if we have not found the heaven within,we have not found the heaven without
Interpretation
True happiness and fulfillment come from within rather than from external circumstances.
This quote suggests that our inner state of being determines our experience of the world. If we have not developed a sense of peace, joy, or 'heaven' within ourselves, then our attempts to find happiness in the external world will be futile. The essence of this message emphasizes the importance of inner fulfillment as a prerequisite for experiencing joy and contentment in life.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-acceptance.
What a host of little incidents, all deep-buried in the past -- problems that had once been urgent, arguments that had once been keen, anecdotes that were funny only because one remembered the fun. Did any emotion really matter when the last trace of it had vanished from human memory; and if that were so, what a crowd of emotions clung to him as to their last home before annihilation? He must be kind to them, must treasure them in his mind before their long sleep.
The first quarter-century of your life was doubtless lived under the cloud of being too young for things, while the last quarter-century would normally be shadowed by the still darker cloud of being too old for them; and between those two clouds, what small and narrow sunlight illumines a human lifetime!
As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight.
A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.
If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they'd realize that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose.
Peace is not simply the absence of warfare.
Every one of us has a bad conscience, which he tries to escape by going to sleep as quickly as possible.
All vital truth contains the memory of all that for which it is not true.
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