the way is in the heart

 

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All things exist as they are perceived: at least in relation to the percipient. The mind is its own place, and of itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 

But poetry defeats the curse which binds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions. And whether it spreads its own figured curtain, or withdraws life’s dark veil from before the scene of things, it equally creates for us a being within our being. 

It makes us the inhabitants of a world to which the familiar world is a chaos. It reproduces the common universe of which we are portions and percipients, and it purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being. 

It compels us to feel that which we perceive, and to imagine that which we know. It creates anew the universe, after it has been annihilated in our minds by the recurrence of impressions blunted by reiteration.


—Percy Bysshe Shelley
A Defence of Poetry

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You are far from the end of your journey.
The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.
See how you love

There is no fire like passion,
No crime like hatred,
No sorrow like separation,
No sickness like hunger,
And no joy like the joy of freedom

All that we are arises with our thoughts. 
With our thoughts we make the world. 
Speak or act with a pure mind 
And happiness will follow you 
As your shadow, unshakable.


—shakyamuni buddha

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