For those of us with a hunger to know the truth, painful emotions are like flags going up to say, "You're stuck!"... such uncomfortable feelings are messages that tell us to perk up and lean into a situation when we'd rather cave in and back away. When the flag goes up, we have an opportunity: we can stay with our painful emotion instead of spinning out. Staying is how we get the hang of gently catching ourselves when we're about to let resentment harden into blame, righteousness, or alienation. It's also how we keep from smoothing things over by talking ourselves into a sense of relief or inspiration...With practice, however, we learn to stay with a broken heart, with a nameless fear, with the desire for revenge. Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears. We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in the uncertainty of the present moment — over and over again.
A secret sympathy unites a great community. They recognize one another by a sign, by a look, by the magnetic atmosphere that each one emanates; by their silences more than by their words. Like the children of Light, they have the desire to know and to understand, to love and to believe. The countenances of the greatest among them are veiled by a strange melancholy; for the tragedy of the universe weighs heavily upon their hearts. They feel themselves responsible for it, as portions of the earthly providence that watches over human destiny. But through this veil there shines like an aureole of light the inward joy of those who behold Divinity. In the silence they are conscious of being united to all living creatures by an invisible thread.
