Chapter Five

This from Chapter Five of the Koran: For each of you we have appointed a law and a way. And if God had willed it, he would have made you one nation. But He willed it otherwise, that He may put you to the test in what He has given you. So, vie with one another in good works; unto God will we be brought back, and He will inform us about that wherein we differed.

Invent a Resource for Every Moment

"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her mode of existence. The poetic eye sees in Man the Brother of the River and in Woman the Sister of the River. Their life is always transitions. Hard blockheads only drive nails all the time; forever... fixing. Heroes do not fix, but flow, bend forward ever and invent a resource for every moment."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Participate... with gratitude

"Do you wish to free yourself of mental and emotional knots and become one with the Tao? If so, there are two paths available to you. The first is the path of acceptance. Affirm everyone and everything. Freely extend your goodwill and virtue in every direction, regardless of circumstances. Embrace all things as part of the Harmonious Oneness, and then you will begin to perceive it. The second path is that of denial. Recognize that everything you see and think is a falsehood, an illusion, a veil over the truth. Peel all the veils away, and you will arrive at the Oneness. Though the paths are entirely different, they will deliver you to the same place: Spontaneous awareness of the great Oneness. Once you arrive there, remember: it isn't necessary to struggle to maintain unity with it. All you have to do is participate in it."
Hua Hu Ching: The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tsu (Trans. Brian Walker)

There is allways someone ...

“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Beyond its scientific impact and its technological applications, clear evidence of an active role of consciousness in the establishment of reality holds sweeping implications for our view of ourselves, our relationship to others, and to the cosmos in which we exist. These in turn must inevitably impact our values, our priorities, our sense of responsibility, and our style of life. Integration of these changes across society can lead to a substantially superior cultural ethic, wherein the long-estranged siblings of science and spirit, of analysis and aesthetics, of intellect and intuition, and many other subjective and objective aspects of human experience will be productively reunited."

Robert G. Jahn, Dean of the Princeton School of Engineering and Applied Science

Again

Again and again some people in the crowd wake up,

They have no ground in the crowd,

And they emerge according to much broader laws.

They carry strange customs with them

And demand room for bold gestures.

The future speaks ruthlessly through them.

--Rilke

Naturally and spontaneously

The Living Universe

"In the spacious mirror of reflective consciousness we begin to catch glimpses of the unity of the interwoven fabric of the cosmos and our intimate participation within the living web of existence. No longer is reality broken into relativistic islands of pieces. If only for a brief moment at a time, existence is glimpsed and known as a seamless totality. To explore our gradual awakening to the aliveness and unity of the universe ... awakens the intuition that a living presence permeates the universe."
--Duane Elgin - in The Living Universe