SPIRITUAL THOUGHTS

by F. Joseph Montagna

Belief Systems!

We all have them.

"Great men & women

"Eventually,

"If you can’t accept anything on faith,

"It’s not that I’m afraid to die,

I just don’t want to be there

when it happens!"

— Woody Allen

"We can love completely,

Without complete understanding."

"The Constitution

did not give us rights,

It just put on paper

What we already knew!"

"Get the world to sing your song,

And they will want to know

who you are."

"The future that you envision

Begins with the thoughts you occupy

In the present moment."

"Whoever you are

Some evening

take a step outside of your house,

Which you know so well.

Enormous space is near—"

— Rainer Maria Rilke

"People you don’t expect to love,

Are the ones you never forget."

"To be forgiven,

we must first believe in sin."

— Jewel

"What doesn’t kill you

Defines you."

"Passion

is the enemy of precision."

"Beware!

The toes you step on today,

Might be connected to the ass

you’ll kiss tomorrow."

"If you’ve got one foot in yesterday

And the other foot in tomorrow,

Then you’re pissing

All over today!"

"Live each day

as if it were your last,

And one day you’ll be right!"

With schizophrenic delusions

Suffering from recurring amnesia

Based on traumatic repression

Of anti-social and violent behavior."

"How about remembering

your divinity?"

—Alanis Morrisette

Strife!

Quit striving.

You already are

Love.

"The wisest thing in life

Is to enjoy it!"

"Since all matter and living forms

Are manifestations of God,

We are immersed

within one version of heaven

And everything should be revered."

"The road to enlightenment

is always

under construction."

"Did poverty steal your golden shoes?

It didn’t steal your hopes

and dreams.

Gather yourself around your faith

That lights the darkness

Most fear."

"How ‘bout getting off of these antibiotics?

How ‘bout stopping eating when I’m full up?

How ‘bout them transparent dangling carrots?

How ‘bout me blaming you for everything?

How ‘bout me enjoying the moment for once?

How ‘bout how good it feels to finally forgive you?"

--- Alanis Morrisette

"There is more to life than grabbing a tit!"

— Ascended Master Ramtha

"We will all be Christed

when we hear ourselves say

—Jewel

"In the end,

only kindness matters."

I am forever connected

to the source of all that is . . .

is Love.

So be it!

"There is no room in my soul

for negative thought."

"History teaches us

that men behave wisely,

Once they have exhausted 

all other alternatives."

"The voyage of discovery

Consists not in seeking new landscapes,

But in finding new eyes."

"If you believe that you

have to defend your

belief against attack,

Know that it is but an illusion.

The truth will not be overcome and therefore

Needs no defense."

"In this world,

everybody believes

All that they believe they should.

And everybody wants everybody to believe

That what they believe

is what everybody should believe in..."

"Befriend yourself

and you will never be alone."

"Time is what keeps everything

From happening at once."

"One ship sails east

and another sails west

With the self-same winds that blow.

Tis the set of the sail

and not the gale

Which determines the way they go.

As the winds of the sea

are the ways of fate

As we voyage along through life,

Tis the act of the soul

that determines the goal,

And not the calm or the strife."

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The stages of the Noble Path are:

Right Behavior,

Right Speech,

Right Concentration,

Right Effort,

Right Livelihood,

Right Action,

Right Mindfulness,

Right Thought.

— Buddha

"A circle is a line

That has become one with itself."

"Can you imagine

the wisp of majik and fairy dust

Contained within a llama hum,

An eagle scream

and the breeze that slides down

An Orca fin?"

"If I take the wings of the morning

And dwell in the uppermost parts

of the sea

Even there shall thy hand lead me

Thou has covered me in my mother’s womb

I will praise thee

for I am fearfully, beautifully made."

"Find peace

in the ebb and flow

Of time and space."

"Rely on neither advice nor reason,

But remember that

great straightness often seems twisted."

What did the Buddhist monk say

To the hot dog vender?

"Make me one with everything!"

"My Akashic record is scratched,

Life keeps repeating itself."

"To love oneself

is the beginning

of a lifelong romance."

"The lucky ones

are those who do

what they were meant to do."

"Ambition is the ice

on the lake of emotion."

"If people knew the real truth

about things,

they’d never get up in the morning."

"Never allow success to go to your head,

And never allow failure to go to your heart!"

"Your medical people

will have more lives to answer for in the other world

than even we generals."

--- Napoleon Bonaparte

"There are a thousand

hacking at the branches of evil

to one who is striking at the root."

--- Henry David Thoreau

"You gain strength, courage and confidence

by every experience

in which you stop to look fear in the face."

--- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Mythology is what grown-ups believe,

folklore is what they tell their children,

and religion is both."

--- Cedric Whitman

"If people simply realized that most major religions

(including Christianity)

are based on astrology and sun worship,

Mankind would be a lot better off..."

"Of all the tyrannies that affect Mankind,

tyranny in religion is the worst;

every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in;

but religious tyranny attempts to stride beyond the grave,

and seeks to pursue us into eternity."

--- Thomas Paine

"The exact contrary

of what is generally believed

is often the truth."

--- Jean de la Bruyere

"There was a time

when religion ruled the world.

It is known as The Dark Ages."

"If all records told the same tale —

then the lie passed into history and became truth.

Who controls the past, controls the future.

Who controls the present, controls the past."

--- George Orwell, 1984

"The idea that religion and politics don’t mix

was invented by the Devil

to keep Christians from running their own country."

--- Rev. Jerry Falwell

"Toward no crimes have men

shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel

as in punishing differences in belief."

--- James Russell Lowell

"Within one century after the "discovery" of America,

50 million non-Christian natives were killed by

Catholic and Christian soldiers, explorers and missionaries."

"They came with a Bible and their religion —

stole our land and crushed our spirit...

And now tell us we should be thankful

to the "Lord" for being saved."

--- Chief Pontiac

"Missionaries are perfect nuisances,

and leave every place worse than they found it."

--- Charles Dickens

"If fifty million people say a foolish thing,

it is still a foolish thing."

--- Anatole France

"Jesus has now been reduced to a mantra...

chanted mindlessly by followers,

who have no idea of the relationship

of doctrine to history and mythology..."

--- A. A. Snow

"Since 1985,

the Catholic Church

has paid out over $350 million

in damages related to sexual abuse."

--- Jason Berry

"The bible and the church

have been the greatest stumbling blocks

in the way of women’s emancipation."

--- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"The most violent element

in our society

is ignorance."

--- Emma Goldman

"Fear paints pictures of ghosts

and hangs them

in the gallery of ignorance."

"A believer is a bird in a cage;

a freethinker is an eagle

parting the clouds with tireless wing."

--- Robert G. Ingersoll

"And when the dew that lay was gone up,

behold, upon the face of the wilderness

there lay a small round thing (mushroom?),

as small as the hoar frost on the ground.

"And when the children of Israel saw it,

they said one to another, It is manna;

for they wist not what it was.

And Moses said unto them,

This is the bread which the Lord

hath given you to eat."

--- Exodus 16:14 & 15

"Hope is a feather

that perches in the soul."

--- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"A liar will fall

on their face faster

than a person with one leg."

"It takes a smart woman

to fall in love

with a good man."

"The love that we withhold

"Place one foot in front of the other,

and soon

you'll be miles down the road."