if we have not found the heaven within,we have not found the heaven without
Interpretation
True happiness and fulfillment come from within rather than from external circumstances.
This quote suggests that our inner state of being determines our experience of the world. If we have not developed a sense of peace, joy, or 'heaven' within ourselves, then our attempts to find happiness in the external world will be futile. The essence of this message emphasizes the importance of inner fulfillment as a prerequisite for experiencing joy and contentment in life.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-acceptance.
What a host of little incidents, all deep-buried in the past -- problems that had once been urgent, arguments that had once been keen, anecdotes that were funny only because one remembered the fun. Did any emotion really matter when the last trace of it had vanished from human memory; and if that were so, what a crowd of emotions clung to him as to their last home before annihilation? He must be kind to them, must treasure them in his mind before their long sleep.
The first quarter-century of your life was doubtless lived under the cloud of being too young for things, while the last quarter-century would normally be shadowed by the still darker cloud of being too old for them; and between those two clouds, what small and narrow sunlight illumines a human lifetime!
I am a great believer in the simplicity of things and as you probably know I am inclined to hang on to broad & simple ideas like grim death until evidence is too strong for my tenacity.
You cannot stand anywhere in the universe that is outside of yourself.
History is merely a list of surprises... It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.
There's a kind of optimism specifically within Christianity about the world - about whose side God is on. Well, I didn't have any of that in my background. I had physicality and chaos.
The crowd, still shouting, gives way before us. We plough our way through. Women hold their aprons over their faces and go stumbling away. A roar of fury goes up. A wounded man is being carried off.
The greatest good that can come to anyone is forming within them an absolute certainty of themselves, and of their relationship to the Universe, forever removing the sense of heaven as being outside of them.
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