I discovered Emerson early on in my life… I think 5th or 6th grade and loved his work immediately.

~

Here is a nice quote.   Of course it is one thing to ‘get/understand it’ and quite another to live by it.

~

“What lies behind us, and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Destiny is not a matter of chance,

it is a matter of choice;

it is not a thing to be waited for,

it is a thing to be achieved.”

–  Winston Churchill

~

All those years in the Ashram, my entire life actually, I never thought in terms of how much money I was getting for my efforts.  My sights were always set on something much more meaningful.  It was about my life.

~

“What am I doing with my life”, I always asked. It must have meaning, purpose, real value… a value that is not measured in dollars and cents. It must transcend dollars and cents.

~

In the Ashram, we worked hard in the name of a higher purpose. The idea that we were not “getting paid” never, ever crossed my mind.  For me, the motivation was a purposeful life.  That completely transcended the idea of committing my soul’s life force to mere money.

~

Someone recently commented to me that we can’t expect too much from the Ashram participants because, after all, they are not being paid.  Such thinking astounds me. Paid with what!?  Money?  Does the value system not surpass dollars and cents? What do people who think in such terms have to show for their life?

~

And we wonder why the world is in such dire straights.  Just look at the value system people adhere to.

~

I choose to have nothing to do with that. My commitment is to something far greater, far more laudable, far more enduring.

~

There are many currents in the ocean of life.  You align with the one of your choice.  I choose the one that offers something of enduring value to show for my life at the end of my life.

~

I invite you to join me.

~

~

There is a saying that first God created us in His image and then we created God in our image.

~

Better to worship God in the manner he would like than to do so in the manner we would like him to like.

~

~

~

Shava is sankkrit for corpse… dead body.

~

‘E’ is the kernal of the mantra Hrim, which means Parvati, the Goddess.

~

By inserting “e’ into Shava, you get Shiva.

~

Without the Goddess, without Shakti, Shiva is powerless.

~

~

~

There are no Vedas, no worlds, no gods, no sacrifices.

~

There is certainly no caste, no stage in life, no family, no birth.

~

There is neither the path of smoke nor the path of light.

~

There is only the highest Truth, the homogeneous Brahman.

~

Avadhuta Gita