Love? No Thanks!

Being well-aware of the fact that I might currently be inclined to some bitterness in matters of Love I'm still going to put this out there.

There. is. no. such. thing. as. Life-long. Love.

Yup, that's my claim! You cannot 'just' love someone for a lifetime...!

OK, OK, chill your beans! I'm not saying you're not going to stay with your Mr./Mrs. Right for the rest of your life! ;) I'm just saying that a life-long commitment has not got that much to do with Love.

I mean it! Love is (and should be!) the 'side-effect' of Respect, Understanding, Friendship, Kindness and Communication (- of which 3/4 should be Listening!). If Love comes First then you're probably going to experience some trouble either early on in the relationship or after 10 years of trying to figure out the balance of all that other (more important!) stuff, the giving/taking, lifting/leaning, talking/listening... and, you'll figure out that thing called Love isn't at all what it's made out to be... If your lucky you manage to sort things out, put them in order but it's quite likely that it's all too messed up, too much out of balance for you to balance the scale right...

Love doesn't make the world go round.

On the other hand...you might already have known this...?! :) I think I have too, but it's taken me 'til now to put it into context...

The only exeption to this 'rule' is the Love between a Parent and a Child. Those little people you just Love, Love and Love...with all your heart! In that instance the Respect, Understanding, Kindness and Compassionate Communication comes out of Love. With grown-ups it works the other way...!

A parent cannot (or, shouldn't) 'just' Love their grown-up child either. When children grow up you need to readjust the 'Love-setting' to 'less'...and you treat them like the grown-ups they are. :)

I've given up on Love. I have!

I don't want it anymore. I deserve better than that. 

I hope to find, to be deserving of, a life-long friend, a confidant, an equal, whom I can talk to and who will listen...  rather than the complicated mess that love brings. If love happens to happen, eventually, then alright... I realise I might not be immune to...the infatuation of love... but I don't wish, hope or pray for it, neither for me or for anyone else...
Except! When it comes to Self-Love! (but that's a different post! ;))

Always coping...

Is that a bad thing...? I think it is and it isn't... Just like with me being 'too kind'... It's a good thing...and it isn't...

I'm trying, I want to surrender...to trust that things are going just the way they're supposed to...just like I believe that they are...! (not sure if that made any sense to anyone else but me!)

What I mean is... I know things are going, happening, occuring for a reason, a purpose bigger than myself and they are not always (rarely?) about me but about being a part of this 'web of life' (sounds a bit cheesy but I can't find a better word right now) that we're all a part of. I believe in a sort of ripple effect...that every action has a reaction - cause and effect - falling, stumbling, hurting to learn, grow, evolve... know what I mean??

The Source and Aim for all of this is always Compassion! Never ever being about pointless torture to the amusement of... God(s) (or whatya'ma'callit) - even if I too admit to feeling unfairly stomped on at (current) times...

I know this, yet I struggle with trusting it.

I want to learn how to trust...

In the Light?


This was sooo not the post I had imagined writing...!

Be Kind.

Love&Light,

So, here I go...

I promise to love, honour and respect myself, so that I may be the best person I can be for those who I love and who love me in return.

By treating myself with kindness and compassion I stand as an example to others

(most importantly to my children)

of how they too can, and should, consider and treat themselves and others. We should not allow anyone, least ourselves, to put us down or dull our shine.

In the vast Universe there is only one of me

 and I am better than I hold myself to be.

From now on I will treat myself as I as well as I would want others to treat me, with love.

Love&Light,

Would you take the pledge with me...for you?

The Eve of Golden Rule Day.

"Trying to live according to the Golden Rule means trying to empathise with other people, including those who may be very different from us. Empathy is at the root of kindness, compassion, understanding and respect – qualities that we all appreciate being shown, whoever we are, whatever we think and wherever we come from. And although it isn’t possible to know what it really feels like to be a different person or live in different circumstances and have different life experiences, it isn’t difficult for most of us to imagine what would cause us suffering and to try to avoid causing suffering to others." (from thinkhumanism.com)

"..do as you would be done by. And do unto all men as you would have them do unto you..."

- The Quaker Peace Testimony

"What thou avoidest suffering thyself seek not to impose on others." 

- Epictetus

Tomorrow is Golden Rule Day. A day to be mindful of what it means to be compassionate. Perhaps the Day to begin living a more compassionate life, both towards yourself and others?

I truly believe that kindness, compassion, consideration for 'the other' and realisation that I am the other is crucial for a better tomorrow, for all of us.

Billions of people refused to give up!

I found this (in Swedish) posted on a notice board at Uni. With me being Ms.Indecisive and Ms.Doom&Gloom lately I thought I'd share it with you all to 'prove' that it's not all bad, far in fact far from it. ;)

ღ
Good news in during the last days:
* The planet continued to rotate around its axis as usual resulting in the sun rising all over the world.
* Millions of birds were singing and an infinite number of flowers bloomed.
* The Earth was blessed with 490 000 new precious babies.
* Intelligent, loving and courageous acts were performed every second on the planet.
* Millions of people refrained from saying or doing something unkind.
* Hundreds of thousands of new, really good ideas were hatched.
* Billions of people laughed, learned something new, touched another with tenderness, loved, and refused to give up.
ღ

(Source unknown. translated to English by E.)

...all the sad world needs.

I went looking for an 'old' quote I was sure I must have posted! Couldn't find it so I went 'hunting'. :) I found it! :) Here it is 'again'(?). ;)


So many gods, so many creeds;
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Confucius

Confucius (Kong Fu Zi), 551 BC – 479 BC. A Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings deeply influenced East Asian life and thought. Confucius presented himself as a "transmitter who invented nothing" (not speaking of unknown things? ;)) and he put great emphasis on the importance of study (or learning).

Confucius's moral system was based upon empathy and understanding others. Virtue was based upon harmony with other people, summed up in the earliest versions of the Golden Rule.

"What one does not wish for oneself,
one ought not to do to anyone else;
what one recognises as desirable for oneself,
one ought to be willing to grant to others."
- Confucius

More quotes from Confucius:

"Knowledge is recognizing what you know and what you don't."

"Reviewing what you have learned and learning anew, you are fit to be a teacher."

"To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous."

"When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves."

"It does not matter how slowly you go
so long as you do not stop."

"To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness."

"He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good."

Tenzin Gyatso - 14th Dalai Lama

"The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide." - Dalai Lama

"My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness." - Dalai Lama

"All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness..." - Dalai Lama

"I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion and elimination of ignorance, selfishness and greed.

The problems we face today, violent conflicts, destruction of nature, poverty, hunger, and so on, are human-created problems which can be resolved through human effort, understanding and the development of a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share. Although I have found my own Buddhist religion helpful in generating love and compassion, even for those we consider our enemies, I am convinced that everyone can develop a good heart and a sense of universal responsibility with or without religion."
- The 14th Dalai Lama's Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1989
Kindness is my religion too, even if I'm not a buddhist. This man has so many ideas so similar to my own. Truly someone to draw inspiration from, whatever faith you belong to or renounce yourself from...

I speak not of unknown things.

More compassion.

I know I keep coming back to this topic but it is something I feel that we can't have too much of. I follow the facebook group of the Charter for Compassion and which give me interesting updates. Today I was informed that "Karen Armstrong will appear on CNN this morning at 8:30 am ET on Faces of Faith. Karen was part of a panel on Interfaith leadership." and I truly hope that CNN is CNN all over the world 'cause then I'll tune in on the right program *fingers crossed* when I've finished writing this blog post. :)

I had a quick search on cnn.com to see if there was any more info about Karen or the Charter to be found there but I sort of got lost a bit. I did find this article (follow link or read it further down) though... It confirms the conviction I feel for the Charter. It is just what I've been feeling in my gut since like forever...! I'm not alone in thinking/feeling this way... :)

Which Karen Armstrong and Desmond Tutu express in the article - "Each [religion] has its own particular genius and each its particular flaws. Every single one of the faiths regards compassion and the Golden Rule as the litmus test of true spirituality and sees it as one of the main ways in which we come into relation with the transcendence that we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Tao."

***
From cnn.com by Karen Armstrong and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, November 10, 2009
We have called on the world to sign up to a Charter for Compassion.

Compassion is the principled determination to put ourselves into the place of the other and it lies at the heart of all truly religious and ethical systems.

The charter, which will be unveiled Thursday, November 12, has been composed by leading thinkers in many different faiths. Thousands of people have contributed to it online. It is a cooperative effort to restore compassion to the center of religious, moral and political life. Why is this so important?

One of the most urgent tasks of our generation is to build a global community, where men and women of all races, nations and ideologies can live together in peace.

Religion, which should be making a major contribution to this endeavor, is often seen as part of the problem. All too often the voices of extremism seem to drown those that speak of kindness, forbearance and mutual respect. Yet the founders of every single one of the great traditions recoiled from the violence of their time and tried to replace it with an ethic of compassion.

The great sages who promoted the Golden Rule were nearly all living during periods of history like our own. They argued that a truly compassionate ethic served people's best interests and made good practical sense.

When the Bible commands that we "love" the foreigner, it was not speaking of emotional tenderness: in Leviticus, "love" was a legal term: It was used in international treaties, when two kings would promise to give each other practical support, help and loyalty, and look out for each other's best interests. In our global world, everybody has become our neighbor, and the Golden Rule has become an urgent necessity.

When asked by a pagan to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching while he stood on one leg, Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, replied: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah -- and everything else is only commentary." His Holiness the Dalai Lama put it even more succinctly when he said: "My religion is kindness."

These traditions have also pointed out that it is not sufficient to confine our benevolence to those we find congenial -- to our own ethnic, national or ideological group. We must have what one of the Chinese sages called jian ai, "concern for everybody." If practiced assiduously -- "all day and every day," as Confucius enjoined -- we begin to appreciate our profound interdependence and become fully humane.

We come at this issue from different perspectives. I, Karen, was a Roman Catholic nun for seven years, from the age of 17 to 24. After that, I turned away from religion but came back to it after a series of career disasters -- when I was invited to make some TV programs for Channel 4, which was just opening up in the United Kingdom. The more I studied religious traditions that were different from my own, the more I had to revise my views on faith in general.

I started to study Judaism and Islam, and found that these faiths both offered a perspective on religion that was different from the somewhat parochial Catholicism of my childhood but which really resonated with me. I no longer see any of the great faith traditions, eastern and western, as superior to any of the others.

Each has its own particular genius and each its particular flaws. Every single one of the faiths regards compassion and the Golden Rule as the litmus test of true spirituality and sees it as one of the main ways in which we come into relation with the transcendence that we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Tao.

In 2008, I was honored to receive the TED Prize, which consists of money, but more importantly, a wish for a better world the TED organization will help you to realize. I knew at once what I wanted to do and TED helped refine it. The result was a Charter that would restore compassion to its central place in religious and moral life.

If we wish to create a viable world order, we must try to implement the Golden Rule globally, treating all peoples, even those who seem far removed from us, as we would wish to be treated ourselves. We must strive for a global democracy, in which everybody, not only the rich and powerful, has a voice and which takes everybody's needs and aspirations with the utmost seriousness and respect.

Today we are all bound together, electronically, economically and politically, as never before. Our financial markets are inextricably connected: When one falls, there is a ripple effect worldwide. What happens in Afghanistan or Iraq today may well have repercussions tomorrow in New York or London.

Our world has become dangerously polarized and many of our policies -- political, economic, financial and environmental -- seem no longer sustainable. We have a choice. We can either choose the aggressive and exclusive tendencies that have developed in practically all religious and secular traditions or we can cultivate those that speak of compassion, empathy, respect and an impartial "concern for everybody."

The Charter for Compassion is not simply a statement of principle. It is above all a summons to creative, practical and sustained action to meet the political, moral, religious, social and cultural problems of our time. You can find out how you and your community can participate in the launch and in the ongoing effort to build a fair, just and compassionate world on our Web site: charterforcompassion.org.

We cannot afford to be paralyzed by global suffering. We have the power to work together energetically for the well-being of humanity, and counter the despairing extremism of our time. Many of us have experienced the power of compassion in our own lives. We know how a single act of kindness and empathy can turn a life around. History also shows that the action of just a few individuals can make all the difference. In a world that seems spinning out of control, we need such action now.

The Charter is a summons to action and includes directives about how to implement the Golden Rule. There can be no detailed directives; everybody will have to see how to do this in his or her particular sphere: in the media, in study, teaching, parenting, business, or politics.

The launch is only the beginning of the journey -- not the end.

"...the litmus test of true spirituality..." I LOVE it!! :)

To Make This Life Worth While

I LOVE words, I dream of being an artist of words but... *blushing* I'm not a big fan of poetry, I most often find it too hard and too difficult. :/ Most other type of writing is "better", easier...to the point even if it's long...! :) Poetry is, a lot of the time, a bunch of fancy words, hidden meanings and too weird to have the heart that I find in other writing...

But! :D There are of course exceptions to this preconception of mine! ;) Sometimes poetry is bursting with heart, truth and beauty that no in no other way could be shared but in the poetic form...

To Make This Life Worth While
~ George Eliot

May every soul that touches mine-
Be it the slightest contact-
Get therefrom some good;

Some little grace; one kindly thought;
One aspiration yet unfelt;

One bit of courage
For the darkening sky;

One gleam of faith
To brave the thickening ills of life;

One glimpse of brighter skies
Beyond the gathering mists-

To make this life worthwhile