In this week’s talk, Zach explores seeing the evolution of the entire universe as one that goes to more and more love. Because something cannot arise from nothing, the consciousness and intelligence that exists now has been there since the beginning. The mystics know we are not separate, and the divine love in ourselves reflects the divine love in everything.
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Quotes from the episode:
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
– Henry David Thoreau
How
did the rose
ever open its heart
and give to this world all of its beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light against its being,
otherwise we all remain too
frightened.
– Hafiz
If you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomena of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all.
– Alan Watts
The true Christian rebirth is a renewed transformation, a ‘passover’ in which man is progressively liberated from selfishness and not only grows in love but in some sense ‘becomes love.’ The perfection of the new birth is reached where there is no more selfishness, there is only love… there is no more ego-self… only the Spirit acts in pure love.
– Thomas Merton
Spiritual evolution is the great possibility, available only to humanity. The human being has come with the possibility of being a completely conscious being, rather than a compulsive one. We can choose to be whichever way we want, a tiger or a deer, a divinity or a demon. We have no fixed nature. Unfortunately, we suffer this fluidity, this phenomenal gift of freedom.
– Sadhguru
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
– Albert Einstein
I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was human,
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die human,
To soar with angels blessed above.
And when I sacrifice my angel soul
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.
As a human, I will die once more,
Reborn, I will with the angels soar.
And when I let my angel body go,
I shall be more than mortal mind can know.
― Rumi
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
– Rumi
To live in the presence of God,
on a continuous basis can become a kind of fourth dimension
to our three-dimensional world,
forming an invisible but real background
to everything that we do,
or that happens in our lives.
– Father Thomas Keating
May all beings be filled with joy and peace.
May all beings everywhere,
The strong and the weak,
The great and the small,
The mean and the powerful,
The short and the long,
The subtle and the gross:
May all beings everywhere,
Seen and unseen,
Dwelling far off or nearby,
Being or waiting to become:
May all be filled with lasting joy.
Let no one deceive another,
Let no one anywhere despise another,
Let no one out of anger or resentment
Wish suffering on anyone at all.
Just as a mother with her own life
Protects her child, her only child, from harm,
So within yourself let grow
A boundless love for all creatures.
Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then, as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.
– Discourse on Good Will, from the The Sutta Nipata
