This is the Ultimate Bliss: Contentment in Simplicity
There is no doubt that we’ve missed much over these pandemic years. Here’s hoping that we’re willing and able to reclaim a bit of our former selves in 2022- May we all find joy in the simple pleasures of life, reawakening memories and moments obscured by COVID but cherished still, leading us from doubt to hope, darkness to light.
Why Simple Living is the Answer in Times of Crisis
Can we learn from the global pandemic crisis?
Photo:oursimplehomestead.com
The challenges that we are facing are not only about economics, politics, and policies, but more importantly we are facing a crisis of meaning and values in our lives. As noted candidly in the Guardian’s editorial on Sunday 2 January 2022, ‘Covid has reminded us that disease is a social as well as a physical phenomenon, produced and shaped by the ways we live. Will we do what is needed to protect ourselves?’*
‘The modern world can be a complicated, frenzied and noisy place, filled with too many options, products, ideas and opinions. That explains why what many of us long for is simplicity: a life that can be more pared down, peaceful and focused on the essentials.’- School of Life, ‘A Simpler Life’
‘We live in a time when many people experience their lives as empty and lacking in fulfillment. The decline of religion and the collapse of communism have left but the ideology of the free market whose only message is: consume, and work hard so you can earn money to consume more. Yet even those who do reasonably well in this race for material goods do not find that they are satisfied with their way of life. We now have good scientific evidence for what philosophers have said throughout the ages: once we have enough to satisfy our basic needs, gaining more wealth does not bring us more happiness.’- Peter Singer
Simplicity and the Good Life
“Nature is what we know - yet have not art to say –
so impotent our wisdom is to her simplicity” ~Emily Dickinson
This week, as we leave one year behind and embark on a new one, we’ve got some resolutions to make.
Let Simplicity be the Key to your Resolution.
Let it be your Path to a Transformative Change to a Better and more Rewarding Life
Simplicity is the Way Back to Love, our Humanity and our True Self.
Photo:InspiringAlley
"...The Earth has not forgotten what is real, even if we are increasingly lost. Buds still break open in springtime, leaves turn golden in Autumn. And our bodies still awake every morning into this world, even if our minds are quickly caught in other patterns. While our attention is drawn to our smartphones, sunlight filters through the clouds.
And in our hearts there is a thread that connects it all together, the heart that knows the meaning of love and companionship, care and community. Our hearts can recognize the simple magic in birdsong, the essential beauty of a sunrise, the joy of a child’s laughter. Our hearts have not forgotten that we are all a part of one living community, bonded together since the very beginning, since the early days when we walked and played, sang and dreamed in harmony with the Earth and its magical nature. That thread is still present, even if it is covered over by the confusions of today, by our materialistic dreams. Like the otters playing in the water it is too simple to be caught in distortion, too primal to be fractured. It can be found in the most ordinary things, a bowl of soup cooked with love and attention, and a few kind words exchanged with friends or strangers."-Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Photo by Evgeni Dinev
Simplicity and Simpler Living
Our Journey to Find the Simple Life
A Reflection from the GCGI
A pick from our archive
To my mind, one sure path to happiness, joy, contentment and inner peace, is for us, the ordinary people, living our everyday ordinary, simple lives, making extraordinary differences to what life is really all about. Let me explain further by quoting a beautiful passage from one of my wise teachers, Lao Tzu, reminding us about what values and principles will ultimately make our lives truly extraordinary. It goes like this:
Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
The Beauty and Wonder of Simple Life
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”-Henry David Thoreau
Photo:pinterest
Simpler life and simpler times: A Journey in Life
In these troubled times let us be ordinary and enjoy the simple pleasures of life
Make 2019 the year of simplicity, so that all may live better
In a world of constant distraction seek solitude to attain contentment
Let’s Go to the Woods When Life Feels Overwhelming and Impossible
There is more in less: The Evolution of Simplicity
Why a Simple Life Matters: The Path to peace and happiness lies in the simple things in life
Transforming Lives for the Common Good: From Consumerism to Sustainability
Simplicity: it’s our true guide to a better life
In Praise of Frugality: Materialism is a Killer
In Praise of Laughter and Joy in these Dark and Uncertain Times
The heart and the soul of education is wisdom
The beauty of living simply: the forgotten wisdom of William Morris
‘Nature and Me’: Realigning and Reconnecting with Mother Nature’s Wisdom- A Five Part Guide
Why should we all become mother nature and sacred earth guardians
THE Mother of all Values: The Value of Nature and the Environment
Land As Our Teacher: Rhythms of Nature Ushering in a Better World
‘Nature and Me’: ‘Nature as a Cure for the Sickness of Modern Times’
‘Nature and Me’: A Beautiful and Inspiring Path to repair our relationship with life
Detaching Nature from Economics is ‘Burning the Library of Life’
Have We lost the Art of Knowing What it Means to Be Human?
Slow Food for the Common Good to save the World
On the 250th Birthday of William Wordsworth Let Nature be our Wisest Teacher
“Now comes good sailing” whilst nature and simple living were his solace
The prophetic legacy of John Ruskin: A Man ahead of his time
*The Guardian view on the next pandemic: can we learn Covid’s lessons?
Photo:Slideshare
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May you find joy in the simple pleasures of life and may the light of the holiday season fill your heart with the hope for a better world
Christmas and New Year Message Holds True: A Time to Be the Voice of Hope
Simple Living Promotes Virtue, Which Promotes Happiness
Simple Living is Guided by Economic Prudence, ‘Waste not, Want not.’
Simple Living Allows One to Work in order to Satisfy the Basic Needs and Thus, Enjoy More of life’s Experiences which Suffices for Happiness
Simple Living Promotes Serenity Through Detachment
Living Frugally Prepares One for Tough Times
Simple Living Enhances One’s Capacity for True Pleasures of Life, When Less is More!
Frugality Fosters Self-Sufficiency and Independence
Simple Living Keeps One Close to Nature and the Natural, when one is Guided and Inspired by the Wisest Teacher: The Mother Nature
Simple Living Promotes Good Health and Spiritual Purity
Simple Living Allows us to Speak of Global Responsibility and a Global Community. It Encourages us to Take Action in the Interest of the Common Good.
Simpler life and simpler times: A Journey in Life
Hope is the torch that shines light on the plague of darkness
Lest We Forget
Before the pandemic began, the systems that govern our world were broken and brutal. Life was not simple and beautiful. We were cheated. We, the people, mother nature and our sacred earth, were abused and exploited to make loads of money for the few. That world was emotionally and spiritually disconnected, dehumanised, devalued. Mammon was ruling the world and humanity in decline.
Photo: Pinterest
Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalised lying, cheating, dishonesty, greed, inequality, poverty, homelessness,the rat race, exhaustion, mental illness, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate, abuse of our mother nature and our sacred earth, wars, conflicts, bloodshed everywhere...
Thus, we should not long to return to ‘Normal’.
We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new tapestry of life. One that fits all of humanity and nature.