1
I do not ask you to believe in me. I do not ask you to love me. I do not command you to fear. I but ask you to think, to feel, to see, and to imagine. To walk. To laugh. To cry. To strive and to help.
2
What is more important? To know God or to know a child?
3
You have sought out God long. You have written Him. And it is said: that He has written you. That he has sent His Son and His Prophets. And yet, you have murdered in His Name. You have spilled the blood of His Creation. You have killed His sons and His daughters and His children. You have desecrated His lands and poured evil into His oceans. You have darkened His air and slaughtered His flocks. And yet what have you wrought with all this but the painful silence of God?
4
The worm changes the ground. The fish the sea. The bird the sky. And Man the Earth. Yet, each, in his own way, thought before he moved. And so it is with Creation perhaps: a mysterious Thought turned into World.
5
God, if He is there, has chosen to hide. You, however, must not hide your face from the Creation. It is there calling to you like a lover. It is the only thing of God that you will ever hope to embrace.
6
You will not find peace amongst the stars nor salvation. Those things are only to be found in the human heart.
7
Evil and destruction are a failure of intelligence, imagination, and, above all, courage
8
You say you are a Jew, a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist, an Atheist. But who among you will say that I am a human being amongst human beings first and above all?
9
Take care of creation. In this you will surely approach God whether He is waiting for you or not
10
You say: I will live in one way if there is a God and in another way if there is not. Error. If you follow the dark, you will be swallowed up within it and everything else with you. If you follow the light you will find what you seek and what you most desire. The Name of It is not important. What is important is that it is here waiting for each one of us. It is inside of us; not in the stars, not in our pride, not in our science.
11
The Good increases life, strengthens it. Evil weakens and removes it. If there is a God, this is His Holiest of messages.
12
Do not mistake pain for punishment. It is only a symptom of temporary ignorance.
13
If you murder the murderer in what way are you better than he? Seek to understand the causes of what we call evil. Contain it. Tame it. Teach it. Cure it. All evil is the result of ignorance both by those who commit it and those who suffer it. Seek out knowledge and there you shall find the greatest love.
14
Do you think that God stands still? He is as the rushing water and the strongest of winds. He has His seasons as do the Northern trees. Be prepared to accept His newest fruit to save His Garden. Do not harden your hearts to change, for e’en thus, you shall break the Heart of the World.
15
Do not fear knowledge itself. Fear, instead, the knowledge that is without pity, mercy, or love
16
And if you were to gain the Cosmos without love, what would you have won?
17
Evil is the particular History of Ignorance. The more you shalt truly know, the more you will understand that Joy is the true path to God. Investigate the world, while always questioning the heart.
18
What shall you have gained if you were to live a thousand years with the coldest of hearts?
19
Science must always be but the handmaiden to the Soul
20
Many of you have said unto me: I await the Messiah. I say unto you. The Messiah sleeps within each and every one of you. Open your hearts and, behold, He will come.
21
If you slaughter the Jew, if you slander the Christian, if you mock the Muslim; what is it that you have accomplished? You have only dishonored yourself and Your God and are no nearer to Him.
22
I do not say: Abandon Jesus, Turn away from Mohamed, or cease to honor Moses and Abraham. No. I say: see them as special messengers of the One. But do not thereby cease to be open to the deeper secrets of their Message. For God is the Tree of Life; there shall always be new branches.
23
Do not mistake the Masks of God; for God
24
Fear not a New Spring; but rather those that cling to an ancient miserable dark Winter
25
I do not say: Believe only in Man or, even worse, only in yourselves. That would be sheer folly. Time, space, and matter preceded you and, perhaps, even a God before That. I say: you will never know all there is to know. You will never achieve certainty, only the appearance of it. What is most valuable then, is not knowledge by itself but wisdom. And wisdom can only be achieved through a combination of humility, kindness, and a special kind of love for the world.
26
You will find God in helping the Children
27
The Garden of Eden lies not in the past. Believe and you shall enter
28
Pride is the enemy of the future, humility its key
29
Kindness is the surest way to love, true love, available every day just outside your door
30
A civilization that chooses the body over the soul shall eventually have neither
31
God is in the search
32
Love the World and its People if you truly wish to honor God
33
You wish to reach the stars? You will not reach them without a shining heart
34
The daughters of Israel are beautiful. The daughters of Islam are beautiful. The daughters of Christ are beautiful. Think on this before you raise your hand in anger.
35
Contemplate a tree. See, how beautiful. Then concentrate on one of its leaves. Its colors. Its structures. How wonderful! Then go deeper. Imagine what we think we know: its molecules, its atoms, its sub-atomic particles: how strange it seems to us, no? Then think in reverse. Think of the tree and its relationship to the air, the earth, the water, and the sun. And then the sun’s more distant relationship to space, to time, the planets, the galaxy and far beyond. Think on this. Now you are that much closer to God.
36
Why are you here? You do not truly know. Your life is a wager. If you are here for a reason, You shall not know it. If you are here for no reason, You shall not know it. So, as the great Pascal once said: Now place your bet. Evil or good: the choice is yours. However, the exact consequences are not.
37
You suffer evil and ask why God has abandoned you. You ask well. Evil is the divine call to Man: You have need of each other. You cannot stand alone. Help the one and you shall begin to help all.
38
Man cannot reach the stars alone. As he cannot reach love alone. Think on this.
39
The world is in the plural. There is no singular.
40
A powerful man can move mountains. A more powerful man can move you to move others. The most powerful man,however, can move your thoughts and reach your heart opening your eyes to what is the very best within you.
41
When you choose to destroy. You choose to remove an irreplaceable part of the Mystery. In this is all sin and all knowledge.
42
Blessed are the creators for they are the true servants of God
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43
Pain and suffering are lessons. Learn them well. Evolve.
44
Do you hate your neighbor for he or she is different than you? The most beautiful gardens have many kinds of flowers.
45
And Abraham heard the voice of God. And Moses. And Jesus. And Mohamed. Do you think there is nothing left to hear?
46
God is always speaking. We, not always, listening.
47
If you increase joy in the world by even a little you have now become one of the blessed of the earth
48
The prophets spoke truly when they said: that neither riches, nor power, nor knowledge will save you. Only the courage to love.
49
Technology shall be a beast that shall destroy you if you do not place a faithful heart within it
50
Do not think that all is but atoms and the void. Think instead: this is what I think I know. And then?
51
Why do we thirst for God if there is nothing to drink?
52
Evolution are pages in a book that you shall open only at the end
53
A civilization that has lost its sense of the divine has lost all its senses
54
Do not mistake power for knowledge. And do not mistake knowledge for wisdom. And do not mistake your wisdom for God.
55
And God rightly feared that “they shall become as gods”. As gods. As.
56
The child within you is God
57
Forgive and know.
58
Hate is great. Love greater. And yet there is another kind of understanding that surpasseth both.
59
If you seek to kill in the Name of God you are simply using the Name of God as your own.
60
If hate is in your heart that is all that you will see. If love is in your heart you may see more. But if wisdom is in your heart the world will begin to gently open surpassing both.
61
We do not know if God sees all or if He judges. Exactly. We do not know. Are you willing to take the risk?
62
God is like a coy young virgin. So lovely. So shy. So playful. So mysterious
63
It is easier to die for something than to live for it
64
Love is not enough. Learn the ways of caring now
65
All children are your children. Give them something to carry.
66
Are you willing to kill a child for what you believe? If so, you are lost.
67
What is truer? Kindness or freedom?
68
Jesus hath said: love thy neighbor as thy self. I say: understand him, help him.
69
Love is an energy that does not work so easily at a distance. That is why Understanding is as the rays of the Sun penetrating far into the dark.
70
Feeling will lead you to God. But only thinking with feeling will save the Earth
71
And what of the animals? We do not know them. Like we do not know God
72
We are not the shepherds of existence; we are its questioners
73
Do not fear science, but do not worship it also
74
You will make of your brother and of your sister a pair of hands to do thy bidding? Learn to work from the heart to nourish the mind.
75
God is in our minds just as much as He is in our hearts
76
Deep thoughts and kind hearts honor God most
77
No prophet is the last for the prophecy is Eternal
78
You will wage war for God? Pray. Write. Sing.
79
Do you presume that any man could perfectly understand God and His message? Then you have presumed too much
80
If the World hates in the Name of God do you think you are pronouncing His Name correctly?
81
All men carry God in their hearts. It is only that, from time to time, they must be reminded
82
A civilization that worships only itself shall find nothing but emptiness and destruction
83
Sacredness is a dimension that is real. If you watch closely you will see that animals inhabit it. Trees. The very dirt underneath your feet. Learn to see without eyes to truly see.
84
Man is an animal. At his worst, a beast. If he should ever think himself a God he will find that he is the worst of devils standing before the gates of damnation that he himself will have created.
85
Respect he who you do not know, invite him to the table
86
And you say: I am of this nation, of this tribe, of this family, of this faith. What you say is the poison of the past. Say now instead: I am of this planet, of this life, of this God Unknowable.
87
Was Jesus the Son of God? Yes. As are we all, if we are willing to sacrifice for the good of life
88
Honor thy father and thy mother and when they err speak to them gently and so be honored
89
Life is the Child of God
90
Death is transformation. It is not the end.
91
You shalt not die. But live in a million different ways that are beyond your understanding
92
You fear death? Did you fear birth? There will be yet many doors. And you shall pass through them all
93
Do you believe in yourself? Then you believe in very little. For truly hath God spoken to Job and said: Open your eyes, this Cosmos
94
I offer you a simple faith: not based on fear, or ignorance, or punishment, or blind trust. A faith that is logical, evidentiary, practical, and sustainable. As the great Wittgenstein hath said: That there is anything at all is the great mystery. Ponder this. And live.
95
By the level of abuse of God’s creation do we know our own level of civilization and/or barbarity.
96
God will sometimes manifest itself in dream. Listen carefully.
97
Which do you hold more sacred: the Holy Words or Holiness itself?
98
If you will truly know goodness then prepare to suffer
99
Even the worst suffering may contain the seeds of love, if you have the courage to look for them
100
Man must draw and then sheath the Knife, climb the Mountain and learn the Law, ascend and descend from the Cross, and withdraw into the Holy Cave to receive the Holy Words; again and again until the end of Time.
Once upon a time there was a poor starving man who came upon a big beautiful house. The starving man looked longingly at the house and became mesmerized by its three exquisite front doors. Every day a mysterious beautiful young woman would open and close each of the doors in front of him and in the evening disappear into the house. Each of the three doors was sublime but none equaled the sublimity and grace of the young woman. The poor man thought long on this.
The three doors are Judaism, Christianity and Islam
The beautiful young woman is God
The sublime house is the future of Mankind, should we have the courage to choose to leave behind the front doors of our past.
Dan Corjescu teaches at the University of Tübingen’s “Studium Professionale” Program
