Gary Zukav

Choice is the engine of our evolution ... if you choose unconsciously, you will evolve unconsciously. If you choose consciously, you will evolve consciously

You cannot, and will not, encounter_x000D_ a circumstance, or a single moment,_x000D_ that does not serve directly and immediately _x000D_ the need of your soul to heal.

When our actions create discord in another person, we, ourselves, in this lifetime or another, will feel that discord. Likewise, if our actions create harmony and empowerment in another, we also come to feel that harmony and empowerment.

The requirements for our evolution have changed. Survival is no longer sufficient. Our evolution now requires us to develop spiritually-to become emotionally aware and make responsible choices. It requires us to align ourselves with the values of the soul-harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for life.

Try to realize, and truly realize, that what stands between you and a different life are matters of responsible choice.

The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear. Love liberates. Fear imprisons.

Each solstice is a domain of experience unto itself. At the Summer Solstice, all is green and growing, potential coming into being, the miracle of manifestation painted large on the canvas of awareness. At the Winter Solstice, the wind is cold, trees are bare and all lies in stillness beneath blankets of snow.

What is behind your eyes holds more power than what is in front of them.

If you strive only to avoid the darkness or to cling to the light, you cannot live in balance. Try striving to be conscious of all that you are.

The club that kills can drive a stake into the ground to hold a shelter. The hands that build bombs can be used to build schools. The minds that coordinate the activities of violence can coordinate the activities of cooperation. When the activities of life are infused with reverence, they come alive with meaning and purpose.

The hardest times to choose love become the very times that you can most grow spiritually.

Emotions are classes in the Earth school. Some classes are about fear, and some are about love. The Universe is your tutor, and your classroom is your life. The main course in the Earth school, Authentic Power, is the same for everyone, but different students need different courses in order to complete it.

Perfectionism is a perpetual flight into an illusory future that cannot be attained.

Being harmless means being so strong, so empowered, that the idea of showing power through harm is not even a part of your consciousness.

Caretaking is different from care giving. Care giving has no second agendas or hidden motives. The care is given from love for the joy of giving without expectation, no strings attached. It cannot be manipulated or discouraged because love cannot be manipulated or discouraged.

Most people use their energy attempting to rearrange circumstances that trigger painful emotions. Changing external circumstances will not change your rigid patterns of emotional response. That requires looking at the patterns themselves.

When two people in an intimate-couple relationship look at their interactions as opportunities to learn about themselves instead of change each other, they are infusing their relationship with the energy of spiritual partnership.

The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.

A spiritual partnership is between people who promise themselves to use all of their experiences to grow spiritually. They use their emotions to show them how to create constructive and healthy and joyful consequences instead of destructive and unhealthy and painful consequences.

Everyone wants to learn the same thing from painful situations: how to avoid repeating them.

If you want to have the kind of relationship that your heart yearns for, you have to create it. You can't depend on somebody else creating it for you.