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There is no merit without zeal, just as there is no movement without wind. What is zeal? It is enthusiasm for virtue. What is said to be its antithesis? It is spiritual sloth, clinging to the reprehensible, apathy, and self-contempt. The spiritual practice of zeal means, being fully aroused by life. We tap into the divine energy that pulsates within us and around us. We are ready for anything that comes our way, and every moment is a golden every moment is a golden gateway to new possibilities. This spiritual practice includes a wholehearted delight in the sense and a passionate love for who we are and what we have been given. We are encouraged in its pursuit by our companions on the path and the countless teachers who stretch our souls. Our zeal moves us to live compassionately and to serve others.

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Whatever is, is in some sense the seed of what is to emerge from it… To be in process of change is not an evil, any more than to be the product of change is a good… Time is a river, the resistless flow of all created things. One thing no sooner comes in sight than it is hurried past and another is borne along, only to be swept away in its turn…What follows is ever closely linked to what precedes; it is not a procession of isolated events, merely obeying the laws of sequence, but a rational continuity. Moreover, just as things already in existence are all harmoniously coordinated, things in the act of coming into existence exhibit the same marvel of concatenation, rather than simply the bare fact of succession.

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Ask an American schoolchild what he or she is learning in school these days and you might even get a reply, provided you ask it in Spanish. But don’t bother, here’s the answer: Americans nowadays are not learning any of the things that we learned in our day, like reading and writing. Apparently these are considered fusty old subjects, invented by white males to oppress women and minorities. No one ever spent a moment building my self-esteem when I was in school. In fact, from the day I first stepped inside a classroom my self-esteem was one big demolition site. All that mattered was “the subject,” be it geography, history, or mathematics. I was praised when I remembered that “near”, “fit”, “friendly”, “pleasing”, “like” and their opposites took the dative case in Latin. I was reviled when I forgot what a cosine was good for. Generally I lived my school years beneath a torrent of castigation so consistent I eventually ceased to hear it, as people who live near the sea eventually stop hearing the waves.

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The significance of life is living. Do we really live? Is life worth living when there is fear, when our whole life is trained in imitation, in copying? In following authority, is there living? Are you living when you follow somebody, even if he is the greatest saint or the greatest politician or the greatest scholar? If you observe your own ways, you will see that you do nothing but follow somebody or another. It is very difficult to put away authority. What is freedom from authority? You can break a law. That is not the freedom from authority. But there is freedom in understanding the whole process, how the mind creates authority, how each one of us is confused and therefore wants to be assured that he is living the right kind of life. Because we want to be told what to do, we are exploited by gurus, spiritual as well as scientific.

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The ancients who were well versed in Reason did not thereby enlighten the people; they intended thereby to make them simple-hearted. Spiritual virtue, verily, is profound. Verily, it is far-reaching. Verily, it is to everything reverse. But then it will procure great recognition. Now a man is great only because he resembles the unlikely. Did he resemble the likely, how lasting indeed, would his mediocrity be! I have three treasures which I cherish and prize. The first is called compassion. The second is called economy. The third is called not daring to come to the front in the world. The compassionate can be brave; the economical can be generous; those who dare not come to the front in the world can become perfect as chief vessels. Now, if people discard compassion and are brave; if they discard economy and are generous; if they discard modesty and are ambitious, they will surely die. Now, the compassionate will in attack be victorious, and in defence firm. Heaven when about to save one will with compassion protect him. Is not heaven's Reason truly like stretching a bow? Those who have abundance it depleteth; those who are deficient it augmenteth. Man's Reason is not so as he depletes the deficient to serve those who have abundance.

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When you take a fish out of the ocean and throw it on the bank – the misery and the suffering and the torture, and the hankering and the effort to reach back to the ocean is because that is where the fish belongs. Any suffering is simply indicative that you are not in communion with existence that the fish is not in the ocean. When a dewdrop slips from a lotus leaf into the ocean, it does not find that it is part of the ocean, it finds it is the ocean. And to find it is the ultimate goal, the ultimate realisation. There is nothing beyond it. I don’t want anybody to stand between an individual and existence. You are here, every individual is here, and the whole existence is available.

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We are entering the Age of the Terrific Deal, where choices are almost limitless and it's easy to switch to something better. This is the first principle of the new economy. Understanding it is the first step towards understanding what is happening to the rest of our lives. All else follows. And who doesn't want a better deal? Only the indolent, insane, or congenitally complacent would pass up a product that's obviously better (and costs no more) or cheaper (and of the same quality), an investment with a higher return, a more rewarding job, a more comfortable community. You owe it to yourself, your family. You owe it to capitalism. The insistence on a better deal didn't begin in America. It's just more extreme here. For most of history, humankind lived in villages surrounded by dense forests, deserts, or otherwise dangerous and mysterious terrain.

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Separateness is an illusion. That’s what we learn through the spiritual practice of connections. Everything is interrelated in time, space, and our very being. Both religion and science reveal this truth: the experiences of the mystics, the teachings of ecology and physics, even the Internet. One definition of spirituality is “the art of making connections.” There are certain givens: The one is made up of many. One thing always leads to another. Everything is related to everything else. You practice connections, then, by consciously tracing the links connecting you with other beings. Any point is a good starting place – your family line, your work, your back yard. Watch for the moments when the separations disappear. And don’t be shy about naming mystical experiences as such when you experience them. The practice of connections reinforces holistic thinking and awareness of how the spiritual, emotional, and mental aspects of our being interpenetrate and nourish each other.

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If we are right in what we have been saying, most of the greatest men, other than artists, have been actuated in their important activities by motives unconnected with sex. If such activities are to persist, and are, in their humbler forms, to become common, it is necessary that sex should not over-shadow the remainder of a man's emotional and passionate nature. The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress, without which human society would stand still or retrogress. It may be that too complete a happiness would cause the impulses to knowledge and reform to fade.

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Most people do not know that Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts of America, was deaf. She began to lose her hearing when she was 17, and became almost totally deaf in her adulthood. Juliette married William Mackay Low and they went to England to live. Juliette became interested in the Girl Guides Association there. Juliette organized several Girl Guides troops in both England and Scotland. Since she could not do all the work herself, she had to ask other women to help her. Sometimes the women were reluctant to give their time due to family responsibilities. However, Juliette was a very determined woman. When the women refused, she would pretend that she didn't understand what they said. As a result, the women helped her in spite of being busy. When Juliette came back to America for a visit, she started the first Girl Guides troop in the country in her home town, Savannah. By the time she went back to England six months later, there were six Girl Guide troops in Savannah. At that time, the girls each made their own uniforms. In 1913, the Girl Guides changed its name to the Girl Scouts. Juliette Low came back to Savannah that same year.

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Firefox is a classic overnight success, many years in the making. Published by the Mozilla Foundation, Firefox is a Web browser that is fast and filled with features that Microsoft's stodgy Internet Explorer lacks. Firefox installs in a snap, and it is free. Microsoft has always viewed Internet Explorer's tight integra'ion with Windows to be an attractive feature. That, h'wever, was before security became the unmet need of the day. Firefox sits lightly on top of Windows, in a separation from the underlying operating system that the Mozilla Foundation's president, Mitchell Baker, calls a natural defense.

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The greatest hunger in life is not for food, money, success, status, security, or even love from the opposite sex. The deepest hunger in life is a secret that is revealed only when a person is willing to unlock a hidden part of the self. In the ancient traditions of wisdom, this quest has been likened to diving for the most-precious pearl in existence, a poetic way of saying that you have to swim far out beyond shallow waters, plunge deep into yourself, and search patiently until the pearl beyond price is found. The pearl is also called essence, the water of life, holy nectar - labels for what we, in our more prosaic scientific age, would simply call transformation. Transformation means radical change of form, the way a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. In human terms, it means turning fear, aggression, doubt, insecurity, hatred, and emptiness into their opposites. It comes down to the age old choice of separation or unity.

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