“The sky and the moon are waiting for your gaze. Their spaciousness invites us to a revolutionary perspective, the big view, the right now. To gaze at the sky and the moon is to leave the thinking, discursive, calculating, judging mind behind and to expand our awareness beyond the limited self to vast consciousness, of which we are an integral part. Stargazing and moongazing do not have to be an escape from the mundane; instead, they can be a way to grasp that the ordinary is also sublime when we become fully present to it.

The practice of gazing at the sky and the moon brings two important things into focus. First, it lets us embrace wholeness and unity, balancing out our personal, limited, and separate view of existence. British philosopher and Zen practitioner, Alan Watts, described this well when he said, “You are breathing. The wind is blowing. The trees are waving. Your nerves are tingling. The individual and the universe are inseparable, but the curious thing is, very few people are aware of it. Everything in nature depends on everything else. So it’s interconnected…When you look out of your eyes at nature happening out there, your looking at you.”

Donald Altman, in “One Minute Mindfulness”

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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.

“You have no reason to blame anyone for how you are treated, and yet most of you think that the problems you face and the treatment you receive is the result of other people’s lack of consideration. You have the inherent power to teach anyone how you want to be treated. When you simply sit back and accept being abused, you are responsible for permitting that abuse to be heaped on you.

I’ve noted that those people who refuse to be abused, insist on respectful treatment, and react swiftly and firmly when they are mistreated receive the respect that so many “blamers” never see in their lives.

Teach those around you through behavior not empty arguments, that you will tolerate nothing less than respect. This is never difficult for those who have self-respect, since a person with high self-esteem expects the same kind of treatment from others that they expect of themselves. Respect yourself, and you’ll receive respect. If you receive disrespect, look to yourself and ask that most important question, “Why have I allowed myself to be treated this way?” instead of “Why are they doing this to me again?”

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, in “Gifts from Eykis”

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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.

“You stupidly squander so much energy trying to rearrange the world. If changing the world is your vocation in life, go right ahead and change it, but do not harbor the illusion that this is going to make you happy. What makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the thinking in your head. As well as search for an eagle’s nest on the bed of an ocean, as search for happiness in the world outside of you.

So if it is happiness that you seek you can stop wasting your energy trying to cure your baldness, or build up an attractive body, or change your residence or job or community or lifestyle or even your personality. Do you realize that you could change every one of these things, you could have the finest looks and the most charming personality and the most pleasant of surroundings and still be unhappy?”

Fr. Anthony DeMello, S.J., in “The Way to Love”

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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.

“Once awakened, no thought goes unquestioned. Thoughts are recognized, when they cause suffering, to be lies; or at the very least, to be suspect until they are unraveled as a misunderstanding by a mind that can do nothing other than be offended. Thoughts are concepts and they produce an active mind. Even thoughts that contain seemingly altruistic ideas are still noisy thoughts. Simply attend a town meeting about how to obtain peace on Earth and you understand this point. Conversely, a deep sense of peace that arises from within is usually elicited by a feeling, not a thought, that comes from the source of life rather than from the ego. Again, a murderous thought is no different from a conceptual thought of universal brotherhood: busy mind or quiet mind is the choice.”

Lisette Larkins, in “Difficult People”

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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.

“The force that opposes determination is INERTIA. Inertia is not a static thing; it is a “dynamic force.” Like any force, it tends to magnify itself and gain momentum until or unless it is superseded by another force stronger than itself. If you jog every day, and then stop for a day, and then two days, and then three, the momentum of inertia will make it more and more difficult for you to re-initiate your practice. This is how we can get sidetracked from our dreams.

We slip into the undertow of inertia, and then forsake our commitment. It takes a strong will to buck inertia, but overcome it we must. When we refuse to be intimidated by unchosen habit, and we do just one act of our practice again, the momentum of the ‘practice’ will increase, and it will be easier and easier, and not harder and harder to continue.”

Alan Cohen in, “The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”

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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.