A Dancing Star
Inspirations to Guide and Heal
EDITED BY
Eileen Campbell
Published in association with Imprimata
Copyright © Eileen Campbell 2008
Eileen Campbell has asserted her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical or otherwise and whether invented now or subsequently) without the prior written permission of the publisher or be otherwise circulated in any form, other than that in which it is published, without a similar including this condition being imposed on any subsequent publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil action.
A CIP Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-906192-42-6
Smashwords Edition
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I say to you: ‘One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star.’
Friedrich Nietzsche
Author Note
Eileen Campbell is well known as a pioneering publisher in the field of Mind, Body and Spirit. She has written and presented for BBC Radio 2’s ‘Pause for Thought’ and Radio 4’s ‘Something Understood’.
Other inspirational anthologies available in this series:
A Lively Flame: Inspirations on Love and Relationships
The Unknown Region: Inspirations on Living and Dying
A Fabulous Gift: Inspirations on Silence and Solitude
Healing Our Hearts and Lives: Inspirations for Meditation and Spiritual Growth
NOW is the Time: Inspirations on Facing the Future
Preface to the paperback edition 2008
From the countless letters that I’ve received since the first publication of this book in 1991, I know that it has helped and inspired many people. In making the book available in paperback for the first time, I wondered about making changes or adding to it, but in the end decided to leave it as it is. It is as relevant in today’s world as it was in 1991. Hopefully it will appeal to a new generation of readers, and those of you familiar with the book will buy it for those who don’t know it. It makes a perfect gift for those in need of inspiration.
I put the book together at a time of great pain and difficulty in my own life. For years I had made a habit of collecting quotations which seemed meaningful to me, and during 1990 I found myself coming back time and time again to my collection. I discovered that I always felt better once I had dipped into it for half an hour or so – more positive, more hopeful, more understanding of my circumstances. If it worked for me, I figured it might work for others. And so A Dancing Star was published by Aquarian Press, and has now sold over 150,000 copies worldwide. My hope in reissuing it in a paperback edition is that it will reach and inspire more people in times of difficulty.
Introduction
The Nietzsche quote from which this anthology takes its title illustrates the exciting potentiality of the dancing star emerging from chaos.
Our lives are constantly subject to change, and frequently chaos ensues, both within and without.
Dreams, relationships, plans seldom work out as we had hoped; disappointment, failure, illness, and finally death itself, cannot be avoided. Suffering is part of the human condition, but our problems are never as unique as we feel them to be. Throughout history others have trod the same path of human experience and have had insight into how we can rise above the circumstances we find ourselves in. At times we all need inspiration – to make a major change in our lives, to help us deal with some unexpected, and perhaps tragic, life event, to comfort us when we feel we have lost our way and life has lost its meaning.
Invariably chaos in our lives brings transformation in its wake. Here lies our greatest opportunity to learn and grow. With inspiration comes the necessary shift of consciousness – and healing.
This anthology of quotations is gathered from both East and West, from the great spiritual teachers of all religious traditions and from philosophers and psychologists, playwrights, novelists and poets of both the past and the present. It has been a wonderfully rewarding experience for me to gather these quotations together. I hope that the selection will prove as inspiring and helpful for others as it has been for myself.
The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!
Live the life you’ve imagined.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
Henry David Thoreau
Lord, we know what we are,
but know not what we may be.
William Shakespeare
Hamlet IV:5
There is no coming to consciousness without pain.
CG. Jung
Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.
Meister Eckhart
Be willing to accept the shadows that walk across the sun.
If this world were a perfect place where would souls go to school?
Do not weep for the limitations that you see existing in your world.
Those limitations are there for a purpose.
Where would there be an opportunity to learn if not in the world of imperfection?
Do not grieve for those who suffer, who are subjected to limited capacities for living.
View your world as a transient place where souls choose to come because this is what they have selected as their mode of learning to the most minute detail.
Emmanuel
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
Psalm 30:5
Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.
Virginia Satir
Change cannot be avoided… Change provides the opportunity for innovation.
It gives you the chance to demonstrate your creativity.
Keshavan Nair
In this evanescent panorama of life all things and objects are subject to transmutation and dissolution. The Lord alone is real, with whom we are eternally united.
Swami Ramdas
Do not weep; do not wax indignant.Understand.
Baruch Spinoza
Behold but One in all things; it is the second that leads you astray.
Kabir
False imagination teaches that such things as light and shade, long and short, black and white are different and are to be discriminated; but they are not independent of each other; they are only different aspects of the same thing, they are terms of relation, not of reality.Conditions of existence are not of mutually exclusive character; in essence things are not two but one.
Lankavatara Sutra
Do not take life’s experiences too seriously. Above all, do not let them hurt you, for in reality they are nothing but dream experiences…
If circumstances are bad and you have to bear them, do not make them a part of yourself.
Play your part in life, but never forget that it is only a role.
Paramahansa Yogananda
One in All,
All in One –