by Henry David Thoreau

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer’s premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on it — took everything but a deed of it — took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk — cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat? — better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, wood-lot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow, perchance, for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. (more…)

Our Joining (Their First Meeting)

by Ruth Norman

It was a matter of a few days after leaving the desert (taking a house trailer with me) that I met Ernest at a Spiritualist church, one I had never attended before and where a convention was being held. One of the choicest bits of phenomena to us pertained to the three spiritual white-robed, white-haired and bearded, ancient, learned Ones who, as Ernest said, carried about with them huge books. These Ancients (denoting great wisdom) were seen psychically with Ernest during several years prior to this by other clairvoyants who often told him these books represented those which he would one day write. Earlier that very evening, Ernest said, a ‘sensitive’ told him, “Whenever you are ready, now you can start to write the books.” Ernest replied, “I’m ready.”

The Moderator & Uriel 1968 to 1970 (Please watch on Vimeo)

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by Paramahansa Yogananda

Everything in the universe is composed of energy, or vibration. The vibration of words is, by extension, a grosser expression of the vibration of thoughts. The thoughts of all men are vibrating in the ether. Because thoughts have such a high vibratory rate, they have not yet been detected there, but it is fortunate that we do not know the thoughts of all men.

Through the instrumentality of radio, you can push a button and lo, you hear music and voices. If it were not for the intelligence in the ether, through which the radio waves travel to your receiving set, you might hear all the different broadcasts at once. God created the ether, and He planned that man would create radio and radio-wave vibrations which could be transmitted and received through this medium. Radio waves depend on the ether for transmission, and on electricity for amplification in broadcasting and receiving. The sounds of radio broadcasting are always present in the ether, but are inaudible to us without a radio instrument. The vibratory radio-waves represent thoughts that are being transmitted through space into any receiving set that is tuned in. (more…)

by Richard Bach

1. There was a Master come unto the earth, born in the holy land of Indiana, raised in the mystical hills east of Fort Wayne.

2. The Master learned of this world in the public schools of Indiana, and as he grew, in his trade as a mechanic of automobiles.

3. But the Master had learnings from other lands and other schools, from other lives that he had lived. He remembered these, and remembering became wise and strong, so that others saw his strength and came to him for counsel.

4. The Master believed that he had power to help himself and all mankind, and as he believed so it was for him, so that others saw his power and came to him to be healed of their troubles and their many diseases.

5. The Master believed that it is well for any man to think upon himself as a son of God, and as he believed, so it was, and the shops and garages where he worked became crowded and jammed with those who sought his learning and his touch, and the streets outside with those who longed only that the shadow of his passing might fall upon them, and change their lives. (more…)

by James Allen

“Why idly seek from outward things
The answer inward silence brings?
Why climb the far-off hills with pain,
A nearer view of heaven to gain?
In lowliest depths of bosky dells
The hermit Contemplation dwells,
Whence, piercing heaven, with screened sight,
He sees at noon the stars, whose light
Shall glorify the coming night.”
Whittier.

“In the still hour when passion is at rest
Gather up stores of wisdom in thy breast.”
Wordsworth.

Man’s essential being is inward, invisible, spiritual, and as such it derives its life, strength, from within, not from without. Outward things are channels through which its energies are expended, but for renewal it must fall back on the inward silence. (more…)

by Orison Swett Marden

Once when Emerson was in the company of men of affairs, who had been discussing railroads, stocks, and other business matters for some time, he said, “Gentlemen, now let us discuss real things for a while.”

Emerson was called “the dreamer of dreams,” because he had the prophetic vision that saw the world to be, the higher civilization to come. Tens of thousands of men and women stand today where he then stood almost alone.

Edison is a dreamer because he sees people half a century hence using and enjoying inventions, discoveries, and facilities which make the most advanced utilities of today seem very antiquated. His mind’s eye sees as curiosities in museums, fifty years hence, those mechanisms and devices which now seem so marvelous to us. Dreamers in this sense are true prophets. They see the civilization that will be, long before it arrives. (more…)

Translation by F. Max Muller

The Dhammapada is a collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures.

The Buddhist scholar and commentator Buddhaghosa explains that each saying recorded in the collection was made on a different occasion in response to a unique situation that had arisen in the life of the Buddha and his monastic community.

I. The Twin-Verses

1. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.
2. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. (more…)