit of discomfort I caused you."

False must leave

"To find yourself is to lose yourself."
To know our true Self, we must cease to identify with the illusory identity which feels separated from the whole under the survival instincts fed by the ego. For the real to come, the false must leave.

The traveled path

"Never walk on the travelled path, because it only leads you where the others have been." ~ Graham Bell

Find the answer within

"Nothing can be taught to a man; but it’s possible to help him to find the answer within himself." ~ Galileo Galilei

Celebrate life

"Life should not only be lived, it should be celebrated." ~ Osho

Religion and science

"The third teaching of Bahá'u'lláh is that religion and science are in complete agreement. Every religion, which is not in accordance with established science is superstition. Religion must be with reason, it is superstition without foundation. It is like a mirage, which deceives man by leading him to think it is a body of water.
God has endowed man with reason that he may perceive what is true. If we insist that such a subject is not to be reasoned out and tested according to the established logical modes of the intellect, what is the use if the reason, which god has given to man." - Abdu'l-Bahá

Borrowed idea

"Your whole idea about yourself is borrowed--borrowed from those who have no idea of who they are themselves." - Osho

A Traveler

A traveler am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.
Excerpted from 'Sand and Foam' by Kahlil Gibran

Still carrying

Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and departed.

As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied. Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. "Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!"

"Brother," the second monk replied, "I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her."

Our conception

“If it were not for our conception of weights and measures we would stand in awe of the firefly as we do before the sun.”
Excerpted from ‘Sand and Foam’ by Kahlil Gibran

Truly great man

"The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none."
Excerpted from ‘Sand and Foam’ by Kahlil Gibran

Absence of opinion

"Don't search for truth, simply stop having opinions"

Enlightenment is not an opinion, but a state achieved through the absence of all opinions. It is not an idea, but an awareness of the consciousness that experiences all ideas.
This consciousness is vast and limitless, like a clear blue sky, and ideas are clouds that pass across the sky. When we focus on the clouds, we miss seeing the base that holds them all.

Record our emptiness

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper that we may record our emptiness.
Excerpted from 'Sand and Foam' by Kahlil Gibran

A Rebel

A rebel is one who wants no rule in the world. A rebel is anarchic. A rebel is one who trusts nature, not man made structures, who trusts that if nature is left alone, everything will be beautiful.
Excerpted from 'Ecstasy: The forgotten Language' by Osho

Experience now

"Look and see with your own eyes. If you hesitate, you miss the mark forever."

If we know how to look and see into the nature of life, the present moment provides all the signs and answers to help our journey. Hesitating means missing the present moment and hence all it has to offer.
If we hold back from fully embracing life today, we will miss it forever; because "now" is the only reality and life is experienced "now".

Who are you?

Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, " Who are you?"
Excerpted from 'Sand and Foam' by Kahlil Gibran