click here for Quotes of 1999
	Our lives are inspired by the dreams we have from the earliest days of our youths. When you combine passion and hard work, then success is always possible. While no road is ever straight, dedication and persistence will always lead you to your dreams. - Starbucks Coffee Cup Wisdom #63
	Everyone wants to be happy and to avoid suffering and dissatisfaction. This is a universal truth that does not depend on nationality, age, wealth, gender, or any other personal factor. Because we want to be happy, we spend much of our lives trying to find objects and experiences that we imagine will make us happy. Many of us dedicate our lives to the endless pursuit of happiness and the avoidance of suffering. We work toward acquiring a nice home, a satisfying career, a loving partner, children, vacations, and so forth. However, no sooner do we satisfy our desires than we want more new, different things to keep us happy. Therefore, All of our activities and worldly pursuits are continuously motivated by the desire for happiness and the wish to avoid suffering. - Gill Farrer-Halls "A Gift of happiness"
	July, 2004
	Success is Measured by Happiness Consider whether fulfillment of the goal you have chosen will constitute success. What is success? If you possess health and wealth, but have trouble with everybody (including yourself), yours is not a successful life. Existence becomes futile if you cannot find happiness. When wealth is lost, you have lost a little; when health is lost, you have lost something of more consequence; but when peace of mind is lost, you have lost the highest treasure. Success should therefore be measured by the yardstick of happiness; by your ability to remain in peaceful harmony with cosmic laws. Success is not rightly measured by the worldly standards of wealth, prestige, and power. None of these bestow happiness unless they are rightly used. To use them rightly one must possess wisdom and love for God and man. God does not reward or punish you. He has given you the power to reward or punish yourself by the use or misuse of your own reason and will power. If you transgress the laws of health, prosperity, and wisdom you must inevitably suffer from sickness, poverty, and ignorance. However, you should strengthen your mind and refuse to carry the burden of mental and moral weaknesses acquired in past years; burn them in the fires of your present divine resolutions and right activities. By this constructive attitude you will attain freedom. Happiness depends to some extent upon external conditions, but chiefly upon mental attitudes. In order to be happy one should have good health, a well-balanced mind, a prosperous life, the right work, a thankful heart, and above all, wisdom or knowledge of God. A strong determination to be happy will help you. Do not wait for your circumstances to change, thinking falsely that in them lies the trouble. Do not make unhappiness a chronic habit, thereby afflicting yourself and your associates. It is blessedness for yourself and others if you are happy. If you possess happiness you possess everything; to be happy is to be in tune with God. That power to be happy comes through meditation -- Paramahansa Yogananda
	September, 2003
	Running away seldom solves anything. Facing problems and challenges head-on is the mark of a soul who has determined to progress and not skirt any of life's issues; to leave them for another time. Always have that attitude that it is better to face a problem now than delaying that lesson for another day or another year. Indeed, doing so will make a soul go much farther --- as in regards to soul progression goes. The lessons will come; the soul faces them head-on; the soul resolves as best it can. Then another lesson comes, and another true effort is made. Isn't this to the soul's benefit? An outsider can view this as a negative, saying, "Look how many problems that person is having; one after the other!" They do not have Spirit-eyes! They see it from their own physical perspective. Never judge or assume anything about another soul. The best you can say is, "Look at all the challenges and opportunities for soul advancement that person is having!" Yes, they are opportunities. They are not problems as seen from an Earthly perspective. In every situation try to see what spiritual lesson is behind that "problem" or "challenge."    --- ILLUMINATI
	July, 2003
	Life on Earth can be a wonderful and uplifting experience. Why make your stay there one of suffering? It does not need to be that way. Whether or not you have money is irrelevant. You are like and island, alone in an ocean that surrounds you. You can be separate from the world and still be in the world. You can have nothing to your name and still be the happiest person on the planet. So long as you hold God's Love unto your heart, that is all you need. Don't let any materialism alter your reality of who and what you are. Of paramount importance is your soul. The material comes and goes, but your soul is permanent and is what you are -- your essence. Would it not be wiser to work on your soul instead of all the materialism that surrounds you? We realize you live in a material world and it has it's cares, but surely a fine balance can be achieved always keeping the goal of soul development and progression in mind. You may go here, you may go there, but wherever you go, you take your soul with you. You cannot find happiness by going to a certain place. Happiness has to come from within. A steady mind, a calm demeanor, prayer, meditation and contemplation, not getting too deeply engulfed in materialism, and treating your fellow man with Love -- Love -- that is how you should live life. That lays the foundation of True Happiness. Sometimes people think they will have happiness if they obtain a certain thing -- a goal, a desire -- something that has a foundation of materialism. They are deluded. Materialism cannot give you this True Happiness. They may find temporary happiness, but what will become of that happiness when their physical life on Earth ends? The material fades away, the spiritual lasts forever. Be wise! A proper balance between the material and the spiritual is the key to a successful life.    --- ILLUMINATI
	June, 2003
	Any opportunity that comes to your life is your own creation; it does not come of itself, nor by chance "good luck." Opportunity is either created now, or has been created at some time in the near or distant past, by your own rightly guided will. If you see no opportunity now, create one by your will, which is a divine instrument within you. Say, "I will do everything for myself with my own will, which is a reflection in me of Divine Will," Act on this truth, and opportunity will come to you. --- Paramahansa Yogananda
	February, 2003
	For many decades now, in hundreds of sophisticated laboratories around the world, thousands of brilliant scientists have spent millions of research hours and billions of tax dollars, trying to figure out how our very complex universe came into being --- without success! If all that combined intelligence, time, effort and expense cannot understand something already in existence right here in front of us, shouldn't that indicated that another intelligence, profoundly superior to the sum total of man's best minds, must have conceived and assembled it? And wouldn't it be better to bow gratefully and humbly before that higher power and direct our energies and tax dollars instead to relieving the suffering caused by our neglect of moral principles and to repairing the damage done by our defiance of natural laws? The way things are going, it would seem wiser to pay more attention to our end than to our origin ! --- Lois How At-Admasu
	August, 2002
	Whenever you see a beautiful sunset, think to yourself: "It is God's painting on the sky." As you look into the face of each person you meet, think within: "It is God who has become that form." Apply this trend of thought to all experiences: "The blood in my body is God; the reason in my mind is God; the love in my heart is God; everything that exists is God." --- Paramahansa Yogananda
	July, 2002
	I AM THERE Do you need Me ? I am there. You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by. You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice. You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands. I am at work, though you do not understand My ways. I am at work, though you do not understand My works. I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries. Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I AM, and then but as a feeling and a faith. Yet I am here. Yet I hear. Yet I answer. When you need ME, I am there. Even if you deny Me, I am there. Even when you feel most alone, I am there. Even in your fears, I am there. Even in your pain, I am there. I am there when you pray and when you do not pray. I am in you, and you are in Me. Only in your mind can you feel separate from Me, for only in your mind are the mists of "yours" and "mine". Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me. Empty your heart of empty fears. When you get yourself out of the way, I am there. You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all. And I AM in all. Though you may not see the good, good is there, for I am there. I am there because I have to be, because I AM. Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of ME does the world go forward. I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded. I am the love that is the law's fulfilling. I am assurance. I am peace. I am oneness. I am the law that you can live by. I am the love that you can cling to. I am your assurance. I am your peace. I am ONE with you. I am. Though you fail to find ME, I do not fail you. Though your faith in Me is unsure, My faith in you never wavers, because I know you, because I love you. Beloved, I AM there. --- James Dillet Freeman Note: This poem received a lot of attention in 1971 when it was taken to the moon by astronaut  James B. Irwin on Apollo 15. Irwin's mother gave it to him before the flight and he actually left a copy of the poem on the moon.  The author, James Dillet Freeman, is poet laureate of the Unity School of Christianity at Unity Village. He wrote the poem in 1947
	June, 2002
	A word of caution to Sunday School teachers regarding a teaching method often used to threaten children by saying, "God will punish you if you are bad." What must be taught is human responsibility. Therefore, teach that God's law is love and all actions should bear that touch. When humans act unlovingly to themselves or others there will be pain as a reminder that love is not present. The message every child must learn is that God does not punish. God creates and shares love energy and asks each of us to do our very best at living love on a daily basis. You punish yourselves by non-loving behavior, dear ones. Once this is clear your life on planet earth will make greater sense. Your misuse of the law of love and also the law of cause and effect harms you. What you cause or create returns to you. It is so simple! And this teaching you must practice so you can model it and explain it to others. - New Teachings for an Awakening Humanity (book)
	May, 2002
	A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.  After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said.  The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."  Moral: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We're all cracked pots, but it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them. Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.  Remember to appreciate all the different people in your life!
	April, 2002
	The Number ONE Dream Killer: Procrastination. Nothing happens until you take action. Every single thing you do toward building for your future will pay off. The important thing is not to be discouraged.
	March, 2002
	A young man was at the end of his rope, seeing no way out, dropped to his knees in prayer. "Lord, I can't go on," he said. "I have too heavy of a cross to bear." The Lord replied, "My son, if you can't bear its weight, just place your cross inside this room. Then, open that other door and pick out any cross you wish." The man was filled with relief said, "Thank you, Lord," and he did as he was told. Upon entering the other door, he saw many crosses, some so large the tops were not visible. Then, he spotted a tiny cross leaning against a far wall. "I'd like that one, Lord," he whispered. And the Lord replied, "My son, that is the cross you just brought in." When life's problems seem overwhelming, it helps to look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself far more fortunate than you imagined.
	February, 2002
	The key to your happiness and contentment lies within you, within your own heart and mind. The way you start each day is very important; you can start off on the right foot or the wrong one. You can wake up with a song of joy and gratitude in your heart for the new day, for being alive, for the very wonder of living, and for being in tune and harmony with the rhythm of all life. You can expect the very best from the coming day and therefore draw it to you. Or you can start the day with a chip on your shoulder, disgruntled and out of rhythm. You are responsible for what today will bring, and knowing it gives you an even greater responsibility than those souls who are not aware of it and therefore know no better. You cannot blame your state of mind on anyone else. It all rests with you. - Eileen Caddy
	January, 2002
	His Hello, was the end of her endings. Her laugh, was their first step down the aisle. His Hand, would be hers to hold forever. Her forever, was as simple as his smile. He said, She was what was missing. She said Instantly she knew. She was a question to be answered...and his answer was I Do --- Sex in the City "The Chicken Dance" episode
	February, 2000
	Whatever your position in life, it is you who put yourself there. The human will, when led by ignorance, causes nothing but confusion and trouble; but if it is tuned in with wisdom, it is guided by the Divine Will. Constantly carrying a thought with dynamic will power is developed to that extent, you can control your destiny. Always be sure that what you want is right for you to have, then use all the forces of your will power to attain your objective, continually keeping your mind on God. Your efforts will then be crowned with success. --- Paramahansa Yogananda
	January, 2000
	Non-violence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: The need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. --- Martin Luther King Jr. For "I have a dream" speech, click here