to find happyness you must first be happy with your self and your suroundings, be at one with the world and everything and everyone in it. everyone has there own path to follow and they are all different, but all just as hard,

there is no such thing as a wrong path.
in the NOW everything comes together perfectly, paths included. And the NOW is all there is.
Now is timeless, the never-existing past and future is pure illusion, maya.

In the NOW everything can only be done perfectly. Everyone is playing their role in maya perfectly. To think otherwise is pure karma.

And if you don't know what illusion, maya, is then think of a mirage.
To enjoy a mirage is maya. TO chase it is karma.

a guy that kisses an eskimo gets cold nose

Aren't you inferring meaning in this context a bit overboard? Because what is is, doesn't make it perfect. There is constant mistakes made in nature/life/role/decisions and is finding ways to correct them. That is what evolution is and most often it's not fast enough or adaptable enough to compensate for changes or external stimuli. It perfects only after many mistakes and not only that nature doesn't even require perfection, just survival. Also because of it's propensity to mistakes, Nature often takes an inferior design and builds upon it.

That has nothing to do with agreement.

A man with integrity needs not any acceptance. Enlightment brings that integrity. The path to enlightment is lonely because you travel alone. Nobody can do it for you. You must become enlightened by yourself. That's what it means. You cannot explain enlightment to someone else. You have to get there with your own feet. That's why there are koans, and you have to solve them yourself, without anyone explaining them to you. With each koan solved, you gain more in integrity, build yourself, and get closer to enlightment.

That's also the reason why it is seldom trod. It's much easier to just agree with everyone else and take the easy path. Most people do either by ignorance, fear of laziness...

nothing atall,

peace.

Prophet Muhammad (s) said...

It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.

Happy is the man who avoids affliction, but how fine is the man who is afflicted and shows endurance.

Righteousness is good morality, and wrongdoing is that which wavers in your soul and which you dislike people finding out about.

Even as the fingers of the two hands are equal, so are human beings equal to one another. No one has any right, nor any preference to claim over another. You are brothers.

Allah will not be merciful to those who are not merciful to people.

He is not one of us who does not show mercy to our young nor recognize the rights of our elderly.

The rich is not the person with many possessions, the rich is the one who is content with himself.

He who does not thank people does not thank God.

Peace.

"And with peace we shall be released.."
~Camilus

i understand what he was saying. mistakes are only subjective. and without a 'mistake' there would be no need to correct it. so whatever happens is perfect because it did happen and we can't stop it. what is a mistake to one person might be a good thing to another person (or thing).

I love this site and I love everyones responses here. Wow so many different ideas, thoughts and beliefs combine toward enlightenment. Truly I have read replys from many enlightened souls here tonight.
'I think' maybe what the wise man may have been doing was expressing was the frustration of working, paying bills, surviving and still trying to find others who put the enlightened consideration of the universe right up there with feeding the kids.
Finding people in our daily life, who don't think we are crazy when we talk about things like (the universe being composed of numbers and unseen spaces that are a component of matter, and how was your day dear, do you think we could apply these principles to our 401K so we can get little joeys college paid for without hawking the house.
Because the reality is that the road to enlightenment is lonely, not only because our friends may not be working on the same piece of the puzzle that we are working on, but also because we feel connected when we have the time, (consider a -monks-priests-enryptionists life) to focus and wonder about these things. Connection is not lonely, but if your mind desires more understanding than you allow your body to recieve. That can create loneliness too.
Even more when we can't talk to people constructively, due to people who don't have time to learn more or have found a comfort zone the can't be challenged by ideas, hence the quote (The two things you should never talk about are politics and religion)
Maybe they have a pin point in a very damaging statement. Maybe we should bring politics and religion along in the back of our mind, and that means all you guys who freak out when someone mentions a name for a higher god that they relate to and all you who shove names down peoples throats rather than engage in conversations of comparision.
So lets be real when we make our comments on the lonelyness of enlightenment.
We would be best to think ourselves ignorant and look for measurable outcomes that build the understanding to our beliefs and may even enlighten us to see where others beliefs fit into the picture.
Oh well I'm just saying maybe the old guy was saying. It's lonely trying to find enlightenment, and the reason for that is cause I can't find anyone willing to talk about it cause they don't really care how deep the well goes, they just want to grab a drink and quench the tongue.

MAYBE?????

The problem with believing that having everyone agree with you to indicate that you are on the right path, can be seen repeatedly through out history. Hitler convinced nations to go alone, Napoleon found thousands of men to agreeably march to their death with him, and I'm sure you can think of many other situatios. A cults first objective is to limit the individuals ability to make decisions on their own and to reward them with behavior that follows what ever the required norm is. Mostly passive, non resistant behavior.
Yet, our hearts leap with joy when we have had a personal experience that is backed up by the agreement of others who have a shared experience or understanding.
So the question is not is it right or wrong the question is, how do we tell the difference between confirmation and conformity.

We all fall into it some where.

..confirmation only has to happen once, where as conformity takes a few more times than once...maybe?