Care For Others Quotes

When we care for others our own strength to live increases. When we help people expand their state of life, our lives also expand. Actions to benefit others are not separate from actions to benefit oneself. Our lives and the lives of others are ultimately inseparable. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

When you're cared for, you care for others. ~ Penelope Douglas

To minister means to love and care for others. It means to attend to their physical and spiritual needs. Put simply, it means to do what the Savior would do if He were here. ~ David L. Beck

I have learned that self-mastery and the consistent care of one's mind, body and soul are essential to finding one's highest self and living the life of one's dreams. How can you care for others if you cannot even care for yourself? How can you do good if you don't even feel good? I can't love you if I cannot love myself, he offered. ~ Anonymous

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes. ~ Jack Kornfield

As people grow older, some of the ways they have contributed in the past may no longer be possible, but the challenge to society is not only to provide help and care where these are needed but also to offer the opportunity to contribute and care for others [p. 8] ~ Mary Catherine Bateson

This moment is always the best one in which to express your care for others. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

How people treat you does not matter, what matters is how you care for others. ~ Anyaele Sam Chiyson

My contention is, first, that we should want more from our educational efforts than adequate academic achievement and, second, that we will not achieve even that meager success unless our children believe that they themselves are cared for and learn to care for others. ~ Nel Noddings

A man used to being obeyed, yes, but a man also inclined to care for others. Look after them. Driven to do it by a compulsion he couldn't leash, couldn't train out of him. Couldn't have broken out of him. ~ Sarah J. Maas

If I try to make only enough money for my family' immediate needs, it may violate Scripture ... Even though earning just enough to meet the needs of my family may seem nonmaterialistic, it's actually selfish when I could earn enough to care for others as well. ~ Randy Alcorn

What does religion say? It says that if you care for others then you will meet others who will care for you and if you hit others, you will meet others who will hit you. This is what all relative religions say. ~ Dada Bhagwan

To care for others is called humanity. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Love teaches you to care for others. It also gives you your best chance to grow up. ~ Stephanie Dowrick

Every man to himself is the centre of the whole world; - the axle on which it all turns. All knowledge is but his own perception of the things around him. All love, and care for others, and solicitude for the world's welfare, are but his own feelings as to the world's wants and the world's merits. ~ Anthony Trollope

I don't think my journey has to be harrowing to be important. Simply doing the tasks of the day is enough. Such as getting up every morning to go to work to support my family and sacrificing personal time in service to others, teaching my children to give thanks for what they have and to care for others. ~ Mike Ericksen

I studied Judaism a lot. I studied religion in general, and I have never imposed my Judaism on my kids. They are what they want to be. I think ... you must care for others. That's the correct religion, I think. ~ Kirk Douglas

Celebrate Life. Care for others and share whatever you have with those less fortunate than you. Broaden your vision, for the whole world belongs to you. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

A St. Louis oncology nurse quoted Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl to States News Service in 2012: " 'What is to give light must endure burning.' I think people who care for others understand. Caregiving is painful. ~ Alexandra Robbins

Men of means have much to fear. Those with none know only bitterness. If you entrust yourself to the care of others you will be owned by them. If you care for others you will be enslaved by your own solicitude. If you conform to the world it will bind you hand and foot. If you do not, then it will think you mad. And so the question, where should we live? And how? Where to find a place to rest a while? And how to bring even short-lived peace to our hearts? ~ Kamo No Chomei

It is extremely ironic that the more we care about what people think about us the less we care about people, and the less we care about what people think about us the more we begin to care for others ~ Stephen Covey

Share your love, share you happiness, care for others; your wealth will be endless. ~ Debasish Mridha

Listen, emotions have logic. Without emotions humans wouldn't care for each other, and if they didn't care for each other, the species would have died out. To care for others is self-preservation. You care for someone and they care for you. ~ Matt Haig

The capacity for logical thought is one of the things that makes us human. But in a world of ubiquitous information and advanced analytical tools, logic alone won't do. What will distinguish those who thrive will be their ability to understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to forge relationships, and to care for others. ~ Daniel H. Pink

People have become so selfish that they no longer care for others, or anything other than their own welfare. ~ Sathya Sai Baba

A woman by her very nature is maternal
for every woman, whether ... married or unmarried, is called upon to be a biological, psychological or spiritual mother
she knows intuitively that to give, to nurture, to care for others, to suffer with and for them
for maternity implies suffering
is infinitely more valuable in God's sight than to conquer nations and fly to the moon. ~ Alice Von Hildebrand

The most satisfied and enlightened people realize that successful and dynamic living starts from within. Before you can care for others, you must care for yourself. ~ Robin Sharma

The love between a mother and her daughter is special. A mother takes her daughter under her wing and teaches her how to be a woman. In order to do this, you have to ask yourself what it means to be a woman of today. How do you balance care for others with your own quest for meaning and joy in life and how do you pass on these lessons to your daughter? ~ Laura Ramirez

Empathy is a quality today that we need more than ever. Throughout his life Jesus showed empathy and care for others on a level never seen before. From him we learn that Gods ways of service to others before obsession with self is the path he wants us to walk on and deep down we know it. ~ Tim Crawshaw

He placed us in churches to serve, to care for others, to pray for leaders, to learn, to teach, to give, and, in some cases, to die for the sake of the gospel. Many churches are weak because we have members who have turned the meaning of membership upside down. It's time to get it right. It's time to become a church member as God intended. It's time to give instead of being entitled. ~ Thom S. Rainer

He concluded in the last scene that we are given two choices in life. We can allow ourselves to love and care for others, which makes us vulnerable to their sickness, death, or rejection. Or we can protect ourselves by refusing to love. Lewis decided that it is better to feel and to suffer than to go through life isolated, insulated, and lonely. ~ James C. Dobson

My stories are my children. Some are sweet infants that I coddle and care for. Others are old enough now, they need to damn well get a job! ~ Christy Hall

The more you care for others, while denying yourself, the more pleasure life supplies you. ~ Sunday Adelaja

The very purpose of life is to be happy. As we care for others, the greater is our own senses of well-being. It puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacle we encounter. Remember that old saying " love will conquer all " is true. As you give love, you will find it returns to you magnified. ~ Colleen Houck

The essence of community, its heart and soul, is the non-monetary exchange of value; things we do and share because we care for others, and for the good of the place. ~ Dee Hock

Reading God's Word and receiving the knowledge of Jesus Christ renews the believer's mind and transforms it to His mind. The minds of immature believers will be focused on selfish ambitions, but as they open themselves up to read the Word concerning Jesus, they enter into fellowship with Him and their thinking begins to change--to be renewed. As a result of such a renewing of the mind, they spontaneously start to look out for the interest of others and to genuinely and unselfishly care for others; they do not consider themselves better than everyone else. ~ Henry Hon

That's when it hit him with the force of a fastball in the chest: He was falling in love with Shane MacKinnon. He hardly knew her, and yet he knew with absolutely certainty that she was everything he'd ever wanted. He wanted to hold her like this for the rest of their lives. He wanted to wipe away her tears. He wanted to make her happy, take care of her, protect her from harm. He wanted to make babies with her and walk beside her as they grew old. He wanted to be buried next to her.
Falling? It was completely nuts, but he couldn't deny it: He was already in love with her. And it scared the crap out of him. ~ Jane Taylor Starwood

It's so much work to make a movie, and for me it has to get me off my butt. To get me actually writing you have to strike something inside, you have to hit a power main to get the energy. You have to strike something you care about. ~ Rian Johnson

Undoubtedly, though, what I'm really getting at is this: Since the bridegroom's permanent retirement from the scene, I haven't been able to think of anybody whom I'd care to send out to look for horses in his stead. ~ J.D. Salinger

If you can't be real and firm with others about who you are, you will be doomed to a phony, plastic bullshit existence, where you only live for others. ~ Bryant McGill

Serving together revolutionized our marriage. If one is ahead, prioritize patience and nag-resistance. God isn't a wedge between spouses; if you aren't walking side by side, I believe God will wait for you both. Press Pause. Don't give the spiritual depth to your church or friends and leave housekeeping leftovers for your man. Grow together, learn together, seek together, serve together. This is the most eternal portion of your union; treat it with utmost care. ~ Jen Hatmaker

survive difficult parenting moments, and they want their kids and their family to thrive. As parents ourselves, we share these same goals for our own families. In our nobler, calmer, saner moments, we care about nurturing our kids' minds, increasing their sense of wonder, and helping them reach their ~ Daniel J. Siegel

I think we place the wrong emphasis upon examples, that we're treading on very weak ground when we set ourselves up as examples for others to become religious. If people are going to look at me for religious guidance, then I think they're looking in the wrong place. ~ Charles M. Schulz

What would the ton do without us to feed them scandal broth?"
Grey returned her grin. "The lot of them would starve."
They chuckled and as the humor faded, Grey tilted his head to look at her. "You look beautiful tonight."
She flushed, pleasure lighting the dark depths of her eyes. "You don't have to say such things."
"I know I don't, but you are my fiancée and it's perfectly acceptable for me to voice my thoughts aloud. It's rather refreshing after keeping them to myself for so long."
That got her attention. One of her fine, high brows twitched. "How long?"
He grinned. "Since you were old enough for me to think such thoughts without being lecherous."
They stood no more than six inches apart. Close enough that he could see how amazingly flawless her skin was-not a freckle in sight. Close enough that she could see every twist and knot in his scar-and yet she barely glanced at it. Her gaze was riveted on his. She didn't care that he was disfigured-at least not on the outside. Not on the inside either, so it seemed.
"I've never been a good man," he confessed-a little more hoarse than he liked-"but I promise to be a faithful husband." It was the best he could offer, because as much as he would like to be the man she wanted, it wasn't going to happen.
Her smooth brow puckered. "I haven't actually consented, you know."
"Rose, we have to marry."
"No." She raised sparkling eyes to his. "I want you to ask me to marry you-not deman ~ Kathryn Smith

Conviviencia - living alongside each other in harmony, whatever their beliefs. For the enemy is not another person who believes in a god. The enemy is ignorance, and people who believe in nothing and care for nothing. ~ Philippa Gregory

What was still preventable in the 1980s would, in a couple decades, become manifest; what once was treatable would become deadly. I'm not sure my immediate family's brushes with death when I was a kid-mom's hemorrhage in childbirth, Grandma's collapsed lung, Dad's chemical poisoning-would be survived today. Mom would have been less healthy going into labor, Grandma would have been sent home too soon for lack of insurance, Dad would have been given a cheaper and less effective treatment. The morality rate for poor rural women, in particular, has risen sharply over my lifetime. Health insurance had been around for a long time, of course, but the power of that industry had swelled up fast, transforming access to care and all the costs that come with it. ~ Sarah Smarsh

Sunday night is my personal weekly Halloween.

I walk along slowly and drag my fingertips along the bars of chocolate. Goddamn, you sexy little squares. Dark, milk, white, I do not discriminate. I eat it all. Those fluorescent sour candies that only obnoxious little boys like. I suck candy apples clean. If an envelope seal is sweet, I'll lick it twice. Growing up, I was that kid who would easily get lured into a van with the promise of a lollipop.

Sometimes, I let the retail seduction last for twenty minutes, ignoring Marco and feeling up the merchandise, but I'm so tired of male voices.

"Five bags of marshmallows," Marco says in a resigned tone. "Wine. And a can of cat food."

"Cat food is low carb." He makes no move to scan anything, so I scan each item myself and unroll a few notes from my tips. "Your job involves selling things. Sell them. Change, please."

"I just don't know why you do this to yourself." Marco looks at the register with a moral dilemma in his eyes. "Every week you come and do this."

He hesitates and looks over his shoulder where his sugar book sits under a layer of dust. He knows not to try to slip it into my bag with my purchases.

"I don't know why you care, dude. Just serve me. I don't need your help." He's not entirely wrong about my being an addict. I would lick a line of icing sugar off this counter right now if no one were around. I would walk into a cane plantation and ~ Sally Thorne

He [William Harvey] did not care for chymistrey, and was wont to speake against them with an undervalue. ~ John Aubrey

if I care to listen, I hear a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved. I deserved punishment and got forgiveness. I deserved wrath and got love. I deserved debtor's prison and got instead a clean credit history. I deserved stern lectures and crawl-on-your-knees repentance; I got a banquet - Babette's feast - spread for me. ~ Philip Yancey

Krampus found me, forced me into servitude - me, the son of Odin, a slave to a low-cast demon. I did not care, did not feel. Hollow of heart and soul, I came to believe this to be my fate, my penance, that I had been spared to bear torment not just for my own vanity and arrogance, but for that of all my forebears. ~ Brom

Just to see if I liked vlogging, I uploaded a video of my sister and I cleaning up a river in a canoe for Earth Day. The sound was horrible, and the quality was horrible ... But you have to blog what's interesting to you and not care what anyone thinks. ~ Rosanna Pansino

For a number of people, church attendance seems to be primarily a social affair, the act of meeting other people outside of the pressures of work. For others it is pure business/politics. I get it. It's important to have access to a community like the one a church provides. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

Why do I lunge for control instead of joy? ... do I thin Jesus grace too impotent to give me the full life ... Whenever I am blind to joys well, isn't it because I don't believe in Gods care? P 130 ~ Ann Voskamp

How beautiful the tragic seems when it is beneath a mask, but when it appears so nakedly before me and... when I am so forcibly implicated... I don't know whether I care for it so much. Somehow or other it is as though I were torturing myself.

("Thirty-Three Abominations") ~ Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal

To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics. ~ Mary McCarthy

When we're home sometimes, she'll put on mascara. And sometimes I'll let her wear something out to dinner - but just a little dab. Also having a father who adores you the way that he adores her is very good for your body image. The more we can love her and let her be who she is, the more confident she'll feel. ~ Gwyneth Paltrow

The Family and Medical Leave Act, for example, only entitles spouses, grown children, and parents to take time off to care for a sick loved one. If a childless single person falls ill, only her parents have the legal right to take off work to care for her. If they're deceased or not up to the task, she's out of luck. Even if she has a sister, niece, or best friend willing to take a leave, they won't be legally entitled to do so. No one has the right to care for her. ~ Sara Eckel

Subtle cues in your behavior will set the frame that you are a selective, high-value guy. She will pick up on this and gain interest. She expects that a guy with potential will be selective. Here are some standards worth considering:
An attractive woman who takes care of herself
A woman who is sociable and has friends
A woman who has a real thirst for life
A woman who has a great energy and a positive outlook
A woman who is not a flake ~ Erik Von Markovik

childish. Thereupon Filomena excused herself, that she might put a clean shirt on Jacopone, and Odo was left to his melancholy musings. His mind had of late run much on economic abuses; but what was any philandering with reform to this close contact with misery? It was as though white hungry faces had suddenly stared in at the windows of his brightly-lit life. What did these people care for education, enlightenment, the religion of humanity? What they wanted was fodder for their cattle, a bit of meat on Sundays and a faggot on the hearth. ~ Edith Wharton

I think a lot of what is going on with kids who get pushed too far and attempt either murder or suicide is that they are trying to deal with their own non-existence for the people who are supposed to care most for them. ~ Richard Russo

When you join the Parachute Regiment they send you on training and initiation exercises. One of the tasks is to accept and care for a pet white rabbit. The young squaddie has to feed, brush, stroke and comfort his rabbit for a week, and become attached to it. Then he has to shoot it. ~ Matthew Parris

Just because you are living in a stupid country, you don't have to be stupid! Isolate yourself from the fools! Protect your mind to be poisoned by the deceitful media, by the dishonest politicians, by the primitive culture and the illogical traditions! Rise above the lownesses of the system like a falcon rising from the marshland and start shining like a star for others to see you and to come near to you! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Be very sure, my son, God is the only adviser to be trusted, and you must do what he tells you, even if it lead you to a stake, to be burned by the slow fire of poverty. - O my Father!" cried the old man, breaking out suddenly in prayer, "my soul is a flickering flame of which thou art the eternal, inextinguishable fire. I am blessed because thou art. Because thou art life, I live. Nothing can hurt me, because nothing can hurt thee. To thy care I leave my son, for thou lovest him as thou hast loved me. Deal with him as thou hast dealt with me. I ask for nothing, care for nothing but thy will. Strength is gone from me, but my life is hid in thee. I am a feeble old man, but I am dying into the eternal day of thy strength. ~ George MacDonald

One tree isn't more important than the entire forest, Joe. You taught me that. Remember? Political pruning. (Syd)
Yeah, but every forest is always destroyed one tree at a time. You take care of those individual trees because each one that falls brings you closer to deforestation. You only prune what's rotten. You don't cut down a good tree for no reason. (Joe) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Did you pay for the repairs on my Range Rover?" I asked him.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Why not?" he answered.
I felt my hold on my temper slip.
"Luke, it's my car."
"Ava, you're my woman."
I ignored the melty feeling that gave me too.
"So?"
"So you're my woman, I take care of you."
"Luke – "
"This isn't up for discussion."
"It sure as hell is!"
"I'm thinkin', as payback for the hickey, I want you in that pink teddy thing tonight."
Was he for real?
"Luke!"
"Later."
Disconnect.
Argh! ~ Kristen Ashley

One form of prayer moves us particularly to take up the task of evangelization and to seek the good of others: it is the prayer of intercession. Let us peer for a moment into the heart of Saint Paul, to see what his prayer was like. It was full of people: " ... I constantly pray with you in every one of my prayers for all of you ... because I hold you in my heart" (Phil 1:4, 7). Here we see that intercessory prayer does not divert us from true contemplation, since authentic contemplation always has a place for others. ~ Pope Francis

This conference ? of, for and about women ? is, in itself, a rainbow in the clouds. When numerous women come together and show that they care, not only for themselves but also for each other, that is the occasion when a rainbow is shining down on somebody else. ~ Maya Angelou

Look,' I said, struggling to keep up, 'I just wanna make one thing absolutely clear. I don't believe in guns. I just want peace. Okay?'
Alessandro stopped in the middle of the corridor, took out the gun, and wrapped my hand around it before I realized what he was doing. 'Can you feel that? That's a gun. It exists. And there are a lot of people out there who do believe in it. So, excused me for taking care of them so you can have your peace. ~ Anne Fortier

If you don't care about something, one way to demonstrate your feelings is to say the word and then repeat the word with the letters S-C-H-M replacing the first letters. Somebody who didn't care about dentists, for instance could say 'Dentist, schmentists. ~ Lemony Snicket

I always say my God will take care of me. If it's my time I'll go, and if it's not I won't. I feel that He really has a lot of important things for me to do. And He's going to make sure that I'm here to do them. ~ Joycelyn Elders

Care more for a grain of faith than a ton of excitement. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Sometimes when we forget to do things for others, it's because we're too wrapped up in our own problems. ~ Lauren Myracle

Money is not the issue. Having the courage to give your highest gift is the issue.
There is no security in doing something for a living when you are dying inside while doing it. That is taking care of the body at the expense of the soul. And a withering soul cannot help but produce a withering body.
So do not think you are 'taking care of yourself' by killing your spirit to keep your body alive.
How long will you put off what you are dying to do? ~ Neale Donald Walsch

That mental grind is the same, and this show has to be approached with the same mentality. Rest is paramount. Taking care of my voice and making sure I have the right foods in my body is paramount. Making sure I'm doing my technique work and staying in the script is all substantial. Continually pushing myself to find different nuances in the character on a nightly basis. This is definitely boot camp for me all over again, and Broadway in general is a boot camp for all actors. ~ Eddie George

He lifted the lavender soap to his hair, and she squeaked.
"You don't use that in your hair," she hissed, jolting from her perch to reach for one of the many
hair tonics lining the little shelf above the bath. "Rose, lemon verbena, or ... " She sniffed the glass
bottle. "Jasmine." She squinted down at him.
He was staring up at her, his green eyes full of the words he knew he didn't have to say. Do I look
like I care what you pick? ~ Sarah J. Maas

We have not noticed how fast the rest has risen. Most of the industrialized world--and a good part of the nonindustrialized world as well--has better cell phone service than the United States. Broadband is faster and cheaper across the industrial world, from Canada to France to Japan, and the United States now stands sixteenth in the world in broadband penetration per capita. Americans are constantly told by their politicians that the only thing we have to learn from other countries' health care systems is to be thankful for ours. Most Americans ignore the fact that a third of the country's public schools are totally dysfunctional (because their children go to the other two-thirds). The American litigation system is now routinely referred to as a huge cost to doing business, but no one dares propose any reform of it. Our mortgage deduction for housing costs a staggering $80 billion a year, and we are told it is crucial to support home ownership, except that Margaret Thatcher eliminated it in Britain, and yet that country has the same rate of home ownership as the United States. We rarely look around and notice other options and alternatives, convinced that "we're number one. ~ Fareed Zakaria

The Thing about people who wanted to show you things was that sometimes their interest in granting you knowledge was laced with a little voyeuristic sadism. They were waiting for the Look or the Reaction, and they didn't care what it was so long as it inflicted some kind of discomfort. ~ Jeff VanderMeer

Discipline
I am old and I have had
more than my share of good and bad.
I've had love and sorrow, seen sudden death
and been left alone and of love bereft.
I thought I would never love again
and I thought my life was grief and pain.
The edge between life and death was thin,
but then I discovered discipline.
I learned to smile when I felt sad,
I learned to take the good and the bad,
I learned to care a great deal more
for the world about me than before.
I began to forget the "Me" and "I"
and joined in life as it rolled by:
this may not mean sheer ecstasy
but is better by far than "I" and "Me. ~ Meryl Gordon

Beds empty! No note! Car gone - could have crashed - out of my mind with worry - did you care? - never, as long as I've lived - you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy - "
"Perfect Percy," muttered Fred.
"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" yelled Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred's chest. "You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job - "
It seemed to go on for hours. Mrs. Weasley had shouted herself hoarse before she turned on Harry, who backed away.
"I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear," she said. ~ J.K. Rowling

Francis Spufford, using very contemporary idiom, calls for the same thing in this way. When discussing our sinfulness, he says: What we're talking about here is not just our tendency to lurch and stumble and screw up by accident, our passive role as agents of entropy. It's our active inclination to break stuff, "stuff" here including . . . promises, relationships we care about and our own well-being and other people's. . . . [You are] a being whose wants make no sense, don't harmonize: whose desires deep down are discordantly arranged, so that you truly want to possess and you truly want not to at the very same time. You're equipped, you realize, more for farce (or even tragedy) than happy endings. . . . You're human, and that's where we live; that's our normal experience.180 Until we fully acknowledge the chaos within us that the Bible calls sin, we live in what Calvin calls "unreality. ~ Timothy J. Keller

By now, I hope you recognize this as one more example of the reductionist paradigm at work, even when it's couched in natural and alternative terms. As we saw in chapter ten, one of the major problems with modern medicine is its reliance on isolated, unnatural chemical pharmaceuticals as the primary tool in the war against disease. But the medical profession isn't the only player in the health-care system that has embraced this element of reductionism. The natural health community has also fallen prey to the ideology that chemicals ripped from their natural context are as good as or better than whole foods. Instead of synthesizing the presumed "active ingredients" from medicinal herbs, as done for prescription drugs, supplement manufacturers seek to extract and bottle the active ingredients from foods known or believed to promote good health and healing. And just like prescription drugs, the active agents function imperfectly, incompletely, and unpredictably when divorced from the whole plant food from which they're derived or synthesized. ~ T. Colin Campbell

A friend of mine who spent years in India with a great teacher from the ancient forest tradition tells a moving story... Years after his beloved teacher had died, he was back in India staying at the home of his guru's most devoted Indian disciple.

"I must show you something," the disciple said to my friend one day. "This is what he left for me." My friend was excited, of course. Any trace of his teacher was nectar to him. He watched as the elderly man opened the creaking doors of an ancient wooden wardrobe and took something from the back of the bottom shelf. It was wrapped in an old, dirty cloth.

"Do you see?" he asked my friend.

"No. See what?"

The disciple unwrapped the object, revealing an old, beat-up aluminum pot, the kind of ordinary pot one sees in every Indian kitchen. Looking deeply into my friend's eyes, he told him, "He left this for me when he went away. Do you see? Do you see?"

"No, Dada," he replied. "I don't see."

According to my friend, Dada looked at him even more intensely, this time with a mad glint in his eyes.

"You don't have to shine," he said. "You don't have to shine." He rewrapped the pot and put it back on the bottom shelf of the wardrobe.

My friend had received the most important teaching... He did not have to transform himself in the way he imagined: He just had to learn to be kind to himself. If he could hold himself with the care Dada showed while clutching t ~ Epstein Mark