Dennis Merritt Jones

Consciousness & Mindful Living Expert

QUOTES FROM: "THE ART OF UNCERTAINTY"

"On the day we are born we enter the Earth School, as my friend Gary Zukav refers to it, not knowing a thing. The soul may come overflowing with wisdom accumulated along the eternal journey but the intellect is a blank slate. As we mature, chronologically and emotionally, advancing in our understanding of the "rules" of living in a human skin, the message we are given is that the more we grow, the more we need to know. It is only through this process that we can move forward in life."

"There is much comfort to be found in the confines of a box when we know where the edges are. But, there is certainly no growth, no evolution, and no deepening of our spiritual nature within that box. There can also be no doubt that this attachment to the known is what keeps many of us from creating the life we truly desire." "If we use only our past as a reference point for our future, we just create more of what we have already created, another version of the same thing. And today, more than ever, we know that much of what has worked in the past won't work anymore." "We were born to be free, to expand our horizons by going where we have never gone before, and not to hang out in the relative comfort and safety of the nest, the known. There is a place within us that is courageous beyond our human understanding; it yearns to explore beyond the boundaries of our daily life." "Why do we resist the mystery that change brings? When we get too rigid and inflexible, rigor mortis of the soul sets in. For proof of this, we need look no further than to those who choose to stay in a relationship or job long after the soul, or life force, that originally brought it passion and joy has vacated the premises."

"As we begin our sojourn into the mystery of uncertainty we will be reminded rather quickly that nothing triggers fear of the unknown faster than that which we cannot see--our minds do a marvelous job of running ahead of us in the apparent darkness, creating all sorts of scary diversions and reasons for not moving forward."

QUOTES FROM "THE ART OF BEING"

"Life really is a stream into which we pour our beliefs, and all of those who come after us will be the direct beneficiaries of what we believe. The great thing is that with this awareness comes choice! As we awaken to the fact that we don’t necessarily have to pass on beliefs that have not served us or others well, we can choose to eliminate them from the legacy we pass on." "The need for approval can be an interesting trap; if we are not careful, it can woo us into compromising our integrity. When that happens, it usually spills over into many different areas of our life. Then what do we really have left except a life that is lived in the darkened shadows of our own self-doubt and diminished self-respect?" "What I have discovered is that what I expect from others is what I get. People generally live up to or down to the level that I expect. Why? Because the energy that I radiate (broadcast) can only draw to me more of the same, that’s why." "Imagine a heartbeat monitor in the hospital that goes “beep . . . beep . . . beep” with that little blip on the screen that bounces up and down between two extremes. That’s a good sign! When it stops beeping and blipping, it’s not a good sign—a flatline indicates death. So it is with each of us on our journey through life. The ups and the downs in our life require forward movement on our part and can help us maintain our sense of being fully alive. We need the valleys as well as the peaks and plateaus in-between." "You and I have each had a story or trauma drama that at some point helped define who we believed ourselves to be. What is the content and theme of your story? Has the victim been liberated from the bondage of the tale yet? Are you continuing to tell it long after the story ended? If we are not fully conscious, it’s easy to become mesmerized by our own story. If we tell it often enough, it really does take on a life of its own, and we end up believing it is the truth of who we are." "We can revoke the permission we have given ourselves to think down rather than up at any time we choose, but it requires conscious intention. It’s about waking up and becoming aware of what thoughts are moving through our minds in every holy instant." "When I say we can disidentify with the ego, I don’t mean we should deny it or try to exile it, because we need the ego-self in order to survive in the earth world—it’s part of who we are. We simply need to be clear enough to know that there is a larger part of who we are who can and should be in the driver’s seat, steering our thinking and actions in a manner that correlates more fully with what we really believe." "If you can, imagine God as a mountain, and at the top lies the full experience of union with the infinite. Now imagine many villages surrounding the mountain at its base, each with its own unique pathway to the top of the mountain. Think of each village as a different religion. Is one pathway better than another path if they all take the devoted follower to the top? In a world with billions of people and thousands of religions, it is spiritual arrogance to say there is only one correct path." "In Zen, there is an old saying: The obstacle is the path. Know that a whole and happy life is not free of obstacles. Quite the contrary, a whole and happy life is riddled with obstacles—they simply become the very stepping–stones that help lift us to a new perspective. It is not what happens to us in this life that shapes us, it is how we choose to respond to what happens to us."