"[Y]ou can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
-- Stanford University commencement address, June 2005.
"Kindness is our greatest asset".
An excerpt from the speech given by Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg, at the Norwegian National Remembrance Day ceremony 21st August 2011 – in loving memory of all who died on 22nd July 2011
"It was better that I died trying than that I did not attempt to save her"
I wonder what kind of world we could have if we could only have some of this young man's sacrificial and determined compassion.
Full story in Norwegian here:
http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/08/01/nyheter/utoya/terror/innenriks/terrorisme/17519239/
When we are able to look beyond the pain and grief of the tragedy at Utoya, to take a transcendental spiritual view, we see that all those at the island had some common motivation and inspiration.
They were there, in their compassionate lovingness, because they had the desire to improve Norway, improve the world. To use part or all of their life to make it a better place, create a greater sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, and felt that politics was a pathway to achieve this desire. They wanted to show us the value of every human being for that is what a desire to make the world better means.
When we look at the reactions in Norway and the world in these last 6 days, who amongst us is not left with the deep sense that they have changed Norway and the world?
As Ghandi, Mandella and many more have done with their lives.
As Islam Kardekov did in Beslan.
As Christ did.As the Buddha did. As Mohammed did.
"You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?" Kahlil Gibran
We do not know their soul's agenda. But we can know something of their lovingness that caused them to be in that place at that time.
gg
"I have found there is a place in myself that I can enter……..and there I find outbreaks of happiness for no reason.
I had never been there before and did not even know that place existed"
Bjorn Brunstad.
"After the Farhud, life changed drastically for the city's Jews. Up to that point Haddad had had many Muslim friends.
"Suddenly I changed my attitude. I didn't feel any more Iraqi. I felt I'm a Jew and I vowed that I wanted to kill an Arab," he says.
One day, swimming in the River Tigris, he encountered a drowning man, and instinctively helped him to the shore.
"When I came home I was shook up. Not because I saved the guy but because I didn't follow my vow to kill an Arab. And when I went to see the rabbi, he said, 'You can't make a vow to kill. You can only make a vow to help.'
"That's what stimulated me to go into medicine, actually. I knew that I want to save lives, not to kill people."
The mind is so used to trying to solve problems that to actually not have a problem, to just sit and be okay with what is exactly as it is, feels weird and uncomfortable to it... so it looks for (and always manages to find, have you noticed?) something to worry about just to give it something "to do."
Benjamin Smythe
"There are many in this world who have devoted much energy and time to the study of religion, comparative religion and even philosophy. They are immersed in the nuances of academia and are walking libraries of centuries of other people's thoughts. This is their pleasure.
There are others who have very simply studied love and have reached an awareness of what unconditional love actually is. Usually, but not exclusively, this dawning of awareness of their inner loving self has been signposted by the actions of some small child. For these, love is not simply their joy, it is the meaning of their life and it manifests in tolerance, kindness, compassion."
gg
