One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation.
Devadana Sanctuary
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In a crystal we have the clear evidence of the existence of a formative life-principle, and though we cannot understand the life of a crystal, it is nonetheless a living being.
For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world.
We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts.
The most important thing we can do is to spend time thinking about the consequences of the choices we make.
Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much larger and better in every way.
All life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult … Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
Always stay on the bridge between the invisible and visible, and learn the lessons of both worlds.
A tree uses what comes its way to nurture itself. By sinking its roots deeply into the earth, by accepting the rain that flows towards it, by reaching out to the sun, the tree perfects its character and becomes great…Absorb, absorb, absorb. That is the secret of the tree.
Modern peoples…have mainly forgotten that we live in relationship as brothers and sisters with all the beings and forces of the natural world. Our scientific redefinitions of the “unseen” as the “unreal” have caused us to forget that we are all luminous strands in a giant web of belonging.
…you need insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena. With that wisdom you know that it is not a battle between “good guys” and “bad guys,” because the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. With insight into our profound inter-relatedness, you know that actions undertaken with pure intent have repercussions throughout the web of life, beyond what you can measure or discern. By itself, that insight may appear too cool, conceptual, to sustain you and keep you moving, so you need the heat of compassion. Together these two can sustain us as agents of wholesome change. They are gifts for us to claim now in the healing of our world.
There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unknown, secret place. The old people came literally to love the soil, and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. Their teepees were built upon the earth
We do not know what it might mean to once again work with the divine forces within creation. In the West we have long since lost touch with this heritage, even though it is buried deep in our psyche. Yet it is a simple shift of awareness to reclaim this consciousness, and in doing so we will step into the future that is being born at this moment of crisis. We will become alive in a new way as we help the world wake up from the dream that is destroying it. We will be active participants in the real ecological work that is needed.
Look at the lake in front of the gate. When the sun shines, it radiates light and brightness. When the wind comes, there arise ripples and waves. There is a time for peaceful contemplation; there is a time for dynamic action; and all the time the lake remains itself.
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