Old versus new

It is time to wake up.
It is high time to awaken.


Knowing about the existence of water
and all its wonderful cleaning properties
Knowing about water,
and all properties to alleviate thirst
and to nourish all our cells in our body
Adoring water and praising water,
Observing water standing in a bottle on your table
will not clean your body, will not nourish you.
We have to bathe in it, wash ourselves in it,
we have to drink it, internalize it.

So is it with the love of our God.
We may know about it, talk about it every day,
it may sit in the book on our shelves or our night table
We may observe it and look at it,
but as long as we do not experience it, feel it
bathe in it, it will not cleanse our souls,
As long as we do not internalize it, drink it,
it will not still our spiritual hunger.
We have to make it quiet in our life, from time to time
and think truly with our mind, heart and soul
about that goodness, that immense endless love of our God.

Open up for it, let ourselves be immersed in it.
and share all the good feelings and wisdom with the world around us
share all the inspiration, love, harmony and peace that comes with it.
It will make us humble, grateful. It is the greatest gift we can receive.
Just try to experience the love of our God.
All we need to do is make it quiet, quiet outside,
quiet inside, quiet in our mind, forgive everyone and everything,
so it will become quiet in our heart and our soul.
and bathe in, drink the love of our God.

Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim,
is just what that means; it is 114x repeated in the Quran.
The love of our Creator is It is also the cornerstone of Christianity.
It is fundamental in every reasonable faith in the world.

Keep knowing about it,
but make the jump to feeling it as well
Only knowing about it, is the old way.
Feeling it is the new way!

 (Metaphors used above were inspired by a talk by Michael Beckwith)

Morning

The morning hours were whispering and nudging me softly
to wake up and do some work. My half awake mind and
my ever alert soul, could see the beauty of the breaking day
and a thankful heart was fully in love with the universe.

A small hunger pang made me get up and head to breakfast
The aroma of coffee and a delicious slice of full grain bread
A piece of French toast with sugar and a sunny side up egg.
All too soon a second filling of coffee was inside my cup.

My body felt satisfied, my soul and heart and mind were too.
I sent a loving message to my wife and sons and i was ready
for a day with lots of work, lots of thoughts, lots of love.
Quite a long time ago, I wrote a senryu/haiku about the morning:

My God, let it be

that the morning hours' glory

stays 'till night with me  

 

Back to a simple belief

When I was small, one evening, my auntie and me were sitting in front of the front window of our house. it had been a hot day and now the skies were quite dark with one huge grey dark cloud. My auntie had the newspaper on her lab and was reading about the story of a thief who had been captured by the police in the act of stealing. 
I remember so clearly asking myself, how can it be? Why not everyone is just good and happy? Why for goodness sake do people decide they want to go stealing?

Growing up, my simple goodness suffered confrontation with a real world. I got to understand why people were stealing, why the world was not as good as it was supposed to be. My ideals suffered with it and my belief in a world that was intrinsically good was crumbling. 

Now in the (early😉) autumn of my life, I seem to move back to my belief that soon the world will be uniformly good. Now I see that we were made in such a way that true peace of mind and true happiness lies so strongly and so permanently fixed in selfless altruism. Anyone performing a random kind act without the expectation of getting something back from that person, can confirm the great feelings that random kindness, selflessly done, bring. 
So the most selfish thing, one can do, the most logical thing one can do in order to feel good, is to render selfless service. Attempting happiness through other means seems only to fail time after time. Sure enough, we need our primary needs (like hunger, thirst and need of a stable relationship) to be fulfilled; we need a certain level of comfort; but then it is only madness to go and seek happiness and peace of mind in more and more, or in crazy senseless partying, or in acquiring stupid levels of power over others.
If we reach a critical  number of people, understanding this truth, soon the number of people needing to fight  in order to get primary needs met and to reach a certain level of comfort will tumble and the exponential growth of the group, understanding what brings true peace of mind, will soon engulf the world as a giant wave of kindness. 

Join the group who understand today. No one will ever regret joining early.
Sincere selfless kindness....  a joy, a happiness, a giant peace of mind.  


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Hope you enjoyed this reflection by Hans Van Rostenberghe
Feel free to share it, use it in any positive way.
If you share, please mention the link http://reflectionsbyhans.blogspot.com/

If you have time, please take also a look at
the inspirational quotes page connected to this blog
some of my poems published under my pen name Aufie Zophy.

Big

Big-hearted people have no time to criticize others.
They have so much positive news,
that all the negative news about others seems a mere waste of time.

There are truly so many truly nice things happening in the world
so many beautiful things in nature,
so much love and charity among humans
so many honesty and peace loving women and men,
so much of wonderful things we can do,
so many words that can inspire and help others
so many poems, so may fantastic arts,
so much positivity,
that focus on the petty mistakes of others becomes absurd
that focus on our petty differences becomes absurd
that focus on negativity becomes truly absurd...

Plus

A small poem:

In our wide wonderful planet
Cruelties and sadness are abound
Greed and hatred, name it
you can find it all around
We have enough of all of these
No need to spread this type of news

The thing that is not enough
Is loving kindness, simply love
So if you see or do an act of love
don't be shy just spread the word
Write more about what is not enough
and make this a little better world 

Dear friends,
If you feel the need to talk with your friends about a real bad thing,
think for a while how much negativity is already circulating in this world,
in the media, in the conversations all over the world.
If you can choose a positive note instead, please do so.
We do not have enough positivity,
We have an excess of negativity.
Please my friends, find a positive message today,
share it in writing, share it in pictures, share in all your talk.
Find many positive messages today and
share them in writing, in pictures and your talk


   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope you enjoyed this reflection by Hans Van Rostenberghe
Feel free to share it, use it in any positive way
Will be grateful if you mention the link http://reflectionsbyhans.blogspot.com/

If you have time, please take also a look at
the inspirational quotes page connected to this blog
some of my poems published under my pen name Aufie Zophy.

The sea...

Music of rolling waves

enters my hungry heart

striking a chord of harmony

The notes roll up and down,

and a wondrous breeze of love

inspires my mind and soul

My ears filled with beauty,
my being lightly afloat
in God's Glory

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope you enjoyed this reflection by Hans Van Rostenberghe
Feel free to share it, use it in any positive way
Will be grateful if you mention the link http://reflectionsbyhans.blogspot.com/

If you have time, please take also a look at
the inspirational quotes page connected to this blog
some of my poems published under my pen name Aufie Zophy.

The optimist

I tend to be a bit optimistic, compared to my friends.
My friends who are more pessimistic claim to be more realistic.
I came across the next quote from Ralph Waldo Trine.
I liked it.

"The optimist is right. The pessimist is right. The one differs from the other as the light from the dark. Yet both are right. Each is right from their own particular point of view, and this point of view is the determining factor in the life of each. It determines as to whether it is a life of power or of impotence, of peace or of pain, of success or of failure.

The optimist has the power of seeing things in their entirety and in their right relations. The pessimist looks from a limited and a one-sided point of view. The one has their understanding illuminated by wisdom, the understanding of the other is darkened by ignorance. Each is building their world from within, and the result of the building are determined by the point of view of each The optimist, by their superior wisdom and insight, is making their own heaven, and in the degree that they make their own heaven are helping to make one for all the world beside. The pessimist, by virtue of their limitations, are making their own hell, and in the degree that they make their own hell are they helping to make one for all mankind."


Initially I wanted to quote only the first paragraph and then elaborate a bit, but the second paragraph of the author is so good, that not much elaboration is needed.

Let us choose optimism :)
Look forward to your comments.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope you enjoyed this reflection by Hans Van Rostenberghe
Feel free to share it, use it in any positive way
Will be grateful if you mention the link http://reflectionsbyhans.blogspot.com/

If you have time, please take also a look at
the inspirational quotes page connected to this blog
some of my poems published under my pen name Aufie Zophy.

It's an art!

When I ask young people (my students, my sons, my nephews or nieces).
what was the best experience they had during that day or week, they seem
quite often to have a hard time coming up with something.

I think we have not been good at teaching our young ones the art of reflection.
Just thinking back about what we did, who we were what made us feel good
and what made us not feel too good, is so important; at least that is what I think.

If we practice systematically the art of reflection
we may make daily small improvements to our life.
If every day we improve a small little bit,
what does this mean over a year?

Let us start today, the art of reflection
It's an art!
The more we do it, the better we become at it...

Forest of gratitude

In the shadow of the tree

Of endless grace and amazing mercy

Lies a magic acorn filled with gratitude

Spouting fast into a giant oak of awe

Exploding into a forest of kindness

Filled with wonderful paths colored with love.

Let us all get lost in this forest of gratitude

Leaving behind and never return

To the barren cities of greed.

My other poems can be found via this link

I have also a page with inspirational quotes

Enjoy!