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Anna, all that you say speaks to me. I remember your telling me once that we don't experience the highs or lows of life as we surrender to what IS, to all of what IS. I don't know what That IS anymore and I don't care. What strikes me is that I still have the feelings that engender sorrow, joy, pain...

Stefan, you asked the following question in recognizing the familiar: Suppose we had only very short term memory, and every event, every thought, everyone and everything in every encounter, was brand new? I help to care for a woman who has dementia, and each day is brand new to her. Although she som...

The suffering are a gift to me and a healing for me, you're right about that, Stefan. It's a wondrous miracle the many facets, sides, hues, colors, and emotions of the Universe, a.k.a. God. Thank you, Stefan. Ave atque blessings, Bhakti

In addition to universal love, I'd also add acceptance of disasters, suffering, and death as a part of all life on earth. For me, it's difficult to pull a carrot or beet from the soil. It gives its life so that Bhakti may live on until her death, but it's hard to accept that this is the physical lif...

I'll be heading down to New Orleans soon to help family, friends, and others get settled into their old or new homes, whichever the case. I think that seeing the devastation there will be as close as I'll come to a war zone or to poverty stricken areas like Pakistan or Somalia. In this country, desp...

"When the movement in the direction of becoming something other than what you are isn't there any more, you are not in conflict with yourself." Thanks for the quote from U.G., Anna. It has beens speaking to me as I realize that we can't force enlightment. If we don't force anything, we are...

And without me-ness, karma or whatever happens from minute to minute becomes, as Aldous Huxley has said, "unable to deceive and incapable of internal confusion. His quote from Bateson's book is this: Humans have lost "grace," which animals still have. God resembles the animal rather t...

Anna has said: You know, it is possible that the demented person is actually a clear image of what we all are in actuality. As I get less attached to my "person", and thus clearer and wiser in my dotage, I see clearer, and find that none of us are actually "sane" in the true sens...

In the course of this forum on Looking Past the Person, Michael asked at one point “Am I getting up on a soapbox?” I don’t know whether he is or not, and it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Sometimes I find our discussions philosophically and theologically heady and not practical. Waxing philoso...

In "Consider This" on the Zoo Fence website, I was just rereading "Why Do Bad Things . . . Happen to Good People?" There are remarkable passsages that echo what Anna has said. These passages could also be posted in the forum subject "Who said this?" Thus, part of the re...

Anna has said: To stand in the presence of an individual who is willing to put it straight to you, must be both refreshing and terrifying at the same time. But to contrast his blunt and often painful discourse, the Sufi insists that whatever one does or says, one must not hurt the feelings of anothe...

Thank you, Diane and Anna, for your insights. Touche to them. Blessings, Bhakti

The teacher literally "lays down his life" for the sake of the salvation of the student - or - from a less esoteric vocabulary, the teacher gives up his time and energy for the sake of the liberation of the student, and does not expect anything in return. Anna, do you think that the teach...

I recently read a series of articles in Utne entitled "The Future of God." In one artcle called "Heaven Can't Wait," David Schimke says: The Jesus they [my family] taught me about lived and died in the name of justice, in the spriit of peace. He was an anti-establishment activist...

Anna, we recently had some friends visiting from Australia. They were amazed and bewildered by how polite and friendly Maine people are. With construction or a line of building traffic, people would wave them to pass, for example. Our friends had problems with their rental car, and the company gave ...