truth

May 2004 (Vol. XVII, No. 5)

Blessed be, dear friends! Would that we each knew the amazing deep Truth of who we are and who we are called to be. We usually see but glimpses. Truth is with us. Truth is within us. May we prepare our hearts, souls, and mids to welcome Truth, to receive the Truth of our Being, moment by moment, day by day. Silent be and let the Truth set you free!

Truth is knowing we are integral to the Whole

Robert Browning Paracelsus
TRUTH: knowing we are integral to the Whole. Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all Where truth abides in fullness; and around Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception — which is truth. A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Blinds it, and makes all error, and, to KNOW Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without.

Let truth be done in silence

Caroline Fox
Let truth be done in silence "till it is forced to speak," and then should it only whisper; all those whom it may concern will hear.

True integrity grows from awareness

Doris Klein Journey of the Soul
True integrity grows from an awareness that we can stand in the honest light of God's unconditional love and be seen in our truth. Integrity, like a muscle, needs to be worked and stretched. As we sit in the center of integrity, our heart and God's heart beat as one. The transparent light of truth filters through, embracing every cell of our being, and we are able to see and speak more clearly. Then, little by little, as the layers of lies and pretending are stripped aside, a genuine simplicity remains. Freed of grandiosity and illusion, we stand radiant and unencumbered in truth as we claim our own voice with which we dare speak our truth and live with integrity.

Trutyh without compassion is not really truth

D.R. Riso, R. Hudson The Wisdom of the Enneagram

Compassion is an aspect of Divine love that melts all defenses and resistance when anyone's suffering is really seen. There is nothing the personality can do to create compassion, but when we are willing to be completely open and truthful about whatever we are truly feeling, it arises naturally and soothes our hurt. (We could say that truth without compassion is not really truth, and that compassion without truth is not really compassion.) The Divine love that seeks to express itself in the world through us is a powerful force that can break through all of the old barriers and untruths that have accumulated in us.

To speak the truth through our words

John P. Cock Our Universal Spirit Journey
To speak the truth through our words and through our lives is the obligation that authenticates spirituality in us humans. Spirituality is mysterious, but this we do know: spirituality is the way wherein we will experience vitality, truth, and transformation.

Luminous is the word of Truth

Nan Merrill Lumen Christi . . . Holy Wisdom
Luminous is the word of Truth; like a laser beam, it cuts through ignorance and illusion. Lives filled with lies lead to pain and suffering; the face reveals but a mask hiding shame and deception. About face! Listen and know! Blessed are those who choose the Truth. The path is made straight, the spirit freed to soar.

My life is rooted in the truth of my spiritual identity

Henri Nouwen

Prayer is listening to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. It is to constantly go back to the Truth of who we are and claim it for ourselves. I'm not what I do. I'm not what people say about me. I'm not what I have. My life is not rooted in the world, the things the world gives me. My life is rooted in the truth of my spiritual identity. Whatever we do — we have to go back regularly to that place of core identity.

Truth and morning

Ethiopian proverb
Truth and morning become light with time.

Transformation towards truth is something else

Jennifer Lash On Pilgrimage

It is not enough to seek and care; to pay lip service to all manner of ideals. Real witness is what counts. It is something to do with leaps in the dark. Recognizing that Truth is hidden. But transformation towards truth is something else. It is practice and diligence.

You have a spiritual malbox

K. Martin-Kuri A Message for Humanity
An image to ponder: You have a spiritual mailbox and perhaps have been unable to live your truth. Each time this occurs, the number on your mailbox changes, causing the spiritual blessings addressed to you to be undeliverable. God does not reroute blessings if you are the cause of the interference. However, if you remain true to yourself, the heavens can find you even if the outer world seems not to approve of who you are. Always choose to be truthful in the highest sense — and you will find that goodness and inner beauty will accompany you along the way.

Truth is like a many sided diamond

Eileen Caddy Footprints on the Path
Seek within and you will find the answer. Truth is like a many sided diamond: every side belongs to the whole but it all depends where you are as to just how you view it. Every soul views Truth from different angles. There is a time along the pathway of every soul when it has to stand alone and find the I Am within without help or guidance or support from any one else.

The truth that I hold deeply on the inside

Rosa Parks
I will no longer act on the outside in a way that contradicts the truth that I hold deeply on the inside. I will no longer act as if I were less than the whole person I know myself to be.

Silence and truth

Myrtle Fillmore
Silence is a kind of stillness, a place of retreat into which we may enter and, having entered, may know the Truth.

The three steps of truth

Bernard of Clairvaux Bernard of Clairvaux

These are the three steps of truth. We climb to the first by the toil of humility, to the second by the deep feelings of compassion, and to the third by the ecstasy of contemplation. On the first step we experience the severity of truth, on the second its tenderness, on the third its purity. Reason brings us to the first as we judge ourselves; compassion brings us to the second when we have mercy on others; on the third the purity of truth sweeps us up to the sight of things invisible.

It is impossible to better the truth

Laurens van der Post
One of the most pathetic things about us human beings is our touching belief that there are times when the truth is not good enough for us; that it can and must be improved upon. We have to be utterly broken before we can realize that it is impossible to better the truth. It is the truth that we deny which so tenderly and forgivingly picks up the fragments and puts them together again.

The only safe ground

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.

The great ocean of truth

Isaac Newton
I seem to have been only like a child playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

The movement of God's Spirit is very gentle

The movement of God's Spirit is very gentle, very soft -- and hidden. It does not seek attention. But that movement is also very persistent, strong and deep. It changes our hearts radically. The faithful discipline of prayers reveals to you that you are the blessed one and gives you the power to bless others.

My faith is tested many times a day

I believe that Spirit is one and is everywhere present. That it never leaves me. That in my ignorance I may withdraw from it, but I can realize its presence the instant I return to my senses... My faith is tested many times a day, and more times than I'd like to confess, I'm unable to keep the banner for faith aloft... I begin to doubt God and God's love. I fall so miserably into the chasm of disbelief that I cry out in despair. Then the Spirit lifts me up again, and once more I am secured in faith. I don't know how it happens, save when I cry out earnestly I am answered immediately and am returned to faithfulness. I am once again filled with Spirit and firmly planted on solid ground.

Stand firm in what you yourself believe

Stand firm in what you yourself believe. Hold to your own conviction of the Truth above any other source... The truth that is YOUR truth is written on the scrolls of your heart, for there too abides the Living God. Seek only to LIVE that truth, to hold your own light high so that those who grope in darkness may see, and to tread the path that you believe your life has set before you. If you remain true to yourself, if you believe in the right, and if you place your hand into the hand of God, then no evil, no lasting sorrow, and no permanent pain will ever befall you.

Open-eyed trust

To be in harmony does not mean that upheaval and upset don't occur, but that their very occurrence is used, fully used, as a gift of purification that leaves one in a deeper harmony with the dictates of one's core of being. Implicit in this is trust, open-eyed trust... True trust obeys no moral code, however archaistic. It is but the unexploitable, awakened faith of one who has left the promises of the mind for the already-present glory of their heartland. It is a joy, a fertile brilliance, a holy renewal, a yes that has room for every no, a yes both paradoxical and devastatingly simple, a yes wherein the elements dance and die, a yes aflame with the transcendence of blame, a yes already alive in you.

The knowledge of the holy

Only the Spirit of the Holy One can impart to the human spirit the knowledge of the holy. Yet as electric power flows only through a conductor, so the Spirit flows through Truth and must find some measure of Truth in the mind before It can illuminate the heart. Faith wakes at the voice of truth but responds to no other sound... Still, there must be humble penitence in the heart before Truth can produce faith.

Faith is the prayer of words unsaid

Faith is the prayer of words unsaid,
The tear that falls upon the bed.
Faith is the hope of one "Amen",
The will that trusts and tries again.
Faith is the day made fresh and new
When evening draught absorbs the dew.
Faith is the thought that lifts to bless
The One beyond the arms' caress.
Faith is the sky that leaves its gray
To welcome in a sunny day.
Faith, in a moment, dares the thing
The heart petitions God to bring.

Agape is the love that consumes

Agape is the love that consumes ... in one form: enthusiasm. For the ancients, enthusiasm meant trance, or ecstasy -- a connection with God. Enthusiasm is agape directed at a particular idea or a specific thing. We have all experienced it. When we love and believe from the bottom of our heart, we feel ourselves to be stronger than anyone in the world, and we feel a serenity that is based on certainty that nothing can shake our faith. This unusual strength allows us always to make the right decision at the right time, and when we achieve our goal, we are amazed at our own capabilities... We blame the world for our boredom and for our losses, and we forget that it was we ourselves who allowed this enchanting power to diminish -- the manifestation of agape in the form of enthusiasm.

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