Why do we keep on searching for the truth, facing the pains & improving ourselves? This book states the best answer I have ever heard - for being good, health people.
The absence of fear is not courage. The absence of fear is some kind of brain damage. Courage is the capacity to go ahead in spite of the fear, or in spite of the pain.
What characterizes most immature people is that they sit around complaining that life doesn't meet their demands. What characterizes those relative few who are fully mature is that they regard it as their responsibility - even as an opportunity - to meet life's demands.
Consciousness is both the cause of our pain and the cause of our salvation, which is a word synonymous with healing. Consciousness is the cause of our pain because, of course, were we not conscious, we would not feel pain. It is also the cause of our salvation, because salvation is the process of becoming increasingly conscious. When we become increasingly conscious, we go further and further into the desert instead of burrowing into a hole like the people who choose not to grow up. And as we travel onward, we bear more and more pain - because of our very consciousness.
Having a weak will is like having a little donkey in your backyard. It can't hurt you very much; about the worst it can do is chomp on you tulips. But it can't help you that much either. Having a strong will, on the other hand, is like having a dozen Clydesdales in your backyard. Those horses are massive creatures and extremely strong, and if they are not properly trained, disciplined, and harnessed, they will knock your house down. On the other hand, if they are properly trained, disciplined, and harnessed, then with them you can literally move mountains.
It is important to realize that blaming is fun. Anger is fun. Hatred is fun. And like any pleasurable activity, it is habit-forming -- you get hooked on it. That is precisely what forgiveness is: the process of stopping, of ending, the Blaming Game. And it is tough.
Mental health is a process of ongoing dedication to reality at all cost. And "at all cost" means no matter how uncomfortable the reality makes us.
Confusion leads to a search for clarification and with that search comes a great deal of learning.
Moments of guilt, moments of contrition, moments when we are lacking in self-esteem, moments when we are bearing the trial of being displeasing to ourselves, are essential to our growth.
Being willing to be surprised by forces beyond your control, and realize that a major learning on the journey is the art of surrender.
Conversion is not a onetime thing. Like any kind of spiritual growth, it is a continuing process. No matter how far we develop, all of us retain vestiges of earlier stages, just as we retain our vestigial appendix.
