“Simplify, simplify, simplify. I can’t repeat it enough. Examine carefully how much of your life energy is used in pursuit of what you don’t want or need. Practice one day at a time, the idea of saying no to more. A very emphatic, “No, I will not pursue that item.” In place of pursuing more-is-better, spend time playing with your son or granddaughter…Go for a long walk along the riverfront rather than spend time trying to get ahead.

As you release the energy you previously applied to pursuing more, you free yourself up inside to experience the joy of being rather than the drudgery of always doing. This is freedom, the ability to choose to be rather than to accumulate. You will discover, as you practice simplifying, that many items that you previously chased after, including money, will begin to show up in your life without pursuing them. This is one of the great ironies of life. Less is more!”

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, in “Your Sacred Self”

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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.</p

“Nothing will ever remove all mystery. But I believe at least part of the answer to these questions can be found in the Latin derivation of the very word “conscious,” con-scire, which literally means to “to know with.” What a strange derivation! To know with? To know with what? I suggest that the answer is to know with God. I have said that psychological disorders primarily have their root in consciousness rather than in our unconscious, that “nasty” material is contained in our unconscious only because our conscious mind refuses to deal with it.

If we can deal with this unpleasant stuff, then our unconscious mind offers an absolute garden of delights through we which we are connected to God. In other words, I believe that God reveals Herself to us through our unconscious if we are willing to be open to it, and become conscious of its wisdom.”

M. Scott Peck, M.D., in “The Road Less Traveled and Beyond”

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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.

“When faced with situations that seem threatening or even tragic, our human tendency is to allow the flow of appearances to get us involved in a negative way.  But the solution to a problem is never to be found on the level of the problem. The only way out is up. Up…Up in consciousness, in thought and feeling, to the level where Spirit dwells, to the level of Divine Order.”

Richard and Mary Alice Jafolla, in “The Quest”

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“Everything in this world has a hidden meaning. People, animals, trees, stars, are all hieroglyphics. We think they are really only people, animals, trees, stars. It is only years later that some of us understand.”

Nikos Kazantakis

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.

“Here are some ways in which people unconsciously try to emphasize their form-identity. If you are alert enough, you may be able to detect some unconscious patterns within yourself: demanding recognition for something you did and getting angry or upset if you don’t get it; trying to get attention by taking about your problems, the story of your illnesses, or making a scene; giving your opinion when nobody has asked for it and it makes no difference to the situation; being more concerned with how the other person sees you than with the other person, which is to say, using other people for egoic reflection or as ego enhancers; trying to make an impression on others through possessions, knowledge, good looks, status, physical strength, and so on; bringing about temporary ego inflation through angry reaction against something or someone; taking things personally, feeling offended; making yourself right and others wrong through futile mental or verbal complaining; wanting to be seen, or to appear important.

Once you have detected such a pattern within yourself, I suggest you conduct an experiment. Find out what it feels like and what happens if you let go of that pattern. Just drop it and see what happens. De-emphasizing who you are on the level of form is another way of generating consciousness. Discover the enormous power that flows through you into the world when you stop emphasizing your form identity.”

Eckhart Tolle, in “A New Earth”

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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.

“When we cannot live with failure, we limit the intimacy in our lives. People do not tell stories of failure to those who have room in their hearts for only perfection. Tell me a story of failure in your life, a time when you made a mistake. Tell it with compassion for the child or man or woman you were. Tell it with ruthless honesty and gentle acceptance. We do not avoid shame by hiding mistakes. The shame just becomes buried within us.

Shame releases its paralyzing grip on us when we take responsibility for our mistakes and the sometimes serious consequences those mistakes can have for ourselves and others. In this way shame can be our ally, pointing to things we have not accepted about ourselves, guiding us to mistakes we have not acknowledged. Accepting our failings means accepting where we have hurt others, or ourselves, and making retribution for these injuries where it is possible.”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer, in “The Invitation”

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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.