Listening to the Masters - 1

Here are some words of wisdom I took from my book, "Results from the Heart."  They address the essence of human nature.  yet, whether or not we can make these words come alive is up to each of us.  If we do not get the message readily (perhaps disconnected from one's own experience), it may indicate that our eyes are not quite open.   May we listen to these words with open minds to discover the secret of our lives with calm and quiet mind?

"Seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you." (Matt. 7:7)

"What goes out to the world market is' not the product. It is the philosophy, the brain of that company. " (Soichiro Honda)

"If you want to be a better friend, a richer person, a better parent, a better athlete, a more successful businessman, all you need to do is find models of excellence. " (Anthony Robbins)

"What is desirable and right is not impossible." (Henry Ford)

"Man is made great or small by his own will." (Schiller)

"So how can I set myself free?" "Who has bound you?" (Zen Koan)

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. " (Thomas Edison)

"When the solution is simple, God is answering." (Albert Einstein)

"The life which is unexamined is not worth living. " (Plato)

"I did not wish to live what was not life." (Henry David Thoreau)

"Truth above all, even when it upsets and overwhelms us." (Amiel)

"Youth is youngness at heart. Youth is eternal for those who are full of faith and hope, and greet the challenges of each new day with courage and confidence." (Konosuke Matsushita)

Some words of masters are like the shining light in the dark sky 

- clearing up the unknowns or cutting through the ambiguities

"Those who mistake the unessential to be essential---and essential to be unessential, dwelling in wrong thoughts, never arrive at the essential. " (Buddha Dhammapada II)

"If we do what we have always done, we will get what we have always got. " (Found at the wall of a factory floor in the Midwest)

"Life clears itself to the degree that we understand how the mind works." (Vernon Howard)

"Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them." (Goethe)

"There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he does not mind who gets the credit. " (Truman)

"If we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere. " (La Rochefoucauld)

"If your heart is right, your world will be right. The beginning of all reform must be in yourself. ... The power released from within yourself will change your outward life."  Found at the wall of the Library of Congress (October 16,1789)

"To be happy means to be self-sufficient." (Aristotle)

"Unless a person find a mission to devote himself, he cannot find the true happiness." (Found at a Rinzai-ji Temple in Japan)

"A happy life is joy in the truth." (Augustine)

"0 wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! And yet again wonderful ... " (Shakespeare)

"Man is a thinking reed but his great works are done when he is not calculating and thinking. 'Childlikeness' has to be restored with long years of training in the art of 'self-forgetfulness. '" (Daisetz T. Suzuki)

"Truth is too simple for us; we do not like those who unmask Our illusion." (Emerson)

"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away." (Hakuin)

"Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the songs of a bird?" (Picasso)

"Intelligence comes into being when brain discovers its fallibility. " (Krishnamurti)

"Suffering is always the effect of wrong thoughts in some direction. It is an indication that the individual is out of harmony with himself, with the Law of his being. " (James Allen)

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." (Kris Kristofferson)

"A free mind has power to achieve all things. " (Eckhart)

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace." (Gal. 5:22)

- ( to be continued ) -