“The presence of the infinite is everywhere, but if you’re in darkness, you don’t see what is there. You don’t see it because you only see your own knowledge. You guide your creation through that dream, and when your knowledge can’t explain what is happening in your life, you feel threatened. What you know is what you want to know, and whatever threatens your knowledge makes you feel insecure. But the moment will come when you realize that knowledge is nothing but a description of a dream.

You are the unknowable. You are here just to be in this moment, in this dream. Being has nothing to do with knowledge. It’s not about understanding. You don’t need to understand. It’s not about learning. You are here to unlearn, and that’s it, until one day you realize you know nothing. You only know what you believe, what you learned, just to find out that it wasn’t the truth. Socrates, one of the greatest philosophers of all time, took his whole life to get to the point where he said, “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.”

Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz, in “The Fifth Agreement”

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Jeff Maziarek, author of Spirituality Simplified and Codi’s Journey, launched Pondercentral.com in April 2007 as a Web-based forum for “PONDER on THIS,” a series of weekday inspirational email messages he began sending to subscribers in March 1999. A FREE service since its inception, “PONDER on THIS” provides subscribers with meaningful content to assist them on their individual paths of spiritual growth. In addition, it benefits subscribers, authors, and publishers by including links to Amazon.com where subscribers can learn more about the book being quoted, and also purchase it.D

“What is the meaning of life?” Joseph Campbell was often asked, and he would respond, “There is no meaning. We bring the meaning to it.” Like Carl Jung, he saw the approach of old age, not as a mere diminution of life, but as a time of blooming. If we have filled up the beaker of life and allowed to catch fire everything that needs to be consumed, then the quiet of old age is welcome. If too much life remains unlived, we approach the threshold of old age with unsatisfied demands that turn our glances backward. As Jung said, “An old man who cannot bid farewell to life appears as feeble and sickly as a young man who is unable to embrace it.”

Joseph taught that we can choose to live in rapture, that is not “out there” in some other place or person, that we don’t have to go somewhere or have something or someone. “It is here. It is here. It is here.” A shift in consciousness is all it takes.”

Diane K. Osbon, in “Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion”

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Jeff Maziarek, author of Spirituality Simplified and Codi’s Journey, launched Pondercentral.com in April 2007 as a Web-based forum for “PONDER on THIS,” a series of weekday inspirational email messages he began sending to subscribers in March 1999. A FREE service since its inception, “PONDER on THIS” provides subscribers with meaningful content to assist them on their individual paths of spiritual growth. In addition, it benefits subscribers, authors, and publishers by including links to Amazon.com where subscribers can learn more about the book being quoted, and also purchase it.

“Instead of fighting problems, picture your way out of them. The picturing power of the mind turns your thinking from “I cannot have this” or “It will never happen to me” to hope, belief, and finally to the mental acceptance that “It can happen to me” and “It will happen to me.”

Generalities do not produce results, because they lack substance and power. Vague hopes and indefinite goals are not convincing to the mind, whereas a clear cut picture of the good we want activates people, places, and events to cooperate with our pictured desires.”

Catherine Ponder, in “Open Your Mind to Prosperity”

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Jeff Maziarek, author of Spirituality Simplified and Codi’s Journey, launched Pondercentral.com in April 2007 as a Web-based forum for “PONDER on THIS,” a series of weekday inspirational email messages he began sending to subscribers in March 1999. A FREE service since its inception, “PONDER on THIS” provides subscribers with meaningful content to assist them on their individual paths of spiritual growth. In addition, it benefits subscribers, authors, and publishers by including links to Amazon.com where subscribers can learn more about the book being quoted, and also purchase it.

“To give up our attachments and disconnect from our desires(I’m not saying desires are bad, in fact, I’m all for them; it’s our attachment to them that keeps us stuck and frustrated) to let go of our stories, and our pain, and our projections of what we think life out to be, is a relief.

Surrender is a choice. It’s a decision you make to release the interior garbage without expecting anything in return. You just let it go so you’re not bogged down by it anymore.

These troubles you’ve been carrying around, longer have to be your troubles. You can release them. In the beginning, after you decide to do this, you mind will kick in with its Emergency Alert System. This is your Ego fighting for its life, urging you to hold tight, keep working, try harder, and stay in control. It’s worried that if you surrender, you will lose sight of who you are, your ideas and drive, and desire. If you release your anxiety and worry, your Ego will say, it means you don’t care enough. This is hogwash. Surrender actually makes room for more positive action. It leaves you free from the weights of worry so you can do something proactive.”

Polly Campbell, in “Imperfect Spirituality”

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Jeff Maziarek, author of Spirituality Simplified and Codi’s Journey, launched Pondercentral.com in April 2007 as a Web-based forum for “PONDER on THIS,” a series of weekday inspirational email messages he began sending to subscribers in March 1999. A FREE service since its inception, “PONDER on THIS” provides subscribers with meaningful content to assist them on their individual paths of spiritual growth. In addition, it benefits subscribers, authors, and publishers by including links to Amazon.com where subscribers can learn more about the book being quoted, and also purchase it.

“Assuming you have something relatively solid and stable to settle yourself on (a planet will do), the basic requirements you need are: air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, a shelter to shield you from the elements, clothing to hide your naughty bits, company (invisible, i.e., spiritual or otherwise) as a reference to stop you from going nuts, and physical animal warmth, i.e., love, especially in your formative years (optional, but deprivation not highly recommended).

Whenever you find yourself in a tizz about not having enough material comfort in your life, run this checklist. If all points get a check, you’re doing fine, and may your perspective return swiftly. If any of the points get an x, you’d better get busy or you’ll die. It’s that simple.”

Stephen Russell, in “Barefoot Doctor’s Guide to the TAO”

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Jeff Maziarek, author of Spirituality Simplified and Codi’s Journey, launched Pondercentral.com in April 2007 as a Web-based forum for “PONDER on THIS,” a series of weekday inspirational email messages he began sending to subscribers in March 1999. A FREE service since its inception, “PONDER on THIS” provides subscribers with meaningful content to assist them on their individual paths of spiritual growth. In addition, it benefits subscribers, authors, and publishers by including links to Amazon.com where subscribers can learn more about the book being quoted, and also purchase it.