When there is a choice about it, a great sacrifice is preferable to a small sacrifice, because we compensate ourselves for a greatone with self-admiration, which is not possible with a small one.
Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, and things; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you. Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed. Without self-knowledge there is no basis for right thought and action.
We are what we repeatedly do... excellence, therefore, isn't just an act, but a habit and life isn't just a series of events, but an ongoing process of self-definition.
We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit tsunami. Central banks and governments are being required to take unprecedented measures. Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity are in a state of shocked disbelief.
In the search for our best selves, several questions will guide our thinking: Am I what I want to be? Am I closer to the Savior today than I was yesterday? Will I be closer yet tomorrow? Do I have the courage to change for the better?
Self-discipline, although difficult, and not always easy while combating
negative emotions, should be a defensive measure. At least we will be able to prevent the advent of negative conduct dominated by negative emotion. That is 'shila', or moral ethics. Once we develop this by familiarizing ourselves with it, along with mindfulness and conscientiousness, eventually that pattern and way of life will become a part of our own life.
Do not desire, for what you desire you get, and with it comes terrible bondage. It is nothing but bringing "noses on us," as in the case of the man who had three boons to ask. We never get freedom until we are self-contained. "Self is the Saviour of self, none else."
One must accept the fact that we have only one companion in this world, a companion who accompanies us from the cradle to the grave - our own self. Get on good terms with that companion - learn to live with yourself.
Nothing appears to be something. The human experience is a senseory organ for the divine self. Through these eyes, the divine gets to see itself in form.
What is self-control? It is nothing but a highly developed vital sense, dominating and regulating the mere appetites. To overlook the very existence of this supreme sense; to miss the obvious inference that it is the quality that distinguishes the fittest to survive.