Kindle Notes & Highlights
The fire of mystical love is a burning which destroys all sense of a separate self, until nothing is left but love Itself.
Mystics are lovers who are drawn toward a love in which there is no you or me, but only the oneness of love Itself. And they are prepared to pay the ultimate price to realize this truth: the price of themselves.
The more threatened and ravaged the Earth community is, the more we are called to adore, cherish, nurture, and protect it.
enormity of their implications. When you do, you will realize that we have created an Auschwitz for animals on this planet, and we have done so because of a hideous failure in love.
Whether we observe the arts or participate in creating them, we are touching the Divine. In fact, the path of the mystic and the artist and those who delight in the arts is similar.
“The way of the mystic and the way of the artist are related, except that the mystic doesn’t have a craft.”
In order to persevere in witnessing the suffering in this age of despair, we must learn how to play and balance our striving with relaxation, humor, and lightheartedness. Indeed,
radical joy,
spiritual practice and one that we must incorporate in every relationship, no matter how brief or superficial. We can attest to the powerful impact of practicing kindness with a store clerk, a bus driver, a food server, or a customer service agent in person or by telephone. In every human relationship, it is our divine mandate to exude kindness and compassion, even in the most challenging situations, until it becomes “like a shadow or a friend.”
endeavoring to be love in action in an age of despair—this is the radical joy
grief ritual
we must immerse ourselves regularly and frequently in stillness.
in a happiness-obsessed culture, individuals have little tolerance for full-spectrum authenticity.
Our ancient and indigenous ancestors knew that there is joy in experiencing authentic connection even if it includes suffering.
The word ritual literally means “to fit together.” Humans create rituals in order to alleviate their sense of separation and affirm their connection with the Earth, with one another, and with the sacred.
Only in total freedom does bliss exist, Krishnamurti reminds us. In order to experience the quality of joy to which this book invites you to return, it is necessary to cease pursuing the husks of happiness with which corporate culture tantalizes us and settle for nothing less than “the searing possibility of joy.”
that price is nothing less than the total renunciation of the heart-numbing, soul-murdering vapidity of a flatline existence as we embrace the heart-throbbing, love-laden passion of unimaginable joy in action and realize the vision
