There is a criterion by which you can judge whether the thoughts you are thinking and the things you are doing are right for you. The criterion is: Have they brought you inner peace?
Peace PilgrimRead
Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest.
Interpretation
Accumulating unnecessary items can create stress and hinder personal freedom; true happiness comes from simplicity.
This quote by Peace Pilgrim emphasizes the idea that possessions can weigh us down and complicate our lives. It suggests that by embracing a simpler lifestyle and minimizing our material needs, we can achieve greater happiness and freedom. The essence of contentment lies not in having more, but in appreciating what we already possess and maintaining a balance in our lives.
In practice
In a workshop about minimalism, we discussed how 'unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens' and how reducing clutter can lead to a happier life.
There is a criterion by which you can judge whether the thoughts you are thinking and the things you are doing are right for you. The criterion is: Have they brought you inner peace?
Do not suppress it - that would hurt you inside. Do not express it - this would not only hurt you inside, it would cause ripples in your surroundings. What you do is transform it.
Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.
One little person, giving all of her time to peace, makes news. Many people, giving some of their time, can make history.
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It's not if, it's when.
In 1968, I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry, and unhappy like we do.
It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.
What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.
Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.
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