Music is the glue that connects

Dear Seiji,

Music is the glue that connects many parallel universes that run through your life.I am amazed at how often you can find grace and simplicity in this complex world.Through your talent, perseverance, and faith in the power of music, you have blazed a path for aspiring musicians from all over the globe.

Yo-Yo Ma

What Gramma gave me

Gramma died 25 years after she stopped mothering me.But she left me something special, and I hear it whenever the need occurs.A tune wafts in unexpectedly when I am kneading bread or hanging laundry on the line.The opening phrase of an oldhymn bursts from my mouth:
   "Are ye able," I suddenly sing out.
   "To believe that Spirit triumphs," I can hear Gramma picking up the next line.The verses poses a great question about faith, but I am thinking about what Gramma gave me.
   "Lillian," I answer, "thank you for my voice."

 

An experience of silence and sound

I sit for a long time in the absolute silence.All at once, there is barely a perceptible noise, a soft rumble as of thunder.The sound dies without discovery of its nature or source.It returns, seeming to come from all directions at once.At last it emerges from its mystery, grows into a tremulous hum, and solidifies into chanting.The music has no tempo.There is no breathing audible in it.No one voice stands out; it is the fusion of all that produces the effect.Long held notes which at last modulate again and again in the calm rhythm of the heart.I am suspended in the sound.And charged. ... The chanting dies away as gently as it began.Once again there is the unanimous voice of silence.

You have a spiritual malbox

An image to ponder: You have a spiritual mailbox and perhaps have been unable to live your truth. Each time this occurs, the number on your mailbox changes, causing the spiritual blessings addressed to you to be undeliverable. God does not reroute blessings if you are the cause of the interference. However, if you remain true to yourself, the heavens can find you even if the outer world seems not to approve of who you are. Always choose to be truthful in the highest sense — and you will find that goodness and inner beauty will accompany you along the way.

To speak the truth through our words

To speak the truth through our words and through our lives is the obligation that authenticates spirituality in us humans. Spirituality is mysterious, but this we do know: spirituality is the way wherein we will experience vitality, truth, and transformation.

The great ocean of truth

I seem to have been only like a child playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Silence and truth

Silence is a kind of stillness, a place of retreat into which we may enter and, having entered, may know the Truth.

True integrity grows from awareness

True integrity grows from an awareness that we can stand in the honest light of God's unconditional love and be seen in our truth. Integrity, like a muscle, needs to be worked and stretched. As we sit in the center of integrity, our heart and God's heart beat as one. The transparent light of truth filters through, embracing every cell of our being, and we are able to see and speak more clearly. Then, little by little, as the layers of lies and pretending are stripped aside, a genuine simplicity remains. Freed of grandiosity and illusion, we stand radiant and unencumbered in truth as we claim our own voice with which we dare speak our truth and live with integrity.

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