« To the miser, everything is wanting; to the poor, a bit; to the wise, nothing. » (Latin proverb)
man and material goods
« Ownership burdens. I have never felt so free, so deliciously free, as since I chose to be poor.
Wisdom of frugality. Being content with little puts us in tune with nature. »
- Is it wrong to desire material things? « It is not necessary for a man to practice self-punishment, to deprive himself of all comforts. If a man has a choice between a silk pillow and a stone to rest his head on, why wouldn't he choose the pillow?
(But) If you put your material comfort above everything else, you hinder your development
The fulfillment of our being
« The purpose of our life during our passage on Earth, then after our death, in the various worlds of the beyond, is an increasingly complete realization of our being. »
« Every soul must become aware of itself little by little.
In evolution, the mineral will become vegetable, the vegetable will become animal and the animal will become human. It is the long chain of life. »
(Hélène Bouvier, medium, "Mission of souls in the afterlife")
« The important thing for you is to evolve in order to modify your vibrational state.
The Earth is a domain that allows the soul to modify its vibrations through more or less difficult life experiences. »
(R. Terral-Meyer, 'Lettres de l’invisible')
continued.... It is up to you whether or not you want it to be. »
- Is man blameworthy for seeking well-being? « Well-being is a natural desire; God only forbids abuse and that acquired at the expense of others.
- Do voluntary deprivations have merit in the eyes of God?
- Do good to others and you will deserve more.
- Are there voluntary deprivations that are meritorious?
- Yes, the deprivation of useless pleasures, because it detaches man from matter. »
« The drama is that you have reached a high level of bodily and material development, but you are not progressing, the soul is suffocated by the heavy, the material, the possession. »
(A. Ray-Wendling, "A Sun Too Late")Contributions by Anne Ray-Wendling on the subject of:The WAY
, LOVE
, LIFE
or DEATH
« ...And here you are sitting among your scattered ruins. And if the animal is satisfied, the man is at your place threatened with famine, and not knowing what he hungers for. »
Goods, success, pleasures are at the lowest level of matter. However, they can, like a piece of glass at the bottom of a cellar, reflect a ray of sunlight and can dangle joy, happiness, or love shimmer. But when he realizes his mistake, man does not raise his eyes; he feverishly searches for other reflections.
« She [Mother Teresa] sensed that in addition to the demined poor, there are also all the rich who are distraught and have the wrong goal, all those who are harsh, greedy, those who have fallen into error and the glitter of material things, as well as those who have not understood, all of whom need love. »
« Once in the whirlwind of politics, I wondered what to do to maintain integrity. If I really wanted to serve I had to give up all wealth and get rid of all possessions. At first things went slowly and not without pain. But as the days went by, I realized that I had to throw away a lot of things that I considered mine and that I felt a real joy in getting rid of them little by little, at a pace that was growing. accelerating. I then felt like I was freed from a great weight. »
(Gandhi)Contributions of Mahatma Gandhi on the subject of:The WAY
, LOVE
, LIFE
or DEATH
« I have always distinguished the important from the urgent. It is certainly urgent for man to eat, but love and the meaning of life and the taste of God are more important. I do not have to know whether or not man will be happy, prosperous and conveniently sheltered, but which man will be prosperous, sheltered and happy. I don't care about the fat candle; by its flame alone I measure its quality.
It is urgent that a staircase allows access to the temple otherwise it will remain deserted. But the temple alone is important.
I condemn you not for favor the usual, but to take it as an end. And I call you to ask you:
– Show me the important part of your work? And you remain silent before me. »
« The model that is offered by society, via the internet and television, is an eternal childhood! Consumes ! Have fun ! Be young! »
(Dr Olivier Chambon, psychiatrist)Contributions by Olivier Chambon on the theme of:The WAY
, LOVE
, LIFE
or DEATH
The advertisement
_ _
« I forbid merchants to boast too much of their wares. Because they quickly become pedagogues and teach you as an end what is essentially only a means, and thus deceiving you on the road to follow they are soon degrading you, because if their music is vulgar they make you for sell it to you a vulgar soul. Now, if it is good for objects to be founded to serve men, it would be monstrous for men to be founded to serve as dustbins for objects. »
« The devil only clothes the most pleasant aspects of your life: hobbies, games, cars, love of objects – realize this deadly expression: love of objects! . »
« These are born of the morality of merchants, which want to place their goods. You believe that your joy comes from receiving and buying; how would you remember the opposite when so much effort was made to bond you with the object. »
« The pleasures that the senses provide are the matrices of the pains to come. »
( Krishna)
« Nothing is real in the life you lead except your relationship with Me.
Your desires, you must not overcome them, but change them. Your earthly passions, you must understand them and accept them. What you resist persists. What you look at, disappears.
Turn to Me and turn away from anything that does not resemble Me. »
« Matter, you must be able to reign over it and dispose of it. Otherwise you are at the mercy of the earthly powers and you cannot fulfill your mission freely. »
« The more you create links with the object, the heavier you become. »[ Saint-Exupéry ]
The spiral of desire
_ _
« Man's interest in material satisfactions alone is only apparent. In the middle of the void in which he finds himself, he sees everything that could constitute a refuge for him being engulfed over time.
To fill his inner emptiness by all means, he arouses ever new needs. »
« The human eye, the more it covets, the more it desires; the more he receives, the more he wants; the more he brews and stores, the more he thirsts to possess. An eye to see is the whole body. He who knows how to master his eye is a saint. »
« I discovered how much damage covetousness can cause. True development is spiritual, and all that is materialistic in man, such as desire for possession and greed, suffocates his spirit. Materialism is a cult, which makes us lose the freedom to mature and be happy. »
« Our dissatisfaction is permanent, our desire insatiable. To try to fill it is to condemn oneself to always wanting more because nothing can satisfy it (sustainably). »
« We have never taken so many drugs to calm us down or fall asleep. We believe that in order to be happy, we have to sleep a certain number of hours, eat a certain way and buy an incredible amount of completely useless objects.
With all that, we lost touch with our own rhythms. We have thus cut ourselves off from the essential. »
« The materialism of this civilization of the possessed object is the cause of many of our fears: this cult of the object is a stake driven into the being of man, nailing its bark and its heart to the ground! »
« I will never dare to possess what I do not need. »
(Gandhi)Contributions of Mahatma Gandhi on the subject of:The WAY
, LOVE
, LIFE
or DEATH
« Your lives flow on the muddy bed of desires; tirelessly your instincts push you to keep what you have grasped. At rest, you live with closed hands on your winnings. »
« I encountered as much difficulty controlling my passions as controlling my sense of taste. At the risk of surprising many, I am a big eater. If I hadn't managed to impose restrictions on myself, I would have long since become a bestial being, and that would have led to my downfall. »
(Gandhi)Contributions of Mahatma Gandhi on the subject of:The WAY
, LOVE
, LIFE
or DEATH
« Take care that your desire does not become an addiction”.
« Is not the body itself a possession in itself? Should I remove all my shelves full of books?
It takes a profound change of heart, a conversion of the whole being. While having control of goods, be careful not to consider the smallest parcel as his property. »
(Gandhi)Contributions of Mahatma Gandhi on the subject of:The WAY
, LOVE
, LIFE
or DEATH
« The soul thirsts for love, hence its eternal dissatisfaction that material pleasures cannot satisfy. »
(A. Ray-Wendling, "A Sun Too Late")Contributions by Anne Ray-Wendling on the subject of:The WAY
, LOVE
, LIFE
or DEATH
« If materialism and technology were really the solution to mankind's problems, the industrially advanced countries today would be full of smiling faces. »
« Voluntarily limiting our needs is the only way to make ourselves available to others.
We need a minimum of well-being and comfort, but beyond this limit, what was supposed to help us becomes a source of discomfort. You have to know how to impose a limit on your needs, otherwise you go in pursuit of the wind. »
(Gandhi)Contributions of Mahatma Gandhi on the subject of:The WAY
, LOVE
, LIFE
or DEATH
« Spiritual progress alone can free you from sin, while technology binds you to it.
(...) Modern man invented noise, noise that damages his body. He created fake musics and multiplied the games. He destroys himself and distracts himself. »
« We do not agree on the reality. I call reality not what can be measured in a balance, but what's weighing for me.
The reality for the child does not reside in the pebbles, but only in the fervor that arises from the game. And the pebbles are in turn transfigured. »
« Our material possessions should be considered only as practical presents, temporarily placed at our disposal. Behind the attachment hides the fear of losing. »
Contributions by Anne Ray-Wendling on the subject of:The WAY
, LOVE
, LIFE
or DEATH
