African Saying

Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself.

They remember your beauty when you feel ugly;
your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty;

and your purpose when you are confused.

The Purpose Of Life

By Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

As to the religion and the moral of the mystic, the mystic has one moral and that is love.

And he has one aim in his religion and that is to make a God a reality.

Therefore, his God becomes a greater God than the God of millions of people who only imagine that there is a God somewhere.

To him God is a reality.

The work of the inner life is to make God a reality, so that He is no more an imagination; that this relationship that man has with God may seem more real than any other relationship in the world; and when this happens, then all relationships, however near and dear, become less binding.

But at the same time, a person does not thus become cold; he becomes more loving. It is the godless man who is cold, impressed by the selfishness and lovelessness of the world, because he partakes of those conditions in which he lives.

But the one who is in love with God, the one who has established his relationship with God, his love becomes living ...

Why is it that among simple and illiterate people a belief in God is to be found, and among the most intellectual, there seems to be a lack of that belief?

The answer is that the intellectual ones have their reason.

They will not believe in what they do not see...

But the process that the wise consider best for the seeker after truth to adopt is the process of first idealizing God and then realizing God.

Among millions of believers in God, there is hardly one who makes God a reality, to so many He is an imagination, to many He is in a mosque, a church, or a temple.

Many wonder if God is really.

Many others think God is goodness, He is a personality separate from us, He is most high, most pure, most beautiful, but He is separate and difficult to reach.

Many think that as it takes so long to reach this planet or that, God must be further away still.

The purpose of one's whole life is to make God a reality.

A True & Fruitful Branch

Let us all become a true and fruitful branch on the vine Jesus,
by accepting Him in our lives as it pleases Him to come:

as the Truth – to be told;

as the Life – to be lived;

as the Light – to be lighted;

as the Way – to be walked;

as the Joy – to be given;

as the Peace – to be spread;

as the Sacrifice – to be offered,

in our families and with our neighborhood.

-- from Mother Teresa – A Simple Path

Missionary Of Charity Prayer

The following prayer is the prayer every Missionary of Charity says before leaving his or her Apostolate. It is also used as the Physician’s Prayer in Shish Bhaven, the children’s home in Calcutta:

Dear Lord, the Great Healer, I knee before You,
Since every perfect gift must come from You.
I pray, give skill to my hands, clear vision to my mind,
kindness and meekness to my heart.
Give me singleness of purpose, strength to lift up a part
of the burden of my suffering fellow men, and a
true realization of the privilege that is mine.
Take from my heart all guile and worldliness,
That with the simple faith of a child, I may rely on You.

from Mother Teresa – A Simple Path

Elder's Meditation -- The Feeling Of Giving

There are certain prayers or actions we can take that will call the Powers.
The powers can only work through people.
The Powers are always waiting to express themselves through people that are ready.
Every person born is born with a purpose.
They have a song to sing.
They have a mission to accomplish.
Every true purpose will always be about serving the Creator and helping others.
When we let the Powers know that we are ready to serve the people, the Powers get excited because they can now do things to help the people and make things better for them.
The decision is powerful because it turns an idea into action.

Great Spirit, the greatest joy or feeling that I have ever experienced

is when you are using me to help the people,

the feeling of giving, the feeling of being your channel.

Today, let me have that feeling of giving.

Use me as You will.

Depression & Despair

Very few of us give ourselves the opportunities to explore our real interests and potentials.
We "lock" ourselves into rigid ways of regarding the world and our options.
We often settle for less than our highest aspirations because we have conditioned ourselves into thinking life is joyless endurance or survival at best.

In order to change the empty circumstances in my lives I need to change my limited thinking patterns.
Instead of looking at life as a prison, I can view it as a smorgasbord of opportunities that are well within my reach.
By exploring and sampling the choices before me I can discover which choices bring me inner satisfaction and increase my sense of purpose.

Today I will remind myself of what Roman philosopher Seneca said hundreds of years ago:
"The great blessings of mankind are within us, and within our reach . . ."

The Original Instructions

A long time ago, in the beginning, the Creator gave to all people and to all things the Wisdom and the knowledge of how to live in harmony.
Some tribes call these teachings the original Instructions, the original teachings, or the Great Laws.
All of Nature still lives and survives according to these teachings.
In modern times, human beings are searching for the Instructions.
Many churches claim they have these Instructions.
Where are these teachings?
The Instructions are written in our hearts.

Creator, today, whisper to me the secrets of the original Instructions.

A Precious Life

Everyday, think as you wake up:
Today I am fortunate to have woken up.
I am alive.
I have a precious human life.
I am not going to waste it.
I am going to use all my energies to develop myself to expand my heart out to others for the benefit of all beings.

-- His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama