One of the books that I am reading at the moment is the mystic John O'Donoghue's Anam Cara. Well, I say reading, but it's more of a book that one can dip in and out of for inspiration when the mood fits. I came across these pages last night and I thought them worth sharing with you....
"[O]ne of the greatest sins is the unlived life. We are sent into the world to live to the full everything that awakens within us and everything that comes towards us. It is a lonely experience to be at the deathbed of someone who is full of regret; to hear him say how he would love another year to do the things his heart had always dreamed of but believed he could never do until he retired. He had always postponed the dream of his heart. There are many people who do not live the lives they desire. Many of the things that hold them back from inhabiting their destiny are false. These are only images in their minds. They are not real barriers at all. We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of our destiny.
We are so privileged to still have time. We have but the one life and it is a shame to limit it by fear and false barriers...If you allow your nature to come alive then everything will fall into rhythm.
The shape of each soul is different. There is a secret destiny for each person. When you endeavour to repeat what others have done or force yourself into a preset mould, you betray your individuality. We need to return to the solitude within, to find again the dream that lies at the heart of the soul."
Wonderful! That really resonates with me. They're thoughts I've had myself regularly, and I try to live by them (though I know of at least two areas in my life where I let "fear" in one form or another limit me, and have not yet convinced myself that the reward is worth the risk), but it's very good to read them expressed by an outside source.
ReplyDeleteThat book Anam Cara is full of nuggets of wisdom. A lot of it is based on Celtic poetry and so on, but univeral nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteA nice book to dip into on occasion for some soulful thoughts. :)