POST 1 of 2
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►• See Morning Notes: 365 Meditations to Wake You Up by Hugh Prather posted in Daily Om
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►• Spirituality & Practice
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- Simplicity. This – is a stability, a straightforwardness, a purity of the mind that is often expressed in a simpler lifestyle – a simpler diet, a more orderly routine, a more intelligent use of time, less clutter, less financial chaos, fewer involvements – in other words, less world, more peace.There is nothing more to happiness than this.
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►• Gentleness . A truly gentle mind will remain happy under even difficult circumstances. Gentleness can take up any subject without harming it or wishing it harm. It is adaptable, makes allowances, understands – and thus remains itself throughout everything that occurs.
►• On Purpose You have a habit of operating from a series of unconsciously set,conflicting goals (and thus having very cluttered lives); you necessarily want and need a better approach. One simple way to attain this is to decide what kind of person to be (and thus what sort of day to have) before the day actually decides this for us. You can decide before sleeping what your waking purpose will be – you can picture the kinds of things you want to happen every day, before they actually happen.. ~Hugh Prather
►• Peace. This – as it is freedom from conflict – is at the core of happiness. If you are not clear about what you are getting ready to do or say, you are on the verge of scattering your thoughts and throwing away your extremely valuable peace. It is a willingness not to rush ~Hugh Prather
►• Be single-minded. Be purposeful. Be focused. Know who you are and what you truly want. Be conscious. Be aware. Formulate your purpose into words. Etch it on your heart. Repeat it in your mind. And above all, live it and live it and live it. ~Hugh Prather- ~
- All we will have left at the end of our lives is how we have treated each other and ourselves HUGH PRATHER
►• Perceptions
Perceptions are not of things but of relationships. Nothing, including me, exists by itself- this is an illusion of words. I Am a relationship, ever changing. HUGH PRATHER, From Notes to Myself
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Post 2
►• What should I say? What should I do? When I am centered on these questions I am attempting to change the form of my relating without changing its content. Behavior follows attitude. I want to aim for consistent attitude, not consistent behavior. There can never really be a question of what to do, of how of how to treat each other, because the starting point is a loving state of mind. HUGH PRATHER
►• perfectionism is a slow death. if everything were to turn out just like i would want it to, just like i would plan for it to, then i would never experience anything new; my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. when i make a mistake i experience something unexpected…. when i have listened to my mistakes i have grown. HUGH PRATHER
HUGH PRATHER (January 23, 1938 – November 15, 2010)
was a writer, minister, and counselor, most famous for his first book, Notes to Myself (ISBN 0-553-27382-5), which was first published in 1970 by Real People Press, and later reprinted by Bantam Books. It has sold over 5 million copies, and has been translated into ten languages.
Together with his second wife, Gayle Prather, whom he married in 1965, he wrote other books, including The Little Book of Letting Go ; How to Live in the World and Still Be Happy ; I Will Never Leave You: How Couples Can Achieve The Power Of Lasting Love; Spiritual Notes to Myself: Essential Wisdom for the 21st Century ; Shining Through: Switch on Your Life and Ground Yourself in Happiness; Spiritual Parenting: A Guide to Understanding and Nurturing the Heart of Your Child; Standing on My Head: Life Lessons in Contradictions; A Book of Games: A Course in Spiritual Play; Love and Courage; Notes to Each Other; A Book for Couples; The Quiet Answer; and There is a Place Where You Are Not Alone.
Born in Dallas Texas, Prather earned a bachelor’s degree at Southern Methodist University in 1966 after study at Principia College and Columbia University. He studied at the University of Texas at the graduate level without taking a degree. While he could be categorized as a New Age writer, he drew on Christian language and themes and seemed comfortable conceiving of God in personal terms. His work underscored the importance of gentleness, forgiveness, and loyalty; declined to endorse dramatic claims about the power of the individual mind to effect unilateral transformations of external material circumstances; and stressed the need for the mind to let go of destructive cognitions in a manner not unlike that encouraged by the cognitive-behavioral therapy of Aaron T. Beck and the rational emotive behavior therapy commended by Albert Ellis. Wikipedia
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Author of Inner-work of Leadership -Barry Brownstein’s commentary before quotes below
Hugh Prather: A Master Teacher Returns Home
In mid-November, author and minister, Hugh Prather unexpectedly passed. Although I never met him, he has been one of the most important teachers in my life. His book, Notes to Myself, has sold over 5 million copies. For a non-fiction book to sell over 100,000 copies is very unusual; to sell over a million copies is an exceptionally rare feat. Hugh was a prolific writer. I have at least fifteen of his books on my shelves. Through Hugh’s openness and authenticity, he invited us to enter into a conversation with his words.
Hugh was the first author who helped me begin to realize that when I choose my ego as a guide, the world is not to blame for my decision. Recognizing that the real choice is in my mind, and not in the world, I have the power to go back to my mind and choose again.
Hugh was a keen observer of how often we try to escape from responsibility by blaming our ego, as if the ego were an entity outside of ourselves that has “possessed” us. Yes, we are not really our ego. But, if in this moment we have chosen to be guided by our ego, we have chosen it; it has not chosen us.
]►•The ego part of us does not act independently of our wishes, because it is us… If we are still judgmental of our teenager; then we still want to be judgmental of our teenager. If we are still confused about what our partner wants from us, then we still want to be confused.
Of his many books, Hugh’s personal favorite was Morning Notes. In this selection, Hugh shows us that when we judge we “surrender self-control”:
]►• When I decide to judge, I also decide to shift my power to the object of my attack. And although I may start by judging one thing only, by believing that even a single judgment is justified, I affirm the validity of the entire process of judging. In that instant I become a keyboard upon which any individual event can sound out the notes of my personal history. Now I am a passive instrument through which anyone and anything can play my preprogrammed tune—even though no one else can hear it.HUGH PRATHER
In The Quiet Answer, Hugh shows that by judging we surrender more than self-control; we keep happiness away:
]►• There is no fear greater than the fear of being happy. There is no reluctance more deeply seated in the unwillingness to see all faults and sins are simply mistakes. Who could honestly denounce another if it was admitted that all he had done was make a mistake? Instead, the other is seen as selfish and internally dark, a thing unworthy of life, to be attacked and weakened. To have any hope of happiness, we must first recognize those times we are afraid of the innocence of others. They are the same moments as when we ourselves resist feeling gentle and free. We mistakenly believe that our sense of self-worth comes from how we compare to others, and that to see them as innocent would reflect badly on us. So we remain hard and exacting in order not to allow any evidence of guilt to go unnoticed. But our fear of the sinlessness of what God has created also leaves no possibility of recognizing our own inherent worthiness. Let us therefore practice genuine self-interest. Let us renounce anxiety and try in its place an experiment in kindness.HUGH PRATHER
In Notes to Each Other, a book co-written with his wife Gayle, Hugh and Gayle remind us that our ego continually asks useless questions, distracting us from our only real choice which is to choose our state of mind:
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In How to Live in the World and Still Be Happy, Hugh wrote that the one thought he hoped he wouldn’t say on his deathbed was: “I haven’t even started. Where did my life go?” He didn’t want ask the question because the answer would be, “You don’t know because you never loved your life enough to notice what controls its direction. You never noticed the part your mind played in every step you ever took. And since you didn’t notice, your life wandered aimlessly and went nowhere.”
►• All we will have left at the end of our lives is how we have treated each other and ourselves.HUGH PRATHER
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►• See Morning Notes: 365 Meditations to Wake You Up by Hugh Prather posted in Daily Om
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“To me, Hugh Prather speaks the language
of spiritual transformation.”
—Dr. Wayne Dyer
“I consider Hugh Prather
one of my spiritual teachers.”
—Gerald Jampolsky, M.D.
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New York Times Article-Popular Self-Help Author, Dies at 72
First published in 1970, “Notes to Myself” was never intended as a commercial book. It began as Mr. Prather’s journal, a set of private musings, some telegraphic, others longer, on the nature of life, death, love and much else.
An aspiring poet with a cache of rejection slips, Mr. Prather (pronounced PRAY-thur, with a soft “th”) sent the journal on impulse to a small publisher with limited distribution capabilities and no national advertising budget. But between word of mouth and the tenor of the times, the initial print run of 10,000 copies was devoured by ardent seekers.
Before long the book had become a phenomenon — a “Chicken Soup for the ’70s Soul” — and The New York Times was calling Mr. Prather “an American Khalil Gibran.” Now published by Bantam Dell, “Notes to Myself” remains in print.
I AM
Peaceful:
Emotions,
Sensations ,
& Feelings