Food for thought...

In my recent readings I have come across a few wonderful quotes that are so interesting and powerful and have gotten my mind out of the little box its been hiding in. Hope they give you something to think about too....

Consider this perspective on surrender from Eckhart Tolle:

"Surrender. . . does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation
you find yourself in and to do nothing about it. . . Surrender is the
simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the
flow of life. . . . Non-surrender hardens your psychological form, the
shell of the ego, and so creates a strong sense of separateness. The
world around you and people in particular come to be perceived as
threatening. . . [Y]our perceptions and interpretations are (then) governed
by fear. . . Tension arises in different parts of the body, and the
body as a whole contracts. The free flow of life energy through the
body, which is essential for its healthy functioning, is greatly restricted.
. . . If you find your life situation unsatisfactory or even intolerable, it is
only by surrendering first that you can break the unconscious resistance
pattern that perpetuates that situation. . . . Surrender reconnects
you with the source-energy of Being (God). . . .No truly positive action
can arise out of an unsurrendered state of consciousness.”

Deepak Chopra contrasts Ego and Spirit:

"Behind the curtain of your intellect and emotions is your self-image or
ego. The ego is not your real self; it is the image of yourself that you
have slowly built over time. It is the mask behind which you hide, but
it is not the real you. And because it is not the real you, but a fraud, it
lives in fear. It wants approval. It needs to control. . . .The world of ego
is time-bound, temporary, fragmented, fearful, personal, self-centered,
self-absorbed, and attached to the known. The world of spirit is timeless
and eternal, free of past and future, whole, joyful, open, and accessible
to all . . . undivided, unshakable, dynamic creative, self-sufficient,
powerful, and free of limitation, expectation, and attachment."

A story used by yogis and Buddhist monks to illustrate
the problem of attachment is the technique once used to catch monkeys in South
India. Made me wonder...how am I trapped by my own attachments??

"One takes a coconut and makes a hole in it, just large enough that a
monkey can squeeze its hand in. Next, the coconut is tied down, and a
sweet put inside. The monkey smells the sweet, puts his hand into the
coconut, grabs the sweet, and because the hole is so small, he cannot get
his fist out. The monkey doesn’t consider letting go of the sweet, so it is
literally tied down by its own attachment. Often the monkeys only let go
when they fall asleep or become unconscious because of exhaustion."

And finally a quote on money...interesting for this crazy economic time!!

"Money will command your attention. Allow it a proper place in your life, but deny it a throne. Money means many things, but nothing so much as a yardstick by which your measure will be taken. The need of it, the use of it, the power of it, the love of it will be used by others to define who you are and who you are not. Even you may use it to determine how you should perceive yourself. Be careful: Money is also known to be a relentless slave master. If I have learned anything from this balancing act it is the importance of defining your worth in your own terms."
--Sidney Poitier in Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter