Tom’s Inspirations
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. You ask me how I can remain calm and not become agitated when those around me are bustling about. What can I say to you? I didn’t come into the world to upset it. Isn’t it disturbed enough already?
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Limits and markers make travel possible for people: circumscribe our lines of sight and we can really get somewhere.
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First and foremost, remember that you are unique. Your life is a once-told tale, an unrepeatable drama. No one has your mixture of passion and inhibitions, sensuality and fears, generosity and greed. No-body has identical erogenous zones or ways of expressing love.
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Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the true part of genius.
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The best remedy for dispute is to discuss it.
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No one can solve problems for someone whose problem is that they don’t want their problems solved.
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God, grant me patience for the changes that take time; an appreciation for all that I have; tolerance for those with different struggles; and the strength to get up and try again, one day at a time.
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There/here is the ‘Same-old-you’ and here is the ‘Same-old-me’: What we do together is new-born, in between. It has never happened before. Will never again.
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Better to pray for yourself than to curse another.
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It is only in solitude that men and women can come to know the happiness that is like the delight of children in nothing at all.
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Forcing someone to do something religious is useless.
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Those who want to know everything become old while they are young.
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It is far better to withhold our judgment on something we do not understand than to condemn it. We can leave understanding until later.
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He who has placed himself in God’s hand stands free vis-a-vis man: he is entirely at his ease with them, because he has granted them the right to judge.
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Speak from your heart and you will speak to God.
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Fear is tangled with humility and humility is tangled with grace.
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The only independent element in ourselves is the attention of our mind.
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The capacity to be alone is a valuable resource when changes of mental attitude are required.
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The “great” commitment is so much easier than the ordinary one – and can all too easily shut our hearts to the letter. A willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice can be associated with, and even produce, a great hardness of heart.
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Tears smash through the gates and doors of heaven.
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You are much loved.
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You will not obtain what you love if you do not bear a great deal that you hate, and you will not be released from what you hate if you do not bear a great deal from what you love.
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The courage to not betray what is noblest in oneself is considered, at best, to be pride. And the critic finds his judgment confirmed when he sees consequences which, to him, must look very like the punishment for a mortal sin.
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In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.
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Forgiveness is unconditional, or it is not forgiveness at all…Only because (of) this, does forgiveness make love possible. We cannot love unless we have accepted forgiveness, and the deeper our experience of forgiveness, the greater our love. We cannot love where we feel rejected, even if the rejection is done in righteousness.” -Paul Tillich
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An American disease…is forgetfulness. A person or people who cannot recollect their past have little point beyond mere animal existence: it is memory that makes things matter.
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It is better for the health of the soul to make one person good than “to sacrifice oneself for all humanity.”
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The purer the eye of her attention, the more power the soul finds within herself. Strive, then, constantly to purify the eye of your attention until it becomes utterly simple and direct.
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Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by giving up their ideals.
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If we are dependent on each other for the order that makes life possible, we are even more dependent on each other for the kind of disorder that makes life human.
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“Whether somebody is praising you or blaming you, renounce your feelings for either. Only then will you find the highest. To go higher, have equal vision.”
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It was when Lucifer first congratulated himself upon his angelic behavior that he became the tool of evil.
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Those who do not grow, grow smaller.
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In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, for they in thee a thousand errors note. But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise.
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“Forgiveness, human and divine, looks forward. It is the means whereby the future can be different from the past. It is not the same as resignation or acceptance, because of this hope; it believes things can change.” -John Lampen
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Namaste – the God in me salutes the God in you.
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If you insist you’re right long enough, you’ll be wrong.
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Sincerity is, in its origin, a power of the mind that can exist under any conditions of life. All that is needed is a basic discrimination between what is actually within one’s power and what is not.
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I believe we should die with decency so that at least decency will survive.
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Make your ideas, ideals. Live into your thoughts. Manifest them. Pay attention to your inner world.
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Always be on sentry-duty for the chance to do a good deed.
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Beware of mirages. Do not run or fly away in order to get free; rather dig in the narrow place which has been given you; you will find God there and everything, God does not float on your horizon, he sleeps in your substance. Vanity runs, Love digs. If you fly away from yourself, your prison will run with you and will close in because of the wind of your flight; if you go deep down into yourself, it will disappear in paradise.” -Gustave Thibon
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“Time is the beauty of the road being long.” -J. Popper, Blues Traveler, song: “Just Wait”
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Those who are compassionate when they should be stern end up being stern when they should be compassionate.
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The fulfillment of every individual vocation demands not only renouncement of what is bad in itself, but also of all the precise goods that are not willed for us by God in our particular calling.
- If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I?
- To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance. -Oscar Wilde
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Truth cannot be found in appearances.
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When a baby is born a mother is born, too. At birth, and for months thereafter, her needs for contact exceed those of the infant.
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When the focus is shifted from the outer to the inner, true contentment arises. True Love is found.
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The price you must pay for your own liberation through another’s sacrifice is that you in turn must be willing to liberate in the same way, irrespective of the consequences to yourself.
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Our life is like a tapestry. And by the tapestry’s nature, it demands that we work on it from the back. In a blind. The Sabbath is a reminder that one day in seven, or one hour in seven, we should step back and turn our tapestry over so we can see the larger pattern of who we are, the implications of our efforts, and the world wherein we work.
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Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
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Romantic love is often a case of mistaken identity.
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What I’ve come to cherish I’ve come to slowly, usually blindly, not seeing it for some time…
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There is nobody from whom you cannot learn. Before God, who speaks through all people, you are always in the bottom class of nursery school.
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Love is an irresistible desire to be irresitably desired. -attributed to Robert Frost
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We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.
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Most of humanity’s grievous suffering is brought about by our desire for what is unnecessary.
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Love your enemies in case your friends turn out to be a bunch of bastards. -R.A.Dickson
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Seeing is believing but feeling is the truth.
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Once you tell somebody the way that you feel, you can feel it beginning to heal.
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In an encounter with Divine Reality we do not hear a voice but acquire one – and the voice we acquire is our own.
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The heart has its reasons, which reason cannot understand.
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Leave a good name behind, in case you return.
Today, Sept. 17, 2014, is the fifth anniversary of the return to spirit of my son, Tom Dix.
In memory of him, I’ve posted this list of 65 inspirational quotes that Tom had put into an oatmeal box, apparently to pull out now and then to inspire himself. There are a great variety; some are like fortunes..You could print the page out, cut them separate for yourself, even add your own and get yourself an oatmeal box . Do this fun discipline to keep your spirit going.
You might also like to read the previous posting here:”After-Death Communication with my Son” and the posting for Sept.17, 2013:”Death is not the End”, a long and excellent reading of Tom’s presence through a medium.
Marti, thank you for reminding me that today is not only the fifth anniversary of Tom's death but the twelfth anniversary of my Dad's. I will light a Yahrzeit candle for both of them – that being the Jewish way to remember the anniversary of a loved one's death (and I assume you know I became Jewish earlier this year). I too have sad memories of Tom's last, painful days in the hospital; it was hard to see such a good soul suffer, and now it's good to hear you talk of his "non-bodied" experience as taking him to far-away places, retaining his wonderful sense of humor, and having good friends. So there is justice after all! Shalom and love, Patty
Thanks, Patty, for remembering him now and being with us then. This is a nice reflective time of year to be Jewish! love to you always, Marti
Hi Marti,
I really enjoyed reading the quotes from Tom and I've also just started rereading his Ranier Maria Rilke book for the umpteenth time. I cherish it!! Hope you are well.
Best,
Siena