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Title: Excerpts from Illusions by R Bach
Source:
illusions
URL Source: http://www.none.com
Published: Jun 9, 2006
Author: richard bach
Post Date: 2006-06-09 21:50:01 by gengis gandhi
Keywords: None
Views: 223
Comments: 7
You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts. Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours. Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years. Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you. "Everything in this book may be wrong." There was a Master come unto earth, born in the holy land of Indiana, raised in the mystical hills of East Wayne. The Master learned of this world in the public schools of Indiana, and as he grew, in his trade of a mechanic of automobiles. But the Master had learning’s from other lands and other schools, from other lives that he had lived. He remembered these, and remembering became wise and strong, so that others saw his strength and came to him for counsel. The Master believed that he had power to help himself and all mankind, and as he believed so it was for him, so that others saw his power and came to him to be healed of their troubles and their many diseases. The Master believed that it was well for any man to think upon himself as a son of God, and as he believed, so it was, and the shops and garages where he worked became crowded and jammed with those who sought his learning and his touch, and the streets outside with those who longed only that the shadow of his passing might fall upon them, and change their lives. It came to pass, because of the crowds, that the several foremen and shop managers bid the Master to leave his tools and go his way, for so tightly was he thronged that neither he nor other mechanics had room to work upon the automobiles. So it was that he went into the countryside, and people following began to call him Messiah, and worker of miracles; and as they believed, it was so. If a storm passed as he spoke, not a raindrop touched the listeners head; the last of the multitude heard his words as clearly as the first, no matter lightening nor thunder in the sky about. And always he spoke to them in parables. And he said unto them, “within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and sickness, to riches and to poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control these, and not another.” A mill-man spoke and said, “easy words for you, Master, for you are guided as we are not, and need not toil as we toil. A man has to work for his living in this world.” The Master answered and said, “Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.” “The current of the river swept silently over them all – young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.” “Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.” “But one creature said at last, ‘I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.” “The other creatures laughed and said, ‘Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumble and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom.” “But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.” “Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.” “And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger cried, ‘See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all! “And the one carried in the current said, ‘I am no more a Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.’ “But they cried the more, ‘Savior!’ all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Savior.” And it came to pass when he saw that the multitude thronged him the more day on day, tighter and closer and fiercer than ever they had, when he saw that they pressed him to heal them without rest, and feed them always with his miracles, to learn for them and to live their lives, he went alone that day unto a hilltop apart, and there he prayed. And he said in his heart, Infinite Radiant Is, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me, let me lay aside this impossible task. I cannot live the life of one other soul, yet ten thousand cry to me for life. I’m sorry I allowed it all to happen. If it be thy will, let me go back to my engines and my tools and let me live as other men. And a voice spoke to him on the hilltop, a voice neither male nor female, loud nor soft, a voice infinitely kind. And the voice said unto him, “Not my will, but thine be done. For what is thy will is mine for thee. Go thy way as other men, and be thou happy on the earth.” And hearing the Master was glad, and gave thanks, and came down from the hilltop humming a little mechanics song. And when the thronged pressed him with its woes, beseeching him to heal for it and learn for it and feed it nonstop from his understanding and to entertain it with his wonders, he smiled upon the multitude and said pleasantly unto them, “I quit.” For a moment the multitude was stricken dumb with astonishment. And he said unto them, “If a man told God that he wanted most of all to help the suffering world, no matter the price to himself, and God answered and told him what he must do, should the man do as he is told?” “Of course Master!” cried the many. “It should be pleasure for him to suffer the tortures of hell itself, should God ask it!” “No matter what these tortures, nor how difficult the task?” “Honor to be hanged, glory to be nailed to a tree and burned, if so be that God has asked, "”said they. “And what would you do, “ the Master said unto the multitude, “if God spoke directly to your face and said, ‘I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.’ What would you do then?” And the multitude was silent, not a voice not a sound was heard upon the hillsides, across the valleys where they stood. And the Master said unto the silence, “In the path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime. So it is that I have learned this day, and choose to leave you now to walk your own path, as you please. And he went his way through the crowds and left them, and he returned to the everyday world of men and machines. ******************************************************************7 Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, teachers. You teach best what you most need to learn. ***************************************************************** "Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself."
Poster Comment: if you haven't read it, its a good one.
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#1. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
and no one had the guts to leave the temple "To love God as He ought to be loved, we must live for God and die for God, knowing that the goal of life is to Love God, and find Him as our own self." - Baba I think theists are hallucinating and so qualify as mentally unstable. It's the bolt upright sane people should be locked up. That's a bad idea too, why has everything become so polorised?
Quit bogarting that peace, Herbert!
Because monotheism is deeply in error, and has become a tool of statecraft. When you bow before some figurehead of some church, you bow down to the state. When you worship some diety at some state church, you worship the state. And the reward for your deference and your dog-like licking of the hands of those pigs is a boot in the face and a kick in the ass as they steal your wealth and give you crumbs from their tables. Tyrants: for centuries and centuries, you have sucked our blood. The tears which you have made us spill would be enough to drown you. The people have waited patiently for the arrival of a Messiah who would save us: but all the Messiahs have turned out to be traitors to the cause of humanity, The people had allowed you to live and with you the institutions you represent. Now it is different. You are going to die and with you will die Authority, Capitalism, and the Church, the three oppressors of the human species. From today forward, there will not be a man who dares to make others obey him; there will not be a man who exploits the work of another man, there will not be swindlers who between popular justice and crime set fire to the flames of Hell in order to protect those on top from the rebellion of those below. (To the revolutionaries) Comrades: we must complete social justice. Let us cut off the head of the hydra and take possession of all that exists for the well-being of all. Long live Land and Liberty! From "Land and Liberty" by Ricardo Flores Magnon.
#2. To: Dakmar (#1)
I think theists are hallucinating and so qualify as mentally unstable. It's the bolt upright sane people should be locked up. That's a bad idea too, why has everything become so (polarized)?
 | Gold and silver are real money, paper is but a promise. |
#3. To: Dakmar, markm0722, Phaedrus (#1)
It's a bear market, but there's a good song parody in there too: Polarization (sung to the tune of Specialization, from the movie Let's Make Love) Don't even need to change the beginning: If you peruse the people in the news, ... Polarization, polarization!why has everything become so polorised?
the people that the magazines refer to
You´ll find that they are naturally soigné
the special ones that all of us defer to.
They´ve each a trait that seems to state "first-raters"
Which seperates them from the small pertaters.
You'll rule the barnyard if -- if you polarize!
Often, trying to explain 'why' is futile because the person asking 'why' doesn't really want to know the answer. He simply wants to argue and hold onto a current belief. -- Matt Furey
#4. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
I'm a pilot so I've read every book Richard Bach ever wrote beginning back in HS back in the late 70's onward beginning w JS Seagull. There are some great truths in what he has written./
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in -- and the West in general -- into an unbearable hell and a choking life."
--Osama bin Laden
#5. To: Tauzero (#3)
I have a book shelf with about 100 "Best (personal) Books" on it. Illusions is there. It was Bach's best, too.
#6. To: Phaedrus, IndieTX (#5)
There might not be a wrench, and you might be able to levitate it if you try very hard and spend many years in reflection and learning. Presumably far away from Rufus, so that Rufus will not simply brain you with said wrench.
Often, trying to explain 'why' is futile because the person asking 'why' doesn't really want to know the answer. He simply wants to argue and hold onto a current belief. -- Matt Furey
#7. To: Tauzero (#6)
LOL! Or Cleophus...he uses bats.
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in -- and the West in general -- into an unbearable hell and a choking life."
--Osama bin Laden
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