Tom's Blog

For every habit you have, for every experience you go through, for every pattern you repeat, there’s obviously a need for it. If you didn’t have the need for it, you wouldn’t have it. There’s something within people who need to be fat, to have poor relationships, to have failures, to smoke the cigarette, drink the alcohol, or have the anger, etc. All of these things are merely symptoms. There is no point in working on the symptom without working on the root cause. When you’re willing to release the need for whatever symptom you may have, then it will go away. Criticizing yourself does nothing but make the problem worse. Self-worth is the answer to most all problems. Look in the mirror and say, “There’s nobody like me. I’m going to start today being who I really am.” There is a great need in everyone to be themselves and to let their flower bloom.
Louise L. Hay

No matter how much knowledge you may have, the more you progress, the more the horizon recedes. Compared with everything that is possible to learn, human knowledge always remains puny. However, knowing this should not keep you from the pursuit of your spiritual path. You only have so much time, so don’t waste it by putting it off. Everything that happens to you is a lesson, sometimes delightful and sometimes painful. This is your life, and you must learn about yourself from yourself. Out of that learning, wisdom comes.

In indigenous societies around the world, there is a web of intimate relationships. They don’t seem to have the needy attachment to family that we promote in the west. Their children don’t suffer from guilt and rejection that you see in our society, because they are raised by the community. Our society seems to sing the praises of “family values.” You hear those words from politicians and religious organizations. But indigenous people know that a family can’t come close to meeting the needs of children growing up. We have so many more damaged individuals as a result of a broken family. That doesn’t occur with indigenous people, because the community picks up the slack. Native Americans wonder when we will finally realize that we need a broader base of support from a community of people. Community is not something we can make happen. It emerges as we participate in life with those around us.
Helena Norbert-Hodge

When out in the wilds of nature, you see rabbits hopping about as if they didn’t have a care in the world, squirrels climbing trees and jumping from one limb to another with reckless abandon, birds flying overhead swooping in and out of clouds like kids playing games, and countless insects crawling and flittering about in perfect freedom. All of these animals would be much safer inside a cage in a zoo, but this would make them a great deal less than what they actually are. It’s so sad to see some people devote their entire lives to being safe and secure, locked in cages of their own making, their lives being spent in fear. What kind of life is that? Better to run and jump and play in the beauty of nature and live life to the fullest with all the possibilities of hazards and harm than to sit inside your house protected from the outside world and shielded from the beauties that life has to offer.
TD

Don’t be afraid to purge your faith of all unnecessary things–physical, material, and visible. The better you cleanse your spiritual core, the better you understand the law of life. Remember that true faith has nothing to do with knowing what days to begin your fasting or trying to keep up with the church schedule or reading the right prayers and confessions. What really matters most is daily living a good life, being kind to your neighbors, treating them with the same respect as you would want to be treated. This is true faith.
Leo Tolstoy

It is so strange that people have the notion that wealth brings happiness. Why is that people put a thousand times more effort into increasing their wealth than increasing their wisdom? However, most everyone seems to understand that being happy is much more important than having an abundance of material things. I can think of nothing that is more useless than to acquire, increase, and hoard money. In my opinion the person who keeps what he has without sharing what he does not need is worse than the thief who stole what he needs to survive.
Arthur Schopenhauer

“It’s all about me, isn’t it?” So many people seem to be preoccupied with themselves. It’s true that you need to discover who you really are. That is the goal of all spiritual journeys. But once you have learned yourself, then you must deny yourself. You must say, “I now understand my divine nature; therefore, I’m ready for eternity.” You must continue to always improve your life, but at all times you should be ready to give it away. Real life starts when humility and true self-denial begins. The Buddha says, “To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.”
Immanuel Kant

If you’d let go of the attachment you have to your possessions and, likewise, let go the attachment you have to your ego then you will have discarded the principle sources of stress in your life. Renunciation means giving up one’s attachment to the material things of this world–an attachment based on the wish to possess them. A Zen Master remarked, “Renunciation is not giving up the things of this world, it is accepting the fact that you can lose them without causing you any worry. The result of such acceptance brings about fulfillment, not deprivation.” Matthew 6: 19-21 states: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moths nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

I feel like I know the difference between right and wrong. So, why don’t I always do what’s right? Why is it that sometimes I do what’s wrong, even though I know it’s wrong when I’m doing it? Why is it that sometimes I say the wrong thing, even though I know it’s wrong when I’m saying it? I tell myself that I want to be a good person, and good people always do the right thing, don’t they? It’s not so much that I do wrong things a lot; it’s more like I fail to do things that I know I should do. Like I know my cousin is in the hospital, and I haven’t written her, called her, or visited her. That can’t be right, can it? So, it must be wrong. My good friend’s mother died yesterday. Have I called him? NO. Why not? I don’t know. Sometimes I follow the path of least resistance. A lot of times I do what is easy and not what is hard. You may say, “What’s so hard about picking up the phone and making a call?” I don’t know. I just don’t do a lot of things when I know I should. Am I excused by saying, “After all, I’m just human–I’m not perfect?” I don’t think so. Even though I may fail time after time after time, I should still make a more genuine effort to do those things that I know are the right things to do.
TD

Don’t ever let fear overtake you, for fear can destroy you. You may worry about losing your job, lack of finances, ill health, your children, and many other things. There’s always something to worry about, if that’s what you’re looking for. But you must change your focus from fear to one of thankfulness, being thankful for what you have, and not worrying about what you don’t have. Concentrate your heart and life upon the spiritual aspect of your life instead of your material possessions. Remember that your spiritual guides know what your needs are. And your needs will be supplied–not necessarily what you want, but what you need.