“You need to be liberated. Don’t carry over experiences from the past. In fact, don’t carry over good experiences from the past either. Learn what it means to experience something fully, then drop it and move on to the next moment, uninfluenced by the previous one. You’d be traveling with such little baggage that you could pass through the eye of a needle” (Anthony de Mello in Awareness).

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“It’s remarkable how, no matter which spiritual path you pursue, the nuts and bolts of transformation wind up looking pretty much the same: surrender, detachment, compassion, forgiveness. [Whatever your path], you will still go through the same eye of the needle to get to where your true heart lies” (Cynthia Bourgeault from  The Wisdom Way of Knowing).

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“The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry, to equanimity, receptivity, and peace, is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium, those changes of the personal center of energy, which I have analyzed so often; and the chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about, not by doing, but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down” (William James).

“Every choice we make—where we live and shop and with whom we align ourselves, whether we speak up or turn and walk away—either widens or reduces the chasm between us. What we are able to SEE is determined by what we are striving to BE. The places we go, or refuse to go; the words we use, or refuse to use; the actions we take, or choose not to take; these create the condition of our soul. Whether or not anyone walks beside us, we do not journey alone. Moment by moment, choice by choice, we build or bring down bridges of connection. We strengthen the bondage of our separation or we set each other free” (Kayla McClurg from Season and Scripture: Luke, Ordinary Time C).