Accepting What Is & Letting Go of What Isn't

Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself. - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

What does it take to come to the place where we can exchange pride for humility?
First we must stop the blasphemous charade of pretending that we are no good.
"I'm worthless" has often been spoken in the name of humility.
But these words, or any other words that express the same sentiment, are a self-indulgence and a cop-out.
The essence of humility is summed up in the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

Humility is truth.
To be humble is to know the truth about our limits, to recognize what can be changed, and to accept that all good things are possible with the help of our Higher Power.
Excessive pride prohibits acceptance because it prohibits the truth, and the truth is that some things are unchangeable.
Refusal to accept that truth gets us plenty of frustrations and anger - and no humility at all.

Today, I humbly ask God for the wisdom to accept what is and to let go of what isn't.

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen & Carol Larsen Hegarty

When Love Beckons

When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep.-- Kahlil Gibran

There will be many opportunities to express love in the days ahead, and some may be cloaked in harsh wrappings.
Perhaps an argument will wound and then be healed by the exchange of loving words and intimate gestures.
Maybe a friend or lover will be called away for a while, and the painful loneliness will make us question our commitment to love.
Yet, in loving unconditionally, we'll find peace.
Love, though a soft word and a gentle image, doesn't always promise us soft, gentle moments.
Sometimes love offers us a pained heart and empty arms.
We know love comforts, but not always.
Love heals, but in its own time.
The desire to know love draws us together, always.

Worthy of Love by Karen Casey

South Carolina

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Discipline

My father taught me that only through
self-discipline can you achieve freedom.
Pour water into a cup and you can drink.
Without the cup, the water would splash over.
The cup is discipline. -- Ricardo Montalban

It is no accident that the words discipline and disciple come from the same root.
To be a disciple of any path, one must be disciplined. Life works best when we learn to discipline ourselves.
Discipline liberates rather than confines you.
Discipline allows you to function with ease and grace.
After years of practicing his strokes, a tennis player can hit the ball without having to think about it. What once took conscious effort is now second nature.
Unfortunately, many of us had discipline forced upon us as children.
Naturally, we rebelled against an externally imposed structure.
We were not shown that true discipline always comes from within, and the motivation for that urge is love.
When we are doing what we love, when we are pursuing something that has meaning, discipline comes naturally.
As one Olympic athlete explained, "I don't mind working out every day. Because I love what I am doing, my training is not a burden but a joy."

Discipline is your ticket to freedom and path to excellence.
Choose to be disciplined in all your endeavors and become the master of yourself and your life.

Listening to Your Inner Voice by Douglas Bloch

God’s Will vs. My Will

Our success or failure depends upon the harmony or disharmony of our individual will with the Divine Will. -- Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

It is the Divine Will that is manifested throughout the whole universe, which has created the whole universe; and it is part of the divine will that manifests itself through us.
Everything we do in life is governed and directed by that power. ... Now coming to the question of the will of man as opposed to the will of God: which is which?
We understand the difference when we perceive that the nature of will power differs only according to whether it exists in its fullness, or whether it is limited.
The will power in its fullness is divine power; the will power in its limited state is the individual will.
Resignation is a quality of the saintly souls.
It is bitter in taste but sweet in result.
Whatever a man's power and position in life may be, he has always to meet with a more powerful will, in whatever form it may manifest.
In truth this is the divine will.
By opposing the divine will one may break oneself; but by resigning oneself to the divine will one opens up a way.
We come to understand that there are two aspects of will working through all things in life.
One is the individual will, the other the divine will.
When a person goes against the divine will, naturally his human will fails and he finds difficulties, because he is swimming against the tide.
The moment a person works in consonance, in harmony with the divine will, things become smooth.
Sometimes things are accomplished without the least effort.
When it is the divine will it is like something floating on water; it advances without effort.
Problems and actions may be achieved in a moment then, whilst at other times the smallest problem cannot be solved without great difficulty.
One finds that some persons are very clever and experienced in industrial work or in politics; and they have striven very hard to attain their goal, and yet have accomplished nothing; they are always a failure.
And there are others who take up a thing, and without much effort, without much worry on their part they complete it and attain their goal.
All this is accounted for by harmony with the divine will.
Everyone experiences such a thing at some time or other.
When things are in harmony with the divine will, everything is there; we just glance towards a thing and it is found, as in the saying, 'Word spoken, action done.'
When we strive with all the material in our hands and yet cannot achieve our desire, that is when the matter is contrary to the divine will.
Our success or failure all depends upon the harmony or disharmony of our individual will with the divine will. ... Contentment and perfect resignation open up a harmonious feeling and bring the divine will into harmony with our own.
Our blessing now becomes a divine blessing, our words divine words, our atmosphere a divine atmosphere, although we seem to be limited beings; for our will becomes absorbed into the whole, and so our will becomes the will of God.

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

The Depth of Inner Silence

It is the surface of the sea
that makes waves and roaring breakers;
the depth is silent.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

The bubbles are to be found on the surface of the sea.
The depth of the sea is free from bubbles.
The commotion is to be seen on the surface, the depth of the sea is still.
The mind is the commotion of that something that is within us, that something which we call heart.
The happiness, knowledge, pleasure and love that is stored in our innermost being is in our profound depth.
Changing emotions and passions, dreams, ever-rising thoughts and imaginations, all belong to the surface, as the bubbles belong to the surface of the sea.

To attain peace, what one has to do is to seek that rhythm which is in the depth of our being.
It is just like the sea: the surface of the sea is ever moving; the depth of the sea is still.
And so it is with our life.
If our life is thrown into the sea of activity, it is on the surface.
We still live in the profound depths, in that peace.
But the thing is to become conscious of that peace which can be found within ourselves.
It is this which can bring us the answer to all our problems.
If not, when we want to solve one problem, there is another difficult problem coming. There is no end to our problems.
There is no end to the difficulties of the outer life.
And if we get excited over them, we shall never be able to solve them.
Some think, 'We might wait. Perhaps the conditions will become better. We shall see then what to do.'
But when will the conditions become better?
They will become still worse!
Whether the conditions become better or worse, the first thing is to seek the kingdom of God within ourselves, in which there is our peace.
As soon as we have found that, we have found our support, we have found our self.
And in spite of all the activity and movement on the surface, we shall be able to keep that peace undisturbed if only we hold it fast by becoming conscious of it.

Spiritual knowledge is nothing but this: that there is a constant longing in the heart of man to have something of its origin, to experience something of its original state, the state of peace and joy which has been disturbed, and yet is sought after throughout its whole life, and never can cease to be sought after until the real source has at length been realized.
What was it in the wilderness that gave peace and joy?
What was it that came to us in the forest, the solitude?
In either case it was nothing else but the depth of our own life, which is silent like the depths of the great sea, so silent and still. It is the surface of the sea that makes waves and roaring breakers; the depth is silent.
So the depth of our own being is silent also.

And this all-pervading, unbroken, inseparable, unlimited, ever-present, omnipotent silence unites with our silence like the meeting of flames.
Something goes out from the depths of our being to receive something from there, which comes to meet us; our eyes cannot see and our ears cannot hear and our mind cannot perceive because it is beyond mind, thought, and comprehension.
It is the meeting of the soul and the Spirit.

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Man's Reflection

Man is the picture of the reflection of his imagination;
he is as large or as small as he thinks himself.

Man is the picture or reflection of his imagination.
He is as large as he thinks himself,
as great as he thinks himself,
as small as he thinks himself to be.

If he thinks he is incapable, he remains incapable;
if he thinks himself foolish, he will be foolish and will remain foolish;
if he thinks himself wise, he will be wise and become wiser every moment;
if he thinks himself mighty, he will be mighty. . . .

Whatever is impressed on man's soul,
with that the soul becomes endowed,
and that the soul will become.