2018
TZF’s “Here's A Thought” pop-ups are
accessible from the Main
Menu .
We change them more or less weekly, and archive them on this page.
For previous years’ archives, please click from among the dates
below:
• 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011 • 2010 • 2009 • 2008 •
• 2007 • 2006 • 2005 • 2004 • 2003 • 2002 • 2001 • 2000 •
October 14, 2018
I do not understand anything I see in this room,
… on this street, from this window, in this place.
(Whatever you see is a proper subject for applying the idea.)
A Course in Miracles
Workbook for Students, Lesson 3
October 7, 2018
When I sent man out in creation, I gave him two paths by which he could retrace his steps to Me — discrimnination and right action. Both take man on the right course toward salvation. But when the devotee is nearing ultimate freedom, then wisdom and meditative action merge into one inner highway to Self-realization, the culmination of which is union of the soul with Spirit.
The Bhagavad Gita, 3:iii
translated & interpreted by Paramahansa Yogananda
September 30, 2018
This Self can be attained by a hundred ways and means;
yet, when it is attained, nothing has been attained.
It is the Supreme Self; yet it is nothing.
Vasistha’s Yoga
translated by Swami Venkatesananda
September 23, 2018
That nothing save the light of truth allays
Our intellect’s disquiet I now see plain —
God’s truth, which holds all truth within its rays.
The Divine Comedy (Paradise) iv:124-126
September 16, 2018
Just give full attention to what in you is crude and primitive, unreasonable and unkind, altogether childish, and you will ripen. It is the maturity of heart and mind that is essential. It comes effortlessly when the main obstacle is removed — inattention, unawareness. In awareness you grow.
September 9, 2018
The absolute cannot be realized or experienced by another;
only the absolute can realize itself.
The Concise Yoga Vasistha
translated by Swami Venkatesananda
September 2, 2018
This entire universe is forever the same as the consciousness that dwells in every atom, even as an ornament is not different from gold. Just as an ornament potentially exists in gold, the object exists in the subject. But when this notion of the object is firmly rejected and removed from the subject, then consciousness alone exists without even an apparent or potential objectivity. When this is realized, evils like attraction and repulsion, love and hate, cease in one’s heart, as do false notions of the world, you, I, etc. Even the tendency to objectify ceases. This is freedom.
The Concise Yoga Vasistha
translated by Swami Venkatesananda
August 26, 2018
The ego is not what you think of yourself.
The ego is that you think of yourself;
that you believe there is a yourself separate and distinct from other selves.
That is the ego.
SCN
August 19, 2018
Burn, O Good Lord, the thorns of my transgressions,
cleanse my soul, and purify all my thoughts.
Ever shelter, guard, and keep me in your love.
August 12, 2018
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
August 5, 2018
By religion I do not mean outward things, but inward states, I mean perfected manhood. I mean the quickening of the soul by the beatific influence of the divine Spirit in truth, and love, and sympathy, and confidence, and trust.
July 29, 2018
What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it.
July 22, 2018
The Teachings need to be studied, reflected on, and practiced in order to realise their true meaning. They are “discourses on the right way of living” or contemplations on the “way things are.” They are not meant to be “sacred scriptures” which tell us what to believe. One should read them, listen to them, think about them, contemplate them, and investigate the present reality, the present experience with them. Then, and only then, can one insightfully know the Truth beyond words.
Adapted from the Foreword to The Long Discourses of The Buddha
July 15, 2018
No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs; we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power.
July 8, 2018
It is surprising what a man can do when he has to,
and how little most men will do when they don’t have to.
July 1, 2018
A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history – with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.
June 24, 2018
When you are not thinking about who you are,
who are you?
Sonja Margulies in
Meetings with Remarkable Women
by Lenore Friedman<
June 17, 2018
At a recent ecumenical meeting with spokespeople from every world religion, including Native Americans, … everyone concurred that the three requisites for spiritual evolution in human beings were gratitude and humility and humor.
Meetings with Remarkable Women
by Lenore Friedman
June 10, 2018
Life is short,
but it comes with a blessing:
It is thy turn to meet God.
Sant Kirpal Singh
in
Love Everyone
by Parvati Markus
June 3, 2018
A rule of thumb:
If you come across a form of address for God that makes you uncomfortable,
it is probably time for you to adopt it.
SCN
May 27, 2018
Put no limits on
(your perception of)
God.
SCN
May 20, 2018
Whatever the problem,
the solution is spiritual.
SCN
in “There Is A Way” (out of print)
May 13, 2018
Therefore, we must always remember that external practices have value only as they help to develop internal purity. It is better to have internal purity alone, when minute attention to external observances is not practicable. But woe unto the man, and woe unto the nation, that forgets the real, internal, spiritual essentials of religion, and mechanically clutches with death-like grasp all external forms, and never lets them go! The forms have value only so far as they are the expressions of life within. If that have ceased to express life, crush them out without mercy.
Swami Vivekananda
in The Yogas and Other Works
May 6, 2018
There is no path that does not lead to Him.
A Course in Miracles
Text – Chapter 31
April 28, 2018
In whatever way people are devoted to Me,
in that measure I manifest Myself to them.
All men [and women], in every manner of seeking Me,
pursue a path to Me.
Bhagavad Gita,
IV.11
trans. Paramahansa Yogananda
April 22, 2018
It is a fine thing to establish one’s own religion in one’s heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.
April 15, 2018
On the morning of the Eighth Day,
after enjoying a day of Divine Repose,
now imagining post-Edenic humanity,
and perceiving the predictable,
God created the eraser.
SCN
April 8, 2018
God is free for the taking.
Movie Navigating The Heart
April 1, 2018
Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
The Four-Way Test
of Rotary International
by Herbert J. Taylor
March 25, 2018
Silence is the unbearable repartee.
G. K. Chesterton
attributing to Charles Dickens
March 18, 2018
Seek not from God
anything other than Himself,
and attach not the power
of the heart’s intention
to anything other than Him.
And if everything in the universe
should be spread before you,
receive it graciously –
but do not stop there.
Persist in your quest.
March 11, 2018
Ten percent of those performing every human endeavor
– whatever, wherever –
are artists.
The rest are mechanics.
The difference is, the artists are being what they do,
the mechanics are doing what they do.
Happiness lies in finding the artist in ourselves,
and being that.
So it seems to me.
SCN
March 4, 2018
Ramana: All the activities that
the body is to go through are determined when it comes into existence. The only freedom
you have is to turn your mind inward, and renounce activities there.
Questioner: Are only the important events in a man’s
life predetermined, or are trifling acts also, such as taking a cup of water or moving from
one part of the room to another?
Ramana: Everything is predetermined.
Sri Ramana Maharshi
from
The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi by Arthur Osborne
February 25, 2018
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.
When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs
by minding other people’s business.
February 18, 2018
Choices have consequences.
SCN
February 11, 2018
I am aware that no man is a villain in his own eyes.
February 4, 2018
When you dance with the devil, the devil don’t change.
The devil changes you.
Attributed variously,
including the movie “Eight Millimeter”
January 28, 2018
I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles.
Henry David Thoreau
in “Walden” (Chapter 1)
January 21, 2018
Let there be light.
Bereishit – Genesis
January 14, 2018
Now here was a lesson. If you think that you or I have something, we cannot give. You must think of it as God’s–that only He can give. You are only the ladle, the leaf on which it is being given.
Dada Mukerjee
in By His Grace
sharing the wisdom of Neem Karoli Baba
January 7, 2018
If you give your life to God,
then it is no longer yours.
SCN
Please read our disclaimer.
For Copyright & Trademark information,
please click here.
