What are your fav prayers/mantras/sayings/blessings, etc

i'm looking for inspiration for a project inspired by cerridwen.

 

Well, here are a few favourite sayings I go by,

"You can bomb the world into pieces, but you can't bomb the world into peace." - Unknown.

"What victory is it when someone is left defeated?" - Mahatma Ghandi

"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence." - Mahatma Ghandi

"Hate the sin and not the sinner ..." - Mahatma Ghandi

I try to practice these as often as possible. I know that I do not have the willpower nor temperament to subscribe myself to nonviolence as Ghandi did, and I don't necessarily believe that nonviolence is the way to go either. However, I do believe that nonviolence is the best option when violence is undeserved or unnecessary.

 

" If your willing to change the world, let love be your energy."

 

‘Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with. His mind was created for his own thoughts,

not yours or mine. ‘ Henry S. Haskins

" If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and this is all that it proves. " Thomas Paine

" If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. " Lyall Watson

'May you be half an hour in heaven before the devil knows your dead.' anon.

'Thy will be done."

" I have said ye are Gods, all of you are children of the most high.” Psalms, Ch. 82, V 6


'Strangers are just friends I haven't met yet.' Will Rogers

 

what is is
be here now
manifest destiny
create your own reality
live love laugh
when one door is closed another one opens
smile
let food be your medicine and medicine be your food
you are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true
as above so below
Let nothing which can be treated by diet be treated by other means
bombing for peace is like screwing for virginity
roygbiv
make tea not war
what goes around comes around
treat other people the way they want to be treated

 

"If there's one thing I can't stand, it's intolerance". Often said as a joke, I think it isn't a joke at all.. I can stand almost anything, even if I disagree; everyone has a right to their opinion, everyone can make their own choices. Only when people try to tell *others* what they should or shouldn't do/believe/wear/say/feel, that bothers me...

 

"All you need is love"

"Dare to dream"

"Without you, today's emotions would be a scurf of yesterday's"

"Loving is good, if it's not understood;
but I'm the professor, and I feel that I should."

Sebbi

 

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge. -- Abraham Joshua Heschel

Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy. -- Heschel also.

Play is the exultation of the possible. -- Martin Buber

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when? -- R. Hillel

Dauer

 

...to see a world in a grain of sand
or heaven in a wildflower
to hold infinity in the palm of your hand
or eternity for an hour...

~William Blake

 

May the warm wind of heaven blow softly upon your lodge and may Great Spirit bless all who enter there.

May your moccasins make many happy tracks and may the rainbow always touch your shoulder.

"Tecumseh"

.
So live your life so the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their views, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a stranger if in a lonely place. Show respect to all people, but grovel to none. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself. Touch not the poisonous firewater that makes wise ones turn to fools and robs them of their visions. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

‘Tecumseh’

 

I'm quite partial to the old Hebrew prayer the "sh'ma" sort of an anthem of the Jewish faith if you will, but also quite zen if you translate it and strip it down to its core and also remarkably similar to the prayer muslims recite 5 times a day
transliterated and loosely translated:

Sh'ma Yisrael (Listen up Israel!)
adonai elohyanu (literaly "the god of us" aka yahweh, jah, jehovah is the Lord)
adonai echad (the Lord is ONE)

baruch shem kevod malchuto (blessed be the name and kindom [of God] )
l'olam va-ed (FOREVER AND EVER)

I consider myself a sort of Zen Jewddist, that is to say my spiritual life consists of meditating on the wisdom such as that of oneness and eternity expressed in this prayer and in many passages of the Torah rather than of following Toranic law to the letter or attending synagogue which I hardly ever do anymore, although I still observe the major holidays like Passover and Rosh Hashana, but this conversation is for a different thread.

I also enjoy some very simple peace prayers I've learned from folks at rainbow family events:
one in sanskrit that goes

OMMMMMMMMM SHANTI (essentially an innvocation of God or the universal consciousness if you will followed by the word "peace")

and a prayer for peace in the middle east that involves chanting the words for peace in english, arabic, and hebrew in three different tones that harmonize with each other

peeeeeeace, salaaaaaaam, shaloom

I believe that the purpose of prayer should be to reflect and mediate, seek knowledge and peace from within yourself, not to ask "God" to intervene in your life and help you somehow (something which given my conception of God would be ridiculous but the conceptions of God conversations are for another thread).