"it is possible to speak with our heart directly. most ancient cultures know this. we can actually converse with our heart as if it were a good friend. in modern life we have become so busy with our daily affiars and thoughts that we have lost this essential art of taking time to converse with our heart" Jack Kornfield
"the search for loves continues even in the face of great odds"
"love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth" Erich Fromm
"the cultural emphasis on endless consumption deflects attention from spiritual hunger. we are endlessly bombarded by messages telling us that our every need can be satisfied by material increase. artist barbara kruger created a work proclaiming 'i shop therefore i am' to show the way consumerism has taken over mass consciousness, making people think they are what they possess. while the zeal to possess intensifies, so does the sense of spiritual emptiness. because we are spiritually empty we try to fill up on consumerism. we may not have enough love but we can always shop" Bell Hooks
"organized religion has failed to satisfy spiritual hunger because it has accommodated secular demands, interpreting spiritual life in ways that uphold the values of a production-centered commodity culture. this is as true of the traditional christian church as it is of new age spirituality. it is no accident that so many famous new age spiritual teachers link their teachings to a metaphysics of daily life that extolls the virtues of wealth, privilege, and power" Bell Hooks
"when i speak of love i am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. i am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. this hindu-moslem-christian-jewish-buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first episode of saint john: 'let us love one another, for love is god and everyone that loveth is born of god and knoweth god'". Martin Luther King
"the mass media is the primary vehicle for the promotion and affirmation of greed; there is little information offered about the establishment and maintenance of meaningful relationships. if the will to accumulate is not already present in the television watcher or the movie-goer, it will be implanted by images that bombard the psyche with the message that consuming with others, not connection, should be our goal." Bell Hooks
"we cannot endure without love and there is no other way to the return of healing, comforting, harmonizing love than through total and complete forgiveness: if we want freedom and peace and the experience of love and being loved, we must let go and forgive." Eric Butterworth
"false notions of love teach us that it is the place where we feel no pain, where we will be in a state of constant bliss. we have to expose the falseness of these beliefs to see and accept the reality that suffering and pain do not end when we begin to love." Bell Hooks
" you have to trust that every friendship has no end, that a communion of saints exists among all those, living and dead, who have truly loved god and one another. you know from experience how real this is. those you have loved deeply and who have died live on in you, not just as memories but as real presences" Henri Nouwen
"without change, we cannot grow. our will to grow in spirit and truth is how we stand before life and death, ready to choose life" Bell Hooks
"love is our true destiny. we do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone-we find it with another" Thomas Merton
