Reflection, Renewal & Rebirth

Soul Café

Reflection, Renewal and Rebirth:

The New 3R's

In the depths of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Kahlil Gibran

"Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again." 

Henry David Thoreau

  

God!  Refresh and gladden my spirit.  Purify my heart.  Illumine my powers.  I lay all my affairs in Thy hand.  Thou art my Guide and my Refuge.  I will no longer be sorrowful and grieved; I will be a happy and joyful being.  O God!  I will no longer be full of anxiety, nor will I let trouble harass me.  I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life.  O God!  Thou art more friend to me than I am to myself.  I dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

Never yet was a springtime, when the buds forgot to bloom.

—Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

"Earth teach me to forget myself as melted snow forgets its life. Earth teach me resignation as the leaves which die in the fall. Earth teach me courage as the tree which stands all alone. Earth teach me regeneration as the seed which rises in the spring. "


-- William Alexander

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."


Anne Bradstreet

"O friends! It behoveth you to refresh and revive your souls through the gracious favors which in this Divine, this soul-stirring Springtime are being showered upon you."

– Baha’i Writings

An optimist is the human personification of spring.


Susan J. Bissonette

“If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?

–       Baha’i Writings

o  The soul has been given its own ears to hear things the mind does not understand.”

o  Let the beauty we love be what we do

o  Be with those who help your being .

o  You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.

o  Respond to every call that excites your spirit.

o  Your task is not to seek love but merely to find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

o  When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

-Rumi

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

– Corinthians 4:16

The divine religions are like the progression of the seasons of the year. When the earth becomes dead and desolate and because of frost and cold no trace of vanished spring remains, the springtime dawns again and clothes everything with a new garment of life.

– Baha’i Writings

Try dying every day to your old self . . . So that you emerge renewed and young again as the tired mind sheds its load . . . 

Kristin Zambucka

Try to rise to the occasion. Be the most wonderful expression of you that you're capable of. This step makes you a conduit of God's love.

-Marianne Williamson

Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.

–      Alice Walker

1. Recognize your Creator. Think on this: There is a supreme power in the universe that is bigger and more powerful than your small mortal self. This step makes you humble.

2. Seek opportunities to put more love into the world. Strive to be a vessel of love, to fill the world with more compassion and kindness. This step makes you loving and lovable.

3. Set aside time each day to spend in spiritual reflection and contemplation. Dwell in the presence of the divine: Your path may be to pray, meditate, read spiritual material, take a long walk through nature—or all of the above—but an optimum practice includes both morning and evening sessions of at least 20 minutes each. This step makes you strong.

4. Become more accepting. With every interaction, surrender any tendency to judge another person. Pray for a more accepting heart. This step makes you gracious.

5. Forgive anyone you have not forgiven. Whenever you withhold forgiveness, you keep yourself bound to your own feelings of guilt. This step makes you kind.

6. Recognize your mistakes. Admit where you yourself have been wrong, and be willing to be corrected. This step makes you responsible.

7. Try to see the good in others. When you're tempted to judge someone, make an effort to see their goodness. Your willingness to look for the best in people will subconsciously bring it forth. This step makes you positive.

8. Take stock of your thoughts and behavior. Each night ask yourself, when were you negative when you could have been positive? When did you withhold love when you might have given it? When did you play a neurotic game instead of behaving in a powerful way? Use this process to self-correct. This step makes you grow.

9. Bless the world. Pray not just that your own life will be blessed but that blessings be poured on everyone. This step makes you beautiful.

10. Use each interaction to be the best, most

-M. Williamson

The divine Prophets are as the coming of spring, each renewing and quickening the teachings of the Prophet Who came before Him. Just as all seasons of spring are essentially one as to newness of life, vernal showers and beauty, so the essence of the mission and accomplishment of all the Prophets is one and the same. Now the people of religion have lost sight of the essential reality of the spiritual springtime. They have held tenaciously to ancestral forms and imitations, and because of this there is variance, strife and altercation among them. Therefore, we must now abandon these imitations and seek the foundation of the divine teachings; and inasmuch as the foundation is one reality, the divergent religionists must agree in it so that love and unity will be established among all people and denominations.

– Baha’i Writing 

Each morning we are born again.  What we do today is what matters most. 

Buddha

  

...There is no better means of attainment to the spiritual life
than by continually beginning again... 

Saint Francis de Sales

When the Sun of Reality returns to quicken the world of mankind a divine bounty descends from the heaven of generosity. The realm of thoughts and ideals is set in motion and blessed with new life. Minds are developed, hopes brighten, aspirations become spiritual, the virtues of the human world appear with freshened power of growth and the image and likeness of God become visible in man. It is the springtime of the inner world.

– Baha’i Writings

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt, crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, 
tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely,
with too high a spirit to be cumbered 
with your old nonsense. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Without nourishing our own souls, we can't nourish the world, for we cannot give what we do not have.  As we attend to our souls, we emanate invisibly and involuntarily the light we have received. 

Marianne Williamson

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

– Buddha

May you become as growing plants. May the trees of your hearts bring forth new leaves and variegated blossoms. May ideal fruits appear from them in order that the world of humanity, which has grown and developed in material civilization, may be quickened in the bringing forth of spiritual ideals.

–       Baha’i Writings

Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.  We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops. 

Maya Angelou

True salvation is freedom from negativity.

~ Ekhart Tolle

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Albert Einstein

… sow the seeds of wisdom and knowledge in the pure soil of the heart, and keep them hidden, till the hyacinths of divine wisdom spring from the heart and not from mire and clay.

– Baha’i Writings

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

--Leo Tolstoy

Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.

– Buddha

Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness,

A joy to the sorrowful,

a sea for the thirsty,

a haven for the distressed,

an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression.

-Baha’i Writings

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
 and they can become your blessings.

Author Unknown

The more difficulties one sees in the world the more perfect one becomes. The more you plough and dig the ground the more fertile it becomes. The more you cut the branches of a tree the higher and stronger it grows. The more you put the gold in the fire the purer it becomes.

– Abdu’l-Baha

And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

- Khalil Gibran 


"There is nothing we have been through, or seen, or done, that cannot be used to make our lives more valuable now. We can grow from any experience, and we can transcend any experience."

– M. Williamson

...Tests are benefits from God, for which we should thank Him. Grief and sorrow do not come to us by chance, they are sent to us by the Divine Mercy for our own perfecting.

-Baha’i Writings

” I have lived large parts of my life in wonderful circumstances that I utterly failed to appreciate. Reasons to be happy were everywhere, but somehow I didn’t connect with them. It was as though I was eating but couldn’t taste the food. Finally, I’ve learned to celebrate the good while it’s happening. I feel gratitude and praise today for what are sometimes such simple pleasures. I have learned that happiness is not determined by circumstances. Happiness is not what happens when everything goes the way you think it should go: happiness is what happens when you decide to be happy.”  

                                    -Marianne Williamson

"Wake at dawn with a winged heart
and give thanks for another day of loving."


-        Khalil Gibran 


The earth is in motion and growth; the mountains, hills and prairies are green and pleasant; the bounty is overflowing; the mercy universal; the rain is descending from the cloud of mercy; the brilliant Sun is shining; the full moon is ornamenting the horizon of ether; the great ocean-tide is flooding every little stream; the gifts are successive…

– Baha’i Writings

"Earth teach me to forget myself as melted snow forgets its life. Earth teach me resignation as the leaves which die in the fall. Earth teach me courage as the tree which stands all alone. Earth teach me regeneration as the seed which rises in the spring. "


-- William Alexander