When I sing I feel ecstatic, as if in communion with God. Maybe, when I sing, that's when I feel and experience it most in my life -- that lack of separation from God... I think that a song, if you allow it into your heart, can remind you that you are whole, that you are not just a fragment, but everything. If people sing, if they let themselves really sing, they can feel that inside... No matter who you are, if you sing from deep within you, transformation happens. A song, whether you are singing or listening, can let your heart open to the spiritual world.
Nor can that endure Which has not its foundations upon love, For love alone diminishes not, but shines with its own light, Makes an end of discord, softens the fires of hate, Restores peace in the world, Brings together the sundered, redresses wrong, Aids all and injures none. And who so invokes its aid will find peace and safety, And have no fear of future ill.
"What is love, my friends?" he asked, opening his arms as though he wished to embrace us. "What is love? It is not simply compassion, not simply kindness. In compassion there are two: the one who suffers and the one who feels compassion. In kindness there are two: the one who gives and the one who receives. But in love there is only one; the two join, unite, become inseparable. The I and the you vanish. To love means to lose oneself in the beloved. "
Each individual who conquers the panic of their nightmare, who faces up to the terror of evil, and thereby discovers a goodness which heals and cannot be destroyed, brings fresh love into the world. The deepening of their capacity for love will first heal their own wound, and then go further, extending its gentle influence upon family, friends, and out to the world.
Listen, my heart: love God ceaselessly As the fish loveth water: The deeper the water The happier and more tranquil the fish. God alone knoweth the suffering Of fish separated from the waters.
The state of love communion is simply the state of joining within with one another, heart to heart.It is an experience of the other as myself. When I meet you in my own heart, there is nowhere else I have to go. As long as we both remain in our hearts, our joining continues. When we move out of our hearts, we simply move away. And coming together does not mean reaching out after you, but reaching within myself to find the place where we are connected.
She loved Botswana, which was good place, and she loved those with whom she lived and worked. She had so much love to give – she had always felt that – and now there was someone to whom she could give this love, and that, she knew was good; for that is what redeems us, that is what makes our pain and sorrow bearable – this giving of love to others, this sharing of the heart.
~ from IN THE COMPANY OF CHEERFUL LADIES by Alexander McCall Smith
