Meditation: Calming the Mind

by Bob Sharples

Don't meditate to fix yourself, to heal yourself, to improve yourself, to redeem yourself;

rather, do it as an act of love, of deep warm friendship to yourself. In this way there is no longer any need for the subtle aggression of selfimprovement, for the endless guilt of not doing enough.

It offers the possibility of an end to the ceaseless round of trying so hard that wraps so many people's lives in a knot. Instead there is now meditation as an act of love.

How endlessly delightful and encouraging.

The Velveteen Rabbit

by Margery Williams

"What is Real?" asked the Rabbit one day.

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you" "When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with you, but really loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Umm, sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "But when you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, or bit by bit?" asked the rabbit.

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "To become real takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easy, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"Once you are Real, you can't become unreal again, it last for always”.