This was recently read at a friends wedding. It echoes of Sufi and Buddhist teachings
and points to a commonality amongst the the major world religions.

The Lord’s Prayer
(Aramaic to English translation - rather than
Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English)

O Cosmic Birther of all radiance and vibration!
Soften the ground of our being and carve out
a space within us where Your Presence can abide.
Fill us with your creativity so that we may be
empowered to bear the fruit of Your mission.
Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance
with Your desire.
Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share
what each being needs to grow and flourish.
Untie the tangled threads of destiny that bind us,
as we release others from the entanglement of
past mistakes.
Do not let us be seduced by that which
would divert us from our true purpose,
but illuminate the opportunities of the present moment.
For You are the ground and the fruitful vision,
the birth power and fulfillment,
as all is gathered and made whole again.

Amen

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Sound when stretched is music.
Movement when stretched is dance.
Mind when stretched is meditation.
Life when stretched is celebration.

Shri Shri Ravishankar Jee

“Cadillacs, Coca-Cola and cocaine, presidents and psychopaths, Norman Rockwell and the Mob...the dream of America endlessly unravels it’s codes, like the helix of some ideological DNA.”

J.G. Ballard

We all came into this world gifted with innocence, but gradually, as we became more intelligent, we lost our innocence.
We were born with silence and as we grew up, we lost the silence and were filled with words.
We lived in our hearts and as time passed, we moved into our heads.
Now the reversal of this journey is enlightenment.
It is the journey from the head back to the heart, from words back to silence; getting back to our innocence in spite of our intelligence.
Although very simple, this is a great achievement.

Eckhart Tolle

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than their governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it.

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

"...it [conscription] rests on the assumption that your kids belong to the state. If we buy that assumption then it is for the state -- not for parents, the community, the religious institutions or teachers -- to decide who shall have what values and who shall do what work, when, where and how in our society. That assumption isn't a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great idea."

- Ronald Reagan, 1979

But peace can be made only by those who are peaceful,
and love can be shown only by those who love.
No work of love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart,
just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

- Alan Watts

And now as long as space endures
And as long as there are beings to be found
May I continue likewise to remain
To drive away the sorrows of the world

Shantideva – from “The Bodhisattva’s Way Of Life”

There will soon be no more priests.
Their work is done….Every man shall be his own priest.

– Walt Whitman


I ask you. Doesn't this next quote ring chillingly true today?


"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

- Mark Twain

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench; a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

- Hunter S. Thompson

"...we stand at the end of history, after centuries of genocide and atrocities beyond imagining; at a precipice of doom for all that lives on our fragile planetary surface. We must drop the pretenses and the self deceptions; we must rise to a heroic level together. We have made all life vulnerable to the impact of our ignorant prejudice, greed and hate. We must now take responsibility and turn it around as soon as possible."

-Robert Thurman- from “Circling The Sacred Mountain”