Spiritual thoughts for the week:

May 2

You must BE before you can DO. To accomplish much, be much. In all cases, the doing must be the expression of the being. It is foolish to think that we can accomplish much in personal relationships without first preparing ourselves by being honest, pure, unselfish, and loving. We must choose the good and keep choosing it, before we are ready to be used by God to accomplish anything worthwhile. We will not be given the opportunities until we are ready for them. Quiet times of communion with the Higher Power are good preparation for creative action.

24 Hours a Day


May 3

I must overcome myself before I can truly forgive other people for injuries done to me. The self in me cannot forgive injuries. The very thought of wrongs means that my self is in the foreground. Since the self cannot forgive, I must overcome my selfishness. I must cease trying to forgive those who fretted and wronged me. It is a mistake for me even to think about these injuries. I must aim at overcoming myself in my daily life and then I will find there is nothing in me that remembers injury, because the only thing injured, my selfishness, is gone.

24 Hours a Day


May 4  NO VENGEANCE

“Hatred ceases not with hatred,” said the Light of Asia [The Buddha]. This doctrine of “resist not evil” is the great metaphysical secret. To the world it sounds like moral suicide, the feeblest surrender to aggression. Antagonize any situation, and you give it power against yourself; offer mental nonresistance, and it crumbles away in front of you.

We cannot too often remind ourselves that if the thought is right, the deed cannot be wrong. No teacher could ever say that a given act must necessarily be right at any time, because the play of circumstances in human life is too hopelessly complicated for any such prediction.

If, when someone is behaving badly, you will immediately switch your attention from the human to the Divine, and concentrate upon God, or upon the real spiritual self of the person in question, you will find that his conduct will immediately change. This is the true revenge.

Around the Year with Emmet Fox (Excerpt)


May 5  DISSIPATING EVIL

If somebody comes into the room at home, or into the office or shop, looking as if he meant to make trouble, just try switching your attention straight to the Divine, instead of squaring up aggressively to meet the difficulty or shrinking away to avoid it, according to your temperament. You will be amused and gratified to see the anger fade from the subject’s face (which will mean that it has faded from his heart too) and quite a different expression take its place.

Around the Year with Emmet Fox  (Excerpt)