Speaking of the truth…

I heard someone share this tonight:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” A Return to Love – Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson

What a beautiful passage. I’ve heard and read it many times before, but it rang more truly than ever especially considering what I’ve been through of late. It comes, as things usually do, at exactly the time I needed to be reminded of it. Once again it affirms the spiritual truth that who we truly are is exactly who we are supposed to be and that we all have much to offer this world regardless of opinions (our own and other’s) to the contrary. I feel comfort in the knowledge that I truly aspire to this. As long as my behaviour matches my beliefs I’m on the right path. Spiritual integrity: What a concept.

Just a side note: This quote has been attributed Nelson Mandela as a part of his inaugural speech of 1994. Apparently, and surprising to me as I had believed it as well, incorrectly so. He did not, according to a little research, use the above in his speeches that year. Mandela’s actual inaugural speeches are at these links: speech 1 and speech 2

Confucious kept it a little shorter (and a little sharper): To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.

Here’s some more quotations on integrity that I’m finding comfort in. Especially:

Having integrity means… being completely true to what is inside you– to what you know is right… what you feel you must do, regardless of the immediate cost of sacrifice… to be honorable and to behave decently. – Samuel Goldwyn, 1960

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Losers make promises they often break. Winners make commitments they always keep. – Dennis Waitley

It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe. – Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

and finally:

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Shakespeare, Hamlet

UPDATE: After reading Moselle’s remark below I thought I had better clear something up prior to more comments. Religiosity is not my intent, but spirituality. There’s a huge difference. The word ‘God’ tends to freak a lot of people out. When I speak of or relate to God I in no way mean anything near a ‘Christian’, ‘Islamic’, ‘Jewish’, ‘Hindu’ or any other religious God (which I can’t accept). The guiding tenets of all the religions I’ve studied are basically the same, but there are portions of each one that just drive me up a wall. The ‘God’ I speak of is my own personal conception of God. My God is more like ‘the Force’ in Star Wars. That’s the best way I can describe it. Today I choose the path of Obi-wan Kenobi rather than that of Darth Vader. If when reading spiritual literature you are stumped by a word like God just substitute it with what you’re comfortable with like spirit, good orderly direction, love, the light, the force, goodness, goddess or anything else.

Some more reading that has helped me:
Conversations with God and works by Joseph Campbell, Gary Zukav, Thich Nhat Hanh and Emmet Fox.