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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Whoever acts with respect will get respect. Whoever brings sweetness will be served almond cake. Good women are drawn to be with good men.
There is a way between voice and presence where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens. With wandering talk it closes.
All day and night, music, a quiet, bright reedsong. If it fades, we fade.
Don’t worry about transient things. Think how the animals live. The dove on the branch giving thanks. The glorious singing of the nightingale. The gnat. The elephant. Every living thing trusts in God for its nourishment.
Don’t let your throat tighten with fear. Take sips of breath all day and night, before death closes your mouth.
Many actions which seem cruel are from a deep friendship. Many demolitions are actually renovations.
When you feel some slight repugnance about doing something, listen to it. These premonitions come from God.
So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where! Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck we could have. It’s a total waking up!
This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.
I keep secret in myself an Egypt that doesn’t exist. Is that good or bad? I don’t know.
I am a sky where spirits live. Stare into this deepening blue, while the breeze says a secret.
The universe and the light of the stars come through me. I am the crescent moon put up over the gate to the festival.
So don’t fuss with the shroud and the graveyard road dust. Those get ripped open and washed away in the music of our finally meeting. And don’t look for me in a human shape. I am inside your looking. No room for form with love this strong.
Give the beautiful ones mirrors, and let them fall in love with themselves. That way they polish their souls and kindle remembering in others.
“I felt like a lion with a chain around its neck. Not degraded by the chain, and not complaining, but just waiting for my power to be recognized.”
Your defects are the ways that glory gets manifested. Whoever sees clearly what’s diseased in himself begins to gallop on the way.
A strong intention can make “two oceans wide” be the size of a blanket, or “seven hundred years” the time it takes to walk to someone you love.
Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don’t claim them. Feel the artistry moving through, and be silent. Or say, “I cannot praise You as You should be praised. Such words are infinitely beyond my understanding.”
There are such helpers in the world, who rush to save anyone who cries out. Like Mercy itself, they run toward the screaming.
